The Ghost Blog Writes blog has evolved over the years.
Our first few posts back in 2010 covered industry statistics about blogging.
Many of those early posts discussed blogging and things closely related to blogging. The idea was to answer questions the ideal reader for GBW would have and answer them with blog posts.
This is a good strategy for a new blog, but it usually can only last so long. You’ll have relatively low traffic with a pretty good conversion rate. As the years go by though and you become more successful you’ll want to expand.
This means answering questions about more topics that your target customer has. That’s why you’ll find posts here on the blog about topics related to blogging such as social media, SEO, conversion and general online marketing.
Some of these topics make sense to write about and you can get validation about what you should be writing about from your current customers.
The iPhone Innovation
People often don’t know what innovation will change their lives. I won’t say that we never know what is coming down the road, but I would say it’s close to never.
There is a quote supposedly from Steve Jobs making the rounds where he says that he doesn’t believe in focus groups because the customer doesn’t know what they want until you give it to them.
Whether or not that’s a real quote is beside the point. There is some real truth in those words.
People didn’t tell Steve Jobs that they wanted iPhones. However, there were hints and these were the secrets indicators the folks at Apple used to create one of the most successful products of all time.
Back in the spring of 2004 I had a friend that got a cell phone that allowed him to check his email.
This was nearly ten years ago and it blew my mind. Check email on your phone?
The only issue was that it seemed really difficult to figure out.
It wasn’t until about 2009 that I got an iPhone and could finally check my email.
The change that happened was that Apple made it seem easy to check email on your phone.
People didn’t tell Apple that they wanted iPhones. However, they told Apple with their actions and regular conversation that they wanted an easy way to check email, browse the web and play games on their phone. And throw in a camera for good measure.
Secret Blog Post Ideas
Sometimes great blog post ideas will come in a direct question from your customers.
They say something like:
“Hey, you’re a plumber. How do I stop my sink from dripping?”
Boom. Blog post.
But most of the time it will be more secretive and subtle. This happened to me a couple days ago.
A client that reads my blog emailed me to go over a few things. In their email they mentioned a new Google update. It was only a slight mention and I almost missed it. The mention wasn’t even a question. It was just a statement that I glossed over because I’d been hearing people say it all the time the previous week.
But after a second I had a light bulb moment.
The client was expressing an interest in a topic. They were letting me know that they wanted to learn more about Google and SEO and what this recent change had to do with small business.
Boom. Blog post.
Actually, I had already written a post on the topic so I was already set.
It’s happened before too. I’ve heard clients tell me that they notice that certain brands seem to do well on social media. I wrote a post about a common issue these clients have with social media.
The point here is that as your blog ages the questions you should answer with your blog posts won’t always be obvious. You’ll have to dig deeper to find those secret questions your customers have.
The reason they’re secretive is because they don’t even realize that they need answers.
It’s your job to pay attention to the subtle hints and then provide the answers.
You can look like a genius and savior and in the long run you’ll bring in more traffic and sales to your business.
Image: Dita Actor