321 – Why have a Blog as a Product Business? with Kate Kordsmeier

Gift biz unwrapped episode 321.

All Websites are blogs and all businesses.

Attention gifters bakers,

crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.

Now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow.

Your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hello. Hello.

Thanks for being here With me today.

I recently got back from moving my daughter into our house

in Denver.

And while I was there,

I got a chance to do a meetup with some of

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If you're not part of this group yet,

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So you can learn a little bit more about this Facebook

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the most amazing group of people who are all handmade creators.

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access right now on our show today,

we're going to be addressing a frustration,

common with a lot of businesses.

You've got your website up and running,

but no sales are coming in.

The natural tendency in this situation is to create an offer.

And most of the time it's a product discount and you

promote it over on social.

And yes,

you may get some sales this way,

but do you really want to always have to discount your

products to prompt people to buy this is taking money right

out of your pocket.

What if there was a way to direct more traffic to

that fabulous website of yours without having to sacrifice your margin?

And it gets better?

What if I told you that the work you put in

doing this lasts a hundred times longer than putting up a

Facebook or Instagram post?

It almost sounds too good to be true,

but listen in and you'll see that it's right within your

grasp today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Kate Kordsmeier.

Kate is a recovering workaholic,

perfectionist who values relationships and wellness as much as strategy.

She's been a writer her entire life.

And for the past 11 years has made a living from

her words,

following her passions and interests first and always she's an old

soul who loves to read cook,

listen to old music,

do crossword puzzles and sit with her friends and family in

the beautiful outdoors,

surrounded by good food and drink.

She empowers women with actionable advice and inspirational content to turn

their purpose into profits with an online business that reclaims their

joy, power and freedom without sacrificing their health,

self care relationships and family sanity and spirituality.

Kate, you are my kind of gal.

Welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcasts.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's so funny hearing your bio read like that.

And I'm thinking I sound like I'm 86 years Old.

No, but you know,

part of me just like wants to not even do this

interview and let's just go and sit outside and hang out

with a glass of wine and do a puzzle or something.

Right. Doesn't that sound so good.

Amazing. Yes.

And honestly,

I mean,

I guess those things were associated with things that as you

get older,

but right now we're running so fast.

We need that stuff to balance us out.

Exactly. Yes.

I think all the things that helped me just slow down

and be present and just remember that I have a life

to enjoy not just a business To run.

Yeah, for sure.

So those pleasant things like candles,

which is going to lead me into my traditional question here.

And that is if you were to describe yourself through a

motivational candle,

just to give us a feel for who you are in

a different way,

what color would your candle be and what would be a

quote or a saying on that candle?

Okay. So I've been thinking about this and I think that

I'm going to play really simple.

It's going to be a white candle that says white space

on it and is just that reminder of every time I

look at it to like,

stop what I'm doing and think about how could I get

more white space into my calendar and into my days and

just exhale and relax.

Seriously. I'm not even kidding you when you said white space.

I just took a deep breath,

right? When you were saying it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like we need to fill in all the empty spaces with

something we need to stop doing that.

For sure.

You had mentioned before I press record that you were on

a Facebook live and I do Facebook lives on Thursday morning

within my private group.

And I've been doing website reviews lately.

And we talk about like,

you don't need to fill up every single white space on

your website with copy or with photos.

Like let people take a little bit of a break too.

Yeah. Break to the eye for sure.

Yeah. Just like overstimulated everywhere.

Anyway. So let's move forward with our conversation and share with

me a little bit about how you got to what you're

doing today.

Yeah. You mentioned that I have been a writer my life,

and of course that was true when I was just doing

it for personal enjoyment,

but I was a journalist for about a decade after I

went to journalism school.

And I actually first I started in corporate copywriting and I

lasted in corporate America for all of four months before I

was like,

I can not live there.

You Got smart.

Fast, Wanted to have be a freelance journalist when I first

graduated. But then all my friends got real jobs with health

insurance and stuff.

And so I panicked and got one,

two, and then immediately knew this is not for me.

I quit my job and started a freelance journalism business.

And I did that for about eight years before I ended

up wanting to make another pivot.

And that was to start a blog.

There was a lot happening that kind of led up to

that moment.

But I started my wellness blog and at the end of

2015, after I did that for a few years and turned

it into a six-figure business,

I started getting asked from people all the time,

like, how are you doing this?

I don't understand how a blog makes money what's going on

here. And so I launched a course called the six-figure blog

academy where I teach people how to grow and monetize a

blog. And then that kind of led me to the next

thing, which was launching other courses and getting more into the

kind of online entrepreneurship strategy,

business coaching space.

So now I still have my blog,

but I also do this business and have several courses and

group coaching programs and a podcast and things all about business

strategy. Wonderful.

So what types of businesses then are you seeing are gravitating

to also including a blog or is it a business onto

itself? Well,

I guess is my answer because I think that there's this

big paradigm shift that's been brewing in the online world for

a while.

And I feel like I'm a broken record saying it,

but hopefully,

maybe this is the first time your listeners are hearing it.

