How to create a blog post: I get a lot of people asking me how Luscious works, how I choose what to post, how long it takes, and what’s involved.
So here’s a little insight into what I get up to everyday, sitting in front of my beloved laptop at Chez Luscious, in my cosy coastal corner of the world on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, putting blog posts together…
Here’s a summary of the steps I take to create a blog post – scroll down to read about each one in more detail:
Selecting and researching a topic
Deciding what and when to publish
Knowing my audience
Organising photos
Preparing specific photos for a new blog post
Creating a new blog post
Choosing headlines
Creating permalinks
Getting ready to write
Finding my voice
Creating structure based on post type
Styling and formatting
Adding individual photos and photo galleries
Selecting a featured image
Positioning text with photos and white space
Including external links to direct and related sources
Including internal and external links relating to Luscious itself
Choosing ads
Managing SEO
Adding tags and selecting catergories
Previewing and editing
Publishing and promoting the post
Loading the published photos to Pinterest
Promoting the post on Facebook and Twitter
Advising relevant parties about the post
Including the new post in the next Luscious email
Responding to social media comments, emails and spam
Drafting potential follow-up or related posts
Checking stats
Making amendments and adding updates
STEP 1: Selecting and researching a topic
I’m never at a loss for new ideas, and have over 1230 draft blog posts in various stages of readiness ranging from just a title to a 95%-completed post.
Each day, I scroll through myriad news feeds, websites and TV shows which inspire me, as well as the people I meet, activities I engage in, and the places I visit. Mr Luscious often says that I have soooo many ideas that he wishes he could find the “off switch” for my brain sometimes, as it’s constantly whirling around with excitement.
If I’m at home with my laptop at the ready, I create a new draft post on the spot and dump in any ideas or links I have at the time. That way, if more ideas come, I can just add them in to the draft until I’m ready to write the post properly.
For the times when I’m out and about, I keep a red notebook which lives in my handbag, or I just send myself an email.
STEP 2: Deciding what and when to publish
What gets published each day can depend on my mood, but it’s usually reflective of what is engaging me the most.
Or it may be opportunistic, eg. a designer is selling their beautiful house, a celebrity or royal family member I like is having a baby, someone I’ve admired has died, or it’s a seasonal event such as Valentine’s Day or Christmas. Or perhaps because I saw something trending and I thought I could relate it to something luscious.
I probably ought to have a rigorous schedule of planned posts, but I only do this when we’re having a trip and I want to be as prepared as possible, well in advance. I think I’m lucky because my fans are spread across the international spectrum, so posting at any time of day always catches someone’s attention.
But if you are writing your own blog and have a specific country to target, you should arrange the publication of your post accordingly, eg. 9am on a Monday morning in New York is probably not the best time if you have a following of busy office workers.
STEP 3: Knowing my audience
Whilst the Luscious brand is quite literally “my Luscious Life” because it’s about the things I do and love, I also keep in mind what I think my readers would like.
For example, if there’s a choice during Fashion Week between posting the collection of J. Crew or Elie Saab, I would always give the Elie Saab post priority. Luscious Lifers love Elie Saab and the website and Facebook page get a lot of traffic as soon as the post is published, and once the images are pinned to Pinterest, the traffic grows even further and re-pins go through the roof.
Knowing your audience is essential, and I owe a lot to the early days of Luscious on Facebook for this. And I deliberately say “early days” because the algorithm has changed and hardly any of my 118,000+ Facebook fans get to see my posts anymore, and I’m not prepared to pay to circulate content to people who have already “liked” the page.
In the past, I could have hundreds of comments and thousands of “likes” for each Facebook post, so it was easy to track who liked what, and what content I should generate more often. Today, alas, only about 1-2% of my fans see any posts via our Luscious page on Facebook. If I’m lucky.
STEP 4: Organising photos
Before I create a new blog post, I usually collect most of my images and ensure they are ready to be loaded. High quality visuals are essential to me, and I need clear, sophisticated shots which should age well.
I have an enormous library of content on my laptop (possibly 200,000+ images? I’ve stopped counting!) and they are organised by folders such as READY TO LOAD/IN PROGRESS or LOADED with sub-folders relating to each topic, eg. “Fashion A-M”, “Fashion N-Z” and “Pool, beach and outdoor living”, and then more specific sub-categories, eg. Chanel, Luscious desserts, Hamptons beach houses.
At the moment, for example, I’ve got a series of sub-folders relating to the various homes of iconic fashion designer Valentino, so these all live in my “Ready to load/In progress” folder. Once a post is published, I then transfer the photos to the “Loaded” section, so in this case, the Valentino photos will go to a “LOADED: Architecture, decor, gardens > Valentino’s home – Paris” sub-folder etc.
