Grow Viral: FAQ

Seasonal content can bring in a lot of traffic for short periods of time because people seek out seasonal content specifically by searching Pinterest and Google when certain holidays or times of year roll around. With that said, seasonal content is not technically evergreen. Because if it’s summertime and a new reader stumbles on a post about Christmas on your home page, you’ll have a harder time converting that visitor into a subscriber.

Ideally, you’ll want to make sure your seasonal content is somewhat hidden on your site when it’s not in that season. One option is to use the WordPress plugin linked in this lesson to hide that content on your site so it’s not front-and-center. Or here’s another option that works if your home page is configured to show recent posts: Before the holiday season, find your best on-brand seasonal posts and change the published date so they show up on your home page again. But keep in mind that every one of your target market readers may not be interested in your seasonal content, so be careful of putting the focus so much on that content that it makes your whole site look like just something you’d go to during a specific season of the year.

During your audit when you uncover a high-performing seasonal post, ask yourself: Could I build on this success by creating a similar post on this topic that’s evergreen? For more guidance on this, watch for the Success Tower technique in Lesson 3.

But if you uncover a low-performing seasonal post, consider whether the narrow seasonal focus could be preventing readers from seeing how that content can help them be, do, or achieve what they want to be, do, or achieve. This is a CEO decision because you know your target market best, but sometimes making a seasonal post into an evergreen post can better serve your readers and your business.

People buy from people they know, like, and trust. If you want to grow your business, sprinkling some know-like-trust elements within your evergreen authority posts is the best way to maximize results from your content.

It doesn’t have to be a huge amount of content—just a handful of know-like-trust phrases or sentences in a post can do the trick. Check out the examples from this lesson and see how other bloggers have let their personality shine through so they can connect emotionally with the reader on the other side of the screen.

Social media is the best place for updates like that. However, if you would like to continue sharing those 100% know-like-trust posts, 

Writing those posts got you to the point where you are today, so be grateful for them. Remember: You can’t sit down to write a novel and pop out a Harry Potter bestseller on your first try. Think of those posts as your first draft of a novel, and know that you wouldn’t have reached this point in your blogging journey without having written those posts first.

And here’s the good news: Moving forward, now you know exactly which type of content will deliver the best results for your target market and your business.

Whoa, hold up! If you have a post bringing you significant traffic, there’s no need to delete it and lose all that traffic. That’s a strong signal from your readers about what they want help with, so don’t ignore it.

Instead, think about how you might bring that post in line with your strong brand. But if that’s not possible, you can hide the post using the plugin linked from this lesson. That way, you don’t lose all that traffic and that off-brand post isn’t front and center on your site.

First, let’s answer the question of whether a recipe is authority-building content that fulfills your Brand Promise: It depends.

When you audit a recipe post, ask yourself: Is this j​ust another recipe someone might find on Pinterest, or is that recipe a ​solution​ to a problem your target market has? Because in order to establish yourself as an authority, you need to offer more than just a bunch of free recipes. You need to help your target market achieve their goals.

Go back to your Perspective Map to refresh your memory on your target market’s underlying wants, needs, frustrations, and challenges. Why did she seek out this recipe in the first place? To shift a recipe post towards being authority-building content, reinforce with the reader how that recipe delivers on your Brand Promise. (Bonus points if you can find a way to explicitly call out your Anchor Belief too!)

Now, let’s talk about the story you use to open your posts. If it’s a random story about your life, odds are that’s not serving your target market or your business. As with the Signature Story you created in Module 3, know-like-trust elements work best when the reader can see herself in the details you provide. If you’re rambling on and on and sharing a bunch of details she can’t relate to, she’ll get anxious for you to get to the point already.

Ideally, the very first paragraph of every recipe post should connect with your target market on the underlying problem she’s struggling with—what made her seek out that specific recipe in the first place. You can include a short personal anecdote about you struggling with the problem, or you can articulate the problem directly using “you” reader-centered language. But inside your posts, avoid telling stories that don’t relate to that underlying problem. Those are a better fit for social media, not evergreen authority blog posts.