Welcome back to our Profitable Blog series! In our last post, we guided you through creating your beautiful, live website. Today, we’re diving into the art of writing quality content and attracting visitors to your site.
If you haven’t started your blog yet, I highly recommend you start at Part 1: Everything You Need to Create A Profitable Blog
If you HAVE started you blog yet, you’re going to want to start at Part 2: Putting Makeup on Your Profitable Blog
Writing for a Profitable Blog
Now’s the time to start crafting content. This initial phase is crucial for understanding what resonates with your audience and identifying their needs. Treat this process as market research for future products or affiliate products that will align perfectly with your audience’s interests.
Intentional Topic Selection
Choose your topics thoughtfully, focusing on subtopics and subjects that embody your emerging brand. Remember, your brand reflects how your readers perceive what you create, why, and how you present it. As your blog transforms into a business, understanding your readers’ perception becomes key.
Analyzing Reader Engagement
At this stage, your brand isn’t set in stone. Publish your first batch of blog posts and observe how your readers respond. Which posts are performing well, and what common themes or questions emerge from your audience? This is pivotal in helping you determine how to make your blog profitable.
Discovering Your Unique Brand
I know one blogger who began with couponing but saw greater success with inexpensive kids’ crafts posts and pivoted to excel in that niche. If she had stuck with couponing it’s possible her blog still wouldn’t be profitable! Your unique brand will reveal itself as you publish content and analyze the response.
Embracing the Market Research Process
You’ll attract readers similar to your ideal audience as you start writing. This will give you insights into their needs, problems they want solved, and how you can help. This process also lays the groundwork for future product creation.
Prioritizing Quality Over Quantity
Quality content is invaluable. Instead of focusing on the quantity of posts, concentrate on crafting valuable content that stands out. Set aside dedicated time to write these posts, allowing your writing style, voice, and brand to naturally develop. Remember, you can always update posts as you grow.
Understanding Your Audience
If you’re unsure where to start, put yourself in your ideal reader’s shoes. Consider their daily life, the conversations you might have over coffee, and the questions keeping them up at night. Use this perspective to guide your content creation.
Staying Inspired
- Track Audience Questions: Use these as inspiration for future posts.
- Keep a Notebook Handy: Jot down ideas whenever inspiration strikes.
- Use Your Phone’s Notes App: Capture thoughts on the go.
- Morning Ideas: Pay attention to what comes to mind after a good night’s rest.
By following these guidelines, you’ll create a profitable blog with content that resonates with your audience, establishes your unique brand, and sets the foundation for future growth and success.
Maximizing Your Blog’s Potential: Cornerstone Content and More
Having set up your blog, it’s time to delve into the concept of cornerstone content and how to craft compelling posts.
Understanding Cornerstone Content
Cornerstone posts are the pillars of any profitable blog, often referenced and central to your brand. These are your “main dishes,” with other posts acting as complementary “side dishes.” Without cornerstone content, it will be nearly impossible to convert your blog into a passive income source. Identifying and refining your cornerstone content might take some experimentation. As your blog grows, you may find the need to add or update these key posts.
I shared this video on TikTok describing the importance of Cornerstone Content in case you are a visual learner.
@kingdomlifearchitect If your blog hasnt transitioned to a place of creating passive income for you, this could be a really important step you’ve overlooked! #passiveincome #passiveincomeonline #passiveincomelifestyles #freedomoftime #timeismoney #writing #writersoftiktok #blogger #blogging #wordpress #yoast #generateincome #financialfreedom #financialadvice #careeradvice #hustle #workfromhomemom #workfromhomejobs #sahm ♬ original sound – Katie Romero
Creating Your Cornerstone Posts
Initially, start by creating general content. Over time, you’ll distinguish between cornerstone pieces and supporting content. For instance, my income reports are supporting posts that lead back to a cornerstone post about starting a blog. Pay attention to reader feedback and content performance to identify your main cornerstone topics.
Evolving Your Brand Through Content
Your brand isn’t fully defined at the start. By publishing and analyzing content, you’ll begin to understand what resonates with your audience. One blogger shifted her focus to sensory processing posts as they gained popularity. Another pivoted from couponing to kids’ crafts based on reader response. Your unique brand will emerge as you engage with your audience.
Tips for Crafting Cornerstone and Supporting Content
- Quality Over Quantity: Focus on creating valuable posts that address your readers’ needs.
- Discover Your Writing Style: Experiment to find your inspiration and ideal writing environment. Some prefer silence, others music; some write in batches, while others one post at a time.
- Engaging Introductions: Write your post first, then revisit the introduction. Make it catchy and inviting.
- Effective Calls to Action: Conclude with a clear action for readers, aligned with your post’s goal.
