Let’s face is, there is no one real answer to why people blog — there’s daddy bloggers and Regretsy, Copyblogger and people who post photos of their pets. Everyone’s got a different reason to start, and a different reason to keep on.

This blog is a marketing piece for me — it’s something I both enjoy doing and that comes naturally to me, but I wouldn’t blog here, about the things I do, if it didn’t help me out in my business. I do put time and effort into making sure that most of my posts offer something, even if it’s only a cute cartoon or the chance to recommend your favorite brand of face wash.

I have had other blogs in other places, but they’re for different things. I post photos of my cat licking milk off his nose, talk about my favorite books and tv shows with like-minded friends, and rant about poor grammar on the internet. Okay, I do that last one here, but it’s a lot nicer. Those blogs allow me to connect with like-minded people for fun, to share things I’ve made or seen, and to be myself (okay, even there I’m perhaps nicer than in real life, where I’m actually deeply cynical and snarky).

What brought this subject up for me is a recent spate of high-end copy writers writing posts on their blogs talking about how it’s a big sweat shop that they’re forced to generate all this content for free, and to me, that seems like they’ve lost sight of the reason why they started blogging in the first place. I’m not talking about little hobbyist bloggers, either — these are people whose blogs serve to bring them into the spheres of their potential clients and customers, so that they can sell services, consulting, ebooks and more. And yet, despite that, they’re suddenly thinking they should also be paid for their blog posts.

So I have to ask, if their blog posts were paid, then how would people find them to know they wanted to pay for the posts? Would they have to start a second string of crappier, less useful blog posts to serve as their marketing? Would they just rely on their charming Tweets and good site design to lure people into subscribing?

There’s a ton, and I mean a ton of great info available on the web for free, because people have chosen to make it that way. But the people who write the best, most informative blogs aren’t doing it entirely out of the goodness of their hearts — they’re making a living off that time, effort and expertise, somehow, some way. Leo Baubuta writes a bunch of different blogs, but also sells books and gets ad revenue. Men With Pens gives a ton of great writing advice for bloggers, copy writers, and fiction writers, but they also sell a whole suite of services. Ittybiz writes excellent marketing and life lessons that are both entertaining and full of swearing, but she’s got expensive consulting, less expensive ebooks, a membership site, and more.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Sony spends a ton of money on their commercials, sometimes ones that are entertaining enough they get shared on websites everywhere for free — and yet, they wouldn’t expect you to pay to watch them, because they’re getting their return another way.

I’m not saying all blogs are advertising — but this one is, and the blogs I’ve mentioned above have marketing as a part of their purpose. When I post kitten pictures on my personal blog, I don’t expect to sell anything as a result, and a ton of hobby bloggers out there are posting for love and community.

So, I’ll ask again, why do you blog?

Bridget and I are trading guest posts today — enjoy her unique insight!

I work as an intuitive. I have a very unique job. I look at my clients’ chakras and in doing so, I see metaphors about their lives. Each chakra, to me, looks like a little room, or a set on a stage.

The intuitive experience is strange. It’s like Salvador Dali and Frida Kahlo and Lewis Carroll got together and had a party.

In the chakras of my clients, I see swirling or dancing furniture. I see strange people. I see thorns. Broken Glass. Laughing Children. I see colors forming and reforming.

It’s my job to see it and bring it out in the open where it can be useful for people. We use this information to help the client transcend their current conflicts and move forward in their lives.

In intuitive work, we take what’s at the edge of consciousness and make it conscious. We make the metaphors that shape our lives visible.

I want my blog to use visual metaphor just as beautifully, or as interestingly as my clients’ chakras do. So I look to photos and illustrations that capture the feeling of odd, yet familiar.

For example, I was recently writing about working at jobs that don’t sustain you. I wrote a blog post called “What to Do If Your Job is Dead.” Originally, I wanted to find a chalk outline of a dead body. I thought it’d be good to show that you shouldn’t stay in a job that’s killing you, because all you’ll leave is a chalk outline.

I couldn’t find a picture that I liked, but I found this foot with a tag on it, and a sheet behind it, that at first glance looks like ominous clouds. Feet are funny, too. There’s some dark comedy to this shot. It’s memorable, dreamlike and yet, it makes a point. Put a tag on it, it’s done.

