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How To Batch Content Creation So You Can Pursue Bigger Projects

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content creation

Consistently providing valuable content keeps your content brand alive, and generating revenue from your efforts allows you to thrive.

Content creators often struggle with generating revenue from their products while continuously creating fresh content.

While I believe both can be interwoven together (maybe the idea for a future blog post?), one proven approach is to batch your content creation so you can dedicate more time, attention, and energy to revenue-generating activities.

What Is Content Batching?

Content batching is as simple as committing one day to producing an extraordinary amount of content.

John Lee Dumas, for example, designates two days a month for conducting interviews (his daily episodes over at EOFire mean he’s interviewing 15+ people on a regular basis). John also dedicates one day per month as an interviewee for more than 20 podcasts.

If you choose one day to write a month’s worth of blog posts, you can then focus on product launches, brand building or other initiatives for the rest of the month.

How To Batch Your Content Creation

Batching content creation begins with nailing down a date to write all of your content.

Prior to writing, set one day aside to come up with ideas. So if you decide to create all of your content on the first Tuesday of each month, you should create a list of topic ideas no later than Monday.

If you want to use the content batching strategy for your podcast guests, start contacting people 2-3 weeks in advance. Booking guests for your podcast is different from batching blog posts because of the time needed for emailing and scheduling the podcasts.

But in either case, you must be hyper focused once you have your ideas clearly in mind.

Becoming Hyper Focused

You may choose one day to create your monthly content, but if you frequently get distracted, you are not fully unlocking your potential.

To succeed, you must be actively engaged in your work for most of the day. This means not only thinking about how you work, but also getting smart about the environment in which you work.

Always choose a commitment-free day for content batching. For example, I enjoy participating in cross country and track meets – which usually take place on Saturdays – so I wouldn’t plan my content batching initiatives on the weekend.

Choose a day that isn’t surrounded by work or outside commitments.

The day before you’ve committed to content batching, remove all distractions from your environment. Since each of us is distracted by different things, it helps if you create a list of potential triggers.

Writing a list of potential distractions will help you prepare in advance: you’ll know what to avoid while working, and what to ignore before you even get started.

Advice On Pursuing Bigger Projects

Once you begin creating content in batches, you’ll have extra time to work on bigger projects. Don’t take that time for granted because your next content-batching day will arrive sooner than you think.

In addition to creating lists to assist you on your content-batching days, create a detailed plan for how you’ll pursue bigger projects.

What progress must you make by the end of the month? How will you plan each week to reach your monthly goals? What will you do each day to accomplish your weekly goals for each week of the month?

If you struggle with keeping yourself accountable, ask someone to help you. In a sea of free information, hiring a coach is one of the most underrated investments you can make for your success.

A coach will steer you away from common mistakes and move you towards success, but in this case, your coach will keep you accountable.

Advice On Content Creation

One of the dangers of content batching is the tendency to consider content creation as a necessary evil.

Viewing content creation as a chore keeps you from content marketing, and always pursuing bigger projects prevents you from enjoying the work at hand.

Once I’d focused so much on content marketing and bigger projects that I saw content creation as an obstacle. This is one of the main reasons my blogging consistency dropped from two posts a day to once per week.

Before I changed my mindset, I was even inconsistent with publishing the weekly post. So if you decide to batch your content 1-2 days per month, never forget to look forward to, and enjoy, those days.

In Conclusion

Content batching allows you to focus solely on creating content 1-2 days each month, giving you the rest of the month to concentrate on promotion and additional projects.

You can also apply the batching method to any time-consuming task in your business to open up more time in your month for other tasks.

But you must be careful not to look at batching activities as a necessary evil. Rather, try to appreciate those days as time to be hyper focused on something that brings you pleasure.

If you see any of your tasks as necessary evils, change your thinking! If you can’t, eliminate or delegate them.

What are your thoughts on content batching? Do you have any suggestions? Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Hacks For Connecting With Influencers

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influencersRelationships with influencers are critical to your content brand’s success: they help you expand your knowledge as well as open doors to new opportunities.

Some of my biggest successes are directly tied to the relationships I’ve built and fostered along my journey. However, reaching out to influencers and building relationships with new contacts can feel overwhelming.

