Have you been waiting for someone to drop you a five bullet point of the best blog tips for how to manage your blog content creation for your business? Because if I can be honest, blogging is not my favorite part of my job. I don’t know if you are like me or not, but I used to sit at my computer looking at a blank screen thinking what the heck am I supposed to talk to people about? I’m good at what I do, but I don’t want to explain how I do it, and I don’t know if they want to hear about all of my potty training stories (well, not mine, my kids, I’m already potty trained, thank you *hah*)!

I do know one thing though, it is my heart to help mamas get the most out of their work time, and building a blog is one of the most important ways to gain traction in marketing, since your blog posts stay on your website and don’t go away. I wasn’t convinced on blogging until I was recently looking up a marriage article for my own personal life and the most helpful article I found was an article on an old, outdated website from around 2009. The design was definitely lacking, but the information was ridiculously helpful and vulnerable, and the best part was, it was ranked number one on the Google search for that particular question I searched. So be like that lady, and just start blogging! Here are my best blog tips for you!

Be consistent and don’t let an imperfect website stop you from getting your thoughts into a blog.

Are you like me? Your house is a mess but as soon as you know people are coming over you become this lady:

Everything has to be perfect for guests, and no one is allowed in the door until every.single.lego is put back in it’s dang clear plastic bin, shoved quietly in the back closet. It might be the same for you with your website and blog – If your website isn’t what you want it to look like right now, you are nervous to be posting anything because you don’t want readers to think you don’t know what you are talking about, or are too unprofessional with an incoherent design.

But here’s a thought… It’s a lot easier to transfer your 300 blogs from an outdated website to a new website design/format and maintain traffic levels. It’s a lot more painful to invest in a beautiful design and spend all your time trying to build up a large blog library quickly for your influx of website traffic.

Even if you aren’t ready for branding or paying someone to design your website at a level you really would love right now, you should STILL be building up and adding content to your blog! If it’s a short 3 paragraph blog, FINE! If you have a good thought, write it down! You can always go back and update/edit posts later. Just get startedddd, girl! You can do it!

And don’t feel like it has to be every day either. Just be consistent! Set a day of the week or day of the month – just like with potty training – it’s like running that un-diapered booty to the potty as fast as you can, over and over and over and all of the sudden you have a kid who flushes the toilet while you are working and says he’s washing his hands, and you have to stop and blink for a second because how did they just do that?! (also go check to see if they really wiped…) You’ll build up your blog surprisingly quickly if you commit to it!

Pick some “Content Buckets”

Alright, listen. There’s this girl who is like the best kept secret in blogging, Meera Kothand who has changed my blogging perspective. Her free kindle book called the “One Hour Content Plan” was game-changing for me. You can find it HERE. I’m not associated with her in any way and the kindle book doesn’t cost anything, I just read through the book and tell all of my clients about her and her plan for blogging! Go read it and I promise you, your blog life will be SO MUCH EASIER.

Here’s a sneak peek into what she talks about. Pick 8 “content buckets” that pertain to your service or industry and then break those 8 topics into 6 Subcategories. So for example, one of my blog topics is brand design which means that under the content bucket of brand design, I can talk about logo design, color palettes, mood boards, client portfolio pieces, brand photography, and font pairings. That’s easy for me to list quickly but that is because I spent a lot of time (well, one hour, really, thanks Meera) thinking through the different things [IMPORTANT: Not just things that I COULD talk about, but that would be life-giving and fun for me to talk about – I could talk about design theory and color psychology and the psychology of advertising within brand design.. not super fun for me. But font pairings. I will sit there all day and talk about the clean lines and curves of my new favorite serif font!] GO READ THAT BOOK!

Do Roundup Posts

This one is simple but powerful! Find some non-competing but still on topic products or services, or even concepts from other’s websites that you think would be helpful for your audience. For example, if you are a life coach, what inspiring art can you find from artists that might be helpful for your audience? If you are a wedding photographer, what shoes do you love for this season that you would totally want to photograph? To be honest, the point of these posts is to find a way to throw your own product in and be a part of the “roundup”, connect with other likeminded business owners and have them share the same roundup post in their blogs, and get in front of other people’s networks – but the networking side can take a long time! Once you find that group of makers or service providers who can share valuable info for your audience that isn’t directly the same as what you might share, then use that network and keep doing roundups.

Another common example is getting a group of industry friends and having them spill the beans about their best entreprenuer tips or starting a business… etc. Then you can link to each other’s sites and they will share with their network that they have been featured in your blog, and hopefully send their traffic to you! Start looking for those people in your network that you can partner with!

