Blog Marketing Works For Getting More Sales And More Clients

Blog Marketing is about getting more exposure for your business or for what you’re selling and it’s more than just about getting lots of traffic.

What’s the point of traffic if you can’t convert them into sales right?

In terms of blogging and blog marketing, my main focus is helping people who already have an offline business get their business online.  So, the initial focus is on attracting more clients and, making more sales whilst we strategize for how to get passive income from information products, based on their service.

For weeks now, I’ve wanted to talk to you about one of the ways a client of mine is approaching blog marketing but, until now, I’ve had to bite my lip ….

Gavin Ingham of www.GavinIngham.com is a sales trainer and motivational speaker and since building his blog last year, Gavin has been consistently blogging and making his presence known online and then earlier this year after each show of Sir Alan Sugar’s “The Sales Apprentice,” Gavin sat down and wrote a review of the program for his blog.

In fact, I know that on one occasion, Gavin was so tired, he didn’t do the review but woke up to about 25 emails asking “where’s the review of last night’s show?”

Don’t you just love it when your readers beg you for more content!

Anyway, I digress … As a direct result of Gavin’s reviews, two of the Apprentices have been in touch with him about partnering on a project or two.  You can see Gavin’s post, The Return of the Sales Apprentice for more information.

The real point I want to make here though is that blog reviews extend beyond trying to make a quick buck from an affiliate product.

It seems to me that small business owners, entrepreneurs and independent professionals are still a little slow adapting to blogging and blog marketing.  It’s not seen as a serious business building tool by some and others just complain that they just don’t have time to blog - these are generally those that don’t have time to build their business either.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if you’re marketing online and doing great with the online strategies you’re implementing, then blogging may not have to be a serious consideration to you right now.  I will say however that I personally believe in the long-term, if your competitor is blogging and you’re not, you’ll lose out.

But back to my business of reviews …

I think Gavin’s approach of reviewing The Sales Apprentice program after each show was not only an excellent idea and credibility booster, indirectly, he was making more sales.  He’s a professional speaker and he’s selling himself essentially in selling his services.

But, he didn’t need to litter his blog posts with links to products or even his services.  He just provided an honest and frank review, gave away some great sales tips and not only do I know he has been booked for speaking gigs as a direct result of these reviews, he’s now been contacted by two of the apprentices theselves.

Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com told a true story last year of a lawer who didn’t have a blog but left a comment on Dave’s blog.  The comment was read by either a news reporter or authority in a large organization (can’t remember for sure) but the result was that he landed himself in a very high position job.

One comment and no blog but one helluva reward at the end … can’t be bad for a few minutes work.

So, what business are you in and what can you review to get some more exposure for your business?

Is it the last book you read?  Maybe the last ad you saw on TV, a seminar you attended or even a company review that would help your readers see you as a potential giant or even giant in your field?

As a service professional, you are seeking authority and credibility because people buy from those they know like and trust and I’ve proved over and over again that blog marketing works for getting clients and making more sales and isn’t just limited to selling $29 eBooks.

In my blog post  Easier To Sell A Product Than Your Services Online, I pointed out technically, it’s harder to sell your services online than a product … so many will tell you anyway but most of my clients are acquired as a direct result of my blog and, my services cost way more than the average information product that is launched online.

So, if you’re looking for more clients, if you’re looking to make more sales and if you’re trying to sell products, I highly recommend that you add blogging to your marketing mix sooner, rather than later.

To Your Success,

Blog Marketing Tips and Insights
www.trishjones.com

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What Will Smith Taught Me About Online Marketing

I’ve just done watching a YouTube video of Will Smith being interviewed by Jonathan Ross here in the UK and apart from the fact that I find Will Smith naturally funny, there were two things that he said that really resonated with me:

In the first video, he was asked by Jonathan, “what gets you angry” and to which Will Smith replied, “big fat liars” which reminded me of why so many newbies on the Internet are skeptical of purchasing new products.  Because in the past and and even now, there are some big fat liars who will sell you anything based on hype and make out that anyone can do it and in fact, you can make millions from your 4th room, wearing only your PJ’s. 