You may feel uncertain about how to go about it, and even question whether you’ll get a response to your initial efforts.

I’ve been there, believe me.

That’s why I want to share five powerful hacks that helped me build relationships with some of the most influential content marketers and productivity experts on the planet.

#1: Interview Influencers On  Your Podcast

Both my Breakthrough Success Podcast and virtual summits have allowed me to interact with some of my niche’s top influencers. Interviews are a brilliant excuse for asking for an influencer’s time 🙂

Not only do you get to ask questions and interact with top influencers, you also get to provide your audience with valuable content.

Combine that with the fact that podcasting is a growing and less-tapped-into industry than blogging, and you’ll begin to wonder why more people aren’t doing it.

I currently publish an interview every week, but I am formulating a plan for daily episodes. And my knowledge stores will only grow as I interview more and more influencers –  it’s amazing what you can learn from a single interview with a top influencer.

#2: Collaborate With Influencers

As I plan my blog content, I consider which influencers can provide relevant advice, resources or opinions, and contact them well before the publication dates.

I often work on the copy first, and then copy and paste submissions into the post to craft a more engaging article. Once the post is published, many of the influencers I mentioned will end up sharing the blog post to their own audiences, expanding my reach.

If you’re pressed for time, you can simply mention the influencers by name while you’re writing the post, and then let them know you’ve included them in the post once you publish it (and be sure to provide a link).

Some will share it and others won’t, but having at least some influencers share your content is a thousand times better than having no influencers share your content.

#3: Do The Influencer A Favor

The more you give someone, the more willing he or she will be to return the favor. But keep in mind these small favors will change according the influencer.

Some influencers (like me) would love a positive review for their podcasts (here’s mine). Other influencers would prefer you leave a 5-star review for their latest book. Writing a guest posts for the influencer’s site is also a viable option.

Determine which favor holds the most value for a particular influencer, then offer it without expecting anything in return.

If you approach relationships in this manner, it won’t be long before an influencer voluntarily provides you with something in return (if you have to ask, start with something small).

#4: Ask Meaningful Questions

Top influencers love shepherding other people through the path they once traveled.

Gary Vaynerchuk has an entire podcast dedicated to helping others. Want to get on Gary’s radar? Ask him a really good question.

Nearly all influencers recall a time in which they spent countless hours trying to figure things out. When they see other people in a similar situation, they naturally want to lend a helping hand.

Influencers enjoy steering people in the right direction and providing that little nudge to keep them moving forward. And they like it even more when people act their advice.

This is the starting point for repeat interviews and a much greater relationship.

#5: Be Everywhere To Them

You can’t be everywhere for everyone, but you can be everywhere for someone. What’s everywhere for someone mean?

Simply focus on the places where your special someone spends the majority of his/her time. This is why television ads used to work (and why now they are less effective).

Today, people spend more time on Facebook than they do watching tv, which is why social media ad spend has greatly increased over the years.

But that doesn’t mean you should try reaching an influencer with an ad. Rather, you should seek out the places they’re engaging with their readers.

Do they reply to tweets? Do they respond to blog comments? Are they posting a lot on LinkedIn?

These are the places where you need to be. Like, share, and comment on everything they post. Mention their social media handle when you share their content and eventually they’ll notice you.

For example, I notice the people who repeatedly share my content on Twitter more than anyone else in my audience. While I write with my entire audience in mind, I can match names and faces with the people who consistently share my content on Twitter.

Find the platforms most frequented by top influencers who share your mindset.

In Conclusion

Connecting with influencers is as easy or as difficult as you make it. The beginning stage may feel difficult, but as you continue, you’ll have a much easier time connecting with influencers and building relationships.

The ultimate hack not mentioned above is that once you build all of these relationships, you can ask for referrals.

Once I have over 30 speakers for my virtual summits, I ask them if they know anyone else who would also be a great speaker for the summit. They usually make intros and that alone makes relationship building much easier.

