Is blogging dead? That's a question that I saw recently
on threads, and I was like, why are people asking this question? Of course, it's
not dead, but, hey. Some of us may be scratching our heads
going, is blogging still a viable way to grow our
business, get more leads and more traffic? And that's why I'm excited
today to talk to KP and Jesse all about blogging and how to
use it as a tool to grow your business. But first, a word
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Riverside. Hi and welcome to episode number
323 of the Mindful Marketing podcast. I'm excited to
have KP and Jesse on the show. KP, Jesse, welcome. Hi.
Thanks so much for having us. Yeah. I'm excited to chat because
I know vlogging's not dead. But it is a question that keeps coming up
time and time again, and I wanna get pros experts like you
on here to to dash those, sneaky little thoughts. But
first, I'm curious about well, first, let's start a little bit with your
background. How did you 2 start your business? What
is the origin story? So I started inkpot back
in 2020. And also this is KP speaking, just so that you guys can recognize
my voice. But especially we both graduated in 2020.
We all know how the world was back then. And honestly, on a whim,
we moved out west, I had trouble getting a job and ended up just
kind of stumbling into starting my own business after interning for an online course
consultant, which was a lot of fun. And she kind of like showed me like,
KP, you should totally just start your own business, like you have enough skills, you
can do this. So I started out actually as a social media
agency, and then kind of shifted into brand and web design,
and then eventually brought blogging into it. I got really, really busy
about 2 years in. And Jesse actually had a full time job at the time.
And I was like, I need somebody to help me out. Like, I can't keep
doing this on my own, either you can come help me or I'm gonna have
to find help somewhere else. And that's sort of where Jesse ended up joining me
and started doing a lot of website development. Okay. So
Jesse, I'm curious as someone coming into this, what's
been your what's your experience been like? It has
been one that's definitely interesting, and not at all where I
thought my life was gonna be, but coming out of college, this is
not what I thought I was gonna be doing. But it's been something that's
been, like, super fulfilling and super fun, and every day is like a new day.
There's new things to do. There's new problems to solve. And, you know, it's
always it's always a new adventure. And I've been able to learn so
many things. Like, I never really thought I'd be doing website development.
I never liked writing throughout my entire, like, career
in school going up, so I was like, I'm never gonna be a blog writer.
Like, are you kidding me? Why would I sit down and write all of these
things? And now I'm like, okay. Blog post, 45 minutes
out, done, like, start to finish. I'm super
confident in it. I know all the ins and outs of it. Like, I've been
able to kinda pick it up. So it's been really fun being able
to constantly pick up new skills and learn new things and kind
of adjust as things change and grow in the market and in the
industries and with Google and all of these these other things that just
keep getting thrown out there. So it's definitely something that I
absolutely love doing, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else now. If
you told me I would be a podcaster, for instance,
like, you know, 10 years, 15 years ago, I'd be like, but what
would I talk about? And now, you know, 320
episodes later, I'm like, I could do another 320. Like, I could do this all
day. So I think sometimes it's like finding the space where you
feel most confident and comfortable, and then it's easy to show up, that way.
Alright. So let's talk about blogging. You said you recently brought this
into the business, into the agency. Why
blogging specifically? Like, what sparked interest in
this content marketing strategy? So I
started my first ever blog back in 2012. I had a book review blog
publishers would send me books to review when I was like 14. It was around
the time of like the Hunger Games craze, if anyone remembers that. And I
used to get really into like, just reviewing books and putting my thoughts out there.
Blogging was very different back then you could pretty much treat it like a diary.
Now it is very different. The whole landscape of blogging has changed a lot.
But essentially, we studied abroad in 2019, I ended up turning that blog into
a travel blog. And then I always have kind of been like running that as
an extra business on the side, because it does kind of bring in some income,
but nowhere near like what the design work does. So I was like, I wonder
if there's a way to combine both of these. So then a few years ago,
I wanna say it was the beginning of 2023, we ended up adding
blogging into our services. And it was basically just kind of like a
testing. At first, I reached out to some of our clients who we had done
design work for. And I was like, Hey, we have been blogging really
well, over at our travel blog, we've been getting around like 70,000 monthly page views.
And I was like, I want to just test and see if this is something
that we can make work for online businesses. And
before long, it turned into like our most popular offering. And we were really starting
to see results for our clients. And it's just been one of those really fun
things where like, we can test things out on our travel blog first, just to
kind of like see how things work and then bring those new ideas over to
our clients. Oh, I love this idea that it came from a
passion project too. And I find that for
business owners, specifically, a lot of our best ideas come from
like, oh, I'm genuinely interested in this thing.
