7. Beginning with the End in Mind

Stephanie 0:00

If your blog posts aren't bringing you the end result you're hoping for, you'll definitely want to look at how you're starting the blog writing process, you might have a common mistake lurking in your workflow that's sabotaging your blogging efforts.

Stephanie 0:14

Hey there teacher business owner, it's time to give your bank account a break and pause that ad campaign. I'm your host, Stephanie Royer, and I'm going to show you how to pay less for traffic.

Stephanie 0:26

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited about the next batch of episodes that we have planned because we're going to look at your blogging workflow step by step. Over the course of several episodes, I will be sharing tips for each step in the typical content creation process, which will hopefully help you identify and overcome some of the hurdles that you're experiencing with your blog.

Stephanie 0:53

But if you don't have a blog yet, don't worry, because the process that we're going through in these episodes can also just serve as a blogging, 101 discussion. So by tuning in and taking notes, you're going to be leaps and bounds ahead of the game when you start your blog, and your future self will thank you.

Stephanie 1:14

For today's episode, we're going to talk about one of the biggest hurdles people experience when they want to blog. And that's just getting started. Now, it might seem simple to just pick a topic, document your thoughts, add some pictures and move on with your life. However, the way you begin your blog post will significantly impact the results you see from that piece of content. Beginning with the end in mind is one of the best things you can do for your blog post.

Stephanie 1:43

By now it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm going to start this discussion with an analogy. And it should be even less of a shock that this analogy is about Costco because we recently moved, and I went from living five minutes from Costco to now being over two hours away from the nearest Costco. So in my current state of withdrawal, that is just what's on my mind right now.

Stephanie 2:07

So anyway, let's talk about purchasing a large item at Costco. So maybe there was a great deal on a barbecue. When you go to Costco knowing that you're coming back out with a barbecue, you're going to make certain decisions before you ever step into the store. You will probably clear out a spot on the patio so that it's ready for the barbecue when you get it home. You'll bring your largest vehicle with you to the store, and you'll make sure that you've emptied out the baby strollers, or the teacher bags, or the golf clubs - whatever phase of life you're in. You'll pay attention to where you park and how easy it will be to maneuver the cart to get the barbecue loaded. And then speaking of the cart, you'll probably grab one of those big flat orange carts instead of a regular one. And most likely, you'll probably go straight to the barbecue, and get it added to your cart first.

Stephanie 3:01

So now let's compare this to the experience of buying a barbecue at Costco on a whim. Which, you know, I think a lot of us have experienced buying something at Costco on a whim. But you likely have a cart full of food by the time you notice the great deal on the barbecue. You might look at it and think well, I don't have room for this in my car. So you start calling around to see if someone can help you haul it home. And then you have to go grab a second cart to get it to the check stand or maybe flag down a worker to help you out. And then when you finally get it home, you have to rearrange everything on the patio for this impulse purchase that wasn't even on your radar when you left your house earlier. So overall, it's just a much clunkier process. In fact, when you saw the barbecue, you might have decided that it would just be too much effort to get it home. And you might have just walked away, deciding to take your chances and go home without it, hoping that it will still be there the next time you get to Costco.

Stephanie 4:03

I'm sharing this analogy to illustrate the impact that planning can have on your blog post. If you've written a blog post with the end in mind, you're just going to write in a more streamlined way, because all roads will lead to the outcome you're hoping for. And that's from your choice of words, your formatting, the images you choose to use, the keyword you're targeting - all of those decisions are going to be made with your end goal in mind.

Stephanie 4:33

On the other hand, when you just choose a topic and start writing, you will create a much clunkier blog post for your readers without even realizing it. So as you start writing, you'll think oh, I have that product, I'll link to that. Oh, I have this freebie, I'll add an opt in here. And without realizing it, you're creating what I like to call the CTA buffet. There's just too many choices in your blog post.

Stephanie 4:56

The other thing that makes your blog posts more clunky when you right without a plan is that you tend to meander to the point, instead of creating this path that goes from A to Z. And the reason that's dangerous is because you don't have your blog reader's attention for very long. There's research out there that says the average session duration for a blog post reader, and this is all of the different website categories combined, but it was, I believe, 51 or 52 seconds, it was less than a minute. And so it's important that your blog post is quickly getting to the point, it's giving the reader the information they need to make a decision. And that decision is clear. And by having that in mind, when you start writing your posts, you're more likely to create that efficient journey for your blog post readers. So whether it's a CTA buffet, or just an overall clunky blog post, we don't want readers to leave having taken no action at all.

Stephanie 6:00

When I talk about beginning with the end in mind, we're talking about that CTA that I mentioned, it's the call to action of your post. Now, ideally, your blog post will have one clear action that you want the reader to take after they read the post. Now, there are so many different calls to action that you can include in your blog posts. But they generally fit into one of five different categories, or I guess you could call them goals.

Stephanie 6:28

So the first goal would be building your email list. And so calls to action in this category could be opting in for a freebie, or subscribing to a newsletter, or enrolling in a free workshop - anything that people need to sign up for using their email address.

Stephanie 6:47

The second goal area would be affiliate income. Calls to Action for this category are just generally links to products that are being sold by someone else. Common ones would be like Amazon roundup posts, but any product that you love, and you want to promote to your audience, you will just write that post in a slightly different way than you would any other type of post.

