Author: Nate

Getting started in anything worthwhile can be challenging.

• Starting a business
• Investing in real estate
• Learning a new skill

All these things are hard.

But they aren’t impossible and YOU CAN DO THIS!

And starting a blog on your new business website is one of those challenging things too.

Why should your website have a blog?

Did you know that blogging is one of the very best ways to be seen or discovered accidentally by your ideal customers?

Blogging helps you establish authority in your business space.

Blogging can drive targeted traffic to your website and get you SEO love. (that means being found in search engines)

But blogging can also be hard.

It takes time.

It takes creativity.

It takes commitment.

All qualities needed to be a successful business owner.

One blogger said:

Having a blog that helps attract and convert clients requires a level of commitment that often turns out to be way more than [a business owner] bargained for.

But don’t let that scare you off.

If you want to succeed as a business owner, you’re going to have to do hard things, break some fears, and JUST DO IT!

In my opinion, blogging is one of those things.

The Pros of Blogging

1. Search Traffic

If you want to be found in Google search, you need to answer searchers’ questions (this is all Google cares about – delivering the best answers).

A blog is a fantastic way to do that.

Without a blog, it’s going to be hard to create the type of content you’ll be found for in Google.

2. The Best FAQs Section

If you’re providing consulting services to clients, you’re probably answering lots of questions – some of them over and over again.

A blog can be the ideal way to answer these questions.

Rather than feeling like a broken record and saying the same thing over and over again, send your clients a blog post that answers their questions.

Not only will this help improve your credibility as a business owner, but it will also save you time. And time is money!

3. Learn What My Clients Need

Having a blog for a business website can be transformational.

Blogs not only allow a business owner to get in front of the right people and generate consistent leads, but a blog can help the business owner learn what questions customers have based on the content they read and respond to.

How to Get Started Blogging

With those blogging pros in mind, I read this tip this morning as I was starting the day:

Don’t wait to start a daily writing habit.

No time?

Write for 5 minutes or less.

Nothing to write about?

Just journal about your thoughts and experiences.

Not confident?

Don’t publish publicly at first.

However you can start, start now.

Then let momentum take over.

Yep, it’s that simple.

Get out your phone, set the timer for 5 minutes, and START. WRITING!

Or, even easier (for me at least), start talking into your phone.

Here’s how I do that:

The 7 Easy Blogging Steps

Step 1:

Open up Notes if you have an iPhone (or Google Drive > Google Docs)

Step 2:

Start a New Document

Step 3:

Hit the Mic Option and Start Talking

Step 4:

Once you’ve said all you have to say, review the content

Step 5:

Format it, copy it, and paste it on the Blog section of your website

Step 6:

Add a picture or two

Step 7:

You’ve created your FIRST POST!

Yes, that can seem “too easy.”

What are you going to write/talk about?

One content creator said the following:

9 out of 10 content creators struggle with ideas.

Tips to get out of it .

1. 1. Brain dumping
   2. List favorite books
   3. Have a writing schedule
   4. Go for a walk or eat something
   5. Write something else, then return back to original later

Might sound silly. Works for me.

This “VLOG” post was created by me implementing what I just talked about above:

How to Come Up with Content Ideas

Coming up with content ideas can be tricky.

One way I do it is to think about the types of questions I get asked often.

Like the quote above, I can “brain dump” that list of questions on paper.

Or I can start with a question in Google, then see what other questions are suggested:

I type the question in Google.

I see a “featured snippet” that gives me some pretty good ideas.

I scroll down and see the “People also ask” section, which gives me more ideas. (Did you know that if you click on one of those questions, other similar questions will show up below it?)

I look at the top organic search results too. Lots of ideas I can glean from there.

With all these ideas in mind, I then open up a Google Doc and start making an outline.

Or, to save time and avoid coding issues, I get in the habit of just opening up a new post on my blog and start creating outlines there.

SECRET: Parts of this blog post were created based on this very strategy 🤫

How to Create a Blog Post Outline

Things to consider as I’m creating the outline:

1. What will the title of the article be?
2. What questions will I focus on as headers?
3. Will I use images, video and other types of content to draw attention?
4. What thumbnail/featured image can I use?
5. What internal links do I plan to add to the post? (I suggest 2-3 internal links per 1,000 words)
6. At the end of the article, what do I want the readers to DO? (download something, make a comment, share it to social media, link to it, buy a product or service?)
7. What about external links: who will I link out to or source?
8. Once I’ve written the article, who can I share it with to get traction?
9. How can I create a network of people that will be willing to share the article with others and that I can help in some way too?
10. Am I overthinking all of this?

Where to add the content

Here’s a quick video on where to add content on your new website:

Conclusion

This blog post, which started as a five minute test, has turned into a 30 minute project.

But these 30 minutes have produced over 1,000 words of content!

(you can see the word count in the bottom left corner of the editor)

And this content is information I’ll share with ALL my clients who wonder if blogging is really worth it.

In my opinion, it really is.

I’ve shared with many of you that 6 of the top 10 most visited pages on my WEB801.com website are BLOG POSTS!

Most of those blog posts I wrote at least 2-3 years ago.

But they STILL get organic search traffic today.

The Challenge

What’s your next one step?

Remember: you don’t have to all of a sudden become a professional blogger.

What we’re really trying to do is DOCUMENT our progress.

