Content Mastery Guide

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What Wellness Bloggers Can Learn from Food Bloggers

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© kazoka303030 – Fotolia.com

As a wellness blogger, your goal is to keep your readers healthy, and ultimately to attract new clients to choose your clinic. Food bloggers have a whole other set of motives. Here are three ways you can borrow from their approach to improve your own blog:

Free Your Passion

Food bloggers have the liberty to indulge in deep exploration of their passions, wherever that journey takes them. It’s similar to how when artists pursue their craft as a hobby, it gives them freedom from the creative constraints that may take over if it becomes a business.

Wellness bloggers, take note: It’s easy to get caught up in ROI (return on investment) and how you’re going to transform readers into clients. While you definitely want to think about your ideal clients and what they’re looking for, if you stray too far from your own expertise and passion you will just dilute your message.

Ideally, the answers your clients are looking for are related to what you’re really good at and love to do. Once you’ve figured out what that is, Michael J. Katz says that doing anything else is just “a self-perpetuating distraction.”

So don’t get distracted too much by always trying to blog about the “right” things. Invite more passion into your blog and see who is attracted by that.

As an American living in Paris, chef, blogger and author David Lebovitz is clearly passionate about his favourite city and its cuisine. He’s been blogging since 2004 and says it is one of the most fulfilling, exciting things that he does. Visit his blog now for an example of a food blogger with passion.

Keep it real

Food bloggers are notorious for revealing the good, bad and ugly of their real-life kitchen adventures. Whether the result is poignant, painful, hilarious or even mundane, it gives the reader an opportunity to feel a little more connected to the human race.

Wellness bloggers, take note: Will you lose your credibility as an expert if you share your personal experience? Not at all. Just remember to strive for a balance between experience and expertise.

If you only share experience, your readers may feel more connected with you on a personal level, but may not think of you when it comes to paying for solutions. If you only share expertise, your readers may respect and revere you, but lose touch if they start to feel lectured to.

When food blogger turned author Lisa Leake decided to overhaul her family’s eating habits, she decided to share their process with the world through her blog, 100 Days of Real Food.

She writes honestly about the good, the bad and the ugly of the experience, though always in a very positive way.

Find the story

When you feel free to follow your passions under no pretense of being someone you’re not, it opens you up to more fascination and curiosity.

Wellness bloggers, take note: Look for interesting connections you can make between your daily adventures and the solutions your prospective clients are looking for.

Turn those connections into stories that illustrate a helpful lesson for your readers. Just make sure your stories tie into your business message and stay consistent with your brand.

Passionate, award-winning food blogger and author Deb Perelman of The Smitten Kitchen always offers the interesting back story behind her recipes. For example, here’s how she turned her husband’s love of buffalo wings into a popcorn snack.

Yes, there is a business goal behind your wellness clinic blog, but take a page from these food blogs to infuse some passion, honesty and storytelling into your efforts.

This post was originally published at Build a Better Blog (Denise Wakeman), as a companion piece to What Business Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists.

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How to Spotlight Other People on Your Nutrition Blog

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© frog-travel – Fotolia.com

Blogging consistently is a key to success, both for the marketing benefits and for your growth as a blogger. Yet not every article has to be in-depth like a how-to post. In fact I recommend you aim for just one of those every month.

In the weeks in between, choose from other types of posts that may be shorter, easier and quicker to put together. These include the personal post, the curated post, and today’s topic: the spotlight post.

Is there someone you think everyone should know about because they’re so brilliant, creative or knowledgeable? How about a food product, gadget or tool you keep recommending again and again? Use a spotlight post to spread the love.

Consider these three options when you want to introduce someone to your readers:

  1. Interview the person, and present their insights as a profile and/or a how-to post about a specific topic. You can use a simple Q & A format, or intertwine their answers with your own comments.
  2. Invite the person to contribute a guest post, either a reprint from their own blog or an original article for your readers. Include an author bio with a link back to their website. If a reprint, give the link to the original post.
  3. Write about the person (or product), with or without links to other blog posts, websites, videos or other resources. Even if you weren’t able to interview them personally, you can include brief quotes from their own writing or from other interviews they’ve done. And be sure to let them know you featured them!

