Blog Tips, Blogging |
The Mommy Blogger You Wanna Be
We just finished the holidays. In fact, many of you may still have a few needles from your Christmas tree scattered throughout your house. The end of a new year (and decade) and the beginning of a new one often cause people to pause and think about how things change.
Usually, when change occurs, it is gradual. Your favorite jeans feel a bit tight. They get shoved into the back of your closet, and when you try them on three months later, and you can’t get them over your thighs. That change didn’t occur overnight. It happened one bagel at a time.
Mommy blogs have changed over time too. It didn’t happen overnight. This change was written about by Washington Post columnist Sarah Pulliam Bailey.
Bailey said that at first, mommy bloggers wrote and posted content to their own websites. These bloggers would write about a wide array of topics, from mom guilt to the best car seat systems. There was no need to be perfect. In fact, the more authentic a blogger was, the more likely she was to have a loyal following.
Gradually, things started to change. Money, of course, drove this shift. In the early years, a blogger could make decent money from the ads that were placed on her website. Now, mom bloggers make money by receiving sponsorships from companies to advertise a product or by promoting products through affiliate marketing.
This change in compensation altered the look of the most popular mommy blogs. Bailey, who has studied the evolution of mommy blogs, has noticed that the trend is to focus more on photos and less on text. Fewer people are creating their own websites for their blog, and more are posting directly to social media accounts.
It is not a surprise that this industry has changed so much in the last decade. The mommy blog pioneers aged out of the enterprise only to be replaced by a new group of young moms who were seeking to become social influencers in a different way than the blogger of the past.
So, now you are interested in entering the mommy blog industry. Here are questions that you need to ask yourself before you jump both feet into the enterprise. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, but they are worth considering before you spend a lot of unnecessary time and money heading down the wrong path.
1. Why do you want to be a mommy blogger?
This is the most critical question you should ask yourself regarding this endeavor.
- Do you want to be a mommy blogger so you can have a creative outlet while staying at home with your kids?
- Maybe you want to blog so you can share your kid’s adventures with extended family and friends.
- Maybe you want to utilize your time at home with your kids to become a social influencer.
- Or maybe it is a combination of all of the above.
2. How important is it that you bring in money from your blog?
If you are using your blog to supplement your income, then you need to consider what will make you the most money.
Don’t feel bad about needing to make money, but know that if you want to have companies sponsor your blog or accounts, you may not be able to be as forthright about your life as you would wish. Some companies do not want to be affiliated with messy lives or controversial subjects.
3. Are you more of a photographer or a writer?
If you are happiest when trying to get the best shot of an event, then perhaps you would be the happiest blogging through Instagram. If you want to go this route, it would be helpful if you, your spouse, and your children were particularly photogenic. It would also be beneficial if your children liked being photographed and fussed over at times.
Maybe you want to blog because you want to share the ups and downs of parenting. This may not be very easy to do from a single image. This means you might want to have a traditional website that enables you to combine your diatribes over kid birthday parties with photographs.
Regardless of how you answered the above questions, take time to look through the posts of Mom’s Marketing Coach. Our previous posts will assist you on how to start a website from scratch. We will also give you ideas on what to write about in your blogs. Finally, we will also get you started with affiliate marketing, should that be your focus.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging |
Creating a Business Account and Using Rich Pins
Remember when moms used Pinterest to find snack ideas for Halloween parties that would make all the other moms feel bad about what they brought?
Now, you can create dozens of boards with subjects as varied as fashion, travel, parenting, crafting, household decor, and “Halloween snacks that will make other parents feel bad about what they brought to the party.”
How do you, as a mommy blogger, connect with the millions of Pinterest users to increase the viewership of your blog? Here is part one of our series on how to use Pinterest. In it, we will discuss the importance of creating a business account and using rich pins. We will also start a discussion on the importance of developing a Pinterest niche.
Create a business account.
Even if you are getting started as a mommy blogger, take the extra step to create a Pinterest business account. Look under the settings menu to see how to complete this step.
The benefit of having a business account is that you have access to Pinterest analytics, but more importantly, you can create Rich Pins for your articles.
