PB074: Grow Your Blog’s Traffic and Income by Creating a Resources Page

Hi there. My name is Darren Rowse and welcome to episode 74 of the ProBlogger Podcast where today I want to talk about resource pages and give you a challenge to create one or update one for your blog. This is part of our series of podcasts which is looking at things that you can do today that perhaps have been on your someday list. Things that you invest some time in today that will pay off for the long term. Today’s challenge, like many of the others, has the potential to drive a lot of traffic to your blog but also income as well. I’ll get into how to do that in a moment.

You can find today’s show notes with some examples of resource pages and some further reading at problogger.com/podcast/74 where you’ll also find a little information on Edgar, who is the sponsor of this series. You can find out Edgar’s special offer for ProBlogger readers at meetedgar.com/problogger and see this great social media tool that will help you to really take a lot of the pressure off your updating of social media. I’ll talk a little more at the end of this podcast about them as well. Let’s get into today’s show, episode 74.

Today’s challenge is one of those challenges that I’ve included in this series mainly because it’s something that I’ve got on my own someday list. It’s been there for way too long and really needs to get onto my today list. Simply by preparing for this podcast, I’m proud to say that it has gone onto my today list and I’ve already begun work on it.

Today’s task is to create, or in my case to update, a resources page for your blog. I’ve long had a resources page on ProBlogger. It’s a page where I list useful tools, services, training, and further reading even for bloggers. You can see it at today’s show notes; I’ll share the link there. Although, I have to say that by the time you hear this, that page will look different and have different content on it than what it does right at this moment as I’m recording. I may include a screenshot so you can see what I did have there.

I first created this page seven years ago. It was a page that aimed to serve and answer my readers’ questions. Some of their most frequently asked questions. Questions like what hosting should I use? What domain service is the best? What blogging platform is best? What tools should I be using on my blog? And what are the best services to start monetizing my blog? Those sorts of questions which I get quite a bit, and I’ve always had quite a bit. The page is pretty simple. It’s just a page on WordPress, not a post. It was largely a series of lists of the tools and services that I used or recommended. I broke it down into categories. There’s a list of blogging tools, blogging platforms, blogging hosting services, and all of those questions that are read up out before. There’s a list of answers to that.

It had a lot of outgoing links and not a whole heap of other content on it. Some of the links were affiliate links and some of them were just links to the tools and services particularly where they didn’t have an affiliate program. It also had a little bit of further reading for each of the categories where I had something useful to say on the topic. For example, in the blog design section of the templates section, I had a little bit of reading on how to choose a template.

The page served a few purposes. Firstly, it answers some of the most frequently asked questions I get, so it’s useful. I was able to point to it in my navigation area, which cut down the emails that I got because people are finding the answers pretty quickly by finding that particular page. It was also useful as I was responding to emails as well because when I got a question that did come in about a particular thing that I’d included on that resource page, I was able to just simply say you might find this link helpful.

It also generated some pretty nice income through affiliate links. I was actually talking to a blogger the other day and they admitted to me that their resources page, which has some affiliate links, is the number one source of income for their blog. They link to it really prominently on their blog. It has some affiliate programs on it that have recurring income. They recommend a service where if you sign up, they earn 50% of anything that that person pays forever. That adds up over time. It can potentially earn some nice affiliate income for me and for you if you set one up.

It also has the potential to help with traffic as well to your blog. I found my resources page ended up ranking pretty well in search engines for blogging resources. It’s also the top post, if you design it well, and if it’s useful and comprehensive enough that you could quite easily share on social media regularly. I think it would do pretty well because it’s lists of tools and lists of services and lists of things that are useful to people are the type of content that people do share.

