Women In Consulting recently had the honor of hosting Ann Evanston of Warrior-Preneur for a live Q&A on the WIC Facebook wall. This was WIC’s first live Facebook event and was a huge success. Big thanks to Leilani Madrazo Yau, WIC’s Facebook Coordinator, for planning and running the event, and to Ann Evanston for bearing with us during our learning process and for the expert advice.
Here are the questions and answers from the event. I have consolidated some answers a bit so they read better as an article (vs. many short comments on the Facebook wall). To see the entire Facebook Q&A go to the WIC Facebook page and look for the event that took place on March 17th from 10-11am.
Q: I own a travel and e-commerce website. On my blog I post about everything from our broken education system to “do kids need recess and exercise?” I also blog about travel – travel tips, my favorite places, etc. Is this OK or will people who visit my blog be unsure about what I actually “DO”? Is there some point in the future where my blog posts should only be about what I do or should I continue blogging about things I am passionate about?
A: Honestly it isn’t what you write about that’s the problem on your blog, it’s all the clutter that detracts from what you do. Write about what you are passionate about, but clean up the clutter and make it EASY for people to see your portals.
Q: If one knows nothing about SEO, how can they make sure they have keywords in their blogs to help them with page ranking?
A: Make this your best friend: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal First make a list of words you THINK are key – then look them up and see. Use keywords in titles, categories and anchor text on every post.
Q: Mine is not a question, but a blogging concern. My concern is with having enough content to post a lot because I know you’re supposed to post a lot to get up there in the rankings. And also, where do I get content that fits my niche?
A: I find when I really work with clients they have TONS to write about. So a few things to think about: Post 3 times a week until viral, then less because blogging comments keep you in search engine rankings. Consider the length of your posts, most are TOO long, aim for 250-400 words. Better to do more posts on the same subject matter than one long post to keep them coming back. Your blog should also be about more than what you do – it should also be about who you are.
Q: I am in the process of converting my personal blog to a .com site. My business blog has the .wordpress.com tail on it. I can’t change that to a .com site unless I rename it which then kind of messes with branding. Do you see it as a problem in the future to have the business blog as a WordPress site?
A: If you go buy your URL hosting takes care of naming it, so why not buy the URL for what comes before the WordPress? I only recommend WordPress blogs to my business clients – it’s the best. I 100% own warrior-preneur and it’s all on WordPress.
Q: Is there a best day of week/time of day to post new blog articles?
A: Tues-Weds-Thurs, and the SAME time of DAY, EVERYDAY, every TIME you post. It doesn’t matter the time of day, morning is relevant in a global economy, just consistency on when you post – readers come to expect it. As an fyi, Wednesday afternoon is the busiest on Facebook, Tuesday morning on Twitter.
Q: Is there a “perfect blog” that we can go look at to get an idea of what ours should look like for optimization?
A: No, no such thing really. It is best to know your brand and your target market and design for them. A 20 year old student is attracted to different things than a 45 year old mother of two small children.
Q: Whom do you recommend for hosting a blog?
A: Host monster. I have been using them for a year. It is reliable, has great customer service and affordable.
Q: What is the best way to attract people to reading my blog?
A: Things that impact readers on your blog: 1 – you moderate, 2 – no call to action. You should allow comments to post without moderation. Also I find that engaging in the blogging community is the FASTEST way to get readers and a consistent following of fans.
Q: What are the advantages of doing video blogging? Do you have any “best practices”?
A: Video allows you to “double dip” into the LARGEST website – YouTube – another social media site. Same rules apply – keep videos short (2-3 minutes) and packed full of great information. I had a client that did one that was 4 minutes long. We surveyed it and found most people did not finish it because they thought it was too long. Let’s face it – the social space is about great information in “sound bites”.
Q: Everyone I know who is an expert on building your own website says to buy the domain name from GoDaddy and then “marry it” to your hosting account. But host monster hosting comes with a free domain – should I still buy it from GoDaddy, and what are the advantages?
A: Well they are going to go buy it for you basically, which means they own the URL. I tell all my clients to buy and OWN their URLs. Don’t let anyone else own them. So buy from Go Daddy, then route to blog or website.
Q: Do you recommend creating some sort of content/editorial calendar for your blog?
A: I do! HUGE time saver actually, and it helps you prep your mind about “what” to write about. Mine is done for the year!
Q: What’s a good bounce rate? And what should you do if you have a high bounce rate?
A: This is a REALLY complicated issue. But typically a high bounce rate means what you have set up for SEO which leads to clicks, is not what those people are looking for, so they leave immediately. But many other factors can play a part, design, flash, clutter, etc…
Look for more WIC Facebook Q&As in the future as well as WIC LinkedIn and Twitter events.
If you attended the WIC Facebook Q&A let us know what you thought as a comment. And if you have other blogging suggestions, feel free to share!
Thanks for putting this together, Rachel. I was disappointed that I couldn’t participate because of a schedule conflict, so I was really happy when I discovered that you wrote a blog post about the event. Awesome content. Impressed by how much Ann Evanston knows.
Great.. Glad it was helpful to you Cheryl!