Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category

You’ve finally make the decision to start a blog! Kudos to you.

Before you begin, here are a few steps to follow in order to make your blog an interesting site that will attract readers and build your list.

•    Choose the right software. Using the right software will make your blog stand out among the many thousands on the internet. WordPress is a good choice because it offers many features that can be customized to suit your needs.

•    Select keywords. Your keywords are the areas in which you want to be ranked on search engines. For example, you might select coaching, training and self-improvement.

•    Write your blog. Include your keywords in the post, but be sure to write something interesting, even controversial, that will catch readers’ attention and that they’ll want to share.

•    Use creative content. Use link bait and tweet bait to creatively attract readers. Post information that is easily shared, such as top 10 lists. Visitors can link from the list to your site, or tweet it to their network. Your internet ratings will instantly increase.

•    Publicize it. Twitter is one of the fastest, easiest ways to publicize your blog. As soon as you tweet it, anyone following you will see it and, hopefully retweet.

Getting started with a blog really isn’t complicated and can be a lot of fun!   Once your blog is up and running, it’s important to keep yourself motivated to stay with it.

Keep your eyes on the prize. One of the best things you can do is to constantly remind yourself of your goals. Write down three things that you want to achieve, and put it where you will see it every single morning. You don’t have to look at it all day long, but starting your day with those three things in mind will inspire you, especially if you’re having difficulty coming up with your blog for the day.

Do what you love. Make sure that you are blogging about something you’re passionate about. Of course, you want to make money. But it’s important to remember that blogging is personal. If your heart isn’t in what you are writing, your readers will sense that and they’ll be turned off. Why should they want your offering if you don’t even seem excited by it?

If you follow these steps, you can be on your way to creating a successful blog; one that attracts visitors with information they can’t wait to share.

Bernadette Doyle created Client Magnets Ltd to help self-employed people solve one of their biggest business problems: attract a steady stream of clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

When you meet someone for the first time, you have a chance to make a real connection, or you can just pass on your name and be forgotten. Successful relationship-building requires more than just handing out business cards. To build long-lasting, solid and mutually-beneficial relationships, a little homework and a little thoughtfulness goes a long way. Here are my tips for making an impression that brings lasting results …

Research the People You’re Meeting

If you’re meeting someone in particular, research the person or people you’re meeting. Lots of resources exist that can give you both professional and personal reference material. The Web is a source of myriad information, with things like company websites, personal bios, work histories, resumes, portfolios; depending on who you’re meeting, you may be able to find a wide range of information about your contact.

If the Web doesn’t yield any useful information, you could check with the company where your contact works, to see if they have any marketing information containing professional info about your contact. You could also check periodicals, such as magazine stories, newspaper articles or professional interviews. Depending on how public the person is that you’re meeting, you may be able to find everything from the name of a spouse to the first place he or she worked out of college.

Use the information you find when you meet your contact. Talk about common interests, such as being dog owners, adoptive parents, yachters; whatever common bond you can form with your contact can help you form a good relationship. Ask about things near and dear to the person’s heart – not just business talk – and you’re well on your way to forming a real connection.

Ask Questions and Show Genuine Interest

Get to know people to form real connections. Ask questions about everything; not just their professional life, but their personal interests and family life, too. The more you can show that you understand, know and really “get” the person, the better your relationship will be, and the more business opportunities you’re likely to gain. Be a real person to your connections, too – if your new business partner volunteers information about his wife, talk about your wife. The more personal you can make your relationships with people, the better your long-term success with those relationships will be.

Have Fun Making Connections With All People

Everyone can have fun building good relationships – all you have to do is be genuinely interested in people. Enjoy getting to know your business colleagues, or even that woman you met on the street the other day. Forming connections with people can help in all aspects of your life, and even random connections can help your business in unexpected ways. You never know when someone will refer a key contact; an affiliate who may have great products for your prospects, or a business or distributor that could make your product a high-demand success!

Don’t just see people as stepping stones to a better business. Form real, legitimate connections by getting to know people, and I promise good business will naturally follow.

