Episode 88: Blogging Basics with Award-Winning Blogger Mike Allton

? We are talking with Mike Allton, the award-winning blogger, speaker and author at The Social Media Hat in St. Louis. Mike works with bloggers and businesses to help them leverage every aspect of content marketing. He has tons of knowledge and a website full of resources that you need. Together we talk about everything you need to know about blogging basics. Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want To Miss: How do you come up with new and relevant topics? The key is what NOT to write about. You need to write for a business and not from a personal perspective. If you’re doing a personal blog it’s fine to talk about things such as your dog Spot and what you had for dinner. However, when blogging for your business it needs to need to be useful. The content has to answer questions. Whenever you can keep track of your own questions and those will make the best blogs for your business. Do you need more blogs or better content? If you have genuinely good and evergreen content, you don’t have to blog 5 times a week. If your posts are great for your audience, for example, a list of all the dog parks in your area, you will get hits on that posts for months. And you also hit a target customer, a dog owner, and they may end up using your pet sitting or dog walking services. How much should you post? As a small business owner, you don’t have to have a set schedule. Honestly, most people won’t be sitting waiting for your next post. If you miss a post or only post sporadically it’s okay. Nevertheless, if you post good quality posts often, you will see an increase in business. It won’t go fast, but after several months you will see an impact. Equally important consistent and quality posts do help. How long should blogs be? In general, an average post should be between 750-1250 words. It should introduce a topic, discuss it with bullet points and have a closing. In other words, blogging basics are much just like the five-paragraph format that we learned in school. “Cheater posts” are really short and don’t take that long to write, typically about 250-500 words. They are short, sweet and easy to post. However, they can not be considered the optimal quality content that won’t show up that highly in search results. However, it does help to add to the value of your blog. In contrast is what Mike calls, “Pillar Posts” and they are Google search goal. Additionally, these posts are huge magnets for local search traffic and start at about 1250 words. Furthermore, these posts have a huge amount of content and take quite a while to create, but are well worth it. Show Highlights: The start of Mike’s blogging adventure, he loved writing and using social media. Yet, he struggled with finding the right content to draw in clients, but he was able to figure out exactly what to do. [1:20] You can define blogs by “shelf-life.” Some blog topics will only be relevant for a short amount of time, while others are “evergreen,” meaning their content will be relevant for years. [3:40] Pet sitters and dog walkers have a unique advantage for posts. You can write about “The Best Dog Walking Trails [in your city] and that gives you a huge advantage on your blog content. [8:00] How creating content helps draw business. Specifically, your business will benefit from creating quality posts consistently. While it will take time, but end up drawing traffic, leads and eventually customers to your business. In the same ways, the more you blog quality posts, the faster you will see results. After approximately 50 pieces of content created, that’s when you can see exponential growth.  [11:50] Blogging basics and the anatomy of a blog. Plus, how long should a quality post be?  [16:00] What is a “Pillar Post” and why do you need them on your blog? [20:00] Overall, suggestions for those of you who don’t like to write. First, try and practice writing. As a matter of fact, you may not like only because you think you’re not good at it. It could be that you just need practice it to get better at it. And if you truly do not like to write you can try video! [22:00] Tweetables: [Tweet "“Blogging isn’t something that we can just turn on and start to do...you have to learn, it’s a muscle and you have to exercise it.”"] [Tweet "“The more you blog, the more readers you will get.”"] [Tweet "“Evergreen content: the content that will never grow old.”"] [Tweet "“The content you create, it has to answer questions.”"] Links: Find Mike Allton online at https://www.TheSocialMediaHat.com Downloadable Offer: Free copy of the book, "How To Start A Blog: The Ultimate Guide" to ensure that all your blogging basics are in place and your blog is headed in the right direction. Mike has been working on this book for a little over a year. He wanted to create an initial book to help us with everything we want to know