What you you mentioned there was like a turning point, for the success
of the blog for your brand, for Inkpot.
Do you have a defining moment where you were like, oh, this is really
working for us? Tell me that, like, some of the the details of that
story. I think the biggest thing for us
was switching to what we always like to call the keyword
first method. So we had put
out so much stuff on the travel blog, like, a ridiculous
amount of content that just wasn't really doing anything. And,
eventually, we were like, okay. Let's take a look at keywords and
actually look into this. And, basically,
in the SEO world, the second we started doing keywords, obviously, it
takes a while for everything to grow with SEO on Google, so it's not actually
the snap of a finger. But once we started using
keywords, we started to see that growth, and we were seeing people coming in.
We were starting to rank better on Google. We were starting
to see ourselves, you know, very easily ranking on the 1st page or
even getting up to the number one spot on Google with our travel
blogs. And I think and even with, like, Inkpot kind of bringing that
into the the Inkpot blogs, I think that was really the big turning point
of, like, okay. We're not gonna sit here and, essentially,
what feels like waste our time writing all of these posts and putting out
all of this content without actually knowing if
someone is searching for this and if we even have a shot at
ranking for it on Google because some of the things we are going forward too,
I think where we were at the moment, we just had no chance of ranking
for it because everyone else ranking was just had so much more authority
and, you know, all of the kind of factors that go into ranking. They were
just so much higher, and we were like, we shouldn't have done that yet. We
could have, like, waited and built up a little bit and then done it and
had a really good chance of ranking. So I think taking that
kind of keyword first approach and doing the research, taking time to
understand what makes a good keyword, what to look for when you're trying to figure
out if you can rank, if you can't rank, and then bringing that into a
blog post. It's really the turning point of, okay, we're just putting content
out, and now we're putting content out that is actually
getting us something in return. Yes. I love this keyword
first approach. I think it's it is very different,
though, from what blogging was back in the day. Like, back in my day.
So I started blogging in 2004. And it very much was, like, basically
the evolution of LiveJournal. Right? Like, we we were still
posting our little thoughts and, it was very much like a
diary experience. And I
distinctly remember starting to follow specific
bloggers because I would search for specific topics, and then be
like, oh, I want more of this topic, and then I become a super fan
of specific bloggers. One that comes to mind is this getting confidential.
This was like a huge blog back in the I think she's still doing it
now. A huge blog back in the day that I
distinctly remember being like, oh, I'm refreshing her website
to see when new blogs come out. And I feel like
that has changed a lot. And I think this is where the conversation of, like,
blogging is dead has come from. And I keep seeing people say it
on threads. And maybe it's just my algorithm. Mister Al is, like, treating me
nasty. But have you been hearing these rumors these rumors, blogging
is dead? And what are your thoughts when people say this? Oh, my gosh, I
see those threads all the time, too. I don't know where they're coming from. I
don't know who started this rumor, but it is so not true. And our favorite,
like, sort of example of that is last time you were wondering what to make
for dinner, you were looking for a certain recipe, odds are you went to Google
and ended up on somebody's blog to learn how to make that thing
for dinner. So 100% not dead at all. I that's how I
make, like, 90% of my stuff. My husband always teases me because I'm like,
I'm gonna make this for dinner. He's like, haven't you made it before? I'm like,
yeah. I just I need the recipe though to, like, guide me. Otherwise, I'm
clueless on what's to happen next. But I think it's a frustrating
conversation because as marketers,
I can see through it. I know that the person saying blogging is dead
is then gonna be like, and here's what you should do by my thing.
Right? I can't be alone in this. Right? Do y'all see this too?
No. Absolutely. I feel like we see it all the time. And a
lot of the times, it can end up being, like, buy this instead,
but it's a very short term marketing thing that might get you
quick results in the second, but it's not gonna do
as much for you long term, and you're gonna be constantly involved with
it and having to, like, show up every day or put a lot of,
like, here and, like, constantly working and working and working and working and, like,
burning yourself out doing it. Whereas blogging, you can take that
same effort that you put in at the beginning, write the blog post, make sure
it's optimized, make sure you're actually targeting keywords, and that's gonna
continue to grow and kind of help you and sustain
over the course of the next few years. I think also the
waiting period is what gets a lot of people of like, you're not gonna post
a blog post and instantly have it rank. Obviously, once you get to a
really high point, that can totally happen, and you can post something that it can
start to rank instantly. I know even on our travel blogs, we started to see
you know, we'd post something new, and within a week or so, it would
be, you know, the 2nd page of Google, 1st page of Google. So, obviously, you
know, the more authority you have on Google, the likely more likely
you are to rank faster. But I think sometimes they're like, well, it doesn't
work because a week later, 2 weeks later, you're still not
seeing any results. You're not seeing any traffic. But then if you look
back at that, you know, 6 months later, you're like, wow. I'm
seeing constant traffic from Google now. I'm getting inquiries coming in from this blog
post. You know? I'm seeing people talk to me about this and mention
it and, you know, say things about it. So I think sometimes the
long term part of it, I feel like, is what people kinda get stuck
on and not being able to take a step back and be like, okay. This
is gonna take a while. I'm gonna have faith in it. I'm gonna have confidence
in it. I know what I'm doing. And once I'm, you know, consistent with it
and I'm giving it its chance, it's gonna start working out for me.
