blogging

Google is Gravy – Why I Refuse to Depend on Google

By Christian

Have you ever heard of the “Google dance“? When it comes to business, I don’t dance. Google is a beautiful thing, and it sends me good quality traffic. I’ll take it. I’ll even take reasonable measures to make sure I get plenty of traffic from Google and other search engines. The principles of SEO are fairly simple to learn, and you don’t need to get overly complicated with it. But I refuse to base my business around Google.

I Don’t Control Google. Neither Do You!

Why? I don’t own Google. I don’t control Google. Neither do you. And if we have no control over something, why would we base the success of our businesses on it? I encourage Next Level bloggers everywhere to take this stance. Blogging is essential for every business owner, and that is why I’m writing this blog. Let SEO be what it is…gravy. Traffic is a cool thing. It greases the wheels. But don’t build a business that is dependent upon something you cannot truly control.

Don’t get me wrong, you CAN build a powerful blog that gets tons of traffic from search. There is nothing wrong with that. Go ahead and get tons of traffic, make money from advertising. It’s a good thing! But let me ask you a question…what happens when Google drops you from their index…for whatever reason?

Do you think it won’t happen to you? It happens to the best of us. And when it happens, what is your back up plan? If your business is dependent on search traffic…you have no recourse but to sit and wait. Like I said, when it comes to business, I don’t dance!

Business the Traffic are Two Separate Things

All I’m saying is that my BUSINESS and my TRAFFIC are two separate things. I encourage you to think of them as separate as well. Your traffic is something that comes in on a daily basis from a number of different sources; I hope eanestly that you do the work to establish traffic streams from many sources, not just search.

Additionally, your BUSINESS is something else entirely. Your business is:

Your database of leads and past customers
Email subscribers
Contacts
Relationships

If all my traffic from Google went away, I would still have a business. A considerable one. I appreciate the traffic Google sends me, and I’m going to continue working to get traffic from Google, but I refuse to have my business depend on it.

What if Google disappeared tomorrow? What would you do? Would you still have a business?

5 Books I Recommend About Business Blogging

By Christian

If you’re like me, reading is a huge way to get new creativity flowing, keep up on changing technologies and expose yourself to new ideas. I find the books I read to be invaluable, as I apply almost everything I read to my business in one way or another.

Here is a recommendation on some reading material to help you with your business blogging. Of course this is not master list. It’s my top 5 at the moment. These are affiliate links, except for #3 which is a free pdf download. Therefore, you can easily click through and check out full details on all these books right now, and if you purchase them you will be supporting Next Level Blogger. It’s a win-win-win if you think about it 😉

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly – In depth explanations about why business blogging is essential, the different technologies you can use and how. How to promote your blog, how to make money with your blog and a lot more. Tons of resources to find more information.
ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income – This is probably the ultimate book about blogging in my opinion. Anyone interested in blogging as a business or as a means of promoting an existing business is well-served to read this one a few times. Also if you’re not familiar with the author Darren Rowse’s blog Problogger, you better get over there and subscribe. It’s pretty much mandatory.
uuuEbook: Unique, Useful and Updated. Three Secrets to Web Traffic – This is another no-brainer. It’s a free pdf download from Seth Godin. One of the biggest concerns any blogger has is how to get traffic to their blog. This short, concise ebook says it all. Follow these precepts, and your blog will be a success, period.
Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers – A very insightful read that covers “Blogging’s Six Pillars”. It teaches you to use your blog effectively by showing you how blogging differs from other traditional media. Most new bloggers tend to treat their blog as a traditional form of marketing, which can cause you to spin your wheels for a long time. Worse, you can do more damage to your brand than good if you use your blog poorly. Like any powerful tool, it can produce either great results or do significant damage, and it all depends on how you wield it.
No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog – One of the biggest challenges most new bloggers face is not knowing what to write about. The prospect of having to continuously fill your blog up with new content can seem daunting, until you’ve read a book like this. I’ve mentioned on Next Level many times already that you have MORE than enough to talk about, and this book will help you unlock all of it. Before you know it, you can have more content than you could ever possibly write for your blog 🙂

All these books echo the ideas I attempt to express here on this blog, and these authors are all certainly in tune with how to use this blogging medium to it’s maximum potential. I encourage you to check them out!

How Much Time Should You Spend Blogging?

