Video Transcript
Hi, this is Alex, today we’re going to see together if it’s still relevant to have a
today to have a blog on your website.
So is it still necessary to have a blog today. So the blog globally, the
advantage that it will have, is that it will be an important generator, see
very important generator of traffic for your website. In particular, a traffic that is
particularly interesting, namely the organic traffic.
In other words, people will find you on Google. They will find your articles
they will go directly to your website, this is an element
that is extremely interesting. And it’s quite different from
advertising, advertising you will have people coming to your website
from the moment you pay. If you stop paying, no one will come
if you stop paying, nobody will come anymore, thanks to advertising. So organic traffic,
once you start getting into it, once you start getting
to get some, it’s generating traffic on a regular basis
to your website so it’s really interesting.
I want you to know that an article to me is a kind of
stone that you add to your building
namely your website. So the more stones you will have
so quality content, the better it will be
and the more likely you are to attract organic traffic to your website.
The other element, thanks to a blog that allow you to actually have
an audience, and this audience thereafter, obviously, the objective it will
will be to convert it into customers for example. So in particular, if you are not
a company that is very well known at first, you can thanks to
you can finally have visibility thanks to your blog.
What I mean by that is that most of the time when we are on the
internet and we do a search and well finally the results we find are blogs or articles
are blogs or articles on websites that we didn’t even know about before
maybe not even known about before in fact. And so it will really allow you to
visibility and in addition to potentially being able to convert your visitors into
secondly, to be able to convert your visitors into
customers. So a blog that works will really
bring value and help to visitors. That’s really the goal
to help your visitors first, so the people who will come to your website
to your website, and then if your help is interesting for them, you can acquire
them and finally you can acquire a kind of expert status and therefore you can
expert status and therefore you can later on if ever the visitors need it
need it at some point or another succeed in converting them into customers. The
advantage of a blog is that it’s a platform that you can control
you will control. Unlike social networks for example facebook,
instagram, twitter, all these platforms are extremely powerful but
know that you are not the owner of these platforms.
Therefore, if for any reason, these social networks decide to terminate your social
your social network account and well finally you will lose everything
lose everything. If you have for example a facebook page with a lot of
people who have joined, if from one day to the next
facebook decides to close the page, you will have absolutely no way…
You can try to do things to prevent this from happening, but in any case when the decision is
you can try to do things to prevent it from happening, but in any case when the decision is made and you don’t have any leverage
well, you’re going to lose absolutely everything. Whereas, when you have a
blog, it’s going to be your articles that you’re going to
articles that you are going to publish, on your website with a hosting that you are going to choose and a
domain name that you will buy. So concretely, you
are a little more in control of your destiny, and you don’t have a sort of
sword of damocles that you can have with social networks
social networks. Because in a classic way, we can have, for example, algorithm changes, from one day to the next
algorithm changes, overnight on social networks and have a loss of traffic, which
and have a loss of traffic, which can be quite significant, even enormous, in fact.
I will have the opportunity to make another video
to explain in more detail what I mean by all this. So
indeed with a Blog, you are free of your destiny, you can
you can write about what you want and above all have a direction that suits you
suits you. You are free of your destiny
that’s an important point. So what are the methods to start
a block that works? Well, like everything else
i often repeat, consistency is key.
If you start a blog, don’t expect to see returns within three days, or three weeks
three days, or three weeks. It will take several months
and that’s often where there’s a kind of desert crossing, is that you have to
is that you have to be patient and so
6 months/ 1 year, that can sometimes be
extremely long. Especially when you create content every day, after a while you say to yourself
after a while, well if it doesn’t attract anyone, is it really worth it?
really worth it? In fact it’s worth it, but you have to
be consistent and patient. And I’m not a patient person at all
by default, but really for this kind of business and for this kind of activity
if you have a blog, be patient. Patient doesn’t mean
inactive! It means that it’s going to take time
before you get results. And succeed in reaching, finally a certain stage where
finally there is a snowball effect in fact, when you
are you reach a kind of critical size with your website and well
eventually the visibility is going to be much easier, people are going to come
directly because they know your blog,
in terms of backlinks, you’re going to get them a little bit more
so the idea is really to reach this critical size as soon as possible
so the idea is to reach this critical size as soon as possible. If you have a blog
what I recommend is to form a small team, or if not, try to create your own
small team, or if not, try to outsource the
web writing. Because indeed, once again, the key is consistency and when you have a company, you have to be
consistency and when you have a company, sometimes we don’t all have the opportunity to spend time
to spend time creating content, even if ideally we should do so
should be done. Unfortunately, we are not in an
ideal world! But overall, it’s really important
to form a small team to write content regularly.
