The Why and How to Blog as a Florist

Are you a floral professional who’s wondering if you should start blogging as part of your marketing plan? If so, sit tight. This article is for you. (And it contains actionable steps to get your blog started!)

Using a Blog to Market Your Floral Business

I've always been told to think of marketing as a chain. Every link in that chain needs to be strong, or the chain can't do its job. The job of that chain is directing prospective clients down the path to inquiring with you, and ultimately, hiring you.

Your marketing strategy "chain" will include your overall branding, website, social media, the way you interact with clients, your final product, and your blog. Blogging is an incredibly useful link in this chain. I know it can be daunting, but it doesn't need to be!

"I've heard that blogging is 'dead.' Why should I blog for my wedding flower business?"

We all know that a great website and social media presence is critical to running a wedding flower business today and beyond. Our sites are our storefront, the face we put out to the world (especially if we don't have a physical storefront or public studio). Our websites are the way we first interact with potential clients and have the opportunity to convince them that we are the right florist to hire for their wedding. A massively important part of our website is our blog. Why?

Blogging regularly increases traffic to your site and improves your SEO (search engine optimization). The higher your search engine ranking is, the easier it will be for people to find you online—and the easier it will be to get them to book with you!
Blogging provides a convenient way to organize your social media schedule.
Blogging is an easy method of updating your site frequently without doing a complete portfolio and site imagery overhaul.
Blogging has a unique way of positioning you as an expert in your field, allowing you to teach and educate your clients on various topics.
Blogging creates quality content that you can refer your prospective clients to. For example, I have written several posts about wedding flower budgets that are a natural resource to send to potential clients who may be out to lunch on pricing or need some reassurance that I know what I'm doing.

A crucial blogging component is including high-quality imagery that will attract a reader's attention. This means that you either need to be taking your own high-quality images or connecting with your clients' photographers who are willing to share pictures with you.

"Okay, so I agree that I should be blogging… but I don't even know where to get started."

If you’re in this spot, here are three basic steps!

1) Generate a list of blog post topics

2) Create a content schedule

3) Get working!

1) Generate a List of Blog Post Topics

From my conversations with other wedding professionals, the lack of ideas on what to blog about seems to be the biggest hindrance. Luckily for us, it's actually pretty easy to come up with attention-grabbing, beautiful, and shareable content because almost everyone loves flowers.

I generally create blog post topics from two overarching categories:

Real weddings/photoshoots in which I can share my work.
Educational content that answers questions and guides my clients into becoming my ideal clients.

Real Weddings and Photoshoots

Unless you're new to floristry and you don't have a portfolio yet, this should be a pretty easy one. Not sure what to write about? List out the ingredients you included in the bridal bouquet, explain what you love about the colour palette or the vases that you used, talk about your thought process behind selecting certain design elements, what you love about working at this venue—discussing anything that shows off your unique expertise is what we're looking for!

A great addition to a real wedding blog post is a testimonial from that actual client. It adds a sense of personality and life to the post, and because those words aren't coming from you, it's an easy soft-sell to potential clients.

Tip: I only blog weddings that are in line with the style of work that I want to be doing more of. I might be hired to design flowers for a wedding with mason jars and burlap (yes, still), but you can bet that you're not going to see that on my site because, well, I’m tired of it. Blogging is current, topical, and relevant, so make sure that you're only sharing work that you are proud of and want to do more of.

Educational Content

This is where wedding florists often feel lost, and they don't know what to write about. If this is you, I'll remind you of one thing: You’re the expert here!

Think of some of the frequently asked questions you get, those you find yourself explaining repeatedly. How do you source your flowers? What attracts you to your design style? What is your specialty? Do you offer delivery and set up? Anything like this can be turned into a blog post—or even into an FAQ-style article in which you answer short questions. You could put out a call on your Instagram stories asking for questions, too!

Think about what type of work you want to be doing, what kind of clients you want to attract, and what questions or wedding-related problems your prospective clients might have.

For example, if your goal is to book as many small weddings as possible, a topic of "how to save money on your wedding flowers in [YOUR CITY NAME]" could be just the ticket to getting a mass of inquiries from lower-budget clients.

