Like many new things, I believe blogging is something any of you must try first at least once. It’s such a great medium whether be it for personal branding, documentation, sharing of ideas, giving out advice, or unleashing creativity.
Others may have considered professional blogging as an option for a while before acting on it, but for our guest Gill Andrews of this week’s Meet the Bloggers, she was led to this path unintentionally. Her first blog attempt was merely for personal use. Now, she’s able to help others as a web consultant and content creator. Read along to know more about Gill’s story and what led her to a rewarding and successful career.
1.) Please tell us about yourself and how you got into blogging?
Hi there from Germany. I’m Gill, a content creator and a web consultant, and I stumbled into blogging by pure accident.
A few years ago, I started a personal blog with no purpose or direction. But when one of my posts accidentally took off on Reddit, I got to feel the adrenaline of 3000 visitors a day and decided to take this seriously.
I started reading about what makes a blog successful and trying things out on my own website and the websites of my blogger friends. Suddenly, I realized that I enjoyed giving people advice on improving their websites more than just blogging.
After yet another friend hired me to help her, I decided it was time and launched my current website Gillandrews.com.
2.) What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose that niche?
I blog for solopreneurs and small business owners who know their website can do better but don’t know how to make it happen.
They feel stuck because they are overwhelmed by the amount of the information they see online, or because they follow every tip they find but still don’t see the results.
Contrary to the popular advice to pick a niche as narrow as possible, my niche is rather wide. I blog about everything a small business owner who runs her website herself cares about: Web design, user experience, SEO and copywriting.
The reason for that is that the world has enough great web designers, SEO experts and social media consultants. But what the world lacks – what I saw my blogger and business owner friends lacking – is someone who can see the big picture and guide them through this maze.
You can think of me as a family doctor for your website. You come to me with general complaints, like “I don’t get enough clients through my website”. I look at your body (aka website) as a whole and uncover specific problems that I either fix myself (strategy and content creation) or refer you to a specialist (an SEO consultant or a web designer, for example).
3.) How are you currently monetizing your blog traffic?
My website is a typical case of attracting clients through content marketing.
I’m an introvert. I don’t like writing cold emails or (God forbid!) calling strangers on the phone.
But I like writing, sharing my knowledge and talking to people one-on-one. So, I write blog posts that lead my clients to me, impress them with my expertise and let them be the first one to take that awkward step of contacting a stranger.
The emails I usually get started with “Hi Gill. I like your content. I have this problem with my website. Can you help?”. Or they ask straight for a website review – my flagship service.
After I review their website, I often get to consult them on optimizing their website for better user experience or to write new web copy.
So, if you ever had doubts about content marketing, I’m a living proof that it works.
4.) What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started blogging?
When I started my first blog, it was just for fun. There was no pressure of earning money, and I’ve spent the first 2 years educating myself and trying things out. So, when I launched my current website I already had a plan and was lucky to do many things right from the beginning.
One thing I wish I learned sooner, though, is this:
There are things that matter. And there are things that matter only to you. You need to be able to tell them apart to make progress.
For example, creating a successful blog post is much more than just writing and hitting “publish”. It’s a complicated process with many steps, and if you are a one-person business, you won’t be able to do all of them perfectly.
Good news is that you don’t have to do everything perfectly for your efforts to pay off. You just need to do your best with the things that matter.
For example, if you are creating a blog post that is supposed to bring you organic traffic, here are the things that matter and the ones that don’t.
Things that matter:
- Targeting a keyword that fits your content strategy and for what you have a chance to rank
- An enticing headline so that people even consider reading your content
- A killer opening to grab their attention from the very first sentence
- Headings, subheadings and proper formatting to make your post easier to skim and read, and for your content to appear trustworthy
- Unique idea, research, or added value – something that will make reading your post worth people’s time
- Clear call to action with links that work
- Good user experience on mobile devices
- Enticing meta title and meta description that match the searcher’s intent (otherwise, people won’t click on your link in SERP even if your post ranks well).
Things that don’t matter:
- Whether your headings are center-aligned or left-aligned
- Whether your post is 1000 or 4000 words
- Number of images in the post
- Whether your featured image is just good or the best image one could possibly find
- The captions under the images
- Whether it’s the funniest GIF ever (or whether you have a GIF at all)
- Color scheme for social sharing buttons (unless it’s neon-green; then please don’t)
- Whether you have “tweet this” blockquotes, etc.
The same goes for everything you do for your website. If you spend too much time on minor things, you’ll cut the wrong corners and sabotage your own efforts.
