These are some crazy times we're witnessing. As bloggers and small business owners, we know just how hard these times can hit. We want to support you every step of the way and ensure you're thriving, not struggling. Here are three ways you can deal with COVID-19 as a blogger, keep growing your business, and come out stronger than before. We believe in you!

1. Work on Increasing Your Page Views

Current Blog Posts

Idea 1: Create new pins

Canva Pro now includes all elements and stock photography! This means a whole bunch more options for when you're batching your pins. (We like the pro version because you can upload your own fonts and color palettes, but the free version works fine too!) Try to add 3 new pins to your top-performing posts, and work your way down your blog post list until you've gone through them all. Oh, and make sure you can't see all of those pins. You can either make new ones in Tailwind and link them directly to your blog, or hide them using code.

Idea 2: Improve your SEO

Go back through and look at your blog post titles and headings to see if they can be improved. Research keywords and see how you can edit past blog posts and improve your new ones. Check out these two SEO tutorials (one and two) that Shannon Mattern did for us!

Idea 3: Schedule to be reshared periodically on social media (think Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn)

Create a spreadsheet of all past blog posts (you can quickly do this by going to your WordPress dashboard: Tools > Export > Posts). Once you have that you'll have all the links you can quickly schedule posts to be shared on social media throughout the year. Go through seasonally and schedule those first, then fill in with others. For scheduling on Twitter and LinkedIn, we like using Hootsuite, and when scheduling for Facebook make sure you schedule directly on Facebook for best results!

Idea 4: Have relevant blog posts or posts to read next at the bottom of all your posts

Use a plugin if your theme doesn't have one, here are some suggestions.

Idea 5: Link to new blog posts from old ones, and vice versa throughout your content

Not only do you want posts at the bottom of your post for your audience to hopefully jump to next, but you also want to include links to other relevant blog posts throughout your content for your audience to jump to if it catches their eye. Just as we did above by directing you to a blog post on SEO to learn more!

Write New Blog Posts

Continue writing content and sharing it! Be mindful of the state the world is currently in, so if there is anything you can share that will be relevant to these times, be sure to share that sooner than later. Here are some examples:

• Fashion bloggers: Share sales, do round-ups of cozy loungewear, and share things from small businesses. Your audience may be shopping less right now, but they're still shopping, and a lot of us want to shop small if we can.
• Mom bloggers: Now is your time to shine! Kids are home, so write round-ups of your past posts that are in a similar theme (ex: activities, food, toys). Then, crank out anything you can that will help moms and dads where they are now during COVID-19.
• Travel bloggers: Keep inspiring us, we're living vicariously through trips we are all dreaming of taking.

Need more ideas? Come drop your niche in a post and ask us to help brainstorm with you in our Facebook group!

Thrive Blogging Community

2. Diversify Your Income

Idea 1: Ads

If you don't have ads on your site, consider it! You can run Google Ads without having any minimum page views or sessions required. If you have over 25k sessions a month we strongly suggest you apply to MediaVine to have them run ads for you. You can make a couple thousand dollars a month using MediaVine.

Idea 2: Sell Products

If you already have products for sale, then consider having a sale! Call it a "stay-at-home" sale, to boost your sales and income for the month. If you don't have anything that you're selling just yet then now's a great time to work on a couple of ideas. Here are some suggestions to get you going:

Ideas for digital products to sell: First, consider making something that's branded to you based on your nice, like eBooks or eCourses. You're an expert in your niche, so what's a topic you could expand upon and teach?

After that, some other ideas are to make digital products like graphics, templates, media kits, printables, etc. You can sell them directly on your blog using WooCommerce, or set up a quick shop on CreativeMarket.com or Etsy.com.

Ideas for physical products to sell: If you have any ideas for a physical product there are several companies online that you can upload your artwork to and then have them drop shipped (which means the product goes straight from being ordered to the customer's front door). Things like mugs, t-shirts, even baby gear, tapestries, welcome mats, and coffee tables! There are so many things you can customize now thanks to companies like Printed Mint and Society6 that handle all the heavy lifting for you.

Idea 3: Become a Virtual Assistant

The road to being a full-time blogger is not always straight, in fact, it never is. We know that you're not going to just start making thousands of dollars overnight, so if you're looking to make some extra cash while you're on your way to full-time blogging, consider being a virtual assistant. You can virtually assist all types of businesses in the areas you're an expert in! You don't have to be an expert blogger, here are some ways you can assist:

• Social media scheduling
• Copywriting
• Graphic Design
• Accounting
• Photo Editing
• Inbox Management

There are ways for you to assist no matter what your area of expertise is, and it doesn't have to relate to what you do as a blogger, at all!

3. Prepare for the Future

Idea 1: Revaluate Your Blogging Business Plan

What are your goals for your business? Do you have a plan in place (and is it written down somewhere more official than your notebook)? When was the last time you revisited that plan? Here are 5 things your blogging business plan should include:

The Foundation: What is the mission of your blog? What type of content will you provide to your audience? What will you do to set yourself apart from others? Who is your audience? From this, create a Mission Statement. One to two sentences that state your purpose.

The Competition: Now, don't go into imposter syndrome here. This is the time to look at what your competitors are doing so you can learn a few things: how are they communicating with their audience, how are they providing value, how are they making money? You want to learn what is working for them as well as where they have gaps that you could fill. We're all about community over competition, but when developing your business plan now is the time to learn by evaluating others.

The Audience: You touched on your audience during the foundation, but now is time to take a deep dive into them. Who they are, what they like, what they dislike, where they spend their time, where they shop, etc. Get as detailed as possible, you want to know them like they're your best friend, that way you know what type of content they will click on. If you're feeling stuck here, poll them! Send out a survey to your email list or ask them on social media.

The Brand: What does your brand look, sound, and feel like? What do they consistently see when they come across your content? What are they hearing *cough* reading *cough* when they come to your blog or read something you've written on social media or said in a video? What's the message they're always getting? How does your brand make them feel?

The Strategy: How are you releasing content? Write out the platforms you're releasing content on and what type of content on each platform. For example, the type of content you share on video might be different than what they'll find if they read an informative blog post. How often are you releasing content? What's your strategy for re-sharing content you've already created?

Idea 2: Strategize Content for Future Quarters

If writing content is difficult during this time then strategize the content you want to write in the future. We're in a weird stage right now and holiday content is going to sneak up on us faster than any of us anticipate. I know, it's only April, but you should be releasing content for Halloween starting in August, which means you need to start pitching brands, and gathering your ideas much sooner. Take this "downtime" to create a plan for Quarter 3 and 4 (July – September & October – December, respectively). Plan for the content you're going to release, deadlines for pitching brands, when you're going to have it scheduled by, and any collaborations you'd like to do.

Idea 3: Give Yourself Time to Dream Up New Ideas

Did this blog post spark some new ideas that you hadn't thought of before, or that you'd put on the backburner? Write them down and let yourself have the space to dream big! Oftentimes during quarantine, it can be hard to focus on things, we feel burnt out, like we've hit a wall, and lack motivation. So if you ever have a moment where you're inspired we encourage you to pause and run with that inspiration. You never know what great idea will come from it!

We know times are tough, but in implementing these three strategies, you can stay motivated and stay afloat. Join our Facebook group for continuous support. We are here for you and we have your back through it all!