 Welcome back to another episode of the non-profit show. Again, today's guest is Ann McCauley-Lopez, SEO content writer with agency content writer. And Ann's here to talk to us about five ways to blog like a pro in 2023. So we're gonna dive deep. I love those muscles. Look at you. Working on. Well, we wish Julia the best. She's taking a much deserved time off so far this week. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And as you can tell from my name, I'm super nerdy and I like to nerd out. So I'm really excited Ann to have you here to talk about this with us. And we also wanna give a big shout out to our presenting sponsors. So thank you so very much to these companies. So thank you to Bloomerang American Non-profit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Be Generous, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Non-profit Thought Leader and the Non-profit Nerd. These companies are with us day in, day out, but they have one mission. And that mission is your mission because they really wanna help you elevate and celebrate what you do in and around your community. So do yourself a favor, do us a favor and check these companies out because they're here to support you. And we are coming up on our 700 episode. I know I've said that before, but we really are marching close. Right around Christmas Day is going to be our 700th episode. And Ann, you've been with us quite a few times and so grateful. You can find all of Ann's previous episodes as well as all of our other episodes on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo as well as podcasts. So if you're a podcast listener like I am, you can also queue up the non-profit show wherever you stream your podcast. That was a lot to cover, but I'm so glad that we did. Look at that face, look at that position right on queue and Macaulay Lopez again with agency content writer. So glad to have you back. Thank you so much. I love talking to you. I miss Julia. Please send her my regards. And it's wonderful to be here today, especially with all of those non-profit emails going around, sharing all their stories of what have they been doing all year, all quarter, all month. It's just wonderful. There's a lot going on. And for those of you that are joining us, and maybe this is your first time, your first entree into Ann, she comes on as a non-profit thought leader and you're gonna see more of her as well into the new year. So we're really excited for that. But check her out on LinkedIn, very active there. And then as well as her website, agencycontentwriter.com. And again, today's topic, we're gonna talk about blogging like a pro. You've got some great tips for us as we wrap up this year and move into next year. So kick us off. We have blog pro tip number one, and it is don't put good content on a bad website. Now, tell us more about this. First I wanna say your websites are not bad. What I mean is we wanna have it, the best performance it can be. And I come on and I talk about Google and SEO search engine optimization. So what I really mean is make sure you're getting, doing the maintenance on the backend of your website. That really, really helps to have the right speed that Google likes to see. Is it mobile accessible? And are photos and pages tagged the way they could be with key words so that Google can find us and find certain pages. That's what I mean by a bad website. It can look beautiful on the front. It can be built by whoever yourself or somebody else, but if it doesn't have that maintenance program to keep things up in the back, it's kind of like not putting oil in your car. It's just not gonna run the way it can, or that's possible. So that's what that's about. I actually have a website partner and I was working with her for a while and selling the maintenance plan. Like we were building websites together, she builds the website, I provide the content and I kept selling this maintenance program to clients saying, listen, just do the website and do this maintenance plan. Finally, I called her up one day and I was like, I think I should do this maintenance plan. I was wondering when you were gonna call me and buy it yourself and I'll tell you what, having that maintenance plan really speeds up the website because every single month there are eyes on that site making sure that it's working the way it can, that everything is updated. I used to do all of that myself and I'm sure you can relate, Jared. It's just a pain in the butt. It's one more thing on that to-do list. If you can just spend a little money and have them do that. The other thing that I absolutely love that which is why it's really an easy sell for me is she includes a couple of hours of content that they can add or change on a website. So I use it myself. All I have to do is write, I send it over to my contact person, my account manager, say, hey, can you make a page for this or a page for that or switch this up? And they do it and it's all included. For nonprofits also, I think sometimes we've got a campaign, right? Like it's giving Tuesday, maybe we want a page for giving Tuesday next year where we want to kick off the new year or we want to say, hey, nonprofit, New Year's in August or July