Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

Blogging Leads to Bookings for Barrie Photographer Jennifer Klementti

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Jennifer KlementtiIn a recent post about the eight types of business blog posts, I used a client showcase blog post example from a local wedding videography company, Honey and Dear.

Another local business owner who blogs successfully is photographer Jennifer Klementti, who uses her blog to showcase her clients in a way that also demonstrates her beautiful photography.

We recently had a chat about her blogging experience, and how it’s expanded into a whole new venture (you’ll hear more about Sunday Crush in a separate post).

Why did you start blogging?

JK: The main purpose of my blog at jenniferklementti.net is to give photography clients insight into who I am personally. From reading my regular blog posts, they get a vision of who I am, my philosophy of photography, and how I work with people.

The blog gives my photography brand a personal life. People want to know their photographer as a person before hiring them. When someone’s going to be taking photos of you, that’s an intimate connection and you need to be able to click with that person. It’s equally as important as liking the photographer’s work.

As I recently wrote in a blog post, “If you are relaxed and enjoying the process and have built a trusting relationship with your photographer in the meetings and events leading up to your wedding day, the result will be an amazing collection of natural, beautiful and real photographs filled with honest emotion that truly capture the story of your day.”

The other important reason that I blog is because search engines love blogs. By using relevant keywords in my posts, such as locations where I’ve photographed weddings, people with specific interests can find me more easily.

What types of blog posts do you write?

JK: Aside from telling my clients’ stories and displaying samples of my current work, I provide helpful tips (e.g., how to get the best headshot or choose the best locations for portraits) for individuals as well as other photographers.

I also love to highlight things that inspire me, including showcasing master photographers’ work, which gives people a deeper glimpse into who I am as an artist, and gives me the chance to celebrate masters in the industry. I also think that it is important to share my knowledge of the history of photography with my clients and readers.

Great photographers and great images tell stories about us and about the world we live in. In this fast-paced digital world where there is an overload of snapshots posted to social media, I feel it is important to share these master photographers and their images. I am deeply inspired by great photography and it is always my goal to create images for my clients that inspire and that will be cherished for a lifetime.

[Note from Linda: You can read more about Jennifer’s philosophy in her Artist Statement at the bottom of her About page.]

I also try to be strategic with my topics, for example right now I’m posting all about portraits and weddings, because we’re in that season and people are booking ahead for next year.

Wedding photo by Jennifer Klementti

How often do you post new content to your blog, and how do you keep up with your blogging schedule?

JK: My editorial calendar is one post per week, but I sometimes miss the mark. [Note from Linda: We all do!] What works well for me is to block segments of time to develop a number of posts at one sitting. I draft my posts right in WordPress, so I can quickly go back in and do the formatting for better search engine optimization (I use the All in One SEO Pack plugin).

What do you love about blogging?

JK: By sharing a little about myself, and writing in my own voice, I can really find the connection and community that I love. Business is a conversation, and blogging brings that conversation to life. I hear from people all the time who love reading about my brides and families, those relationships, and hearing my insights as a photographer.

Do you have any words of advice for other business bloggers?

JK: If you speak from the heart, and speak authentically, people connect with you and that becomes interesting for them to read. In my experience, blogging has led directly to clients booking me.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about business blogging with us, Jennifer!

Check out Jennifer’s blog at http://jenniferklementti.net, and stay tuned for another post about her newest blogging adventure, Sunday Crush [Update: Sunday Crush is now closed].

Blogging Alternatives for Franchisees

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Mouth-taped-shutI often hear from franchisee businesses who want to blog, but as franchisees they don’t have the same options as single location businesses.

Franchisors may have strict restrictions on what franchisees can put out there, and for good reason.

If an individual franchisee goes “rogue” and does something that negatively affects the brand, that will impact the entire company and all of the other franchises. As Nicole Norris, President of The AGENCY*, explains,

“Franchisees pay for the right to use the brand of the company, and the goodwill and reputation that brand has built up. It is the franchisor’s job to manage the brand and the franchisee’s job to manage their business.”

In a blog post about what franchising really means, Nicole writes:

“Franchising can be summarized as an agreement with a company (Franchisor) that owns a trademark and provides a license to another company (Franchisee), to use for the selling of products and services under a proprietary system of commerce. It is a business model that is governed by law in the province of Ontario through The Arthur Wishart (Franchise Disclosure) Act and has a national voice through The Canadian Franchise Association.”

As a franchisee, you may not be permitted to associate your name with the franchisor’s name or trade-marks when you post anything online, but there are still some blogging techniques you may be able to use.

