How to Blog Easily as an Interior Designer in Less than One Hour
Blogging scares business owners, and if I believed all the myths that surround blogging, I would be scared, too. We've been told that blogging should take hours of time, and if we aren't sure what to say, or we overthink every sentence, it just might take that long.
You can't add more hours to your day, but you can and should deconstruct the myth that says everything related to content marketing should be laborsome. Writing blog posts for your interior design, home staging, professional organizing, or window treatment business doesn't have to become your next part-time job. I'm sharing everything from blog post writing strategies to best practices that can directly impact your SEO and result in faster content creation.
How to Efficiently Write a Blog Post in Under an Hour
You might be thinking, "Do I even need to worry about blogging? I'm not clear on how it would impact my business, if at all."
Friend, blogging for your website is similar to putting fuel in your car: Blogging can help your website go further, rank higher, and bring you more clients. Websites with regularly updated blog posts get far more traffic than websites with old, sporadic, or non-existent blog posts.
You should be blogging regularly if...
You need to get more of the right clients into your sales funnel
You want to attract specific types of projects and deter the low-budget or off-brand ones
You want to be seen as a specialist in your area of expertise - and be able to demand higher rates accordingly
You want to take control of your own PR
You should not blog simply because...
Affiliate marketing looks like a fairly easy, passive income stream (It isn't passive!)
"Everyone else" is doing it; Spoiler alert: They aren't.
You want to be famous (Hey, you'd be surprised how many weird requests for, "Manage my marketing and make me an influencer," that we've received.)
Like any other effective business tool, blogging needs to be used consistently and appropriately. Sometimes home industry entrepreneurs will default to blogging about their latest press feature or their experience at High Point, or they'll write a post stating, "Hey all, this is my first blog post and I'm so excited to connect with you. Stay tuned for more!" A year goes by and no more content is posted.
Why is that?
The primary reason home pros tend to fall off the blogging bandwagon is a lack of understanding around the value of blogging. You might think, "Oh no, Kate, I stopped because I just didn't have time to blog."
But you and I both know that isn't true. If you run out of time to do something, yet understand the importance of it still getting done, you find a way to make it happen, whether that task is picking up your kids from school or doing the laundry. Maybe that looks like outsourcing or delegating. Maybe that means saying "no" to something else so that you can say "yes" to the things that will really move the needle forward in your marketing.
How Does Blogging Help SEO & Sales?
I firmly believe that if each one of you reading this blog post understood what blogging could do for your business, you'd find a way to get it done or hire out, whether you are a newbie in business or a seasoned professional.
Blogging at least once a month can directly impact your search rankings. Want to rank higher on Google, surpassing your competitors without spending a dime on Google ads? Blog about what matters to your ideal client. Each time you publish a blog post, you're telling Google that you are an active business. You're also giving Google the natural keywords and phrases your ideal client might type into the search bar, which means you're feeding Google information on exactly the type of person they should send to your website.
Ironically, the days of blogging to please Google are long gone. We don't have to speak Google's language as much as we once did. Instead, Google and other popular search engines have learned to speak our language - human, conversational language. If you write the same way you talk, if you stop overthinking every sentence, you can still have great SEO.
"SEO is great, but I want actual clients," you might be thinking. This is where the rest of your sales funnel comes into play. Your blog helps Google know who to send to your website. From there, your website needs to capture the contact information of those leads and get them into your mailing list.
Trying to blog without offering an opt-in (aka freebie, giveaway, lead magnet) won't result in clients. It is rare that readers of your blog posts will randomly decide to contact you for a project unless you: 1) list that as a call-to-action at the end of every blog post or, more effectively, 2) simply offer them a freebie they can't resist.
That said, blogging isn't just great for SEO. It's also excellent for growing your mailing list. Do you absolutely need a blog in order to get more people on your mailing list? No, but blogging can definitely speed things up.
At this point, you might be ready to whip out your first blog post, but I need to caution you... The temptation to follow lazy blogging habits (just calling it what it is!) will be oh-so-strong, especially on days when you have a million other things to do or are simply drained of creativity. Here are a few lazy blogging habits to avoid:
Don't turn your latest press feature into a blog post; press features belong on the Press page of your website - and that's it.
Don't chronicle your latest trip to High Point, the Las Vegas Market, or some other industry event - unless you can spin it to somehow talk more about how you serve your ideal client than about you and what you saw.
