Use Your Blog to Be Happy

This episode explores how blogging can go beyond just improving SEO and be a way to explore personal passions and focus more on the aspects of your business that make you happy.

Resources mentioned in this episode
Niche Blogging DEMO:
https://seiq.meredithshusband.com/c/resources/niche-blog-topics

Timestamps
[0:00] Use Your Blog to Be Happy
[0:23] Use your blog to do things that make you happy
[5:33] Explore potential new services
[6:07] The parts of your business you like the most
[6:42] Another benefit of niche blogging
[7:43] The danger of making a mistake with your blog

---
Meredith's Husband
https://www.meredithshusband.com

Episode Transcript

Meredith's husband (00:00):
This podcast .
This episode, is about usingyour blog to be happy.
Using your blog to do thingsthat make you happy.
Not just for better SEO,because you need to blog.
Use your blog to do things thatwill make you enjoy life more.
Do you remember having thatshoot a couple years ago where
you shot a kid who had autism?
Yeah, let me rephrase that Ifwe don't want to shoot kids with

(00:22):
autism, you rememberphotographing a kid who had
autism?

Meredith (00:26):
Well, I photographed a school of autistic kids.

Meredith's husband (00:29):
But before that I mean a couple of years
ago.

Meredith (00:31):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Meredith's husband (00:33):
It was a single family.

Meredith (00:35):
Yeah, with one kid.
And you came, yes, yeah, whohad autism?

Meredith's husband (00:39):
Yeah, and you came home.
I remember you coming home fromthat.
You were super excited, youwere just buzzy.
He was the best you were likeme after having too much coffee.

Meredith (00:47):
Yeah, I'm actually, can I say, I'm photographing.
I then photographed them againand then I'm photographing them
again this weekend.

Meredith's husband (00:56):
Oh, wow, that's great and I remember also
you photographing the schoolwith autistic children.
Yeah, and you came home alsofrom that like super electric.

Meredith (01:04):
Yeah, with autistic children.
Yeah, and you came home alsofrom that like super electric,
yeah, okay.

Meredith's husband (01:07):
So let's fast forward a little bit.
Okay, to, can I say, your ADHDdiagnosis.

Meredith (01:13):
Yes.

Meredith's husband (01:14):
And then your subsequent photographing
ADHD kids, although not onpurpose.

Meredith (01:20):
Yeah.

Meredith's husband (01:21):
You have done that and you have found
that you connect with them.
Yeah, you resonate with them.
You resonate with them, Ishould say you're able to
connect with them, whereas noteveryone can.
That's sometimes challenging?

Meredith (01:33):
Perhaps?
Yeah, because I speak thelanguage.

Meredith's husband (01:36):
So you remember talking about this as a
service that you might want tooffer, that you wanted to do
more of this.

Meredith (01:41):
Yeah, after the very first shoot I wanted to.

Meredith's husband (01:44):
Yeah, I know , know, I remember the problem
was and is that's not somethingyou can really just put up on
your site and say you offer as aservice, just out of the blue.
I feel like it's, that's a bigstep.
You don't really know what, youdon't know what kind of search
activity is out there let's say,you don't know if people are
looking for that you don't'tknow, et cetera.

Meredith (02:04):
I know people are looking for it, but I know
especially people who are highon the autistic spectrum, who
have children, rather that arehigh on the autistic spectrum,
always fear and they don't wantto approach photographers
because they think, oh my kid isgoing to.

Meredith's husband (02:20):
It's just, there's a lot of surrounding it.
So it would be nice to havesomething on the site that makes
those people feel morecomfortable, though right.
Unwelcomed, yeah.
So let's fast forward a littlebit more.
And you recently have startedblogging, yes, to my own
surprise, and the blogs havebeen pretty good, also to my
surprise.
And you recently asked me ifyou should blog about, if this

(02:45):
was something you should blogabout yeah, photographing kids
with autism, with ADHD neuroother neurodiversities yeah.
And at first I didn't reallyknow, because I did some some
very quick keyword research andI didn't see any search activity
for that.
But then I started thinking,well, let's just do it, even
though we don't know exactly howmany people are searching for

(03:08):
that sort of thing.
Let's just do it, and thenwe'll get feedback Right.
The problem with keywordresearch is that you can't tell
exactly what people are lookingfor.

Meredith (03:17):
Google just kind of gives you.
You need to research, right.
That's why it's called research.

