Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
Well, hello everyone. This is Shiva Attah founder of Parsis and Winners Academy.co.uk
Welcome to the October Inner Circle Special Hot Topic Webinar.
Today is Thursday, 13 October 2011 and our special topic is “How to Use a Business
Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients”. I’m so excited to share this training with you..
Before we dive in today I want to make sure that you know about our upcoming Inner
Circle Webinars.
Please note that there is a change of date for this month’s Q&A call as I am speaking in a
conference in London South Bank University. So, the October Q& A call has been
changed to Thursday 27th of October at 7:00 PM London’s time.
I’ll say that again, Thursday 27th of October at 7:00 PM London’s time.
That’s your open Q&A call with me. As you know, this monthly call is your opportunity
to ask me any advice about your business, so as your working through your LGB System,
your LGB Workshop Material. This is your chance to write down all of your questions as
you go along, and whatever is stopping you in terms of business development,
marketing or client attraction and get specific answers directly from me.
This has been priceless for many members of the Inner Circle. So if you have any
questions that you need specific answers too, do not miss this call and be sure to attend
live, and get on online as soon as the call starts that way I’ll be able to answer your
question.
Next month’s special topic call is Thursday, 10th of November at 7:00 pm London time
and our special topic is “ How To Build a motivated Virtual Team That'll can Take
You To earning high 5-Figures And Beyond”.
You've heard me saying over and over aging: to build your business to the next BIG
level, you CANNOT do it alone.
It's absolutely crucial to get a team of highly experienced people in place to help you
achieve your business goals. Problem is, most solo-entrepreneurs lack the skills to work
successfully with a team of people. On Novembers special topic I will cover in depth exactly how to use communications, systems, and processes with your virtual team to
springboard your business way beyond what it is right now.
You will discover how to recruit staff affordably, communicate effectively
with team members, create an environment for respect, trust, credibility and loyalty,
talk about Systems and Processes, how to implement Reporting Channels and become a
master delegator. If you've been looking for the necessary infrastructure needed to take
your business into the next big level, you simply must listen to this high-content call!
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
1
Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
Now, today’s call is “How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More ideal Clients”.
Beyond the tried and true strategies for attracting ideal, high-paying ideal clients there
are many other powerful ways to get visibility and exposure.
One of those ways is by writing a business blog. That said you probably have questions
about how to use your blog to attract better clients, how it can help you build your list
consistently and the keys to creating compelling content that keeps them coming back
for more. You may also want to find out, how to manage your blogging time, and how to
syndicate your blog content to drive more traffic to your website.
No problem, I will be revealing all that and much more in this webinar.
So, before we get started, I’m going to show you what a blog is and how it differs to a
website.
There is a lot of confusion about the functions of a blog compared to a website so what
is the difference between the two? Although they both work differently and serve
different purposes, they are both crucial to increase your online exposure and
strengthen your web presence.
Blog or web log is like an online journal used to publish entries regularly which then
appear in chronological order on the home page or blog page. These entries are
commonly known as articles or posts.
In most cases a blog is informal and personal but not always. There are many business
blogs similar to the one that we have in winner’s academy to provide our visitors with
valuable information and keep them interest to come back.
Blogs can be about a particular niche subject or topic that the author has chosen to
write about. In my Blogs I write about business development, marketing, finance,
mindset alignment, personal development and client attractions as well as sharing my
clients success stories and giving good tips regarding the latest technology and the tools
available in the market to help entrepreneurs grow their business seamlessly.
On the other hand, a website is group of different pages that are used to gather or
deliver information. A website is generally of a formal nature and is usually created with
a specific purpose and with a focus on the marketing aspect.
The content of a website is updated only if there are any changes to the products or
services on offer. Most Websites don’t offer much along the lines of interacting with
their visitors as the main purpose is to inform them on what the web site has to offers
and capture their interest and their contact details.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
2
Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
I’m sure you’ve been hearing so much about blogging over the last few years, and it just
seems, in terms of marketing, there’s just so much to do.... You have to be networking
over here, you want to be having a great website with an irresistible free offer there,
write a weekly news letter and you want to be doing JV, webinars, and seminars, and
speaking, and so on and so forth ----- And now I’m telling you need to be blogging. And I
can hear you saying “Oh my gosh, another thing to do for client attraction."
Yes I understand your concern, and while all those networking tools are great, and I
use them, and advocate using them, my primary message is that your business blog
should be the hub, or the home base of all your activities. I could talk about this one
thing alone for a really long time, but I’ll just give you a few points on why a business
blog is so important for a business.
Well but let me start by showing you what Makes Blogging So Beneficial For Your
Business?
First of all it will create massive online visibility for you. The reason for that is when you
have a well-optimized business blog which is integrated into your website, and you are
posting consistently, great valuable and useful content the search engines love it.
