Why Adding a Blog to Your Website Makes Sense

If you’re selling crafts online but creating a blog isn't on your priority list, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to draw more visitors to your website and sell more products. Creating a blog is a valuable addition to your indie marketing arsenal. Here’s why.

1. Add a blog to your website to establish your expertise.

When you share knowlege catering to your target market's needs and wants, you will attract more readers. For instance, if you make paper sculptures and can create a super simple tutorial and share it on your blog, you may attract moms looking for projects for kids.  Or if you design accessories, by giving away a bit of your process, style mavens seeking ideas for accessorizing their latest fashion finds.  Whatever you do, simplifying and showing others step by step how to create something, can bring prospective customers to your work. Sharing DIY crafts for people who appreciate what you do, can help you be found through a Google search – without paying a dime for advertising.

That’s because savvy indie business owners, like you, have taken to the blogosphere to share their crafty genius with the world. That’s why Pinterest is so popular. People everywhere are relying on someone else’s creative ideas for inspiration. It’s created a whole subculture of do-it-yourself crafters and artists.

Creating a blog to give away free information to your readers is a simple way to introduce more people to your business and start building your brand. Readers will likely remember you as “the blogger with the awesome antique picture frame tutorial” when they’re shopping and come across your site again. This is especially true if said picture frame is the first thing they see upon waking up every morning. So, teach your readers cool stuff and inspire them – creating a blog and using it to your advantage can make you unforgettable.

P.S. They will also come to appreciate how much effort goes into creating your products.

2. Creating a blog makes you accessible.

Have you ever read a blog post and felt an instant connection to the writer? Almost as if you know if you ever met in person, you’d be instant BFFs?

People are far more likely to buy from someone they have a personal connection to than a random web store with no face and no name. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest writer. Your readers are there for your advice and information and to get to know you, not for a grammar lesson. Sure, it helps if you don’t have dozens of misspellings and glaring grammatical errors, but that’s what spell-check is for. Give your readers a glimpse of you.

3. Add a blog to your website to power your social media strategy.

Remember what we said about Pinterest creating a whole subculture of DIY crafts-lovers? That not only means that people are interested in craft blogs that share project ideas and instructions, but it also means that your readers are like a built-in marketing team.

Pinterest is a fantastic tool for this audience, because not everyone has the time to drop everything, right then and there, and start a craft project. They may be looking for fun ideas for a holiday centerpiece or DIY crafts for dining room décor on their lunch breaks at the office. With Pinterest, they can easily save their favorite craft blogs and project ideas for later by pinning their finds on their Pinterest boards, organized by category.

Make sure you’re posting your own DIY crafts tutorials and other craft blogs on Pinterest to get the ball rolling. Your posts can quickly gain momentum on Pinterest as other users re-pin it and visit your craft blog to read the instructions. Some who try your project might post pictures of their completed crafts on Facebook with a link back to your original for comparison. Creating a blog to power your social media strategy will draw more visitors to your website and give your business more exposure.

4. Creating a blog is a great way to boost SEO.

Creating a blog is helpful for SEO. Every time you publish a blog post, your blog is helping you get more visibility in Google and other search engines. That’s because search engines rely heavily on content and keywords, among other things, to decide where to list a website.

Obviously, craft blogs have a lot of content related to crafts. So when you’re writing how-to articles and tutorials for DIY crafts or projects for kids, your content is naturally filled with relevant keywords. And every time you publish a new article, you’re giving Google’s web crawlers (little virtual robots that scour the web looking for amazing websites like yours) an excuse to keep coming back.

Other craft bloggers will start to notice you and comment on your posts, link to your posts from their own craft blogs to share your projects with their readers, or even include one of your tutorials in a roundup of the best craft blogs. All those social media mentions are playing a role in SEO, too. The more valuable and relevant your content, the more exposure you get online, the better you’ll fare in the search engines.

Ready to make a craft blog part of your website strategy? Check out IndieMade’s Resources library for more blogging tips and advice, as well as tutorials for creating a blog that makes a big impact.