This is a guest post written by Matt Rosenblum.

My clients, who are life coaches, have mixed relationships with blogging. Some life coaches blog all the time and fail to get any results. Other life coaches hate blogging and just don't want to do it. Some wish they had time to write but can't seem to make the time to. I always think the best way to learn about a topic is to learn from someone who's doing it extremely well.

Gabby Bernstein is a famous life coach who teaches you "how to become the happiest person you know." She has a huge following and a passionate fan base. That's why today, I'm analyzing one of her blog articles to see what we can learn from her about blogging as a life coach.

The article I will be looking at is called "My Top 5 Manifesting Secrets," and has received over 100 comments in the comment section of the blog, in an age where most commenting now tends to happen on social media. Which brings up another point.

Is blogging dead?

Would it be better just to focus on social media? I was talking to a coach the other day about blogging and he said, "Blogging? What is this, 2009?"

I believe there is a 2009 version of blogging and a version of blogging that's much more current. The 2009 version is treating your blog as a journal — uploading your thoughts to the internet, publishing and then waiting for people to read it. That's an outdated way to treat your blog and doesn't work anymore.

Managing a blog today is more like managing a niche newspaper than keeping a journal. You have to carefully consider your content and make sure it's interesting and unique enough to be read and shared. You also have to pay close attention to your readership and write what they will be interested in reading.

I have a life coach client who used to write a lot about gratitude. She was blogging a lot, but wasn't getting a lot of traction with it. The reason was because she didn't have a unique angle about gratitude. If she wrote about gratitude in a specific context or a unique story she had about how gratitude helped her out, it would have been newsworthy and share-worthy. But instead, she mainly wrote abstract articles about how gratitude can help you out, which is what a lot of other people are writing about. It's not enough to stand out since it doesn't come from her unique experience. Think of the article topic “How Gratitude Journaling Healed My Relationship With My Mom” versus “5 Ways To Be Grateful.” The first is interesting and likely to generate curiosity and emotion in people, the second is something any coach can write and is pretty forgettable.

The best way to be newsworthy is to write stories that come from your unique perspective and experiences in the world and relate that to how you help your customers. Some things I like are Christopher Nolan, Kanye West, pop punk music, Brooklyn Cafes - these are all topics I'm writing articles about and relating to my consulting business. Notice these topics have nothing to do with consulting, they just interest me. By starting with what interests me instead of starting with something abstract, I ensure that my content stands out as unique. Think of the difference between an article called "The Kanye West Approach To Website Traffic" versus "6 Website Traffic Tactics." The first article topic is unique and likely to generate shares and amusement, while the second is forgettable commodity content that any marketing person can write about.

Blogging isn't dead, you just have to figure out how to make your blog truly unique, newsworthy, and share-worthy.

Let's dive into Gabby's article:

Before we get into what exactly Gabby writes about, we're gonna take a look at how she packages the article, which is just as important as what she's says in the article — and something many coaches with blogs neglect.

Include social media buttons

At the top of her article, before she gets into the content, she has a social media share bar. The bar says "Share this Video" even though it's an article - it's not the end of the world to publish something with a small typo or slip-up. I bet 99% of people didn't even notice this. 

Include a free offer at the bottom of all posts

At the bottom of her article is this offer for a free manifesting workshop after you purchase her book. You should have some sort of free offer at the end of all of your blog posts such as a free coaching session, workshop or PDF assessment/worksheet. Some of my life coaching clients have made six-page guides or videos on mindfulness or other topics - this works well as long as the content is unique.

Respond to every blog comment

At the very bottom of the page, there's a comment section. Gabby engages and replies to every single comment on this post, and there are over 100 comments. By responding to every comment, she makes her articles more engaging and builds community around her content. Her fans are more likely to share articles that she engages with.

Put more free offers on the sidebar (only if you have a lot of free material)

There are four different free offers on her sidebar. People respond to different things, so having different free offers makes sense. The marketing purpose all of these free offers is to collect email addresses and contact information of potentially interested customers. After someone signs up for a free offer, they will receive engagement emails and the occasional promotion email through her email marketing software. If you don't have an email marketing software and want one, mailchimp is a great one to get started with.

Your system doesn't have to really complicated and sophisticated for it to work. You don't need seven different free offers if you're just starting out, you just need one. If a bunch of different free offers intimidates you, don't worry, you don't need to do that. You don't even need email automation. If someone signs up for your free offers, you can simply follow up with them with a personal email to see if they want to take the next step by meeting you.

About Matt Rosenblum

Matt Rosenblum is the owner of Advanced Life Coach Marketing, which helps life coaches grow their practices, become famous in their niche, make online courses and more. He has a wealth of knowledge about self-improvement & marketing. Be sure to check out Advanced Life Coach Marketing’s Free 6 Page Report to Growing Your Life Coaching Practice.