And that's that all websites are blogs and all businesses need

one. Even if you are a brick and mortar business or

you have a service-based business or retail or e-commerce,

whatever you need a website.

if that website has any content on it,

it's a blog.

And that's whether or not like you cringe at the word

influencer, or you're like,

I'm not a blogger.

What are you talking about?

Blogs are your home base.

They're how people find you.

And so what I have learned through my blogging journey is

that creating content online is the fastest way to show up

in Google search results,

which will bring more people to your website,

which will help you sell more products or whatever your goal

is at the end of that road.

So I could be selling more products.

You could monetize the platform itself,

which is more of the kind of like traditional blogging route.

But even if you're not interested in going that way,

I believe that all businesses will sell exponentially more products.

If they have a blog,

I couldn't agree with you more,

but I will admit to you that I'm going to say

it was two eight,

2009. Maybe something like that.

When I would be out at trade shows,

people would come to our booth and I sell also a

physical product,

but people would come to our booth and they'd say that

they were a blogger as their business.

And I still didn't get it.

I really didn't understand.

But as I've gotten more sophisticated in the online world,

I do understand much more.

And I think it's interesting.

And I bring this up because I think our listeners may

not totally understand this either because you kind of think that

a blog is one of those old wordpress.com

sites. That just is more of like a journaling site.

Yeah, That's what I always say is a lot of people

still think of blogs as,

as sort of like glorified my space pages where there's just

sort of like a chronological diary and that is so not

what successful blogs at least are today and do certainly don't

have to be that.

I wouldn't even recommend it.

If you actually do want to turn your blog into a

profitable business,

recommend The platform or that structure or both.

I do recommend WordPress exclusively for all websites.

If you care about SEO and being find-able through search,

then you definitely should be on wordpress.org,

Word brushes,

not.com.org. Exactly.

You want your website to be hate cords,

myra.com, not Kate kordsmeier.wordpress.com.

And you want it to be self hosted,

which is the big difference between the.com

and the.org.

I wish they would have named it something different because it

confuses the heck out of people.

Right? Truly,

it's more about self hosting,

which just means you have like unlimited control over what you

could do to your site,

how you can make it look all of the details.

Whereas if you're using the free wordpress.com,

it's hosted there and you're very limited in functionality.

And I don't think you can even set up like a

shopping cart or anything through.com.

No, I don't think so either.

I started with.com.

So, so,

so long ago,

and I still have my account up because I have one

article on there that still does so great,

but I don't think I've even looked at it for 10

years. Something like that.

It just sits out there.

It does its thing and that's fine.

And whatever,

or just again,

to clarify and make sure that everyone who's with us here

is on the same page,

define what a blog site would look like.

And then we're going to gravitate in specifically to product based

businesses. Yeah.

Okay. I think now all websites,

you have your homepage of your website and then you would

probably have something in your menu navigation that says blog,

what somebody would click,

that they would be taken to a page where there's multiple

posts of different types of content.

And so to me,

blogging is really more like content marketing.

It's a marketing strategy to get organic leads rather than having

to pay for ads or spend a lot of time on

social media or some of the other ways that we think

of marketing today,

blogging is just a form of content marketing.

So how do people then if they don't have a physical

product, how are people making money with their blogs?

Okay. So there's three main ways that people make money with

their blogs when you're monetizing the platform itself.

And so that's with ads,

affiliates, and sponsors.

So you can monetize your blog with three main methods,

it's ads,

affiliates, and sponsors.

And I'll just give like a quick overview of what each

of those are.

So ads is pretty obvious.

These are display ads.

You go to pretty much any website today,

and you're going to be hit with an ad.

And those are paid out generally when somebody just views the

ad. Sometimes there's also where they're paying out if somebody clicks

the ad,

but we won't get into all the details.

So these are just display advertising on your website.

The second way is affiliates and affiliates is when you are

using affiliate links and you,

so you're recommending somebody else's product or service,

and you have a blog post about it.

Maybe you have reviews or you're including it in lots of

different places could be email or social media,

whatever. And every time somebody buys through your link,

you get a commission on that sale.

So you don't get anything upfront,

but you get paid out when people purchase through your link.

And then sponsors is kind of similar,

but it's the reverse.

So sponsorships is when you're going to partner up with a

brand and they're going to pay you an upfront,

flat fee.

So let's say they will give you a thousand dollars to

write a blog post about their product.

And then that's all you get,

you get that thousand dollars up front,

but no matter what happens,

you don't earn any more or less.

So I prefer affiliate marketing because there's so much more earning

potential. There's not that upfront guarantee,

but you can earn on that blog post for many years.

Yeah. Because once the links in place,

you can keep going forever.

Yeah, exactly.

And one of my favorite examples to share is something that

has come up a lot lately.

I had a blog post that I wrote three years ago,

and it's consistently shown up in the first page of Google

for a long time.

And we've earned about $5,000

a month from this post for a long time,

just this one post.

And it's because it shows up on Google search results.

And then it's monetized with affiliate links.

But when the pandemic hit,

more, people were searching for this particular topic.