When you think about writing a blog, which do you think is more important?

• Focusing on the content that you’re sharing with readers, expecting that people will read your blogs because of the quality and value your blogs provide.

• Concentrating on how your blog will rank in the search engines and cramming every relatable keyword possible into your post.

Writing for the person is much more important than writing for the search engines. Your blog should demonstrate your expertise to your target niche and convey your passion for what you’re doing. It should come from your heart. That is how you will connect with your readers and why they will share your blog with their network.

That doesn’t mean that SEO isn’t important, however. Offering quality and value in your content won’t do any good if people can’t readily find it.

Optimize your blog for SEO purposes with links. Be sure to include proper links to legitimate, respected sites; don’t just buy links or list them in directories.

Another way to help your blog rank higher on search engines is to add tags. This is something overlooked by many people, but there is real value in tags.

Adding tags is a relatively simple process. If you are using WordPress, look for the tags link, then click “create” under tags. Type your tag, which is basically your description of your post, into that little area.

If, for example, I were to write a post about the top 30 Internet coaches, I would list each person’s name in that area. That will show Google – or other search engines – that information about that particular person is going to appear in my blog post. The search engine will actually create a category of sorts about the person. People looking up that person will see all the posts online about them,  including mine.

Yanik Silver, one of my mentors who has hundreds of thousands of followers, was tagged by blogging entrepreneur Michael Dunlop in a post about the top 30 things to do before you die. Yanik runs Maverick Business Adventures, a wonderful company that offers unique trips around the world to people with plenty of money to take them.

In his adventure program, Yanik offers one of the top 30 things Michael writes about in his blog. That is why Michael tagged him. Michael’s blog ranked seventh in search engines when people looked up Yanik, which drew an incredible amount of traffic to his site.

All he did was add the tag. This is something you can do with every post. If you tag the name of a prominent person because they are relevant to the blog you’ve written and the niche you’re writing for, more people searching for that person will have the opportunity to come across your post.

So, post a list on your next blog, and tag the names on it. It will give your post a higher ranking, maybe on the first page on Google. It’s an easy way to draw traffic. And, in many instances, because that traffic will be people in your target niche, they will probably be interested in what you have to offer.

Bernadette Doyle created Client Magnets Ltd to help self-employed people solve one of their biggest business problems: attract a steady stream of clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Although starting a blog isn’t really a complex undertaking, it’s still a good idea to do some research so that you know you’re presenting the best site possible. You want to drive as much traffic as you can to your blog in order to keep your internet rankings climbing.

It’s also important to keep in mind that blogging involves more than just writing the posts. You have to consider such factors as user experience, site design, and the software you’ll need to get your blog running.

Here are a few resources you can check out that offer great information for starting a blog.

www.IncomeDiary.com. This is the site where Michael Dunlop, blogging entrepreneur, offers a free e-course that details his process.

www.WordPress.com. WordPress offers the software you’ll need to get started. One of its strongest selling points is the ability to customize features to suit your own needs. There are also many free features you can use to get started in a matter of minutes. It also allows you to track statistics and block spam.

www.UXBooth.com. You want visitors to your site to have a good experience; this is what will bring them back again and again. This site offers tips for creating the best experience for your readers.

www.SmashingMagazine.com. This design site presents the latest in web design and development. While you won’t need to study design in order to launch a blog, this site can be a useful resource for getting ideas about how your site should look.

www.CopyBlogger.com. This is a good resource for learning how to write blogs that will drive traffic to your site as you build your list and market products.  It offers courses on copywriting, SEO, headline writing and keywords, among other topics.

www.ProBlogger.net. Visit this site to learn about the more technical side of having a successful blog. You’ll find information about blog design, advertising, tools and services, and much more.

www.WarriorForum.com. A forum where Internet marketers talk about their trade, this site can provide useful information about sales techniques. You might even find tips for marketing methods that apply directly to your niche.

www.TaskUS.com. Although this is technically a virtual assistant site, you can use the service to create custom ranking lists and other useful information that you can post in your blog.

