Marketing legend Gary Halbert was fond of asking his students this question:

"If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to see who could sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side to help you win?"

He’d let each group of students ponder the question and marinate in the supposed brilliance of their answers before he dropped his bombshell:

“The only advantage I want is... a starving crowd!"

Then, he would share an observation that thousands of aspiring founders, executives, and product creators should commit to memory:

“The most profitable habit you can cultivate is the habit of constantly being on the lookout for groups of people (markets) who have demonstrated that they are starving (or, at least hungry) for some particular product or service.”

Forget your nifty app idea and cute guide to making sourdough bread blindfolded underwater.

Look for painful problems. Look for hunger.

I once had a nifty app idea.

I stumbled bass ackwards into my first product that people bought. It was a stupid photo booth iPhone app called Mustache Bash.

It could… drumroll… put mustaches on photos.

In its first year the app made about $8,000 in the App Store, which sounds okay until you consider that I spent $4,200 to develop the first version. Once you account for the money I invested and the time spent on everything from research to marketing, the app probably lost me money.

The real breakthrough came a year later over sushi.

My friend Ryan told me about his dream the night before. In it, I had turned the Mustache Bash source code into a product and had begun licensing it to other iOS developers.

Mmmkay...

I actually took Ryan’s advice and paid my iOS programmer to create a step-by-step tutorial for reskinning the Mustache Bash code. Then, I reached out to another friend, Carter, who agreed to promote the Mustache Bash product to his email list of app developers.

He sent two or three promotions over a weekend and generated $20,000 in sales.

Holy. Crap.

An inbox full of PayPal transaction emails is habit-forming.

That experience demonstrated for me the power of Gary Halbert’s advice about hungry crowds. Find a hungry crowd—that is, a large number of potential customers with a painful problem and money in their pockets—and create a product for them.

I’d done that accidentally. Could I reproduce that experience? What if I didn’t have access to a list like Carter’s?

Enter Sales Safari.

After I stumbled across an early demo of Amy Hoy’s Sales Safari process, I was able to connect the dots between Halbert’s starving crowds and my own desire to create more products.

No more going with my gut! No more blind optimism: “I sure hope that my next product magically pops off like that Mustache Bash code template!”

(Shout out to Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman for sharing this repeatable process!)

Most people want to dive headfirst into product development without verifying that they’re in the right pool. I have learned this the hard way, which is spending many hours creating products people didn’t buy.

These days, I don’t work on a new product until I have 1) found a hungry crowd, and 2) pinpoint that crowd’s most painful problems.

A number of smaller problems typically choke the path to the bigger, hairier problem, so you make it your business to identify those smaller problems and give them the machete treatment. You teach to elevate. You solve to sell.

Once you have gained people’s trust by solving smaller problems, you can sell your remedy to their bigger problems. Not only are you building an audience—that is, increasing your leverage—along the way, but you are also removing friction from the buying process.

I’ve been growing my audience over the last several years by serving them. And how have I been serving them? By writing really long, comprehensive blog posts that address their problems.

You too can stack the deck in your favor by figuring out what topics are already hot and trending. You can poke around online, pick up clues, and write your version of an authoritative post on a given topic that is relevant to your target audience and product roadmap.

Let me show you exactly how I do that.

16 Steps To Writing Your Blog Posts That Help Your Audience

Step 1 – Create a new Google doc for your notes.

I will give my doc a title like “Freelance Writer Product Research” that I can start filling up with notes from my research. I usually keep track of all of my sources and organize and edit my notes as I go.

This doc is, after all, the vault where you will store your newfound wealth of market insights. Make your life a little more pleasant by adding section headers for topics and pain points as you identify them.

Step 2 – Find niche forums and Facebook groups.

One weekend, I spent hours combing through forums and Facebook groups devoted to my audience: freelance writers.

The easiest way to find such “water holes” is with Google searches. Duh.

You can find Facebook groups the same way. Double duh.

Step 3 – Compile a list of common problems.

Eventually, you will begin to see the same questions and problems appear over and over again.

Forums, Quora, Facebook groups, comments on Amazon book pages—it turns out that most people have the same problems and complaints.

You will DEFINITELY want to copy and paste the links to discussions and forum posts as you find them. You also want to capture comments and the content itself. Capture the other people’s responses too: the advice they give and links they share.

If you’re anything like me, you will add your own commentary and notes as you go, but be sure to preserve the pain point or complain in the person’s original wording. The best messaging for a premium paid product or even a free educational blog post comes straight from the horse’s mouth.

In my experience the language that people use to describe their own problems, while they’re still in the middle of them, is simpler and more visceral than the copy that we product creators write. Talk about striking gold!

When you stumble across the perfect turn of phrase or analogy, don’t translate it. Poach it.  

