Love your blog like it’s your hot Valentine’s date

Hello February, I’m so glad you’re here! Why? Well, January still feels like the business year hasn’t really started yet, and it also reminds me of winter. February gives us a little hint of spring vibes, plus it’s a shorter month. Did you know there will be exactly 4 weeks of each day of the week in February, which hasn’t happened in over 800 years? Well, it’s also the month for love, and I have something special for the Fuse followers: “Love your blog, Love your tribe.” This month, I’ll be doing a blog series all about how to love your blog, giving it the TLC it deserves and making Google and your tribe fall in love with your posts.

A lot of photographers and creatives who follow me don’t necessarily love blogging or writing, but I’m here to challenge you to look at blogging in a whole new light. Instead of  feeling like your blog is  a burden, you have to love it like it’s a hot date for Valentine’s Day. And by date, I mean a date that actually sticks around and not a one-time thing. You see, I always say, “Let’s make Mr. Google happy…we don’t want a one-night stand with Google,” a.k.a. temporary rankings, or doing something sketchy to temporarily be on page 1 of Google.

We want to establish a long-term relationship with Google, and your blog, my dear creative, can be a great place to achieve just that. Really, Fuse? Yes! Google is looking for content every single day so they can categorize it for search results. This doesn’t mean you have to blog every single day, or even 5 times a week, but if you give your blog some love even if it’s blogging tentavively twice a week, then it can make a huge impact. Your blog is also your voice, so share your voice with your audience and provide value for them.

Prep work. In order for your hot date to go well, you don’t just show up all sloppy, right?

The ladies may buy a new outfit, put on perfume and wear those sexy high heels.  The fellas will look sharp, make a great restaurant reservation and even add a few romantic surprises. So let us prep your blog for success, shall we? Blog check up time! Here are a few things you can check on your blog.

Blogging Categories. Honestly, you shouldn’t have more than 8 categories. If you do, it gets a bit messy. You can have some sub-categories, but try not to have more than 8 main ones. Yes, this will surely vary by industry so designers, crafters sometimes will have more.  Go visit your categories and see if any category has less than 3 blog posts. If you find one, it’s not a category, my friends, unless you decide you want to blog more content on that topic in the future… then by all means go for it. Slay it, or as my friend Carrie and I saw today: Namaslayit. To do this, visit Categories, and there you can see how many categories you have in each blog. Delete the category, and then you will need to reassign those now-uncategorized posts. Watch the video below to see how this is done in WordPress.

Mobile friendliness. This should be on the top of your list, due to Google’s latest algorithm change. Check if your website is mobile friendly by taking the test here. If it’s not, go back to your blog designer or platform and find out how to make it mobile friendly. If you’re a Prophoto5 user, turn on the mobile feature and ask how you can customize it in their group.

Tags. Tags are old-school SEO, so you need to clean up your tags. Your tag should never be your category name, should not be your business name, should not be vendors’ names and should not be every freaking service or product you offer. Sorry, but I have seen that. I suggest not using more than four per blog post and keeping it to general keywords. If you need more help with determining your keywords, then sign up for my free keywords mini course.

Editorial Calendar. What does that even mean? Well, it means do a big brainstorm dump of possible blog content ideas that your audience will love. For me, I like to take myself out on a coffee date and do what I learned on By Regina. I take a stack of notecards, then I turn on the clock for 10 minutes and I write every blog post title idea that comes to mind. Then, I stack these titles under topics/themes. These topics and themes are also great for determining blogging categories. I then add it to my Trello Board for possible blog post titles. I call this the library of ideas. 

So when I go to sit down and blog, I look at my library of ideas and see what I’m in the mood to blog about that day. You can also sort your blog post topics by months and themes. If you missed my Content Plan webinar, you can still catch my Blogging Matters videos here.  It also comes with an excel sheet guide and worksheets to help you create awesome content for your audience in 2017.

***The key is to think of topics your ideal audience cares about, so if your readers are moms, they want ideas for what to do with their kids in your town. If they are brides, they need help planning a wedding. If you don’t know what content they care about, simply ask. If you think blogging is just about your latest photo shoot, design project or your latest artwork product, then you are missing the big picture. Your blog is about your tribe, the people you serve!

So stay tuned for the next post which will be all about looking great for that hot date. Also look for the hashtag on Instagram #loveyourblogtribe  and use the hashtag to share your best blogging tips on share if you have tried one of the tips above.

And if you need further help with blogging tips. Check out these posts.