Blogging Basics

The Top 3 Things I Want You to Remember About Blogging

March 27, 2018 By Linda Dessau

Curious why I haven’t posted since March 2018? Scroll down for my updated blogging plan.

Since reading this post about seeing your blog as a library, I’ve been thinking about the library I’ve created here at Content Mastery Guide. I’m very proud of the content I’ve produced, yet I sometimes wish it was easier and quicker for you to get your blogging questions answered.

Yes, there is a search bar and a categories list (the most essential ingredients of an effective blog sidebar), but I wondered if I could help you even more. (When I tackled this question in 2011 I came up with this roadmap for CMG readers.)

Three blogging lessons from the CMG library (2007-2018)

I decided to identify the three core messages about blogging that I’ve found myself repeating over and over again through the years, and the ones I most want you to understand.

Next, I rounded up my very best posts and resources that reinforce those lessons, and gathered them for you here in one easy-to-use collection that will greet new and returning blog readers for years to come.

(1) Blogging works

(2) Blogging is easier than you think

(3) Blogging takes planning and commitment

My blogging plan (updated July 2018)

I’ve shared previously about some changes in my business, and the uncertainty that comes along with that. While I tried to keep blogging even through that confusion, I decided to step away for three months in March 2018, which coincided with my upcoming wedding and honeymoon.

I made no pledges or promises about what to expect from me. Instead, I wanted to stay open to seeing how things unfolded.

What I ultimately decided was to stop posting new content on this blog and to stop sending the Blogging Tips newsletter.

You will still be able to access the Content Mastery Guide library and its archive of almost 650 posts. I have no plans to take down this blog. And because this is the post readers will see first when they visit, it will be clear why and when I stopped posting.

I’ll also be shifting the focus of my business away from writing and content marketing, and towards editing.

I’m still happy to edit your blog posts, along with other written content such as newsletters, social media ads and profiles, email messages, journal articles, and e-books and other educational materials.

I’ll also continue editing and ghostwriting books about personal and professional development.

Please contact me now if you’d like to discuss any of these services. Until then, happy writing!

How to Finish the Blog Posts You Start

March 6, 2018 By Linda Dessau

If you’re like me and many other wellness bloggers, you likely have a collection of partially-written blog posts. Some may need just a bit of tweaking, others need a complete overhaul, and others just simply need a bit more time and TLC.

In a previous post I introduced Alex Raymond from Rebecca Bitzer & Associates and Empowered Eating, and learned more about her role as editor and blog coordinator.

In a follow up message, she shared these additional insights about how she motivates her team of writers to finish their posts so she can get them up on the site.

Would you rather write a blog post or do your taxes?

I like to remind people about the difference between ‘shoulds’ and ‘wants.’ Writing a blog post has to be a ‘want.’ This means that you are looking forward to doing it and can’t wait to get your words down on paper! Your head and heart are shouting “YES!”

Shoulds, on the other hand, have the opposite feeling, like thinking, “Man, I should probably do my taxes today.”

If you find that you’re dreading writing a blog post, you might want to reassess the topic. Maybe it’s something you’re not really feeling right now. Can you start fresh or take the post in a different direction?

Note from Linda: Here are my 12 reasons to scrap a post and start a new one.

Little by little, the blog post gets done

In terms of finding time, I recommend people start little by little. Do you think you can carve out 30 mins each week to write? Even if you don’t finish your post, at least you have something started!

I actually spend 10-15 minutes each morning writing. I might get only a few sentences done OR I could finish a whole post, depending on how I’m feeling, But I can remind myself that at least I’m moving somewhere.

Note from Linda: A daily blogging approach works best for me as well, though I certainly don’t always adhere to it perfectly.

Confidence comes to those who write

One of the reasons people avoid working on their blog posts, they tell me, is that they’re not sure what they’ve written is good enough. What was Alex’s take on that?

The more you write, the more confident you will feel in your writing. You’re bound to figure out your own style and what truly inspires you!

Note from Linda: I totally agree! Here are five ways to boost your blogging confidence.

The next time you feel a pang of blogging guilt because it’s been awhile since you posted, try Alex’s tips for getting one of those posts finished.

