Posts Tagged ‘how to blog’

• The best way to engage anyone is to ask them questions about themselves. Most people have one favorite subject in common and that subject matter is “me…me…me…me…me…me”. Isn’t that your favorite subject?

• I was fortunate to have one of the companies I worked for early in my career force me to go to what I thought was one of the most lame sales training courses called “Dale Carnegie”.  After all, I was 20 something and I knew all I needed to know…right?  Wrong!  I think you find that out when you hit 30 something…you know, not knowing as much as you thought you knew.  Though I was forced to go to this training class I thoroughly hated, I chose to make the best of it and take away as much information as possible.  After all, I was there….they were there and I didn’t have a choice.  So, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

• One of the greatest gifts I took away from that sales training coarse was reading the book “How to win friends and influence people” By Dale Carnegie.  I highly recommend this book to any person who will take the short amount of time it takes to read it, it will change you and your relationships.  It will help you understand that people simply want someone to take interest in “their stories”, what is going on in “their lives” and that taking an interest in other people really is the number one way to build better relationships.

• On that note, I would like to encourage you to add questions to your blog posts to better interact with your readers.  There are many simple questions you can ask as you close out your blog posts, here are a few ideas:

1. How will this information help you?
2. How do you plan to use this information?
3. How else might I be of assistance to you with the information I have provided above?
4. What experiences have you had that may add to the discussion?
5. After reading what you read, what is your commitment to implementing in your own blog or website?

• I will close by having you think back to the last social gathering you were at and recall if most of your conversations were about you or the person/people you were conversing with.  Which of those conversations were most interesting to you?  How often were you engaged in “interesting” conversation where you were learning about someone else, what they do, etc.  If you are the type of person who finds yourself learning about others during conversations, I bet those people think you are a GREAT conservationist!  I love the old saying “you have two ears and one mouth….remember to use them accordingly”.

• I really am interested in your thoughts and opinions and truly wish to know how you plan to use this in your next blog post, networking event or sales call.

P.S. Thank you for taking your time to visit and hope you find the information useful. I hope to help you learn everything you want and need to know about blogging. I welcome your questions (site specific is good) and definitely your suggestions. I hope to answer your questions before they come up or when you find that you have one. By clicking on the Orange RSS Feed button on the left side of the screen, you will be automatically updated of new information available without having to "check in" to see what's new. It's the easiest way to keep up to date. Thanks again for stopping in, I value your time!

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• If you have a Word Press blog, which is the platform for this particular blog, you may be excluding your blog from the Google Index without even realizing it.  Two of my clients were being excluded and I was left puzzled and questioning what I KNEW to be true.  Goes to show that you learn something new every day…and today I learned something new about Word Press.

• One of my clients has a Word Press blog, which he built himself using the free guide “blogging for buyers“.  He hired me to help him find a domain name and I felt really good about the domain we chose.  Based on all the research I did, it seemed as though the domain name alone would help him to yield good search results once he added some good content to the site.   Not So Much!  (learn more about how to chose a good domain name here.)

• No matter what we did and how I coached him, we couldn’t get Google to index his blog.  We have all of the SEO tools installed, had hand submitted the site to the Google Index and NOTHING! I hope this will all change with what I discovered today.  I wanted to bring it to your attention as well to make sure you have your Word Press blog set up properly to be indexed and crawled by Google, Technorati, etc.

• Follow these steps to make sure you are in good shape:

• On the left side of your Word Press screen, you will see “settings”, click on it.  A list of options will drop down, and one of those options is “privacy”, click on it. This is what you will see:
  

• Make sure that your site is set TO BE CRAWLED, and not set to block the search engines.  I am 100% sure that both of my clients who had their settings set to “block the search engines” did not choose that setting, which leads me to believe that it is the default setting.   I can’t think of any other way that it would have ended up “blocking” the search engines and I am very hopeful that now that it is fixed, Google will begin to crawl the site and we will see some activity.

• There is much more information regarding getting found on Google in the Getting Found On Google Section.  Good luck to you on finding your place in the Google Index.

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• For those who wish to get started on blogging, whether it be to make money or to keep in touch with family and friends, trying to figure out what to name your blog can be one of your biggest challenges.   I have an easy solution to what many find to be a big “road block” to moving forward.

• If you want people to be able to find your blog via the Internet Search Engines like Google, the fastest and easiest road there is to find a domain name for your blog that matches what people are searching for related to your subject matter.  If you have read earlier posts on how to get found on Google, you understand that the Google algorithms are programmed to help people searching on Google to find the most relevant results. Typically, the most relevant results to any search would be a domain name that matches the search term…right?  If you “Google” nadine blogs, the number one result is currently www.nadineblogs.com, because the domain name matches the search term.

