Day 18 - Blog Content That Works For You
Branding18
Welcome to Day #18 of the 31 Days to Better Branding series! To learn more about this series, click here and find links to the other days so you'll be able to follow along or catch up if you happen to miss anything. I am by no means an expert but after hearing a lot of the same questions, I figured others could benefit from a few lessons in branding. Hopefully it will give you a place to begin or even just a few tips to improve your business and bring you more clients. Feel free to add in your thoughts and what has worked for you in the comments!
Today's post is a little different and I'm so excited because we get to hear from a special guest blogger! Amy from the blog New Nostalgia is joining us today to give us some expert tips. Amy is an incredible person and writer and it's no wonder she has like a bajillion followers. If you haven't been over to visit New Nostalgia's blog or Pinterest boards. You NEED to check them out. I could spend hours and hours going through her content so I knew she was the perfect person to give us some pointers on how she makes it work for her.
Hi everyone! I am so pleased to be a guest here at Beauty Divine today. I want to share with you how I come up with content regularly and also a few tips that will help make the process of coming up with content much easier...
#1 It is ok to break the rules and go with your own flow at times.
My site, New Nostalgia, covers a bunch of topics, i.e. organization, simplicity, healthy eating, slow living, homemaking, beauty & spirituality. The topics I choose to write about and share are really just my own personal interests. Now, in the blog world this is often looked at as a no- no (having so many different topics on one site). Most how-to blogging sites encourage you to chose a specific niche and stick with it, but I go against the flow and it works for me.
#2 Be aware of what might make a good post & document the moments life brings.
Because my blog focuses on many different topics that I love and live by daily, my content just becomes a diary of sorts of what works for me and what I do. This makes choosing content very easy. It happens quite organically with me. If I make a recipe, I make sure I take pictures just in case I want to post about it. If it happens to be a snow day and we stay indoors and make a craft, again, I grab my camera and take pictures. If I am going on a date with my hottie husband and find a fun hairstyle tutorial on Pinterest that actually works, I take a pic and note the tutorial link, just in case I want to use it as a beauty post. If there is something in my own life that I am learning & it is deep, it usually becomes a post on spirituality or it becomes advice I pass on to my 3 girls in a "Leave a Legacy"
post.
#3 Write content according to your own unique personality. Don't box yourself in.
I am not a big planner, so planning content way in advance stresses me out a bit! I do keep lists of ideas when they hit & I do have a Google calendar that has a blog post idea on each day for the week and usually the following week, but it is all very flexible. I love that with Google calendar you can just drag and drop events from one day to the next, which I do often when I change my mind about a post or just feel in the mood to post about chocolate instead of green smoothies!
#4 Remember your category/topic buttons and consult them to make sure you are posting about all categories included in your site, not just one.
Because my blog has so many topics, I have to be careful not to do a whole weeks worth of health related topics and forget about those who read my blog for the organization/simplicity tips. If I choose to do several topics, I must know that I am choosing to write about each of those topics regularly.
#5 It is ok to break #4 suggestion at times.
Again, I'm not one for rules and I recognize there are times when it is okay and appropriate to stay on one type of subject/post for a length of time, or allow that topic to become dominant.
A couple examples for you:
~this very series is an example. Laurie committed to doing 31 Days of Branding and I don't know about you but I am learning a TON. I would be really bummed if she didn't follow through and finish her 31 days. This is an example where sticking to the same topic is a great idea.
~another example is when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was my choice to share my journey with my readers. Because of the organic nature of my blogging style, I just write about life as it happens and so when cancer happened, I wrote about it. I knew my blog would be taking on a new topic, and it was one that would monopolize quite a bit of my writing space for awhile (2 years!) as it was an all consuming battle. This was okay and my blogging community came right along with me. It was a beautiful thing to have their support.
#6 Find what comes easy to you and share it!
Remember that just because something comes easy to you and seems like a no-brainer, that doesn't mean another person would not find it as useful information.
We are all gifted at different things. What comes naturally to one person might not come naturally to the next. There are certain posts that I have written that have thought "is this really something people care about?" Example...my post titled "
My Favorite Way To Cut An Orange"
Yep..I wrote a whole post about how to cut an orange and cringed as I clicked publish, feeling quite insecure about the simple content. Well, guess what? That is one of my MOST popular posts. Who would have thunk it?
#7 Stay true to your self and your voice.
I know Laurie talked about voice in this series, and she was so right on. It is so important to just be your authentic self and that your content reflects this. I often will refer back to my "about me" page, just to refresh myself specifically on what I say my site is about, or on days where I'm staring at a blank page and a cursor flashing at me! Remember, there is only one unique you. Embrace it and be it!
I hope these tips have helped encourage you in some way when it comes to the content of your blog. I would love to hear how YOU come up with content that works for you!
