#120: How To Look at Your Blog with Fresh Eyes

If you want to learn how to look at your blog with fresh eyes and optimize it for your visitors, for revenue, for experience, listen to this episode.

Intro 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

In today’s episode, I have David as my guest. He is, of course, my husband, my partner. He is a technologist. He is really insightful. I learn from him every day. What we are talking about is how to look at your blog with fresh eyes.

Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello friends. Welcome back to the show. I hope you are staying safe and healthy during this unusual time. Before I start with today’s episode, I wanted to announce that on May 26 we are starting our next coaching group.

Join Our 6-Week MiloTree Entrepreneur Coaching Group Starting May 26th

It’s a six-week coaching group. It is for new bloggers and experienced bloggers where we dig in, get to know you and your business, and teach you really how to grow an online business today. Especially, during this time.

There’s a lot. There’s a lot that’s the same and a lot that’s different, and we break it down piece by piece. In fact, don’t take my word for it. I’m going to read what Clara said about our coaching group.

Coaching Group Review

She said, “Being part of the group was such a great experience. Jillian and David provided so much valuable information, tips, ideas and help. They shared all their expertise and that is a lot.

I strongly recommend anyone join. It’s empowering. It’s helpful, dynamic and fun. Every session with them opened my mind and gave me fantastic insights and support for my own business. It’s totally worth it.”

Well, Clara, thank you for saying that. Clara has continued on with us in our monthly membership. This is just a great way to get some momentum. That’s what I would say. And we’d love to have you.

If you want to learn more, head to MiloTree.com/group. Email me at Jillian@MiloTree.com. If you want to get on a call to talk about your business and how I think we can help you, I would love it so please reach out.

Show Notes

• MiloTree Entrepreneur Coaching Group
• MiloTree Pop-Up App—30 Days Free
• MiloTree BlogStart
• MiloTree Downloadable Blog Checklist
• MiloTree Mastermind Facebook Group
• Episode #110:Why Site Speed can hurt your blog and How to Fix it
• GTmetrix
• Google Site Speed

How to Look at Your Blog With Fresh Eyes

We get really comfortable with our own blogs and we almost become blind to that. So what I’ve been doing in my Facebook group, my MiloTree Mastermind Facebook group, (If you’re not a member, please go to Facebook and join.) is I will ask people and say, “Hey, do you have something you want us to review?” And people will say, “Yeah, will you look at my blog?”

So, what I’m doing in this podcast is outlining how David and I take a look at your blog. What’s great is we’ve got fresh eyes, but we also have a systematic way of looking at the pieces of your blog to see if you are making good choices to help move your business forward.

I’m going to give you some insights into how we think about it. If you want a free download, a checklist of what we’re talking about, please head to MiloTree.com/blogchecklist. You can go through this and hopefully see your blog in a new way.

And if you want help doing this, that’s where David and I come in. Please join our coaching group. What’s great about it is that David is there to give technical and design help.

If for example, you look at your blog and you go, “Oh my God, I really need to change this or whatever.” We’re here! Reach out at jillian@milotree.com and we will help you. That’s what we are here for. So, without further delay, here is my interview with David.

David, welcome back to the show.

David 4:05
I’m glad to be back.

Jillian Leslie 4:06
It’s fun. It’s funny because we’re sitting here close together, talking.

David 4:10
Sharing a mic.

Jillian Leslie 4:11
Sharing a mic. Thinking about whether we should have two mics but realizing that it’s probably logistically somewhat difficult.

David 4:19
I don’t want to have to Skype from another room.

Jillian Leslie 4:21
It’s cute. It’s like we’re all cuddled up here next to the mic. Okay. We just finished our first coaching group. And it was really fun, wasn’t it?

David 4:32
It was good.

Jillian Leslie 4:32
What was cool about it was getting to know the bloggers and entrepreneurs in the group and really getting to understand their businesses and they are our friends.

David 4:41
Yeah, especially during the time we’re quarantined and not seeing anybody. It’s kind of nice to meet new people and talk to them.

Jillian Leslie 4:49
Yeah. And that you have this ongoing relationship. It’s funny, we started the group before quarantine, and then all of a sudden the world shut down around us. And it was something that I started to really look forward to not just because it’s fun, and we want to help people succeed, but it was like, “Hey, we could just show up with this group of people.”