- Compelling Titles: Create titles that entice readers to click. Observe successful bloggers for inspiration and adapt title structures to fit your content.
- Strategic Use of Affiliate Links: Include relevant affiliate links, ensuring they offer real value to your readers.
- Final Editing: Ensure your posts are error-free for a professional appearance.
- Consistency and SEO: Write consistently to your ideal reader and include text before images for SEO. Link to related content within your blog and other relevant external posts.
- Linking Strategy: Open external links in a new tab but keep internal links in the same tab.
Launching Your Profitable Blog Content
Remember, the journey to creating quality content is a learning process. Focus on who you’re writing for, keep refining your style, and stay true to your brand. Your first posts are just the beginning; they’ll evolve and improve as you grow as a blogger.
Maintaining Authenticity in Your Blogging Brand
In the digital world, trust and authenticity are vital to success. As you develop your blogging brand, consistency is key to building trust with your audience.
Establishing a Consistent Tone
Personalizing Your Posts: Begin your blog posts and emails by addressing your ideal reader directly. This approach adds a personal touch and ensures a uniform tone across your content. For example, start with a greeting like, “Hey(name of the person you know who is your ideal reader),” followed by a message that resonates deeply. Before publishing, remove the direct address to maintain a general yet intimate tone. Writing consistently to your ideal reader helps maintain authenticity in your voice.
Navigating Negative Feedback
Handling Negative Comments: In the blogging world, encountering negative comments is a possibility. Remember, these comments often don’t reflect the views of your ideal audience and don’t hold weight in your business strategy. You have the power to simply delete unconstructive comments and focus on your content creation.
Your Blog, Your Rules: Think of your blog as your home where you invite readers for a virtual coffee. Just as you wouldn’t allow someone to disrespect your home, you don’t have to tolerate negativity on your blog. Keep your space positive and welcoming for your ideal readers, who are eagerly anticipating your next post.
Focusing on Your Ideal Reader
Your main focus should be on your ideal reader – the person who loves and appreciates your content. By concentrating on creating posts that resonate with this audience, you’re more likely to build a loyal and engaged following. Stay true to your authentic voice and message, and continue to deliver valuable content to your readers. Below I have a free profitable blog post checklist for you to utilize each time to ensure your posts are hitting the mark!
Effective Marketing Strategies for Your Blog Content
Focusing on the quality and marketing of your images is essential to achieving growth and income through your blog. The quality of images you choose will heavily impact the monetization process. Your images act as marketing tools for your content. This section will guide you on how to create compelling images that attract pageviews and followers.
Utilizing Social Media for Organic Growth
Social media is a key platform for organic growth, where visual appeal is paramount. You’ll want to create images that capture attention and engage your audience.
Creating Images for Different Platforms
For each blog post, you should aim to create images tailored for Facebook, Pinterest, and optionally, a square format for versatile use.
- Facebook Images:
- Experiment with and without text overlays to see what works best.
- Facebook images should be 1200 × 630px.
- Use the Yoast SEO Plugin to set your “Facebook Image.”
- Study your Facebook feed to understand how auto-populated posts appear.
- Pinterest Images:
- Opt for tall, vertical images with attention-grabbing text overlays.
- Save your images at the full width of your blog’s content section (e.g., 680px for the Foodie Pro theme).
- Larger images enhance visual appeal and professionalism.
- Ensure that your images are not excessively large to avoid slow loading times and unnecessary hosting space usage.
- Choose fonts that are easy to read and limit to 1-2 different fonts per image.
- Optional Square Image:
- Test using a square image within your post.
- Compare the effectiveness of sharing square images on Facebook with a link in the description versus auto-populated clickable images.
Action Steps for Image Creation
Take some time to analyze images on Pinterest. Observe the characteristics of high re-pin count images, including font readability, color schemes, and dimensions. Bright colors and tall, skinny images tend to be more eye-catching. Apply these observations to your image creation process to enhance your blog’s visual marketing strategy.
Conclusion
There are multiple key-components to a profitable blog. There are statistics that link profitability directly with the word-count of each of your blogs collectively. Newer blogs with smaller word counts will typically rank lower even if their SEO is fantastic, than blogs with higher word counts that are more informative and appear to have some longevity.
I would strongly encourage you to write your first 10 blog posts as quickly as possible, ensuring you maintain compliance with Yoast SEO, market correctly, and write to your ideal reader. I have created a completely free checklist for you shared above and a Learn to Make Money While You Sleep Planner. These tools will help you stay accountable to yourself along your journey and ensure that you are setting yourself up for an easily monetized, successful blog.
In Upcoming Posts we will discuss ideal affiliate companies and how to qualify for them, and additional blogging nuance. As always, I love receiving emails and comments and helping you as much as possible, so never hesitate to reach out with your questions!