Another topic, in terms of format, really try to have a blog where
finally you create a kind of “courtesy” with your audience.
So for example, you can write with the “I” the “you”, the “you”. In short, try
really try to create a close relationship.
Because indeed, a blog is more than a story, it is really a
conversation you are going to have. For example, for my agency Twaino, I have a
twaino agency I have a blog. And in fact
when I write articles, I actually try to tell myself what I could say to a friend
what could I tell a friend, for example, who is going to start a business?
What are the tips I could give him? And what are the
and what are the tricks of the trade? And so this is really on the register of the conversation, to avoid having
and this is really about conversation, to avoid having something that is heavy!
So the idea is really to simplify as much as possible and to have a
approach, that’s important. So then, what are the methods
to start a block that works? So actually, I’m talking about
in this section, titles and subtitles.
In fact, you should know that you don’t read a blog
on the internet in the same way as you would read a novel
for example. In a novel we start from the first page and we finish at the
last page. On the internet we don’t read in this way
we look at the article as a whole, including the titles and subtitles
the subtitles, to see the way it is structured. And when there is a
title or a sub-title which will really hit us a little in the
the eye. Well, eventually we’ll start reading.
So I really spent some time, in terms of the titles, trying to
so that they’re as magnetic as possible. So
the numbers I found on this is that 8 out of 10 people will read your headlines but only 2 out of 10 people
read your headlines but only two out of 10 people will read the text. So
you can see how important it is to create
of creating headlines and subheadlines that are going to be relevant and
that will catch the eye. Another element is consistency.
When you start a block, what I recommend is
to start with a niche and once you start to have an audience
that you’re known with that niche, potentially you can start to
to grow, to expand to other topics. But starting small, on a niche
that’s a really good way to get known, quote-unquote as
the expert in the field. It’s also important to have an audience that is
between well targeted, at first. Don’t go off in all
the creation of your content, because for example if you are in the BtoB
you are in the BtoB and you have a service or a product that you
you want to sell. Well, eventually if you write about a little bit
all the subjects, a little bit of everything and anything, maybe there is some traffic that
come to your site, so maybe there are people who will come to your site for those
your site for those articles. But in the end your blog will not allow you
to convert. And so the goal is really to make sure that you have
articles that in a more or less direct way, will be brought thereafter to
to tend towards a conversion. So the other point is
effectively at the level of “content”. So what we call in English
“content repurposing”, so it’s the reconversion of content. The idea is actually,
it is quite simple, when you have an article that works, that is to say
a good idea, don’t hesitate to
re-exploit it in different types of formats. For example, if you have an article
that works, well why not just try to transform it into a video, by making a small
a video, by making a small video on youtube, by making a podcast, by
making an infographic. This is interesting because finally we are not all equal
are not all equal when it comes to learning. There are people who love
learning by reading, for example, blog articles, there are others who are more
are more visual, so an infographic can be really good
and there are others who prefer to listen to information to retain it, so a podcast can also be
podcast can also be effective. Video is a good mix between the two
so really, it’s a good format. So another element
when you’re going to do your blog,
it’s important to know your sector and your industry. What I recommend is that if you have a
recommend, if you have a blog
i would always recommend that if you have a blog, if you have a website, I would always
i would always recommend that you have a blog section. In BtoC it’s
important, in BtoB, from my point of view, it’s essential. So really if
you have a business and you address other businesses,
having a blog is really important. It’s important for
it’s important for visibility and it’s really going to help you gain authority. The key
when you have a blog is consistency and quality.
