Blog Tips, Blogging |
Writing a blog post feels like solving a maze. You wouldn’t want to begin, knowing that you’re going to fail one way or another, probably over and over, until you reach the finish line.
But just like a maze, you have to start if you want to get it done! So today, let us help you plan your day as you write a blog post.
#1 Plan your day… realistically
For your own sake, don’t shoot for the stars, hoping that you will land on the moon. That’s not the best advice to take when you’re planning to write a blog.
You have to be more realistic because your responsibilities as a mother are in line if you don’t check what you need to do for the day. Carefully plan the non-negotiables of your day, like breastfeeding, preparing your toddler’s food, reading her a story before tucking her to bed, and so on.
Check this to-do list first, then set realistic goals for your mom blog. Don’t rush too much if you can’t finish a post the whole day. Based on experience, quality comes before quantity in your journey of mom blogging.
#2 Who are you trying to help?
Audience-targeting is usually done before you even buy a domain. This is on the upper part of the to-do list when you decide to start a mom blog.
Once you have a target audience, every post should be in service of them. But just in case you are targeting a different audience for this specific blog post or you haven’t really decided on your target audience, it will be best to do audience-targeting before you write a blog post.
#3 Check your previous posts
Our #4 step is about deciding on the topic to write. This is one of the most difficult parts in writing a blog post, so we advise that before you Google for something to write, check your previous posts first. You may have slightly discussed a topic before and you’d want to elaborate on that.
This is a good way to select a topic for two reasons:
- First, you probably have a little bit of knowledge on this topic.
- Second, this will help you create internal links between your blog posts. Internal linking is one of the powerful tools in SEO.
#4 Decide on a specific topic
If you didn’t find anything on your previous post, you can effectively choose a topic by thinking of your target audience.
How can you help them today in your post? What is something about your niche that you have struggled to figure out before and now you know completely and you think will be of great help to them? What is something trending in your niche that you want to express your opinion about?
Once you’ve decided on the topic, try to scale it down to something more specific, then create a working title out of it.
#5 Decide the type of post to write
Now that you have a topic, it’s time to make it easily readable for your audience. Here are the types of posts that you can choose from:
- How-to post – something like this blog post. It talks about the steps on how to achieve something. This is perfect if you’re teaching your readers the methodological process of how to get from where they are to where they want to be.
- News post – this is a more formal and more stiff kind of writing that often involves quoting facts and statements from others. This is more fitting if you’re writing about an update in your niche.
#6 How will you end it?
There’s beautiful advice from Malcolm Gladwell, the writer of the worldwide-acclaimed book, The Tipping Point. He said the best way to start writing is to know how you’ll end. He says, when you know the ending of what you’re writing, everything else will be so easy.
That’s actually an excellent point! One challenge in writing is that you can get lost in the middle. But if you have an ending to your blog post, you’ll have a guide to the finish line.
#7 Write for yourself
Start with a draft. Dump all the things you know – your research, your opinions, more research while you’re writing, everything! Write down every single thing in your head as if you’re the one who will read your post.
#8 Write for your audience
I really believe that the first phase of editing is refining your work to suit your audience. In step #7, you wrote as if you’re the one who will read it. This will allow you to freely express yourself.
But in the end, you know that you’re really writing for your audience, right? So rephrase your sentences, add some more words and sentences to explain your point, then deduct the unnecessary. This first phase of editing should be the part where you make your blog post easiest to understand for your audience.
#9 Edit and Proofread
In writing, the more you edit, the better your blog post becomes. Edit and proofread as much as you want.
Check your grammar. Refine your words and sentences more. Read the post over and over until you can say that this is something worth reading.
#10 Season your post with pictures
Lastly, help your post become more interesting by adding interesting photos that will illustrate the words you’re writing.
Photos will surely take away the boredom of reading. After all, you don’t have to take your own photos. There are lots of websites out there giving out free photos like Unsplash and Pixabay. And mind you, they’re not your average images, but photos taken by professional photographers! If you’ll be kinder enough, credit these photographers in your mom blog too.
