Small Business Blog Tips

Stop Reading This Blog – No Seriously

By Christian

are you frustrated — Are you doing everything you're supposed to be doing...and your blog still isn't making money? Here's why...

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while now, and of course someone else way cooler than me beat me to it. That seems to be the way it goes sometimes 🙂 After reading David Risley’s recent post about why most of us should probably start reading a lot less and actually start WORKING a bit more, I realized it was time to get this article published…it really is an essential topic.

This is a post about how to become highly productive

When it comes to running your business, there is always more to learn. If you’re new to internet marketing or blogging, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of it all and to spend the next several months…or a year…or longer, just reading. Consuming new ideas, reading ebooks, subscribing to dozens if not dozens of dozens of blogs.

Education is essential…but what are you doing to actually BUILD YOUR BUSINESS? Research doesn’t count…

How a good education can actually make you fail

I’m big on education, and I make an effort to stay up on what other leaders in my business are saying, what projects they’re involved with, what new technologies and systems are being implemented to move things forward. You should do the same, of course. But here’s the thing…your education should augment your business…not interfere with your business. It should enhance what you do. It should help you take things to the next level. Many of us spend way too much time on education and not nearly enough time on production.

It’s entirely possible to get locked into “education-mode” and in doing so put your business on hold…this is suicide.

If you want to be dangerously profitable in your business, education cannot be your primary focus. And if reading this blog…or any resource out there…is causing you to NOT take action, you need to cut that out and get to work!

Productivity-killers to keep an eye on…

Here are a few important things that might be keeping you from being successful. Wait…hold on there. How can something important be a bad idea? Because when it comes to being effective in your business, you have to pick and choose. There simply isn’t time to do everything. This is why I wrote recently about how important it is to implement the 80-20 principle in your business. It’s also why I wrote recently about how important it is to get control over your schedule. Cutting off dead weight is crucial.

The big secret is that a lot of the things that may be keeping you from being productive are really cool things. There’s a lot of great stuff out there that you don’t have time to implement. Saying “no” to really cool opportunities is part of the game. Think of it this way: saying “no” to cool stuff is the only way you’re going to have time for the REALLY cool stuff. Keep an eye on these things:

Reading blogs, articles, books, etc
Commenting blogs, forums, etc
“Networking” on Twitter, Facebook, etc – there’s networking, and there’s shooting the breeze. Be honest about what you’re doing on Twitter, and you’ll see most of your time is probably not focused. Yes, it’s fun and there’s NOTHING wrong with conversing on Twitter. In fact it’s important, and you should do it. But DON’T do it instead of taking care of production. Production comes first. Take care of business first, then hop online and yap your head off.
Tweaking your site – yes, design is important. But there is no perfect design. Your layout or logo is not going to be what makes or breaks your site. If you think a rockin blog design is crucial, go visit this very popular blog and get back to me with your thoughts.

NOTE: I’m not saying to not do these things. In fact if you notice, I acknowledge they are very important. Here’s where to find balance…you just can’t do them INSTEAD of being productive. Reading a great book is important, but it doesn’t build your email list. Commenting on blogs or improving your logo design are important, but they don’t increase sales. Not directly anyway.

It’s ironic that so many new bloggers are struggling to even make $500 a month, yet they will spend half their time (or more) on non-productive things. Implementing what you already know is the true path to success in business. It’s hard to accept sometimes, but success is really not all that difficult to achieve…in blogging or anywhere. It’s just a matter of focusing on the right things.

It’s a fact, if you spend most of your time reading other people’s blogs, your own blog is never going to make it. You’ll know everything…and accomplish nothing.

Do this stuff first. Do everything else second.

Accomplish this stuff first, and then you can get down to the fun stuff (like reading my blog) 🙂

Creating content – articles, guest posts, newsletters, sales copy.
Creating products – videos, ebook copy, planning a seminar, whatever you’re selling, schedule ample time for creation of high-quality, valuable products and services for your customers.
Creating marketing campaigns – ppc, email and other marketing that will directly bring targeted traffic to your site for conversion.