Without these two elements, there is very little chance that you can make your blog
your blog take off and therefore have organic traffic that will come
to your website on a regular basis. If you have the difficulties to write,
actually call on professional web copywriters, so
so either you do it in-house or you do it externally. But
globally, if you are all alone actually
think about outsourcing, there are people who have very good
writing skills, so overall really, tend towards that kind of thing, it
can be important. Because sometimes, we are not all equal
sometimes we’re not all equal in our ability to write. So the other element, especially at the very beginning,
at the very beginning, let’s say your website has just been launched, actually
you’re going to start writing your first blog posts.
Know that there is a creation part but also a promotion part.
So, the figures I have seen here, I have them on the internet so
the information is as follows: 20% of time spent on creation and 80% on
promotion. From my point of view, I think that’s a lot, but in fact the idea
is still there. It’s that you have to spend time to create but if you don’t
promotion, especially at the beginning, if you are not known, it will be complicated for you to
be complicated for you to have visibility. So spend some time, spend at least part of your time
so spend time, at least part of your time, allocate your time to promotion.
Personally, I think it’s more like 50% of the time creating 50% of the
promotion time. 20%/80% seems like a lot to me actually. Then,
how do you go about promoting your product? There are several methods,
firstly, what I recommend you do is to use a tool called AHREFS, which will allow you to see
called AHREFS, which will allow you to see on similar articles
which are in the competition, which are the other websites that have had
the opportunity to put links on their own websites in relation to these
articles there. It is interesting to use AHREFS for this because
you will be able to contact these sites, saying, “here I wrote an
article similar to an article you’ve already linked to, so would you like to add
would you like to add the link to my article to our website?”
This is what will allow you to get backlinks and therefore the more
backlinks the better. First possibility. Then 2nd first,
Buzz sumo. Indeed with Buzz Sumo, you will
actually see which articles are the most shared on a given issue or theme
for example on a given issue or theme. And you will be able to
contact the people who have already shared a content close to what you have done and ask them
and ask them to share your own content too. So this
same thing, it will really give you visibility and so use buzz
sumo, that’s pretty interesting too!
So that’s it, I’m done with this video, I hope you’re
interested. In any case, I hope that you
to the question, do we still need a blog today?
today? The answer for me is clearly yes. Sometimes, we can see
content to say that blogs are dead, etc… For me, no, the
generation of organic traffic is still largely done by blogs
nowadays, it is through blogs. So making quality content
is important. Be consistent as well, this is something that is
essential and it will allow you to have regular visitors who will be interested in
that will be interested in what you do. And then, you will
will succeed in obtaining a kind of authority status, and you will have a much easier time
easier to convert these visitors into potential customers.
Another thing, if you have a blog you are the master of your destiny,
you don’t have any kind of sword of damocles on your head, with for example
social networks it is the case. So if for example there are changes
algorithm changes overnight, then you can find yourself completely
completely “outside of the game”. Whereas with your blog
you are responsible for your articles, you have your own website,
you have a hosting that you have chosen, you have your domain name
that you bought. In short, your destiny belongs to you, and therefore you are free to
to create the content you want and to go in the direction
editorial direction you want. The key is consistency, which is probably the most important thing
that is the most important thing. When you’re going to create blog posts, try to do it in a way that is
articles, try to do it in a courteous way, so with using “I”, “you” or “you
or “you” in order to create some sort of closeness. Above all, a blog you
really consider it, as a kind of conversation with strangers, and really
strangers, and really that’s it. I know that the advice I can give on my blog is
i know that the advice that I can give on my blog, these are things that I could give, these are
i know that the tips I can give on my blog, they’re things I could give, they’re things that I could give to my friends or my own family.
the titles, capital, spend time there too, the text is important too
but overall spend a lot of time on the titles
and also time on the text but to a lesser extent.
Another element, indeed think of doing “content repurposing”
when you have something that works on your blog, don’t hesitate to change the format
change the format, to transform it for example, to transform a blog article, a video
blog post, into a video, into a podcast, into an infographic. That kind of thing
works really well. I’m done with that. Thank you very much for your attention and see you soon
soon for the rest…
