Written content and how long should my blog be?

Written content and how long should my blog be?

When you think about creating written content, are you like me? Do you feel like writing is a major challenge? Or are you a natural writer?

If you aren’t clear on “what is content”, you can read my other blog about that here.

Today I want to help set you free in regards to sharing your brilliance through written content.

Many clients ask me “how long should my blog be?” and I get the feeling that they don’t really like my answer.

I get the feeling that people need a container or they want to be told or they are just awesome and they want to do the best thing. They want to be wise and take advice from someone who really knows what they’re talking about to make the most of their time and energy and get it right. 

The thing is: this is your creative expression. 

Sharing content is part of your expansive, human, creative expression and what I would really like to offer you is to experience freedom of creative expression in your written content and marketing. 

I would also like to offer you a couple of concrete ideas and suggestions, practical ideas that I have used to help me with my writing. 

I have not spent much time practicing writing. 

When I was younger I was really great at maths so I didn’t really Focus much on my writing because I found it challenging whereas maths was naturally easy. I’m a bit lazy sometimes so I would just naturally gravitate to what was easy and shy away from what was hard. 

Now that I’m a big grown-up girl, I am up for the challenge of writing and I’m almost enjoying the practice haha.  

A few things have been very helpful for me in creating written content. 

Don’t get me wrong, I can write. 

I did a commerce degree and I wrote long essays and reports in the academic style of writing. Learning how to write for my own marketing and business has taken me a long time. It hasn’t felt natural. It hasn’t felt easy. I have actually shied away from writing & found that I can create video fairly easily. So my content has rested heavily on video until last year or so. 

Even now when I sit down to write and I look at a blank piece of paper I semi seize-up and freak out. 

So: how to write content and how long should your blog be.

Let’s do it the other way.

First of all let’s look at some super famous, semi famous and not so famous (although they should be) bloggers. Sometimes looking at other people’s writing can be inspiring and sometimes it can be intimidating. So in this process let’s try not to get bogged down in comparison or worry about your own style. 

What I’m hoping to share here is really just freedom. I’m hoping that you will see that the written word in marketing land has a great deal of variation, personal freedom of expression and options.

Example blogs 

https://seths.blog/ 

Seth’s Blog

this is Seth Godin blog. He is pretty super famous. What I love about his blog is he right every single day. personally I think back to major accomplishment because I don’t find writing everyday easy. The other thing I love about this blog is the variation in length. In my mind this blog is a beautiful example of how free you can be with your writing. You don’t need to fit into any container around how many words you write for your blog. I hope this blog sets you free in terms of length.

https://corbettbarr.com/whats-wrong-with-social-media/ 

Corbett Barr’s blog

 What I love about Corbett’s website is the intentional minimalism. it is such a strong contrast to most of current marketing and online media. I have a whole video about his web site which you can view here. I would say that corbett’s blog is an example of a more classic blog style with longer blogs. He has no focus on SEO or images to make it sparkly and spiffy. He is just keeping the focus on what he has written and he obviously likes writing. I hope that this example shows you that you can just focus on your message and don’t worry about lots of bells and whistles if all those things don’t come naturally to you. if you love to write you can just write.

https://leoniedawson.com/blog/ 

Leonie Dawson’s blog

 Leonie Dawson is a creative Powerhouse. She does very nicely in her business and doesn’t really care about fitting into any boxes. I find that so inspiring. Leonies blogs very greatly in length and instructure. She doesn’t try to apply any rules to her blogs and she really just creates whatever she wants and publishes it as often as she wants. Unlike set she doesn’t blog every day and unlike Corbett she doesn’t keep it simple and basic. She sprinkles it up with fun images personal anecdotes and other engaging content.  I hope this blog sets you free in terms of how personal you can be in your blog and writing. 

https://melaniejwhite.com/podcast/ 

Melanie White’s blog

 This blog is by the brilliance white. My team and I help Melanie to deliver her blog. She creates a podcast and then we transcribe it, lightly edited and turn it into a blog post. this method can also be applied to video content and is perfect for people like me or other people who just aren’t really in love with writing.  I love to use rev for transcription and some people love to use otter for transcription. There are loads of options for transcribing. I actually wrote this blog using a Google doc and the tool called voice typing. There are so many options for getting written content created and they don’t necessarily involve typing on a keyboard or writing on paper. I hope this blog shows you how you can use audio or video content to create writing and skip writing all together. 

