BLOGGING Done Right!
Posted 26th August 2013 at 08:30 AM by Devin X
Before we begin, I need to tell you that there is so much straight BS when it comes to the amount of misinformation on marketing strategies. One of the most misunderstood topics among these marketing strategies is that of Article Marketing, also known as Blogging. Everyone knows that the only way to “make it” online is to produce content, but very few people know how to leverage the content that they create.
In this section, you’re going to learn how to effectively utilize one of the most tried and true methods for generating an incredible amount of perpetual web traffic. You’re also going to learn how to produce amazing articles and then how to leverage them for maximum results. If you do this right, then you’re going to have floods of traffic coming into your website consistently.
There are many internet marketers who do this so well, that they only use blogging for their projects and nothing more - that’s how powerful this strategy is. So let’s dive right in and get you up and running!
[B]What You Should Write About
[/B]
There are many ways you can figure this out, but the bottom line is that your content should be focused around what your people want. So how do you figure out what your people want? I hope you remember the answer to that question because I already went over it earlier.
By now, you should have a good amount of research and found key words/phrases that were low competition and had and exact match type between 1000-10,000 local monthly searches.
These key phrases will make excellent article titles. They will also tell what your blog post should be about. For example: if you go to the Google Keyword Tool and search key phrase, “how to be confident” it has thousands of local monthly searches! If you chose to write a blog post on that subject, that phrase would be your blog post's title, and your post will be all about how to be confident. Apart from that, there are a few other ways you can figure this out.
1. Look for the most popular threads on your niche’s forums. Doing this is a great way to find out what people want to know, and is even a good spot to get information for your article. Just don’t plagiarize the information.
2. Look at popular magazines in your market and see what is trending. Like I told you before, if there is content in the magazine about a topic in your niche, then that is the kind of information that your people want to see.
3. Look to your own expertise, and reverse engineer it. If you know your shit, then start with the basics, think about your own learning curve when you started, and go from there. You will be surprised with the amount of information you can glean from your own experience and expertise. It will also make it easier for you to put a personal touch within your content.
[B]How To Write Blog Posts
[/B]
I’m not going to lie to you: one of the reasons why a lot of marketers fail to utilize blogging is because they suck at writing. You have to be able to write articles that are appealing, attractive, informative, and coherent. You don’t have to be an English major to write incredibly well, but you do have to be able to satisfy the above criteria.
Some people I talk to make claims that they’re just not talented writers, and therefore, won’t bother with writing. Well, the truth is that writing is a skill - not a talent. This means that the more you write, the better you become, and that most likely means that you’re going to have to write a lot in order to become good at it.
Most people write half-baked articles, publish them on their site, post a little “tweet”, and pray that the search engines will attract readers. You won’t be making this mistake. The plan of attack for your marketing strategy will be to create articles that cater to a specific group of people about a specific topic or issue.
You will then want that content to be shared by other publishers in your market who already have access to the people you want to attract - this is commonly known as syndication. So let’s talk about what kind of articles you will want to produce, and how you can get those articles syndicated all over the net.
Your articles aren’t going to be just about your opinion. Not many people will care what you think anyway, so don’t bother wasting your time with that...especially when you’re just starting out. People want to know what’s in it for them. Facts are more powerful than opinions and they are the foundation that makes your content stand out and be recognized. Find and write about facts that your readers probably don’t already know about.
Your very best articles will inform your audience about important trends, educate them about certain facts, entertain them with some humor or controversy, and provoke them to take action. Notice that I said these would be your best articles, since it will be very hard to do all the above with every single post that you write.
Just focus on doing the best that you can on every article that you produce and you should be fine. It is also important to remember to cite the factual information whether you found it online or offline. This will boost your credibility and make yourself a trusted authority on the subject matter.
For matters of simplicity, I’m going to assume that you already have a niche market selected, a website set up, and that you’re ready to start producing written content for it. If you need a little help in figuring out what to write about, then here are a few examples about how you can find out what to write about.
[B]7 Points To Remember About Blogging
[/B]
I know how much people love reading lists. They’re easier to read and easier to remember, so for your convenience, here are the top 10 things to remember about blogging:
*Articles are not for products, they are for specific audiences about specific topics and issues. No one will read an article that’s trying to push a product anyway, so don’t waste your time trying.
*Take your time with your writing. This is a game where quality trumps quantity, so spend more time on each one and make sure they are of the highest quality.
*Be as provocative or controversial as you can. Despite what a lot of people might say, controversy sells and “****” catches your attention. You don’t have to use profanity in your articles, and oftentimes you can’t, but you should try to find a new perspective and present it in a way that adds shock value. An example of this would be to write an article about gun violence that links poor parenting to psychotic behavior, rather than the popular “lack of regulation/ legislation” argument. You know what I’m saying?
