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I know lots of “do it yourself ideas” and tools to build blogs and websites on your own… and if you are not that type, then definitely take a look at my services and I would be happy to design it for you.In the meantime check out the sponsors I recommend on the right side of the blog or the resources center. I only refer things I personally use or have seen in action!

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Problem is that the internet world of today as we know it no longer responds to advertising the old traditional way (banners) as it used to. With the new generation of social media and savvier more well informed customers, people now have at their fingertips not only a wealth of free information about how things should work and this and that, but most importantly, in approximately 30 seconds one can get a pretty full LIVE instant report on the “general consensus” about a particular product’s efficiency, a company’s reputation on customer service or the latest and greatest horror story.

Yes, that’s right, the conversations are on and they are often HOT. And YOU definitely want a piece of THAT action!

But here is a trick to ensure loyalty from your “followers”. One word. Ready? AUTHENTICITY

People in social media sites are driven like MAGNETS to the personality and authenticity of your profile. And at the end of the conversation, they are actually buying into YOU much more than they are into whatever you are selling. And that’s the goal to engage customers. Brand what YOU bring to the table. Attract people with the value you offer them and let them get to know your personality!

HOW A BLOG CAN IMPROVE YOUR BRAND

My personal opinion between websites and blogs is that “websites sell your product/service” and “blogs sell YOU”.

So the VERY first stop (site) that anyone should arrive at after checking out any of your profiles online is YOUR BLOG.

Once there, they will see what you write about, how you express yourself, how you got to where you are, how you feel about trends in the market, maybe your sports team preference, of your favorite fishing spot. Whatever it is that you decide to blog about (I recommend focusing on a specific type of content), that is the kind of reader you will attract… someone like you, or who can relate to you.

Via your blog you can form very strong relationships with your clients (if you stay connected) and relationships are the core foundation of loyalty. When they are ready to buy, they will buy from you. Why? Because people buy from people they know, like and trust. Period.

So if you are new in the market place, or have been placing ads all over the internet with no significant response, then try a blog that speaks (not sells) to your audience. The audience you are trying to attract. If you don’t do it, your competitor will. As a matter of fact, chances are he already is.

Social media is trendy, blogs are HOT. Step into the fire my friend… free traffic awaits.

Next blog topic… what to blog about & how to get others to visit your blog DAILY….stay tuned by subscribing

Business owners in general are simply stumped on what they could possibly blog about to attract customers. I mean, who wants to give the farm away for free right? Sadly, it’s farming season on the internet. If you don’t share “valuable” input, and all you offer is a bunch of empty fluff, then the animals will smell the bs a mile away! Seriously!

Look around. Punch in ANY topic on google search that you are passionate about. I bet you will find someone blogging about it (however, if you don’t then you may have yourself a nice “niche” ;)). You can even find complete blogs on how to build a website, free graphics, the works!

So, you gotta roll up your sleeves and get in the game here. Time to get creative. Hire someone to get creative for you if you have to. If you are good at selling bikes but suck at writing about bike trails, hire a young biker to post about trails and such for you. I am a bit ahead of myself here but, in a nutshell, outsource your blog content if you have to. As long as the story about YOU is real and your blog is not a sales pitch, then you should be fine. Whoever is going to write for you SHOULD know your style though. So make sure that authenticity comes clear across the articles.

…To clarify that obvious question here “how can you be authentic if you someone else is writing your blog for you?” Well, you can still deliver your personality and brand while someone else provides the actual physical content. You just need to make sure you are involved in the process (you are still an independent business owner, you MUST have a hand in what goes online about you or your business some level)….It’s ok to have someone write for you as long as they are representing you and your brand well. So, review stuff often and make sure there are some guidelines. Or, do what I do and write it yourself :).

PS: Yes, I write my own blog posts. I am too complex to try to explain my wit. LOL. Just kidding. I enjoy writing.

So what to blog about. Well, obviously I can’t write about all the different topics everyone in every business should be writing about. I’d never finish. What I would like to do is “teach you how to fish”. I am going to give you one case scenario and give you ideas on what they might consider blogging about and then you can take the same “concept” and twist it into whatever fits your business best.You’ll see what I mean.

If you happen to be an INTERIOR PAINTER then you are in luck! ;)

CASE SCENARIO | INTERIOR PAINTER

Start by writing blog posts about HOW TO PAINT :).

