ProBlogger: Blog Post Idea: How I Do It Posts

Posted: 26 Mar 2015 07:19 AM PDT

Recently I shared a simple technique that I use to come up with ideas to write about on my blog – answering a beginner question.

While not really rocket science I had a number of readers contact me privately with thank-you messages appreciating the nudge to write that type of post.

Today I’d like to suggest another simple technique for coming up with blog post ideas. It’s simple yet is perhaps one of the most powerful types of posts I’ve used on my own blogs many times in the last 12 years.

I call these posts the ‘how I do (or did) it’ post.

How I did (or do) it

Over the years I’ve found that posts that walk people through processes of how you do things go down exceptionally well.

Giving someone the theory is good but showing them how you apply that theory takes your writing to a new level.

There are a couple of ways to do this.

How I DID It

Firstly you could walk people through how you did a one-off thing.

You could write a post on how you lost weight, or a post on how you made a dining table for your family, or how you wrote your first book, or how you overcame your fear of heights.

For example Vanessa (my wife) wrote a post on travelling to Bali with Young Kids that basically shared tips from our experience of a trip to Bali with our kids last year.

She followed it up with posts on where to shop in Bali and where to eat and drink in Bali.

Each of these posts essentially took our experience of that trip and explained what we’d done and learned on the trip. They contain a heap of practical tips gained from real experience.

These posts have been used many many times by Vanessa’s readers who are considering similar trips.

A variation on this ‘how I did it’ post might be a ‘what I learned from it’ type post.

For example when I created and released my first eBook I wrote about 8 lessons I learned from the experience here.

How I DO It

Secondly you could walk people through how you do something that is a normal part of your life.

For example I recently shared a screen cast of my social media workflow and how I keep my dPS Facebook page running and in another post shared an exercise I do in Google Analytics.

These are things I do regularly without really thinking about it that it turns out readers are interested in.

One of my good blogging friends – Nicole Avery – does this regularly on her blog Planning with Kids.

For example here is her family morning routine, her kids homework boxes and how she preps food for her 5 kids’ lunch boxes each week.

In each case Nicole has simply looked at her life and found a routine, system or process that works for her and has shared it on her blog.

These things might be so much a part of your day or week that you don’t even think of them any more – but you’ll often find that these are things that will help others incredibly.

Exercise

Brainstorm ideas for these two types of posts.

What are some big one off things that you’ve done in your life that you could write about?

What are some things that you do regularly in your life each day or week that could actually help others? (e.g. routines, systems, processes).

Hint: pay close attention the questions that you regularly get asked from family and friends about how you do things or about the experiences that you’ve had. If people in your ‘real life’ are interested in how you do these kinds of things you can bet others online would be too.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blog Post Idea: How I Do It Posts

ProBlogger: 3 Secret Weapons I Used to Launch My Fulltime Blogging Career

3 Secret Weapons I Used to Launch My Fulltime Blogging Career

Posted: 24 Mar 2015 07:23 AM PDT

This is a guest post by Jeff Goins of Goins, Writer.

"I'd like to be a writer," I told my friend one day when he asked what my dream was. "But that'll never happen." And I quickly went back to moping around, waiting for my big break.

At the time, I was working for a nonprofit as a marketing director, secretly wondering what it might be like to write for a living. Little did I know how close I was to my goal.

My was staring me right in the face the whole time. I was just blind to it.

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer," Harriet Tubman once said. "Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

That's absolutely true. Your dream lives inside you, not somewhere out there. And instead of waiting for someone to come along and give you permission, you need to realize that you have everything you need to do this right now.

So let's look at what you already have at your disposal and how I launched my own full-time blogging career using these same tools.

Secret Weapon #1: Listen to Your Ache

Have you ever felt jealous of someone else's success? Of course you have. You're human, aren't you. But don't feel bad. Envy isn't always a bad thing, if you know how to use it.

Being jealous of what someone else has or has done is a sign of somethign you don't have. You're not living the life you dreamed of, not making the money you want, or simply not getting the credit you think you deserve.

Left unchecked, those feelings of missing out can get nasty really quickly. But when properly channeled, they can be a means to you discovering what you're meant to do.

Here's what I mean.

What bothers you that you see in the world? What problems in your industry or social ills do you see that you think should be fixed? When you see someone publishing their words or getting paid to pursue a passion, does it stir something in you? Does it make you a little angry, even a tad frustrated?

