Is Blogging Dead? Not If You Want Organic Traffic

Send Carrie a Text Message!

You’ve probably heard the whispers... “Blogging is dead.”

 But here’s the truth: Blogging isn’t dead — boring, inconsistent blogging is. If you want more traffic, more leads, and more sales without constantly relying on paid ads or social media trends, blogging is one of the most powerful tools you still have. Let’s talk about how to make it work for you this year and beyond.

Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you’re loving my eCommerce Made Easy Podcast, I’d be thrilled if you could rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Your ratings and reviews help me reach more listeners and empower more people like you to thrive in the online business world.

Just click here to head over to Apple Podcasts, scroll down, give us a five-star rating, and share what you enjoyed most about the episode in the “Write a Review” section.

If you haven’t hit that follow button yet, now’s the perfect time! I have new episodes coming your way every week that you won’t want to miss. Hit the follow button and stay up to date with the eCommerce Made Easy Podcast! Follow Now!

If you’ve been waiting for a sign to treat yourself or invest in your next chapter, this is it.

If you’ve been eyeing my signature website course, thinking about launching your own course with less tech stress, or curious what’s really holding your site back from converting this is your chance to grab it all at the lowest price you’ll see until Black Friday (if ever)

https://ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com/sunkissed/

Join entrepreneurs and online business owners just like you in my Free Facebook Group “Website & Tech Tips for Online Business Owners”
 
 Where we help break down the tech and hurdles Online Business Owners encounter!
 
Simply to go ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com/facebook/ and answer the membership questions so we know you are a real, warm-hearted, online business owner.

Support the show

Be sure to subscribe to our podcast where ever you are listening!

You can find our show notes at:
https://www.ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com

Find more of our resources and newsletter subscription here:
https://linktr.ee/bcsengineering

Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:00):
You've probably heard the whispers that
blogging is dead, but here's thetruth.
Blogging isn't dead or boring.
Inconsistent blogging is.
If you want more traffic, moreleads and more sales without
constantly relying on paid adsor social media trends, blogging
is one of the most powerfultools you still have in your
pocket today.
So today we're gonna talk abouthow to make it work for you

(00:23):
this year and beyond.
Welcome to the e-commerce madeeasy podcast.
I'm your host, k Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine month old.
My main goal to help others.
Now, with over 20 years in thee-commerce building industry and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech into easily understandable

(00:46):
bits to help others besuccessful in their online
business.
Whether you're a seasonede-commerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of
e-commerce together.
Welcome back to the show.
So today we're talking about aninteresting topic on whether
blogging is dead or not,especially in the light of AI

(01:07):
today.
But I'm here to tell you thatblogging is actually not dead.
So the rise of video, socialmedia and AI has hinted to the
fact that blogging might be dead, and we all feel that people
are overwhelmed with content.
They also assume that no onetends to read, but Google still
loves fresh, helpful content.
They also assume that no onetends to read, but Google still
loves fresh, helpful content and, honestly, so do your potential

(01:29):
customers.
Blogging shows that you areinvested in your business, that
you are invested in yourcustomers.
It also shows Google that youwant to put consistent new
content on your website, and soit thinks that you're updating
your website regularly, whichyou are because you're blogging,
and that helps bring in moreGoogle traffic and Yahoo and

(01:52):
Bing traffic because you'reinvested into your website.
So there are a host of SEObenefits that go along with
regularly blogging.
It can help be a way for you toprovide keywords, internal
linking and get more pagesindexed on your website.
And the keywords are alsoimportant because people still

(02:13):
search Google for questions, foranswers to their questions,
right, and if we don't havesomething that can get picked up
by Google to answer thatquestion, then your website's
not going to be found.
So whenever you create blogsaround the questions your
customers are asking, thatreally helps Google get in to
your website and show them yourwebsite and get more customers

(02:35):
and more looks on your websiteand more leads.
Google loves helpful content andthey favor high quality blog
posts.
Still, they also favor highquality video content too, so
you could combine the two if youreally want to, but really it's
the high quality blog contentand just plain text on your

(02:56):
website.
That's really still veryhelpful, helpful, and it's
evergreen content that works 24seven.
You don't have to be awake.
You don't have to be on socialmedia.
You don't have to be awake.
You don't have to be on socialmedia.
You don't have to be creatingmore videos for it.
You can just let it sit thereand bring in more traffic after
you've established a great blogcontent and, like I alluded to a

(03:18):
little bit earlier, it buildstrust and authority with your
audience.
It really shows that you are ontop of your subject.
You are pouring in to thecommunity by providing helpful
blogging content, and so wewanna look at what makes
blog-worthy reading content forthis year and beyond.

