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The Drawing Board has done something incredible and we want all of you to celebrate with us: we have surpassed the number of visitors to our blog for the entirety of 2015 and we did it in just 5 months!

If the numbers are any indication, we are set to beat last year’s numbers (over 6000 visitors) by more than double by the time December 31st rolls around and that kind of traffic is not something to ignore. In fact, this exemplifies perfectly the reasons why we recommend content writing – content turns to traffic which turns into legitimacy, branding and business.

Through our blog, we have been able to publish professionally, garner more like-minded clients we get to support with our services and reach thousands of people all over the world – inspiring dialogue and putting our writers on the map as public intellectuals and important thinkers.

We have some exciting projects coming up for the future of The Drawing Board so please stay tuned for all things lovely in the world of publishing! In the meantime, let’s celebrate!

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Even though your marketing manager and graphic designers may be talented beyond your wildest dreams, the reality of the current state of the internet is this: without purposeful, brilliant content even the best-advertised and most beautiful websites will die. With 150,000 new websites and 7 million new pages added to the internet daily, how can you ensure that you and your business will be found? To be frank, if your marketing manager is not staying up at night worrying about the content on your website, you should be rethinking their position in your company. This is the Age of Information and those who don’t provide it are bound to be left by the wayside. The internet is a powerful business force that can render a company successful or bring giants to their knees. As with any powerful force, it should be approached responsibly and with great attention to detail. Content is one such place that can make or break an online presence.

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What is “Online Content”?

Online content usually refers to regular posts added to an online blog that is part of your overall website. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase your rank on search engines (particularly with your target audience – people in your geographical location) but is often overlooked in the slough of other things that start-up entrepreneurs get weighed down with. Most start-ups are focusing on a business plan, building a product, mapping strategies, finding investors (if necessary) among a thousand other things. The last thing on their mind at the end of the day is settling down in front of their computer to write a blog article about any aspect of their business. Finding the time is difficult, but even harder is the actual writing. Business owners are rarely writers and since writing is a veritable, professional skill, not just anyone can do it well!

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How can you make your mark?

The first step to building your online content is to hire a writer. In order to justify this, it needs to be recognized that this may very well be one of the best investmensts your company makes. Regular, timely content on a blog diversifies your content so dramatically that eventually, people who are combing the net for your business can find it by virtually any relevant search terms. Search engines no longer operate on optimized key words but rather go through your content after it has been published, incorporating it into their complex search algorithms. If you are a restaurant but you’ve never posted about the Top Five Local Farms Around Calgary or 18 Pictures of Food-Porn From Our Spring Menu, chances are most people are not going to find you. Writers are experienced in what works and what doesn’t – and we are highly trained in writing. It’s just what we do.

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What does this achieve?

An effective blog will drive swarms of people back to your website, generate more buzz about your brand and company, develop a deeper sense of company legitimacy and community-awareness, generate more product sales, create an additional income stream through advertising, and it can become a great customer service tool for your clients to browse for more information. Blogs tend to lend themselves well to developing the “human” side of your company – with informal reflections and information presented in interesting way for netizens to devour. You can write blogs (or have them written by your writer!) in your own voice – this reassures current and prospective clients that there is a real person behind your website (something that marketing managers are often accused of not being!). A blog is also a fantastic content-management system with various archiving mechanisms available to help people find the information that they need in a timely fashion. With a well-written, regularly-updated blog, we have seen clients become the voice of their industry, building a following of thousands of loyal readers and growing exponentially every day.

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What are the Measurable Benefits?

While writers tend to be preoccupied with the value of writing for writing’s sake, business owners are definitely (and rightfully) more concerned with the bottom line. Blogs can fill the social media void by automatically updating all platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Pinterest with timely content. This increases your share-ability and exposure. Blogs also drive people back to your eCommerce website, if you have it. I have personally witnessed the very beginning of a blog turn into a lucrative online sales business which increased profitability because of lower overhead and low maintenance. Advertising sales on your blog can also generate additional income and increase your readership.

Don’t know where to find a writer? Fire us an email at The Drawing Board and we will get back to you with our service packages. In the meantime, read The Top 5 Reasons to Hire a Writer.

 

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The Drawing Board blog has steadily been growing in popularity since it was launched just over one year ago. With nearly 100 posts in that short time, The Drawing Board has been popular the world over for various posts on politics, business, the craft of writing, travel and much more. Not only has our popularity expanded in terms of where we are gaining traffic (see: The Drawing Board’s Popularity is International) but it has also grown in terms of sheer volume of numbers.

early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise-makes-a-man-healthy-wealthy-and-wiseWith over a quarter of the year left to go in 2015, we have already quadrupled our readership and the numbers just keep going up.