What can you write about, document, and/or share with your community?

If someone asked you to tell them about your real estate experience, what would you say? START THERE!

Comment below or ask a question!

1. Post Directly in the Blog

Yes, most of us would prefer a “copy & paste” process. But copy and paste, both from a word doc or Google Drive doc, OR from another website, isn’t going to work well. Here’s why:

1. When I copy and paste from a word doc, there is hidden code which will cause the post to look different on various browsers. In other words, the post layout won’t look the same.
2. Copying and pasting from another website will have the same code problems AND will be looked at by Google as “duplicate content.” We don’t want this.

Yes, you can get ideas from other blogs and pages, but put them in your own words.

The SOLUTION

Learn how to create content IN the blog post area. Just like a Word Doc, your website editor, also knows as the WYSIWYG editor (what you see is what you get) is really easy to use. If you’re typing content in the editor, use the Visual tab.

2. Use the different editing features of the editor

Making your blog post scannable is essential. Most readers are at least initially LAZY. They want to skim. So use the following:

• Bulleted lists

1. Numbered lists

Headings

Add images and align them   Use video directly from YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyWpyxHV68M

Use Quotes

Put the blog post into a CATEGORY SCHEDULE your blog posts Make sure you use a FEATURED IMAGE Once you publish, share the link on social media:

• Facebook page
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Email the link to friends, family and contacts – ask for them to COMMENT.

Short paragraphs: 2-3 sentences at most

3. How to Add a Video to a Blog Post

1. Step 1: Go To Youtube
2. Step 2: Copy the Video URL from the address bar
3. Step 3: Paste it right in the content of the post:

4. Other Important Factors

Internally Link to 2-3 keyword phrases Have a Good Title Use questions that Google is sharing about what my audience is looking for Don’t copy and paste from other articles Don’t copy and paste from a PDF or Word Document Start with 5 main categories Building a website for your business GOAL: 1000-1500 words  

Creating video content on YouTube that gets lots of traffic can be a tough puzzle to solve.

We thought some videos we’ve created for WEB801 and other clients would for SURE get lots of traffic – and they don’t get hardly any traffic at all.

But other videos have gone crazy!

If you want to learn how to create videos that get VIEWS, here are few tips.

DISCLAIMER: there are no guarantees this stuff will work over and over again. But as you’ll see, the more you put content out there, the better chance you give yourself to succeed.

3 Tips to Get Better Video Traffic

Tip #1: Practice the Proven Research Phase

I found this concept recently and really love how it’s direct and applicable.

Getting traffic for the sake of the number won’t really help your business grow, but getting the RIGHT traffic will.

Asking yourself the following questions and then answering those questions to the best of your ability is a great place to start.

My interpretation of the initial questions are in parenthesis.

• Who do I want to serve? (Who is my ideal client?)
• Why do I want to serve them? (What problem do I plan to solve?)
• What will I serve them with? (What solution will I offer?)
• When will I begin to serve them? (What will it take to get started working with them?)
• Where do they spend time? (How can I find the ideal client?)
• How will I serve them best? (What will be the home run I can provide for the ideal client?)

The better I can answer these questions, the closer I’ll be to finding the best traffic that will convert!

ASSIGNMENT #1: Copy the questions above in the comments below and then answer the questions to the best of your ability.

I’ll review your answers and we can then talk about them.

Tip #2: Create content that people are already looking for.

The best way to do this is do YouTube searches for topics you want to talk about.

Important questions to ask:

• Are there already videos about that topic?
• Do they have lots of views?
• What are the titles of those videos?
• What about likes, comments, engagement?
• How old are those videos?
• What types of tags are the videos using?
• What about the channel those videos are on? Do they have lots of subscribers?

These are all things to consider when you’re doing initial research.

Tip #3: Use popular keyword phrases in the title of your new video

Based on the answers you found in Tip #1 and Tip #2, use what’s know as the “copy cat method.” Use keyword phrases that are trending or that already have LOTS of views on YouTube.

Even copying a popular title can be helpful as long as the content you’re producing is valid to the title.

Add this title to your video and/or blog post

Get traffic like this:

As of today this video has:

The video is 5 months old.

That means it’s received about 13,482 views per month since it was posted.

Here are some additional stats for the video:

You can see that in the first 50 days, it didn’t get much traffic because my channel is new.

But at day 52 or so, it started taking off.

I’ve picked up over 45 subscribers to the channel because of the video (not too relevant probably to my ideal client, but I’ll take them).

I got a big spike in traffic in July:

Most of the traffic comes from the Browse Feature. What does “Browse Feature” mean?

Because the video is short and engaging, people watch the majority of it:

Having a keyword phrase like “Steph Curry,” which is often trending and has LOTS of searches, helped this video really take off.

Is it applicable for my audience?

Not really.

But if I did another video like this in the future, I’d put a disclaimer at the end that this video is a test to see what type of traction I can get.

Maybe I’d even post a challenge – how quickly can we get this video to 1,000,000 views…

Viewers like to be part of a friendly competition.

Conclusion

Getting a lot of views on videos can be challenging.

But if you follow these tips and test, test, test, good things will happen.

Remember: solving problems that visitors are already looking for can be really helpful too.

ASSIGNMENT #2: Post your recent video in the comments below and our community will watch it, give it a thumbs up, and maybe even make a comment.

Good luck in your video marketing efforts.