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We are currently working on adding content to our new niche blogs, however, if you followed along with the how to squidoo series you know there’s going to be writing in many more places before this project is done.
I decided on this post today because of a conversation I had with a friend yesterday. I don’t know if you know, but I have an “accountability partner”. Each morning I get on the phone with her and we talk about what we got done yesterday. What went right, what was maybe not quite right, and what we plan to accomplish today. This call is relatively short, and some days we get involved in a conversation and it goes a little long. (This call is immensely valuable for me in so many ways ~ if anyone else wants to get an accountability partner maybe we can set up a discussion on the fan page so you can have a way to contact one another)
Yesterday we were talking about the 100 articles in 100 days challenge and got to talking about how you know what to put on your blog, or what to write for an article.
This is such an important point ~ there are so many places we are going to need to put content. Content that will build links, drive traffic, build the content of our blog ~ how do you know what should go where?
There’s no right or wrong way to do this.
Let me just say that right off the bat. You can create unique content anywhere and you can put whichever piece you want, wherever you want it, as long as you keep producing content you’re looking at a win/win situation.
There are some ways however, you can set things up to let your content work better and harder while you do a little less. 
we like that right?
So here’s the situation. My partner @Mary K recently started this parenting blog. (I’ve been begging her to do this for years, just so I could read it!!). It is quickly becoming my go to resource for downstream parenting information. (just FYI). She is participating in the 100 article challenge, and wants to do a series on a topic. She’s wondering if she should put the series on her blog or break things down and use them for articles.
Either one would work. But here’s what I had to say (because you know I always have something to say… right?)
I asked a few questions:
1. Are you going to go in depth in these articles?
2. Are you giving tips in the articles or is it just explanation/information?
3. Is there possibly concrete examples you could give that relate to the topic?
She told me she had planned the series to be an indepth look at 6 different elements of something, and then she wants to relate those things back to how our kids show us each one. (I can’t wait to read this series for sure!). She said at this point she was mostly looking at explanation type content, but there COULD be some concrete examples.
My suggestion:
Keep the series on your blog. Here’s why. It’s gonna be GREAT content. You don’t want to “waste” that on EZA ~ you also don’t really want someone posting your BEST content on their blog, word for word, which is the point of EZA.
Create the series on your blog, create a whole category for it, link the posts together so people can easily navigate through the series.
This does a few things:
It makes your blog “sticky” (people reading more than one post at a time). It gives you internal linking which the search engines will love. It gives you AWESOME content that your readers (and the search engines) will love, and will keep them coming back.
So what about EZA? I still need 6 more articles?
Take each post from your blog, and come up with a few concrete examples of something related to that topic, or specific examples of how you can handle what you’re talking about in the post. Then create a quick list post and use those for your EZA articles.
What this does:
This gives you shorter articles, easier to write, better to share. (people really seem to like to share shorter, list type posts). It gives you the perfect tie in for your resource box ~ if you found this interesting read the more indepth version and the entire series on my blog (link). Quality, actionable content will always do well on EZA, it will increase your click throughs (either to a product or to your site) the great content you’ve saved for your blog will help convert them into long term readers ~ or help them make the decision to buy.
Knowing what to write, and where to put it can definitely be a stumbling block. It can go so far as to completely halt progress ~ if you get to a point where you don’t know where stuff goes, or what writing goes where it can easily lead to just doing nothing instead of doing something “wrong”.
Please remember there is almost no way you can get this niche blog thing wrong (unless you quit taking action). If you try something and it doesn’t work out as you planned ~ ok, it’s one thing ~ now you know to try something else next time. If she had put her whole series on EZA it might have gotten her traffic ~ it might have really gotten people hooked on her and her writing style, her parenting ideas, which in turn could have brought them to her blog ~ where there would have undoubtedly been great content to keep them there.
So it could have worked either way ~ you just don’t know until you try. If it didn’t “work” meaning she didn’t get a lot of views, or traffic from EZA she could have chalked it up to experiment and tried something different the next time. She still would have had all those great articles on EZA working for her day after day.
I do understand all this content creation stuff can get confusing ~ I do ~ so if you are confused about what to write, or where to put it ~ please, let’s talk about it. Don’t just hole up and quit taking action. We can work through it together and get you on your way again!! Ask in the comment section or else start a discussion over at the fan page. If you want some one on one help, just shoot me an email and we’ll work something out. OK?!? DO NOT LET THIS GET YOU STUCK.
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No related posts.
It will depend on how your theme is set up ~ pages are not set up to be easy to see. They are usually found in the nav bar along the top. Although you can create links in the sidebar to each of the pages.
The other thing if you're only going to have a few posts is to write them and then change the dates they publish ~ that way you can put them in the order you want them in. I've done that a couple times.
Or you could just put all the information in one post ~ so it is all there when they get to your site.
Just some ideas and options.
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- off topic
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