a lot of us content creators run into
the same problem and that is that the
more we try to grow our blogging
business the more time we end up
spending on it almost unexpectedly until
it eats up like every ounce of our
energy and every minute of our free time
it doesn't have to be this way you don't
have to pick between content creation
and business and life you can have both
in this video I want to show you how you
could take many of the tasks we do as
content creators and cut down a lot on
the time that we spend on them saving at
least 25 percent of the time that we
spend on our content business and doing
it in a way that actually allows us to
grow our business even better
thank you one of the first cool ways
that I'm automating my blogging business
is by using reusable blocks in WordPress
I've shown this before when I was
talking about setting up email marketing
but these are super cool take a look at
this blog post this is on cook for
folks.com you'll see that there's this
kind of button right here the cool thing
is is I've put this into a reusable
block so if ever I wanted to make this a
little bit bigger banner and just change
out how it looks on all of the Articles
where I've placed it I can update it in
one place and it's updated everywhere
later on in the blog post and I have
this reusable block appearing in many
blog posts across the website I have
this sort of AD and this ad plus this
other button down below are Again part
of a reusable group of blocks that I can
literally put in any blog post it takes
me a couple of seconds let me show you
exactly how this works I go to create a
new post then anywhere in the blog post
I just go to add a block like normal
click the plus sign and then I can start
typing in the name whatever I called it
so I have lead magnet modal one and two
and the cool thing is each of these
buttons doesn't just lead them to a page
where they can sign up for an email list
but when I click on it it actually opens
up this modal which people can see
exactly what they'd be getting if they
sign up for this newsletter and then
they can give me their name and their
email address right there without ever
leaving the page these tend to have a
higher conversion rate than when you
send them over to another page and it
keeps them in the same blog post this
would take several minutes to set up
even if I just copied and pasted in from
one blog post to another or even if I
just copied the block from one blog post
to another which WordPress now allows us
to do which is pretty cool the neat
thing here is I can create a at once and
if I ever want to update anything that
I'm saying here I want to change the
way the newsletter works again I update it
in one place and voila it's updated
everywhere that can save me a ton of
time there's also a ton of other
applications for using these reusable
blocks other than just you know email
list signups like this you could use
them for a listing of affiliate products
maybe you create a list of the affiliate
products for each blog post category
that you have and so they're just the
products that make sense for that
category and you put that block in every
blog post in that category you can do
the same thing with social media buttons
If you ever we're going to need to
potentially update those buttons which
is possible you could put those buttons
anywhere you wanted inside of a blog
post or on a page by using that reusable
block if you ever update one it updates
all of them if your theme doesn't
automatically generate an author bio
this would be a great use opt-ins for
email marketing like I showed how about
ads for your own products maybe you have
an info product create an ad for it or
how about if you put a block on every
single article on your website where you
could share a joke of the day if that
were relevant to a niche that you're in
or some sort of news or timely update so
that every single time that you have
something like that that you want to
share it can be featured as part of
every single blog post on your website
and again it's something you can update
once a week and it updates across the
site and everybody's going to see it
something like that could make your
brand much more memorable as well as
make your website just much more
interesting and honestly it could make
it much more likely that people would
want to come back and visit it knowing
that they're always going to be able to
find a new and interesting things now
look if you think that could save you
some time or you thought that was just a
cool tip I'd invite you to let me know
by clicking the like button below also
if you find the same to be the case on
any of these other tips that I have for
you today it's just an open invitation
next let's talk about batching photos
photos on blog posts are I think it's
more and more and more important that we
take good photos that they're more
unique stock photos are fine and they
can fill in on a blog post especially in
a pinch but more often than not if you
can take an original photograph it's
going to be better or if you can just
generate an original image whether
that's artwork or something else
batching this process saves me a ton of
time I have multiple times been in the
middle of writing a blog post thought I
really need this image so I go out I get
the the products that are involved or
the whatever props are involved I put it
together I kind of stage a photo I take
