A good location for your blog is on your website, where your domain name is followed by a page for your blogs called “blog,” such as www.your-domain.com/blog. A good reason for positioning your blog there is that as you attract traffic to it using traffic building techniques, this will increase the SEO on your site, because it has new content, which will help you go up in the rankings. Additionally, when people like what you are saying on your blog, they can readily learn more about you by going to your main site. You can also easily include links in your blogs to pages on your website, such as your homepage, as well as to your sales page or squeeze page like pcmate.
An easy way to set up your blog is to install WordPress on your site. Then, you can use the design that is already on your website or select another design from one of WordPress’s many templates. If your website is already set up in WordPress, as about 70% of websites are today, you can go to your website’s wp-admin page, login, and add another page you call “blog.”
To keep track of your visitors, include a signup form on your blog where people can put their name and email. Perhaps offer them a free gift in return for doing this, such as an article or chapter from your book, much as you might do on a squeeze page. If you are using your blog to increase your SEO ranking, follow the current Google guidelines for the length of your blog and incorporate common keywords that might be used to follow a blog on your subject. Sprinkle these words throughout your blog perhaps every paragraph or every 100 or so words.
The current guidelines are for blogs of 700-1000 words, though at one time the guidelines specified shorter blogs of 200-300 words. If you aren’t concerned about SEO rankings, use any length that is comfortable for you or combine shorter and longer blogs, depending on what you have to say. For consistency, strive to write blogs of approximately the same length each time, much like a newspaper columnist, whose typical length is about 700-800 words. While the average blog is about 700-1000 words, in some fields a longer blog of 1500 words may be more effective, because you can provide more in- depth information on a topic. Decide if you want to set up your blog for people to make comments, ask questions, and otherwise interact, like on a forum. This interaction can work well for certain types of blogs, such as if you are writing about self-help, relationships, or recovery topics in your book, so your blog can become a support group for people personally affected by your topic. You can also build a following as you interact with the community that develops around your blog. Offering helpful advice based on your expertise will help in building this following and can lead some participants to purchase your books and programs. For example, Amy Lynn Andrews notes that “after proving their trustworthiness, bloggers use their blogs as springboards to launch other products that bring in income, such as ebooks, books, speaking, products, etc.”
However, a caution in permitting comments, according to my web designer, is that you open yourself up to spammers. At the very least, moderate any comments so they are subject to your approval before they get posted. This way you generally can keep out the promoters of products and spammers, though from time to time they may get through, and you have to delete their post.
USING YOUR BLOG FOR PROMOTION AND MAKING MONEY
Once you have your blog set up, you can use it to in a number of ways to promote your book and programs and make money, based on my experience and that of several blogging experts. Choose the approaches that work best for you. Here are some of suggestions.
Using Blog as a Freebie
Use your blog as a “freebie” to attract customers or clients by being an expert, teacher, or entrepreneur. Consider your blog a launchpad for that.
According to Jon Morrow, author of “Make Money Blogging: 20 Lessons Going from 0 to $100,000 a month” Nearly all ‘bloggers’ who make a decent income have books, courses, a side career as a keynote speaker, or even software. That’s how they make their money.”
Their blog is one of many entry points to the different things they do. One of the reasons this strategy may work for some bloggers is you first build up a level of first by giving readers helpful content at no charge. After you do this for a while, you can start talking about your products and services, such as at the end of one of your blogs or in creating an advertising section for one of your programs. You may make less money in the short term, but your long-term profits will be much higher.
Using Your Blog to Learn What People Want to Know About
Learn what people want so they can solve a problem they already have, such as something you have already researched and started blogging about. With this insight, you can now guide them to your book or program that can help them.
Generally, this approach of focusing on what people want now works best rather than trying to determine what you think they need but aren’t aware of yet, since it can be hard to first educate people about what they need. When you ask your customers for insights about what they want, a good question to ask, according to Morrow is: “What’s your biggest frustration with (your subject) right now?” For instance, if they have a book about diet and nutrition, ask them about that.
Building Your Email List
According to some marketers, the most important predictor for sales is the size of your email list. Morrow recommends striving for one dollar per subscriber per month in sales. But keep in mind that for any emails to turn into sales, you need good programs and services though if you have them, your blog can act as a sales funnel, much like you might use a squeeze page to pitch same products.
So once you start getting subscribers, find things you can sell them, such as more in-depth programs or follow-up books. Preferably feature your own book and programs, though you can add materials by affiliates if you like their work and there is a good complementary fit with what you are doing.
