Meet Her Finland Creator Varpu Poyry

It all started with a burning passion for helping people experience Finland and Finnish culture wherever you are.  And the idea of blogging came to Varpu’s mind and led her to launch her website, Herfinland. To everyone visiting her website, it is a pleasant sight to the eyes.  But to Varpu herself, it is a labor of love.

Varpu always has this nostalgic feeling of home and everything she loves about being Finnish. From food, language, culture, people, beautiful places, and everything else about Finland. The way she speaks about her blog depicts a picture of a beautiful country that will make you dreamy of a place so enticing you would want to come and visit.  She shared fascinating stories, travel tips, Finnish lifestyle, Finnish favorites and everything about Finland to around 30,000 people visiting her website. That’s one huge audience to be proud and be thankful for. Now, you might be asking, how was it possible to reach that number? Well, that is next to what she will lay out here.

The Benefits of Blogging

It is essential to know first the basics.  Blogging is defined by yourdictionary as “the process of writing a blog, an online journal in which you share your thoughts about a particular subject with readers.” Writing a blog is a marathon, not a sprint, but once you do it long enough, it starts building on its own.

Blogs are useful because it gives traffic to your site – it’s like free advertising, serving your customer, and replying to the questions they have.

Tips and tricks to getting traffic to your website: 

⦁ Know what your audience is looking for.
⦁ At the get-go, have your email list going– serving your readers and replying to emails.
⦁ SEO is important. You have to do that technical stuff to make it visible.

Things to remember in SEO optimization:

1. If you post a blog, it’s not going to show anywhere. You have to do technical tricks to make it visible.
2. Do lots of marketing. Share it on FB, Instagram, and Pinterest.
3. Look for keywords or key phrases and insert them to your blog posts and headings.
4. Don’t invent stuff when you do your keyword search before you do the posting.
5. Find great keywords that don’t have much competition.
6. Use 2-3 words for your keywords.
7. Pictures for your blog posts or website, in general, are essential. If people “pins” images from your website, it pulls data in it as well.

How to monetize your blog?

1. Collaborate with other companies. 
Go to a company that does influencer marketing, ask their profession, and they could introduce you to influencers that would resonate your values.  Or then you could also do it by yourself and contact the influencer that you’re interested and have a discussion that is beneficial for your potential customers. On the other hand, if you’re a blogger, there are a bunch of ways you can do pitch straight for the company you are interested in. You can be involved in a network. It’s either you or the company will bring in ideas, so you’re not selling by yourself.

2. Do affiliate links. 
When a person buys a product through the affiliate link, you’ll get a small commission in exchange of promoting the blog post.

3. Create your products.
Find a product that will create more value to your readers.

Top tips for aspiring bloggers who want to start their writing journey:

⦁ With SEO, Google starts ranking one year after you launched your new domain. There’s a huge shift when the domain is old enough.
⦁ Stay calm and do something. You’ll get closer to your goals if you do even the small doable things.
⦁ Be yourself and accept that you’re not perfect.

What’s in store for Varpu this 2019?

Varpu launched her digital products this year. Her free course on Finnish pronunciation which was launched end of February and now has 600 students. The second is a paid course on the Finnish language and is intended for those who want to deepen their studies in this language. She also has a monthly editorial calendar, and she will schedule her blog posts based on that. Varpu also make herself busy writing destination-themed and cultural blog posts and serving her readers by replying through their emails.

References:

blogging. (n.d.). Retrieved June 12th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/Blogging

If you love this you might want to check out Episode 61 How I Keep My Finnish Roots Alive

Connect With Varpu on the following handles

Website: https://herfinland.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/her_finland/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/herfinland
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/herfinland/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VarpuHerFinland

For a FREE Finnish course by Varpu hop on to this link https://herfinland.teachable.com/p/finnish-pronunciation-beginners

Connect With Me

You can connect with me on the following social platforms.

Facebook: @NordicMumSusanna
Instagram: @thenordicmum
Pinterest:@thenordicmum

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