Many of you are probably thinking the same thing. I'm a designer... not a blogger. The reason I know this is because I'm also guilty of saying the same thing until I became aware of the overwhelming benfits of blogging.

I recently did a post on the reasons designers fail and one of the points I talked about was the misconception of a saturated market. A market only becomes saturated when clients see no difference between you and your competition. Blogging is great way to set you apart by simply allowing your clients to get to know you, first as a person and then as a designer. Trust me the pros in your industry have no trouble finding work.

This is why I recommend that designer start a blog first; then work on your website. Another option is to create a design portfolio on styleapple.com, where you can use your personalized URL they provide to link to your blog or website. I've outlined 5 compelling reasons to support my position on designers blogging:

SIDENOTES & UPDATES:

I recently came across a well done interview of Jacob Cass, a talented and respected Graphic and Web Designer done by Andrew Houle of MyInkBlog where Jacob explains his blogging impact on his freelance business. Here's an excerpt:

 Andrew: How has running a successful design community blog helped you land more freelance work?

Jacob: By having the blog that I mentioned above, it has brought me higher search engine rankings and it has put my name out there in the design community which in turn means more visibility... My work is 40% local, 10% national and 50% international which shows just how varied the work is.

To read the complete interview check out Andrew's Blog Post "Interview With  Jacob Cass"

Ok... here are my top 5 reasons:

1 NO EXPOSURE NO CLIENTS

I think one of the most difficult things to get as a designer is exposure. We are talented and broke, usually due to the lack of exposure . When you're blogging about what you love, people will visit and read your point of view; some will like it and tell others about it, giving you the necessary exposure you'll need to grow your business.

2 TRUST IS THE ANSWER TO THE 'WHY SHOULD I HIRE YOU?' QUESTION

Trust is the answer to the ‘ why should I hire you ?‘ question your clients will ask themselves. By blogging about creative design topics that you are an expert, allows your potential clients to get to know you personally before they consider working with you. When they are ready to hire someone for a project; chances are, you'll be on their short list.

3 DRIVE MORE WEB TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE

Most of your business as a designer will probably come from the internet. If your website is not changing constantly, chances are your traffic will decrease over time. Blogging allows for new content every time you post a new article, the search engines are happy because they have new content to index, your potential clients are happy because you're talking about a topic of interest, and you're happy because your traffic continues to increase from all the fresh content you are posting.

4 BRANDING COMES FROM FAMILIARITY, TRUST AND QUALITY OF PRODUCT.

Branding as you know is a long term endeavor. Branding comes from familiarity, trust and quality of product. It is very important that your content is true and valuable to your visitors. Your goal should be to provide useful information even if it isn't directly related to your creative design services. When you stick to providing quality content you start to build a following, once you've gained the trust of your readers it will translate to them patronizing your services, hence growing your brand.

5 HERE IS THE REASON LOGO DESIGN DOES NOT COST $5 DOLLARS

Blogging about what interest you is great; Ideally you'll want to blog about the services or industry that you're in. For example, If you're a trusted graphic designer and you're talking about the reasons logo design does not cost $5.00, and you do a great job explaining why; your potential clients will consider you an expert and may look at you favorably when seeking to hire for their next design job or freelance project, hence allow you to indirectly market your product.

Continuing to build relationships through blogging is an excellent marketing resource all designers should be using.

What are your thoughts on creating your freelance design business around a blog?

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