What search engines are looking for is fresh content that’s relevant to the person
looking for a solution to their problem. So, essentially when someone types in
keywords they’re looking for a solution. If you provide that solution, and you are
blogging about it on a regular basis there’s a good chance that your blog posts are going
to come up very high in the organic search results. This mean you’re getting kind of
online PR from Google, but you’re not paying for the exposure.
What happens is when people find your blog content, either through search engines, or
because you are promoting your blog content in other ways, and we can talk about that
later, essentially you’re reaching a new audience.
By Blogging you’re reversing the client chase because those people who are coming to
you are what I consider pre-qualified because they’ve chosen to click through, to read
your content, and if you content is compelling and valuable they’re going to subscribe to
get more content. They’re going to be entering your marketing funnel and do get
registered into your database in one way or the other.
An example is that if someone looking for a business development mentor puts the key
word “Business development mentor” in the Google you will see winners academy right
on top of organic result and here is the screen shot of what you would see and I believe
since this capture I have got couple additional pages on to position too for the same
keyword.
By the way what I want to quickly show you before I move on is the difference between
organic versus paid search results.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
3
Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
Almost everyone has heard of doing Google ad word or pay-per-click campaigns and
you must be aware that these campaigns are used to drive specific traffic to a site, or
blog, but organic is when it just naturally comes up as a result when somebody types in
keywords. So you’re not paying for it and therefore It’s free. The organic result are
shown on the left hand side of the page write below the paid ads where as the Pay per
click Ads are shown in the light peachy colour boxes on the right hand side and on top of
the left column and are separated with the word Ads.
So, talking of blog I have to mention that Blogs also helps you engage with people on a
much easier basis and they are considered very visitor-friendly due to the high
interactivity they offer. Readers can comment on your post, sharing their feelings,
opinions and their own experiences.
I consider it one of the original social networking tools, because of the ability for your
reader to comment on the blog. So, it’s a two-way discussion. It’s not just a one way
push of your content.
Because when you’re using your blog as a hub not only does it provide a presence on the
web that allows you to go deep, and get intimate with your prospects and customers,
you can actually say something, but it’s also an opportunity for you to create a point of
distinction in the marketplace where you have that opportunity to demonstrate your
expertise, and really expose your unique personality.
Also it gives your audience a chance to get to know you, like you, and finally trust you
enough to go ahead and buy from you, because the more valuable and useful content
that you’re sharing it just proves to them over, and over again that you’ve got something
that they need. Remember your blog is not necessarily going to convert them, on the
first blog post they read, but it starts that relationship development process, and it helps
to foster interaction through the commenting, as I discussed so eventually the
conversation may go to a more private conversation, like via email, application for, or
client engagement in your services.
So, you know, the more that your readers like and trust you, the more they will begin to
take action. So, they subscribe to get your blog updates, or they trade their email
address for a free report ( or whatever IFO) that you may be promoting on your blog
and in return, when you offer them a new product or service they’re much more
inclined to buy because they have already experienced your expertise.
How often do I need to update my blog?
The content of a blog is very easy to be updated and regular readers can subscribe to
your blog via the RSS feed to be kept informed of new entries. In an ideal world you
need to be creating fresh content for your blog all the time, or it won’t work for you. So,
whatever you decide your publishing schedule is, and my recommendation, at the
minimum is two to three times a week.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
4
Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
So, you need to stick with that. If you decided you’re going be posting twice a week, then
make sure you post twice a week. So, your reader comes to expect it, the search engines
are constantly pinging your content, or indexing your content, and it’s a consistent,
consistent publishing schedule.
Remember a business blog is a marketing tool. This is not about writing a journal, it is
about creating content that is going to attract new clients to you. So, you can’t say "Oh, I
don’t have time to blog. I don’t have time to write." As you can’t say “Oh I don’t have
time to attract clients! You have to make time.
It’s the same thing with ezines or e-Newsletters. People will say, "Well, you know I
didn’t get to it the last two months," and my answer to that is, "Well, you might just stop
altogether, because now your audience doesn’t trust you and has moved on.
Many surveys have shown that 75 percent of your readers are first time readers
because they are coming from search engine. So, if they land on your blog, and the
content is three months old, they’re going to run away in search for fresh content and
they’re not coming back.
Because, it’s like, going to a store with broken windows, or nothing on the shelves.
So, it needs to be consistent and you need to do it constantly over time. Get this right,
This is not something that’s going to change your business in a week but it should be an
integrated part of a constant year around marketing program.
And I know some of you are wondering what is a RSS
feed?
Simply put, an RSS feed which stands for Really Simple Syndication, allows for easy
online content distribution.
RSS feeds offer a unique channel for distributing content that can help expand your
audience to people beyond those who visit your web site.
But RSS feeds can also be an important part of a search marketing campaign. Well
optimized feeds can also gain prominent placement on search engine result pages,
attracting even more traffic. Today’s Search Illustrated shows how this works:
Blog feeds or RSS feeds allow for feed readers to access a site that automatically looks
for new content from all of their favourite blogs.