If your goal is to book more weddings at a particular venue, then schedule a walkthrough for yourself or plan a photoshoot there, take some photos, and write about some design ideas that you have unique to that specific venue. If you're dreaming of clients who aren't afraid of using bold colour in their weddings, put together a selection of your favourite flowers in each colour palette or curate a gallery of your work in fun colour palettes to show off how you can interpret a palette.

If something isn't going well for you, flip that on its head and into an educational blog post. If you're tired of constantly replying to "I read online that a bouquet should only cost…" or "I can get it cheaper at Costco if I DIY it," pivot this into a blog post (or even a blog series) that outlines why flowers and floral design cost what they cost (note: you do not need to tell clients your markups; instead, I suggest explaining all the work that goes into your job), suggested price ranges for different items, and so on. A few years ago, I wrote a series on wedding flower budgeting. I've updated it a bit over the years so I can continue to send it out to inquiries who I can tell just don't have a realistic expectation of what to expect to spend on wedding flowers, and it works great!

Finally, think about what brides and grooms are searching for. It may not be specifically related to wedding flowers, but an informative and helpful post about that wedding-related topic on your site will bring traffic to your site. And that's the goal of a blog!

Personally, my goal right now is to promote my event design services more. So I'm working on a blog series that will dive into my design process, my design philosophies, why a wedding florist is in a unique position to be an excellent event designer, etc. I'm going to produce a full-scale photo shoot to create the content I need for this project, and I'll be revealing my design boards and various elements of the behind-the-scenes work—and then publish the full collection of images from the shoot. This will all be done with a few goals in mind: attracting my ideal client, positioning myself as an expert, and creating more work that I want to be producing.

As a real-life example, here are some of my most consistently popular blog posts and traffic analytics—some of these posts are already three years old, so they've gotten a lot more traffic than just what's listed. These analytics also don't include page views from people who are scrolling through my blog and stop to read an article; these are simply the numbers from people who have specifically searched this topic and found it on Google.

My Top 5 Favourite Unique Wedding Venues in Winnipeg (4282 page views YTD)
What You Need to Know About Postponing Your Wedding Due to Coronavirus in Manitoba (3036 page views YTD)
Top 5 Best Wedding Locations in Manitoba (2642 page views YTD)
2020 and 2021 Wedding Flower and Decor Trends (2327 page views YTD)
Planning a Wedding Amidst Covid-19: Weddings for 50 People with Social Distancing Measures (1013 page views YTD)
How Much Do Wedding Flowers Cost in Manitoba? 691 page views YTD)
What's the Actual Cost of a Bridal Bouquet? (420 page views YTD)

You'll notice that my most popular posts are all education-style content posts—this is because these types of posts answer questions and fill needs that engaged people have. After these six top posts, I begin to see real wedding posts in the popular content section of my site analytics.

2) Create a Content Schedule

You've already agreed that blogging is worth doing, and the next thing you need to know is that blogging regularly is important. Before having a baby, I blogged weekly. Now, I aim to publish two posts per month. The main thing here is to try for a consistent schedule, no matter what that is. Once per month, the first Monday of the month? Great! Every single Friday? Perfect.

Create an overview of content for a few months at a time, so that whenever you're in a rut, you can look at that overview for guidance. This is also an excellent opportunity to look at your year ahead and think about what you'll want to be promoting and when: When will you open up your calendar to new wedding bookings? Are you doing a pop-up for Mother's Day? Teaching a flower arranging class? Work that into your content schedule. I typically aim to write and create my posts about a month in advance; that way, I'm not worried about working to the buzzer, and then I pre-schedule them to publish on the day and time that I want.

Consider the type of content you'll publish and decide how you want to space out those posts on your calendar. Sometimes I'll write a series of related educational content, so I'll publish those once a week for three consecutive weeks. Other times, I'll alternate between an educational content piece and a real wedding, just depending on what I have more of!

I use Trello to organize my blog topic thoughts. I have a list of blog posts to write, with individual cards for each wedding that I've received professional photos of which I want to feature on the blog, along with a second list where I keep links to layouts and topics I've seen on other blogs. I like having this second list, as I can go through it when I'm lacking inspiration and see how I can tweak those ideas with my own content!

