4 Beliefs That Are Limiting Your Blogging Potential

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Note from Taughnee: I used the “Confidence Blockers” template from The Blog Post Vault in combination with ChatGPT to write this post. The result is a 100% original piece of content using my own perspectives and experiences. But with the help of these tools, I was able to write a really solid first draft of over 2,500 words in around an hour. From there, I was able to just focus on the personal insights and anecdotes I wanted to share and put the text into my own writing voice. This is still a relatively new workflow for me but it’s helping me create blog posts in around 1/2 the time and most importantly — making the entire process much more enjoyable. 🙂

If you’ve been doing everything “right” with your blog but still not getting the results you want, I know how easy it is to get discouraged. There’s so much conflicting information out there it can make your head spin.

When I first started blogging, I read every piece of expert advice I could get my hands on to help me crack the blogging code, and it always went a little something like this: 

  • Expert #1 would say to write short posts every single day
  • Expert #2 would insist the best thing to do is to only write super long posts
  • Expert #3 would claim the secret is to focus on keyword research
  • Expert #4 would advise not to pay attention to keywords 

I tried every fresh tip, new angle, and “ultimate hack” in the book and still felt invisible, overworked, underappreciated, and demoralized. For a loooong time. 

It wasn’t until I stopped worrying so much about “expert advice” and started blogging in a way that worked for me that I really hit my stride and started gaining traffic momentum, subscribers, and sales. 

I’ve said it many times – blogging is a long game. Without plenty of good old-fashioned perseverance and a whole lot of patience, the temptation to give up can be irresistible. 

The biggest lesson I learned in all my years of blogging is that it’ rarely a lack of talent, strategy, know-how, or technical expertise that holds you back … it’s your mindset.

If you’re not seeing the results you want from your blog, it’s time for a gut check. Do any of these sound familiar? 

  • “I don’t have anything unique or interesting to say.”
  • “I’m too busy to stay consistent with blogging.”
  • “If I put my opinions out there, people will figure out that I’m a fraud/criticize me.”

If that sounds like you, you bet your bottom dollar those beliefs are standing in the way of you doing the things you need to do to drive traffic, attract customers, and get your business visible with blogging.  

And here’s the thing: you CAN do this. It’s simply a matter helping your audience and doing it consistently (which can mean whatever you need it to mean). 

Never forget there are people out there just waiting for you to show up and tell them your way of approaching things, help them work through a problem in the way only you can, and let them know about your products and services too. 

It’s time to bust through those mindset issues that are getting in the way of getting your business in front of more of the right people.

Ready? 

Limiting Belief #1: I’m not a good writer

If you don’t think of yourself as a good writer, you’re not alone – many, many people feel this way. 

Let’s face it: 

  • It’s low-key terrifying to put yourself out there.
  • On the internet. 
  • Where everybody (including that mean girl from high school) can see it.

But here’s the thing. You don’t need to be a perfect writer to create engaging blog posts. You just need to be helpful and I promise you that you absolutely have something to share that will help people. 

Here’s what you can do:

Ask yourself why you think you need to be a good writer. Is it because you feel like you won’t be taken seriously if your writing isn’t perfect? Or is it because you’re comparing yourself to other bloggers? (Tsk, tsk.) 

Now think about what it would be like to write without the pressure of being a “good” writer. What would it be like to just share your ideas and insights with your audience, without worrying about how it sounds?

Now for a secret: You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There are proven blog post formulas you can follow that are structured for engagement and conversions. Rather than sitting down trying to come up with some brilliant piece of writing out of thin air, you can start with what already works.

Even though I really enjoy writing, this was a game-changer for me in my blogging journey. It liberated me from the “blank page of doom” so I could focus on providing value and optimizing my posts without carving into my personal time to get it done.

If you want to give this a try, grab our free blog post templates below and you’ll see what I mean: 

And for heaven’s sake, use technology to help you! Why not? Even the best writers in the world still need editors. 

Grammarly and Hemmingway are two great tools that can help you catch grammatical and spelling errors and make suggestions to improve readability. 

The only thing you need to do to get more visible is to show up for your audience. They don’t need you to be perfect, but they do need you to come out of the shadows. 

Limiting Belief #2 – No one will read my blog

“I’ll get to blogging as soon as I finish responding to all these emails” 

Sound familiar? 

We all have an endless list of things we need to do, but if you’ve been avoiding putting yourself out there because you’re worried blogging will just be a wasted effort, it’s time to get to the bottom of why you feel that way… 

Maybe you’re… 

  • Worried you don’t have anything interesting to say
  • Nervous that people will figure out you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about (oh hello, imposter syndrome!)
  • Scared that you won’t be able to say something that hasn’t already been said a thousand times before 

It’s just a fact of human nature that we put off things that scare us. But those things are usually the very things we need to be doing in order to level up. 

Here’s what you can do:

Challenge your belief: Is it really true that no one will read your blog? Do you have proof? Is it possible that you’re underestimating your audience?

Focus on your niche: Trying to appeal to everyone means you won’t appeal to anyone in particular. Instead, focus on specific topic areas and an audience niche you can serve. What are their pain points, challenges, and interests? How can you help them solve a problem or get a result they really want?

Take action: The best way to overcome your fear of no one reading your blog is to just start writing and publishing posts. Even if you don’t have a huge audience right away, every post you publish is a chance to grow your authority with Google and connect with your readers. In time your audience will grow. 🌱

Limiting Belief #3:  I don’t have time

Saying you don’t have time is really saying it’s not a priority.

The truth is, if you really want to achieve your goal of driving organic traffic and getting visible with a wider audience of potential customers, you have to make it a priority. 

Even if you’re busy running a business or managing other responsibilities, carving out time for your blog is an investment in free traffic in the long run. 

Here’s a real example of what I mean: 

Every week we get sales on products we’re doing absolutely nothing to promote, we don’t even have them listed on our shop page. How are customers finding these products? 

Through links I included on blog posts I wrote more than 5 years ago. 

Did I know at the time it would pay off like that? Nope. I was crying about how hard I was working and how nobody was reading my blog. 

Luckily, I was self-aware enough to know that this was just my mind playing tricks and I needed to trust the process and keep going. 

Here’s what you can do:

Start small: You don’t need to devote hours every day to your blog. Even just 30 minutes here and there throughout your week can make a big difference. One way to approach this so you don’t get overwhelmed is to:

  • Choose a topic
  • Outline it into logical sections with headings for each 
  • Write for 30 minutes at a time under each heading (think of them as “mini blog posts”) 

(Spoiler alert: if you set an intention to write in small sections for 30-minute sessions, you’re very likely to get into a state of flow and keep going.) 

No need to clear your schedule and devote all your attention to blogging, it’s about working in a way that’s doable.

“Reverse-prioritize” your tasks: If you find yourself tackling “urgent” things first, you’ll never find the time for “important” tasks like blogging. Put blogging at the top of the list – either one morning per week or schedule blogging appointments with yourself and stick to them –  trusting yourself that you’ll get to all the urgent things. 

And you will. Because they’re urgent. You always manage to handle what you need to handle. 

Use time-saving tools:  For example, use a social media scheduling tool like Metricool (affiliate link) to handle promoting your posts on an evergreen cycle and keep the traffic flowing in. Use templates like you’ll find in The Blog Post Vault to help you write faster. Use them in combination with ChatGPT to take the stress and overwhelm out of the writing process and get you quickly past any “stuck” points. 

Limiting Belief #4: I don’t know how to get traffic

It’s a common misconception that getting traffic to your blog is knowledge only veteran bloggers are privy to. 

In reality, it’s pretty simple: consistently publish quality content on related niche topics.  

I know, I know, you’ve heard that before but maybe not why that’s the case…

Creating lots of content on related topics builds what’s known as “topical authority” – a ranking factor with Google. 

It means that Google will begin to recognize you as an expert in a particular niche or topic area (and your readers will notice, too). 

When Google sees that you’re publishing lots of quality content on a topic, it begins to trust your blog as a reliable source of information which means it’ll be more likely to show up in search results.

For smaller bloggers especially,  building topical authority is one of the most effective ways to compete with bigger players and grow your blog traffic organically. 

And remember… 

Not every post needs to be a monumental effort. Writing posts on smaller, less competitive niche topics will build on one another and those should only take an hour or two to write.

After we threw out the “post every day!” and “only publish when you have invested months writing the best blog post there ever was!” advice, we landed on a content mix that hit the sweet spot: 

  • ⅓ Foundation posts: quick posts that answer less competitive niche questions
  • ⅓ Authority posts: that go into more detail on related niche topics, and 
  • ⅓ Domination posts:  longer, “best content on the internet on this topic” posts
The Content Library inside The Blog Post Vault is organized into Foundation, Authority, and Domination posts

Note: the ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ formula takes word count into consideration. Foundation posts are around 1,000 words but Domination posts might be 5,000 or even 10,000!

Most of our blog posts are Foundation and Authority posts. They build credibility with our audience and Google and they don’t take forever and a day to write.

When we’re really ready to go after big traffic and highly competitive topics, we write a Domination post. Even 2-3 of those per year can bring tons of traffic if they rank. 

So if you’re struggling to get traffic to your blog, it may simply be because you’re…

  • Not publishing enough content
  • Trying to tackle topics that are WAY too big for where you’re at in your blogging journey or the time you have available
  • All over the place with your topics rather than creating more content that’s related to other popular content you’ve written 

Pssst: If you want to give our content mix method a try, the best way to do that is to check out The Blog Post Vault. We’ve baked this strategy into the cake and have included 52 plug-and-play templates that prompt you through proven post structures you can customize for your niche. 

You can use them like I do in combination with ChatGPT…

  1. I start with the template
  2. Get the gist of what I want to say down very very roughly, and then
  3. Spend my time editing rather than reinventing the wheel. 

This way, I spend my time focused on sharing personal anecdotes and adding value rather than struggling to get started or trying to organize it into something that flows cohesively.

Here’s what you can do:

Focus on “realistic consistency.” Set realistic goals and don’t bite off more than you can chew with your publishing schedule. 

If you can only manage one blog post per month and you have to break it down into mini work sessions, that’s fine. It’s a myth that consistency means once per day or once per week even – consistency just means being, well, consistent in whatever schedule works for you.

Think of it this way…

When you’re through writing even just one blog post that helps your audience in some way, now it’s a content asset that will drive traffic to your business for years to come – one that you can promote in a myriad of ways and even repurpose for other things. 

Be proactive. Share your blog posts on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. And don’t just share it once and call it good! Treat each post as “Evergreen” content and share links to them on a regular basis – at least once a week – on all of your social media platforms. Use MetriCool (affiliate link) to automate that for you. 

The Autolist feature in Metricool shares our blog posts to social media in a recurring way and without being spammy

Related reading: 20 types of blog posts that drive traffic

You got this!

It’s time to turn your limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs and I know you’ve got this. 💪 

The next time you find yourself procrastinating on your blog, think about what may be holding you back. We all have limiting beliefs, it’s what you do to overcome them so you can reach your goals anyway that counts.

Challenge yourself to think differently, make blogging a long-term commitment that works with your schedule (don’t be afraid to take things at your own pace!), and focus more on publishing helpful content than chasing every new tip, trick, and tactic that crosses your path. 

There’s an old saying… “Bloggers blog.” 

So get to blogging!  🎉

To help you on your way, be sure to grab our FREE blog post templates to help get into a new routine you can easily manage. 

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10 Simple Ways to Write Blog Posts that Attract & Convert Customers

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Note from Taughnee: I used the “Super Simple Ideas” template from The Blog Post Vault as a jumping-off point for this post. The final result is 100% unique content using my own experience, knowledge, and voice. From start to finish it took me just a little over 3 hours to write over 4,000 words, which is (much) less than half the time it would have normally taken me. 🙌 

If you have your heart set on blogging as a way to drive organic traffic to your business and reach new customers, it’s really not as daunting as people make it out to be…

😩Some bloggers seem to effortlessly churn out content, but I struggle to even write a sentence!
😩I’m afraid I’ll spend a bunch of time writing a post and no one will even bother to read it
😩Just thinking about squeezing blogging to my already-packed schedule is overwhelming, ugh! 

Sound familiar?

Most small business owners struggle with  limiting beliefs like this because let’s face it – blogging is not your central focus. You’re busy with more important priorities. 

And even if you’re a veteran blogger, we all have gaps in our knowledge that prevent us from getting the results we want – more leads and sales from free traffic!

The truth is, writing blog posts is just the tip of the iceberg. Gaining momentum happens when you start paying attention to the details most bloggers tend to gloss over. And it’s no surprise they do – organizing your thoughts and typing them into the computer machine is time-consuming enough. 

Given that the whole point of blogging in the first place is to help you expand your customer base and grow your email list without paying for traffic…

And considering it may only take a tweak to what you’re doing to really start gaining traction… 

Our challenge today is to figure out what might be missing in your strategy. 

By the end of this post, you’ll… 

👉Understand how to get your ideal audience clicking on your content in the first place
👉Keep them captivated from the first second they land on your website
👉Know how to structure your content in a way that guides them to the next steps ($$$)
👉Keep improving your results with every post you write 

Sound good? 

Then grab a cup of coffee (or your beverage of choice!) and settle in to learn 10 tips for creating blog posts that attract and convert your ideal customers, starting with… 

1. (Really) Understand Your Audience

Understanding your audience is the bedrock of great content but really understanding what makes them tick is an art. The more you practice honing in on their needs and desires, the more intuitive it will become.

Start by paying attention to the things they’re saying. Listen closely to the comments they leave on social media, the questions they ask in emails, and the feedback they leave on your blog…

  • What are their concerns or questions? 
  • What’s resonating with them? 
  • What’s helping them move forward? 
  • What’s standing in their way?

By making it a habit to really listen to them, you’ll begin to understand what they want from your content.

If you don’t already have an audience, you can join groups or communities where your ideal readers are likely to hang out and take note of the questions, comments, and conversations that are taking place. 

The idea is, you want to join in on the conversation going on in their minds with your content. 

Another helpful thing you can do is create an audience persona — a fictional representation of your ideal reader. By visualizing one person, you’re better able to empathize with what they need and write with them in mind rather than a vast, generic “target audience.”

Think about…

  • What are their goals and aspirations?
  • What are their interests? 
  • What are they trying to do? 
  • What frustrates them?

Writing directly for one ideal reader will help you stay focused on them and helps you connect with your audience on a personal level – building the “know, like, trust factor” you need in order to create a loyal following of people who are interested in being a customer. 

2. Choose the Right Topics

When choosing topics for their blog, business bloggers tend to go one of two ways:

1) They focus exclusively on keywords and create content for search engines rather than humans, or
2) They just start writing about stuff they know –  willy-nilly and when inspiration strikes or when they’re in the mood to wax philosophical

The problem is: if your audience doesn’t recognize themselves in your topic – if it’s not something they’re already looking for, struggling with, or super interested in already – it won’t capture their attention and they’ll just keep scrolling. 


In fact, let’s do this quick exercise right now: 

Visualize your person scrolling social media on their phone – bombarded with a constant stream of notifications, annoying ads, and friends from high school posting political opinions that make their blood boil…

A Google Calendar alert dings to let them know their Zoom meeting is about to start, they just remembered they forgot to ask their husband to pick up milk on the way home, their kids start screaming in the background… 


Utterly. Distracted.   

Then, a link to your blog post appears on their screen…

What happens next? 

Do they filter it out because it’s just more noise that’s not relevant to them?


Or does it stop them in their tracks: 

  • “I’ve been meaning to learn more about this!” 
  • “I’ve been wondering about this! How did they know?” 
  • “I’ve been struggling with this for ages, I need this!” 

That “Hey, this is for me! It’s exactly what I need!” is what you’re shooting for and picturing this scenario will help you decide whether a topic is worth your time to write or bound to be yet another wasted effort. 

Another huge mistake bloggers make is trying to come up with completely original content ideas rather than figuring out what topics are already in demand. 

Instead, focus on creating content you know is popular with your target audience and put your unique spin on it. Research what they’re consuming and look for gaps and opportunities that you can fill with your own experience and perspective. 

