Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

What First Things First Means for Wellness Blogging

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A Content Mastery Guide reader asked, “I’m wondering about amplifying blog posts via other social media. This may be beyond where some of your readers are, but I’m trying to figure this out. Among other things, it seems to allow for recycling content easily – like scheduling an evergreen post to go out on Facebook or LinkedIn every so often.”

First things first

Great question! And great point about this being beyond where some bloggers might be at the moment. In fact, we chatted about that concept in my interview for the Neon Noise podcast when host Ken Franzen asked me about republishing blog posts to other sites like Medium and LinkedIn.

Republishing is absolutely a great way to reach a new audience (on Medium) and get your posts in front of people in your network who may have missed it the first time (on LinkedIn), but for a new wellness blogger I’d say hold off and practice the principle of “first things first.”

Write, publish, promote, email, repeat

When it comes to wellness blogging, here are those first things (you can see that blogging itself is only half the story):

  1. Get into a consistent blogging routine
  2. Publish a new post at least once or twice a month
  3. Promote (amplify) those posts via social media (try this promotion checklist)
  4. Start and grow an email list of people who you’ll send those posts to directly

Once you’ve been doing all this consistently for awhile (it will take six months to one year to start the see the real results of your efforts), and you’ve navigated successfully through some rough spots (see: Five Things Not to Do When Restarting Your Business Blog and Is There a Bottleneck in Your Wellness Blogging Process?), then it’s time to take things to the next level.

Your republishing plan

Just like you plan your blog posts, you can plan when you will republish those posts to other sites. I developed my own republishing plan while taking Denise Wakeman’s 30-day Online Visibility Challenge (you can start here with her free 7-day version).

First I reviewed my Google Analytics to determine my most popular posts from the archives. I also knew I wanted to keep republishing my most recent posts.

Then, I added all of those posts to a Google Sheets document. I include the URL for quick access later, the original publication date, and when I plan to (or when I actually do) post it to the other site.

Once I’ve republished the post, I change the text colour to light grey so I can see at glance which ones are complete.

My 2018 Q1 blogging plan

I’ve been experimenting for awhile with publishing new posts twice a month rather than weekly. Sometimes this was a necessity because of competing priorities, but I also realized that I have a gold mine of content in my archives that many readers still haven’t seen.

Of course publishing less content only works as long as you’re also promoting your content in between posts, and keeping in touch with your network via email and social media. So while I can’t say I never missed a week, I did my best to maintain my weekly newsletter schedule.

On the alternate weeks when I don’t publish a new post at Content Mastery Guide, I will republish a popular or recent post to my LinkedIn blog (twice a month or so), or to Medium (I have two planned for this quarter). So here too, I am focusing on consistency and quality, not quantity.

While I do have my topics set and some of my outlines started for my six posts in Q1, I’m also open to scrapping those posts and starting new ones if that’s where my inspiration takes me.

Why I renewed my Edgar subscription

As for social media, at the beginning of 2017 I signed up for Edgar, a tool that allows me to store my social media updates (separated into categories), and then cycles through them again and again.

As they explain in this comparison of Edgar vs Hootsuite, the lifecycle of a social media update is very short, so resharing allows you to reach more of your audience without having to continually add or produce new content.

It’s a premium service, and priced as such, but I can definitely say people have responded to my reshared posts. And those moments of connection simply would not have happened otherwise. That’s ultimately why I decided to renew.

My blogging routine

So just as I am planning to produce less content but promote it more, I also want to deliver high-quality content that will add value to my readers’ lives and businesses.

With 640+ posts and counting here at Content Mastery Guide, I’ve learned a thing or two about what it takes for me to produce my best content. And that is time and space.

Ideally, I’ll spend 20 or 30 minutes over a few mornings drafting and writing a post, and then give myself a spacious stretch of two or three hours to shape it to completion.

Then, I like to set it aside again so I can approach the final proofread/edit with fresh eyes and run through the remaining steps of the blog writing process.

For 2018 Q1 I’m setting up my morning routine to allow for this process, with 30-minute slots scheduled every weekday morning, and a two-hour space on Thursday mornings. When I’m tempted to push blogging to the back burner (yes, it will happen), I’ll remind myself that I only need to keep this schedule for three months. Then I’ll review and decide whether to continue.

If you try to do too much, too soon, you’ll put undue pressure on yourself and your blogging team and your writing will stop being fun or effective. Make a blogging plan that suits your creative flow, schedule, and business goals.

P.S. Even though I’m sold on Edgar, I still love Hootsuite for viewing my Twitter lists, and Buffer’s web extension for managing my clients’ promotion and for sending the occasional one-off post that I know I won’t want to share again later.