And so we got a surge of traffic and we ended

up making $42,000

in three months from this one blog post.

And I was on maternity leave.

No, so I didn't even do anything.

It was an old post.

And that would just like really showed and solidified the power

of affiliate marketing to me.

I'm like,

man, this is the long game For sure.

That's really incredible actually.

Where are you looking at the numbers saying this can't really

be right.

Something's wrong Was I'm like,

something's going on here.

And eventually the traffic did kind of go back down to

normal. And so it stay that high forever.

But like I said,

we still consistently make multiple thousand dollars a month from this

one blog post.

The point is that putting in the time to write an

article that people are going to be interested in and then

overlaying that in your case with affiliate links or you're going

to do that can be a moneymaker.

All of us listening here don't really think about any of

that. And I don't even know if that's what we'll talk

about as it applies to product based businesses.

Maybe we will,

but it's just the whole idea of a blog in and

of itself,

because I'm going to just go out on a limb here.

I've looked at a lot of websites of people who are

in the community and I'm going to say at most 10%

have a blog.

Hmm. Well,

let's change that.

Yeah. Seriously.

That's why,

when we started talking about doing this interview,

I'm like,

all right,

such a good topic.

We got to go through this virtual tour.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean,

To your point,

I think I get a lot of people who get confused

too, because I have two businesses and one is like selling

courses. And one is my blog.

And a lot of people say you only make money with

your blog from your courses.

And I'm like,

no, no,

from my blog,

just with ads,

affiliates, and sponsors.

I didn't sell anything on my blog,

root and revel.

You can fully monetize your blog in and of itself,

but I also think you can use it as a way

to supercharge your organic traffic and leads and sell more of

your products as well.

Wait, so you can do a couple of things.

I mean,

here on the show,

we are going to be talking more about affiliate links.

So that's another thing coming up,

but I want us all to start opening our eyes.

That even if we have a handmade product business,

your ability to earn an income,

doesn't come just from direct sales of your specific product.

There are other things that you can be doing.

Obviously it's going to be your product.

That's what you love making.

And that's why you started here,

but there are other avenues to be bringing in an income

to that you layer on you don't replace your product.

Yeah. I mean,

I think it's very much about having diverse revenue streams.

So you don't have all your eggs in one basket.

They all can compliment each other.

They don't have to compete with each other,

but it just kind of gives you a safer,

more sustainable business where you're not just relying on this one

method. Well,

we have,

you started talking Kate,

just to bring you up to speed with some of the

conversations we've had here,

you make your product and you sell it.

Is there a certain product category you think would be a

good one to talk about?

So I'll start with that product as we're diving into that,

is there,

when you're thinking about Kate,

honestly, anything let's say jewelry.

Okay. Beaded jewelry,

for example.

So we have a maker who sells beaded jewelry.

And what we've been talking about lately is all right,

well, yeah,

you're going to do that.

You're going to make products.

If you're going to go to craft shows,

you're going to sell direct to consumer.

There, you have a website,

but this is all selling your product right through Facebook live

shows all of these things.

Now people are getting to the point where they're starting to

create programs around their product too.

So maybe they make kits and they do little trainings where

you get the kit and then you learn how to make

a beaded bracelet all by yourself.

And so you're selling,

so this is kind of training,

talking about different streams of income here.

We have been talking about those types of things.

So now let's talk about,

well, what would a blog then do and what types of

articles? And so let's just stay with beaded jewelry.

Cause we can all understand what that looks like.

How then if someone has a website,

they go out to shows.

So they have their product and they're pretty established there,

but they've never thought in a million years and they maybe

don't even,

I've never thought of themselves as a writer even,

but w how would you layer on a blog on top

of that type of a business?

So, so I love this example.

It's so perfect.

And I just did a quick Google search for beaded jewelry.

And so there's related keywords that are showing up here,

like beaded jewelry trends,

2021. So you could do a Roundup and you could do

many different posts on the trends in beaded jewelry,

talking about that,

getting people excited about what they could potentially buy from you

or your affiliate partners.

The next keywords that I'm seeing are beaded jewelry tutorials.

So yes,

you could sell your own kits,

but you could also just have some like how to posts.

You could do blog posts about really simple things for getting

started. I would think would be really helpful.

People who are just getting into this and are like,

I'm going to make my first beaded necklace ever.

And you would have tutorials for that.

You could have roundups of the materials that you need in

order to make your own beaded jewelry.

I'm looking at some other things.

They have handmade beaded jewelry patterns.

So you could be talking about different patterns for how to,

I'm not a beaded jewelry expert.

So I'm like,

what is the pattern?

I don't even know what that means.

So there's lots of different ideas and you can get ideas

just from Googling your topic and seeing what other related keywords

come up.

What people,

when you Google something,

now it gives you this thing.

It says,

people also ask,

and it says,

can you make money selling Bita jewelry?

Well, you could write a blog post that answers that question.

I would focus on blog posts that are going to get

people towards your goal.

So if your goal is to sell your own beaded jewelry,

that blog post,

maybe doesn't make sense,

but B to jewelry trends makes a lot of sense.

