Blogging: The Ultimate Game-Changer for Website Growth with Jillian Henning
Guest expert Jillian Henning and I dove into the world of blogging and website content creation, discussing how it can supercharge your website's growth.
Learn valuable methods and insider tips that will make your content creation easier and more effective. Whether you're a seasoned blogger or just starting out, this livestream is packed with actionable insights to help your website and blog be more impactful.
Transcript below!
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Back to the Unlocking Website Success I think that's the name of the series
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And we are on our fourth interview and that today we're talking all about blogging with Jillian Henning
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um Jillian is a blogging expert that's what she does she
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um essentially is a ghost in content and all sorts of other versions of writing blogs for people and so I don't that
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that sounds in my personal I won't lie it sounds like my worst nightmare um mostly because I when I was a virtual
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assistant I did some basic social media poster people and anytime I had to try and write like I was somebody else it
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literally I find it to be the most draining thing in the world but um some people are good at it
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and I'm sure you got to learn about lots of fun topics so let's hear a little bit about you and your journey to
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starting written by Jillian sure so just to sort of reunify what you had said
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there so I'm a Content writer but I tend to specialize in creating blog content for businesses so I enjoy helping
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business owners take the hassle out of the writing um writing for others and setting the way that the business wants
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to speak to Consumers through a strategic written content um and I find and the business owners
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also find that this enables them to convey their brand personality and message to their ideal customer a lot
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better um hi I got into it oh my goodness that would take up the whole um if they are
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here um so I've been writing for years um on my own blog and I just happened to
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get in touch with lady who owns the digital marketing agency so she asked could I write some things for her and I
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was sort of doing that in the background um aside from working full-time in a job that was not writing related
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um and it took off from there really and I didn't really shout about it until covid sort of struck and everyone
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um sort of had to pivot what they were doing so I was in a job that I knew I wouldn't go back to it was best in
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sports so I knew Sports were just um so I thought oh could I lean into here
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that I really enjoy and as I say the writing had been going on in the background I thought this I guess I do
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this I could actually tell people that I do this and why I haven't told anyone I didn't I don't really know
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seems really silly now I but um so yeah I decided this and I'm just
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going to tell everyone that I actually can write and I write for businesses already and um with the backing of my
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good friend Amy who give me a bit of a kick up the bum she said come on let's Tell people
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so of course I announced it on social media and oh my goodness the sport I had was Unreal um just off the back of that
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and um I've been writing for so many other digital agencies small businesses large businesses and that's like
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nearly world not worldwide but like I write for a lot of businesses here a lot of businesses in England even over in um
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I write for a few businesses in New York so I'm very fortunate try for a lot of different businesses
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and different niches that's really exciting and I love the variety that that brings and it'll also be really
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good on millionaire as the million point caller maybe you know I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff
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so nobody else yeah I think yeah you probably are a
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good one for that because you have so many different things that you're researching for what you're writing about
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that would be good in the table quiz I found I used to do context switching I
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used to write obviously when I first moved here I wrote quite a lot in like British English and then yeah wrote A Lot in American English and I
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a couple years into my business I was like I really want that Global feel I don't really want to pin myself into
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this local market so I start I just switched everything into American English which
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I don't know what took me so long because it was I don't have to think anymore it's just in like my sort of native yeah that's just how you
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naturally do it but yeah I'm sure for you it's that's
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um but it's wild because I used to have to write you know in in different places
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and I know that it's only a few extra use and S is really but no I know that's
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things you definitely have to watch like for the changing of the spelling and I'm continually doing that
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that's interesting nonetheless I did try the sort of nation the different markets
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because that's what people tell you to do when you start a business you know Niche Niche niche and I did Niche and I
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hated it I just learned the writing really repetitive because sometimes there's only
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a certain number of ways you can say the same thing and I really miss the variety so I decided to go against what everyone
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was telling me I think that's the thing though is there was something definitely in like
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say I started my business in 2018. so there's something that kind of
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really went on between 2018 2020 where it was just like everyone was screaming Niche and now we're sort of in this era
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of the multi-passionates of the um yeah of having more variety of not
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putting all of your eggs in one basket which is I think obviously similar it's like a recession proofing but it's
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definitely also people aren't one thing right none of us are like only good at
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one thing yeah and it can feel really restrictive right yeah and I I think that that definitely
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stood out for me when I see businesses that solely rely on
