Kids Entertainer Podcast Episode #18:

How to Start a Blog for Kids Entertainers

In this podcast, Ken Kelly talks with Joanne McGowan, the author of BlogOff, a guide

that teaches kids entertainers how to create and manage a successful blog. Joanne

discusses the entire process of setting up and maintaining a blog, as well as the major

returns you get from blogging. You can listen to the entire podcast here.

Ken: Welcome to the Kids Entertainer Podcast. We have an amazing episode for you

today, one that I know is going to be really useful for you if you have a website because

it’s all about getting engagement on your website, getting more people to look at your

website. And the best part about it is it’s really fun to do. I’d like to welcome Joanne

McGowan. Welcome to the Kids Entertainer Podcast.

Joanne: Hi there.

Ken: The reason we invited you is I picked you up at a recent professional development

conference we were at for kids and family entertainers and you were lecturing about

starting and running a blog. I know that there was a buzz in the room after you finished

speaking. People were really excited about what you’d shared there, and that’s why we

also wanted you here. Could you paint a little bit of a picture of who you are, your

background, for our listeners?

Joanne: Yes, certainly. I run a children’s party and activity business called Act One

Adventures which I’ve run for the last six years. Before that, I ran a dance school. My

dance school was one of the first to have a website. With my party and activity business,

I’ve always been involved in social media and I’ve had a blog for quite some time now.

They’re just all great ways of engaging and keeping you in your customers’ minds.

Ken: That’s really good information. You’re right because it’s about forging a

relationship with your customers. They’re not just there to buy once. You hopefully

want to develop that relationship so they’re going to come back for the siblings and the

brothers and the sisters and the christenings and to entertain the kids at the wedding,

the corporate Christmas party. In order to develop that relationship, you need to be

touching base with them, and blogging is a way to do it. I guess your experience of

blogging comes from running your businesses and seeing that benefit for yourself?

Joanne: Yes, certainly. As you say, it helps keep you on people’s minds and it builds up

that relationship. It can add value to your service as well because blogging can cover a

lot of areas, like common questions that your clients ask you. You can cover all that in a

blog and it makes you look extremely professional that you’ve thought of these things

before your customers even ask the questions of you.

Ken: You’re speaking about blogging. I know from interacting in forums and speaking

with other children’s entertainers, looking at the kind of comments posted on Facebook

groups, that people come from different kinds of places. You’re listening to this and

when you hear the word ‘blog,’ this kind of ‘woah’ goes up and you think, “Oh, that’s

technology and that’s all really, really difficult.” We’re going to be looking into that in a

moment, about what is the barrier to entry, and how easy it is to start a blog for

somebody that’s maybe not technically or computer-minded.

Then the other side of it is there may be some of our listeners that have started a blog

at some stage and done two posts on the blog and the last one was three years ago. It

just sat there really, becoming stale. I guess there’s something in there for everyone.

Should we start off with the technical barrier to this? It sounds terribly complicated, I

have to be honest with you.

Joanne: I use something called Wordpress. Probably a lot of people have their websites

posted on a Wordpress site, so a lot of you will be familiar with Wordpress already. They

may well be doing their updates to their pages already. Actually, running a blog is

exactly the same. It’s just basically like typing in a Facebook status. You put your content

into a box. From there, you can just hit publish and that blog would go up and it would

be on your website. It will be there, and that’s it in its basic form. It’s as simple as that.

There’s obviously things you can do from there. You can add photos very easily, and you

can also optimize the post—include a set of keywords and make the SEO on it really,

really good by including tags and stuff like that. They sound very technical but they’re all

very easy things to do and to add to your blog post.

But actually, just writing a blog and posting it is literally as simple as posting a Facebook

post, which I’m sure most people are familiar with doing these days.

Ken: Yeah, and you make it sound so easy. My understanding of the word ‘blog’ comes

from weblog, and it goes back to the newspaper days when people wanted to start

publishing their own stuff. It was terribly complicated in those early days.

Then the free-to-use platform came up called Wordpress, which was open-sourced and

free for anybody to use, and they’ve been going for years and years and years. They’ve

developed it to such a point that it really is drag-and-drop, just flick and install. It’s so

easy.

