Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

How to Turn One Great Idea Into a Series of Future Blog Posts

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A blog post series is an editorial calendar’s best friend. From one topic idea, you can produce multiple posts that keep your blog fresh for weeks or even months. But how do you know when an idea is worthy of a blog post series?

This post will reveal:

  • Five signs that an idea is suitable for a blog post series
  • Five steps for bridging the same topic across multiple posts
  • Five ways to position a blog post series for maximum readability and visibility on your blog and across the web

Five signs that an idea is suitable for a blog post series

  1. You have different customers with related problems. For example, a nutritionist who blogs about how a particular vegetable or superfood helps the immune system could do follow-up posts about its benefits for sleep quality and weight loss.
  2. You’ve made a list. If you’ve already written a Top 10 (or 5, or 3) post, you have a natural launching point for delving deeper into each idea.
  3. Your writing is overflowing. You start writing and as you get into the flow, it turns into a long post that is no longer focused on a single topic, but is now a collection of related ideas.
  4. Your readers are asking for more. You’ve received several frequently asked questions that each warrant their own focused post.
  5. You have a theory about something. Sometimes you’ll want to teach your readers a deeper, more complex system or explore aspects of a theory you’re working on.

Five steps for bridging the same topic across multiple posts

Step 1: Compose an introduction to the series. Sometimes this will be a stand-alone post. Other times, your introduction will be part of the first post of the series.

Step 2: Look at what you’ve written and find the natural breaking point(s), where you’ve finished talking about one element and you’ve started talking about another one.

Step 3: Decide on a format for each post in your series – will they be quick and to-the-point, or use a more formal article layout?

Step 4: If you’re going with a typical article format, compose an introduction and conclusion for each of your blog posts.

Step 5: If you’re keeping things simpler, just insert each separate point into its own blog post, using the format you chose (e.g., sub-headings such as Name of Tip/Resource, When to Use, Other Suggestions).

Five ways to position a blog post series for maximum readability and visibility on your blog and across the web

  1. Independence: Assume people are reading each piece as a stand-alone blog post. They may never read the related posts, or they may read them in a different order than you wrote them. Make sure each post makes sense on its own.
  2. Links: Help readers navigate the series by adding links to the other posts as they’re published. You can list these separately at the bottom or top of your posts, or use anchor text links within a sentence.
  3. Language: Use the same words and phrases in each post, in order to reinforce your unique writing style and personality. Above all, try to use the same language that your typical customer might use when they discuss the topic.
  4. Group: Create a tag with a unique name and web address (“slug”) and assign that tag to each of the posts. Once you’ve published the first post, look for the name of the tag in the byline or footer of your post (depending on your site design). Click on that link and copy the URL from your web browser. It might look something like this: http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/tag/types. That is the link where people will find all posts with that tag, as long as you remember to add the tag to each one.
  5. Promote: As you promote each individual post via social media, use the series link you created above to invite readers to view the whole series. Use Buffer or another tool to schedule future posts as well.

Why stop at one post when you’ve discovered a juicy topic that could help your ideal clients in multiple ways? Use these blog post series tips to keep delivering high-quality content for weeks or even months to come.

Three Ways to Generate New Blog Post Ideas

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Have you finished your blogging plan, chosen the perfect category topics, but you still don’t know what to blog about? This happens, and doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong track. What’s more likely is that you just need some ways to access the blogging ideas that are all around you.

Here is a three-step process that will help:

1. Receive – with blogging antennae

With your blogging antennae on (thanks to online visibility expert Denise Wakeman for coining this term), you’ll be more likely to recognize the blog-worthy moments in your day. Maybe a client asks a question that you’ve already answered several times this month, or someone in line at the grocery store asks how you plan to use one of the healthy ingredients in your shopping cart.

The key to keeping your blogging antennae in good working order is to have a keen focus on the most pressing problems and concerns of your ideal clients. This reader-focused approach helps you spot new solutions for them, and fresh ways of sharing your core pieces of wisdom and advice.

2. Record – with idea catchers

When these ideas spark, it’s so important to jot them down so you don’t forget them. Capturing these snippets in a central place also means they’ll be right at your fingertips the next time you sit down to outline or write your next post.

Which tools make the best idea catchers?/ Whichever ones you’ll actually use! Personally, I look for apps that sync across different devices, such as Wunderlist, Trello or Evernote. But no matter how many people tell you a tool is great, it has to feel right for you. I love Wunderlist, but Evernote has never clicked for me. Go with what works.

Always have a low-tech option at your fingertips as well, such as a simple notepad and pen, along with a process of regularly entering those into your digital file.

3. Refine – with questions

As you’re populating your editorial calendar and planning your next few blog posts, open up your idea catcher and review everything you’ve added. Here’s where focus and discernment come into the process. Always take a moment to filter your ideas through the unique lens of your blog’s main purpose. Who does it serve, and what have you committed to deliver to that audience?

Will this idea fulfill that purpose? Or is it something better suited to your personal journal or another setting? Does the idea firmly fit one of your blog’s established categories, or are you introducing a topic you probably won’t want to write about again?

When you apply these three steps, you’ll have a constantly flowing stream of new ideas to work with, so you can turn the best ones into valuable content for your audience of clients, prospective clients, and referral sources.

Want an easy way to create your own idea catcher? Join my next blog writing class, which includes templates for blog posts, editorial calendars, idea catchers, social media promotional text, and more!

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.

Blogger’s Block? Interview an Expert!

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In a post about how to leverage expert interviews to sell your online courses, my friend Nicole Holland revealed her top six benefits of interviewing experts in your field. She should know, since in just over one year of doing interviews she increased her own online audience by 17,000!

Nicole Holland’s top 6 benefits of interviewing experts

  1. You get to learn from the best of the best!
  2. You get to know them and they get to know you!
  3. You get to help them make money!
  4. You get to have fun with them!
  5. You get to easily create high-quality content!
  6. You get to earn instant credibility through association!

(Read the full post for more details, interviewing tips, and insights from Nicole.)

While Nicole shares her interviews via her podcast and her free online Business Building Rockstar Summit, we can easily apply this strategy to wellness blogging. For example, you can interview:

Three success tips for interview posts:

  1. Take notes while you talk, transcribe the interview, or (this is my preferred method), ask the person to send their answers by email and let them know you will lightly edit the text as needed.
  2. Present the text in a simple Q & A format (here’s an example), or intertwine their answers with your own comments (here’s an example).
  3. Stay true to your blog’s key categories when choosing the people and topics for your interviews. That way even when you’re highlighting someone else’s ideas, you’re still reinforcing your own expertise.

BONUS: You can watch and listen as Nicole shows off her interviewing skills at the Business Building Rockstar Summit. You’ll hear 40+ marketing experts teach the exact steps, strategies and mindsets that have helped them build brand recognition and attract a never-ending flow of amazing clients and customers.

Claim your FREE ticket to the Business Building Rockstar Summit
(Linda’s affiliate link)

P.S. As a follow-up to meeting on Twitter and chatting about how social media is meant to be social, Nicole chose me as her Twitter expert for the Business Building Rockstar Summit! Register now to hear this and all of the other valuable sessions.

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