ProBlogger: How to Build a Blog that Has Lasting Impact Upon Its Readers

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How to Build a Blog that Has Lasting Impact Upon Its Readers Posted: 29 Jun 2022 08:08 PM PDT The post How to Build a Blog that Has Lasting Impact Upon Its Readers appeared first on ProBlogger. Photo by Kristian Angelo on Unsplash If you want to have a blog that makes a difference in the lives of those who read it, I would highly recommend getting clarity around these three simple (yet powerful) questions: Who are your readers? What do they need? How will they change as a result of reading your blog? Previously I wrote very briefly about these questions and suggested that they might be a great way to come up with a purpose statement for a blog. Since that time I’ve had conversations with four ProBlogger readers who took these questions and applied them to their own blogs – and in doing so saw marked improvements in their blogging. So today I want to emphasise them again. Let’s tackle the first two together and then look at the third. Who Are Your Readers? And What Do They Need? Understanding who reads your blog (or at least who you want to read your blog) and what their needs are is so important because it will inform: what kind of content you should create (topics, style of writing etc) how to attract readers to your blog how you can engage with your readers and build community on your blog how you monetise your blog (if this is a goal for you) Understanding your reader also informs things like design, what social media networks you should be engaging in, what subscription methods you should use, how frequently you should publish, and much more. I’ve previously published an exercise in building a reader profile or persona to help you get clarity around this. And if you’re a ProBlogger Member (it’s FREE to join) I’ve got a worksheet that steps you through the process of how to create a reader avatar for your blog. Ultimately – knowing who is reading enables you to take a big step towards producing a useful blog. Without this clarity you’ll be stumbling around in the dark! How will your reader change as a result of reading your blog? Over the years I’d focused very heavily upon understanding readers needs, but it has only been the last year that I’ve taken things to the next step and doing thinking about how to ‘change‘ readers. Knowing who is reading is one thing, but if you want to build a blog that is epic, your blog needs to leave an impact upon people. I recently spoke about this idea at a conference and shared the following slide. While I didn’t spend a heap of time unpacking the idea, this was the most tweeted quote of the talk I gave. Photo by Kate Davies on Unsplash Blogs that change people are blogs that those people will keep returning to. Blogs that change people are blogs that build trust and relationship with their readership. Blogs that change people are blogs that their readers share with their networks. I’ve always know this – it’s not really rocket science – but for some reason I never actually identified the change I wanted to bring to my readers! As a result, some of my blog posts hit the mark with readers – but many did not. Why leave it to chance as to what change we want to bring to our readers? Why not define where they are and where we want to take them? Name the Change and Then Break It Down Let’s take a look at my main blog, Digital Photography School, as an example. My answers to the above three questions are not really that complicated: My readers are camera-owners My readers are not using their cameras to their full potential My readers will gain creative control over their cameras as a result of reading dPS I know if dPS can give camera owners creative control over their cameras,  they will start taking images that help create amazing memories for their families, start capturing magical moments in the trips they take, and that they’ll start creating art and ways to express themselves creatively. These are tangible benefits and outcomes of reading our site and enhance the lives of our readers. So once we’ve defined the change we want to bring to readers, then we can begin to make more informed decisions about the content we create by simply breaking that down. What does having creative control over a camera look like? There are many parts of bringing about that change. Some would include: Obviously this is just a few of the things a camera owner needs to grasp, but you can see here that we’ve already identified a number of topics to explore that help to bring about the overarching goal of the site. By doing this exercise, we end up with a content and community strategy that is much more intentional that simply sitting at the keyboard each day and asking what we feel like writing about. By being intentional, we’re creating content that moves people through a process and takes them to an outcome that changes their life in some tangible way. So What Change do You Want to Bring? My challenge today is to answer the three questions above, and then to begin to break down the change that you’re wanting to bring. Who are your readers? What do they need? How will they change as a result of reading your blog?   If you're serious about building an audience for your blog and want to supercharge your traffic ProBlogger's Find Readers Course will give you the roadmap and guide you through 6 clear steps to find readers. This article was first published on June 20, 2014 and updated June 30, 2022. The post How to Build a Blog that Has Lasting Impact Upon Its Readers appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: How to Be a Purple Cow Blogger