What I’ll do in the show notes for this is I’ll pop in a little link that I have of how you can

set up a Wordpress site in less than five minutes. It takes you through how to do it. It’s

free of charge; you don’t have to pay anything. It’ll show you how to do that. So I’ll put

that in the show notes to show you how easy that is.

And what you’re saying, Joanne, is to publish a blog is really just to type it in Word and

copy and paste it over.

Joanne: Definitely. There are other platforms available. I know people that use Bloggr

and things like Weebly. I suppose any of these things is fine. Use one that works for you.

I’ve always used Wordpress and it’s always been very good for me. I’ve always found it

very straightforward to use. I would highly recommend it.

Ken: I guess there are two ways of integrating a blog into what it is that you already

offer. If you’re not running a Wordpress site and you may have an HTML site or a site

whose composition you’re not really sure of, that’s not going to stop you from making a

blog. You can still set up a separate Wordpress blog and you can put a link in there to

your site. You can still go ahead and get some information here from Joanne.

Joanne: I transferred my whole website over to Wordpress. But before then, I had just

an HTML site and I just ran a separate Wordpress blog, as you said. I just had a link

between the two. People could find me through the blog, and they could easily then

click through to my website and find all the other details there. So if you don’t have a

Wordpress site, it certainly shouldn’t stop you from having a blog.

Ken: What’s great is this feels welcoming to all of them. You don’t have to have any

technique or knowledge. You mentioned words like SEO and tags and all that, which I

know we’ll get to when we start looking at tools and how we put all these together.

I feel a lot more confident now about understanding what a blog is. It sounds easy and

I’m more excited now. I want to do it. So I guess the next question I would have is, “All

right, I’m willing to maybe put in half an hour a week to write this blog post. But what is

it going to do for me? Why should I be doing this?”

Joanne: There’s a number of benefits to blogging. I suppose one of the main benefits is

how it can help with SEO—search engine optimization.

Basically by having a blog, and if people are clicking through to your blog, that’s all hits

on your website. This then helps increase the amount of people coming to your website,

which is going to help with search engine optimization.

Also when you have a website, you tend to get your core pages up. You’ll spend a lot of

time writing the content for those web pages, getting it right. You’re not going to be

changing that the whole time. You’re going to get that right and you’re probably going

to stick with that for quite some time. That’s great to start with because Google will find

that, because it’s new. But then that content will start to age and Google won’t find it

quite so easily.

So what a blog does is if you blog regularly, it’s providing new content for Google to

find. It’s basically like your website is standing there and waving at Google and saying,

“We’re still here. Come and take a look at what we have going on.”

And because you’re blogging about your business, you’re going to be naturally using

keywords and the sort of things that parents will use to search to find you. Quite often,

you’ll find that a blog post will come up, one of your core pages, and parents will click on

that and then they’re on your website. They will find their way to your core pages and

get info and that sort of thing. It’s definitely great for making sure that Google

remembers you’re there and it’s therefore good for your SEO.

Ken: Wow. I love the way you said it, of the page getting stale and having less and less

interest for Google, less and less reasons why it should come back and visit.

Google lives on content. That’s how it works. You’ve got these spiders that go out and

crawl through all these websites. When it finds new content, it’s indexing that page. It’s

just giving you another chance to be found on Google.

When we hear these words like SEO, it can be so scary. It can sound so terribly technical.

But the best practice for SEO is just putting on good-quality usable content that is

associated with what it is that you do. So if you’re a face painter, you might run a blog

talking about the faces that you paint, or the parties that you visited, or the tips and

tools that you use, and all that kind of stuff. You’re naturally creating that interest in

Google in you. You’re naturally getting your website seen more. At the end of the day,

Joanne, we’re lifting ourselves above our competitors.

Joanne: Indeed. It quite often happens that things I’ve blogged about come up above

other people’s websites and above my own websites. It certainly does work in getting

you seen.

And when parents click through to your blog and they see you writing about something

to do with parties with authority and you know what you’re talking about, it gives them

added confidence that you know what you’re doing and that you’re a good choice. So it

does give you a sort of expert status.

