Do you write a blog? For many writers, of all the author platform pieces we could focus on, blogging tends to be a favourite. When you’re building a strong author platform, whether it’s to get a book publishing deal or simply to sell more books when you are published, the real end goal is expanding your audience. And of all the audience-building techniques to focus on, writing a blog is such a great way to reach more of the people who are actively looking for what you love to share.
I know it is, for me! I’ve blogged since 2018, and you probably found me from one of my blog posts. Maybe this one?! I’ve posted over 200 articles, now, probably enough for 3 or 4 books!
The idea of author platform and growing an audience really overwhelmed me when i first set up my website, but starting with some blog posts gave me a nice ‘feel’ into the type of activities I enjoyed, and that is – teaching writing and publishing via the written word. I expanded into videos, too, but writing is always my first love. That’s good news, because blogging is also one of the very best ways to build your writer platform, because it’s basically a form of organic content marketing.
WHY BLOGGING BUILDS YOUR AUTHOR PLATFORM
Blogging is so helpful to building your online platform, because it’s what’s called ‘organic content marketing’ in digital communications terms. This means that the work you put in now can compound over time – I STILL have people stumbling upon blog posts I wrote years ago, and commenting, because the higher it ranks on google, the quicker your ideal audience will find you in years to come, and the more people find you, read, click, comment, the more engagement Google registers, and so it goes on in a compounding loop. But to be effective with this, you need to think long-term and be very strategic when you start your blog. Things like the name, the meta data (back end tweaks), and more, can really radically affect how many people see and find your blog and stay on the page to read it!
Yet SO many writers have blogs that either have one visitor a year or don’t have any real engagement, and it makes me sad because a blog has the potential to enormously expand your audience, your business, and your publishing career, when you do it right.
And it’s not about having an expensive design, although good pictures always help, but it’s the really simple tweaks that can make a huge difference to both your engagement and then in turn, your author platform.
This is why I recently added a comprehensive step-by-step Blogging masterclass to the Create Your Writer Platform course.
There’s lots of little tweaks that can make a HUGE difference to your blog’s success – from naming, to set-up, to the data you need to track, to the types of topics you should (and shouldn’t!) be posting on, to what you put in the very first paragraph…
I had an advantage when I started my blog, because i was working as an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategist for a large corporate company, so i got to test and measure how these little tweaks work on a grand scale. I share some of the free and paid tools you can access to do this, too, in the new Blogging Masterclass inside Create Your Writer Platform.
💻 The Blogging Masterclass also walks you through my own blogging process – from research, to draft, to back-end details and what to do as soon as you hit ‘publish’.
💻I share my tools, tracking methods and templates, as well as a blog drafting formula to save you lots of time.
I also share a bonus cheatsheet with 50 topics that you can use to boost engagement, because it’s ALL about the hook and the headline! Working at a daily newspaper taught me that 😊 And sometimes it just helps to see how many topics you REALLY can pull from one idea.
You receive the new blogging masterclass and all my best templates within the Create Your Writer Platform course, which guides you step-by-step through all the digital ‘assets’ that writers can use, to sell more of their work in the 2020s and beyond.
Whether you’re trying to…
🌳Build platform to get yourself a book publisher
🌳 Sell more articles or essays to editors
🌳 Sell more of your published books
🌳 Sell any kind of offer online (coaching, artistry, digital or physical products…)
Investing some time in building your digital ‘assets’ correctly (website, social channels, blog, email newsletter) will pay off a million-fold in what’s called ‘organic SEO’ – which is actually more effective in the long-term than paid advertising (and THIS is why publishers always look for your ‘platform’ in the book proposal – platform is just how and where you reach people before you need to start spending on ads).
➡️ BTW, it’s not enough to outsource this piece- because you can’t tell someone else to build you a website or a blog or an email newsletter if you don’t understand the basics. And these foundational details are actually MUCH more valuable than getting the perfect design or even posting weekly content.
If you’d like the step-by-step process to optimising your blog for maximum engagement with efficiency, you can get my own personal process within the Create Your Writer Platform course.
Create Your Writer Platform
is a digital course that guides you through the really important stuff you need to know (and none of the other stuff) so that you can save time and money setting up an effective:
➡️Website
➡️Social Media channels
➡️Email Newsletter / List and of course, your
➡️Blog
… to GROW your platform and your reach with your writing.
⬆️ Because these are truly your most valuable platform ‘assets’ you have, as a writer trying to reach a bigger audience with your work.
The Create Your Writer Platform course is just $495 (or there’s a 2-pay plan) and if you’ve been thinking of buying domains, hiring a website designer, outsourcing any of your content or marketing or tech, you’d be wise to wait until you’ve gone through this course.
Create Your Writer Platform is a video-based course with downloadable cheatsheets, templates and checklists and it will save you thousands of dollars on ill-informed decisions to do with your digital presence.
I’ve been hired to ‘clean up’ the back-end of websites for multi-million dollar corporations (who did exactly what I share NOT to do!) and whether you’re a writer or a big business Create Your Writer Platform will help you clean up all the other aspects of your digital presence, too.
You can learn more about the Create Your Writer Platform course curriculum and enrol here.
As soon as you join, you can get started growing your author platform, whether it’s through optimising your blog, setting up your website, or starting an email newsletter – and I show you exactly how to do this efficiently and effectively.
To your success and ever-growing expansion…🌟
Louisa
PS
If you love to learn and you’re looking for efficient processes and trainings around memoir writing, traditional publishing, book deals and more, I’ve just put my entire suite of online courses here for you to peruse…
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