For example, aspiring freelance writers post questions about getting started in forums:

However, different people frame that question in different ways:

• • “How to get started with…”

• • “How to break into…”

• • “Looking to get into…”

• • “Extremely new to…”

• “Getting my freelancing career off the ground…”

Gold, people. This is gold.

You can use this stuff verbatim later in your sales copy, in your blog posts and their titles, in your emails and their subject lines, and in your Facebook posts and tweets.

You can also glean a couple of crucial insights from this process:

• • Despite the dozens, if not hundreds, of posts, most people in your audience share the same core issues or challenges. We’re talking 10-12 main problems, not 100.

• Several groups comprise your target audience. For example, I have noticed a certain progression among freelancer writers who subscribe to my blog and buy my products:
  • • Seekers – Dissatisfaction with a 9-to-5 job leads to a side hustle. Overlap by Sean McCabe caters to this group.
  • • Hustlers – That side hustle (or another one) blossoms into full-time freelancing. Chris Guillebeau’s The $100 Startup has solid advice for people ready to go all-in.
  • • Lifestylers – Once freelancing income eclipses 9-to-5 earnings, a new goal takes shape: using surplus funds to make lifestyle upgrades (or downgrades). The 4-Hour Workweek and my free Earn What You’re Worth course explore the concept of using your business to bankroll your desired lifestyle.
    • Diversifiers – A growing dissatisfaction with selling time for money sparks an interest in passive or residual streams of revenue, including products. Those folks invest in the 30x500 Academy, find a coach, or hire a launch agency like Balernum.

The point is, different subsets of your audience will want and need different knowledge, training, and tools from you. I could sell a “Make Your First $1000 As a Freelance Writer” course to one subset and “The Perfect Freelance Writer Contract” to another subset.

In fact, I’d be wise to create a complete value ladder, a la Russell Brunson.

Step 4 – Pick a topic to write about.

Obviously, you have to parlay all this research into original, high-quality content that you can use to gain trust and leverage.

You’ll know you’ve honored the research phase if your eyes are starting to cross and the thought of finding yet another forum and reading another 100 posts makes your stomach churn.

Good. You’re now ready to turn some of that research gold into social currency.

You have pasted people’s questions, posts, and comments along the way. You have also captured the responses of people trying to help. This raw content you can rewrite and reorganize. It will become the core of your blog post, and that blog post will become a cornerstone of your business and blog.

At this point, you may have noticed a pattern in my own research. I will pick a single overarching topic and then compile a collection of specific fixes.

My cornerstone posts aren’t cotton candy posts with no real substance. I go beyond recommendations and give homework—that is, detailed, step-by-step instructions for what freelance writers should think about and do.

By all means, do what works. Listicles work. Publish some listicles. How-to and tips posts work. Do some of them. But be sure to sprinkle in some main courses with those link-bait-y appetizers.

Write the cornerstone posts that deliver the smart, actionable advice and the real training that you desperately needed when you were less experienced.

Be Luke’s Yoda.

Step 5 – Create a new doc for your blog post.

This short video shows what my proto-blog posts look like once I have finished initial research and pasted in the raw content...

Step 6 – Use BuzzSumo to find several good title options.

The title is the hook required to get people to read your really helpful content. BuzzSumo will show you relevant headlines based on the keywords for which you search, as well as the total number of social shares for each one.

You can use that data to make an educated guess: “Alright… here are some headlines that work. Let me see if I can write a more advanced blog post on that same topic.”

If listicle blog posts are doing well, then you can create a longer, more comprehensive one. Or if tutorials or really deep how-to guides get the most shares, then choose that format.

Either way, you’re striving for deeper, more detailed, more thorough, more advanced.

And for the love of all that is sparkly, have some fun. Give yourself permission to mix it up. Meanwhile, keep an eye on engagement. Trial-and-error will be your teacher. Do your screenshot- or video-heavy posts get more shares and comments?

Double down on what works. Ditch your duds. The beauty of the internet is that it is non-permanent. Your popular posts will eventually bury your failed experiments.

As for the titles, copy and paste the best options at the top of your new doc, along with the links to “competitor” blog posts. You can always update the title later to see if a new one gets more traction for the post.

Step 7 – Use Ubersuggest.io, AnswerthePublic.com, and Quora to fill in gaps.

You may have the core idea—e.g., “how to set up a freelance writer website”—but you may not have captured all the best angles and sub-topics

Ubersuggest, AnswerthePublic, and Quora will help you figure out other sections to include in your blog post.

For example, when I ran a search for “freelance writer website,” Ubersuggest.io returned 19 associated keywords.

Not all of them are relevant. My post definitely wouldn’t address implied topics like “freelance grant writer website” or “website content writer freelance india.”

BUT… a quick search does reveal some topics I might not have thought to include:

• • Examples of best freelance writer websites

• • What content should go on your freelance writer website?

