The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 100. 4 Tips to Capitalize on Viral Content with Ann Kent

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Are you wanting your blog posts to go viral? We’re guessing if you’re listening to this episode, you are! We have Ann Kent, registered dietitian and owner of her own private clinic Peas and Hoppiness, on the show to share her knowledge around viral blog posts and how to leverage the. Ann shares her journey from hobby blogger to private practice owner, sharing that her goal is to simplify meal planning for busy families. Ann shares the importance of having a strategy for when a post goes viral, and shares her 4 tips on capitalizing on viral content. We loved this conversation with Ann and hope that it helps you! ConvertKit is the email marketing hub for creators like you. Check out our affiliate link for more information.Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode100

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. We all want our posts to go viral, right? That's the ultimate goal is that we log into our stats one morning and we are like, oh my gosh, where did all that traffic come from? But the next question is, what do you do with it? And to kind of tackle this today, we are going to talk to Ann Kent, who is a registered dietitian and the owner of her own private practice called Peas and Hoppiness. She makes mealtime easier for busy families with her signature customizable meal planning service, the Peas and Hoppy Meal Guide Membership. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast, Ann. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. Well, you have a post that's been serving you well now for many years. And so we are going to dive into this today about this idea of a viral post. And we don't like to assume that a piece of content is going to be viral, but we are going to do all that we can when creating content to give it the best possible outcome for that to happen. So we can't plan on being viral, but we can plan for if it does go viral, what we can do. So before we dive into that, though, I would love for you to share with our listeners a little bit more about you and how you serve the online community. Yeah, thank you for having me. Like you said, I'm a registered dietitian. And I started off as a hobby blogger in 2015. And

since then have transitioned to private practice and making this my full time job. And a part of me wishes that I had started blogging with the intention of being a business owner one day, because I definitely was not as streamlined as I should have been. I started off blogging about food and agriculture and nutrition, because I grew up on a farm. And then I became a nutrition expert, a dietician. And when I entered the clinical world and worked with patients, I realized that my patients did not know where their food came from. A lot of people just, you know, food comes from the grocery store.

And they had never, you know, seen a working farm, even though we were in Kansas, we were in a city, but we were pretty close to a lot of farms. And then they also didn't know how to prepare it, they didn't know how to cook food. And so I was working with patients with diabetes, which is a huge part of the management of blood sugars food is, and, you know, not being able to chop an onion is a, is a big deal if you are trying to learn to cook at home. And then they didn't know how to fuel themselves properly, like what really made their bodies feel good and perform their best. And so those silos I saw existing of agriculture and food and nutrition, that was where I started blogging, Peace and Happiness. It's a play on words of peace and happiness because I really believe that all foods in the meal planning service. My goal with the meal planning is to give people a very practical way to integrate those three things. So I plan

menus based around seasonal produce to help them get more in touch with where their food comes from. And then all of the recipes are, I write them very specifically for all levels of cooks. So even if you have never seen an onion before, I give you step-by-step instructions of how to chop that onion. And I write those recipes really carefully to make sure that they're accessible. So that's how I transformed my original hobby into my full-time job. But I do still have a lot of posts out there in the world that maybe are not really specifically in line with making mealtime easier for busy families. It happens that this post that we're talking about today

is one of those. Okay, I love what you're doing. I absolutely love what you're doing. I think this is really needed and necessary and that there are so many who don't know where their food comes from. And so I just want to say that first off, because I think it's really cool what you've decided to do and help people at that beginner stage to really understand more about their food. And I don't think we've ever had a dietitian talk about using their education on the podcast. So I think this is really helpful as there are a lot of different businesses that you can have or skills or credentials that you can have that you can turn into blogging and utilize that. And you've done that. And I think that that's really cool that you've done that and have been able to give a

different voice to other health professionals out there and how they could potentially use blogging to grow. And I think oftentimes people think of blogging as just like sitting down and writing a piece of content. But you've turned this into like a membership. You have blog posts and you have other ways that you're serving people as well. And so I do think that that's really important to note is that it's not just about blog posts too. So let's talk about going viral. Because you probably when you sat down to write this post in 2016, did not know that it would go viral. So let's talk about this post a little bit. So how long from the point that you wrote it to the point that you're like,

this post is really popular? Do you remember how about how long that took? That's a great question. I don't remember specifically, but it was not immediate. I would say if I had to guess, I would say like eight months, like it was longer than six months, probably maybe within a year. But it was not. It was not overnight. And when you were in the in the phase where you were writing this and other content, was it your goal at that point to start driving a lot of traffic to your website? Is that the intention behind writing this post at that point in time? I don't think that I had a purpose.