It’s good for increasing buyers’ confidence in what you’re selling, in the business you’re

in. It’s particularly good if you’re into children’s parties. It’s a big decision for parents as

to who they’ll get for their little ones’ special day. So it’s brilliant for that as well, for

giving you that expert status in your industry, and that’s certainly good for customers to

see.

Ken: It is and it’s really, really important. Again, it’s an opportunity to set yourself apart

from your competitors by making yourself the authority within that market place.

You’re not just somebody who has a five-page website with a text saying who they are,

a couple of pictures, and a page listing the services they offer. If you have loads of pages

that are all about parties and what happens at parties and you show your expertise in

that, you’re going to stand out head and shoulders.

But what was really interesting, Joanne, was when you were giving your lecture, you

spoke about the kind of e-mails and messages you get from parents, thanking you for

the stuff you’re putting out.

Joanne: What I quite often do just before the school holidays start is I do a little

roundup of activities on my blog, stuff that’s going on in the local area that I think the

parents who use my services would find useful. I’ve had several people say, “Oh, that’s

brilliant.”

Here’s quite a funny story. I was in town with my son, just having a coffee in a café,

when a mom came over and said, “Oh, you’re Joanne from Act One?” And I’m like, “Yes,

that’s me.”

She said, “I follow you on Facebook. I just want to say I love your blog. We tried some of

the directives that you suggested and they were brilliant. They were spot-on for my

children. That’s really good. My son’s got this party later in the year so I’ll be in touch

when we’re looking to book that.”

She took my business card. Obviously, she felt comfortable coming over to speak to me

because she thought she knew me. And that’s another thing a blog can do. It can show

your personality really well. The people who are reading it do feel like they know you.

So much of our business is about our personality, people feeling comfortable with us

and feeling we’ll be a good fit for their family and special occasion. So that can really

help with new customers, seeing that and getting to know you a bit better.

Now going back to the mom. Because I also suggested activities, she did them and the

family really enjoyed them. Again, it gives you that expert status. You know what you’re

talking about, you know what families enjoy doing, so you’re likely to do a good party

for them because you know the sort of things that they like and want for this sort of

thing. It was amazing actually. I was quite astounded when she came up. It was like, “Oh

my goodness.” People do find value in it, certainly.

Ken: You were obviously at the top of her mind. She came over to speak about what

she’d read on your blog, and she immediately linked that with “Oh, when my son’s party

comes up, I’d love to get her.”

So you’re creating that link and that is a really powerful thing in terms of marketing. I

heard a statistic— I don’t know if it was a hundred percent correct—but the feeling

behind it is right. And that statistic was somebody needs to see your message or engage

with your branding five times before they will take real notice.

Joanne: I think it’s at least five times before they actually use you. It’s quite staggering

that really, you have to keep reminding people that you’re there, even if they’ve used

your services before. Because if you suddenly vanish, they think you’re not doing it

anymore. Whereas if you keep giving them good content and show that you’re still very

much around, then they are going to remember you and hopefully use you when the

time comes.

Ken: What’s coming out for me as you’re speaking about this is it also gives you an

opportunity to speak about the other services that you offer.

Let’s say for instance that somebody booked you for a birthday party to entertain the

children. It may well be that you do corporate days and other stuff and I guess on your

blog, you get the opportunity to say that because you’re touching base with people. You

can bring across all those different services that you offer, which at the end of the day

helps your customers because they don’t have to go looking around for someone else.

They go, “Oh, Joanne does that as well. Cool. I’ll remember that.”

The other thing that came up for me is that when we write a website—and this maybe

something for our listeners to check on their website—so often it’s written not in our

own voice. It’s written in “such and such” and “this and this” as opposed to “I do this, I

do that.”

But a blog is very unique; it’s very personal. It’s very much in your own voice, so it’s a

wholly different engagement. It’s almost as if your readers know you and you can share

a bit more about yourself, whereas websites tend to be a little more structured and

professional in their approach.

I like it and this is all great stuff. I think everybody’s sold. Now we all want to start these

blogs. So I guess you go ahead and you write this blog. You’ve set up Wordpress because

it’s nice and easy to do, and you write your first blog post. How do you actually get this

post seen by anybody?

Joanne: What I tend to do when I’ve written a blog is I will share it across my social

media channels. I tend to go to my Facebook page.

