Now take that one item, and make that the focus of your business for the next few months.

Today I was reading through my ezines and RSS feeds, just trying to stay current and come up with a few new ideas for writing.

A lot of information right now is focused on starting up your own business, and creating an income stream out of something you love. Since many people are losing their jobs, with little chance of recovering a position equal to the one they lost, it’s definitely a hot topic.

One article in particular spoke of taking your passion, and become the expert in your field very quickly. As I read through the post, I realized that the advice held true no matter if you’re thinking about starting a business, or have been in business for years.

I fall into the latter category. I’ve owned three businesses over the past 18 years. And over that timeframe I’ve sold a ton of different products and services.

As of today, I have dozens of sites, all selling different things. When I look back at the first three months of this year, I am amazed at where my income has come from … entirely different sources than in previous years. What that tells me is people are changing the way they do business. They’re changing what they want and need to know.

And I have to offer things in an entirely new way.

What about you? If you’ve been in business for a while, what do people want right now?

Focus in on one or two questions that keep popping up when you’re talking to prospects and clients. And build a new strategy around those questions.

You’ll come up with a great new product/service.

And a whole new list of clients.

And they aren’t the last to close their doors. Traditional newspapers are closing down week after week, from Philadelphia, to San Francisco, and beyond to many different countries around the world. 

I’ll admit I don’t read traditional newspapers. I get all of my news from online sources, and Twitter has become a big resource for me. The last time I took the time to look through a newspaper, I was amazed at the amount of news versus the amount of ad space.

In 10 pages, I counted two stories, and the rest was full sized ads from several large companies here in the Denver area.

Two questions came to mind:

• Is there really so little news to fill up a paper?
• How long are companies (any companies, it doesn’t matter the size) going to be willing to pay for this kind of advertising?

Last night when a friend talked about putting a classified ad in the newspaper, the response was an immediate “no”. Use Craigslist instead.

And when another friend talked about a yellow pages ad this morning, again it was an immediate “no”. Why not try a blog?

Instead of spending hundreds or even thousands on a dying form of advertising, invest in something that has a huge potential. Something that’s growing and reaching out to a ton of potential prospects.

Traditional marketing and advertising methods are what they are because they’ve always been a preferred method. But things aren’t changing slowly now – they’re moving incredibly fast. Even if one form of marketing worked wonders just six months ago, it may be completely useless today.

Technology is changing incredibly fast. To put things in perspective, for students starting a four year technical degree, half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. 

So as a business owner, if you’re using the same form of marketing you did a year ago, how do you know its still the best method?

As long as you can still tie sales to it, I wouldn’t recommend abandoning that method. But now more than ever its time to try new things.

Many of the things I talk about here in this blog are free or very low cost. Mainly it’s an investment of time at this point. And it’s also an investment of learning on your part. It does take time to learn a new system, a new form of marketing, or a new way of doing business. You can’t rush it. And you don’t want to spam the system by trying too hard at the beginning.

But if you get started now, and build over time, imagine where you’ll be in just a few short months.

• We’ve only been on Twitter about one year. We have a couple thousand followers combined, and sales directly attributed to relationships on Twitter.
• We’ve blogged for several years. Blogging now contributes to a majority of contacts for prospects and for sales. 

We’ve seen the future, and we’re heavily investing in the knowledge it takes to succeed.

We’re changing our business model to make sure we use all the tools readily available.

We’re following others to learn all we can.

How about you?

image source Carlo Nicora

Why?

They started in a rising economy, and have always had growing sales and a growing client base without a ton of work. The marketing they’ve done in the past has always worked – why change it now?

That’s the exact reason why you should be changing it now. Businesses are changing every day. What worked in the past doesn’t work today. And what worked even just six months ago will no longer give you the desired results you are looking for.

So if you’re relying on a website built in 2005, with a handful of pages, you’re missing one of the easiest and most economical ways of getting results to your business.

And that of course is blogging.

“Blogging is simply for people with a lot to say and a lot of time on their hands. It can never bring in business,” you might be thinking.

And yet blogging can and is bringing in business for a ton of different businesses right now. (I ghost blog for companies in several different industries, and I’ve seen the results in just a matter of weeks.)

Why does blogging work so well?

Because it is high quality content being added to your site several times per week. And if you’re using the right keywords and key phrases, you can gather attention online very quickly – especially if your industry isn’t heavy into blogging yet.

Imagine a website built in January 2005 with ten pages of content.

Now imagine that website competing with a website/blog combo also created in January 2005 where the business owner has written three blog posts every week since 2005. That’s 152 posts or new pages of content added every year, or over 625 posts or new pages of content added since January 2005.

