Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
This seems like a good idea on paper. It helps with SEO stuff for Google. It gives you an outlet to write about floating and share information about the industry. And it seems to fall in line with something that other businesses do, right?
So what are the downsides? How much time and effort does a blog really take? What sort of impact does it have for a float center? Graham and Ashkahn lay out the pros and cons as well as things you may not initially consider about the responsibility of having a blog.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is: “Should I have a blog for my flippin’ float tank center?” It doesn’t actually say flippin’.
Ashkahn: Did you edit that in?
Graham: Yeah, sorry. Sorry whoever asked that question. I took creative liberties there.
Ashkahn: They should warn them under where they submit, “We might add flare to your question.”
Graham: We might Just delete your entire question. Make up something else that sounds better, yeah.
Ashkahn: What was the question?
Graham: Something about flips? Should I have a blog? Should I have a blog for my float tank center.
Ashkahn: That’s right, okay. Cool.
Graham: I would say probably not. But –
Ashkahn: Because –
Graham: There’s an exception to that.
Ashkahn: Because it’s hard.
Graham: Yeah, exactly. It sounds … Especially if you’re like, “I’ll just put up a blog post once a month. How hard could that be?” Whole internet graveyards filled of blogs that have about two posts.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: It’s like the first one and then the second one came two weeks later than they planned on it –
Ashkahn: Welcome to my blog!
Graham: Yeah. I’m gonna be putting out a post every week and the next one’s every month and a half. There’s no third post, right? And I think that looks bad. I think that having a float center and if you have especially a big blog link at the top or blog posts on your homepage or something like that and you kinda got it all tied in at the beginning like you really planned on updating it. Then it just turns into nothing and they’re looking back and there’s posts from 2018 only now we’re in 2020. And that’s what they’re finding. It’s not a good … it doesn’t reflect well on your brand. It kinda says “I don’t maintain things and I’m unable to keep my promises”, right?
Ashkahn: And it really is not a small amount of work. Writing blog posts usually people try to put a certain amount of polish onto their blog posts and the process of writing it and editing it and all that sort of stuff is usually more work than people think it is. And we have a blog. We know how much work it takes. Our float tank solution site has a blog and it’s no small feat to keep content good edited content coming into that thing.
Graham: Yeah, the combined man hours per blog post that we put out through the Float Tank Solutions blogs are anywhere from about ten to fifteen hours. And sometimes for some of the bigger, more researched ones that can really easily go up to more like twenty hours of man hours going into a post. And you’re thinking I’m gonna set aside a couple hours every month to write one. It comes as a really big surprise, you know. You set aside those couple hours and you’re one-fifth of the way through having a polished post and you’re like “Oh boy, I have to go clean these rooms and check out customers”, right?
So understandably it’s one of the first things to get dropped in favor of bigger responsibilities you actually have towards your business.
Ashkahn: It’s real easy to let it slip.
Graham: Which is what makes me say maybe you shouldn’t start one to begin with.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Or be ready to axe it. Get two posts in, realize you’re not gonna do this, and just remove it from the blog. Take it down. Call it a failed experiment and move on, right?
Ashkahn: Or write ten posts before you even put it up.
Graham: Oh, that’s great advice. Definitely do that. Pre-stock If you can get to ten posts, then you’re allowed to have a blog.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Because it’s at one a month. That’s almost a year’s worth of content. Now you just have two more you have to write during the next ten months. Which probably won’t happen still because you’ll find other things you need to do, you know?
Ashkahn: So why do you have a blog then? Why does anyone even want a blog?
Graham: So the nice thing about blogs is … Google really likes fresh content on websites. It likes things that you’ve written yourself. And as you can imagine just reminding your customers that you exist, it’s really nice for a business, you know? Maybe someone hasn’t been into float in six months and it’s your blog post specifically on how floating helps anxiety or floating helps pregnancy that they see come out or that they get emailed to them if they got subscribed that reminds them how much they should come in especially if they’re pregnant or anxious in this case, right? So, it’s great for pulling on customers, it’s good for Google juice, and letting people find you in the first place.
Ashkahn: And Google specifically, for keyword searching. The amount of times you’re gonna use the word, “float” or “float tank” or all that sorta stuff. If you have a blog versus just a website is gonna be way, way more, right? I mean imagine the amount of times you’re gonna say “float tank” over the course of your blog versus how many times it would actually just appear on your website without a blog. And you can see why that can just up the keyword count a ton.
Graham: Yep, and one other thing I’ll add in, too, is I think that if you are able to keep it up consistently, you say you’re going to launch a blog and do a post every month or something like that. And you do and you’ve been doing this consistently for a few years. That also reflects really well on your business. It is really hard to keep up on a blog. So if you’re able to do something consistently and churn something out on this regular schedule, I believe that that actually gives you a few points in your customers’ eyes. Your prospective customers who are looking at your site.
Ashkahn: But it’s hard.
Graham: It’s really hard. It’s really time consuming. To do the Float Tank Solutions blog, to give you an idea, we actually had to hire on two people to help specifically just with the copy editing and take the content that Ashkahn and I are kind of churning out and put that into written form. Like we didn’t have enough time to just manage the blog ourselves, so.
Ashkahn: And we have an illustrator. Illustrate pictures for it. It’s a project.
