phillips

How to Build SystemsFor YOUR Blog

The Easy Button For Your Blog. . . . . . . . .

SystemsSystems

FinCon13: Marie Phillips:Family Money Enterprises,llc

Owner of/writer for multiple blogs Project Management Professional ®

3 Decades of Systems Development Management

Marie at Family Money [email protected]


How to Build SystemsFor YOUR Blog – About Marie

mailto:[email protected]

Agenda The RIGHT systems for YOUR blog

Important systems Time suckers Blog levels & system needs

How to build a system System examples Blogger automations Summary & discussion



The RIGHT systems for YOUR blog Every blog needs systems You already have systems Don't go overboard Do consider YOUR mission & goals



Important systems – some possibilities: Content management Marketing Customer/reader service Administrative



What sucks your time?

What other bloggers said: Barbara Friedberg: Proofing and proofing articles, responding to

requests for guest posts and emails, and promoting posts through social medial.

Jeff Rose: Managing affiliate links, responding to guest post inquiries, scheduling posts, uploading catchy pictures.

Andrew Scrage: Dealing with glitches and running our social media campaign.

Len Penzo: Writing posts, advertising and marketing, reading and answering reader emails, finances and blog maintenance.

Crystal Stemberger: Weekly roundup and commenting on other sites.



Blog levels & system needsBeginner – learning mode – random/unorganized approach, do it all yourself.

Needed: Review what's important & why; analyze where and how time is spent; write down steps to get tasks done. No automation needed.

Sole blogger - nice traffic – still trying to do it yourself. Better organized but mostly manual without documented systems.

Needed: Document your blogging business functions in a way you can share. Find solutions that allow out sourcing or automation of the least important things you do.



Blog levels & system needs – contTeam of bloggers - big time site – juggling multiple projects with multiple team members/employees or contractors. Systems are defined and documented and functions are split between people.

Needed: Periodic team review of current systems. Organization & automation of multiple systems. Methodical review of the marketplace automation products.

Empire owner - experienced blogger with multiple sites & multiple teams with lots of tools in place. Systems are documented, organized & used cross domain.

Needed: Standard operating procedures and policies defined and implemented.



Where to start. Review your business plan. Review blog goals. Find what is important. Note your time suckers. Pick the area to start systematizing.



Define your system (i.e. - document what

you do for this activity): Name it, categorize it, and note it's purpose

and level of importance. Note the timing of the process (when and

how often it is needed). Estimate the time spent on this process. Define the detailed steps to do the process. Note where this process interacts with others.



Analyze your defined system. Review – have you clearly defined the entire

process? Do you need to do this process with this

frequency? Is time spent on the process in correct

proportion to it's importance? Are there ways to automate, shorten or

improve the process? Does execution of the process produce the

desired result?



Decompose the area into processes.


Manage Blog

Develop Products

MaintainBlogMarket Blog Admin


Decompose the process into activities.


DevelopProducts

DevelopEbook

SchedulePost

Topics

DevelopPostingStrategy

GeneratePost


Create PillarContent


System Example: Based on Ali Luke ProBlogger post

Name: Create pillar content

Purpose: Build authority

Timing: Once a month

Importance: Important

Category: Develop Products

Related information:

Your Ultimate Guide to Creating Amazing Content that Draws Readers Into Your Blog

How to do it:

1. Perform system to consult the content calendar.

2. Think about purpose of this post.

3. Brainstorm 10 -20 ideas that meet the purpose.


http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/08/27/heavyweight-help-ultimate-guide-to-creating-amazing-content-that-draws-readers-into-your-blog/


How to do it - Cont

4. Craft post title - to be clear, specific, create interest & avoid hype.

5. Structure the body of the post – work your keypoints into a structure such as a list, how to, sub headings, A-Z, How and why, experts answer, etc.

6. Write a first draft.

7. Draft an intro and a conclusion or summary.

8. Include a call to action.

9. Rest the finished draft.

10. Perform system to edit the big picture to find out of order items, excess items or missed parts.

11. Perform system to edit the details to find misspells, sentences that read funny and overused phrases or words.



How to do it - Cont

12. Perform system to have someone else edit/review – use edit flow, google docs or other to share changes/versions.

13. Perform system to test your post – does it target the audience, is it unique, useful, easy to understand and credible – does it meet your goals.

14. Perform system to format the post – add headings, sub headings, bullets, spacing, bold, italics.

15. Perform system to insert images or pictures.

16. Insert links, test links.

17. Document solutions to any problems encountered.

18. Perform system to market the post via content marketing.


Decompose the area into processes.


Marketing

Media Reach

LinkBuilding

ContentMarketing

List Building


Decompose the process into activities.


Content Marketing

Perform PostResearchSystem

Perform CreatePillar Content

System

BuildSocial Media

Plan

Schedule Post



System Example: Robert FarringtonName: Content marketing plan

Purpose: Increase traffic by exposing new readers and driving potential new customers to the great (not just good) content.