I also have access to imagery sent by photographers, publicists, brands and retailers, as well as things I’ve found via sites such as Pinterest, Tumblr, WeHeartIt. And if I still need something, I’ll use Google to search for medium-sized images to download.
STEP 5: Preparing specific photos for a new blog post
The key points for organising photos are essentially:
Select good quality images in the first place – I prefer medium and large sized images so I can work with them more easily
Edit the images using a photo editor such as Photoshop (expensive) or Microsoft Office Picture Manager and the Snipping Tool (both free and easy!)
Ensure each image is saved with a full descriptive name, eg. “Black chair” is going to be less successful for SEO purposes than something entitled “Mid-century modern black tufted leather armchair with chrome legs from Horchow”.
STEP 6: Creating a new blog post
As I use WordPress, the next step is to go to my website’s dashboard editor and select the “add new post” option, which creates a blank page for me.
As I’ve previously created a template based on the way I like to work (eg. headings, photo gallery positions, social media links and my name at the end), I copy-and-paste the template contents into the new post. Most of the time, these elements are pretty much what I’m after, and if not, I can just delete the surplus items.
I like this consistency when it comes to what I see on a blog, and I feel that my fans do too. I want Luscious Lifers to pop by, ready for a bit of escapism or inspiration, as if they are ready to sit down in a comfortable old armchair with a good book. It needs to feel familiar and easy.
STEP 7: Choosing headlines
After playing around with it, my current format for post headlines is something such as INTRODUCTORY IDEA IN CAPS: Title in sentence case, for example:
RUNWAY: Carolina Herrera Spring 2014 RTW collection
FAMOUS FOLK AT HOME: Darcy Miller Nussbaum and Andrew Nussbaum in Manhattan
STYLE ICON: Iris Apfel
SHOP THIS LOOK: Coral, white, navy and grey bedroom
It’s nothing revolutionary, obviously, but that’s because the content I choose isn’t supposed to be clickbait - I don’t need to use titles such as “See what this rapper did to a hotel room during a drugged-fuelled orgy!” because that’s not what Luscious is about.
I tend to use a lot of the simple introductory titles (eg. “RUNWAY” and “STYLE ICON”) so it’s clear what the post is about, even if the reader doesn’t know much about the topic.
For example, if you didn’t know the name “Iris Apfel”, would you really click on the post? But because I’ve included the words “Style icon” as well, it provides a little bit of introduction and might make you curious.
STEP 8: Creating permalinks
Creating a permalink (ie. the URL = the address of each individual page/post) is very similar to creating a heading, and WordPress will use it as a default unless you manually edit it. But often I amend it to ensure the key elements are definitely included so that I can optimise SEO (see more about this below).
Note: A blog post title can be changed once published, but do not attempt to change the permalink string. Doing so means you have effectively broken the link, so anyone who has used the original link will now find the dreaded “The page you are searching for is not here” sort of message. Make sure your spelling is correct and the “dash” is in the correct spot between words.
For example, when I created this post, A colourful life: Green scene – part 1, I forgot to check the permalink, and the following resulted:
I didn’t mean the permalink to be called this, especially with the lack of a dash between “colour” and “green”. It’s not the end of the world, but every time I see it I feel a bit silly.
All is not lost, however. If you do ever change a link, you’ll need to install a redirect plugin. I learnt this the hard way when we moved from the old DNN version of the Luscious website to our new WordPress version a couple of years ago.
Here’s where to find the permalink in a WordPress editor:
STEP 9: Getting ready to write
I’ve always been a writer since I was a child, and worked professionally as a journalist writing articles for newspapers and magazines, as well as editing and proofreading the work of others.
I kept up the freelance work and also moved into corporate communications, marketing and branding roles, which lead to online content development and website creation.
And now, as many of you know, I spend my time working on three of my own books (a novel, a travel book, and a luscious living guide), as well as working on Luscious, of course.
Putting content together for Luscious is mostly easy, apart from my incessant interest in just about everything - sometimes I take weeks and even months to research things I’m particularly passionate about. I then try to distil it down to easy-to-read blog posts for my readers with heaps of photos.
STEP 10: Finding my voice
The type of post determines the voice I use. For something simple such as a collection of designer clothes, I usually keep it factual and “third person” in tone.
But if it’s a personal post, eg. PERSONAL UPDATE: Our first IVF/ICSI treatment or PERSONAL UPDATE: Why I’m having a break from Luscious, clearly it’s written in first person.
