Blogging for Creative A talk for Create KX
(www.createkx.org.uk)
Businesses at the British Library
Business & IP Centre
(www.bl.uk/bipc)
8.5.07
Mark McGuinness
www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog

statcounter here

What is a blog?
• A website with entries (posts) displayed with
(usually) the most recent at the top
• Easy to update
• Easy to search - runs on a database
• Readers can interact via comments + links
• Readers can subscribe to receive latest posts

So what is a blog?

interface

Good
News

Ken McCarthy’s Formula
Traffic
Online
= +
Success
Conversion
www.kenmccarthy.com

Main Sources of Traffic
• Search engines
• Links from other sites

Google
loves blogs

The best £8.57 I ever spent
on marketing

Why Google loves blogs
• Fresh content (regular updates)
• Relevant (keywords)
• Authoritative (links)

Bloggers love links
• Bloggers link generously
• A link from a top blog will help your search
engine rankings
• It will also send you quality traffic - people
who are interested in your topic
• You gain status from having an influential
referrer

Conversion
Visitors to your blog can:
• Subscribe - via RSS or E-mail
• Leave a comment
• Refer other readers (word of mouth)
• Link to you (digital word of mouth)
• Buy! (maybe, eventually)

More
Good
News

Raise Your Profile
• Establish yourself as an authority
• Let people get to know you
• Build trust
• Develop your network
• Learn from readers, bloggers, customers,
prospects and competitors

Networking on Steroids
• Networking is key to success in the creative
industries
• Blogging connects you with many more
people than you would normally meet
• Combine online and offline networking

It’s Cheap!
• Most blogging software free or low cost
• Lots of free blog templates available
• Start out low-cost - upgrade when the blog
is earning its keep

A Window of Opportunity
• Small proportion of UK businesses blogging
• Lots of niches up for grabs

Fun!

Bad
News

A blog is for life
not just for
Christmas

Criticism
• People WILL criticize you
• You are expected to engage
with them
• Sometimes it gets personal

Technical Knowledge
• It’s a lot easier than building a
website
• It’s a bit harder than using Word

The Legal Minefield
• Blogs have same legal status as
magazines and other
publications
• Libel and defamation
• Copyright, trademarks

A blog is
not enough

Good
Blogs

Be Yourself

Don’t Sell

Be Patient

Good Business Blogs
• Focused
• Original
• Generous
• Useful / Educational
• Entertaining

www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/kx
• All the links from this talk
• Information about blogging
software and other tools
• An explanation of RSS!

www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog
• More about creativity and
creative business
• Free updates via E-mail or RSS

Mark McGuinness
I’m a poet and a business coach specialising in work with creative
professionals and their managers.
My blog about coaching, creativity and business is at
www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog
and this is my poetry blog - www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/poetry
E-mail: wish@wishfulthinking.co.uk
Web: www.wishfulthinking.co.uk