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Write Blog Posts that Rank on Google’s 1st Page
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Sara Nelson is the food blogger behind realbalanced.com, a site dedicated to sharing low-carb, keto, and nut-free recipes. Since 2017, Sara has shared delicious, nutritious, and allergy-friendly recipes with her thousands of blog readers and social media followers. In addition to food blogging on her own site, Sara is a blogging coach and teaches bloggers how to grow and scale their blogging business. Sara lives in Milwaukee, WI with her husband, Ryan, and their Boston Terrier, Rowsdower.
Takeaways
Notes from Episode #023: Growing your email list
Sara is also a blogging coach that teaches other bloggers how to grow and how to scale their blogging businesses.
Fun fact: she’s pregnant with their first child – so exciting!
The importance of starting an email list
There is power in an email list! But so many don’t know how to use this marketing platform. It’s a little less exciting than social media but its way more powerful if you do it right.
Your favorite stores don’t want your IG handle, they want your email!
If you don’t have a huge ad budget, it’s hard to be successful on social media platforms. So focus on email!
Open rate and click through rate are the two metrics in your email list to pay attention to.
How to nurture your email list and create raving fans who are excitedly waiting for your next blog post to go live
We build these lists and then we leave our audience hanging. We get excited for one period, one freebie giveaway but we can’t just ignore them after. It’s important to keep engaging with them.
Emails are awesome because they are set up, scheduled and automated if you have the right program and do the up front work.
You need to nurture your audience. A welcome sequence is also known as a nurture sequence.
You don’t have to fight an algorithm so there’s one major plus to working on building this portion of your business!
Almost 50% of people refresh their email more than 3x/day. That means there’s opportunity for you there.
Sara highly recommends Convertkit – a subscriber based list.
You can create different tags for each subscriber and create different communications for those different targets. There’s a lot of work to do up front to use this program but it pays off.
You can send out emails with tags created within the communication and once they click on it, a tag is attached to their name. Then in the future you can send emails to people with those specific interests.
How to make money from your email list
Email list have a direct impact on your income!
You can sell directly to your list and see income generated.
If Sara invests $1 into her email, she expects $2 back but she has seen as high as $5 ROI.
You can send a weekly email:
Send a link to your most current recipe
Show you are a valuable and trusted resource with valued advice/links to your favorite products. Build trust by being relevant and useful in what you share, stay authentic.
Sell to your audience! Share with your audience affiliates deals that you love and want to pass on the savings to them with. Let them take advantage of the relationships you’ve built with affiliates and let them know they can reap the benefits.
Send out promo emails during your own launches for digital sales and physical sales.
Subject line: keep them simple and don’t worry about getting too creative with emoji’s and catchy phrases.
It’s a preference as much as trial and error to see what works for your audience.
Purge your email list of people that haven’t opened an email in >90 days to save money.
Brands may want to know your subscription rate so don’t delete foolishly.
Pitch directly to Brands around the email list you’ve grown and the power of selling to your audience that you built.
How to optimize your site and social media channels to ensure you’re getting the most sign-ups as possible
Tip from Sara: Be consistent!
Helpful references from the episode:
Tips to starting your own email list – https://shop.realbalanced.com/start-an-email-list
Blogging and business topics – https://realbalanced.com/blog/business/
How (And Why) To Start an Email List As A Food Blogger – https://realbalanced.com/email-list (blog post)
How (And Why) To Start an Email List As A Food Blogger – https://realbalanced.com/email (free eBook)
Free Profitable Blogging Insiders Facebook Group – I share my tips and tricks for profitable blogging: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitableblogginginsiders or realbalanced.com/FB
I have also been featured on The Chopped Podcast, where I spoke about a variety of different topics related to starting and growing a profitable food blog. That episode is available here: http://chopped.libsyn.com/176-team-based-approach-to-food-blogging-with-sara-nelson