Lessons

Lesson Info

Use Your Blog to Increase Your Sales

One last thing I wanted to talk about is to use your block because this is part of your website it's not something that should live outside of your website it really should live on your website but it's something that a lot of people struggle with and they're like, well, I'm a jewelry designer do I really need toe blogged or I make soaps? What what does a block have to do with it? But you really can use your block to your advantage tio create more of a community to engage to build trust and I wanted to share a couple of things with you about why you should be blogging and why blogging should be part of everyone strategy if you have an online business whether you sell a product, whether you sell a service, whether you are your own product, wherever it is, I feel like everyone should have a block and it's really great for a ceo and we talked a lot about a seal before, but if you have a blogger that's more content that the search engines can look for and find you with and also the search ...

engines love websites that are updated regularly, so if you are on ly launching a new collection once a year, your website technically on lee gets updated once a year and google and the search engines my finger, your web sites out of date if you haven't had an update in a year but if you have a block where you're blogging every week or every month there's always constant updates new things that the search engines can crawl and it makes it more relevant to them yes did you have a question tracy well a statement and then a question so one of the main drivers of traffic to my website is one block post that I wrote about rose cut diamond jewelry they do a lot of roads cut diamond engagement rings but my question for you about blogging is a lot of designers have a separate blawg that's not based on their you earl can you talk a little bit more about that and the ramifications of building s ceo and et cetera yeah I think you should definitely have your block on your own you are a role I know some people start out with the log on maybe block spot or blogger or one of those platforms and then they launched their business and they thought well I'm already getting traffic here I don't wantto and that and move on my traffic over here and sort of start over but I think you should have your block on your own web site and I might have something about that in the slides but it's really important because you could have the same look throughout your site and that keeps with your branding which is so so important about creating that seamless customer experience and it's the same with having your own store on your own you earl as well so that way everything looks the same and that's why it's great for a ceo because if your bloggers hosted on your own you earl your own you earl has new content, not block spot right it's right on your you are also you definitely do want to bring your blogged and to your own domain and I know um wordpress if using war press of the plug in then that's obviously built in I know shopify has a blogging feature I know the commerce has a blogging feature aa lot of the shopping carts are now adding that blocking feature because it is so important on a lot of people wanted and it really is great for seo so it should absolutely be on your own domain name. Yeah. Can I ask one more? Yeah, of course. So if someone had a block that was on a separate domain and they wanted to transfer it over, is there a way that you recommend doing that or just like, move the content or keep it there as a second place and start over? Yeah, I would I'm a huge fan of moving everything over on, but I know some people have blocked for years and they have hundreds of block posts and in that case, it might not be as easy to move everything over, but if you're using wordpress and you were let's, say using war press before on a separate your girl then you can easily imported but otherwise if it's too much information and you have years worth of content, I will recommend just leaving that there but make sure that you have a link to your own website on that block and you have opposed that tells people ok, we've moved over here this is the new york girl, but I still think if you can do anything you can to move it over, that should be your first the first thing you do and if that's impossible and if somewhat if you can hire someone to actually do it for you, then just make sure you have a link back to your website from that old but yeah, if you can have everything moved over, that would usually be the idea. Yeah um so we talked about a ceo, but having your own block is really great because it keeps people longer on your website and when someone comes to your website, maybe you blogged about something and you created a video it just gives people another reason to spend more time on your site, which is what you want them to do any way you want them to read everything and I know a lot of people don't read everything, but the more time they can spend on your website, the more they've already invested in you and the more likely they are to buy and the more committed they are to you already. So it really does help to keep visitors longer on your website, and it makes your brand more human and more relatable because if you're sharing stories, especially behind this scenes, if you're doing videos, they know their people know there's a real person behind that brand and people buy from people they don't, especially when they're shopping at a small business, obviously different than when they go into a big box store. But when they come to your site, they want to buy from a person, and they want someone that they could relate to. So you're blogged and having that ensuring your story and talking about your behind the scenes and how you make your products and all of that really helps with making that or establishing that human relationship that we all want to be a part of your block also helps you to connect with with your visitors. I can tell you how many times if I log about a topic. People will write me and they'll say I just read this I totally couldn't relate to that thank you for sharing this and it just gives people another reason why they can connect with you again on a more human level it's different to read a block post that comes from someone experience and it is to read a product description and they both have their own place they're both really useful and really helpful, but you're just creating a different experience and you're connecting with someone more when you sharing a block post on when you are a product description, although your product description should re like a story as well but it's just a lot easier to do in your block than it is in your product description it also helps to increase your conversions and sales and the reason for that is that it helps to build a community around your brand. So when people are reading your block, they feel like they know you, they feel like they're part of your community and they want to keep going they want to continue to be part of that community and all of that on ly helps to increase your sales it doesn't take away from it people unless you may think blogging about something