My blog schedule has become a vital part of my social media strategy. If you're like me, you often find yourself unsure of what to say in your Instagram captions. I can't tell you what a relief it is to have regular blog post topics to pull captions from, eventually directing people to head over to the blog and check out the post. I'll typically share up to three Instagram feed posts related to that week's blog post, along with creating enticing Instagram stories also related to the blog post.

My site traffic always soars when I publish a new blog post, which is directly related to sharing it on my Instagram. It's also super easy to add a few Instagram posts into your Instagram scheduler app while you're working on that blog post and know that you're all set to go!

Remember when I said marketing is like a chain, and everything you do needs to be a strong link? Blog and social media posts work together perfectly as a chain, driving prospective clients your way.

3) Get Working on Your Professional Blog

So now that we've gone through what you're going to write about and when you're going to blog, let's talk about the how. Here's my process for blogging from start to publish.

Step 1: Image Layout and Content Writing

If I'm working on a real wedding or photoshoot post, I start with the image layout. If I'm working on an educational content piece, I begin with the content writing. Either way, these are the very basic components of a post.

The general consensus is that a blog post should contain at least 300 words with the actual goal being around 1000 words—shorter than 300 and it doesn't end up being perceived as a valuable post (from an organic search perspective) by Google. I find it easier to write longer posts for those educational content pieces as opposed to real weddings, but you'll find your groove!

When it comes to image layout, look at your favourite blogs to see what grabs your eye and how you like to read. Personally, I've always preferred to have blocks of text broken up by galleries of images, rather than a block of text at the top, a long gallery, and then a block of text at the bottom. I also suggest grouping images by content to make it easier to write about them. For example, with a real wedding post, I'll always start with images of the personal flowers and talk about the bouquet ingredients and colour palette, then move on to ceremony images and portraits, detail everything I designed for the ceremony, and then finish with reception details.

Remember that high quality, professional images will usually be best when they're available to you.

Step 2: Rename Images

When I started blogging, I didn't know how valuable the simple step of renaming images is. It turns out that it's highly important to your search engine ranking! When I was told that this was a good thing to do, I spent an entire weekend going through every single image on my site. It was boring and took a long time, but the results paid off immediately: My website jumped from ranking on page 5 to page 1 in local searches. That was HUGE.

Here's the thing: It's pretty easy to do—it's just time-consuming. The basic premise is to change the image's file name from "CherylDanielWEDDINGARIANATENNYSON2-133.jpg" (or however your photographer has labeled the images) to something like "Winter Wedding in Winnipeg with Burgundy Wedding Bouquet by Stone House Creative." Select keywords that people will be searching that actually pertain to what is in the image, and Google will reward you. Simple as that!

You're technically supposed to rename the images before you load them into your site (I tend to get lazy and rename them in the editing process after I've uploaded them). I would suggest that once you get a gallery from a photographer, create folders for specific categories of images (i.e. personal flowers, ceremony photos, reception details, bridal party images, portraits, etc.), organize the images into those folders, and then rename the pictures right then and there.

Step 3: Tag the Post

This step requires you to utilize the categories in your blog and makes it easier for readers to search for a particular type of content. The categories on my blog include real weddings, inspirational photoshoots, wedding planning tips, etc.

Unless you're blogging a ton, I don't think you need a large number of categories—just what fits with your regular content. This is one of the last steps I always take before a blog post is scheduled, and it can be done under the settings tab of that particular blog post.

STep 4: Schedule the Post

Simple! Decide when you want the post to go live.

Step 5: Social media Planning

Like I mentioned earlier, I love to plan my social media content around my blog feed. Blogging is only one step of the process—now you need to get eyes on it. Otherwise, that work could be wasted!

Final Floral Designer Blogging Tips

In every post, you should always include a call to action (which will likely be to inquire with you for their wedding date), links to other pages on your site, and links to all the vendors who may be involved. also always include the venue name in the title of the post.

Just go and do it! If you're still unsure if blogging will benefit your business, listen to me: It is. So all you need to do is get started! If you don't think your blog post is amazing, that's fine! Just do it.

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Sep 30 The Why and How to Blog as a Florist

Using a Blog to Market Your Floral Business