• You may be asking yourself how exactly you figure what people are searching for…and again…pretty easy to figure out…IF you know where to look.

• Google has a “keyword tool” I like to use to help me figure out what to name my websites and blogs, which I STRONGLY encourage you to utilize before you name your blog or register your domain name.  The best way to use this tool is to type in different search terms that match the desired subject of your blog.  You will see a list of results with numbers that indicate the search volume for each term.

• Your best bet is to find a term that has the highest number of search volume and try to buy a domain name to match it.  To give you a good example, I will use one of my most recent clients, “Moore’s Martial Arts” in Livermore, CA.  Moore’s doesn’t currently have a website or domain name for the school located in Livermore, so we are starting from scratch.

• The steps I went through to find the “perfect” domain name are as follows:

• I search using the keyword tool for terms that included Livermore martial arts.  Martial arts being the most generic term I could think of to describe what they do.  Upon doing my research, I found that there are close to 600 searches each month for the term “Livermore Martial Arts“.  When you consider the amount of search volume for that particular keyword, it would make great sense to see if I can obtain the domain name “Livermore Martial Arts”, which is exactly what we did.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: It is important for me to note that just because I have identified a great domain name that matches the search term, it in no way guarantees this website will make it to the front page of the search engines.  What helps get you to the front page of the search engines is good content that is relative to the term you wish to be found for.  It is also VERY important to submit your site to the search engines by submitting your site map.  No site map…no search results.

• Learn more about submitting your site to the search engines on this recent post. Your site will not be indexed until you submit your site map.  Make sure to read this post.

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• So, I have been watching very closely to see what would happen with our Google Wonder Wheel experiment and I have an update!

• If you have been following this experiment, you know we started on page 14, moved up to page 8, then it was slow moving to page 7…where we were stuck for a bit.  Click here to read first post.

• GREAT NEWS…we have moved to page 5 for the term “Door Hanger Printing”, which shows that paying attention to the Google Wonder Wheel can and does make a difference.

• Let me tell you some of the other steps I took to help “my cause” with Google.

• Though Google specifically tells you not to submit any page to the search engine which has a link from your home page, I did end up submitting the link after waiting…and waiting…and waiting for Google to crawl the page.  Submitting your site to Google

• Once Google finally crawled the page, we came up two more pages in the rankings to page five, in position #3.

• I have also added articles about “door hanger printing” to our PrinterBees Blog because as I have mentioned before, Google likes blogs because the content is fresh.

• You should also note that every time I have used the term “door hanger printing” in this particular post, I have linked back to the door hanger printing page on PrinterBees, creating another link.  ONE-WAY links pointing to your site are one of the factors Google considers when indexing all websites.  The more links you have, the better.  The more links you have from “authority sites”, even better!  I will explain “authority sites” in another post…it’s complicated.

• Use the above tips to help get your website/web pages linked on Google.  It really does work!

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• Today, the FTC released updated guidelines for bloggers who endorse products and services.

• The updated guidelines from the FTC say the following:

• The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.”

• Read the complete press release from the FTC here. To see the   complete guide published by the FTC, click here.  It is 81 pages and makes for great reading in the evenings you find it difficult to fall asleep. LOL

• It will be important to make sure people who read your blog know you are being compensated when you endorse a product.

• As I learn more about these new guidelines, I will post more.

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The question of the day…Should I try to build my own blog site or should I hire a professional?

Let’s go over the advantages and disadvantages of both…

Do It Yourself:

• If you create your own blog, it will take time away from whatever it is keeps you busy now.
• Building your own blog without the help of a professional designer and the assistance of what to include/not include could keep your blog from reaching its full potential.
• If you consider yourself to be pretty “techy” and like this sort of thing, I encourage you to dig in and get your fingers “dirty”, if indeed you will actually follow through, the key here being…will you actually follow through and get it done?
• By creating your own blog, you are in control and don’t have to depend on someone else to make changes and updates that are often needed on any website.  You created it, so you know how to change it, update it or fix it if need be!
• If you don’t happen to have an eye for what looks good and create your own blog, you may get visitors to your blog that “bounce” the second they arrive because your blog isn’t inviting or looks cluttered.