Meredith's husband (03:21):
No, that is the research.
Like typical keyword research,Google is just going to give you
kind of rough estimates.
That's the best you can get.
However, if you write a blogabout something and people start
to see it and it becomesvisible in Google, then you can
see exactly how people aresearching.

Meredith (03:38):
Hence the necessity for blogs.
Yeah, so they secretly can helpyou.

Meredith's husband (03:42):
They can Exactly blogs, yeah, so they
secretly can help you.
They can.

Meredith (03:47):
Exactly.

Meredith's husband (03:47):
So what we're doing now is you've
written that blog aboutphotographing kids with ADHD.
I think it was specificallyADHD in that blog and, like I
said, I did some keywordresearch.
I can't tell you what othersearches are happening out there
, but the step now is I got alittle bit of an idea about what

(04:07):
types of searches are happening.
So we're going to fine tunethat blog a little bit and we're
going to publish it Okay, andthen we're going to see how it
connects with people.

Meredith (04:18):
Okay.

Meredith's husband (04:18):
Then we will know exactly what people,
because right now we don'treally know what to target
exactly.
Do we talk about photographingkids with ADHD, with autism?
Do we say neurodiversity, whatare the popular terms?
We don't know really whatresonates.
So we're going to publish thatblog and then we're going to see
what resonates and then we'llcome back in a month or two

(04:40):
months or in the future at somepoint and we'll fine tune again.
We'll have a better idea ofwhat people are looking for.
Then we can take the next stepabout oh, what resonates?
What might you put on your site?
What might you start to offer?

Meredith (04:52):
as a service.
So the people listening, whomay not focus on that but may
have their own special niches,can do the same.

Meredith's husband (05:02):
Yes, in fact , I would say that's, that's,
you've, you've, you've gotten tothe point before I have.
Welcome to my world.
You should use your blog notonly just for, like, seo
purposes and doing stuff thatyou feel you need to do, but
find something that you like todo, something that makes you
happy.
Yeah, use your blog to explorethat, without having to make it

(05:25):
official and put it on yourhomepage.
This is what I do, becausethat's a big step, because a lot
of times you might want to dosomething like I don't really
think people would appreciatethat or there's probably nobody
looking for that.
Your blog is a perfectopportunity to explore those
things a little bit and figurethat out.
There's got to be some part ofyour business that you really

(05:46):
like yes, and maybe is not likethe main focus of your business.
Yes, like you really connectedwell with kids with autism and
ADHD and you found you reallyliked it, but you don't think
there's a market out there forthat.

Meredith (06:02):
I do think there's a market, but I don't really know
there probably is there.

Meredith's husband (06:04):
Probably is there, probably is.
I agree there probably is, butwe don't know how to go about it
.
To access it so we will use theblog.
Now that you are blogging, nowI'm blogging, we can use the
blog to explore that a littlebit.
Find a niche and another addedbenefit of blogging about kind
of niche topics like this youcan get to the top of Google a

(06:25):
whole lot faster with a nichetopic than you can by targeting,
say, family photography,brooklyn.

Meredith (06:31):
Right.

Meredith's husband (06:32):
Because there's not going to be anybody.
I should say there are probablygoing to be very few people
competing for that niche term.
So I took that recent blog thatyou did.

Meredith (06:41):
Yes.

Meredith's husband (06:42):
And I did a little video, demo, tutorial
type of thing about how we canfix it.
Actually, I shouldn't call it atutorial, it's just a demo.
It's not like a course, but Imade a little video just doing
what I would do as the next stepfor this blog in targeting that
niche and I just kind of wentalong.
It's like an over-the-shouldervideo just explaining what I'm

(07:03):
doing and why.
That's in the free section ofSEIQ.
I'll put the link below so youcan go find this episode on your
favorite podcast player andthen visit the link.
That's never going to happen.
I'll save the link.

Meredith (07:19):
What is the danger of putting a blog out and then
realizing it's not helping andyou don't like it and then
taking it off?

Meredith's husband (07:29):
There's very little danger to that.
Oh, there you go.
If you put a blog up and thenyou decide that you don't like
it and you want to take it down,the only danger would be if a
whole bunch of other people likeit and it's getting a lot of
attention and a lot of links anda lot of traffic, and then you
take it down.
What's the likelihood of that?
Close to zero right.

Meredith (07:49):
Is there a way to check first?

Meredith's husband (07:51):
first, what do you mean?
Just before you take it down oh, absolutely how I got about a
hundred other episodes you cancheck out meredith's laughing so
hard that you can't hear her.
Oh my stomach hurts.