Okay. Yes. I wanna dive deeper into this concept of, like, what
makes a good blog, how do we get traffic, and then how do we convert
that traffic? Because I think it it is very different from
the the good old days of, like, word vomiting your thoughts.
And especially as a business owner, it definitely has to be strategic. Right? We
don't like, we don't wanna put all of our time and energy into something for
our business and not have it actually bring us
business. Right? There's difference between, like, a just for fun project and, like,
we're trying to make money here. So let's start at the beginning. What's the
process like for creating content that not only brings in
traffic, but also converts readers into leads?
So definitely keyword first. Always, like, do
not waste your time writing anything without looking up keywords because
our kind of philosophy behind it is that's what people
are searching on Google. That's what Google is telling you people are searching. So why
are you gonna ignore Google, who's the one that's going to basically decide
if you're gonna rank or not? But you can also think that something
is a keyword, and it's either completely wrong, no one's searching that at
all, or literally flipping the way you say it can make the
difference between, you know, no one's seeing it and everyone's seeing it. So one of
our favorite examples is if you look up the searches
between, like, HoneyBook versus Dubsado and Dubsado versus
HoneyBook, it is the same exact topic. There is nothing different about that
topic. You are comparing the 2 of them, but they have significantly
different search terms and or search volume. So
why would you not I mean, obviously, our advice, we put both of them in
the post, make sure you have it both ways. But if you stick to HoneyBook
versus Dubsado for the entire post, you never say Dubsado versus HoneyBook.
You might not hit the people looking for that keyword. So
always do research first. And then we also like to
suggest having basically content series. So
similar to what you would maybe do on, you know, TikTok or Instagram where
you're kinda talking about the same topic over and over and over
again, you wanna do the same thing on your blog because what that will
do is it will give people a route to continue
looking on your blog. It'll give them additional posts to look at that are related
to the topic. It's gonna give them different avenues to stay on your site,
but it's also gonna position you as the expert, and Google
loves it when they're like, okay. You know what you're talking about here. You
have, you know, 15 posts on this same exact topic.
So, obviously, you're an expert in this area, and we feel confident,
you know, putting your stuff up in the rankings because you know what you're talking
about, and people are staying on the content. They're enjoying it. They're, you know, taking
it in. So I think we always like to kinda think about what
are, you know, the main pieces of your business or the main things that you
wanna promote. Like, we have a lot of series on, like, blogging and, like,
basically, everything you could wanna know about blogging. We have a lot on brand
design and all of the ins and outs of brand design, same thing with website
design. So kind of breaking things
down into smaller questions. I know we get a lot of times like,
well, I'm gonna run out of topics if I, like, do that. You will
never run out of blog topics. Like, it is almost impossible
to run out of topics to blog about. And so just
taking that and kind of breaking it down, thinking about questions that you get asked
every single day by your clients or your customers, odds
are they're not the only people asking those questions and other
people on Google are gonna be asking that, you know, finding ways to
highlight different projects that you've been doing or anything like that. That's that's
a great place to start, and it's gonna build up these series and these
pillars that are gonna make you feel like an expert to Google and
to your readers, and it's gonna give them more content to take
in because we want that, like, oh, I wanna, like, see what's next and, like,
click more and, like, see more, and that's gonna keep them on their site. It's
gonna keep them engaged with you, and it's gonna keep you kind of
top of mind when they're thinking about whatever it is that you're you're writing about.
They're gonna be like, oh, I got all this great information over here. Like, let
me go back over here and look at this and maybe, you know, book their
services or buy their product or whatever it might be. Oh, this
is so good. Like, I'm over here already thinking about a series that I could
do because I just launched this threads workshop, and I was like, I should probably,
like, start blogging about threads, maybe. You've inspired
me today. I'm curious. You mentioned, just like a follow-up question. You
mentioned, doing keyword research. Is there a particular tool that you
recommend for that? We love key search. That's what
we use. I think it's, like, 15 or $17 a month, something
like that. That's our favorite one. The other
one that, you can use that we would suggest is Ubersuggest. That
one, they have a free version. You only get 5 searches a day, so you
gotta kind of I think it's 3 or 5. So you gotta kinda, like, do
a little thinking and make sure you're not wasting all your all your searches if
you're if you're staying on it for free, but key search is definitely our favorite.
