From Blah to Hurrah - bethhayden.com€¦ · From Blah to Hurrah: 25 Ways to Make Your Blog Bigger, Better and More Profitable Does your blog need a boost? Maybe you’re tired of

Beth Hayden | www.bethhayden.com 1

From Blah to Hurrah: 25 Ways to Make Your Blog

Bigger, Better and More Profitable Does your blog need a boost? Maybe you’re tired of publishing great content that nobody sees. Maybe the romance has gone out of blogging. Maybe you feel like you could use a little help with turning your blog posts into cash in your pocket. If this is you, hold on to your hat. I’m going to give you 25 awesome ways to give your blog a fabulous kick in the pants. Pick a couple of these suggestions and take action on them right away ‐ you’ll notice a huge different in your blog in just 30 days. So let’s dive in. Your success is waiting. 1. Figure out what transformation you’re offering. Business coach Tommi Wolfe, who works with start‐ups and entrepreneurs, advises business owners to figure out how you help your customers (or readers.) What transformation do you cause for them? In my business, I help business owners make more money by helping them create fabulous websites, blogs and social media campaigns. How do you help people? What change happens in people between when they walk in your door (or hit your site) and when they leave? If you’re a writing coach who transforms people from “blah” writers to amazing poets, talk about that on your blog. Provide some amazing “before” and “after” case studies. I f you’re a kitchen organizer who helps people get rid of the clutter in their lives so they can cook healthy meals and lose weight, post pictures of clients’ kitchens after they work with you.


Hint: This tip gives you endless inspiration for blog posts, too! Describe your transformation so clearly that it will be impossible for people to resist your products and services. Boost your blog by being passionate about the changes you create for your readers and clients. 2. Create a clear vision of your ideal client. Do you know who your ideal client is? Can you picture him or her clearly? Do you know exactly what that person’s problems? If not, you need to get clear ‐ quickly. Do a brainstorming exercise as soon as you can, and write down your vision of your ideal client, customer or reader. Is that person male or female? How old is he or she? Is she a city or country dweller? Does he have kids? What are her values? Most importantly ‐ what specific problems does that person wake up thinking about? Some businesses even create cardboard cutouts of their ideal clients, and give them nicknames. You may not need to go that far, but you can create a clear picture in your mind, so you know exactly who you’re writing for when you sit down to write a post.

When we focus on content marketing – which is what we’re doing when add blog posts to our sites – we need to know everything we can about our ideal client(s), so we can make sure that we’re offering content that gives solutions and information to those clients.

The more you know about the people you’re writing for, the better your writing will be, and the easier your writing process will be, too. Writing for your ideal client is inspiring and fun!


If you focus on your ideal client while you’re writing, your blog posts will also be massively appealing to your target audience. They will know that you’re writing just for them, and will say “Holy cow! How does she know what’s going on in my head?”

And that will translate into more leads and more sales for you.

3. Create an autoresponder.

An autoresponder is a message that gets sent out automatically to the people who sign up for your email mailing list. You can have a single autoresponder, or you can send out a series of them.

Most of the popular email marketing tools (Aweber, MailChimp, etc.) are set up so you can set up as many autoresponders as you want.

Why do you need an autoresponder? I heard online marketing genius Sonia Simone describe using autoresponders as a way of creating a conveyor belt that gets your readers from the point where they come to you (when they sign up for your list) to where you’d like them to be (usually purchasing a product or service.)

When you got this ebook from me, you received it as part of my autoresponder series.

Sit down TODAY and create a plan for your autoresponder series. Your autoresponder needs to have at least one message in it ‐ your welcome message. After that, it’s completely up to you – but I’d advise you to create a series that has somewhere between 3‐10 messages.

What content can you give your readers that will be helpful to them? What question can you answer right away that would solve a pressing problem for them?

If you have carefully pictured your ideal client (see #2) you’ll know exactly what kind of person you’re creating this content for. Write an autoresponder with that ideal client in mind.