Another example: I did a series on the Inner Me. This is an idea where we can talk with our soul and our soul talks back. We can access the warm wisdom within us. I wanted somebody that looks like me to appear in these posts. Since the soul seems ethereal, a hard to pin down concept, I knew I wanted the opposite. I wanted something very warm and accessible.

Coincidentally, I had taken Amy up on her Cartoonify Yourself offer. She had made a cartoon of me with a ball of fire and awesome boots. I realized that I was looking at the inner me! So I used her in a series of posts. Now I use her to illustrate my daily soul notes, a little note from the inner me for my readers. She will come up from time to time as I play with this idea of the inner me.

The most important take-away from this approach to the visual in my blog, is that it is mostly done from the place of “no-thought”. I don’t have a calculating plan of how I want my blog to be. I just find images that speak to me with visual metaphors that personify the idea that I am getting across.

Bridget Pilloud is an intuitive guidance counselor, an intuition teacher and a facilitator of energetic healing. She also works with people and their pets. Her work can be found at http://www.bridgetpilloud.com and at http://www.petsaretalking.com. On Twitter, she’s @intuitivebridge.

I’m Holly, and thanks to Amy, I am now a cartoon. I am also proud to call myself both a client and friend of Amy’s. So, while I could easily spend all day telling you how awesome Amy is, if you’re reading this, you probably know that already. So, what I’m going to talk about today is going to sound like one of those Alice in Wonderland riddles, but it’s really a simple concept: How is a cartoon like copywriting?

For some background, I’m a copywriter. In particular, I’m a copywriter who specializes in capturing voices. Clients come to me with a sales page, and then a process starts. I listen to them talk, I read their material, and I find out as much about them as I possibly can. All so I can write the wordy equivalent of one of Amy’s cartoons. Which is quite honestly why I wanted a cartoon for my website. Her cartoons capture people in the same spirit as my copy does.

But rather than sound like an ad, I really want to talk about how cartoons and copy are similar, and can serve the same purpose on a website. It’s a whole different way to express yourself on your site, and equally valuable and interesting. Cartoons, by nature, reflect the truth of a person. Cartoons, by nature, are also exaggerated for effect. People are larger, louder, and more colorful in a cartoon. It’s still them, but maybe not the person you’d meet in a business setting, or at the park on a weekend. But that’s great, because if you’re a business, part of the key to making money is being yourself. Not just in a quiet way, but in a loud, colorful and powerful way.

Good marketing copy does the same thing. It captures the essence of you, and then exaggerates it in a way that draws people in, and shows off your personality loudly in the best possible light. Like a cartoon, this doesn’t always equate to loud and obnoxious writing. The true sell is in the details. On my cartoon, it’s the little sweater on my dog that has a royal crest, because he’s named after the canine knight from the movie Labyrinth. Someone is going to see that on my site and know what kind of person I am, just from that little detail. In the amazingly fun world of the internet, I would bet real money that someone would make a copywriting inquiry on that detail alone. That wasn’t something I planned or requested: it was something Amy added from her knowledge of me, and of my love for muppet movies and my dog.

In an ideal world, that’s what great writing does too. It captures the small details that make up who you are, and presents them in an intriguing and marketable way. It’s not about neon orange and green, or about large bold text with yellow highlighter. When it comes down to it, good marketing, in whatever form is always about people.

That awful overused saying that a picture is worth a thousand words? Sometimes, in marketing, it’s really true. And sometimes, you need the words too, but they need to paint their own picture; one that is equally real, and equally cartoony.

Holly is the founder and chief pirate queen of Cottage Copy, along with her canine co-manager, Sir Didymus. You can find her on twitter as @copygeniusgirl, and on her blog.

Flow is that magic place where work keeps happening smoothly and easily, and the next time I look up from what I’ve been doing it’s done and time has passed me on by.

I can get into a good state of Flow with writing, designing, and even seeming scut work like website updates, and when I do, it reminds me of why I do what I do. It’s when I can’t seem to find my way into that space that I get frustrated and behind, so this post is to remind me of the things that (sometimes) work to get things Flowing.