In the ’90s when people started blogging, they were just writing their ideas almost without a filter. Those days, blogging used to be more personal – an outlet for those who wanted to share their feelings and experiences.
I don’t see any reason why mom bloggers should do blogging differently. Don’t be too conscious to the point that your consciousness will stop you from starting a blog post. After all, your readers may have 0% knowledge about the topic you’re sharing. Keep these readers in mind and forget about your fear of getting negative comments.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach
Blog Tips, Blogging, Blogging Success, Mom Marketing Coach |
These days when opening your laptop is like going outdoors and meeting tons of people, you don’t really need to be away from home to reach out to the world. Communicating with your friends and family and with people whom you share the same interests with can be done within the confines of your home. That in itself is a lot of fun!
Gone are the days when women with children seem to be locked inside the toxic world of motherhood, without anything else to do but to take care of their children. Now, you can do so much more, learn so many things, and connect to the world even when you’re a stay-at-home mom. But a lot of moms like me have discovered that there’s a way to use that global access for something more productive. That’s by having your own mom blog!
You may be hearing this ‘mom blogging’ for the first time. In that case, you might want to read our earlier post about how to start a mom blog. And if you decide to push through with this journey, you’ll be one of the thousands to millions of moms out there who took this path and hopefully, you’ll love it too.
As for me, these are the reasons why I find mom blogging very helpful for all the mommies out there.
It’s fun.
When all you do for the rest of the day is to change nappies, cook meals for your kids, play with them until they get tired, and take a peek on social media when they’re too tired to play, you’ll surely find mom blogging sooo fun!
Imagine sharing your ideas to the whole world for free and exchanging thoughts with those who have the same experience as yours. You can share the ups and downs of being a mother. You can tell your fellow moms about the hacks on how to make a mom’s life easier. Above all, you can be yourself and share your passion to tons of people without having to leave the house. Isn’t that fun?
You can earn from it.
In case you don’t know it yet, a lot of mom bloggers out there are earning millions of dollars by sharing their true selves to the world through their blog sites. If other blogs can be monetized, you can moneytize your mom blog too! Not that we’re saying you should do mom blogging for this sole reason, but if you can earn while having fun, why not?
You can destress through it.
Moms understand that our journey involves a lot of inner battles. Our daily environment may be filled with children’s laughter and silliness, but there are private moments when you just want to give up. It’s during these stressful times that mom blogging can help you.
Instead of keeping everything inside, you can share your thoughts and feelings through your mom blog. It could be a personal journal of your struggles and victories as a mom. This will help you de-stress. Plus, you might get some insights and tips from moms like you on how to handle what you’re going through.
You will learn from it.
As you do mom blogging, you will realize that this journey requires learning new things. In fact, writing posts in your blog will lead you to the routine of researching. If you’re not the type of mom who reads a lot, don’t panic! Doing online research for your blog is not as boring as it sounds.
If you’re writing about what you love, like pop culture or the Marvel Universe for example, then reading about it will never bore you. It won’t feel like working at all. What’s great about blogging is that your knowledge base will only grow as you write more.
You will know yourself better.
Speaking of more, another good thing about mom blogging is that you will discover more about yourself. As you brainstorm content for your mom blog, you will find out more about your interests – what topics are dearest to you, what things you want to learn more about, and which ones you write the best about. You’ll discover new passions and pursuits. Your journey to self-discovery will grow deeper as your horizons expand in the world of blogging.
It will help you become a better mom.
When you know yourself so well and you continue to discover new things while mom blogging, you’ll also have more things to share with your children. When you have a passion that keeps you going every day, you’ll be happier and more content. You will have an outlet when you’re too stressed and you’ll have a sense of purpose. As you become a better person, your children will be the biggest beneficiary.
You should contribute to the mom community.
Since I’ve been mom blogging for years, I see it now as a responsibility to the mom community. We know that being a mother is not easy and if you have the chance to make it less burdensome for another mom, wouldn’t you do it? I would. What can stop us when we have free access to the internet and there are websites that offer blog domains for free?
