Your Biggest Blogging Questions Answered
This post contains affiliate links for resources that I personally use and love for myself and clients.
Blogging is a great way to grow your online presence by being found in Google, grow your email list with people who want to hear from you, nurture your audience and book more clients. After all, your website is your online homebase, and blogging is a great way to unlock its full potential.
It’s no secret I’m a fan of blogging for business. It’s been a great way to get new eyes on my website (and in turn my courses and services) from people who are finding me on Google, and I’m able to support my readers, clients and students with posts that help answer their questions as well.
As an introvert, I’ve always found blogging to be a great way to manage my energy as well. While I don’t mind going live occasionally, I often find social media overwhelming and noisy, so blogging has created a great opportunity to attract my people to me instead.
There’s a reason I’ve been at it on and off for over 12 years now!
I get asked a lot of questions about blogging, so this post is here to address some of the most common ones. Whether you’re just getting started with blogging or looking to grow your blog in a strategic way, I have answers to help you on your blogging journey.
Here’s what you’ll find below:
I want to start a blog for my business. What do I need to do to get started?
It can be overwhelming when you’re first starting your blog, since it seems like there are a lot of pieces to it and there aren’t many examples of people getting started with a blog so we’re left comparing ourselves to blogs that have been around for a while and already know what they are doing.
We all start somewhere though, and while we may not get everything right the first go round (I know I messed up a lot with my first blog!), the beauty of blogging is that our websites get to grow with us and will evolve over time as we figure out what we’re doing and get better at it.
Now that the reminder we all start somewhere is out of the way, let’s dive into the steps to get started:
Choose your Platform
You’ll need to decide on what platform you want to use for your blog. If you have a business website, I’d suggest adding your blog there so everything is in the one place and flows seamlessly. If you don’t have a website or can’t add a blog, here are my favourite options:
Squarespace: It’s easy to use and update, you don’t have to worry about hosting and plugins since everything is already built in, there’s no ongoing maintenance since Squarespace sorts it all, the templates options are well designed and mobile friendly, there’s a great support team if you get stuck with anything, and they have options to host your courses, email marketing and scheduling together in the one account. The drawback is that it’s not as flexible as Wordpress. This is the platform I use and love for this blog. Head here to get started with Squarespace and use the code JHD10 to get 10% off your first year
Wordpress: It’s extremely customisable since you can add plugins to give you virtually any functionality you could want, plus it’s Google and mobile friendly when it’s properly designed and set up. The drawbacks are that it’s more technical, you have to do your own backups, updates, security and maintenance and the backend isn’t as easy to navigate
Medium: This is a platform specific for blogging, but you have a lot less control over your design and it’s not integrated with your website, so your readers aren’t able to see your offers as seamlessly
Choose your Topics
When you are blogging for business, you want to make sure the topics you write about are related to your services or really helpful for your ideal client so that you are attracting the right readers to your website. These will become the categories for your blog, and I suggest limiting it to around 3-5 categories so your blog is focused enough to make sense to your readers and Google. This will help you start getting results faster
Brainstorm ideas for Blog Posts
Having a list of ideas for posts can help you decide if you are excited enough about the topic to write about it long term, and can also stop the frustration of “What should I post about this week?”. I have some ideas below to help you brainstorm.
Start Writing
Choose your first topic and start writing! When you’re first starting out, I suggest going easy on yourself and just getting your thoughts out then refine things once you get the hang of it. Those first few posts are often the hardest hurdle mentally, and you don’t want to get stuck in your head stressing over keywords, formats, word count, SEO or anything else that will hold you up. If you’re like me and you do want a basic structure to follow, here it is:
Start with a catchy headline
Break your post up with headings and subheading so it’s easy for readers to scan
Keep your paragraphs short
Include a call to action for what you want someone to do next
Weave in some images to break up the text and draw your eye down the page
Publish the Post and Share it
Once you’ve written and edited your post, it’s time to hit publish and share about it with your audience. Your blog won’t start getting traffic from Google right away, but sharing your blog posts will help you get your first readers and allow you to start nurturing your audience. Over time, search engines will start to notice and if your posts are already getting interest, it can help your search results.
