Can’t Stop? Create a Series
Share all that genius in smaller bites.
In a post on why you should write a blog, I said blog posts are an opportunity to say everything you wish you could say on your website. About and Services pages should be all about the reader and what you can do for them. These pages should help them determine if it’s worth learning more about you. However, there are interesting stories and great swaths of experience behind your simply stated approach, experience, or specific services that deserve to be told and will build credibility. You can do this in blog posts. The problem is, once you get going, there can be a lot to say. Even in a ‘top five tips’ post, you may realize each one could be spun into a full post of its own.
Hence, the series.
Explain and Show Receipts. But One Thing at a Time
Your website might mention a ‘proprietary assessment tool’ or specialties that indicate you’re doing something special. Or, scratch the surface of experience that makes you an expert. Elaborate in blog posts, but remember, the reader doesn’t know what you know, so too much info can be like drinking from a fire hose. Instead of long articles with many details, break down lists and sub-lists of everything you wanted to talk more about on those Company pages. Write one blog post for each item with more background, context and supporting details than you think is necessary. Instead of a CV-style list of the experience, make specific aspects digestible and relatable through individual stories. Choose one thing not great in your industry, explain the problem, and how you go about conquering it.
Knowledge-Sharing on Knowledge-Sharing
People often enjoy reading how-to or quick information-style posts like ‘Top Tips.’ Once you – as the expert – begins writing, you’ll probably see how you could go on at great length about these tips, or steps, etc. If you do so in one post, it will make it very long and sidetrack the reader from the original intention. Instead, these can be elaborated on in a series. You can and should even go back to edit the high-level post that inspired the series and add links to each elaborated post once they are published. An example would be if you search for the side effects of a medication. You probably just want a list to start. If you want more information about one side effect, it would be nice to click-through to read more.
Don’t Let Additional Inspiration Stop You
If you start a post you intended to contain brief points, then realize you have much more to say on one, pause to make a note of it. Don’t let it sidetrack you from your original idea or make you believe you must rethink it. Pause and capture the points that are popping into your head where you keep your blog ideas. I create a sub-list under the idea I am writing about when it happens. Settle on an overarching idea to represent the intended brief point and fit the original post idea. If you spot a pattern, consider the series potential for all of your brief points at once to reduce interruptions to your flow. Determine what fits with the original purpose, call them high-level and carry on writing, satisfied that you can flesh it out later.
Go Back and Cross-link Posts
A practical tip from me is to develop a system that will ensure you go back and add links to the elaborated posts inside the original post. When you capture series ideas, include a reminder to do this with specifics like the title or link to the published post to help you find it easily when ready to publish the new, elaborated idea. Edit the original post to hyperlink words to the new post, or add a call-to-action with the link, such as ‘See how we applied this…’. In fact, every time you post, look for opportunities to link to other blogs or pages and vice versa.
Why Make a Series?
If a post is heading past 1,000 words, definitely consider making it a series. We take for granted how much we really have to share. Series are a great way to make your content more digestible and generate future post ideas for yourself. Imagine going back to your painfully brief Our Approach page to add a link to one or the whole series it inspired. Series will help keep the reader in your world longer, learning about how great you are while you provide genuine value and build on your hard work in blogging. If all this is overwhelming, I’d be happy to help.
BONUS TIP
Add a note to each post in a series stating it is part of a series so readers know to look for more. Create a category for the series, which can be used as a link to share all of the related posts.