But quite often with a blog, because it’s useful content and it's stuff that people are

going to enjoy reading, you can quite often share it on Facebook groups—local parents

groups, that sort of thing. All of my holiday roundups and stuff like that, I share across

all the local parenting groups. Sometimes these groups will be quite strict about what

you can post. They won’t allow you sometimes to post a direct ad or they may allow you

to do that only on certain days. But a blog post that is not overtly selling but is actually

sharing useful content, they’ll allow you to post and they’ll actually be very grateful that

you posted it.

I also put my content on Twitter. With Twitter, what I tend to do is I’ll schedule up links

of various blogs that I’ve done for the whole week.

Once you’ve got the blog, a lot of the content on there will be relevant forever really, so

I keep resharing stuff. People still click on them, people retweet them, people favorite

them. These would be blogs I’ve written several months earlier but they’re still relevant.

If you’re on Pinterest, Instagram, or any of these channels, you can easily share a picture

of your blog with a link on it. It’s all going to help drive traffic to your website.

The good thing about the blog is that it also works the other way. It’s actually providing

content for your social media. It’s giving you something to post.

With a lot of my blogs, I repurpose the content. I basically break it down. So if I’ve done

one that’s basically tips for running a successful children’s party, then I’ll break them

down and do a tip a week. I’ll do either a text post or a little video of me talking about

the tip. It provides content for all of those social media channels.

And that’s another thing. Some people struggle to find new things to post regularly on

social media, so blogging can actually help them save time. Just by blogging regularly,

you’ll provide content for your social media channels, which can only be a good thing.

Ken: It’s a big when because I can relate with someone sitting there in front of his

Facebook page thinking, “What am I going to post? I’ve got to post something.” God

forbid we should start posting what our cat did or what we’re having for dinner, putting

pictures of our breakfast.

It’s about getting stuff out there that is useful to our audience. If you’re taking the time

to put that in to your blog, you can recycle that across your social media. You can put

the links back to your blog so you’re getting the eyes on your blog.

You also spoke about sharing your content in the moms and tots groups. Do yourself a

favor, listeners. Get into moms and tots groups; go look around. You’ll see loads of

questions. Look at those questions to guide you on what kind of content you’re going to

write for your blog. Because if they’re asking the questions, why not be the place where

people are going to find the solutions? And then go share the links.

Joanne: I’ve seen posts where people in a local group are asking, over the holidays, is

there anything on for kids under five. Rather than just saying this, this, and this, I just

put “Take a look at my blog. I have 10 ideas for you.” Again, people will like it because

it’s saving them the work of having to Google to find stuff to do. It’s all in one place and

they’re clicking through to your website. Your brand is then straight in front of them and

hopefully they’ll remember you when they need your services.

Ken: You know, I’m recognizing that once you have the message out there, once the

page is posted and it’s got valuable information on it, you’ll find that other people will

start sharing that for you as well. So now you’re going to find moms in the moms and

tots groups saying, “Oh, I know what you do there. Go and have a look at this article.”

And they’ll be sharing and creating backlinks to your website, which is one of those

elusive search engine optimization terms. Links back to your website basically just

means you have content out there that somebody else is sharing and that person’s

saying, “Hey, go and have a look at this.” It just raises you up all the time. I can think of

no better recommendation than somebody posting your article and branding that as

expert advice. Once again, it just puts you streaks ahead of your competitors.

Joanne: Yeah, indeed. And you’ll find when you start blogging that other local

companies or stuff that relate to you may well ask you to do a guest blog for them. Your

posting on their site, which is taking you to a different audience, will create a nice little

backlink to your site. So again, lots of different things can come out of it when you start

running a regular blog and you’re getting yourself established. The possibilities are

endless.

Ken: When you say a regular blog, how often should we be looking to put out content?

Joanne: I try to blog at least once a week. I would really love to do it twice a week. That

doesn’t always happen, but once a week I aim for. I think the thing is to keep at it

regularly. Once a week is great. If you can do that only once a fortnight or once a month,

at least you will be getting new content out there.

The thing is a lot of people will blog two or three times in a short space of time and then

do nothing for months. That is very sporadic and it’s not going to be enough to make

any sort of major difference for your SEO and all the other benefits we’ve talked about.