If you want to dive deeper into starting your business blog, check out Blogging for Business where I go deeper into writing high-quality posts that attract loyal readers, share time-saving tips for blogging go deeper into how to repurpose your blog content to get even more value from your posts.
How do I come up with ideas for my blog posts?
When you are relying on blog post ideas to come to you when you sit down to write, it can sometimes it can feel like your ideas have run dry and you’ve shared everything you possibly can on a topic. I know it’s not just me that struggles with ideas when I’m staring at the blinking cursor on a blank page… I’ve heard it from a lot of clients as well.
Having a list of blog post ideas on hand can really help with this. This could be as simple as a Google Doc where you add your ideas, or you might use a tool like Trello or Asana to keep your ideas organised.
There are a couple of ways you could manage your idea bank. You could add new ideas as they come to you, such as when your client asks a question that would make a great blog post, or you could spend some time each quarter brainstorming a heap of ideas to add into your idea bank all at once.
Here’s some ideas to help you brainstorm ideas for your blog posts:
Questions you get asked all the time from clients
Client results in the form of a case study
Bust an objection around your offer
Type your topic into Google to see what ideas come up
Look in Facebook groups on your topic and see what questions people ask
Check your popular social media content
If you’re still stuck for ideas, I’ve rounded up 52 of them for strategic business blog posts aimed at helping you get found in Google, nurture your audience, and turn your visitors into subscribers and clients over in the Blogging Blueprint (and the best part is, it’s only $9!).
I want to be found on Google. How do I find keywords and optimise my post for SEO?
Getting found on Google and other search engines can be a huge perk of blogging, since it means people are being attracted to your website without you having to show up constantly like you do on social media.
This is where SEO, or search engine optimisation comes in. SEO is basically setting your website up in a way that makes it easy for Google to access, and creating amazing content that people are searching for. Just remember, Google wants to show the best results for the keywords people are searching, so your blog post needs to be the best on the topic to show in those top results.
In case you don’t know what keywords are, they are the terms that people are typing into Google to find you. When it comes to finding keywords for your blog posts, I shared how to find the best keywords for your blog here. This is a great starting point to help you find and refine the keywords to use in your content.
When it comes to optimising your blog posts for SEO, I walk through how to optimise your content and images to be found on Google in the free Get Found in Google guide here. Taking the time to optimise your blog posts for SEO can really give your content a leg up compared to others who are writing about the same topic, which can lead to more people finding you in searches.
Want to attract more dream clients to your website for free?
If so, you need to be found on Google! This free SEO Checklist for Squarespace will help you grow your website traffic, so you can get more leads and clients from your website
How can I get more eyes on my blog post?
If you go to the effort of writing a blog post, you want people to actually see it. Otherwise there’s not much point to it, is there?
I get lots of questions around how to get more eyes on your blog posts, so here are some ideas to help you, starting with my favourite:
Optimise your posts for SEO to help you get found on Google
You will need to do some keyword research, optimise your content and images and write the best post around on your topic of choice, but once you do, you’ll be able to put Google to work sending traffic your way
Share your posts on Pinterest
You can create a few Pinterest graphics for each of your blog posts and schedule them to be shared on your Pinterest account. Pinterest is a visual search engine, and if you create eyecatching graphics and have keyword optimised descriptions, your pins could show in people’s searches and send you traffic
Add your website link everywhere you engage online
Your email signature, your Facebook profile, you Instagram profile, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest… It all helps! This way when you interact anywhere online, people can easily find your website and blog if they want to know more about what you do
Start and email list and send out your post every time you publish
Letting your subscribers know when you have new content is a great way to nurture your loyal readers and encourage them to keep coming back to your blog. Over time, your subscribers will like and trust you because you’ve consistently showed up and shared value, so they’ll be more likely to buy from you
Share your new blog posts on social media
There are a ton of ways you could do this, such as sharing a tip from your post, creating a carousel of the key takeaways, introducing your post, going live on the topic, etc. The most important thing is to remember your call to action to read the post
Include links to other related posts to keep interested readers exploring
Linking between your posts gives people a chance to see more of your helpful content, which can lead to shares and comments because they are finding your content helpful. They’re also more likely to sign up for your email list or make a purchase from you if they repeatedly see your offers sprinkled through your posts
Guest blog posts or podcast guesting
Opportunities to get in front of other people’s audiences can be a great way to attract new people into your world since they’re curious about what you do and want to check out your website. Usually you’ll have a chance to promote something specific as well, which could be a freebie or blog post
Overall, I suggest choosing at least one search-based option for visibility (that’s SEO or Pinterest), to help people discover you without you having to show up constantly, along with adding your website link everywhere. Then everything else is a bonus that can help you manually direct traffic to your blog when you need a little boost.