Use tools like Google Trends, SEMRush, or BuzzSumo to get to the bottom of what the popular topics in your niche are. Analyze your competition to see what types of content they’re creating and scope out their comments section to see what people are saying – what’s resonating with them? 

It may seem like adding topic research to your to-do list is more than you can afford, but it’s actually much more costly to write an entire blog post that’s not going to grab your audience’s attention. 

3. Make it Easy to Skim 

Did you know the average user spends just 15 seconds before deciding whether to stay on a web page or leave? 

We like to play it safe and use a “5-second rule”: If it’s not clear to them within 5 seconds that the blog post is going to deliver on its promises, they’re going to hit the back button. And making your content easy to read, skim, and scan is priority #1 when it comes to keeping readers on your website. 

Studies have shown that readers are more likely to engage with content that’s structured in an organized way, which means always use a proper document outline.

A document outline breaks your content into logical sections and sub-sections, making it easy for readers to navigate at-a-glance and get right to the information they came for.

Screen capture from the HTML document outline training inside The Blog Post Vault
Screen capture from the HTML document outline training inside The Blog Post Vault

You also want to avoid using too many colors, fonts, and bolded text and use a legible sans-serif font (or a serif font designed for screen reading) to avoid visual clutter and to make reading more comfortable. 

Creating an enjoyable user experience will pay off with a lower bounce rate and a higher time on page – which sends good signals to Google, too. 

If formatting is not your cup of tea, these pre-formatted blog post templates have the document outline already set up, include prompts for remembering to put visuals in strategic places to break up big walls of text, and are structured for maximum readability and engagement. 

4. Get More Clicks with Optimized Headlines and Meta Descriptions

Catchy headlines and clear meta descriptions are essential for getting more clicks and boosting your blog traffic.

After writing an epic blog post, it’s understandable you may be tempted to treat this like an afterthought, but these small pieces of copy will make or break it for you because they’re the first things people see. 

In other words, before you can wow them with your content, you first need to get them to click through. 

Think about a time when you were scrolling through the Google Search Engine Results Page. What made you click on one link instead of another? It’s not always about which one is ranking the highest, right? Chances are it was the headline and meta description.

Now think about your headlines and descriptions as heading into battle with all of your competition. Yours should be compelling enough to entice your audience to click through and your meta description should give them a clear description of what they can expect if they do. 

The picture below illustrates what we have to work with, so making the best of this tiny space can go a long way in making your blog post the one people want to click on. 

Before you hit “publish,” take a moment to type your topic into Google and see what’s there. What catches your attention? What can you do to make your headline and description more enticing? Consider using: 

  • Active verbs (“Understand Your Audience” versus “Understanding Your Audience”) 
  • Numbers (“X ways to achieve a goal”) 
  • Power words (“The Ultimate Guide to [Topic]”) 

For your descriptions, this is one of our favorite ways to use ChatGPT! Give it a summary of your blog post and ask it to provide you with options for your meta description – then choose the one that catches your attention and makes you want to read it.

If you’re not sure how to add a meta description to your post, use a plugin like RankMath because it makes it easy peasy to do right inside your WordPress post editor. 

5. Write in a Conversational Tone 

Writing in a conversational tone builds a personal connection with your readers and makes them more likely to take action, stay on your site longer, sign up for your mailing list, check out your offerings, and so much more.

Remember, people buy things from people they know, like, and trust, and using a formal tone only creates distance.

Where business bloggers tend to go wrong is trying too hard to sound like an expert. Instead, focus on writing like you’re giving advice to a friend. 

Writing Tip #1. Use relatable language you feel comfortable with

If you wouldn’t say “I was like yaaaaas, boss babe! Smoochies!” to someone face-to-face, then don’t put it in your writing. But you don’t need to sound like a corporate robot in order to sound professional either. 

Writing Tip #2. Avoid using jargon or technical terms 


Avoid words your readers may not be familiar with – and be aware that you may not even realize you’re using terms commonly used in your industry but not by your audience.

In case you’re not sure, you can ask ChatGPT and then ask it for suggestions for how to say it in a way that’s more approachable for your audience: 

Writing Tip #3: Keep it concise

Remember, people are busy so they’ll quickly become annoyed if you take too long to get to the point. If you love using as many words as possible as much as I do ​​🤪, it’s just a matter of getting your thoughts out in the way you need to and then editing it down. For example…

Instead of saying…


“It is essential to acquire knowledge of the appropriate approach towards writing in a conversational tone for the purpose of maintaining reader engagement”

You might say… 

“To keep your readers interested, write like you’re having a chat with a friend. Use simple words and avoid using jargon they might not know.”

Pro-tip: say it out loud. Does it feel awkward? It’s probably because you’re using too many fancy words when you could just say it simply. #fancy-pants

Writing Tip #4. Use contractions 

Contractions are a natural part of spoken language and using them in your writing can help make it feel more conversational. 

Think “you’ll” instead of “you will” and “don’t” instead of “do not.” 

I’ve been practicing this one for years and I still don’t catch them all, but give it a try – you will  you’ll see that it makes a big difference in the tone of your writing. 

6. Make it Visual

The internet has shortened all of our attention spans (*shakes fist at TikTok*), so hitting your readers with a big wall of text is just going to make them groan and abandon ship. 

Remember: you’ve got 5 seconds to hook them in and one of the first things they’ll look for is whether it looks like it’s going to be easy to read… 

This is where visuals can help!

By breaking up your text with images, graphics, and other visuals, your readers will be more likely to stay engaged with your content. This means increased time spent on your site and the more likely they’ll be to convert into subscribers and customers.

And the cool thing is, adding visual interest to break up your text can take many forms, including:

  • Relevant photos and graphics to enhance your readers’ understanding of the content
  • Screenshots or screen captures to illustrate concepts and provide examples
  • Callouts and block quotes to highlight key points or quotes to draw your readers’ attention to 
  • Subheadings to break up your content into smaller, logical, easy-to-digest chunks 
  • Bullet points and numbered lists to summarize key information or provide step-by-step instructions
  • Content upgrade opt-in graphics or forms: to provide readers with a free tool to help them implement what they learn in your post
  • Videos or .gif animations to demonstrate concepts in a dynamic way
  • Charts and graphs to illustrate important data so it’s easier to understand 
  • Quotes from experts to lend credibility to your content
  • Turn statistics into graphics to call attention to relevant data so readers don’t miss it 
  • Interactive elements to encourage readers to participate such as “click to Tweet” or quizzes and polls
  • Infographics to help convey complex ideas in a way that is easy to grasp
  • Get creative!  Remember that anything that is not a paragraph of text can help break up your content 
 Examples from The Blog Post Vault templates

7. Call Your Readers to Action

By including clear calls-to-action (CTAs) in strategic places throughout your posts, you can guide your readers toward the next step in their journey to become a loyal follower, email subscriber, or even a customer.

Start by identifying the goal you want to achieve with your content. Do you want your readers to…  

  • Download your free guide? 
  • Spend more time on your website and click through to read another post?
  • Check out your relevant offerings?

Once you’ve identified your goals, write CTAs that clearly communicate what you want your audience to do and why they should do it. 

⚠️If you don’t ask, and if you don’t tell them exactly what to do, they won’t take any action at all. And we’re pretty sure clicking away from your website never to return is not your goal.  

Use language that encourages your readers to take a specific action and wherever possible – really sell it. Tell them the value they’ll get on the other side of the click… 

  • Want an easy way to [achieve result they want]? Our free guide breaks it down into five easy steps. Download it here to get started!
  • If you’ve tried [to achieve a result they want] in the past but it didn’t work out, check out this post to learn a simpler method that worked miracles for me
  • If you’ve been stuck in a rut when it comes to [niche topic], I invite you to book a consultation with me and I’ll help you decide your next step so you can move forward

I think you’ll agree these are more enticing than “click here” – yes?

The placement of your calls to action is key as well. Consider the context of your content and the behavior of your readers – they should be strategically placed throughout your post where they’re most likely to be seen and acted upon.

For example, you can include them…

  • In the body of your content whenever you’re making a relevant point
  • At the end of your post so you don’t leave them guessing what to do next
  • As an exit-intent pop-up to invite them to join your mailing list and continue learning about the topic

Have you noticed that I’ve already placed several calls to action in this post? It may not be obvious because I’ve asked you to click on things in context when it was hyper-relevant to what you were reading so it wouldn’t seem intrusive or distracting. 

One of the key features we baked into every blog post template in The Blog Post Vault are prompts to remind you to continuously call your readers to action. 

It’s super easy to get so focused on providing value that you completely forget about the reason why you’re writing the blog post in the first place: to provide your readers with a path forward on their journey to become your customer. (Not just read your post and peace out.) 

8. Promote Your Posts

In case you need to hear this (and we all need to hear this): If you want to grow your blog and reach potential customers, you need to be proactive in promoting your posts. 

While search engine optimization (SEO) is important, it’s not enough to rely on Google to send you traffic. SEO is a long game and there are no guarantees your content will rank on page 1 of Google. 

Get your blog post out there and in front of people – there are tons of ways to do it!

  • Email your list and tell them why it will benefit them to read it
  • Link it from an automated email welcome sequence after someone opts in to a relevant freebie
  • Share it on social media platforms that allow “clickable links”: Instagram stories, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
  • Use relevant hashtags to reach a wider audience
  • Tag other bloggers or influencers in your post to increase its visibility where appropriate
  • Create a guest post for another blogger or industry publication in exchange for linking back to yours

And don’t just share it once and call it good! Promote your content for as long as it supports your business goals. We included an “Evergreen” category in our Content Calendar System precisely because it’s so easy to forget about sharing older content. We wanted it to be right in the calendar to remind you to keep at it. 

Even if you’re not using CCS, you can keep track of your “Evergreen” content using a tool like Google Sheets, Trello, or Notion — the important thing is to keep all of your links handy when you’re creating and scheduling social media posts. 

Try to share links back to your blog at least once per week on all your social media accounts. Keep promoting them over time (the traffic will add up!) and visit and update older content to keep it fresh and relevant. 

And if you just can’t imagine finding the time to do any of these things, try this… 

MetriCool (affiliate link) is a social media scheduler that allows you to set up “Autolists” to promote blog posts on an evergreen schedule (a.k.a. “set it and forget it”). This feature saves a ton of time and ensures your content is being regularly promoted to your audience without having to think about it. 

We have lists set up for our products, freebies, and lead magnets for Twitter and Facebook and once we add them to the list, MetriCool handles rotating them all through the schedule we set up – all on autopilot. 

This way we don’t have to worry about being spammy but we also don’t need to worry about forgetting to promote our content either.  Win, win! 

9. Streamline Your Workflow

By now you might be wondering how you’re going to find the time to pay attention to all these details, I know, I’ve thrown a lot at you today. 

That’s why it’s so important to get organized and use the right tools to help you with your workflow. You need to be as efficient as possible so you have the bandwidth to put your attention on the things that actually move the needle,  not just busy work.

Here are a few of our favorite tools that streamline the time you spend writing and promoting your posts: 

  • The Blog Post Vault: This epic collection of 52 customizable blog post templates are all written in a conversational tone with prompts to guide you through customizing them for your niche, with reminders to insert visuals and calls to action in strategic places, and formatted to maximize reader engagement and conversions. To really supercharge productivity, we use it in combination with…   
  • ChatGPT: This AI tool is a perfect sidekick when using content templates like The Blog Post Vault. The templates keep us focused and provide the strategy, but ChatGPT works as a “writing assistant” to help us with research and quickly move past writer’s block. We’re saving a boatload of time, and if you want to learn more about how we’re using it, check out this post 
  • Notion: Notion is our favorite tool for staying organized with blogging tasks. Having an editorial calendar and a system for tracking the posts we need to promote shaves off hours each month. If you prefer Asana, Trello, or Google Sheets that’s cool too – work with the tools that work best for you. The key is to have some kind of “dashboard” of everything you need to keep track for your blog right at your finger tips. 
  • Canva: As a former graphic designer and Adobe loyalist, I can hardly believe how much Canva has won me over and how strongly I recommend it now. This graphic design tool just makes things so much easier and faster. Even if you have no experience with graphic design, it’s a piece of cake to create beautiful images and graphics for your blog and social media
  • MetriCool (affiliate link): There are tons of social media schedulers out there but we’re all-in with Metricool lately. We love that it comes with social media analytics and the ability to set up “Autolists” that promote our content in a “set it and forget it” way. And the best part is that their free plan is incredibly robust, so there’s nothing to lose if you want to give it a try! 
Our Blogger’s Dashboard for Notion helps you stay organized and make the most out of every blog post you write

10. Measure Your Results

Now for the secret sauce of a successful content strategy. If you want to win your audience over and keep them coming back for more: measure your results using a tool like Google Analytics. 

This, again, is something that most bloggers don’t bother with – huge mistake. When you’re aware of which posts your audience is flocking to, all you need to do is simply continue helping them with related content. No more guesswork, hurrah!

Using data to help you figure out when your audience is raising their hands and saying, “Yes! This is what we need help with!” (which is what they’re saying when they read a post) is the most effective way to understand your audience so you can give them more of what they want. (See Tip #1) 

Conclusion

To quickly recap… 

By paying attention to details like these,  creating content that attracts and converts your ideal audience will quickly become second nature:

  • Understand your audience – always be listening to what they’re saying they need help with
  • Identify the right topics  – don’t just write what you know, write about what they already want (using your knowledge) 
  • Make content easy to read – break up text into logical sections so they can find what they came for quickly and easily and don’t use 37 fonts! 😉 
  • Write conversationally to create a connection with your audience and keep them engaged
  • Use visuals to break up big walls of text and to help your readers understand complex topics 
  • Call them to action in strategic places to encourage your readers to take the next step with you
  • Promote your content proactively and automate where possible using tools like MetriCool (affiliate link)
  • Streamline your workflow with the right tools so you have the time you need to attend to everything on this list
  • Measure your results so you can double down on what’s working and better understand your audience

There you have it! 

Will you be using any of these tips to create your next blog post? Let us know in the comments below!

And if you’re eager to write blog posts that attract your dream customers but you’d much rather just have an easy button, The Blog Post Vault is it. 

You’ll be able to effortlessly write a high-quality blog posts:

👉Without having to worry about forgetting any important details that keep readers engaged…
👉In a fraction of the time it would normally take…
👉And for half the price you’d pay a writer to create just one single blog post (starting at just $49 lifetime)

🙌

We hope to see you inside! 

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How ChatGPT is disrupting the way we create content (advantages & pitfalls)

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Note from Taughnee: In the following blog post, I used ChatGPT to help me research the limitations and advantages of using it for content creation in combination with our “Big News Announcement” template from the Blog Post Vault. The final post is 100% original content using my own voice, unique perspectives, and personal insights. But, using these tools helped me stay focused so I could write, edit, and format over 2,800 words for this post in less than 2 hours (about ½ the time it would have normally taken me). 2023 is wild! 

Have you heard the buzz about ChatGPT? If so, you’re probably wondering how it’s going to disrupt just about everything – including creating content for your business. 

If you’re like us, you’re probably feeling a mix of emotions about it: incredibly excited about the potential of ChatGPT and the ways it can be used to increase productivity… but also a bit concerned about the fact that the robots 🤖🤖🤖 are finally taking over. 😂

All over the world right now, content creators, copywriters, and content marketing businesses like ours are wondering how this new technology is going to impact them. 

Some creators see dollar signs: “Cool, I can sell content services and have ChatGPT do all the work!” (which we strongly believe will lead to customer mistrust). 

Some are fearful they’ll need to adapt, learn new skills, or even become obsolete. 

Here at ConversionMinded, we’re super excited about the ways ChatGPT is already helping us create content more efficiently and take time-consuming, costly, and mundane tasks off our plates.

As for our concerns, ChatGPT seems to be on our side so that’s something. 😉 

Image of ChatGPT: "Will ChatGPT replace human content creators?" Response: "ChatGPT can be a helpful tool for human content creators, but it cannot replace the role they play in the creation of content."