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How to Be a Purple Cow Blogger Posted: 23 Jun 2022 03:47 AM PDT The post How to Be a Purple Cow Blogger appeared first on ProBlogger. Photo by Daniel Quiceno M on Unsplash One of the common mistakes that I see in many blogs is that they are quite simply unremarkable. We’ve all seen seen these blogs – (and most of us if we’re honest will admit to having written them at some point) – they are the blogs you look at for a few seconds without actually seeing anything before you surf on to some other site. Blog readers only stay on any given post for an average of 96 seconds. Its not long! So you’ve only got just over one and a half minutes to make an impression – to do something remarkable that will rock your reader’s world, arrest their attention and stop them scrolling the web like a zombie. Two great books that I think all ProBloggers should read are the Purple Cow and the Free Prize Inside (afffiliate links). Both are by the author Seth Godin. There is lots of goodness to chew over in these books that relate to blogging – but one of the major take home lessons is about being remarkable – about being a ‘purple cow’. We live in a world where we’re bombarded with messages all day long from a variety of media (including the web) – in order to break through the noise with your blog its going to take something remarkable. How to be a Purple Cow How does one become a Purple Cow blogger? Its not an answer I can give you – there is no formula to it, if there was everyone would be remarkable in the same way and in the process become just one of the crowd again. However there are some things you might like to consider in your quest for the Purple Cow: Design One way to grab attention of readers is with visuals. Seth himself does this pretty well on his books and blog with that bald head of his. I bet that is one of the first things that people look at when they come to his blog every time. It grabs you, it stays in your mind – the blog suddenly becomes ‘that blog with the bald head’. Good branding will stand out – whether that’s an image of you, your logo, strong brand colours or a stylised look and feel for your blog. Titles Have you ever been looking through your News Aggregator, or Search Engine results and been totally grabbed by the title that someone’s written for their post? I know I have many times. The title of your blog and blog posts are crucial attention grabbers. Consider using them to do just that. Of course your titles should match up with the content you write – but experiment with your titles a bit. You might also like to read this post: How to Write Great Blog Post Titles. Pictures Images definitely capture your readers’ attention and draw them into your blog. You have to be careful about their placement – but a picture has the ability to totally grab your readers – as do logos. I don’t know about you, but blogs that are just slabs of text turn me off faster than a cold shower! Break your page up a bit. At ProBlogger we use Unsplash for images and Canva for creating our graphics. Content ‘Content is everything’ is the cry that often goes up about blogs. I disagree, it’s not everything, but it IS pretty important. If you’re not writing compelling, intriguing, insightful, witty, humorous or useful content (or some combination of the above) then you might as well give up now. I’d highly recommend that you consider original content too – whilst I do have some more ‘news like’ blogs – it’s the original content that I write that almost always gets the attention. Quotes and links are a dime a dozen. Do something original and you’ll stand out from the crowd. Here’s some tips to add originality to your content. Give something away I’m not talking here about offering prizes (although they could work if they are the right ones) but I’m talking about considering giving your readers a gift. Seth’s book Free Prize Inside takes readers back to the days when we were kids and used to get those little plastic toys for free in our cereal boxes and writes about how we should consider what the ‘free prize’ is that we give away with our products or services to surprise and delight your readers. What can you give away with your blog? If you’re anything like me, you remember when someone gives you something for free – it makes an impression. Think outside the box a little with your free prizes, it doesn’t have to be an actual physical gift, perhaps its an award, maybe its some information that others charge for, it could be a newsletter, it could be some personal attention to readers, it could be linking to your readers blogs. There are many ways to make your blog remarkable. Probably the best thing you can do is to go surfing the sites and blogs in your bookmarks and start asking yourself what others are doing to stand out. Why do you keep going back to your favorite blogs? What hooks you in? How could you be more like them? Be original, be surprising, be remarkable, be a Purple Cow! Get more Blog tips from our Blog Tips for Beginners series. This post was first published on March 19, 2005 and updated June 23, 2022 The post How to Be a Purple Cow Blogger appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 11 Ways to Create More Compelling Content for Your Blog

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11 Ways to Create More Compelling Content for Your Blog Posted: 15 Jun 2022 08:19 PM PDT The post 11 Ways to Create More Compelling Content for Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger. Today I wanted to share some tips on how you can make your content more compelling, whether it’s written, video or audio content. I’m mixing things up and testing out my new camera to create some video content for the blog. For those of you interested in the production aspects of this video . . . I’m happy with the visual aspects of the video considering it was shot with only the light of a window beside me (and the light changed over the 10 minutes of the video). I need to pick up a microphone as this audio is straight from the camera and will in future consider some extra lighting. The camera is a Sony A7iii and the lens I’m using is a 35mm f/1.4 (camera details at https://kit.com/darrenrowse/sony-gear) The camera is producing some great results. I’ve been posting some of them over on my Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/darrenrowse/ 11 Ways to Create More Compelling Content for Your Blog 1. Make it Useful Unless your content is useful to people and it’s going to change their life in some way, there’s probably no point in publishing it. You don’t have to change your readers’ lives in a big way with every single post, but you need to be useful in some way: make your readers chuckle if they’re feeling sad; inform them of something they didn’t know before; update them on the latest news; give them a sense of belonging… If something is useful, it’s going