How to Find the Best Research in the Least Time to Boost Your Blog’s Credibility

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Have you ever noticed underlined text or reference numbers when you’re reading health and wellness blogs? If you click on those, you’ll see that the author has backed up their writing with links to journal articles, studies, and other sources.

When I created my collection of five nutrition blogs I like, I noted Julie Daniluk’s commitment to research, and that it speaks volumes about her credibility and professionalism. And as nutritionist and health writer Leesa Klich points out in her post, there is no better way to make sure you’re delivering the most current recommendations and best value to your readers.

Leesa was my guest for a recent class in my Content Mastery Formula program, where she shared her tips for finding the best research in the least time.

She was even kind enough to stick around for a Q & A with our students, where we covered topics like how to shift from academic/professional/technical writing to conversational blog post writing, and how to structure the links and references within your blog post.

Here is an excerpt from our interview:

We all remember our days as students, spending hours poring over references for our academic papers. Is researching a blog post easier? (Please say yes!)

You can make it as easy as you want to! I see three main factors that would influence how long it would take:

 

  • What type of articles does your audience want (and expect) from you, and what type do you want to deliver and be known for? Short tips, updates, recipes and Q&As require less research time than “ultimate guides” or comprehensive protocols, but the latter will help you rank for SEO by giving away your best information.
  • The type of references you want to use. PubMed scientific peer-reviewed research articles will take a lot more time to decipher than reading a consumer-friendly NIH or Harvard Health newsletter, or another blog post on the same topic.
  • How specific you are. The more specific your search, the fewer references there will be. This is similar to the concept of a “long-tail keyword.”

 

If you go too far, and get too many references, consider breaking them up into a blog series.

A note from Linda: Remember that a blog post isn’t the same thing as a journal article or academic paper. This is a common myth amongst health and wellness professionals. You’re not writing to other professionals here (though of course your colleagues may also read your posts). Ultimately, you are writing for clients and prospective clients, so imagine you are speaking just to them and keep it simple.

What are your tips for being efficient with your research time?

 

  • Have a specific topic – Looking up references for “Is dairy healthy?” is very broad, versus looking at “Is milk a good source of calcium?”
  • Have a system – First, list your favourite sites to reference and use those sites each time (there’s no need to go down a “Google” black hole).
  • Batch it – Take your topic(s) and set a timer for 20-30 or up to 50 minutes. Search each of your preferred sites. Take a cursory look at the title of each potential reference. If it looks like it applies, copy the link into your draft blog article document. Don’t go and read through them yet.
  • Save good references for future use – They can give you some great ideas for future blog articles, and you already have a reference to start you off. Bookmark them, or copy the URL into a document for when you need to write your next article.

 

How about you? Have you ever gone down a Google black hole when researching a blog post? Or felt confused about the difference between a blog post and a journal article?

Hopefully these tips from Leesa Klich have given you a good place to start. With the boost to your credibility and the value for your blog readers, research is definitely worth the effort.

P.S. Leesa and I went on to discuss more about the three categories of references you might use in a blog post, and how to assess the credibility of a potential source. You can access that recording as a member of the Content Mastery Formula program. Learn more by joining me for my next free webinar.

Two Blogging Power Tools for Wellness Professionals

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Many wellness professionals know the benefits of blogging, yet their haphazard approach isn’t getting positive results. Some get overwhelmed by a floodgate of ideas but don’t have a structure for getting them finished and published. Others experience “blogger’s block” when they sit in front of a blank screen.

This post offers two blogging power tools that will help you:

  • Continually create content that connects with your ideal clients
  • Better manage your time
  • Deliver a steady flow of content to stay visible online
  • Produce an interesting and varied balance of content types and topics
  • Manage multiple contributors and time lines

An editorial calendar is the big picture of your blog

To be strategic about blogging you need to step back and take a broader view of your overall business and marketing goals. Then you can plug in the details of how blogging will help achieve these things.

This strategic process will yield a set of categories – central themes that intersect your expertise with your clients’ concerns. This list is key for staying on track with your blogging and putting your readers’ needs first.

An editorial calendar is a centralized document accessible to all your blog’s contributors (team members, guest experts, etc.), where you compile a list of planned blog posts for the next month, quarter, six months, year, etc.

Ideally, whichever tool you use or create will give you an instant glimpse of:

  • The blog post title and planned publication date
  • The status of each post (i.e., which posts are in the idea phase, in production, in revision, approved, and published and ready for promotion)
  • Who is responsible for the next action
  • The category and/or type of post (to create balance and variety, and ensure each category is being populated with new content)

If your primary goal is to keep yourself and others on task and be sure posts go out as planned, the free project management software Trello might be a good choice for your editorial calendar. You can create one list for each phase (idea, in production, etc.), and then easily drag and drop a blog post to a new column when its status changes.