And yes, I know of many Internet Marketers who built million dollar businesses from their bedroom so, I’m not dismissing the fact that this is true and, I understand people’s skepticism about purchasing products from “snake oil” marketers but, on the other hand, in video two, Will tells the story of how he made a load of money and then lost it all when the IRS came and claimed all he had, including his home.

After he lost it all, he borrowed some cash from a friend and moved to LA where he hung around outside The Pauley Pavilion where the big names gathered for three months until one evening, he had a converstion with a man, that would change his life … he gave him the part for the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire.

Are you listening and reading now …

He stood outside The Pauley Pavilion, LA, for THREE MONTHS!  He would just speak to these guys and then through association, he landed himself a major part in an American Sitcom.

He didn’t give up, he was persistent and determined to win, because he knew what he wanted.

Sadly, these are some of the attributes or characteristics that are often missing when people begin marketing online.  Whilst skeptics of the “Get Rich Quick” schemes, they still have a misconception that they can make a lot of money in little time with little effort and, with very little or no money.

And I’m being transparent with you now, I promoted my own workshop using the marketing spiel of building a business with very little money and for all of the delegates, I built them a blog but, not one of them did anything with it!

They still had the “build a site” mentality instead of a marketing mindset which acknowledges that the blog is only the tool to help you achieve what you want to achieve online.

And, I actually don’t agree that anyone can start an online business either … okay to an extent I do … anyone can start, but it takes a particular breed to finish!!

Putting up a blog or website isn’t and never will be Internet Marketing.  Promoting and marketing the services, affiliate products or whatever you blog about IS marketing.

So be honest with yourself now, how many programs have you purchased, got half way through and abandoned because in your view it didn’t work?

Do you think if Will Smith had given up even after the eighth week he would have been the star of the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, played Ali or stared in Men in Black?

Will Smith knew what he wanted and he wasn’t going to stop until he got it. 

Now the question is ….

Do You Know What You Want?

Because, if you don’t know what you want, you’ll just keep jumping on the wave of whatever new phenominon hits the web instead of focusing on your dream.

Mike Filsaime, Internet Marketer, wrote a report about a year ago which really was the turning point in my life.  He talked about being on your boat going to Tahiti which, is your dream destination but each time another boat passes by, the skipper suggests that some other island is the most fantastic place to be so you change course and head for this new lsland.  Five years later, you die on the boat, never having accomplished your dream and never having reached any of the Islands because you kept changing the course of your destination and direction. 

After reading Mike’s report, I stopped that day and took stock of my life … what did I want?  Was I following my dream of someone elses?  What did success mean to me and, how did it differ from those of some of my mentors?

I had met so many Internet Marketers in previous years who boasted about their big house, big cars (pleural) and big boat and for a start, the big boat just does not entice me … I’m happy to be passenger on someone elses boat!  I don’t want to live in a huge house (though I’ll be happy to own one) and, I’d be overly satisfied with one big car … so long as it’s a Merc!

My point is though, you cannot measure your success by what someone else wants or needs because it will throw you off course.  So, the first thing you have to do is be truthful to yourself about what your deep rooted desires are.  If you’re not mad on taking exoctic holidays, don’t feel guility.  If like me, you’d be very happy being a passenger on another person’s boat, don’t feel guilty.  Focus on what you want to accomplish, what you want to achieve and not only will it be easier to focus, marketing will become much easier and, it will be easier to achieve your goals.

As Jim Rohn said, “the bigger the reason why, the easier the how.”  Purpose brings persistences and persistence gets results.

Whatever you do, be like Will Smith.  Be persistent in the pursuit of your dreams and never give up.