after your fiscal year starts, something like that. That content can also be a page like that as you go along in your marketing plan. It can also, those hours right now do roll over. So you could save it for a bigger project and say, you know what? We really know we want to change up this offering or add a program. And those hours can be used for that. So it's really amazing. It's not just updating the backend and just kind of watching it for you. Just what I found a lot of maintenance programs were. And that's why I never had one. I just did mine myself. But when she said, oh, we can add content and you can talk to your account manager. Well, that kind of changes the game a lot for a lot of us. So it really is a good website. Get more visits, better, you know, the improved traffic and it looks pretty and it has everything you want. You can stop making that wish list on the wall, things you'd love on your website. We can just do it. We can just do it. And I love that you mentioned that because, you know, perhaps a website should not stay stagnant. It needs to have some updating. And I know I've learned that a lot from you and full transparency and has been doing my own articles for me for the Raven Group, the nonprofit nerd. And what you provide is so fantastic and it keeps it fresh. It keeps it alive. And it just, you know, it keeps populating, as you said, like that SEO. So that was tip number one. We're gonna move into tip number two. Blog pro tip two is to identify topics. So dive deep there. What are we looking for when it comes to these topics and the identification? So topics, when it comes to nonprofits, we talk about what do you want people to know about your organization? Right off the top, right? What are the things we're talking to people about or speaking to the media about or your PR team or your content writer or your marketing director? What do we want people to know? What are the campaigns or programs that we're working on that we want to share? And that's really where we start with a strategy for creating content. Each time, and I know I've said this here before, each time we add a page to the blog, it's actually adding a page to your website. So it's great. So whether we're adding a page or adding a blog post, it's a new link. And Google loves when we add pages. So we don't necessarily have to change up like the homepage all the time to get that change on your website. We can blog and add content that way. So it's what like that, when we call it low hanging fruit is what are we always talking to people about? Was that email you're always sending? What's the tag at the bottom of your newsletter? What are, who have the donations help? Let's tell a story about that or which program have they helped? And let's get some content out there so that not only Google notices but really more importantly donors and your board can share it and your teams can all share it out and the community can get to know your organization whether you're local or national is really, it's really about telling stories. So we, I talk a lot, and I was thinking about this this morning, I talk a lot about search engine optimization and keywords which are important and we can roll them in. But what I love is Google's moving more toward relevant content as long as we kind of, I call it staying your lane on your website. You know, back in the day I used to have a website and I blog about different topics, not just business but we've kind of, you and I have grown up online, right? You know, with our businesses and so we know we've got to kind of stay in our lane with the content that it's business related, nonprofit related, minus content related so that Google notices us but it's really at the heart of it we know that in the nonprofit world especially but also in the for-profit world, it really makes sense to tell stories like we want those donors and volunteers but what are, what's the difference we're making in the community and for the lives of the people that we serve? Curveball question, Ann, do you recommend inserting or utilizing video in your blog? So not telling the entire blog narrative but like a snippet or a clip, do you recommend that? That's a great question. Yes, of course. What I like to say is Google doesn't yet and I think it's gonna come in the next couple of years but yet it doesn't watch your video like you couldn't make a video of all your keywords and it makes sense, right? Like it's not there yet but with AI, I have a feeling it will be soon. Gaspers working on that right now, I'm sure. I'm sure of it but for now, we, yes what I've done on my website, agency content writer for example, is I've added the video and then I add content about the video. So especially on these appearances, I offer three tips. I read a little about the tips and say, hey, watch the video for more. If you've got a podcast, we can take that podcast transcript and kind of do an overview a little bit longer than show notes but not, no, not the whole script. Nobody's gonna read that. Like we're just not, we're all on our phones and our tablets, right? Yes, that's a great idea. Especially if you're appearing, you know on the news and the media on podcasts to talk about your nonprofit, it makes, it absolutely makes sense to do that and then combine it with the written content because Google reads the written content not the videos yet. