Welcome back. This month, we’re all about that actionable content. Yeah.
And while this metaphor might feel scandalous in nature, let’s remember that anything anyone actually cares about is if it involves ACTION.
Why do you think action movies are so popular? Why do you think pubescent teens are so fixated on ‘getting in on the action’? Why do directors yell ‘action!’?
Actions are sexy. Reactions are not.
If you want to make your content sexy…
Hold on. Nope, that’s not our goal here. Not going down this road any further.
Starting over—if you want to make your content sexy, give it substance with recognizable, discernible value, and as long as it hits these points, it can drive action. Meaningful action at that, if you play your cards right.
All innuendos aside, it’s very difficult to make your content do much for you if the reader doesn’t have a clear idea of what comes next after reading. We’re pretty simple creatures at the end of the day. If we find ourselves trusting something we’re reading, the natural question becomes ‘okay, but what’s next?’
Applying the spirit of that to our living, growing blog, let’s embark on our next monthly installment of the ‘How to Start a Blog Challenge’.
On with the to-dos!
1. Create calls-to-action.
You’ve probably seen literature on the great expanse that is the internet on CTAs, also known as calls-to-action, the prime way to make your content actionable.
See this? This is a image CTA:
Another CTA we use on our blog, what is called a text-based “inline” CTA:
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How they look, feel, and behave depend on what resonates best with your readers, what call-to-action offers you put out there, and of course, your blogging platform and what they support.
CTAs not only provide a next step for readers, but they also allow you to make your content data-rich to assess readers’ engagement with it. Which is all that really matters at the end of the day. Amirite?
With this in mind, for this month, make a library of ’em. CTAs, that is. Ones you needed yesterday, and ones you’d like to make happen in the future. Try to tackle the development of several in one sprint, and start using them in every. piece. of. content.
A piece of content always needs some action.
2. The usual. Write four blog posts and delegate four.
By the way, it doesn’t have to be eight posts/month. If you’re finding that cranking it up a notch would be helpful for a month with a lot going on, or combining two into one to better cover the topic, do that! Eight is a solid start, and the minimum, but frequencies do vary by business and month.
Of course, this isn’t permission to write one post/month. That’ll do nothing for your SEO. Don’t bring all your great progress up until this point to a grinding halt, for goodness’s sake.
3. Get your 10 blog post ideas of the month added to the master list.
While you’re at it, do some editing of the list, too.
Give it a good read-through and tweak some ideas, and perhaps eliminate others. Nine months is a long time to be building this grand list, so you’ve bound to have had better ideas than others, or a shift in focus over that time. Totally normal.
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We’re nine months in, but we haven’t given birth to that baby blog just yet. We need a few months more of development under our belts to confidently send it out into the world.
See you back here for the final three months.
(Want a preview of the rest of the months? Or just a printable checklist to keep you honest? Download or print the full guide here.)
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