Because the truth is we’ve been hanging out a lot together for a while. So it was really nice. So anyway, we are starting our second coaching group on May 26th. And what’s cool is that we have really been able to take this time to synthesize how we teach, and what we think is really important.

Has Your Blog Gotten Cluttered?

We thought about doing this episode and sharing how we look at blogs, especially you David because you have such a technical foundation. Our blog is kind of like your home, which is you move into your home with your stuff and you put everything in place and it looks really nice, let’s say. And then over time, you start to bring in more stuff. You might bring in a tchotchke or a decoration.

David 5:59
Some souvenirs from the vacation trip.

Jillian Leslie 6:01
Exactly. And then there’s the stuff that is kind of functional, but you don’t really have a place for it. Like the big mixer ends up on your countertop in your kitchen. And then, the pile of papers. And at a certain point, you step back, and you go, “Oh my God, my house is so cluttered, and it used to not be cluttered.”

David 6:25
Or you never step back and you never realize it.

Jillian Leslie 6:27
Exactly, yes.

David 6:29
But when your friends come to visit, they might go, “Hmm.” Like, “How do I get to the kitchen behind that pile of books?”

Jillian Leslie 6:37
And in fact, I think a blog can be somewhat similar, which is, it’s really easy to add stuff. I think that we get used to our blogs and how they work and we forget to take stuff off, or we forget to pare it down.

In our Facebook group, the MiloTree Mastermind Group, and we just did this recently. I’ll say, “Hey, do you want feedback on your blog?” And somebody will give me their blog URL. We’re always happy to do this.

What I do behind the scenes is I say to David, I go, “Hey, David, look at this blog with me.” And so, usually we sit by your computer and you call it up and you start looking and kind of how… If I were to think like you, what are your first thoughts of when you’re evaluating somebody’s blog?

David 7:18
Right? Well, the advantage we have is we may not have seen the blog before, so we can really bring fresh eyes.

Jillian Leslie 7:23
And we’ve seen hundreds and thousands of blogs.

David 7:26
Right. So I think as we give this advice to you, having you lived in your blog. The main thing I would say is you’re trying to bring fresh eyes. Bring your own eyes in a fresh way looking at your own site. Putting yourself in the position, a new visitor coming in for the first time.

People Don’t Start on Your Homepage Anymore

As content creators, we are intimately familiar with our blogs or sites. I think inherently you kind of think of it hierarchically, right. Imagine you’re putting up your blog. Start with what is my homepage going to look like?

And then, what are my sections? And then, I’ll put the blog post in the sections. But, you know, in the world today, it’s the opposite. Right? Someone’s out on the internet, they’re on Google searching for a recipe. They’re on Pinterest looking for a cool photo of some home decor.

Hopefully, your site comes up and they’re going to click on it and they’re landing deep in your site, like they’re in a blog post. Ninety percent of the time they’re not coming to your homepage and looking at the cool hierarchy you set up, they’re landing in it, on your content.

How Does Your Blog Feel Overall?

So, the very first thing is, like really the feel. A lot of that is about performance, page speed. Not like in like, you have your stopwatch out, but just when you go to your page, what does it feel like like?

Are things loading in blocks and shifting around? If I’m starting to see your content and want to scroll down, can I? I don’t know if you’ve been to sites that are loading really slowly you can’t move the page. That can be super frustrating. That can be like an automatic…

Jillian Leslie 9:13
Bounce.

David 9:14
Yeah, people back out because you know, they’re not even confident that the content they want is going to be there. So, go for that feel first.

Jillian Leslie 9:24
Okay, wait. We did a podcast episode, David and me, about site speed. I will link to that where we talked about certain tools. But what is the URL or where do you go to detect people’s site speed where they can just put their URL in?

David 9:39
Google PageSpeed. So, I was just saying like, don’t think to spot stopwatch. First, go for the feel. But also after that, especially if you think there’s a problem, go to Google PageSpeed. I think that’s an important metric to have, because a lot of the performance we’re doing is in the hopes that Google will reward us or not penalize us for PageSpeed.

And there’s another site called GTmetrix. I like GTmetrix if you’re going to sit down and try to optimize your site performance because I think that some of the feedback it gives are a little more clear than what you get from Google PageSpeed.

Jillian Leslie 10:17
Let’s talk about orientation, because you talk a lot about that.

David 10:21
Right. So, once someone’s there, like they’re in your recipe post…

Jillian Leslie 10:27
Kind of like in the bowels of your blog.

