Blogging Tips Archives | Bourn Creative

Create An Effective Content Marketing Plan At Content Camp

August 7, 2019 Jennifer Bourn

What do blogging, podcasting, attracting clients, acquiring customers, growing a YouTube channel, building an email list, and establishing a social following have in common?

Content.

No matter what your goal is, if you want to grow your business and expand your brand:

You need to create high-quality, strategic content on a regular basis. Year-over-year growth in unique site traffic is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders compared to followers (19.7% vs 2.5%) according to Aberdeen.
You need to market that content to gain as much visibility and website traffic as possible. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads according to DemandMetric.
You need people who engage and interact with your content to take action. Conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs 0.5%) shares Aberdeen.

Content Camp: A Content Marketing Workshop For Small Business

July 2, 2019 Jennifer Bourn

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of content marketing and how it can bring a flood of new clients to your business and new customers in the door. You’ve probably also heard that blogging is the fastest way to improve your search rankings and attract new clients. You may have even thought, “I really need to be doing that and leverage the free and low cost tools available to grow my business.”

So you decided to look into it — you did online research, read blog posts, watched YouTube videos, and downloaded a white paper or ebook. But there is so much information out there, so much to learn, so many people with opinions, and so many different options, it’s hard to know what is right for your business and where to start to get the most bang for your buck.

You might have also invested in attending networking events and conferences (or sending your staff to these events) to learn about blogging, content marketing, and the tools available. Unfortunately, all you walked away with is a few tips and a giant to do list of things you should be doing. The problem is that you still haven’t made progress.

I get it. I’ve been there.

I see it happening to small business owners time and time again, and it needs to stop.

Jennifer And Natalie Bourn Set To Speak This April At WordCamp San Diego 2018

March 27, 2018 Jennifer Bourn

Bourn Creative is excited to announce that a new Bourn is joining the ranks of speaker! Both Jennifer Bourn and Natalie Bourn will be speaking at WordCamp San Diego 2018, happening April 14-15, 2018 at the San Diego City College Math and Science Building.

Jennifer, who has been working as a designer for 20 years, is delivering a session on web design, sharing tips for DIYers to design like the professionals.
Natalie, a high school freshman who has been blogging for four years, is delivering a session on starting a blog and finding your voice.

The whole family is excited to spend the weekend in San Diego and cheer Natalie on in her first speaking gig! If you’d like to learn more about their sessions or attending WordCamp San Diego, here is some more information:

International Food Blogger Conference Hits Sacramento, California

October 2, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at the ninth International Food Blogger Conference on What Bloggers Need To Know About SEO. Speaking and training is one of my favorite things to do, and the conference was happening at the Sacramento Convention Center near my home, so saying yes was a no brainer.

Plus, in April 2016, I started my own personal blog Inspired Imperfection, where I share recipes, family adventures, and candid commentary on life, so this event was also going to be an awesome opportunity to meet other local bloggers! While I travel to business events and conference after, the International Food Blogger Conference was actually my first blogging-specific conference.

The two-day food blogging conference ran Friday and Saturday with back-to-back sessions and add-on events happening the Thursday before the event and the Sunday after. Sessions were delivered by a mix of individual expert speakers, moderated panel discussions, and sponsored sessions.

What Is The Difference Between A WordPress Page and A WordPress Post?

February 7, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

For those of us who work with WordPress daily, concepts like the difference between WordPress pages and posts seem obvious, but then I go to a networking event, blogging event, or conference, and I am reminded that what we as professionals see as obvious is often seen as complex and confusing to new users. This is especially true with WordPress posts and pages — and when custom post types are thrown in the mix, it gets even more confusing.

Just a couple weeks ago, a new client was asking new to explain the difference between WordPress pages and posts. I grinned, told them that I had already written an entire blog post on this very topic, and went to grab the link and email it to them. But I couldn’t find it. Had I really never clicked publish on this post? Did it get buried under newer posts and forgotten about? Yep. It sure did. So needless to say, I’m publishing it now and hoping it sheds some light on this topic for you too!

A WordPress Blog Is A Filing Cabinet For Your Website

March 28, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

I’m guilty of it. Almost every blogger I know is guilty of it —, well, at least the bloggers who have been blogging for years. It’s a problem we caused that has haunted us for the life of our blog and now is either a huge task we know we need to tackle, or a huge task we’re just going to ignore and push to the side.

Category and Tag Abuse

WordPress category and tag abuse is a real struggle. It’s how this blog at one point, ballooned to more than 30 categories and 800 tags that I then had to clean up.