Get an Accountability Partner

Being an entreprenuer can be really lonely and it feels like you can slide on your deadlines sometimes without accountability. If you are really serious about committing to growing your blog, get someone who can hold you accountable (and who will)! Give them a gift for you (think $5 sbux gift card) that they can give to you when you finish, and if you don’t finish on time, they get to use it! Win-win! For me, my VA Susanna is amazing at helping me to stay on track with deadlines because she will remind me that we need to post on our deadline day, and it puts the fire under me to get my stuff together and write the dreaded blog post! But not everyone has a VA yet! So, find a local friend, an industry friend, another blogger, and create some rewards for each other if you finish your goal of 4 blogs/month, or 2 blogs/week. Whatever your goal is, find someone who can celebrate with you if you meet your goal (and give you a smack if you don’t – just kidding… maybe… whatever you need to get the job done amiright? #momprenuerlife #someonemakememorecoffee) – [see blogging can be fun…?!]

Enjoy yourself

My biggest mistake when I started blogging for my business was trying to come in strong and show that I was an “expert” in my field. Now don’t get me wrong, I am really good at what I do, and I have been able to help my clients elevate their brands to new levels of excellence at every touchpoint and connect with their ideal clients, helping them to work with those they love – but when I sat down to write blogs, I sounded like a nerd robot, spitting out statistics and trying to make my voice sound so much like an expert, it kind of made me sick to my stomach. I lost my personality, lost my voice, and really hated blogging.

After a good heartfelt conversation with my friend and business mentor from the Heartfelt Brand Society, Bonnie Bakhtiari, she suggested that I find things that I actually like to talk about. I know I mentioned this thought earlier in the blog, but I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into this thought.

If I’m going to work with someone, and spend my family’s money, I do care about the results (like REALLY care – I don’t want that look from my husband that I spent way too much again on something that didn’t turn out the way I thought it would – *yes, I have done that in my own business*). And if I had to choose between a service provider who could give me great results, knew a lot, and had no personal touch on the process, I would feel a little unsure of myself during the whole investment process. But, if I could work with someone who could give me great results, knew a lot, AND was fun to work with, encouraging, and was passionate about what they did, I would pick that person (obviously!).

Your blog is a great way to introduce the tone of your brand, your services, your brand voice, and should sound a lot like you are having a conversation with someone on the phone (imho <- do people say that anymore??). And instead of speaking to my audience about things that I enjoyed and was passionate about, I was trying to convince them to work with me by throwing scary statistics in their face. Ugh, gross, not a fan, and I’m so glad I switched to just being able to be myself in my blog – a cheerleader and encourager. When I talk about things I love (helping moms be successful, spend more time with their family and develop an elevated brand design + strategy, I get so excited, it’s way easier to write! I may not sound like an expert who should be making 10 million per project, but I do hope that I sound passionate and true to form when I start interacting with my clients who have their first interaction with me through a blog post.

Writing about things that make you passionate allows you to stay on top of being authentic in your interactions with people – if you set yourself up as a knowledge expert only with no personality, you’ll have to carry yourself as that – and that can be exhausting! Share your passion and share your personality so you don’t burn out, and write about the things that inspire you too!!

Bonus Tip – Invest in a well-designed website

Okay, wait a second, didn’t you just say you don’t need that to start a blog? Heck yes I did! And I truly believe it! If you are just starting out and don’t have the means to invest in a high-quality brand for your service based business, just get some dang posts up and don’t worry about your website yet. Take it slow and don’t feel pressured to do it all at once!

But, if you have been in business for several years and you are serious about growing your footprint, creating evergreen content that does the heavy-lifting for you, and building a higher level of engagement and shares, having a well-thought through website funnel for blog readers is essential to growing your business and doing heavy lifting for you! I mean while I’m writing this, I’m sitting at my desk, sipping a second cup of coffee for the morning, but by the time you read this, I might be outside playing with my kiddos, on a hike with the hubs, or cheerfully designing high-quality, luxury brands for my clients!

And this blog post is doing all of the marketing for me, because it is on a well-designed website, with a tried and true funnel system (look, honesty is a value too!) that is bringing lovely and amazing people like YOU to me! It’s not sleazy to be efficient I think! And I love helping clients like you establish their brands on not just stunningly designed websites, but functionally funneled websites that are purposeful and help direct their audience exactly where they need to go, so they aren’t wasting their dang time scrambling to find their next few clients.

I equip momprenuers with elevated, high-converting brands so that they can raise their rates without losing precious time with those who matter most to them! I only take on two branding clients per month so I can give each wonderful mamaprenuer the attention she and her business deserve. It would be such an honor to hear your story and how I can best serve you in your business journey right now, so please reach out and let’s grab a virtual cup of coffee!

Fill out the form below to begin the conversation and step into the elevated brand you know your business and customers deserve!