Blogging, Blogging Success |
How to start a Mom Blog
If you are just beginning your journey as a mom blogger, this may be the 87th article that you have read that promises to offer good advice. Here’s what you have probably learned so far by reading posts about the world of mom blogging.
1. Create a Niche.
Yes, this is sound advice, but if you are a beginning blogger, you may not uncover your niche for months (or years). After all, for your blog to have authenticity, you need to wait to see what comes up in your child’s world that you feel drawn to discuss.
For example, there’s no need to write about picky eaters if your child eats everything under the sun.
At this point, don’t feel like you need to be uber focused. Just begin writing and creating. You will uncover your niche at some point.
2. Be careful about what you reveal.
You do need to be careful about what you reveal about your children. You need to consider their safety as well as whether or not the content will prove embarrassing as they grow older.
While this is sound advice, don’t become paralyzed by fear when writing your blog. Write about how your three-month-old blew out her diaper while you were in Target. Will she think that story is embarrassing when she turns 14? Yes, but everything you do and say will be embarrassing to your 14-year-old girl.
3. Authentic Mom Blog Topics.
You probably have read a lot of advice about being authentic in your blogs. This, also, sounds like great advice. But if you follow a lot of mom blogs, you may notice that a lot of these women have seemingly perfect lives.
Hmmm. We are told to be authentic, but do readers want to follow you if your house and kids are always a mess? Aren’t we supposed to learn from bloggers on how to create the best life for our kids?
The Best Advice for Getting Started on Your Mom Blog
The best advice we can give you for getting started on your mom blog is to START! Quit reading all the input from the experts. Quit worrying about creating a style guide or finding sponsors. Don’t worry if you don’t have a niche.
Just
Start
Writing.
Here are some mom blog topics to get you started.
Introduce yourself to your reader
Tell your reader about yourself, kind of like what you would share during a job interview. Your potential reader may be more likely to follow you if she feels connected to you somehow.
Tell your birthing stories
New moms love sharing birthing stories. Share a PG version with your readers on your website. Ask them to write about their own experiences.
Tell about your childhood
For good or for bad, our own childhoods affect how we parent. It takes a self-aware person to realize this, so you may use your blog to sort through the complicated feelings you may have about your upbringing.
Write about your area
One of the best niches that you may want to consider is becoming an expert on all things “children” in your neck of the woods. You can start this journey by writing about local parks that your toddlers enjoy. Write about the “moms day out” groups hosted by your local churches. Share the best local pumpkin patches that offer hayrides and cider.
Write about your passion
Some moms go into the role with a drive and passion for one particular subject. For example, perhaps you are a former teacher, and you want to create a language-rich environment for your children. Write about your strategies for instilling the love of reading in your child.
Write about your favorite things
Have you found products or services that have made parenting easier? Write about your sleep machine, breast pump, pacifier, or meal delivery service that has made life easier for you as you transition into your new role.
Write about relationship changes
Perhaps you are starting a mom blog because you are staying at home with your kids. Write about that transition. What were the challenges? Do you miss work? What are the benefits for staying at home that you never considered?
How has your relationship with your spouse changed since you began your mom blog? Does he support your idea or have reservations?
Hopefully, we have given you some great advice on how to get started on your new venture. Remember, it will take time to gain followers and find your voice. But don’t fret. Enjoy the journey.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips |
How to get engagement with your Audience
As a mommy blogger, it shouldn’t take you too long to realize the importance of getting people to interact with you on your website. Readers who interact with you are engaged. They are more likely to share your page with others. And they are more likely to click on your affiliate marketing links or buy your products.
If you are concerned that your blog seems dormant, it’s time to do something about it. It’s time to come up with strategies that encourage your readers to ACT.
But that’s hard to do. People have online fatigue. They can’t be bothered to share your content or comment on a post unless you give them something for their time.
Today, we would like to help you come up with ideas on how to promote your website. Although we called this article “Mother’s Day” promotions ideas, it can also be used on the 4th of July, Flag Day, or your birthday.
Here are 6 Mother’s Day promotion ideas to include on your website.
