Lets talk about blogging!
Firstly, blogs have “evolved” over time. In the past, it gained
popularity when many people started using blogs as their personal online
journal. After that, it transited into a more organizational use and
many people started using them for business purposes as well.
However, I feel that “real blogs” are meant to be more personal in
both presentation and approach, with a less corporate feel…like this
blog!
Blogging
is about sharing your passions and thoughts, and at the same time,
monetizing the platform too so you can make money. Hence, I usually
encourage my students to use blogs as a platform to start their online
business as it is simple, personal and very easy to start with.
However, it’s all about consistency and to be able to blog
continuously is not an easy task. This is especially so if you’ve a day
job and busy schedule.
You also need to ensure that what you’re blogging about have an
impact. Meaning, it has a purpose, quality and hopefully, highly
informational and educational. Fact is, if your blog’s content is not
too good, it just reflects negatively on yourself.
This is so important that I’ve decided to list down the SECRETS to
always creating good, purposeful and informational content for your own
blog…
Lets look at 7 simple strategies to do just that!
You can do review type blog post. Most of the time, you will be doing a product review.
This can be applied to many things, from reviewing food which you
commonly see on food blogs (which are very popular) to reviewing a movie
you’ve just watched, to a software that you’re promoting. As you can
tell, there are many different topics and options to choose from. Most
importantly, talk about a topic you like and have a passion for!
Within the review post, you can summarize the overall benefits of the
product and discuss what you like or dislike. You can also include
thoughts about how the experience or product can be improved.
“How to tutorials” posts are very popular these days. This is because
it can be very valuable to the readers, especially when they get to
learn about a topic they are seeking information on.
“How to tutorials” posts usually provide step-by-step guidelines on
how a topic works or how to do a specific task. For example, a post
about how to upload website files onto the internet using FTP, or a post
about how to use Excel.
Again, most times you can then recommend a relevant product or
service (your own or affiliate product) as a complete solution to the
readers. This way you get to monetize your content!
Another popular type of blog post content you can create is videos.
Video is simply another content format, which can sometimes be easier than writing and typing.
You can also record a personal video to discuss, comment about a
topic or teach something. A good idea is to do a “how to video tutorial”
instead which is more effective in terms of presentation than text.
For example, it can be an on screen capture type of video to do a
specific task, or you speaking over a powerpoint presentation and
recording it. Both methods can be done with software tools like Camtasia
or Camstudio.
Share
your own personal experiences are one of the best types of blog post
you can create. Again, it can be very varied on different topics. Just
be careful what you say though, especially if it’s something
controversial or illegal.
What I’m recommending though is to share your personal experiences on
an educational topic instead. For example, what I do is share my own
internet business experiences, successes and mistakes so that others can
learn too.
Sharing your personal experiences will also add a huge human touch to
your blog and cultivate a deeper relationship with your readers.
- Industry News And Articles
You can also blog about industry news and articles. This can easily
be done by sharing news and content from authoritative websites in your
niche, giving credit to the source at the end.
For example, if your business is about social media, you can look out
for the latest updates on Facebook and share them with your readers.
This saves people time and effort.
I know we’re all lazy so besides coming up with your own content, you
can share other people’s content! This is very similar to the previous
strategy but for this specific strategy, you would also want to add your
own opinions and tips as an “add on”.
One of the most popular blogging strategy is to blog about current
trends in your topic or niche. People get excited about trends and they
also want to be updated constantly and always be “in the know”.
For
instance, at the time of writing this post, people are crazy about
“Pokemon GO”. Apart from the entertainment perspective, trends like
these can lead to new industries and more businesses being created.
It’s already happening and there are many existing and new businesses
leveraging on the trend now. For example, restaurants riding on the
popularity by creating “Pokemon menus” and engaging real life actors to
act as Pokemon characters in the restaurants, to attract players to come
catch some Pokemons and dine at the same time (is that even possible??)
I’m also certain there are, or will be various informational products
like “how to play Pokemon GO” type of ebooks and videos leveraging on
the trend and making a lot of money.
Businesses and individuals are also riding on the trend by leveraging
it as content, videos and more. The below is just a screenshot example
of a website doing this:
Yes, I’m guilty of being in this trend too, on the entertainment side that is.
I hope you enjoyed, and most importantly, benefited from this content.
Now go and create your next great blog post!
Ewen