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like social media to sell their business you know a lot of people just sell on Instagram and just have their customers
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on Instagram or maybe on Twitter and then once those sites you know sometimes you see they have glitches and the site
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will crash or next thing you know Instagram's dying and I always think to myself what would you do if that was just for
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your customers were and you just have them through that how would they find you how would they how would you know who they are especially if you have say
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on Instagram yeah you've got Panthers and followers but maybe you'll need a thousand people actually purchase from
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you how would you know who those thousand people were you know unless you have another form like the likes of a
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website or a mailing list where they can stay in touch with you and you can stay in touch with them so I
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think it is really important that people don't put all all their eggs in one basket yeah both in their where you sell
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but also even in your services and offerings totally oh my goodness yes you
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need to be able to Pivot some of that for sure yeah and I think that's probably we'll get into sorry I've got a
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lot of questions for you but just let me go off on a tangent look at all
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these things that like um oh I've just lost my train of thought but essentially we were talking about niching and not putting all of your eggs
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in one basket yes but I think the other thing is um I think the thing about business that I
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really doesn't go with my personality type that I've had to learn to just embrace is it constantly changes
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[Music] um like I personally would have loved to be like all right set up my business set up
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my marketing strategy let's go let's run with it but we change our business has changed our needs change at the
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industries change uh the world changes climates change both physically and
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otherwise yeah so yeah yeah and they have to be ready for that
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definitely it needs to be part of like your contingencies or a business plan doesn't it really yeah
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exactly and I think it's there's a million ways to do it I think that's one of the other fun and challenging
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parts of businesses is there's no right answer yeah but and even as I said if
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I'm sort of introducing myself you know I I had to sort of think when when covet
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came from the job that I was in I did need to all of a sudden have right things have to change and I had to lean
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into what I well not only what I was good at but what I enjoyed doing so and
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you have to be ready for that change and take that leap and just go for animating if it doesn't work out it doesn't work
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out but at least you give it a go you know definitely [Music] so I could talk about all these better
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ideas business things forever but let's talk about vlogging because that's what we're here to talk about so tell me a
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little bit or tell us I suppose about the basics of blogging for your business
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so all of you had no idea where to start like what would you tell someone how to get started with yeah Basics
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ideas of blogging for people who've maybe been like um okay well if if a business is going to
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start a blog I would first of all say you need to really think about what your goals are with the blog
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blogging having a Blog on your website can bring a lot of positives it can
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bring you know you can have really good SEO which I know we're going to speak about anyway so I'll just talk about
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that briefly um you can help you through rankings on Google and it can increase the website
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traffic to your actual site people will be visit or maybe if you post a blog and someone you know click on the link and
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next thing you know it takes you to your website but that can keep people on your website so they'll maybe read your blog
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the movie read another Blog then they'll maybe go to the packages that you offer read more about you so it can help keep
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people on your actual website it can really help with lead generation and that being most websites I see for sure
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normally it should have I always recommend should have a pop-up of some description where you can capture
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people's information to add them to a mailing list and sort of nurture that as well
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um and that can bring a good source of customer retention into your website and your newsletter as well
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um it's also a blogging really good for social media posts I mean you can write a blog that's going to be 500 800 even
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up to a thousand words and you can just regurgitate that out for a month of content it just just on
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like Twitter Instagram LinkedIn any or any of those platforms Facebook even by
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just taking me Snippets of the blog um a Blog can also be repurposed into
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numerous different forms of content I mean it could keep your content going for months you know you can turn one
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single blog like into an ebook you can turn it into you could create video content around it and again it could be
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a lead magnet to get people to sign up to your newsletter yeah you can create
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infographics out of it you can create a webinar out of it
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show notes for a podcast the list is endless um for what you can get out of one
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single blog um so I would definitely Define so that's quite often the tangent again so
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it's come back to Define it defining your goals for the website content um I would also say if you're going to
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start a blog know your target market know who you're writing for or who if you're going to Outsource that who who
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you want the person to write for make sure you do have that person in mind because you could write a blog and you
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could be targeting website content or a Blog you don't want to be targeting someone who's 18 and someone who's 82.
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there's that's too far of a gap you know you need to make sure that you do know who your Target customer is