Practical tips

Whenever I sit down to write, I look at the blank page and I seize up.
But I have been managing to write blogs, and social media captions and emails and sales pages. Now, I’m going to share my most recent writing success tips. I hope they are helpful. 

Just write anything.

I get over perfectionism and worry by just getting started. I don’t have high expectations of anything awesome coming out. I just write anything, without judgement and expectation. I have been doing some free-association writing, like journaling, in my personal life and I think this is helping. 

Talking it out.

I sit there and talk it out. Even for parts of this blog, I spoke it out and typed what I was saying. This helps me to write in a way that sounds most naturally like me. Plus, if it doesn’t make sense to say it, just writing it down won’t help. The message needs to be clear enough to be understood as someone reads it and I find that just talking it out helps a lot. 

Use a transcribing tool. 

Sometimes I need to just pop an idea out and I can’t wait to get to a keyboard so I create a voice memo in my phone, then send it off to a transcription service. Some people lately have been recommending Otter and in the past I’ve used Rev. I also like to use Tools>Voice typing in a Google doc. However you need to do it is fine! I heard that Brene Brown writes her books by setting aside a weekend and getting some girlfriends over to tease out the ideas. 

Set a timer.

I like to allocate a 15 minute slot when I’m writing sales pages. I use George Kao’s copywriting tips in this video and write for 15 minutes per section. Having a time constraint and a specific prompt has been helping me a lot. 

What do you do to get writing? 

I hope this has been helpful. I look forward to reading some of your brilliance soon. 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: 

What is content? And how to make more

What is content? And how to make more

I often hear people say that they are “Content Strategists” or the explain how to “Create Content”.

And although I know what content is, it seems to me to be a weird and jargon-ey term that causes so much confusion.

I was thinking that we could just rename it to: “Sharing your brilliance”

Because that is all we really need to do. We all know so much and have so much brilliance to share. But to clarify: what is content? And how can you make more?

Content comes in so many different forms. 

It can be: 

Image based

Written

Video

Audio

I am sure there are more categories too that I’ve glazed over.

And then there’s the length. I’m calling them micro (or snippet), small and long.

Examples: 

A reel on Instagram = I would say that is a micro-video. 

An Instagram image post with a caption = is a written and image small piece of content. 

A Facebook text only post around 2000 words = a long, written piece of content. 

That same Facebook post on your blog with images as well = is a long, image and written piece of content. 

A podcast of the same article would be = a long, audio piece of content. 

Using Headliner to turn that podcast into a video makes a snippet of video content. 

Transcribing that podcast into a written blog with images = is a long, written and image piece of content

But more important than the classifications and definitions is the purpose.

For a long time I found it really hard to create content and I did not enjoy creating content.

I spent a long time creating content with the idea in mind that I had to do it to reach clients and that content would help me sell my services. The only content I was able to make easily were “how-to” videos. I think these felt easy because they were of service to my clients with low expectations of reward. They were more of a selfless service. 

In the yoga tradition I studied for many years, selfless service is called karma yoga. In karma yoga you work for others and try to release your expectations of reward. 

Recently, I have been loving creating content. Short videos, long videos, short written posts, longer writing. All kinds. And I think what has changed is my frame for why I create content. 

Now, I create content as a practice for myself. As more of an enquiry and creative expression. The things I think about it are more like: 

“How can I say this in 60 seconds?”

“I wonder if anyone agrees with this?”

“How clearly and simply can I explain this in writing?”

“Can I explain those instructions in writing?”

“I wonder what my peeps think about this idea?”

And now I never really think: 

“I need to create this so I can sell my offer/service”

If I want to offer my service I just do it. I create a separate post, or separate piece of writing that speaks directly to the offer. 

Sometimes, while I’m developing offers, I do some research and get excited about that topic so I’ll naturally share about it, but since I separated my selling and my content, my content feels a lot cleaner and a lot free-er. I feel that I can experiment more and genuinely share with people who I care about. 

This is my story around creating more content. 

I wonder – what do you think about when you try to create content? Could those thoughts be hindering your ability to create content like mine were? 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: 

How to figure out what you should blog and write about

How to figure out what you should blog and write about

Great!

You’ve decided that it’s time. You are ready to start writing and sharing your brilliance with your audience and the world. Your next thought now might be: What you should write about?”.

In this blog I will share some ways to generate ideas for your writing so you can have a big list of inspiring topics to dip into whenever you sit down to write.