In this post, I’m going to share my insights and thoughts so far on the best ways to use ChatGPT to speed up content creation and some limitations to be aware of too. 

But first… 

What is ChatGPT and how can it help with content creation tasks?

ChatGPT is a language model that can generate human-like language. Ask it questions or provide it with “seed text” and it will respond to you as if you’re talking to a real person. 

What’s “seed text” you ask? Well, let’s ask ChatGPT!

An image of a ChatGPT conversation. "What is seed text?" The response is "Seed text, also known as a 'prompt,' is a piece of text or set of words used as input to a language generation model."

Think of it this way: it’s like having an assistant who’s read every article and discussion on the internet about your topic and can now give you a “best guess” answer to any question you have. 

The applications are vast, but for now, I’m just going to keep things focused on using ChatGPT for content creation since that’s what you’re here for. 😉  

You can use ChatGPT to help you with all kinds of content for your business, including:

  • Headlines and alternative headlines  
  • Product and services summaries
  • Customer service responses
  • Social media posts
  • Ad copy
  • Emails
  • Blog posts
  • Translations
  • Scripts for videos and podcasts 
  • And much more! 

And the language it produces actually sounds just like a human wrote it! 

Mind. Blown. 🤯

But before you get too excited, keep reading because there are some limitations you need to be aware of before diving in… 

The Pitfalls: 2 Ways ChatGPT Actually Slows Down Content Creation 

You’ll find that your role using ChatGPT will be to provide it with lots and lots of input and really good prompts – otherwise known as “prompt engineering.” 

A chatGPT conversation. "What is prompt engineering" "Prompt engineering refers to the process of designing and refining the questions or prompts that a language model such as GPT-3 is trained on."

In other words, you’ll have to train ChatGPT how to give you results you’re happy with (which is a new task and a new skill you’ll need to learn and it can easily eat up even more of your time if you’re not careful).

Way #1: It often returns inaccurate or unhelpful responses

ChatGPT was trained using billions of text data found on the internet, but, it only has information up until 2021, which means it doesn’t know anything about the world after that point.

Right now, it can only generate responses based on the information it was trained on and heads up – it’s very often inaccurate (it generates lots of stuff you can’t use). 

To get more meaningful and useful responses, you need to teach it about your brand, offerings, and audience and by providing it with seed text so it can learn from you. Not only that, but you’ll have to start from scratch with every new chat session. This process takes time.  

Keep in mind… 

  • ChatGPT does not have information about current events 
  • It can’t access the internet on its own to get up-to-date information 
  • It wants to be helpful so it’ll give you information as if it’s accurate and it will sound very convincing  
  • It can tell you something is possible to do with ChatGPT but it may not actually be possible
  • It will often contradict itself when you ask follow-up questions

For example, I tried to get it to help me create a product summary, so I asked it if I could link to our sales page to give it all the information. 

Note: It said yes.

An image of a ChatGPT conversation were I ask ChatGPT, "Can you create a product summary based on a sales page I link to?" It responds, "Sure. Provide me with a link and I'll do my best to create a product summary for you."

I already knew it wouldn’t be able to read this web page as it was created in 2023,  but watch as ChatGPT tries to be helpful and “guesses” what this product is about… 

I asked it to tell me the specific number of templates mentioned on the sales page as a test. (Spoiler alert: there are 52 templates, not 50.) 

An image of a ChatGPT conversation. I send it a link to a sales page and ask it to tell me how many templates are included in our Blog Post Vault and it responds with the incorrect number.

When I prompted it to tell me where it got the inaccurate information it finally ‘fessed up… 

An image of ChatGPT apologizing for the mistake.

It wasn’t reading the sales page at all, it was just “faking it” in an attempt to be helpful. 

When in doubt about whether the responses are accurate, you can ask it to tell you its sources or where it got the information from so you can make sure it’s not leading you astray. 

But bottom line: all of these limitations and detours can create its own kind of time suck. 

It’s easy to wind up with content that sounds super helpful but actually isn’t and ChatGPT will tell you so itself: 

An image of a ChatGPT conversation where I ask it what kind of responses it will generate if it doesn't know something. It responds by explaining that it will generate a response based on patterns from the data it was trained on.

If you’re not super familiar with a topic you’re writing about, you may not even be aware that ChatGPT is just “best guessing” – ultimately, you’re responsible for making sure what it creates for you is on target. 

Way #2: Beware the “ChatGPT Rabbit Hole”

The first thing I learned when experimenting with ChatGPT is that it’s suuuuuper easy to go down a rabbit hole.

An image where I ask ChatGPT if it's common for users to go down a rabbit hole. It responds by saying that it's very common, and if you ask it to, it will try its best to stay focused on a topic.

Feeding ChatGPT with more and more “seed text,” context, and information about our customers in order to get more meaningful responses can quickly become overwhelming. 

As I was playing around with it to help me with various content tasks, I kept feeding it more inputs to see if it would…

  • Create something catchier
  • Make it more exciting to read
  • Change it up to be more engaging
  • Write it so I really want to buy it 
  • Put it in a friendlier tone
  • Less formal and more conversational
  • I don’t like any of these, try again 

And it does! What you can ask it to do is endless. You can keep asking and asking and it will keep answering and answering (turns out, that’s a blessing and a curse). 

Along the way, I’d ask it tangential questions because why not? You’re having a chat and it’s fun! 

  • “What are some target markets who would be interested in buying this product?”
  • “What is their biggest problem?”
  • “What are some blog post topics they’d be interested in reading?” 
  • “By the way, what are some ways ChatGPT can help me learn a language?” 
  • “What are some suggestions for easy vegetarian meals I can make tonight?” 

All of this is great but… well, you can probably guess where this is going. 

After hours and hours of this I realized that while it feels productive, my conversations with ChatGPT were not the same thing as actually finishing a piece of content and getting it out there. 

And even after you’ve spent lots and lots of time “training” it, ChatGPT will still use cheesy language patterns and marketing and sales copy cliches that you may not want to use for your brand. Expect to spend some time editing so you can put it in your voice. 

By the end of my first experiences using it, I was absolutely overwhelmed with the pages and pages of text it generated and all the options, revisions, alternatives, suggestions, and information it had given me that I didn’t know what to do with it all.

So I asked it what to do with it all… 

… we talked about that for a while too.

While using ChatGPT is incredibly useful for lots of different types of content projects, there’s no doubt in my mind it’ll create more work in the long run for others. 

Said another way…

If it takes you an hour to get ChatGPT to write an email you’re happy with but you could have written it in 30 minutes, it’s creating more work and eating up more time, not less. 

So, mind the rabbit hole. You’ve been warned. 😉 

The Advantages: 5 Ways We’re Using ChatGPT to Create Content

After my initiation with ChatGPT, I made some decisions about how to best use it to speed up my content creation tasks. 

Right now, I plan on considering it my “writing assistant” whose job it is to keep me on track and prevent me from getting stuck or getting distracted. 

My job is to stay focused and get into the “flow” so I can complete my tasks in the most efficient way possible. That means closing out ChatGPT at a reasonable point in the process. 

So here are some of my favorite ways so far that I’ll continue to make good use of ChatGPT to work more efficiently: 

Way #1: Get ideas or inspiration


ChatGPT is perfect for getting a nudge of help while staying in the “flow” of your tasks. Rather than going out on Google or social media looking for inspiration, you can just ask ChatGPT instead. 

  • Tell it your topic and ask it to generate some ideas for you
  • Ask it what the most common questions people have about this topic
  • Tell it a bit about your target audience and ask them what their biggest frustration are around a topic

Way #2: Improve your content 

Rather than scratching your head when editing your text, have ChatGPT help you out. Ask it to…

  • Proofread it for you (giving it small passages at a time works best!) 
  • Provide you with alternatives or variations on a section of your content 
  • Put it in a different tone of voice (friendlier, more exciting, conversational, etc.)

Pro-tip: learn from the AI whenever you ask it to make improvements by asking them a follow-up question like, “what specific ways did you improve this content?” 


Way #3. Ask it to summarize your long-form content for you 

When you’re done writing a blog post, for example, your next step is usually to optimize it for search with meta descriptions and so on, and summarize it so you can create a post for social media or Pinterest to promote it. 

Take this routine task off your plate by asking it to summarize your post and create a meta description for you. 

An image of ChatGPT summarizing a blog post and providing a meta description.

Way #3 Use it for research instead of Google

ChatGPT can answer just about any question you have about a topic, which puts it in direct competition with Google. Especially for answers to simple fact-based questions like “What are the 3 largest cities in New Mexico?” 


This way, you won’t be tempted to go out on the internet where you might get distracted. 

Way #4 Ask it to edit for clarity when you get stuck on a phrase

A lot of times when we’re writing content we spin around in circles trying to make a phrase work. This is a perfect task for your new “writing assistant” – just copy and paste the phrase and ask it to provide you with alternatives.

An image of a ChatGPT conversation where I take a phrase from my blog post I'm a bit stuck on and it responds with an alternative way of writing it.

Not bad, but I’ll stick to the original. While ChatGPT is great at creating clear and concise language, always remember it’s not a human.

Remember that your greatest competitive advantage is that there’s only one you. Don’t second guess yourself if you think what you come up with is better than ChatGPT. What you write may not be as “perfect” but that’s… okay. 🙂

Think about the way Autotune changed the music industry. Sure, artists can use it to hit pitch-perfect notes now, but there’s something even more wonderful when listening to authentic and imperfectly-perfect voices like Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Prince, Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston…

So even if your language is not as clear or concise as ChatGPT, remember that you are a unique and original being with your own voice and personality – and that’s something a robot will never have. 

I think. Maybe. I don’t know. You get it.

Way #5 Use ChatGPT in combination with content templates to stay focused

Right now, I’m using one of our Blog Post Vault templates in combination with ChatGPT. I’m finding that using a content template as a starting point provides me with the structure I need to stay focused on the task.

With the templates, all the formatting is done for me and the writing prompts guide me through all the ways I should be sharing my personal insights, lessons learned, and so on.

This way, I can focus without distractions, work faster with the help of ChatGPT, and create original content that’s not robotic (I hope you’ll agree!).

Having a structure to follow means I don’t have to worry about cobbling all responses from the chatbot together into something cohesive.

I must say, it really takes the stress out of the unpleasant side of content creation like all the stuck points and knowledge gaps you run into that slows you down. I just keep ChatGPT open in a new tab and it’s there to help me, but the templates guide me through from start to finish (which is the goal).

Yesterday, I used it in combination with our Content Calendar System for the first time to create social media posts, and it was the most fun I’ve had creating content in a good, long while.

I was able to spend my time telling personal stories and sharing my expertise and experience rather than struggling with coming up with ideas or wondering what to share.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this productive and it’s inspiring me to create more content!

The verdict? ChatGPT is incredibly helpful for creating just about any kind of content you can think of, and what’s even more exciting is that it’s just in its infancy. Expect it to get exponentially more powerful in the not-so-distant future.

But for right now, if your goal is to work faster, just be mindful of the time you spend interacting with it and make sure it’s not slowing you down by providing you with endless options and inaccurate information. 

Key Takeaways:
Yes, you should use ChatGPT to speed up content creation, and no, it will not replace human content creators 

ChatGPT is taking the world by storm right now and we’re all just beginning to grasp what we can achieve with it (and the potential downsides too).  

As things change – when a new disruptive technology comes on the scene – we need to be willing to change and adapt and try to find opportunities rather than feeling fearful about the things we can’t control. 

So we encourage you to play around with ChatGPT too. If you’re using the ConversionMinded Content Calendar System, Blog Post Vault, or any of our other content templates, try using it as a content sidekick and writing assistant!

Let it help you proofread your content, research questions your audience may have about your topics, and even generate ideas for you.

Just remember that it’s not a substitute for telling your story or sharing your human experiences. As we move into the future of content marketing, your unique voice will only become more and more valuable. 

Ready to get started with ChatGPT? 

Are you ready to drop what you’re doing and head on over to OpenAI to get started with ChatGPT?  

Be sure to take away these top tips (unless you have a couple of days to kill down a rabbit hole): 

  1. Work on one content task per chat session (don’t ask it all the things!) 
  2. Know what specific things you want it to help you with before you start a chat
  3. Set a timer
  4. Work on your actual content in a separate tab/document so you don’t get overwhelmed 
  5. Ask it follow-up questions so you can learn from the AI (e.g., “how did you improve this?”)
  6. Double-check accuracy before you publish
  7. Close out ChatGPT so you can finish your task! 

Please let us know how it goes by leaving us a comment! We want to know how everyone is using this exciting new tool.

And please let us know if you have any questions you have about ChatGPT, we’ll be sharing what we learn as we go.

Have fun!

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20 Types of Blog Posts that Drive Traffic (With Examples & Templates!)

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Blogging can be a huge challenge when you’re juggling multiple priorities in your business. After years of trial and error, we discovered the secret to staying consistent and getting results is all about choosing the right type of blog post before sitting down to write.

Yup, there are different types of blog posts and when you understand what they are, it takes the guesswork out of what to write and when and makes it possible to dedicate a realistic amount of time for blogging.

This simple strategy we’re about to share with you will help you plan writing blog posts into your routine and create the type of posts that consistently attract and convert your ideal customers.  

But before we break it all down, you might be wondering… 

What Do We Mean by “Type of Blog Post”?

There are dozens of different types of blog posts with proven post structures that keep readers engaged. In fact, you’re probably already familiar with many of them even if you’ve never thought about it this way before!  

For example, there are… 

  • List posts (“Top 10 Ways to Make Extra Money”)
  • How-to Posts (“How to Plant a Rooftop Garden”)
  • Informational Posts (“What is a Brand Identity?”)… 
  • And so on…

We analyzed the different types of posts that delivered the most traffic and conversions and then broke them down into predictable formulas. We wanted to stop “winging it” with our strategy and be able to choose the right post type for our needs and the time we have available.

The 3 Blog Post Buckets

Once we had an exhaustive list of all the different post types, we then sorted them into 3 larger “buckets.” Each bucket includes post types that vary in length and detail including:

  1. a strong foundation of short posts that answer a specific question
  2. authority posts that go into more detail on a topic, and 
  3. domination posts that take a deep dive into broad, competitive topics.

Thinking about it this way helped us to first consider our goals…

  • Do we need to build credibility and authority around a new topic area?
  • Do we need to create awareness about a new product or service?
  • Do we need to drive more traffic from search?
  • Do we just need to create a post as quickly as possible to stay visible with our audience?

And then, looking at the goal for the post through the lens of these 3 buckets, we were able to remove the guesswork from the equation so we always knew exactly what we needed to write and why.

An unexpected benefit of following this strategy is that by pulling from each of the three categories, you end up with the perfect mix of specific, broad, and deep-dive blog posts that build authority with your ideal customers (and Google too). So…

The rule of thumb is that 1/3 of your content should come from each bucket.

(Keep in mind we’re talking about the number of words. You’ll be creating a lot more shorter posts than lengthier posts.) 

This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but approaching it this way will keep you from overworking yourself and keep you focused on your goals.

Now, let’s look at each of these categories in more detail with examples you can pull from to put this strategy into practice…

⚠️ Important note before we dive in: We use “target word counts” as a way to gauge how much time you should allow for writing the post. But, do not worry about hitting some arbitrary number. The goal isn’t a number of words, it’s to be helpful to your audience. If you need to write more or less in order to be helpful, that’s what you should do. 

[Bucket #1] Foundation Posts: Answer a Specific Question

What is a Foundation post? A foundation post answers a specific question your target audience has, addresses a topic that has low competition in search, and should be in the 1000-1500 words range. 

When to write them and how long it will take? Foundation posts are great to write if you’re a new blogger or if you’re covering a new topic category. Ideally, you want to write lots and lots of foundation posts before you move on to more competitive topics. You can also write them at any stage of your blogging journey when you’re short on time because they just take an hour or two (tops) to crank out. 

While these are fast and easy to write, don’t underestimate foundation posts, they also play a crucial role in your blogging strategy… 

Writing lots of foundation posts on a particular topic will help your readers understand what your blog is about and helps Google understand your niche. This is important because “topical authority” is a key Google ranking factor every small blogger should be paying close attention to – it’s the one that allows you to compete with bigger sites in search.