You want to think about what's going to get people in

the right mindset or frame of mind in order to buy

your products.

Yeah. Well,

I'm also thinking,

cause you're going exactly where I think some of the minds

of our listeners are going,

is that,

well, why would I want to sell someone away from them

buying if they could make their own.

And I'm going to say,

first off,

some people will try to make their own and then see

that they can only make a simple design or they never

want to do it again.

They only want to wear your creations.

Right? So that's one thing.

So I wouldn't be so hesitant or worried about that.

You want to have some strategy around it,

but I don't think that you should just shut down this

idea, thinking that it's going to raid sales from you.

Right. But the other thing is,

I think it also opens up completely different audiences.

Wouldn't you say,

Kate? Because just like how you have a blog,

you also teach blogging people that you're teaching blogging to aren't

stealing away business from your blog.

If that makes sense.

Yes, exactly.

It's an entirely new audience that's coming to you for potentially

a different thing.

Yes, totally.

And I think you have to think of like,

sort of if this long-term strategy.

So for example,

if your ultimate goal is to sell your own beaded jewelry

products, you can get people like,

what if you had a beaded jewelry tutorial post,

this is a blog post.

And in that post,

you just kind of take like three photos of the step-by-step

process of how to do something really,

really simple.

And then people come and they find you through that.

And then they might read the post and you could have

like an email opt-in on the post that kind of takes

them the next step.

Okay. They've seen the tutorial.

Now, if they join your email list,

you can give them a list of your top 10 favorite

tools for making your own Bita jewelry.

Well, then they get on your email list and then from

your email,

you can start nurturing them and talking to them about how,

yeah, you could either buy this kit from me,

or you could just buy the necklace.

If what you really want is to have a really pretty

Bita jewelry necklace.

Here it is.

Here's the thing.

You don't have to go through all these other steps,

but if you do actually want to make it yourself,

I have options for that.

And those tools could be affiliate links.

So if people buy those tools,

then you're getting a kickback from it also.

Exactly, exactly.

I'm liking this a lot.

And that works really well.

So a blog,

does it have to be just all written or how is

video doing in a blog?

These days?

Video is huge in blogging right now in Google is really

rewarding blogs that have video.

So meaning that they're putting them higher up in the search

results. And this is again why I'm like all websites or

blogs. Let's get out of thinking of blogs as this one

thing I think of,

like I mentioned,

blogging is a form of content marketing and it's just kind

of the home base where that content lives and attracts people

into your sphere.

And so hypothetically,

I have a podcast and I take the show notes for

that podcast and I create a blog post with it.

I kind of expand them out a little bit.

I optimize them for SEO.

I put a podcast player directly in the post,

so you could listen to it right there.

And now this lives on my blog and makes me find-able

by Google.

Whereas if I only was living in the podcast like an

apple podcast or Libsyn or whatever,

then Google can't really find me.

So there's ways to do that in the same would go

for videos.

So you could either be uploading your video directly to your

site, or potentially you have a YouTube channel and you have

your YouTube channel.

But then I would also recommend now create a blog post

that embeds that video from YouTube and has optimized for SEO.

So again,

you're, find-able,

although YouTube is also a search engine in and of itself.

So you're,

find-able there as well.

Yeah. But no reason not to have it in both places.

Well, and it's just,

you're repurposing.

It's not like you have to reinvent the wheel.

Just put the exact same thing in both places.

Right? Absolutely.

The other thing I'm thinking about for topics is I'm going

to say what I'm thinking,

and then I'm gonna give you an example.

Okay. What types of questions do you get from customers on

a regular basis?

Could that be something that turns into a blog?

And the example I want to give is Ana with limbo

imports and Kate,

she does these unbelievably gorgeous cotton hammocks and hammock chairs.

They are amazing.

And a lot of people use them for indoor use.

But the biggest question that she gets is how do I

hang this?

Like, this looks so hard based on the weight that it

has to hold.

Like, how do you do this?

The second she started answering that question for people,

for business sword.

Exactly. So she has a blog post or maybe several different

types, but let's just say one that says how to hang

an indoor hammock.

And then she details out here's how to do it.

Here's the other tools you might need.

And it could be everything from like,

here's the hammer or the drill and whatever it is,

those could all be affiliate links.

And then you're showing pictures of your own beautiful product.

So people are like,

Ooh, I want this hammock.

Then when you have people who are interested in potentially buying,

but they're coming to you with that question first,

you just direct them to the blog post.

Here you go.

We have it all detailed for you right here.

Yeah. And I'm thinking of something else here too,

just to get everyone juices flowing a little bit about ideas

of things that you can do.

Let's say you make cupcakes.

Okay. And you usually do like the dessert tables and all

you could talk about what you need to put on a

dessert table,

or let's say,

how about a mini dessert tray for a small party of

four, for example?

Yes. Then you could collaborate with someone else.

Who's part of our community here.

Like if biz breeze in our community who may be makes

serving trays.

Yeah. The two of you could join together.

You could talk about how you put the cupcakes or whatever

the desserts are on a tray.