This information also applies to “what should you make videos about” if you are into making videos.

A couple of important things to consider are:

What topic/s do you want to write about?

and

What do your ideal clients seek information about?

1. Talk to your people

Current Clients

If you are doing sessions with your ideal clients, you are getting great ideas on tap. Every session can provide you with ideas for writing.
What was the client’s challenge?
What did you do to help them?

I’m sure you’ve had days like me where you seem to say the same thing to about 5 people in the one week. THIS is great information to share as a written blog or video.

Friends + Market research

Current clients are a reliable source of ideas but you may not have many or any of those yet!
Other people that are YOUR people are your trusted friends. You could also have market research conversations with people who would be perfect clients with no pressure for them to buy from you.

The sole purpose of those conversations is to find out what they type in the Google search bar when they look for solutions or what questions and challenges they have around your topic of expertise.
You can do this more informally by being a great listener at parties and gatherings.
People are a great source of ideas.

A side note about your own ideas

You may not have a problem thinking up great ideas on your own.
Yay! 

Why are you reading this article?? LOL 🙂

Your own ideas are great, however I would make one loving caution about your own ideas. 

You may find that when you write from your own well of ideas that your writing doesn’t do as well as you had thought. As in: it doesn’t seem to get a response from your audience. 

If this is happening, I would suggest that you may be writing at a level too far ahead of your current client’s level of growth or understanding. 

Sometimes I write articles that I think are gold and no-one gives any hoot about them. And other times, I create something that I think is throwaway and that everyone already knows and people go mad over it. 

So, if you are experiencing this, I encourage you to have some conversations with friends who are like your ideal clients. Have those client or market research conversations to make sure you are speaking the right language for where your people are right now. 

2. Use the Google search 

Bring to mind a topic you want to write about. I used this method for MailChimp. 

(i) Type the idea into the Google search bar and don’t click search. 

Have a look at the drop down. 

Do you see a bunch of suggested search ideas?

These are ideas for blog articles or videos. 

(ii) Further down the page it might say “People also ask” with a bunch of questions and drop downs. The headings of these drop downs are also great titles for your blog. 

These two options give you ideas that the Google robot has noticed people asking a lot. So even if you don’t have conversations with people because you are clear on your topic, this method can help tease out a lot of ideas that a lot of people have definitely searched for in Google.

Creating articles that help you be found via Google search is a method of blogging that uses Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Google is a search engine, and you can focus on optimising your website and blogs to show up better in Google search.

If you are interested in how to grow your business with a blog, I have a course about that. I delivered it with the brilliant Melanie White. I also have an SEO course with the ONLY person I recommend for SEO, Karen Phillips. This one is called “How to get the right website visitors”. Both of those courses can help you with your SEO if this is important to you and your business. 

3. Use the YouTube search 

Similar to the Google method above, you can type your topic or vague idea into YouTube and see what other content exists on the topic. Simply type your idea into the YouTube search bar and look at the ideas that drop down. 

Once you have mined those ideas, click “Search” and have a look at the kind of content other people are creating and the other titles being used. You can write an article with the exact same title if you like!

Now listen though: DON’T GET INTIMIDATED IN THIS STEP

Even though other people may have already created content that you want to create, no-one is quite like you. You have a particular configuration and lens to see life through that is of unique value to the world.

So PLEASE still go ahead and write that blog!

4. Use Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a free tool you can add to your Chrome browser. It enables you to see more when  you do a Google search, when you do a YouTube search and when you view YouTube videos. It actually does way more than I use it for. I am not a major ninja at it but this method of using it simply will definitely help you find writing ideas. 

So, once you have installed Keywords Everywhere to your Chrome browser and you look at your results using the above Google and YouTube methods, you will see a bunch more info on the side:

These are just more things to, hopefully, spark inspiration for you. The beauty of these methods is, Google is such a large database. Millions (or billions) of people are using this every day. And it’s free for you to mine for ideas. Yay! 

Have these ideas been helpful for you? Let me know how you go and tag me in your social media post if you used this method 🙂

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: 

Where to get pictures you can use on your website and social media

Where to get pictures you can use on your website and social media

Sometimes, the striking differences between an ok website and a great website are the images and the quality of the images. 

Partly, that’s because images communicate messages through the realm of emotion. Emotion plays a large part in the decision making process for humans because, if we are able, taking information in through our eyes is a long trusted source of information for our survival. 