Until next time,

 

WordPress 2.5 Tip: The Text Editor

Go check out the video below I made for you to help you get the most out of the WP 2.5 text editor …

I complained enough about the new WordPress 2.5 text editor in my blog post about the pesky little bullets not lining up, but I was ready to have to do a 30 part series on this text editor because of all the things it didn’t do or because it just felt buggy.

Now, I know that the users of the standard WordPress theme probably thought this was the best addition to WP 2.5, but for those of us using the Semiologic theme, this was a definate relegation.

Anyway, some searching around and I found the link to a plugin that is used in conjunction to the text editor and since I’ve uploaded and activated the plugin, I have to say … I’m happy!!

Help Me! Which Of The 101 Ways Do I Use To Promote My Blog?

Oh boy … this is the new dilemma of too many bloggers today. They want to make money with their blog but, there are 101 ways of doing so and everyone has the best suggestion that will get them a flood of traffic to their blog.

There is one problem though …

You can’t utilize all 101 ways and if you try to, you’re going to crash and burn and your blog won’t make you a dime.

Bear with me, I’m going to rant, but I’m also going to give you some sweet tips to get more traffic to your blog! Fair? Okay, read on with your eyes WIDE open!

If you’ve been on the Internet for any length of time, you’ll remember the “blogging and pinging,” the “tagging and pinging,” “trackbacks,” “pingpacks,” etc. Whilst these strategies are not obselete, you could literally add 101 new ways to market and promote your blog nowadays and by marketing and promoting, I mean getting noticed so you get lots of traffic to your blog.

But, here’s problem number 2 …

The Foundation of Blogging Seems To Have Been Lost In All The Noise Of Social Media, Video Blogging, Podcasting, More Sophisticated Blog Designs Etc, and New Bloggers In Particular Fail To Give Their Blog A Solid Foundation

Now, I am not saying that these methods should be ignored but if as a bloggers you are going to build authority with your site, if you want to be known as the expert in your field and if you want to attract new business and sell more products and services, you are going to have to get one thing right …

… You are going to have to learn “how” to blog!

I get people telling me that they want to know more about designing and building blogs and, whilst I appreciate that us mentors have been promoting the “sack your designer” thing, there is a fine line between knowing all that there is to know about blog building and making your blog sell for you!

It’s about going back to the principles outlined in Timothy Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week’ … You have to strengthen your strengths and where at all possible, outsource the rest.

I make money building blogs and consulting with entrepreneurs, independent professionals and small business owners and for the most part, there are tell-tale signs in who is going to create a successful business with their blog and who will struggle to get any recognition.

The success stories come from those like Gavin Ingham who is willing to focus on marketing and those who struggle tend to focus too much on blog design … and not just any old blog design, the worst one …

DIY blog design!

In other words, they want to be able to do it all themselves no matter how in depth the coding and whether they even know anything about HTML or PHP.

Yes, blog design is important, but if you don’t blog, no matter how pretty your blog is, no matter how much time you spend sprucing it up, no one will even know your blog exists.

Basically, you gotta walk before you can run and many of the things that bloggers think they “need” right now, will do nothing to help them attract traffic even if they spent thousands per month on pay-per-click advertising.

Let’s face it, what are people going to see when they visit your blog …

“Welcome to my new blog?”

I personally didn’t even try to monetize my blog until I was blogging for months but that was out of personal choice but you can’t have five blog posts and expect to make a shed load of money with AdSense or from affiliate marketing and, you do need to give people good solid content to encourage them to keep coming back or to make a purchase from your site.

Anyway, less of my rant, here are my Top Ten Tips for getting more traffic to your blog “quick time.” And, I’m not even going to mention that you should not be spending hours designing when you should be promoting …

In terms of ease, here they are:

Tip #1: Ensure your ping services are set up correctly and up to date BEFORE you even write your first blog post and, ensure your very first blog post says more than “welcome.”  Give the spiders enough “flies” to get their attention and your human visitors a reason to want to return even if your blog only has one post on it.