How are people finding us? As a content management and creation business, we believe in the power of content to revolutionize the online impact of a company. It should come as no surprise, then, that the vast majority of our traffic comes from search engine searches (mainly Google) that linked back to content on our blog. It’s as simple as that. The next highest sources come from social media outlets like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter where our posts are automatically uploaded.

Does any of this translate to an increase in business? While our online traffic might not necessarily turn into direct clients coming in the door (although that *has* happened several times over the past year!) what is more important is the building of an online legacy that lends legitimacy to our business – the same work we do for our clients. This legitimacy results in increased business so that we and our clients who use our services can do what we do best: help others and uplift our communities through the important work we do. That being said, we have also increased the number of contracts from this time last year from four to twelve major clients – an increase of 300%! And that was accomplished without traditional advertising (all online and word of mouth) or any real initiative put forth to garner new clients. When we put a real effort in, we can imagine what kind of impact that will have on the number of businesses we can help.

Want to appear on our blog? If you are a writer or a client and would like to capitalize on our online success, feel free to approach us about having a feature article written about you or an interview published to highlight your incredible talents. We would be happy to support you and develop more content in the meantime!

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The Drawing Board is having a very busy holiday season! We have picked up a few new clients and our wonderful past clients have been keeping us happily occupied over the break!

typewriterThings we are currently working on:

The Islam 101 website: posting soon! This has been a blast to work on! We have been writing articles and gathering tons of Islamic data to put on the incredible educational, community-based initiative page. Looking forward to sharing the results with you!

The Custom Blinds By Design Blog: We have been a bit behind on this client but her gorgeous new website looks fabulous and we are looking forward to spending the new year getting the blog full of material and getting started from scratch on social media outlets!

The Behrends Group Blog: We are ecstatic to start working closer with the Behrends Group of Edmonton, AB. They are moving in exciting new directions for design-and-build signage work and we can’t wait to help them establish their blog and social media to keep everyone connected!

An Optimum Health Oregano Oil eBook –  a long-term project that is finally coming to a close, this awesome eBook will be available in early 2015 as part of Optimum Health’s eCommerce site launch! We’re happy to provide healthy, informative promotional material for this incredible local business!

Happy New Year everyone!

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Let’s face it: the digital world is here to stay and if all of us are going to be using websites and social media to communicate, shop, share and live then we had better be doing it well. One of the biggest stumbling blocks that is facing companies, non-profits and charities these days is good, quality content on the social media and websites that keeps them informative, relevant and interesting. This is because of a very simple fact of life: Web designers and business owners are not writers. Here is a very short but convincing list of reasons you should hire a writer today.

  1. It’s their job. Simple, right? Most successful business owners or managers are those people that realize they need to put their talent in all of the right places. You’re not going to ask your sales director to sit down and write a few blogs a week. A writer loves writing and is darn good at it too, so why not put them in charge of the content for your website, blogs and company eBooks? They won’t get sick of it. They’ll flourish and, as a result, your business online presence and power will flourish too.
  2. It’s what they’re trained to do. There are not many people who can claim to have written hundreds of blog articles and even millions of words, but writers can. Most writers have Arts degrees (or two, or three) and so have been trained and conditioned in the art of writing papers in very short periods of time that have to be relevant and concise. Most writers have honed their craft with other writers and willingly have subjected themselves to rigorous peer review to perfect their skill, page after page, word after word. We’ll leave the business to you if you leave the writing to us.
  3. It will make your life so much easier. Why fight and struggle to generate a few paragraphs of writing for a blog article or suffer with an EBook on your to-do-list for months? If you hire a writer, you can spend your precious little time on more important things like other areas of business, developing new products and services, or even taking time off to spend with family.
  4. It will increase your business. Hiring a writer means you are going to get more content onto your website and social media. Diversified, regular content updates, particularly on blogs or media streams increases your hit rate via search engines and the likelihood that someone will seek out your business online or because they found you online. It also generates more word-of-mouth marketing by increasing your online presence and your “shareability”. The more you post online, the more you will be talked about. Household name status leads to more business. Period.
  5. It can make you a pioneer in your industry. There is a lot of big business that is really slow to get on the technological bandwagon and often, when they do, their approach can be a bit archaic (see: old fashioned, not hip). By hiring a web-savvy writer, you’re investing in your own company and raising your status from dowdy, run-of-the-mill business to an industry pioneer that all the cool cats are talking about. Hire a writer today and watch your business grow, transform and blossom for the better.