The other factor that affects how good our websites look is the quality of the images. Low quality, low resolution or pixelated images really bring down the quality of a website, no matter how skilled the developer is. 

There is a third factor and that is: are the images meaningful, purposeful and aligned with your brand and message. If the images are just plopped there and out of context, it can give the reader a dissonant feeling that reduces their trust in you. Not a great outcome. 

But where can you get images? 

My top 6 sources are: 

Your own spaces and face

Unsplash

Canva

Inspired Stock Shop

Creative Market

Wellness Stock Shop

The first 3 are free options and the last 3 are paid options. 

Your own spaces and face

I think this is really the most ideal source. Images of your own workspace and your face are naturally embedded with your energy. It’s best if your clients can get a sense of your energy as much as possible to help them to differentiate you from all the other businesses out there. You can communicate your energy and uniqueness in a number of ways; your writing style and topics, your videos, your illustrations or drawings – and also through photos of you and your spaces. 

You can get good images using just a modern smartphone if you are aware of the light. You need the right light or a bit of editing to get the images to look good. 

You are looking for large files, for example 3-4000 px wide. 

Another great option is: do you have a bestie with a decent camera? Someone you can have a laugh with, who you feel really comfortable around? 

Images of you look best if you are happy and relaxed which is why sometimes, even if you pay a professional photographer, you may not feel good and so your photos won’t look good. 

Also I love the blooper shots. I want all the pics from the day. And if you go with a professional photographer, (i) they will want to “improve” your images (ii) they won’t give you all the pics. You just have to choose X images for Y dollars. When it’s your friend, you get all the pics, for better or worse 🙂

Obviously, if you have the money, and some good rapport with a professional photographer, you might like to go down that route, but that changes this to a “not free” option. 

A lot of the images on my own website are from a photo play day with a bestie of mine who has a decent camera. 

Side note: image size

Large images on your website take longer to load which affects the users. It also affects your SEO.

Images for a website banner only need to be 1920px wide, and for most large images on a website, 1080px wide is plenty. For 2 columns, 540px wide is great and so on, smaller pixels wide as you have more columns. 

Unsplash

Unsplash is a website where you can download good quality images for free. Why? Aspiring photographers upload photos there in the hope they will get exposure and increase their profile as photographers. And they let you use those photos without needing to credit or acknowledge Unsplash or the photographer, but of course you can if you like. 

I prefer Unsplash to other free image sites because they are generally more personal and less polished than Shutterstock and others like that. They also have an ok representation of larger women and older women – but still a long way to go in terms of representing those groups. 

I recommend you pop over and do a search – if your article is about “images for your website” you might search: photo or photographer. If your blog is about healing you can search for “healing”. But I find the range a bit limited at times. 

If you are planning to use these images, I recommend you resize them so that they don’t slow down your website load times and SEO.

Canva

Canva is a free graphic design tool that I love and use nearly every day. They have a lot of free images available inside the tool. You can also go to this page https://www.canva.com/photos/ and find free images that you can use in Canva designs. 

You will need an account with Canva to use them. 

It is easy to sign up for Canva and you get a LOT on the free plan. Plus, if you are planning to use these images as a banner or on your website, it is best to resize them rather than use the image in its large, original size. 

Inspired Stock Shop (ISS)

This is my current favourite place for images that aren’t my face and space. Claire of ISS, has found a way to fill the gap I mentioned in the Unsplash library. She has gorgeous images that us spiritual babes love. She is also increasing the number of images of us plump goddesses and older wise women. Yay. The only thing is: you have to buy them. Or she has a membership option which works out pretty affordable if you have a project in mind. You also get access to the full library as soon as you join and you can start downloading as many pics as you like. 

I am going to be recommending ISS a lot in the next while, because people always seem to need good quality images of real women for their websites and socials and I feel like I’ve finally struck gold. 

ISS also has some great social media post templates, Canva templates for workbooks and more. Highly recommended. 
I love them so much I am an affiliate. This is my link 🙂 

Creative Market

Until I found Inspired Stock Shop, Creative Market was my recommendation when people couldn’t find images in Unsplash or Canva. 

Creative Market is the proper wormhole for fancy fonts, images, graphics and more. Be careful if you go in there. It’s amazing what you can buy from graphic designers to sparkle up your online presence. You might see some of my website elements if you venture deep enough 🙂

Wellness Stock Shop

This source of images is an Australian version of the Inspired Stock Shop. This option looks gerat too – especially since she in in Australia, although I am struggling to see many plump, older women so hopefully this will change soon.

