Why are you blogging? Is it because you just need to vent or do you have a purpose?

If you have a purpose, what is it?

Blogging Purposes

1. You would like to share your passion and or knowledge.

2. You would like to create connections for your business.

3. You would like to make a difference for people.

These reasons may not seem to be similar but in actuality, they are.  The basis for successful blogging is the sincere desire to help. You want to help because you care. When you care unselfishly, people appreciate your efforts. Those who appreciate your efforts, talk about you and what you are doing. When a buzz is created, more people are drawn to your blog.

The result is more readers and more readers trigger success. Yes. That includes financial success.

Photo: MDGovpics

There are diverse kinds of blogs that draw distinct types of readers. The important aspect about the successful blogs is that they draw readers who in turn, purchase their wares.

Rules for Writing a Successful Blog Post

• Create a pertinent and image related title.
• Be succinct a.k.a. concise.
• Be passionate and opinionated but always respectful and appreciative.
• Set up your post so that it can be read or scanned easily.
• If you can use bullet points in a post, use bullet points.
• Use key words appropriately. (What does that mean? To be continued.)
• Stay true to your own style.

Be sincere with your blogging. Your blog can make or break the financial future of your blog!

Photo: IvanWalsh.com

Spark Your Readers’

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Appeal

Your coaching blog should be clean and appealing. It’s possible to create a great looking site for under $100.00.

Navigation

Your site must load quickly and be easily navigated.

Content

Content should be helpful and geared toward your readers  Put their questions and concerns to the forefront. Be a resource. Offer valuable content so that they want to come back. Google notices how long readers stay on a site.

Focus

Think about what you talk about most of the time. Gear your content toward  that subject. Make sure that your content is shared because of its value. Write about the subject that you want to have ranked well with the search engines.

Links

Do not get so caught up with internal links that you put your readers off. Instead, link to the content that is most valuable.

Appreciate

You must remember that people arrive on your site for various reasons. A friend may have mentioned it. They may have seen a tweet. You may have been quoted. So appreciate the visitors and then nimbly guide them toward more of your best content.  Don’t ever forget that there is power in humility.

Photo: LadyDragonfly CC – TY for 300,000

Recently, I witnessed a business that was interested in expanding their Twitter and social media efforts. The immediate questions were along the lines of, “How do we get lots of followers? How do we get listed? How many tweets do we do a day? How do we word our advertising on Twitter? How do we do automatic tweets?”

I began to explain what was important and what wasn’t. I explained the subtleties and the “Do Not Dos.”

An abbreviated version is below

• Engage with people and show interest.
• Get to know them and what their story is as much as possible.
• Find people to follow who are interested in the same things as you are.
• Answer tweets to you. If they took the time, show them that you appreciate their efforts by answering.
• Don’t use automatic tweets except in certain circumstances.
• Give of yourself and help people.
• Don’t be phony.
• Don’t re-tweet without reading.
• Don’t react to irritating or angry tweets.
• Learn to use Twylah.
• Use hash tags appropriately.
• It’s better to tweet less than tweet wrong.
• Pay attention to the experts and not the self proclaimed Gurus.

Social media is all about the people and the businesses behind the tweets and the loyalties that are formed. Contrary to what the media would like people to believe, it’s not just about the number of followers. It’s about the relationships that are formed which in turn boost personal and business success by creating ambassadors for you and or your business.

Photo: joshsemans

Understanding the rights and wrongs on your site will be the first step toward better business. Recognizing ways that you can help your internet presence and as a result,  increase the number of customers who seek your products or services will make you a winner.

Hub Spot Inbound Marketing Grader does it all and then spoon feeds you the information.You can measure your own rankings against two of your competitors. Think about it. You can readily see what they are doing right and wrong and what you need to do to surpass them. Pretty amazing stuff.

If you would like more information via YouTube, click here.

Photo: rmburnes

If you expect to be credible with your business and blog, do not…repeat…do not say or write anything unless you are 100% sure that the information is true and accurate. Just because you read something somewhere and are in need of content, don’t use it or you will lose it!

The next piece of advice for your blog is, don’t rush. Blogs take time to become successful and “whipping out” blog posts that are not filled with quality content will head you down the path to failure.

Give yourself time to learn who you are and then present that person to your readers. Be yourself and allow the world to see the true you so that your words will have credence for them.

If you follow the leaders, you are a leader’s follower. What people would pay to obtain the help of a leader’s follower, when they can go directly to the leader?