a couple of pictures and then I go back
to my blog post an hour later because of
all the time it took to set up don't do
that it's a waste of your time so
instead what I do now if I need a
picture of you know something on my
chicken coop in the backyard I literally
go out and I take 40 pictures of
different things right by doing that I
have those images ready for me for
future blog posts even if I don't have a
specific use case for them right now
I'll often do the same thing if I'm out
traveling or if I'm just out and about
and there's anything going on that's
relevant to a niche that I have a
website in I'll go ahead and I'll take
photos or even get some video footage
that I can use as b-roll for YouTube
videos then and this next part is really
important when I get back to my computer
I transfer all those files directly to
the computer and put them in a folder if
I have time I might go through and name
each of those images real quick but at
very least I'm going to put put them in
folders so that I know what the topic is
I can then in the future add all those
up to the website in the media library
and they're just there ready to be used
in the blog post I find that this could
save me easily a couple of hours a week
assuming that I just write one blog post
every day this next one is easily one of
the biggest Time Savers I've ever used
and I always use it and that is having
an ongoing hit list of articles that you
plan to write that way at any point in
time you can sit down grab one off the
list and just get started so many times
people have said you know it's really
hard for me to come up with topics I'll
go sit down and I rack my brain for half
an hour trying to find the perfect thing
to write about instead you batch that
process and maybe it's slow getting
started maybe it does take 20 or 30
minutes before you really kick it off
but next thing you know in the course of
an hour you have 40 topics to write and
so when it comes time to sit down and
write you just pick one off the list
this has so many benefits besides Time
Savings including being able to batch
art circles together by similar topic
knowing that these go well together and
creating a good cluster of content
making sure that as you write them all
you Interlink between them properly and
they can fit well together rather than
just being independent separate
individual totally different pieces of
content that you just came up with one
today and one three months from now the
next one along those same lines is to
batch your research we have our writers
spend at least 30 minutes researching a
topic before they ever sit down to write
an article why do we have to do this
because they're not always writing on
our websites where they can write you
know five articles in a row on a similar
topic and just kind of batch that
research together instead they're
writing an article here for one person's
website and an article here for another
so I have them spend at least 30 minutes
doing research offline research YouTube
research as well as a little bit of
online research to make sure they
understand the topic well before they
ever start writing you could cut out
that 30 minutes by batching your
research and by doing a lot of that
research during times when you're doing
other things and could easily multitask
I'm talking about when you're driving
you're commuting somewhere why not
listen to podcasts about your Niche this
isn't specific research for an
individual article this is getting to
understand your industry and knowing
more about how other people see it and
the things that they do and getting
expertise from other people immerse
yourself in your industry as much as
possible outside of the writing time and
then when it comes time to sit down and
write a blog post a much higher
percentage of the Articles you write are
going to be able to come right out of
your head this next one is for email
marketing now if you're not doing email
marketing now I'm can I can guess that
one of the main reasons for that is
you're worried about being forced to
create an additional piece of content
all the time right if you want to put
out an email every week to your email
list well that's another little piece of
content no matter how short but I have
to worry about putting out every single
week the best way really to keep an
email list warm is to make sure you have
content going out regularly when you
create your email list create an
automated drip campaign when people sign
up it's going to send them an email and
maybe a couple days later a second and a
third let them know what to expect from
this email newsletter that you're
sending out let them know what's going
to happen send them some really cool
interesting stories that get them kind
of bought in a little bit more to the
brand and then get them on this regular
weekly bi-weekly or even monthly email
newsletter then batch those newsletters
come up with a format that works really
well and that way you can sit down once
and draft four five even six emails and
that can put you way ahead just schedule
them all out at the appropriate spacing
and then set a reminder on your calendar
to come back in six weeks and do it
again you're going to be able to
actually do a good job of email
marketing get the benefits of that but
save tons of time one of the biggest
waste of time is switching between tasks
switching between writing blog posts and