Now you may be thinking, “So what? What’s the big deal”

The big deal is that not only does category and tag abuse split and fracture your content, it creates a poor experience for your website visitors, making it harder to find similar or related content about the topic they are interested in on your website.

Categories and Tags Used As Keywords

The problem of category and tag abuse stems from the belief that categories and tags are similar to keywords, and that when assigned a category or tag to a blog post, it is the same as assigning a keyword to the post. This action is further perpetuated by the belief that assigning a post to a specific category or tag like a keyword somehow will help their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

How To Plan A Blog Post In 10 Minutes

April 20, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Every website owner loves the idea of a blog. They love hearing about how adding a blog to your website is one of the fastest and easiest ways to increase traffic, improve search engine rankings, build a big email list, gain expert positioning, and attract new clients.

They love the impact it can have on their social media content strategy and they love that blogging for business is free — it doesn’t add another monthly bill. But blogging isn’t really free — it takes time, energy, focus, and commitment.

As a result, end though website owners love the idea of blogging for business, they are not using their blogs! Often nothing new has been published since the site originally went live, or it’s been three, six, or even twelve months since any new content has been added. Yikes!

In my latest article for CoSchedule, How To Plan A Blog Post In 10 Minutes So You Can Write It Better And Faster, I address the biggest hurdle business blogs face — creating content and planning posts.

In this article, I walk you through how to plan a blog post in 10 minutes or less so you can write it better and faster — without stress, frustration, or overwhelm. Plus, I know you don’t need another cookie cutter formula that doesn’t work, so I’m going to walk you through FIVE different approaches to planning and writing blog posts so you can choose the one that works best for you.

Here’s the entire article:

How to Optimize Blog Posts For Maximum Results And Visibility

August 28, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Every time I speak to a group or organization at about blogging for business, I share the same simple, but often eye-opening statements:

Every time a new blog post is published, a new searchable URL is added to your website
Publishing a new blog post just once each week for a year, will add 52 new searchable URLs to your website
That action creates 52 new ways people can find you online — that’s 52 new chances you have to appear in the search engines results when someone is looking for what you do

If audience members were skeptical about blogging before, they usually then agree that it’s worth their time to take a second look about how blogging for business could help grow their business.

The Problem With Blogging For Business

I speak to a lot of people who think blogging for business is a waste of time, ether because they tried it and it didn’t work, or someone else told them that they tried it and it didn’t work.

Bourn Creative Pulls Triple Duty at WordCamp LA 2014

August 13, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

WordCamp Los Angeles — locally organized three-day conference covering everything related to WordPress — is happening September 5-7, 2014, less than a month from today.

I’m so excited for this event — The schedule and sessions look awesome, the attendee list is full of amazing people, and Brian and I will BOTH be speaking! While Brian and I have both presented at WordCamps before, this is the first time we’ll both be presenting at the same one!

So, if you are in or near the Los Angeles area, I highly encourage you to snag a coveted ticket before they sell out — and at only $45 for all three days, a party, a t-shirt, and food, this is an amazing opportunity to network, improve your skill set, learn more about WordPress, and have fun.

Why Every Business Should Have a WordPress Blog

May 2, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

A blog is a section of your website where new, fresh content is added and published on a regular basis.

Blog posts most often are arranged in order from newest post to oldest post, and can be display in a list, in a grid, or in a Pinterest-style tiled format called masonry.

Starting a blog and blogging for business is one of the most effective and efficient marketing tools available to business owners — especially when combined with a well-planned marketing calendar and content strategy.

Blogging can help you get you found faster and more often online by people who are searching for exactly what you offer
Blogging can help increase your search engines rankings for the keywords and key phrases you are targeting
Blogging can help get your brand and your message in front of new audiences
Blogging can help position you as a leader and help you establish expertise and credibility in your niche market
Blogging helps people get to know you and keeps you top of mind, and as a result can lead to a shorter sales cycle and an increase in referrals

Content to Cash: Leverage Content to Attract Clients and Streamline Workflow

January 17, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

While Brian has been going to WordCamps since 2011, WordCamp Phoenix is only my third WordCamp and I seriously can’t recommend them enough. Not only do WordCamps provide an unbelievable amount of WordPress and WordPress-related training for a very low investment, they also provide you amazing access to some of the smartest and nicest people in the community.

