Tag Archives: Blogging

Blogging: Finding Your Voice

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Finding Your VoiceFinding Your Voice with Blogging

I was someone who talked about becoming a writer for most of my life, yet I did very little actual writing. It wasn’t until I embraced the idea of blogging that I found my voice and became a writer. This has changed my life in so many ways. Let’s discuss this concept of finding your voice in more detail.

The Art of Finding Your Voice

Having a voice doesn’t just mean the act of talking or writing. It means having a point of view, being distinctive, and maybe even a little opinionated or controversial. Agreeing with everyone and everything is the exact opposite of finding your voice. There is a lot of noise on the Internet, and one of the biggest challenges that people face is sifting through all of that noise in order to find the content that’s interesting, challenging, and sometimes controversial.

In fact, one of the things that makes blogging such a great opportunity for you – the fact that there are virtually no barriers to entry and that it’s easy to start a blog – means that there are a lot of not-so-great blogs out there.

By having a strong and consistent point of view, you’re already going to be more compelling than most other blogs. You may already have an idea of how you want to go about building your blog audience, or you may need to take a little time to self-analyze your business and your unique selling proposition. The voice of your blog should be a good fit for the product or service you’re selling. For example, if you are an affiliate marketer for natural health care products, then a writing voice that’s positive and nurturing is almost certain to be more appropriate than a voice that’s “in your face” or that uses risqué humor.

Of course, in order to have a strong voice, you also need to know who you’re speaking to.

Knowing Your Audience

Be sure to consider this factor from a couple of different perspectives. First, take a look at your current prospects and clients. On average, how old are they? Where do they live? How much do they spend with you, and how frequently do they purchase? Are there any demographic clues that you can derive from your customer data that might help you come up with a picture of your typical client?

In addition, you should also give some thought to the people you want to be talking to. Who is your ideal audience? Maybe you’re looking to just grow your following with more individuals similar to your current followers. Or maybe you’re looking to branch out into new markets and reach a new class of individual.

Being Relatable

Be personal. Now, personal doesn’t necessarily mean unprofessional or overly-familiar. In fact, it probably shouldn’t mean those things. “Personal” means that when you’re writing to your audience, you should speak to them as you would if you were having a face-to-face conversation. Your audience is made up of individual people, not a demographic group or statistic.

Appeal to them as individuals, not a market group. This means that your blog posts should make some type of emotional inroads with them, with the exact nature of the emotional appeal to depend on what you’re writing about. It might mean writing your posts from a first-person perspective, but not necessarily so.

Even if your business is a large one, and you’re setting out to create a blog that speaks to your customer base, there are always ways to make it personal. Show that you understand the issues they’re facing and the problems they’re looking to solve. Use your blog posts to demonstrate to your audience that you’re the best solution to those issues and problems. You might be best for any number of reasons: your solution might be the cheapest, or the easiest to follow, or the most convenient. Use your key selling proposition to relate to your audience.

Stephen R. Covey (his latest book – Primary Greatness – The 12 Levers of Success is a great one) teaches that you must ask yourself four questions as you are finding your voice. These embody your heart, your mind, your body, and your soul. They are:

  • What are you good at?
  • What do you love doing?
  • What need can you serve?
  • And finally, what is life asking of you?

Ask yourself these questions and take the time to answer them truthfully. Write every day. Blog at least twice each week. Share your most honest thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. This will enable you to get closer to finding your voice and making a real difference in your niche.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future.

 

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Blogging for Your Business – It’s Worth It!

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Blogging for Your BusinessBlogging for Your Business

The purpose of this writing is to encourage you to blog for your business on a regular basis. This has been the most difficult challenge for my students, even though they continue to see my success because of my blogs. It is my hope to somehow inspire and motivate you to get started, continue, or get back to blogging for your business today.

I started my first blog while still working as a classroom teacher. I had fifth grade that year and we decided to blog about the science projects we were reading about. The budget had once again been cut, and science took the biggest hit at my school. So instead of having any hands on experiments or a science fair, I thought at least we could start a blog and write about what we were learning.