Note: While you can use Trello’s color-coded label system for categories, keep in mind that you’ll be limited to only six labels. Because my blog and most of my clients’ blogs have more than six categories, I tend to use a customized Google spreadsheet for collaborating with clients about topic ideas for each category. Then I manage the production calendar in my own Wunderlist system.

With an editorial calendar as a blogging power tool, you’ll be able to plan posts around holiday themes, clinic schedules, and marketing events, and be thinking about and working on your posts long before they’re scheduled to publish.

Catch your blogging ideas wherever they spark

With your blogging calendar, you’ve created a set of content “buckets” – categories that are aligned with your prospective customers’ needs and interests. With those buckets in the back of your mind, I guarantee you will start to see and hear blog post ideas all around you.

When that happens, you need a place to capture your thoughts so you can either add these notes to existing posts on the calendar, or create new post ideas for later. The bonus is that when you sit down to work on a blog post, you’re not starting from a completely blank page.

The best idea catchers are the ones you’ll actually use. Experiment with applications that sync across different devices, such as Wunderlist, Trello or Evernote. See which one feels most comfortable – and even fun! Always have a low-tech option at your fingertips as well, such as a simple notepad and pen.

By creating a structure for your blog with an editorial calendar and category buckets, you keep on track with a consistent schedule and spark your creativity for new ideas. With your mind continually working in the background on filling in that structure, an idea catcher will ensure you never lose a single idea – OR have to start with a blank page.

Start today by creating a simple calendar of posts for the next three months (there’s one included in my free blogging plan workbook). Then be sure to put an idea catcher in place because your creativity will be sparking!

Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the SteamFeed blog, which is now closed.

How to Always Know What to Blog About

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Your blog categories are a vital part of your content marketing strategy. When someone visits your website and finds your list of blog categories displayed in the sidebar, they get an instant snapshot of the range of your expertise, and how you can help your clients.

Your blog categories are a natural extension of your brand, revealing what’s important to you and what you stand for in your business. Blog category links also help guide your readers to the information that will help them the most.

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Blog categories help you plan

Planning your blog categories before you write helps you organize your writing and stay on track, so you can achieve the consistency that will attract long-term readers and grow those relationships into sales.

By being strategic about your blog categories, you can more easily produce a balanced number of posts in each topic area. That way, visitors can see proof of your expertise no matter which category name they click.

This post will explain:

  • How to choose topics for your blog categories
  • How to choose names for your blog categories
  • How to maintain your blog categories
  • How to clean up your blog categories

How to choose topics for your blog categories

When considering your categories, identify the most pressing problems of your prospective clients. In the Four-Step Wellness Blogging Plan, I encourage you to consider topics that are broad enough to give you some variety and options, but specific enough that they’ll be relevant to your perfect clients.

Ideally you want to find the intersection between your audience’s interests and your own. You or someone on your team needs to have the interest, knowledge and ideas to keep writing about each category.

When choosing blog categories, think about the body of work you want to build over time. Is there a book in your future? Your blog categories could very well be your book’s chapters. An online course? Your categories might be lessons or segments of that course. White papers and presentations can also be created one blog post at a time.

Aim to have 5-7 blog categories that you find interesting and manageable to write about, which also address the concerns of your ideal clients.

How to choose names for your blog categories

Avoid jargon or industry-specific terms when naming your categories. Remember that your wellness blog visitors may have varying levels of knowledge and experience with your subject matter.

Also consider doing keyword research, as Doug Kessler explains:

If you use the same language your ideal clients are using, you’re more likely to show up in search engine results when they type in those terms.

Categories and tags can both be helpful for organizing your content and displaying your knowledge base. What can get messy, though, is mixing them up. Be clear about the difference between categories and tags, and have a specific plan for how you will use each on your site.

Use categories for broader topic areas and themes, such as you’d find in a book’s Table of Contents. Think of tags, on the other hand, like the index at the back of the book. Here you can get much more specific with single words and sub-ideas.

You can also use tags to group together related posts, such as all posts in a series.

How to maintain your blog categories

Once you’ve settled on a list of category names, commit to publishing in each category regularly. When you’re feeling creative, outline a few ideas all at once so you’ll never have to start from scratch.

Charlie Gilkey’s Blog Post Planner and Calendar are helpful for seeing your categories at a glance and making sure you’re achieving an ideal balance.

Your categories don’t have to be set in stone, but please think twice before you add a new category. Ask yourself:

  1. Do you already have a category that’s very similar to this one? For example, Sleep versus Sleep Tips.
  2. Is this too specific to be a category, and would it be better as a tag?
  3. Will you have other posts to write about this topic in the future, and is it something you know is relevant for your readers? Watch that you’re not using your blog as a diary to explore your own interests.
  4. Are you using the same capitalization style as your other categories? I recommend title case for categories (capitalizing all major words, along with the first and last word) and lower case for tags.