  • Show your expertise – Seek out opportunities for public speaking at local networking groups, schools or at seminars you host or co-host with related businesses. You could speak about some aspect of your business, or about business in general. You can also write “how to” or top 10 articles and submit them as editorial columns to local publications such as SNAP Barrie.
  • Support your community – A blog is great forum for supporting community causes. So why not borrow a blog? The Barrie Chamber sells space in its blog, and some Chamber members use it to post details about a cause they support.
  • Gain wider exposure – Business blogger Glain Roberts-McCabe notes that by participating actively on social media, people in her network say she always seems to be showing up on their screens – and because she posts relevant, helpful information, that’s a good thing! You can build your network, credibility and community just by being you and posting from a personal perspective.
  • Keep your website fresh – Take any and all opportunities to update your website (or your local page of the franchise website) with news about local events or campaigns, staffing changes, new products or services, and community news including charity causes. Be sure to remove or replace outdated information immediately so your website doesn’t look like a ghost town.

Ideally, your franchisor will launch a blog you can submit posts to, so you’ll be able to put all of my blogging tips to good use. (In a future post, I’ll explore the many benefits of blogging for franchisors). Until then, try infusing a little blogging technique in your business and see what happens.

Whichever of these options you decide to try, please first consult your franchisor and franchise agreement to ensure you are complying with their requirements.

*The AGENCY is a boutique branding and marketing consultancy that helps franchisors and retailers build brand equity and helps businesses get their brands ready to franchise. I’ll be attending The AGENCY’s upcoming Franchise This Brand! seminar on April 22, 2013, and I’ll share my notes in another blog post.

Thanks also to Joseph Adler of Hoffer Adler LLP for sharing his franchising expertise as I wrote this post.

A Blogging Schedule is Key for this Barrie Real Estate and Estates Lawyer

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Cesia-GreenCesia Green is a Barrie real estate and estates lawyer and a partner with Wall-Armstrong & Green. She blogs at wallarmstrong.wordpress.com/. I asked Cesia to tell me more about her experiences with blogging and the results she's seen.

How did you get into blogging? 

"I went to a seminar run by Joanna Hoffman of Oomph Group on different ways of marketing for professionals. One thing that came up was using blogs and other digital methods to share knowledge as a way of making connections and therefore clients. At the end of the seminar, I went to my (now) partner with the idea for a practice-related blog."

What were your initial goals for the blog? 

"My initial goal was to share knowledge. There is a lot of very technical information out there in my practice areas, as well as a lot of fun stories, and I enjoy sharing them with people who might otherwise never come across them."

Have your goals changed as time went on? 

"They haven’t really; I still enjoy blogging primarily as a knowledge-sharing tool. I am always reading other peoples’ blogs and if I come across something interesting, or read an interesting article in the news, one of my first thoughts is how I can reference it in a blog post to better educate my clients and colleagues, both current and potential."

When we met, Cesia also told me that her firm's newsletters are a breeze to put together now that she's blogging. She simply chooses the best blog posts from the previous quarter.

What kind of feedback and responses have you gotten? 

"I often feel like I’m shouting into the wind, so it’s great when I hit on a topic that gets some comments. I was given the opportunity twice to guest post on the livehigh.com blog, which was great. I have also been interviewed for a couple of articles, and occasionally get calls from other lawyers who have had similar issues to mine to discuss how they were resolved."

How do you keep up with blogging on a regular basis? 

"I schedule absolutely everything in my life, and blogging is no exception. I have task reminders set for my two regular posts each week (estates on Tuesdays, real estate on Fridays) and I make sure that I have them up by then. When I’m really organized, I will do a whole lot of writing all at once and pre-schedule the posts."

What are your future plans for the blog? 

"I intend to keep at it! I have always loved writing, and this is a great way for me to do that without the pressure of trying to write something longer for formal publication."

That's good to hear, Cesia. You're helping people understand two complicated areas of the law, and ones that so many of us will run into over the course of our lives.

Read This Before You Set Up Your Blog: An Interview with Scott Gingrich of Piggybank Technology, Part Two

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Welcome back! We’ve been talking to Scott Gingrich. Scott owns Piggybank Marketing, a web design and marketing firm devoted to delighting their customers with marketing websites that deliver measureable results. In Part One of this interview, we discussed why a blog is the only website you’ll ever need.

Linda: Do you have any cautionary tales about the mechanics of setting up a blog?

Scott: Many. Here are two.

  1. We had one client who came to us about 4 months after they launched a simple WordPress site with an off-the-shelf template. Their plan had been to start simple and grow the site over time, which is a perfectly valid approach. However, now they wanted to do things with the site that would be really over-reaching what WordPress can do well. They incurred a substantial cost to remake their site with Joomla.Lesson: Understand the vision for what you want your website to be over the next couple of years and make sure the platform you choose handles that two-year vision, not just what you want to get started with.
  2. A client with a very popular blogsite had been hacked and there was malicious code throughout his articles and elsewhere. He had never thought twice about securing his WordPress site or keeping it updated. It was a very laborious and expensive exercise to rescue his site.Lesson: You may be able to install WordPress in a couple of minutes, but without securing it you may be looking at some extra costs and time down the road.

Linda: What advice do you have for someone who has an existing website and wants to add or transition to a blog?

