So You Want to Start a Blog – Part 2

So maybe you stumbled here from a link somewhere on the internet, maybe you have been waiting anxiously since last time for this post or maybe you are reading this somewhere in the future and you just clicked over from the last post. Whichever it is I’m glad you’re here! Last time we talked about choosing a domain and tagline, hosting, themes, headers, buttons and logos. Phew! This week we are going to delve a little deeper into the content part of your blog!  If you missed part one and you want to go catch up, I’ll wait!

Titles

For me one of the hardest parts of writing a new blog post isn’t coming up with the idea, writing the content or even editing the photos, it’s figuring out what to title my post.  You want to make sure you are using your keywords in an organic (and highly searchable way) and also that you are giving the reader a title that tells them what they are getting.  I heard once from this guy, that you should write at least fifteen possible titles for every single blog post you write.  By doing that and by stretching yoru brain you will end up with a better product in the long run.  Also those 14 other potential titles make great tweets, pinterest descriptions and Facebook statuses!!

Content and SEO

This is undoubtedly the most important part of your blog.  How will anyone find you and fall in love with you if you don’t have amazing content. And more importantly how will they find that amazing content if you don’t tell the internet you have it.  SEO stands for search engine optimization.  This in a nut shell is taking your amazing content and figuring out which keywords are going to get you the closest to page one of a search.  I mean when you search for something whether it’s on google, yahoo, bing or whichever engine you prefer how often do you click over to page 2.  If you are like most people the answer is rarely.  The trick to getting your site found more often is to tell the internet what you have to offer.  This can be a tricky task, you don’t want your post to read like a choppy version of keywords, designed with a robot in mind.  You want to find that delicate balance between sounding like a best girl friend and an authority on your topic.  Let’s say you are writing about chocolate cupcakes.  You are going to want to use those words several times throughout your post.  In your title, in the first paragraph, in all your image descriptions.  But be warned, you are probably not the only person writing about cupcakes.  I mean there are millions of bloggers out there, and the chances are good that thousands of them are also writing about or have written about chocolate cupcakes.  The trick is to use a keyword search tool to figure out which words are high frequency searches with low competition.  I like to use Google Adwords, but there are a lot of other options out there as well.

Editorial Calendars

One of the most valuable tools for me as a blogger is maintaining an editorial calendar.  There are a lot of different ways to do this and I am going to share a few.  I personally like to use a plugin called “WordPress Editorial Calendar“.  I adds a category under your existing posts tab in your left hand navigation bar and gives you a monthly calendar view of ALL the blog posts you have started and when they are scheduled to go live.  It also shows you which ones are still in draft and which have been scheduled or published.  My favorite feature has to be the ability to drag and drop posts from way day to another without going in and changing anything!  This plugin has made blogging so much more manageable doable easier for me!

Another really popular editorial calendar tool is Google Calendar.  Because you can sync your calendar across many different devices (phone, tablet, computer) you always have access to your calendar.  You can color code your calendar to match your needs.  My friend Cori is the google calendar master.  She has different colors for blog posts, blog tasks, personal appointments, birthdays, and everything in between!  You can read all about how she does it HERE!

Planning and Trending Topics

One of the biggest game changers for me in 2014 was getting ahold of a “trending calendar.”  The one I have is put out by Ahalogy and gives a general timeline for when different holidays and topics are becoming popular on Pinterest.  It helped me plan out far in advance what content I was creating and when was the ideal time to start sharing it with my readers.  Now this doesn’t mean I can’t share whatever I want, whenever I want (because I still do that), but it does help me stay focused and not continue making Christmas crafts well into March.  It also helps me have a great arsenal of posts that I can share year after year each time that season comes around.  I am going to share the 2015 version of the Ahalogy Trending Calendar with you here, because I love you all.

If you missed Part 1 you can (and should) go back and read it here.  Don’t forget to check back for Part 3 where I will be tackling all things media related!  PDF’s, photo’s, hero shots, editing software and more!