1. Give away a recipe book for sharing your page.
Let’s say your blog specializes in picky eaters, and each week you provide your followers two or three recipe stories. While your followers may enjoy your background information and step-by-step photographs, some may be irritated when scrolling through irrelevant content to find the actual recipe.
Give away an online cookbook, which features a recipe with one photo. Give a free cookbook to anyone who shares your latest blog post on their social media page. You can hold this same promotion periodically since you will always be adding new recipes to your page.
2. Work Together With a Company You Promote
If you have earned some success by promoting a specific product or service, contact that company to see if you can work out a mutually beneficial deal. Ask for free products to offer as a giveaway to your readers. Require your reader to share content, post photos to your page, or provide you with an email address.
This type of promotion won’t cost you anything. The company would benefit by getting buzz about their product or service. You would benefit by getting shares, comments, and email addresses. Your reader would benefit from having a chance to win free stuff.
3. Work With a Local Company
Some of you have created a following in your local communities. In fact, you may be the go-to mommy blogger in your suburb. To give yourself even more street cred, connect with the best spa in your area to see if you can work out a cross-promotion. Have your readers write a paragraph on why they need a day of pampering, and have your other readers vote on whose story is the most deserving. Encourage participants to share your page to get their friends to vote.
4. Ask Your Readers to Help You Make a Decision
You may not even have to give anything away to encourage people to interact with your blog. Why not create a simple poll? Ask your readers to help you make a choice. Have them vote between two paint colors for your nursery. Have them decide what toenail color will go best with your new dress. Ask your readers whether or not you should get bangs. Have them help choose the name for your new cat.
While this isn’t a contest, it is a way to get people to interact with your website. People love to give their opinions. It makes people feel as if they are helping you, and you are getting the comments on your blog that you need.
5. Give away a favorite product.
While it’s best to get a free prize to give away, you may decide that purchasing a product to give away may be worth the amount you spend. Purchase some sort of prize to celebrate the anniversary of your blog, your child’s birthday, or Mother’s Day. Make it easy on yourself and have the award be something that you can deliver electronically, like an Amazon gift card.
6. Give away products that promote your blog.
Purchase tank tops, bibs, fidget spinners, or wine glasses with the name of your blog. Ask your readers to share, retweet, repin, comment, or click to enter. Even if you have to pay to ship the items to the winners, you could receive new followers when they wear and use your promotional products.
Contests and prizes aren’t just for local furniture stores or the bakery down the street. Promote your mommy blog by creating excitement and buzz that only comes from giving away free stuff.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Mom Marketing Coach |
How To Skyrocket Your Traffic
Is the traffic to your website dwindling? Are you struggling to rank in even the least competitive keywords? Here are three reminders of ways to inch your way back up in the rankings, one click at a time.
Here are tips to Grow your traffic
If you have ever suffered from a weight problem, you know how important it is to weigh yourself every day. If you let a month pass before you step on the scales, you get a harsh reminder of all the times you skipped your morning workout or ate that extra plate at your favorite Indian buffet.
Instead of getting down in the dumps about your ranking, let your lousy traffic remind you that it is time to get back to the basics. We aren’t going to share any brand-new strategies, but these are tried and true techniques that will enable you to inch back up the rankings. Just as you will eventually inch back into your favorite jeans.
1. Be the best content for moms 2020 and beyond.
Be the ultimate guide in your niche. You want your website to be the ONE that a friend recommends to another friend for a specific child-related issue.
Do you specialize in picky eaters? Then you need to have the best recipes that teach other moms how to hide kale in macaroni and cheese or carrots in chicken nuggets. You need to have valid research from certified nutrition experts to back up your techniques. Your website needs to have depth and substance. It can’t be full of 200-word blogs about how your little Jonah finally tried watermelon.
Perhaps you have found your niche in sensory-friendly clothing for children. You need to be the one-stop-shop for all those frustrated mothers who are trying to find socks with no seams or shirts without tags. You need to find research-based methods to help your child expand their clothing options, and you need to teach those tired moms strategies for getting to school on time.
If you are serious about increasing the ranking of your website, you need to be serious about your website. The information should be helpful, realistic, and content for moms 2020 and beyond.