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I would also say to conduct some keyword research because again you want to try and aim to have your your website ranking
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and you can do that through you know conducting good key or research and you can do that there's plenty of free ways
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to do that and one being like Google Keyword Planner you can use or
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um what was it gonna say our SM rush you can use that as well I'm trying to think what else I use
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um what else well oh make sure that the content is relevant
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especially relevant to the target audience we've just talked about you don't want to be creating things for the sake of creating you know you might say
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to yourself oh I'm gonna have the you know the goal the defining goal could be I'm going to blog post for blogs a month
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but those four blogs need to be relevant content through the business that you have and the audience that you have not
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just posting for the sake of posting and writing something out really really quickly and just hitting publish and say
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done you know there's the big tick beside the page on the to-do list it really does need to be relevant right so
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yeah we're going to you're going to make sure that you know who you're you're what your goal is what you're trying to
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do whether that be yes sales email subscribers
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um Authority building whatever there's a million different goals you can have there right and then you're going to
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know who you're talking to you're going to do some keyword research you're going to
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um post relevant content and personally my go-to for knowing once you know those
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other things my go-to for posting relevant content is just what do you get asked all the time
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like that is it I always say that to people people the first thing a lot of
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businesses with who I chat to I don't know what to post I don't I don't know what to do I said what do you get asked all the
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time what are your frequently asked questions what are you sick to the back teeth of repeating
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that's what you need that that's your first blog that's it right there like when people go to your website they're
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gonna see they're gonna see the questions that they're thinking literally yes right in front of them it's also going to save you all of that
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admin time of answering those questions oh my goodness because you can just point the the
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people in that direction to go onto your website and again happy days are on your website and then they'll maybe have a
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way like grind it you know I know yeah so many people this week ask me how to do something a specific thing in sports
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specifically people are looking to embed social media posts on Squarespace and I have a YouTube video that I've made of
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that and I just keep winging that at people here we go I don't have to answer the question
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totally absolutely but I would say the key thing after you've created a blog
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post is promote it promote it to the health oh my goodness there is nothing worse than writing a blog post and just
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posting at once and then letting it die you know doing you know maybe promoting it once on social media or once
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on Instagram or LinkedIn or you know talk about it on week one talk about it
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on week five talk about it week nine like don't just let it die a day app on your website you've got to get out there
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and promote it that's really really important right that it's used again you know that's you could do that a lot
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through creating Evergreen content which is you know a nevergreen builder I never bring content is content that can be
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used on repeat you know there's no date there's no yeah as well is I actually there's something
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in the human brain that if they see a date as old on a blog post they'll just kind of go oh it's out of date but a lot
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of this stuff especially service providers or even people products that are showcasing their products the the
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content doesn't go out of date and let's turn that off I turn dates off on almost
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every blog I create that's really great you like that my husband he's a
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different type of techie to me and his blog he has it set up sort of like
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Garden theme so it tells people okay this has been recently refreshed or this blog post needs pruned
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um or those kinds of things like it has like classes um which I think is really interesting but yeah it can be so let's say
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somebody is starting their blog and they've come up with all these you know they've come up with some content based
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on the frequently asked questions where do they go from there
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think about piecing it together in a way that you need to come up with a catchy title something that is going to spike
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interest without it being clickbait titled yeah so um something that always
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piques my interests would be a number or I don't know how to so you think how to
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do this or guess what our or a number that is
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odd because it's really easy to post five ways to do this and 10 ways to do
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this but maybe even go for seven or three or four something people sometimes think oh why didn't they come up with an
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extra number there I think sometimes those headlines are that title is is really good when it's a strange number I
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think people love a listicle like this has been it's become obviously like BuzzFeed perfected this 10 15 20
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years ago um 15 probably yeah but but the um like
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a listicle is a fairly easy for you to write yeah um B it's easily consumable I think what
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I see as a website designer and this is across all content but especially website is or a Blog as people will
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write a nice blog it's filled with Incredible information but it's a massive wall of text
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and so he's going to read that because you haven't taken the time to put in headings to do a numbered lists or