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, not yet, but that probably will happen. Fantastic. I think it lends credibility, right? Like your guests on somebody else's show or in the news, people want. People would want to see that, right? Yeah, yeah, I think so. And it helps to build rapport and trust, right? You get to know the person. So moving from those topics, identification of the topics into creating a content calendar. And that is blog pro tip number three. Again, that's create a content calendar. Tell us about that. I am working on my content calendar as we speak. So I threw this in here and said I really want to talk about this because it makes it a reality for me too. I don't want to talk about it and I do it myself, right? Creating a content calendar. So what we do is we think of some pillars that we want to talk about, some topics that we want. So say we say three topics and we flesh out some ideas that we want to write. When it comes to blogging, I always say write about one topic and say three to five things. I hate using the word things, but three to five things about that one topic and then create another blog post. We don't want to talk about all the things necessarily. There are times when we do, but really for most blogging, that's what we want to do. So that really helps us stick to, okay, the theme this month is this, the theme is this. And we know there are certain times in the nonprofit world giving Tuesday or beginning of the fiscal year or Christmas giving or what is in April, there's one in Phoenix, Phoenix Gives, Arizona Gives. Arizona Gives day and in different states and cities have those events. So put those on your calendar. That's that low hanging fruit. And then we can fill it in. I remember Julia, we had, I was on probably this time last year and she said, but Anne, I don't want to fill up the whole calendar. Can I leave room? And I was like, oh my gosh, yes. I didn't even think to say that. So thank you, Julia. Where we leave some space because maybe we do have that media hit or we have that great event or we add an event or we get a big donation or whatever happens during the year. We want to announce it. We want to tell people about it. Absolutely leave room in that schedule for that. But creating it, I feel like gives us a guide and honestly relieves the stress of what are we going to write about? Oh my gosh, it's this day or we want to promote this. Well, you've got to have it ahead a little bit ahead of time. My goal for me this year is to be like a month ahead on my content. I like that, yeah. Not too far. You could do quarterly if you like 90 days if you've got a marketing team or a couple of folks working on your marketing, you could do 90 day sprints. That's my favorite. Started a month ahead and we do 90 days. And the calendar, maybe it's 90 days. So we work through March and we know in February we're going to sit down and we're going to say, okay, what's coming in the next quarter? We don't necessarily have to do it all at once but it relieves my stress even just to talk about it and think about it for myself. Because there are Jared and I before the show we're talking about how many things are on your to-do list and what can you either do ahead of time or outsource and this is one that you could definitely do ahead of time. Yeah, and what we did together again sharing transparently that I have used Anne in her services and fantastic because I certainly don't do all of this by myself. I have a team of amazing rock star supporters is we mapped out a year in advance and it was very playful. It was very flexible to say, okay, here's some things that we would like to plug in in certain quarters or in certain months. And then if something comes up, it comes up to Julia's point of do we leave any blank space? And the answer, absolutely. I think now is a great time to do your content calendar. Additionally, looking at the year once you create your calendar, you also then guess what? Rinse and repeat it for next year. What worked, what didn't work, what should fall off, where should we really lean in because we had such great success. So this content calendar, I just, I love this and I do this a lot with myself, my own clients. So that is such a great tip for number three, moving into number four and you have here for blog pro tip, number four, make it a team effort. Now, what does that mean? Some of us don't really have a team, right? Yeah, I know. Well, you know, I'm on your team. You've got different folks that help you. Maybe they're contractors in certain cases, but definitely it can be a team effort. When I wrote this one, I was really thinking about an organization that I had worked with and they had a marketing team and they had someone, they had one or two people actually who liked to write, but they were more press release kind of writers. So I would come in and write the stories for them and whichever way, you know, like whichever way that works. But if you've got folks on your team that likes to write, likes