BIANCHI Designs Blogs for Business: Clients Reap Rewards

BIANCHI, a graphic design and branding firm, has been building strategic, custom blogs for business, boosting their clients' SEO, audience, brand and voice.

New York, NY (PRWeb) January 8, 2007 -- Having years of identity, print and web design under her belt, Christa Bianchi offers effective business blogs as an option for her clients. As the trend suggests, social networks and blogging have become hugely influential. By offering custom designed blogs, and the strategy to make them effective, BIANCHI design is empowering clients with this cost-effective option for private-sector businesses and non-profits of any size.

"In 2001, I stumbled upon an acquaintance's blog, and found myself embarrassed to find that he was blogging about asking his (now wife) to marry him! It was voyeuristic, and added a dimension to our acquaintance that didn't exist before," says Christa. That acquaintance was Jacob Dobkin, then chief information architect at IBM. Jake introduced Christa to the ins and outs of installing and implementing a blog. Her first foray into the medium, thorninpaw.com, was receiving up to 2000 unique visitors a day within 2 years time.

The Vet who runs the shelter will have a blog to post pictures of the cats' lives and progress, soliciting donations to 'sponsor' specific cats. Users will then be able to check back and watch.

Ms. Bianchi, having incorporated her design firm in 2003, started "evangelizing" about blogs to anyone who would listen. "In during the 2004 election, blogging hit the mainstream media and all my clients came back to me and said 'Hey, you've been saying this for years -- how do I do it?'" Now 30% of her resources are dedicated to developing blogs. Often, that development includes the content and editorial direction.

"There's a lot of hype around blogs. What's lost in the din is the fact that a blog is a simple content management system," says Ms. Bianchi. A content management system, or CMS, is an application that allows users with no programming experience to upload content to a web site. This saves money on site maintenance and often inspires the client to embrace the online medium as the most cost-effective marketing/PR/sales tool in their arsenal. Clients with blogs use online as an information outlet more often, and Search Engines take notice.

BIANCHI client OCV Architects have added a blog, http://makingabetternewyork.com, to their online properties. With the sharp design and strong url, they not only reap the benefit of strong positioning as New York City's go-to firm for supportive housing and neighborhood rehabilitation, they are also seeing top ranking for phrases like 'Green Roof' on Google only months after launch. The blog serves as an additional outlet for press releases about OCV projects -- a marketing strategy not on the architects' radar until BIANCHI made it effective.

However a client uses a blog, the semantic structure and the frequency of fresh content are highly attractive to search engines. As a result, a blog can be the lightning rod for building an audience around all of the brand's online endeavors.

"One client has a cat shelter full of cats you can't adopt because they are so sick," Christa says of a current project. "The Vet who runs the shelter will have a blog to post pictures of the cats' lives and progress, soliciting donations to 'sponsor' specific cats. Users will then be able to check back and watch." Ms. Bianchi goes on to say, "They'll also be able to dialogue with the Vet about cats -- that's a powerful way to build a community around your brand."

BIANCHI has 4 blog projects on the board for launch in 2007.

About BIANCHI

BIANCHI is a full service graphic design and creative strategy firm based in New York City -- a thriving network of web and print professionals with the vision and experience to empower businesses of all sizes through design, branding, and technology.

Since 2003, BIANCHI has been delivering winning strategy and design with this unique perspective. Christa Bianchi attributes her success to her simple approach:

• Define the project goals well.
• Design everything for the project goals.
• Depict the brand as a simple, unified whole.
• Position the brand so that it stands out.
• Design for the audiences' point-of-view.
• Produce print pieces with a high level of press quality.
• Produce interactive pieces utilizing the best technology.
• Don't recommend anything the client doesn't need.
• Make each design beautiful and unique to the client.

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