to hold their attention for a longer period of time. One way to be useful is to solve reader problems – here’s how to do that. 2. Share Your Opinion I get very frustrated when I hear content that is just technical specifications or facts. I want to hear your opinion of how something might change my life in some way. For more on this, listen to my podcast episode on How to Write an Opinion Post to Draw People in to Your Blog. 3. Cut Out The Fluff Don’t talk about things that aren’t essential to your message, get to the heart of the matter, to your main points straight away. 4. Visualise Your Reader If you have someone in mind as you are delivering your content – be that video or the written word – you’re going to deliver in a much more personal way and for a specific type of person. And if that person gets on the other end of your content, they’re going to sense that and feel that you know who they are and that you are writing for them. That’s compelling. There’s nothing like having a reader avatar in mind for helping you visualise your reader – here’s How to Create a Reader Avatar for Your Blog. 5. Make Your Posts Scannable Don’t overwhelm your readers with a dense block of text that is hard to read. If you’re writing content use headlines, bullet points and different formatting to draw your reader’s eye to different elements of your content and assist their understanding of your article. Most people do a quick scan of an article before they decide whether they are going to read it. Grab their attention, make them curious and let them see that there’s a benefit to reading your content. Here’s 18 Ways to Create Scannable Content for Your Blog. 6. Work (and re-work) Your Headlines Like scannable articles, people look at your headline and make a snap judgement of whether that content is going to be relevant and interesting to them or not. Compelling content starts with the headline. Ask yourself is the headline intriguing, is it presenting a benefit and reason for reading the article? A good tool for this is Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer which gives your headline and score and suggestions to help make it more compelling. Here’s another article that gives you some specific headline tips. 7. Write With Passion If there’s no passion in you for the way you write and present your content, your writers will pick up on this and they will not feel any passion for your content either. 8. Give Your Readers Something to do Next You don’t just want your content to be interesting. You want your content to COMPEL your readers to DO something. Part of that is giving them something to do next – give them some homework, something for them to go away and do or apply to their lives or tell someone else about. This will extend your content beyond the moment in which it is consumed and it will live in on the readers you compel. 9. Include Stories You can’t do this with every piece of content but in the right context storytelling can really lift your content. People remember stories because they hit the heart and resonate with your readers. If you need some help with storytelling, here’s 14 Types of Stories You Can Tell on Your Blog. 10. Give Your Posts Visual Appeal This obviously applies to video or text, rather than audio content. But anything you can do to appeal visually to your readers will make your content more eye-catching, intriguing and memorable. Images, charts and formatting for written content. Video content can benefit from interesting backdrops or scenery as well as your own appealing presentation. Here’s some Tools for Creating Great Visual Content for Your Blog. 11. Practice Creating Compelling Content Compelling content doesn’t just happen, it takes years of learning and practicing the art and craft of creating content. Every time you create content you are adding to your own experience and growing your great content creation muscles.   This post was orginally published on April 11, 2018 and updated June 16, 2022. What is some compelling content you’ve created lately? Share in the comments below! The post 11 Ways to Create More Compelling Content for Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 5 Mistakes Bloggers are Making with Online Courses

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5 Mistakes Bloggers are Making with Online Courses Posted: 09 Jun 2022 01:04 AM PDT The post 5 Mistakes Bloggers are Making with Online Courses appeared first on ProBlogger. Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash By ProBlogger expert Sam Nordberg. Online courses are the hottest thing right now. Everyone seems to be launching their own course, and looking for ways to make what they believe is "passive income" – but here are five of the biggest makes people are making with their online courses right now: 1. Not thinking about who they are writing for When you are creating a course, you need to think really carefully about the end user. Who are they? How much do they know already? What do they want the outcome to be? How do they want to consume the information? If you really want people to learn from your course, and get results from it, then you need to make sure the information is carefully targeted to meet their needs. Imagine you were writing a course on nutrition. There is a big difference between writing a course for a professional athlete who really wants to fine tune their diet, and writing a course for someone who has been clinically obese for many years, and needs a lot of support to start from scratch. Think carefully about who you are creating the course for, before you start creating. Really focus on a single, specific need. 2. Trying to fit everything in It took you years to learn everything you know. One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating their own course, is to try and share all of their knowledge. I get it, you want to add value, and make sure that you give them as much as you can. The problem is, there is no way they can absorb all of that information, and actually start to implement it, all in one go. It took you years to develop your skills and get to where you are, it will take them a while too. Focus on delivering smaller chunks of information, with a bigger focus on implementation (that is getting your students to actually try doing things) rather than just giving them lots of information. 