It’s a page that has served me quite well in the past. My problem is that I didn’t keep it up-to-date. In fact, WordPress an hour ago just told me that the last time I updated that page was—wait for it—six years ago. I’m really embarrassed to admit that. I almost didn’t because I wanted to save face, but I think it gives you a really great example about how leaving something on your someday list can end up hurting your brand because some of the links on my lists right now are broken. Some of them are links to services and tools that don’t exist anymore. Some of them even have been taken over by dubious operators. I just found one link which was to a site that I just do not recommend anymore. That page right now could be doing me more harm than good. It’s a prime example of why you need to tackle these types of things that sit on our someday lists because they could end up hurting our brand.

Here’s my challenge for you today. It’s twofold depending on whether you have a resources page or not. If you have one, is it up-to-date or could it be improved in some way? Could you be adding some new resources to your page? Please do it. It might be hurting you at the moment if you don’t. If you don’t have one could you create one? This need not be a complicated process. It could be something that you could whip out in half an hour, an hour depending on how comprehensive you want to go.

I would encourage you to make it a comprehensive one, to make it as useful as possible. That will take some time but you may want to just start with something simple just to get it going. It’s something that you can add to over time. That’s certainly how I developed mine. Over the year that I was updating my resources page, I was adding new resources every week or two weeks. You can add to it over time. Get something up if you think this is relevant for your particular blog.

Most of the resource pages that I’ve come across have a combination of different types of things on them. If you’re wondering, “I can’t do a resources page because I don’t have any tools,” tools are just one type of thing that you might want to include on a resources page. I’ve seen a whole heap of different ones. I’m going to link to some examples in today’s show notes. You could include tools. Tools or services that you use. You could also, on your resources page, make it more about learning resources. Books that you recommend, articles that you’ve read that are helpful, ebooks that you recommend, courses that you recommend, other blogs that you might want to read, forums that you should belong to, sites that you recommend, and training that you can recommend. You might want to include some downloads.

In one of our last podcasts in this series, we talked about developing opt-ins. Creating resources for your readers to get subscribers, you could include those on your resources page as well. You could also include your own products on your resources page. There’s a whole heap of different types of things that you could include on your resources page. It doesn’t just have to be tools or services, but it could be to do with the learning as well or anything else that you recommend.

Remember, it can include some affiliate links, but it probably works best if it isn’t just about affiliate links. You want this to be a page with genuine, useful, and comprehensive recommendations. That will probably include things that don’t have affiliate programs. Your readers will respect the page even more if they see that it is not just about you making money but it’s you about serving them in some way.

If you do have affiliate links, it’s a good idea to disclose that. You can do that on your page without it being something that is detrimental to your page. You can explain there that that’s how you make your income. Explain that them buying that through your affiliate program doesn’t increase the cost. You can actually show them that it’s a way of you being able to provide the blog that you have for free by earning a little bit of a commission.

I found most of my readers completely respect that, particularly when I include on my resources page something about the products that I’m recommending are not only products that I’m earning a commission from but they’re products that I pay for and that I use myself. If you make that clear, if it’s the case, then that certainly helps to show that you are genuinely recommending that product because you’ve already purchased it yourself.

I would encourage you to go a little bit beyond just creating a list of links. Add some content to it, add some context to why you recommend the products. Perhaps you might want to, for each of the products you recommend or each of the resources you recommend, just write a short sentence about why you recommend it, who it might be relevant for, and how you found it to be useful for yourself.

You could also consider approaching some of the people that you link to. If there’s a company that you use their service or tool, maybe approach them and say, “Hey, I want to put you on my resources page. Would you be able to put together a deal for my readers?” and actually makes it even more useful to your readers. Not only do they get what you recommend, but they also get the opportunity to get it at a discount or with some sort of a bonus.

When you’ve put your page together, you want to also think about how you can get as many people as possible to that particular page. Just having the page is half of the battle. You want to get people to view it. A few tips on that. Firstly, make the page as prominently linked to as you can. If you have a navigation area on your blog perhaps a menu at the top of your blog. There might be an opportunity to link to that page from those areas. Also in your sidebar and any other relevant posts on your blog. You might actually want to put a call to action underneath blog posts around the comments area. Any calls to action to get people over to view that particular page is really important.