So trying to do once a week would be absolutely brilliant. It will get you off to a really

good start and you would start seeing some results within a few months. I have no

doubts about that. So being as regular as you can is the key really.

Ken: I have a question. Let’s say we’re aiming for once a week here because I’m feeling

really pumped for this now. Here I am, deep breaths, and I’m into this blogging. How

long does it take you to get a post and publish it on Wordpress and put that across your

social media?

Joanne: I would say that it takes me about half an hour, maximum of 45 minutes. So it’s

no time at all really in a week. When you consider how long we procrastinate on things

like Facebook and stuff like that, then it’s no time at all.

Actually for me, the writing part doesn’t take that much time at all. I have an idea more

or less on what I want to put out, so I’ll just get that down. It’s making it look better,

adding a photo, making sure it’s formatted so it’s easy to read, it’s all that sort of stuff

that you fiddle around with that sometimes take a little bit of time. But it does get

easier and it does get quicker the more you do it. It’s like anything really. I suppose if

you’re introducing a new trick into your show, the first couple of times you practice it,

it’s going to be clunky and it’s going to take you a bit of time. But the more you practice

it, the more it becomes easy and natural. The same applies with anything online and

technology. It’s just learning how to do it and once you know how, it just becomes

quicker and quicker each time you do it.

Ken: I’m just thinking that 30 minutes is one soap opera a week that you can actually

drop. So next time you’re watching that soap opera, feel guilty. Feel very guilty. Go to

your computer and post a blog.

Speaking about the benefits this brings you in terms of engaging people, lifting you

above your competitors, being seen as the expert in your field, getting links back to your

website from your customers, getting search engine optimization and good-quality

content, it’s a no-brainer that this is something we should all do. You don’t need to look

far outside the niche of entertaining children to see this is what big businesses do. Go to

any business and you’re going to see they have a blog. Why? Because it works, guys.

Joanne: And that’s the thing. With big businesses, we think everybody knows about

them. But the reason why everybody knows about them is because they keep telling us

about them. They keep appetizing, they keep marketing what they’re doing, and they

use all the different channels. Obviously they have a big budget and they can afford to

outsource most of that, but they’re doing it for a reason. They wouldn’t be spending the

money on this stuff if it didn’t work, if it didn’t actually produced returns for them. So

it’s definitely worth doing.

Ken: So no need to reinvent the wheel here. Just look to the big industries, to what’s

working for them, and we can do the same in less than an hour a week really and we

won’t have a big barrier of technology to break through because it really is push button,

simple.

So now I’m definitely going to publish a blog. You’ve convinced me, Joanne. But where

am I going to find stuff to post?

Joanne: For me, it’s never a problem finding ideas. I always have loads of ideas for blogs.

It’s just fitting them all in and that sort of thing. I think possibly a good thing to start

with, for your first blog, is to talk a little about yourself, how you got into this, maybe

give people a bit more insight into what you do and why you do this as a job. Because

you’re probably not giving that much information on your main website, and people do

like to know about the people behind businesses. So that’s a good place to start.

Then I would say probably think about some of your frequently asked questions. I’m

sure we all get asked the same sort of things time and time again. I certainly get asked

by parents a lot of the time about food—how many to leave for food, when they should

do it, what sort of things work well. And this week, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve done a

blog about children’s party food, giving insight about quantities and that sort of thing.

Because for a parent, that can be really daunting. We are at parties. We know what

works and what doesn’t, so we can easily put together a list of five tips. So anything like

that that parents quite often ask about is going to make good content.

Think about local stuff going on. Local things-to-do posts do exceedingly well. One of

those posts, the Easter one, had 500 people clicking through to my website in one day.

Ken: Wow, in a day!

Joanne: In a day. That obviously will tail off as the holidays go on, but that’s still a lot of

people going through my website. So stuff like that—arts and crafts ideas for kids,

activity ideas for kids. If you’ve done something you think they would enjoy, blog about

that.