Who do you think Google looks to as an authority? Who do you think ranks higher under its keywords and key phrases used most?

10 versus 625.

For a small business it should be obvious where a little bit of time can add up to a ton of new clients. And how you can change the 75 percent down to 75 percent up in no time.

image source shuttermon

I headed out to the website, and searched for over 10 minutes through their help section. No answer. 

I searched for another five minutes to find a phone number. I picked up the phone and dialed the 1-800 number.

After listening to a long message, choosing English as my choice language, and inputting my account number, I was given six choices. Guess what? None of the choices matched what I needed.

Frustrated, I chose a number to try and connect with a customer service agent. Wrong choice. I only had an opportunity to leave a message and hang up.

Over 30 minutes later, my simple question had turned into a complex problem.

It was no longer about getting an answer. Now the real question was, “Do I really want to continue doing business with this company?”

Ever have one of those experiences? It can be quite frustrating.

Now let me ask you a question. Do your customers experience that feeling when trying to do business with you?

People want to do business with people. They want to do business with people who understand their needs and desires. They want to do business with people they can develop a relationship.

A great business anticipates a customers’ needs, and has answers ready before they even need to ask.

So how does that work online? With content that carefully reaches out to people in a manner that is friendly and helpful, not cold and business-like. The days of the company brochure site with a summary of information are over. Instead, people want to see themselves in the copy, and reach out to a company only after they have a great understanding of what they can truly do for them.

By adding content regularly on a blog, you can be writing directly to one type of client. You can talk about their problems. You can talk about ways of finding solutions. You can get into the details that speak directly to the person reading.

Content shouldn’t be about sales. It shouldn’t be about promotion. Instead, it should be about describing a problem, then leading the way to the solutions. If you have what it takes, your prospect will be able to connect the dots, and discover you as their perfect solution provider.

Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

First question was, “What is a blog?”

Second question was, “Why would you do that?”

I get that from a lot of people. Why would you keep writing up posts giving away solid information when you aren’t getting an immediate return? Is it really worth your time?

Your blog is an extension of your marketing program.

If you’ve been in business for a while now, chances are you do certain marketing items just to keep your name out there. Maybe you continually advertise in a community magazine. Maybe you send out newsletters. Whatever you do, you do it for the exposure. You do it to remain in the thoughts of those who know you.

The same applies to your blog. It’s a way to communicate directly with the people that know you, and want to learn more from you.

• You can build up your expertise by giving niche related tips and strategies.
• It’s a way to give current industry information out to your followers.
• It’s a way to share information with the general public, and make connections with the media.
• It’s a way to build up relationships with like minded people from all over the world.
• It’s a way to build up your prospect list – all for free! (Okay, you do have to spend the time writing. But you can hire a ghost writer.)

When you market your business, you choose ways to connect with prospects and clients. Blogging is simply an easy, affordable way to market your business.

And the best part is whatever you do today, will continue to work for you years into the future. Who can say that about postcards?

Even though I’ve been blogging for years, I’ve never used them to generate revenue. Instead, I always saw them as a way to build traffic for my sites, ultimately selling my services.

But something clicked this year, and I’ve seen what blogging can do. So this year, I’ve decided write down my goals for my three blogs, (HowToBlog, Virtual and Vision) and use them to evaluate my performance throughout 2009.

Want to join me? Write up your own blogging goals, and post your comments here. Or if you want to make it even more official, write a blog post about your goals, and put your ideas in writing.

My 2009 Blogging Goals

• to reach 10,000 RSS subscribers on each of my blogs
• to reach 2,000 Twitter followers
• to make a full time, six figure income through revenue generated by my blogs
• to publish 1 new program on each blog, helping my readers develop their businesses
• to teach one class each month on the power of blogging

What are your goals?

1. You want a place to write for fun and for personal issues.

2. You want to become a professional blogger and have your blog earn you a full time income

3. You want your blog to drive traffic to your site and help you sell your own products and services.

Obviously number one will earn you no revenue (unless you later see the benefit and turn into a professional blogger).

Numbers two and three are your revenue generators. And both will have different tactics in which they make money for the business.

A professional blogger writes for his audience, and brings in revenue based on his audience. A professional blogger will typically make money from:

• Affiliate products and services
• Sponsorship (ad space)

A business blogger writes to attract prospects to his business, and hopes to gain income from finding new clients. A business blogger will typically make money from:

• The businesses products and services
• Affiliate products and services

In both cases it takes time to get your blog noticed. The most important thing to do is to keep writing. Don’t pay attention to stats or traffic levels to begin. You have to write. Once the content is out there, then you can concentrate on promotions.