• Make a cup of tea, and don’t forget to drink it.
• Just get started.
• Make a list of what needs to be done, and check things off as I finish them.
• Play a game of something brain-stimulating.
• Open one file, and do something easy.
• Close a bunch of tabs until the browser no longer mocks me with its waiting articles.
• Eat a piece of chocolate or two.
• Set up all the equipment for it – open the Scrivener doc, get out the Wacom tablet, pull out some paint tubes, get out the Copic markers, take the computer to the scanner desk.
• Put on some really embarrassingly rockin’ ’80s tunes and go clean something small, just to get the blood flowing.
• Take a shower.
• Move to a different spot.
• Put up an away message on IM and tell people I’m working.
• Pick one thing, and start.

Obviously, some of these tricks are me-specific, but some of them would work for other people. I’ve often found that, no matter how much I’m avoiding something, if I just start it then that resistance skulks away in the face of my obvious productivity.

Also, chocolate really does help.

Do you have any tricks you use to get into the Flow of things?

…of your sales cycle, that is.

One thing I’ve learned over the years of doing design is the every client has a different sales cycle, and it’s always longer than you wish it was.

Almost all potential clients will respond to a proposal with a thanks, followed by some variation on, “I just need some time to think this over.” (Okay, maybe I just don’t have the sales method down yet, or my proposals are boring, or something, but let’s just pretend I know what I’m talking about here — in my experience, small business owners don’t decide on the spot to spend hundreds of dollars very often.)

What’s interesting to me is that you never really know how much time “some time” will be. I’ve had clients come back after only a few days and accept — or, sometimes, decline — a proposal. I’ve also had people that “thought” for a few weeks, asking for more info and gathering the materials that they need to make an informed decision (and get the project started) before accepting. I’ve even had people who took months to come to a decision, and I have one potential client who’s been considering his website options for over a year now.

The only true rule of thumb I’ve found is that however long you hope a client will take to decide, based on their stated schedule and urgency and what you know of their personality, it’ll always be at least twice that long, and often much longer.

Buying design is more akin to getting a new car than buying a new TV. Despite being priced more in the latter range, it’s non-returnable, and the client is going to have to live with the results. On top of that, it’s got to function for a client who doesn’t always see how good design gives them a return on their investment, and it’s not always easy for the designer to overcome those mental objections. A new car has to get you from point A to point B, but it also has a whole lot of other expectations — both functional and emotional — that it’s expected to fulfill. A client worries that they’re going to spend $500 — or $5000 — on a design only to end up with a lemon, and there’s both emotional and monetary investment there.

After all, a good design (especially if you’re doing brand identity along with it) is supposed to represent them as a business, the same way a lot of people feel like their cars represent them. If they’re expecting a Mini and get a Yugo, they’re going to be disappointed, and the fear of that disparity is going to be one of the unspoken objections that slows down the sales cycle.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, first off a designer needs to put out enough proposals that some people’s sales cycles will complete while the rest are still working their way through. It’s a lot of work, but having a good marketing system in place is essential for every business, of any kind.

Secondly, a designer can figure out these secret objections and counter them, either in their sales copy, or their subsequent conversations with the client. Figure out what the benefits really are, not just the features, and highlight them. Assure the client that you’ll make sure their Mini has racing stripes and isn’t just a glorified go-kart. Don’t give away the farm for free, but front-load your presentation with enough specifics that the client really feels like you get them.

Of course, to do that, you have to have enough conversations with the client that you really do get them, but that’s a subject for a different post.

This past week I went to a client’s house and fixed his internet. He thought it was an email problem, and it turned out to not be such a big deal, but he’s not very techy and he’d had the problem for a while, so finally I just went over there and called tech support for him, and we got it fixed. It hasn’t even broken again since.

Yes, I’m a designer. No, I don’t offer tech support as one of my package options, or even talk about it much on my site at all. But I’ve learned that a small business owner doesn’t just get overwhelmed by business card vendors and web hosts — and since I’m small, I can afford to use all my skills for my clients’ benefits, and not just the ones that fit under my job title.

I only have a few regular clients, and while I would like to have more, it’s never been my ambition to have a lot more. I’d rather go deep than wide — I think I can be more help to a small number of clients over a long time, than I could be to dozens or hundreds as one-shots. I don’t want to just be a designer, I want to be their designer, the person they feel like they can call whenever they have a problem.