By syndicating your blog through an RSS feed you can allow your readership to access
all of your new blog posts without requiring them to actually visit your blog. They can
still click through to visit your blog, especially for the purpose of leaving comments or
participating in the conversation, but not having to visit your site every day in search of
new content is a great way to improve your readership.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
Most people who are reading blogs online in this day and age are using RSS feed readers
to allow them to keep up with syndicated content from all of their favourite websites
and blogs, so if you are not already syndicating your blog through an RSS feed, then you
are probably depriving yourself of a large proportion of readers that you were
completely unaware of.
I am sure that a lot of you have heard the saying Content is the Key.
Although I agree with this I like to also warn you that you should not discount (or
forget) the importance of your part of the engagement process.
The thing to consider here is that when you put in a blog entry or a Blog post and
somebody replies to it – what effect it has on your tribe and also on your search engine
optimisation.
To be clear here, when you create a blog post you are creating a new page on your site.
So when a blog is essentially an integrated part o your website, every time you post a
new post, you’re creating a brand new page. Now, when somebody makes a comment
on that blog post, that’s adding new content to the page or in other word to your
website. So when they are using relevant keywords, versus, "Nice post," or, "Thanks,"
something really useful, ...
However if somebody is actually engaging in the conversation, that can create a trigger
to the search engines to come back and re-index that page will create an added bonus as
far as optimisation goes.
So, this is also part of what I would consider a outreach strategy, or a conversational
strategy.
This means that when people are commenting on your blog posts then you need to
participate, and comment back. So, you engage in the conversation, rather than at, many
bloggers, and I know I’m guilty of this sometimes too, because I just get busy too, but
you know if you’ve written a really profound blog post, or controversial article and
you’re getting a lot of comments on it, it’s really important for you to go in and comment
back to your commentators, and your readers, because this keeps the discussion open
and flowing, and it keeps the content fresh.
Now a bit more about keeping that conversation going, but you know what I bet, in
terms of attracting clients, it also depends the relationship with not only the person who
posted the response to your, or the comment to your post, but it also allows others to
see that you’re engaged in the conversation. I promise you this builds the know, like,
and trust factor - much faster.
Keep in mind that building a community takes passion…you need to put yourself out
there. Your content comes alive through this process…and not the other way around.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
Now I want to talk about How to come up with fresh content.
Often clients say to me, "Gosh, I need to constantly come up with new content. Where
can I get my content from?”
So, I’m going to tell you how you can add fresh new stuff, and where to find content for
your blog, and what your articles should look like? As in whether they should it be long
or they should it be short?
Okay, first of refreshing your old material is a way of populating your blog with content,
but I wouldn’t do that for every blog post because articles, like ezine or articles that
you’re posting on article directories, tend not to be conversational, or personal. So, it’s
good to mix it up. I’ve been using this in the sense that I’ve been recycling my newsletter
articles into my business blog, but please be aware that this alone is not enough.
Essentially the technical part of blogging is very simple. It’s like just writing an email,
but it’s the, "What should I write about?" is the main block for most entrepreneurs.
Some of the things that you want to think about when you’re creating content is are you
creating content that showcases your expertise, and connects you with your readers
and visitors, again, that’s the conversational aspect of it.
You want your content to build relationships so that the readers will take action, take
that next step to take a click, to make a click to subscribe so they come back over, and
over again. That’s where you’re building the relationship.
You want your content to create trust, so you need to be authentic, and transparent.
And you also want to create content that makes it easy for readers to hire you, or buy
something from you.
Now, this a bit tricky because people think they shouldn’t promote anything on their
blogs, that’s an old way of thinking, in my opinion, because in our case here we’re not
talking about what you had for breakfast, we’re talking about a blog that is marketing
your business. People are coming to learn from you and they want to buy from you.
They’re expecting it! And you need to let them know how they can do that.
And if you have a new product, if you have a new service, if you have a new ebook you
need to let them know, and you do that by writing about those things.
So, there’s four things that I always recommend for creating blog content with ease. Any
combination of these four elements really will help you create powerful content.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
You want to think about the four “E”s”. That’s Educate, Entertain, engage, and Enrich.
You want to do each of those things to somehow help your blog reader.
So, by “Educate” I mean you can create content that teaches, like How-To articles, or
blog posts are very good, and very popular. Here you want to explain something. You
can write about case studies. You can do Q&As. Those are all educational-type blog
posts.
A client mine who those this very well, is a back pain doctor. He uses his blog to educate
his new clients. He has told me that he is getting most of his new clients are coming
through his blog now, and they get better results because they are better educated,
because they have been reading his content.
To “Entertain” you can write stories. Use multi-media. Video immediately has a more
entertaining factor to it, so that’s always a great way to sort of break up, also, the style
of content that you’re creating, using different media, like video and audio. Tell stories
that are connected to your core message, always.
