Creating a Presence VI

Silk Habotai Scarf, Yasmin Sabur 2009, Shibori

Components of the Re-branding -  A Blog

You need a blog. This where you will have an opportunity to increase your web exposure. Web sites are fairly static. Blogs change and new content can be added as often as you feel like creating a post. The search engines love new content.

It is wonderful if the web site host you've selected comes with the ability to set up a blog, but if not, you should be able to either link to or import a blog to your web site. This saves time and energy.

Blogger (a Google product), Wordpress, Typepad are the most prevalent. Some web sites are set up to easily interact with one or the other. Choices here. If you like your blog host you may want to look for a web host where you can continue to use your current blog. If, like me, you have blogs on both Wordpress and Blogger, then you may have to make a choice of using one or the other depending on which one the web site connects to.

My new web site host is set up to use Google products. This is why you are reading these posts on Blogger, not Wordpress.

For my new identity/branding I just changed the name of the blog from yasmintoo, something or other, to Yasmin Sabur Art.  (Much of my old identity is centered around “yasmintoo!”  I sell small artifacts under the brand yasmintoo! on Etsy. I want a separate identity for my applied art.)

Blog tips:
Images speak louder than words
Videos speak even louder than images
Write what you know
Keep it short (I know, I don't do this)
Post about other people, interviews are great. (This will create link backs to your blog and increase your visibility on search engines.)
Write a week's worth of posts one day a week and schedule the publishing dates. (On Blogger this can be done under post options, immediately below the text box for writing a new post.)
Use Networked Blogs, so your blog posts are visible on all of your social networking sites.
LinkedIn has a widget for Wordpress, but will pick up posts from other blogs as well. You may have to set this up.
Check to make sure your blog downloads in a timely fashion. I follow several blogs where I'm interested in the content, but hate having to wait for the ridiculous, unsightly backgrounds or uncompressed title images to download.
I use Blogger, but my favorite is Wordpress, I had a good reason for using Blogger more often, but I've forgotten what it was now.
Keep a file for blog post titles
Keep a file of images for blog posts
Your personality is okay, but if you are in business, keep your blog business-like. Start a separate anonymous blog for your rants.
If you like the idea of tutorials, but don't know how to create them, use your side bars to suggest resources. Most things have already been written about, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. The authors will be delighted to see that you have linked to their posts, giving them credit for their work.
Change up your content - interviews, book review, events related to your field, calls for entry, etc.
Stay tuned for more. If you're also branding or rebranding, leave a comment about your experiences. This stuff is huge and a lot of work. The more company, the better.