blogging

A client asked me a great question tonight and I thought I’d take a minute to answer it here on the site.

The question was:

“For doing blogs i.e. staff members – should we have a separate site, on facebook or on the website?”

Answer:

I would suggest you add a blog system to your existing website (or add a blog to each of your websites) and then share the posts on your facebook fan pages.

For example: if I was to write a new Internet marketing blog post I would then head over to my facebook fan page and share a link to this post.

In this way you create content on facebook that can be useful to people (and be found in searches, and be shared) and you create content on the web which means people who visit your site can benefit.

Creating blog posts on the web also means that you will be adding content to your website which may help your SEO (search engine optimization) and your ability to generate traffic through the search engines.

So add a blog to your main website, have staff write regular posts for the blog, then share this content on facebook and you’re set!

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I received a question this morning from a client: “Any tips on starting a blog and what to post?” and immediately put down what I was doing to write this article. I sometimes forget how difficult it can be to get started blogging and thought this would be a great topic for a post.

I’m a big fan of doing an hours work and having that hour pay me back in many different ways. Another way of saying this is that I like to leverage my time so when people ask questions, instead of answering the question in an email, I’ve found it to be more effective to answer the question and send it out as a newsletter and add it as a blog post to my site AND then to blast it out via my social networks. (That way you get way more results for the time and effort you’ve spent!)

If you’re like I was when I was new to blogging, you’re likely finding it hard to find the time to write regularly let alone come up with great ideas to write about.

With that in mind, here are 5 tips to help you come up with great content for your blog on a regular basis. Here’s a bonus tip up front: If you want to come up with great content AND leverage your time like I mentioned above, consider sending out each blog post as an email to everyone on your list. By doing so you’ve just multiplied the potential return on your time.

5 Blog Writing Tips Anyone Can Follow:

1. Read the news
2. Keep track of your competition
3. Follow news & trends in your industry
4. Follow new & trends in your client’s industries
5. Answer client questions

1. Read the news

It might seem obvious but I find a great way to come up with blog article ideas is to scan the general news headlines every morning. Why is this helpful? In addition to keeping you up to speed on what’s going on, often what happens is that a quick scan will get the ideas flowing. You may see something taking shape in the media that relates to something your clients are interested in or something that relates to a past experience and voila: a new idea for post is born. What it comes down to is idea flow – the more you take in on a daily basis the more ideas you’re going to have on what to write about. And remember: timely, relevant content is everything.

2. Keep track of your competition

Keeping an eye on your competitors, especially your most successful competitors or the big shots in your area is a great way to come up with ideas on what to write about. If they’re covering a story, see if you can write a post with a new angle or come at it with your own twist and insight. You don’t want to play catch up necessarily but you can gleam a lot of great ideas by seeing what others are up to in your field. It also helps you to spot trends and potential weaknesses your competition might have if you follow them regularly.

3. Follow industry news and trends

Using financial services as an example, industry rules and regulations change from time to time (understatement?) and you need to stay up to date on them in order to do your job. So why not keep your clients and prospects in the loop? At the beginning of the year we saw the advent of the Tax Free Savings Account for Canadians – this was a great example of a blog post waiting to happen. Anytime something industry specific comes up that’s important to the people you do business with – write about it.

4. Follow industry news and trends in your client’s industries

In order to better serve your clients, generate referrals and build your web presence, I’ve found it’s a good idea to learn as much about your client base as possible. If you primarily serve business owners in the suburbs for examples, see if you can find some local blogs and websites that target this niche also. Then when they post news, write a quick summary of that news and post it on your site. Subscribe to newsletter’s and blogs that your clients read and pay attention to the things that are affecting them. Then see if you can put a post together about how your services fit what’s going on in their industry for example. Again the key is idea flow. Pay attention to what’s important to your clients and then showcase your understanding and ideas on your own site.

5. Answer client questions

I’ve saved the best for last. My number one tip on what to write about on your blog is to answer questions your clients and prospects ask you. Questions that come in via email, phone calls, social networks or in person chats are the absolute best source of content for your blog.

Much like the question that sparked this post, any time a customer asks you a question, if instead of just emailing a response you take some time to create a content piece (blog post) around it you can then leverage that investment of time by posting the answer on your site and also sending the article out via email, your social networks and even mail if you still use the old fashioned way!

Final Thoughts: What’s the ROE? (Return on Energy?)

So how did you like the 5 tips? Sound like a lot of work? Well, it can be in some cases but a lot of the time a quick post with some bullet points will suffice. This article took me about 20-30 minutes to write but after it’s all said and done not only will it be emailed to about 150 people immediately, I will then post it on my own site where hundreds and potentially thousands of people can see it this month (and in the future people will be able to find this article in Google which may bring more visits and views). I will also blast it out to my social networks (Facebook, linkedin.com, Twitter.com, and others) using ping.fm which means 3000+ people will receive a notification about this post in short order.

Based on experience, using this quickly implemented strategy, I will receive multiple responses…and likely a few more questions as a result!

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First off, by killer content I mean content that will help your site attract more traffic, more leads, and more sales.

Every piece of content you add to your site should in some way achieve one of those results. Otherwise, what’s the point? (Simply being creative is great but save it for your personal blogger account we’re here to get results aren’t we?)

So here are my tips on content, in no particular order:

1. Turn every experience into an article, video, or presentation.

Ask this question after any event you participate in: How can I relate this to something my clients need to learn, want to know, or would find valuable, entertaining or interesting? The day to day happenings of your life can often be converted into great, original and powerful content with a little creativity.

This is a tactic many of the best bloggers use: they create analogies and stories from every day things we can all relate to and understand to explain technical or complex ideas. People like to read and listen to stories so give them something to chew on mentally that will convey valuable ideas while keeping them interested, entertained and informed.

