(Part 2 in a series of 2)
In the previous lesson, we talked about how a blog can be integrated into your online business, and I covered several ways of monetizing your blog.
Today I’m going to be covering the most important aspect of blogging for your business…
(Watch this video…)
Main points:
4) Influence, authority, and positioning
For most businesses, these are THE greatest assets that you can gain from your blog.
Rich Schefren: you need to become a maven in your market.
Frank Kern: you need to be a celebrity in your marketplace.
You want to position yourself and your products in the top of your prospects’ minds.
5) Selling your blog.
-Create a blog with… good content, loyal readership, steady traffic, decent Pagerank.
-Investors, entrepreneurs, and aspiring entrepreneurs buy websites…
-If your site is valued over $100k, consider a broker
-Do it yourself:
http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/
http://www.businessesforsale.com/
Ebay
-Some marketers also “flip” blogs. (buy ugly ones and make them nice)
(see examples on video)
-John Chow vs. Shoemoney vs. Darren Rowse
– On the one hand, branding your blog with your own name, image, and personality can give you an edge over the competition. On the other hand, it can also make it harder to sell.
– If your priority is selling your blog, you need to take this into consideration, but for MOST people I would recommend going for a strong personal brand.
Action steps:
1) Decide what the primary objective of your blog is going to be.
2) Think about how you will monetize it.
3) Start blogging!
I’ve been teaching a lot about building your website. But what if you don’t want to build it yourself? The next lesson is for you!
As always, you are welcome to post your questions and comments below.
If you have a blog, this would be a great time to show it off! Feel free to tell us your blog’s primary objective, or you can let us guess 🙂
Have a great day!
Hello Joe,
When you’re on your squeeze page, simply copy the link that appears in your address bar.
Then, when you’re at your WordPress blog, paste that same link into any of the posts you are writing, where you want to direct visitors to your squeeze page.
Great! Great! post. I learned a lot of information about blogging from here
Thanks
Hello everyone, i have been attempting to create a blog of interest to people interested in walking/enjoying the english countryside,unfortunately,so far i am not getting any traffic,i would greatly appreciate your views and opinions on my blog.
Hello Pete,
Here is Eric’s intro lesson to getting web traffic:
Another great post Eric. Thank you for your insight, it really helps.
For the past 3 weeks, I have been trying to sort out issues with hacking in my wordpress sitres. When I set them up (someone else’s lessons), there was no mention of security. I think this is an important area to cover. I have learned a great deal in a short time, but truly the best wordpress (and other open sources) trouble shooting people are OS Training at http://www.ostraining.com. You do have to pay (graded) but they are worth their weight in gold. They don’t fix the problem for you. Instead they teach you how to fix it yourself. If they managed to teach me, believe me, they can teach anyone. Fabulous people.
Thanks for the emphasis on becoming an authority.
Thanks for the great Tips Eric.
I appreciate the lessons you are giving, Eric. At first I thought you were just another IMer out to sell stuff but now I see that you are helping me learn a lot of important info. I’ve got to go back and read the earlier posts but I can see this is valuable info, so thanks!
Thank you for your LESSONs, just i have no match time, but after month lesson education i today create my first blog page!!!
All the best,
Raimonds
Gary Vaynerchuk is a wine expert. He used his knowledge of wines to brand himself and position himself as a wine expert/guru. I understand how that has all played out and he is now making good money from his online wine business. But what if we are not experts in anything? What do we blog about? We (my husband and I) have just returned from the foreign mission field after 16 years and we need to make money to be able to live back home where costs are so high. So we are wondering what we have that we can use as our niche to blog about and possibly brand ourselves so we can make money eventually. We are Bible teachers and we’ve been literacy facilitators in an under developed country; plus we are natural health & fitness advocates. So far we have started an online retail store selling infrared portable heaters and healthy home products (smartportableheaters.com). We did that through an online training program that we paid WAY too much a couple of years ago. We didn’t do to well with SEO, so our site is not ranking and we’ve only had two sales in over a year. Also we didn’t realize that our online web store site would be tied in to a host affiliated with the training program we paid for. I’m trying to find out how to transfer my site (web store) away from them without interrupting it too much. My site is nice, but I’m not really in control of it and I’m being charged monthly.
Your lessons are helping us to get on the right track and put our past mistakes behind and move towards our goal and success. Thank you Eric. And may God Bless your sincere motives.
When you are first starting your blog there is not much content how do you start driving traffic to it at the same time you are building it and still make the people that opt in feel like it is worth it? I have a free info product to give away when they opt in and an ebook to sell as an upsell but not much on the blog itself yet.
Hello Jenny,
Here is the link to Eric’s lesson called, Introduction to List Building:
Hi Micah,
I understand about the list building, but am concerned about the value of the blog that I am having people opt into because of the lack of content yet. Would you suggest finding a bunch of articles and filling it that way to begin with?
Jenny, what a lot of marketers are doing is finding free ebooks and spinning that content into articles. I recommend you go to http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator put in a few of the subjects you’re interested in if it recommends any that makes sense Google the results and see what others are writing on the subject. It’s perfectly ok to review their article in your blog. simply comment on what a great article it is in your post and insert the article in it’s entirety, including the link, below your review. You can’t do it for every post but it will not only provide you with quality content but also help you to become an expert by learning. Or you can just purchase Spinner Chief and use spun articles.