Similar to a curated post, open your spotlight post by saying a bit about the person or product, how you first heard about or met them, and why you treasure them as a trusted resource.

With video or audio interviews, be sure to also provide some text for people who don’t want to just listen or watch. Offer a transcript, or at the very least a bullet list of highlights.

Spotlighting others on your blog lightens your load and creates more value for your audience. As an added bonus, you’ll build and deepen relationships with other experts in your field.

Now that we’ve explored the how-to post, the personal post, the curated post, and the spotlight post, which of these formats do you think will be easiest for you? Mixing them all will give your blog maximum variety and interest.

For help brainstorming topics for each of these four blog post types, visit http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/blog-topic-planning-worksheet to download your own topic planning worksheets.

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How to Write a Personal Post For Your Nutrition Blog

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In a series of posts over at the International Organization of Nutritional Consultants (IONC), I’ve been writing about how nutritionists can use blogging to attract new clients.

First I showed you how to get started, and now we’re looking at four different types of blog posts you can use to keep writing week after week.

A weekly post? That sounds way too hard! I understand. That’s why I suggest you aim to write just ONE feature-length post every month, where you teach your reader how to do something.

In the other three weeks, experiment with other types of posts that may be quicker and easier for you to put together. Let’s start with the personal post.

There are a lot of other holistic nutritionists out there, but that doesn’t make you competitors. You each have ideal clients who will be drawn to your particular set of life experiences and personality.

Blogging is the perfect place to let your unique style shine through. Personal posts are the ones only you can write, as opposed to the generic topics you might find on dozens of nutrition blogs.

There is nothing wrong with sharing a personal story on a business blog. It’s important to show potential clients your human side, since we all do business with those we know, like and trust. This is especially true for intimate services like nutrition counselling.

Use your own stories of failure and success to form a deeper connection with your audience, and reinforce the principles you teach in your business. I once wrote about a mishap in the kitchen to remind readers to keep a pad of paper handy for new blogging ideas.

A personal post may incorporate elements of a how-to post, like this one where I featured my own beloved greyhound Patch in a post about blogging consistently. Or it could be purely personal, like how Joy McCarthy and her team share their personal resolutions in this New Year’s post.

If you missed the first post in this series, visit IONC to read How to Write a How-To Post For Your Nutrition Blog. Stay tuned to learn about two other types of posts, including one that lets you lean on other people to feed your own blog.

When you put them all together, you’ll have everything you need for an interesting variety of blog posts all month long.

P.S. If you want to receive my newest blogging tips by email, including the next two posts in this series about nutrition blogging, sign up here for the Blogging Tips newsletter, delivered weekly to your inbox!

Want to Write a Quicker, Easier Blog Post This Week? Try a Combo Post

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© Sergey Nivens - Fotolia.com
© Sergey Nivens – Fotolia.com

Earlier this year I created a new presentation called How to Write Your First Four Blog Posts. The basic premise is that you don’t need to write a new full-length article every time you post to your blog.

In fact, I suggest new business bloggers aim to write only ONE new article every month, and fill in the other three weeks with different types of posts that are easier and quicker to write – but that still provide value to your readers.

As I searched for examples of the four types of posts, I came across a delightfully simple post from the American Lighting Association that actually embodied elements of all four.

  1. Like a how to post, the information is broken down into a list. That means the reader knows what to expect, the writer could break her ideas into sections, and it’s spaced nicely on the page.
  2. Like a personal post, it highlights the author’s knowledge and insights. By honing in on one focused idea from each of the featured articles, she revealed more about her own personal style and approach to design.
  3. Like a curated post, the author didn’t create the content herself. Instead, she referenced and linked to existing articles already published online.
  4. Like a spotlight post, it featured a group of experts in a particular field. An association could easily use this opportunity to showcase its members, while any business can profile staff, vendors, customers, neighbours, or other influential members of your industry.

How to write your own combo post

Step One – Choose your links

You can build this type of post either from the bottom up or the top down. To build it from the bottom up, browse your favourite blogs, or the updates from your connections on social media. Look for interesting, high-quality articles your audience will find useful.

Even better, gather these links constantly through the month by saving them as soon as you read them. Email them to yourself, save them in a document or list, or try a tool like Pocket.