In the case of the bad experience I had when visiting the new Michael Kors store at Melbourne Emporium, I tried to use humour to convey my sentiments. Which seemed to work as at least 150,000 people heard about my experience in the first 3 weeks via the A TOTE TOO FAR: An open letter to Michael Kors post.
STEP 11: Creating structure based on post type
After coming up with an introductory sentence that I hope will summarise what the post is about, I usually start with a rough outline of my topic.
In the case of a person, eg. STYLE ICON: Audrey Hepburn, I try to do things chronologically, broken into small chunks using sub-headings.
If it’s a post about a place, eg. DESIGNER HOTELS AND SPAS: Oscar de la Renta’s Tortuga Bay in the Dominican Republic, I try to include a map (or series of maps), as well as information about the place and, in this case, the main player, fashion and homewares designer Oscar de la Renta.
Or if it’s a person and a place, eg. A LUSCIOUS LIFE: Rachel “Bunny” Lowe Lambert Mellon – Part 1, I try to provide an overview about the person, some chronological order, and sections about each of her beautiful homes.
STEP 12: Styling and formatting
I mostly write in short paragraphs of 2-4 sentences, and incorporate bullet points wherever possible to break things up, because:
Despite loving to read, my brain is very short-tempered and I am constantly flicking between browser tabs, my inbox and whatever else might be around me – I blame the introduction of the televison remote control when I was a child!
Accepting that my blog text is not going to be vying for any literary awards – I hope to win you over when you end up reading my novel - I like to keep things fairly simple.
I want to introduce readers to a person, place, style or concept, provide a few facts, explain why this topic took my fancy, and then provide resources so they can explore further if they wish, all the while supported by beautiful images.
Even though it’s not good from an SEO point of view (ie. more text is better), I tend to have short posts because a lot of my content is image-based. So if I am writing a longer post, I usually split it into multiple posts eg. “Part 1″, “Part 2″ etc so the structure is clear.
STEP 13: Adding individual photos and photo galleries
After trial and error on the Luscious blog, and seeing what seems to work on other blogs, I now tend to choose one “hero” picture and have it centered at the top of the blog post.
If you go back to older posts, you can see how I’ve experimented with using multiple, smaller images, and also putting the main photo gallery scroll across the very top. I think a larger hero shot is cleaner and more effective, at least for now.
I use the basic ADD MEDIA button in the WordPress editor for static photos, and then I use PHOTOCRATI for galleries. Photocrati is a WordPress theme created for photographers.
STEP 14: Selecting a “featured image”
WordPress gives you the option (bottom right corner of draft post page) of selecting a “feature image” which should appear when the post is shared, such as this image I used for a recent quick links to Luscious news post which was shared on our Facebook page:
STEP 15: Positioning text with photos and white space
As imagery is so important to me, I prefer to have an image in between every 1-3 paragraphs, relating to the text which was just featured.
I’m also a big fan of white space, and as time goes on, I try to go back to old posts and add in more of it. Apologies if you come across an old post which is still cluttered – it took me a while to learn some basic HTML which helped force extra lines of space into content.
Working how much space is right is really just one of those learn-as-you-go things, and I see now that providing breathing space between content is much easier and engaging. It’s like giving the reader a change to breathe.
Embrace the space, I say.
STEP 16: Including external links to direct and related sources
I always use a mixture of external links, such as:
Direct links eg. a link to the original Architectural Digest article about a celebrity’s home, or the official website of the designer whose fashion I’ve just featured
Shopping links, eg. where to find the product itself (eg. book, DVD, dress) or a similar item.
Related websites, eg. a Wikipedia or IMDB page
Social media links, eg. encouraging readers to follow the author of a book I’ve reviewed on Twitter.
I set these links to “open in a new tab” so that my reader doesn’t disappear off the Luscious site before finishing the post in front of them.
STEP 17: Including internal and external links relating to Luscious itself
With each new blog post, I do my best to link to previously published Luscious content including:
Luscious blog posts and photo galleries
photo galleries on our Facebook
Pinterest boards
YouTube playlists
This helps for both cross-promotion and SEO, as well as exposing new Luscious Lifers to the wider Luscious network.
STEP 18: Choosing and inserting ads
Whilst I work on Luscious because I love it, there are still bills to pay, so I have four main revenue streams: RewardStyle, ShopStyle/ShopSense, Skimlinks and Amazon affiliate programs.
With each of the four programs, I can see what individual item or ad is the most popular or what isn’t getting many click-thrus, so I can adjust a current post, or change the plan for a future post.