And that was part of my problem. If I could go back and talk to beginner and a beginner baby blogger, I would have made her be a little bit more specific about what her goals were. And that's one of my tips, actually, for writing a viral post is to be really clear for each specific post, what it is that you want to do with that post, whether it's to keep people on your website to drive them to a freebie to have them sign up for your membership or whatever it is. So the goal that I had at the time was just to educate. I, again, I was working in the clinic as a diabetes educator. And so many of my patients were just bombarded by nutrition garbage. There is just so much noise out there about nutrition. Everybody has a very strong

opinion. And it's very confusing, especially it's confusing to a lot of my patients were lower socioeconomic. And so you have to have a pretty high health literacy, a high reading level to understand a lot of the things that are out there. So they were coming to me and they're like, should I eat zero carbs? Should I... I can't eat fruit. And I'm like, Oh, no. I don't want these myths out there. So my goal was education. And it wasn't very strategic. Yeah, I think your journey is so much like so many other bloggers. You have a passion and you want to get the information out there. You're not necessarily thinking about keyword research and SEO and all of these behind the scenes things about blogging. But then one day you see traffic

coming to a post and you're like, wait a minute, people are seeing this. It's helping somebody. And you start to feel that pull of like, how can I reach more people? How can I help more people? And I think that's what ends up pulling people back into, okay, now I have to be a little more strategic. Now I have to start to understand some of this stuff. And so whether or not somebody has started blogging with the intention of driving traffic and they've implemented some of that stuff,

or they're just now coming to understand that that's a possibility. And they've just created content in the hopes of helping somebody. How do they start to know when something is resonating with somebody? What's that first indicator to look for? You've got to be looking at your stats. I mean, I didn't have a great process in place at the time. And I've recently switched my blog post or my hosting over to a different platform. So I'm still sort of like figuring out my stats. But I would say that is really key. I'm a big numbers person. And I think it's really helpful, especially if you're trying to grow a business. Because there's a lot of top of the funnel numbers that are going to change before your bottom line changes. This is like the same with health and nutrition. I think it's so funny

because you know, if I'm working with a client who has like a goal of lowering their cholesterol, like that is not going to change tomorrow. So we have to focus on some like other indicators of success in order to know, like to just encourage you to get to that final goal. So I think looking at your stats regularly, not every day. If you look at them every single day, you're going to drive yourself crazy and also waste a lot of time. But I schedule time every single month to track my stats to whether it's views on the website, I track how many people are on my email list. I also track my social media so that I can see what's growing and I can see what's working. And I can see,

maybe I shouldn't be spending so much time here because it's pretty stagnant. But oh my gosh, I have like 50% growth this month on YouTube. I need to be posting consistently on there. That wasn't my primary thing, but now it's working. I think it's just staying curious in your business to see where am I most relevant right now. And like you said, just stepping into that space and making sure that you're showing up. And if we're not keeping track of any of it, then we'll never know what's working and what's not. And I think being able to look at solid numbers, you really can't skirt your way around it. It is what it is. And so having zero emotion about it too, I think is helpful. I mean, you can have some emotion. I can't tell you not to have any emotion about it because I want you to be excited if you're

excited. But basically, I don't want you to beat yourself up if the numbers aren't what you want it to be. But just when you know... That famous quote, when you know better, you do better. And so when we know, we can really be objective about what our next step is for the next month based on the goals that we've set for ourselves and our business. So I'm glad that you're definitely starting with that and telling us that. So as we are going to dive into this today, you said when we started that you have 4 tips for capitalizing on this viral content. So we know that viral content is not guaranteed. I'm going to say that right away, that we're not guaranteeing viral content. But the hope is that someday you will have that.

And so when that happens, we want to be able to help you navigate that. So what are your four tips that you have that you want to share with people? If they have a post that goes viral, what can they have in place? So the four tips I have, some of these I really think you should do on every single post. And some of them are only related to those posts that you see performing really well, because you don't have time to do them on every single one. But the first tip that I have, I think you should be writing every single blog post that you have like this. And I do now. And that's to optimize your blog. I know I've listened to several of your podcasts and you talk about these strategies. But the first thing that I always do now is I think about the goal of the piece of content that I'm writing. And when I say goal,