to tell stories or can even just kind of put, I call it a brain dump email and send it over to the writer, then at least we've got, as the writers, we have something to work with and we're not like, oh, what are we doing? You know, like, I don't know what we're doing. So as the people you work with, you could go to your board, but really I was thinking if you have somebody on your team, you know, we kind of pigeonhole people or silo them, they like to write, let them write, let them tell the story about the event they went to, we're bullet point in the events and then we create something longer, but utilize those folks, maybe when creating your content calendar too, what are the ideas that they have so that we can create the best story about your organization? It may be, I mean, sometimes I talk to people, you know, we had an initial conversation, right? Before we started this year of content and I was like, oh, I've got so many ideas from the conversation and this always happens to people. And you said it too, you were like, what happened? Like, how do you, how'd you hear all that? And I'm like, because I'm taking, we all say that I'll record myself and listen to you because you have so many ideas. So really utilize your people and ask them, you know, what, ask the receptionists or your admin, what do people call and ask? Let's write about that. And maybe it's something simple. Maybe we need to add directions to our office on the email. Like, I don't know. But when we're looking at website content, maybe did you put the directions in the footer next to the address? We're looking at the building back here because it's a little hard to find or something. But things that other people might know that you working as you and your position may not hear, they might have stories to tell. So really, I always encourage communication. I love that, that lands so solid with me. And because there's so many different viewpoints and perspectives from the nonprofit agency lens. And so, you know, what we see maybe in fundraising development is a little different than the program staff is a little different than accounting is a little different, you know, from a little, from all the different angles. And I think that is such a fantastic, you know, way to engage and create community within your own agency. Fantastic pro tip there. I love that is making a team effort because you're right. So so many times like we can only see what we can see, but when we open that peripheral and we invite others in to share, we learn and we grow so much from that. So I think it's not just blogging, right? I mean, we all wear different hats. You all, if the accounting team can tell you that you've got those monthly donations and they increased in 2022, well, in 2023, we want to promote that. That would be fantastic. I absolutely love that. So we're talking about that. I have so many good ideas already. I'm glad we're recording this because we can always go back and listen to it. Moving to blog pro tip number two, you have outsourced the writing and the editing. Tell us why. Oh, come on, I have to throw a bone in. Because I love telling stories, but we also want to be strategic sometimes and use search, you know, keywords, search engine optimization, SEO. I always say SEO and people say, you can't just say the letters. Because in my world, when I talk to marketing people, oh, yeah, SEO, blah, blah, blah. So search engine optimization. And that's where we use the keywords and we marry them nicely with the topics that we want to talk about. And sometimes it even works in the stories we're telling. We can still optimize those with keywords. We don't always have to optimize all the keywords, which is why I said, utilize your team. Maybe they're writing a story and it's just a really good story. Let's leave it as a story. We can keyword it up somewhere else. But hiring a writer and an editor. So I say editor because sometimes I have clients who will just do a brain dump and it'll be the longest paragraph ever. And they'll say, just make it pretty. I had a client who would say that. She'd say, make it pretty. I'd get these emails in the middle of the night, make it pretty. And I knew exactly what she meant. She meant make it sound good and edit it because this is a hot mess, it's three o'clock in the morning. So that's what I mean. And it's not magic. Yeah, work your magic, work your magic. Here's what I have, work your magic. Because my focus is writing. Yours is fundraising and working with nonprofit leaders or working with your boards and all of that. And so, yes, there's great ideas or somebody on your team reads an article and you're like, oh yeah, we really wanna write on this topic. Well, you don't have time necessarily, but I can help with that or another writer can help with that. If it's strictly editing, I have folks that are strictly editors that I work with and honestly, they edit and I don't even know they've edited my work. I know it's better and it's richer, but I'm like, oh, I'm good, but that's great. Yeah. They just have this amazing talent. I'm like, this must be folks who work with me. It's probably the same kind of thing or when I work with you and I