Making the decision to set aside important stuff and focus on production can be a hard call sometimes. There’s grey area, it’s true. But doing what actually brings in customers is what pays the bills, and without that, what are you studying up for anyway?

Here’s your assignment

I’m actually pretty serious when it comes to not reading my blog…or any others, until you’ve taken care of business first. So here’s your assignment: Create 10 pieces of content that will pull in business for you or help take you to the next level. What 10 pieces of content should you create? Anything you want…

Pillar content for your new blog
Articles for an article marketing campaign
A 10 page report to use as a premium for your new email list
10 guest posts (I recommend this one)
You get the idea

Create 10 pieces of content that will build your business, and don’t come back until you do. Get this done first, and trust me…the internet will still be there when you’re finished. I will be working on more totally awesome content for you in the meantime 🙂

Is there anything you’d add to the “non-productive” or “production” categories here? Do you disagree with any of this? Are you actually going to take me up on this assignment?

What is business blogging really?

By Christian

deep-dark-blog-tip-secrets-to-success — Hear is the deep, hidden truth to what business blogging is really about 😉

Here’s something I’ve learned from running this blog now for 9 months…it’s much the same as what I’ve experienced in sales when I was out working in the field. Blogging is the highest paid hard work I can find, and it is the lowest paid easy work.

There is a lot of talk about how easy it is to be successful in internet marketing, blogging, etc. I haven’t seen that. You can certainly kick back and have an easy go of it. No one will ever push you. The world’s busy enough as it is, and if you sit on the sidelines then that’s fine. But if you want to get a significant result, the path to achieving that is going to require some work.

You will certainly get the result you’re seeking if you stick with it, and that is what’s so beautiful about blogging…you put yourself out there on a regular basis; it’s a learning process, and the more you learn, the more you earn. If you do the work, you get the result. I wouldn’t have it any other way…would you?

When it comes to blogging to market your small business or professional practice, it’s all about you. It’s not something that can be delegated…not if you want maximum impact. Clients have many times asked me to “do blogging” or “do social media” for them. I’ll be honest and admit I’ve done this in the past. I’ve been paid to ghost write and perform other tasks, and I did not find it was a win-win. I don’t do it anymore. Blogging is about engaging your audience personally. You can’t really do that if you’re not present. Can we agree on this?

Here is what business blogging is…really:

Business blogging perk #1

Blogging for your business is extremely liberating. You don’t have to stay “in the box”. You can actually have fun with it. In fact, the more personality you can inject into your blog the better. What other form of marketing allows this level of personal input and creativity? As business owners, so many of us have become so uptight, feeling we must act a certain way or be something we’re not in order for clients or customers to buy from us or take us seriously.

Many would-be bloggers feel they must be good writers in order to be successful at blogging. The only people who worry about this are people who haven’t read a lot of popular blogs! Technically proficient writing is not a requirement, trust me 🙂

Blogging allows you to simply have fun, talk about what you do and make money all at the same time. In fact, blogging sort of requires that you have fun. Bored, stuffy bloggers tend to write boring, stuffy blogs…who the heck wants to read that?

Business blogging perk #2

There is no limit to what you can achieve. No ceiling. Isn’t that part of what attracts you to running your own business to begin with? Blog marketing fits hand in glove with that mentality…there is no limit to how many people you can reach, how engaged you can become with your audience and yes, how much you can earn. In fact, blogging typically opens up entirely new income opportunities to small business owners who are open to new ideas. New income opportunities that were never possible before…would you agree that’s a positive thing?

Business blogging perk #3

Writing a blog for your business requires introspection. Yeah, it’s work. But it’s work that pays a high dividend. People (mostly people who DON’T have experience blogging) worry and argue about the return on investment (ROI) of blogging. But what is the cost of running on a business model that doesn’t connect with your audience? How expensive is it to create and develop products or services that your tribe could care less about?

