To get traffic, sell products, influence visitors and turn them into loyal customers and build your business and brand online in today’s internet you need to create a platform.
A platform means a place of your own where you can communicate with your target market, share information and content, establish relationships, virtually network with your marketplace, brand yourself within your target market and is the starting point of lead generation – the entry point into your sales funnel.
By far the best tool you can use to base your platform is a blog…YOUR blog.
BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL BLOG
While you may still be unsure of how to actually get your blog up and running, the fact is there are millions upon millions of blogs out there right now…so the real challenge is once you get your blog up and running, how do you make sure people see it and how do you blog effectively.
It’s true, there are the charred remains of abandoned blogs littering the entire internet, but for you, that is a good thing because you have the opportunity shine through and be one of the top blogs in your industry.
This is what we have done again and again, and helped others do through Information Marketer’s Zone – not just start a blog, not just get a few visitors to your blog, but to build a highly effective blog that generates leads and profits for your online business.
Curious about how we make that happen?
Here are just a few tips to help you get rolling in the right direction…and avoid some very common mistakes we see people make…
1. Host your own blogs, do not rely on hosted blogs such as Google or WordPress.com (WordPress platform from WordPress.org installed on your own domain is fine. Buying your own domain name is all of $10 and hosting your blog is little more than $8-$10/month, install WordPress and you are off and running.
2. Know your market – you want to know exactly who your market is, what desires and frustrations they have and share information, stories and opinions with them on a regular basis. I can’t tell you how many people do not get this step and end up blogging to a “black hole” because they have not done a good enough job of identifying who they want to attract to their blog in the first place.
3. Invite participation through a combination of questions, controversy/opinions, asking for it and contests/recognizing those who take the time to comment on your blog. Look, blogs are most effective when they operate in both directions, you produce content and your market responds…that’s the behavior that build your platform.
4. Share your blog content with social networks to expand your platform and content reach. Simple bookmarking of your blog posts and using RSS effectively will mean multiple times the eyeballs will see your content exponentially increasing your traffic.
5. Have a compelling “off-ramp” from your blog to a free offer that channels your readers into your sales funnel. This is what ties your blog to your ebook or product sales. Identify what their top frustration, desire or need is and then prepare a report, e-course, video or software giveaway that will compel them to take the next step in your sales funnel and become a subscriber on their way to becoming a customer and champion.
Blogs are powerful tools for helping you build your own online platform…get yours working for you today.