You get a ton of information on there that you can use to kinda figure
out what you wanna do to rank and if there's anything you need to add
in. You also see everyone else who's ranking so you can make sure that,
like, what you're putting out is, content wise, the same
answering the same question. You're not putting something out there and be like, oh, that's
not actually what people are searching for when they search that question. Like, I just
did something completely different. So that's definitely our our go
to. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Love those. We'll put those links in
the show notes. Okay. So next question is all about
balance, and I used to work for a,
I was an intern at a marketing agency. This was
in 2020 12, I wanna
say. So, like, we would we did local,
SEO. Keyword stuff, every page. That was a
strategy in 2012. Right? It was like, I lived in Atlanta. Right? So it's
like listing every single city, town,
suburb of Atlanta. And the
project I was working on specifically for was like a water damage
company. So it was like every single keyword that someone could possibly
think of for water damage in Atlanta. And that
was, like, my entry point into marketing. And that strategy
is so it's, like, so old. But I think there's,
there's a temptation sometimes to, like, go, oh, I'm gonna put literally as
many keywords as possible. So how do we balance between, like,
optimizing for search, but then also writing something valuable
that people wanna read? So our best advice, especially when it
comes to working on your posts in particular, and like making sure they're actually
optimized, is honestly treat it like you would like your high school
English essays. So literally make an entire outline. Do your
keyword research while you're making that outline and just like pop the different keywords in
the spots where you think you'll use them before you even write. So then as
you're writing, you can make sure you're not keyword stuffing and try not to say
the keyword more than the times that you put it in there. Honestly, you always
wanna make sure you're writing people first. I think there's been a huge shift over
the last few years of Google really preferring that, you know, human first written
content, especially with the rise of AI and everything like that, like it can tell
when your keyword stuffing, it can tell when you're being too robotic. So that's definitely
something that you wanna pay attention to. If you're using the keyword more than
once every 500 ish words, I would say you are probably
starting to near the side of keyword stuffing. It's totally okay to use like different
variations like Jesse was saying, you know, HoneyBook versus Dubsado, and then
Dubsado versus HoneyBook, like, that's totally okay. But you don't wanna be saying, you know,
HoneyBook versus Dubsado in every other sentence, because then people are gonna be like, what
the heck is this person doing? Right. I've
definitely read articles like that where I'm I don't even understand this
one because it's just a bunch of the same words over and over again. So,
yeah, I love this human first approach. I feel like, honestly, all of
marketing is this way. Right? It's the human on the other side
of the screen is the one gonna be making the decision. So we kinda gotta
keep that in mind and also be strategic about it, which I
love. So besides SEO, what are some of the ways that you promote
the blog to increase traffic to the blog? So
we are major fans of repurposing
everything. So taking your blog, if you have an email list,
getting it out to your email list, it can literally be as
simple as, you know, every time you have one, you have a email template that
you use that you either give, like, the main points of the blog or just
like, hey. A new blog post is up. Put it out there. On
social media, anything like Instagram, if it's an
educational type post, almost doing like an Instagram carousel with
just the main points of the post is great. It gets people kind of
that, like, first little taste of it, and then it's as easy as just being
like, if you wanna learn more about this or see everything, like, click the
link in my bio to go read this week's post or whatever, it
might be. Threads. I know threads is coming up. Literally
copying and pasting, like, parts of the blog post on threads. I know we've started
to do that a little bit, and it starts conversations. It gets people talking. It
gets people to your site to kinda learn more and read more.
We also have started using Pinterest more. So
putting things on Pinterest using, we
have created some, like, basically templates in Canva that we can
kinda swap out to promote each blog post. And so having it out
there with, you know, the keywords, some information about
it in Pinterest and putting it out there can start to drive more traffic
to your site and kind of hit. We kinda wanna think about everyone's gonna
be using these platforms differently. Not everyone is gonna be using every single one.
So the people on your email list are gonna be different than the people who
follow you on Instagram versus threads versus TikTok versus people finding
you on Pinterest. So kind of spreading it out and, like, putting
it out there in different forms on every platform
that you have can just kind of expand that reach so
that you're not just completely missing an entire
subset of your audience or of people who might be
searching for it who aren't in your audience yet. If you
do use, like, TikTok or even YouTube shorts
or anything like that, literally taking pieces
of the blog post and just, like, face to
camera, saying it out loud, talking about it, and then, you know,
being like, if you wanna learn more, like, go here.