Blogging enables you to be intimately in touch with what your customers want and need. It allows you to test ideas and prove demand before you spend one hour or one dollar on product development. It can also let you know when you’re doing something wrong. By simply listening to your audience, you can be responsive and turn every day complaining customers into raving fans. Even if you don’t sell (why wouldn’t you?) on your blog, the savings can be extremely significant. How cool is it to be able to use such an inexpensive marketing tool and to get such a huge benefit from it?

Business blogging perk #4

Needless to say, blogging is very inexpensive to get started. Compare the rising costs to any traditional media advertising and the FALLING returns you’re experiencing from them (yeah I know; it’s like I have X-ray vision into your business right?), and you’ll not be surprised at all to see why so many small business owners and professionals are starting up blogs and getting otherwise involved in social media for business marketing purposes. Very low investment up front and significant financial returns, new income streams and savings down the road. I’m not a math whiz, but that kind of makes sense, no?

What is a business blog really?

It’s a platform you can use to record your thoughts and observations about your business.
You can use it to make offers…
build a customer list and
be personally engaged wtih a large number of people with only a small time commitment each day.

Is blogging a full time job? It could be, but it’s up to you. I personally spend only an hour or so on my blog each week. The rest of my time I spend networking, building my business. Is an hour a week a reasonable commitment to you for such a large return?

These are a few of the things I’ve noticed so far, and I’d love to hear what you think.

What advantages have you seen from blogging?
Do you have any concerns I haven’t answered yet on this blog?

Are You Paying Attention To Traffic Instead Of Profits?

By Christian

blog-tips-climbing-to-the-top-of-where — Are you blogging? If so, you are a step ahead. Now let's make sure your goals are actually focused and helpful to your business!

Why are you in business? Why do you have a website to begin with? Are your goals in alignment with your actions and expectations?

Show Me The Money

Where do profits come in your business? Do they come from “hits” on your website? Do they come from comments on your blog? Probably not. I’ve spent time advising clients on how to get more comments on their blog, and if I’m being honest with you I always want more comments as well. But it’s essential to make sure our focus is in the right place. Are more comments really going to help you? It’s a fair question. That’s why I’m writing this post. I see a lot of business owners and new marketers focusing on traffic and other metrics when they really need to be focusing on making sales. Seriously, traffic and comments take care of themselves. Run your business; that’s where your focus should be.

Are you running your blog to help your bottom line, or are you doing it for an ego-stroke? Many new bloggers get distracted.

Are you focused on your business or getting distracted by pseudo-important metrics like “traffic”, “bounce rates” and “comment counts”? This is an essential question that all bloggers must face at some point along the line. It’s easy to get distracted; sometimes it’s hard to keep your eye on the prize.

We see blogs like CopyBlogger and ProBlogger with 100k+ subscribers, and it’s easy to get distracted. Their posts get 50-100 comments every time, and you look at your blog that gets zero comments or 5 comments on average. Are you a failure? Should you be striving to be like Darren at ProBlogger? It’s a fair question, and as you’d expect the answer is “It depends”.

How To Rake In The Results: Blog Tips That Actually Matter

I submit that when it comes to blogging or any business endeavor, it always comes down to results. Many new bloggers want more traffic or more comments, but it’s important to know why or how that’s actually going to help your business. Do more comments build a healthy business, or does a healthy business bring more comments? Here’s a blog tip to consider: maybe it just doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have. Maybe quality matters a whole lot more than quantity. How does that jive with your current thinking?

I say this for a specific reason. I’ve seen the beauty of running small, highly profitable websites. Trust me, in most business niches small traffic is all that’s necessary. The problem is that most of us are still learning how all this works. Most of us are still deluded into thinking that being successful online means pulling in huge traffic. It’s just not true.

