I’ve been blogging for a whole year now… whoaaaa. Although, I only got serious about it two months ago.
Which is crazy, since I work in marketing as my full-time job. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the past year of blogging, it’s that traditional digital marketing and being a “femtrepreneur” type blogger are two very different things.
Not in a bad way!
In my day job, I typically work with businesses and corporations. I’ve found the blogosphere works in a totally different way.
Here, in female blogger entrepreneur online coach course creator content marketer land, results matter.
It’s not about how long you’ve been blogging (though I’m sure that helps), or your writing or graphics or all that (although, they do make you look professional!). It’s all about sharing your knowledge with others, and if you’re useful, you’re useful.
So don’t worry if you’re just starting out, or don’t feel like an expert in your field yet, or think you’ll never hit “the big time”. You can do it. Just show up, and be valuable.
Okay, enough about that.
So while my day job and blogging-by-night worlds are on two different planets, and nothing really crosses over, I still think it’s great.
Because I love to learn. Above all else, I love to learn new things, especially when it comes to marketing.
So, even though I am but a wee babe in the blogging universe, I’m going to share the top 7 things that have grown my blog over the past two months.
These are things I do on a weekly basis that I keep seeing better and better results from every single week. Success upon success upon success. YO.
And, when I have an off week and don’t put in as much effort into these blogging tasks, I notice a considerable downturn in traffic and conversions.
And hey, I’m not even gonna make you opt-in to see the list. Crazy, right.
But I mean, if you are just itchin’ to get more email in your inbox, you can sign up for my Weekly Nerdletter full of subscriber-only marketing and biz advice that I send out each Sunday! (Psst… and you get access to my sweet ass resource library for bloggers!)
Anyway. Onto the 7 things!
7 Weekly Tasks to Grow Your Blog
Join + Post to Pinterest Group Boards
Pinterest has been a HUGE game changer for me. I get tons of traffic from Pinterest from doing pretty much nothing (more on that later).
The best way to grow your blog traffic with Pinterest is by joining group boards. There’s tons out there for every niche and business!
An easy way to find group boards is searching PinGroupie.com. For example, searching for “content marketing” gives you these results.
Clicking on the title of any board brings you to Pinterest. Most group boards have pretty good instructions for how to join, like “Follow me, email here to request to join” etc.
But in case the board doesn’t have any instructions, here’s a handy tip I learned from Melyssa Griffin. The first user photo in the board is the owner. Ta-da! So, just reach out to them and ask to join. Easy peasy.
Participate in Facebook Groups for Your Niche
Facebook Groups are another great way of promoting your blog and finding out where your ideal clients/audience hangs out.
Not every niche may have a good group… for example, if you’re trying to get started as a plumber, I doubt there’s a bunch of people chatting in groups about leaky taps. Mmkay, not gonna happen.
However, if you’re a freelance writer, business coach, food blogger, fitness instructor or so many other things, there are probably some great Facebook groups your target audience is hanging out in!
To find them, just search around on Facebook and you’re bound to discover them.
A few tips though? Don’t be spammy. No one likes that, and no one’s gonna dig your stuff if you’re constantly spammy. Just focus on being a real, you know, human being. Interact with people, be fun, sociable, and answer people’s questions if you can.
Not JUST to promote yourself. Just… be nice! It’ll help you get found, and hey, you might even make some new friends.
Schedule Social Media Posts
This is a big one. Schedule your social media posts in advance. All of them!
I kinda hate social media. There, I said it. So each week I find time to schedule out at least a week’s worth of posts (if not more) for Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and sometimes Instagram (although I like to be a little more spontaneous with Insta!).
I use BoardBooster to schedule and loop my Pinterest account, and Buffer for everything else.
BoardBooster is a lifesaver for Pinterest. Remember when I said above that I get crazy traffic from it without doing much? It’s true.
BoardBooster allows you to fill up queues with content, and then posts it throughout the day for you. This means you have a better chance of more people seeing your content since it’s spread out throughout the day, but also that you don’t have to actually be on Pinterest all damn day.
I mean, sometimes you have to not be glued to your phone, right?
Whenever I have some downtime (waiting for the train, waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, etc), I hop on Pinterest on my phone, add a bunch of cool stuff to my BoardBooster queue, and then I’m good for a few days. It’s STELLAR.