go, oh, that's not that. Oh, oh, that's a great idea, right? Like we all kind of, everybody has their magic that they have. So. So I have a curve ball question in here. So for our viewers and our listeners that are saying, why would we outsource our writing and our editing when the writer or the editor doesn't know our mission? Like doesn't live it, doesn't work it, doesn't breathe it. Like talk to us about that because I can only imagine and I like to bring the elephant in the room. Like let's talk about the elephant in the room. Like how do we overcome that obstacle? Cause I guarantee you right now people are saying no way. There's no way a writer can write for us better than us writing for ourselves. So would you address that? Sure, sure. It's a great question because I think in some cases it probably is better to have somebody on staff or on a contract basis and have them living, breathing in the building or on your team calls in zooms or whatever. It does make sense. In other cases, for example, I tend to work with new or growing non-profits. So the smaller piece where they're developing their boards and learning about their boards, they have a mission and a vision and they're like, I need somebody who can help put the website together and do ongoing content as we grow. So I'm really enmeshed in that beginning piece of their nonprofit and that works really well. For bigger organizations, it probably would make sense to maybe do some consulting with a writer and find out those SEO best practices. I've got a sheet, what every blog post needs and it's just the basics because there's certain things about formatting or how many times you use a keyword and things like that. That's also why in that slide I put editing because it can be that they write it and then I could come in and edit for that SEO formatting and keywords. So that could work as well because then it's literally your words. We can interview folks, but I think, yeah, especially for the larger organizations, it's probably a good idea to have, probably have a staff person, like a dedicated marketing writer, but if not, write it up, send it over and we can figure out where we need to go next. I like that answer a lot. And then again, for me, I feel like I'm talking a lot about how we've worked together, but it's very complimentary to this conversation is you have written so many of the articles for me and I compliment those on an organic basis. When something comes up and I'm like, okay, I'm activated right now and I really wanna address this. I wanna post this article. It doesn't mean that I can't or that I have to wait for you to write it. I can add to my inventory list by adding to that. And so for an agency, the same thing a nonprofit organization could engage with you and have someone create this calendar, execute on that. And then when there's something additional that comes up, your team, your internal staff, your board, your volunteers could add to that. And I think there's so much value because we all try to do so much and having someone like you to do the writing, to do the editing, to be on our team. As you said earlier in pro tip number four, it is a team effort. So utilize that team. It is. And I think too, like we could interview, but to your point about video, why not do the interview on video and then we can write about it later too. I mean, there's just so many ways that we can utilize content and utilize it in different ways. So I'm like, okay, let's kind of figure out what's the best path. And if we have that calendar, then we can go in and say, okay, kind of who's doing this and maybe this is a video opportunity. And then we send the video over the transcript over to a writer to get that added search engine optimization. We want the Google love, but that's really not what it's about and I totally get that. But there's definitely opportunities. You know, there's so much opportunities. Talk to us about the blog that you have, recommended blog. For those of you watching, we have a fantastic, very jovial photo of Anne who's smiling ear to ear and it shows a screenshot of her website. So tell us about your blog, Anne. Well, my blog is, it's SEO content tips. Some of the content is, I've blogged about it and I talk about it here, but other times there's one called the SEO, three steps to SEO for SEO success. And those three steps are actually came out of conversations with you and with Julia. I was like, wait a minute, what am I talking about? I'm like, it's really three easy steps. It's that technical SEO that we talked about. It's finding those keywords and topics that we've talked about here today. We really did a great roundup today, Jared. I have to give us a round of applause. As we should, absolutely. This is great. And then it's also, you know, who are we speaking to and how do we do it ongoing? And how do we make it, maybe we do it a team effort or do we hire it out and those sorts of things? But that's really what it is. And it took me a long time to come to that and really sitting here talking to you and Julia going, oh yeah, this really is not that hard, but it is time and it is focus and that's not necessarily, that's not, that's my focus of my business, not