Learn about Rich Pins
Rich pins make your pin stand out from regular pins. The title appears in bold, and you can include extra information above and below the image. Besides getting more attention visually, the additional text above and below your picture will mean that the text can include keywords that will help users find your content while searching.
Rich pins have the extra benefit of being automatically updated when the linked page receives updates. Rich pins also allow you to include a follow button and brand your pin with your profile image.
Perhaps you think that those small details wouldn’t affect the amount of traffic your pin would get for your blog. Studies have shown that rich pins receive 36% more traffic than regular pins. Target noticed a considerable jump in clicks when they began to utilize rich pins on their content. And if it’s good enough for Target . . .
Learn the benefits of using an “article” rich pin.
As a mommy blogger, we know that you aren’t probably selling particular products like Target. Or at least you are selling products in a less “salesy” way. But rich pins aren’t just for selling items. There are six types of rich pins: movie, recipe, article, place, app, and product.
As a mommy blogger, you will be using the article rich pin.
Article pins tell readers the title, the author’s name, a description of the piece, and the link to your website.
Learn how to create a rich pin for your mommy blog.
Once you have your business account, you can edit your original pins so they are rich pins. Here’s how to do it if you are using WordPress.
First, add the Yoast SEO Plugin to WordPress.
Go to the SOCIAL tab in the Yoast settings, and click on the FACEBOOK tab.
Under the FACEBOOK tab, you will see the text that says, “Open Graph Meta Data.” Click ENABLE.
From there, you will go to this Pinterest page. Copy your site’s URL and paste it into the box that is provided. Click VALIDATE.
That’s it! Please note that it will take a few days for the process to be complete. Don’t expect your pins to change and the touch of a button.
Develop a Pinterest Niche
You may try to be everything to everybody in your mommy blog, but to receive loyal followers on Pinterest, you should consider developing a finely-tuned niche.
Maybe you write one article a week on how to get your picky kids to eat healthy foods. Perhaps this could be the focus of your identity on Pinterest. Your blog can still be about any random topics that you want to write about, but one of your Pinterest boards should be about #pickyeaters or #kidsnutrition or #hidingvegetables.
Tighten up your Pinterest bio
While you are waiting for your rich pins to be activated, tighten up the copy on your bio. Make sure it has focus and is rich in keywords.
Use an attractive profile image. Some bloggers swear that you should use photographs instead of a logo, but there doesn’t seem to be any real data that proves this strategy is effective.
We will continue this discussion on how to use Pinterest to promote your mommy blog in the next few weeks. With the right niche and the use of rich pins, we think your readership will quickly grow.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging, Blogging Success |
Has life been running smoothly lately? Normally this is something to enjoy and celebrate. But for mommy bloggers, this may mean you are struggling to come up with new blog topics.
You wait patiently for your usually precocious daughter to ask you a funny but poignant question, but she has been abnormally quiet. Your son doesn’t seem to be stirring up any trouble at school or in the neighborhood, and your inlaws have been vacationing in Costa Rica. Even your friend who is always complaining about something has little to say lately.
If life seems quiet and mundane, and you have written about all the regular hot topics of parenting already, here are some others to consider. Consider answering these questions on your blog. Ask your readers to interact with you by sharing their own responses to the topics.
- At what age should you stop co-sleeping with your infant?
- What is the best baby carrier for a busy mom?
- Is it ok not to breastfeed?
- How long should you wait to have a second or third child?
- What is the best National Park to visit with a 10-year-old?
- Who are the best TV parents?
- Is there anything wrong with using jarred baby food?
- Do you really save money by making your own baby food?
- How do you get a three-year-old to cooperate while taking family photos?
- When should I tell my kids that my marriage is in trouble?
- What are some craft ideas that won’t make a mess?
- Where can you travel with your kids if you are on a tight budget?
- Do we have to take our kids to Disney World?
- Who is the best fictional mom in a novel?
- How do I get my kids to eat vegetables?
- When and how do you teach your kids another language?
- Will teaching your baby sign language help or hurt with language development?
- How do we keep our baby from crying every time her dad holds her?
- Is it safe to raise a child as a vegetarian?
- How do you divide up holiday time between your family, your husband’s family, and your own growing family?
- What do you do if your child doesn’t like your best friend’s child?
