[How to grow your email list with amazeballs blog posts] I do like to get on my soap box and shout about the fact that all bloggers need an email list. I talk a lot about email lists; why you need them, how to set them up, what to send to people when you have no ideas.
My email list is so important to my blog. It allows me to create a better connection with my readers and develop a relationship.
I recently shared 41 ways to build your email list fast and today I’m going to share how creating epic blog content can help you grow your email list.
Your content needs to be part of a larger strategy. A well-though-out strategy, driving towards a certain end-goal. Creating epic blog posts helps you create a solid base of content for your blog, increase traffic, grow awareness of your blog and create awesome foundations for your blog biz.
Blog content gives you an opportunity to teach, entertain, inform, and make connections with your audience. It gives people an opportunity to try before they buy. They can make sure they get value from your content, before they hand over their email to you.
Solid blog content also helps you to build authority and credibility within your niche. You can start to be known for having those specific skills or that specific knowledge.
Grow your email list with amazeballs blog posts
So, here’s my step-by-step guide to step-by-step to writing amazeballs blog posts that will help you grow your email list.
1. GET THE POST TOPIC RIGHT
Occasionally, you might want to write purely for pleasure and share something on your blog that isn’t particularly relevant to your goals/future plans. However, if you want to monetise your blog the majority of your content needs to be well-thought-out and the sort of content that your ideal reader actually wants to read.
You need to find out what problems your ideal audience has and then create content that solves these problems. Simples!
What questions to your ideal readers ask? Whether that’s directly to you or in Facebook groups or when responding to your emails. These questions can help you formulate a content plan that meets their needs.
Keep a note somewhere of these questions as they come up, so you can refer to it as your creating future content.
2. KEYWORDS
Now you have an idea of the topic, you need to check that the words you’re going to use as your keywords are going to be the right ones to attract traffic. You can start by typing into the Google search bar and see what autofills. You can also type your entire headline and then look at the bottom as it will give you some popular variations.
It’s always better to use longer-tailed keywords (3-7 word phrases), as you will have more chance of ranking for them on Google search results than you will for one or two word phrases. For example, ‘Spanish holidays’ – I would really struggle to rank for Spanish Holidays, as there will be millions of posts/articles in those search results and the people that found my post might not even want the specific content I have. I would be much better advised to go niche and use more words to describe my post. For example, ‘gluten free Spanish holidays’. This would mean less competition, more chance or ranking AND traffic that actually wants the content I have. Rather than those just wanting information on all Spanish holidays. See?
3. CREATING THE POST
A great place to start is by writing an outline. Opening, hook, meat of the post, conclusion, call to action would work well. Think of taking your reader on a journey from where they are now to where they want to be through your post. Then write and don’t edit, just write. If you make a mistake, just write out the correct line, don’t delete, just keep writing. Then when you’re done you can edit.
4. HOW TO CREATE AMAZEBALLS BLOG POSTS THAT GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST
- Divide up the post using bullet points, headers (which are good for SEO too!), bold text, images and possibly other sorts of media. Images really help people navigate through your posts as people process images 600,000 times faster than text alone.
- Aim for longer form content. Google favours long form content, so 1,500-2,000 is a good number to aim for. The most shared posts on social media are 2.2k in length on average. These words do have to be valuable content though, there’s no benefit to adding fluff in order to bulk up the post.
- As I mentioned above your content should solve a problem. It should get your reader from point A to point B (point B being they they are more informed, entertained or their problem has been solved).
- Make sure the information you give is actionable. Share the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’. What is their problem, why do they have it and how do they solve it. Step by step is necessary. Give screen shots or maybe a quick video. Think about how you can best give out your information and give that it in the post.
5. DON’T FORGET TO SEO THE POST
You chose a keyword phrase that has a good number of searches and either a low or medium level of competition, but now you need to make your post SEO friendly, not just your headline. You can use the YOAST WordPress plugin to make this part really easy. Pop in your keyword phrase, repeat it a few times through your post. Label your images to include your keyword phrase and make sure you have a great pin with a descriptive description including your keywords. Add the keywords to the Alt text of the picture and to relevant headers (H2, H3 etc), make sure it’s in your opening paragraph and the post url and you should be almost there.
6. CONTENT UPGRADE
You create content to get traffic, but you need that traffic to be reoccurring. Otherwise you have to continually get new people all over again each month. A great way to encourage repeat visitors by developing a connection with them and a great way to develop a connection is by getting them on your email list. You can do this by offering them a freebie piece of content in return for their email address. When you’ve written your post, think what would be really helpful for the reader now. If it’s a recipe, then perhaps it would be really useful to have a meal planner or a shopping list. Just think of the next step and create that. Think about keeping it short and with the aim of giving the reader a quick win.
7. SOCIAL PROMOTION
Now you have your awesome actionable content packed, SEO’d to the brim blog post complete with opt in freebie, you need to promote that sucker. Don’t just send one tweet and be done. No, my friend, that’s not enough. That post need to go out once or twice on Facebook and have a reoccurring tweets driving people back to the post. You can then pin one of those tweets, so it stays right at the top of your profile. Then share on Instagram, mention it on Instagram stories or a Facebook live. Keep getting the word out about this awesome piece of content. This will then drive more traffic to the post and help you grow your email list.
This amazeballs content will then act as pillar content on your blog and, as long as it’s evergreen in nature, can continue to drive traffic for years to come. Building your authority and also driving email sign ups for years to come too!
Can you create an amazeballs blog post with a great freebie attached to it? I’d love to hear about what you create? How do you grow your email list?
Want to grow your email list? Pin this!