What is a blog?
I think this is a fascinating question to ask because your answer to it will dictate how you handle your business and your life.
Seems a bit extreme but if you hear me out you’ll see what I mean.
First of all, in the context of both this post and this site, we’re talking about using a blog to make money in some form.
This isn’t about blogging as a hobby. If you’re looking for that post please go to Suitcase Hobby.
I’m just joking, that site doesn’t exist.
But that was the first definition to exclude.
If you see a blog as a hobby or a journal or a place just to take notes, then you’re in trouble if you want to make money.
The reason why is that people don’t care about those things. They care about their own lives because they have their own problems.
This makes total sense.
Which leads us to the next definition.
A Blog Is a Blog
What do you do?
I’m a blogger.
I hate that response. I hate that term.
I hate it because that term really has no meaning. When you tell people that you’re a blogger you’re putting the power into their hands to define what you are.
Are you a lazy blogger who sits at home and maybe writes a post a month?
Are you a go-getter blogger that is always out and about, getting stories, and posting multiple times daily?
A blog can be a thing where you just write a ton of content in the hopes that people come to it and you get some ad revenue.
That’s what a blogger is.
Someone who is always striving for traffic. It doesn’t matter if that traffic is relevant or not because ads just don’t care.
That’s the kind of stuff we used to teach until we moved up another level.
The final level of what a blog is.
Level 3: Marketing
Whenever we build or teach someone else how to build a business we make sure to follow the Pocket Business Framework.
This is simply:
- Make sure they notice you
- Make sure they pay attention to you
- Make sure they trust you
- Convert that trust into money
A blog can help with all four of those things.
In that case, a blog is part of the marketing department for a business. It’s how you’re able to show value upfront for people so that you can move them through the framework.
When you approach a blog in this manner then things change for you.
Instead of seeing it as something that’s just meant to bring people to your site, you begin to see it as a resource.
Look at this blog as an example. Sure there is a ton of content that will draw people here, but each piece of content serves a purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Each piece of content is a resource that leads to another resource.
This isn’t a blog, but in essence, one of the best learning resources you can find for business.
That’s a pretty big deal.
What Is the Difference Between a Blog and a Website?
To keep it simple, a website can have a blog, but a blog can’t have a website.
This site runs on WordPress for example and has a blog, but the whole site isn’t a blog.
What Is a Blog?
As you can see a blog can be a number of things, but that’s dependent on what your goal is for it.
For us, a blog is a resource. It’s an opportunity to truly help your audience and guide them along on their own journey.
When you treat it like that, then it becomes something that nobody else can touch or compete with.
We hope that you see it the same way.
Technically, a blog is nothing more than a site that holds content that is powered by a content management system (CMS). But a blog can be a lot more than that.
It can be a honeytrap for a 6 to 8-figure business. Don’t believe me? Hear me out.
What a Blog Can Do
We briefly covered the Pocket Business Framework above. Getting people to notice you in today’s online world usually involves some type of social media.
That makes sense. That’s where most people are online so you can see that as the first layer. If you do a decent job with your social media you can move them to the second step of the framework which is to get them to pay attention to you.
And this is where social media can fall flat because the point of social media isn’t to stay focused on a single post. It’s to continue scrolling through all of the posts so you can only hold someone’s attention for so long.
There is just too much competition for their attention.
And this is where a blog can shine. Once you get people to your blog they have content that they can go through and that content isn’t competing with anyone else’s content.
It means that you can build a world where people can see things through your eyes. That’s extremely powerful.
So that means your blog can cover steps 2 & 3 (attention and trust).
But what about step 1?
This is where most people struggle with a blog and why they might not see a point. You see, the only way to get people to notice you and your blog without social media is through search engines. This means you need to rank well for people to notice you.
This is the art of SEO.
Passive Traffic
I like to call SEO traffic, Passive Traffic because it doesn’t require you to constantly post things, unlike social media. On social media, once I post something it has a very limited half-life. It could last a couple of minutes or if I’m really lucky a couple of days.
And that’s it.
With a blog, once a post ranks well on Google it can remain there for a very long time. Whenever someone searches for the term that the blog post ranks for then they’ll see it and hopefully click.
That’s free traffic to your site which is invaluable because this traffic comes with intent. The people that come from a search engine are coming for an answer and once they see that you have it then you get their attention and trust.
This in turn leads to more money for you.
The Foundation of Your Business
We believe in having a blog so much that we make it the foundation of our teachings for our students. If you want to win the long game of business then it’s important that you can create something that can generate traffic for years to come.
And that means getting content up on your site.
Building a blog isn’t just about creating some posts, it’s about building a library. A resource that your audience can visit any time that they want and get something amazing out of it.
Why wouldn’t you want something like that?
Over time, when you build an audience of people that have come to your blog and learned from you it becomes a lot easier to sell your digital products.
This $100k week doesn’t happen without a blog. At least not for us.
Don’t think of your blog as the only thing that you have. Think of it as part of your ecosystem. It helps to feed the ideas for social media posts and emails.
It acts as a lighthouse to guide people to your world.
Having a blog simply makes running an online business easier.
Get Started With a Blog Today
We have a ton of resources in our Blogging Library that can help you but if you’re starting from scratch then be sure to check out How to Start a Blog.