If you do decide to create your own blog, we do encourage you to create a custom look and feel to your web blog and the easiest program to do that is Artisteer.  It requires NO PRIOR web design knowledge or experience and could not be more user friendly.  It is a great program and they do offer a free demo.  Visit this link for a full video tutorial on how to use the program.  The tutorial shows you how to build a simple, but completely custom blog theme in 5 minutes!  Yes, the video is 5 minutes with no outtakes or secret shortcuts.  The whole blog template is built in 5 minutes.  Watch the tutorial now.

Hire A Professional:

• Hiring a professional to set up your blog in most cases is a one-time fee because once a blog is set up it is done.  I have many clients who hire me to do exactly this because they either don’t have the time or just choose not to do it themselves.  It is not that time consuming for someone like myself that has done it many times and very cost effective if you have the funds available.  Feel Free To Contact Me For a Quote.
• A professional will most likely set up your blog to match your company website or be able to integrate your company logo by using design software that you may not be familiar with.  As mentioned above, check out Artisteer and the tutorials to see if this is something you simply wish to take on yourself.  It really is easy with a little video training!
• Hiring a professional will require a small investment, but typically when you have some “skin in the game” you are more likely to follow through with the actual blogging.
• Your blog will need to have some structure to it and a professional will obviously have more insight in to creating that structure.

NOTE: If you do choose to hire a professional to create your blog site, make sure that your agreement includes training on how to log in, create blogs, and manage the site.  There isn’t a lot to managing a blog other than adding “blogs” (content and articles) regularly, but you will need some guidance to get you started.  If your designer doesn’t include training, you are strongly encouraged to “pass” and find one that does.

As you can see there are benefits to both.  You may possible wish to try designing and creating your own blog if you feel you have the time to do so.  If you find you aren’t succeeding at it, then hire a professional.  What have you got to lose!

It is also important to subscribe to this blog because I offer ongoing tips on how to add “widgets” and plug ins on how to make money with your blog and stay consistent with it!  Subscribe now

If you aren’t sure exactly how to subscribe to an RSS or what an RSS feed is, click here to learn what it is and how to do it.  Once you learn about RSS feeds, you will understand how much time and energy they will save you!

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• With wonderful and easy to use tools like  the Web Design Generator – Artisteer, anyone can create their own custom blog theme in a matter of minutes as you will see on the video below.  You will need to download the software to do it and the video below will show you how easy it use to use once you have downloaded it.  Click here to download the free trial of Web Design Generator – Artisteer

P.S.  Money Saving Tip – when you purchase a license for Artisteer after seeing how easy it is, that the tutorials on this blog are all based on how to blog with Word Press.  With that in mind, you won’t need to purchase the more expensive license needed for programs like Joomla.  You can learn more about blogging with Joomla on my other site Online Business Academy.

To view the video in full-screen mode, click on the bottom right corner after it begins.

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• When it comes to marketing one of the biggest and most common mistakes people make is forgetting the CUSTOMER.  You know…the person you wish to attract as a buyer.

• Maybe because your new to all this, you aren’t clear what a landing page is, you don’t know how to set up a registration form, build back-links and you haven’t invested in all of the newest greatest best most wonderful top of the line gizmo for your site because you just can’t afford it.  After all…you are a newbie…how could you? Right?

• Here is a little hand holding for you to help you understand what one of the greatest copy writers of all time Gary Bencivenga understood.  IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU!!!  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell or upset you, but it isn’t about you.  IT IS ABOUT THE CUSTOMER!!!  Oops, sorry about that…I am yelling again…aren’t I?

• In your next article or marketing piece

Describe the benefits, not the features:

• You may be asking yourself what the difference is so I figured I would explain.  The benefit of any product is “what the product does for you“.  The features of any product is “what it does“, the product specifications.  You have most likely been focused on what you or  your product does vs. what you do/it does for the customer, which doesn’t really help the customer understand how you or your product/service can help.

• People purchase air conditioners because “it keeps them cool“, not because it has a thermostat.  People purchase heaters because they are cold and “it warms them up”.

• When you write your next marketing piece or marketing message, the best way to figure out what your “benefits” are is to make a list of problems people are looking to solve with your product.  Once you have your list of problems, make a list of how your product solves those problems.  It’s pretty easy once you get “in the groove” of it.  You may struggle at first as it really is such a hard habit to break, but don’t give up.  You CAN DO IT.

• Please let me know what you come up with when you list the features of your product and the benefits to each one.  If you can’t find a benefit to the feature, it doesn’t belong on the “marketing” list.  I look forward to brainstorming with you about this!  If you list your features and the benefits below it will help others as they try to come up with their list and this website is about helping people…right?

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• The experiment with the Google Wonder Wheel Continues and we are up seven pages in the Google Index in just six days for the search term “door hanger printing”.