The best way to explain this is with an example:  

Say you’re a professional baker specializing in “realistic cakes” and you blog a ton about realistic cake baking. Google will begin to see you as an expert on this topic. Then, say a big fashion blog decides to write a one-off post called “How to bake a realistic cake shaped like a designer purse” and you’ve written a post on the same subject. Which one will Google rank higher? Even though the fashion blog may be more established, and even if your domain authority is lower…because the topic is outside of their expertise and you’ve earned credibility with Google along the way, Google will consider your content to be more authoritative. 

Foundation Post Examples

Post Type #1: “WHAT IS”

Sometimes readers just need a quick answer to a specific question. Imagine them typing it into Google: “What is [X]? 

You’ll answer the question directly and then dig into more details so they get the full picture.

“What is?” posts can also answer other types of questions that require a quick response like: 

  • When is…?
  • Who is…?
  • Why is…?
  • What does…?

They all follow the same format, intent, and structure. 

“What is” posts are perfect when you want to:

  1. Define one simple niche term or concept (e.g. What is a long-tail keyword in SEO?) 
  2. Share your “recipe” for success (e.g. What is the most effective at-home workout for stay-at-home moms? What is the best content mix for a healthcare business?) 

The key with these posts is to get really specific and niche down who you’re writing it for. That way, you’ll have less SEO competition and be able to write the posts quickly.

Post Type #2: “MY TAKE”

With a “my take” post you want to choose something that’s currently being taught by pretty much everyone in your niche and find a flaw in it – there’s always a flaw. Or maybe you just have a better way to get the results your target audience is looking for. Either way, play off the existing flaw(s) in the strategy and tell your readers what they can do instead.

What you’re doing here is creating interest by going against the current wisdom. You’re also showing your readers that:

  • You know why conventional wisdom may not be getting them the results they expected
  • You’re an authority on the subject and not just repeating what others recommend
  • You’re giving them great value and a better way to help them get the result they want
  • You can help them achieve greater success by thinking outside the box

Post Type #3: “REASONS WHY”

Think about your target market, your niche, and your specialty offering. You know your ideal customer inside and out. You developed your technique, program, service or product because you know it will make a difference in their lives. Right?

You know you have what they need, but they don’t know it yet. So, they need a reason to apply what you teach, sign up for your email list, and ultimately, buy from you. 

In these blog posts, you’re going to give them the reasons that show them why they need what you offer and why you’re the best person or business to help them. 

Make sure you give specific examples from your experience (or your clients/customers) to show how your technique solved the problem. 

Post Type #4: “THE ONLY THING”

In these posts, you’re going to share your unique strategy to help your readers reach a big goal they have – one that you’ve already achieved. You’ll be framing it as the ONLY strategy they need to see success.

This is a perfect opportunity to “brand” your strategy with a unique name – e.g., The Runner’s Roadmap to 10K. 

In your posts, give them an overview of your strategy with just enough details to get them started. 

Then, include a more in-depth freebie they can download to get even more results. 

This can be a great jumping-off point for a new product or program about your strategy!

Post Type #5 “BREAKING NEWS”

These posts answer the question, “What’s changing in my niche?”

You’re going to write about a recent event or breaking news your readers need to know about. It doesn’t have to be “news” news, it just has to be current and BIG…something that will interrupt the way they’re doing things right now…something they can’t (or shouldn’t) ignore.

Good or bad, they’re probably confused about it and need to know more. So in these posts, you’re going to get them up to speed on the changes, help them make sense of it all, and share your takeaways & next steps.

Post Type #6: “MYTH SLAYER”

In these posts, you’re going to debunk common myths to help steer your readers back on track so they can get the results they want. 

These are common myths in your industry that are likely holding your readers back because they’re confused or simply going down the wrong path and wasting precious time.

You’ll share up to five myths, then tell them what the “truth” is and what they should focus on instead.

Not only will you be helping your readers get on track, but you’ll also stand out as an expert with a fresh approach. 

Once you have a number of Foundation posts on a topic, you’ll want to move on to broader questions and more competitive keyword phrases with… 

[Bucket #2] Authority Posts Go Into More Detail on a Topic

What is an Authority post? Authority posts allow you to go into more detail and depth on a subject and address more than one related subtopic. These typically fall into the 1500-4000 words range. 

When to write them and how long it will take: Authority posts can be written at any time in your blogging journey but have a better chance to rank with related Foundation posts ranking first. Plan to set aside 2-5 hours to write them. 

If you’re confused about the difference between Foundation and Authority posts, this should help: 

In Foundation posts you’re giving a quick, focused answer to a question and in Authority posts you’re answering the question by tying together multiple related ideas (think: How-to and List posts).

The great thing about Authority posts is they’re just long enough to show your audience you really know you’re stuff but they’re not so long that it takes you forever to write them. In fact, we think of Authority posts as the “bread and butter” of our blog content. Most of our posts fall under this category.

Authority Post Examples

Post Type #7: “HOW TO” 

Think about one really specific task your ideal client is trying to do and create an epic step-by-step ‘how to” tutorial for it.

The key here is to keep these posts simple and practical. Pick a problem they may be having, a technique they may be trying to master, or a strategy they’re trying to understand.

Whichever topic you choose, be as clear and detailed as you can. So you’re not just telling them, “Do this, then do this.” You’re “showing” them each step by using examples, graphics, charts, anything you can think of that will help them follow along. 

One trick we use when we’re stuck for words is to simply write:

For example…

Or

Here’s what I mean…

That usually triggers ideas for examples, visuals, etc. Give it a try!

Post Type #8: “LIST POSTS” 

List posts are a popular go-to staple for every blogger because they’re an easy way to organize educational content whenever you want to share a collection of tips, techniques, strategies, and ideas. 

Readers love them too because they provide options for different ways to go about achieving their goals and allow them to pick and choose what works best for them. 

Post Type #9: “TOP RESOURCES” 

In these posts, you’re going to share your ultimate list of # BEST products and resources to help your readers achieve a big goal.

Think about something they’re struggling to do right now, then list all your favorite tools to help them do it.

For example, if you’re a social media expert, you can share tools for creating + sharing content. If you’re a health coach you can share your favorite resources for eating better. And if you’re a travel expert, you can share the best places to skydive.

They can be free or paid tools: books, apps, templates, freebies, podcasts, guides, videos, blogs, ebooks, courses…anything that will save your readers time, money, frustration, stress, and so on.

If it makes sense to include your own resources, products, or affiliate products, go for it! Just make sure any tool you include is the “best of the best” and ultra-relevant to the specific topic you’re covering. 

Post Type #10: “WHAT’S NEXT”

The What’s Next post gives your readers an action plan of steps to take before they complete a task or right after they’ve just finished a critical milestone. 

There are two types of What’s Next posts:

  • What to Do Before
  • What to Do After

For your “before” post, you’ll talk about something your audience either needs to do or is already doing but could use improvement. For example, if your audience is bloggers, you might share the steps they should take before they write their posts. Should they research keywords? Create a list of topics to write about? Help them prepare so they have the best chance of success.

Your “after” posts are similar, but cover the steps they should take after completing an important activity. For example, if your audience regularly does push-ups, what should they do after completing them to get the most out of their workout? Should they rest? Eat? Stretch? That’s what you’re going to clarify to help them visualize finishing the push-ups the right way.

Post Type #11: “TOP MISTAKES”

None of us likes to make mistakes. We want to avoid failure at all costs, mostly because we’re busy and don’t have time for anything less than the fastest, shortest route.

So when you point out common mistakes, your readers are going to pay attention because they want to know what NOT to do. More importantly, they’ll want to know what they SHOULD do instead. And you’re going to tell them!

As an expert who’s “gone before them,” you’ve done it the wrong way and you’ve done it the right way. So you’re also positioning yourself as an expert who can help them fix the mistakes – even before they make them. 

And you may offer a course, program or service that can help! 😉

Post Type #12: “EXPERT ROUND-UP”

The goal of this post is to build backlinks, increase your authority and visibility, showcase your expertise, and empower and inspire your readers.

You’ll be reaching out to influencers in your niche and asking them to answer specific questions, then “rounding them up” in your post. Then, once you publish the post you’ll let them know so they can share it with their audience (hence, the backlinks!).

Just be prepared to spend more time on it than other posts. It will be worth it! Not only will it benefit your readers but will also do a lot for you.

Post Type #13: “PRODUCT REVIEW” 

This post is a peek-under-the-hood of two competing products, an in-depth review that’s jam-packed with value. 

When customers are ready to buy, they’ll need help choosing the right brand. And your Product Review post will help them decide.

They’re going to love you for this one! You’re going to save them tons of time (and money) on a product that may not work for them, and help them get going with the right product.

Post Type #14: “THE INFOGRAPHIC” 

It’s easier to grasp big ideas visually, which is why everyone loves infographics. Even in the context of long-form content, our brains are wired to focus on graphics first.

So with this infographic post, you’re going to make it super easy for readers to engage with your post. You’ll also help generate traffic because infographics are super shareable on social media. 

(Extra credit if you add an “embed code” below your infographic so others can add it to their website too. That way the links will point to your post and you’ll gain SEO superpowers.) 

There are 3 types of infographics we recommend:

  • List infographics – 8 tips for saving money, etc.
  • How-to infographics – 5 ways to cook potatoes, etc.
  • Statistical infographics – great for an overview or trends in your niche

To create your infographic, you can use Canva or other graphic tools like Venngage and Visme.

Post Type #15: “FAQ POST” 

Think about the most common questions you get asked by clients and others who are trying to learn about a specific topic you teach. Ever notice how the same questions pop up?

In this blog post, you’re going to tackle them all in an epic FAQ-style post. 

Spend some time brainstorming questions your readers may have, and don’t be afraid to include questions they haven’t necessarily asked but you know they’re secretly wondering. Think about the questions you had when you were first starting out. There’s a good chance your readers are asking them, too. 

While there’s no “SEO trickery” you can do that compares to putting out very helpful content on topics people are searching for, once you get some Foundation and Authority posts ranking, you’re in the game, friend. That’s when you stand a much better chance at going after more competitive topics and you’re ready for the Mac Daddy of all blog posts… 

[Bucket #3] Domination Posts are a Deep Dive into a Competitive Topic

What are Domination posts? These are intended to become the voice of authority on your niche topic. The reader should never need to read another thing about this topic again; that’s how knowledgeable and complete it is. They’ll even want to bookmark it so they can refer to it again and again.

Think… 

  • The Beginner’s Guide
  • The Ultimate Guide
  • Everything you need to know about [topic]

When to write them and how long it will take: Get ready to make some time in your schedule for these because you’re going deep. 🙂 But, it’s worth it if they rank and can bring in a lot of organic traffic.

One way we approach writing Domination posts is to work on them little by little behind the scenes (posting Foundation and Authority posts in the meantime) as we have time.

Many posts for broad, competitive topics that rank high on Google are 6k-8k words! So the time it takes you is however much time you need to make it the most helpful content out there. We’ve spent as much as 20 hours on a single post but when something like this ranks it’s worth it – especially when you consider how much ads cost.

And even if you invest your time in a domination post and it doesn’t go anywhere, you’ve done the work to get clear about this topic and you can “spin off” many other pieces of content (webinars, long-form videos, paid trainings, email sequences, and of course lots and lots of social media posts, etc.) 

Domination Post Examples

Post Type #16: “BEGINNER’S GUIDE”

These posts are for beginners as well as experienced or advanced professionals, so don’t assume your reader knows anything about the subject. Insert examples where appropriate and be sure the terms and concepts you use in this guide are included in your table of contents, using keywords throughout.

Beginner’s guides are chock full of information and your chance to create an incredible and comprehensive reference for your readers, old and new!

Post Type #17: “ULTIMATE GUIDE”

These posts provide a comprehensive resource; an in-depth, complete reference that readers will want to bookmark and refer to again and again. You’re going to take your readers from the very beginning to the very end here. 

When you do these right, you have a greater chance of ranking high in Google and establishing yourself as an authority.

Post Type #18: “EXPANDED HOW-TO”

Expanded How-to posts are similar to the How-to posts you’ve written in the Authority bucket. The big difference is that these are much more in-depth, include more links to other posts and resources, and give more examples. 

When you write these, you want to be thinking, “What else do they need to know in order to implement what I’m showing them?”

Post Type #19: “EXPANDED WHAT-IS” POSTS

These versions of What Is posts are longer than the typical version you’ve seen in the Foundation templates. That’s because you’re going after broad questions that require complex answers. 

If you remember, the typical what-is post answers a very niche, specific question such as “What is a Brand Promise?” 

Expanded What Is posts answer bigger questions like “What is Branding?”

Your answer will include multiple subtopics, mini-sections, definitions, and so on. 

Post Type #20: “THE EVERYTHING POST”

The Everything Post is all about telling your readers everything they need to know about a specific topic. 

They’re similar to the Expanded What Is and Ultimate Guide posts with a subtle difference:

These are “hub” posts that link to other posts you’ve written that zero in on a specific keyword related to your main topic. 

So in these posts, you’re going to incorporate other keywords and terms related to your main topic to help you get “low-hanging fruit” SEO traffic. 

The idea is to break your post into subtopics (e.g., the 10 “things”, 10 “secrets”). Each thing will mention a specific keyword and talk about it, then link to another post you’ve written on it. 

So you’re mentioning specific keywords in each of the 10 things, then linking to another post. In this way you’re letting Google know that your main topic or term is a niche that you dominate so you have a better chance to rank for it. 

52 Blog Post Templates You Can Use to Implement this Strategy

If you’d like to give this strategy a try, we have good news! We’ve created plug-and-play templates for each of these blog post types to save you dozens of hours each month blogging.

The Blog Post Vault is 52 pre-written blog post templates completely organized into the Foundation, Authority, and Domination buckets:

20 Foundation Posts, 20 Authority Posts, and 12 Domination Posts

You’ll have over 500 pages of blog post templates ready for you to pull from — simply follow the prompts, plug in your expertise, and hit publish!

Every template follows our proven post structure so you don’t ever need to worry about forgetting important details that encourage your readers to stay engaged and take the next steps with you.

They’re also formatted for SEO with loads of tips and tricks for best practices with your posts.

Pro-tip: use the templates in combination with ChatGPT to supercharge your productivity!

You deserve a stress-free way to get your business visible and reach your financial goals and blogging is still the best way to build your email list and drive traffic back to your website.

So we hope this post has given you the inspiration to take control of your blogging strategy and we hope you’ll join us in The Blog Post Vault, too!

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How to Use Notion to Streamline Your Blogging Workflow

We know exactly how much time and work goes into creating a successful blog.

And to turn all of that hard work into a profitable, scalable business? Even harder.

The reality is, that most bloggers struggle and we’ve noticed a pattern…. the “strugglers” fall into one of two categories:

The first type works themselves to the bone — waking up early, staying up late, sacrificing weekends and self-care time.

The second type gives up trying before their efforts ever have a chance to pay off, or they “dabble” when they have free time and wonder why it’s not helping their bottom line.

The first isn’t sustainable and the last one breaks our hearts. 

If you’re serious about creating content to grow your business (and you should be)….there’s a third type of blogger…

This type of has a well-oiled process for creating content they KNOW will make them money and help them grow their audience and influence too… zero fluff, all smarts.

If that’s the type of blogger you want to be…

It’s time to level up.

It’s time to be strategic with your content because you just don’t have time to publish things into a void, you need to know everything you create will work hard for you to meet your goals.

It’s time to know your numbers because if you’re not paying attention, you can’t make informed decisions and nobody’s got time to “just wing it” and hope it works out.

It’s time to get organized and stop letting time slip through the cracks looking for things, wondering what you’re supposed to be focused on, and battling endless distractions.

To help you in these efforts we want to show how we’re using a FREE tool to organize every aspect of our blog & business – our tasks, our content, our financials, and more. 

This is how we’re able to see the things we need to see in order to make our content the engine that drives our business.