Graham: So if you do decide to go that route it might be that you need someone to actually be your own copy editor to take things to format them in WordPress. Figure out the roles that you can outsource to someone else and just plan on actually paying money to get those blogs into reality rather than spending your own time on it might be the more sane approach.
Ashkahn: And it’s interesting, too. I don’t think it’s necessarily the type of business that would even benefit the most from having a blog. I think there’s in terms of bang for your buck in blogs … I think if you actually can pull it off and you’re writing good blog it’s gonna help your business. But, you see the type of business that really benefit from blogs and especially online informational sort of stuff. If you’re tryin’ to sell some sort of Photoshop product and you have a really robust blog covering all sorts of various Photoshop issues and stuff. Then when someone types in a very specific Photoshop problem, the chances that you’ll have a blog post that covers that, that leads them back to your website to where you’re actually kind of have different products for them. That is such a nice funnel in for people.
Graham: Yeah, the problem is it’s not broad in either of the directions that makes a blog post more universally applicable. Right? There’s geographical location, which is one of them. If you’re … if you run a geographically independent business, all of a sudden your blog posts can reach people all over the world and that’s really helpful for you.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: If you’re writing blog posts in Boston and they’re reaching everyone all across the world … really only the everyone who happens to exist near you are the ones who are going to actually boost up numbers in your business, right?
Ashkahn: Mm-hmm.
Graham: And the other ones I see that are really useful are things to do in an area. All of the different things that you can do in Portland or somewhere else, right? And we’re not that, either. We’re kinda just talking about a specific activity in a specific region. Which kind of immediately makes you question what your maximum readership could possibly be, right? Who are the people who are into floating enough? They’re going to read a blog post every single month who also live in your area. Even if that’s a large portion of your customers, it’s still not a very large readership for the amount of time necessary to go into making it happen. Which again I think is why it’s difficult, why it gets dropped early, and why I don’t see many people who are only running float centers who successfully manage to maintain a long running blog.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s like unless you’re really enjoy it and you just constantly have stuff in your head. You’re like, “I gotta write this down and get it out and have this blog post.” Your time’s probably spent better doing some other form of marketing for your float center.
Graham: So there you go. Don’t start a blog unless you legitimately have a problem.
Ashkahn: Yeah, something in your head … you can’t shut it up.
Graham: Like I have with Ashkahn’s voice on a regular basis. Every morning wake up and it’s there.
Alright, so …
Ashkahn: Great, if you guys have more questions, you can hop over to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Do Floaters really Go into a “Theta State”? – DSP 160
Sometimes it’s difficult to differentiate the claims of scientific benefit of floating from those that are just anecdotal. The idea that floating causing greater theta brainwave activity is one of those things that sounds right, but what does the data say? And how can everyone else find out?
Fortunately, Graham and Ashkahn have done the legwork and even talked to the researchers who do this kind of stuff. They break down exactly how true the Theta claim is and what, if any, real research corroborates it.
Can People Undergoing Chemotherapy Float? – DSP 159
Naturally, most float centers want to be available for anyone who needs it, but there are practical limitations that they may not know about with certain conditions. Is there any risk or issue to having someone with cancer float in a float center? Do they need special instruction or care? Are float centers opening themselves up to liability by providing them floats?
Ashkahn and Graham answer a few of these questions, but the most important thing to remember is to consult the patient’s doctor. Leave the medical advice to the professionals.
Quick ways to get cash now for your business – DSP 158
Being strapped for cash isn’t a fun situation to be in. With an operating business, you have options, fortunately.
Graham and Ashkahn brainstorm some ideas for quick cash and some they’ve even used at Float On when a surprise expense has come up. It’s worth noting that to get money in the short term, you’re likely sacrificing something in the long term.
Avoiding Soundproofing Mistakes During Float Tank Installation – DSP 157
Obviously float center construction is expensive, in no small part due to the soundproofing in each of your rooms. The last thing you want to do is screw it up by making a simple mistake when installing your float tanks.
Graham and Ashkahn delve into everything you need to consider during installation to not screw up your soundproofing, including what additional materials to purchase and how to ideally set up your float rooms.
Book recommendations for Float center owners – DSP 156
It’s no secret Graham and Ashkahn love to read, often about business methodology and philosophy. In this episode, they provide a list of the books they would consider to be their biggest influences that helped shape their own business philosophies and methods, along with what exactly about each of these titles is so interesting and engaging.
Latest Blog Posts
The Best Time to Start a Float Center
It's not today. Today is a great time to start a float center, but that's not the best time. The best time was a year ago. Or a month ago. Or yesterday. I've had the pleasure of seeing people from their first, innocent float all the way through opening the doors on...
Getting to Know Your Epsom Salt
Epsom salt has uses ranging from personal care to large-scale agriculture, and, of course, it is the salt that brings the ‘float’ to float tanks. Since it plays such a key role in our industry, and in maintaining the chemical balance of our beloved float tanks, we...
5 of the First Things To Do if You Want to Start a Float Center
One of the most interesting things I’ve discovered by fielding calls and emails from people through Float Tank Solutions is that floatation therapy has an uncanny ability to grab people. I’ve spoken to many dedicated floaters, still amazed by the therapy after decades...
Meet the Float Tank Solutions Team
We've met a good deal of you in person at the Float Conference, or at Float On in Portland. Some of us (mostly the easily identifiable ones with the larger facial hair) can even be seen in many an online video discussing salt buildup and small business. For some of...