And then the other business has a tray and you two

together could work with each other on something like this A

hundred percent.

Yeah. I love it.

And I mean,

my daughter is turning one this weekend.

And so I'm like,

I'm already Googling how to decorate for a one-year-olds birthday,

like cute cupcake and cake ideas for birthday parties and stuff.

And if you were showing up in the search results and

then it was like,

oh, and I can buy these cupcakes from you sold.

Yeah. And I can get a tray with her name that

celebrates her first birthday.

So cool.

Yeah. All those types of things.

Oh my gosh.

So exciting.

Okay. So I think we've gotten people thinking now along the

lines, and we've given them a number of different ideas of

how they could create a blog.

It sits on the same website as your products.

So don't go and create a whole nother site.

Let's not complicate life.

Right. Plus you want to drive everything to the same place.

So it can all work together for SEO going to your

site. I know Kate that you said WordPress is your preferred

platform, but a lot of us here are on sites like

Shopify. Okay.

And they do have a section where you can create a

blog on your site there.

How do you feel about that?

Wow. Well,

I feel like you're not going to like my answer,

but, well,

we're being Honest here,

so let's just go with it.

Okay. My opinion is I would move your site to WordPress

and add the Shopify plugin to your WordPress site because what

my fear is,

and I'm not totally familiar with Shopify site,

but there's a lot of things for the technical SEO,

things like meta descriptions and alt text and SEO titles and

things that you probably either don't know about yet.

Or it's a lot,

SEO is always like,

you don't know what you don't know,

but there's a lot of features that I doubt Shopify allows

you to do,

even though you can technically have a blog.

If it's not optimized for SEO,

you're not going to rank.

And then it's like,

kind of all for not.

Yeah. I'm not sure.

I actually think Shopify has gotten more sophisticated with that as

time has gone on,

plus it is very much optimized for your products.

Yeah. So,

which is the original driving force of going to Shopify.

So it's a question it's something to consider and think about.

Maybe I'll investigate that a little bit further just to know.

Yeah. But regardless of which platforms you're on.

So WordPress predominantly is what you suggest Shopify wherever you are,

because I don't want you not to do it because you're

not going to change to a different site wherever you are.

If you have the option to add a blog,

do it right.

And then how else can you promote the fact that you

have a blog?

Like what about social media options?

There's a lot more to hear about blogging and that will

happen on the other side of this quick break.

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spend money to order yards and yards print words in any

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add logos,

images, even photos,

perfect for branding or adding ingredient and flavor labels to for

more information,

go to the ribbon print company.com.

So I really,

I put my Energy into SEO because SEO is a little

bit more passive in the sense that you set it up

once. And yes,

there's maybe some things you monitor and you're kind of,

you can go back and repair or repurpose things and make

them better as you learn more after they have been live

for a while,

but I'm a mom of two under two and a half.

Oh my gosh,

I am busy.

I know so many of your listeners are probably busy moms

as well.

And even if you don't have kids,

it's a fast paced world.

Right? And I don't like spending my life on my phone

and on social media.

So I really tried to emphasize,

like, you don't need social media to grow your blog.

I think you are going to get much more traffic from

an SEO strategy or from Pinterest strategy,

which is also a search engine and not a social media

platform. So I would focus on Pinterest and SEO rather than

things like Facebook or Instagram,

because those apps are designed to keep you on the site

or on the app.

You know?

And while I think that can be a great compliment for

building a community,

they're not good traffic drivers,

they're not designed to be.

It's like you have to have a certain number of followers

to even be able to swipe up.

And so they want you to stay on the app.

So if you're trying to drive traffic back to your site,

I think you'll find much more bang for your buck focusing

on search and SEO,

Pinterest, that kind of Thing.

Okay, perfect.

Because we have been talking about Pinterest more and more here

lately. And for those of you who are just joining in

Pinterest is like just what Kate's just been talking about more

of a search engine versus a social media platform.

It started as a social media platform,

but it's morphed kind of like the same thing that YouTube

has done,

Right. People go to Pinterest and they type in something in

the search bar.

They're looking for something particular.

So maybe they're looking for beaded jewelry or they're looking for

hammocks or something,

you know,

like they're typing that into Pinterest and then seeing what comes

up versus like on Instagram,

for example,

people aren't usually typing in something they're just scrolling through their

feed. Most people now with Pinterest,

they don't go to Pinterest and scroll.

They'd go to Pinterest and search.

Right. Exactly.

All right.

So let's get back to our beaded jewelry.

Okay. We've made an article.

Let's go with what you saying.

So it's a tutorial of how to do the beaded jewelry

and you can either get the pieces yourself,

or you can buy the kit that I already have ready

for you and sent out,

and then you can follow the instructions.

Yep. How then do I use that on Pinterest?

I'm obviously not putting that whole article up on Pinterest,

but so what am I doing with this now?

Take us forward from here.

Yeah. So you need to have some photos to accompany this

blog post.

And they could either be like original photos that you took,

or you could use something like Canva and they have a

free plan and you can create a graphic for Pinterest that

maybe has a photo with some text over it that says,

DIY your own beaded necklace.

