You’ve got your marketing plan in place, you know what you want to promote and to whom, now you just have to tell the world about it… oh yeah, that bit…!
Let’s look at what you want to blog about, make a list of the two most important services or products your business has and think about them first.
You have to have the blog idea first!
Getting your ideas and titles can be the trickiest part of the whole process, that’s why it’s sometimes better to start with an idea or a problem to solve and work on the title last.
When searching for information most readers look at the first and last three words in a title, so make them count.
You’ll find that by the time you’ve constructed the rest of the blog post, a title can jump right out at you! It’s best to have at least 3 titles to choose from.
Blog headline and ideas tip: There are lots of blog ideas and title generators out there but sometimes the best ones come from you.
1. What will the outline of the post cover?
We’ll use the example of one service for this exercise. Think about the service you want to promote for example Course Creation, specifically for your target audience, say Coaches. You will want to consider the following and create these subtitles:
- What the course will be about and its title
- How much content will be covered in the course
- When you’ll launch it and if you will have a pre-sale
- When it will go live!
2. Get those key points down
Once you have your subtitle headings for the post make some notes about what to include in each paragraph. You can do this by writing straight forward sentences or dot points.
Dot points are often easier for most readers to comprehend quickly.
3. Set up the back end of your website correctly
To make sure that your work gets seen on the ‘world wide web’ you need to ensure that your website is configured just right in the back end, you know that part that you’re just not sure about.
This is where you add categories, tags & keywords for search engine optimisation (SEO).
You can either add to this list as you write, or go back over your text at the end and pull out all the words that you think people will put into search engines like Google. You can also bold or CAPITALISE these words throughout your post so that they stand out, but not too many. Search engines search for bolded words as well, ie “how to create an online course”.
4. Give them what they need
When most people are searching online for how to do something these days they love to get a freebie. The more tips and hints you give people about how to achieve what they’re trying to do the better, it sets you up as a leader in your field or industry. Someone that knows how to get things done.
Having a free document that helps them or makes them realise that they really can’t do that, or just don’t want to, makes the reader think about using YOUR services instead.
This freebie will also add to your marketing list by gaining people’s email addresses before they can download the freebie, an opt-in.
5. Affiliate Links, Images, Social
One of the last things to think about is where your fantastic blog post will be shared.
Add any affiliate links you might have for products or services and make sure you have beautiful images to make your post pop!
Always have a plan
Use a Blog planner to help you write your first post.