By Christian

Clearly, I talk to a lot of people about using a blog to market their business. One of the most common concerns expressed by business owners is that it will take too much time. It’s not too much of a secret that blogging can be a very, very powerful tool in your marketing plan. Here are some reasons why:

It’s highly cost efficient.
It enables you to reach a huge number of people effectively, personally and quickly.
It gives you the power to reach NEW customers that you would not have reached otherwise.
It makes possible NEW revenue streams that you may not have ever considered before.
It puts a powerful publishing tools at your fingertips…you can promote your business 24/7, as often as you want, and the cost doesn’t increase the more you use it.
A well-designed and maintained blog will establish you as an expert in your field, building credibility and trust with your audience, an invaluable asset to your business.

These are just a few ways that a blog is a highly recommended marketing tool for your business. So it’s easy enough for me to argue, can you afford NOT to have a blog? And that really should be enough. However, it’s reasonable to consider the time issue, because no tool is going to work for you if you don’t use it. In other words, a blog doesn’t write itself, and if you don’t do it, it’s not going to do you much good.

So, How Much Time Should You Spend Blogging?

Here’s the bottom line: you get out what you put in. The fact is that most highly successful blogs with an immense amount of traffic, making big money from advertising, etc…are powered by individuals (or even teams of individuals) who put a LOT of collective time and energy into the site.

Do you even WANT a high traffic blog…one that is considered to be highly successful by traditional standards? It’s an important question. Here’s why: I’ve argued from the beginning of this blog that high traffic is only one of many ways to make money with your blog. It’s very possible that promoting your blog doesn’t have to be a big deal at all. It’s very possible, in other words, for you to have a very successful business, make a lot of money and have a blog at the center of it all…powering a lot of your sales, without it having to be a very big time commitment.

It’s very important to have accurate expectations however. If you do not work your blog every day, build your community every day…if you do not moderate comments and respond to inquiries aggressively and promptly, and if you do not do these basics every day over time, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to have a blog that gets 100k visitors a month.

What Are Your Goals?

When considering how much time you want to commit to blogging, it’s important to consider what results you want to get from your blog. You can probably tell at this point that there’s not going to be a hard and fast rule about how much time it takes to be successful blogging. Simply, you need to do as much as is necessary to reach your goals. So what are your goals?

Do you want to have 100k+ visitors a month and make several thousand a month in advertising revenues? If so, you’re going to need to work it full time, period. Blogging is going to have to be your full time job. It doesn’t mean you cannot start part time and build up to that point, but to acheive that type of traffic, it’s going to require a concerted effort on your part.

Do you want your blog to simply serve as a powerful and convenient way for you to interact with your customers? Do you want to build a good, targeted list of customers over time and use your blog as a way of gaining market share, getting new customers and building your brand? All of this can be accomplished over time with only a part time effort. Let me be clear, it will still require a consistent effort over time. But it hardly needs to be something that consumes all of your time.

I believe most professionals and business owners fall into this latter category. Blogging can be an absolutely impressive and powerful way to extend your business and market your products or services. And it doesn’t need to take a lot of time.

What About You?

What are your goals? Do you have a blog already? How much time do you spend using your blog to market your business?