I mean, I kind of divided them into categories. So one of my goals might be signing up for the meal planning service that I have. Another goal would be to download a freebie. Another goal might just be to stay on the website. That would improve my stats in a different way, even if they didn't get on my email list. Usually my email list is my primary goal, downloading a freebie. And then once you have your goal, then the second way to optimize your blog

is to think about your SEO, which you talk about a lot in your headings and within the post and to try to optimize that as much as you can so that people can find you. And then based on your goal to figure out what your call to action is for that specific post. I think it needs to be different on each post. I've seen things that it's nice to have a footer across the website. I used to think, Oh, I'm just going to make one call to action and that'll be the same across blog posts. But if you really want to perform well, that call to action needs to be related to the content of that blog piece. And that's how you're going to get people in. So when I think about the goal, not only do I think I want them to download my freebie,

but I think about what specific freebie would they want to download. If I'm writing about seasonal produce, then I'm going to promote my seasonal vegetable guide. If I'm writing about the importance of family dinner, I'm going to promote my meal planning template, something to help them do what the blog is talking about. I love how you said that because as bloggers, we might just think, let's get as much traffic as possible. But you've really said, be intentional about why do you want this traffic? What are you going to do with it once you get it? And that is so important to whether or not you're just using it for getting ad revenue because of the number of page views, whether you're getting people to

sign up for your email list. There's so many different reasons that are valid for getting that traffic. But being really mindful of why you want that traffic and how you're going to help someone once they get there, so that you are serving them in the way that you want to with that type of a post. Yeah. And I think my business model is a little bit different maybe than a lot of food bloggers, for example, who are making money with ad revenue. I don't have any ads on my site. So all of my revenue comes from selling my own services or products. So it's really important to me to grow my email list to be able to nurture them because most people don't buy cold. Most people don't buy on that first blog post. And so we really... I'm trying to start the conversation and get them

interested in me and then to get them on my email list so I can really nurture them. Which this leads me to tip two. Maybe this is a great segue. My second tip is to make sure that you have systems in place to capture this. So what you want people coming back to your website or coming back to you, whether that's coming back to your blog for repeated recipes or repeated content. Or in my case, I want them to sign up for my email list so that we can continue the conversation. So for me, having a system in place means having an email system. It means having the freebie, having the welcome email and having that whole email sequence go out and also having a plan for how often I'm emailing my email list in perpetuity, not just like the welcome sequence, but I need to make sure that I'm

continuing to touch base with them and not just sell to them twice a year. So for me, that's a huge system. I completely agree. I completely agree and think that it is one of the foundational pieces of blogging and success. And something that I really love about what you're sharing is that you said that you're not on an ad network yet. And that the way that you earn revenue from this is from your course that you've created. And I want everybody who's listening here to think outside the box and know that that is a viable way to create a business and blogging. Getting on an ad network is great if that's your goal. But you've talked a lot about that. What is your goal? And your ultimate goal is to get people

as a paying client, whether they're like... Because you do one-on-one, right? I do one-on-one. And the primary service that I have is the meal planning membership. So the one-on-one services are sort of like a bonus. I'm not super promoting that unless it's a really specific page, like the blog post that I'm talking about. Right. Right. And so I think that that's important to know that you have these different ways that you can provide solutions to people who are coming onto your blog, who have the needs of what you're sharing, and knowing what kind of bucket to put them in and how you can best help them. So we talk a lot about email here on the podcast. That is something that we highly

recommend as well as just one of those foundations. So I think it's really awesome that having that in place prior, because the last thing that you want to do is when you click in your stats and you're like, Oh my goodness, they're here. They've arrived. This is what I've been waiting for. And then you're like, and I didn't capture a single one of them. That's what we don't want to happen. And so if you can get them there, once they get there, if you can convert them, hopefully, you're not going to convert all of them. But if you can convert a handful or several of them into email subscribers that you can stay connected to, I mean, it's just icing on the cake.

Absolutely. And I mean, for someone who's newly starting out, this might seem really, really overwhelming. I remember being first into private practice and into business, and it felt like everything was on fire all the time. And I was like, which is the biggest fire that I need to put out today? And so if you're like, I don't have time to create a weekly email, I don't have time to create an onboarding sequence. Just figure out one freebie that you can tell them to sign up for and just create the welcome email. Then you've at least got them on your list. I mean, if you're nurturing them, they're more likely to stay a subscriber and do all these things. So ultimately, you should do that. But if you're not capturing anybody,