Who Wins When Health and Wellness Associations Blog Well?

February 14, 2018 By Linda Dessau

Wellness blogs serve a definite purpose for practitioners and clinics looking to attract new clients, but blogging makes good sense for wellness associations as well. In fact, there are multiple winners when health and wellness associations blog well.

The public wins, when the association publishes high-quality educational material about the services their members deliver, as well as general tips that inspire and equip people to live healthier lives.

One group that does an excellent job with this is the Canadian Chiropractic Association. Their blog includes a wide range of topics related to chiropractic treatment and general health and wellness.

The association wins, as they attract more trust, attention and awareness from both the general public and their prospective members.

The members (wellness practitioners) win, by being able to share this quality content with their own network. This highlights their credibility as both a trusted resource and a member of an industry association.

Blogging is a healthy marketing strategy

Beth Kanter is the author of The Happy Healthy Nonprofit: Impact without Burnout, a book about how nonprofit professionals can practice self-care and activate a culture of wellbeing in the workplace.

I asked Beth why nonprofit associations would want to blog. “A blog can help keep your website less static and allow you to cover breaking news in your field,” she told me. “It can also form the basis of your content strategy for social media and other digital channels.”

That is such an important point, especially for organizations who wonder how to stay active on social media. As I noted in this article about blog post promotion on social media, people are always searching for and sharing content that will provide value to their network. You can provide that content.

Stepping into the spotlight

Blogging is also a great way to highlight and recognize members and other stakeholders, Kanter noted. And, for those writing the blog posts, she says, it can help build their subject matter expertise and thought leadership.

There are two ways associations can spotlight their members, which benefits the members and also the association, since this feature can attract new members and encourage member retention.

The first way is to profile their members, who enjoy additional exposure and credibility. For example, Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine (DIFM) regularly feature their professional members as well as student members.

The second is to invite members to write articles for the site, giving them the same benefits as blogging on their own website. DIFM feature member recipes on the blog, with a detailed bio and photo at the bottom of each post (read why I recommend bylines as well).

Blogging tips for health and wellness associations

Whether your wellness association is a non-profit organization or a business, these three tips from Beth Kanter will help you blog better:

Schedule for success – Kanter recommends (as do I) having an editorial calendar that identifies themes and topics you will write about.
Build a team – she also notes it’s a good idea to have different authors who cover different beats so you can spread the workload.
Use a template – your bloggers can write more efficiently using templates for different types of articles, e.g., how-to posts versus personal opinion posts. DIFM uses variations of the same basic set of questions for their member profiles, making these very straightforward posts to replicate.

When you blog from your wellness association website, everybody wins – you, the members you serve, and the clients they help.

P.S. Click here for more tips about running a multi-author blog.

What First Things First Means for Wellness Blogging

January 2, 2018 By Linda Dessau

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):

Get into a consistent blogging routine
Publish a new post at least once or twice a month
Promote (amplify) those posts via social media (try this promotion checklist)
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.

7 Steps to Your Next Blog Post – Neon Noise Podcast

November 15, 2017 By Linda Dessau

Think blogging is only worthwhile if it gets you on top of Google search results?
Think blogging is something else you have to add to your already overloaded marketing plate?
Think everyone should be writing 1,000-word long-form posts?
Think your blogging job is over once you click that “Publish” button?

These are just some of the myths I bust in my interview with Neon Goldfish Marketing Solutions team for their podcast Neon Noise. We talked about all things blogging and I found a kindred spirit in Ken Franzen who says he loves methodical, step-by-step processes like the one I shared for my 7-step blog writing system.

As is always the case when I speak or present, I found it inspiring and energizing to answer questions I’ve heard so many times over the years. And it’s spurred me on to find new and creative ways to keep answering those questions on my blog.

Click below to listen now.

P.S. If you enjoyed this interview, you might enjoy my free training, Write Less, Earn More With Blog Posts That Are Easy to Write and Irresistible to the Perfect Clients For Your Health and Wellness Business. Watch now on demand at www.contentmasteryguide.com/webinar.