The students embraced the technology without question and we launched our science blog the day we decided to move forward. We had three working computers in our classroom so three people could always be working on something for the new site simultaneously. This was 2003, so it was primitive in terms of today’s capabilities, but I was willing to do anything to keep my students actively engaged in the learning process. Little did I know that blogging would become the foundation and backbone of my business just a few years later.

These days I maintain two main blogs. One is found under my name – Connie Ragen Green – and the other is at Huge Profits Tiny List. I won’t go into the details and story behind my second blog, but suffice it to say I have very good reasons for posting to both of them.

Blogging for my business allowed me to find my voice. I wasn’t a writer when I came online, but thanks to the many blog posts I wrote during that first year I became one. These days I write five hundred to a thousand word a day, every day, and when I am writing a book or a short report that is likely to double or even triple. But I won’t ever forget what it was like during the early days of staring at my computer screen and not knowing what to write about.

That’s when I began learning about keywords and SEO )search engine optimization). I found out that when people searched for specific topics the results were all tied to the words used. In the beginning I helped people to write, publish, and market eBooks. Finding our which words your target audience was searching for helped you to write eBooks that could be found and purchased by the people who wanted and needed the information.

My blogs provide me with a platform to tell the world what I think. Getting your message out to the world is crucial, and you don’t want to leave it to the temporary world of social media posts to do that. Blog posts are permanent and allow you to be in control of your content. You are a publisher at the click of a button and can reach a million people around the world.

I also discuss and share details and information about my products and courses on my blogs. I consider these posts to be “advertorials” in which you combine your information with the sales details in the style of an editorial or objective journalistic article. Instead of paying for advertisements to your products, the only cost here is your time. And what you write in your post is there forever, as opposed to only as long as you are paying to display it.

SEO, a platform for your message, and the advertorial approach to selling your products are just a few of the benefits of blogging for your business. The writing will get easier over time. Your site will get more popular with the search engines over time. You’ll learn how to become a skilled copywriter over time. Be willing to put in the time and your work as an online entrepreneur will soar.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future.

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Blogging Tips: Beginners Can Jump Start Their Progress

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Blogging Tips: BeginnersBlogging Tips…Beginners Can Jump Start Their Businesses

Give Stuff Away

Freebies, lead magnets, tripwires, ethical bribes, opt-ins, and so forth can be lucrative ways to collect email addresses from your audience so that you can market to them via email. When you give away small things to help them accomplish their goals, you’ll endear yourself to them in a new way. Here are some valuable blogging tips – beginners can jump start their progress by following and implementing these tips.

To give away stuff without giving away the farm, follow these tips:

  • Use PLR – To create your freebies consider using private label rights information that will appeal to your audience and help further your relationship.
  • One Problem – Help them solve one small problem, not the entire kit and caboodle. You want them to come back for more, so in your freebie give them enough to show them your work quality and skills but don’t give them the farm.
  • One Customer – Don’t try to please everyone, make each of your offerings focus on one persona / customer at a time. Create a profile for the ideal customer and direct your product only to the people that fit the profile. This works better than trying to appeal to everyone.
  • Make it Short – A checklist, a spreadsheet, a simple app – these things won’t take much time and money for you to create but will make a huge impact on your audience member if you are careful to ensure it fits your audience.

Remember that you can also choose to “give it away” for just a buck. Optionally, if you use a system like Gumroad.com, you can let them pay whatever they want, as long as it’s at least a dollar. When a freebie isn’t actually “free” but is very inexpensive it can make more to the user and make them value you more. When they value you more, they’ll be more likely to come back. Remember inside your opt-in provide a link back to your blog, and to other products, services and offerings you have.

Get Visual

People get bored without pretty and interesting things to look at. In the case of your blog, you also want the images to be relevant. You want them to expand on your point and help your audience not only understand but to remember the information you provide. Images can brand you in such a way as to ensure that your audience really remembers you.

  • Images – You can get stock photos from a variety of sources including StockFresh.com, StockUnlimited.com, and others. Be sure to read the licensing agreement and try to learn about copyright laws and fair use.
  • Video – Today, video is one of the best ways to create a loyal audience as well as engage with them. They love seeing your face and feeling as if they know you. You can create video the easy way or the hard way. Easy – use your phone and decent lighting. Hard – buy professional equipment. Either way, video will get great results.
  • Graphics – Infographics, memes and charts are a great way to explain hard concepts to any audience. There are awesome programs. A great infographic software to try is Piktochart.com. You can also hire a graphic designer to help you. If you have the data, they can create the graphic.