Scott: We’re doing a lot more website conversions these days. Generally, it’s relatively easy to take an established website and put in a content management system such as Joomla.

We prefer to convert the whole site to be run on a Content Management System like WordPress or Joomla instead of tacking on a blog page to the site. Here’s why:

  • Once someone realizes the power in being able to add and edit pages themselves, they’ll want to do that for all pages of their website.
  • We can integrate the blog content into the rest of site, making it more dynamic and interactive (for example, by displaying the most recent blog posts in the sidebar of other pages).
  • You’ll get a consistent visitor experience across all sections of the website, which is better for the marketing flow of the site.

Linda: What are the pros and cons of having your blog integrated into your site versus on a separate site?

Scott: This is a big debate. I don’t think there’s one right answer that covers all cases. For most of my clients it comes down to one question: Can you afford to properly set-up and maintain two sites? The answer for most small businesses is NO.

Yes, it’s quick and easy to setup a blogsite. However, to set it up so that it converts visitors into leads (not just followers) is another story…a story that becomes trickier if we need to get visitors to a second site!

As I answer this, I am in the midst of planning a separate blogging site to act as a lead generator for our business and to expand our business model into new revenue streams. In doing this planning, we have considerations such as:

  • Building in lead capture devices (like email opt-ins and Facebook “likes”)
  • Keeping the brand consistent with our main site
  • Developing the “voice” for the new site

If you can handle doing two sites well, great. For most local small businesses, maintaining one is more than enough of a challenge!

Linda: Thanks again to Scott Gingrich, and his wife and co-owner Jennifer Gingrich. I really value the connection we’ve made since I moved to Barrie in September 2010. You do great work in helping local business owners set up a website right the first time, or rescuing them from situations where they had a bad start.

Why a Blog is the Only Website You’ll Ever Need: An Interview with Scott Gingrich of Piggybank Technology, Part One

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Scott Gingrich owns Piggybank Marketing, a web design and marketing firm devoted to delighting their customers with marketing websites that deliver measureable results. Scott and his wife and co-owner Jennifer have been marketing their own businesses on the Internet since the early 90’s and now bring those years of experience to every web marketing project they do.

Scott says, “Before we created websites for other people, we were running our own web-based businesses to put food on the family table and we learned very quickly that our web marketing better work!”

Linda: Welcome, Scott! So what are some of the benefits of having a blog as your website?

Scott: With content management systems such as Joomla and WordPress, your site can be more than just a blog. By adding the extra elements that these systems offer, your “blogsite” (combination of blog and website) truly is the only website you’ll ever need.

My clients are mostly local businesses and their main reason to have a website is to generate qualified leads. To accomplish that objective, the website must serve two key functions:

  1. Attract qualified visitors (i.e., people who live in their area and are looking for information relevant to the company’s offerings)
  2. Convert those visitors into leads (prospective clients or customers)

Well-written blog content can certainly attract the qualified visitors. But when it comes to converting those visitors into leads, we’ll need to bring in those additional elements I mentioned earlier – additional pages with:

  • Overview of services
  • Portfolio of project samples
  • Testimonials from happy clients or customers
  • Biographical information about the business owner
  • Background information about the business
  • Sales/order page with shopping card/payment buttons

Let’s look more closely at two scenarios:

  1. Visitor hears of a business and goes to their website. Perhaps they were referred there by a friend or found the website address on a business card. This potential customer is going to the website to “check out” that business. Looking at website statistics, we know that these visitors will often first check out pages such as Portfolio, Services and Testimonials before going to the blog.
  2. Visitor finds a blog post article through a Google Search. If this visitor is to wind up as a lead for the local business, we know that the visitor must take an action (e.g., read more about services, sign up for a mailing list, contact the business owner directly) before leaving to browse the next site that came up in the Google Search.

In both scenarios, the blog article attracts visitors and builds trust and credibility. However, without pages like Services, About Us, etc. there is a much smaller chance of conversion. You need both.

Linda: What options does Piggybank Marketing have for someone who wants to launch their web presence with a blog?

Scott: We work with both Joomla and WordPress. Whether starting out with a simple blogsite or launching a more sophisticated site that also incorporates blogging, we have packages that suit.

We also build in best practices from the start, which can have a huge impact on a site’s results. Important things like:

  • Enhanced security protocol
  • Coded to be search engine-friendly
  • Built-in social sharing and RSS feeds
  • Marketing intelligence based on your goals (for example, if you want people to call you, we’ll make sure your phone number is prominently displayed on every page)
  • Choosing stable, secure extensions (third-party applications and plugins) that have a good track record for upgrades and support

Business owners can call us and we’ll have a conversation about your objectives, so we can put together the best plan for your budget and goals.

Linda: Thanks, Scott! Stay tuned for Part Two of this interview series, Read This Before You Set Up Your Blog. In the meantime, here is another blog post with some simple writing tips for your blogsite pages.