You will find the list of ping services in WordPress 2.5.1 by going to “settings” and then “writing,”  otherwise, it will be “options,” writing if you are using an older version of WordPress.  If pinging is a new term to you but you want to understand more about how it works, see this great article about pinging to get top search engine rankings.  

Tip #2:  Set up your permalinks so the search engine spiders recognise you.  The default permalink set by WordPress (http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123) will do very little for your search engine ranking if anything at all.  The search engines don’t understand what “?p=123″ means and is useless for enabling anyone to find your keyword loaded blog posts.  

I personally use the permalink structure http://www.mydomain.com/%postname%/ although I have seen very successful bloggers such as Pro Blogger using the date and name based structure.  You can go check out my previous post on permalink structures for more details. 

Tip #3:  Write keyword specific blog posts.  I know this might sound obvious but it’s amazing how many times I harp on about this and then I visit people’s sites and it has no structure, no keywords and then they ask why their blog isn’t being indexed by the search engines.   

This is where I could go off on the deep end again about ignoring basic search engine optimization techniques in favor of social marketing, podcasting, video marketing etc.  Whichever method you use, you’re going to have to learn some basic SEO and apply it to your blog posts … period! :-)  

In particular, you want the keyword in the title of your post, preferably in the first sentence of your blog post and, throughout the blog post without making it look like spam - i.e. you don’t want to write your keyword every other sentence.  You want the keywords to appear as natural as possible and, if you can anchor text a couple of your keywords, all the better.

If it would appear unnatural to your readers if you had the keywords in the title and first line of your blog post, use the All In One SEO Pack plugin for WordPress.  Just type that into Google and you’ll find it.

Tip #4:  Give People the option to be updated via RSS.  RSS is growing in popularity and is a great way to spread the word about a new blog.  If you’re using WordPress to promote your blog, your RSS feed is created automatically which will allow publishers to syndicate or distribute your content.  

RSS makes your content easy to find by the search engines which means that it will be easier for them to index therefore easier for your blog pages to get ranked.

However, because RSS feeds are automatically created on most blog platforms, it can be ignored as a powerful means to get your message out there.  So, ensure you have a link for people to sign up to your RSS feed on every page of your blog, pereferably with an icon to draw people’s eyes to it so they can sign up to receive automatic updates via RSS. 

The best places to put your RSS link is in the header, sidebar or under the header … basically where it will be automatically displayed on every post and page.

Tip #5:  Submit your blog to blog directories.  Blog directories are orgainzed in categories and are much like web directories or ezine directories where you can go to find sites that relate to your particular interest.  Signing up to them is usually quick (less than 5 minutes) and more importantly it’s free to list with most directories. 

Listing your blog in blog directories will also help your blog get higher rankings with the search engines, because your blog link will be added to more websites which will get you more sites linking back to your blog. 

For the top 55 RSS and feed directories, check out Robin Good’s site at http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Tip #6:  Comment on other people’s blogs.  If you use something like Comment Kahuna, this makes it easier for you to find blogs that you can comment on as well as find blogs that don’t utilize the “no follow” tag which, will enable you to build some quality backlinks to your blog. 

If you leave a comment, make it worthwhile.  Always ask yourself “how” you want people to react when they read your comment. 

This should be a lesson to those who rant on other people’s blogs without providing any substance to their rant and certainly without offering an alternative.  Other readers will just think you’re full of sour grapes and won’t want to come near your blog even if you have the best product or service on the market.

Tip #7:  Provide good quality product testimonials.  If you’ve recently purchased a product and you have a genuine testimonial to give, send it to the product owner because you never know where your testimonial might end up. 

I admit, this wasn’t a deliberate strategy to get incoming links to my site, but I know that some of my comments have ended up on good authority sites and, one occasion one of my readers told me that he had found the link to my site from a testimonail that I had written about a new membership site software that was being promoted.  I didn’t even know the testimonial was on the site.   