You can use programs like Canva.com to create amazing graphics, and use your phone to make video. Today, it’s not impossible for an amateur to create wonderful images, video and graphics but if your skills aren’t up to par, don’t think it’s too expensive to get help from a professional.

Build Authority

Another way to get more loyal blog followers is to become the go-to person in your niche. You can be viewed as the authority by being a guest on a podcast, TV show, blog, and so forth. You can also build authority by demonstrating your skills by creating amazing products and services that your audience wants to use.

  • Write Long Form Posts – Long posts, more than 1500 words in length, are a great way to show what you know. Well-organized, long content pieces show that you know your stuff. When you know your stuff, people will gravitate to your content.
  • Publish a Book – When you can put your knowledge down in book form people automatically view you as smarter, more successful, and intelligent. Don’t let a book scare you, if you can write a blog post, you can write a book, one page at a time.
  • Speak – You can speak in public events, or by creating a YouTube channel, or even by recording talks and publishing on your blog. When people are able to speak clearly, tell a story and explain concepts in this manner it automatically makes them seem more authoritative.

Another way to build authority is simply by finding your authentic voice and using it on your blog and across all social media networks that you and your audience use. When you are simply yourself, it’s a lot easier than being false because no one can be false forever.

Engage With Others

As a blogger, there is almost nothing more important than truly engaging and interacting with your audience. You want your audience to comment, like, share and sign up to your lists or buy your products and services and you can accomplish that is by being engaging and encouraging. To encourage engagement it’s important that you know how to get them to respond.

It all starts with truly knowing your audience. Understand that even if you did a lot of audience research five years ago when you began your blog that even when demographics stay the same often audiences grow and change. For example, imagine what it would be like if Dawn dishwashing soap still marketed to you using the same techniques and issues from the 1950’s? The message probably wouldn’t even reach you and if it did, it would not go over well. Stay up to date and interact with them in a way that makes them happy. After all, it’s really about them, not you.

The Money’s In the List

The final thing you need to know about blogging and keeping a loyal fan base is that you should focus on bringing them back to your blog, every chance you get. There are many ways to do this.

  • Blog Broadcast – If you have an autoresponder, for every post you create, also create an email to talk about a similar topic and then link back to the blog post so that they can learn more.
  • Social Media – Announce blog posts on social media with a unique blurb. You can post about the new post more than once on each platform, more on Twitter, but don’t make each post a duplicate of the other. Instead, add a unique blurb to each one, even if it’s the same link.

You want to find ways to bring readers and customers back to your blog to read your new blog posts, as well as learn about your products, services, and programs. When you have a way to interact with your audience on a regular basis through blog comments, social media, email, books, public speaking and more will help people become even more loyal to you as a blogger and an expert.

You don’t have to do everything at once, but you can start by adding sing up boxes to your blog posts, and sharing more on social media. As you build up your blog, do more. Track everything so that you know what works and what doesn’t work. Do more of what is working and less of what is not working.

 

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Blogging Tips for Beginners

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Blogging Tips for BeginnersBlogging Tips for Beginners

Blogging is an effective way to expand your business, attract more clients, and maintain relationships with your current clients. But, how do you make your blog visitors into loyal followers? Here are some blogging tips for beginners, but first, think about these four steps as you begin…

  1. Identify both your current audience and your desired target audience.
  2. Create original content that caters to the interests of your readers.
  3. Use SEO (search engine optimized) keywords to attract new readers to your work.
  4. Establish yourself as an authority on your topic(s).

It really boils down to posting relevant content and finding ways to remind them about you via email, social media and even ads. Let’s look at the ways you can get more loyal blog followers and keep them coming back for more.

Post More Content

You’ve most likely heard that before. But, it’s not that simple. You can’t post anything and end up with fans following you and begging for more. You have to know who your audience is, and what they need to know and post that. Content needs to be relevant and of a high quality to be effective.