- How can a stay-at-home mom make extra money?
- What are some gift ideas for a boy who only likes playing video games?
- Are trampolines dangerous for toddlers?
- What do you do when your child always wants to wear the same outfit?
- What topics do you tell your kids never to talk about in front of your parents?
- What is the best child-rearing book you have ever read?
- What is your favorite thing about being a parent?
- What do you do when you see a sibling parent inappropriately?
- Should you take an infant to a movie?
- What parenting decision do you regret?
- How do you encourage your daughters in careers when you choose to stay at home?
- Is it safe to use essential oils on your children?
- What is the best dog breed for families with children?
- How do you get a toddler to sleep?
- Do you parent your son differently than your daughter?
- Do you parent your older child differently than your younger child?
- How do you balance privacy with being protective?
- How has blogging made you a better parent?
- How do you explain a family member’s mental illness to your child?
- When should a child start doing his or her own laundry?
- Should you give your child an allowance?
- Should the stay-at-home parent be responsible for all household responsibilities?
- What are you hiding from your parents about your parenting style?
- Should you make your teenager go to church?
- How do you handle a difference in income between two close families?
- What are the best books to read with a preschooler?
- How do you get your child to love learning?
- How many extracurricular activities are too many?
- Do you feel as if you are a good parent?
- How do you help your son if he is afraid of the dark?
- How do you force activity on a kid who doesn’t like moving?
- What do you do if your child seems depressed?
- Do we have to teach our kids that Santa is real?
- Will I disappoint my child if I don’t have an Elf on the Shelf?
- Should you pay for our child’s college expenses?
- How do you save for your child’s education?
- What is the best parenting advice you have ever been given?
- When did you realize that your parents were terrible at parenting?
Hopefully, this list has given you food for thought on what to write about this week in your parenting blog.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging, Mom Marketing Coach |
One negative aspect of writing about your life for all to see is that every once in a while, you will receive comments from strangers (or friends) that will annoy, contradict, or degrade you. The internet did not create negativity. It’s just a new medium that people use to spew their hatred.
One would think that most of the time, negative comments come from political or religious posts. For some reason, parenting brings out the nasty side of people as well.
The problem is that everyone thinks they know the right way to parent.
Other parents will think you are too strict with your kids, and others will say you are too lenient.
If you work outside the home, the stay-at-home moms will judge you. If you stay at home with your kids, the working moms will mock you.
People will blast you for overscheduling your kids, sending them to public schools, or allowing them to watch inappropriate content on TV.
Others will label you as a helicopter parent, a lawnmower parent, as being too involved, or not concerned enough.
And God helps you if you write about anti-vaccines, homeschooling, and co-sleeping. You’re just asking for trouble with those topics.
What do you do when you receive negative comments? You only have a few options. Let’s discuss them.
Delete (or Edit) Negative Comments
You could consider deleted or editing the negative comments that someone leaves on your blog. Immediately use this tactic if someone writes something perverted or inappropriate about you or someone in your family. Don’t forget to block them from making additional comments as well.
Respond to the Comments
Your knee-jerk reaction may be to fight fire with fire. If someone calls you a name, you may want to revert to your 11-year-old-self and name call as well. Honestly, it could be kind of funny if you respond with a, “oh yeah? So’s your mother!” You could diffuse the situation by bringing humor to it. This type of reaction is especially fitting if that is the personality you portray on your blog.
Perhaps you should consider responding with a thoughtful explanation of why you disagree with your readers’ opinion. You have created a public forum with your blog. Are you afraid of exchanging ideas? Maybe blogging isn’t for you then. If you want constant public affirmations, perhaps you should post your content on Facebook to an intimate group of family and friends.
Ignore
Sometimes ignoring is the same as responding. Sometimes people’s comments are so inane and poorly written, that calling them out on it would just be cruel.
Mommy bloggers are a tight-knit group. Perhaps your friends will respond for you if you ignore the Debbie Downer. It’s fantastic to see who has your back in your time of need.
That’s it! Those are the three things you can do if you receive criticism regarding something you wrote. You can delete, ignore, or respond.
Here’s an idea that may blow your mind: maybe you shouldn’t discourage negative comments. Here are some reasons why.