8 Ways Your Business is Losing if You’re Not Blogging

By Christian

You’re losing word of mouth advertising – Any business owner I talk to would be quick to admit that word of mouth advertising is the best advertising they can get. Owning and operating a blog enables you to be part of the conversation online. People ARE talking about you, you know? If you have a blog, you have way more than a traditional website, you have a personal presence…one people are comfortable and happy to send their friends to and talk about. People are a lot more comfortable referring someone they know to you if you have a personal blog, as opposed to a traditional static website. It makes you more personal, more approachable, if people can read about you and get a feel for what you’re like. Yes, people like to stalk. If you’re in business, and you want people to do business with you, why would you not want to be part of that? On the flip side, when you DO have a blog, you can set the record straight anytime someone’s talking trash. You can also build a strong community of people who are advocates for you. Strong bloggers eventually build networks consisting of thousands of people who consistently link to them, send them traffic and talk positively about their content. This is word of mouth for the 21st century.
Your name is being dragged through the mud, and you don’t even know about it – People are talking about you. The process of learning how to blog is about a lot more than just writing an article every now and then. It’s about networking. Having a blog will teach you how to be part of your online community. And don’t think you don’t have one…you’re just not aware of it! If you own a business and you’re doing business with people, people are LOOKING for your blog, right now. And they’re not finding it. They’re commenting on other blogs and forums about you, and you’re not there to be part of the conversation.
Your competition is establishing themselves as the expert, while you are quickly becoming irrelevant – Blogging is personal. You don’t use it as a way of simply placing ads or “building a list” or making sales. You’re selling yourself. You’re telling the public about yourself. You’re networking. You’re having a conversation with people. What happens when you do this is people learn that you actually have a lot to say. This is a good thing. Of course, this is assuming you DO have a lot to say. If you’re not actually creating value for your customers at this point, that will become apparent also. It’s best to either BE good, GET good, or NOT blog. Having a lot to say about your industry and how you can honestly help your customers and maintaining a blog together are a very dangerous combination. If your competition is blogging, and you’re not, they are quickly and quietly building a very compelling network of people who love them and who don’t even know who you are.
Customers are simply not connecting with you, so they don’t buy from you – This is an inevitable consequence of not having a blog. Seriously, it’s that big a deal. First, search engines love blogs (well-built and actively maintained ones that is), and if you don’t have one, you’re missing out on a lot of love from the search engines, which means your getting a lot less traffic than you should be. But it’s a deeper problem than that. The type of content people want is different than what it was 5 or so years ago. Yes, things have changed that quickly. People don’t want static content. They don’t want boring ads that talk at them and tell them what to do. They want interactivity. They want to connect with you. Think about this…they WANT to connect with you and like you on a personal level. It’s how they make buying decisions. Your static website is most likely turning them off. Your competition realizes this. They’ve learned to think of marketing differently. They’ve realized that they can connect with many thousands of people through blogging, on a personal level and massively extend the reach of their business. Your customers are connecting with them, not you.
Your expenses are getting out of control, and the money you spend on traditional marketing gives you a less impressive return each year that passes – Let’s face it…traditional marketing, like newspaper and magazine ads, mailing campaigns, billboards, etc…they are getting more expensive each year, and they are getting LESS effective each year. Anyone who’s been in business for more than 5 years knows this intimately. How long can you tolerate your expenses rising coupled with more and more inept returns on your advertising dollars? When you look at this commonly understood fact, it’s obvious that you need to make a change somewhere, isn’t it?
The quality of the contacts you make is going down, which means your return on investment is going down – Like I said in #5, traditional media is getting less effective. The reason is because people are drowning in advertising. If it doesn’t connect with them personally, it’s unlikely to have any effect on them whatsoever. That’s not very much bang for your buck, is it? Traditional marketing is based on “interruption marketing”. The idea is to jolt your attention and get you to notice an advertisement that you ordinarily not be interested in seeing. People have built up some serious walls to this type of advertising. Social media connects with people on their terms. Believe it or not, people want to buy cars, books, appliances, all types of services, or whatever it is that you’re selling. If you connect with them on their level and on their terms, they will love you for it, and they will buy from you. That’s what you can do with a blog that is impossible for you to do with traditional advertising.
You have a lot of talent and expertise that is not being shared – Blogging is therapeutic. As a business owner, you have a lot to say, and blogging can be a channel for all that expertise. Not only is it good for your business and good for your customers, it’s also good for you. C’mon now, let it out!
You are losing your most valuable asset of all…your time – It is a myth that blogging has to take all your time. It can. Make no mistake about it. But it doesn’t have to. As a business owner, you know that time is your most valuable asset. And you know that time is money, right? So stop wasting money on advertising that doesn’t work. You know it isn’t pulling it’s weight lately. I say this confidently, because I know you know it’s true. I’m in the real estate business for example, and I know for a fact that many Realtors are dropping print advertising and mailing campaigns altogether. It just doesn’t work. Yet NAR reports that less that 8% of Realtors have a blog. What gives? You can’t do NOTHING to promote your business. You need to simply do what works.

Blogging will force you to learn new things. It will certainly be a learning process. And it will take time. It’s not a magic bullet. It’s one of the things we need to learn as business owners…good things take time. Blogging will not pull immediate results like a banner ad will. But blogging also will not cost you several hundred dollars a week. And once you get past the start up period, the online network you’re able to create will continue to reward you passively for the life of your business…and if you do it right, it will even continue to reward you beyond that…even if your current business fails for whatever reason, your network will know you, they’ll understand you, and they’ll support you in your next venture as well. What kind of newspaper ad can do that?