They have a free plan to try it out, and then it’s $5/month after that for 500 pins a month. Five bucks! Surrriously. I’d pay a hell of a lot more than that for it (shh don’t tell them that).
Without going into tons more paragraphs about my love for it, it also lets you loop pins… so it takes your stuff from awhile ago and re-pins it to the top of your boards, so people see it again. GAH IT’S SO AMAZEBALLS.
As for Buffer, I love it too though I’m not inclined to go on and on about it like my bae, BB.
One feature I really love is the Content Inbox. This is available on the paid plan ($10/month) and you enter in websites you like and it pulls in their new content for you. So you just hit Add and you can schedule it to share to your social media accounts.
This is great for tracking news in your industry to share with your audience, or just other blog posts from bloggers you love (like I do).
Buffer makes things really easy to use, so I love that. And the Instagram scheduling is handy too. You write your Insta post, then it sends a note to your phone when it’s time to post and you can open up the post right on your phone, copy the text and post it ASAP. Very time saving if you like to schedule your Insta in advance.
Highly recommend those tools! But the most important thing is to set aside time to schedule your posts too.
Which brings me to my next point…
Schedule Writing Time
Obviously, one of the most important parts of blogging is to actually produce content. Duh.
But it’s easy to get caught up in all the other things we bloggers need to master, like WordPress updates, plugin fixes, updating graphics, etc. If you’re making decent money from your blog, you could outsource those tasks to a Virtual Assistant. But let’s face it, for many of us, that’s not in the budget.
Scheduling is the key factor for success here. Especially if you manage your blog and a full-time job, or have young kids, or both… Life’s crazy.
Or if you have a hyper-attached Doberman who needs to sit on your lap 24/7 and is currently wanting to while I write this post on the couch… ????
I set aside a few hours a week for JUST writing. Not thinking of new post ideas, or other blog content, just actually typity typing away on my existing blog post ideas.
I usually break it up as Wednesday evenings, and either Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon (depending on my plans for the weekend!). Creating a regular schedule has really helped me grow my blog. I produce better content (well, at least I think so!), attract more traffic, and basically have time for all the other items in this list of 7 things. 😀
Regularly Engage Your Subscribers
This one’s a biggie! And, pretty hard to do at first. I’m still learning as I go.
If you aren’t already actively building your email list…. well, start now. There are a million posts online about the importance of email marketing, so I won’t go too into that. But trust me, it’s important.
I recently (a month ago) started sending weekly newsletters to my list. I panicked at first, like what am I gonna tell people every single week that’s helpful, new, and different than what’s on my blog?! It’s like writing another post per week.
But honestly, your brain will come up with stuff. Just dive in. I announced I was gonna send them weekly, and no one probably heard that, but since I put it out there publicly, I have to do it.
Being forced to hold up my end of a deal I made really keeps me committed to sending them out and coming up with new ideas.
It’s scary, but fun.
There’s other ways to engage your subscribers too – always reply to emails or blog comments, and strike up conversations on social media with people who follow you. It’s a great way to meet other bloggers, and maybe even your clients, too.
Brainstorm Sessions
This is SUPER important for long-term success. Let yourself just THINK sometimes.
Some people call this The 5 Hour Rule. Set aside an hour a day, or all at once, to brainstorm new ideas, learn new skills or just explore the industry. Having that time to freely explore new ideas is so important for your brain to help you think up new content ideas, product ideas or so much more.
Never underestimate the power of a good thinking sesh!
Track Financials + Set Weekly Goals
How can you know where you want to go if you don’t know where you’ve been?
Deep thoughts, simple solution, yo. I track all my “blog stats”, as I call them, in a spreadsheet. At the end of each month, I update the sheet.
I track my traffic numbers (pageviews, users, top posts etc), financial numbers (biz expenses, income HAHA just kidding I have no income ????), social media followers, and some other shiz.
It helps keep me accountable to my goals, but also to see like, “Wow! I’ve really grown. Good job self!”
Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard with like, everything sort of blurred out…lolz.
If you regularly apply these 7 strategies, your blog will GROW!
It’s all about doing the right things consistently. Find what works, rinse and repeat.
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