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bullet points you haven't added imagery um so it's just a big roll of text that nobody's going to read because it's too
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overwhelming when you look at that big wall of text oh gosh totally it's much better to break it down into sizeable
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chunks especially because a lot of times when you log when you go to read a Blog people will tend to skim it first and
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then I think oh this is actually interesting they'll maybe go back and read it again
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people tend to just read the parts that are relevant to them and that's in human nature and it's also the problem with
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our like shorter attention span oh totally especially because you know content is just quick consuming at the
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minute you know that's what people want especially with with video being so popular so yeah I think a Blog needs to
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be to the point you can't have rambling in it I find for sure because that's
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just taken up space where people aren't interested in reading so you know it has to be a quick introduction you've got to
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tell the people what you're going to tell them and then just get straight into town limit I think
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yeah I had a teacher in school back in like my early early days so when I was in high
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school and so we were getting ready to go into uni and so our writing had to be quite good
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um she I really struggled with creative writing classes after her because she redlined
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anything she considered fluff so you she taught you to write in such a concise way which is very very useful but I
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tried to take a creative writing class later like I don't have anything more to say that's the whole point like this is there's
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everything on the page and they're like but where's the like I'm like there is none there's nothing in there like
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yeah um but yes okay so you've started blogging you're kind of being mindful of
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who you're posting for why you're posting um and you're creating that Authority and
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you're creating that content so let's talk about I know this is gonna come up so I just
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want to knit this question in the butt like this again knowing what you get asked a lot um
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how often should somebody be writing blog posts for their business I recommend four blog posts a month
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that's what I tend to recommend um but even if someone posts one a month
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from going from nothing to one is impressive because these things take time it takes time to write a blog I can
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appreciate that so not every business owner has that time and I I guess that's
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why I get clients because maybe it's not necessarily their Forte they don't like
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it they're not interested in it but they know that they need it for their business and that's really important
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that once they recognize that I mean that's bonus so I always
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recommend for a month but it takes time it takes time to build up
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you know the Google rankings and so you can't just post a few blog posts and
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think you're going to be on page one of Google that's not how it works unfortunately it was a long game
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it is it is a long game but the bonus to that is okay you're creating that
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content but as we've already said you can use it in a ton of different ways
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um as well along the way while you're sort of waiting on that taking over
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um but also just makes a mix you know Google likes unique relevant con content you know if you're
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trying to rank in the in the in the Google top three or even on the first page of Google like Google has its own
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set of like really like instructions of what you need to do in order to you know
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rank you know that it has to be high quality content there has to be maybe good backlinks in it a good search
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intent the content needs to be relevant um not just content but like your
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website has to have a really good speed it needs to be user friendly and there needs to your keywords need to be
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optimized and um not keyword stuffed you know if you've decided you're going to rank for Content writer in Northern
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Ireland you don't want your whole blog to be a Content writer Northern Ireland a deleting content or in Ireland angels
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in Northern Ireland it's a content right you know you don't want to be really repetitive and stuff your blog with
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those keywords it needs to really go in a natural flow a good storytelling flow
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um yeah so
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um let's talk we've kind of touched on this a little bit but I want to talk more about search engines so search engine
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though like one of the like in my opinion as a website designer there are
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a few really important reasons to have a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel that you add into your blog essentially
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a long form content piece on your website that you also then whether it be a podcast or YouTube you want to make
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sure the words are there because of search engines right so and for accessibility you want to be
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able to cover people who maybe not visual or auditory Learners they want to be able to read it
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so my point is so the reasons I see for this are Authority building yes which is
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huge I see um yeah search engines so um so it's and then yeah that kind of uh
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answering people's questions before they've got to it so those are probably the biggest ones I'm sure there's a million other reasons to have a Blog
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um but it's really important for people to go they go to your website they go to your blog to see okay she actually does
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know her right yes yes and then they go which is what you're sort of
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talking about they might they spend more time on your site but they're during that time which is good for your search
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engine rankings and stuff too and it's good for your analytics but during that time the more important thing is you are
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building trust with that person through what you know and how you're helping them with that content