Good. Listen to that.

All dreams begin with frustration. But they don't end there. It takes a person of action to do something with that feeling. Because really, frustration is just a surface emotion. It's just pent-up passion with nowhere to go.

So pay attention to what makes your heart ache. When you're feeling frustrated, remember it's a sign of what you're missing out on. It means you need to get to work.

Secret Weapon #2: Take the Long Road

Once on a webinar, I heard Darren Rowse say his first year of professional blogging had only made him something like $30,000. When I heard that, it sounded like a dream come true.

His intentions were to set our expectations low. He explained how hard he worked, staying up late and getting up early, how difficult it was. Not everyone can make six figures in the first month was his point. He was trying to keep us grounded. But it gave me hope.

I didn't want fluff. I wanted someone to tell me exactly what I needed to do to pursue my dream. And for some reason, telling me it was going to be difficult and not very rewarding made it real. It made it attainable.

Sometimes, you have to hear someone else describe the life you long to live before you can begin to visualize it yourself.

Darren's words spoke to the frustration I felt. They made me realize I was going to have to work hard if I wanted to live my dream and that patience was going to be an important factor in my success.

When I started my blog, I was determined to not worry about stats for the first two years. I would just write. The audience would come as my craft grew. If that took years, so be it. Six months later, I had more traffic than I ever could have imagined—hundreds at first, and then thousands of daily readers.

It would be a long while before I'd start making money, but still, seeing it was possible changed everything. Right around that time, my wife and I decided to start a family and began counting down the days until our son would be born.

At that same time, I started to hatch a plan for how I could make money with my blog.

Secret Weapon #3: Don't Neglect the Past

When you decide to go full-time with your blog, you may be tempted to make the biggest mistake most dreamers make. You may think that dreaming is about looking forward.

It's not. Dreaming is about looking backward and remembering what it is you have always loved to do. "Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it," Parker Palmer wrote, "I must listen to my life telling me who I am."

So before I could even figure out what I wanted to sell, I was going to have to figure out what value I had, what strengths I possessed that could benefit someone. And the answer to that was buried deep in my past.

"Jeff," my friend said to me that day I announced my dream was to write, "you are a writer. You just need to write."

He was right. I had been writing. All these years. In various capacities. But somehow, it just didn't feel like enough. I didn't feel like enough. But when I heard those words, I knew they were true.

Maybe, I thought, before we can do something, we have to become someone. Activity follows identity. It was a simple principle but one I've come to embrace in all areas of life.

What that meant for me was looking honestly at my life and identifying what strengths I had to offer. I had spent the past seven years as a marketing director and before that as the leader of a music group.

I couldn't remember a time in my adult life in which I hadn't been working with creative people. That was a bigger clue than I first realized. Maybe, I thought, I could do that online.

So I gradually turned my new blog, which had been more of a leadership blog, into a writing-focused resource. First, I tested out posts on writing to see if they appealed, and I was amazed at how much people connected with the content.

What Derek Sivers says is true: "What's obvious to you is amazing to others." The secret to discovering the value that you offer the world is hidden in the strength you're probably taking for granted.

The Finish Line

A year after starting my blog, I launched my first eBook on writing and made $1500 from it.

A few months later, I launched an bundle product and made $16,000 in the first six weeks.

Several months after that, I launched my first online course, Tribe Writers, and made $25,000 from it.

By the end of that year, I had made over $150,000 blogging.

I couldn't believe it. This was my dream, and it had come true in ways that completely astounded me.

But the truth is the process took two years from start to finish, plus another seven years of preparation. It required all those things Harriet Tubman mentioned: passion, patience, and strength.

If you're going to come face to face with your dream, you're going to need them, too. You'll have to:

Turn your frustration into passion.
Be willing to take the long road, understanding that good things come in time.
Embrace your past, using whatever strengths you've accumulated along the way and putting them to use.

Yes, it will take time and it won't be easy. But the good news is you don't have to sit around feeling frustrated or like you missed out. Everything you've done up to this point has prepared you for what you're about to do.

Now, it's up to you to get started.

Jeff Goins is a full-time blogger at Goins, Writer, where he shares tips on writing, creativity, and making a difference. His latest book, The Art of Work, is all about discovering your calling.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

3 Secret Weapons I Used to Launch My Fulltime Blogging Career

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