What are your thoughts about these hacks for building relationships? Have any tips for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Pitfalls To Avoid When Accepting Guest Blog Posts

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guest blogging pitfalls

Featuring guest posts on your blog can provide you with fresh content, SEO growth, and blog traffic. The challenge is finding quality contributors whose content your audience will love, and understanding which submissions may not be right for your blog. These are the top five pitfalls to avoid:

 

#1: Accepting Every Guest Post

If you accept every guest submission that comes your way, you’ll compromise the quality of your blog. While it’s flattering to be pitched, and tempting to add fresh content, not every submission will work for your blog; accepting them all can dilute the value of your content and confuse your readers.

That means you’ll have to pass on some contributions. To feel less bad about turning someone down, I suggest submitting some of your own guest posts. Like me, you will likely be denied by at least some of the people you pitch. But if you submit valuable content often, some of the prominent blogs within your niche will accept your guest blog posts.

 

#2: Avoid Over Promotional Bloggers

Let’s be real about guest blogging: people often write guest posts with the intent of getting more traffic, building credibility, and including a backlink. And I don’t mind that as long as someone is providing my readers with valuable content.

But I do mind content that is overly self-promotional. There aren’t any specific warning signs, so you’ll have to make assessments on a case-by-case basis. It’s important that the post provides value, and that any attempts at promotion are subtle and relevant to the topic, seamlessly woven into the overall content.

 

#3: Not Owning The Content

Guest posts should be original and not seen anywhere else on the web. You may face a SEO penalty for publishing content that exists elsewhere on the internet, which will compromise your efforts.

Guest blogging benefit the blogger as well as the blog owner (but only when the owner is the exclusive provider of that content). No matter how great the content, always deny contributions that may have been published anywhere on the web. To be considered, all submissions must be fresh and original.

 

#4: Content Mismatch

I recently received a guest blog post submission that I was eager to approve (I was making Mistake #1 and approving everything I got). However, I felt a little uneasy about the submission and sent it to my editor. She told me the post was not the right fit because the content was outside of my specific niche.

Why would a Twitter-related blog accept a guest blog post about Facebook? While it’s true that both Twitter and Facebook are social networks, dedicated blogs focus solely on content related to one or the other, not both.

If you find yourself looking for ways to make certain content work so that you can publish it on your blog, it’s probably a content mismatch. Contacting relevant contributors is a much better use of your time than trying to rework a mismatch.

 

#5: A Weak Submission Form

A weak submission form will make it significantly more difficult to receive quality contributions. Don’t expect bloggers to guess which content is most appropriate for your blog. Smart bloggers will spend time reading your past content, but a bad form makes everyone’s job more difficult.

Be sure to provide guidelines, examples and ideas before encouraging submissions. Here are the requirements for guest blog posts on my own submission form:

  • Your guest post must be at least 1,500 words. The more words, the better, but don’t sacrifice value.
  • Link to three of my blog posts.
  • Include at least three images.
  • You have the option to promote one of your blog posts, but not landing pages. You CAN promote your landing page in your bio.
  • All content must be original and not published anywhere else.

Since I don’t always link to three of my blog posts or include three images, I can’t expect a guest blogger to do the same without asking.

I also mention something about the benefits of writing for my blog such as exposure and credibility. These benefits give guest bloggers more reasons to want to contribute to my blog.

 

What’s Left?

The only thing left for you to do is encourage guest bloggers to write content for your blog. As your blog gets more traffic, more guest bloggers will submit their content through your form. But in the beginning, you’ll have to do most of the legwork.

You’ll have to advocate for your blog and entice guest bloggers to contribute. But finding guest bloggers is actually easier than you think. All you have to do is find a prominent blog in your niche that accepts guest posts. Then start contacting past contributors one by one.

These guest bloggers prequalify themselves since they’ve already written for a prominent blog within your niche. If you can present the guest bloggers with benefits that justify the effort, they’ll write content for your blog.

I like to contact at least three potential bloggers per day. As I get more guest bloggers to contribute to my blog, I’ll hire a freelancer to conduct outreach. Some of the most successful blogs hire freelancers for contributor outreach.

When I wrote a guest post for Crazy Egg, Neil Patel didn’t reach out to me, and I didn’t submit my post through a form. An individual from Crazy Egg’s outreach team contacted me and invited me to write the guest post. A few weeks later, my guest post showed up on Crazy Egg.