And then what you're doing is you're pinning that image or

that graphic to a board in Pinterest.

And you're putting a description of what that pin is talking

about. So it would be like DIY tutorial for,

and you're going to want to optimize it with the keywords

that people are searching for for this particular kind of tutorial.

And I guarantee you,

people are searching for it.

It's more this pin description with an image or a graphic,

and then it links back to your blog.

So now if I go to Pinterest,

I would type in beaded necklace and potentially your image would

show up.

And then I would be like,

yes, that's beautiful.

I want that.

I would click it.

And it would take me to your book.

Right. So it all then goes back to your blog on

your website,

which is the reason why you want all of it together,

because then when someone's on your website,

they might also look at your products.

Right? So it all funnels back there.

The other thing that I have learned it's been about six

months or so,

but I didn't know this before then is you can take

one piece of content and make multiple images for multiple purposes

on Pinterest.

Oh yeah.

So your work of this one article could become like 40

pens. Yeah.

It isn't that crazy.

How many?

But like all different types of images and topics,

like one of them might be again with our beaded jewelry

example is Saturday afternoon activities with your teenager or while do

teens do anything with their parents?

I don't even know.

You know what I mean?

You can take that article.

So that one piece of content,

like you were saying earlier,

Kate putting all the effort into that article that can work

for you for years,

this is the same type of thing.

But the different angles of how people might be interested that

the content of your article serves,

Right? Yeah.

Five DIY X for a rainy afternoon.

And one of them is making your own Bita jewelry and

then that's linking to your products or your kits or whatever

it is that you're selling there.

And then some of the others may have nothing to do

with you.

It might just be like crossword puzzles and then there's something

else. So some of them may not be anything related to

your thing.

It's just a Roundup and business is one example.

And then the others could either be affiliate links or just

a genuine,

just this is actually something else you could do.

And it doesn't necessarily,

not every word has to be monetized.

Right, right.

And roundups,

I mean,

I think we forget about these and I will say our

community barely ever uses these and it could be so good.

So you could do a Roundup,

just like Kate's talking about of the five things.

One of them is your product,

but maybe the four others are other people's products of people

that, you know,

and you tell them,

Hey, I just did a blog article and I'm including you

FYI. Then they share it.

Then they share it.

Right. Roundups are great for that.

And there's so many good examples because this is so fresh

on my mind.

I've been searching for birthday cakes for my daughter's birthday.

And so I'm like,

if you sell cupcakes,

you could do a Roundup of 10 beautiful cakes for baby

girl birthdays.

And there's a unicorn cake and there's a gemstone cake and

there's whatever.

And some of them are yours and some of them are

affiliates or people in your community that you just want to

give a shout out to,

and then they share it.

And it's a Win for everybody.

Absolutely. I love that idea.

So yeah.

So it's not just all of your content all the time

and it's not all like a tutorial article.

There are so many options,

so many options.

So, you know,

when you just open your eyes and think of different opportunities

and options to include other people that then bring additional exposure

to your brand,

all of that.

Right. Oh,

and emails.

So, you know,

once you've done an article,

then you want to share that there is an article available.

So that's email content for your list.

Yep. Cause you want to make sure that they know about

it. So many things just blast them out of that one

article, I'll say it leads me to a question though,

and that is,

you know,

how within email deliverability can be affected by how many images

you have in your email.

Is there anything like that that's associated with blog articles,

too many pictures,

too little pictures have a picture.

Don't have a picture,

always Have at least one image and it doesn't have to

be like original photography.

If you're doing a Roundup of 10 rainy day activities,

you could just have one graphic and it's of stock image

of somebody doing a puzzle or something.

It doesn't have to be some fancy,

original photography,

but you always want to have at least one image mostly

because it's just visually appealing and it breaks up the text.

I mean,

I hesitate to say there's no such thing as too many

images, but only because I feel like that's not the problem

that I see most people having.

It's more so having enough so I would say at least

one, I usually try to shoot for like three to five

images per post,

but it depends on how long the post is as well.

A much longer post might need more images.

Whereas a quick 200 word post is good with just one.

But the other thing you said that I just wanted to

be super clear about.

So if you have a blog post and you want to

email your list and say,

Hey, we've got a new article up.

What you want to do is you don't want to put

the entire blog post in the email.

You want to give them a reason to click and go

to your website to read the post.

So I always do more of like a teaser and then

to read the full post go here.

Excellent, agreed.

Cause then they have no reason to go over to your

website. And again,

if right now it's just your product that you're selling primarily,

or even as an add-on,

someone wants to pick up a bracelet in addition to whatever

else they're reading about.

If they don't get over to the website,

you've lost that opportunity.

Right. Plus who's going to read an email article that's 7,000

pages long.

Yeah, no,

nobody wants to do that.

And I think you can build a little bit of intrigue

for people and get them excited about reading it.

And again,

you're just kind of like teaching people how to engage with

you on a more regular basis and get over to your

website more,

the more they're on your website,

the more likely they are to purchase.

