Not all that long ago in our regularly
scheduled "Inner Circle" no holds barred
q and a session we discussed the proper
use of blogging to recruit and enhance
your home business. Make no mistake
blogging is extremely powerful as a
business building tool "if" used
properly, here's how to do it
right . . .
One of the biggest mistake I see people
making in their blogging efforts is
"why" they use them. Most people tend to
think of blogging as a primary traffic
generation strategy, and it can be, but
it's not THE best use of a blog in our
type of business.
You should think of blog traffic more
like icing on the cake. The primary and
MOST powerful use of starting and using
a blog in your business is it's ability
to create a powerful testimonial for
you. Let me explain . . .
When I started my first successful
business here's exactly what I did. On
an almost daily basis I blogged about
something relating to my business, at
the top of that blog I would always note
the number of people in our team, and
then carry on with the message.
Sometimes if I had new recruits I would
create a formal blog welcome to my new
team mates by listing their names and
welcoming them to the team.
If there was a co-op, advertising
strategy that was working well for me,
you better bet I put in on that blog.
Why? Well, I haven't told you how I used
my blog to recruit yet (we'll get to
that in a second), but along with using
a blog to recruit I also constantly
referred my team members there for any
and all updates on our business.
It was a central meeting point. As a
result my team always checked the blog
to see what was going on in our
business. This was important for two
reasons:
First, easy access to important current
information pertaining to our team, and
second as team wide social proof.
They came to the blog and saw the number
of people on the team growing and
welcome messages to our new team members
and subconsciously it helped raise their
belief level about the business they
were in.
It's sometimes easy for a new recruit to
get discouraged without encouragement
and the blog helped give them that
encouragement they needed. As a result
they "believed" in the business, and
took more proactive action to go out and
do what we were doing to grow which
translated into a higher rate of
duplication in the business and longer
retention.
So let's recap so far, we've got a blog
where we're blogging about our team,
what we're doing to advertise, we're
"training" our team members to check the
blog often for advice and encouragement
and as a result their using that
motivation to go out and build. This
causes the team to grow faster,
stronger, and better.
What do we have? That sounds like a
pretty darn powerful testimonial to me.
And that's the primary use of the blog
as far as recruiting is concerned as I
mentioned earlier.
The mistake most people make is they
want to blog for traffic, which you can
do, and I'll share a few tips to doing
that better in a few, but not it's best
use for recruiting. Here's how to use
your blog to recruit . . .
I'd generate leads directly to my own
lead capture page or my company's lead
capture page. Once I saw my lead opt in
I would send them a personal email to
tell them a little bit about myself, our
team, and our business. In that email I
would always include a link to my blog
so my prospects could get an inside look
at who I and our team was doing.
This is powerful as heck for a couple
reasons where recruiting is concerned.
First, people are inherently
voyeuristic. They wanna spy, so let
them. By sending my prospects to my blog
they now had the opportunity to get to
know me and my team without me even
being there. As a result, when we did
have an email correspondence or they
called me they already knew me.
I've always found this to be a MUCH
better option than cold calling leads. I
let them get to know me first.
Second reason this is powerful is based
on a principle called "The Power Of
Documentation" which states we as humans
tend to take things which we read as
more truthful than things we just hear.
In other words, a prospect who goes to
your blog and reads about you and your
team is going to take what they read
there at face value where if you're on
the phone telling them the same thing
they're most likely saying "Yeah right"
If you've ever called leads and had that
question come up of "Well why should I
join you?" Having and sending your
prospects to your blog first will
virtually eliminate this objection and
ignite powerful curiosity and intrigue
about you and what you do.
So, when it comes to using a blog to
recruit, it's best us is as a secondary
traffic strategy. You get the lead, then
you send them to your blog for a
powerful testimonial.
So I can hear the question welling up
"What should I put on my blog to start?"
Simple, talk about yourself, your
company's products and service, why you
love your company, your team, AND here's
a key . . .
Ask your upline or downline to write you
a quick note about why it's great to
work with you and put it on your blog.
You do that, and you've covered all your
bases. Not only are your prospects
learning about you, why you like what
you do, your personality, your team, BUT
they're also SEEING other people saying
great things about you. Third party
validation about you is a powerful
thing.
Simply doing this and nothing else, I
was surprised to see that after about
six months of consistent blogging my
blog received about 300 site views per
day from people finding online via
search engines. I did nothing but blog,
but just because I had content on the
blog I had tons of people finding it for
free, and as a result, calls out of the
blue from people saying "yeah I found
your blog, what's up with your business"
(kinda cool)
So let me share a few things you can do
to improve you search engine rankings
for you blog posts to enhance your free
traffic.
First, do a little keyword research
using the Google Keyword tool. Find a
few keywords related to business and use
those keywords in your blog title, and a
few times, along with a few synonyms for
that main keyword in your blog post.
One secret strategy that's really
increased my blog traffic personally is
using images in my blog.
On blog posts where I insert an image to
correspond to the blog post keyword I
tend to get about double the traffic. So
find a few images related to your blog
post keyword.
Name those images as your main keyword,
for instance if my blog post was based
on the keyword "internet network
marketing" then then I would find 3
images I could use for that keyword and
I would name the images:
internet-network-marketing1.jpg,
internet-network-marketing2.jpg,
internet-network-marketing3.jpg
etc.
Search engines rank you based on how
many other websites link to your post
related to your keywords, so when you
create a new blog post, write an article
with the same keyword and submit it to
the major article directories with a
link going back to your main blog post.
Find a few other blogs in the niche and
comment on a few post and link back to
your blog post.
Create a facebook, twitter, myspace,
squidoo account and post some content
based on the keyword and link those back
to your blog post.
You do that for you blog and you're
ahead of 99% of marketers.
So now that we've got traffic down,
let's talk about $$$, how do you make
money with your blog? I think the
simplest way to make money with blog
from the outset is to simply add Google
Adsense to each blog post, not so much
because you'll make a ton of cash from
it, but when people do click on your
Google Adsense ads on your blog you'll
make a few bucks which is powerful
positive reinforcement for your efforts
in the early going.
It'll fuel you forward. You'll see money
coming in and you'll get excited.
The best long term way to make money
with your blog though is . . .
Integrating your blog with your email
marketing efforts. I love using the one
two punch of email marketing and
blogging because it allows you to change
the dynamic of your email messages to
your prospects from a one way
conversation to a two way conversation
by giving your prospects the ability to
comment back to you.
Getting people involved and commenting
on your blog is a powerful way to build
trust. Think of your blog as a
conversation and you'll see the bond
between you and your prospects growing
stronger daily and for it your income
will increase.
There are two powerful benefits of
turning your emails into a blog
conversation.
The first is simply when people get
involved and proactively comment they've
taking a powerful step into your world.
The second benefit is a little more
sneaky, but extremely powerful.
Say you send a prospect to your blog to
share an important post today and 15
people comment on that post. Great!
Well what if you take the email that you
sent people to your blog and add it to
your auto responder?
Now the leads that join your list 3
months from now will get that email
automatically via your autoresponder
email sequence you set up and when they
get to the post not only are they going
to get to participate in a conversation
you set up on autopilot, but they'll
also see all the people that commented
prior and say . . .
"Wow! I just got this email and 15
people already comment there must be a
lot of people listening in." and hence
conclude you're a good teacher and
someone a LOT of people listen to.
So there's more I could go into on
blogging, but I think that's plenty for
now. No matter what you do if
you haven't checked out this free
website. Go here now:
http://isgrow.com/on/MaxLeverage