capturing somebody is better than nobody. And even if they end up dropping off your list, because you haven't nurtured them, at least you gave yourself a chance, I guess is what I'm saying. Excellent advice. I'm glad you said that. Because I do think it can feel like, oh, I need to do this and this and this and this and this when you get started. And sometimes you just have to keep the main thing, the main thing. And the main thing is to grow your community. That's what we want. It's not just to drive traffic, but to think about that bigger why and that reason why you're doing what you're doing. And I think when you can know what that is, then when you're making some of these decisions about where you're going to spend your time, it's a little bit easier to make those decisions. That's a great way to put

it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious now, what's tip number three? Tip number three is to, it's related to checking your stats. It's to revisit that blog post. So for example, the blog post that I had that went viral was one that was happened to be related to a university class. At least that's I think what happened because that's where a lot of the traffic was coming from, from this.edu website. And so I get huge bumps in traffic twice a year when this class cycles through the semester and students are searching in Google for credible nutrition information and then using my post for their homework. So it's really important for me to check in with that post and those two times of year and make sure that the content is relevant still, that it hasn't become outdated because

in the nutrition world, things do change. We learn new things all the time. But more importantly for everyone is to fix your links. Make sure that all of those links in your blog post are live. You do not want to be sending someone to a dead webpage, which did happen. One of the websites, because in the blog post, I actually compare two different nutrition websites. That's how we're identifying the credible nutrition information. And one of the websites got bought by somebody else. And so all of the links switched

and it wasn't totally dead. It did go to a website, but it didn't go to the article that I was very clearly referencing in this blog post. So just because you've written the content and just because you put it on the world and even if it's performing well, does not mean you're done with it.

Make sure that you're going back in and checking in on it. I'm so glad you said that. And that is, I think one of the things we tend to drop the ball on the most as bloggers is the follow-up. But that can be one of the most important places to be because now you know when to expect traffic on that post.

You can revisit and make sure that it continues to perform in that way by making sure that your links are updated. And also by changing any call to action, maybe you've changed your services, or you've changed some of your goals. And you can update that on that post. And if you weren't checking those things, it would be kind of like that whole like, I'm just going to throw this out there and see what sticks versus really being intentional. And I think that as bloggers, that can save us so much time and energy too. Because instead of just constantly just churning and churning new content, it allows you

to use the content that you already have in new ways, or just to ensure that it is the best possible version of itself that it can be. Yeah, I agree. And even on top of that, not only checking the links in your blog post, but you might also want to check all the other links that are linking to your blog posts that are out in the world. So because I just switched over my platform, my URL changed slightly. And I need to go and check out my Pinterest. Make sure that the Pinterest that's living out in the world is going to a live page. Because that's a real bummer if it's not. Yeah. Yeah. If you change your domain at all, you can do a redirect. And so it can just redirect

all of your links, which is really helpful. Because we don't want to tell Google that your links are broken. That is just going to give you a nice little hit that you don't want. A hit in a bad way. And so making sure that those links are still working in any capacity, whether it's an affiliate link that you have within a blog post, whether it's a link that you have out and about. I think all of those things are really relevant. And I do know I want to give space here that that is time consuming. And there are things that you can utilize to make sure that your links are okay. Broken Link Checker is something that

you can use. And it's a plugin that you download, you check your links, you fix them, and then you don't need to keep the plugin on your site to bug it down. But that is something that you can use often just to make sure that your links are relevant. Because when Google crawls that specific post, it needs to be relevant. If there are things in it that's broken, that's just going to ding against you. Email marketing is an essential piece of blogging. Growing your email list is just as important as SEO and keyword research, in our opinion. And in order to grow your list, you need a reliable platform that will allow you to connect with your community and turn them into email subscribers. That's where ConvertKit comes

in. ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators like you that helps you grow and monetize your audience with ease. ConvertKit allows you to grow your audience and reach, put your funnels on autopilot and earn an income with your email list, all with an easy to use platform that is approachable, even for beginners. Click the link in our show notes to learn more about the different plans that ConvertKit has and how it can help you propel your business to the next level. Okay, so tip number four is talking more about content. So share a little bit more about your last tip that you have for them. Sure. My fourth tip is to create more content like what you created. I think if something goes viral, it means that there's interest out there. And you can capitalize on that too. So I don't mean to blog about the same thing. But surely there's something that's adjacent to that, that you can come up with. So especially if you're

having trouble knowing what kind of content to create, this can be a really good way to brainstorm some ideas. And if you're having trouble there, you could even just search in Google for maybe some of the other headlines that you had in that viral post. And it's going to give you other people's ideas. Maybe you can expand on those. But go ahead and use that momentum. I think related to that last point about going back and checking, you've already done so much of the work. So you don't need to create another viral post. You can just use the one you have and just capitalize on that. Yeah. And especially because within that viral post, if you create related content, you can be linking from that viral post to your other