What is the purpose of your blog, what is the core message of your blog, what is the
niche for your blog, not just like, "Oh, look at these dancers on You Tube." When I talk
about video it’s usually about creating your own video, which is very simple, and that’s a
whole other story.
Another client of my is a professional organizer. She uses video very cleverly, because
she’s really obsessed with celebrities. So, she finds videos on You Tube, for example,
that relate to organizational issues, tips, and stuff like that. So, she’ll let you know how
some celebrity organising their wardrobe or something like that and writes a post
around that, and use the video as the entertainment factor. So, she does that very
cleverly. That’s another way to gauge your audience is by piggy-backing on current
events and news, as long as it relates to your core message.
“Engagement” can revolve around how can you get the reader to participate. Some easy
ways to do that are by using polls and surveys in your blog posts. There’s a lot of free
polling tools where you can do one question polls, www.polldaddy.com is one that I like
to use. This is a great way to actually have the reader that next step, because when the
reader clicks on a link, or posts a comment, they take a poll they stop being passive.
They’re now actively engaged with you. So their one step closer, you know, to
connecting with you possibly as a client or a customer. The other way to engage is to ask
for comments.
A lot of people say, "Nobody ever comments on my blog," and I look at their blog and
say, "Well, that is because you’re not asking for it."
So to turn that around you would be writing something in line of , "Please post your
thoughts here"? or What do you think? ,...
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
So, write about some subject, controversial, or tips on something, say, and then Ask;
"What’s your tip for this topic? Or, "What do you think about this subject?" "What’s your
experience?" or " What’s your number one tip?” I wouldn’t just say, "Please comment,"
but I would have a bit more complex question.
This is about having a conversation with people. And I have a quick tip for you about
style of writing; you want to write in the first person, as in using “I” and “You”.
Don’t address them by "I’m writing to all of you." - No, you’re not because you’re just
writing to she or he, as they are the only reader in the room, office, or house.
Although thousand of people might be reading that blog post, but only one is reading it
right then and there- only one- So you’re only talking to one person.
You want to treat them as such, that they’re experiencing being the only one you are
talking to.
Just quickly on the fourth “E” for “Enrich”. That usually revolves around how can you
make your readers” life better. So, how can you save them time, save them money, save
them energy, how can you add value, how can you help them do something.
The way this differentiate from the “Educate” one that teaches you how to do Something
is that you want to go into more detail usually on an enrichment style post.
So you might add history, or some kind of background about what it is that you’re doing,
or you’re teaching. You can add quotes from books, or from important big people, who
are famous. This is usually a post that is more in depth, a longer post.
To cover how long should posts be, and how should they be written.
Well, my answer to that is generally there are no rules, but it’s good to mix it up, again,
typically people don’t want to read very long stuff, but if you’ve got something
worthwhile to say, say it. If you need a thousand words to write, then write it, but don’t
make every post a thousand word post, maybe a five hundred word post, maybe a video
the next time, and then maybe once a week really explore a subject in depth.
I’m known to write long articles for my newsletters, but people do tell me that they read
them, but I also understand the importance of diversifying to keep some body guessing
by not do the same thing all the time. You don’t want to eat chicken every night, you
know.
The other thing about that is if, let’s say you tend to write long blog posts, and you find
that everyone is coming out at 1,500, break them up. Make it a series of two or even
three posts.
So five hundred words, over three days. Or 3 tips per day to hit your top 9 tips.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
9
Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
That way it also invites people to keep coming back, because they want to see what the
next one is. What’s next in the series? And What’s the one after in the series?
People often ask how much time do we want to spend on blogging? Is there a limits for
on how to do that?
Here is my number one tip for attracting clients through a
blog?"
That is a question that I’ve also been asked regarding social media marketing, so how
much time should I be spending on Twitter, and Facebook, and, LinkedIn?” And sites
like that.
Okay, time, time, time, this goes back to my earlier comment that you have to do it and
that this is a marketing tool, so you need to not find time, but make time for it.
Typically, I know that people get shocked when they hear me saying they need to blog
every day, or three times a week at least, and, respond by saying "I’ve got all these other
things to do, how can I ?... But you need to look at it as a holistic process here.
Blogging is an integral part of your social media marketing, and it’s a critical part, as I
said, it should be the hub, and what I mean by that is all of your social networking sites
should be feeding into your blog, because that’s where you’ll do the conversion. So, you
want to make sure that you’re making time to get good content on your blog.
Now, let’s say that we go with the three times a week recommendation. A typical blog
post, when you’re in a good blogging habit, when you’re really in a groove with blogging
and you’re not just doing it once every blue moon, you should be able to produce a blog
post in fifty minutes or less.
And that is because again, it doesn’t have to be as long as 1,500 words. Maybe once a
week you write that long blog post, but one recommendation that I often make is you
need to block off time, on your calendar, so you make the time and you schedule it. I
have it scheduled on my calendar ever Monday, because I do have several blogs that I
write on. Let’s say you’re going to blog thirty minutes a day, five days a week.
