Case studies are a great and unique way show potential clients and current clients your business’ thought process and experience. It is important to find a way to effectively use case studies in blogging for your business.
Your knowledge is very valuable. Online, people are not always looking for someone with many years of experience- not unless you have already established yourself in your niche as the ‘go to’ person. Because a lot of people have their own learning curve and differ in how they apply it, that allows them to connect differently with various people out there.
For example, not every video blog is going to connect with everyone. You might be talking over their head (they will not understand you). Others will understand you. It goes the same for written word. Everyone is different.
Some businesses may not even need to have case studies. That is fine. This article is not for you. However, for those who do have businesses that could benefit from case study blogging, this article is for you.
A List of Businesses that Can Benefit from Blogging Case Studies
- Photographers
- Web Designers
- Graphic Designer
- Social Media Consultants
- Law Offices
- Home Constractors
- Construction Companies
- Stock Offices
- SEO/SEM consultants
- Hair Salons
- Doctors offices
- Event Coordinators
- Marketing Agent
- Location and Talent Managing Companies
…and many more!!!
Now, please note that some of the above types of businesses, like lawyers and doctors, may have very sensitive material that must be confidential. It is important to either get permission from the client and/or do a case study in which the subject is nameless.
How to Approach Writing a Case Study
Depending on the niche, it could be a bit different. For example, web design and graphic designers could publish pictures of their work and an article on what they did to come up with a solution for their job. The same would go for a lot of the businesses listed above and even ones not listed.
You have to answer a few questions:
- What was the original project’s needs?
- What did you do to finish the project?
- What was the result?
- Were there any highlights (like special things you did that should be noted)?
- Was the client satisfied? (optional – this might be where you can add a testimonial)
These questions are very important to cover. It also keeps you professional and on track. Case studies are not to be taken lightly, as they can prove to be an important marketing strategy.
Case Study versus Portfolio
Some businesses may have a portfolio. It might be set up like a case study. In fact, it might be confusing, considering they almost the same thing. “Portfolio” has usually been defined as a short way to show your work to clients (and this is just paraphrasing), while a case study is actually describing the process of how a project was completed. Personally, I like the concept of combining both methods, as you get a more complete case study OR portfolio. More often than not, especially in web and graphic design, only the name of the project and pictures are involved. Portfolios are great and short, but really not always SEO friendly – not so much ‘oomph’ on content. You can leave the title and alt tag in an image for a portfolio, but an actual article can emphasize even more.
Some people really want to know more, especially to get into your company’s thought process.
How to Display Case Studies
With the awesome way content management systems have developed, displaying case studies can involve a few choices:
- Put it in its own category as Case Studies. This is a very simple method and you can point to the category from anywhere on your site.
- Create a portfolio and link your portfolio images to an article from the case studies. This will give you some inner site linkage going on and allow your visitors to find out more about whatever project they clicked on in your portfolio.
- If you use WordPress, make the case studies an entire section of your site with custom post types. You have the ability to make a whole section aside from your default posts and pages in WordPress since version 3.0. Instead of the old days of WordPress when people would make a totally new site in a sub folder or sub domain, this allows you to control your case studies from the same place as your posts and pages. You can then create a separate type of template just for your case study section. Just as a side note, you might want to try this for portfolios too.
Of course, there are many other brilliant ways to put together and display case studies, but I would love to know if you have done case studies for your blog or business and how you did yours. 🙂