  • Relevant – The only way you can ensure that your content is relevant is if you do the work necessary to get to know your audience so that you can deliver the type of content they want and need.
  • High Quality – While you do not have to be perfect, don’t just slap up anything. If you buy PLR (private label rights), ensure that you rewrite it and make it your own. If you outsource any writing, edit the writing and put your voice into it, and always add a watermarked image so that when it’s shared it comes back to you.
  • Consistent – Finally, post consistently. You don’t have to blog every single day. You want to blog multiple times a week and provide meaningful content to your audience. Otherwise, they might get bored and stop visiting.

When you post relevant, high-quality content on a consistent basis in a variety of forms such as images, video, text and so forth your audience will be more likely to stay interested in what you have to say which will make them keep coming back, sharing and engaging with you. Plus, potentially buying something you created or promote.

Promote Your Content

Just posting content is not enough. There are more than 100 million blogs in existence. That’s worse than a needle in a haystack. In order for anyone, including your customers, to find you, you’re going to have to promote each piece of content that you post.

  • Social – Whatever social media your audience uses, you need to be using. While you can’t use them all 100 percent alone, you can at least choose the top three that is most popular with your audience. If you can outsource some of your social media marketing then you can do more, but at least start with the top three. Share and engage about your blog posts to bring more traffic and create more interest in your content.
  • Make it Simple to Share – Don’t make it hard on your readers to share. Get a social plugin that enables you to add share buttons at the top and bottom of your posts. Make it a point to ask your audience to “click the like and share buttons.” Make it part of your call to action.
  • Get Them on Your List – In addition, put a box at the bottom of every single page to encourage your readers to sign up for your newsletter. Leadpages.net offers a really great and attractive option for “lead boxes” that you can put on your blog to help people get what they need.

You can do this easily with a few plugins, but – do not forget to engage with your audience when they comment on your shares. You don’t want communication to be only one way. You want to build relationships so that they don’t just want to read your blog due to the great information; they want to read it because they care about you.

Provide a CTA (Call to ACTION!)

A call to action (CTA) is so important if you really want to make a difference. There are different ways to create a call to action. Your CTA can include asking your audience to share, like, follow, join, sign up, buy or whatever it is that you want them to do. If you really want them to take action, clearly state what you want them to do.

  • Ask for a Comment – A great way to get your audience to act and come back for more is to generate more comments to your posts. You can get people to comment more if you ask them to.
  • Be the Devil’s Advocate – If you really want to get comments rocking, try being controversial. This can be risky so be mindful of the potential repercussions. Try calling out a situation that makes you mad, sad, and upset. But, try to end it on a positive note if possible.
  • But a Subscribe Button after the Post – A great way to get people to subscribe for blog updates is to put a Lead Box on the bottom. You can use Leadpages.net for this. It works well and it was developed by marketers.
  • Offer a Free Discovery Call – A great way to get your reader’s attention is to offer a short 15-minute discovery call. Put a sign up box below the post along with words that attract their attention and get them to want to give their email address to sign up for the call.
  • Ask Them if They Want to Learn More – A really effective CTA asks your readers if they want to learn more, then using an attractive “learn more” button will entice the reader to click. On the learn more page it can either be more information or you can make it an easy one step opt-in box so that you can send them more information via email.
  • Give Them a Special – If you’ve talked about specific products or pain points in the blog post and you know about a product or have created a product that will help them, make them a special offer at the bottom of the blog post.
  • Offer a Freebie – Match your freebies with the topic of your blog post, and offer a download button for the freebie that relates to the blog post. Collect their email address so that you can add them to your list. If you use software like Leadpages.net, you can avoid sending to duplicate email addresses on your list, while still offering the freebie to your readers.
  • Ask Them to Join Your Mailing List – Get right to the point and ask them if they want to learn more, get reminds of new posts, and so forth and ask them to sign up for your mailing list. Let them know the benefits of doing so, and you’ll get more sign ups if the sign up box is after your posts.

There are many more ways to get your audience to act on your content but you’ll need to tell them what to do. People are relatively lazy, so make it easy for them. You’ll get a better response.

 

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Podcast: Blogging for Your Business

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Doing What It Takes Blogging for Your Business for Online Entrepreneurs

This most recent podcast is a discussion of the importance and relevance of blogging for your business as an online entrepreneur. Here are some of the points I explain in great detail:

The question is…are you blogging for your business on a regular basis?