David 10:29
Yes. They haven’t come to your homepage, they haven’t gone through this. It’s not the museum tour, or they come at the front front desk and get the map and there’s the desk going, “Okay, we’re going to start here. We’re going to go into the east wing first. We’re going to learn about deserts, and then move into…” Actually, maybe start with appetizers, end up in deserts.

But they’re deep in your blog. So, I think these days on the internet, like one question every time you arrive at a new site, maybe someplace you haven’t been before is like, “Is this place legit?”

Jillian Leslie 11:01
Right. There’s like a moment of skepticism because we all know that there are people out there wanting to scam us or somehow there’s like this underbelly. And also if it’s a recipe, like do I trust this person?

David 11:16
Yeah, exactly. I’m sure anyone who uses Pinterest. Sometimes you’ll go to a pin and like, “Okay, that’s a great photo. I want to get more information.”

And then you’ll click and then like, who knows where you’d end up. Nothing related to it. They’re just kind of spamming that photo out trying to get a click to something unrelated.

Jillian Leslie 11:33
They probably stolen that photo.

David 11:35
Stolen that photo. Reused it. Bought an unrelated stock photo. So, one thing is like when you’re pinning, like hopefully, there’s a easily mental connection that the person can make between the photo you’re pinning from your post and the content that’s in your post.

And it doesn’t have to be the same photo. I know you can do like custom pin photos, kind of the tall with a label. You may not have it in your post but as long as you just want to be able to, like the gut reaction should be okay.

How to Orient Your Visitor When They Come to Your Site

Jillian Leslie 12:12
Oh, I’m here and this is right where I’m supposed to be.

David 12:15
Right. Because that’s your first hurdle The second one is like they might go like, “Okay. Before I invest, like more than two seconds here, start scrolling. Like, what is it this place?”

Jillian Leslie 12:26
Who are you?

David 12:27
Who are you?

Jillian Leslie 12:28
Why should I trust you?

David 12:29
Like one thing we recommend is having the little mini bio. If you’re an individual blogger, your photo could just be like a sentence or two, your mission statement, who you are.

Jillian Leslie 12:42
Right. And you can click to another page that has much more information about you.

Have Your About Section on Every Page

David 12:46
Yep, by all means have an About Page if you’re comfortable with that, but with more of it too because you don’t know where people are coming, what page they are going to view first.

Assume that on every page, you want to have something about yourself to let people know, “Hey, I’m a real person. I have a real mission here with my site.”

Jillian Leslie 13:08
Right. I like that. So you would have a photo, preferably a few, like a liner to about you. And if you can put your mission in there of like, so it’s not just I’m a mom of three and I live in Colorado.

David 13:22
Right. I’m a budget baker. I could say it should be on the first page that people view but you don’t know what that page is. So, you blanket it on every page.

Jillian Leslie 13:31
And then also, let’s talk about nav because your nav should be on every page.

David 13:37
Absolutely. I think the question around nav is once someone has arrived, like you’ve done all this work pinning images and optimizing for Google search results and someone clicks to your page, like, asked what do you want from that person? What do you want them to do?

Jillian Leslie 13:56
Yeah, this is a really interesting question because I think as bloggers, especially if we started 10 years ago, we didn’t think about that. It wasn’t about building a business. It was like I was creating a blog. And look, I can put ads up.

What Do You Want Your Visitor to Do on Your Site?

It was almost like you backed into a business. And today, I think it is all about what do you want this visitor to do. And how does that help you grow community, make money, build your brand, but very clearly, do you want this person to read this post?

Do you want this person to sign up for your list? Do you want this person to download something? Do you want this person to buy something? Do you want this person to click on five different pages of your site?

David 14:44
The gut reaction, I’m sure of everyone, is yes. Right? I want all those things. Read the recipe. Print it. Make it view five more pages. Pin stuff. Draw on my list. Click my affiliate links.

Jillian Leslie 14:57
And follow me on Instagram.

David 14:58
Exactly.

Jillian Leslie 14:59
With your MiloTree pop-up.

David 15:02
The truth is you want to be optimizing for one thing.

Jillian Leslie 15:06
Right. And this is so hard. It’s so hard.

David 15:08
You got someone on your site. Is your goal to get them on your email list? Is your goal to get them to buy something? Is your goal to get them to view more pages because you’ve got great content?