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um and then yeah so and then and that's what Google's seeing too when you're doing a good thing that's how search
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engines work yes they appreciate that the post is informative well-structured unique all
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those things and that's not to say you can't write about things that have already been read about we all know there's nothing new Under the Sun
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there's a million other people out there talking about Squarespace Shopify and Business Systems I'm not the only one
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out there making these videos but it's I'm creating them for probably a
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different audience than some of the other people I'm also using my unique teaching style and voice
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um to these things so yeah I think I think that's what I'm saying so more about all of that let's
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talk about so in search engines I just want to give a mini Spiel search engines
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are a long game and when we say SEO that search engine optimization um primarily people are going to be
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using Google for that because they have a near Monopoly on the search engine game
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um but there are others out there bang and there's the one that plants trees that I always forget the name of
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um it's like an Eco one word every time you search something they plant a tree or something and there are other options
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out there but primarily you're going to be wanting to play Google's game because as a business owner that's what you have
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to do and it's really about like we said creating good content making it easily
24:54
digestible um making sure that yes your page speeds
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your website is optimized and there's without getting too much into it there's a million ways to optimize your website
25:07
for SEO and I Squarespace has a list on their website on how to do it
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um but the thing is is you're never going to hit Perfection there's too many factors there are like hundreds of
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factors that go into nail it all there's no way you could no way and so it's
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about just doing what you can um and so yeah let's talk about so for
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example I think the probably the most vague thing for people is and
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probably with as simplest as you can put it but like how would one go about doing a little bit of keyword optimization so
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you've mentioned a couple of tools like semra semrush and Google's ad tool for
25:49
that as well but like if you're looking for keywords for your business in your me so so I'm a website designer I don't
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really Target Northern Ireland like how do you go about being like okay I'm a website designer do Squarespace
26:01
I help us you know tend to help micro businesses and that's what I know about my business
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yeah so you can infiltrate a lot of that into into your writing um but again like I say with like stuff
26:13
in it but um but you can do that through your blog through your website through well the
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Google is Google my business um it's putting all those those keywords
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into those sources yeah but I would say speaking
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specifically to blogs how do you know what keywords to actually use how where would you start well I would I tend to
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use the Google Keyword Planner so I'll go in and I'll have a look in there on because it can tell you specifically
26:46
who's searching for what in your area so for example when I wanted
26:51
to rank for Content writer Northern Ireland I went in and searched but no one was
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searching for Content writer because in Northern Ireland people were searching for copywriter
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and copywriter and content writer while they can do a lot of the same things they're not the same thing
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so I knew I wasn't going to be able to rank for Content writer because no one's
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searching for that in Northern Ireland so I had to write my blogs and such a
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way that I was talking about myself as a copywriter in Northern Ireland so when
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people search those words they were that's when I was going to come up um but that took a lot of work
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like you say it's really it's long it's a long game so that's creating content
27:42
with those those keywords and and um but using those tools to search for it and
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knowing what people are searching for as well so that you can create that content with those keywords
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um is important also
27:58
still a ghost sorry I keep adjusting my light because I'm like properly my camera's doing a thing where I'm um it's
28:05
white balancing a lot and I can't it's very distracting sorry you might mine sort of freezes a way better yes I'm
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like I don't want to be talking over here so just I'm going to recap a couple of things that for my notes here so we did
28:17
talk a little bit about a blogging schedule yeah you're right it's really what you can attainably do yeah at
28:24
feasibly do regularly so I try in my business I'm doing this summer series one a week which is a lot for me but I
28:31
typically would try and create two long form content pieces um a month plus my newsletter which for
28:39
some people that's a long term my newsletter is like a thousand words every month which is like
28:46
doesn't work for all Industries but people my newsletter is broken down into the categories it's very much to take
28:51
what you want type and newsletter and I could break that up but I've chosen not to
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so yes so blogging schedule is up to you but just make sure to do it and do it
29:03
consistently is the key yes and then that's not just for your because once you have a solid Bank of content that's
29:10
a beautiful thing but also Google knows when you're posting regularly Google
29:16
knows when you've taken that break when you've gone on holiday
29:21
this is everything um and then yeah for search engines it's really thinking about what are people
29:27
putting into Google when they're thinking about how to hire someone who does what you do or looking for the product that you offer
29:34
um and using those tools to really narrow that down I actually so we're about to get into a controversial topic
29:41
but I think my favorite tool for the SEO side of things not for Content creation
29:46
but for keyword research for um SEO metadata
29:53
um and those types of things is actually artificial intelligence I love telling
29:58
um and that's not to use it exactly but I love asking Google give me
30:04
20 ranking keywords for this thing and then being able to use my human brain and go this is how this is actually
30:10
going to work right yeah because I think that's the big thing when you do use AI you know you really
30:16
you have to put the Personal Touch into it and you do have to you know you can't just take the AI word for it as such that this is
30:23
what this is what is ranking and with all that sort of information online for sure absolutely but I think it is helpful
30:30
