Blogging. I know, I know.  You are cringing a little.  When done correctly, blogging can completely change your business.  Last month, we hit an all-time sales record for us over at our www.maskcarabeautygirl.com site and most of the sales came from blogging.  I even have a blog post over here that shows you some pretty awesome blog statistics and why blogging is a great addition to your business.

So, let’s dive into my 9 most asked blogging questions and get them answered.

Why do I need a blog?

When you are researching a product or topic, where do you go?  If you are like the rest of the world, you hit up Pinterest and Google.  When people are searching for your niche or product, you want to show up on Pinterest and Google so that the right people can find you.  To create pins on Pinterest that link back to your site and product, you must create content on a blog where your pins will originate.

If you want Google to find you, you have to create content on a blog so that you can be found there too. So, if you want people to organically find you when they are searching for things related to your niche or product, you have to create content that will show up on Google and Pinterest.

How does blogging work?

You buy a domain (website name, mine is www.IamMichelleGifford.com.  I had to buy that.) Then you have to choose your system.  I use WordPress because it is easy to use, it has a lot of plugins (plugins are like apps for your blog) and it gives me the freedom to connect with my email marketing software, Ontraport.

Then you have to find a web host.  I use Blue Host (click here for a tutorial on how to set up a blog in 30 minutes or less).

A web host can sound confusing, but it isn’t.  Your blog is going to use up data because you will be posting and storing pictures, documents and posts.  This data has to be stored somewhere.  That is what a web host does.  It is a server (big computer) that stores all of your data.

How much does it cost to keep up a blog?

It costs about $120/year.  Again, I use Bluehost and it is between $3.99-$7.99 a month plus a little extra for security features.

With so many people blogging about your subject, how will you show up on SEO?

The easiest way to stand out in a saturated market is to niche down.  Be very specific about the topic that you want to talk about.  SEO is not a quick fix, I wish it was, but Google loves blogs that post consistently about the same topic.  With our Maskcara Beauty Girl blog, we blogged twice a week for six months and when we hit that six-month mark, we saw a big increase in traffic.  At about six months of creating niche-specific content consistently, Google logs us as a good source for people looking for our content, so we will show up at the top more often now that we are blogging longer.

What should you blog about?

You should blog about the answers to your potential customer’s problems.  When creating content, I always think, what will my ideal audience type in the Google search bar to find the answer to their questions?  That is what I will blog about.  I know that my ideal customer for the Maskcara Beauty Girl site will be looking for things like “What is Maskcara Makeup?” “What is HAC?” “How to buy Maskcara makeup”.  So, I will create a blog topic addressing each of those topics.

With this blog, I am focusing on two clients: my current followers and those who are searching for my type of business building content.  So, I create blog posts that will help both.  With this blog post you are reading, I asked a question to my email list about what they were struggling with and most of these questions in this post came from responses to that email.  Then I took those questions and created this blog post that will focus on answering those questions AND will have SEO in mind so that people looking to start a blog will find me and eventually take my blog course.

How often do I have to blog?

The important thing is to be consistent.  I recommend at least blogging once a week.  Really, try this out for the next six months and see the magic happen.

Why doesn’t my post show up on Google right after I post it?

SEO and Google is a long game and it isn’t automatic.  So, it does take time. Google uses an algorithm.  Google’s spiders crawl the internet looking for content and it takes time and consistency to show up.

This article goes into more depth about the more technical side of not being seen on Google.

“Many SEO firms will tell you that it takes 4 to 6 months to start seeing results. That’s generally accurate, but bear in mind this is when you start seeing results, and SEO results grow over time. Whatever results you’re getting at 6 months should be considerably less than what you’re getting at 12 months.” This is from a Forbes article.  You can read more about it here.  

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  This just means that when someone searches Google for something related to your product, you come up.

How does SEO work?

I loved how Shopify.com explains how SEO works.

“Basically, Google uses a complex mathematical formula called an algorithm to give a score to every website and every search people to do in Google to figure out which website should rank best for what people are looking for. Think of the algorithm like a collection of empty buckets. One bucket gives you a score for the quality of your site, one bucket gives you a score for how many sites link to you, one bucket gives you a score for how people trust you. Your job is to fill up more buckets in the algorithm than any other website. You can affect your search engine ranking by having the highest score in terms of quality of your site, of having the highest score in terms of the authority of your website, of having the highest score in terms of the most trusted store for that search that people are looking for. The good thing is that there are hundreds of buckets, and for every single one of these buckets these scores put together in the algorithm to figure out where you rank is an opportunity for you to fill it up and rank better. So optimizing your site for search results really means getting the highest score in as many of these points as you can.

Now, some buckets are worth more than others, and the three main buckets that you need to be aware of for search rankings are quality, trust, and authority.”

(Read the whole article here.)

 

Ready to blog? Get my free blogging checklist by clicking here. 

Have any more questions?  Let me know in the comments.