Jillian Leslie 15:21
Yes. Yeah, I want it all. You’re right. But there should be a hierarchy in terms of what is most important for your business. And again, how many times do you come to a blog and then lots of things are popping out at you?

I mean, this goes back to MiloTree. When we created it, our feeling is really one ask. Now, people will have multiple pop-ups on their sites in addition to MiloTree, but really our thinking is always funneling people to make it so easy for them to do what you want them to do.

And not confusing them. It’s the kind of thing where again, this is one of those moments where when you step back and you think about it that way, you want to find that journey. And kind of put road signs pointing going, “Do this. Go here.”

I like actually, when blog say start here in the nav, because guess what I do?

David 16:21
Start there.

Jillian Leslie 16:21
I start there! You just told me what to do.

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How Does Your Site Look on Mobile?

David 18:10
I think it’s also a good time to bring in mobile. Again, as content creators, we’re spending a lot of time at our desk on our desktops, laptops with big screens.

Jillian Leslie 18:26
Yeah, you should see what our office looks like right now with our big screens.

David 18:32
You have to always remember that we have the bulk of our audience on mobile.

Jillian Leslie 18:40
Yes.

David 18:41
It could be 60. It could be 80. It could be higher, 80% or higher of people coming on their phones. That means there’s a lot less on their screen when they visit your site than on your screen when you’re designing and creating your blog posts.

Jillian Leslie 18:59
And the other thing I would say is if you came to our house and watched us at night, let’s say watching a baking show or so, which we love, we will be on two screens. I’m going to admit it.

You’re sitting there. The show is on in the background. I’ve got my phone out, and I’m scrolling, which just means not only am I seeing a smaller screen, but I’m also distracted. That’s why you want any way that you can direct people to do what you want.

You need to be doing that because you’re not only getting small real estate, but then also, like in terms of people’s mindshare, they can only devote 15% of their attention, 30%, hopefully 60%, but chances are, it’s not 100%.

David 19:46
Yeah. One very specific point is your logo.

Jillian Leslie 19:52
Let’s talk about that.

David 19:53
So again, we love our own brand.

Jillian Leslie 19:57
We do.

How to Optimize Your Blog Logo

David 19:58
We want a nice big logo to show off. And again, on a desktop, you know, you can sacrifice a fair amount of space to your logo. It’s not that big a deal.

I’d say, I don’t know, maybe half the blogs I go to, like between the logo and the nav, you can’t even see the title of the post on the first page without scrolling down. So, you’re already forcing the user to commit to your site, wait for it to load to scroll to even start to see your content.

Jillian Leslie 20:31
What do you recommend for somebody’s logo?

David 20:35
Simple, wide, and short.

Jillian Leslie 20:39
And we were talking about this, how many pixels tall would you?

David 20:42
Under 100 pixels tall if possible because it’s that short. That’s why simple, easy to read.

Jillian Leslie 20:50
Yep. All right, let’s talk then. So, you want to have a small logo or a short logo, especially on mobile, and then also a short nav? Just in terms of height.

David 21:02
Yes.

Jillian Leslie 21:03
Okay. So again, like we fall in love with our own designs and our own…

David 21:08
I mean navs are things that typically take up too much space because they’re tall, but they might take up too much space, because there are too many options in them.

Jillian Leslie 21:17
Let’s talk about that.

How to Optimize Your Nav Bar

David 21:17
And again, that ties right back to what is the ask. Right? Someone’s come to your site and they’re not bouncing off but maybe they’ve read a lot of your content but now want to go somewhere, maybe see some more content in their choosing to use your nav.

How many things are you going to put up there to give them a reasonable choice of making a quick decision?

Jillian Leslie 21:43
What is the kind of conventional wisdom?

David 21:46
Rule of thumb is when you’re presented choices, five or fewer?

Jillian Leslie 21:50
Do you have a home? Does it say home or does it not say home and you just link your logo to your homepage?

David 22:01
It’s okay. Your logo should always link to your homepage.

Jillian Leslie 22:03
Okay, regardless.

David 22:04
Regardless. I think it’s okay to have a home in your nav but you don’t need it.

Jillian Leslie 22:09
Okay. So, you need space get rid of that.

David 22:12
If you have six things in your nav and one of them is home, I would definitely get rid of it.

