An explanation on why you should suck it up and write your blogs
If you have a website, you’ve probably asked the following:
Why do I always see marketing advice for creating a blog? Who even reads blogs?
Haven’t I already written enough for my website? There’s a services page, a products page, even an about page... Why go through all the trouble to write EXTRA words for the site? All I need is a place where people can get in contact with me and throw money at my amazing services. Done.
While those gripes are understandable (especially if you don’t already enjoy writing) there are a few reasons to start a blog: these include building credibility in your field, creating sales opportunities, providing value to your audience… but perhaps most importantly Google doesn’t like sites that don’t add anything new. You need to generate traffic to move up in Google’s list.
And even if you’re sharing your website on social media, but not publishing blogs and new information on it, why would anyone stay on it?
People want value.
They want to learn something interesting, relevant, or be entertained. Take a moment to try and imagine how much content you’re competing with for your audience’s attention. A website explaining what you Do For Money is a great start. But who will seek it out of their own accord (aside from supportive friends and family)?
No one will find your site if it doesn’t offer them something to solve their problems. Most folks aren’t typing your URL directly into Google to find you.
By actively publishing words and phrases you want Google to associate with your business in the form of blogs, Google takes notice and helps other people who might be trying to find similar things find you.
This brings us to SEO.
You’ve probably heard about SEO or “search engine optimization”. It’s one of those terms that seems to frighten a lot of people as if it were some sort of faceless deity that a chosen few can plead to and magically help your website bring in traffic.
SEO is a lot less scary than it sounds… In fact, this is the perfect time for a little crash course. Whenever you put something on the internet, Google’s algorithm crawls each page and indexes it, ranking it on readability, relevance, legitimacy, and a thousand other factors. This is used to determine what information is going to be displayed to users. Have you ever wondered why you have to read through an entire novel’s worth of text every time you look up a recipe online? Well, this is for SEO purposes! Recipes aren’t very long and often read very similarly to other recipes, and having unique content on the page helps Google determine that the content is useful and ranks it accordingly.
Having blog posts on your website about your chosen business/industry also shows you know what you’re talking about and can speak about it at length. It can showcase your personality and brand. Blogs can also help potential clients decide if they want to work with you or not, and vice versa.
When someone sees a website that has nothing on it, they may wonder why they should go to you when maybe some other industry professional has a blog and is active, is providing info, etc.
There’s no guarantee that one or two blogs will rocket your website to the front page of Google (in fact, please don’t count on this, you will be sad), but doing so will help people find out about you, bring people to your website, and, in theory, net you clients.
Here’s a quick step-by-step list to getting your blog out of your head and off the ground :
1. Create a list of topics relevant to your industry
Who are your clients? What problems do they experience that you could help solve? Take five minutes and type out as many issues your clients face as you can think of. Seriously, do this right now. Set a timer and start typing.
2. Expand on your topics
Got your list? Now read back through to see if any topics on your list immediately jump out at you. If a certain issue sparks your interest, just start writing!
From there, create a potential topic from each issue. For example, if you’re a photographer, you might have clients that experience the issue of choosing what to wear for their family portraits. Your blog topic to solve this problem could be “How to Choose the Perfect Outfit for Your Outdoorsy Family Portrait” full of advice from your experiences.
3. Write, write, write some more. Or talk it out.
Here’s where the work comes in. Writing may not come easily to some of us (oh hey, same here), but there are tricks you can do to help the process. Listen to music without lyrics while you type away, remembering who you are writing this for: your client trying to solve a problem. Don’t forget to take scheduled breaks, typically every 50 minutes or so for at least 5 minutes according to this research.
If writing first really isn’t your thing, take your phone, open up your voice memo app, and just start talking about your topic. A blank page can freeze us beyond any hope of productivity, but maybe chatting will be an easier route for you! It's worth a try. Just remember, most of us hate the sound of our own voice and transcribe what you say after you’re done. Search engines can’t crawl audio or video for SEO so definitely type up what you talk about for that sweet sweet SEO.
4. Post and share your masterpiece.
In addition to publishing on your website, share your blog on your social media. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest are great for linking your blog where a reader can simply click to be brought to your site.
If you want to use Instagram, chop up small, helpful pieces of information from your blog and recreate it as a visually pleasing graphic. Don’t post links in your Instagram captions; no one is able to click them and it looks sloppy. Link your website in your Instagram bio (this is the only place you’re allowed to link a URL) and simply tell your followers to “click the link in your bio” to read your latest blog.
5. Blog a few times a week
According to Hubspot, blogging a few times a week and being consistent will help your web traffic. One way to keep consistent is to schedule a day of the week or two and write a few blogs at a time This way you’ll have a cache of content to spread it out as you need it!
6. Reuse and Recycle
Now that you have a few blogs, you can reuse this content in various ways to cut down on your workload. Aside from making posts for Instagram, you can share these to Pinterest as well! You can also take the concepts introduced in your blogs and craft videos to expand your reach through Youtube or Instagram Reels and TikTok (if applicable, which is a subject for another day)!