How we built our website (part 3) ♡(.◜ω◝.)♡
All on finding blog topics, knowing what to write, and that stuff.
Welcome back if you’ve read lesson one and two, and hello there if you’re new. I’m Jac and I’m one half of the duo who created the Nomadic Writers website. I used a builder template for the rough outlines and then just two of us created the whole freakin’ contents of it. We did it all from web design elements, YouTube editing, blog writing, literally everything including this Substack. No help other than strong coffee and a weird desire to be free from employers.
In the last lesson I went over some of the content basics, brand tone type stuff – and now I’ll be going over how I figure out what articles to write, how to start a blog basics, how we create images, and a few more nuggets of information for you.
How to know what to write on a blog?
Most experts will lean in to tell you it’s all about the keywords, like some kind of street corner merchant, eyes wide and bulging. But that’s not entirely what I’ve found to be true…
Sure, checking on Google keywords for the right keywords can be a useful way to discover what people are searching for. I also recommend checking the Google page itself, and what quick terms come up when you type into the Google bar — to help you shape the title of a piece.
But at the end of the day, it’s about more than an algorithm. At least, it is to me.
It’s about who you’re writing to, plain and simple. It’s also partly about what you want too. Of course if you’re like us and you make an entire Substack about geeky things you love, likelihood is, not that many people will care about it. But that’s where the why of what you do comes in — and that I can’t tell you sadly. As that comes from you.
My favourite articles I’ve written throughout my career as a writer were ones that got very little interest, but the few comments I got meant the absolute world to me. A brief moment of connection with someone across the other side of the world — who went through the same feeling I tried to convey.
The one’s that got hundreds of thousands of views and engagement were just the simple Question > Answer approach articles. A simple straightforward and somewhat boring article to write is what gets the most hits.
It depends on what you’re trying to build — if you’re looking for your community of people, then I say write from the heart more. If you’re looking for statistics, answer more deep yearning reader questions. Or if you’re like me, balance those two out.
Topics and sticking to a niche
Our website is like a dual action travel blog and freelance writer hire us area. The majority of our blog has travel content from our big trip to South East Asia and stuff on there for those thinking of doing the same – we’ve also got digital nomad information which fits the whole travel theme.
But that doesn’t mean that’s all we do. I like to think of it as we provide travellers useful information they might need – but we branch off sometimes to more personal pieces, photo essays, food journal type pieces, and what gear to get for travel. I’d be bored sh*tless if I spent my days writing top 10 destinations articles or stuff like that all the time.
So I’d say don’t get bogged down in only “writing one thing” just make sure it fits your brand more so than anything. We knew we wanted to write more broadly from the get go as our interests are always evolving; and that’s where this awesome Substack came in for our more out there topics.
How to start a blog
What we did is essentially get onto Squarespace and before pushing anything live, just building out the website for like 5 months. We spent that time just creating the main pages, we created a free content writing course too (as I think it’s nice to share knowledge freely and lift people up, probably not your typical train of thought).
Then I worked on the design, colour schemes, and essentially built a cohesive looking brand. Then I think we made two blog articles when we went live in November 2023.
Let me know if you’d like some more detailed step by steps in future of what we did. Otherwise head over to my old full time job Website Builder Expert — they genuinely got some of the best guides on how to get started with website builders.
How to write a blog post
If you’re thinking, hold your horses here Jac, I’m a complete beginner and I want to know the basics of writing a blog post. It’s a big topic we already go over for free on our website in the article How to Structure a Blog Post.
But the basics are that you want to craft an easy-to-skim piece that gets to the root of the topic, answers the readers burning questions, while entertaining them. It’s a tricky combo to get right, but it’s so worthwhile. Here’s my rough outline for my days but to be honest every writer has their own way of plinking and plonking:
I always start with the heading as it’s like the intention for a piece. I’ll usually come up with ideas just off the top of my head but I then go in and see through keyword research if anyone would care about the idea.
Then I try to come up with relevant headings that create a rough story for a piece. Think beginning questions like “what is” or “how can” type headings, all the way through to your conclusion.
My pro tip: write a first draft before you do ANY research. That’s because we can often lose our own voice and start copying competitors — which is lame.
Lastly, but hardest of all, enjoy it. If you don’t have fun writing a piece, chances are nobody will love reading it. So remember that it’s bloody cool to get to write for a living and have some fun.
Website imagery
On our blog we do our best to basically take the photos ourselves. As travel writers it’s both fun to take pictures while we’re away but I think it gives you control over the main visual elements of your site.
I also use Canva to help me with my graphical elements (I know, I know, I should use Photoshop but I never learnt how and I’m busy now). It’s fun to create things with your existing images too – if I get the time I’ll learn Photoshop at some point. But for now I’m a basic Canva B...
If you have any questions or you want us to look over your website let us know in the comments.
More practical tips
If you’re really struggling with what to write about yourself, your business, or your blog then here are some pointers that might help. Do remember though that most people will be following these kinds of pointers and that thinking outside the box on these will help you!
Keep website images around 880 width
Take your own photos where possible, we use a 90 / 10 rule where 90% of your website images are created by you and 10% are stock photos
Write content not from an “expert” place but rather from a “hand-on” with your topic approach. Like our articles we literally went to the places we wrote about, we weren’t travelling experts, just two people who went to South East Asia.
Make a cohesive “brand” by just being honest and creating extras which I’ll go over in the next lesson for you.
Have fun with your website design and don’t stress too much as it’s something you can always continue to improve upon.
That’s it for lesson three of this series, next time I will go over in more detail what extras we created, how I did that, to give our website a cohesive look. I still see so much to improve upon but I’m still proud that we did it all ourselves. Let me know in the comments if there’s anything specific you want to learn about and I’m happy to incorporate it into these lessons <3