yours. So there are, there's great tips. You'll see I've got some of the videos from appearing on here and one of my things to do in December on my time off from clients is to go in and write those, write those words because Google doesn't read video yet. Unfortunately, they will someday. That is so great. So yeah, so check out agency content writer.com very, very great website that you're gonna wanna check out. And then we have, tell us about this. This is, this is something new, but we don't get to ring the bell. My CML story by Ann Macaulay Lopez. We don't have much time, but I definitely wanna get this in before we wrap out today, wrap up today's episode. So you wrote a book. I did, I wrote a book. We don't get to ring the bell. I have a CML, chronic myeloid leukemia. So at this point it's in remission and I treat it as a chronic illness. Basically I still take a chemo pill every day and there are some side effects that we manage and manage pretty well. There was a lot of fatigue and brain fog until last year, this year, 2022 was really a rebuilding year for me. I hired coaches, the book was released last December, so it's just about a year. And it's the story not only of my personal journey, but also of questions to ask when you go to your doctor, how do you find the right doctor? And we don't get to ring the bell is that we take a chemo pill. We don't go to a traditional radiation or chemotherapy where when you're done with your treatment, your span of treatment, you get to ring a bell to say, okay, I'm done. We don't get to do that because we're just on this. So my patients are like, wow, the other patients who've read the book are like, wow, just the title alone really hits hard because that's us. We're different, we're different. But if it weren't for this magic little pill, I would not be here. And it was just approved by the FDA in like 1999 or 2000, a while ago, 20 years ago. So yeah, so I've been living with this for six years. And I said, you know what, I'm going to write a book. Now I am at some point going to do a little version two because the meds are really expensive and the medication that I'm specifically on is available generically. And it's available through Mark Cuban, you know, the billionaire on Shark Tank. Yes. Mark Cuban's Cosplus Pharmacy. And I just want to give it a little plug because instead of spending $250, $500 or some patients spend $4,000 a month for their life-saving medication, he has the one that I'm on a Matanib is available. And I think I pay $40 a month. No insurance, you just send the prescription, the doctor sends it over there. And I say Mark sends it to me, doesn't sound really him. And they add prescription, they add different meds all the time, it's all generic. So not all of them for CML are available or for all, you know, conditions, but that is one of them and that's huge. So I do want to include that. I literally finished the book, handed it to my editor in October. And I think at the end of that month, they released this pharmacy. And I was like, really Mark, really? So I'd like to include that because that's really important. We've talked about, you know, accessibility and affordability and that's... Yeah, well, thank you for sharing so openly, authentically that, you know, lands solid as well. So just you're such an inspiration. I feel so grateful because I've known you for quite some time. We go back to some spring training games together here in Phoenix. And we've had some good times together, but just so inspired by you. So thank you for sharing this book. I know that that will land, you know, for so many others. So again, please do yourself a favor. Do us a favor and Anna favor. Go to her website, agencycontentwriter.com. She's also very active on LinkedIn. I like to give that plug for those of you who are also active on LinkedIn and other social media channels. SEO content writer with agency content writer, just so much fabulous information. We're just so lucky to have you here in our community and our sector supporting so many nonprofits and what you do personally and professionally. So Ann, thank you so very much. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure and I'll see you again next year. Yes, you will. You will see both Julia and myself next year as we move into 2023. But today's topics on blogging like a pro in 2023 will support you in those efforts. Before we sign off, I wanna give a shout out to our amazing presenting sponsors. Thank you to our dear friends at Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Be generous, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader, and the nonprofit nerd. Now is a great time to check out these companies because you listen to all the good things that Ann had to share. And again, you can find these recordings on many of our platforms. So make sure that you check that out as well. And just so grateful to have each and every one of you here. We've gone over our time, but it was much deserved and much needed. And as we end every episode, and we mean this for our guests, our viewers, our listeners, and ourself, we invite you to stay well so you can do well. Thanks Ann, and we'll see everyone back here tomorrow.