So getting them there is always helpful,

but I do want to differentiate too,

because I think it could be valuable to have some content

that's like created for people who are already in your community

or on your email list.

But a lot of what I'm talking about here is more

to get new leads and new traffic coming in.

So it's more about what are people searching for that could

bring them to your site rather than like this person's already

on my list.

What did they need?

Okay. Really good distinction in terms of actually the content direction.

Is there a sweet spot for how long a blog should

be in terms of word count or anything?

You know,

I don't really Think so.

I mean,

I think what you want to do is you want to

solve their problem in full.

You don't want to give them like half an article.

That's like,

well, wait,

now what being comprehensive is important,

but people have short attention spans.

Most people,

aren't reading thousands of words for a post.

So I think somewhere between 500 and a thousand words is

probably a good place to shoot for.

It's not a hard and fast Rule.

Okay. And then what about structure?

And I'm thinking about breaking up the text with bold headlines,

things like that.

Yeah. So you want to use headlines,

you'll want to use bullet points when needed.

We want to have images to break up the text.

There's other things that you can do that are both good

for breaking up texts and a better user experience and are

good for SEO,

for example,

having related posts within that post.

So this is what SEO would call like internal linking.

So somebody is looking at your beaded necklace post,

and then you might also like this beaded bracelet post,

and that breaks up the text.

And it also sends a signal to Google that you're doing

internal linking,

which they like,

Like internal linking and external linking.

Yes. Both.

Oh yeah.

Is There a thing as too many links in an article?

You know,

I think if Your link stuffing and it's not a good

user experience,

then yes,

there would be such a thing is that I think if

you're writing it,

like if you have a Roundup of 20 items,

all DIY jewelers need and you have 20 links,

that makes sense.

That's exactly what the post is built for.

But if you're just linking every word you possibly could to

just like,

get an affiliate link in there,

it feels unnatural or something,

then you don't want to go that route.

And to complete this portion of the conversation,

I think this is olden days,

so it's not happening as much,

but I just want to address it still is.

What about keyword Stuffing?

Yeah. I mean very similar.

Like, so we have a checklist inside the six-figure blog academy

that I give people about where to put your keyword and

kind of variations of the keyword.

Some people I think get like really fixated on it has

to be this exact phrase a million times.

And it's like,

no, you can have some variations,

but you don't want to keyword stuff.

So again,

you want to read it and it sounds like a human

wrote it and that it's not just super repetitive and awkward

and unnatural to how people speak,

but there are lots of places you can put the keyword

and some of it is visual to the reader.

So it's like in the title,

in the URL,

in the headline,

some in the copy itself.

But a lot of it's like more on the backend where

it's that meta-description,

it's the alt text.

It's lots of the things that are happening behind the scenes

that your readers will never see.

I guess,

You know,

all that backend can sound very foreign and make people uncomfortable,

but I would liken it to,

let's say,

you're getting ready to go out to dinner.

And what people see when you enter into the restaurant,

you're dressed nicely,

you've got your makeup on your hair done,

et cetera.

But behind the scenes,

you used a really good product on your hair so that

it looks shiny.

You use some nice lotion on your skin,

you know,

whatever it is,

that's kind of the behind the scenes,

things that are what all tags are and all of that.

And I think there are some,

do you call them apps or plugins Kate that you can

use that help trigger you to fill in these things so

that the whole package is complete.

It's not just you write your blog,

but all those behind the scene,

things kind of like,

I was just talking about going out to dinner.

Yeah. Like you want all of that together to really give

as much power to your article as possible.

Exactly. And this is one of the reasons that I'm like,

WordPress is the best option for SEO because they do have

plugins like this,

that don't exist on some other platforms.

So one of my favorites and it's super ubiquitous at this

point, but it's called Yoast,

Y O a S T.

It's a free plugin.

And when you download it every time you write a post,

you put in there,

this is the keyword I'm trying to rank for.

And so you put in the keyword or the keyword phrase,

and then it tells you where to that keyword.

And it's going to give you like a red,

green, or yellow light to tell you whether or not you

met sort of the basic requirements.

It is not like a hard and fast rule.

I have some posts that don't always get a green light.

It doesn't account for a lot of nuance,

but it's a great tool to use,

especially when you're first getting started.

And you're like,

how am I ever going to keep track of all of

this? Or this is so new and foreign to me.

And you just look at the Yoast plugin and it's like,

okay, you didn't put it in your meta-description or your keywords

missing from the first paragraph of your copy,

whatever. Yeah.

It also helps with readability.

Yes. I get so mad at that Yoast thing.

I know I'll change like one little portion of a sentence

because it reads more like how I talk and then I'll

change from like green to orange or something.

And I'm like,

seriously, I just changed.

Yeah. And That's why I say sometimes I do think like

a lot of my students are like,

I can't get green and I'm like,

okay, it's more of an art than a science.

And just know that Google is going to reward positive user

experiences more than it's going to reward robots,

version of readability.

So if it's something that feels more natural,

it has more personality.

It's going to connect more with your people.

But Yoast is saying like,

oh, this is a run-on sentence.

Oh, good.

Well, thank you,

Kate. I appreciate that.