I’m probably going to have a crack at this membership once my ISS one runs out. 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: 

A course platform inside your own WordPress website: WP Courseware – early honest review

A course platform inside your own WordPress website: WP Courseware – early honest review

Are you ready to create and sell an online course for your business?

And you don’t want a separate tool to deliver it – you want it inside your WordPress website?

I have found a course platform tool called WP Courseware. It’s a plug in that you can add to your WordPress website that essentially puts Thinkific into your own website. 

Sound interesting? 

Another course platform???
Why would I get this one instead of Gurucan or Fresh LMS?

Some people just like having it all in their website. 

Personally it makes me a little nervous. 

What if I put the plugin on and my site crashes? 

Won’t it take up more space and cost more for hosting? 

I hear you. Questions questions. 

Which is why I made this video of me fumbling through WP Courseware in my early days so you can see how easy/hard it is to use and hear some of my pro’s and cons around having this kind of course set up. 

Here you go:

Overall impressions:

I would say that this is pretty easy to use. 

Obviously, I had a couple of issues with display on the Courses page, and I haven’t even set up my payment gateways yet. But I do think this option has promise.  It’s all there and has a tonne of features you will otherwise page much more for like: drip feed, quizzes and more. 

Also, it’s currently on sale with AppSumo for $39USD which is just like 2 months of Thinkific. Bargain. 

My main reservation is

What if it crashed my site?

So I used a whole new domain to practice on. Which kind of removes the benefit of having it all on your site….

I can’t tell you which way you should go but we can chat about your business and what might suit you. Feel free to book a free chat ato talk more about it. 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you want to have a chat with me about online courses?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss your business, your course and all of the other things I mentioned here. The team and I can even set it all up for you and save you the headache.

Go ahead and book a free chat here:

Case Study: Nic Bathurst

Case Study: Nic Bathurst

Nic Bathurst is a dietitian and has a job that she finds really satisfying, but…she has a passion to support women through her own business.

Her business, Naturally Nic is blossoming beautifully after 5 years of consistent effort. You can find her on Facebook, sharing awesome (and BS free) product reviews of “healthy” food, you can get her freedom ticket – the “Sugar Truth” short course or you can work with her 1-1 to completely transform your relationship with food. 

 

 

 

In the early days of her business Nic had a number of people support her to set up a website, Acuity, social media and eBooks, MailChimp, but she felt like she wasn’t techy. She used to cry tears of frustration when she had to do work in her business related to “the tech” and it all went wrong. Things like MailChimp, website edits, Facebook ads, managing her Acuity and her Xero accounting. Nic would get so overwhelmed with all the tech. She knew she needed to learn how to use them all so she could move forward in her business.

 

She came to me because she thinks she is not techy; to get my help to do things for her and to learn to do them for herself.

At the time I was offering a year long mentoring program called the Elevator – to take business women to a new level. I was basically helping members wherever they were at, with anything they needed a hand with (that was within my scope). 

I supported Nic with her website, her MailChimp, her social media and basically anything she brought to the table. We looked at the list of things we’ve worked on over the last year and she said I need to tell you I’m a one stop shop.

Gradually, over time Nic has started to get the hang of doing techy things for herself.

Part of the success was knowing that I had her back so she could just try, and invariably learn, rather than worry about “breaking” things.

I believe that a lot of technicians get a thrill from using jargon and talking down to their customers which ultimately disempowers the end user. 

I strive to support people to feel capable and at ease with their tech. But this can take a little while and practice. 

One tool I love to use is video how-to’s so that people can work along with my simple instructions. They can pause me and do each step with me. 

Another thing that has been successful to support Nic has been mentoring her on exactly how to do things herself. I demo once and then I sit with her while she does it. This really helps rewire the neural pathways around each task. Following up with more practice then seals the deal on the learning.

Of course, some things that are one off tasks I may simply perform for her. But any tasks that will be done again and again can be easily learned with caring support and practice. 

Now Nic does a lot of her own tech. She sends emails, works on her automations, edits her Acuity email reminders, manages her Zoom meetings, edits her website landing pages, runs webinars, and runs her own Facebook ads. She also just set up all the tech of her new course in FreshLMS by herself. 

And better than all the things she can do, Nic now knows that when she gets that uncomfortable feeling about tech, she can learn how to do it and it will get easier. No more tears for Nic over tech. Now she is capable and runs many of her online business actions confidently. 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: