Luring Clients Through Your Blog

Blogging can be an extremely effective, inexpensive, and compelling way to get your readers to become clients. If your blog posts are well written and thought-provoking, they will ensure that your brand and your offerings affect your readers in a way that makes the content stick with them and gets them not only to think about what you are saying but also to keep you on tip of their tongues when it comes to their needing what you are offering.

Allowing your blog to lure clients: If you do it right, your blog will produce many positive results that will keep on giving to you, many times over. You want your blog to elevate your professional reputation, boost your visibility, build your credibility, and ultimately get you more clients. There are several ways in which you can accomplish all of that, including the following:

• Offer up fresh blog content frequently and consistently: When it comes to your commitment to blogging, the number of blogs that you post per week is less important that your consistency. Of course, it goes without saying that the quality of your content must also be top notch each and every time you post a blog. You may be surprised at how quickly people will get used to your wonderful blogs and they will definitely be able to tell the difference quickly if you offer any quality that is less than what they are used to reading. In a big way, it is a compliment that they are paying such close attention to what you are sharing with them. The one objective that you should have in mind more than other objective is that they should not only keep coming back to read your content over and over again but that they should also value it enough to want to share it with other people.


• Use your company's domain name: If your domain name contains your company's name, by all means, use it. It is a great way to get people to remember your business (and you). Another positive result that will happen will be that the search engines will index your company's name if it keeps showing up over and over again. That means that your search engine rankings will be higher than they would be if you used some other name (including your personal name). It is important to remember that the higher your search engine rankings, the greater your visibility will be and the more easily people will find you online.


• Find your voice: It is extremely important that you have a unique voice, which will come through loud and clear in your writing. If you can develop a unique voice, people will react positively to what you are saying and to how you are saying it. Your voice should be a clear representation of you and your business. Your voice should express your passion, your ethics, and anything else that you hold near and dear to your heart. If you aren't sure how to find your voice, it may make it easier for you if you can identify other people's voices in your niche or industry. If you are able to identify what you like about those other voices, you can emulate them.


• Don't forget the links: One of the best ways to start interacting with your prospective clients is by providing them with links that are valuable to them. Of course, in addition to links, you must make sure to include a call-to-action so that they can reach out to you and your relationship will start to develop. Your included links will allow your prospective clients to get to know you and your business.


• Blow your horn loudly: Your blog is one of the most powerful tools that you have. Make sure to promote it effectively so that you get the mileage from it that you deserve and want. Push your blog on your website as much as you can and people will pay attention to what you are saying. It is critical for you to remember that your blog is a thing of value and you owe it to yourself to push its positive attributes as much as you can.


• Get as much mileage out of your content as possible: When it comes to well-written content, you may be able to get a lot more use out of it than you think. Repurposing or recycling previously posted content can work really well for you. It is important to remember that if you are going to repurpose your content, it should not be time-sensitive. It should be content that can be used at any time.


• Show them your hook: It is very important that you have a unique selling proposition (USP). You need to find an unusual angle that will attract people. You want to get people to stand up and pay attention, with a clear understanding that what you are offering them is better and more exciting than what anyone else is offering. That will be your calling card.

Conclusion When it comes to luring your clients, it is important that you clearly express the idea that your story connects with them on a human/emotional level. If they can't relate to what you are saying, your relationship won't have the chance to develop and to flourish. The relationship is at the heart of your success.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a complimentary assessment of your online presence, let's have coffee.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.

Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.

Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

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Three Killer Content Strategies for Building Affiliate Marketing Assets

Affiliate marketing isn’t that tough… if you’ve got attention and trust.

You can gain attention and trust through your relationship with people who agree to receive content from you. And you can gain attention from people via search engines because Google trusts your content.

Ideally, you want both.

Of course, there are ways to make money with affiliate marketing that don’t involve content at all. You can use search marketing to send traffic to pre-sell landing pages, and sometimes even directly to the merchant offer (see Affiliate Project X for those strategies).

Different strokes for different folks… but I like to build online assets. Building a subscriber list is a valuable asset, because you can market to these folks over the long-term with multiple offers if you preserve the relationship. Likewise, a site well-positioned for valuable keywords in search engines is an asset that can bring targeted traffic and revenue for years.