Don't upload your latest newsletter and call it a blog post; newsletters can only function as newsletters. They are not formatted properly or lengthy enough to be blog posts. If your newsletter does, in fact, function as a blog post, it is likely quite an ineffective newsletter. Email newsletters and blog posts are not substitutions for one another. Blog posts serve the beginning of your sales funnel, attracting leads. Email newsletters serve the end of your sales funnel, converting leads. This isn't based on opinion but on actual evidence. The horse and the cart are not interchangeable.
Don't copy / paste or upload screenshots of an article you like and then say, "previously published on www.thiswebsiteIrippedoff.com." This might shock you, but I've seen it done more than I'd like to say.
How to Write a Blog Post Quickly
If you can't recycle your press releases, your newsletters, or other people's content, how can you blog quickly and efficiently? I'm glad you asked! Depending on your subject matter, you'll find one of these two strategies helpful in streamlining your blogging: the Photo Strategy and the FAQs Strategy.
#1 - The Photo Strategy
If you are planning to blog about one of your projects, share a list of interior / exterior products you love, or promote one of your Side Door collections, you need to use the Photo Strategy.
The Photo Strategy simply means that you curate your images (5-10 images is plenty), then write a few sentences describing each image. Once that is done, simply add an intro paragraph explaining what people will learn from your blog post and add a closing paragraph that asks them to take the next step, whether that step is booking a discovery call with you or grabbing your lead magnet.
Blog Post Outline:
Intro paragraph: What are you sharing in this post and why?
Image of your work or a product you love
A few sentences describing this image. What did you do in this photo? Or, if a product, what do you like about it, how is it used, and what ideas can you give your clients on how to use it?
Repeat steps two and three until you've used all the curated images for this post.
Closing paragraph: What should your reader do next? If you have a lead magnet, talk about it here and give them a link to opt-in.
#2 - The FAQs Strategy
I love using the FAQs Strategy when I'm terribly low on creativity or completely burned out mentally. It is incredibly simple, yet naturally results in an SEO-friendly blog post. As human beings, we are wired to answer any question that is asked of us; even if we never voice that answer, our brains will instantly provide a response. Often, the first answer that comes to our minds is the most true and honest response.
The FAQs Strategy uses a mental pathway that your brain already knows and loves: Answering questions. To employ this method in a blog post, simply compile a list of questions you've received from clients and sort them into various categories: Fee structures, your process, your packages, and even your past clients.
If you haven't worked with clients yet, search commonly asked questions about your industry and paste the most relevant or interesting questions into a list, categorizing them accordingly. Next, answer each question in at least a couple of sentences.
Each category of questions and answers can become its own blog post - or multiple posts - depending on the number of questions and length of your answers. For example, if you responded to a dozen questions on how the design process works or on how professional organizers conduct an audit of their clients' closets, you might want to break that post into two parts.
Generally speaking, each completed blog post should be no less than 500 words. While 2,000-word blog posts are the stuff of SEO dreams and I've long touted the power of longer, meatier posts, I don't want your overwhelm to result in inaction. Aim for 500 words, which is around one full page of single-spaced text in a Google or Word doc, in case you were wondering.
Blog Post Outline:
Intro paragraph: What are you sharing in this post and why?
List all your questions and answers from one category - up to 500 words. Make sure your answers are thorough and written in complete sentences. Don't try to save time by giving one-word answers or by asking people to contact you to learn more. Give as much detail as possible.
Closing paragraph: What should your reader do next? If you have a lead magnet, talk about it here and give them a link to opt-in.
While the Photo Strategy-style blog post tends to be image-heavy, the FAQs Strategy post doesn't need to contain more than a few images. In fact, you might just want a header image and that's it. Don't let endlessly searching for the right images slow down your blogging.
Effective Blogging Tips for Home Pros
Remember, blog posts give you content to share on social media while also improving and increasing your SEO. They work in conjunction with freebies, branded magazines, and lead magnets to get more people into your mailing list. However, blogging must be done properly to get positive results.
Blogging best practices:
Blog at least once per month, around the same day each month.
Make sure your post title and headings are formatted for SEO; this tool can help.
Make sure your images are labeled for SEO.
Aim for 500 words per blog post.
Always include a call-to-action at the end of every post.
Share each blog post repeatedly on every social platform your ideal client uses.
Repurpose your blog post paragraphs as social media captions and include that same call-to-action.
Resources
Want to blog on your own? Get our comprehensive list of blogging best practices for home pros here.
Want our help with blogging? Get blog post templates here.