Jillian Leslie 22:16
Okay. Okay. And therefore would you do, let’s say that I am a travel DIY recipe blogger. I know it’s a lot. It’s honestly not what we recommend. We recommend go figure out which one of those is your most popular where people are really connecting with you and go that way.

But let’s say I’ve got a part that says recipes and DIYs and travel, and then I’m not going to have home but then am I going to have like an about us and maybe a shop? Are you feeling overwhelmed? You look overwhelmed.

David 22:49
I’m starting to feel overwhelmed.

Jillian Leslie 22:52
Okay.

David 22:54
I might drop the about first.

Jillian Leslie 22:56
Just put it in the footer?

David 22:58
In the footer and you potentially have a about module somewhere. If it’s on desktop, it’s going to be at the top of the right rail. When you drop into a mobile view that’ll typically drop below your content, which isn’t as accessible but is still there.

How Many Fonts to Have on Your Blog

Jillian Leslie 23:14
Okay, let’s talk about fonts.

David 23:18
Definitely. I think a lot of people are attracted to many fonts.

Jillian Leslie 23:24
Why don’t you want many fonts?

David 23:26
Starting with performance. Each specialty font, non-system font means everyone who views the page doesn’t have to load the font before they can start reading the text in that font.

Jillian Leslie 23:42
Okay.

David 23:44
So, typically, I would say no more than two fonts.

Jillian Leslie 23:47
Really?

David 23:49
The main thing is you want like a typeface that’s very simple, easy to read. Maybe a Sarah Font for your titles and asante sarah font for the body of your post, your content.

Jillian Leslie 24:05
Do you really think that’s enough? I think that we love fonts and they’re pretty. We love photos, we love it.

David 24:16
If you’re trying to evoke something friendly and homey, you’re going to be attracted to like a script type face but think about that those can be much harder to read. Especially at a glance. Someone’s scanning the page and you just want something as clear as possible.

Jillian Leslie 24:36
Okay. That’s okay.

David 24:39
Along the same lines, I think there’s a disproportionate amount of time spent on WordPress themes.

Jillian Leslie 24:48
Can we talk about that?

David 24:49
And all these like getting the right background. I mean, the truth is, you want people to see your content first. Right? And to a degree, the type face and your theme and background image, those are helpful and kind of like setting the stage and creating like a feel for what kind of site it is.

But the truth is what you want people to see right away is the title of your post, the content, the key photo from your post. You don’t want the background color of your theme to distract people from the content.

Jillian Leslie 25:26
Right and clash with your content, let’s say.

David 25:28
Yes.

Can You Get Rid of Your Slider?

Jillian Leslie 25:29
Okay, let’s talk about then sliders. People love sliders.

David 25:35
Yes, I would say sliders are emblematic of indecision. Right. I have limited space but I want to do multiple things with that space so I’m going to use a slider to put a bunch of things in that limited amount of space.

Jillian Leslie 25:53
I like what you’re saying because it is a little bit like this: “You’re a visitor. I’m going to serve you up a whole host of choices and you decide.” It sounds really good. I’m going to let my visitor decide. And we would say, “No, no, no. You decide. You as the content creator, as the blogger, you decide.”

David 26:11
Right. Welcome to our restaurant. Here are our three menus. Which one do you want to order from tonight?

Jillian Leslie 26:15
Right. Right.

David 26:17
Honestly, there’s a lot of data around sliders too that people tend not to interact with them. Let’s say you’ve got a slider with three pieces of key content. And typically, I would say people use sliders on their homepage, not in their hosts.

If you think all three pieces of content are important, break them out of the slider and let people scroll vertically down. It’s much easier to scroll vertically and scan through three pieces of content than to wait for a slider to load and wait for these transitions.

Most sliders, I would say, are pretty poorly designed. Like, are my arrow keys going to move the photos? I don’t know. Like, how big is the target to shift to the next slide? Can I go backwards?

Like all the million little pain points, then I think most people have had enough painful experiences with sliders, they tend not to interact with them.

Jillian Leslie 27:15
Yes.

David 27:16
If you have a slider on your homepage, I would say, “Okay, look what’s in it, and decide if you really want to promote all that content, and either get rid of it or break it out.”

Jillian Leslie 27:28
Got it. One thing that you’ve always taught me from like, I don’t know, I feel like the last 20 years is this idea that when you make people click, they drop off. No matter what. Always.