I’ve realized that for a client relationship to work for me, it has to work both ways — I have to be committed to their success as a business, not just because it means more work for me. I work hardest for my clients when I believe in them, and because of that, I want to help them do what they do, within my abilities.

It’s helped clarify my marketing a lot — I’m looking for small businesses that do something nifty. I’m looking for people who need my help, and with whom I can work to build their business into what they dream that it will be.

And I’m happy to help them with their email problems, as long as they’re on a Mac.

Perhaps you’re a new business, wanting to start everything out right with your office painted, your sign out front and your website up and ready to go. Perhaps you’ve got a website, and it’s out of date. Perhaps you’re established everywhere else, and think it’s time for a web presence. Here are some questions that can help make sure we’re on the same page before I give you an estimate:

1. What do you have now (give the address)? If the answer isn’t “nothing”, what do you like best about your current site? Least?

2. What’s the one thing you need your site to do most? If you have a current site, does it do that? How well?

3. What’s the one thing you want your site to do most? This is more about what you think is cool, eye-catching or just plain nifty, rather than necessity.

4. What are some sites you use regularly? What do you like best about them? What don’t you like?

5. What are the impressions you want someone to get when they first visit your site? Professional, fun, cool, welcoming, homey, natural, creative, something else?

6. Do you already have logos and a color scheme for your business? Do you want your website to reflect them? Do you want to update your whole look as part of the site update?

7. What hosting do you have? When does your domain registration expire? Do you have the passwords for both? If the answer is “nothing”, then what do you need and will you need help setting it up? What about search engine optimization? Shopping cart systems?

8. Do you know what you want your site to say? Will you provide the text, or will you need a copy writer?

9. Make a list of all the things you want out of your website. This is the free-form question where you can fill in all the blanks left by all the rest of the questions, so don’t be afraid to be random, thorough, and a little rambling.

10. And finally, what sort of budget do you have? You don’t have to disclose this if you don’t want to, but it will help me to be able to tell you what corners can be snipped and what can’t, and how well your wants and needs fit inside your budget.

1. Know what you need.
Just like a car, you can get a website that’ll do the minimum you need it to for cheap, or pay thousands and get a luxury ride. When thinking about getting a website for your business, first figure out what your needs are, and make sure you ask for all of them up front — you don’t want to hire someone, or sign a contract with a web host, only to find that they can’t provide the services you require. Conversations with your web designer can help you to clarify some of your needs, but you will also want to do some of your own research. A good designer should be able to help you get set up with a web host, register your domain names, and give you a clear idea of what you are getting and why.

2. Know the technology.
Do you want to pay for search engine optimization? Do you need secure browsing, or programming language support? Are you concerned about users on dial-up having slow access to your site? Do you have a market for cell phone users, and will they need their own page? You really liked a site you saw, but will the same technology fit your needs? What is bandwidth, anyway, and how’s it different from disk space? What’s the going rate for the services you need? In the end, the only person who has the final say on the who, what, where and how of your website is you — make sure you’re making informed choices.

3. Know what you like.
From colors to functionality, your site should be a collaboration between you and your designer. Surf the web, pay attention to the sites you use every day, and know what works for you, and what doesn’t. Then, pay attention to the advice you’re given, because not everyone surfs the same way. Sometimes, what’s a nice bit of ambiance to you is embarrassing noise to the person in a cubicle who wasn’t expecting music from your site. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want, but listen carefully if there’s a good explanation for why you can’t or shouldn’t have it — and if the answer starts as an unexplained ‘no’, then don’t be afraid to ask why.

4. Know what you don’t like.
For every site that works, there’s a dozen sites that don’t — they’re slow, confusing, hard to read, they “hide” what you need under marketing language, or they’re just plain ugly. Keep them in mind just as much as the ones you do like. Don’t be afraid to tell your designer you don’t like the direction things are going, to tell your web host they’re just too slow or unreliable, or to stand up for what you really want out of your site. Again, listen to advice, but in the end it’s your site — the only limitations are those imposed by the technology and your budget.

5. Know your limitations.
Can you only afford $10/month for hosting? Are you short on cash right now, but able to make payments? Can you handle fulfillment if you start an e-commerce site? Do you have someone to answer the phones if you put your toll-free number on your site? Small business is all about compromises between what we want, what we can afford, and what the technology can do; websites are no exception.