because I think a lot of people genuinely don't really know where to start
30:36
um and I think yeah I think once you have an idea and again if you have a
30:41
whatever as I know anybody who's learned about or used any version of an AI
30:47
language model so chat jbt or Bard or any of the others um Jasper like you'll know that
30:54
they sound the same over and over again they love exactly
30:59
jargony clickbaity tone no matter how much you try and train it out of them it's like
31:06
seven things to level up blah blah blah like everything is very much like
31:13
sometimes I like it can be aggressive I find that yeah so they're really into this
31:20
yeah so I find when I do use it and I don't use it for my content but I do occasionally use it for trying to come
31:26
up with a subject line or a title or whatever what I've done is actually feed my entire me written website I did not
31:34
touch AI in writing my website my entire website through so it has all of everything it needs to
31:41
know about me and my business and what we do and what what why it matters and all of that and then but it's still it's
31:48
still like I ask it for what I want to do a headline I still tell it to do like five so that I can oh yeah and you can
31:54
pick them so that I can like be like that one I love the front part and that one I like the end and then I'm gonna take that word out of it and shorten it
32:04
um so I think that's really good but I also think that I take that headline that I quite like
32:09
and I run that through share throughs analyzer I don't know if you use share through share through has a really good
32:16
subject line or headline analyzer um and it will tell you if you're using how clickable essentially it is and how
32:23
much Google's going to like it um and so it'll say if you're using if it's long enough if you're using action
32:30
words if you're using um a passive tone those kinds of things it'll kind of help you optimize so once
32:36
I have a headline I like either that's written by me or helped with AI I usually will run it through that for a
32:41
little bit of like of a sense check I guess is the best way
32:46
yeah just uh let's just confirming that you've picked the right one yes or if I
32:52
you know need to just re-jig it just a little bit but I never you I think
32:57
I never let a tool tell me what I already know like if it's like this whole thing is bad and I'm like but
33:03
that's the subject line that I get asked directly like those words are the ones used
33:08
then F the tool like you use your what use what you know in your gut right yeah I think
33:15
there's a really big push on the likes of well I'll just talk about um chop GPT I mean that's the one I know
33:22
most about I think a lot of people are using that to create content for their website blogs and so on and
33:28
I have read websites where they've used that for blogs and it is really repetitive
33:34
um and I also think that a lot of people maybe don't know like with uh chat GPT
33:40
that if you're using the free version the information that it's crawling for is only validated up until I think it's
33:48
2020 or something yeah they updated it I think last in March
33:54
but they're that's three months that there is stuff that you don't know that the internet doesn't have so people are putting statistics into the Vlogs and
34:00
all that and I'm like this is this is years old now you know but I don't think that you know that they don't maybe don't know that
34:06
and as well as that um obviously that's written in like an American tone so
34:13
people are maybe are just cutting and piercing and I'm like you're you're a business in Belfast why
34:20
are you talking like this like what are you writing it so I don't think people sometimes take the time to read it back
34:27
and like there's no personality in those in that content on that blog you know especially if you are say for
34:34
example a small business and you're wanting to create content for your website that way like it's only you that
34:39
knows your personal story of your business so that's the way you have to write it I think and that's what people
34:46
that's what will appeal to people and again that like we were saying it's sort of at the beginning there about you know
34:51
the trust issue if you're you're writing it from your perspective and not relying
34:57
upon AI I think that's the thing is is you're a human brain so you're going to
35:04
be able to use someone's brand voice read their things and you're not going to go revert back to your like
35:10
programming right so like like I said I fed my entire website into chat jbt and it still will speak like itself more
35:17
often that it will speak like me um yeah no matter what it will revert to
35:23
that bro marketing sound and not to sounding like me whereas you're a human brain and so you
35:30
don't have that problem right you can be like read a few pieces of what your person writes like and then write like
35:35
them definitely and you can see that where a business has decided I'm going to write
35:41
a blog and then they've decided oh I'm actually going to use or chat topt now and the difference
35:49
between blog one and blog two is so very obvious because it's just Bland like yeah and if
35:57
you're say a social media like a business that's pretty good at social media if somebody comes from your social media
36:03
to your website which you're hoping happens oh I know you're gonna know and that's gonna be amazing I think who is
36:09
that person like this person is really has a real casual laid back don't want to bite them but yeah then when you go
36:16
to read their website it doesn't read that way it's very professional release you know um
36:22
and I think you think that's not that person and then it's very obvious and it doesn't matter how many times like I can
36:28
tell chat gbt write this in a casual tone add emojis
36:33
and it still uses that same language and it's the it's even if it's casual it's still using that like those like
36:40
clickbaity words right yeah level up how many times I've asked it to write me
36:47
something and it's like level up and I'm like and I know I've used a few of them because sometimes the word level up is
36:53
appropriate but most the time I don't think it is no because sometimes you'll type something write it in a funny tone
36:58
and then you're like that's not really funny what you think you think's funny what I think is funnier two different things but I was I remember being at a
37:06
networking event maybe I'll be riding maybe two months ago and there was a guy we were talking actually about this
37:11
because I said what my job was and he's like are you not finding that you're nearly out of work because of this and I
37:17
said absolutely not because people are using it and then we quickly realizing what is this producing here
37:24
um I'm gonna have to you know maybe the mirror blog and they're like I'm gonna have to fix this but I don't know how to fix this
37:30
um but and his analogy was which I thought was interesting is the Thursday I you know it's like an eight-year-old
37:36
thinks it knows everything but you have to feed it the right information first
37:41
in order to get the correct answer so you really have to nurture that AI whatever tool you're using in
37:50
order to try and get the right information yeah and not only that but it doesn't
37:55
remember it long term similar to an eight-year-old like six months later it's not going to remember all that stuff like I thought it was an
38:02
interesting analogy and I think because obviously I have a nine-year-old at home but I think yeah well she thinks she knows it all but then she'll go sugar
38:09
mum is that right Mom can you Google that say that to me but like AI
38:16
going right into it well maybe can you elaborate on this or what do you mean by this I'm like I don't really understand
38:21
what it's talked about either and whereas the trolled all this information from yeah I think that's it's valid and I
38:28
think that's why writing it yourself you can ask Chad gbt for an outline or some books clear for that I'm not saying it's
38:35
the worst in the world at all like it's really good for brainstorming ideas but when it comes to writing the content you
38:41
need to do that yourself exactly yeah yeah exactly you need to be generating your own thoughts essentially and for
38:48
lots of reasons but because if you put up something directly from chat jbt or
38:53
from any other language model um you're probably essentially plagiarizing because that's all they can do is like spit out what's already out