You can help other moms out there by sharing what you know through mom blogging or by simply being an inspiration to all of us that a mother can have a meaningful life apart from rearing her children.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach
Blog Tips, Blog Traffic, Blogging, Blogging Success, Grow Your Audience, Marketing Tips, Mom Marketing Coach, Mompreneur |
Mom Blog’s Five Content Ideas
Social media marketing has been one of the most effective strategies in introducing a brand. It’s also a proven tool to sustain a good reputation.
The question is, have you been using social media to boost your business presence? And if you are, are you using it the right way?
These are the questions that we plan to address in this post. If you’re encountering problems like not knowing how to start in marketing your online shop or mom blog through social media or running out of content to share, you’ve come to the right place.
What we’d like to share with you first is that you can’t post just about anything in your online shop or mom blog’s social media accounts. But you cannot be too careful either that you tend not to post anything at all.
For us, the perfect balance lies in the diversity and sufficiency of content that you share in these accounts. Here are some content ideas that will help keep your social media presence consistent.
Blog Posts
Obviously, if you’re a mom blogger with your own blog site, you should publish these blog posts to your social media accounts. If you write once, twice, or even more frequently in a week, then you should have more content to post in your social media accounts.
Even online shops should have a blog page in their website where posts can be published. This is where your ideas, tips, explanations, and elaboration about your products and services can be written.
Quick notes on publishing blog posts to social media:
- Always upload an attractive featured image that goes with the link to your blog post
- Make a very short description as the caption for the link post
- Instagram doesn’t show a clickable link so you might want to shorten the URL of your post by using third-party apps or programs like Rebrandly
- Better to have a uniform caption across all social media accounts for consistency
Your Own Photos
Photos are eye candies. This has been proven by the popularity of Instagram as a photo-sharing site. People love sharing and looking at photos whatever those photos may be so make sure you show yours.
If you’re selling products from your online shop, share photos of them on some days when you don’t have any new blog post to share. If yours is a mom blog site, share a photo related to your niche and write a catchy caption for it.
Graphic Design
As we said earlier, the content of your social media accounts should be diverse. Aside from purely single photos or collage of photos, post graphics on some days too. This kind of content is more catchy than pure texts and it’s effective in delivering a message at one glance. It could be a graphic design of your promo for the month or an infographic explaining something on your niche.
If your mom blog is about parenting, you might want to share a creative infographic showing a day in a businesswoman-mom’s life. If you’re selling healthy baby products in your online shop, you might want to share graphics showing the advantages of those products. Extend your imagination and go as creative as you can. You have so much time to do that with 7 posts a week, one each day, or more!
Website Pages
Still not enough graphics, photos, and blog posts to share? Then post a link of your website pages to your social media accounts.
Publish a link post of your About page and write a very short summary of it as the caption. Share your Reviews page so your audience can see how trustworthy you are. You can also share links to your Service pages to tell everyone what you can do for them.
Use these website pages to introduce yourself, your products, and your services to your audience little by little.
External Sources
Now, we’re going offsite. You can make your social media posts highly diverse by sharing something interesting from another website every once in a while.
For example, if there’s a latest global news that everyone is talking about, share a link from a news site to your page and put a caption that people can relate to. The same strategy applies when there’s a local news in your country that’s worth sharing.
Some other external sources that you can publish in your social media accounts are links, videos, and photos about trending online topics. They will easily catch the attention of your audience so expect to reap thumbs ups and hearts when you post them!
Last Piece of Advice
Consistency is the name of the game in social media marketing. You cannot stop because you don’t have a content to post. Instead, you should keep looking for content so you’ll have something to share with your audience. This is how you start building and maintaining a strong presence in this marketing arena.
This article was originally posted Mom Marketing Coach
Blog Traffic, Blogging, Marketing Tips, Mom Marketing Coach |
Other Ways Mom Blogger Earn Income
Just recently, I came across an article that talks about mom-and-pop online stores which started small but are now earning hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
These stores are not the Alibaba or the eBay type of shops but those that were established by ordinary people like you and me who just wished for better products in the market.