As you’re growing the business, be willing to do whatever it takes to make your project grow.

Many full time bloggers will tell you they started out with humble beginnings. They took on part time jobs to pay the rent.

But as a business blogger, you have many ways of bringing in income. If your business is already successful, and you’re using a blog to bring in even more clients, you can continue to build as a side business, eventually earning a full time income from your blog alone.

While the primary function of your blog isn’t to promote your business, you should make it easy to get to your products and services.

Links to your products and services in your navigation.

Ads to your own products and services in the spotlight. 

Then as your visitors read what you write and become interested in who you are, they’ll have no trouble finding how to connect with you. 

When you create a blog post, its to connect up with your readers, and with potential clients that find the post through a variety of means.

When you blog, you should be blogging on a regular basis, meaning you should have a ton of content over time. If you’re writing one post per week, that’s five per week, 20 per month, 260 per year. That’s a lot of content.

Now imagine if each of them were properly titled according to SEO. Eventually they would all become just a little boring. Putting your key phrase in occasionally is great, but overusing it becomes just a bit mundane.

As more people read you, and as your content is fed more and more through online resources, you’re ultimate goal is to attract readership, not the attention of the search engines. You want people to say: "hmm, I wonder what that means" and click to your post.

It’s about attracting attention. It’s about giving people a desire to want to read your post, and learn more about what you do.

If you’re interesting and if you write with authority, people will search you out to learn more about you. 

1. Write quality content that keeps your readers interest.

2. Post frequently – the more content, the more you have the ability to connect.

3. Use your key words as appropriate.

4. Title your posts for attraction first, optimization second.

5. Repeat.

Your content is going to build your expertise. The rest will come naturally.

Maybe you don’t like writing, and the thought of having to come up with 500 word posts on a regular basis is, well, somewhat unfathomable.

It’s much easier doing something when you understand the real purpose behind it.

So if you use postcards, and mail 2500 out every month, you understand the process and why it works.

But if you don’t understand the overall process behind blogging, why do it? Why waste your time when you and your office staff are the only one’s reading?

Blogging helps your business in these 5 ways:

1. It puts quality information out in the online world that people will find and connect to. A few weeks ago I wrote an article Recession Proof Your Small Business. It touched quite a few nerves, and it soon was linked up with several other popular blogs. Now my content is being read not just by people on my blog, but also on many others. And ultimately it brings the traffic back to me.

2. It proves your expertise. Let’s say someone finds my article from #1 on another site, and follows the link over to my blog. They read my complete article on Recession Proof Your Small Business, and then they start looking around. The more they read, the more they begin to trust what I have to say. I’m now a blogging expert in their eyes. (But only if I have enough information for them to browse through and prove it in their eyes.)

3. It feeds your social networking sites. Head over to Facebook (or one of the many other social sites). You can attach your blog feed to your Facebook profile – which means each blog post is being put in front of all of your friends and connections. And this happens automatically.

4. It allows you to easily capture long tail keywords. Let’s say you have a phrase that people use quite a bit in your industry, and you would love to rank in the top 10. With a blog – it’s easy. A month ago I created a blog post  "Micro Blogging By Email". I’m currently number 3 out of 1,710,000 results in Google.

5. It gives you a place to do business. Have a new product? Blog about it. Have resources to share with your clients? Blog about it. Blogging gives you a way to stay in touch with your customers  – for virtually no cost.

All you really need is a blogging strategy. Start with a custom designed blog. Then create your blogging strategy. The rest will soon fall into place.

I’m willing to bet the answer is yes. Or if not yet, very soon.

I’m continuing to follow the State of the Blogoshpere 2008 by Technorati, and found a few more interesting facts.

Over 51% of all respondents to their survey admitted they have more than one blog. Once you start, its easy to become a huge fan of the results! I fall into this category. I blogged for a number of months through my personal, free blog on Blogger. Once I began seeing results, I quickly moved it to my own blogging account, and opened up several niched blogs. (And I guarantee you I’m not finished starting niched blogs.)

I also found some interesting facts on women bloggers.

Female bloggers really take the time to learn how to maximize their profitability when it comes to blogging. They may be slower at creating a blog, and blog on more personal issues, but they know how to use it to its maximum potential once they start.

• Female bloggers are twice as likely to sell through an ad network as men.
• They are more likely than male bloggers to participate in a blogroll
• They are more likely than male bloggers to produce content for other blogs.
• 36% have converted business leads from their blogs – vs 27% of men.

If women are this sophisticated in using a blog, imagine how well they utilize blogs to learn more about products and services, and how willing they are to do business with companies that have blog presences.

So if you are selling to women, are you blogging? This trend will only continue, so get blogging today.