Clarify the Purpose of Your Blog
This podcast audio served as the source for the blog post “What’s the Purpose of Your Blog?”
The transcript was rewritten to produce the blog post, which is the cornerstone of the Shortcut Content system.
Shayla: You are listening today to the Shortcut Content podcast and I’m talking with Dave Young who is the founder of Shortcut Content. And, Dave, I want to talk about how important it is to really clarify the purpose of your blog.
Dave: Well, I think a lot of people blog thinking that the blog is a sales tool; that they should just constantly be talking about how great their services are and how great their products. And to me, different kinds of blogs have different purposes. So to have a one-size fits all answer isn’t going to be very helpful. A good example is that some blogs are talking about things like affiliate links and product reviews and things like that, where they really do want you to buy that product, because that’s the only thing they have to sell. But if you’re a small business and you’re blogging because you’re trying to establish yourself and authority in your category, in your marketplace, I think what you should be selling on your blog is establishing your own credibility.
So one of the ways I like to think of it is like this. You’re probably not going to make money from your blog. But there’s a very good chance you’re going to make money because you’re blogging and because you’re sharing stories and sharing advice and helping people see that you’re capable of solving the kinds of problems that you’re always solving for your customers. And so that’s, to me, what you should be selling on most business blogs, is just proving your credibility, proving that you’re the person that can really solve the problems for your readers. So that’s to me, why you should be blogging.
Shayla: And you talked, we’ve talked about in a previous segment, the umbrella of credibility, and I think that is a good tie-in. You’re proving that you know what you’re talking about, right, instead of proving why your product is so good.
Dave: Absolutely. This directly ties back to our umbrella of credibility, because that’s really what you’re trying to establish on most business blogs, unless you have simple products that you’re blogging about and trying to sell, it’s a whole different ballgame if you’re blogging for a service business or you’re blogging for your retail store, but you don’t even sell things online. You’re really just trying to show the breadth of what you carry and, specifically, your product knowledge about that. So you’re establishing that overall credibility for your business.
Shayla: And if someone wants help really focusing in and figuring what they want to blog about, how do they get in touch with you and what’s the process look like?
Dave: You can reach us pretty easily. Our phone number’s on the website. We’re at shortcutcontent.com. And the other thing that you can do is if you’ve been writing about sales, go through our brainstorming session. We have this terrific topic outline exercise. It’s really sort of a solo brainstorming thing that you can do. And what you can do is aim that exercise at credibility issues and problem solving issues instead of what are the things we can do to talk about products and product features and those kinds of things. And I think it will change your whole outlook. So that link is on our website. You can go sign up in our library. You’ll get a bunch of other free stuff that we hope you find helpful, and we don’t bother you too much once you give us your email address. But you will be able to do that outline exercise; it doesn’t cost you anything. And people love it. They come away with 50-60 topics in less than hour.
Shayla: And that website is shortcutcontent.com. There you’ll also find Dave’s contact information if you want to find out more about what he does at Shortcut Content. Thanks, Dave.