You can also go a bit sideways. I’m planning to do over the next couple of months a post

on kids starting school and things you can do to help them, ideas for end-of-term

presents. So think about things that people who are buying from you would find useful,

problems that they may have that your blog post could solve, like giving them ideas as

to what to get the teachers at the end of term. If they click on that and they see an idea

they really like and that solves the problem for them, they’re going to remember you in

a good light. Again, it all helps your brand awareness and your customer relations as

well. Never be afraid to think a little bit laterally. It has to be customer-focused, on what

you think they will enjoy and get value from on your blog.

Ken: That was really helpful for me because I was thinking, “Oh, I have to create

content.” I do children’s magic shows. I’m thinking, “How long can I write about magic

shows?”

But I don’t need to be writing about magic shows. I don’t even have to stick a hundred

percent to parties, you’re saying. It’s about providing content that your target audience

are going to find engaging and useful. And we know about our target audience because

we’re working with them. We know what age they are, we know they have children of a

certain age, so it’s about finding what’s interesting for them and what they will find

useful. I guess looking around at moms and tots groups, looking at questions that have

already been covered and what are people asking would be useful. I know that what we

do is subscribe to a whole pile of newsletters. We’re interested in what kind of stuff

they’re writing about because then we can go, “Hey, that’s a good idea.”

I love your roundup idea, of taking what’s local, because by the very nature of putting

that out, it’s going to give you search engine optimization for local keywords.

Joanne: Yeah. You know when I blogged and done a roundup about it and then tweeted

it, I included the people that I’ve recommended. So if I recommended a local museum or

something like that that has an event going on, I tag them in the post. And then they

quite often retweet what you’ve posted because you’ve given them a mention. Again, it

builds up a good relationship with another local business that’s targeting the same ages.

It all helps build up those connections.

And what you were saying about the moms and tots thing, looking at those forums and

seeing what they’re asking, that can be a great place for inspiration. Also pick out any

topical stories. That can be great for blogs.

There was a story at the beginning of the year of the child that didn’t attend the party

and got a bill in his school bag from the parents who were running what I think was a ski

center. They billed this child because he didn’t attend and he said he was going to

attend. I blogged about that, about what people’s thoughts were on that, and how to

get RSVPs back and make sure this does not happen.

So sometimes just take inspiration from things like that. Again, you’re an expert in your

field so you can offer your opinion. It’s something that parents will find interesting. We

then got quite a debate going on on Facebook as to was that the right thing to do, what

would you have done in that situation. That then helped with getting engagement on

my social media. It’s amazing how it can just work for lots of different areas that you’re

focusing on.

Ken: It’s interesting because it’s indirect marketing. While you’re getting all the people

talking and bringing up those topical conversations, you’re in there. Your name is in

there. Although they’re not even thinking about kids’ parties or booking, you’re there.

It’s very subliminal, isn’t it?

Joanne: Yes, exactly.

Ken: It goes back to that lady who walked up to you and the second thing out of her

mouth was, “And oh, when my son’s party comes up, I’m going to get hold of you.”

This is an absolute must. I know that it can sound scary to some people. I’ll tell you

where I fall. I fall into the—I’m embarrassed now, I’m blushing away merrily as I say

this—I fall into the camp of people that started a blog for my kids entertainment

business and I don’t think I’ve updated it in over a year. I feel embarrassed about it. I

actually hide it away from my main menu because I don’t want my clients, when they

visit my website, to go, “Ooh, I wonder what’s happening in ‘Latest News,’” and they see

‘Latest News—2013.’

Joanne: That’s the thing. You have to try and keep it updated especially if what you’re

doing is sort of this ‘Latest News’ thing. But I think the more you do it, the more you get

into doing it. It just becomes part of your weekly routine. You set aside that 30 minutes

to an hour to do it.

What can really help is making a plan, just going in your diary and writing down “This

week, I’m going to blog about food. This week, I’m going to blog about choosing a

venue. This week, I’m going to blog about tips for going back to school.”

You will find that there will be certain things that will crop up in the diary. You will see

naturally during the months leading up to Christmas, you can do stuff about Christmas

activities. You’ll find that starts to help with ideas and you’ll have a plan in place.

Therefore, you’ll just look at your diary and say, “Right, that’s what I’m doing this week.”

Because that can sometimes be the problem, if you have no idea or you have too many

ideas and you don’t know what you’re going to do next. Whereas if it’s in the diary,

you’re like, “Right, that’s it. That’s what I’m going to do.” That makes life a lot easier.

