Okay, But What If You Started a Blog?

It’s easy for me to preach “start a blog” because there hasn’t ever been a time where I didn’t have a blog. And I mean that literally. This business launched with a blog—and before the business, I blogged on my mom blog (lovingly dubbed “that mama mckayla,” which is no longer in existence).

TL;DR, I’m always talking about the benefits of starting a blog because I know what it can do in 8 going on 9 years.

But what if you don’t have 8-9 years to wait? Or what if you only blog six posts and call it a day? What happens then? “What ifs” are the everyday killers of what you think could or couldn’t happen based on your actions or in-actions and decisions (like starting a blog) in your business aren’t an exception to the “what if” brain freeze.

So, as any good blogger (and blog-enthusiast and encourager for business owners) would do, let’s talk about what could realistically happen if you actually did the thing and started the blog →

Psst…I’m specifically talking about an SEO blog that’s supposed to get searched (and get more organic visibility for your business) AKA one that doesn’t rely on you link-droppin’ it for the next 10 years just to get a handful of readers. Rather, it goes out on it’s own (or shows up on it’s own) to bring new people to your site 24/7.

If You Started a Blog Right Now, Here’s What You Can Look Forward to

Let’s start with what literally happens right now, like, the moment you hit publish on your first post:

1. You get to link-drop it once a week on Threads because it’s the question everyone’s asking (and of course, you have the answer to it)—and now you’re not pressuring a stranger to download your freebie, you’re giving ’em a helpful resource that shows you’re the expert that’ll convince them to do it (get on your email list, that is).
2. You’ve got your next newsletter planned—because starting with your blog and repurposing it into a newsletter is one of the best ways to get your audience to read more (and your current subscribers to explore the things you know like the back of your hand). Plus, it’s a huge friggin’ time saver.
3. You’re officially starting to build your “body of knowledge” or your source of truth. Something your audience (or random people who are interested in the problem you solve, who could be your audience) can reference when you’re OOO and offline.

And the coolest thing? These are forever benefits—when you write about things that are regularly poppin’ up in your space, the content usually comes back around after a while. And there’s some really good opportunities with repurposing I highly recommend you look into.

Also, a blog post can sell as soon as it’s published and actually in existence. At least, that’s what a previously blogging student proved when she published a blog post, shared it, and made her first digital product sale from it in the first 2 weeks.

Now, if you wait just a few months (think at least three for the standard business) and a few more posts, you get:

1. Reach to strangers—people start seeing your posts pop up in search, start associating your brand with the industry and expertise you work in and offer. They start spotting things you know, the answers to their questions (even if they’re not clicking a whole lot yet).
2. PR (and yes, that’s correct, we’re talking PR). Think backlinks from other posts back to your posts, the link drops you did, and the resource that’s now existing that others can use as a resource (not just YOUR audience, but other experts) someone could link to.
3. CLICKS! Like, the people clicking through your first few posts and spending time on your website AKA what SEO is known for doing (and why you chose the SEO route in the first place).

Okay, saying “clicks” and “visibility” is good and all but it’s the starting point—clicks and impressions lead to new freebie subscribers, new discovery calls, and new clients (or customers). For example, after a few months of blogging, one client of mine booked a new client from a blog post showing up on Google—someone searched, read the post, inquired and booked a call, and by the end of the week, they’d signed a 3-month contract.

If You Start a Blog Post Now, Here’s What it Could Look Like This Time Next Year

Let’s pretend that you start a blog right now and you decide to do two-ish blog posts each month (or maybe you’re super ambitious in the beginning, but life lifes and you end up ghosting for a few months) and you end up with 24 SEO blog posts on your website this time next year, what could happen?

• You could take a break during the holidays—and still get inquiries (because your blogs are showing up in search whether you’re in-office or haven’t logged in for weeks)
• You could launch to an email list that’s been building for you for the past year!! No, literally, based on our monthly gathered data from students in BPS, the average member blogging regularly gains ~394 new email subscribers per year from Google.
• You could go AWOL for the summer and have the systems set-up to book your projects for when you’re back, so you’re not staring at an empty calendar (and finally have the reason to do the quick approvals in your Dubsado app)
• You could have a complete repurposing system that makes creating content take a fourth of the time it used to because you’ve started with a blog post (a long-form piece of content that’s one of the easiest to repurpose)

A year in is usually when you start your SEO start evening out, too—and you get to see just how much work a post can put in. For example:

AKA it’s the SEO moment you’ve been waiting for (and one can continue for yearssss beyond the first year). When I talk about SEO in the visibility way, this is what I mean. It that’s traffic that helps build your list, sell your offers, and so much more.

What if You Start a Blog, But Change Your Mind (and Determine That Blogging isn’t For You)

There’s a lot of “all-in” commitment to marketing and pressure to make sure you’re doing “all the things” and committing “all the time” to showing up consistently or staying on top of a platform—blogging isn’t 100% like that.

Sure, blogging regularly is going to get you the best results, but so would emailing your list weekly or even every few days—but it also doesn’t mean they won’t buy from you anymore if you accidentally ghost for two weeks. When it comes to blogging, more can help, but whatever you get done helps with your visibility.

For example, if you only end up publishing six blog posts (what I consider a “cluster,” something that search engines and humans love to help make sense of what you’re sharing), those six blog posts won’t suddenly stop working just because you never publish a seventh. Your posts will continue to show up as long as they’re helpful, relevant, and exactly what your audience needs.

So, as long as you start blogging with the best strategy foot forward, blogging a little bit will still help you show up in front of your audience—even if you decide you’ll never blog again, at least, not until you can hire it out! 😉

If You Want to Start a Blog, This is for You…

Love that you’ve made it this far into the post (means you must’ve read something you like)—next thing is to actually do the thing and start the blog. And if that’s something you’d like to do, but you don’t want to play the “what should I post” or “how should I write this” guessing game, Planned & Published (my 4-week blogging sprint) is for you.

Come join us on Sept. 1st as we spend 4 weeks planning, writing, and publishing six blog posts and creating a repeatable blogging system for your business (and build what you need to get the results from above).

→ Save Your Spot! ←