controversial and someone's like, oh, I totally don't like this person, but I do recommend to keep your blogged not necessarily personal by keep it relatable to your audience and what they want to hear about and if you're struggling with something obviously share it if it's part of your story and it relates to your business but don't try to get too personal I stay away from like any sort of political views or any sort of other things on there because you can alienate people and sometimes we do want to alienate people that are not in our target market but you definitely shouldn't be using your block for that it should be more of a place to build community and create community and create all off that trust but what happens if you actually don't like to block you hated you don't want to do it you don't have time for it what happened so there's a couple of things it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it you should still do it but you could get around you can find other ways to make it work so you can let other people do the writing for you can hire people to write there's playing of writers available that will be happy for a reasonable fee to write a block post for you but obviously make sure that it's still in your voice still keeps along with your branding and it's authentic and it the sound like it would come from your brand and your company and you don't have to pretend that you you can say the name of the blogger or this post was written by or it could be like it was from you and you're just hiring someone to ghost write it or you could really go either way here but don't let that keep you from actually not writing your own block. You can also use your block to interview retailer so let's say you hate writing, but you have a wholesale side of your business. Why not write? Take a couple of minutes right out of survey that you sent to every retailer that comes on board with you when you could say every week on our blawg, we feature retailers thanks for coming on board, we would love to feature you to hear some questions we love for you to answer and maybe send us a photo of our products in your store and you have a block post you didn't have to do anything other than send an email to your retailers with a questionnaire and they really do all the writing for it. They love it, you love it because you have content, they get exposure, really everybody wins and your audience loves to learn more about your retailers as well. You can also use your block to profile your customers so you I've done this where sometimes I'll take someone who maybe buys a lot for me or someone will send me pictures especially with my t shirt business they would say oh I'm in nepal when I'm wearing your t shirt here's my picture I would actually interview them and I would say oh that's awesome tell me more about that I'd love to featuring on my block why were you there? Why did you bring your t shirts what's your story and again you they're creating the content for you don't have to write all of this you could just ask questions and everybody loves to be asked questions right everybody wants to to answer questions about them so great way to use your block to do that yes, elizabeth I sent when you're talking about that I sent out to postcard with my products to say if you post an image of you wearing this on instagram or pinterest one of my paintings you know in a unenviable and where you have on a wall or whatever you take a photo of that and put it on to pinch a store or instagram that I'll send you a ten percent coupon that's awesome yes and what a great way to get your community to get engaged with you to build a community around your products to build social proof and trust right and again everybody wins they get a coupon they get to share their awesome photos you get content to get to profile them and it really is a win win for everyone so brilliant idea. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah yeah, so everyone steel elizabeth's idea if you could the more you could get your customers engage especially in social media were all social people we love social media so much off selling happens on social media and directly but it really does have a huge impact on how others see you and the impact that it has on the other people who buy because of things they've seen from their friends on social media and so that word of mouth thing really does work. Um you can also highlight your employees, so if you have a couple of people that help you with your business, why not highlight them? Maybe once a month you pick someone knew maybe it's your virtual assistant maybe someone who helps you can make your product because maybe you can make everything yourself. This is a great way again to have someone create the content for you and all you do is ask them a couple of questions and they will write everything for you so that's if you don't want to do that and the other thing is you can invite guest bloggers. I know there are plenty of company or plenty of people who their job is to spread the message about what they dio and they look out for guest blogging opportunity so depending on the type of business that you have maybe it's a fashion blogger who really wants to get in front of jewelry designers you might invite them to do a guest blogger that's obviously relevant to your readers nothing that's irrelevant here but keep it relevant your readers and they'll simply write the content for you and all the high have to do is just sling back to their website at the end or maybe at the beginning of the block post and they get a link you get content again everybody wins and we're all working together to build community and to provide content that's relevant for all of our audience is here so guess blogging and inviting guest bloggers is really such a great way to create or to get new content when you really don't feel like right and get yourself the other thing that you can do is you can share photos, videos, illustrations and some of these can have a caption you don't mess it's much easier to write a captain till photo than it is to write ah five hundred were blocked post so share behind the scenes photos share videos um sure illustrations depending on your business maybe you're a fashion designer and you have sketches that you you work on as you're designing a product share those in your blogged what a great way to like people in to know what you the behind the scenes behind behind your work so such a great way tio to build that connection on bill that community yes mentioned five hundred words is that like the standard that you recommend or is there doesn't matter? I was just saying five hundred words because that's the first number that came to mind, but I do know that longer block posts are more likely to get found in search engines even though people might not necessarily read them, but I would say, don't worry about the number, just do it. S so if all you can do is write two hundred words for a block post that's totally fine, I'd rather you do that, then think about, oh my god, I have to write two thousand words because google is going to like me more if I write two thousand more than then, you're never going to get around to it. Um that's not really the way