Check out this tour of our Blogger’s Dashboard – it’s a game-changer!

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Blog SEO: An Expert Guide to Ranking Your Old Content for More Keywords

Ready for more traffic? One of the easiest ways to get more SEO traffic from Google is to update your older blog posts so that they rank for more keywords. This post will help you do just that! These SEO tips are ones you can apply to your existing posts to help them rank on Google for more keywords. SEO Tips and Tricks / SEO for Blogger Tips #ConversionMinded #SearchEngineOptimization #SEOFew things are more frustrating than watching your content sit on a digital shelf after you spent hours writing it. 

Epic blogging requires a lot of time and effort – and whether you’re new to it or just starting out – you kind of live for that bump in page views when you publish a new post (even if you don’t admit it!).

Watching the graph go up in Google Analytics just feels pretty great.

It makes you want to do a happy dance and keep on writing.

But hold up!

Before you start brainstorming new blog ideas, take a look at your older posts first. Are they ranking? Is there a tweak or a nudge you can do to improve their performance?

The easiest way to rank on Google for more keywords is to update and optimize older posts. You’ll be surprised at the impact a few quick edits can have on your rankings.

So every time you start a new post, take a minute to “refresh” an older post.

Here’s how to optimize your existing content so that you show up for more keywords on Google:

#1: First, perform a content audit

A huge part of SEO is knowing what’s working for you and what’s not. 

Many techniques that worked well before Google’s last algorithm update (like page tagging, on-page content, keyword research and targeting) no longer carry the same weight. Plus, what works for one site won’t always work well for another. 

So to audit your content, export your keywords from Google Search Console and look for three fundamental things:

  • “Low-hanging fruit” keywords (aka: easy to rank)
  • Your most valuable keywords and landing pages. Find those keywords already ranking at the bottom of page #1 or the top of page #2 (positions 6-15). These can be your quick wins and it likely won’t take much effort to improve their rankings.
  • Underperforming keywords are not ranking at all

#2. Take an inventory of your content

Look at your existing content and make sure you’re happy with it. Are you targeting the right audience and keywords? How much traffic do the posts get?

You’re just looking for an overview of your content so you know what you’re working with and where to place your focus. From there, you can start optimizing.

#3: Optimize your blog posts

This one is simple and arguably the most important step.

The trick is to know where to start!

There will likely be a handful of keywords – probably more – that you should be ranking for but aren’t. Focus on those keywords first.

First, look at the keywords for which your competitors are ranking. Your competitors are websites that sell the same products you do or offer the same services. More importantly, they’re ranking better for the keywords you want. 

Make a list of their keywords and highlight the ones with low competition. Remember, we’re looking for quick wins and those will be easier to rank! 

Next, add the keywords you aren’t ranking for to your blog post. Here’s where to add them:

  • The title and subheadings. Aim for 30-60 words in your title. 
  • The body of your post. They should sound natural. Don’t make it seem obvious or forced. If adding a keyword affects the readability of your post, don’t use it. Always choose your readers over search engines. 
  • Your meta description (main keyword). This isn’t a direct ranking factor but can help with your click-through rates.
  • Anchor text. The text you use to link to other posts on your website. 
  • Image alt text, tags, and names. Yep, Google can read image keywords too! 

#4: Update your content

Rewriting and updating content has tremendous value. Trends come and go quickly and information changes over time. Your content might be outdated in months, or even weeks. 

Make sure your blog post is up-to-date. Check that any stats you shared are still accurate.

It will take some time but a lot less than writing a new post. Plus, it gives you a good reason to promote your content again.  

#5: Add more “content layers”

Now that you’ve sprinkled your blog post with the new keywords (ones that your competitors are ranking for), updated your stats and checked for typos, it’s time to check your visuals.

Content layering is the practice of adding visuals, images and multimedia to give readers a new way to consume your content.

Some people prefer reading, others learn better through video. That’s the idea here: Layer on multiple content types to enhance the experience and keep people engaged. 

Your goal is to create a post that is so valuable, they can help but share it! 

Here’s how to layer your content:

First, check your paragraphs and sentences. Is your text easy to read and digest? Are the subheadings short and explicit? Does each paragraph pull readers deeper into your content, or do they make them want to run?

Next, look at what you’re competitors are doing and make yours better. If they’re adding GIFS, include one plus a video. Think about what images you can add to explain your content and make it more interest. Stay sober and don’t overdo it, though. 

Now take it a step further and add more content. If your competitor’s post includes “10 Tips to Improve Your Google Image Search”, your post should include 12 tips (make sure added content is hyper relevant and useful). 

Include helpful tools.  Tables, calculators, generators and other tools allow readers to get quick results and take action. 

Point is, go way beyond plain text and think value, value, value. Always ask yourself, How can I make it easier for my audience to understand the information and act on it?

Step #6. Improve your CTR

Once your post is ranking for a keyword, you want people to click through and read it. Otherwise, you won’t get traffic!

So tell people what’s waiting for them on the other side of the link, and make them want it!

Here’s how to improve your click-through-rate (CTR):

  • Check the meta description. Is it too long or short? Is your message super persuasive or is there another one people should see? What about keywords? Did you include a call to action such as “Click through…”?
  • Test your title. Is it the best you can do? Would you click on it over someone else’s? If not, keep editing until you would.
  • Triple check your content. Does it answer relevant searches? Most people will ask Google a question. If your content answers it, Google will use it as a direct answer and push it to the top.

Wrapping it up!

Can you see how much things have changed with Google? Improving your content goes way beyond keywords these days.

Think of your blog posts as resource guides that address specific problems and searches, with helpful details, examples, images, videos, and tools to help them understand the information.

Keywords may get readers in the door, but your content will keep them reading.

When Google sees that people are finding answers to their problems, it will rank your posts higher. And you’ll show up for more keywords on page #1.

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How to Create Blog Content Regularly When You Don’t Have Time 

Create blog contentA while back, I asked you guys what you were struggling with most in your blog or business. And wow, your answers surprised me! Turns out, many of you (like me) struggle to work on your blog consistently.

Here are some of the things I heard:

  • I have trouble finding time to write with a full-time job and a 7-month old
  • The hardest thing is regularly creating blog content
  • I’m overwhelmed with decisions, so I don’t make any
  • It’s hard to find the motivation to sit down and write for an hour with two jobs
  • I don’t know what to write about
  • I have a lot of blog topics but don’t know where to start, so I don’t finish
  • I’m so tired by the time I get home that I just want to veg for an hour then crawl into bed
  • My family thinks blogging isn’t a real job until I make money, so they keep interrupting me

So in this post, I’ve got some tips to help keep our momentum going.

First, I’m going to drill down on time management and motivation. Then, I’ll share blogging systems that will help you maximize every hour you spend on your blog.

Ready? Let’s dig in.

CREATING BLOG CONTENT PART 1 –> PRIORITIES AND MOTIVATION

Step 1. Is blogging a priority right now?

If you’ve been trying to blog consistently but can’t seem to get there, hold the phone. Depending on your business model and growth, blogging consistently may NOT be your main focus right now, and that’s perfectly okay.

Let me explain…

>> Business growth

If you’re familiar with my DIY Your Biz Blueprint, you know my four phases of building a successful online business:

  • Phase #1 (The Launch Phase) – create your website and brand identity
  • Phase #2 (The Hustle Phase) – drive traffic, build your platform
  • Phase #3 (The Growth Phase) – generate leads and sales
  • Phase #4 (The Profit + Scale Phase) – automate sales processes, build your team

I go into loads more detail and cover specific milestones for each phase in this post.

BONUS: If you want, you can grab the Online Business Roadmap so you know exactly what steps to take. It’s broken down into 4 easy to follow sections with prompts, milestones, and goals. Plus, you’ll have the resources and tools to help you reach them. Just click the image below to download it.

Get the Online Business Roadmap from ConversionMinded

Roughly speaking, the closer you get to phase #4, the less frequently you’ll be blogging.

(at least for a stretch)

Last year, I switched my focus from regular blogging to creating new products, webinars, and sales funnels. Every month, I could only manage to bang out a post, if that. And every month I’d stress about it! First off, I know that blogging is a non-negotiable for my business. Plus, I can’t wait to share everything I’ve learned this past year. It’s killing me!

But here’s the thing:

I spent two years (in phases #2-3) building my platform, gaining visibility, driving traffic, and generating leads and sales. Now in phase #4, my focus is on sales systems and automation. So that’s what I’m doing.

As entrepreneurs, we like to think we can tackle everything, all at the same time. But there are only so many hours in a week, and we have to learn to say No to things that we desperately want to say Yes to (more on that below).

Bottom line, if you’re at the tail end of phase #3 or the first part of phase #4, you may need to pull back on blogging until you have sales funnels and automation in place.

>> Business model

There are two ways to build an online business:

Way 1: From the ground up – Build your platform first and worry about money later
Way 2: From the top down – Start with a product first and build your platform later

Which one should you choose?

Great question! I’ve been mullin’ this over for a bit. And the answer is that it comes down to timing and pricing.

Timing

How quickly do you need to make money? If your business is a side thing right now, you may have time to build from the ground up. In that case, #1 could work best.

On the other hand…

If your goal is to make money within a specific time frame, or if you want to leave your 9-to-5 by a specific date, #2 is the way to go.

Pricing

This has more to do with HOW you build your platform than which model you choose, but it’s something you need to consider. So let’s take a look.

If you sell low-cost products (under $500), you’ll want to start from the ground up and go all-in on organic growth. By that I mean, blog your little tush off and forget about Facebook ads!

If your products cost $500 or more, I would focus on Facebook ads and webinars before you even think about blogging. At that price point, you can absorb the cost of ads and still make a killer profit.

Keep in mind that there are always outliers. Depending on your niche, you may do very well with Facebook ads and lower-cost products. Just sayin’. One never knows. 🙂

These business models aren’t exclusive. We’re talking about where to place your focus FIRST.

Even if you build from the ground up, you should set a goal to create a minimum viable product (or service) within, say, the first six months. For more on this, check out this post.

Bottom line, if you sell low-cost products and/or you’re building your platform organically, blogging should be your main focus right now. If you have high-cost products, Facebooks ads and webinars should be your main focus right now.

Step #2. Find your motivation

Motivation has a huge impact on productivity. When you can’t find your ‘why’ and don’t see the reward for all your hard work just yet, it can be hard to justify putting in the time.

I mean, who cares if you’re not bangin’ away at your blog when there’s no payoff, right?

Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons we lose motivation:

Reason #1: Lack of support
Reason #2: Confusion + overwhelm
Reason #3: It’s not working

On some level, these all come down to fear but let’s drill down on each.

Reason 1: Lack of support

If your friends and family are 100% in your corner, high five! That’s amazing! You’re incredibly lucky to have their support.

Many times, it doesn’t go that way. As much as you want and need it, your loved ones may not support you in your entrepreneurial journey.

To them, the hours you spend banging away at your laptop probably seem like a colossal waste of time. And I’ll bet they think your business is just a hobby, to boot.

They might show you their “un-support” in different ways. Like all the times they interrupt you while you’re working because, well, you’re not really working, are you? It’s amazing how a simple question like, Do you know where I put my wallet? can throw you off track and shake your confidence.

BOUNDARIES!!

Maybe your family is even more un-supportive and wants you to quit entirely.

I can relate to this one:

For the first two years of my business, my husband begged me to stop blogging. Every week, I heard some version of, “The blogging thing is cool and all that, it’s just not going anywhere.”

Finally, by year #3 things started to change. I was making money. Once I earned enough to replace my income, my hubby was all-in.

(he even comes up with blog ideas for me now!)

See:

The early years of any business are hard. There’s this mountain of stuff in front of you. You feel overwhelmed and fed up. And you forget why you started your business in the first place.

But you know what?

Your belief is what’s going to carry you through the storm. In my case, it didn’t matter what my husband said. I knew my business was going to work, and I wasn’t about to back down. Every time he’d challenge me, I’d work harder and longer. At some point, he got tired, and I won. 🙂

But if I’m completely honest, I felt like quitting ALL the time. It’s hard to stay strong, no matter how much experience you have.

Here’s what helped me keep going:

  • Experience with start-ups – For better or worse, self-doubt is part of the entrepreneurial journey, in my book.
  • Knowing my why – Every time I doubted myself, I’d tap into my vision and purpose.
  • Having a buddy – I check in with my pal Taughnee every Friday to chat about our goals, what we’ve accomplished, and so on. That time is pure gold!

Bottom line, your loved ones may or may not support you in the beginning. Either way, don’t leave the future of your dream business up to them. Build your own support system. Hire a coach, join a mastermind, find a buddy in your niche…whatever you need to do to stay motivated.

Reason #2: Confusion + overwhelm

You can’t take the next step in your business if you don’t know what that step should be.

When things are fuzzy, and you’re working two jobs plus taking care of a family, it’s nearly impossible to carve out time for your new business. You don’t know what you’re carving out time for!

Even so, I think there’s a deeper truth here.

Confusion and overwhelm creep up most when you’re unsure if your idea will work. Maybe you half-started (or will start) your business and now you’re wondering if you chose the right niche. Or, maybe you don’t know if you have the passion and will power. Or, you wonder if you’ll be able make money.

That’s when it’s nearly impossible to make decisions. Heck, even when you’re crystal clear on your niche, there’s still no guarantee it will fly.

And that’s just it:

There’s no “flying” or “not flying.” There’s only DOING.

The business you start today will look much different than your actual business. What I mean by this is, it will take on a life of its own as you evolve and learn more about your audience, yourself, and where you want to be.

That’s why it’s crucial to take action. Your future business is at stake here!

Now, you may be thinking, Sure, Sandra, but what if I make the wrong choice?

I hear ya! It’s totally normal to have fears like that. Making your move is a scary step. But when it comes right down to it, the only *wrong* choice is not taking that step.

Or to fool yourself into thinking you’re taking action when you’re not. I call that the Maybe Mindf*&k.

Maybe I’ll do it later…

Maybe I’ll try to get a client…

Maybe I’ll write that post…

Giving yourself an out keeps you stuck in a revolving door of indecision.

These days, I’m more afraid of not making a decision than making the wrong move. And believe me, I make A LOT of wrong moves.

Think of it this way:

Every question that stays in your head holds you back. Period. What you need, and quick like, are answers. You want to shove those questions behind you as fast as you can. Turn uncertainties into certainties, good or bad.

Here’s an example:

Somehow, I got myself in a jam by trying something new with a recent promotion. I had just signed up some affiliates and wanted to give them swipe files so they could share the sale with their audience.

Problem was, I didn’t have time to create the swipe files. It took me three days to get them together, which left me very little time to prepare stuff for MY audience.

Now, I wouldn’t run a promotion like that again. But I’m glad I followed through. Know why? Because I answered one of the biggest questions I have right now:

Should I invest time in affiliate programs?

Turns out, the answer’s no. And that’s perfectly okay, because I know what to focus on now.

Bottom line, if you’re not sure if your idea will fly, take action. Go back to your business plan (you have one, don’t you?), evaluate your choices, and give yourself a deadline to make a decision. Then run with it.

Reason #3: It’s not working

At some point in your blogging journey…

You’re going to be doing everything right…creating content like it’s your job, sharing it everywhere, showing up everday bright and cheery…and nothing will be working.

You won’t have the page views you expect, or the subscribers you want, or the customers you need.

And you’ll be thinking, Why am I spending time blogging? It doesn’t work! 

I feel your pain! Whether your blog is your business or you’re blogging for your business, if you’re not getting results, you need a better content strategy.

Maybe you’re not covering topics that truly resonate with your audience (see “research blog topics” below). Or, maybe your blog format doesn’t convert subscribers and customers. Maybe you’re even a bit all over the place wth blog topics and need to narrow your focus and niche.

The good news is:

When you hit this road block, you’re officially out of Launch Phase and into Hustle Phase! High-five!

Now it’s time to get serious about every word you write. Keep readin’ for content strategies that will get you big results.