Most of the readers at Next Level Blogger so far are small business owners who are new to blogging and running very small businesses…5-7 employees or fewer (including many single-person operations), and the majority (from what I’ve heard from talking with you all) are running locally owned businesses. So…as a locally-based photographer or Realtor or attorney or shop owner, do you need to be concerned with getting 100k+ subscribers to your blog? No. Absolutely not.

Are you an author or beginning marketer intent on taking over the world with your great idea? Then yes…you will most likely need to shoot for the stars when it comes to building your fan base. But many of us spend too much time on our blogs and spend too much time WORRYING about our blogs when we ought to be focusing on other things.

A Nauseating Example Of Wasting Time On Blogging

I attended a conference recently and watched a Realtor talk for over an hour about all the SEO work she’s done on her blog. The audience (comprised mostly of like-minded real estate professionals) was very interested. Everyone took copious notes. Clearly, she’d done her homework, and she was obviously spending both a lot of time and a lot of money on optimizing her blog. Everyone in the room watched her in awe and she bandied about phrases like “image alt tags” and “anchor text”. Clearly she has deciphered the code to search engine excellence, and all Realtors should pay close attention to her, right? After all, blogging is the way of the future, right?

Oddly enough, I could have shown her what she needed to know about SEO in 15-30 minutes on the phone. Instead, she’s spending several hours every month and paying some SEO firm big bucks….all for her little local real estate blog that is never going to pull in more than a few thousand visitors a month anyway. What a waste. Why? Because she works in a small town that only has a small population! With regards to search optimization, her concerns are a piece of cake. She doesn’t NEED big traffic. She needs qualified, targeted traffic from her local market. She needs 1,000 highly targeted and engaged visitors per month. From that, she can make a fantastic living as a real estate pro in her town. Why spend $500 a month (her numbers, not mine) on search optimization and hours each week on tracking down trackbacks and manually requesting that they change their anchor text (again, her techniques…not mine)? But she’s gotten distracted as so many of us do. She’s seen the big lights and been deluded into thinking that she also needs 100k+ subscribers and tons of traffic to her site.

This is a great example of how distracted we can get. Please ask yourself the questions:

What are the results I’m expecting from my blog?
Why do I expect those results?
Will achieving those goals actually help my business grow?
What are the most essential metrics I can use to ensure I’m reaching my goals through blogging?

If you answer these questions, you will be well on your way to getting the results you want from your blog marketing. If you need 100k+ subscribers, there is a model available to make that happen predictably. But if you’re running a small business, especially a locally owned business, it’s likely your concerns should be much more focused. Running a high traffic site is one method of achieving success through blogging. One method…not the only method.

Final Blogging Tip Today: Blogging is Simple…Really!

Believe it or not, blogging really is simple. Talk to your people. That’s all there is to it. “What about SEO?” “What about getting tons of subscribers and huge traffic?” Don’t worry about it. Trust me, Google will know you’re out there, and if you’re posting relevant content to your audience they will find it. Taking it upon yourself to figure out every single thing about running a website is a huge burden, and it’s not why you got into business to begin with, is it? Did you get into business to be a webmaster? Most likely not. Most likely you got into business to sell something. So sell it! You already know how to do that. Talk to your people. Set up a good self-hosted WordPress blog, and let er rip. Have fun with it! Don’t wrack your brain over SEO and all the minutia of being a webmaster.

Can it really be this simple? Yes, it is. Talk to your people. If you actually have something to say, you’ll draw the exact crowd you need.

Is Your Business Blog Viable?

By Christian

Such an important question, don’t you think? Yet how many of us fail to ask ourselves this question and give it a serious, comprehensive answer? Don’t shortchange yourself. This is something to take seriously. Not every business blog works, and not every idea is successful. Importantly, there are always reasons for failure of success!

Most people who read this site are interested in blog tips, social media for business and generally taking your business to the next level using these tools. Rock on. But is your business blog viable to begin with? Because if it’s not, no amount of blog marketing (or any marketing for that matter) will make it work.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

What am I selling?

