I’ve been blogging for almost 9 years – it’s actually scary to think it’s been so long! I started ‘Keeping Slim and Getting Stylish’ (cringe) and never looked back. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for blogging – I’ve won Blogger of the Year, been nominated for another award and have had two book deals off the back off my blogging! But over the last 9 years lots of things have changed when it comes to blogging – and if you’re wanting to blog for your coaching business then it can be really helpful to understand how things have changed and how to approach it now.

Your why

The first thing you need to get clear on when it comes to blogging for your coaching business is the ‘why’. What do you hope to achieve with your blog? Of course you can just blog for enjoyment, but if you want to do it to grow your business there’s a lot more involved than just writing a post and hitting publish. So why might you want to start a blog?

Blogging is still a brilliant way to connect with potential clients. You’re able to share helpful information, show them how you can help them and support them to get to know, like and trust you – this is important because people buy from people they know, like and trust. Blogging can also help you build your email list, get more traffic to your website, position you as an expert, create a community and more.

To use blogging to effectively grow your business you need a strategy:

• First of all you need to consider what kind of content is going to appeal to your audience
• Then you need to look at how you’re going to share it.

When it comes to deciding what content to create, think about your business and your core message. What problem or problems are you solving for people? What do you want to be known for? You can then use a tool like Google Keyword Search or Pinterest (just type different things into the search box – new search terms will pop up) to get ideas for blog post titles and create your content from there.

Don’t forget that sometimes the most unplanned, vulnerable and personal blog posts are the ones that people really connect with. Don’t be afraid to share them alongside the more strategically planned ones.

A few things when it comes to writing blog posts:

• Use headings and bullets to break up and organise information
• Always try and use good quality images that are Pinterest appropriate – i.e. include at least one image that can be pinned as a portrait aspect image with the post title on top.
• End your post with some kind of ‘call to action’ – i.e. what action would you like people to take after reading your blog post? Leaving a comment? Signing up for your list?
• Don’t be afraid to include relevant links to other people’s posts and your own within the main content. This can help with Search Engine Optimisation (for what that’s worth – more on that in a sec).
• INCLUDE A CONTENT UPGRADE (optional but awesome) This is the number one thing to include on your post – a content upgrade is what you’ll find linked to above ^ and at the end of this post. It’s basically an invitation for any readers to get even more useful awesome content from you in exchange for their email address and getting them on your list. This can be a super effective way to build your list when you combine this with one of the strategies below.

Now you have your wonderfully written post with fab images and a great title based on keyword searches and you’ve pressed publish so it’s up on your blog – but now what?

Share Strategy

This is where the  sharing strategy bit comes in. If you do nothing at this point not much will happen.

SEO

You might be lucky enough to get some hits via your post ranking on Google – but in my experience working really hard on SEO (search engine optimisation) can be quite a long winded practice. I’d still recommend you install the Yoast plugin if you’re using WordPress as this is fairly easy to use for each post and will help with Google in general.

Pinterest

However the most effective place I’ve found to share your posts for generating traffic to them is Pinterest. It helped me build my list by over 4000 subscribers and in turn generate ££££’s in income. I use a tool called Tailwind (affiliate link) to help me schedule and grow my traffic through Pinterest. I’ll be doing a separate updated training on using Pinterest using this soon so stay tuned!

Facebook Ads

Another great strategy is to boost your post on Facebook. Just share your post over on your Facebook page and use the ‘boost’ function to get more traffic. You do need to pay for this but it can be a nice way to get a little more traffic your way. If you have a Facebook Group share it in there and you can also share it in other Facebook groups that might have promo threads or sharing threads as well.

Social Media

Share your posts on social media. This is an interesting one – with Facebook you don’t get a lot of organic reach when you share on your page (see above about boosting). On Instagram you can only include a link in your bio if you have under 10,000 followers – because they don’t want to send people away from their platform unfortunately. Twitter can be an interesting one depending on your niche as you can include links.

Your email list

Share them to your email list – if you have any existing list be sure to share it with them too! So, to sum up this unintentionally epic blog post:

• Know ‘why’ you’re blogging
• Get clear on your message and the problems you’re solving and craft your content around that
• Do keyword searches to get blog post title ideas
• Write amazing helpful relevant blog posts with pinnable images, links, call to action and a content upgrade
• Don’t be afraid to get personal sometimes
• Have a strategy for getting traffic to them – Pinterest, social, sharing to your list, boosting on Facebook etc

Whew, I hope that’s been helpful! If you’re interested in blogging do grab my free Blog Post Checklist to help you create awesome blog content!

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