• When we started the experiment by using the Wonder Wheel as a way to identify the proper keywords, we were indexed in the middle of the page 14 for the term “door hanger printing”.  The results are astounding and Google hasn’t even crawled the updated page yet!  (Read the details about the Wonder Wheel here)

• On September 15th, I made changes to the web page based on what I found on the Google Wonder Wheel, created a blog post on our PrinterBees blog and of course included the key words in my blog posts on this blog site.  As of today, the page is the bottom of page seven and when I reviewed the “cached” page, it shows that Google last crawled the page on September 14th, so I will need to be patient to see what happens when the search engine crawls the page again.  I have my fingers crossed and again invite to you watch as the experiment continues.

• P.S.  You may be wondering how I knew that Google hadn’t crawled the most updated version of my webpage since since the 15th of September.  In the image above, I have put a red box around the word “cached”.  If you click on the link “cached” it will show you the version of the page that Google is currently using to rank your site in the index.   It will also show the you a date on the top of the page, which is the last time Google crawled your site.  I hope this is helpful to you!!!  Don’t forget to read the initial article about the Google Wonder Wheel and how I used it to increase our rankings.

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• I could still most likely find more leads and prospects than most simply because I know how to blog! It usually isn’t in my nature to come off as so “arrogant” or “blunt” for lack of a better term, but I often feel like I am beating my head against a wall when it comes to helping out my “friends in the real estate business”.

 

• Though I do have a real estate license, I am not a Realtor, nor am I a mortgage originator or anything else I may need my license for. I am however the owner of PrinterBees, which I founded because I really…really…really wanted to help real estate professionals who were serious find new business as well as keep their businesses consistent with ongoing marketing programs that work. All you need is a little consistency – Did I mention the part about beating my head against the wall? This post isn’t about PrinterBees I (which I really do hope you will consider if you need printing done BTW…)

 

• This post is about something WAY MORE IMPORTANT and it sure costs a lot less too!  This is about how to use the Internet to build your business.

 

• I read a great post called “Why I’m Kicking Your Butt in Selling Real Estate“, By Bob Haywood and would encourage you to read it too! He is right on the money and I abosolutely love how blunt he is.

 

• As an Internet Junkie and one who really understand why the Internet is so crucial to your business, I am going to give this yet another try and HOPE…HOPE…HOPE…you may just take my word for it this time and actually follow through. Yes, follow through. As so many mentioned on the above mentioned post…put down the real estate magazine and do something different! If you don’t have a marketing plan that includes the Internet, your magazine won’t help you…trust me.

 

• I randomy picked the City of San Diego to try and help you understand the importance of having a presence on the Internet. I don’t have any clients there, so I won’t make anyone mad for sharing my secrets!

Currently (according to Google) EACH MONTH, there are approximately:

1. 165,000 searches for the term “San Deigo Real Estate”.
2. 8,100 searches for the term “Realtors San Diego”
3. 14,000 searches for the term “properties San Deigo”
4. 110,000 searches for the term “san diego houses”
5. 301,000 searches for the term “homes for sale san diego”

• This is just a VERY small example of the over half a million searches each month done by people looking to buy and sell real estate just in San Diego! Do I have your attention? THERE ARE OVER 500,000 people looking to buy and sell real estate in San Diego and I only listed off five search terms! There were thousands and thousands more that I didn’t take the time to add in.

 

•  Call me crazy, but I am thinking that if you have a website that is ranking anything close to page one on Google for any of the terms I mentioned above, I don’t think you have time to read a realtor magazine, because you are too busy running the bank to deposit your commission checks!

 

• It may seem like having and maintaining a website is like climbing Mount Everest without the proper training and preparation, but it really isn’t that hard with a little direction. Seriously, it isn’t that hard and I really want to help you.

 

• My first e-book, was profitable blogging and written to help people understand how to make money and residual income by blogging. I then authored “Blogging For Buyers”, After reading Bob’s post about why he is kicking your butt in real estate to help you get started with your website. He inspired me along with all the great responses I read following his post. Thanks Bob…I hope it helps!

 

• There is no catch, you don’t even have to register to download it, I only ask in return of my providing you with the steps by step instructions of how to get started, that you actually do it! At least try…what have you to loose? Oh…and if you need printing, please remember PrinterBees, it is how I eat.

 

• The book can be downloaded here and I also encourage you to visit my blog and subscribe to it. I am passionate about helping people learn how to utilize the Internet and I know it is what I was born to do….teach! The Internet is here, it’s really cheap when it comes to marketing and most importantly, it is what people are using to find what they are looking for. I hope they find you!

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