(03:41):
So what really makes a blog poststill worth reading and giving
you value in your business?
So, first off, we want blogsthat start with a clear,
relevant title, and that titleshould be based upon what your
ideal customer is searching for.
So the title is the mostimportant place to put your

(04:03):
keywords for that blog article,and each blog article should
focus on one keyword or keywordphrase.
Many times we don't everoptimize for one particular
specific word.
It's usually a phrase, so it'slike three or four or five words
at a time.
So that title needs to besomething that your customers
are searching, and one easy wayto find this out is to by using

(04:27):
Google itself and start typingthe title that you're thinking
of and see what the suggestedsearches are that come down as
you're starting to type.
That's a good way to see whatis actually being searched out
there.
And then on our blog we want touse scannable content.
We want to have headings, wewant to have bullet points, we
want to have shorter paragraphs,we want to mix it up with some

(04:50):
imagery, we want some media onthere, some visual elements to
help guide the consumer tocontinue to read through your
blog post.
And then these other structuredelements like the headings, the
bullet points and shortparagraphs also help with skim
it, and then it helps searchengines realize which parts of
the blog post are the mostimportant to really utilize for

(05:13):
search engine optimization.
So you want to repeat, but notnecessarily verbatim, that title
that you have in your blog post, so you know maybe subphrases
of it or a rewording of thephrase.
That helps make the searchengine optimization keywords
that you came up with a bit morepowerful and it shows Google

(05:36):
and other major search enginesthat these are the main words
for this page.
These are the main ideas andtopics and then we want to make
sure we're being helpful, veryvaluable and easy to understand.
So when we're writing our blogpost, don't feel like you have
to be an English major here.
People tend to read things thatare seventh grade level or below
.
Many experts argue you need tobe writing no higher than

(06:01):
seventh grade, even more like afourth, fifth or sixth grade
type of reading level.
That makes it easy for ourbrains in these busy days to
really just absorb and read andunderstand and get the gist of
it and it builds the trustbetter because they don't feel
basically stupid, because theydon't understand what you're
trying to say If you're usingbig words and lots of jargon and

(06:23):
using complex sentencestructures.
You want to have really simplesentence structures.
It's just easier for the brainto read.
It's like we want to have itlike it's a conversation, not a
formal letter to our Englishteacher, and we want to make
sure we're using naturalkeywords.
And natural keywords is like Iwas alluding to earlier, where

(06:44):
we have that keyword phrase andthen we repeat it, but we don't
repeat it always in the sameorder.
You want to have it sprinkledthroughout the blog post in the
order that you feel like they'regoing to search based on, but
then also mix it up, have someloose keywords in a different

(07:04):
type of order or a differentsentence, or only two or three
of the keywords say it's a fivekeyword phrase, maybe use just
two or three in a sentence andthen use a few of the other ones
in another sentence.
So just sprinkling itthroughout can really help one
make it readable, because nobodywants to read the same phrase

(07:24):
over and over and over again,and two major search engines
tend to penalize on that.
It's basically called keywordstuffing.
And then we want to add a callto action that leads them
further down the buyer journeyfor you.
So make sure you always have areally relevant and effective
call to action per blog post.
This can drive a lot of leads.

(07:44):
This can drive a lot of buyingpower that way.
Now, if you want to get startedon blogging now and this is,
you know, giving you the impetusto get started Some of the easy
blogging ideas that can drivetraffic is start by just
answering some common customerquestions Brainstorm.

(08:06):
Write down all the ideas you canthink of of the common customer
questions you get or the commonquestions in your field of
expertise, and you can also dohow-to guides or how-to
tutorials.
So think about you know whatyou sell, who you serve and what
are some how-to tutorials thatyou can do around that you can
also provide expert insights oropinions, so you can potentially

(08:29):
even interview somebody elseand have it be part of your blog
post.
You can also repurpose podcastepisodes or videos into blog
posts.
So if you're already, you know,on the YouTube video wagon,
that's great, that's anothergreat search engine.
But you can take that contentand then turn it into a blog
post and you could haverepurposed it in that case.