So that's kind of a a great way to do it. And, also, these all
of these social media things can start to get you traffic to the post a
little quicker while you wait
for, you know, the SEO to kind of take effect and Google to kinda pick
it up and it to start rank. So it's a great way to get eyes
on it. The more eyes you get on it and the more Google sees people,
like, constantly going to it too, it's gonna just boost your authority and Google might
be like, okay. This is obviously something people want and, like
and it's something that can be trusted. So, you know, we're more confident ranking
it higher knowing that it's gonna be good information. So all
of those kinda can work together, but, like, it takes no
effort at all to take pieces of it and just copy and paste it or
say it in front of a camera or, you know, reword it slightly and put
it out on all of these different places. And I know sometimes we've had
people be like, well, yeah, but what if people are seeing it, like, 7 different
places? They're gonna get bored of my content and if they're constantly seeing the same
thing. And my philosophy with that is if they're seeing it
on your blog and Instagram and TikTok and your email list,
like, they're obviously a fan of yours, and they're not gonna be mad that you're
seeing they're seeing your face pop up or they're seeing your content. So
it's not gonna affect you. Yeah. The super fans. I love that too because I'm
I love repurposing. K? Like, if we work hard on this blog post,
we're gonna share it out as much as possible because we want everyone to see
it. And sometimes people see it once and they go, oh, yeah. I need
to read that. And then, you know, life happens and they're suddenly on a
different app or scrolling somewhere else or, like, chasing after their dog. And then they
need to see it again to be reminded. Oh, yeah. I meant to read this
blog post. Let me go read it. And so I love repurposing and
the big brands do it too, so we can do it as well. But you
mentioned this kind of, like, momentum that builds up. Right? We share
it on social, we get the initial traffic, and then Google picks it up. So
let's say all of that's happening and we're seeing the page views go up,
how do we keep that going, once the post is
published? So I think one of the biggest things is that
it's not going to be just that singular post. So, like, it's
the same thing as, you know, one of your TikTok videos being picked up.
That can be great, but it's not gonna mean that your whole
following is gonna change overnight. You're gonna you know, all of your
videos are gonna be super successful and, like, you don't have to put any effort
into anything, and they're all just gonna, like, skyrocket immediately. So
part of it is going to be constantly putting out
more content, new content that is valuable content.
The more Google sees it, the more they're gonna trust you, see you as an
authority. The more even, like, your regular website pages
can start to rank. So it's not just people getting to your blog, it's
people also getting to the other pages on your website, which is great. But when
it comes to that specific post too, one of the other things that we've seen
is going back to it and making sure that it stays
updated. So, especially, if we're looking at anything
that is time relevant, anything that has to do with
technology, anything that has to do with, like, buying
practices that might be changing over time, all of those
things. You know, we can look at threads wasn't around, what, like,
last year, but now it is, and that's a huge thing. So we
wanna look at what we're actually putting
out, making sure that the content is still relevant to whoever's gonna be landing on
it today, because the last thing that we wanna do and what can actually start
to hurt you is if you put something out, you never touch it. Someone gets
to the post a year, year and a half later, and they're like, this is
all completely useless. Like, this doesn't even exist anymore. There's something that's
totally different. There's an entirely different way to do this
now. So making sure that we're going back to the content, we're updating
it, we're adding anything new that comes
in, We're adding any new personal
experiences or takes or anything like
that. Google loves when you're like, I'm the expert at this. Here's
why. Here's, you know, what I've seen work. Here's what I've
seen hasn't worked. Here's why I love doing this in a way that's
still focused on informing the reader because we never wanna make our blog posts all
about us or all about our clients. We want them to be informational,
but making sure that they they stay
updated and you're still consistently putting out content
throughout the duration of, you know, hopefully, the rest of your business. We would
never suggest stop, like, just completely stop blogging. So, yeah, just
keep keep putting content out and Google will continue to to see you as
someone who is putting out trusted information. My first thought when you're talking
about this is, like, yes, I understand that this is important, and
it sounds like a lot of work. Like, I don't know if it's just, like,
the season of life that I'm in. But as soon as you said that, I
was like, oh, man. I can already think of, like, 3 or 4 blog posts
that I need to go and update now. And it sounds
like a lot of work. Plus, I have this new thread series that we've just,
determined I need to write. So with all of that in mind, how I'm
kinda skipping around a little bit in my questions. But how do we stay
consistent with blogging and with especially updating the
blogs as you mentioned? So for updating the blogs, we actually recommend
creating, like, your own sort of, like, spreadsheet on the back end so that you'll
always know, like, when you publish posts, when they're, like, due to be updated. So
we actually do this in Notion. We, like, love Notion. We use it for everything.