Take time and learn how to be you.

Photo: ViteVu

My first question is, “Why are you using Twitter?”

The answer is usually along the lines of wanting to gain numbers so they will get more clients.

My second question is, “Are you gaining clients from Twitter?”

Many times the answer is along the lines of, “No, not really.”

Then I ask about how they use Twitter.

Suggestions for using Twitter Appropriately:

• Engage with your friends. Just like in life, it’s important to connect with Twitter friends who are honest and supportive.
• Locate people who are connected in someway to your interests or business.
• Try to weed out friends/acquaintances who might be connected to “bad neighborhoods.”
• Before you re-tweet anything, know the person who tweeted it and then check out the link.
• If someone @’s you with only a link and no comments, BE CAREFUL!  Do not click on the link.
• Before you re-tweet anything, make sure you know the person who Tweeted it.
• Assuming that the Tweeter is fine, check out the link before you re-tweet it.

There are three important reasons why you must be prudent in checking out links before you re-tweet anything.

• If the link is from a bad neighborhood, people will connect you to the same bad neighborhood and question your ethics.
• If the link has nothing to do with your interests, people will think you are fake.
• If the link is about anything you don’t understand or connect with, people will think you are just trying to “suck up” to the big wigs on Twitter.

Don’t think about the keyboard and screen. Think about the person who is behind it when you use Twitter.

Photo: petesimon

Good luck

If you didn’t answer with a resounding, “Very secure!”  It is time to make some changes so that the next time you are asked, your answer will be an emphatic, “My coaching business is unbelievably secure!”

Probably one of the most unidentified reasons for a business’s lack of success is wasted time and or energy. Just because you are putting in the hours doesn’t mean that your efforts will benefit your ability to become successful and ultimately financially secure.

Think about doing this one little thing. Write down the time and the time frame of everything you do for one day. Include everything…from the moment you get up until you go to bed.

You will be surprised at what you find out about non productive time. Once you see what you are doing wrong, change it into what you are doing right!

Photo: bradleygee

Jim Connolly doesn’t play the game. He doesn’t say what people want to hear. He speaks his mind and commands respect because he knows about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to internet marketing.

That being said, I’d like to share a few words of wisdom from one of his recent posts regarding what he calls RHINOs.

“People will often engage in zero value activities, because it generates a visible increase in website traffic or social network numbers from rhinos.  They then get so addicted to these numbers that the thought of decoupling from all the BS that attracts rhinos, is scary.  It would mean confronting the reality of the numbers behind their online marketing.

Whilst that would help explain why they get so few inquiries from their thousands of followers / fans and website traffic, it would mean acknowledging the limitations of their true reach.

The bottom line: If you are interested in generating bankable results, you need to learn how to focus on building the numbers that matter.  No, this is not easy.  But it is required.”

Photo: kennymatic

Don’t forget that your answer to this question will be based on a few factors. At the root of how you act and react are your personal life experiences.

Think about a few scenarios.

• You are financially insecure and can’t pay your bills.
• You are a success in business and extremely secure.
• You are a leader and a team player.
• You are a follower (I’m not referring to Twitter here.)
• You are not happy with your work.
• You love your work.
• You feel old.
• You feel like your life is just beginning.
• You harp on your past and the mistakes you made.
• You think about your future because you learned from your mistakes and you are confident that you are getting it right.
• You are happily married or unhappily married with children.
• You are happily married or unhappily married without children.
• You are happily single or unhappily single. (with or without children)
• Your self esteem is good or you have poor self esteem.
• You are confident or you are afraid.

Hopefully,you have answered the question and you are thinking about the scenarios I mentioned. Did any of the questions give you some insight as to what is motivating you and how strong that motivation is? I’d like to share some of the answers that were given when I gave this quiz a while back.

Are any of these similar to yours?

• I am going to get fired.
• I’m going toward my goals.
• I’m  just going no where.
• I’m not sure how to answer the question.
• I am going in a successful direction because I give to others.
• I can’t answer because I don’t have a GPS to direct me.
• I’m going toward getting promoted.
• I’m going toward divorce court.
• I don’t know which way I’m going.
• I’m going toward more and more success and more and more happiness than I already have.

The answer you gave will tell a lot about your success or failure in business and in life.  Your answer will dictate your actions because the basis for your answers will be the basis for how you work and how you deal with life’s ups and downs.

Photo: Ian Wilson