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Did you know blogging can be an effective marketing tool for any side hustle? And it’s one of my favorites. A great way to think of blogging is to think of it as a passive strategy for casting a net and gaining new leads. And as a strategy to serve an existing audience further. You can also implement a high level of customer service into your workflows through the power of blogging. The best part is, blog posts can go on to serve your business, well after they are written. In this episode, I’m going to walk you through my easy blogging strategy for your side hustle and how to start today.

What Blogging Does For Your Side Hustle

Blogging is a passive strategy for growing your side hustle. You want to switch the way you think about blogging. The goal of your blog is to not format it “diary-style” but use it as a tool to market, grow, and serve your business.

In this episode, I state that not every side hustle needs to blog. However, every side hustle and business does need to produce some type of weekly long-form content consistently. And blogging, is a wonderful avenue for this. You also want to consider your long-form content being on a platform in which you own. This also makes blogging an attractive option for businesses.

There are three major ways your blog serves your side hustle:

• your blog can market your business
• your blog can gain new leads
• your blog can serve your existing or potential audience

You can create blog posts that touch on the details of your business and why someone should take the next step with you. You can write about your products and services and market them to your ideal avatar. These blog posts can also have lead capture forms like pop-up boxes or embedded email captures. Your blog posts can also be informative, answer questions, and provide helpful information to existing clients.

Utilizing Your Blog In A Different Way

When thinking about blogging for your side hustle, think about it differently. Your blog doesn’t need to be random or unentertaining. In fact, there are several ways you can use your blog to serve your business before and after you book a client. Your blog is a vessel of content. This content can attract someone to your business (by being found via Google) and serve someone inside your business (a paying client).

Here are creative ways you can use your blog:

• answering frequently asked questions
• providing information to best prep someone for working with you
• mapping out the next steps your customer will take
• explaining any offer upgrades along the way
• showcasing past projects

There are so many helpful ways you can utilize your blog inside your side hustle. Plus, utilizing your blog for items like the ones above can also save you inbox time while unleveling your customer service. In this episode, I mentioned how I did this inside my wedding photography business.

So my argument is this, would you rather spend 2 hours a week on something that will drive traffic to your website or $30, $60, or $100 on ads? Or 1 hours on social media where you have a less than 5% click through rate to your link in bio?

Instead of providing all of my information inside a Welcome Guide or answering it in emails, I sent couples to my blog where I gave them everything they needed to know. This was not just a way to provide the same, high-level customer service for every couple, but a great way to boost my website performance.

Why People Don’t Blog

Now, there are a few reasons people don’t blog. Blogging takes time. And we don’t always want to spend time on methods for longevity. Instead, we tend to construct our marketing efforts in ways where we see instant gratification. However, blogging can be so rewarding in the long run.

A lot of people have told me “I’m not a good writer“, or “I don’t know what I would blog about“, or “I don’t ready blogs so why would I write one?“. These are the top reasons entrepreneurs don’t start their blog. And I’m going to address each one.

We have to stop thinking about our blog posts as cliff-hanging novels. They should be thought of as resource hubs instead

Not knowing what to blog about will always give you writer’s block and prevent you from creating consistent content (that can grow your business). You are going to blog about anything that’s going to both serve your audience and establish your business as a solution. Download my free blog content cheat sheet and I’ll give you clear examples.

You don’t need to be a good writer in the general sense. We have to stop thinking about our blog posts being works of art or cliff-hanging novels. The goal of your blog is to create content that casts a net. This isn’t always the sexiest content. So take comfort in that fact that your writing doesn’t need to be like a novel. 

Lastly, you do read blogs. When you search for anything on Google, 90% of the pages you click on are blog posts, commonly known as articles. Blogging has changed from 10 years ago. So we may not keep up with different bloggers regularly to read their new posts. But instead, today’s blog posts are meant to be informative, like a resource hub.

The sad truth, is no one is going to be refreshing your website to read your latest post. But you don’t need that. You are going to use blogging as a passive marketing tool for your side hustle as well as a tool to serve your audience with free content. 

Selecting and Planning Your Blog Content

Now, let’s talk about selecting and planning your blog content. You want your side hustle blogging strategy to be built around truly serving your audience. Your blog is a resource hub for your business. Therefore, selecting and planning your content should be around this goal.

When serving your audience, take some time to consider any pain points they are having. Perhaps this is simply searching for your business type in their area. Maybe it’s addressing a specific problem they are experiencing that your side hustle can solve. Make a list of the pain points and see what informative blog posts you can create from that list.

You can also serve your paid audience through blogging. Like pain points, consider what questions your customers have while working with you. Are there common questions that you can create a blog post from? Is there a part of your experience that needs to be carefully explained? Items such as these can make for a great post that you can then direct clients to on a regular basis.

Remember when it comes time to plan your content, allow yourself proper time. In this episode, I talk about how batching blog posts is one of the most effective ways to plan blog content for your side hustle. I don’t recommend planning and writing at the same time. However, making them two separate events.

Writing and Sharing Blog Posts

When it comes time to share your blog posts, there are a few things to consider. The first is the platforms in which your ideal audience is on. Those platforms should be leveraged inside your business and used to share your blogging content.

I recommend sharing each post on your preferred platforms. Then sharing a weekly or monthly (depending on how often you blog) roundup list for your email list.

Remember you can also include these blog posts inside your workflows as well. Especially the posts that serve your paid audience. Insert the links inside welcome emails, guides, etc.