But we just basically, every time we hit publish, it's just, like, kind of in
our post publish process to go in there, add it in. We, like, categorize it
and everything just so that we can have really cool views and kind of, like,
sort things if needed, like, on the back end. And in there, we'll just kind
of, like, put, like, a preliminary date for when we think that we should go
and check it just so that we are kind of, like, keeping it top of
mind. Do we always check the post to make sure they're updated? Now we're really
busy with a lot of things. It's totally okay. If it's like, you know, a
little bit longer than you planned on going looking at it. But just to make
sure you are looking at them, you know, every once in a while just to
make sure that they are working well. And if you really want to kind of
decide if it's worth even looking at, if it's a post that's bringing a lot
of traffic, then it's probably a little bit more worth looking at just to keep
it updated than one that may be is like getting one page view or less
like every month or something like that. So definitely trying to have like some sort
of back end system will help a lot with that. Yeah. Okay. You
mentioned traffic. That was gonna be my next question about, like,
how do we tell if a blog post is working? Like, what are some
of the metrics that you're looking at? How are you looking at these? Are you
using Google Analytics? Like, I wanna know all the details. So,
yes, if you do not have Google Analytics and Google Search
Console set up, stop what you're doing right now and go set them
up. It literally takes, like, 5 minutes. They're free, super easy,
but it gives you so much information and
details that can help you figure out what's working, what's not working, what's
ranking, what's pulling in traffic, everything like that. So
Google Analytics will give you an insane amount of
information that can feel very overwhelming at times because you're like, I
don't even know what all of this stuff means. Like, this is very overwhelming.
One of the biggest things that we look at there is just your
views. We kinda look at it over the past 30 days. So for our,
monthly blogging clients, we'll track their analytics and kind of look at it over the
past 30 days and see how it's growing as they start to get, you
know, 4 or 5, 6 months into this when we start to kinda see those
SEO metrics take off. So making sure that you're actually
getting views and kind of seeing that grow
month over month. Google search console is really great
because it will give you your traffic specifically from
Google search. So analytics will show you traffic from everywhere.
It'll show you how many you know, you can look at how many page views
a certain page or post on your site got, but that will be from
every single source. So any links that you've sent out there, Pinterest, social media,
Google, all of that. Google Search Console is going to
be specifically the Google search page. So that
gives you really valuable insight into, okay, how many
people are actually clicking on my post from Google?
Is this post working? Is this something that's catching people's eyes?
That's another thing. We wanna make sure that, like, our titles, our meta descriptions
aren't super boring or plain because if you think about your own
habits on Google, if you see a really boring title and
a really great title right next to each other, you're gonna click on that really
great title. So seeing what posts are are kinda getting clicked
on, which ones are performing really well, this is where kind of looking
at those content series can come in. If you're like, wow. All of
my posts about threads are doing really well. Maybe I should, you know,
lean into that a little bit and start doing more of these posts on
threads so that I can, you know, keep this traffic rolling
in, answer more questions that people are having, all of that.
And similarly, if things aren't performing as well, you can kinda look at it and
be like, okay. Can I take a different approach to the next blog
post that I write on this? Is there something different that I can say
or a different way I can say it to maybe see if that changes
the, you know, course of who's actually clicking on it, who's who's coming to the
post, and see if that affects the traffic in any way. So
both of those, like, 100%, do not
skip out on on adding those in. And if you are
a service based provider who is, you know,
having people inquire with you on a contact form or anything like that, having a
question that just says, where did you find me? And including, like,
Google, SEO, blog, one of those all of those with,
like, slashes in between, whatever, that's a great way to
track that as well because sometimes we don't even realize that the people
coming in are actually finding us from Google, and we're just
completely missing out on being like, oh, wow. This is actually working because
we're not asking the question. So asking that, like, very
simple question can also give you kind of a little, like,
confidence and the little push you need to be like, okay. We can we
can definitely keep doing this. This is definitely working. Our clients always
get super excited, and we'll message us and be like, I just had another person
come in and say that they found me off this blog post. Like, this is
so exciting. So it's definitely something that that makes
blogging feel more worth it, because you see that, like, actual
conversion of they landed on my blog post, they inquired with
me. So definitely something we don't suggest skipping out on with
that as well. Yes. Those little when people fill out the form and they're
like, how did you find me? I'm always pleasantly surprised. Like, I know I
shouldn't be, but I'm like, it's working. You know? Like, I
love seeing people, like, I found you on Instagram or I googled you
or, you know, my friend told me about whatever it is, I'm always like, yes.
