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The Super Blog – more than a newsfeed

Ditte Hammarström
18 January 2016

To be able to write a blog that makes people stop and want to read is a rare talent. But what actually is a blog?

Here I dissect the blog format and components, and offer concrete tips on how entrepreneurs can plan their webpage to quickly acquire more customers.

What is a blog?

I think we nearly all have rough idea as to what a blog is. When blogging became popular several years ago it was principally an “Online diary”, where one could easily give voice to one’s personal views. It was (and is) a freedom tool which allows anyone with a passion for a subject to take their place, create their own operations and gain followers. A blog has the potential to gather people who want to follow a discerning, fashion-conscious or trend perceptive mind with a keen edge for a specific subject.

The components of the blog

When you blog, you write a post. The most common is that you then actively collect headline, lead picture, date, author and sometimes even a little preamble from the post and send it to a overview page. The overview is candy for the brain. We read the picture before the text and the headline/picture is unbeatable in quickly indicating what we want to chose to continue reading. 

Here are some examples of overviews. One with both picture and text that intrigue, one with pictures that immediately capture your interest and finally one enabling the overview page to be the compilation page for blog, Facebook and twitter feed. Astute entrepreneurs have already changed the name “blog” to news, articles or other suitable title. See maltidsgladje.se/nyheter, imagimob.com/news or schibstedgrowth.com/news.

Måltidsglädje

Imagimob

Schibstedgrowth

How do you write a successful blog?

There are many who are experts in giving advice and tips on how you should think when you write, and who have extensive personal experience that they are happy to share. It is really worth while contacting them if you want to take your place online. How much and how often you write affects how you are ranked on Google. So in my network I can mention among others, Stockholms Skrivbyrå and Business Bloggers.

The blog – more than a news feed

So, now I have addressed the most common questions raised when someone mentions blog. Glad that you are still with me. Now to my own topic. What I want to look more closely at is how we can best use the “blog” format to maximize customer conversion on our own website. The three visual examples above are good examples of how the target group is considered and the message adapted with active blogging.

Creative blog technique

Most entrepreneurs know that you should have a “blog” linked to your website. The technology is simple and many in our design community are perceptive in reading the target group. I would go a step further and say why don’t you let parts of your webpage simply be blogs? A cool, creative and innovatory way that I have found which allows the menu heading “article” to be linked to three independent blogs; Inspiration, diet and exercise: Innovatieinsweden.se. Aha, cleverly planned. But what do you gain by writing a post instead of writing text on a normal page?

Gain exponential effect with every post

Well, you gain a fantastic capability to spread every text fragment and create visibility. Every post is a clever boomerang, which when you share on Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram or social network of choice, brings readers right back to your own webpage. It takes minutes to write and you become shared, accessible and searchable. The exponential effect is enormous.

Gain time with your blog

You also save an incredible amount of time by using a smart system that makes it easy for you and can handle everything in the same place (webpage, blog, webshop, booking system). Thus you can avoid having different admin systems to keep track of, rather steer customers directly, via the blogging, to the same webpage where you have your e-commerce or where they can book your service.

The beauty of multiblogging

I will conclude by showing the “Hela sverige bakar” (“The great Swedish Bake Off”) finalist, My Sundberg’s blog: mysweet.nu. At first glance you see ONE blog, but don’t be fooled. This webpage is a masterpiece of blog technology. She quite correctly calls a menu option a blog, but those of you who have followed the above and learned the technique can see that the recipes and seasonings are also made into individual blogs with snappy posts. Shared and accessible with the boomerang-effect resulting in all those who are interested in baking, eco friendly or simply sweet toothed finding their way back to the webpage to revel in her clever pastries – this is how you build a brand name with technology.

My+Sweet

My+Sweet

Thanks to our customers and designers who let me present their webpages here. 
Photo: Ryan McGuire

Ditte Hammarström has a background as an art director at advertising agencies both in Sweden and UK. She is passionate about user-driven design and to help entrepreneurs succeed online. Ditte is one of the founders of Snowfire design community, where agencies and developers collaborate on the Snowfire platform to help businesses grow.

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