CREATE BLOG CONTENT PART 2 –> SYSTEMS AND WORKFLOWS

Step #3. Block out time for your blog

It’s easy to feel stuck when you’re juggling work, a family, and a social life, *gasp.

But if you want to change your life, you have to change your behavior.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to say, “When I have time…” 

You really do have to MAKE the time.

The good news is, you can get a lot done in just a few hours when you focus on the right things. So if you find yourself wondering, “Should I even bother to write? I only have an hour right now!”

Absolutely! If an hour is what you have, make it work. Whatever you do, don’t look at blogging as one of those “all or nothing” things, like I used to do. Small chunks of time add up to big results!

Maybe weekdays won’t work, but what about Saturdays and Sundays? Can you get up an hour earlier? Ask for help with the kids?

How about these time-sucks…

  • Texts
  • Emails
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Netflix
  • YouTube

…can you shut those down?

If you take an honest look at your daily routine, you can probably save a few minutes here and there. Block that time out now, friend.

Once you’ve set aside specific times for blogging, the next step is to maximize your productivity. Here are a few of my favorite blogging systems and workflows to help you get loads more done in less time.

>> First, don’t overthink things

Too often, we spend more time dreading than doing. We imagine things as monumental tasks that will take FOREVER to complete. Know what happens then? We get stuck before we start.

Overthinking leads to procrastination.

In reality, progress comes from baby steps. All you need to do in the beginning is to get your blog up and running, and write your first posts. They don’t have to be fabulous works of art. In fact, your first posts will probably be crappy, and that’s perfectly okay.

The first time you rode a bike, you sucked at it, right? But you kept getting back on until one day, it was easy.

It’s like that with blogging.

When I look at my first posts, I literally cringe. Even now, I look at stuff I wrote three months ago and cringe (and I will probably look at this post and cringe, too!). Your audience may not love your first posts. Stick with it anyway.

Blogging is a journey of discovery. At the end of the day, it’s just something you do. Write words on a page and let the rest evolve.

>> Research blog topics

When I get writer’s block and don’t know what to blog about, I put off writing until I have more time to brainstorm ideas.

Sound familiar?

No matter what phase of business you’re in, bangin’ out blog posts is hard. First off, you have to come up with topics in the first place. Then you have to narrow your ideas down to the ones that are most relevant to your expertise and audience. Then you need to develop the idea and start writing (see below).

Instead of leaving it to the last minute, set aside the first Sunday of every month to research and brainstorm ideas. Open up Google Sheets and dump your ideas into a blog idea library.

Try to organize them in themes that make sense for your audience.

For example:

My audience is interested in business, social media, and blogging, so those are my categories. Every idea needs to fit into one of the categories to “make the cut.” If not, I move on to the next idea. This is a great way to rein in your ideas, zero in on your focus, and avoid overwhelm and confusion.

When you have a library of ideas to pull from, you’ll be much more likely to sit down and write at the end of the day.

>> Start with an outline

There’s a structure to writing blog posts, much like there’s a structure to writing songs. Verses lead to pre-choruses, and pre-choruses lead to the main hook (or chorus). In our case, paragraphs are verses, content upgrades are pre-choruses, and the call to action is the main hook.

Here are the five main sections to a killer post:

  • The headline should make people want to click in the first place
  • The intro should hook people in and make them want to keep reading
  • The main points should help people achieve a specific outcome
  • Content upgrades should help people take the next step in each section
  • The outro (or conclusion) should wrap up the main points with a call to action

When you use the same structure for every post, you’ll save loads of time. And you won’t feel like a slacker, staring at a blank screen wondering what the heck to write!

How do you develop a great blog post structure?

Good question! The answer is pretty simple: Start with an outline. 

And outline goes beyond loose planning. This is where you get a bird’s eye view of your post. Develop your blog idea, brainstorm any details you want to include, and ensure that each point makes sense. No more going off on tangents!

Over time, you’ll develop a skill for training your thought process. Every post should have a specific goal.

Ask yourself:

Why am I writing this post? What do I want to convey? How will it help my readers? How will it support my business and sales goals? Is there more than one idea in here?

Some of my outlines are comprehensive, 1,000-word posts all on their own. Others are loose ideas and bullet points. Those usually start as offshoots of the main post, where I’ll jot down any secondary ideas that come up. If I can flesh the ideas out into a full outline, I’ll move forward with it. If not, I’ll ditch the idea and move on.

If you’re curious, here’s what to include in your outline:

  • A working headline
  • An intro – one to three paragraphs
  • 3-5 main points you want to cover – with subheadings
  • Up to five bullet points for each subheading
  • Content upgrades you want to include
  • An outro, or conclusion
  • The main call to action – what do you want readers to do next?

>> Batch-write blog posts 

Once you’re in the zone of writing, you’ll likely find that one blog idea will inspire other ideas. Take advantage of that *zone* by writing several posts at once.

Batch-writing posts works best when you take one blog topic and turn it into several posts. Every time you write a new post, ask yourself:

  • Does this idea make more sense as two posts instead of one? (aka: am I going off on tangents?)
  • Is there a specific section that would work beautifully on its own? (aka: can I offer more detail in a separate post?)
  • Can I turn this post into a series (aka: can I take people on a journey from one post to the next?)

Can you see how writing this way is a win-win! You create more content, save hours of time, and feel encouraged by all the progress you’re making. And these types of posts can easily be repurposed as a content upgrade or digital product. Brilliant!

>> Use ghostwriters

Sure, it’s better to write original posts that are infused with your unique voice and perspective. But some weeks you just can’t squeeze in the time. Don’t let limited resources crush your momentum. Find writers who can help.

(that’s what I did with this post!)

Now, I know it’s not ideal, but it works in a pinch. Ghostwriters save time, which is what you need most.

And yes…

You’ll have to edit and refine their posts. The role of ghostwriters is not to replace you as a writer. It’s to help you write faster. It’s a lot easier to edit an existing piece of *anything* than to start from scratch, in my book.

At the very least, a ghostwriter (or a guest blogger) can outline your idea, research important details, and flesh out the main points so you have a foundation from which to work.

Need help finding ghostwriters? Try Content Runner.

>> Blog less frequently

Who said you have to blog once a week?

If you’re really strapped for time, don’t stress. Reduce your blogging frequency to biweekly or monthly.

Be careful, though. Keep your readers in the loop when your schedule changes. Let them know when to expect new content now.

Here’s an example:

It’s been a while since my last post! A lot has been brewing lately, and I can’t seem to catch my own shadow these days! Just so you know, I’ll be blogging less frequently over the next few months so I can focus on sales funnels and webinars. I can’t wait to share everything I’m learning with you! Good news, I’m kicking it all off today with the five phases of profitable webinars to help you make more sales.

When people know what to expect and feel connected to your journey, they’ll keep reading.

>> Use an editorial calendar

Once you have a blog idea library, the next step is to plan a month’s worth of posts. Some bloggers like to schedule three months of content or more. I find that too overwhelming. Honestly, I have a hard time planning four posts!

Create a Google Sheet that includes:

  • Blog titles
  • Target keywords
  • Blog images
  • Word counts
  • Keyword competitions
  • Writers (if you’re working with at team)
  • Notes (this will help you with the outline)
  • Content upgrades you want to include
  • Due dates
  • Publish dates

Quick Tip: Use Trello to set due dates, gather blog assets, and images, and manage your schedule.

>> Have 2-3 content upgrades ready to go

Relevance is king with content upgrades. You want to give readers multiple opportunities to subscribe as they read through your post.

What I mean is:

Include more than one content upgrade if you can. Content upgrades work best when they are directly relevant to a specific section.

But that doesn’t mean you have to create a new content upgrade for every post!

Start with one or two that are most relevant to the topics you write about. If you have them handy, you can quickly grab them and add them to the appropriate section.

(just like I’m doing below!)

BONUS: If you need help creating freebies and content upgrades, this lead magnet template pack may help! Just click the image below to get access. 

Download the Lead Magnet Template Pack

That’s an example of a content upgrade I created ahead of time. I keep an Evernote note with Thrive Leads shortcodes and descriptions for all my content upgrades so I can grab them quickly.

One last thing:

It’s super important that your opt-in graphics stand out from other images in your post. Use different colors, fonts, and sizes to make them pop. Make sure they show up well on mobile because that’s where 80% of your traffic will likely come from.

>> Don’t compare your blog to others

Ever read someone else’s blog and wonder if you’ll ever catch up?

It used to drive me nuts!

It’s sooo easy to feel discouraged by other bloggers who seem to have it all figured out…a brilliant blog design, epic content, clever phrases, seamlessly flowing language, beautiful graphics…all of it. Argghhh. They make it look so easy!

Here’s what I’ve learned:

We can’t compare our start to someone else’s finish.

Bloggers who are *ahead* of you in their blogging journey simply started before you. That’s it.

The only thing you should measure is your own progress. What did you achieve last week? Are you blogging more consistently? Have you carved out specific time blocks that will work for you, where you won’t fall prey to distractions and interruptions? Did you create an editorial calendar? Did you write that post you were supposed to?

And remember this, friend:

Your audience wants to hear from YOU. They want your voice, your inspiration, your insights, and your expertise. Most of all, they want you to help interpret all the conflicting information out there in the blogosphere. That’s all you need to do.

That’s a wrap! Now I’d like to turn it over to you. What helps you create blog content on the regular?

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Here’s How Long it REALLY Takes to Rank on Google [Infographic]

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Improve Your SEO!! Learn how to rank in the top on Google (and how long it takes!) This complete infographic study by Ahrefs includes SEO marketing tips for bloggers to help you increase blog traffic and improve your overall SEO strategy. #SearchEngineOptimization #SEO #bloggingtipsHonestly, we all know Google ranking is important and don’t need another SEO expert to tell us that.

What we NEED to know is, How do we do it?

How do we rank our posts #1 on Google?

Thankfully, The Website Group created this helpful infographic that will break down the steps and show you what it takes.

Fair warning:

There’s no magic recipe or formula. You can’t jump the SEO queue overnight.

But neither can your competitors! So if you’re up for the challenge, here’s the first tip:

Be patient. SEO is a long game and ranking on page #1 will take some time. You’ll feel more empowered if you know what you’re in for from the start.

Secondly, broaden your knowledge. Understand why keywords are the foundation of your strategy, how they work, and how to harness the power of Google Analytics to grow your business.

Then you’ll see that ranking isn’t hard. It simply requires learning a new skill – one that can completely transform your business.

With online tools at your disposal, you won’t have to pay someone a fortune to improve your Google ranking anymore. Just implement one tool at a time and you’ll eventually see the results.

And if you’re already active on social media, you’re going to love this news:

Social media plays a huge role – not only for SEO but for all your marketing. Because you’re out there being social and interacting with your customers (you are, right?), you’re finding out what they REALLY want related to your products and services. Then all you have to do is give it to them.

Here’s that infographic:

Courtesy of: The Website Group
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9 Pinterest SEO Secrets Every Blogger Should Know

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9 Pinterest SEO Secrets Every Blogger Should Know / Want to know how to use Pinterest for Business? This post is for you! It includes a complete Pinterest growth guide with SEO tips and tricks for bloggers. Pinterest fundamentals, Pinterest hacks, and more for bloggers. Click through to see all the steps!In my Blog Profit Plan series, I cover the four buckets to building an online business:

Content > Traffic > Subscribers > Products 

I also cover the process by which each bucket spills over into the next until they’re all full and your business is thriving.

Problem is, sometimes the buckets don’t spill over as quickly as you want. They usually slow down somewhere in the middle, between Traffic and Subscribers.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve been struggling to grow your traffic and email list, you’re not alone, friend. Many entrepreneurs and bloggers struggle to fill those two buckets up.

Luckily, there’s Pinterest. 🙂

Pinterest is a huge source of traffic for those who use it. In my experience, it’s the easiest source of social media traffic. So today, I’m drilling down on all things Pinterest to give you (what I hope to be) the ultimate guide to using Pinterest for business.

Here’s what I’ll be covering:

Part One: Pinterest Fundamentals

  • Why use Pinterest for Business?
  • Pinterest SEO Changes
  • Understand the SmartFeed
  • Set Up Your Account for Traffic

Part Two: Get found on Pinterest 

  • Create a Pinterest Content Strategy
  • Research Keywords
  • Add Keywords Everywhere
  • Pinterest SEO vs Google SEO

Ready to dig in? Let’s do it.

 

Part one: Pinterest Fundamentals

Step 1) First, why use Pinterest for business?

Because it’s ripe for the taking! If you’re still thinking that Pinterest is only for fashion tips and recipes, keep reading…

Pinterest is a goldmine for business.

When you get it right, you can explode your traffic in ways that you just can’t with Facebook or Instagram. In fact, Pinterest is very different than FB and IG. For starters, it’s not even a social media site.

It’s a SEARCH ENGINE and a SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SITE.

Where people are on Facebook and Instagram to be social, people are on Pinterest to find stuff. They’re searching for ideas of things they can buy/make/do…much like Google. And there are a whopping 200B monthly searches on Pinterest. Whoa.

So when your pins appear for their search queries, they’ll love you for it (and so will Pinterest!).

Pinterest knows that without content creators like you and me, there would be no Pinterest. And they want to help us reach a broad audience by encouraging others to share our pins.

That’s where the social bookmarking component comes in…

Between tribes and group boards, you have a huge opportunity to reach thousands of followers outside of your own.

If you keep all of this in mind, you’ll be able to steer your Pinterest strategy in the right direction.

Step 2) Pinterest SEO Changes

The Following Tab

When you log in to Pinterest, by default, you’ll see pins from your SmartFeed (step #3 below).

But what if you want more control over the pins in your feed?

Now you can have it with the new Following Tab. Toggle it on to see only pins from the people you follow. It’s right up here in the top menu:

The Pinterest Followers Tab

Looks like this new feature is designed to encourage you to spend more time on Pinterest by seeing only the pins you care about.

Hashtags

Yep. You can use them! And you should. It’s the second time around for Pinterest hashtags, and this time it looks like they’re here to stay.

When you use hashtags, you increase the chance that your new pins will be distributed to relevant hashtags and be seen by more people.

Notice I said *new pins.* Don’t bother going back and adding hashtags to your older pins. The reason is that the hashtag feed is prioritized by freshness. So adding hashtags to older pins won’t help them. Just add them to new pins from here on out, and you’ll be good.

I cover more on hashtags in step #8 below.

Image Sizes

Are infographic pins gone for good?

They could be. Here’s what Sarah says about longer images:

2:3 is recommended (600×900 or 735×1102). “If you deviate much from that, you might see less distribution or your Pins might be cut off in certain parts of the Pinterest app. Given that, we recommend sticking to that 2:3 ratio or lower.”

“Previously we truncated Pins, but now sometimes we just don’t show the Pin at all if it is super long. Even if currently our best Pins are super long, realize that these are still rolling out, and things will appear differently in different places.”

But here’s the thing:

My longer pins drive (waaay) more traffic and engagement than my 2:3 pins. So I’m willing to toss the dice on the longer pins and keep creating them for now. (I create three pins for every post – two are 2:3 and one is 1:2.)

For the full scoop on Pinterest images sizes, read The Ultimate Guide to Creating Pinterest Images that People Click.

Personal boards

Personal boards are where it’s at these days, guys.

Pinterest gives more weight to personal boards than group boards because many group contributors drop their pins without re-sharing from the group. Bleck.

This type of spammy activity causes your pins to have low engagement. When you share pins with low engagement, Pinterest may mark your domain as being low-quality and start squashing your pins.

That’s why personal boards are super important now. In fact, setting them up correctly is one of the most powerful things you can do to increase traffic.

Free webinar: Double Your Traffic with Pinterest

Step 3) Understand the SmartFeed

Your pins aren’t shown in chronological order like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

In fact, before displaying any of your pins, Pinterest’s SmartFeed algorithm will give them a score based on quality and relevance. After it filters and scores your pins, it will display them in the feed.

What that means is that Pinterest displays “best pins” first rather *newest pins* first.

Pins with higher scores appear higher up in search results and are shown to more people. Pins with lower scores appear further down in the feed and can take a lot longer to show up – IF AT ALL.