5.) What are three blogs that you visit almost daily?
- EnchantingMarketing.com, for ultra-specific advice on writing better and emotional support if I’m having a “bad writing day”. It’s also the only blog I visit to read the comments. Henneke has built a wonderful community around her website, and there are often interesting conversations going on in the comment section.
- ConversionXL.com, for learning about optimizing websites for better user experience and conversion. Peep’s articles are always worth my time, and in the early days I even used to take notes while reading them. If you want to understand how your visitors see and interact with your website, read ConversionXL.
- SearchEngineJournal.com. They tweet a lot, and I live on Twitter. So I end up on their blog at least once a day to catch up with SEO news that I know I can trust.
6.) Can you give us three recommended tools/services that you use with your blogging?
- Buffer, for auto-scheduling my tweets: I love their interface. It must have been designed by content marketers, as it lets you do the things you want to do with ease. I use Buffer in combination with Bulkbuffer, a free online tool that allows you to upload an Excel file with your tweets and put them in the Buffer queue. As I schedule all my tweets for the week at once, this saves a lot of time.
- KWFinder, for keyword research as an affordable alternative to the expensive enterprise tools. I’m happy with the keywords I uncover with the help of KWFinder, as every post I’ve written so far performed in search the way I expected.
- Excel, to do things I need to do without using any additional tools: The more different tools you have, the more distracted you are. If you know your way around Excel, you can save yourself a couple of extra tools, extra bucks and extra hours.
7.) What advice would you have for someone who is just starting with their first blog?
Many things, actually. To name everything will make this article into a book, so here’s one thing that I think is the most important.
First, I’d like you to know that it’s hard. To make your website successful requires planning, lots of work and patience.
In the beginning, there is rarely instant gratification, and you’ll often feel that you’ve just spent 3 days writing your new blog post for no one. You’ll think about giving up at least once a month.
But the good news is that consistently showing up and doing the work pays off.
Here’s how to make it pay off faster:
Make a plan and stick to it for at least 6 months, ignoring anything that may be a distraction.
For example, this could be your plan:
- Define your target audience.
- Answer this question: “If someone has been reading my blog for 2 months, how did it make their life easier?” This would be your blog focus.
- Keeping in mind #1 and #2, do keyword research and select 3 general topics to focus on for the next 6 months.
- Do more keyword research to uncover questions your target audience wants answers for. Pick as many keywords as you can that fit the topics you selected in #3. Organize them in smaller groups related by subtopic. This would be the foundation of your content strategy.
- Start creating blog posts targeting the keywords you uncovered in #4. Make sure to provide value or a unique angle, and not just repeat someone else’s ideas.
- Create an effective lead magnet to grow your list with a dedicated landing page that is optimized for search. In the long run, it will ensure a steady growth of your email list.
- Send out an email newsletter once a week and try to stick to your schedule no matter what. If you don’t have a new blog post to share that week, send your subscribers a smaller tip that you don’t publish on your blog. This will help you earn their loyalty and trust.
- Be serious about one social network and invest time and effort to interact beyond sharing your content. Connect with your peers, as among them you’ll find your first fans who will comment on your blog posts, share your content and link to you from their websites.
- Pitch two guest posts a month.
After 6 months, evaluate your strategy. Make a new plan for the next 6 months. Repeat.
8.) What’s the best advice or tip you’ve discovered about blogging since getting started?
As it’s important to me that every post ranks as high as possible, I found this advice from Andy Crestodina invaluable:
First, you should either aim for your post to rank on page #1, or don’t write it at all.
Second, you have a chance to rank on page #1 for a certain keyword if your domain authority (DA) is between the highest and the lowest DA of the domains that are already ranking for the keyword you are targeting.
9.) If you only had $100 to start a new blog, how would you use it?
You mean after I buy a domain and sign up for an email marketing software?
I would start a pay-per-click campaign to get enough traffic to optimize my lead magnet landing page for conversions.
When you have a page with a lead magnet that ranks in search you get a constant flow of subscribers with no additional effort. The better this page is optimized for conversions, the faster your list will grow.
10.) How can readers of the blog get in touch with you?
You can always get in touch with me through my website GillAndrews.com. I’m also very active on Twitter. I don’t use LinkedIn much, but if this is the network you prefer, you can find me on LinkedIn as well.
I don’t have a Facebook account (just wanted to mention that to show other bloggers who are frustrated with Facebook but don’t dare to quit that it also works without it).