It is only the middle of day two and I have already connected with a bevy of designers, developers, consultants, and end users — all working in some way with WordPress. I am honored to have been invited to speak at WordCamp Phoenix this year — the speaker line up is pretty unbelievable! There are so many talks that I want to go to — I’ll have to write a recap post too!

WordCamp Phoenix 2014, A Weekend of WordPress Awesomeness

January 8, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

WordCamp Phoenix, happening January 17-19, 2014 in Chandler, Arizona, is proud to provide high-quality content regarding the fastest growing and most widely used web content management system — WordPress. WordPress is not only a technology, but a vibrant community. Join us for this three-day weekend event of workshops, classes, and parties featuring the best of what the WordPress community has to offer.

Everyone who uses or creates for WordPress is invited to attend: small business owners, bloggers, designers, developers or anyone else who has an interest in WordPress.

WordCamp Phoenix is a non-profit event, led by a diverse group of volunteers. This conference brings together technology professionals, enthusiasts, vendors and customers to connect with each other and learn about WordPress. This event is made possible with the support and expertise of the local Phoenix WordPress community, sponsors, and amazing speakers who lend their time and talents and a large pool of volunteers and their generous support.

And the coolest part? Brian and I will be there because I’m delivering one of more than 45 presentations! Yep. I’m speaking in the Content & Design track on content — or more specifically:

How to Beat The fear of Blogging

September 14, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

As a business that blogs, I am surrounded by other businesses that blog. I live in the space where all businesses blog — don’t they? Nope. More businesses don’t blog than do blog. It’s just easy to forget that fact when you live in the blogosphere every day.

We’re a Sacramento design studio, and the other day I was searching online for other Sacramento businesses that blog for business — not businesses that have PR firms updating their blog with mediocre content all about them, but businesses in the Sacramento region who “get” what blogging is all about and maintain thriving, consistently updated blogs. The results of my search were dismal at best.

We may be a design studio located in Sacramento, but because of our blog, we have readers and visitors to our website from all over the world, which translates into businesses all over the United States and world reaching out to us to design and build their websites. Just last week we received contact form inquiries from business owners in New York, the UK, Iraq, Canada, Houston, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Australia.

With these types of results possible from blogging for business, I am baffled why more business owners don’t do it.

WordPress Shortcuts to Speed up Formatting Your Blog Posts

August 31, 2012 Brian Bourn

Sometimes writing a blog post can be a long process. To help you save time formatting your blog posts in WordPress, we have gathered the 21 most useful time saving WordPress shortcuts. If you know any more then feel free to reply and suggest them in the comments section below and we will add it to the list. (THANKS!)

Tips on Using And Finding Stock Photography

May 20, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

Photography is an important part of your website. Visual imagery and interesting photos capture the attention of your visitors and potential visitors. Photos also help people remember the content they are reading or viewing. Humans love visual imagery. That’s why Pinterest got so popular so fast! So do yourself a favor and incorporate photos and imagery throughout your website and in every blog post.

While big businesses will invest in hiring a photographer to shoot custom photographs for their websites and marketing materials, that approach isn’t so budget friendly for most small businesses.

That’s where stock photography comes in. Stock photography or royalty-free photography is the perfect solution for businesses owners like you! With stock photography you can acquire high quality photos, illustrations, video, and even audio at a relatively low cost.

How to Create an Endless Supply of Content

May 8, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

Entrepreneurs of the Information Age have had to adapt their marketing strategies to suit the times. It used to be that advertising was the bulwark of marketing, but that has changed with the lightning fast development of the king of all Information Age technologies, the internet. Now, one of the staples of your marketing strategy is the development, sharing, and selling of content.

You may have heard or experienced firsthand that generating quality content in blog posts, articles, videos, reports, ebooks, audio files, DVDs, teleseminars, webinars, and so on can revitalize your marketing by helping you:

Expand brand visibility
Establish expert status
Build backlinks
Increase website traffic

And if you’ve been doing any of that for any length of time, you may have run into a common problem of content marketing — the problem of supply.

Why Use The Powerful and Often-Forgotten WordPress More Tag

March 22, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

The More Tag is a crucial tool for WordPress blogging success, and yet over and over I see bloggers forget to use it The More Tag (only available for posts) is a tag that gets inserted into your blog post content to truncate blog entries so that only the first part of posts is shown on your main blog page and archive pages. When you insert the More Tag, a link will be placed directly after your excerpt, pointing the reader to the full content of the article.