Ken: Here’s my commitment, live on the Kids Entertainment Podcast: I commit to get

my blog resurrected.

I’m going to share why I left it. It was because I wasn’t really sure why I was doing it. I

thought, “Ah, you got to have a blog. Why? Because somebody said it somewhere.” But

I wasn’t really clear on just what it can do. And just by speaking to you, I realized it really

is a no-brainer. I want to hire you. I’m sure everybody out there wants you to come and

sit in their office and write their blogs for them because it’s going to benefit them. And

we can’t do that because you’re in the UK and we’re all spread throughout the world.

But I know that you’ve actually taken your time and written a book. And not only have

you written a book about blogging called BlogOff—I love that name—but you’ve written

a book on blogging specifically aimed at children and family entertainers.

Joanne: Yeah. The reason I chose the term ‘BlogOff’ is because quite often, people do

react a bit like that when you say they need to start a blog. People view it as just

another thing that they have to do and that it’s going to take up more time. But actually,

like what we’ve talked about, it can save you time in other areas and it can get

everything working cohesively, even your website and social media.

It’s specifically designed for kids entertainers. There’s lots of examples in there as to

how it worked for me and how it can work for other children’s entertainers. There’s also

a list of blog ideas specifically based on our industry, 10 blog titles that you could do and

you’d have 10 weeks’ worth of content if you’re going to blog each week.

It also talks specifically about how to promote the blog, and all of this is geared towards

our industry. Most of the theory applies across the board, whatever business you’re in,

but it’s always nice to get some examples specifically for what you’re doing because that

can often inspire you with other ideas.

Ken: I know that we said there might be some tools that people can use. Are these

mentioned in the book?

Joanne: Yes, some of them are. One of the biggest tools I use, which is not just good for

blogging but for your social media and basic promotional stuff as well, is an app called

Canva (canva.com). That’s a photo app. Basically, you upload photos to it or you can use

some of their photos—they’re either free or just a dollar per photo. You can stick that

on. It will size them to exactly what you want them to be used for. So if you want one

for a Facebook post or a blog post, you can just choose the template.

So you can pop the photos in, you can add text, you can add backgrounds. It’s free and

it’s brilliant. Have a bit of time playing around with it. The other day I created an image-

free event and it took me less than five minutes to do. It was just so easy and that was a

job done. So that’s a brilliant one. It’s just great across the board for any sort of

promotional activity.

Within the blog itself, there’s something called Yoast, which is a search engine

optimization plugin. It basically tells you whether the SEO of the post is good or not. You

can enter your keywords and all that sort of thing and it would tell you whether the SEO

is poor or good or fair. And then it gives you tips suggesting how you can improve that,

so it basically tells you what to do to improve the SEO on that post. Whereas before

you’d probably be stabbing in the dark a bit, this time you have the tools that you need

to do SEO successfully.

So they’re two of my favorite ones. There are loads of plugins available for blogs. You

obviously don’t want to overload your blog with them but there’s stuff that you can put

in there that will make it easy for people to share your blog on social media channels.

But they’re probably my two favorite things that I use.

Ken: That is great value, and I know at the lecture where I saw you, at the convention,

there was a buzz after you’d spoken. I know that people were rushing up to get hold of

your book because they saw its value.

One of the things I found really interesting is that when we broke for lunch just after

your lecture, I was sitting at the table with some fellow professional children’s

entertainers, people out there doing this for a living—it’s how they pay their bills—and

they all had a copy of your notes next to them because they saw the value of what you

spoke about.

And you’re speaking about those tools that you share in your book and you’re speaking

about Yoast SEO. I will share only this last week, I looked at getting an SEO specialist in

to come and have a look at my website. It costs hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

of dollars to hire their services. Then here you are, you’re giving this information that’s

going to do the same job. It’s going to get your site seen, it’s going to get you in front of

people, you have free tools in there that are going to help you with your search engine

optimization. It’s a no-brainer.

I just want to thank you. You’ve inspired me. You’ve made me want to get out there and

blog. I’m ending this interview and I’m going to have a look at my blog, and I’m sure our

listeners are, too. Joanne, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your time

with us today.

Joanne: That’s okay. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much.