  1. Your blog is your “home on the Internet”.
  2. A hosted WordPress site is your best option.
  3. Post twice a week during your first year and once a week thereafter.
  4. Use keyword phrases in your permalinks.
  5. Always ask yourself if what you are doing is moving you closer to or further away from your dreams and goals and then adjust your behavior, thoughts, and actions accordingly.

Think about each of these points, listen to the podcast, and then comment below. I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas and concepts in regards to how blogging for your business will enable you to be a more successful entrepreneur.

I also discuss how blogging for your business will help you to find your voice, how you can “blog your book”, and the four types of content for your blog – original writing, guest posts, curated content, and PLR (private label rights) content.

Are you ready to be surprised? Recently, I have introduced a new feature during these podcast training calls. I will always have the latest course or program, either one of my own or one offered by someone I highly recommend, at my Surprise! link. Check it out today and see what I am recommending this week. If it’s not my own program, product, course, or live event then it’s always from someone I know, trust, and highly recommend as a great value to you as an online entrepreneur.

My most recent book is now available. It’s entitled Doing What It Takes: The Online Entrepreneur’s Playbook and I’d love to hear your Doing What It Takesthoughts on it by way of a review on Amazon.

Are you already a part my list community and receiving my daily email updates and training? If not, please give me your first name and primary email address in the form on the right-hand side of this site. If you are brand new to my podcasts, you will be interested to know that this specific training call, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact methods, techniques, Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. People on six continents have now discovered that starting an Internet business is the very fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in all areas of your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

You will see that each podcast session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list (opt in on the right) to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come! Also, check out my Podcast Show Notes site to see how you can subscribe at no cost to both of my podcasts, and please leave me a review on one or both of them if you are so inclined.

If you would like to get started earning income online right away then I recommend affiliate marketing as the stream of income that will allow you to “earn while you learn” You may now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. This training regularly sells for $27. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for 2016 with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

Please be sure to leave your comments below so that I may get to know you better and to serve you as you continue your journey as an online entrepreneur. Getting started with an online business will change your life forever and my reward is your massive success!

Subscribe To My Online Marketing Tips Podcast Today!

 

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Podcast: Dan Morris & Rachel Martin of Blogging Concentrated

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Blogging ConcentratedBlogging Concentrated’s Rachel Martin and Dan Morris

On this podcast interview I had the opportunity to speak with the Blogging Concentrated founders Rachel Martin and Dan Morris. I’ve known Dan for more than five years, and finally met Rachel a couple of years ago when we were all speaking at an event in Toronto. They impressed me immediately with their knowledge of content creation as a means to connect with your target market, while also creating massive credibility and visibility for yourself and your business.

They share how they got started, individually and as a team, what their events consist of, and their vision for the future of Blogging Concentrated. They host live events all over the world, and they are tailored to the needs of the people they are teaching and consulting with at each venue. This is what Dan Morris has to say about the conferences he and Rachel are hosting:

My goal is to help bloggers perfect the little things that make a big difference. If the platform and infrastructure are right, we can really make headway. Every little thing we do should build upon itself, and if it doesn’t we should scrutinize why we’re doing it.

You are no different than a Fortune 500 CEO and you belong at a conference with people who feel the same way. We pay bills, raise families, and buy homes with our revenue. Let’s help each other get smarter about it.”

And Rachel adds:

I am passionate about the impact that bloggers can make in life, the ripple effect, whether it is a deal blog to a lifestyle blog to a diy blog – each of these platforms has a ripple that not only affects the blogger but also their readers’ lives.”

During this interview we are all at different locations. Dan was in his home city of Nashville, Tennessee, Rachel was on the lake in northern Minnesota, and I was near the beach in Santa Barbara, California. This is to show you that you may run a successful online business from anywhere in the world, as long as you have Internet access.

Dan, Rachel, and I also discuss the possibility of their coming to Santa Barbara to work with some non-profit groups on their blogging, social media, and other parts of their marketing strategies and techniques.

I know you will enjoy learning more about Dan and Rachel and what they are doing over at their site, Blogging Concentrated.

Subscribe To All Interviews In My Podcast Series

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