Psst…the answer is not “widgets”. That’s the product. You know…the steak. You sell the sizzle, not the steak. This is Sales 101 of course, but amazingly most business owners are not truly in touch with what they’re ACTUALLY SELLING. What engages your customers? What gets them to act? Why do they buy from you? What emotionally causes them to tell their friends about you? What is your sizzle? What makes you different? If you can’t answer this clearly and succinctly, you don’t know what you’re selling, and that is dangerous.

Do people want what I’m selling?

If you take the principle of “selling sizzle” you can quickly realize that there are many potential reasons people buy from you other than the actual product (or service) you’re selling. People buy for emotional reasons, not practical ones. Are you struggling to make your sales goals? In other words, are you failing to make the money you know you deserve from your business? Then you are either not selling something people want, or you are not IN TOUCH with why people actually buy from you? Do people buy from you because you’re conveniently located? Because you have a great smile? Because you have the best price? Because they truly believe you can help them with their particular problem more than anyone else can? What is it that’s actually causing the sale? Make sure your marketing is in alignment with that, and you will get beautiful results.

There is a restaurant (I won’t mention the name of the franchise) in my town that is the dirtiest restaurant in maybe the whole city. The service is horrible to an almost comical level. Yet they are the most profitable restaurant in the entire chain. Why? They have a beautifully convenient location. They are horrible in almost every way, except location. When it comes to location, they are invincible. We could discuss the ethical ramifications of this of course, but my point is that they know what they’re selling. They’re not selling a sanitary or enjoyable dining experience, and they make no attempt to do so. They are selling poor quality food at a high price to people who don’t want to drive a few minutes out of their way. Clearly, their are a lot of people who want this, because they rake in the cash, and they don’t challenge their business model. They are selling convenience. What are you selling? And…do people want what you’re selling?

Am I Hoping or Executing?

When it comes to marketing, a lot of business owners simply throw a bunch of stuff out there and hope something sticks. There’s something wrong with this approach of course. First, it’s expensive. Second, when something works, the scatter shot approach isn’t very good at indicating to you what works and what doesn’t. So you have no choice but to continue doing everything, for fear of losing whatever IS working. This is horribly inefficient.

Are you blogging? Why? What is your plan? What…specifically…do you hope to achieve from your blogging efforts? A blog is a fantastic communication tool, a way of creating a powerful community, a way of testing ideas, selling products and services, even creating new income streams that were never possible for your business before. But if you don’t approach it deliberately, you’re simply putting up a blog and hoping it works.

Instead of putting all the effort into blogging and marketing your business and blindly hoping for the best, do the research up front. Do it now. Talk to your people. Talk to your customers. Determine what you’re really selling, the most effective way to engage your audience on an emotional and effective level, and decide how you want to use your blog as a way of reaching people in a helpful and powerful way.

A business blog is not magic, it’s a powerful tool. Like a surgeon’s 10 blade. With deliberate, careful and trained use, it can create results that are amazingly helpful and even life-changing. But the same tool when used recklessly can do a lot of damage. It’s not the tool that produces any magic. The tool is simply a mechanism for producing a result. The magic comes from you. Do the ground work. You know…the boring stuff! It will pay you huge dividends.

A Trick to Getting Started Blogging – Listen More Than You Talk

By Christian

time-to-start-blogging — Yeah, it's time to starting your business blog already! If you're on the fence, this article has a couple tips for you 🙂

A lot of you are on the fence, no? Perhaps some or all of these have transpired:

You’ve heard me and others talk about the high value of blogging
You want to get in better touch with your customers
You want to reach out to more customers and broaden your base
You are seeing a significant increase in costs associated with traditional marketing and want to find more cost effective ways to engage your audience
You WANT to start a blog…it just looks like fun (it is, you know!)

So what’s the hang up? After talking with many of you for the last several months, I’ve discerned there are three big reasons many of you remain on the fence. You want to start blogging, but these concerns must be addressed first.