*On that note, be entertaining and use humor when appropriate. Amusing your audience is just as powerful as being controversial, and that’s what will get you noticed.
*Remember that blogging, like all content marketing, is a relationship building exercise. It will be of great value to you to cultivate the right relationship with your audience, and that often means setting the right expectations among your subscribers before you ask them to opt into your list or buy your product.
*Do not use a cheesy resource box or byline. Doing so will make you look like an idiot and may end up sabotaging your hard work. You want a strong call to action, but you want to be almost discrete about it. You don’t want the readers to think that you’re just trying to sell them something.
*So at the end of your article, just let them know that they can find out more about what you do, by visiting your site. Pique their interest and make them curious about you.
[B]Leverage Your Articles
[/B]
I really do suggest that you write articles yourself, but a lot of people complain to me that it’s too much work or that they’re too busy. Well, lucky for you, you can outsource anything if you’re willing to pay for it.
Go on over to iWriter or TextBroker and hire the best writers for the job. Some articles might cost you upwards of $20, but you can’t cut corners when it comes to quality. Also remember to tell them exactly what you want them to do for you. Do not just tell them something like, “I need an article on weight loss.”
Tell them something much more specific like, “ I’d like a 1,000 word article that talks about the three physical conditions necessary for weight loss, and how a potential reader can leverage those conditions to maximize their fat burning goals.” The latter gives your virtual assistant much more to work with, and as a result, you’ll both be pleased.
[B]Leverage Your Network
[/B]
You’ll want to build a network of active syndicators, meaning that these people will share your content with their own audience. This is known as "guest posting", and this will definitely increase your traffic and your reputation as an authority.
There is a catch though: you will need to provide exclusive content to these people. Sometimes, you might land a regular spot on a really popular website, but the catch is that you will need to produce only exclusive content for that outlet...and a lot of marketers are too lazy to bother with that. This gives you a unique advantage over your competitions, but only if you’re willing to work hard. Anyway, I need to talk to you about building your network.
How do you go about building a network? Well, forums are good places. Interacting with others on a forum is a great way to connect with potential partners, syndicators, customers, and much more. Apart from that, you can approach people directly through their own websites, leave comments, and eventually shoot them an email.
Now I need to talk to you about Email Marketing, as well as explain to you how this ties into everything you’re working on. In short: you don’t want to generate all this content, network with everyone you can, and get lots of visitors to your site if you’re not going to build an audience that you can profit from. That would be nonsensical, so this is where email marketing comes into play. In the next article, I will be discussing Email Marketing and Sales Funnel creation strategies.
In this section, you’re going to learn how to effectively utilize one of the most tried and true methods for generating an incredible amount of perpetual web traffic. You’re also going to learn how to produce amazing articles and then how to leverage them for maximum results. If you do this right, then you’re going to have floods of traffic coming into your website consistently.
There are many internet marketers who do this so well, that they only use blogging for their projects and nothing more - that’s how powerful this strategy is. So let’s dive right in and get you up and running!
[B]What You Should Write About
[/B]
There are many ways you can figure this out, but the bottom line is that your content should be focused around what your people want. So how do you figure out what your people want? I hope you remember the answer to that question because I already went over it earlier.
By now, you should have a good amount of research and found key words/phrases that were low competition and had and exact match type between 1000-10,000 local monthly searches.
These key phrases will make excellent article titles. They will also tell what your blog post should be about. For example: if you go to the Google Keyword Tool and search key phrase, “how to be confident” it has thousands of local monthly searches! If you chose to write a blog post on that subject, that phrase would be your blog post's title, and your post will be all about how to be confident. Apart from that, there are a few other ways you can figure this out.
1. Look for the most popular threads on your niche’s forums. Doing this is a great way to find out what people want to know, and is even a good spot to get information for your article. Just don’t plagiarize the information.
2. Look at popular magazines in your market and see what is trending. Like I told you before, if there is content in the magazine about a topic in your niche, then that is the kind of information that your people want to see.
3. Look to your own expertise, and reverse engineer it. If you know your shit, then start with the basics, think about your own learning curve when you started, and go from there. You will be surprised with the amount of information you can glean from your own experience and expertise. It will also make it easier for you to put a personal touch within your content.
[B]How To Write Blog Posts
[/B]
I’m not going to lie to you: one of the reasons why a lot of marketers fail to utilize blogging is because they suck at writing. You have to be able to write articles that are appealing, attractive, informative, and coherent. You don’t have to be an English major to write incredibly well, but you do have to be able to satisfy the above criteria.
Some people I talk to make claims that they’re just not talented writers, and therefore, won’t bother with writing. Well, the truth is that writing is a skill - not a talent. This means that the more you write, the better you become, and that most likely means that you’re going to have to write a lot in order to become good at it.