6. Ask questions. Know what you’re getting for your money.
Whether it’s your designer or your ISP, you should know what you’re getting for your buck.

If it’s a web host:

• Find out what your bandwidth and disk space allowances are.
• Find out what extras you get with your package. SSL, shopping cart software, cgi, asp and php are just some examples.
• Find out what extras you actually need, and if you’re paying extra for something you don’t use.

If it’s a designer:

• Make sure you know what’s covered in your estimate, and how binding it is.
• Are you paying by the hour, or for the whole job?
• What happens if you make a lot of changes? If there’s a lot of mistakes? If someone misses a deadline?
• Who’s going to write the copy, and is it an extra fee?
• Do certain things get hired out by the designer, such as programming or copy writing, and if so, is there an extra fee?

If it’s an ISP:

• Just how speedy is high speed? Do you have an option for faster, and are you already paying for it?
• Are you renting your equipment (modem, router) or do you own it?
• Check periodically to make sure you can’t change your plan for the better, either in terms of price, speed or functionality.

With any service, it’s up to you to make sure you’ve got what you need and aren’t confused about the services you’re paying for.

7. Know who you’re paying, and why.
Check your bills, and keep shopping around. Keep track of all the services that you’re paying for. Once every year or so, look around and see if you providers are still competitive — my web host increases my disk space and bandwidth allowance periodically to keep up with industry standards. Does yours? Are you paying for more than you need, or paying overage charges because your account doesn’t cover your needs now that your business has grown? A lot of the time we don’t even have to write a check to keep paying these bills, and it becomes easy to take them for granted.

8. Keep a list of the username, password, account number and other relevant information for all of your accounts.
Even if your designer or computer guy set up everything, make sure it’s in your name, and you have access to it. Things happen, and sometimes small businesses, like many designers or small web hosts, can disappear. Don’t end up in a position where you can’t access your own site, renew your own domains, or update your own account information.

9. Keep your account information updated.
Especially if you’re paying by credit card, be aware of which one and when it expires, or you may find yourself suddenly without a website. Make sure they have your current address, phone, fax and, most importantly, email address. Domain names can sometimes take 5-10 years to come up for renewal — make sure they know how to contact you when that happens, or you might find your domain is suddenly pointing to a site for mail-order brides.

10. Change with the times.
Web host not giving you what you need? Designer moving out of the area? Business changing faster than your site? Make sure you don’t get bogged down in what you’ve always done, and are willing to entertain new ideas — in the end, you’ll find yourself better off if you’re getting what your business needs now, rather than what it needed five years ago when you first set things up.

Confused about some of the terms? Check out UC Berkeley’s >Glossary of Internet & Web Jargon.

There’s any number of reasons to start a blog — bringing traffic to your site, keeping in touch with your friends and family, the simple desire to keep a journal without all those pesky blank books lying around the house. All of them are perfectly valid, but what you want to do with your blog will affect which service you use, what design template you choose, and how you present your blog to the world.

There’s LiveJournal, DeadJournal, and all its clones; Facebook, Orkut, Xanga and MySpace; Twitter, Blogger, TypePad, and a dozen others as well. They all offer different things to the discerning blogger, and most of them are constantly adding features and other improvements.

So, how do you decide?

For social networking, for instance, you’d want to go with a site like Facebook, LiveJournal, or one of its many clones. For someone who isn’t up to the challenge of long, introspective posts, or who wants to be able to keep a txt msg update of their daily lives, you might end up on Twitter. Someone wanting to present a more professional face, doing essays and articles, would probably use Blogger or TypePad. Kids might end up on Xanga. Anyone promoting a band would end up on MySpace, not to mention thousands of teenagers and twentysomethings just looking to hook up with friends.

Once you know what you want to use your blog for, it’s time to figure out what features you really need. For a lot of business bloggers, the main issues are ease of use, and ease of integration into their existing site design. But there are a lot of other features that make it a harder choice than it might seem — threaded comments, custom urls, posting clients and email or txt updates. In the end, only you can know what you need in a blog.

You never know, you may end up like many people out there in cyberspace, with more than one to suit your different purposes.