I try to incorporate each of these programs into a post, but the key one for me is RewardStyle. This is because they offer both individual product links (eg. a white Valentino jumpsuit) as well as brand/retailer ads (eg. Net-A-Porter where you could buy items such as Valentino, but also other luscious brands). Also, the potential income if someone buys through one of my links is higher than the other offerings.
It’s to use Amazon for book and DVD suggestions, and ShopStyle/ShopSense have recently improved their functionality so I like being able curate some products and quickly load them into a post.
Skimlinks is also good, and you don’t have to do anything for this other than open an account with them and copy the tracking code to your website. The chance for a large income with these three programs is slim unless you have millions of hits, but every penny counts in my book.
So, when it comes to incorporating ads into a new post, I go first to the RewardStyle advertising page, choose one or more ads which seem appropriate for the post, for example:
an ad for Target kitchenware when it’s a post about the “It’s Complicated” movie set in which Meryl Streep’s character has a gorgeous kitchen
an ad for Tory Burch sale items when it’s a post about Tory’s latest runway looks, such as the RUNWAY: Tory Burch Fall 2013 RTW collection.
If it’s a post about books or movies, I’ll make suggestions about my favourites and link to them from Amazon, eg:
BOOKS TO BUY: Inspirational books about stylish, luxurious and elegant homes
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Fortune, frocks, fops and flops continued – The Gilded Age to the Jazz Age
STEP 19: Managing SEO
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
It’s a complicated and tricky subject, with much better qualified sources than me out there for you to learn from. You could start with this SEO summary from Wikipedia, and then start googling “tips for improving SEO” if you’re interested.
In my case, one of the things I do to maximise SEO is by ensuring all my pictures are labelled, my headlines and text relate to the keywords I want to focus on, and that I do my best to follow the suggestions from the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.
All of these things, except for the permalink (explained above) can be tweaked over time.
STEP 20: Adding tags and selecting categories
Helping readers find something is important, and not everyone wants to use the Search box, or even know what they are looking for specifically. So selecting a category for a post and adding tags can help define a post, and allow a user to narrow down their preferences.
In this “how to create a post” post which you’re reading right now, I’ve selected the “Our little Luscious world” box in the Categories section of WordPress (right side column), and the Tags section is directly underneath, see image below.
Alternatively, for this post about Yves Saint Laurent shoes, I would put the post in the “Foot fetish” category, and use tags such as “shoes, Yves Saint Laurent, 2014″ and so on.
STEP 21: Previewing and editing
OK, so I’ve probably done all of the steps above by now, but I’ll select the PREVIEW button and try to read as a Luscious Lifer might do, asking myself whether the key points are covered and if I can find any spelling errors.
In particular, I might consider:
Adding in extra white space
Including more static images to break up large sections of text
Resizing photos so they are more consistent
Adding more internal and external links
Also, I may decide to postpone the publication or change the order if I have multiple posts I want to publish all at once. Selecting the EDIT option next Publish immediately gives me a drop-down calendar so I can amend the date and time.
STEP 22: Publishing and promoting the post
Most of the time, I post things as soon as I think it’s finished them, but I may hold off promoting it via social media until I feel the timing is right.
For example, if I’ve already posted several things on Facebook today, I’d wait until tomorrow to announce a new post as it would just get buried. I have enough problems with Facebook not circulating content to Luscious Lifers as it is, so I have to pick my moments.
I then submit the newly published permalink/URL to Google via Google Webmaster Tools > Fetch as Google to get it circulating in cyberspace.
STEP 23: Loading published images to Pinterest
A lot of the popularity relating to Luscious has come from the photos, and this explains why they get re-pinned millions of times each week.
It’s pretty amazing to see the stats, but it’s also frightening when I realise I haven’t labelled some of them properly (see previous steps!) or a photo relates to a now defunct page from the old Luscious website.
Loading photos from a new post to one of our 200+ boards always ensures the post gets some circulation, and I’m very grateful to everyone who spreads the word through re-pins.
Because most Luscious posts contains a large number of images, I use ViralTag which enables me to do bulk loads, ie. photos are pinned automatically, spaced out from 3 mins to 20 mins depending on how many other posts I’ve published that day.
It’s been hard determining what works, as I don’t want to overwhelm followers’ Pinterest feeds with too many photos on one topic coming through all at once, putting them off, and even prompting them to unfollow.
STEP 24: Promoting the post via Facebook and Twitter
I’ve got a system which allows me to post to Facebook and that gets picked up automatically on Twitter, so it’s twice the result for half the work. But sometimes I also tweet separately on Twitter, including hashtags, to encourage more circulation.