Well, three of those days would be writing blog posts on your own blog, and then two of
those days would be reading, and commenting on other blogs that are related to your
niche, because you also need to be connecting with other people, and not working in a
vacuum.
The point of commenting on other people’s blogs is that firstly it will provide a link back
to your blog, but more so it starts and helps you build relationships with your
colleagues, and will create more visibility for you.
So, if you are commenting on other people’s blogs, the readers on that blog, are going to
start seeing you and if your content is of value they will take notice of you. So, that
creates more awareness for you, and what you do.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
If your contributions are valuable, people will click through your link back to your
website, or back to your blog to investigate further, to learn more about you.
But these are not the only benefits that I discovered from blogging, which I would have
never ever had thought could happen. The truth is that by connecting with other
bloggers, other professionals who are blogging in my niche, it has created enormous
opportunity for me in the form of joint venture partnerships.
And I don’t care if the publisher of the other blogs are in competition with me, because,
one, there’s more than enough for everybody. Also they might know stuff that I don’t
know, necessarily. Plus I can also make a positive contribution, maybe, to their
audience. And also they can make a contribution to my audience. The key is to make a
positive and valuable contribution here instead of a competitive or threatening one. I
might want to have them guest-post on my blog, because that will add more value.
So, it’s about building the relationships outside of your own little circle. I would say go
at it with the abundance attitude, and not with, "Oh my God, these people might take my
business," because they probably won’t.
So, to get started with this, you need to come up with lists of people’s blogs to comment
on? And to get started with that - There are a few sites that can be very helpful like
www.technorati.com is one of the largest blog directories, or the largest blog directory
on the web. I think they index something like 150 million blogs, but most of them aren’t
going to be relevant to you, so they have created a very advanced search capabilities.
So, you would type in your keywords and then look for a blog post, or blogs that talk
about your subject.
Another site that probably is a bit more concise is called www.alltop.com, but here you
have to be accepted to have your blog listed there. People create lists of blogs on any
given subject that you can think of.
So, if you write about healthcare, for example, you can go to www.alltop.com look under
“H” for healthcare, and you can find the best of the best, and start, just looking for blogs
that resonate with you.
It takes a little bit of time, but what I suggest is find three to five blogs that you really
like the style of writing. You appreciate what the author is talking about and ones that
resonates with you, and then start following those bloggers, by subscribing to their RSS
to get their updates, and start participating on the blogs by commenting.
First of all, you’re going to learn so much. Plus you’re going to get tons of ideas- this goes
back to fing fresh content for your blog. It will spark new ideas for you own content as
well.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
11
Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
I have a Idea board right next to my desk where I can always put these ideas quickly on
a stick note and put it on my board for use on Mondays when I am writing my own blogs
posts.
Even if you don’t write a blog about what you got inspired by checking out their blogs,
you can write something for your ezine, or you can Tweet about it, or you can use it for
status updates. I really love my idea board because it always keeps me onboard.
This has been a great way to find fresh and new content consistently, and just going
back to that, you should also be using Google Alerts to find blog content as well.
How can we get people to actually see our blogs, to visit and read our
blog?
The question that I get ask constantly is, "How do I drive traffic to my blog?" "How do I
get people to actually read my blog?"
Well, the short answer is, like anything else, you have to promote it. You need to let
people know it’s out there, but beyond that there are many ways to drive traffic to your
blog, and the first thing that’s going to drive traffic goes back to writing good content.
The more frequently you post are the more traffic you’ll get, because search engines will
be indexing your content. So, that’s the first way. The more frequent you post, the more
traffic you get. That’s been proven over, and over again.
So, now you’re posting. You also want to make sure that you’re using the social
networking sites. The other beauty of Google is that you can set up a profile on Google.
Now, Google being the biggest search engine out there, you want to make sure that they
are linked to your blog. So, you can type into Google “Google Profile” and you’ll find your
way to instructions page on how to set up a Google profile. You have to have a Google
account, but they’re free.
The thing about having a Google profile is that when somebody does a search on your
name, and we all know that everybody checks everybody else out online nowadays,
Weather it being that you meet somebody at a networking event, and you get their card,
you say, "Hmm, what else do I need to know about them?" So You Google their name.
Well, the thing about this is if you have a Google profile set up when somebody Google’s
your name on the bottom of the first page of results is going to be a link to your profile.
On that profile you can put anything you want. So, you can put links to your blogs, your
products, your website, or your other social media platform like your facebook fanpage.
You can also have links to your photo account on Flicker, you can have your bio, etc.
So, this is something that you don’t want to overlook. Set up a Google profile because
that means when they are indexing the content on your profile it’s going to
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
automatically go over and index your blog. So important, and that’s something that a lot
of people don’t know about, I think.