- One day I would blog about faux finish, and exactly what paint to use and how to properly achieve the look. If you want to take your blog to the NEXT level, I would video tape yourself doing the steps and embed that video into the post for the more visual folks. Videos ROCK. Get a flip camera from Amazon or best buy or wherever. Record the video, then it plugs right into your pc or mac to edit (easy software included in the flip). It even comes ready to upload to YouTube. No additional cables needed! (Here is a video review on The Flip that I put together a while back). But finish reading this first, then come back to the review later…

- I would definitely include tips on choosing the right paint type (when to use eggshell, glossy, etc…)

- You will also want to upload pictures of your latest work, but randomly. Like a new nursery you just painted that uses a technique you just shared. You can always include a gallery of your stuff somewhere else in your blog for people to see all your work from one place. But remember, blog is about selling YOU and not your work. Just put a link to your website somewhere so people can look at your stuff separetly. In other words, don’t just plaster your blog with all your work pics. Maybe once a week add something new. Pictures do make your look look great.

- You can blog about painting shows you recommend and enjoy and do reviews on new stuff out in the market.

- You can write reviews on TOOLS you use to paint! Or even show folks how to use them.

Now, you may be saying to yourself… why would I share my secrets about how to achieve different looks? Well, the point of your blog is to attract people who are into design and decorating. Some will take your tips and apply them themselves. That’s ok. Because when their friends visit their homes and ask who did that for them, they will most likely not offer themselves to go paint their friend’s house. Instead they will say something like “oh, I did it. I found the information on this gal’s website, she is great… here is her link, she is local… call her”. Along those lines.

You will also have people checking out HOW to tips and saying to themselves “No way. I rather just have someone come do it for me”… like me for example :).

In the meantime, you are establishing yourself as a local business owner that people can come to for tips and ideas and when its time to refer, they will use your name and pass it around.

Ok that’s about a thousand dollars worth of branding & marketing consultation advice right there…. take it and run with it! Add pictures, videos, reviews, always comment back when your users do, interact. And also include a subscription form so you can build a list of followers!

One last advertising/marketing advise if your product/service is pretty much a local thing. Only market to locals. You can zero in on this market by adding your city and state to your keywords and such. Also, there are many details on how to build a blog and set it up for optimized marketing. You can google this or subscribe here. I have a video series on how to build a blog from scratch to glory. It is in the works as of the date of this blog post, but getting there. At least I have the “how to get started” videos done.

Get to bloggin! It’s free. Visit wordpress.org to set yours up.

Other blogging topics you can write about in general (remember, this depends on your AUDIENCE and should relate to your business in some form):

1- Product reviews

2- News or shows commentary

3- Industry news

4- How to tutorials

5- Video journaling (a day in the life of…)

6- Demonstrations (if you sell cookbooks, do cooking videos)

7- Places to visit (if you are a bike shop owner, show bike trails)

I have heard horror stories about WordPress shutting down blogs for no “known” reason, simply because a terms & services rule was broken. And since they have no customer service rep waiting by the phone to hear about your complain, there is simply little to nothing you can do about it.

In their defense, they DO allow you to log in and at least export your posts in an xml format so you can upload them elsewhere. However, yes, you guessed it, say goodbye to whatever else was on there, including any customization.

So, lesson here: Host your own blog!

Here is “How To Install A WordPress Blog In Hostgator” (thank you Cyn Vela for your wonderful submission)

What is the advantage of this? Simple. Unless you are familiar with web design AND have access to your website files, then updating/maintaining your website will be at the mercy of your webmaster and their fees. However, with a wordpress style blog that supports pages/posts interchangeably, then you can be in charge of easily and quickly updating your own content for both.

When it comes to the design the actual layout of your blog, well that’s something different. And although wordpress offers many free templates that will get you at least started and well acquainted with how a blog system works, the only way to really stand out from the crowd (online) is to have a unique style that brands YOU. Even if you tweak an existing theme. You gotta start somewhere right!?

In order to accomplish this you will need to have either CSS or HMTL background or knowledge, or find someone who does. Usually that involves paying for that service, but it is worth it in most cases. But once that is set up, then you take the reins!

There are other options as well, such as purchasing upgraded themes. A purchased theme gives you more customization flexibility and will be a heck of a lot more exclusive. It will be rare that you come across another person online with exactly the same theme. Below are two wordpress theme providers you can browse through. You WILL need to download AND install these themes in your own server to actually use them or upload them to wordpress to activate. In other words, they are just the themes you are buying and not the actual CMS system that hosts them.