It’s kind of techy…you might not be sure how to install your own blog software, etc.
You can’t imagine always having something new to say…coming up with new posts consistently over time seems quite daunting.
Writing to an audience of zero seems like a drag; you want to be confident you can build a good readership

I will be offering a series of video tutorials on dvd showing you how to research, install and operate a business blog. For those of you concerned with any of these three concerns, this video coaching series will answer these concerns in detail.

I’m doing this for one simple reason: these are the most common things I go over with clients for my consulting rate via web conferencing, so it makes sense to me to create a product which offers the exact same content but costs only a fraction of what one-on-one consulting costs. Does that make sense? So any of you on the fence but who cannot pay for consulting, this will give you everything you need for a very affordable price.

That said, I want to sell you on the power of listening. Listening is the key to building a successful blog marketing campaign. It may sound intuitive to pay attention to your audience, but when you look around, not nearly enough (in my opinion) of it is actually going down.

We worry about SEO, what to write about, what to tweet about, how to make our sites look cool…this is all talking. Granted, you need to open your mouth on occasion if you want anyone to know you’re there, but it’s essential to understand that unless your product or service is grandly original…one of a kind, never-existed-before-on-the-face-of-the-planet-original, there is already a vast amount of conversation already going on around what you’re doing. Tap into it, and funnel a portion of it back to your site. How? By listening.

Why Listening is Key

build-your-blog-by-listening — Struggling to come up with content for your blog? Strugging to get enough traffic? Shut up and listen for a bit! There is HUGE traffic and conversation going all already. All you have to do is tap into it.

There is a simple reason why listening will do you more good than talking. Here it is…if all you do is talk, then all you’ll be capable of saying is drivel. That will do you no good at all. You can only create valuable content in direct proportion to how much you listen. And listening must come first of course. You know those bloggers who post every single day, and the content they put out is actually good stuff? They are dramatically tuned into their audience. They follow a lot of people on Twitter and actually pay attention to what people are saying. They incessantly read good content online, and respond to it. They listen intently. They listen first, then they respond.

Blogging is a conversation. When you go to a party or a conference, do you stress out about what you’re going to say? No. You go and meet people; hang out and have fun getting to know new people. This is how it’s done in person. This is ALSO how it’s done online.

Listening Takes Care of Everything

Have a problem with getting traffic to your blog? Then you’re spending too much time on YOUR blog and not enough time on OTHER people’s blogs. When you’re on your own blog, you can’t listen (unless you already have a strong traffic stream and lots of comments). Spend time reading what’s going on in other places instead. Read other blogs, and when you have something to say…leave a comment. Pay attention, because a lot of your comments will spark quick and easy inspiration for a blog post. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I leave a comment on a post somewhere, and I find I actually have more to say about it…thus a blog post is born. You don’t have to grind it out…it happens automatically. It happens naturally.

And there is even more value than that…because the post is in direct response to an ongoing conversation. You see? There is already confirmed interest in the topic; this makes your post relevant. Instead of having to constantly tap into your own genius, you spend time listening. Tap into the genius of others.

And when you spend time on other blogs, forums, etc…occasionally leaving comments and interacting with other people, guess what’s happening? You’re networking. You’re engaging people on their home turf, in a place where they’re comfortable and at ease. And when they find they like you…when they find you’re genuine and actually have good stuff to say, what do you think will happen? They will visit your site. They will naturally want to know more about you.

See, it’s not about finding the magic keyword. It’s not about creating the ultimate blog design. It’s not about how often you post or how long (or short) your posts are. It’s not about posting links to your articles on Twitter. It’s about simply finding your audience where they already are…and listening to them. When you spend time doing that first, your content takes care of itself. Your traffic takes care of itself.

So am I full of it? Or am I onto something? Instead of worrying about how to use Twitter and pondering what magical tweets you can send out to get that golden traffic stream, maybe you can seek out and follow people you want to reach out and pay attention to what they’re talking about. By paying attention and actually caring about about your audience, everything else in a very real way, takes care of itself.