Jun
9
Which would attract your attention?
Just offered - 5 night cruise to Mexico for $249 - inside cabins. Great ports, you’re going to love them. Click for more info.
Or
The night was balmy as we headed on deck to watch as the ship set sail for the second of four ports. After spending the day in Cabo San Lucas, we were all tired from walking, and ready to enjoy a fantastic lobster dinner…
Do you see the difference? A blog is a way for you to share your experiences. It’s a way for you to entice people to want more information. They want to see how the story ends - how your material can directly apply to their lives.
Sure, money speaks. But then it just boils down to price.
If you talk about your adventures
, and tell them places you’ve gone, what to expect, what you can do, what the menu looks like - then you’ve created the desire to experience it for yourself.
9 Beaches is a blog I’ve found recently, and love the way they write, both on their blog and in their ezine. They share experiences, share viewpoints of visitors, and give you ideas of what to expect. I haven’t been there yet, but it is on my short list of vacation spots to visit.
Sacred Destinations
is another wonderful blog that shows you through words and photographs the authors travels around Europe. I can scroll through individual locations in each country, and learn a wealth of information about each one.
With both of these blogs, they go beyond selling you on a service, and share with you the idea of being there - of actually experiencing the locations for yourself. Both monetize their blogs in some manner - 9 Beaches by enticing you to visit, and Sacred Destinations with links to products/services.
To Do: Take a look at your own blog posts - would you want to read them? Do they share quality information with the readers? Can they learn something from you? If not, maybe it’s time to change the way you post.
Jun
6
How much info is too much?
Filed Under What To Blog About | Leave a Comment
You run a small business. Part of your business is providing your clients with knowledge. So how do you decide what to put onto your blog, and what is too much information to share with the rest of the world? After all you don’t want your competition taking your information and using it too, or your clients learning so much they have no need to come to you.
Your blog is a tool t
o provide just enough information for a prospect to see what is possible, share enough information that they become overwhelmed, and set you up as the expert that can provide the perfect answers.
Don’t be afraid to give some valuable tips for free. If you give things of value for free, imagine what you’ll give with your pay material!
At the same time, don’t release your valuable material that has taken you years to learn. Save that for the prospects that become clients.
Also remember there are different levels of "free". Anyone can come to my blog and read my material. Only a certain amount of people will give me their email address for a free report. And only a certain amount of people will sign up for a free 30 minute consultation.
Each of these three people have different ideas in mind. They are willing to go to another level because of their interest, and their desire to acquire a person in your area of expertise.
Jun
4
Blog About What You Want Them To Do
Filed Under Blog Marketing | Leave a Comment
This morning was catch up morning for me. After meeting with a client, I sat down to review some of the RSS feeds I receive, and find out what my favorite writers had to say. I have about 2 dozen feeds that I follow on a regular basis, so it takes me 30-40 minutes to go through everything.
One thing caught my eye that I want to share from a business perspective.
As a business owner, you may be blogging about concepts, ideas and resources. But don’t forget to do the occasional plug when you have something new. While you don’t want to plug your stuff all the time, if you’re truly providing quality information, an occasional action item is acceptable.
One of the blogs I follow is by David Meerman Scott. In one of his recent posts he talked about his brand new book, Tuned In, that will be released in about a month. But as a blogger, he has 100 advance copies to send out now.
What a great way of gaining PR! (A trick I’m going to store in my memory for the release of my next book.) He blogs on his new book, gives you tidbits of information, builds up the desire to read it, and then offers to send you one for free.
If you have your own book coming out soon, I suggest you store this in your memory as well as a great PR move. Or if you have other products/services, how can you turn this into an idea that will work for you?
Jun
3
Blogging Photos and Images
Filed Under Lori Recommends | Leave a Comment
Just found a very fu
n site that allows you to take your photos, or use some of their own content, and create something magical from them.
So I can select from their license plate templates, choose my state’s license plates, and put whatever I want into the text. Hmmm… that would be an interesting addition to my car.
Or I can select from one of their many images, type in my content
, and easily have a dynamic photo to go along with my article or post. Ahhh… Just the chair I need for my home office.
Head over to ImageChef and start creating your own fun photos and graphics. It’s a great place to get customized graphics for your online needs.
Jun
2
Blogging For Google Rankings
Filed Under Blog Marketing | Leave a Comment
If you know anything about SEO, you’ve probably wondered, “How can I rank number one on the search engines?”
Blogs are wonderful at receiving ranking because they are search engine friendly, and allow you to connect directly with users for what they are searching for. But in order to start attracting attention from your prospects and customers, you have to keep in mind two things:
First, you need to focus on what searches you actually come up under.
A photographer shouldn’t concentrate on getting top ranking for photography. Instead she should concentrate on getting high rankings for searches of benefit to her, such as “wedding photography aspen Colorado” or “baby portraits Vancouver”.
A mortgage broker shouldn’t concentrate on getting top ranking for mortgages. Instead he should concentrate on getting high rankings for searches of benefit to him, such as “California home loan” or “Florida mortgage lender”.
Find your long tail keywords, and concentrate on getting ranked for them.
Second, concentrate on the position you rank within the top 10 results on that particular list. Yes, you have to be on the first page of the results in order to get any traction at all. But it also matters where you are placed on that first page. 
To show you how different the results are, and why it matters where you are placed, take a look at a heat map from Cornell University, showing where people make the most eye contact when viewing search results. [source: Online Marketing Research ]
Getting placed as the first result is obviously better than ranking lower. But what if you have two positions? Three? All ten?
The more niched down you go with your keywords, the better chance you’ll have at monopolizing more than one position under search results.
And a blog gives you the power to do this effectively.
Are you blogging today?
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