If you do give testimonials, ensure they say more than “great product.”  Tell the owner of the product how it has saved you time, money, effort or how and why this is the solution you’d been waiting for.

It does go without saying that your testimonials should be genuine and not fabricated.  You could get people emailing you for an update on how you’re getting on with the product and your integrity is in knowing that you can provide honest feedback.     

Tip #8:  Add an opt-in box to your blog.  This is very similar to tip number 4 but you want to be able to capture names and addresses of your visitors so that you can keep them updated with great information, new products etc.

My personal recommendation is Aweber although I know some Internet Marketers are combining thier RSS subscriptions with their database subscriptions via Feedblitz which is Feedburner’s email newsletter management system.

Tip #9:  Subscribe to Social Bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Furl etc.

Joining and participating in (the operative word being participate) in social networking is certainly a way of networking as well as getting some free traffic and backlinks to your blog.  One word of caution with social networking sites is that it can become a full time job making them work for you if you don’t focus. 

My suggestion is that you sign up to one or two, get some results and then sign up to another two until you’re familiar with them.  You have to decide whether you will go wide or deep and it’s my view that spreading yourself too thinly across all the social networking platforms won’t get you nearly as much benefit as really working a few.  

Tip #10: Add podcasts and videos.  Like social networking, podcasts and video blogging will get you free traffic and some bonus backlinks.  If you want a few tips on video blogging see my video blogging quick tips post. 

If you feel this is a techie’s strategy for promoting your blog, let me clear that myth up …

“It has never been easier to add audio and video to your blogs.” 

The quickest and easiest way to get started is to open an account with Audio Acrobat.  You can record both video and audio there and then add the recordings along with the players to your blog.  They also provide free training on a regular basis so you don’t have to feel as though you’re tackling this method of blog promotion in isolation.

In conclusion … I hope you’ve gained some insight from this post about how to promote your blog and just by being diligent in implementing the first five strategies will keep traffic coming to your blog on a consistent basis.

To Your Business Blogging Success!

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Blog Vs. Website?

Blog vs. a website … which one should I have?

This is a recurring question I get asked again and again and, it really is a valid question … one I asked before setting up my own blogs.

First of all, I need to make this ultra clear … a blog IS a website.  In fact, I want to take that a stage further and say that blogs are “dynamic” websites.  You can have pages on a blog and, with some of the great blog software on the market today, it can sometimes be difficult to tell some blogs and websites apart. 

For those of you who may not know what a blog is, it’s short for web log, and is a frequently updated website consisting of blog posts, or entries (more often than not, dated entries) that are arranged in reverse chronological order.  So when a reader comes to your blog, they see your most recent article or post first.

The advantage of a blog is that blogs allows you to post written text, audio and video and have it online within minutes, unlike traditional static websites which can take hours to update and cost you each time - unless you’re familiar with building or editing web sites. 

I put up a new website over the weekend for one of my new services.  I was using a template (something I rarely do) and, it came with very clear step-by-step instructions.  Now, I hit some snags, which I eventually resolved, but the one thing I had to do which drove me crazy was sit at my PC for hours writing content for the site since I couldn’t upload it to the server without ensuring everything was right first. 

And to me, this is the one of the biggest ”plusses” of having a blog … you get the site up, write your first post (I always recommend 5 to start with though) and you are ready to do business online and invite the search engines to come visit you. 

This brings me to another Big plus of having a blog …

Optimizing Your Site For The Search Engines is Much Easier With a Blog

Each time you publish a blog, you do what is called “pinging” the update services.  In other words, you automatically notify the search engines (sometimes indirectly) that there is new content on your site so “come and take a look!”  This gives the search engines occasion to come and visit your site to index it.  So, another benefit is that blogs tend to be indexed much more often than traditional static websites and, blogs show up 10 times more often in organic searches than static websites do.

On a tight budget? 