3. Just recording videos and making PDFs A course is more than just great content. Sure, videos and PDFs are useful way to provide information to a student, but there is more to a course than simply content. Before you start throwing together your content, consider the following: – What support will they need? – How will you get them actively involved? – How will you get them to implement what they have learnt? – How will they know if they are getting it right/wrong? – What might they need before the course or after the course? A course is a process, you take your students on a journey from beginning to end. Before you start to put content together, it's worth thinking about that journey as a whole. 4. Not providing support I'm sure you've seen it… you land on their sales page, and you have the two options: buy it for less money and just get the content, or pay more money and get their assistance/support/coaching to help you. Here's the problem… If they know that you'll need support to help you get better results, then why don't they make it part of the course? Why can you buy a course with no support? One of the biggest problems with online learning is the lack of support. Students need someone to turn to. They might need help understanding the content, maybe they have technical problems, or maybe they just need to talk it over to really understand what they have learnt. If you know that your students will need support of some kind (or simply, you know that they will get better results with support) then make sure it's available to them. You can look into providing a forum, or support group, having live calls, or even providing phone and email support for them. Note: There are occasions where a course really doesn't need support. Maybe the content is fairly basic and self-paced. If this is the case, feel free to sell the course without support. 5. Thinking courses are great passive income Don't get me wrong here, courses are a great way to LEVERAGE your income, and they allow you to spend your time one-to-many, rather than one-on-one, but they are certainly not passive. At least, not to start with. As you've seen so far, there is more to a course than just putting your content online and charging people to access it. You'll need to promote your courses, help students sign up, answer any questions before, during and after, provide live support, help students to implement… and much more. Courses are a great way to help your audience. Courses are a great way to leverage your income. Courses are a great way to help you monetise your knowledge. But they are not completely passive. As with anything they require some hard work to set up, and lots of support on the way through. You can definitely outsource some of that work, but be aware that to begin with, you're going to be putting in some hard yards. Courses really are a great way to grow your business, and to help you spread your message…. Just keep these simple things in mind as you start. Really think about who you are creating the content for and what they need to know Don't try and squeeze it all in. Little bits of information that they actually use, is much more valuable than lots of information they never get around to Think about the whole process, not just the content Make sure your students get the support they need And remember, it might be hard work to start with, but it's definitely worth it in the end. Sam Nordberg shows people how to take their passion and knowledge and create an online course that sells. You can learn more about her here and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. This article was first published July 20, 2016 and updated June 9, 2022. The post 5 Mistakes Bloggers are Making with Online Courses appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: How I Turned One Blog Post Into a 7-Figure Business (And How You Can Capitalize on Going Viral)

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How I Turned One Blog Post Into a 7-Figure Business (And How You Can Capitalize on Going Viral) Posted: 02 Jun 2022 05:00 AM PDT The post How I Turned One Blog Post Into a 7-Figure Business (And How You Can Capitalize on Going Viral) appeared first on ProBlogger. Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash In 2013, I experienced a writer's dream come true. My blog post, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, went viral. And not just a little viral, it went mega-viral. It was read by millions of people in a matter of days. And then Forbes.com picked it up and it reached more than 10 million more readers. Within a week, national radio shows were about talking my article. Major publications were asking to reprint it. News channels were calling to interview me. And if that weren't enough, in the midst of the viral superstorm, a literary agent called and suggested I turn my article into a book. Up until that point, writing was only my part-time job. My main career was as a psychotherapist and college psychology instructor. So I knew this was my opportunity to change that. But, almost no one knew why I had written that blog post. When people would ask me, I'd say, "I'm a therapist and I've learned what helps people become mentally strong through my practice." But that was only half the story. The rest of the story was that I'd written that article as a letter to myself during one of the lowest points of my life. When I was 23, my mother had died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. Then, on the three-year anniversary of her death, my 26-year-old husband died of a heart attack. Dealing with those back-to-back losses was incredibly painful. But I knew that time heals nothing. It was what I did with that time that mattered. So I worked really hard on allowing myself to grieve. It was a slow and painful process and for quite a while, my life was flipped upside down. But eventually, I found my way by putting one foot in front of the other. A few years later, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I was overwhelmed at the thought of losing yet another loved one. After a few days of hosting my own pity party, I thought to myself, 'mentally strong people don't feel sorry for themselves.' And I reminded myself that