Before I get into Pinterest’s filtering criteria, let me back up for a minute and explain the three groups of pins that are displayed in the Smart Feed.

When you log in to Pinterest, the pins you see are:

  • From people you’re following
  • Related to those you’re following
  • Similar to those you’ve shown an interest in

Ever notice how the pins in your feed look like ones you just repinned? Those are coming from your “interest” group.

The SmartFeed Filter at Work

When you share a pin, Pinterest is working behind the scenes to decide when (and if) to show it based on these four criteria:

  1. Domain quality
  2. Pin quality
  3. Pinner quality
  4. Relevance

The graphic below is a visual reference for what’s happening.

Pins are grouped into three categories, then put through the SmartFeed Filter, given a score, and displayed in your feed:

Pinterest's SmartFeed graphic

Here’s what each filter measures:

Domain quality – This is a measure of your overall domain. How many repins, close-ups, comments, and clicks do pins shared from your website receive overall?

Pin quality – A measure of your individual pin. How much engagement does it have?

Pinner quality – A measure of you as a content curator. Are the pins you share from others high quality?

Relevance – A measure of user intent. How relevant is your pin to a user’s search, interests, and search history?

Pinterest uses these checkpoints to ensure that only high quality, relevant pins are being shared by all. The higher your scores in each category, the better chance you’ll have of ranking #1 and reaching a broad audience with your pins.

In a nutshell, you need to be an epic content creator AND curator…create and share pins that are optimized for clicks and search.

A winning Pinterest SEO strategy combines these three elements:

Visibility + Searchability + Great Pin Design = Pinterest SEO Strategy

Sounds pretty easy, right? Actually, there’s a bit more to it.

But first, let’s get your account set up your correctly. I’m going to walk you though the steps right now!

Step 4) Set Up your Account for Traffic

Your Pinterest account, profile, boards, and pins need to be optimized for traffic. If you let Pinterest know right from the start that you’re a content creator, it can index and distribute your pins accurately.

Here’s how to do it.

First, create a business account.

A huge reason people don’t get traffic from Pinterest when they otherwise should is, they’re confusing their personal Pinterest with their business Pinterest – which confuses Pinterest too.

Remember, Pinterest is a search engine, and it’s looking for clues about your keywords from the pins you share. It’s not like Instagram, where you can get away with mixing personal and business posts, *kinda.

Instead, treat your Pinterest accounts the way you treat your Facebook profile vs Facebook page. Share personal pins to your personal Pinterest and business pins to your business Pinterest.

Don’t mix the two.

When you create a business account, Pinterest immediately knows that you create content. And it will love you for it! Because without people like you and me creating and sharing our content, Pinterest wouldn’t exist, and it knows it!

Creating a business account is free, and you can sign up for one right here. If you do decide to turn your personal into a business account, just head over to your profile settings and you’ll see an option to switch.

Next up, verify your account.

Once you create a business account, the next step is to verify or “claim” it. You can’t skip over this step because it’s really important!

You’ll get access to in-depth analytics on Pinterest and Tailwind. Plus, claiming your site is one of the first ways you’ll make your domain visible to Pinterest. All you’re really doing here is confirming your website with Pinterest so that it knows it’s you, and that you’re a blogger and content creator.

It’s very easy to verify your website. All you have to do is log in to your profile and go to your settings. Then scroll down to the Claim section:

Verify your website in Pinterest

 

Since my site is already verified, my website has a checkmark next to it, and the “unclaim” button is grayed out. Yours will be red and say “claim,” so just enter your website URL and select the button.

Next up, select “Add HTML tag.” Copy the tag and choose Next.

That tag needs to be added to the <head> section of your website, which sounds scary I know. But there’s an easy way to do it with the Yoast SEO plugin (for WordPress).

Then set up your boards for traffic.

You definitely want to create keyword-rich boards to help Pinterest index your pins.

For every board category (e.g., Travel), create one general and at least three specific, niched-down boards.

Here’s what that looks like:

Create broad and specific Pinterest boards.

Oh, and don’t just throw every keyword you find in there! Try to use them organically in complete sentences. Here’s the description for my social media marketing board:

Using social media marketing to grow your business + blog? Here you’ll find tools to help you do it. Pinning about social media marketing tools, social media strategy templates, social media marketing tips, marketing plans, social media cheat sheets, and more.

It sounds pretty natural, but I have a lot of keywords in there.

Now, I get that sometimes it’ll be easy to add a lot of keywords and sometimes it won’t. You just want to strike a balance between “keyword stuffing” and writing in a natural, organic way. After all, real humans are reading your board descriptions, so they need to make sense.

Note: There’s a lot more to boards than what I cover here…and they’re crazy important for Pinterest SEO today. I cover them in detail in The Pinterest Traffic Launchpad – including how to get Pinterest to “see” them, creating sections vs niche boards, how many you need, how to share your pins to them, and more.

Finally, enable rich pins.

Rich pins have confused a lot of folks, including me. I used to think they were the reason my name and logo started appearing beneath my pin image, but alas, that’s not the case! Your name and logo show up on pins after you verify your domain with Pinterest.

So what are rich pins really for, anyway?

What rich pins do is show the title and meta description of your posts.

Now, as I said before, you won’t see any of this metadata in your feed, only the first few characters of the description you added when you uploaded the pin:

Pinterest SEO | Pin DescriptionWhen someone clicks the pin to the expanded view, that’s when they’ll see the metadata and title:

Pinterest SEO | Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

What the heck is metadata?

I’m so glad you asked! Sounds like a bunch of garblygook to me. 🙂

Basically, metadata is your meta title and your meta description. To break that down even more, it’s your SEO title and your SEO description. Which means they’re the title and description that show up on Google search results…

They’re also the title and description that Pinterest displays on your pin when you install rich pins on your website.

The big thing with rich pins is, the metadata from your post travels with the pin. When people repin your content, your metadata is repinned with it. If you update the meta description or title of your post, your pins and repins will also change (theoretically, it can take a while to update).

From Pinterest:
Use rich pins wherever possible so your brand and other useful details stay on the Pin as it gets saved.

Now that your account is set up for traffic and you have an overview of the SmartFeed, let’s dig into Pinterest SEO strategies that will help your pins get found.

PART two: GET FOUND ON PINTEREST

Step 5) Create a Pinterest Content Strategy

Want to really (REALLY) make the SmartFeed happy?

Share content your audience loves.

Hah! If only it were that simple…

First, you need to create jaw-dropping pins. Then you need to share them on the regular, e’erday.

And then…

You can’t just drop your pins, cross your fingers, and hope for the best! You have to be strategic about HOW and WHERE you share them so that people find them.

What you really need is a Pinterest content strategy. In the steps below, I’m going to show you exactly what to do.

First, share killer pins.

There’s this visual component that makes Pinterest incredibly powerful as a search engine, maybe even more so than Google. Because, let’s face it, Google search results are pretty meh. All people see are titles and descriptions with no pretty pictures to help them decide if they should click.

But over on Pinterest, whoa, there are tons of beautiful images that visually show people why they should click. Your job as a content creator is to design graphics that make people want to click on YOUR pins instead of others.

What does that mean?

It means you do things like check your pins on mobile (at least 65% of your traffic will come from phones), use bold fonts that are easy to read and use graphics and images that are on-brand and relevant to your post.

I drill down on all things graphic in these posts:

Next, get ready to blog your heart out!

If you’re a blogger, you already create content on the regular. High five!

Many of my students and clients have a hard time with blogging. They hope they can share a few *one-off* pins and still blow up on Pinterest. But, alas, that ain’t how it works, yo.

Blogging should be a core part of your Pinterest strategy.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’ve tried to fool myself on this too!

I spent the better part of last year creating two courses and couldn’t keep up with blogging every week. Instead, I posted once a MONTH.

Now, did I lose ALL traffic?

Let me just say, my pins were like workhorses keepin’ my traffic steady-*ish. So I didn’t lose it all but noticed a drop. My list growth also took a plunge…from ~1,500 subscribers a month to 1,000 or so.

The reason is that pins have a lifespan. Sure, they can last a looong time – six months, a year, even longer – but after people have seen them over and over, the engagement and traffic will drop.

I’ve experienced pin fatigue like this, and I know this is true. When you see the same pin in your feed every time you log in to Pinterest, you glaze over it.

No worries, though. Just know that when you stop blogging and sharing fresh pins, you WILL see diminishing returns at some point. Better to feed the beast.

#WORDTOTHEWISE If you’re pressed for time and can’t blog regularly, I recommend trying Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram ads.

Step 6) Research keywords

There are a few ways to research keywords on Pinterest:

  • Pinterest’s Guided Search
  • Topic searches
  • The ads platform

Pinterest Guided Search

When you search for a keyword in the guided search, Pinterest will show you a list of ideas across the top.

For example, let’s say you want to create a board about traveling. Here’s what Pinterest shows:

All those pretty buttons beneath the search bar are suggested keywords. Just so you know, those extra words should be added to your original keyword, like this:

  • Travel Destination
  • Travel Tips
  • Travel Bucket List
  • Travel Packing
  • Travel in the USA
  • Travel Hacks
  • And so on…

Topic Searches

If you enter https://pinterest.com/topics/travel into your browser window, here’s what you’ll get:

At the top, you can see how popular the topic is, and if you scroll down a bit there will be “Topics Related to Travel.” Click through each of these topics to get more title ideas.

Notice how the topics are becoming more specific every time you click through? Beach Travel has about 400K followers vs 70.3 million for the broader topic Travel.

The Pinterest ads platform

The other way to find keywords is to set up an ad account, which really just means placing your credit card on file with Pinterest. Don’t worry! You won’t have to run a campaign. You just need it to access the keyword section.

Once you set up your ad account, click on Create Ad from the top menu and name your campaign.

Then scroll down to the keyword section and add a keyword. Here’s what comes back for “social media”:

The list of keyword ideas is endless!

Researching keywords this way is great because you can create a master list and keep them in a spreadsheet.

Speaking of…

A keyword worksheet will save you A TON of time! You probably pin about similar topics, and it will be waaay easier to optimize new pins if you have keywords on hand and ready to use (especially if you’re sharing six or seven a week).

Psst…The right keyword and hashtag strategy can skyrocket your Pinterest traffic! In The Pinterest Traffic Launchpad, you will become a keyword ninja. Discover little-known ways to find *power traffic* keywords, where to place them, and how to quickly index your boards and pins so that Pinterest knows how to rank them. Learn more about PT Launchpad.

Step 7) Add keywords everywhere

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Once you have keyword lists, add them to your profile, boards, pins, blog posts, meta title, and more so there’s NO way Pinterest will be confused.

Here’s where they should go…

1. Your profile

Add keywords to your business name and the About You section.

I’m not sure how much the keywords truly matter in the About You, but any time Pinterest gives you the opportunity to use keywords, I say use them!

Keywords in your business name can help you get found when users search for people on Pinterest.

Pinterest SEO | Add keywords to your profile

 

2. Personal boards

I like to come up with ten keywords for my personal boards. I may not use them all, but it’s easier to start with more and narrow it down.

Oh, and don’t just throw every keyword you find in there! Try to use them organically in complete sentences. Here’s the description for my social media marketing board:

Using social media marketing to grow your business + blog? Here you’ll find tools to help you do it. Pinning about social media marketing tools, social media strategy templates, social media marketing tips, marketing plans, social media cheat sheets, and more.

It sounds pretty natural, but I have a lot of keywords in there.

Now, I get that sometimes it’ll be easy to add a lot of keywords and sometimes it won’t. You just want to strike a balance between “keyword stuffing” and writing in a natural, organic way. After all, real humans are reading your board descriptions, so they need to make sense.

3. Your pins

Of course, you need keywords in your pins!

Now, you probably share pins about similar topics and will wind up using similar keywords, which is perfectly okay.

Just make sure you don’t use the same exact keywords for every pin – vary it. You should have a list of keywords you use frequently. Go through it and pick new ones for different pins.

Oh, and watch out for keyword stuffing, yo.

Pinterest is likely headed in the direction of Google and may start to penalize pinners who spam their pins with keywords. Use them in sentences that sound organic, like you’ve written them for real people.

Use related keywords too (think “specific” and “broad.”)

For example:

If you blog about Travel and share a “travel itineraries” pin, you might use travel itinerary, backpack vacations, planning your trip on a budget, and best spots in Costa Rica as keywords.

Just so you know, keyword-rich pin descriptions appear at the bottom of a close-up:

Pinterest SEO | adding keywords to pins.

4. Blog titles + meta descriptions

In the image above, the blog title and meta description are pulled directly from your blog post.

The meta description is 140 characters long and appears below your meta title on Google, like this:

Pinterest SEO | meta descriptionIt’s important to add keywords to both places because Pinterest wants to ensure that the content on your pin matches the content on the page it links to.  The more your title and pin description match, the easier it will be for Pinterest to know what your pin is about.

5. Blog posts

I’m not entirely sure how much Pinterest is focusing on keywords in your blog post, but since they matter for Google, it just makes sense that they matter to Pinterest.

Think about it:

When your pin is linked to a landing page with the same keywords, you’re giving Pinterest one more signal that yes, this is the keyword I want to rank for.

Plus, this is another one of those cases where leveling up your Pinterest game can help you get found on Google.  Woop woop!

I cover Google SEO and Pinterest SEO in more detail (step #8 below).

6. Hashtags

Use at least two hashtags for each pin (one broad and one specific).

Broad hashtags will help your new pins get increased distribution when you first share them. Pinterest uses that hashtag to share your pin to the relevant hashtag feed.

Now, because hashtags are like keywords and broad terms are highly competitive, it’s likely that tons of other pins will be distributed along with yours. Which means your broad pin will be pushed down in the feed and people may not see it.

But the purpose of that broad term isn’t to rank in the hashtag feed. It’s to help Pinterest index your pin.

The specific hashtag is the one you’ll likely rank for. Narrower hashtags have less competition and better chances of showing up in relevant searches long term.

Just remember, you need both one of each.

Step 8) Pinterest SEO and Google SEO

I bet you’ve probably wondered at some point or another, Can I use the same SEO strategies for Google and Pinterest?

You are SOO on the right track, friend! I’m a huge fan of having multiple sources of traffic. Algorithms on any platform can change on a dime…and Pinterest is no different. You just never know if your account will be flagged for spam and (mistakenly) suspended. It’s happened to the best of us!

Since we’re already jammin’ on Pinterest SEO, why not work smarter and tackle Google right out of the gate, no?

Many strategies you would use to rank on Pinterest are the same for Google. Plus, as you research and apply keywords to pins and posts, you’ll get into a habit of SEO’ing everything.

Now, there ARE differences between Pinterest and Google SEO…

For starters, to rank on Google you need to write a post that *beats* others on the same topic (think longer, more detailed, better design, etc). But over on Pinterest, you can get by with 500 words if you create a great graphic with a killer headline and use the right keywords in your pin description.

In my Pinterest course, The Pinterest Traffic Bootcamp, I show you exactly how to find “traffic” keywords and create a year’s worth of content with ranking potential on Pinterest AND Google.

For example:

Example of a Pinterest pin ranking in Google Image Search SEO

This infographic is one of my top performing pins on Pinterest:

When you click through to the post, I show the infographic again with a short intro (maybe it’s 700 words).

I’ve been able to drive consistent traffic to the post since I published it over a year ago. In fact, it’s always in my top ten because of that pin. The post itself doesn’t rank on Google, and with only 700 words I don’t expect it too. But you know what?

It ranks on Google Image Search:

Example of a Pinterest pin ranking in Google Image Search SEO

So when it comes to Google and Pinterest SEO, just know that your pins can help you get traffic from Google, both directly from your posts and indirectly through your pins.

Wrapping it up!

Did I answer all your questions about Pinterest SEO? I hope so! Here’s a quick recap of everything we covered:

  • Recent Pinterest changes give you more ways to get found.
  • The SmartFeed uses four criteria to score your pins.
  • Set up a business account so that Pinterest knows you create content.
  • Create a content strategy that you can maintain consistently.
  • Research and add keywords following step #7.
  • Once you’re comfortable with Pinterest SEO, move on to Google SEO.

