When you’re putting so much effort and time and love into your blog… you kinda wanna get some of that love back, amirite? Whether you want to grow a following or monetize your brilliance – but preferably both! – I’ll show you how to plan your blog posts in a way that will do exactly that!I organize, well – everything! – using Airtable. You can sign up for your free account here.
Because we all learn and absorb things differently, you have 2 choices ::
1) either watch the below video and download your own free copy of the base I use in it; or
2) you can skip the video, follow my written step-by-step instruction.
Oh, and of course, grab that same free base to use in your own blogging.
Choose your adventure, boss, but the material covered will get you the same end-result from the video or written format.
YOUR MESSAGING
Aight, so first thing is first :: you have to know what you’re talking about! What’s your big brand message? What are the topics or points-of-view that your blog stands for? What makes your voice unique and stand-out?
While tedious, being clear about 2-5 messages you spotlight is key to your success. Yeah, it helps you grow more quickly and sets you up to be a “go-to” subject matter expert BUT!… it also makes deciding what to write about hella-easy for you.
Being a creative – while a blessing for the million and one ideas you come up with – feels like a curse for the exact same reason. Clear messaging is, like, the crystal ball to knowing whether your brilliant idea really fits into what you’re aiming to be known for.
FOR YOUR ACTION: OUTLINE YOUR BRAND OR BLOG MESSAGING.
You’ll see that my Blog Content Airtable base has an entire table dedicated to identifying and clarifying your message. Your message will LITERALLY link to every single thing you create. Blog posts, free offers, paid offers, affiliate offers – all of it! But I’ll guide you through how that works in a moment.First, let’s look at ::
YOUR OFFERS
Whether they’re PAID or FREE, whether they’re PRODUCT or SERVICE-based, whether they’re delivered IN-PERSON or DIGITALLY – you have offers. You’re exchanging your offer for either 1) money or 2) contact information (the goal for which is to eventually nurture back to #1).
FOR YOUR ACTION :: LIST ALL OF YOUR OFFERS IN THE BLOG CONTENT AIRTABLE BASE.
Once you have your offers listed, you can categorize what types of offers they are. (i.e. freebie/opt-in resource, service, digital download, etc.)This is where the linking comes in. You then can ask yourself and take note :: DOES EACH ONE OF THESE OFFERS RELATE DIRECTLY TO A MESSAGE I’M PROMOTING?If one of your offers doesn’t directly relate or promote your messaging, it clearly doesn’t fit into your brand. Yes, it may be a great offer and yes, it may even be a popular resource. But unless this offer supports what you’re trying to be known for, it isn’t actually serving you.
FOR YOUR ACTION :: In your Airtable Content base, go through each of your listed offers and link each offer to your messaging.
Then, you can make note of any related links (i.e. sign-up/sales pages, details about cost, etc.). You will also include any images you have to promote this offer. Why bother with documenting all of this in Airtable?
Because having the details related to each of your offers in one place not only creates a POINT-OF-REFERENCE for all of your MARKETING MATERIALS, but it also positions you to see HOW MUCH OF THE CONTENT YOU CREATE IS DESIGNED TO PROMOTE these offers. When people throw around buzz words like “BLOGGING STRATEGY”? This is what it looks like when you break it down :: a big brand message, the offers that promote and support that message, and of course, the blog posts that promote and support the offers that get you paid and increase your online authority!
Using Airtable to establish and maintain that blogging strategy makes your process easy to visualize, simpler to digest and allows you to make better decisions about what gets published.
YOUR BLOG CONTENT
Content comes in many forms and as a blogger, your primary form is likely your blog posts. However, if you have podcasts or you create videos, these are also content. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I’m going to kick the broken record in and say :: every piece of content you create should relate back to 1) your offers and 2) your messaging.No matter how brilliant or useful or ground-breaking your idea is… it does not serve you to create content that you cannot relate back to your offers or your messaging. I mean this quite literally, too! There is no real purpose in publishing anything you cannot directly relate to the foundations you’ve worked so hard to set.This is great because there’s no navel-gazing as to whether an idea is “good” or not; you now only have to assess whether the idea supports YOU!
FOR YOUR ACTION :: Document all of your existing content in the Content Creation table of your Airtable base. Then, relate it all back to 1) your offers and 2) your messaging.
What if you find that a blog post doesn’t promote one of your offers? Do you scrap it? Not necessarily! See how you can make that post relate to your existing offers and edit it accordingly. The “side effect” here is that you’ll be forced into being a better writer because you will always have that North Star to guide your writing. Furthermore, this may even have an impact your Google rankings as this constant reinforcement of your same themes gets favored by the search engine.
As you start connecting and linking your content, you’ll also start to see which messages and offers you’re promoting the most. You will do so by going back to your OFFERS or MESSAGING tabs in Airtable. Because you linked your posts to both, the actual posts will now also appear in those fields as well. Everything you publish is connected!
This will also enable you to see which messages and offers you may not be promoting enough. In fact, you can take this a step further and break down the value of your messages and offers by comparing it to your analytics. For instance, maybe the messages and offers you published the least content around are actually your biggest source traffic, sign-ups or purchases. Having and using this Airtable base positions you to identify and capitalize on these trends.
OTHER CONTENT
If you guest-post or you’ve been featured in other publications, it’s a good idea to keep those on record, too. Yes, you can and will relate these back to your offers and messaging. However, I don’t like wasting my time searching for information.
That’s why I keep those links and images handy for any time you may need to cross-reference them.I personally replicate this same table for other content I produce, too. Videos, for instance, are all linked with easy-to-reference links that I can easily embed into posts (like this one!)
The goal is to make your content work as hard for you as you do creating it.