The only difference with them is that they are so passionate about what they wanted that they quit their jobs and took huge risks until they reached the peak of success. One such risk is to see zero income for the first few months of operating their online stores.
Just to be clear, we’ll not talk about tips on how to grow your online business today. You can find those tips some place else in our blog. What we’ll discover today is how to earn some more cash while you wait for your Mom blog or online store to be phenomenal.
When you take on the mom blogging journey, you must understand that you’re also taking the risk that it might take months or even years before you’ll receive profit from blogging. So if you’ve quit your job for this pursuit or you’re on your way to doing so, here are some home-based online jobs that you can apply to so you can earn additional income while you wait.
Content Writing
I suppose you’re an enthusiastic mom blogger with so much creative ideas running inside your head. The best place to use those creative ideas and excellent written communication skills is in the websites of clients who are looking for amazing writers like you.
This job does not require a college degree or decades of experience in writing. You can look for a specific niche or field where you’re most familiar with, and you can start sending your application letter and writing samples to clients hunting for content writers in that niche.
Content writing is so far-reaching in scope that there are thousands of topics to be written about, including technology and gadgets, health and fitness, home improvement, and a lot more! The niches are as numerous as the industries all over the world. Some require technical knowledge while some only require research skills and creativity.
Transcription
Transcription simply means converting an audio file into a written form. This job is so in demand these days because of the growing need for online reading materials and subtitles for videos published all over the internet.
An experience in transcribing audio materials is a plus but normally, clients only require typing skills and the right device to hear the files clearly. Earnings from this type of job range from $4 to $10 per page of transcription.
Paid Online Survey
Another job that awaits you is answering online surveys for companies. Online surveys are helpful measuring tools for these businesses. They use survey results to make decisions on how to improve their products and services.
Data Entry Jobs
This is one of the simplest jobs that you can find online. Any person of any age, with or without job experience, can do data entry. It could be as simple as transferring data from a Spreadsheet to a Word file to something more challenging like typing text from several images into a document. In any case, all you need are typing skills and familiarity with certain computer programs.
Graphic Designing
If you have experience in making graphic arts, this is a suitable online job for you. Many businesses are in need of artists who can produce appealing graphic design for their websites. Even without experience in this field, you can try this out if you can create basic graphics and if you’re familiar with programs like Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.
Social Media Management
Social media marketing has become one of the most effective strategies in growing your business in this day and age. Contrary to what you might think, social media marketing is not simply posting appealing content in your social media accounts whenever you can. There is an effective way to publish and manage posts to convert likes and hearts into actual sales.
This is the job of a social media manager. So if you can reap hundreds to thousands of likes in social media, you might want to develop that skill and manage the accounts of clients looking for social media managers.
Virtual Assistant Jobs
Another hot online job these days is that of a virtual assistant or VA. Being a VA requires administrative skills like managing websites, online researching, sending and responding to emails, organizing files, creating presentations, and a whole gamut of admin tasks for a businessman or a company. Most VAs are paid based on the hours worked while some receive a weekly or monthly salary.
Final Words
If you will notice, these jobs that we’ve listed above do not have regular calling as part of the tasks. All of these online jobs only involve typing, research, and designing tasks that are perfect for mom bloggers and mompreneurs who don’t have a quiet working environment most of the time. These jobs don’t require fixed working hours as well because that would be very difficult for moms like us.
Now that you’ve learned about these income-generating jobs that you can do everyday as a mom blogger or mompreneur, we hope you’ll have a sense of financial security while you work your way up in the bloggerverse.
This article was originally posted Mom Marketing Coach
Blog Tips, Blog Traffic, Blogging, Blogging Success, Mom Marketing Coach |
Mom Blog Post 5 Key Elements
The goal of this article is not to impress you but to educate you.