So I love that option too to, like, prompt people to say, how
did you find me so that you could know that it's working. I love that.
So speaking of what's working, what's not, has there
ever been a time where something you tried with blogging, a strategy
that you tried, didn't work as expected? And tell me about it. So one
thing I will say, we tried this internally on our travel blog.
We have never tried it on Inkplots blog or any
of our clients' blogs. But when AI first came out,
it, like, kind of exploded in the travel blogging
side of things, like, almost a year before it started
to kinda really pick up in the business world. And so we tried
writing just like having AI write a post
and just putting it out there to see what happened, and
it did not work. It was it was not great, like, copying and pasting
a post from chat TBT or I think at that point, we
were using Jasper. Any of these AI tools,
just copying and pasting, it's never gonna work. Google
is getting better about picking out what's AI and what's not, and
people are getting better at picking out what's AI and what's not. And that's
really the kind of big point of
that is we want to make sure that people aren't like, this was written by
AI or a robot. And are there even any real thoughts in here?
So I will say like, we even tried to optimize it with SEO when we
like, we were like, add in keyword. No, it didn't work. It's
never something we've tried on inkpot or our clients blogs, because they're like, this did
not work on on this travel blog and, like, that's kind of our little
guinea pig tester. So I would say
avoid just having AI write an
entire blog post for you. It is something
that if you are struggling coming up with ideas
or figuring out, you know, sometimes it'll help if you're
just like, I'm really stuck, like, writing this introduction, having it help
you kind of come up with ideas or formulate, you know, what you can say
or anything like that. That can be, you know, helpful, especially as
you're first starting out when you're like, I haven't written anything in years. And now
I need to sit down and write, like, a 1,000 word blog post. Like, this
feels super overwhelming. But, definitely,
you wanna make sure that everything is your own
words, your own content, your own thoughts. You
have to remember that if you just are like, write me a blog post, it
is gonna pull information from across the Internet,
which means it's gonna pull stuff from other people's content. You're
not getting your real thoughts in there. It might be, you know, some
things that you would say anyway, but you wanna make sure that it's all your
thoughts, your ideas, making sure that you're putting your own
personal experience in there. That's what's gonna rank. That's what people are gonna
connect with, and that's what's gonna keep them kind
of sticking on your blog, sticking on your website, everything like
that. But try and avoid using it to write the whole post. Repurposing,
it can be, like, amazing. It can help you repurpose content
so quickly because you can just be like, here is the blog post that
I wrote, take this information and, like, shorten it into
an Instagram carousel, caption or anything like that. Then it's
taking your own words, your own content, and just shortening it. That's kind of a
completely different thing. But starting from scratch, it did not work out. Yeah.
I'm glad you mentioned AI because I do feel like and I talk about this
all the time. It's the perception of AI that gets people
excited. There's a perceived value in that. You know, I can just
say, AI, chat GPT, write a blog post on,
like, how to use threads for business, and it's just gonna, like,
regurgitate what's already out there. And I already know the way that I do
it is different than, you know, what's probably out there. And so
I wouldn't do it that way, but I do love using it to be
like, here are my thoughts on this blog post. What are
some ways I can use this keyword in a title? And I
almost never use what it gives me, but I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This
is a good idea. Let me run with this one and, like, take it farther.
So I love using it as more of like a like a thought partner versus,
write me an entire blog post because I'm so scared for the day
when, like, we Google something and it's just all, like, regurgitated
AI BS. Like, I really hope we never go there. Like, I love the
personal stories. I love the insights, the anecdotes,
the analogies that, like, AI just doesn't have that.
So, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned it because I'm so passionate about, like, please don't
copy and paste from chat GPT. We can tell.
Oh my gosh. Okay. So, final
question. How do you see blogging evolving
over the next few years, especially considering this
conversation of AI? And I'll also add in, I've been seeing people
say lately that, ChatGPT has
been recommending them as, like, you
know, for services, which feels like it could be competitive
to SEO. Or is there a way to optimize AI? Maybe that's another
conversation. But how do you see blogging evolving over the
next few years? I think the biggest thing with the
rise of AI, we are going to see, funnily enough,
a shift back into human
focus, human first content. And I
think it's been really cool. People have had a lot of fun, like, looking
at it, playing around with it, you know, seeing the results pull up on
Google, anything like that. But I think people are realizing
that they really like the human to human connection,
the stories and unique angles that people
take. Like you said, if everyone's just saying the same exact thing, that's not really
helpful to anyone. Like, we're not getting any thoughts out there. We're not getting any
new ideas. So I think it's
it's gonna shift back to, no. I want people to say something
new. I want I want those hot takes. I want someone to
connect with me. I don't want something to sound super robotic. Like, I
want to hear someone's personality in their writing. I don't
want something to sound super corporate. I wanna get to know you and
your content and your ideas and what you do through your blog
post, and I think those are the ones we're gonna see people gravitating towards.
