Summary: Welcome to Episode 8! It's the second half of my conversation with Blair Staky, a successful fashion & lifestyle blog designer turned full-time blogger. When Blair decided she wanted to get more serious about blogging and step away from her design business, her blog was bringing in around 20% of her income. By focusing on some simple yet intentional tweaks to her strategy, Blair's blog now provides 70% of her income. Blair used to scramble to throw up a blog post at the last minute, and it would typically be about whatever was on her mind that day. Today, she targets exactly what her dream readers are interested in. And instead of just posting up pretty pictures of what she wore, she’s pairing each outfit with a story of some kind to create an *emotional connection* to the pieces. Her readers feel more engaged and interested in the content, which leads to more trust and more affiliate purchases for Blair (woohoo!) Instagram fits into this whole “intentional, strategic content” idea as well. Blair went from basically reposting only her blog photos to coming up with a separate, interesting, behind the scenes peek into her life. In this episode Blair answers these questions: How do I figure out what my ideal readers are actually looking for, and then use their exact words to help them find me? When using keyword research to come up with blog topics, what's the sweet spot between "too obscure" and "too overdone"? How do I incorporate keywords into my posts? How can I pair imagery & copy to create a story? When are the best times to post on Instagram? How do I grow past just a few hundred followers and into the realm of thousands (and beyond) ... and LOTS more. If you're looking to put a little more intention into how you grow using content, this episode with Blair is a must-listen. I know I have fallen into the trap of looking at bloggers with huge Instagram followings and assuming they must not have to do anything to keep growing. Instead, I hope you pick up on just how plugged in Blair is with actively commenting and engaging with her audience to show them that she’s a real person. So let's get into it -- we're talking about using research to grow a blog & earn 65,000 Instagram followers!