• • What should you put in your portfolio?

• • Can you use a template or should your website be custom?

• Is WordPress the best platform for freelance writer websites?

In other words, I use the three websites mentioned above to make my posts more comprehensive and complete and thus more helpful to my readers. Finding and scanning “competitor” blog posts can serve a similar function.

The goal here is to develop a Table of Contents for your blog post. If you touch on all of these areas and give solid advice, then you will have done a major service to your target audience.

Step 8 – Write your Introduction.

At this point you may have a sprawling mess of unedited content and ideas. You’ve got to get people into the topic somehow, and you’d be wise to do that quickly.

Your intro should grab attention, hook your readers, and make them hungry for definitive answers (finally!) to the questions that have plagued them.

I like to share a story, stir up emotion, and show my readers that I get them.

For example, after some humor and build-up, the intro to my blog post about freelance writer websites gets to the thesis: “I believe 100% that an attractive, effective website is a crucial component in a sustainable sales pipeline. Without one, you’ll miss out on good opportunities.”

Your thesis is your blog post’s organizing principle. You will revisit your thesis throughout, and the various sections will support and enrich it. Finding your thesis first will save editing time later.

But if you’re anything like me, you sometimes need to write to figure out what you think. Your thesis may not appear until you’ve written 300-400 words.

Regardless, the purpose of the intro is to pique your reader’s curiosity and tell them what they’re going to learn. You bring the problem to the forefront and give some assurance that you will help your readers solve it.

Step 9 – Write the rest of your blog post.

Now the real work begins. Start writing. Producing raw content can be hard work. Here are some tips for keeping your writing process on the rails:

• • Write in the morning.

• • Write at the same time each morning.

• • Write for only fifteen minutes at a time.

• • Write in the same place.

• • Listen to the same music.

• • Use the same writing app.

• • Strive for honesty, not originality.

• • Write from your heart, not to sound smart.

• • Have some friggin’ fun already.

• If you can’t write, talk. Open a new voice memo, and use the process in this post I wrote about beating writer’s block.

If you get into the flow and write 2,000 words in one sitting, good for you. If not, well, you still walk away from that 15-minute writing session satisfied: “Good. I chipped away at an important blog post today.”

Step 10 – Link out to and disagree with other experts.

I found tons of blog posts on the subject of setting up a freelance writer website. Other bloggers have obviously done their homework too.

One freelance writer with a large following on Pinterest wrote about how you absolutely, positively must put your call-to-action above the fold.

This seems like good advice. I agree that using a single call-to-action on your Home page is smart. But I decided to do a bit more research about the best placement of that call-to-action. Sure enough, I learned that the importance of “above the fold” is greatly exaggerated.

What really matters is writing strong copy that makes people want to take action.

You too will find people giving bad advice or touting hard-and-fast rules or best practices that aren’t fundamentally sound. Perfect! They have create an expertise vacuum that you can fill with well-reasoned recommendations and solid research.

For me, writing an authoritative blog post about how to create a freelance writer website started to feel less like an exercise in audience-building and more like a professional obligation.

Step 11 – Write the conclusion.

Some people recommend writing the introduction and conclusion at the same time, but I prefer to wait. Often, while I’m producing the meat of the blog post, my thesis will evolve. I’ll need to go back to the introduction and adjust it.

By the time I write my conclusion, I have drawn a circle around the blog post’s main idea, and I can get it right the first time.

Whatever the case may be, a conclusion has two pretty simple jobs: 1) to tell people what you’ve just told them, and 2) to tell them what you want them to do next.

I almost always end with a call-to-action:

• • Subscribe to my blog.

• • Give me your email address and get this free content upgrade.

• • Read the next post in this series.

• Wire $15,000 to my account in the Caymans. (Just kiddinnng.)

Step 12 – Add some images.

I use Creative Commons and Unsplash to source free, royalty-free, license free, commercial usage images. I made a quick tutorial video you can check out here.

Step 13 – Find 2-3 good keyword options.

I’m glad that I took the time to do some “light” keyword research and that I paid an SEO specialist to send me the best keyword options for my 10-12 cornerstone blog posts.

He pays for the best keyword research tools. He spends his days (probably nights too) staying up to date with Google’s latest changes to their algorithms and best practices. He frees me up to play to my strengths. I need to target good keywords in my blog posts, but I don’t need to be the one doing the research.

If you don’t already have a go-to SEO specialist, you can use this video to find one on Upwork.com with mostly 5 star reviews.

DISCLAIMER: SEO can be a huge distraction, not to mention an adventure in missing the point. Plenty of people are meticulous about this stuff yet only write a post every once in awhile. They never see results. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot with SEO. You must prioritize primary activities (e.g. publishing your way into people’s trust) over secondary activities (e.g., optimizing blog posts). If I had it to do all over again, I would ignore SEO until I had 10-12 cornerstone blog posts and a complete marketing funnel in place. SEO is the furniture polish.