38:59
there and you're gonna sound like everybody else which isn't gonna do you any favors
39:04
um yeah and if you actually if you tend to ask it a question someone else has asked the same question
39:11
they're getting the same content that you're getting so in essence you could nearly have
39:16
content that's exactly the same as a competitor and people could Wonder well
39:22
where has that came from and then it's going to be pretty obvious what has happened yeah exactly exactly
39:28
so say you've taken the time to thoughtfully write out your own blog post
39:34
and you've you've shouted about it you've you've taken the time to schedule out posts to social media
39:42
um wherever your preferred platforms are that your community is hanging out and that it's going to actually make a bit of a splash on or make an impact and
39:49
then you've done that a couple of times you know you scheduled another version of that post to go out a few weeks later
39:56
what else are you to do with that blog post we've talked a lot about this like I know you've talked about this but I want to make sure
40:02
all about how to repurpose a blog post so we talked about this a little bit earlier about all the ways you can do it
40:09
um but I would love for people to hear it again and hear it a little more in depth sure so I would always recommend if you
40:16
have a blog post that I said before you don't want to write the blog post and then just hit publish and just expect
40:23
people to necessarily come to that blog post so you promoted it but you need to
40:28
keep it going blog posts can have a really long life span and that's through people finding it through search engines
40:36
but also you promoting that and using it in different ways so once you have created your blog post and you've posted
40:43
that and you've told people maybe you can go over onto social media and advertise the fact that you have this blog post but you can also start to
40:49
create post side of it um I don't want uh for example myself I
40:55
would post maybe three times a week on say Instagram so I can take the first
41:00
paragraph of the blog post and I can turn that into one post and the second could be the post on Wednesday and the
41:07
third could post on Friday and always linking it back to trying to
41:12
get the capture those people onto the website so I would tend to do that that's one way of of using it over on social media
41:19
then I'll create it and create that in an even shorter form into a newsletter
41:25
where you again you can link that back to your website but give TT's people in
41:31
the newsletter with a bit of information about what's in the blog but you want them to go you want them to go to the
41:36
website and read the whole blog so don't give them all the information in the newsletter uh tease them so that they
41:43
can go over and use it there um I briefly touched on using it as a lead magnet you know when someone comes
41:49
onto your website it can be a really good to turn what people you know what people have
41:55
asked you for if you're doing like the frequently asked questions and so on you can create that into some sort of a the
42:01
lead magnet a template download a resource something like that but it has
42:07
to be something that is people want it has to be something that's in demand for enough for people to give you their
42:13
email address to want to part without precious information but it's a good way to turn a blog post into
42:20
um something that they want if you know it you've done your research and this is what you're adding customer wants
42:28
um another great way is to turn it into a snippet of a video come on and talk about what you've vlogged about you know
42:34
talk about one of the points you've made and you can say in the video I've talked about this more over on my blog and
42:40
direct people again over there um if you see that you may be on social media have a lot of Engagement about the
42:47
blog you could think maybe people really want to know more about this and which case you could turn that into
42:54
a web series or you could do go live and talk a bit more about it where people
42:59
come in in the comments on the live stream ask more questions about it
43:05
um but that again can generate even more content ideas for you because of the
43:11
questions people are asking um because there are things that people don't know and sometimes you can assume
43:16
people know something and they actually don't just because you know it and it's so second nature to you I think that's
43:22
the thing is when I was first starting to create content I was like I don't know what to say because everybody knows what I know or it's
43:27
already out there and it took me ages to finally realize that most people don't know what comes natively to me exactly yeah I'm a
43:34
sisters freak I'm Monica Geller I'm cleared on fee like no there's there are a handful of us out there but there are
43:39
not a lot of people and there's also not a lot of web designers that are systems based and there's not a lot of people
43:45
essentially there's not a lot of me's like right there's not a lot of people that think the way that I think
43:51
and um so getting loud about whatever comes naturally to you is gonna be a really
43:57
good thing to do I also think that one question I often get about when I start talking about content repurposing is
44:04
like I don't want to sound like a broken record what if everyone sees it gets really annoyed here's the thing is is
44:09
most people can like consume content in a way that feels good so you could
44:14
create and I am for the series I'm creating a podcast an image a Blog it's going on social media it goes in my
44:21
newsletter um it goes everywhere right like it's going everywhere and nobody's annoyed
44:26
and the only person if somebody is listening seeing all of those things they are my Super Fan they are not gonna
44:32
exactly oh my goodness exactly because you can post on social media you can
44:37
post one week and post the exact same post maybe you've maybe changed the template or the graphic and just copy
44:45
the caption but the chances are no one is going to realize that you posted that six weeks ago because they are consuming
44:52
so much content on a daily basis the people really overthink that that is
44:58
like when it comes to social media like it's very easy to be passing ships of the night you have to begin at the right
45:03
time to see something something that somebody's produced so yeah there's a million reasons that that's not a
45:09
problem at all like I mean
45:18
before you know you know what you can sort of see on your mobile there's not a lot of people who's going to screw it away back and start reading all your
45:25
captions so I really think people overthink that and you know that they
45:30
can't write the same thing you absolutely can there's no problem with that and even with the same content so
45:36
that blog post there's been times so I've written blog posts where then I've turned that blog post into uh an insta
45:42
remember igtv an igtv and then later down the line I've turned
45:48
that into a podcast episode it's been a part of my newsletter like because the things that you are an expert in or a
45:54
thought leader in like people need to hear it but also you're gonna need to have fresh ways to
46:01
talk about it over time and I know sometimes it can be like oh I'm so sick of hearing myself talk about this but
46:06
the thing is is they also say that it takes like the average person like at least seven times of exposure to something yeah oh like right thanks in
46:15
yeah definitely oh no I totally agree with that and I do that with a lot of my content I will
46:21
repurpose it on repeat because yeah I mean you can think of new things
46:27
when it when it comes up but sometimes you can't and there's no need to so you
46:33
don't really need to reinvent the wheel you know and the thing is there's some things in business no matter your business are seasonal right like oh yes
46:40
whether it's a program you run at a certain time of year or a product that's most often or a sale you have like I've
46:46
had emails that I've sent from one year to another promoting something that were like nearly the same exact thing like
46:52
very few tweaks because nobody's gonna care or remember that I sent the same email that time last year I do that with
46:59
my newsletter I mean I'll hold my hands up that's what I do I'll just go to Xbox and I'll go schedule and it will go
47:05