On Facebook, where I have the biggest following, I use a mixture of posts such as:
Plain text with link
Link with image
New Facebook photo gallery with link
Re-post of an older Facebook photo gallery with new post link
Adding a new photo to an existing Facebook photo gallery with link
Unfortunately, the Facebook system is gamed towards keeping users on Facebook, so links directly to the Luscious blog tend to get very little circulation.
It is very, very frustrating when so much effort has gone into creating a new post that no-one is going to hear about it thanks to Facebook, so I encourage you to always click on the Luscious blog post link as often as possible to show Facebook that you DO want to read Luscious posts (away from Facebook). Thank you.
STEP 25: Advising relevant parties about the post
If I’ve mentioned someone or something in a post, and feel that person or business might like to know, eg. LUSCIOUS LIBRARY: Manhattan Classic: New York’s Finest Prewar Apartments by Geoffrey Lynch, I might send an email or tweet.
In the case of the Geoffrey Lynch book I reviewed, I was in touch with the publisher, Princeton University Press, who had kindly sent me the book via both email and Twitter.
After doing a post about the beautiful home of designer and blogger, Mike D Sikes, in the post STYLISH HOMES: The glamorous home of designer Mark D. Sikes in Los Angeles, I did a tweet including both Mark and Veranda magazine who did the story in the first place.
It does take time and sometimes a little research to find out who should be notified if you haven’t already been in contact with them, but a) it’s the polite thing to do, and b) it may get a positive response via an email reply or a re-tweet.
STEP 26: Including the new post in the next Luscious email
I don’t send out the Luscious email particularly regularly, but when I do, I think it’s important to highlight recent posts in case a Luscious Lifer missed it previously. I can also track click-thrus back to individual posts so I can get another measure of what’s popular.
For the Luscious email, I use AWeber which looks a little clunky (compared to MailChimp) but has all the features I’m after, including the ability to insert ads and affiliate links (which MailChimp doesn’t allow).
Be sure to sign up to the Luscious email if you haven’t already – go to the right column of this page and look for the “Become a Luscious Lifer” box.
STEP 27: Responding to social media comments, emails and spam
Just because a post is published doesn’t mean the process stops: readers of the blog may comment underneath the post or email me directly. A Facebook fan might comment, a Twitter follow may “favourite” or “re-tweet”, or a Pinterest follower may comment under a pin.
As often as possible, I try to “like” their comment, reply properly, or at least say thank you.
Unfortunately, the downside of having some popularity means that spam and negativity increases, so it’s a daily activity to manage too, despite having an excellent WordPress plugin called CleanTalk for managing spam.
You can read about some of the feedback in this post A PERSONAL UPDATE: Why I’m having a break from Luscious.
As a thank you for people who comment on the Luscious blog, I created an automated “Thanks for commenting” message which gets sent to the user on the first occasion of them leaving a comment.
STEP 28: Drafting potential follow-up or related posts
As I’ve mentioned previously, coming up with ideas is not an issue for me, but publishing a new post and getting feedback inspires me even more.
Someone might suggest a book I might like, ask a question about a dress I’ve featured, or want to know more about a famous architectural periods, so I’ll then jump straight back into drafting more posts.
STEP 29: Checking stats
I am obsessed with statistics. Which is funny for someone who traditionally hates things to do with numbers!
But having created the Luscious brand through the website and social media channels, it’s been fantastic that metrics keep improving, so I can find out what works and what doesn’t.
In particular, I have multiple tabs open all day, every day, and I record key stats in a spreadsheet so I can find out how things are developing.
The main ones I use are:
Google Analytics
Google Webmaster Tools
Alexa
Pinterest statistics
Facebook Insights
and all the income-producing affiliate programs dashboards.
STEP 30: Making amendments and adding updates
Almost every time I go back to an old post there is something I want to add or amend.
Which is probably a good thing, because it means the site can only improve and I’m constantly learning. Unfortunately, it’s also time consuming because I’ve got thousands of posts published now and they all require maintenance.
I hope this doesn’t put you off if you’ve got your own blog or are considering creating one. Luscious is my passion so I don’t even think of it as work. It’s done for love and for sharing happy things with others, and I’m taking it as a good sign that I want to watch it grow, expand and flourish.
So, I hope this gives you some ideas about how to create a blog post of your own, and what I do every day here at Luscious. Feel free to leave a question in the Comments section below.
And don’t follow Luscious on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Google+ and Twitter!
Cheers, Natasha
www.myLusciousLife.com
PS. For the record, this post has taken about 10 hours to assemble, over two days.
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The post OUR LITTLE LUSCIOUS WORLD: The anatomy of a blog post appeared first on Luscious: myLusciousLife.com.