Then a blog is something you should definitely consider.  Blogs are cheaper to build than static websites and even if you get your neighbor to build you a site for free, you will still need a budget to maintain the site and keep the site updated.  Also, there is no “pinging” with static websites so you have to do much more of what is called “on page” and “off page” search engine optimization than is necessary with a blog, if you want your site to show up in the natural search engine results. 

And don’t think just because you paid thousands of dollars or worst thousands of UK pounds (real money!!  Sorry my US friends) to have a website built that you’re going to get people flocking to your site.  In fact, I’m going to dare say that most designers have no clue whatsoever about search engine optimization.  Their strategy is to make your site look good … “build it and they will come.”  And, I’m not exaggerating here … I had one designer tell me this!  But, I’m not using that example as a generalization … just do a Google search for web designers and take a look at their offerings and you’ll find that most of them will sell on “look good” rather than “get found.”

One more benefit (though there are many more) before I “bust” some myths …  Bloggers establish credibility much faster static website owners because blogs by their very nature build a stronger and more vibrant knowledge base.  Sure you can do this by adding articles to your static site but it comes down to cost again and in my view, “findability”.  Finding articles on a blog is usually much easier than navigating your way through a static website.

With a blog, you log into your back office, write your blog post and click the “publish” button and your article is on the world wide web ready for anyone who cares to read it and, you can categorize your posts making it easier for people to find you both online and, when they reach your blog.

With a static website, you have to open up your editor, such as Front Page or Dreamweaver, write the article (and, I’m assuming you’re using the existing website template), update the page properties before uploading that page to your site using FTP software.  Once you’ve done all of that, you have to “wait” until the search engines do their rounds again, visiting your site to get it indexed.  This could take months, depending on the strategies that you employ.

I have had one of my clients blogs indexed within 36 hours and all she did was posted about 10 blog posts which were mainly snippets from her book.  The crazy thing was that the posts were not even properly optimized but, her blog got the attention of the search engines.

Now for some myths about blogs and blogging:

1. Blogging takes too much time.  What!!  Do you know how much time it takes to properly maintain a website!?  If you’re building a business then the act of blogging should be an aspect of your marketing so spending 2-4 hours each week researching and writing blog posts should be seen as a plus, not a negative.  That is not to say you have to post so often … I don’t but I had to in the early days to build my credibility.
    
2. Blogs are fads and will die away soon.  Boy … you would have thought these proponents would have cried off by now.  But, let’s forget about them … just take a look at the direction the online world is taking and you will see that it makes sense to have a blog EVEN if you decide to build websites too (and, I do encourage both … more on that later) because blogs make podcasting, videocasting and social networking a lot easier if you are non technical.
    
3. No one reads blogs anyway.  This is what some of speakers of The Professional Speakers Association used to tell me when I asked about building a site for my services.  Now, I will tell you what I would tell them if they were to give me that same “cookie cutter” answer today … No one reads YOUR blog!  If this is you it’s time to spice it up.  Give your blog a voice, not a corporate makeover!  Humans work in corporations so even if you’re targeting them, they have a sense of humor, they don’t all have MBA’s and use long “unarticulaterable” words (like this one I just made up) and, they want information they can use.  So save the Guardian style editorial for your press releases but give them great tips in your blog.

I could go on, but I hope I’ve given you enough information to make an informed decision on whether you should have a blog or a website.

However, if you are still undecided because you want a website for a salesletter to promote your product, you really do have two choices … you can create a mini website (one with less than 10 pages) and then add a blog to it and market your product (by way of giving great tips) from your blog.  Or, you should most definately check out the WordPress Semiologic Pro theme which enables you to write an ordinary blog “page” (not post, though the process is exactly the same) and save the page as a Sales Letter Template.  Hit the publish button and you have a sales letter online. 

Go and check out the Semiologic Pro theme and find out how you can have the best of both worlds.

To your online success,

 

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