When you start with your mom blogging journey, it’s like you’re back to that first day in your first job where you feel totally lost. The office looks like a large room full of experienced people who are ready to eat you alive the moment you do the first dumbest thing that you can do in that office, which you eventually will because you are clueless!
Now, know this.
The online world is not just a large room but a sea of 1.8 billion websites competing against each other for the attention of over 3 billion people who have access to the internet. Translated in simple terms, one person has 3 billion options on where to look at when they open their browsers.
Now that sounds like an oversimplification of things, but with that statistics, how can your Mom blog or online store stand out? Why will a user look at your website? Why spend a few seconds staying at your website when they have over a billion other options?
The answer is this: give them a reason to stay from the time they land on your page until they read the very last word.
In this blog post, you’ll learn not only one but five elements of a blog post that might keep a reader longer in your website.
There’s no better time to know this than now:
The power of your website to make readers stay is one of the first factors that Google considers in ranking your website.
Now, let’s begin.
A Great Structure
In our previous post, we talked about how to brainstorm content for your mom blog.
While you do this, take note of Brian Dean’s advice.
He said that it would be helpful to look into websites offering online courses like Udemy, Alison, and Open2Study to discover topics with huge viewership under your particular niche.
Focus on the courses which many people have enrolled to, especially those they paid for. The reason is obvious. If thousands or millions of people studied that course and even paid for it, then that much people will also be interested in your blog post if you write about it!
The next step is to look into the curriculum of that course and use it as a basis for your structure. This way, you don’t need to do a trial and error to find out which topic and structure to useso you can have more viewership.
Bucket Brigades
Also from Brian Dean, this strategy has been used by salesmen in writing letters to prospective clients.
Bucket brigades is simply the use of terms like, “Look, “See this,” “Here’s what,” “The two common problems are,” and “Stay with me,” among others. If you notice, these terms will make you scroll down because they demand attention from readers. They are great statements that will hook readers to keep reading.
SEO Keywords and their Synonyms
We all know the importance of inserting keywords that are aimed at increasing our rankings in Google. Whether or not you know how to research for keywords, this is one of the fundamentals of a good blog post.
However, Google has grown more intelligent these days that using the same keywords frequently in the post is not enough to give you a high ranking. Google has to see what we call the LSI seasoned in your post. LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing which refers to keywords related to your main keywords.
Simply put, you also have to season your post with keywords that are synonymous or closely related to your main keywords so that Google can pinpoint where you want to rank.
For example, if you want to optimize your blog post for ‘baby bottles,’ you can’t just use this term and mention it frequently in your article. You have to use words like ‘feeding bottles’ or ‘baby feeding bottles’ so that Google will understand that you want users to find you when they look for feeding bottles for babies.
Case Studies
When you look at Neil Patel’s blog posts, you will find each of them filled with case studies from beginning to end.
Case studies refer to statistics and published research works related to the topic you’re writing about. Without a case study, your blog post will just be a collection of opinions without solid facts to back them up.
Sentences or paragraphs showing statistics about your topic will boost the credibility that your post needs for people to trust you.
Headings
Another key element of an effective blog post is the presence of headings. Headings give your post a direction so that readers will easily find hints on what the post is all about.
Make the headings relatable and easy to understand so your readers will be able to grasp how your post can help them by simply looking at these headings.
At the end of the day
These five key elements can only do so much in increasing your Google rankings but they can never replace a great research work that you put in and the ability to clearly communicate information to your readers.
Make no mistake.
These key elements that we’ve discussed is not a guarantee of wide viewership. There are tons of other factors to consider to make that happen. But as a beginner, these elements will open your eyes to the competition you are up to and hopefully, give you a good fight.
How sure are we?
Well, as sure as our sources are, because these tips are from SEO experts themselves, like Brian Dean and Neil Patel, who have studied the Google algorithm for many years. These blog writing techniques gave them over 100% increase in viewership and they have the numbers to back it up!