Step 14 – Optimize your post for your keyword.

The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress simplifies this process for me, and this start-to-finish guide from Moz.com will get you up to speed (if you use WordPress).

Otherwise, do a google search for “optimize blog post [name of your CMS here].”

If I were you, I’d take a little bit of time to create an SEO-related checklist similar to this one from Hubspot. That way, you don’t have to remember all the to-dos from post to post.

DISCLAIMER: Do not, I repeat do not, shoehorn keywords into your blog post. If the fit isn’t natural, ditch the keyword. Otherwise, your post will read like a how-to manual vomited by a robot. Confusing your readers with weird word choice and awkward sentence structure—to better accommodate keywords—won’t win their trust. Besides, Google actually penalizes keyword stuffing now. When in doubt, make your content easy to read and ignore keywords.

Step 15 – Publish your imperfect post.

I am a professional writer. What I mean by that is that I have a BA in English, an MA in Creative Writing, and a decade of experience writing for clients.

And I have never published a perfect post. Most of my posts have some noticeable blemish: a grammatical error, scrambled verb tenses, a typo, a rough transition, or even a fuzzy thesis.

But you know what?

I push them out into the world with regularity. For nearly two years now, I have averaged at least one blog post a week. I’ve got over 260 posts on Medium and many more in my queue. I wrote 120 blog posts in 2017 alone.

I have made writing my life, and yet I still embarrass myself daily by making obvious mistakes in the public forum. Legions of trolls can salivate over my ineptitude! Captains of smugness can send their emails and leave their comments.

I can thank them for their time and rest secure in the knowledge that Consistency. Trumps. All. Things. Trolls are confirmation of your courage. History will forget them.

So don’t let perfectionism rob of the real treasure: consistency. Perfectionism is paralysis.

Get your post to a “good enough” state. Then, publish it. Then, promote the [scatalogical reference] out of it!

That’s what matters. That’s what will really move the needle for you. Perfect performances never made a single career.

Here are three cornerstone blog posts that I have published as a result of my research:

• • “How to Create a Freelance Writer Website That Actually Gets Clients”

• • The Ultimate Guide to Finding a Freelance Writing Niche.” (Can you guess what piece of contrarian advice I start with? You don’t HAVE TO niche down.)

• “The Complete Guide to Freelance Writer Invoices”

I still find warts and imperfections in those. Even so, my efforts are paying off. My freelance writer website post still ranks #1 on Google from time to time.

Step 16 – Offer a content upgrade at the end of your post.

Checklists, questionnaires, cheatsheets, and templates convert the best for me.

Focus on something that you can create in 30 minutes or less; something that answers what Amy Porterfield calls the “Golden Question”:

“What does your ideal customer need to know, understand, be aware of, or believe?”

You’ve just created a ton of value for people with your deep cornerstone blog post. What else can you offer, in exchange for a reader’s email address, that will help them implement what they have just learned, only more quickly?

Share that advice too in the form of a content upgrade. Add the opt-in form at the end of your post. I use ConvertKit for this.

Here is the content upgrade call-to-action at the end of the freelance writer websites post:

Step 17 – Promote your blog post.

Your beautiful, helpful new blog post is a palace in the woods until you actually drive some traffic to it. Content marketing is a BIG TOPIC, and how to drive traffic to your website is an even bigger one. Read Neil Patel’s “The Uncensored Guide to Promoting a Blog Post,” take notes, and pick two traffic-generation strategies.

Experiment with them for three blog posts. If they work, continue. If they don’t work, pick new strategies and experiment with those. Keep experimenting until you find strategies that work for you.

Also, you’d be wise to take some advice from my friend Nathan Barry and spend at least 50% of your time promoting your content. That’s right: How long you spent on writing is at least how long you should spend promoting that post.

In Closing

What has surprised me about my strategic blogging is how basic many of the problems and questions are. Without doing research first, I would never have thought to write a really deep post about a freelance writer website because all of those questions haven't been on my radar FOR TEN YEARS.

It's easy to forget what it's like to not know what you know now.

That’s why a product and content marketing research is a must. Deep research reconnects you to the minds and hearts of your target audience. You can catch your would-be customers in moments of transparency and vulnerability. You can then earn their trust by solving painful problems.

What that has looked like for me is writing long, deep, authoritative blog posts for each one of the 10-12 topics around which MOST forum posts and Facebook comments orbit.

I am a writer, so teaching what I know through blogging is a natural fit for me. You can also put out YouTube videos or start a podcast. Regardless, I hope you will first cultivate Gary Halbert’s one advantage and gather definitive proof of a starving crowd.

Feed them, earn their trust, and then you can sell products and services.

Do you want a free checklist to use for your next blog post?

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