Create your autoresponder knowing that incredibly useful information that solves problems for your idea client will land in her inbox right after she signs up for your list – and maybe a few days after, too!

Autoresponders will do wonders for your business. Write yours as soon as you possibly can.

4. If you can’t afford to hire a designer for a full site design – create a gorgeous banner.

One could argue that a blog’s banner is the most important thing on the page. It’s the first thing your readers look at to get an idea of who you are and what your blog is about.

I understand that blog design is expensive. But blog banners don’t have to be. There are professional designers out there who are willing to create gorgeous banners for just a couple of hundred bucks. Or spend even less by hiring overseas designers who charge you a pittance for design work (try ODesk, my favorite outsourcing site, for great design workers.)

Give your site a new look by creating a beautiful banner that makes it instantly clear who you are and what you’re trying to do with your site. It will work wonders.

5. Consider a pop‐up email opt‐in box. Yes, I know. Pop‐ups are obnoxious and we hate them. But they do work, and you’ll see a huge boost in your email list sign‐up rate if you can stomach adding one to your site. You can delay the appearance of a pop‐up so your readers don’t get hit with it the second they land on your site. I’ve got a pop‐up on one of my sites set up with a two minute delay, so hopefully my readers are finishing reading their first post on my blog before it shows up. Pop‐Up Domination lets you create attractive pop‐ups with lots of customization options.


6. Publish less. I’m a big fan of publishing great posts less often. If you can publish one thoughtful, beautifully‐written post each week, it will get you better traffic that publishing a crappy, rushed post every day of the week. Write less, but write better. Mix that in with some guest posting (see next suggestion) and you’ve got a great recipe for boosting your traffic. 7. Gather your courage and try guest posting. Publishing guest posts on popular blogs is the best way to post your traffic. Period. When you guest post, you get the opportunity to leverage an audience much bigger than yours. It allows you access to readers that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. Look for popular bloggers in your niche who have an engaged audience (look for lots of comments as proof of engagement). Then write a short, to‐the‐point email to that blogger with two or three of your best guest post headline ideas. Then sit back and wait for a response. Yes, I know this takes courage. I know you are scared, little bunny. But you can do this. And it will make your traffic SOAR if you can pull it off. Guest posting isn’t just for getting you new readers, either – it can have other (awesome) benefits, too. A guest post I wrote on Pinterest marketing for Copyblogger.com lead directly to my recent book deal! So keep a running list of guest post ideas and headlines, and make pitching to popular bloggers a regular part of your weekly writing routine. I guarantee that one spectacular guest post on a popular blog will give you a HUGE boost in your traffic.


8. Email your list more often.

People are a lot less likely to unsubscribe than you think, even when you are sending them lots of email correspondence. The evidence is surprising on this point ‐ Dan Zarella, the genius Social Media Scientist who gathers and analyzes data about unsubscribe rates, says that your unsubscribe rate will go DOWN significantly if you send MORE email.

Dan says:

“Your unsubscribe rate is the highest when you only send once or twice a month. That’s because people are not conditioned to receiving email from you. So when you send an email you send very infrequently, they’re surprised. They say to themselves, “Oh my God, I don’t want this,” and they unsubscribe.

Send more email. Do not being afraid to send more emails than you are right now. You’re probably going to get more clicks, and your unsubscribe rate will go down. So here’s the takeaway – do not be afraid to send too much email. As long as your email campaigns are good, if they’re useful, they’re not spammy, they’re coming from somebody I recognize, they’re coming at the right times on the right days, send away. Go to town. Send more email.”

Pluck up your courage and email your list more often. I know this is scary. Almost as scary as emailing popular bloggers and pitching them your guest post ideas.

You need to do it anyway. Email marketing, when done in powerful and professional ways, will help your blog and your business in ways you can’t even imagine.

9. Don't hide your light under a bushel. A lot of bloggers hide what they do and how readers can hire them. Visitors come to the site, read your great content, then think “Great! How can I hire you?” and then they have to struggle for ten minutes to find out if you offer consulting. Or products. Or coaching groups.