How long should my blog posts be?
This can be a hotly debated topic for sure and there is no hard and fast rule to follow with how long your post should b, but you do want to make sure that you are fully covering the topic that you are writing about. This helps to answer all of the questions that your reader has so they feel like it’s a great resource that they may refer back to or share, and it also shows Google that the blog post is valuable.
As a general guideline, you should aim for around 600-1000 words for a standard blog post, or 2000 or more words if you are writing a really in-depth pillar post that includes lots of links between your resources, such as an ultimate guide to {insert your topic here}.
Longer is often better when it comes to how well it performs in search results and how sharable the post is, but you don’t want to stuff in extra fluff just to get the word count up since it will be annoying to your readers and they’ll be more likely to click away, which is a sign to Google that your post isn’t all that helpful.
I’m good at *insert style of post here*. Should I stick with that, or mix in other styles?
There are lots of different blog post formats you can play around with when it comes to writing your blog posts.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
How to posts
List posts
Storytelling posts
Quick tip posts
Round-up posts
Step-by-step tutorials
Case studies
Comparison posts
Thinking about the format of your posts before you start writing can help you add some variety in your blog, which minimises the chances of you getting bored writing and helps keep your readers engaged.
Quite often we’ll have a preference over the type of blog posts you write, but it is good to challenge yourself to try new post styles since it can really help you to reach new readers and keep your loyal readers coming back for more.
I share more about this in Blogging for Business.
Blogging takes me FOOORRREEEVER! How can I save some time with it?
Oh boy, I hear this *ALLLLL*THE*TIME*, and I can certainly understand why!
At a guess, I would say that I spend more than 3 hours on average just writing my blog posts. Then I have to edit them, make sure they’re well formatted, source images and optimise them for speed and SEO, actually publish the post… Oh, and don’t forget start with keyword research and any other research I need to do for the post!
When it feels like it takes forever to get a post published, it’s easy for blogging to drop to the bottom of your to-do list, only for it to be skipped for yet another week.
I get that it can feel time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.
Chances are you’re making things harder for yourself than they need to be, just like I tend to do.
Here are a few ideas to help you save time and get you hitting publish sooner:
Take a look at videos you have recorded that can be transcribed and tidied up into a blog post. The Marketing Magic tool can be a great way to automate this process a bit to save you even more time, too
Use speech-to-text on your phone to record your ideas, outline your posts, and get most of the content out so you just need to refine and edit the post
Check out your most popular social media content and see what you can refresh into a blog post. You’ll likely find you have social posts you can expand on, or you may even be able to group a few posts together to go even deeper into a topic
Use ChatGPT or PLR products to help you outline your blog post and brainstorm ideas (but PLEASE don’t have it write the full post… Your readers want your personality and perspective on things, and you really will need to add your own voice)
Look through your business files to see what content you already have hidden away in workbooks, lead magnets, emails you’ve sent, half written posts (is it just me that has a ton of these?!?!), etc, so you can see what you can repurpose
As business owners, we create soooooo much content already, and it often doesn’t make its way onto our blog where it can help attract new people into your world, and it’s time to change that!
There are so many ways you can save time blogging if you get creative, and I talk more about this and ways you can repurpose your content in Blogging for Business.
So there you have it, all the juicy answers for some of the biggest questions I get around blogging. You can click any of the links below to jump back to the tip you’re interested in, too.
