If you are a blogger, you know what I’m talking about. Each day you sit down to write on a new subject that’s pertinent to today and to your market. But if you’ve ever searched back through your categories, chances are you’ll find something similar from several months before.

How can you use old information to help you gain clients today? 

Let’s look at three strategies.

1. Instead of sitting down with an entirely new idea, choose a category instead. Then click over to that category on your blog and start reading some of your posts from the past few months.

Are there any posts that would make an interesting topic today?

Are there several posts that you can combine together to make a new point?

Start writing your new post, linking back to the old posts as reference. It will give your old posts traction (people click through to read your point) and will help you dive deeper into a topic you have a lot of knowledge in.

2. Tweet your posts on Twitter. Sure you can set up your posts to automatically head to Twitter via RSS feed as you create them. But your old content is still valuable. Use a service like TweetLater.com to release your posts periodically. Choose posts that had great content, high comment ratio, or to provide support to other things you are Tweeting about.

3. Combine your blog posts into a whitepaper, ebook, or free report. When you start out blogging, you usually cover a broad range of topics. But over time, each category begins to become more complex. And in some cases, they can be merged together to tell a bigger story. This is a great way to gain a product quickly without a huge workload to get it into place.

You can even plan this over time. Create a category with an ebook in mind for a 6 month delivery time. Add one new post a week that fits into the outline. Your ebook will be written in your 6 month time frame.

In many cases it’s the images that accompanies the story.

Blogging tends to be all about writing up an article, and posting it to speak to different target audiences in your niche. But even if people do come to your blog for your content, adding graphics and photographs can actually make things more readable. And more memorable.

1. Add an image that complements the article.
This is probably the most common way of mixing images and text. After a post is written, the writer heads out to a stock photo site and  finds an image that fits the view of the story. There are a variety of ways to find photographs. For a small fee, you can use sites like IstockPhoto.com and ShutterStock.com. Or try one of the many free sites for stock photography – here’s a good list.

2. Add an image that has its own voice.
In  some cases you actually build your post around the image itself. On one of my other blogs, I have a series in which I find marketing examples from different photographers’ blogs. I start with a screen shot of their blog page, and write the post around why they have a great marketing idea. The concept is called One Great Idea, and its very detailed and provides my readers with one takeaway idea they can apply to their own businesses.  So the photograph becomes the purpose, or the overall center of the blog post.

3. Use an image as a training tool.
Some posts become step by step guide to getting something done. In that case, one, two, or even more photographs or screen shots may be used to teach people how to do something. Do this, then that. A great example is in my post Using A Blog To Get To The Top Of The Search Engines. Through a series of screen shots, I share with my readers how I  created a series of posts to capture a high ranking on Google, and then follow it up by showing screen shots of Google with the rankings in place. The graphics support the article, and help the reader to make more sense of the information.

But what motivates them to want to become faithful readers?

Content
People usually find you because of your content. They may even stay around awhile if you have enough to look at. But the only thing that will bring them back is quality. If they know they can look to you as a resource – as an expert – they will come back.

What makes you different?
I have a ton of blogs in my RSS feed reader. Some I click on and read more faithfully then others. Ultimately it comes down to what they offer. If I know I can read through their material and gain “aha” moments, I’ll be back regularly.

What do you have of value?
Five to ten years ago, many websites made an offer to sign up for a free ezine, or newsletter. That worked well then – not any more. I’m on a ton of ezine lists now, and not a lot of time to go through them day after day. What matters now is relevant information. If you offer something that people can use and process immediately, they’ll be back.

Personality
People still love doing business with people. They like to build up a relationship and give their business to people they feel comfortable with. While that doesn’t mean someone you can have a one-to-one with anymore, it is important that you get a flare of their personality. Showcase your personal photographs. Talk about your vacation. Share your weekend adventures. Everything in moderation. But it is important for people to see the personal side of you.

If you’re like most people, I’m sure you can come up with a list of things that are currently holding you back. But ultimately all of it can be lumped into one of two things:

1. I don’t have enough time

2. I don’t have the money

How can you overcome them to be more successful online?

1. We all have a ton of things to do each day. And if you own your own business, that list can seem to grow to a mile long some times. How do you squeeze it all in?

Priorities. What is the most important thing you can do today that will impact your business in the future?

Try this activity. Write down everything you need to accomplish today that will help you build your business. Then prioritize them as a 1, 2 or 3.

The 1’s should be things you absolutely have to get done. They should be things that directly relate to client work, or marketing to gain more clients. “Meet with three clients today” and “write copy for blog post” would be examples of 1’s. They directly relate to your bottom line, and should always be your first priority.

The 2’s are items that need to be done, but could probably be outsourced to an employee or virtual assistant. “Mail out training materials” and “send out ezine” are examples of items that are important to your bottom line, but you can most likely have other people working for you, freeing up your time to do more 1’s.