Also, from a search engine optimization point of view, you want to think carefully about what you call that page. It may not be the best thing to call it a resources page if it’s not particularly relevant. You might want to say recommended books or recommended training resources. Put yourself in the shoes of someone’s searching for that type of information, what would they be typing into Google? Resources may not be. It could be or may not be the best term to use. If it is a page of tools then call it a tools page. If it’s a page of books make it a page of books for your particular niche. Think about exactly what people might be searching for.

One last tip is to keep it as visual as possible. One of the things that I look at my particular resources page and critique it at the moment is that it’s just a list of words. There’s no visual at all. I know that I could probably make it a more visually appealing site. That’s one of the things on my list to do in the next few weeks, not just today. In the next week or two particularly.

The last thing I’d say is that you want to keep this particular page up-to-date. This has been where I’ve got into trouble with mine. Maybe it’s worth adding a reminder to your calendar. Maybe once a month, the end of every month to simply alert you. Have an alarm to go off to update your resources page. Maybe you just want to do that every three months or once a year even. It would be better than every six years as I have done it.

I really look forward to seeing your resource pages. I’ve already asked on my Facebook page today for people to share theirs. I’ll include some of the links to examples on today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/74. I would love to see links to yours. You can do that in a couple of ways, either by leaving a comment on the show notes today or you could tweet me at @problogger with the hashtag #TodayNotSomeday and then share the link to your resources page.

Also, check out Meet Edgar. I’ve talked about Meet Edgar in the previous podcast, but it is a fantastic tool that really does fit into this series so well because it enables you to put a little bit of time into creating some great social media updates today that will continue to pay off for the future. You can find out more about them at meetedgar.com/problogger.

Lastly, I would really love to see your reviews of our podcast over on iTunes or Stitcher. I’ve been watching the reviews come in. I want to read out a couple of them today that caught my attention that are more recent reviews that have come in.

Firstly, Kylie from DIY Decorator. I love this one. Kylie writes, “I’ve listened to every podcast so far. I’ll listen in the car after the school run when the car is nice and quiet. Darren’s information is practical and useful and his manner is relaxed and genuine. I feel like Darren is sitting in the passenger seat talking to me. What I like best is that each podcast contains actionable tasks. So step-by-step you can create a better blog without being totally overwhelmed.”

I love that idea of sitting next to Kylie after she dropped her kids off from school. I know those moments very well. It’s a time I often listen to podcasts as well. What I would love is if you could tell us where you listen to the ProBlogger Podcast in your review. That would be pretty funny to see a whole heap of reviews of people saying where they listen to the podcast. Thank You, Kylie, for your review.

Then, there’s Deborah from girlfriendology.com, which is a great name for a blog. I don’t know what it’s about. I can’t speak to it or recommend it really, but I think it’s a cool name. Deborah writes, “Coming up on 10 years of blogging and attending and even speaking at conferences, you’d think I would have heard it all. Heck, maybe I have, but I find Darren Rowse’ ProBlogger smart, genuine, and amazingly committed to helping bloggers be successful.

I listen to every word he says on his podcast, Periscope, and his blog. Now, this podcast is unique in the genre of social media blogging advice. It’s not salesy, self-serving, ego-based, or using goofy introductions. I find those annoying,” she says. “It’s just solid information and support in the generous format. Thanks, Darren, for sharing and caring.” Thank you, Deborah, for your particular review. I love that one. I try not to be goofy. Occasionally, it may go there, but hopefully, I’ll continue to stay on the straight and narrow.

As I say, I’d love to see your reviews on iTunes and Stitcher. I get emails every week with any review that’s been added no matter where you are in the world in the different iTunes stores or on Stitcher as well. So, that’s pretty cool and I do read every single review. Thanks so much for listening today. I look forward to seeing your resources pages on your blogs. Do share them over on Twitter or in the comments of today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/74.