So in a nutshell, unless you offer a product that requires a shopping cart, my personal recommendation is to find a blog theme that supports the combination of website pages and access to the blog side in one and then you will be able to easily manage all your content yourself. Not to mention that a blog’s fresh content is prime “food for SEO”.  You will also be able to incorporate opt in form scripts (like my subscribe box on my pages which I created through Aweber), and many other widgets that require minimal if any programming at all… usually drag, edit some custom options and save!

So what are you waiting for?  Go get your own “blogite” set up! (Try WordPress.com, it’s very flexible and you can get started for free and have access to lots of free templates too)

Here are the upgraded wordpress template designs should you wish to brand yourself more uniquely:

Woo Themes

Elegant Themes:

PS: If you need any assistance, I can do blog installations and set up for a small fee. Just email me (aymee@aymeebuckhannon.com). You will need Linux hosting for wordpress installation. You can get that all set up easily through GoDaddy.com. If you are new to setting up domains and hosting, just call them instead and they will do it for you. They are available 24×7.

Most important guideline to keep in mind before you start is that to rank high one must focus on building a great site, which to search engines it has nothing to do with pretty flashy stuff but instead: finding the right search words and getting the right people to link to you – (aka: build a search engine-friendly site, right keywords and right inbound links). As a side note I should add that BLOGS rank very well with search engine… just fyi… but moving on…

o Inbound links and the keywords found within those links have a greater effect on rankings than actual keywords on your site.

o Keywords should be contained within the visible text of any incoming link (aka anchor text).

o Also the length of time a good incoming link has pointed to your site makes a difference. The longer the better.

o Choosing the right domain name: when possible, generate a domain name that incorporates your keywords. Three benefits to this:

* First: When another site links to you and they are using your keywords in the anchor text, then they are in essence using your domain name which makes it easier for them.

* Second: When searching people are more likely to click on domain names containing the keywords they are searching for. This is particularly the case for those with slower internet connections who rather invest their “downloading” time sparingly.

* Third: Search engines may assume your domain to be slightly more relevant to those keywords.

o No more than one dash domains recommended and the shorter the better: cell-phones.com, etc.. (too many dashes are harder for customers to remember as well). Definitely no double dash domains recommended.

o When possible, purchase your domain with and without dashes (for competition safety).

o Register as many keywords that relate to your services as domain names. Sort of a future investment tactic for later use as needed. Can set them up specialized sites in the meantime for search engines to find.

o Write well formatted HTML: broken code can make it harder for spiders. The easier you make it for spiders to process the code, the better.

o Avoid old html or one proprietary to a single browser (i.e.: Netscape’s tag.

o HTML that is so new that spiders don’t recognize it yet (i.e.: many XML tags)

Remember that SEO is not about just following all of these and BAM your site is #1. It takes TIME, it takes trying different things and I recommend continuing your research on other tactics. These have helped me with my websites rankings greatly, but not everyone is claiming the same keywords! And of course, posting on forums like this Magnetic Sponsoring Forum (right on Mike!), as well as other popular ones such as Squidoo, Face Book, Direct Matches, etc… will also help your posts rank high on Google :).

Hope these SEO tips help get your sites noticed out there! If you don’t own the html to your website, then get a blog going and try some of the same tactics on it ;).

Even if your main landing page is a blog (with an address), it is always a good idea to have your own personally branded domain. The first one that comes to mind is using YOUR NAME! Not only will this be easier to share with people than a site with too many “/”, but it will look polished and professional on your business cards!

I personally recommend GoDaddy and here is a quick video on how to purchase a domain online through their site and skipping all the non-sense add-ons they throw at you!

You’re living in the 21st century and if you are looking to build a large organization in network marketing, then you absolutely MUST have your own personal website/blog that is branding YOU!

The first place you send prospects to should always be YOUR WEBSITE (your personally branded website).

… A solution that builds YOU as a brand.

Your website/blog should be about YOU as a professional network marketer and should offer both, a professional image and also valuable content.

People partner with those they trust. To build trust online, you must tell people who YOU are and then share what value you add.

This personal branding concept is the basis of what industry experts like Mike Dillard teach about: Building a You, Inc online that will always remain “open for business” regardless of your product opportunity.

As a network marketing professional creating a strong online presence will establish you as a leader and will make you stand out prominently from the crowd. Learn how to apply these principles and how to market yourself online effectively to create constant traffic to your sites and your content.

We have free weekly webinars that will walk you through some basics and coach you on what your next steps are. Register below and start building your business more efficiently online!

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