And, eventually, I feel like Google is gonna have to be like, okay. These are
the ones we're gonna rank because these are the ones that people are clicking on.
This is the content that, you know, the general public
wants. And I know for a while we kinda saw this a
little bit for a while. I don't know if anyone noticed, but, like, Reddit started
showing up at the top of rankings in Google. And this was, like,
a huge thing that Google did, has done, like, big updates over
the past year. And Reddit started popping up to the top. Even if you
didn't specifically search, like, Reddit, you'd ask a question and all of these different Reddit
threads would come up. And part of it is that it's that
actual, like, human people saying their opinions and being
like, this is my experience. This is I what I think. Here's my
opinion on it. So I think we're gonna continue to see that
people are more and more lenient into, like, no. I wanna hear unique opinions. I
don't wanna hear something that I can go into chat GPT myself
and say, hey. How do I write a blog post? It's gonna give me
information. I wanna know your secrets, your tips, your
hot takes, and that's the information that I'm gonna consume. Yes.
I love I mean, honestly, that's why I love Reddit too. It's like, I
don't want, like, a generic piece of advice. I wanna,
like, hear a story about someone else's experience.
And, also, it feels less like less like someone's trying to sell
you something when it's when it's a personal experience. Right? I think this just
goes for anything. Would you, you know, buy something directly from a
billboard, or would you just ask your friend, like, hey. What hairstylist do you
use? You know? And so I feel like there is something to that, like,
casualness and personal experience that really can can
make the difference. So I'm excited about the future of blogging. I love the diary
blogs, by the way. I love being nosy. Give give it give it
all to me. I love it. So I'm really excited about that. Okay. So you
have a freebie. For those people who are listening, who are like, yes, I'm here
for blogging. Where do I start? You have, free blog post ideas.
Tell us about it. So this is a 123
blog post ideas for creatives to kinda get you started, get the
juices flowing. I know that's normally the part that, you know,
we've seen our own clients. They're like, this is great, but I just don't know
where to start. I don't know what to write on. I don't know what people
wanna see. So this is kind of your way to be like, okay. Look at
all of these topics that you can write about. Like, people are looking for this
stuff. Take this, put your own spins on it, kind of apply it to your
own industries, and and take the content however you know, whatever direction
you wanna go in it. But it's really a way to get the ball rolling
and get you writing because when it comes down to it, the sooner you
start writing and publishing posts, the sooner it can get picked up by Google, the
sooner it can start ranking. So we're always big advocates of just,
like, get started, get writing. It's gonna feel
awkward at first, but it'll get more and more comfortable. You'll get faster and
faster at writing content. And at the end of the day, this is stuff that
you're probably talking about on a daily basis. This is services
that you provide on a daily basis, things that you're doing on a daily
basis. So you're just writing about things that you're an
expert on. It's gonna take you no time at all. You already know the answers
to all the questions. You're just writing it down on a page. So this will
get you going, get you started, give you ideas so you can kinda run with
it, and finally start blogging consistently. Yes.
Okay. Y'all grab this link. I'm putting it in the show notes right now, onlinerea.com/
323. Jesse, KP, thank you so much for
being on the podcast today. Thanks so much for having us. Yes. And thank you,
dear listener. Before you go, I do have to tell you, I am speaking at
the High End Wedding Summit, which is hosted
by Jesse and KB of Inkpot Creative. If you are
a wedding photographer, this event is for you specifically
if you wanna break into the luxury market. So join us
for the high end wedding summit to learn all about how to hone in
your branding, market your services, and master your
back end systems to attract more high end wedding clients.
And I am doing a special session all about
how to use the power of video to do so. Even
if you're not a videographer actually, especially if you're not a videographer,
this session is for you. And the best part about this
event is that it's completely free. I'll put that link in the show notes as
well. And as always, if you're listening to this podcast, make sure you give us
a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Helps keep us
in the top 100 marketing podcasts, and that's all because of your
support. I'll be back at you soon with another episode. Next
week, we're talking all about podcast pitching, so stay tuned
for that. I'll see you then. Bye.