You must flesh your profile out as much as possible. You want to have as much content
on there as possible. I think you can link to videos on You Tube, because, of course, You
Tube is owned by Google. So, you can have pictures, videos, and links to all your social
networking sites, and then all your bio information.
So your action point is to set up a Google profile after this webinar.
There are a lot of business owners who want to know How A Blog Is Actually
Going To Produce Business for them.
And there are couple of ways to look at this. The most obvious way is that people think
that they’re going to be able to make money with their blog by putting adverts on their
blog. I would say for any professional author, speaker, coach, consultant, small business
owner, entrepreneur, do not put ads on your blog. It cheapens your blog, because a blog
needs to be about you, and what you offer to clients and customers, and demonstrate
your expertise.
You don’t want Google ads on your blog so that they click away and you get paid $0.10,
you know? It needs to feature you. So, unless you’re doing some kind of niche blog, like,
digital photography, and you choose ads from digital camera retailers or frame retailers,
then it makes sense, but for your professional authority blog do not put ads on it.
Now, I do recommend if you have affiliate partnerships, you can put that, and also you
need to promote your own products and services on your blog, but in the bigger picture
The main business income revenues comes from the visibility and the exposure
that you’re creating for yourself over time. So, by consistently, and constantly, being
active, and by participating in the whole online world the business will come from
unexpected places.
Visibility equals opportunity, because that opportunity can come in the form of joint
partnerships. It can come in the form of clients, over time. It can come in the form of
media exposure, and that’s why it’s so important to participate, and connect with people
in the whole, you know, online world whether it’s true social networking, whether it’s
through your blog, whether it’s with other professionals who are using blogs in their
business, because what happens is that people get to know, like, and trust you, like we
talked about the outset, and that’s when business starts to happen.
Also theose people who already know about you, and then just this see a different way
of interacting it adds to all the different ways that they can interact with you, and it just
furthers, their relationship with you and then they become a warm prospect and this is
just another thing to tip them over into a hot prospect ready to buy.
It’s just a different way for them to experience you. They’ve experienced you live, and
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
on teleseminars, and social media, and they’ve seen your pictures on FaceBook, and
they’ve seen your videos on You Tube. This is just another way to interact. But
remember you need a red carpet policy to be there to kind of protect you sometimes
from all the emails and things like that, but this is a great way for your prospects to get
to know you better.
And my own facebook marketing mentor Marie Smith calls this ambient awareness.
By participating in all these places, and by automating a lot of this, which can be done, as
we talked about earlier and by having that content consistantly out there, and the
pictures, and the videos, and the activity on Twitter and FaceBook you’re creating this
awareness that people can work with you.
Again, they may not engage with you at every single level, every single day when you’re
creating this stuff, but they’re aware of you. They’re aware that you’re active. They’re
aware that you’re engaged. They’re aware that you’re conversing, so that when they’re
ready, and they happen to be where they see your content, whether it’s on LinkedIn,
FaceBook, or on your blog, or where ever, they can find you, and they can engage with
you, because they have this awareness of you that’s constantly happening.
As you know I’m a spiritual person and I believe in synchronicity, and I believe in signs.
If I see somebody show up in my sphere of awareness several times I’m wondering is
that a sign from the universe, and, " should I pay more attention to that person?" And, "It
must be a sign, let me see what they have - So, let me go check out what they have to
offer," and then it’s just starts like that.
Although I’ve never liked this term, but the drip, drip, drip, it’s a way for them to say,
"Wow, I wonder why. There must be a reason why I have such awareness of this person
now. Perhaps I should be working with them."
I work this way, and many of my clients do too. Actually one of the most, the biggest
compliments I get is, "I have seen you in like four, or five different places.
Three people told me about you and then I saw you here, and I saw you there. I just
know that I’m supposed to be working with you." And your blog adds to that wow factor
as well.as a matter of tfact , It adds to it in probably the most profound way of all the
tools, because it’s indexed, and because it is content that is indexed on the web that you
own and control. As opposed to what’s on Twitter-, FaceBookBear in mind Your FaceBook account can get shut down for no reason. It has happened
to me. My FaceBook account got hacked, and I didn’t have access for two weeks. I don’t
have any control over that. I was begging them to get it back, and I finally did, but if that
was my only outlet, that would not be good.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
Twitter the same thing. They shut down, a few weeks ago, they suspended thousands
and thousands of accounts, by accident. If that was my only outlet, it was a business
killer.
Where as you control your blog. And it’s indexed. And it ranks you in search engines.
There is every reason in the book to do a blog, and to do it well, and to do it consistently
and to give good content, and to participate, and to really make it one of your most
important strategies for marketing, whereby, some people see it as a bright, shining
object. What I’m saying on this webinar is the a blog is a lot more important than most
people think. So much so that I tell my private clients not to bother with their social
media marketing until they have a fully functioning blog & That’s my opinion.
I don’t mean, I don’t intend to discount any of those other sites, because I use them all,
and they’re very important. But the blog is like the centrepiece from my experience, and
it’s the most bang for the buck and you can get a lot of free exposure. I just love that.
