Blogger Spotlight: Ian Paget, Logo Geek

Logo Geek is authored by Ian Paget, who is a freelance logo and brand identity designer. With over ten years of experience, Ian brings in-depth knowledge of graphic design, brand identity design, typography and reprographics to his blog. In this spotlight Ian, who features on our top ten graphic design ranking chats to us about how he built a large social media following on social media, how blogging has positioned him as an expert in the area of logo design, why he is currently working on a book as well as his plans for the future. 

What inspired you to create your blog? I started Logo Geek about 4 years ago as I enjoyed designing logos, and I wanted to take them on as side projects. To kick things off I created a website, and decided to blog to help attract potential clients through Google, and to share my work and things I learned.

Throughout the past few years I have built up a fairly large social media following along side the blog/website, so I primarily use my blog as a way to create content to share with my audience, although it also continues to help towards improving my results on search engines, which is where my enquiries come from, so that’s always a big motivator to keep going.

What opportunities have been presented to you through blogging? Blogging has helped to position me as an expert in the area of logo design, and because of that I’ve attracted some fantastic clients, and have been able to earn a sufficient income to go freelance (Although currently only part time).

Thanks to the blog in collaboration with social media I’ve also been invited to write for industry blogs such as Creative Bloq, have been in a few magazines such as Photoshop Creative, Net and 99U, and have been on the jury for numerous logo design and branding awards.

What has been your experience with working with PRs and marketers? Coming from a digital background I’ve been fortunate to work along side, work with and make friends with lots of really great online marketeers. Thanks to that I have been able to apply some of the tricks of the trade to my blog, allowing me to rank well for keywords such as Logo Design UK and Logo Design Manchester for example, which are fantastic keywords for generating leads. I’ve also hired a few copywriters, allowing me to produce content for my blog more frequently.

What kinds of PRs or campaigns are you interested in working on in the future? I’m currently working on a book, and plan to use influencers within my circle to help reach a wide audience to gain sales. I also plan to start pushing email marketing, as that’s not something I’m currently doing as part of my marketing strategy, but I have a decent email list ready to go.

Do you consider social media an important tool in directing traffic toward your blog? Oh for sure! Having grown an audience over the past few years to nearly 85,000 I’m able to get immediate traffic simply by posting a few tweets. I’ve also made good connections on social media who have large audiences themselves, and occasionally they’ll help me get the word out. Honestly, I’m a massive fan of social media, especially twitter.

What has been your proudest achievement as a blogger? I don’t have a specific achievement, but when I started writing I never imagined I would have any readers, so it’s been really rewarding to have the top spot on Google for ‘Logo Design Brief’ for example, and to also get some of my content posted and featured by leaders in the industry, such as Adobe and Pentagram.

Will you be working on any exciting projects or campaigns this year? My blog has become quite important for me personally, so I’ve started working on a series of blogs that will later string together into a book as mentioned above. Sadly the blog doesn’t pay the bills (yet) so I’m having to fit it in around design projects, but that’s my goal, and I have no plans to stop any time soon!