about starting a blog, domains, Wordpress, hosting and everything in between. Get your FREE copy at www.TheSocialMediaHat.com/how-to-start-a-blog Share The Show: Did you enjoy the show? We would love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review! Click this link – Bella In Your Business Click on the ‘Subscribe’ button below the artwork Go to the ‘Ratings and Reviews’ section Click on ‘Write a Review’ Transcript: Bella: This is episode 88 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready, Bella's got your chute. Let's jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta from Jump Consulting, and today I have Mike Allton with us. Mike is an award-winning blogger, speaker, and author of The Social Media Hat in St. Louis. Mike works with bloggers and businesses to help them leverage every aspect of content marketing. Mike, welcome to the show. Mike: Thanks so much, Bella. It is an absolute pleasure to be here with you. Bella: I’m so glad to have you here. I got an introduction to you from Marcus Sheridan at last year’s Social Media Marketing World, and anyone that Marcus introduces me to, I’m like, gotta be pretty cool. And you know what, I’ve been following you for the past year and you are pretty cool. So to all of our listeners, I want you guys to really just start soaking up Mike’s knowledge. His website is incredibly useful and tactical and can really help you on just a very layman’s term. Mike, how did you start this whole Social Media Hat? Mike: It’s funny because I used to have a different business where I was building websites for small businesses and helping them get online. This was many years ago, and even then, there was the idea that you had to create content to help market your own business. So I started to blog for my own business about 11 years ago, and at the time, I found that I really liked to write. I liked to teach people how to use social media, how to blog, and that sort of thing. But it wasn’t helping me get new clients. That content was targeted to people who already had businesses, and I was trying to find people who needed a website—who were starting a business. So I said, okay, this isn’t working, and in 2012 I started The Social Media Hat, mainly as a place where I could write what I wanted and teach what I wanted. I figured I’d just learn how to make money from it later. Bella: So I transferred a lot of the blogs that I’d already written and started blogging a lot. I was writing six to fourteen posts per week. Mike: Well, when you don’t have clients, why not, right? Bella: Wow, I don’t think I ever heard of that—that’s incredible. Mike: I wrote a lot that first year, and as a result, not only did I get a larger audience, but I learned a lot. Blogging isn’t something that we can just turn on and start doing. You’ve got to learn—it’s like any other muscle, right? You’ve got to exercise it. So that’s how I got started, and it’s just grown and snowballed from there. Bella: That’s amazing. How many blogs have you written on The Social Media Hat to date? Mike: That’s a good question. I separate my content in a couple different ways—it’s all just content, right? Blog posts, whatever. A lot of what I used to write was what I call newsjacking, and we can go into that more if you want. Bella: Oh, we totally should talk about that. It’s something every pet sitter and dog walker can do when there’s a pet food recall or a new ordinance in their city. Mike: Perfect example. The thing about newsjacking is most of the time that content has a limited shelf life. At some point, it’s no longer relevant or interesting. So I’ve got hundreds of those, hundreds of blog posts, and hundreds of what I call articles—which are really just more tactical, evergreen resources. Like, how to mention somebody on Facebook or how to add a second Twitter account to your phone. Very specific, tactical things. So all told, I probably have 750 to 1,000 pieces of content. Bella: That’s incredible. You blogged like your life depended on it—because it kind of did, right? Mike: Pretty much. Bella: So how would our listeners come up with new blog post ideas? So many people just hear “you should blog,” and they go write random things. Mike: The first key I tell people is what not to write about. Blogging for a business is different from blogging for yourself. If I’m blogging for fun, I can write about what I had for dinner or the latest trick my dog learned. But as a business, that’s not helpful. The content you create has to answer questions. The deeper down the funnel you can go with those questions, the better. So where do you find them? Two sources—your own questions and your readers’ or clients’ questions. That means you simply have to start paying attention and listening. When I try to figure out how to do something in marketing, I’m always thinking, this could make for a good blog post. For example,