Most people write half-baked articles, publish them on their site, post a little “tweet”, and pray that the search engines will attract readers. You won’t be making this mistake. The plan of attack for your marketing strategy will be to create articles that cater to a specific group of people about a specific topic or issue.
You will then want that content to be shared by other publishers in your market who already have access to the people you want to attract - this is commonly known as syndication. So let’s talk about what kind of articles you will want to produce, and how you can get those articles syndicated all over the net.
Your articles aren’t going to be just about your opinion. Not many people will care what you think anyway, so don’t bother wasting your time with that...especially when you’re just starting out. People want to know what’s in it for them. Facts are more powerful than opinions and they are the foundation that makes your content stand out and be recognized. Find and write about facts that your readers probably don’t already know about.
Your very best articles will inform your audience about important trends, educate them about certain facts, entertain them with some humor or controversy, and provoke them to take action. Notice that I said these would be your best articles, since it will be very hard to do all the above with every single post that you write.
Just focus on doing the best that you can on every article that you produce and you should be fine. It is also important to remember to cite the factual information whether you found it online or offline. This will boost your credibility and make yourself a trusted authority on the subject matter.
For matters of simplicity, I’m going to assume that you already have a niche market selected, a website set up, and that you’re ready to start producing written content for it. If you need a little help in figuring out what to write about, then here are a few examples about how you can find out what to write about.
[B]7 Points To Remember About Blogging
[/B]
I know how much people love reading lists. They’re easier to read and easier to remember, so for your convenience, here are the top 10 things to remember about blogging:
*Articles are not for products, they are for specific audiences about specific topics and issues. No one will read an article that’s trying to push a product anyway, so don’t waste your time trying.
*Take your time with your writing. This is a game where quality trumps quantity, so spend more time on each one and make sure they are of the highest quality.
*Be as provocative or controversial as you can. Despite what a lot of people might say, controversy sells and “****” catches your attention. You don’t have to use profanity in your articles, and oftentimes you can’t, but you should try to find a new perspective and present it in a way that adds shock value. An example of this would be to write an article about gun violence that links poor parenting to psychotic behavior, rather than the popular “lack of regulation/ legislation” argument. You know what I’m saying?
*On that note, be entertaining and use humor when appropriate. Amusing your audience is just as powerful as being controversial, and that’s what will get you noticed.
*Remember that blogging, like all content marketing, is a relationship building exercise. It will be of great value to you to cultivate the right relationship with your audience, and that often means setting the right expectations among your subscribers before you ask them to opt into your list or buy your product.
*Do not use a cheesy resource box or byline. Doing so will make you look like an idiot and may end up sabotaging your hard work. You want a strong call to action, but you want to be almost discrete about it. You don’t want the readers to think that you’re just trying to sell them something.
*So at the end of your article, just let them know that they can find out more about what you do, by visiting your site. Pique their interest and make them curious about you.
[B]Leverage Your Articles
[/B]
I really do suggest that you write articles yourself, but a lot of people complain to me that it’s too much work or that they’re too busy. Well, lucky for you, you can outsource anything if you’re willing to pay for it.
Go on over to iWriter or TextBroker and hire the best writers for the job. Some articles might cost you upwards of $20, but you can’t cut corners when it comes to quality. Also remember to tell them exactly what you want them to do for you. Do not just tell them something like, “I need an article on weight loss.”
Tell them something much more specific like, “ I’d like a 1,000 word article that talks about the three physical conditions necessary for weight loss, and how a potential reader can leverage those conditions to maximize their fat burning goals.” The latter gives your virtual assistant much more to work with, and as a result, you’ll both be pleased.
[B]Leverage Your Network
[/B]
You’ll want to build a network of active syndicators, meaning that these people will share your content with their own audience. This is known as "guest posting", and this will definitely increase your traffic and your reputation as an authority.
There is a catch though: you will need to provide exclusive content to these people. Sometimes, you might land a regular spot on a really popular website, but the catch is that you will need to produce only exclusive content for that outlet...and a lot of marketers are too lazy to bother with that. This gives you a unique advantage over your competitions, but only if you’re willing to work hard. Anyway, I need to talk to you about building your network.
How do you go about building a network? Well, forums are good places. Interacting with others on a forum is a great way to connect with potential partners, syndicators, customers, and much more. Apart from that, you can approach people directly through their own websites, leave comments, and eventually shoot them an email.
Now I need to talk to you about Email Marketing, as well as explain to you how this ties into everything you’re working on. In short: you don’t want to generate all this content, network with everyone you can, and get lots of visitors to your site if you’re not going to build an audience that you can profit from. That would be nonsensical, so this is where email marketing comes into play. In the next article, I will be discussing Email Marketing and Sales Funnel creation strategies.
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