2. Evaluate your images.
Words are great, but when you are trying to get the attention of busy moms, you only have seconds before they become distracted and leave your website. Sure, you need to have research-based, in-depth articles, but you also need to accompany them with eye-catching graphics full of the valuable information you are trying to share.
You can’t be good at everything. Instead of spending frustrating hours trying to develop a sharable graphic for your website, consider hiring a freelancer to do it for you. Find a graphic designer on Fiverr or Upwork to create a visual that shows an appropriate amount of sleep for each aged group or a step by step guide on how to add bling to a child’s dance costume.
People share images. They put them on their Pinterest boards to refer to later, and they share them on Facebook to help out their friends.
Believe us, if you get a few attractive graphics that are full of top-quality information, your rankings will inch higher and higher each week.
3. Use SEO checkers.
If you are like most mommy bloggers, your priority is to provide a safe place for people to discuss parenting topics. You probably have a niche that you are passionate about, and you want to give other parents resources that have helped you in your parenting journey.
You probably didn’t start your website because you LOVE to learn about search engine optimization strategies.
Unfortunately, to help others find your website, SEO is part of the game. You probably have read guides found on our site, but you also should be aware that there are applications available to help you as well.
Take a look at Content Analysis by SEO Review Tools and Content SEO Checker. Both look like typical word processing programs, but after you write your content, helpful SEO strategies and reminders appear at the bottom of the page. You will receive a reminder to write a meta description and to include your keywords in one of your headings. Seriously, these tools could change your life.
More than anything, remember not to get discouraged. As cliche as it sounds, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it will take time for your website to become an authority in your subject matter.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Mom Blog Coach
Tips For Mommy Blogging
Blogging Coach
Blog Tips, Blogging, Mom Marketing Coach |
Funny Content That Entertains Your Audience
Your followers are tired, stressed, and bored. They have organized their closets, completed all the cheap home improvement projects that they can, and they have thrown their carefully-planned children’s schedules out the window. Their favorite festivals have been canceled as well as their children’s summer camps. They don’t want any more “how to articles” or “let’s stay calm” articles. Instead, your readers are bored, and they are ready to laugh.
While recommending a particular product or service, consider sharing funny motherhood content to liven up your affiliate marketing Facebook page. Not only will funny content get you more shares, but it may encourage your readers to take a closer look at the products you are recommending — especially if you can present them in funny ways.
But humor is hard. It’s much easier to inform, persuade, and encourage. How do you improve the humor of your marketing page if that has never been your thing? Here are some tips.
1. Read funny writers.
There are lots of funny women to turn to for inspiration. Consider reading Tina Fey, Nora Ephron, and Mindy Kaling. These women have written about pregnancy, motherhood, and being a woman. They will give you ideas for topics and how to present funny material.
Here are some quotes to inspire you:
“Having a child is like getting a tattoo … on your face. You better be committed.” Elizabeth Gilbert
“When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.” Nora Ephron
“Having children is like living in a frat house — nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.” Ray Romano
2. Post old content that seems new.
The only problem with much of this material is that it has been posted to death. Your readers will have read most of these quotes and books from modern writers.
But we would also like to recommend a writer who your mom or grandma probably read faithfully — Erma Bombeck. Bombeck wrote a newspaper column from the 1960s to the 1990s about motherhood, middle-class life, and suburbia. She also wrote bestselling books including, “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?” or “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank.” Although some of her content may feel dated, many of her observations about children and spouses are timeless. Here are some quotes from her to consider sharing with your readers.
“One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.” Erma Bombeck
“I came from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.” Erma Bombeck
“I will buy any creme, cosmetics, or elixir from a woman with a European accent.” Erma Bombeck
“My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.” Erma Bombeck
“When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.” Erma Bombeck
You may also consider looking at the work by Teresa Bloomingdale and Phyllis Diller.
“If you have older children who avoid you like the plague, buy yourself some expensive bath salts, run a hot tub, and settle in for a long soak. Teenagers who haven’t talked to you since their tenth birthday will bang on the door, demanding your immediate attention.” Teresa Bloomingdale
“I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.” Phyllis Diller.
3. Look for the humor in your own life.
It will be easier for you to find humor in your own life after you have read current and past humorists. Besides telling stories of your four-year-old waking up with gum under her armpit, try to find the humor in even the most annoying situation.