You can find the More Tag button in the first row of the WordPress visual editor toolbar:

And in the WordPress HTML editor toolbar:

Popular Blog Features You May Want to Forget About

March 2, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

There are an enormous amount of different features and tools available to incorporate into your blog. Some are great for improving your website visitors’ experience, and some, while widely used by bloggers across the internet, are just plain lame. In fact, some of the features I see used the most on blogs don’t even make sense! Remember, being commonly used doesn’t mean you should include them on your website.

Here are three popular blog features that you may want to forget about or rethink how you use them on your website:

Date-Based Archives

What good does listing May 2010, June 2010, July 2010, August 2010, etc. do for your website visitors? Nothing. Including date-based archives in your website sidebar is simply a waste of valuable website real estate. Date-based archive links simply tell visitors that you published a blog post in that month. Frankly, that should be fairly obvious as most bloggers publish posts on a regular basis. Date-base archives don’t add value for your website visitors or help them find the information they need quickly and easily.

Should My Blog Be Part Of My Website Or Should It Stand Alone?

January 3, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

In recent years the popularity of business blogging has dramatically increased. Blogging platforms like WordPress have transformed the way small businesses approach websites and made content management systems much more accessible and easy to use.

Blogs have also opened the doors to businesses on a budget, allowing them to easily update their own website content, publish new content to their blog, interact with customers and website visitors, and generate new leads. But which is the better choice? Adding a blog to your website so they both sit on the same URL, or hosting your business blog on a separate URL?

You Need to Get a Gravatar

December 14, 2010 Jennifer Bourn

Think about the latest blog you read. Do you remember all the little photos next to the blog comments? Have you left a comment on a blog and wished that your photo showed up too, but instead only a blank box or placeholder image showed up? I was chatting with a friend the other day and she asked me how people get their photo to show up? I mean seriously, wouldn’t it be great if your photo showed up each time you left a comment on someone else’s blog too?

Well guess what? Your photo can show up too! Those little photos are called Gravatars, and you can get your own in less than five minutes.

4 Elements of Effective and Successful Small Business Blogging

November 23, 2010 Jennifer Bourn

I can pretty much guarantee that if you own a business or do any business online, you have heard about how successful small business blogging can be for your business and how blogging for business can help you attract more clients, make more sales, produce more leads, create more opportunities, and generate more profits.

WordPress is the preferred platform that we build all of our custom small business websites on. WordPress allows us to design and build completely custom, branded, unique websites from scratch, with a complete content management system and blogging platform integrated right into the back end for ease of use.

If you want to leverage the positive results blogging for business can create for your small business, there are four things you need to take into consideration (other than using WordPress) when building a small business blog:

Blogging For Business: 8 Ways You Can Build a Better Blog

February 22, 2010 Jennifer Bourn

There are so many people out there in the “Wannabe” Internet Entrepreneur world that think that just because you have a blog, you’re immediately going to be a total rock star with thousands of people flocking to your blog to leave you tons of comments and subscribing left and right. But here’s the problem… That’s not true. You have to work to get your blog noticed and to get in front of your target market. And you have to consistently publish great work to get visitors to come back again and again!

Here are eight ways you can build a better business blog and make blogging for business payoff sooner, rather than later:

Actual Proof That Blogging is Great For Business

February 1, 2010 Brian Bourn

When we build websites for our clients, we almost always recommend a custom designed WordPress site with an integrated blog. In fact, part of our intake process with new clients includes explaining the value of blogging for business and how it can help them increase website traffic and attract new clients. You can learn more in the article 6 Reasons Why WordPress is Perfect for Small Business.

Relevant, targeted, and fresh content is what search engines like Google want, and high rankings within the search engine results are what every website owner wants.

So how do you feed the search engines regularly updated, focused content and increase your website rankings?

The answer is blogging. The main pages of your site tend be more generalized and provide an overview about you or your company, your products and services, or your programs. A blog however, allows you to focus content on specific topics that your audience wants to know about. And, guess what? The search engines reward you for your efforts.

Search Engine Seduction: Give Them What They Want and You’ll Get Better Rankings

January 15, 2010 Jennifer Bourn

Your number one goal online is to be found more often by the consumers who want and need what you have to offer. To be found, the search robots, spiders, or crawlers need to index your website. The search bots are scanning your HTML for content, links, images, headlines, meta tags, and more. They will then combine the information they find to determine your search engine page rankings.

To have your site crawled by search robots, they need a reason to visit your website and index your web pages. The number one way to get your site indexed by the search engines is to update the content frequently and consistently. You need to be kind to the search engines by giving them what they want — fresh content, clean coding, and user friendly design.