Stephanie 7:09

The third goal that some people have for their blog posts is ad income. Now many bloggers, especially professional bloggers, they run display ads on their websites. And a lot of their posts are written for the sole purpose of getting display ad income from their traffic. They use strategies to increase time spent on the page and to encourage ad clicks.

Stephanie 7:31

The fourth goal is cross platform promotion. So some people write blog posts to get more traffic to other platforms. Like if they have a podcast, or a YouTube channel or a social media page. Their goal for the post would be for readers to click over to one of those platforms.

Stephanie 7:51

And the final goal you might have for your blog post is product sales. The call to action for this category is clicking a link to your own product. And as a TPT seller, your main call to action in your blog post is going to be, usually, your own product sales. Now you can definitely have other goals for the blog posts you write. But in general, you're trying to get more traffic to your TPT products. So let's talk about what that looks like when you're beginning with that goal in mind.

Stephanie 8:24

So once you've decided that you want to write a blog post that drives traffic to your TPT product. What comes next? Well, this is actually where my advice can often differ from other blogging gurus. If you follow any experts in the professional blogging community, you'll notice that they often have you begin with keyword research. This would be curating long lists of keyword opportunities that they've gleaned from different online tools like Ubersuggest, and also from doing competitor research. But the issue with this is that you find the keyword, but then you have to find a product in your catalog to fit that keyword.

Stephanie 9:06

Or you might find yourself in a if you give a mouse a cookie situation - you do keyword research, and then find an interesting blog post topic. But then you realize you don't have a product to go with that keyword. So you start developing a product, and then realize, Oh, I'm also going to need pictures before I can write this post. And then it just goes on and on. So ultimately, you've created weeks of work for yourself while you're trying to just write a weekly blog post.

Stephanie 9:34

Now, just as a side note, this doesn't mean you can't use keyword research to inform your product development. In fact, that's an excellent idea. It should just be a separate part of your workflow from your regular blogging efforts when you're sitting down and trying to write out a weekly blog post.

Stephanie 9:52

So instead of starting with keyword research, and then finding a product to fit, I teach a different strategy in my blogging course, I think you should begin by choosing the specific product that you want to feature, and then do your keyword research with that in mind. So when you have a clear picture of which product you're going to highlight throughout your blog post, you're just going to make different keyword decisions. Now, this difference is usually slight, but it can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of your post.

Stephanie: 10:25

So just as a quick example, let's say I have two different products. I have some low prep morning work printable and then I also have some morning work task cards, you know, something that you might put in a morning work tub. Now I also as a third option, I sell both of those morning work products in a bundle. So with these products in my back pocket, if I just start with doing keyword research, I might find a morning work related keyword and just throw one of those products and at the end and hope that it convinces someone to purchase it. But on the other hand, I could be more strategic with it, I have essentially these three products and I can have those in mind as I do my keyword research that I want to focus on the printable low prep morning work. So I'm going to look for a keyword that specifically addresses a pain point that this product solves. And then the same thing goes for the morning tubs. And then for the bundle, I might look for a keyword that is more like morning work ideas, because I have multiple ideas within this one bundle. And so it would make sense that that is the product that I'm going to soft sell at the end. And I want to find a keyword that helps me highlight all of the benefits of this bundle as I address that pain point. Ultimately, I'm giving each blog post a chance to shine in a blog post that was created specifically with that product in mind. And it's just going to convert so much better than a blog post where I've just tacked a somewhat related product to the end of a post that was written about a keyword I found on Ubersuggest. And I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope that it sells.

Stephanie: 12:10

I hope that this episode has given you some food for thought on how you're starting the writing process. Try not to put the cart before the horse by finding a keyword and then looking for a product to go with it. That's a common mistake that can sabotage your blogging efforts. Instead, begin with the end in mind, choose a product and then do your keyword research. I think you'll be surprised at how much more effective your blog posts will be in getting more traffic to your TPT store when you do it this way. Now, I know I've mentioned keyword research a few times in this episode. We're going to be talking more about that in the next episode.

Stephanie: 12:47

But as part of your strategy session this week, I'd love for you to take a look at your blogging workflow. Do you have a built in checkpoint, when you clearly identify the goal for each blog post? Do you take just a minute and confirm the goal that you have for that piece of content. Now, I know as a TPT seller, your goal is often to get more traffic to your products. But it might not always be that. And so it's good to just it just takes a minute to confirm the journey that you want the blog reader to take. And an easy way that you can do that is to just add a column or a field in your blog post tracker, where you make a note of the goal for that blog post. So for example, I track all of my blog posts in air table. So I have a field where I can select from one of the five blog post goals that I shared earlier, an email list, affiliate sales, ad income, cross platform promotion or product sales. And it just takes a second in my blog post planning to determine the goal for that post. But it makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of the post. So that would definitely be a quick win that you could have in your business this week. Just creating that decision point in your workflow where you determine the goal for each blog post. Now I have good news. If you are a student of bring your own traffic, there is a goal field included in the sample air table base that I provided for the course. And you can grab that in lesson 2.2

Stephanie: 14:18

I can't wait to help you continue to audit your blogging workflow in the next episode. So make sure you're following pay less for traffic so you don't miss it.

Stephanie: 14:28

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I'd love it if you could share it with a teacher biz bestie. You have created high quality resources. Now let's help teachers find them. I'll see you next time.