(08:51):
You can also repurpose yourpodcast episodes in a similar
way.
We actually do that here.
You know, my podcast is thecore part of the content and
then we create a blog post basedon it.
We then create social mediabased upon it, and here in the
future, we'll be creating likesatellite, maybe I would say
YouTube videos based upon it,but for now, this podcast goes

(09:14):
on YouTube too, so I'm hittingfour different areas with one
piece of content.
It's a great, smart way to doit, because not everybody
consumes content in the same waytoo.
Think about the people who outthere, who are your potential
customers, who are not videowatchers.
I personally am not a videowatcher.
If I want to learn how to dosomething, I typically try to

(09:35):
find a blog post about it.
Honestly, because I read andskim so fast I don't have the
patience or the time to watch avideo unless I actually need to
visually see what to do.
You know, if a blog post iswritten well, many times I don't
need to, so think of a blogpost as a different way to reach
another set of your audienceout there.
So it's an easy thing to try todismiss, but it's really

(09:58):
actually very important, and sowhat I want you to do is I want
you to start or restart yourblog post with these quick wins
to get going.
So pick your first three topicsbased on your customer's FAQ.
What are they usually asking?
You Write once a month.
I've talked about this beforethat consistency is better than

(10:19):
frequency.
So if you are not consistent,that makes distrust in your
customers.
It makes you look not reliable.
So even if it's just once amonth, that's consistent.
Think about it In one yearyou're going to have 12 blog
posts that are going to be outthere and living forever to help
boost your revenue.

(10:39):
Think about the snowball effectthat that's going to create.
You can also use AI like ChatGPTto help you outline or draft
your content.
I do that a lot.
I have a hard time.
I get stuck at drafting contentor I get stuck at outlining
content.
So I will use ChatGPT to helpme outline my content, but then

(11:00):
I, you know, fill in all thestuff in between, but it's my
you know my go-to to help me dothat outline.
Before I started using ChatGPTto outline my content, I mean it
was taking me hours and hoursto write a piece of content.
Having ChatGPT outline it forme saves me an hour or two of

(11:20):
time, because that literally wasmy biggest struggle in creating
content for everybody.
And so you can also share yourblogs and emails and social
channels.
Now, I did talk about thesocial channels already, but
emails is definitely a way thatyou can repost your blogging
content too.
You can feature some sectionsof your blog in it and have a

(11:40):
call to action to look at yourblog to read more.
So you're basically wrappingpeople in this wonderful web of
your services and your productsby using a core piece of content
like blogging and repurposingit in these other manners.
It's just a great way to comeat your content from all
different angles.
That meets the person wherethey are.

(12:02):
Some people are not emailpeople either, so you know,
having things on social media isgood for those people who are
email, and then there's somepeople who aren't social media
people.
So having your blog linked andsummarized in your email is
great for the email people.
So when we're looking, we wantto look at all the different
facets of our customers and ourtouch points to our customers

(12:26):
and meeting them where they are,and by repurposing and using a
blog post, for example, to dothat, that's a great way to
minimize your time and youroutlay, yet still serving all of
your customers and meeting themwhere they are.
So hopefully this has inspiredyou to either get back into

(12:47):
blogging or start up your ownblog.
So some action items I want youto take away from today is I
want you to brainstorm threeblog post ideas that your ideal
customer would be searching for.
And, honestly, I'd alsochallenge you to go ahead and do
a brain dump.
First brain dump that justwrite down all your ideas and

(13:07):
then pick your top three.
And then I want you to chooseone and commit to publishing it
this month, and then choose thenext one and commit to
publishing it the next month,and so on.
That way you can start buildingthat habit.
Put it on your calendar, makesure it's there and set in stone
so that you get this done.
Make sure you're adding a clearcall to action at the end of

(13:27):
your posts and, if you want, youcould sprinkle it throughout
too, if it makes sense Sometimesit doesn't make sense to do
that and throughout too, if itmakes sense.
Sometimes it doesn't make senseto do that.
And then I want you to look atyour Google Analytics traffic
over the next 30 to 60 days tosee what happens when you start
regularly putting up these blogposts, especially if you're
doing it more frequently.
That's even going to help, butagain, we don't want to be

(13:48):
overwhelmed, we want to beconsistent, so pick the
timeframe that you can do.
If you can do twice a month,great.
Once a month, again, is what Igenerally say is minimal for
regular content around here.
So hopefully this has helped.
You see that blogging is notdead, it's just evolving, it's
just changing, it's everchanging and when we do it right
, it's one of the most strategic, sustainable ways to grow your

(14:11):
visibility online and build acustomer trust.
And if this episode gave yousome new inspiration, let me
know and click on that buttonand send me a text.
I can give you a shout out onthe next podcast episode, but do
note that I can't reply tothose.
So if you need a response, makesure to catch me on social
media too.
And if you love this podcastand this episode, be sure to

(14:33):
rate it and review it on ApplePodcasts, because it helps
spread the word to otherbusiness owners like you, so
that we can help others as well.
And we will see you next week.