Have a big, clear “HIRE ME” button on your blog, or add a link in your site’s navigation bar that lists your products. Make it crystal clear what you do and how you can help that reader. If you do this right, more people will contact you about hiring you because they know what you do and how their lives will be better when they work with you. Don’t hide your light. Let it shine. 10. Have a dedicated subscribe page. Yes, it’s great to have an opt‐in form in your sidebar. But if you need to email a link to a potential subscriber and go through a verbal game of Twister to describe how to subscribe, that’s not good. Don’t say, “This is my home page. To subscribe to my list, put your name and email address in that little box under my picture. No, not THAT one. The OTHER one. The one that says “Get free stuff here!” With a dedicated subscribe page, you can send the person a link to your landing page and be done with it. No dancing, no weird descriptions, no awkwardness. Better yet – you’ve got a lot more room to explain all the great benefits people will get when they join your list when you use a dedicated landing page for your subscribers. You can also use the link to that subscribe page in tons of different ways. Like on your Twitter profile. Or in your Facebook Page. Or on your business card. The possibilities are endless. Dedicated subscribe pages mean more subscribers. This is an easy one.


11. Sparkle. Create an atmosphere of excellence in everything you do. Focus on the positive. Make your blog a place of sheer delight. Create your site so that it becomes the one bright spot in someone’s day. Infuse more joy and wonder into everything you write. Be that person that everyone wants to talk to at the party because you are just so damn happy. Sparkle. Enough said. 12. Don’t auto‐post to Facebook. You know all those services and tools that let you auto‐publish your blog posts to Facebook? Don’t use them. A recent study by EdgeRankChecker discovered that the folks who use third party tools to auto‐post their content to Facebook (like HootSuite and Dlvr.it) get 70% less engagement on those posts. They get fewer Likes and far fewer comments. If you do this, it means less traffic for you. Which means less BUSINESS for you. So turn off those auto‐publishing RSS tools as soon as possible and embrace the lost art of manually publishing your blog posts to your social media platforms. You’ll get a huge boost in responsiveness. 13. Embrace tension.

Writing and creativity coach Cynthia Morris says blogs can really fall flat if they don’t have enough tension. Tension indicates there’s some central problem you’re trying to solve, some shared issue you want to work on together. Tension helps readers know they’re not in it alone.

With some blogs, there is no common problem holding the readers together, no psychic tension creating a line between the author and the readers. Blog likes this are dull as heck.


Tension creates interest. Without it, your readers won’t come back, because their curiosity won’t pull them back to your site.

Does your subject matter have enough tension? Is there enough to keep your readers coming back for more? Find the tension, find your readers.

14. Narrow that niche. Is your readership too broad? Are you trying to write for everyone? That’s a big mistake in business AND in blogging. The more narrowly you define your niche is, the more successful your blog is going to be. A couple of months ago, I decided to narrow the niche of my business. I decided that I really wanted to work with women business owners to help them achieve awesome results using Internet marketing. So I took a deep breath and went for it. I added “For Women” to the tagline of my blog. I tweaked my design a bit to make it more women‐friendly. And I started writing my posts so that would appeal to women. I changed my business cards. It worked like a charm. I started getting more traffic, more sign‐ups, and more clients. It was magical. And my biggest fear – the fear that I would lose all my male clients because they would think I was a chicks‐only organization – never came to pass. I still work with lots of men. When your narrow your niche, keep in mind that people who don’t EXACTLY fit your niche will want to come along for the ride anyway. If you’re great at what you do, it won’t matter one bit. But narrowing your niche will help you create targeted content, gorgeous design, and remarkable email campaigns just for your audience. And your ideal client will really appreciate that.


15. Advertise your freebie’s benefits.

Do you have a freebie that you’re giving away to people who sign up for your list? You definitely should. And the key to attracting people to your list is to overtly advertise your freebie’s benefits.

Here’s an example – I’ve got an opt‐in form in my site, and my freebie is access to the Blogging with Beth Library, which includes three content‐rich PDFs that have blog post ideas and traffic‐building tips. My opt‐in rate (the number of people who signed up) was sort of average – I got some sign‐ups and my list was growing.