Once you’re comfortable with the technical and writing aspects of blogging, you can start drawing visitors to your site.

Remember that if you want to become a great copywriter, you should first be a great copyreader. You can learn so much from reading other people’s copy and applying what you learn to your own niche.

These resources are sure to give you tips and tricks that will help make your blog successful.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

If you’re eager to share your brilliant expertise with potential clients, starting a blog is a great option for you. It’s also a fantastic way to generate more income for your business.

How will an online blog help you to increase your revenue?

While blogs were once used primarily as outlets for expression and basic journaling, they now also serve as a very useful tool for making money online.

Once you’ve established yourself in your field, your blog postings will enable you to connect with your audience, gain their trust and develop a loyal following of readers. Some of those readers will then translate into paying customers.

You may be very familiar with blogs, and may even be a loyal reader of some – perhaps this one – but if you’ve never created a blog, the concept may intimidate you. However, let me assure you – once you understand the basics of blogging, you’ll see how valuable it can be to your business.

Michael Dunlop, who ventured into online blogging at age fourteen, says that starting one is nearly idiot-proof. He puts it very simply – a blog is easy to create; then you just start adding content, building traffic and making money.

He grew his refurbished website, www.RetireAt21.com, to 160,000 visitors each month over the course of only five months. It is currently the largest site for young entrepreneurs.

To be as successful as Michael in blogging requires two initial things: quality software and quality content.

Knowing the best software to use when creating your blog will give you an edge over the competition. Poorly programmed blog sites don’t rank as well in search engines. Michael highly recommends using WordPress for your blog software because it will help your site outrank others that aren’t using this software. Being ranked higher than other sites will give you a lot of advantage. People always tend to click on those links first.

WordPress is also easy to use. With many features that can be customized, it will help your blog to stand out among the thousands of other more generically programmed sites out there in the virtual world.
That is the name of the game. The higher your blog ranks and the more it stands out, the more visitors you will get.

The other aspect that will set your blog apart from the rest is its content. Plenty of people write and post blogs daily, but how many are really profiting from them?

The difference between the blogs that make money and the blogs that don’t is the value they provide. When you write your blog, write about something new, give something valuable to your audience or package your information in an interesting way. As an expert in your own right, the information you have is valuable to your readers.

Using the right software and taking the time to share and present your expertise are the keys to a valuable and successful blog.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Michael Dunlop is the successful young entrepreneur behind such blog sites as www.RetireAt21.com and www.IncomeDiary.com. His sites have upwards of 200,000 visitors each month.

How does he do it?

In his words, “It’s all about creative content.”

When you post a blog with unique content or present standard content in a creative and engaging way, you attract more people. The people who are attracted to your content will then link to it or tweet about it. This is what’s called link bait or tweet bait.

For example, Michael posted “the top earning websites in the world.” He listed what each site earned in the last year, and then broke that down to how much they made in a second. When people see that Google made $691 a second, it catches their attention and they link to his site or tweet the information.

This strategy can work in any niche. Whatever your area of expertise, you can post lists of top earners or “10 best …” Those readers who already follow you will share the information with their network, attracting even more people to your blog.

To save you the time of researching these types of lists, you can use a service such as www.TaskUs.com, which will do the work for you. They will provide you with all the information you need, which you can then copy and paste to your blog. For a reasonable fee, you can see a return that is worth thousands.

You can also post lists that reflect your own personal opinion. For instance, you might post a list of people who have influenced you in your career, or the top ten reasons why it’s great to work in your field.

Since a list of the best of anything is really subjective, some readers might disagree with your choices. Don’t be upset if that happens. It means that they are paying attention to you. The more comments that people post, the more conversation you’ll generate.

The point is to be creative. People are drawn to lists because they present interesting tidbits of information that are easily shared. David Letterman discovered that years ago – his nightly top ten lists have long been shared around the world.

When you offer creative content in the form of link bait or tweet bait, you will begin to attract more readers to your blog. As the number of people linking to your site increases, so does your internet ranking. And it happens instantly. So start thinking creatively about some lists that will give your readers information that they simply can’t wait to share.