again you know months later because there's new people on the subscription list
47:10
and they haven't seen it um do they care about the cop the exact
47:15
copy that I promote my annual um Power Hour birthday sale with like yeah they just want to know if they want
47:22
the sale or not like that's it exactly exactly so let's talk a little we're run
47:27
low on time so I just want to talk okay we've touched on lead generation um so lead generation and basic basic
47:34
terms out there is collecting um people's information so that you can continue to Market towards them and and
47:41
that could be an email list or it could be a formal form on your contact form under website that you know or um
47:47
booking a call with you all of those are forms of lead generation and I'm going to only pass it over to you in a second
47:53
but what I want to say is the way that I do this in my business um I have a form on my contact page that
47:59
people can like Book on a call with me immediately and there's some questions like there's a form attached to that
48:04
call link that I need so that I know I'm going into that call prepared so that's one that's like direct lead that is like
48:11
a hot lead right um of somebody who wants to probably work with me but I also have in I have I
48:18
have a YouTube video about this I'll try and Link it below but about how to create a blog post template
48:25
and I do this in two ways well actually no I would do it in one way I don't have a newsletter template but I do this in
48:30
one way is I have um in the back end of Squarespace I have a Blog template that it literally says
48:36
like headline subject line description and then underneath it it always says
48:42
because I mostly create video content these days um so then it says transcript below has
48:47
a big video block and then it has a collapsible area and accordion area for
48:52
the transcript then underneath it it says something like want a little more help here's how to get a power hour with
48:58
me or if it's inappropriate it might have a link to my
49:03
um my freebie which right now is a quiz it's five like the how to figure out how to unstick yourself and which system is
49:12
going to be the best to move you forward and how to make that happen in your business and so those are sort of the lead
49:18
Generations I'm either telling them book a call sign up for my emailing list via my fun quiz
49:24
or um here's a really free or not free but a very cheap offer to get started with
49:30
right like that there's a power hour or a system session that is going to be so so an easy entry
49:37
um and those do work I also use some of those same lead magnets in the descriptions of my YouTube videos
49:43
because some times people will find those first because YouTube is a search engine
49:48
um but so that's I guess in essence lead generation and I have that template because then I don't have to do it every
49:54
time I can remove the things that don't fit for that specific blog post but I'm not having to add each one in
50:01
yes yes so that's my whole like Spiel on creating a system and an automation
50:07
because that's who I am but as far as how to make that effective in your blog
50:12
post that's what I want to hear more about from you so I you can capture that information
50:18
how to like make it so that the blog post supports getting someone to actually fill that out right
50:24
um and and vice versa so you're you create this blog post you've got some sort of lead capture in it how are you
50:31
actually encouraging people to do that how do how do you make it so that it's sounds like a good call
50:38
okay the way I would recommend is you give them really good information in
50:44
the blog but you have to leave them wanting more
50:50
so you'll maybe write a blog post I'm trying to think of an example now um
50:56
where you're saying maybe for example you're writing a blog post about oh how to get great clickable headlines
51:03
for your blog post so you'll write you'll write out you know don't use clickba you've got all your bullet
51:09
points and then you get to the bottom and you're coming you're sort of wrapping up things and you're wanting to get people to sign up to your to your
51:15
mailing list for example so you're right you could write something like oh about
51:20
signing up and I'll get you know the lead line it could be 50
51:26
great clickable headlines do you know so you're writing at the bottom that you've done the work for them they don't
51:32
need to think you've read the blog post you know what's good here is a list for you so you really
51:39
need to be writing in that book with offering them something that they want right
51:44
that they are they will find useful because yeah they've just read a blog post about how to create it but they still might be thinking
51:50
I'm not so sure about this but there it is presented right in front of them you've built the authority by saying
51:57
this is how you do it but if you don't have the time or the energy here's 50 templates you can start with or 50 great
52:02
examples that have performed in this way right and then they're already thinking
52:08
well this person has come up with this for me what else can they come up with me or come up for yeah and then like I
52:16
talk about this a lot and we will be talking about this in a future um video in the series but email marketing is it's such a privilege to
52:23
show people's inbox she has you can build that relationship over time
52:29
um but also it's against you're not passing ships in the night they can open it whenever they feel up to it
52:37
um and it's just like I have a very small email list comparatively but I have my email open rates are like
52:45
50 which is huge right for for them for for most
52:50
Industries yeah so it's that that privilege of you have the ability to build that relationship
52:56
there's no way that half of my um like say Instagram followers see
53:02
anything that I do there's no way I'm not getting totally agree 700 people on
53:07
every story that I do it's not happening but half of my email list is engaging
53:12
every single time around the same year and I get a lot of
53:17
people that reply to the email and I'll ask further questions um I I love that that makes my day when
53:25
I say that in my inbox oh my God I love it and I love the chat and people will
53:30
come with questions because again those questions are then getting me thinking about what I'm going to show my content
53:36
next and how I can follow up on that email because maybe there's other people
53:42
thinking those questions exactly so it emites the discussion which is I think
53:47
it's exciting I love that I love when people come back to you about I think the magic of content Creation in your
53:53
business or the magic of running a business is that we all say that we do it ourselves whether you have a team or
53:59
not whatever you know we're running a business and yes the brunt of the load is on our shoulders but really running a
54:05
business is it's co-creating all the time you're getting ideas from your customers you're getting ideas from your community you're getting an ideas from
54:12
your email list and you're generating things to meet their needs constantly whether that be content or services or
54:19
products so yeah it is a beautiful thing laughs
54:25
um well thank you so so much for coming on and chatting there's so many good things I'll try in
54:31
in the description um to add I'll there's already links to how to find Jillian but I'll let her
54:38
tell you as well in a moment um but I'll try and add some of the links to some of the resources we mentioned if you have any questions
54:44
absolutely just add a comment below this video we're very happy to answer them
54:49
um and yeah thank you so much everyone for joining us for watching Jillian tell
54:55
us where we can find you sure so I'm all on Instagram written by Jillian and
55:00
still in with the J and I'm on Facebook written by Jillian Henning I'm on LinkedIn Jillian Henning you can't go
55:07
wrong with the name uh I tend to mostly be on Instagram um it's just a platform that I like the best
55:13
um I have best engagement with and the best followers in chat over there so I tend to be there mostly
55:19
um and you can visit also my website which is Jillian heading written by jillianhenning.com fantastic well thank
55:25
you so much for joining thank you and sharing all of your knowledge I've read a lot in there it's
55:31
so don't feel intimidated people it's easy to start with one post yeah
55:38
all right bye everyone thank you