And the 3’s are things that have no impact to your bottom line, and are true time wasters. “Surfing the web” while can sometimes give you a ton of new ideas, is not productive if you’re spending an hour each day at it.

2. Money often goes hand in hand with time. You may not have the time to get it all done, but you’re also on a limited budget, so you have to devote more time to make sure you get it all done. Yet there is only 24 hours in a day.

It’s really a vicious circle. If you keep doing the jobs that don’t make the best use of your time, you’ll never have time to create more income generating new items. It’s important to keep yourself focused on the 1 and 2 priorities at all times.

One of the best tips I ever received is to write down every goal you wish to accomplish this week. Keep it realistic. “Writing a novel” is not realistic. “Writing the first chapter of a novel” is, especially if you’re working full time or are running a business.

From a blogging perspective, “creating three new posts” is a realistic weekly goal.  You can create them all on one day and use the scheduler to post them throughout the week, or hire a ghost blogger to create the data for you.

Keep in mind that doing a little something every day will add up to a big deal over time.

image source svilen001

1. Write quality posts all the time. Yep, I know, I’m a broken record. But regular content is really the key to building up your following. If they get there and you haven’t written in two months, or you only have 10 posts to go through, there’s no reason to stick around.

2. Now that you have blog posts, you need to spread them around the blogosphere. Connect your RSS feed to your accounts in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

3. Stay active in your social sites, and your sure to find other bloggers that target similar audiences. When they create a new blog post, head over and make a comment. Not a, “great post” comment. Put some thought into it, and really add to the conversation. The comment will make people want to find out more about you, which they can do by following your link.

4. Find out who else is in your niche. They aren’t competitors – they are collaborators. See if you can write an article for their blog, and they can write for yours.

5. Give away some of your information as an ebook. If you write long enough, you’ll be able to combine some of your posts into an ebook. Use it as a free giveaway for other associations and groups.

6. Write a press release. Online press release services such as PRWeb.com can give you immediate exposure in hundreds – even thousands of different online sources.

7. Write a Squidoo. Squidoo allows you to create a lens all about your niche, and allows you to promote it in a variety of ways. Make sure you put links back to your blog. 

8. Write a Hubpage. Like Squidoo, Hubpages is a writing area that allows you to provide quality content in an easy manner. Both offer you a great way to connect up to your blog, and open up your potential to a ton more readers. 

9. Stand out from the crowd. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, your blog will fade away. What can you do to put a new twist on things? You’ll gain more exposure if you capture attention by being different.

10. Talk about your blog posts on forums, q & a areas, and social sites. While you never want to blatantly promote yourself on social sites (that’s a sure way of getting kicked off) it is okay to link back to one if it fits the topic. So if I’m on a forum where someone has a question on how to choose a title for blog posts, I could provide a paragraph or two of information, and then link them back to my post, How To Name Your Blog Posts.

image source ilco

Everyone tells you blogging isn’t about blatant promotion.

"You should be offering great advice to your readers. "

"Offer them something of substance."

But the whole reason you’re online is to do business. Can’t you promote yourself too?

Yes!

Adding a bunch of content is great. The purpose is to provide enough content to prove your expertise, and to develop relationships that enjoy the information you supply.

Online people have a choice. If they don’t like what you do, they have the opportunity to leave. I have many lists of email addresses that I promote to all the time. And occasionally I promote a product, service, or even a special promotion. And yes, I have people leave my lists every time, saying they don’t want to be sold to. 

But think about that for a minute. If you’re offering a ton of quality information on a regular basis, occasionally you have the right to ask for the sale. You have to stay in business, and make a profit in order to continue offering the content your supply. If a person is gaining a ton of ideas from your free information, and are bothered by your occasional promotion, do you really want them on your list – or worse, want them as a customer? Chances are they would be less than an ideal customer.

Most people know that in order to stay in business, you have to create sales once in awhile.

The key is learning what your target audience will accept. I’ve heard everything from a 3:1 to 10:1 ratio of quality content to promotion. Give it a try, and see what your market will take.

image source b_d_solis

This past Saturday a new ad was put up on the Motrin site. It was an ad about moms using slings to carry their babies [read the full description here]. Unfortunately they made the assumption that moms use slings to be fashionable, even though it made them tired and crazy.

Moms spoke back. Big time.

Within minutes, bloggers began posting about the video, and how they found it offensive. On Twitter, “motrin” zoomed to the top of the most tweeted subject. That’s the power of online media. [you can follow the #motrin trend on hashtag]

As of Monday morning, the video is gone from the Motrin site, though it will probably live on YouTube forever.

The ad company responsible for the ad didn’t know much about Twitter, though I’m sure everyone in the company is having a crash course on Twitter this morning.

Social media works both ways. No matter if they love or hate you, it can circulate very quickly. The key is to release to a select group and watch the reactions. Obviously larger budget items can do this better than small businesses. But the power of being online is being able to survey your audience.

