Indie Authors: How to Write an EPIC Blog Post that Drives Conversions

by | Aug 25, 2016 | Book Marketing Basics

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If you have a blog, and you should, you have an amazing marketing tool at your fingertips. A blog can really be made up of any kind of content: it can have serious, meaningful articles you’ve written (whether you write fiction or non-fiction), provide updates for your upcoming books and signings, serve as a forum for sharing your experiences, or even give you an opportunity to share excerpts and/or character bios from your books. But, you can also use it to drive conversions, book sales, or even Facebook engagement! In fact, your blog post can do all of that and more!

A blog post designed to drive engagement should be epic. By epic I mean it should give a how to, be actionable, or a list post featuring a list of…something. Also, did you know that people love to share stuff that makes them look smart? So if your post does that, bingo!

If the idea of writing an epic blog post makes your head spin (what on earth would I write about?), think about the top three things that people ask you about your work or that you wish you had asked when you were starting out.

Fiction Writers: If you write fiction, maybe your epic post is about getting published. I always tell our fiction authors that 83% of Americans want to write a book. Guess what? These folks may already be your fans or might want to learn more about your books, or your process, or your inspiration. So you don’t need to become the go-to publishing guru, but sharing your experiences could be helpful.

Non Fiction Writers: For the non-fiction authors out there, you’re probably already mulling over your epic blog post as you read this article. If time is a concern and you already have a post that was a big hit, you can change it up a bit, maybe even update it and relaunch it.

Freebies:  People love free stuff, and free gets you hits. Free stuff doesn’t have to cost YOU anything either – you can create checklists, cheat sheets, etc. that your fans can use. If you decide to write a blog post about becoming a writer, you give folks a list of the top resources you found helpful. Get your budding author fans started on the right foot! No matter what freebie you’re offering, make it irresistible. It may take a few tries to see what resonates best with your audience. But the best place to start is by thinking about what engages you. What’s something you couldn’t say no to? That said, don’t overthink it and spend too much of your time on a single blog post. You don’t need to write an entire book to make it valuable. We have a simple Amazon Optimization checklist that’s literally just a one-page list and our readers love it.

Blog Traffic and Delivery: AME uses a system called LeadsPages, which has a variety of affordable subscription options to create successful landing pages that drive conversions. They have templates ready to go and it’s easy to get started. The reason you want to use a system like LeadsPages is because if you get a flood of traffic to your blog (and that’s the goal!) you don’t manually email each individual the giveaway and then turn around and add them to your enews lists. And, as I said, it’s a very simple system to use. You can often integrate your new landing pages with MailChimp and other e-newsletter providers.

Once you launch your new landing page, go back to your blog post and add the link to the bonus content in a few places. Make it easy for readers to take advantage of your offer by including it in both the middle of the post and the end.

Ideas/Topics/Keywords: It’s always a good idea to use keywords in your blog post. Generally we try to use at least one, if not more in every post we do. But keywords tend to confuse people – a lot. I know it certainly confused me when I first got started. However there’s an easy way to find the exact right keywords for your post.

If you have Google Analytics there’s a lot of information to be found there, especially if you have an AdWords account. And even if you aren’t running ads, you can do some helpful searches in there that will show you which keywords will work best for your posts.

If you don’t have an AdWords account, or find that process too complicated, check out Ubersuggest.io which is a fantastic keyword tool. What makes it so great? Well, it keeps track of what Google users are searching for every day. What this means is that you can see what your readers are looking for and in order to get to where you’re striking “keyword gold” all you have to do is know they keyword specific to what you’re writing about. So, for example when I head on over to Ubersuggest, I pop in the words “Book Marketing” and it returns all kinds of keywords and keyword strings that readers have search in the last 24 hours. And I don’t just get 3 or 4, I get hundreds. So if I’m ever at a loss about what to write about in terms of blog posts, I’ll head on over there and see what’s being searched on (and talked about) on Google.

So now that you’ve got an amazingly epic blog post, it’s time to spread the word so that it can do the work you’re requiring of it. There are a number of vehicles available to you to share your post, but Facebook is one of the most popular options.

In the coming weeks, I’ll talk about how you can harvest the epic marketing power of Facebook, including its advertising options that drive a specific call to action!

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