5 SIMPLE STEPS TOWARD RE-BRANDING YOUR BLOG

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Coffee & Honeycomb freebie

I discovered Elle & Co recently and have been poring over archives and archives of her blog posts each night before bed (#nerd). Her posts are so inspiring and motivating — and all so beautifully designed. Elle's business model and personal vision has changed the way I think about blogging, and I want to start taking her nuggets of wisdom into action! Hence the re-brand. My goal is to slowly move Coffee & Honeycomb from a hub of scattered personal posts to one that is more purposeful, resourceful, and inspiring! Here are some practical and simple tips I'm going to start implementing around here and ones you can leverage today, too.

DEFINE YOUR READER 
When you write to a large, faceless crowd, it's easy for the quality of your content to become dull, scattered, and pointless. It's important to define exactly who your reader is — or who you want your reader to be. How old is he/she? What are his/her dreams? Why is he/she coming to your blog? Taking the time to wrestle through these questions will give you more clarity as you write each post moving forward and may even give you more ideas of what to blog about.

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
One of my favorite pieces of advice I learned in college was that when you are trying to communicate a message, whatever the medium may be, is to ask yourself three critical questions. What does my audience currently know? What does my audience need to know? How can I bridge that gap? Asking myself those three questions has always helped when writing papers, delivering presentations, and I'm realizing now it's just as important when writing a blog post. Make sure that every piece of your post answers and addresses these questions. It will take more thought and time at first, but it will make the message effective, engaging, and relatable.

SELECT YOUR CATEGORIES
What are the main topics you talk about? How would you group or categorize your blog posts? Is there any sort of similarity or consistency among them? Ask yourself these questions and start just listing out everything that comes to mind. Now look for any pattern or consistency within your list and use that as a starting point for your categories. To take it one step further, identify categories that you are most passionate about, most knowledgable on, and most importantly, add some sort of value to your reader.

DISSECT YOUR CATEGORIES
FREQUENCY: Once you have your categories identified, consider the hierarchy of importance. How frequently do you write about each category per week/month? Does that reflect how important they are? The two should correlate.
  
TIMING: Make yourself an editorial calendar and select the exact days you will write about each category.
  
POSTS: Brainstorm up to 10 possible blog posts for each category so you have a pool of posts to choose from.

TAKE ACTION
You've read my tips and are now hopefully itching to start brainstorming and re-branding your own blog. I created a free printable that you can use to help as you begin that process. There is space for defining your mission, reader, and categories just like we discussed! Click the button below to download the free printable and use it as a guide. Scribble all over it and may it get your creative juices flowing. Feel free to pin, share, and print as many times as you want!


XOXO,
JENNY

14 comments :

  1. I. Love. This. I haven't been blogging for very long, but I just genuinely love to write. I've been trying to have more of a focus for my blog, and I think this will really help with that. Thank you so much for sharing!

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    1. Thanks for your sweet words, it makes me so happy to hear that this was helpful or at least encouraging! I haven't been blogging for that long either so I'm not an expert, but as a reader, if a blogger is passionate about writing, it pulls in the reader and gets passionate too. Passion is contagious! So keep on, Maegan!

      And to your second point, totally passion + strategy need to go hand in hand to be effective. Happy brainstorming!

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  2. I'm working on revamping my blog and this is so helpful! Love the worksheet...already printed it and brainstorming! =)

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    1. Hi Alfa! Ahhhh! That makes me SO happy to hear that you pinned this post and will use it for brainstorming. That makes me feel good that I wasn't the only one in this boat of strategy confusion. You should totally check out Elle & Co (I linked her), she has such great tips for other bloggers and is a veteran blogger.

      Happy brainstorming! I'd love to see how your "revamp" turns out - shoot me an email or send me the link when you do!

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  3. This is a great idea! Thanks for the beautiful worksheet. :)

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    1. Hi Robin! Thanks for your sweet note. :) Filling out worksheets can be boring but if they're designed well, it makes it a bit more fun. I definitely want to try to make more printable worksheets to help my readers in the future so hope you come back soon. :)

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  4. This is perfect! I've been in the "re-branding" phase for a few months now and everything you wrote is spot on. Thanks for sharing such a great game plan. :)

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    1. Hi Mandy! I'm SO glad you can relate. It's crazy how long you can blog for and appreciate a good brand or plan... and then suddenly realize your blog might not have one. I definitely had that awakening last week. That's cool to hear that you are currently re-branding too! We should share tips and tricks as we re-brand together. :) I felt unsure at first sharing my tips since I'm nowhere an expert, so it's good to know that it's encouraging to someone. :) I plan to create more printable worksheets and include them in my posts, so hope to see you again soon!

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  5. I LOVE this post. So helpful! My blog is fairly new and I have started trying to brand it properly - pinned this post for when I need some direction and inspiration! Thank you

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    1. Hi Donna!!! THANK YOU for pinning. :) The pinterest world is so great for saving inspiration but also finding new inspiration. I hope the worksheet helps you as you start to brand and plan out your blog. :) Let me know if you have any other questions! Not that I'm an expert, but I love to help.

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  6. These are great ideas, Jenny!! Going to have to put some of these to good use for my own blog. Thank you!!

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    1. Thank you!! And thanks so much for stopping by. :) I'm so glad they added some value. If you have any tips as well, I'd love to hear them. :) Us bloggers gotta stick together.

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  7. Thank you thank you thank you! Now can you tell me how I can find time to do this along with my 40hr work week lol :) Lovin' all these tips & gonna print the worksheet for 'someday'

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  8. This is really a wonderful post.

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