indulging in self-pity wasn't helpful. So I sat down and I wrote a list of all the things mentally strong people don't do. When I was done, I had 13 things that I'd need to avoid if I wanted to stay mentally strong while I faced yet another loss. They were things I'd learned through my previous journey with grief. And they were also the things I'd seen first-hand in my therapy office. They were the bad habits that would rob me of mental strength if I let them. I decided to publish my list online. I thought perhaps if it helped me, maybe someone else would find it helpful too. I never imagined that my post would go viral. I'd written plenty of other articles and none of them had ever struck such a chord. But while I was on one hand celebrating my article's success, I was also privately dealing with my grief. Just four days before I appeared on Fox News to talk about mental strength, my father-in-law passed away. The Book that Told My Story I spoke to the literary agent who had contacted me and I decided to put together a nonfiction book proposal. I knew nothing about publishing and had no idea what to expect. But within a week of submitting it to my agent, we received multiple offers from big publishing houses. It was a surreal experience. I got a deal with HarperCollins and I spent the next few months writing my book. I was still working as a therapist, but I had three days per week I could devote solely to writing my book. To meet my deadline, I had to write one chapter per week. I spent one day researching, the next day writing, and the third day editing. Then, just 13 months after my article went viral, my book, also called 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, hit the shelves. Incredibly, it's hit several major bestseller lists, including the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. I've also gotten publishing deals in more than 20 other languages. The biggest questions I received from readers was, "How do I teach my kids how to be mentally strong?" So in January, my agent and I approached my publisher to pitch a parenting book. And fortunately, they were on board. So my next book, 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do, will hit the shelves in the Fall of 2017. Turning a Viral Article Into a Viable Business The challenge I faced in going viral was finding a way to turn it into an ongoing business. Clearly, people were interested in the concept of mental strength, but I needed to find a way to provide them with more information in a helpful way. In addition to the income I received from writing my books, I found several other ways to capitalize on the viral nature of that blog post: I do speaking engagements. I've spoken at events ranging from TEDx and book clubs, to corporate events and global conferences. Sometimes I appear in-person but at other times, companies hire me to provide webinars on mental strength. Further Reading: How to Become a Professional Speaker when You Have No Leads or Experience I created a mental strength eCourse. I receive frequent requests from people looking for individual coaching. But, it was impossible to scale my business by providing one-on-one services.  So I created an online course that provides me with passive income while also giving people an affordable alternative to individual coaching. Further Reading: Tips for Creating Your First eCourse I write for magazines and other websites. In the past, I've accepted some pretty low paying writing jobs, simply because I needed the money. Now, I can negotiate much higher fees. I write for several major publications and magazine editors often approach me with requests for an article. Further Reading: 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Pitches and Get More Freelance Writing Work I consult with business leaders and executives. I provide consultation to major businesses who are interested in knowing how to create a mentally strong culture or who want to know how to become a stronger leader. Further Reading: Got a Consulting Gig from Your Blog? Don’t Make this Big Mistake I continue to grow my platform. Growing my platform has been an ongoing process. Social media has been a big part of that, but I also continue to do interviews with the media as often as possible. And sometimes, that means reaching out to influencers and pitching my ideas. Further Reading: How to Develop the Right Plan to Grow Your Blog’s Readership One Piece of Content Could Change Your Life Quite often, my monthly income is higher than what my annual salary used to be. But, even better than the money, is the freedom that I have to do what I love in a way that I want I never imagined that one blog post could make such a difference, but one blog post could skyrocket your career. It's important to be ready to capitalize on that opportunity if it happens to you. Here are few tips on how you can be ready: Make sure your website is ready to go at all times. If you get a viral hit, you'll want to make sure you capitalize on it by getting newsletter sign-ups and social media followers. Have a professional headshot handy. If you attract attention from the media, they'll want a picture of you. Update your bio often. Have a short bio and a longer bio available so people know who you are. Media outlets want to know who you are and what you've accomplished. Go for quality, not quantity. It can be tempting sometimes to send as much information out into the world as possible in hopes something will resonate. But, only high-quality will get shared. Sloppy editing and poor quality images won't attract the right kind of attention. It's hard to create content that attracts attention in today's fast-paced world. But, it's even more difficult to sustain people's attention and keep them coming back for more. With a clear plan, and a lot of hustle, however, you can capitalize on viral content and turn it into a viable business. Amy Morin is a psychotherapist, speaker, and the author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, a bestselling book that is being translated into more than 20 languages. The post How I Turned One Blog Post Into a 7-Figure Business (And How You Can Capitalize on Going Viral) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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