1.    Who do you trust? Release your message to a select few to find out how they feel about your new campaign.

2.    Tweak. Listen to your audience, and tweak accordingly. You ultimately are in charge of deciding whether those you surveyed brought of relevant ideas. Make any changes, and move forward.

3.    Release your campaign and wait. What are people saying about it? Ask for comments, and watch your statistics. You can learn a lot by following your statistics.

4.    Communicate with your audience. If people are talking about you – good or bad – engage them in discussion. See if there are ways of improving the situation immediately.

5.    Make changes. Only you can decide how much time and effort to put into negative comments. Can you deflate them with a post explaining the situation? Can you do it with a few emails? Assess the situation, and agree to make it right with those impacted.

6.    Keep engaging. Even if you occasionally mess up [and who doesn’t?] don’t take it to heart. Try something new. Reach out to the community you wronged, and try it again.

image source alifarid

You can spend hours creating the perfect post. You can write, edit, and edit some more. No matter what you have to say in your post, if your title doesn’t capture attention, no one will ever read it.

A blog title is important because:

• It’s the first thing people see – they make a split decision to keep reading or not.
• Your title becomes your long tail – will it help find you traffic in Google and other search engines?
• Your title feeds into your title tags, and can also help you gain traffic in the search engines.
• It sets up your story. It’s what people see if you are using RSS to announce your information in other places.

Even though it has a lot of influence within the search engines, the search engines shouldn’tbe your top concern.

Your readers are your top concern.

If you’ve ever been to a blog where all post titles are geared solely for search engine rankings, you know how fast you can back out of a site. There’s nothing like seeing 100 posts, all with the title "My Key Word – 1", "My Key Word – 2", "My Key Word – 3", etc.

Understand your readers. What do they want to learn, read about, and understand better?

Define your topics. If your blogging about photography, they want to see titles that give them more information about what they love. "The Fate Of Wedding Photography" was hugely successful on my photography blog because it captures the attention of my readers.

Be clear – but have fun too. What made "The Fate Of Wedding Photography" so much fun was it played on emotions. A lot of businesses are in trouble in this economy. Readers can clearly see what the post is about – wedding photography – and yet its asking a question that’s on a lot of studio owners’ minds. Of course they want to read to find out what my take is on the whole industry.

Be original. Your blog is your voice. It has your personality. People come to it because they like what you have to say. So keep saying it. The more you say it, the more they’ll read. 

photo source mrceviz

Your blog is new and you enjoy writing.

Then you have another great idea. You start planning an event and a new product.

You take on a new client that requires a lot of time.

And you forget about blogging.

I hear that same scenario again and again.

What about marketing? Do you forget to mail out your postcards when a client keeps you busy? Or do you forget to put your ad together because you’re planning an event? Of course not.

But somehow blogging is different because it takes time. When really all it comes down to is time management.

Remember, the best thing about your blog is the calendar feature – you can release a new blog post whenever you like – just change the time and date.

Two strategies that work well.

1. One day a week write several blog posts and post date them. If Monday mornings are quiet, schedule an hour or two and write.

2. Set up your days with writing ideas. Maybe Monday is "How To" day. Tuesday is "Find A Resource" day. Wednesday is "Practical Tip" day. Thursday is "Case Study" day. And Friday is "Inspiration" day.

The important thing is to create your system ahead of time, and know what it takes to get the job done. 

photo source mandj98

I spent the last few days attending a blogging and social networking convention – the IZEAFest – in Orlando, and brought home a strategy of where I’ll be taking my blogs in the future. It was eye opening to me to discover I’m doing so much right [or at least doing what some of the most successful bloggers in the industry are doing] and also to pick up a few refining details that are going to make the next four months of 2008 even more successful.

So, if you have a blog, what are the basic strategies you should have in place to make it all a success?

1. Never settle for what you currently have. There are always ways to make what you have even better, work to achieve greater success, and find different more efficient ways of doing what you are doing.

2. Don’t be afraid. Unfortunately, much of what is out there today can seem a bit overwhelming. It’s easier to not do anything, and take no action than to try something new and risk failing. Failing is what brought many of today’s most successful bloggers their greatest successes.

3. Focus on your readers, not on Google. If you’ve ever worried about what makes Google happy, quit worrying. Instead find what makes your readers happy. Give them the content they want, and the information they are searching for. If you can get readers to follow you regularly, Google will follow.

4. Create a strategy. Why are you starting this blog? What is its ultimate purpose? What is your exit strategy? The more you have in place up front, the easier it will be to create over time.

5. Become hyperconnected. Be everywhere. Instead of having one or two sites, and maybe one or two social sites you’re active on, be everywhere. Your clients have different likes, different interests, and different searching patters. If you have a presence where they are looking, you’ll gain clients. Its as simple as that. 

Above all, be true to your readers. Your readers don’t care if you make money, don’t care about your business, or care about off-topic issues. They look to you for one reason – what you started your blog on in the first place. Give them what they want, and you’ll find success.