In 1997 the term “web log” was shortened to blog and ever since common people like you and I have had the power to write and publish on the internet. For the longest time it was the only way you shared your mission, your life, your opinion, your story.

“Not only are bloggers suckers for the remarkable, so are the people who read blogs.” – Seth Godin

It very quickly became a way for the small business operator – like you and I – to share their story, tips, hints, and behind the scenes content. All golden content for small business people to build relationship with their clientele.

We could establish our authority in our area of expertise, give away tasters of milk hoping that people buy a litre from the farm, plus there were the search engine optimisation benefits in solidifying your product, service, offering and expertise to help the right people find you.

Blogging was awesome and many of us built our businesses on it.

The day the music died

Then the allure of publishing and broadcasting on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, LinkedIn, Medium, Twitch, SnapChat, Twitter, X, the others I’ve missed, took our attention.

Those platforms had the eyes and they took ours.

Or blogs laid bare, forgotten, neglected.

2024 is the year of the blog coming back. Those other platforms, they don’t care about you. Especially now. As algorithm-driven news feeds dominate those platforms you and I sharing our expertise and our story pales.

“Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” – Brian Clark

The internet is becoming weird

But in 2024 the internet is becoming weird. What we used to call social networks are basically just broadcast networks now, like Channel 7 or Foxtel. Every day they become less like a community marketplace of ideas and more like a TV network full of ads.

Where is that community marketplace where we build relationships? Among the list of places you might list, at the top is your blog, it’s comment section, and your email inbox.

What to blog?

You sharing engaging stories worthy of a comment. You sharing your expertise in a way that validates your product offering and your high price. You demonstrating the voice and the personality the couple will receive when they book you.

  • Answer the common questions you’re asked, and
  • as you walk away from every wedding, every client meeting, every sales meeting think about what parts of that interaction deserve to be shared with the world – if even in a sanitised state – to serve your mission to blog daily

The best part is that you don’t need hundreds or thousands of views a month to be successful.

If x is the number of weddings your business plan aims to book each year, then you need basically about x to view a few of your blog posts a year.

Write for computers as well as people

Be smart about how you write and share, so that the search engines like Google, Bing, Kagi and others find you.

“The casual conversational tone of a blog is what makes it particularly dangerous” – Daniel B. Beaulieu

Expect that people will skim your content so write accordingly, pulling out quotes or using headings to allow them to skip through the post. Prepare for ChatGPT, and which ever large language models come in the future to read your blog and use it for their purposes, the benefit will be that the gross sum of your writing will attribute towards you being found by the AI, the search engines, the computers.

Let your blog be the first draft of all your other content

Once you’ve clicked publish that’s only step one. That blog post should spur on 30 other bits of content, whether it’s you recording a podcast and a video of that same post, sharing pull quotes, or building out other content inspired by that post, your blog is your new content gold mine.

Blog so you can make a dollar

Finally, write in a way that proves you are the awesome human you are, with the intelligence and unique smarts you hold, so that the world can find out who you are, and the right couple can realise that there is no other celebrant right for them other than you.

 

Post by @indelibleconcepts
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