Let’s take a look at three affiliate marketing strategies that build assets and sustainable businesses. The first focuses on list building, the next on link building, and the last on both.

List Building with Paid Traffic

This is a classic online list-building strategy that still works wonders in email-friendly niches (and things are still more email friendly than some of you might think). The goal is to drive traffic to a landing page that persuades the visitor to opt-in to your newsletter, either with effective copy or a sample of the content. Targeted traffic should ideally come from search engine pay-per-click ads, but other advertising methods can work if they’re cost effective.

List building is all about opt-in conversion rates and the value of each subscriber over the life of the relationship. This is where valuable content comes into play… you’re not going to get someone to give up their primary email address unless you promise and deliver valuable content in return. And your lifelong customer value will be lower if you don’t maintain a good relationship with your list.

Here are 3 quick tips that make this affiliate marketing strategy work:

1. You can’t be shy about promoting, or else you won’t make any money. But you also need a balance between solid content and affiliate offers to maintain a positive relationship. Crafting content that offers independent value but also naturally leads to a product recommendation is one smart way to do it (more on this in the next installment of the series).
2. You’ll do better with Google Adwords by having a highquality score for your landing page. The best way to do that is to host the page on a domain with plenty of content and a decent amount of inbound links. So consider marrying this tactic with a blogging strategy that provides the content links you send to the list.
3. Beyond opt-in conversion rates, your main concern is recouping advertising expenses as soon as possible. One way to do that (and also make immediate profit) is to send the new subscriber to a highly-relevant affiliate offer as soon as they opt-in.

Link Building on Keyword Domains

This is primarily an SEO strategy that takes advantage of two key factors: Google’s current algorithmic preference for exact-match keyword domains, and social media link attraction strategies (aka link baiting). The idea is to build up link equity and trust in the domain itself and then rake in search traffic for lucrative keyword phrases.

Your first task is to invest in the right keyword-match domain. I say “invest” because if it’s an exact-match keyword phrase that pulls significant traffic, someone already owns it. And I say “right” keyword-match domain because these keywords must revolve around a topic that is supported by lucrative affiliate programs.

Next, you must come up with a social-media friendly content strategy. So while the main portion of your site is professionally designed to make authoritative affiliate offers (say for credit cards), your blog must contain a steady stream of Diggable andbookmarkable content. What you’re after are the links more than the direct traffic, because you want to build the overall authority of the domain from a search engine standpoint.

To pull this off, the content strategy is just as crucial as the domain name, and it has to be aimed squarely at what people have demonstrated they want. Social media news sites love big resource posts related to getting ahead and getting things done. So if you’re promoting a credit card site, you need to promote content with financial “life hacks” that show people how to get more for their money, eliminate revolving debt, and live life well for less.

Building Authority Sites

Building an authority site allows you to enjoy the benefits of subscribers and search traffic, and it can be done without advertising or expensive domain names. You’re more focused on building a real brand and a site that also ranks well in search engines. If you take the time to do it right, you have a truly defensible online business that can’t be crippled by an algorithmic alteration.

Authority sites come into being because they deliver great content that people have demonstrated they want, and they make money by covering topics that can be supported by (among other things) lucrative affiliate programs. Your overall strategy involves matching up desirable topics with profitable products and services.

You don’t need a huge audience to make good money from affiliate marketing, but you do need a strong relationship with the right people. Publishers often worry that they’ll lose part of their audience if they make affiliate offers, even if those offers are highly relevant.

My response to that is, unless you’re using the wrong tactics (which we’ll explore in the next installment), people who desert you for making relevant offers are not the right kind of people. Put another way, would you rather have an audience of 5,000 that makes you $10,000 a month, or an audience of 40,000 that makes you $3,000 a month?

Sure, you want subscribers… and when you dish out great content on a regular basis, you’ll have them. But when it comes to making money with affiliate marketing, what you need are buyers. People who won’t even consider buying are not good for your business.

Copywriting Tactics That Work for Affiliate Marketing

Up next, we’ll explore various copywriting techniques that can be used to maximize affiliate sales. The key is to match up the right copy approaches with your content model and audience.

Stay tuned…

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