Step Two – Find your theme

Once you’ve settled on your list of links (I suggest 3 or 5 items), look for a connection between them. This becomes the theme of your post, and what you will use for your blog post title.

Or to build your post from the top down, find your theme first. Choose one of your blog categories and then go off in search of the best information that’s been shared in the past few weeks about that topic.

Look specifically for content from your customers, vendors or other partners, in order to spotlight their work and deepen your connection.

Or if there are specific people you want to build relationships with, share their work and then let them know you’ve done that. From this, new relationships and partnerships can grow.

Step Three – Add your voice

For each list item, create a heading that sums up the key point you took away from the content. Aim for each heading to be approximately the same length (for bonus points, be sure you’ve used parallelism).

Then write two or three sentences to describe the article and how it relates to the central theme of your post. Be sure to include your own personal view – what you most liked or appreciated about the ideas, and why you decided to include this particular link.

Step Four – Open and close

Once you’ve done the work to choose and summarize your links, add an introduction to summarize the overall theme of the post. Reiterate why the topic is relevant for your readers and what benefits they can expect after reading your post.

At the end of your post, suggest a follow-up action that will provide more value, such as: subscribe to your newsletter for more useful tips, read something else you’ve written about the topic, stay connected with you on social media to see other resources you share, or check out a related product or service you offer.

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How to Blog More Powerfully About Upcoming Events

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© kichigin19 – Fotolia.com

A blog must do more than just promote your business. The true power of business blogging is the ability it gives you to educate, inform, entertain and inspire your audience.

But can your blog do all those things? Yes, absolutely, and it should! An effective call to action (CTA) was one of the three criteria Social Fresh used to choose the top blogs of 2014.

Since a blog has dates, it’s a natural place to promote upcoming events at your business, clinic or studio. You might even dedicate an entire post to describing the event, its presenters, location, and other features and benefits.

But what if you could write about your event in additional posts, in a non-promotional way that still gets people thinking about your event, and excited about attending?

In my signature presentation How to Write Your First Four Business Blog Posts, I identify four types of posts you can use to make blogging easier, week after week. The basic premise is that not all of your posts need to be feature-length articles such as a how-to post.

In fact, if you can write just one of those every month (and I know you can), you can fill in the other weeks with a variety of posts that may be shorter and easier for you to put together.

Let’s look at each of the four types of posts, specifically how to use them to promote an upcoming event.

The how-to post

Here you can offer your readers a DIY version of what you’re presenting at the event – or even a small portion of it.

Why would someone come to the event when you’ve given them what they need to accomplish the same results on their own? As Andrea Lee once pointed out, why would someone buy a concert ticket when you can just listen to a CD? For a completely different experience!

At the event people will get direct time with you, camaraderie and support from a group of people with similar goals, time away from their regular life to focus their attention on the topic, and much more.

Getting a solo introduction to the material in a blog post can fuel their interest and can also show them why and how they need more help and resources to get the full effect.

The personal post

Pull back the curtain and share your own reasons for putting on this event. Why are you passionate about getting people together to experience this? What are your personal and professional goals for the event?

What are some of the steps you’ve gone through in planning and implementing the event? Were there any bumps along the way that could be used as lessons – either directly or as an analogy?

The curated post

Browse your trusted sources from around the web for useful resources to prepare for the event, as well as entertaining and/or educational videos about the topic.

You can provide links to text-based blog posts, along with a quote and/or a summary that includes your commentary on why you chose to share this resource and why you think it will be valuable to your reader.

For more visual interest and interaction, you can also embed content such as infographics, YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations, or audio podcasts right into your blog post.

The spotlight post

Who are some of the other people involved in the event, such as speakers, vendors or other partners? Introduce them to attendees and prospective attendees in an interview or guest post. They may also have their own original content that could be repurposed or embedded into as a blog post on your site.

The richest source of enthusiasm about your event may come from attendees themselves. Who participated in a previous event and is coming back for more? Who is attending their first event and why are they so excited to do so? What unique experiences and perspectives do they bring, and what are they hoping to take away?

If you have an event coming up, don’t limit your blogging to just promotional posts! Draw your readers in with a rich mixture of blog posts that inspire them to be part of what you’re planning.

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