Then I had a consultation with a PR expert, who suggested I change the headline I used on that opt‐in form.

I wrote the phrase “Make Your Blog Better” at the top of the opt‐in form, and my opt‐in rate doubled. No kidding. Just from one tiny change.

And what’s the difference between my previous headline, “Get Access to the Blogging with Beth Library”, and the new one? The new one advertises a benefit. My readers don’t want access to the library – they want to make their blogs better! They want to solve a problem!

Figure out what your freebie’s benefits are – clear skin, better writing, more money, better relationships, cleaner kitchen, better body, whatever – and then add those benefits to your opt‐in form. Your sign‐up rates will go up. 16. Accept guest posts. Ever think about accepting guest posts on your own blog? If your topic allows for it, this can be a great source of traffic. People who do guest posts on your blog will write about those posts on their own blogs, and they will tweet links to it, too! This can be a great little traffic booster for you. Plus it lets you develop relationships with other bloggers, which is always a good idea.


So give it a shot – write up a quick post about your guest post guidelines, then send it to a couple friends or colleagues who you think would make great guest posters. 17. Halve it Want a great exercise in editing out the garbage and keeping the great stuff? Try the halving exercise. Write your whole blog post, getting all your points across and putting all your examples in. Then try to cut the length of that post in half. You’d be amazed what you can chuck out – and how much stronger your writing is – when you practice this on a regular basis. They say it’s harder to write a short post than a long post. Get good at both by using the halving exercise.

18. Get the skinny on what your customers want.

One of the biggest mistakes that I see bloggers and business owners make is when they create a product without checking with their audience FIRST to see if it’s a product that their clients actually NEED and WANT.

A business owner will fall in love with a product idea and think, “Everyone will want this!”

They spend weeks (or months!) creating their product. Maybe it’s an e‐book, a CD or a physical product. They launch the product and…nothing happens. The flood of orders they were expecting never materializes.

Your best bet – before you even take a first step in the direction of starting to create a product – is to do solid research to make sure you’re creating something irresistible for your customers.

Surveys are a great way to gather data from larger groups of people. Survey Monkey is a quick, easy and free way to create surveys that are web‐based. Keep


your survey are short as you can (and still get the data you need) so that your readers will have fewer objections to filling it out.

Create a quick survey asking about your customer’s biggest problems, then send it out to your list and post it on your blog. Then sit back and absorb all the great information your clients share with you about what they’d like your next product to be.

19. Tell stories.

In their groundbreaking book, Switch: Making Change When Change is Hard, authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath use storytelling to make their points and draw their readers in. Storytelling doesn’t just make a piece of writing fun to read – it actually makes the author more convincing, too!

It’s hard not to buy into a concept when you’ve just read a really interesting story that illustrates that concept perfectly and shows you how it works in real life.

Storytelling‐style writing is also easy and fun to pass around. It can be fun, memorable, funny, moving, emotional and inspiring – all things you’d potentially want to tell your friends and family about (or post on Facebook!)

So include stories in your blog posts. Instead of saying “My life is different than it was when I was 21,” show your readers HOW it’s different. Add lots of relevant details and make the story really come alive.

Stories are powerful. Incorporate them into your posts whenever you can, and you’ll be well on your way to creating highly compelling content that people will pass around and link to on their own sites.

20. Pay attention to your headlines.

Writing great blog headlines is an art – a really important art. If you can create a headline that elicits emotion in your readers, you will draw them in and they won’t be able to tear themselves away from reading your post.


Write a lot of headlines for your posts. Brainstorm 20,30, even 50 possible headlines. For each headline, ask yourself, “Is this emotional? What does it bring up for my readers? Is there a clear benefit?”

Keep brainstorming and searching until you find a headline that makes you sing. Then use it. See what a difference in makes in your retweeting numbers and in your traffic statistics for that posts.

Then do the same headline homework for every post you write.