This individual reached out to me through Twitter (which was a smart move since I’m more active on Twitter than any other social network). You can reach out to potential contributors through email or social media. While I personally prefer email, social media conversations have made some of my contributions — and podcast interviews for that matter — possible.

Never rule out a method that works.

 

In Conclusion

Accepting guest posts for your blog is exciting and adds value. You finally get to learn from your own blog, and your content will reach more people.

But you want to make sure your guest blog posts are valuable. If you say yes to every submission without thinking about your audience, you risk sacrificing your blog’s value or creating a content mismatch that confuses your readers.

What are your thoughts on accepting guest blog posts? Are you a guest blogger? Have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below. I’ll read them 🙂

4 Keys to a Successful Blog

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create a successful blog

There are many factors driving a successful blog: high-quality content, engagement, social media traffic, search engine traffic, domain authority and more. I focused on all of those and attracted hundreds of visitors to blog, but did that make my blog a success? Nope. Here’s what made my blog successful:

 

Serve Your Audience

Focusing too much on SEO and metrics can lead to overlooking the most important part of your blog: your audience. Serve your audience and you’ll build a loyal following. I’ve heard this advice a hundred times over.

While it’s valuable advice, it has become a bit overrated. Don’t get me wrong. Serving my audience has helped a lot, but it’s only piece of the puzzle. Serving your audience means being attuned to their needs and interests, and creating valuable content accordingly.

But in a world filled with good content, writing more of it just isn’t enough. To truly serve your audience, you’ve got to do more. Think of content as an appetizer in a three course meal.

 

A Recipe for Success

Some bloggers mistakenly think success is a numbers game. But traffic and visitors alone won’t propel you to the top. Some blogs thrive because they enjoy hundreds of thousands of visitors while others struggle with that kind of traffic, or any kind of traffic for that matter.

But the real winners are the bloggers who truly LOVE their readers. I’m talking about the bloggers who, in addition to offering valuable content consistently, nurture their communities. They make themselves available by regularly answering readers’ questions, responding to their comments and engaging with their content.

If you view everyone in your audience as little more than a potential customer, your blogging journey will hit a lot of bumps. View each member of your audience as a human being with something to offer besides a pocket full of money.

 

Go Above And Beyond

You should already be going above and beyond with your content. But you should also strive to go the extra mile with your audience by acknowledging and showing appreciation for their support, and offering your own.

Writing alone doesn’t do that.  Acknowledge your audience by engaging with their social media posts, responding to their emails and thanking them for sharing your content. Always try to be available.

Neil Patel writes some of the longest SEO related blog posts known to mankind. I’m sure he’s written at least a few posts that exceed 10,000 words. He also spends a lot of time marketing himself.

One would think a busy man like Neil would have little time to dedicate to his audience. But that’s actually where he dedicates most of his time. According to an infographic on his blog, Neil receives around 207 emails every day. He responds to 91 of them!

contact neil patel infographic

Neil spends four hours a day going through his inbox and responding to anything from business questions to interview requests. He also makes the time to respond to readers’ comments on his blog posts, which easily attract 100’s of comments! His older posts consistently receive engagement as well.

 

Make Your Audience Part Of The Action

For a long time, I saw guest blogging as a personal opportunity but hesitated to accept guest posts for my own blog. Yet the benefits of opening your blog to guest contributors are many. It saves you time, keeps your content fresh and varied, helps increase your traffic and adds value.

Not only that, guest contributors become part of your story.

I have written many guest posts. Two that stand out were for Jeff Bullas’ Blog and ProBlogger. When I first started out, these blogs were the holy grail of blogging and social media, so I read them every day to learn more about my niche. Once I gained experience and expertise, it was an honor to be given the opportunity to contribute to these blogs.

Contributors inevitably have different motivations for writing guest posts. Some enjoy seeing their name on a credible blog (and potentially building their own brand), others enjoy giving back to the blogs they’ve learned from in the past. But every contributor becomes a small part of the blog’s story, of your story.

As an added bonus, you get a backlink. You can also do something similar on YouTube by recording collaborative videos with audience members.