It’s not going to be easy to add humor to your content. As we said before, comedy is hard. Luckily, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
If you are reviewing diaper genies for your blog, find diaper-related jokes or quotes in your post.
“Changing a diaper is a lot like getting a present from your grandmother – you’re not sure what you’ve got, but you’re pretty sure you’re not going to like it.” Jeff Foxworthy
Or if you are writing about driving schools in your area, post the following quote:
“It is amazing how quickly kids learn to drive a car, yet are unable to understand the lawnmower, the dishwasher, or vacuum cleaner.” Unknown
Start small. You aren’t going to turn into Tina Fey overnight, but you may gain more clicks and shares for your effort.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging Success |
Mom Blog Topics During COVID-19
Are you having a difficult time adding content to your mommy blog during this recent pandemic? You aren’t alone. While some infant and toddler mommy bloggers may be facing the same schedule, as usual, others with school-aged children are probably struggling to find the time to do anything other than homeschooling, cooking, ordering groceries, and checking in on aging parents.
We know that part of the problem with mommy blogging is coming up with unique topics to cover. For the first part of our blog today, we would like to share some topics for you that will help you support your readers during this pandemic.
Consider writing about the following topics:
How to explain COVID-19 to your preschooler
How to set up a work station for your children
Healthy meals you can make with the items in your pantry
Free educational resources available as a result of COVID-19
How to celebrate Mother’s Day during a pandemic
How to stay connected to grandparents during a quarantine
Quarantine and the only child
How to give your child a haircut
Tips for planning a quarantine birthday party
Parenting a child with autism during COVID-19
Homeschooling tips for the quarantined family
How to host a virtual playdate
Having a baby during COVID-19
Virtual field trips for your children
Games to play with your child during the quarantine
How to support your grandparents during COVID-19
How to stay sane during the COVID-19 quarantine
Maintaining a schedule for your kids during the coronavirus pandemic
Parenting during COVID-19
How to use a quarantine to teach your kids household skills
How to work from home with kids
Free websites with educational games
Neighborhood games to play while under quarantine
Helping your child succeed at school during a pandemic
Most of these topics could be covered based on simple internet searches or personal experiences. These topics offer support to stressed-out parents and provide them with tips on how to maintain order during uncertain times.
Avoid these COVID-19 topics on your mommy blog:
Perhaps you are led to cover more serious issues as well that relate to coronavirus. Maybe you have heard about a friend’s friend who was on a ventilator for 11 days. Perhaps you want to make a list of health tips that you have seen while scrolling through Facebook about how to avoid the virus.
While no one can limit what you write about, please be considerate of your readers. Unless you have a degree in medicine or another related field, please avoid giving medical advice to your readers. Unless you can link your advice to information on the CDC website, avoid writing about it. It’s socially irresponsible to spread incorrect information during a pandemic.
Also, consider the ramifications of writing blogs that promote panic. While you may receive a few more shares with such topics, at what cost? While you may not intend to cause anxiety to your reader based on your unsubstantiated claims, that may be what occurs.
Other things to consider when writing a COVID-19 mommy blog:
We are all affected differently by COVID-19. If you are a stay-at-home mommy blogger, your life may have changed very little. Perhaps you have the inconvenience of having to grocery shop online or having a spouse work from home. If this describes your situation, it is important that you realize how lucky you are.
Your readers and followers may not be so lucky.
Your readers may be suffering from a loss of income. They may be worried about making rent or house payments. They may be panicked on how to take care of their children and elderly parents at the same time. They may be worried about running out of essentials.
While you may be worried about the condition of your nails, other people may have loved ones with the virus. Always remember that thousands of people have died from this virus across the country. Those are your readers’ parents and grandparents.
Even though we aren’t suggesting that you completely change the tone of your blog, you may want to be more careful than usual before hitting the “publish” button on your website. Consider waiting 24 hours before sharing your work and review the material before posting.
We teach our kids to consider their words carefully before speaking or sharing something on social media. We ask our kids to consider these three questions:
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?
As you learn to navigate this new normal with your readers, consider the answer to those three questions.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