And therefore, you don’t want to necessarily be giving your audience so many choices, kind of a little bit like the about page. We were just on somebody’s site yesterday, evaluating it.

The woman had a beautiful photo of herself and there was no text underneath it. You could click on it and end up on her about page. We were saying just even having a little bit of text right up, like pulling it up, will give people much more information about her than assuming somebody is going to look at that photo, click on it, and then go read about her.

David 28:16
Guaranteed. That is true, right? Fewer people are going to click through, then we’ll see it. So, if you want people to see it, put it there.

Jillian Leslie 28:26
So, always think about what are you serving up? If you want people to see those, like if you’re hiding stuff behind sliders, it’s kind of a similar concept.

David 28:37
Yes. If you imagine, the prime real estate on your blog homepage is a slider. It’s going to get less interaction guaranteed than if you just had a piece of content that you were focusing on and featuring.

Jillian Leslie 28:53
Yeah, I agree. And I think that that speaks to kind of what you’ve always said. You don’t want to be hiding stuff, assuming people are going to happily click because every time you click, it’s a little bit like you’re opening a door. You don’t know what’s on the other side. It’s like a commitment. It feels kind of uncomfortable.

David 29:12
And weirdly, you present people with choices, the easiest one.

Jillian Leslie 29:15
Is that true?

David 29:17
Sure.

Jillian Leslie 29:18
Okay. All right. As we’re kind of wrapping this up, as I’m looking at my checklist of things, one last thing which I just wanted to mention is that something that you always look at and we talked about this in our previous podcast is, do they have a caching plugin?

Do they have a photo optimizing plugin? I feel like when you just look at a site after you’ve kind of looked at it…

David 29:41
I throw those into the page speed. How quickly does it load? How quickly can I interact with it? Just how does that initial feel?

Jillian Leslie 29:49
Okay. So a lot of, I think, what we are sharing… And by the way, if you like how we are thinking about this, if this is resonating, please sign up.

Join our next six-week coaching group because what we do is we do deep dives into your site and we give you thoughts and ways to figure out what kind of niche you’re in, how to make money in your niche, how to create content that will get you to where you want to be, and how to be really intentional.

I feel like that’s a word that is coming out of our conversation today. Instead of saying, I’m going to push it on the visitor. It’s like, I need to do all that thinking up front.

And it’s hard.

David 30:32
It can be hard.

You have to make, you have to choose.

Jillian Leslie 30:36
You kind of have to like…

David 30:37
Pick your favorite child.

Jillian Leslie 30:38
Yes. And by the way, in our coaching group, we’re there to help you make those choices. Look at your analytics, figure out who you are, what your what your mission is, what your message is.

Why Analytics Are Important for Making Decisions

David 30:51
In reality, data is a really powerful tool. Let’s say you’ve put tons of stuff on your pages and you’re trying to figure out what to take off. Looking at your data analytics to see what people have been engaging with is a great guide.

Jillian Leslie 31:06
Right. And one thing we talk about a lot is this idea of you put it out there. And then you’re co-creating with your visitors, with your audience.

Like, it’s not just the Jill show. It’s how does the combination of something I put out there mixed with people, and their questions, and their interactions with me, and me going further. It becomes this kind of beautiful soup.

And then, using analytics to go what vegetables in the soup do people like and how do I make another soup that’s similar to this soup?

And so, there’s a lot of… as I like to call it, like emergent building and that’s really how we think about building businesses on the internet. It’s fun because you get to touch people, don’t you think?

David 31:56
Absolutely.

Jillian Leslie 31:57
That’s what I think I liked the most about it.

David 32:01
If anyone’s new here and…

Jillian Leslie 32:05
You mean to the podcast?

David 32:06
New to blogging. And maybe they’ve been thinking about it. So, I would caution them against spending like a ton of time designing a custom theme.

Jillian Leslie 32:16
Yes, hiring somebody and spending thousands of dollars.

David 32:19
Designing your nav. It will get something up that’s quick, easy, simple, that looks good, start putting content in. And then, as Jill says, things will become obvious as you go.

Jillian Leslie 32:37
As you go, you learn. And by the way, remember, we can help set up your blog with our BlogStart Program and we’re happy to do it for that very reason, which is we want to get you going. We want to get you started.

David 32:50
You might think when you start that you’re going to have a desert blog and the nav is going to be candy, chocolate, and cookies, and cake. And then, you’re going to put up two or three posts.