we want to go, so do what you can, um the word length really doesn't matter. Yeah, kind of related to the same question when you're blogging, do you? Are you really strategic about how how you do like subtitles and headings, or do you just kind of right punks? Yes, I am a big strategic yes, because I do think about a ceo on just like I think about a ceo in my product descriptions, I also think about a ceo in my block post s and this is another thing where I was mentioning one of the first things that I said is that blogging is really great for a ceo so you do have not every single one of your block post has to have a key phrase and there, but you should think about that as you're writing and have a title that is obviously relevant to your audience but that also helps to tell a story and helps you get found in the search engine. So yes, I would definitely be strategic about your keywords and your titles and your page titles and all of that in your block post this fall, but I know you already have so much to think about just to think about a seal for your block pages is another thing, but yes, you should definitely think about that. All right? So I want to give you a couple of ideas of things you can block about. So we talked about giving people sneak peek or an inside look at what you do in your business and this is great for designers and painters and people who actually make or hand make products it's such a great way to showcase your work and to also give people an insight into your community you can block about things that oh, actually sorry before we talk about more things that you can block about the reason that this is so effective is that it really allows your customers to get to know you, and the more they get to know you, the more likely they are to buy from you, and they're also a lot more likely to connect with you so it's remember at the beginning or I said it takes someone an average of seven times before they actually make a purchase of seven times of coming in contact with you while a block post khun b one time that they're in touch with your newsletter khun b a second one so having a blogger and communicating and sharing behind the scenes is just another way to connect on to get people to come in contact with you more than once more than just on your home page more than just on your product page more than just on social media and so on. You can also block your re blogged about your retailers, they love it. Every time I do this, they're so happy to be a part of it. They send me photos of my product, and then I could use those products on my retailer page and use their testimonials and share things that they love about my products and wise, they started carrying my product. And so on and they just absolutely love it any sort of traffic you can send their way and awareness you can build about them they really feel like you're a partner and you're not just someone who is selling products through them and part of this whole thing is you want your customers to feel like partners you want retailers to feel like partners, not just someone else who is a number who's showing other credit card and buying your product, so this is really important to keep in mind throughout everything that you do and as I mentioned, really everyone benefits here there isn't one person who's not going to benefit when you are blogging about your retailers. You can also block about specific how to an information, especially if you have a product that needs demonstration or has to have some sort of a guide on how to use it or maybe if you have different ingredients. For example, if you're using essential oils, you can talk about the benefits of each essential oil and that competes on block post because you don't necessarily have room to write about all of that in your individual product description, so this is a great way to provide people with even more relevant information and educate them and have them spend more time on their website and learned from you and again, you sharing with them all of this awesome information so the other thing I wanted you to keep in mind is that your block content needs to reflect your target customers lifestyle your price main priority shouldn't be s e o it shouldn't be getting found in search engines none of that some of that matters, but that should never be a first priority. Your first priority with blogging is to really reflect your target customers lifestyle, just like you do on your home page, just like you do on your about page, just like you're doing on your product pages. This is something you should be doing with your block as well, and then blogged regularly choose a blogging schedule and stick to it. You definitely don't have to block every day. I wouldn't recommend it it's not necessary, maybe blogged once a week, even once a month, if once a week is too much for you right now, but anything you do, just do it regularly and slowly, the more regular you, khun blogged, the more traffic going to start having them or people are going to be able to connect with you. So whatever you do, just really do it regularly and stick to a schedule, and I wanted to give you a couple of examples here this is another one of my clients, and she has she runs a clothing apparel, that's organic clothing for for boys and girls and she's going to launch a kid a baby line and the teen's line and adults line and so on but her main mission with her company is to change the way the fashion industry work so she's really into organic and sustainable and for some organic brands it's all about design or it's all about colors or it's all about being cute or it's all about having a great fit but for her her main mission is to really change the fashion industry, so if you'll see here under the recent posts right here you see that it really is all about bad mission and what she stands for and she's using her blogged to get that out there to let people know that she's really passionate about this and pretty much all of her website whenever you look her main focuses on sustainability and she can't get enough of talking about sustainability and educating her audience about the importance of that. This is another one of my clients phyllis harris and she is another artist so she basically makes really awesome art work for kids walls she'll customize it with your your kid's hair color or their eye color and so on and her stuff is really, really cute but the thing that's important that she wants to focus on is that hearse toughest handmade it's one of a kind it's unique you no one else has it and she really focused on focuses on that on her block. A lot of stuff that she blog's about, sir, process her designs. Why she does what she does and it's just such a great way to showcase that. Here she has a photo, for I didn't put the whole screen shot off the block post, but then she after the photo, she talks about how she actually makes the products when you buy them from her. So this is such a great way to given behind the scenes to have some really great content. And to really, um, I guess, to showcase who you are, but to showcase who you are and how that relates to your customers. So not because, again, it's, not all about you, it's, about your customers as well.