And remember to share pins that make people want to click, share to group boards and tribes, and SEO the heck out of everything!

More random thoughts and questions

Here are questions that the wonderful members of my Facebook group have asked:

Should you pin manually or use Tailwind?

According to Sarah at Pinterest, Pinterest will not penalize creators who pin via Tailwind.

It’s really a matter of preference.

I recommend that you pin manually for the first two months so that you can get a feel for how Pinterest works and use the platform as your audience does.

Is it better to share to tribes or group boards?

As I mentioned, group boards are getting pretty spammy. But all it takes is one good one, and you can reach hundreds of thousands of people.

Tribes have more accountability than groups because of their share-for-share rules. Having said that, there’s no guarantee that other tribe members will share your pins.

The best thing you can do with tribes and groups is monitor the activity and make sure you’re contributing to ones with high engagement and reciprocity.

What is the SmartLoop?

It’s a Tailwind tool that will save your sanity! Use it to create continuous loops of your pins (similar to the now-defunct campaigns in BoardBooster). Just specify which pins to share and to what boards, then let Tailwind do the pinning for you. It will even allow you to set group board rules and set specific time slots for your pins.

Should you delete pins?

If you mistakenly share the same pin to a personal board, delete it. Otherwise, leave them. You never know when your older pins will suddenly take off and go viral. It can be months and months later.

How do you add keywords to pins?

You add keywords to the pin description, which you can do when you upload the pin to Pinterest or when you edit the *alt text* of the image in your post. There are also plugins like Social Warfare (affiliate link) and Tasty Pins you can use.

Should you use board sections?

If you like them, go ahead and create them. Make sure you add keywords in the sections to give Pinterest more information about the contents. That said, I prefer niching down to sectioning. If you share to the same BROAD board over and over, instead of sectioning it create a few niche-specific boards. You’ll have more distribution options.

Does metadata matter for traffic?

Meta titles affect Google rankings, and I assume they affect Pinterest rankings too. Meta descriptions, on the other hand, aren’t a ranking factor on Pinterest or Google but they can help you get more traffic.

When people view a close-up of your pin, your meta title will appear first. Then your meta description, and THEN the pin description. All of these should make people want to take the next step and click through to your post. If you have a killer title and meta description in there, it helps.

How do you set up rich pins?

There are two steps involved and they’re really simple:

  • First – Add the metadata to your website.
  • Second – Apply for rich pins with Pinterest.

The first step is a 1,2,3. I’m going to show how to do it with Yoast SEO.

Select SEO > Social from the left sidebar in Yoast. Then select the Facebook tab and make sure that Add Open Graph metadata is enabled. It should be by default, but it’s a good idea to check before moving on.

Voila! You’re done. Now your posts are ready to display as article rich pins. The last step is to verify rich pins back in Pinterest, which you can do right here: Rich Pin Validator.

Should you write posts for Google, Pinterest, or both?

Once you master Pinterest SEO, start tackling Google SEO.

When you do, I recommend alternating between Google and Pinterest. Say, one week you write a post for Pinterest. You do keyword research upfront, look at popular pins and create an amazing graphic and killer headline for it – the post is about 800 words.

The next week you go all in on Google…keyword research, epic post, great design, long and detailed…all of it. That post is crazy long, like 3,00 words. (yep)

When you approach SEO this way, you will likely get traffic from Pinterest AND Google. And you won’t have to spend hours and hours writing a 3,000-word post every week. Give yourself a break on the *Pinterest* weeks.

This way you’ll have an SEO strategy for every post.

Can you use the same keyword research tools for Pinterest and Google?

You can. It’s easier to use Pinterest for Pinterest keywords and Google tools (Adwords Keyword Planner, Google Search, KWFinder) for Google keywords.

How many boards should you create?

Great question! As many as you need for your niche and as many as you can share to consistently. Engagement is a biggie. If you have a lot of personal boards with little or no engagement, you run the risk of Pinterest ignoring your pins altogether.

Should I use a keywords worksheet?

I think it’s helpful to brain-dump keywords onto a worksheet. Since you’ll likely be blogging about similar topics, some of the same keywords will pop up again and again…if you have them handy you can save a ton of time.

Next Steps

Pin, pin, pin!

Set up your account, start blogging, create pins, join group boards and tribes, track what you share and when, and don’t forget about Pinterest and Google Analytics. Check them each month, so you know what’s working and what you need to change for consistent results.

I’ve got answers to ALL of your questions about Pinterest SEO in my new mini-course, The Pinterest Traffic Launchpad. Click the image below to learn more about it.

The Pinterest Traffic Launchpad

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating Pinterest Images that People Click

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#Pinterest Template Guide: Create Pinterest-Friendly Images that Drive Traffic | One of the fastest ways to get traffic from Pinterest is to create Pinterest perfect pins. In this post, I’ve got 6 easy social media design and Pinterest tips that will help you create pins people want to click! Pinterest marketing / Pinterest Fundamentals #PinterestmarketingYou want to know the #1 question people ask me?

How do I get more traffic?

And when I hear that question, what I really hear you saying is How do I get more traffic so that I can build my business?

Now, you may not think of images when it comes to getting more traffic.

Me? Images are the FIRST thing I think of…specifically, Pinterest images.

So today, I’m sharing six Pinterest image tips to help you create pins that boomerang your traffic and get more people to your website.

1) Start with the right image sizes.

When it comes to Pinterest image sizes and dimensions, the image width is a breeze: anything from 600-800px wide will work.

The pin height is where things can get tricky because Pinterest is trying to squash those super long pins that hog up the feed.

First, what hasn’t changed?

The standard Pinterest image size is still a vertical pin at a 2:3 ratio (2x width : 3x height). Here are some examples of these dimensions:

  • 600 x 900px (Pinterest recommends)
  • 735 x 1102px (Canva’s preset size)
  • 800 x 1200px (my preferred size)

Don’t worry if you’re using a design tool with a preset size that’s different. Just make sure the ratio is 2:3.

Next, what HAS changed?

Pinterest likes square pins now.  This is one of those changes I’m excited about because it means that we can share Instagram posts to Pinterest.

Want to know how?

Tap the three dots at the top right of your Instagram post, then select Share > Copy Link and head over to Pinterest. Choose the board you want, and you’re done.

Share Instagram posts to Pinterest.

#HEADSUP Pinterest will use the first few (130 or so) characters from your comment as the pin description. You may need to modify or optimize the pin description after you share it.

Also, the pin URL will link back to Instagram, which is wonderful if you want to grow your Instagram following and engagement. If you’re like me and share blog posts on Instagram, make sure you redirect the URL to your blog post.

What about infographics?

I say keep using them! My longer pins drive waaay more traffic than the standard size. The only thing I’m changing moving forward is the height, which leads me too…

Recommended pin sizes

Here are the pin sizes I’m experimenting with right now:

  • Square – 1:1 ratio
  • 800 x 1,200px — 2:3 ratio
  • 800 x 1,600px — 1:2 ratio
  • 800 x 2,160px – 1:2.7 ratio

And here’s what those sizes look like in comparison:

Pinterest image sizes 2018

Just so you know, those last two are arbitrary.

Even though the SmartFeed is working hard to squash longer pins, my longer infographics still drive the most traffic to my blog. I’ll keep creating them, but I’ll be watching my analytics…

Pins longer than a 1:2.1 ratio will be cropped in the feed (for a 800px pin, that means 1,680px). What this means is that the bottom of your pin, including your branding and URL, will only show when someone clicks to a close-up.

If you want to create viral Pinterest pins rapidly, without starting from scratch every time, you may want to try Viral Pin Templates. These pre-made pin graphics are easy to customize and ready for you to add your content and share. Click the image below to learn more about Viral Pin Templates.

Done-for-You Pin Templates

Learn more about Viral Pin Templates

2) Use color purposefully.

For the most part, yellows, reds, and oranges tend to stand out and get more clicks than blues and greens.

Now, if your brand colors are blue or green, you can still make your pins pop. The trick is to “train” people to click on certain colors, which I cover in detail in this post: How to Choose Colors That Will Make Your Brand Stand Out.

When I started designing pins, I chose dark background colors with white text on top, like this:

find free images for your blog Pinterest images

Once I changed my color palette to peach and cream, my pins performed much better. Looking back, I think those darker pins looked depressing and got lost in the feed.

Same thing happens with blue: it just gets lost.

Not sure which colors to use?

Here’s an idea: Look at pins and boards outside your niche.

Let’s say you’re a fitness coach. Instead of looking at fitness boards, look at travel boards. If you’re a life coach, look at sewing boards.

The reason is that if you look at pins within your industry, you may be drawn to a pin simply because you have an attachment to the title or image.

But if you look at pins that you have ZERO interest in, you can be more objective. For example, these are pins from a parenting board:

Pinterest image colors that stand out

 

Since I’m not interested in this topic, I’m able to separate pin colors from pin titles. The colors in the middle jump out at me, how about you?

Even if your brand colors are green or blue, be creative and find a way to add contrast colors that pop.

Heck, you may even fall in love with those contrast colors and decide to rebrand! If that’s the case, make sure you learn more about The Build My Brand Toolkit. It may be just what you’re looking for!

3) Limit the number of fonts.

Here’s the deal with fonts…

Don’t go crazy with them, choose just two. I recommend a sans-serif font for your main font and one other contrast font.

Pro tip: Use your contrast font strategically.

It’s tempting to want to use every cool font you find, but please don’t! The whole point of fonts is to give readers a visual hierarchy of elements. You want to make sure that they know what to focus on.

Your contrast font should help people make sense of the text.

For example, I created a pin a while back with the title 100 ways to market your business. I used a contrast font for the word “market” because it’s a verb and I wanted people to visualize themselves marketing their business.

Just try not to waste your contrast font on throw-away words like how, and, or in.

Other pro font tips:

  • Make sure your pin is easy to read on mobile devices.
  • Choose simple, bold fonts that stand out.
  • Choose a font family with multiple weights for variety. Open Sans and Roboto are both good choices.
  • Grab my Font Inspiration Kit with over 94 free fonts and font pairings!

 

Psst… I break down all these steps in detail in this video:

4) Use text overlays.

This one’s a biggie. I still see many people posting pins without text overlays, which is a newbie thing to do and not a big deal. That said, it’s something you want to move away from.

Use a tool like Canva, PicMonkey or Photoshop (step #6 below) to add text to your pins so that people immediately know what they’re about.

Pinterest is different than Instagram.

Grammers love to get lost in beautiful images that paint a picture and tell a story. For this reason, getting clicks on Instagram largely comes down to the image.

Pinterest is different.

People look for ideas on Pinterest…they either want to know how to do something or where to buy something.

So if you have a “how-to” blog post about growing a garden, make sure you add text to your pin so that people know why they should click. Try to use only words that will make people want to click (if you need to, shorten the title).

Here’s why this matters:

When you create text overlays that are **designed for clicks**, you can lead people to action.

Let’s say I’m a crafty girl and want to make a wreath. I search for “wreath diy” and right there I see this gorgeous pin:

Pin image for a do-it-yourself wreath project.

 

And I like this pin because I’m ready to make a wreath and this one looks stunning. Plus, I know it’s a tutorial and I can picture myself following the steps to create a beautiful wreath.

The more you can tease people with tips or advice like this, the more you can draw them into your content and over to your website. Click To Tweet

The more you can tease people with tips or advice like this, the more you can draw them into your content and over to your website. If you’re stumped here, ask yourself:

What text would make ME want to click?

If you follow only one step in this post, make it this one! It’s a game-changer.

5) Use images that reflect your brand.

A good image can make the difference between clicks and crickets. There’s no room for so-so on Pinterest.

Make sure your pin image reflects your brand and helps people understand how it fits in with their lives.

For example, let’s say you sell handmade belts.

Instead of putting your belt on a dress form, put it on a live model and be creative. Add accessories and other props so that when people see your Pinterest image, they can’t help but click.

Of course, you don’t have to use images in your pins. If you’re a blogger, coach, or consultant, a simple pin with text and graphics may be all you need.

Whatever you do, make sure the photos you use don’t compete with your text. I used to try to squish my text on the left or right of a photo and get it to fit just right.

Examples of a pin template that's hard to edit.

 

Big waste of time! I finally gave up on this style after I couldn’t find photos that worked well. Plus, it took hours of fudging to make everything fit.

(I also stopped using pics with full-on faces because they get fewer clicks.)

Looking for stock photo sources?

My favorites these days are Thinkstock and Stocksy (both premium); and Pixabay, Unsplash and Picjumbo for free photos. If you want to save some time, head over to thestocks.im. You can find tons of free and paid photo sites, all there in one place.

In terms of style, I’m all about styled stock photos and flatlays these days. I’ve even been experimenting with taking my own styled stock photos!

Pro tip: Check the license when using free images. You want CCO or  CC1 images that don’t require attribution.

Related: 6 Sources of Free Images for Bloggers

Use relevant images

I learned this one the hard way…

One of my first pins had an image of an adorable puppy holding a sign between his teeth. I thought it was SO cute and decided to add this text to the sign:

How to create call to action buttons that get clicked

Oops! Pinterest thought my pin was about pets. With that image, I had no chance of ranking for my target keyword.

Pinterest tries to “see” your pin, so make sure you use images relevant to your brand, pin, or product.

6) Use the right design tools.

Even if you’re not a designer, there are tools to help you create beautiful designs that stand out above the others. A few of my favorites are:

Canva

You can create so much with it…ebooks, call to action buttons, social media graphics…just about anything. Plus, you can edit and publish designs right from the dashboard.

You can even choose from their library of templates, including share images, cover photos, and infographics (that last one is a HUGE plus). When you’re starting a new design, you can select one from your dashboard to use as a template:

Canva custom image designs

 

The best part is, you don’t have to be a designer to create beautiful designs with Canva. Just choose one of their templates, play with colors and text, and upload an image (or choose one from Canva’s huge image library). Save your new design as a pdf, png or jpg – or share it directly to social media.

PicMonkey

I haven’t used PicMonkey much, but from what I’ve seen it has similar editing features, minus the Ebook template.

PicMonkey is known for photo editing. Want to add effects to your photo to make it your own? You can do it! You can even change the color of an image:

PicMonkey Pinterest Image Templates

 

I’ve got a complete PicMonkey tutorial for you here: How to Use Free Styled Stock Photos to Build Your Brand

Photoshop

If you’re ready to design like a pro, Photoshop is your tool.

With Photoshop you can customize photos and images in a way that you can’t with Canva or PicMonkey. You can even make old photos look entirely new using the mask and rubber stamp tools (great for repurposing your stock photos).

For this pin I used four stock photos – one for the top and three for the body:

Custom branded Pinterest template

To create the top image, I spliced, cut, cropped, and rotated the color wheels until I was happy with their placement.

To create the background image, I cloned sections from a stock photo (using the rubber stamp tool) to create a wooden texture. Then I ghosted two other photos on top to add more dimension.

See how creative you can get with Photoshop? You can use the same photos over and over to create pins that are unique and original.

Want to start using Photoshop? I’ve got a killer graphics tutorial for you right here –> How to Use Photoshop to Create Branded Social Media Graphics

7) Bonus! Use templates.

When you frequently share fresh content, Pinterest will reward you by showing your pins higher in the feed – and to more people.

One of the easiest ways to kick out fresh pins on the regular is to use templates.

Ideally, you’ll create three or four pins for every post you share (some bloggers share up to eight). Templates allow you to kick out as many as you want quickly and easily.

At a minimum, templates should include your brand colors, fonts, and logo and/or website. I recommend creating a variety of styles. For example:

  • Light background
  • Bright background
  • With images
  • Without images
  • Longer – 1:2 ratio
  • Shorter – standard 2:3 ratio
  • And so on…

This way you won’t be staring at a blank screen every time you create a new pin.

Get Viral Pin Templates!

Click here to learn more about The Pinterest Traffic Launchpad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s a wrap! Let me know how you make out with this Pinterest Image Guide. I’d love to hear!

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