I’ve been blogging for almost a decade now. Ever since my oldest was just a babe. Now she’s in her double digits. And we can share socks.
It was apparent to me three years into blogging that I would never be able to stop. I broke the news gently to Craig. Then one of my first gestures of figuring out this making a living online adventure was to hire a web designer. A declaration to the online Universe I was going pro with my blogging efforts.
And with that I began with little sprinkles of wares for sale first, which over the years grew into heaping handfuls of coaching, ebooks, ecourses and trainings.
While sprinkling and heaping I’ve learned loads about myself, my money stories, getting comfy with putting myself out there (even when it’s not at all comfy at first) and discovering my unique gifts and strengths along the way. Like any entrepreneurial venture, it’s personal growth boot camp time.
But the best part of the blog to biz personal growth boot camp is you can dip you toes into the growth boots slowly. One toe at a time even. While you’re nursing. At home. In your Thursday’s Mumu Day Mumu (a new ritual I just took on). Which makes this path perfect for mamas who, like me in those early days, prefer to stay close to home fronts, blogging as a creative expression and just kinda splash around this heavy life purpose stuff while still treading mostly in the deep end of the mama-ing’s the purpose pool.
But I saw how powerful a more intentional web design, or even what to include or exclude to your current one, can have with stepping into the role of an amateur blogger to actually setting yourself up for an exchange of value for moolah.
As much as I loved that first site design I’ve scored many moons ago, lately I’ve been feeling it was time for a change. A fresh slate if you will. Because with all that I’ve offered over the years it was getting a bit confusing. If I’m confused, I can’t imagine what my readers are feeling. I want this to be a no-confused mama zone!
So, to help with any feelings of disorientation, I’m excited to give you a tour of what’s new and embrace this opportunity to share ways you too can let others know you’re a little (or a lot) more than a blog for fun and comments these days. You’re also here because you mean business. Mama business!
1. Get a home page
This is something I’ve been pining for for a while now. It looks more profesh and gives you the perfect opportunity to legitimately showcase a giant sized picture of your head next to your big declaration.
Here you get to spit out what you believe in. Who you want to write to. Show off any area of expertise you want to be known for.
You can see the big sticky note by my giant head here lets my bliss seeking mamas know that if they’re wanting to start offering coaching online or off, they’ve landed in the right place.
Eyes flow down, you see my free opt-in offer which is what I want my mamas to pick up. Mostly because it’s awesome but also because that’s the number one action I want stumbler uponers to do.
So they can stumble on back because they’ll be on my list and I’m going to email them loads of awesomeness (once a week loads)! This is so important to me and business plan that I incorporated two areas on the home page to do such things.
Think up three action items you want your readers to take. Even if you’re not blogging for biz all the way yet. At the least it’ll remind you what your three areas of focus are these days and ways you can serve are and also, how do you want to treat a new guest to your virtual home? Awesomely, I bet!
2. Get a tag line
The best part of embracing a tagline is that you can always switch them around. I think this is number four or five for me. So chance are good you might come across some of my older ones in an older download or link. But that’s okay.
Because as much as it might feel that over the years your blog is going to stray from its original intent, your heart is going to remain the same so don’t get all commitment phobe around this declaration. Have fun with it. Oh yeah, mine’s “Mama’s blogging for bliss and biz” now. Totally not scary. And doesn’t exclude anyone from joining in on the fun. Non-moms, non-bloggers, non-blissers, non-bizers – all welcomed of course!
3. Go minimalist
This comes back to the idea of not confusing people and just happens to be my fourth pillar of Mama Bliss which is the baseline for making this all work with kiddos in the mix. Lucky for me my dear friend and coach Jenna Dalton gifted me the book Essentialism right before my blog redesign.
Alot of things got swiped off of the original plan plate much to my web designer’s chagrin. But if felt so good. Like that feeling after you move and realize how spacious it feels to be living with slightly less stuff. Oooo… the possibilities. If you start offering products and services, don’t inundate with endless choices. Try one thing at a time. Three at most.
And interview the readers you have now as to what would be the perfect offering to receive from you. So the little that you do offer, it’s researched to some capacity and will save you much time and grief. But simultaneously release that need for perfection and just do something! You have a whole lifetime of blogging for business to play with to get it just right (and to be honest, that’ll never happen and that’s perfectly, imperfectly okay). So start simple but simply start.
4. Get and email list and a fun free opt-in to go with it
You can be number 3 and fun at the same time! But the first thing you should probably do if you’re declaring to yourself and your own special little blogging world you’re going for biz, get an email service provider picked out and set up with a free give away to start collecting those addresses.
This is a declaration that you’re taking this blogging a little more seriously than before you began collecting emails. And then be sure you’re sending emails! At least once every two weeks. But once a week is a sweet rhythm.
A great reason to do this if you’re just even pondering blogging for business in the far away future is that it will get you comfortable with announcing what’s new (even if it’s just a new blog post), creating an offering (can be as simple as a pdf) and asking for help if you need help, or figuring out on your own for now, with the more technical aspects of what’s under your blog’s hood.
5. Be more mindful about your About Page
About pages are fun. There are no right or wrong ways to go about it, but when you come across one you just LOVE be sure to bookmark it (or Evernote it which is what I do to everything now) so you have a running list of what turns you on. This is going to be one of the most checked out pages on your site so if you’re thinking of attracting your perfect peeps to work with in the future be sure you’re talking about them just as much as you talk about yourself.
In my latest About Page reincarnation I was mindful to sprinkle the word “you” through out the first part. Going biz with your blog you have to be more mindful that you’re seeing your content through the eyes of the people you feel most called to help. Ironically, that includes the one page you get to blab all about yourself.
You can still do it! But save the fun bits like nut allergies (walnuts and pecans just so you know) and your obsession for Leonard Cohen and dachshunds for closer to the end of the page.
6. Simplify where you can
This is so closely related to the minimalist bit from number 3 but I’m talking more about questioning common practices. Once you start blogging for biz you are going to have to commit to a certain level of consistency and a more to-do’s on your blogging to-do list. So here are some of the ways I’ve done it which might inspire:
I’ve turned off my comments. Not a popular thing to do but it simplifies my life by saving me time to respond to each comment (which I feel very compelled to do), contend with spam (which happens more with comments on) and not have me obsess about number of comments on each post (I’d rather spend that time checking out Crusoe the Celebrity Dachshund videos). Instead I would love it if you join my Facebook page and share your comments there or email me with any questions at kathy at bliss beyond naptime dot com
I’m using stock photos. I kind of half-joke that the reason I’ve decided to start using these fun vintage stockphotos is because my kids aren’t as cute as they were a few years ago. Of course I jest (kinda)! But the other reason is that I took Cerries Mooney’s branding quiz and came up as the Jester as my branding archetype. So I wanted to go with something a little silly and looks pretty with the pink I fell in love with from my first web design (a close up of my kitchen’s Lazured wall which brings me much peace).
I’m leaning on a virtual assistant. I launched my new site the day before we took off on our family holiday to Tipicamp. Took me a few days to totally unwind but I think to find balance between being a blogging mom and a good old regular one, with a life, you need to get a VA. So consider talking to one when you’re feeling you’re starting to get traction with some of your first offerings and then slowly build up the hours so that you can take some of your tasks off your plate so that you can focus on the magic only you can whip up (and get paid for)!
So have fun checking out my new digs. Before I send you off to mull over how you can start taking some baby steps to make you blog a little more mama means biz just remember the most powerful business coach you got is your blissed-out self.