content. So you're going to get eyeballs on that content much quicker than if it was just a brand new post, you just throw it out there and you're hoping for the best. You're actually being intentional about driving some more traffic to that as well because you've created content that's helpful to the person that came to that original post. Such a great point. Yes, I totally agree. I think the hope is that we create content that people love and enjoy and they share and they click on it and they share with their friends and all of that. The tips that you've given are very approachable. And they're very attainable. And they're, quote unquote, simple is what I'm going to say. They're these basic things that as bloggers, we really can't apply to most of our

posts in order to optimize them and make sure that when people do come to our blogs, that they are getting what they need. And if our content is relevant and helpful to them, that they are staying. Because that's the ultimate goal is how we can create a bigger impact and how we can grow our community to create that impact. And so I love the tips that you have given. I think that they are doable. I think that focusing on the SEO and the keyword research piece of it to help drive those people and then to keep them there, that's how we're successful. And that's how we can take these viral posts. And we can turn these into... Hopefully,

we have more than one that continue generating more traffic to our site, more people into our community. Because more people in all those spaces, it does equal revenue, but it also equals impact. And I think that a lot of us who are blogging, sure, we all love to make money. Sure. Let's just call a spade a spade. But we also... I truly believe that bloggers really do want to help people. That's the goal behind blogging is how can I help more people? And so that's why we get excited about a post that's really resonating with somebody is, Oh my gosh, they're actually finding it helpful. So how can I

reach even more people to help even more people? So thanks for sharing these tips in just a really attainable way. I think sometimes we overcomplicate blogging. I think a lot of times we overcomplicate blogging and think it's just awesome just to simplify it. Well, thanks. I'm so glad that's helpful because I agree. It can feel really overwhelming, especially when there are so many good ideas out there. And there are a lot of good ideas. I learned from a marketing coach that if you don't have your foundations in place, then all the other stuff, like you don't have a cake to ice. So make sure you go to the cake first.

I agree with your marketing coach. And I really do think like we talk about the foundations of blogging a lot. I'm going to link another podcast episode that we have here that talks about the foundations and blogging because I feel like if you don't have those foundations down, then you're doing yourself a disservice by not having

those foundations in place. And at the end of the day, if you have those all lined up... And one, knowledge is just knowing. It's just knowing what you need to do first. So having that knowledge and doing that research first and foremost, that's why you're here listening to this specific podcast episode and to this podcast in general, is to gather that knowledge. So utilizing some of these tips that Anne has provided today, I think is just going to really help you and help you come up with a plan for yourself. Because having that plan is only going to benefit you. I promise. If you're resistant to plans, I promise it's only going to benefit you. It's true. It's boring.

Like a lot of the best tips are pretty boring. I don't think it's boring as much as it's actionable. You know? That's a good way to put it. Yeah. And I think that that's a lot of times like we overcomplicate it because we're scared to do it. Or we think it's going to be really hard. And then when we really talk about it, you're like,

Oh, that's it? That's what I got to do? And I think if we can just give some truth to that. It's not boring. It's actionable. We can go in and we can optimize. We can start having a system with our email marketing. We can revisit that old content.

You can set a calendar reminder, revisit your top 5 posts every 3 months or every 6 months or whatever. And then what content is performing well? And how can I go back and create more content like that? Because that is how your readers tell you what they like is what posts they're going to. But you're not going to know what they like if you're not keeping track of your stats. Right. So it's all connected. It really is. So, okay, Anne, will you please let everybody know how to connect with you because you've given such great advice and people are going to want to check out this post too. Absolutely. So you can visit me online at peasandhoppiness.com. That's hoppy

with an O like the beer. The article is called How to Identify Credible Nutrition Online. The easiest way to find it is to go to my blog and just search for credible nutrition info. I haven't checked it in a while, but you used to be able to just search Google for that too. That's how I was trending. So that was cool.

If you want to follow me on Instagram, I'm at peasandhoppiness. I'm also on Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, all the places. We will include all of those show notes, including a direct link to this specific blog post that's worked so well for you the last 7 years. So congrats on this post. I think it's awesome that people are still coming to it. When I opened it, I was like, wow, this was written in 2016. So I hope that that gives people who are listening. I hope it gives you a great perspective

that the content that you're creating today might still make an impact many years down the line. So never discount the work and the impact that you're making today by sitting down at your computer today and writing a blog post that can honestly change the lives of people in some way, shape or form. So thanks for listening today. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at spark media concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp.

The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.