Perhaps your reader is right.
No one wants to admit this, but maybe you used faulty logic when expressing your opinion. Perhaps the studies that you referred to were outdated, or the information that you presented as “fact” is untrue.
Maybe you did over-share your family’s problems in the quest to be completely transparent in your blog. If someone calls you out on this, perhaps they are right. Granted, some of your readers may not present their ideas with tact and consideration.
Perhaps your reader is trying to help.
Another thing to consider is that some people can’t listen to any complaint or comment without offering advice. They may not even think they are inconsiderate or rude. They may feel as if they are helpful in trying to fix your problem.
Yea! You have readers who care enough to comment!
Finally, perhaps receiving comments, negative or positive, are signs you have made it as a professional blogger. After all, you want people to read your blog, right? If your comments are turned on, that means you are promoting a public forum. Honestly, I’ve never understood bloggers who are aghast when readers disagree with their viewpoints. What did you think blogging was going to be?
Think hard if you are considering starting a blog to earn extra income. Are you able to handle a back-and-forth discussion with someone who contradicts or disagrees with your ideas? Are you going to be able to handle someone offering criticism on how you parent? Will receiving tons of unasked for advice drive you crazy? I hate to break it to you, but if you answered, “yes” to those questions, then maybe blogging isn’t for you.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach!
Blog Tips, Blogging, Mom Marketing Coach |
Wow. This is a stressful writing assignment.
If you don’t finish reading this article about how to write blogs that people want to read, will I have done my job?
While I might not be an expert writer, I do read. A lot. Here are things that I have noticed that draw me into other people’s blogs, posts, and personal essays.
1. Use Eye-Catching Images
Sorry, all you writers out there who spend hours crafting your words, so you can share profound, insightful thoughts. If your blog doesn’t have some sort of eye-catching image to draw you in, you may have a difficult time bringing readers to your post.
Learn how to improve your photography skills. Use free stock images if you are desperate. (You can find free photos at pixabay.com.)
Personally, I’m drawn to photos of people showing a lot of emotion. Or pictures of dogs. Even people who aren’t necessarily animal lovers like looking at pictures of dogs.
2. Use Quirky Subheadings
Recently, I was drawn to someone’s post about signs of aging. The first subheading was titled “Birds.” The next was “Ferris Bueller.” You know you’re going to read anyone’s writing who can connect those two topics in one piece.
Subheadings also break up huge blocks of text, so the piece looks readable. While the greatest writers in the world, such as Charles Dickens, didn’t follow this practice, Dickens wasn’t writing for average internet reader. The average internet reader scans articles while waiting in line at Target or sitting on the toilet.
3. Tell Stories About Your Daughter Waking Up with Chewing Gum in Her Armpit
You’ve started mommy blogs before that are written with beautiful, flowery language full of generalities. Many times these posts are oozing with feelings and emotions about how being a mommy has been such a life-changing experience.
Maybe it’s just me, but as soon as I begin reading this kind of writing, my eyes glaze over, and I start scrolling. The only thing worse is having a seventh-grade girl ask you to read her book of poetry.
Start by telling a story, and then you can go into the feelings associated with the account.
For example, start your blog post about how your toddler woke up from her nap with a huge wad of chewing gum underneath her armpit. Then, go into your piece about the joys of motherhood.
Hopefully, you will have remembered to take a photo of the wad of gum. That image will undoubtedly bring in plenty of readers.
4. Lead With the Monster Attack
One of the first things you learn in journalism school is how to write a good lead. Professors teach baby writers to not “bury the lead.” Here’s an example.
If a monster is attacking people on the beaches in Florida, you don’t start your news article by writing, “On Tuesday, 56-year-old Herman Giuseppe lost his arm while on vacation in the Florida Keys.”
If you are writing a blog post about your child getting chickenpox, even though they were immunized against it, you will get more readers if you lead with that information instead of starting with a lot of background information.
Lead with the monster attack, and then tell the rest of the story.
5. Awaken Your Inner Teacher
We have all turned to the internet to learn how to do something. My recent Google searches include “how to paint your kitchen cabinets,” “how to get knock-out roses to bloom,” and “how to get a wad of chewing gum out of a toddler’s armpit.”