2. Pay attention to what’s going on in your industry and more importantly your customer’s industries.

Become an expert in your customer’s industries. Even if you can’t become a true expert, find out what sources they pay attention to in order to stay up to date on the goings on in their industries and then start to pay attention. Once you have a feel for the pulse of an industry, all sorts of content ideas, new product and service ideas and more will come to you as a result. You may even find some great places to promote your business that will put you smack dab in front of your target market i.e people just like your current clients who you could be doing business with.

3. Read often, from a variety of sources.

Just make sure they’re good sources. Just as what we put into our minds on a daily basis (the articles we read, the people we listen to etc) affects our moods and general level of energy and well being, so too, does what you pay attention to daily have an affect on your writing. If you follow crappy writers, you’ll end up being a crappy writer.

Make a list of the top blogs in your industry and follow them. Find well written, thoughtful bloggers and news sources to follow in any and every area that interests you. Take a look at best sellers on Amazon.com from time to time and read the 1st chapter so you get a feel for how the best of the best put ideas down on paper (or bytes..). Doing so will help your own writing.

4. Get into your customers and prospects heads (think like they do!)

This tip is a must not only for writing but for business and Internet marketing in general: you need to understand your prospective clients and current customers intimately. Their questions, their fears, their thinking processes, what they value, what turns them on or off – the list goes on but the idea is clear: know your customers and write with them in mind first and foremost and let this knowledge influence everything you do.

Tip: every question you get via email is a potential content piece waiting to happen. You’re already going to spend the time answering the email so why not copy the question and your answer and post it up on your blog? Then you can just send the link out next time you get a similar question. The added bonus here is that someone just might type that question into Google and find you as a result. Talk about 2 birds with one stone!

5. Read about Writing

Kind of ironic to include this as a tip as right now you’re doing exactly that: reading about becoming a better writer. I blog I follow that has great tips on how to create killer content is CopyBlogger. Brian Clark does a great job of teaching people how to write successful blog posts. He should know, in just over 2 years he’s built one of the most successful and well read blogs on the planet.

Bonus Tip: make your content interactive is possible and post it in a variety of formats. Videos, embeddable slideshare.com presentations or posting your content on Scribd.com are all good ways of spreading your content and making it more engaging to potential readers.

Bonus Bonus Tip: email your article out in the form of a newsletter to your list – use your content in as many ways as possible!

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Lately I’ve had several conversations with clients about the power of blogging*. Especially when speaking with people new to marketing online, I tell them that adding new content to your blog on an ongoing basis is one of the most powerful search engine optimization and traffic generation strategies you can follow without knowing much, if anything about Internet marketing. It truly is a strategy any beginner, in any industry can follow and succeed at, over time.

What almost always comes up is the complaint that most people aren’t writers and that it takes a lot of time and mental energy to create blog posts regularly. Well, what did you expect?! Blogging regularly is work. For some it’s easier than others but anyway you slice it, creating interesting, relevant and timely content is challenging. Heck, lately I’ve even fallen prey to posting less frequently than I should.

So how do you blog powerfully?

The first and foremost way to be a powerful blogger is to create interesting, timely, relevant, new and creative content on a consistent basis.

What do I mean by blogging powerfully? I mean blogging in a way that benefits your clients, your prospects, and your wallet by expanding your web presence, and generating more traffic, more, leads and more sales for your business.

Why is creating content so powerful? Here are a couple of reasons for starters:

Google ranks web pages, not websites. What this means is that each page on your website is a potential doorway for people to find and enter and engage with you through your site. To say that in another way, every time you add a new page of content, this page can be found by search engines and can then be found by people searching for things related to your products and services. The more pages you have (every time you create a new blog post you are essentially adding a new page to your blog or site by the way) the more chances you have, the more ways you have of being found by people.

Each page of content (aka: each blog post) you create can rank for multiple keywords and phrases. This matters because even if you write on a broad topic, say the downtown Vancouver real estate market for example, this piece of content may rank in search engines for a variety of terms, not just “downtown Vancouver real estate market”. In fact each piece of content may very well rank for 5 or 10 different terms which means that piece of content has become more than a single doorway but an entrance with many different doors in it. Make sense? This example should give you a taste of why there is a lot of leverage in creating good content, consistently for your site. Each page of content represents multiple ways for people to find you.

Another reason to create good content (and great content when you’re on the ball!) is that others may link to this content. Inbound links are critical to your search engine optimization efforts. While creating links is a topic for another post, suffice to say that if you don’t add content to your site regularly, there’s not much motivation for bloggers, website owners, people participating in forums or social networks to add links to your content or share it with other people. Static websites don’t attract links. Links can help rankings and can be excellent sources of traffic if they come from relevant sites and networks within your industry.

A few additional reasons why blogging is powerful:

• Search engines like to regularly visit blogs that are updated often
• People like blogs because they are personal in nature
• Blogs are social because of people’s ability to leave comments on your posts (you should encourage this!) Social media and social networking is a great way to spread your ideas
• Writing builds the perception of authority, value and expertise, which people pay for.
• And the list goes on….

I’ll leave you with this quote today from one of my favourite authors, Brian Tracy:

“Above all, you must develop a greater respect for yourself and your potential brain power. The psychologist Abraham Maslow estimated that not more than 2 percent of adults were doing all that was possible for them based on their special talents. You must therefore develop a higher level of faith and confidence in your ability to use your mental powers to overcome any obstacle and to achieve any goal that you can set for yourself.” – Brian Tracy

The point here is you need to first believe you can do it. It takes some effort and though but in time you can develop the skill.

Write regularly. Grow your web presence. Grow your blog and generate traffic, leads, and sales as a result!

*Please post thoughts and ideas to the comments section.

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