Something satisfying for me is seeing business owners successfully finding advantages by blogging.
It’s easy for me to show studies, research, and even my own examples of business blogging success here on the GBW blog, but what I really love is showing the success of other business owners.
Here we have the story of a young, driven designer looking to make her mark as a respected, talented web designer. She’s been building her portfolio for years and recently ventured out of the corporate world to operate her own design firm full time.
I asked her for some of her insight in how blogging has played a role in her business’ growth over the past few years.
Check it out…
Sarah Lynn Design
Sarah of Sarah Lynn Design is a young entrepreneur based in Western Wisconsin just an hour outside of the Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 2009, Sarah officially launched Sarah Lynn Design and started building her client base.
For about two years Sarah worked as a web designer for Mason Companies Inc., one of the nation’s largest footwear catalogers. All the while, Sarah was busy in the evenings and on the weekends doing work for her own clients. Most were businesses that found her either by referral or by searching and finding her website online.
In the fall of 2010, Sarah took the dive into full time business now working for herself and building her businesses into a successful design firm.
With clients in multiple industries including Childcare, Food, Music and Retail, Sarah has the knowledge and expertise to handle just about any web design project that comes her way.
Even though most of her time over the past two years has been spent designing and running a successful business, Sarah has found time to write and manage a successful business blog.
“One reason I wanted to start a blog was to gain knowledge of blogging. A few of my clients were asking about blogging and to be able to answer their questions effectively I needed to have experience,” explains Sarah.
“Beyond that I wanted to expand my network and blogging seemed like a great way to connect with other designers and leaders in the design industry.”
“And on top of all that I wanted to drive more traffic and interest to my site and my services. I wanted to drive business.”
Building Authority
Building authority in your industry is a main reason businesses start blogs. We can see how well Sarah is doing at establishing herself as an authority figure in the design industry. She’s only getting started yet Sarah is well respected by her peers.
“Blogging started out as a curiosity for me,” explains Sarah. “I want to keep up to date on all the ways I can make myself and my business better and I knew blogging was something I needed to do in order to stay ahead of the competition. I saw other designers blogging and I wanted to join the party.”
An important part of any blog is direction and strategy.
“I thought I could gain trust and respect from potential clients by providing useful information in the form of blog posts and guides,” says Sarah. “By providing direction for businesses in advance I found clients coming to me and expressing gratitude for the content on the Words & Letters blog. I wrote a few guides for hiring designers and a few clients were able to prepare for hiring designers and it seemed to work in my favor.”
A few of those guides Sarah wrote include:
What to Prepare Before Hiring a Web Designer
How to Make Things Work with a Designer – the Client’s Perspective
Why you Should Setup your Portfolio for Search
This is a great idea for a business blog. Sarah is working to build authority and respect in her industry and along the way she’s finding great clients that find her via her blog.
Words & Letters Blog
Sarah’s blog, Words & Letters, focuses on the needs of her potential clients. The direction of the blog is to answer questions her clients – business owners – have regarding design.
Sarah realized she possessed knowledge and insight into the design world that most business owners do not have. By sharing insight like how-to articles on hiring designers and the design process, Sarah was providing value to her potential clients.
“Blogging has been good. It takes more effort than I thought, but blogging has been worth the extra effort it takes. It puts me and my business in a good place going forward,” says Sarah.
Guest Posting
Sarah has also found success as a respected guest blogger.
Popular design and wed development blog Onextrapixel found Sarah via her work on Words & Letters. The editors asked Sarah to contribute in-depth articles on various design topics.
You can check out all of Sarah’s work at Onextrapixel.
“It’s been a lot of work to write those articles, but it’s worth it. The articles receive a ton of traffic and I’m able to receive exposure I wouldn’t normally get,” says Sarah. “It was hard writing those guest posts, but it challenged me to really analyze the design industry and it’s been rewarding.”
Guest posting is a lot of hard work, but it can be a great way for businesses to expand their exposure while building a bigger audience of potential clients.
Driving Sales
“I’ve had clients find me because of blogging,” says Sarah.
It doesn’t have to be a primary reason for a business to maintain a blog, but it’s nice to have some revenue coming in directly from your blogging efforts. Sarah had different reasons when starting her blog, but she’s seen revenue come in from the search traffic her blog generates.
As Sarah continues blogging she’ll probably find herself getting even more business from business owners that are doing research on designers. Having a blog can be a great way to generate relevant traffic to your site. Once visitors find your site the content you have will do the job of convincing them to hiring you.
Summary
Sarah Lynn is an example of a driven young entrepreneur finding success with her business blog.
Over just a short time Sarah has been able to build authority in the design and web development industry with her business blog, Words & Letters. She’s found opportunities to guest post on a popular design blog where she’s grown her audience even further. And on top of all that Sarah has even driven revenue from the traffic that comes to her website via her blog.
Business Info
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