21. Write shitty first drafts.

I’m a huge fan of author Anne Lamont, author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anne’s advice for writers is to sit your butt in your chair, start typing, and crank out what she calls a “Shitty First Draft.” I believe she has patented that term.

Once you’ve written a really crappy first draft ‐ and gotten all your confused, incoherent thoughts down on paper ‐ go back and edit. Clean it up. Put in better examples. Tighten up the language.

If you’re suffering from writer’s block (and we all get stuck at some point or another), just come up with an idea and write a shitty first draft. It gives you a start, gives you something to work with.

Because a shitty first draft is better than a blank page, any day.

22. Don’t let shiny object syndrome lead you astray.

Bloggers suffer from shiny object syndrome. They see a new widget, bell, whistle or flashy do‐dad on someone else’s site, and they feel compelled to add it to their site right away.

Repeat this 10 times, and you end up with a site that is so filled with garbage that your readers will feel like they’ve entered the circus funhouse.


Keep your design calm and clean. Use your editing eye when looking at all the tchotchkes and badges you see online, and decide for each one “Is this truly critical for my audience?” If not, leave it out.

Don’t let shiny object syndrome rule your life and your blog. Your readers will breathe a sigh of relief as they exit the funhouse and enter the calm, soothing world of your website.

23. Use Twitter and Facebook in smart ways.

Your goal with using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is to drive traffic back to your site (and get readers on your email list.)

Don’t waste hours and hours having inane conversations with people who will never become customers or connect you with clients.

Think strategically about whom you want to connect with. Create a “Dream 100” list of people you’d like to know (online or off) and include anyone who will be able to help you move your blog (and your business) forward. Then start following them online and look for opportunities to tweet, reply or like their updates and tweets.

If you’re about to tell another funny story about your kid or your dog on Facebook or Twitter (or both), step away from the keyboard for a minute and think about why you’re using social media.

Only allow yourself access to social media when you know exactly what your strategy is, and how you’re going to implement it.

24. Read a lot.

The best writers are the best readers. When you read a lot, you gain a better sense of sentence structure, flow, voice, and the mechanics of putting words on the page.

Reading also greatly increases your vocabulary, giving you more words in your mental toolbox when you sit down at your keyboard to write a post.


Reading lots of different types of things ‐ blog posts, newspaper articles, magazine features and regular books ‐ gives you a broader view of the world, assuring you'll also be able to come up with new and creative topics for your blog.

Although reading won't always cement the finer and trickier points of grammar and punctuation into your head (I still let my punctuation escape the confines of those pesky quotes, as one faithful reader recently pointed out in a gentle correction), I do think you're more likely to know your way around a paragraph if you enjoy reading and do it consistently.

Make some time to sit in a quiet place and read something great. Doesn't matter if it's a book, a magazine or a blog post, as long as it's something you enjoy. Then make daily reading a habit.

I guarantee that your writing ‐ whether you're crafting a long and thoughtful blog post or cranking out a quick Tweet ‐ will be better for it.

25. Take a break from the blog and go live your life.

If you’re experiencing blog fatigue, and feel like you just don’t have it in you to create one post, write another Tweet, or gives a thumbs‐up to one more Facebook update, close that computer.

Assign yourself a mandatory 24‐hour moratorium on your laptop or smart phone.

Go swimming. Call a friend. Go skydiving. Sing in the shower. Go have dinner at a fancy restaurant. Walk your dog.

Taking a break from the online world can really help your outlook (and your writing.) If you come back to the keyboard refreshed and ready to go, it’s going to show in your level of enthusiasm and the quality of your work.

Let yourself have a life outside of your blog. Your website (and your dog) will thank you for it.


Want more help? Email me at [email protected] to talk to me about my individual consulting packages.

Beth Hayden www.bethhayden.com [email protected] Pinterest: @bethhayden Twitter: @bethjhayden

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From Blah to Hurrah - bethhayden.com€¦ · From Blah to Hurrah: 25 Ways to Make Your Blog Bigger, Better and More Profitable Does your blog need a boost? Maybe you’re tired of