Hello Jenny,
That would be fine. It’s usually best to regularly post your own content, letting your site grow naturally over time. Hopefully your niche is something you are already passionate about. The more of yourself, you can convey in each entry, the more like-minded people will find value in your site, and want to read what you have to say.
if you have a cpa offer for gift cards would you set up a blog and have the link in there??
can you run cpa offers using a proxy or vpn or is this considered fraud?
I’d be wary of using proxies for anything, as they are often used for fraudulent purposes. Of course they can be used simply for privacy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. So I’m not sure how you plan to use it with CPA offers.
That’s certainly one of many places you could promote a CPA offer. The best use of a blog is generally to gain trust and authority. Get those readers on your list, and send them the CPA offer via email.
Is it possible for you to help me get my blog now?
Eric, great lessons, I’m looking forward to making/creating my own blog when you commence with the lessons on how to build my first blog. In fact, I want to setup a blog that career promoting and careerand employment, business advise and so forth. I’m looking for ward to your next lessons
Hello Elvis,
Here is the link to Eric’s lesson called, Getting Started with WordPress:
Here are some additional lessons you may also find helpful:
WordPress Recommended Settings:
WordPress Themes and Plugins:
Customizing WordPress:
I missed the “how” of making a blog in a way that will make me have influence, authority, and positioning. Is that all there is? You usually give details.
Good question. I do talk a little more about this here and there in the lessons, but I do not address it specifically. It basically comes down to this…
1) Create amazing content.
2) Build a subscriber list and gain the trust of your subscribers (I do cover this in depth in the lessons). This will increase your influence.
3) Get some other influential/authority people to recommend and link to you.
This would also be a good topic to discuss in more depth in my coaching club if you’re interested.
Thanks Eric kepp working hard on it Jorge
Indeed,you are an epitome of knowledge,keep on.
Hi Erik – thank you for your great series of lessons!
I have had a Real Estate website for years, but never did much with it, nor did I have a blog, because most of my business came from past clients’ referrals or repeat sales, and REO (bank-foreclosed homes) listings from banks, and my communication was done primarily through email and special website programs. .
I decided to scale down my R.E business (turning 80 this year) and the REO business pretty much disappeared.
Now I want to learn how to earn an income selling on the Internet (any channels and avenues).
Your “Erik Tips” have been extremely helpful. Since I am a slow learner at anything new concerning the Internet (!), I created an email file just for your tips, incl. an index for this file. This way, I can continue to study your information at my pace, and also have a direct reference, if I need to go back and review specific information (i.e. blogs, lists, etc.) in your series of tips. This has worked well, and I am just starting on Lesson #38–see, I AM a slow learner…
I also just created another website on http://www.wix.com –it’s free, regarding my hobby: backyard organic container gardening (www.myorganiccontainergarden.com). The website is still under construction, but I think (after I have worked through your blogging information) I’ll pause for a while and set up a blog first. Researching gardening-related websites, I have found a plethora of organic gardening information and advise columns, which will give me ample material for blogging.
I will also finally start a blog on my R.E. website, and there I’ll have no shortage of up-to-date information, I’m sure.
When I have these blogs created and my garden website completed, I plan to set up another website regarding my passion: Saber Fencing. I am still fencing pretty actively in the US Veteran Fencing Association, and believe that fencing (any discipline: sabre, foil or epee) are great activities for Seniors. Regretably, Senior Fencing as a “keeping fit” activity has been very much ignored in the “Physical Activities for Seniors” general curriculum.
Meantime, I hope to have gained enough knowledge to be able to set up an Internet-based business (several of the choices you recommended, as well as sales through drop-shipping), to supplement my present income.
Thanks again for your excellent information.
Hi Eric,
Just want to ask, which one is the first priority Traffic, Great Content, Effective Sales Funnel or Website Design.
Thanks. I look forward for your response.
Best Regards,
Salvador Jr Ropan
Hello Salvador,
You’ll want to get a functioning website up right away. If you are building a WordPress blog, you can always update the theme later.
Content is King! That is what people are looking for, what will keep them on your site, and what will make business possible.
Good afternoon!
Eric, I got an email from you about Blog Defender software plugin. My question: Is this the only security software that I need to protect my website from hackers? Is this better than other security that I have to pay on a monthly basis? I hope I get this email to you. BTW, my website, writeandshareaeulogy.com was hacked! I hope my friend repair the damage for the site.
Regards,
Dennis
Hello Dennis,
I located Matthew’s support link for you here:
http://support.profitmarketer.com/
He would be happy to answer any of your Blog Defender questions.
Eric:
Is Blog Defender software that you are selling, good enough for all my security purposes for my website?
thanks
Hello Dennis,
I located Matthew’s support link for you here:
http://support.profitmarketer.com/
He would be happy to answer any of your Blog Defender questions.
Health and Wellness
http://buildingabrandonline.com/TWBethunehealthblog/using-essential-oils-for-a-better-nights-sleep/
.
and
http://timothywbethune.mlspsites.com/treat-alzheimers-naturally/
Hi Eric,
Another great lesson.
I might build the same kind of site of this one but in french as it’s my first language.
But I’m not sure if the is a french market for it.
Kindly
Marc