Above all, ensure every post is assigned a category. Describing a blog post as uncategorized makes your blog seem disorganized.

How to clean up your blog categories

If you started blogging without a clear plan for topics and categories, you can always make a fresh start with a category clean up. First, take an honest look and answer these questions:

  • Do any of your categories make you cringe because the topics or language are outdated, or because you haven’t posted anything new about the subject in a long time?
  • Have you been adding more and more categories until they’ve become unwieldy, overwhelming, or even meaningless, both for you and your readers?
  • Do your category names accurately reflect the content on your blog? Will the words or phrases mean the same thing to your readers as they do to you?
  • Are your categories tags in disguise? Have you been using categories and tags to serve the same purpose?

Now decide which categories you want to keep, and which of those need more attention. Also decide if there are categories you want to retire, in which case you would re-assign those posts to other categories and remove the category name from your sidebar.

In some cases you may want to change the name of an existing category. Be sure to research how your permanent links will be affected. Is the category name part of the permalink? If so, will links to older posts still work? Consider also whether you’ve ever linked to your category archive page from other posts or pages on your blog.

Check with your website developer to avoid any problems with broken links. If you’re using the self-hosted version of WordPress, you can also try a plugin called Term Management Tools, recommended by WP Beginner.

If you’re about to start or re-start a blog for your wellness business, download the free Four-Step Wellness Blogging Plan for help with goals, categories, topics, types of posts, time management, and creating an editorial calendar.

P.S. An earlier version of this post appeared on May 5, 2015 and was lightly edited and refreshed to create this post.

How to Blog From Your Passion For Wellness

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Have you ever sat down to work on a blog post and found the spark just wasn’t there? If writing doesn’t come naturally to you (and even if it does), any excuse can be enough to push blogging to the back burner.

But then your website loses steam, you lose confidence and momentum, and worst of all the people who need you and your wisdom lose out completely and you don’t get to help them.

If you’re forcing yourself to write posts you’re not excited about, it will always feel like an uphill climb. But if you’re writing about things that evoke passion within you, writing will be a thrill. (Okay, maybe not always a thrill, but I guarantee it will be easier.)

Now you may be wondering, isn’t my blog supposed to be all about the reader, and not about me? What does my passion have to do with it?

What’s passion got to do with it?

When you write from a place of passion, you cannot fail to connect with your perfect audience. They will feel your genuine commitment to helping them solve this particular health problem, and they’ll get to hear your authentic voice as you speak from your heart to their heart.

Only your perfect clients will resonate with your message and how you write it – ideally, the exact same way you speak it when they’re with you in the room or over the phone.

When passion wanes and worry begins

Maybe it’s time to scrap this post and move on, maybe you can’t reconnect to the spark you had when you first thought of the topic, or maybe the problem is that the spark was never there in the first place.

Let’s look at five reasons you may lack passion for your blog writing:

  1. It’s a sub-topic you’re not particularly excited about, even though it’s a core issue for your audience and very connected to your passion area. Try this: Keep your eyes on the prize – if you can get someone over this initial hurdle, they can move into a place where you can both focus on what you love. Meet the person where they are to get them where they need to be.
  2. It’s a sub-topic you don’t know as much about. We can’t be experts at everything. Try this: Collaborate with other experts and either quote them as a trusted source in your blog post or share something they’ve already written. You can also enhance your own practice by immersing yourself in the latest research to learn as much as you can.
  3. It’s not a post you should be writing. Maybe you’ve strayed from your core categories, or you’re delving into a topic that’s better suited to your diary. Try this: Head back to your blogging plan and get reacquainted with your original passion for your audience and the issues they care about, and most importantly how your blog will help them solve those problems.
  4. You’re passionate about your topic, but you (and others) have already written about it many times. Feel like there’s no use saying it all again? Try this: Realize that today’s reader may have never seen your older posts about the topic. If this is still an important concern for your audience, freshen up your older posts and give them new life. As far as your fellow bloggers, remember what I said earlier about your perfect clients. Even if they’ve read similar blog posts from someone else, it is your message that will draw them in and turn on that light bulb above their head.
  5. You’re passionate about your topic, but not about writing. I hear this all the time from wellness professionals who love what they do but struggle with the online marketing required to attract more clients and grow their business.

Try this: Seek a blogging coach or mentor to light your spark and give you the tools, confidence and know-how to let your passion shine through your writing.

You can start by joining my next free online blogging workshop!

Passion is one of the most important ingredients of an effective wellness blog. Use these tips and suggestions to boost your passion so your readers can feel it leaping off the page.