then writing emails and then doing all
of these other things
the more that we can group tasks into
batches the better do it with your email
marketing just like you're doing it with
your images research keyword research
wow there's a lot of batching going on
here so next we're going to talk about
one that is not batching and that is
creating an information product that is
completely automated this is one of the
best ways to make more money from your
blog without reducing its passiveness
it's amazing just imagine this you have
knowledge in your industry you're
excited to start making more money and
so you're like maybe I'll do some
Consulting right and so you put it out
there and you get a person that signs up
and next thing you know you're spending
an hour prepping for that consultation
because you're probably kind of nervous
for your first one and you want to make
sure you're totally prepared you spend
an hour in the consult for that person
and then maybe there's even some email
follow-up after and that one consult
took you two three four hours
it's a lot of time to spend with one
customer giving you a little bit of
money right what if instead you create
information products that maybe cost a
little bit less but can be sold at a
much higher volume and where they sell
themselves the content on your website
drives people to go buy the info product
they purchase the info product and it
automatically is sold to them we use
lots of different tools for this kind of
thing one that we've been using forever
is called send owl I'll link to it in
the description so that you can go check
it out if you want to but basically send
out is a great delivery system for
digital information for when somebody
makes a purchase and they just need to
receive an email maybe with a download
link or maybe the email itself just
contains a link to the content create an
info product that can be sold
automatically and that you don't have to
do any real follow-up work on I'll say
this is going to save them at least two
or three hours a week over other forms
of monetization that pay out a little
bit more or a lot more than ads and
affiliate links honestly I've had info
products take a long log from maybe ten
thousand dollars a month to over six
figures every single month by launching
a single info product this next one
becomes incredibly important as you
start to be more successful as a content
creator and that is learning how to
manage and filter email we as bloggers
probably all of you are getting tons of
email creating email filters can be a
fantastic way to yeah move some to spam
but also to set aside some that you
might want to look at but are only going
to look at if you have time for I'll
give you a specific example of that
here's an email inbox right there's a
order here somebody ordered something
there's um this is saying that there's
an update for a theme and then here's
one from Haro they send me like three a
day right so if they all come to my
inbox and by the way this is just the
focused ones if I go to other it's
already filtering out a whole bunch of
other ones that it notices are
repetitive emails right so I go to focus
here and it's still a ton of stuff what
if I create a cold folder here I call it
Haro and then every email that comes in
with the word harrow in the subject line
automatically gets put in that folder I
don't just want to automatically Mark
those as spam I get them for a reason
but I don't read three of them a day I'm
only going to look at them if I happen
to have time today to look at the
opportunities available to me on Harrow
likewise if something's coming from the
Home Depot or other places where I
regularly purchase things those are just
going to be receipts if I automatically
put them in receipts because I want to
save them but I don't need to look at
them right now it's going to help
dramatically declutter the Inbox and
it's going to do it without me having to
do anything ever get distracted by all
of these emails that are coming in I
found that at very least no matter how
much time I'm working on my blog every
week even if you're a 10 hour week
blogger or a 40 Hour Week blogger this
could easily save you 10 minutes to an
hour every single day depending on how
many emails you're getting now look if
you are a 40 Hour Week blogger these
things alone could easily really save
you about 13 and a half hours I think at
a minimum every single week while still
allowing you to do all of the things
that all the big bloggers making lots of
money are doing it's amazing how much
you can save simply by batching and by
automating a handful of things and if
you're one of those people that's only
got five to ten hours a week to work on
your blog this could be some ways to add
in some of those more advanced things
that are going to make you more
successful without having to increase
the amount of time you're spending now
obviously not all of these are going to
apply to everybody that's watching this
video but I encourage you to take those
things that are using up a lot of your
time and look for ways to batch them or
automate them or in some cases eliminate
them from your daily and weekly routines
that way you can free up more time for
life and more time to grow your business
now I'd love to hear from you what are
the ways that you're automating that
you're batching that you're saving time
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