How to Not Suck at Business Blogging

By Christian

This is a post I wrote a while ago, and I’ve decided to share it on Next Level Blogger for this reason…I believe everyone reading this blog is concerned with truly doing what’s necessary to be effective at marketing themselves online. This means different things to different people, but the one thing it means to all business people is that we need to make money blogging. In business, if it’s not profitable, it’s not sustainable. We need to be efficient, and we need to be good.

I maintain regularly in this blog that being successful at making money online requires embracing the salesman we all have inside of us. The topic of sales is always volatile. Most people do not want to be salespeople, but I argue you are a salesperson whether you want to be or not. It’s not a matter of whether you are or not…it’s only a matter of whether you’re good or not. My goal is to help all readers of Next Level Blogger to truly excel in this area and to be successful at making their business all it can be through blogging, social networking and internet marketing. That said, here are some of my thoughts on salesmanship. I’d love to hear your comments…

“Salesman” is a dirty word. It’s one of the reasons I’m attracted to the profession and why I consider myself a salesman. It’s a massively misunderstood profession. It’s also a massively abused and poorly executed profession. There are good salespeople out there, but there are very few. I am one of the good ones. It’s my mission to teach others that salesmanship is not dead but more vital and needed than ever. It’s good salesmanship that will make or break your business. It’s good salesmanship that will make or break your life. It’s good salesmanship (not money) that makes the world go round…

A good sales experience can profoundly change your opinion about something. It can make you a fan for life. It can affect your decisions in a fundamental way. Believe it or not, everyone is in sales. It’s not a matter of debate. You want stuff. Other people have what you want. You want them to give it to you. That makes you a salesperson. Look, this doesn’t mean you’re a GOOD salesperson. You’re probably not. You’re probably a bad salesperson. You’re probably ineffective and inept at sales. But there’s a good reason for that. The reason is you’ve never focused on your sales skills. You’re never sat down to make a plan to systematically improve your sales skills. Probably because you don’t consider yourself a salesman. That’s fine. It’s your choice. But I’m telling you, the sooner you accept the fact that you’re a salesperson, the sooner you can get down to work and finally start getting what you want out of life.

You Have Ethical Responsibilities

Here’s a real key to success in sales. And it’s one of the reasons so many salespeople are bad at what they do. You have ethical responsibilities. It is your right to live how you choose, but it is your ethical mandate to live in a way that is mutually beneficial. Most salespeople just want the close, and that is where they screw it up. The largest most important thing you can do to greatly improve the quality of your life in sales is to answer the question of “why”.

Why do you want what you want? Why do you want your boss to give you more money? Why do you want this person to buy from you? Why do you want more vacation time? Why do you want that new car? Why are you willing to work late and sacrifice time with your family in order to get these things? See, you better have good answers to these questions, and they better be answers you’d be happy to share with your mother. If not, you need to own up to the fact that maybe, just maybe that new car just isn’t worth working for. Maybe you want it for the wrong reasons. Follow?

If you want good things, for mutually beneficial reasons, that is the first and more fundamental step towards becoming a good salesperson. See, if you know why your goal is mutually beneficial, all you have to do is explain it well to your customer, your boss or whoever you’re selling to. With good communication skills, the rest is a piece of cake. It’s when we try to use good communication skills to our customers’ peril…that’s when we give salesmanship a bad name. When we have a goal which is not in our customers’ best interest, but we try to acheive the goal anyway…that’s when we’ve violated our ethical responsibilities. That’s not success, my friend, even if you DO have your dream car.

How to Rock

When you’ve aligned your goals with a healthy concern for others, you will ultimately find that what Zig Ziglar says is true, “You can have anything you want in life, if you can just help enough other people get what they want.” There is no better way to achieve your goals! Now that your goals are simply to help others, you will find that this one factor alone will affect your entire approach to building your business. Instead of just trying to close the deal, you’ll investigate the customer’s motives, needs and wants, and you’ll work to find a way to help and add value. This is true salesmanship. This is where you find common ground and develop a mutually beneficial relationship that lasts. This is how you REALLY reach your long term goals.

And that is why I’m in sales. I know that when I sell a product or a service, I’ve made a friend. I would honestly do whatever I can to help them out, and guess what…I get paid too. A nice little bonus.