And you know, “Oh my God. I didn’t know this but people just love my cupcakes.” So throw out your nav.

Jillian Leslie 33:17
Yeah, exactly.

David 33:18
Now it’s like chocolate cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, whatever, a frosting. That’s the nav that’s going to work for you. We don’t know until you try it.

Jillian Leslie 33:28
Yes. You want to right. You want to be really nimble. And this is where B- work comes in.

Why Being a Nimble Blogger Is So Important

David 33:34
Be nimble and not therefore invested into kind of designing yourself into something that’s hard to change or expensive to change.

Jillian Leslie 33:44
Absolutely.

David 33:45
Like spending $1,000 for a custom theme that you’re going to have to or want to totally redo after two or three months.

Jillian Leslie 33:52
Absolutely. Yes, nimble, nimble, nimble. Fast, meaning get it up. Be embarrassed, do B- work. And then, see, and then reach out, and then listen, and then make decisions for your visitors.

David 34:07
Yes.

Jillian Leslie 34:07
Based on what you know, based on you as an expert, based on what you want from them.

David 34:14
Maybe people want your email list. Maybe people want to follow you on Instagram because they’re more interested in your photos.

Jillian Leslie 34:22
Absolutely.

David 34:22
So, you’re going to try focusing on different asks.

Jillian Leslie 34:27
Absolutely.

David 34:28
Like, follow me on Instagram or join my mailing list.

Jillian Leslie 34:30
Yep. Yeah, you don’t know. And a lot of times you get to be surprised. But it is how you set yourself up as an influencer, as an expert.

Do you want people to feel comfortable with you and to feel like you can solve their problems? So, that’s what I would say. Okay, what we are going to do is have a checklist for you, so that you can do this for yourself.

Like how you walk into your house that one day after you’ve lived there for a couple years and you’ve kind of potentially see it in a new light go, “Oh my God, how did all this clutter show up?” We want to help you walk into your blog. Take a look. Notice.

By the way, one thing we’ve just looked at, when we were just recently reviewing somebody’s blog, are all these things jumping out at you and doing all of this animated stuff. Like simple, simple, simple. Take stuff off. Get rid of things. Think about how much you’ve added to your blog.

What Can You Remove from Your Blog?

David 35:33
Think about anything that moves is going draw the eye. Okay, so how many times do you want people’s eyes drawn off your content? And are you one at most?

Jillian Leslie 35:45
Right. So think about again, it’s that trite saying that less is more. I think it is. I think intention, focus, and simplicity, and going. Got up. Like go write stuff. That’s how you learn. That’s how you start connecting.

It’s not about waiting too much your blog until your designer has done everything for you. Waiting until you’ve gotten that one perfect blog post written, and then launching the site.

David 36:17
Right. Until your friend from college finishes your perfect logo.

Jillian Leslie 36:19
Exactly.

David 36:20
Go ahead and use a stock logo.

Jillian Leslie 36:21
Yeah, go make your own. Yeah, go to Canva. Like, just go is really, I think our recommendation. David, I have loved having you on the show again.

David 36:31
Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.

Jillian Leslie 36:33
And we’ll do it again.

David 36:33
Of course.

Jillian Leslie 36:34
I hope this episode gave you a new way of looking at your blog. And if you want our free PDF download, head to milotree.com/blogchecklist and you can look through all of these items that we have highlighted.

If this sounds interesting to you and you want to work with us, reach out to me at Jillian@MiloTree.com. Our coaching group is starting on May 26th. We would love for you to join.

And in fact, I was going to read what somebody else wrote. Jenny Deremer said, “David and Jillian immediately came in, took a huge piece of that stress off me, and followed up with weekly small site fixes and suggestions. I’ve never been so proud of my site. David and Jillian are Energizer. Plus, David is a tech genius who’s help to me has been in valuable.”

So, please reach out. We’re here and we’re really excited to work with you. The other thing that I didn’t mention is it becomes a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and bloggers especially during this time when we are isolated.

It can feel like you’re almost like yelling into the abyss. Is anybody out there really caring what I’m doing or listening? Well, the truth is people are and we are. We’re there to help you, support you, hold you accountable, encourage you, and teach you, push you, get you over those humps and get you really growing your business.

So, please head to MiloTree.com/group and we would love to have you. And I will see you here again next week.

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