The more content on there the more the search engines will index you and let people
know that your blog is out there. Use the social networking sites, do you mean like going
onto Twitter and saying, "I’ve just posted a blog post on “.....”."
I’ll just tell you that the number one source of traffic for most bloggers is organic search
results, which we talked about earlier, and that comes from posting content as
frequently as possible.
The number two source of blog traffic for most people, is Twitter. In a survey
done by Technorati they released a state of, the blogosphere report every year,
and they just released it recently.
It showed that the number one reason that most professionals use Twitter is to promote
their blog.
And the great thing is that on Twitter there are many ways to automate this. You can, if
you have a Word Press blog, as there are plug-ins that will automatically Tweet out a
link to your blog posts when you post new content.
There’s also a site called, Twitter Feed, that allows you to set it up once, and every time
you post new content it will automatically feed your blog posts, or the link to your blog
post.
I’ve done that for my blog, and then what I also do is to phrase the headline differently,
and then re-posted it on Twitter a few hours later, and do a second and third and fourth
batch. Roughly once every 8 hours.
Because as you probably know that at any given time, on Twitter, a few people see your
stream. So, if you posted a few times, then you know, different people will probably be
seeing it.
There’s ways to integrate all of this, you know, with FaceBook also and although this is
not a social media marketing class, but I wanted to share it with you…because that’s
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
what I do. I do have a whole integrated approach for people by blogging, as like the
central piece for me. Also you want to use FaceBook, use the “Notes” application in
FaceBook that will automatically pull in, you know, your blog post feed. Linked In has an
application called “Blog Link” that will pull in your feed to your profile, and this is
important to do because people are going to find you in different places.
Not, everybody who is a LinkedIn contact is also a FaceBook contact, or also follows me
on Twitter. So, I need to make sure that my blog posts are being fed to all these different
places, because that’s what’s going to attract them to come back into my world, and not
LinkedIn’s world. I want to pull them off of those sites, because, one, I don’t own those
sites. Two, I don’t control those sites. Three, those sites can go down at any time, or get
hacked, which has happened to me before. So, you want to pull the readers back into
your world, and get them to stay there, and eventually convert them into prospects in
your database.
And that’s the key to everything that I talk about at LGB System, is to use all of these
tools and strategies to bring people back to your website where they can get access to
your irresistible free offer, and to get them on to your mailing list, so that you can give
them high-content, high-value over time.
So, then everything is just leading back to having them engage with you, and when
they’re ready they raise their hand and say, "Oh, oh, over here. I need your help. Can I
please hire you in some way, or another?" And that when your marketing is going to
work like a well oiled machine.
And for the future reference, if you need more strategies on how to generate traffic to
your blog go to my blog on winners academy website, there is a category on driving
traffic to your site- explore that further by clicking on the driving traffic category.
And also remember that you can pepper in the occasional post to promote something,
and people won’t get upset because they already know that what you’re given them is so
good that maybe that product is going to be even better for them.
They want to know. People want what you’ve got, and you just need to demonstrate that
you know what you’re talking about, and that you’re willing to help them get there.
One of the other things that’s pretty important around this whole social networking
thing, and blogging in particular, is that you need to be listening to what’s going on out
there.
I talked about Google Alerts. You need to have Google Alerts set up on your name, and
your keywords, your business name. That’s also going to help you create content, as I
mentioned, because you’ll get inspired by all the stuff that’s out there.
And as I mentioned this I just h\ad a flash moment That I should create a video tutorial
on how to setup your Google alert and I am sure that would be an interesting
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
educational topic for many of you, so here it goes on my idea board for next Monday.
And creating fresh content is just as simple as that. I just love it.
But there is also ways to listen to what’s going on with Twitter. There’s a site called
Tweet Beep, that’s like Google Alerts for Twitter. There’s also a site called
www.socialoomph.com Again, one of those weird names.
It used to be called Tweet Later, which actually made more sense to me because you can
queue up tweets to post in the future, but now it’s called, Social Oomph, but they also
have the ability for you to have them follow keywords for you, and send you a report
once a day. So, you can find what people are talking about.
This is a great way to engage with people because if you find that somebody is asking
questions about your subject matter, your industry, your niche, you can then say, "Oh,
hey. I wrote a blog post about that, and it may answer this question," and send them a
link to your blog post, that sort of thing. It will also give you good ideas for what to write
on your blog.
Also don’t forget about finding out what people want through the polls and surveys,
which is what I talked about, and these tools are going to really help you stay on top of
what’s being said about you on the web, and how you can respond to it.
You use your blog to really flesh out the conversation there, around what people are
talking about, and what they want to know.
And it’s really about having your ear to the ground, really listening to what’s going on
around you. And its also about you setting up systems.