 

Don’t Oversell

Overselling to your readers is a surefire way to make the relationship sour. You may be overselling if you are:

  • Creating products in bulk.
  • Involved in affiliate marketing.

Of course, some people who create products into bulk and/or engage in affiliate marketing don’t fall into this trap. The danger arises when you’re too heavily promoting a product (yours or an affiliate’s) every month. I made this mistake.

I first got involved with promoting other people’s courses in 2015. The first time I promoted someone else’s course to my email list I got a bunch of sales. The next month, I promoted a different course and got a bunch of sales. The following month, I did the same.

I spend five straight months promoting other people’s products and very little time delivering value. The result? Increased unsubscribes, fewer email opens, and fewer clicks. It was an email marketing nightmare. My email list is still somewhat scarred by the aftermath but my open and clickthrough rates are gradually increasing.

The point is I enjoyed increased revenues initially, but eventually my sales and email subscribes took a hit. Why? Because I was too focused on pushing products and not providing anything of free value. Worst of all, I saw my email list as just that: a list. Nameless, faceless people with wallets.

It’s was a big mistake, and hard to admit, but if I can help you avoid making the same error I’ll be happy.  In fact, I can thank one of my subscribers for helping me see the light. His email said, “You’re better than this.” And his sentiments were likely shared by the others on my list, the silent majority.

 

In Conclusion

While I still occasionally promote other people’s training courses, I am more focused than ever on my audience’s needs and interests, and giving them something of value that they can use.

Any successful blogger is successful because of his/her audience. Tenacity and grit factor in, but a blog is useless without a loyal following. If you love your readers, they will love you back (and will also be more open to trying your products and services in the future).

What are your thoughts on audience engagement? Do you believe there is a more important determinant of a blog’s success? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Secrets For A Successful Blog

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5-secrets-for-a-successful-blog

The journey towards a successful blog is full of twists and turns. With so many ways to approach your growth strategy, blogging can feel like a blessing or a curse. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and lose sight of what’s most important. The purpose of this blog post is to help you prioritize.

To ensure the growth and success of your blog, focus on the following five strategies:

 

#1: Growing Your Email List

Your email list is your most valuable asset. Gaining more subscribers to your blog or newsletter should guide nearly all of your business initiatives. Everything I do for my business has a focus on growing my email list.

For example, each visitor to my blog is greeted by a welcome mat offering a free ebook: 27 Ways to Get More Retweets on Twitter. Similarly, if a visitor clicks on the ebook image via the sidebar, he or she is sent directly to a landing page.

When I share content on social media, I try to include a post promoting my landing page (but remember to keep self-promotional posts to no more than 10% of your overall content). On YouTube, I include a CTA and link to my landing page in the video’s description.

If you don’t have an email management system and are worried about the costs, MailChimp offers a free option for up to 2,000 subscribers.

 

#2: Outsource Most Of Your Tasks

If I attempted to do everything for my business myself, my work-life balance would suffer. While I do a lot of work for my business, the work of my freelancers combined surpasses my own efforts. Freelancers schedule my social media posts, create images, edit my content, and much more.

If I had to take on all of these responsibilities, I couldn’t spend as much time writing and promoting great content.

Pareto’s Principle states that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts. Outsourcing the other 80 percent of your efforts makes it easier for you to maximize the results you get from the most important 20 percent and focus on what’s important.

 

#3: Consistently Write Valuable Content

Never underestimate your audience. They have access to millions of blogs with fresh, consistent and valuable content. Their expectations are high. Your blog needs to stand out among the competition.

Consistently writing valuable content is not optional. You won’t survive, let alone thrive, online unless you consistently provide your audience with something of real value.

Set a publishing schedule that you can stick with. As your blog gains credibility, you’ll attract guest contributors who can help you keep your content fresh and interesting. Blogs that are updated several times daily enjoy a dedicated staff of writers and regular guest contributors.

Consistently writing valuable content will result in returning visitors and the type of Google love that will put you at the top.

 

#4: Build Relationships

If you’re the only person leveling up your blog, it will only spread so far. While it’s possible to build an audience and increase traffic on your own, it’s much easier when you’ve built the right relationships.