This article was originally posted Mom Marketing Coach
Blog Tips, Blogging, Mom Marketing Coach |
Apps That Make Your Mom Blog Appealing
Mompreneurs and Mom Bloggers belong to a unique species of bloggers. We have specific needs and circumstances that set us apart from the ordinary bloggers out there, namely, we are the busiest of them all!
While the other members of the “bloggerverse” have all the time in the world to take photos for their blog posts, design graphics in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign, and research for the most popular keywords to pump up their SEO, mom bloggers like us have only one go-to place for all of these – Google Images. Sadly, googling images for your blog has more disadvantages than you can imagine, like getting yourself sued for infringement, having duplicate content in your blog, and getting images with poor quality, to name a few.
But you know, this does not have to be the case. Your Mom Marketing coach is right here to help you add beautiful graphics and images to your blog posts, without spending too much time which we don’t really have. In this blog post, we’ll talk about the very helpful apps and websites that you can use to add creativity to your posts and to help you become more productive in your mom blogging journey.
Mangools KWFinder
Let’s begin with the most helpful of all. KWFinder is an app that will help you find the high-ranking keywords in a specific topic. For instance, if you’re blogging about baby items, you can search for topics like baby shoes, baby dresses, or baby toys and you’ll find popular keywords for these specific topics. The keywords are ranked based on how frequent they are searched on Google. Mangools KWfinder even tells you the level of competition for that keyword so you’ll know the fight that you’re up to if you want to rank for it.
Unsplash
Technically, Unsplash is not an app, but a website where you can find amazing images taken by professional photographers from around the world. Mind you, this website does not accept average-looking photos but those that are striking, clear, and cut-above-the-rest. Go ahead and type unsplash.com in your URL and see what we mean.
Canva
Some people say a picture can say a thousand words and it has never been true for mom bloggers who want to make an immediate impact. The challenge here is to create compelling posts with catchy graphics that can capture your audience’s attention. Fortunately, there’s Canva to save the day. This app has what you need to make your blog posts more friendly to the eyes. You can choose from their set of free templates and progress from there. There is a wide variety of fonts, graphics, and shapes you can add to spice your post further. And if that’s not enough, you can pay a small price for some of their premium design elements. With Canva, you’re one step closer to having professional content without having to pay for a graphic designer.
Buffer
Now that you’ve got your attention-grabbing content, it’s time to share them on your social media accounts. Ideally, you should allow a few minutes of your time every day to post so your engagement will rise through the roof. A good tool to have in your arsenal is Buffer.
Basically, Buffer helps you have a more organized experience when posting on social media. What this app does is give you a way to schedule your posts in advance. If you want, you can create a series of posts in one sitting and you’re done with your social media tasks for the whole week. You can even set Buffer to post to different social media websites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, among others. In doing so, you can just sit back and relax while your audience grows exponentially.
Slack
Let’s face it, you can’t do everything all on your own. If you do so, you run the risk of missing your deadlines or putting out content that won’t have any positive effect on your goals. It’s much better to have a team to help you run your blog and your different social media accounts. If this is the way you want to go, you better take a look at what Slack has to offer you.
In its core, Slack provides you with the means to connect with people within your team without all the fuzz. You can create groups that revolve on a specific task and invite members of your team there. For instance, you have several people working on your social media engagement. All you need to do is create a group and you can focus on their development in one specific place.
There’s no need anymore for tons of e-mails and losing track of those important conversations in the process. Plus, Slack is better than the other apps in the market because it’s dedicated to giving you an enhanced communication experience with you and your team.
Trello
For some mom bloggers and mompreneurs, having a space dedicated for your files is heaven-sent. You no longer have to rummage your hard disk for that one photo you need to create a blog or social media post. This is the benefit of using Trello.
This app is all about organization. You can create numerous cards and organize them by columns. You can attach your files to these cards and add some important information to them. You can even take this app to the next level by labeling them with various colors so you can remember their specific purpose better.
In addition, Trello allows you to link these cards to your Google Drive account so there would be a seamless way to access your files. When you use this app with Slack, you and your team will have a trouble-free time communicating and organizing your content. Now that’s something priceless for any mom blogger.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