Even just down to, planning how much time to spend on blogging. I want you to have
either thirty minutes, five times a week, three days for writing content, the other two
days are for responding - or better yet, blocking off half a day on your diary to create
them all in one go for the distribution throughout the week. And use technology and
using systems, which falls right into what I talk about throughout the LGB System.
Now I want to quickly cover
The Best Blogging Tools
There are many platforms to blog from like goggles blogger but in my opinion and as
shown in a survey by Technorati - WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS)
offers the best platform and is the most commonly used one.
And because you are able to combine the personal side of a blog with your business
website and maintain it all yourself.
My recommendation is that You have both static web pages and also blog posts all in
one location as I do in Winners academy and Parsis. Incorporating a blog into your
website could be a valuable move for your business as they indexed by search engines
quicker and attract more traffic to your site.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
These days more and more businesses are taking advantage of blogging as a means of
targeting new customers. Don’t be left behind. If you need help Contact Me – me and my
team have years of experience in developing websites that incorporate blog
functionalities in many various service sector. We can help you to set up a new website
with blog functionality very swiftly or if you have an site we incorporate A Blog into
your existing website in no time so you can begin blogging Pronto!
I strongly recommend that you read the transcript of this call, because there’s so much
wisdom in everything that I’ve given you that you may need to go over it a few times
before you can employ all of them in your business. I know that there are some people
who are going to want to work with me further, because what I have shared with you
here is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you already have a blog and it’s not working for you, because I hear that a lot. "Oh,
blogs don’t work." There’s usually a few reasons why it’s not working, and some of the
things that I hear is, "I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough traffic. I don’t know
what to write about. I don’t have enough subscribers," things like that.
So, to help you I’m happy to offer my Winners Academy members a 2 hour blog and
social marketing review consultation for only £120. Yes that is as little as £60 per hour
which is a whole lot less than what I charge in my consultancy.
During this session, we look at the whole thing, and we do it one-2-one over the phone,
also on a webinar, so you see what I see, and we record everything so that you know
exactly what I’m talking about, and what I’m recommending.
I will cover content, outreach, which is that connection with the other people out there
in your industry, the design, what’s working, what can be improved in the look and feel
so that it’s working better, so that it’s more effective, and how also to move people to
getting actions done. I just touched on that briefly today, but you know things are
evolving at a dizzying pace, and there are best practices.
Yes, anyone can set up a blog. Yes, anyone can write on a blog, but there are ways to
really make them effective, and how’s it working, and how’s it integrated with your
whole social marketing plan, like, with Twitter, and FaceBook, and LinkedIn. So we look
at all of that, and create a plan for you, and it’s all recorded on video, so you know
exactly what changes to implement.
I teach you how to drive more traffic, how to optimize your blog post, the headlines we
didn’t even talk about blog post headlines. How to get more comments, how to build up
your subscriptions, whatever is specific to what the issues are around your blog, and
making it work for your business.
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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Winners Academy Inner Circle – October 2011 Hot Topic
How to Use a Business Blog to Attract More Ideal Clients
It’s not a generic, I don’t have a pre-fabricated blog review. So, its very much bespoke
and tailor-made for your business and that’s what I’m offering to you to get you started
with this Fab. phenomena.
My final words of advice for you folks on the line this evening is that, if you don’t have a
blog yet, then Just start.
Please get it going, because your competitors are blogging and you need to be finable by
your ideal client, and customer. Everybody has a unique voice. There’s plenty of
business to go around, but you want to be findable by your ideal client, and a blog is
going to help you get there.
And I have great news for those of you who are keen to start but can’t afford to hire a
web designer. Maybe you are just keen to learn to do your own we design and blog
development. I am running a three day Bootcamp between 24-26th of February 2012
which not only teaches you hands on how to design your own wordpress website, but
also it will take you through the complete LGB system and all the steps that you need to
taske to be able to attract all the high paying clients you that need. This three day live
workshop is also accompanied with all the hand outs and an online training platform
where you can have access to all the video tutorials and the written material for a
further 12 months. In addition as a member of winners academy you get access to our
dedicated members only private forum for further support and networking
opportunities. The price of the LGB bootcamp 2012 is £999 per person, but if you
register before the end of October you will receive a £100 early bird discount.
I will send you more information on about the boot camp over the next couple of days
giving you an opportunity to take advantage of this excellent opportunity at a reduced
price.
So, for now get going. & If you have any questions about that feel free to contact me
through the forum and I will try my best to point you in the right direction to get a blog
set-up.
If you are blogging, just remember that visibility equals opportunity, so the more visible
you are, the more consistent you are, and the more constant you are, the more
opportunities are going to come your way through your blog.
Thank you everyone for being on the webinar today.
The recording of this call will be emailed tomorrow and the CD’s will be with you at the
end of the month..
This is Shiva Attah, from Winners Academy sending you a big virtual hug. Until next
time live like you mean it.
Bye, everybody.
Blog on!
© 2011 Winners Academy. All Rights Reserved.
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