Even if your instructions are more tongue-in-cheek in nature, people are drawn to online “how-to” guides.
If you are writing a Mommy Blog, write how you were able to get your child to sleep through the night. Write how you were finally able to get your kids from dropping all their crap on the floor of the entryway. Write about how you were finally able to get your sixth-grade son to hug you every day before walking out the door. This is the kind of information Moms need to have to improve their daily lives.
As you sit down to write your blog, think back to what your seventh-grade English teacher taught you. Before you write, you need to know your purpose for writing. If your goal every day is writing about how perfect your life is now that you have raised the most amazing children in the world, you may struggle to keep readers.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging, Blogging Success, Mom Marketing Coach |
I didn’t grow up in the South, and neither did my Mom. But every time I hear Miranda Lambert’s drawl mimic her mama’s advice to “hide your crazy,” I always think of my own Mom.
My Mom was the queen of stoicism, a trait that I honestly admire and tried to mimic most of my life. My Mom always put people at ease with her calm voice and absence of outbursts. I grew up with zero stress because my Mom wasn’t one to complain or express dissatisfaction. This doesn’t mean that Mom didn’t have hardships or difficulties. She just didn’t feel that it was very lady-like to share them.
While my Mom had plenty of friends and lived a perfectly comfortable life, she wasn’t the first person people turned to for a good story. She wasn’t the life of the party, and she wasn’t one who you felt you could pour your heart out to unless you knew her well. Because of this, my Mom would have been a lousy blogger. She wouldn’t have shared enough. She wouldn’t have been authentic enough.
To have a successful mommy blog, you have to have readers. To keep readers, you have to offer value to your content by telling a good story or giving good advice. And you need to be authentic. Here’s how to show authenticity in your writing.
Tell It Like It Is
One of my favorite mommy bloggers is the queen of honesty. She writes about how exhausted she was after entertaining her three kids for almost an hour in the doctor’s examination room. She stops and takes a quick photo of her youngest, who is screaming on the floor at Target because she didn’t like how her socks felt on her feet.
Of course, you wouldn’t want to read about this chaos every day, and people might start to judge you if all your photos depict red-faced kids throwing fits. But reading about this blogger’s issues may make someone feel a little better about your three-year-old threatening to throw away your phone, makeup, and a coffee mug because you didn’t peel her banana right. Reading about how a blogger’s toddler woke up with a wad of gum stuck under her armpit might make you feel better when you just caught your little darling washing her hair in the toilet.
Try to Write Like You Talk
Some bloggers get so caught up by trying to depict a perfect life that their writing style suffers. They begin to sound like anal-retentive English teachers instead of regular moms who are just trying to get through their day.
If your tone is more formal and less conversational, try telling someone else what you want to write about in your blog before you sit down to write it. Sometimes writers start off loose and easy, but after a series of edits, their writing ends up being too stuffy and impersonal.
Quit editing so much. You’re not writing for the New York Times. No one expects your writing to be perfect, and no one cares if it is. If you live your life peppered with four-letter-words, use them in your writing.
If you are really ticked off with your husband because he threatens the kids with ridiculous punishments that he can never follow through on so the kids lose respect for you and start acting like a bunch of barbarians, don’t worry if you just wrote the longest-run-on sentence ever. Get it out, girl.
Get Off Your High Horse
I’m an eye-roller. I always have been. My Mom used to tell me that if I got hit on the back of my head during an eye roll, my eyes would stay that way. It’s a bad habit, so since I’m a grownup, I try to limit my eye rolls to times when no one is looking, or else I do an “inner” eye roll, which only I know about.
When I read Mom blogs of women who LOVE their kids SOOO much and have the PERFECT spouse who takes her on OMG – a SURPRISE weekend to wine country, I have to be careful not to hit the back of my head.
Where I grew up, people who talked like that were said to be on a “high horse,” which is kind of a funny expression when you think about it.
Not only are you making the rest of us feel bad about our unglamorous lives, but you are also losing readers too.
So, forget about hiding your crazy. Let it all out. Your readers will thank you for it.
This article was originally posted to Mom Marketing Coach