Timing: 2 – 3 times a week (out of 5 – 7)

Importance: Critical

Category: Marketing

Related information: http://beatthe9to5.com/how-to-craft-a-blog-post-marketing-plan/

How to do it:

1. Research

Ask readers by polls, social media, email or posts what content they like best.


http://beatthe9to5.com/how-to-craft-a-blog-post-marketing-plan/

How to do it - cont

2. Write epic content - Greater than 800 words, answer who, what, when, where, why and how – perform create pillar content system

3. Schedule the post - Time it to make sense for the reader considering other posts you have.

4. Develop a social media plan for this post

For Facebook:

Use profile (unless anonymous).

Submit post to your page – mixing up strategy by:

using the post image directly, and include the link in the first comment,

making it a text post, and include the link to your site in the comments,

submitting your link directly sometimes and

including other content, such as polls, questions, random facts, to make sure your content is mixed up on your page.

Use Groups



How to do it – cont

For Twitter:

Schedule 3 tweets throughout the day on the first day the post is published.

Schedule 1 tweet throughout the first week the post is live (one per day).

Mention (@mention) anyone you talked about in the post – including big names like Time.

Use hashtags when tweeting to link to a topic.

For LinkedIn:

Post content to your profile page.

Post content to your company page.

Share with appropriate LinkedIn Groups.

.




For Google +

Comment first to your Google + Business page – mentioning relevant people with a '+' and include a link to your blog post and a hashtag on the topic.

Find the Google + post on your Google + personal page and share it on your personal profile.

For Reddit

Participate prior to trying to promote your blog here.

Find the right sub-Reddit.

For Pinterest

Use PicMonkey to add captions to pictures.




5. Use direct marketing

Reach out to other bloggers for help in marketing a great post.

Email your list – but don't overwhelm them – 2 – 4 times a month at most.

Email to relevant websites such as [email protected]@consumerist.com, [email protected], [email protected].

6. Reference the post on HARO query answers.

7. Link to the post on Q/A sites once in a while when relevant – sites such as: Doubling my Traffic, Yahoo Answers, Quora.







Discussion Analyze examples Share your systems



Automation tools used by some bloggers Content Management -

− Dragon Naturally Speaking− Editflow WordPress plugin− Google hangout to record podcasts− Feedly

Marketing− Hootsuite− Social media automated submission

plugins



Automation tools – cont Administration

− Drop box & Sugar sync− Ever note, Google Drive, Flipboard− 1Password− Outright − Quickbooks, Quicken, spreadsheets,

Freshbooks



Automation tools – cont Reader/Customer Service

− Email auto-responders− Newsletter tools (Mailchimp, Aweber, etc)− Skype



Summary How to review & refine the systems you use. Some systems other bloggers use. Automation tools other bloggers use to

support their systems.

Discussion/Questions What are your systems?



Additional ResourcesWhat's important to experienced bloggers?

Jeff Rose: “First and foremost, I think you need to stay in tune with your readers. What do they want to know? What do you need to show them? Staying engaged with them through your email newsletter, comments on your blog, social media, will help deliver content better suited to meet their needs.”

Andrew Scrage: “One of the most important tasks to stay focused on is quality of content. Once your blog starts to grow, you'll have many other items to tackle, such as advertising,social media marketing, and tracking analytics. But none of that should get in the way of committing to top quality, factual blog posts. Most quality control is handled by our managing editor, although both myself and fellow co-owner Gyutae Park review all articles before they are published.”

Len Penzo: “This may seem obvious, but writing a quality post -- and then giving it the correct headline.”



Additional Resources – ContWhat's important to experienced bloggers? - Cont

Crystal Stemberger: “I prioritize writing my actual posts since I post Monday through Saturday. Then, I tackle answering all of the comments that I've received. Then I worry about commenting on other people's posts. And lastly, I attempt submit guest posts at least once a month to other sites.”

Barbara Friedberg: “Writing great content, Organizing the site for accessibility. Promoting the content.”



Additional Resources cont

Websites Sweet Process – online process

documentation tool Systems Rock – Consultation help to

systematize Blog.familymoneyvalues.com

Fincon13 resources



http://blog.familymoneyvalues.com/category/web-stuff/fincon13/

Credits to bloggers:Jeff Rose: http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/ author of Soldier of Finance

Andrew Scrage: http://www.moneycrashers.com/ Len Penzo: http://lenpenzo.com/

Crystal Stemberger: http://www.budgetinginthefunstuff.com/ author of How I Make Money Blogging and Managing Your Monthly Nut



http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/

http://www.moneycrashers.com/

http://lenpenzo.com/

http://www.budgetinginthefunstuff.com/

Credits to bloggers – cont:Barbara Friedberg: http://barbarafriedbergpersonalfinance.com/ author of How to Get Rich: Wealth Building Guide for the Financially Illiterate

Philip Taylor: http://ptmoney.com/ Organizer of FinCon13 and developer of Part Time Money Podcasts

Robert Farrington: http://thecollegeinvestor.com/ http://beatthe9to5.com/ and developer of the Investing 101 class

Greg Go: http://www.wisebread.com/



http://barbarafriedbergpersonalfinance.com/

http://ptmoney.com/

http://thecollegeinvestor.com/

http://beatthe9to5.com/

http://www.wisebread.com/

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