This is a question I've never thought of before.

When you talk about reader experience,

does Google then look and see how much time is spent

on a particular,

I guess that's Google analytics,

right? How much time is spent on a blog article and

then click throughs also too.

So I guess I do know that I just never really

thought it through So much.

Yeah. I mean,

there's something that you can see in your Google analytics,

that's called bounce rate.

And so this is basically what shows Google,

how many people come to your site?

Like they click something from Google,

come to your site and then immediately leave.

Like that's showing that you were not matching search intent.

They didn't have a good user experience.

Sometimes it's by no fault of your own.

Like, oh,

I'm looking for an apple pie recipe and this particular one

has nutmeg in it and I'm allergic by.

So it's not always like your problem,

but bounce rate generally is how Google is measuring whether you

were matching search intent and providing a positive experience.

Okay. Perfect.

All right.

So we could dive into all of this nitty gritty and

sit here for probably an hour talking about all of that,

but let's circle back to just an over arching statement of

what the value of a blog would be for a product

business and leave everybody with that thinking.

Yes. So if you feel like you're constantly having to show

up, live on social media,

or just be there reinventing the wheel every day,

or you're spending a lot of money on ads and you're

just not getting the kinds of sales and leads that you

want. I think blogging is going to be a great strategy.

That's going to help you become find-able and increase your visibility,

which will then increase your sales.

Love it.

And it makes me feel like I can breathe.

You know,

kind of like the white space we were talking about in

the beginning,

because we're all pushing so hard for social media and it's

so stressful.

And social media is every day you got to do it

all over again.

Things have such a short shelf life,

but blogging is such a long game.

And so there's so much longevity that comes from having a

blog post.

Perfect. I love that.

I think you've gotten everybody thinking here a little bit deeper

about instituting and having a blog for themselves.

Awesome. Talk a little bit more about what you offer if

someone would like to learn more from you.

Sure. Thank you.

I have a couple of different programs.

We have one called 21 days to impact.

This is for really beginners.

So I would say this is for people who either don't

have a website yet,

or maybe you have a website,

but it's on one of the platforms that I don't think

is going to get you the most bang for your buck

and you are willing to switch.

Then 21 days to impact might be a good place to

start because it's going to teach you how to use WordPress,

how to get everything set up and get your blog up

and running.

But if you already have a website that you're happy with

and you just want to add a blog component,

then the six-figure blog academy could help you with SEO with

your email marketing.

If you want to explore affiliates or other ways you can

monetize your blog itself,

that's really the program that teaches you how to do that.

And then just to throw one more option into the mix.

I do have another program called the success with soul incubator.

And this is actually where I think most of your audience

would be a good fit.

Anybody who already has a business established,

I should say.

And in it,

we talk about content marketing and how to use this,

to do exactly what we talked about.

Six FBA is more about monetizing your blog itself.

Whereas the incubator is more about how to use your blog

to sell more of your products.

Wonderful. And where should people go to learn more about these

programs? So I'll just share The link for the last one.

It's Kate kordsmeier.com

forward slash apply.

That's a great place to get started.

And if you're there and you're like,

no, this isn't right for me,

I'm interested in one of the other things,

just remove the apply and go check out my regular website

and you'll find the other stuff there.

Perfect. And as always,

of course,

links will be in the show notes page so easily accessible

for you for later as well.

Awesome. So Kate,

this has been so interesting just having this conversation.

I really think that blogs are something that most product businesses

aren't really thinking about and certainly not thinking about to the

potential that they can provide.

So I really appreciate you sharing all of this with us

today. Yeah,

my pleasure.

I hope I got everyone's wheels turning and I really appreciate

you having me.

Okay, stop right there.

Don't just listen to this show,

having just received this understanding of how to drive business over

to your website and do nothing about it,

figure out a topic that would be something your ideal customer

would search for to know,

write an article about it and put it up on your

site. It's something that you can do this week.

If you make it a priority,

then direct message me over on Instagram at gift biz.

Unwrapped. Of course,

when your article is up,

I have something special in store for the first 10 people

who do this.

I'll be waiting to watch which one of you it is.

It's going to be worth it.

I promise.

So we've talked about how to make more sales by getting

eyeballs over to your website.

Next week,

we'll be talking about another way to make money from your

website. That doesn't necessarily include your products.

Hmm. Big question mark.

Over your head,

right? It's a stream of income naturally,

ready and waiting for your handmade product business.

And I can't wait to share it with you as always.

Thanks so much for spending time with me today.

If you'd like to show support for the podcast,

a rating and review would mean so much and helps the

show get seen by more makers.

So it's a great way to pay it forward.

Also make sure to follow the podcast.

So episodes automatically download to your phone.

You don't want to miss a thing,

including my new tips and talks that go live on Thursdays

and now be safe and well.

And I'll see you again next week on the gift unwrapped

podcasts. I want to make sure you're familiar with my free

Facebook group called gift biz breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week to get

reaction from other people and just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making my favorite posts every single week,

without doubt.

Wait, what aren't you part of the group already,

if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search

for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.