Begin to build relationships with bloggers in your niche if you aren’t doing so already. Some relationships will grow so strong that these influential bloggers will start promoting your content to their own audiences, and your traffic will multiply.

There are plenty of ways to build relationships, but nearly all successful relationships with influencers begin with you doing something to get noticed. Sharing an influencer’s content, commenting on their blog posts, or asking them questions are just a few ways to get their attention.

Lately I’ve been building relationships by inviting people to be guests on my podcast. Getting influencers to participate in your podcast is perhaps the best way to get a free consultation session while tapping into a wider audience (guests often share the episode with their own fans and followers).

Remember that satisfying relationships benefit both parties. Influencers can see right through selfish intentions. Build relationships based on genuine interest and think about how you can give back.

 

#5: Sell A Product

Imagine that you’ve taken the time to grow your blog and email list, but don’t have a method of accumulating revenue. A blog with millions of visitors per month that never generates revenue isn’t as good as a blog with 10,000 monthly visitors that accumulates revenue.

If you don’t have your own product, start with affiliate links (but don’t rely on affiliate marketing exclusively for long-term profits).

Eventually you should be publishing your own ebooks, offering training courses or creating your own products and services.  You will always have more control over a product that you create compared to an affiliate’s product.

While service-based offerings can be profitable, products likes training courses and books literally enable you to make money while you sleep.

 

In Conclusion

Blogging is a complex venture with many avenues for growth. If you find one profitable path, and stick to it, you’ll achieve success faster than bloggers who change direction again and again.

But regardless of which path you chose, these five essentials will make or break your blog. I learned about these five essentials the hard way. Before I optimized my blog for email subscribers, I only gained 300 new names from my first 150,000 visitors. If I had focused on my email list from the start, that number would have been closer to 10,000 subscribers.

If you haven’t yet implemented one or more of these five strategies, now’s the time to get started. No regrets! Rather than focus on could-haves and would-haves, concentrate on the opportunities ahead — the sky’s the limit.

What are your thoughts on these five blogging essentials? Have any others to share? Sound off in the comments section below.

The 5 Pillars Of Successful Blogging

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Pillars Of Successful Blogging

The only two things that separates a newbie blogger from an expert blogger is time and knowledge. Bloggers who have been keeping at it for a few years and have an abundance of knowledge about blogging have more successful blogs than the bloggers who just started. It is great for new bloggers to write blog post after blog post, but it is essential for new bloggers to learn as much as they can about blogging. That is why if you are a new blogger, you definitely need to continue reading through this blog post, and if you have been blogging for a while, it is possible for an old dog to learn new tricks. Here are the five pillars of successful blogging:

  1. Write one blog post every day. The more you write, the better you get, and writing every day will give you discipline you need to take blogging to the next level. Writing one blog post every day at the same time will also make more of your readers expect you to publish a blog post at a certain time. That means if you publish a blog post at 9 am Eastern, some of the people on the East coast will be refreshing their email at 8:59 am until your blog post shows up.
  2. Have your blog optimized for subscribers. It’s great to get more visitors, but it is critical to turn those visitors into subscribers. You need to be using the right mailing provider and have plugins on your blog that get attention and email addresses.
  3. Have a product. In order to be successful with a blog, you need to monetize it…and not with ads or affiliate marketing. Although those are two great ways to bring in some income, having your own product allows you to get a bigger chunk of the commission, and the more products you create, the more math stacks in your favor towards your goals. It is mathematically easier for 10 books to bring in $100,000 every year than it is for 1 book to bring in the same amount of revenue.
  4. Grow your social networks. The presence you have on your social networks is powerful. The bigger your audience is (assuming you did not buy followers), the more people you will be able to interact with. Social media is a great place to interact with your readers and engage with them.
  5. Love what you write about. Without this, you will not succeed as a blogger, and there are no questions about it. You need to love what you do to the point where you would continue to enjoy writing about the same topic for many years. Some bloggers have been at it for over 10 years without a loss in enthusiasm.

Those are the five pillars to a successful blog. What are your thoughts on the list, and how have these pillars impacted your blogging? Do you have a 6th pillar that you go by. Please share your thoughts below.