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Blogging Strategy: Do You Really Have One?

Jay (Jason Van Orden) 14 Comments

Blogging StrategyWe’ve built Internet Business Mastery into a six-figure business without ever paying a penny for a lead. Our customer/follower base has coming largely from the audio show. But that is about to change.

It’s time to reach further and take our message wider with other channels like blogging.

Though we have blogged some in the past, it’s never been focused and consistent. We know there are a lot of people that we’re not reaching because we haven’t had a well-defined blogging strategy.

So we’re developing a focused strategy now. As with any strategy, it’s a good idea to ask why are you doing it. What is it that we want to gain as a result?

Without going into much detail, here’s what I came up with today.

1. Organic Search Traffic

Posting frequent, valuable content has proven to land higher rankings in the search engine results, hence bringing in more targeted, free traffic from the search engines.

2. Attract More Links to Your Site

The more you post valuable content, the more opportunities there are for sites to link to you. This in turns brings in more click traffic. In addition, it affects the higher rankings mentioned in #1.

3.  Engaging Followers and Building Relationships

Once someone has opted to follow your content (whether through Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, RSS, etc.), the goal is to engage with them regularly to build a relationship of trust.

While we have experienced a powerful level of relationship building by delivering content through the audio podcast, some people prefer to connect through blog updates.

4. Progress the Sales Process

One thing that we have done with our blog is use it as a tool in our sales process. Blog posts can be used to build anticipation for a launch or deliver content that prepares a follower to buy.

The Purpose of Our Blogging Strategy

Every entry on our blog should fulfill one or more of those four purposes. If it doesn’t, then it’s really a waste of time. In fact, the same four purposes apply to our audio podcast or live video show.

Before designing the other pieces of our strategy (e.g. frequency, types of content, length of posts, etc.) it was important to have a well-defined purpose.

Why Do You Blog?

Am I missing anything? Is it different for you? Why do you blog?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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14 Comments Leave a Comment



Steve S.

I more than doubled my info product business in the last 9 months. I attribute the majority of this growth to the blog I added last spring. Everything you said is true. Better SEO, Google rankings, community building, link building.

You guys are already kicking it, can’t wait to see what happens as a result of your blog strategy.

Thanks for all you do!

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Jay (Jason Van Orden) Reply:

Steve,

Thanks for the encouragement. I’m trying not to kick myself for a lack of blogging on this site. I’m looking forward to it, too!

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I am starting a blog and was developing a strategy Pre-launch. Should I launch first then adjust?

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Jay (Jason Van Orden) Reply:

@Earl,

I’m definitely a fan of taking fast, bold action. However, it shouldn’t take you long to come up with a basic strategy that at least outlines WHY you are blogging. If you can get that done quickly, do it first.

If it’s going to keep you from blogging and taking action this week, then get started and then do the strategy.

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It can be easy to lose focus and rush a blog post out for absolutely know reason other than you have to meet your schedule.

I’be been there, done that – but quality and an approach like you’ve outlined above is critical.

Thanks for the tips.

PS, I found you via a tweet from @PatFlynn

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I’m really looking forward to reading your blog posts. I have learned so much from you guys already and I can’t wait to read more.

I too have become “stuck” both rushing to meet a self imposed deadline or leaving my site without new content too long because I felt a post wasn’t quite good enough to throw up.

I guess it’s all in the learning curve, but I am way more disciplined now then before.

Thanks guys for all that you have done!

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Jay (Jason Van Orden) Reply:

@Marty,

Being a consistent blogger will for sure be a learning for me. We’ll see how it goes!

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My blog has become the focal point of my business, the beginning of my funnel. When driving traffic, I focus on always driving traffic to the blog. That’s where my opt-in form is at. I made a mind map so I could wrap my head around the places I am engaging people and driving them to my blog, which is the center of the map.

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Jay (Jason Van Orden) Reply:

@Deborah,

That’s a great model — using your blog as the hub of your online brand. We have a similar process map.

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I thought I was blogging to develop my business model and launch a product. What I learned is, the expressive element is something I have wanted for a long time yet never found a platform. I now have a voice, in a community, with people who care about what I care about. Wow this blogging stuff is awesome.

Thanks Jay and Sterling for showing me how! You guys are a guiding light, in a new world.

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Jay (Jason Van Orden) Reply:

Hi Mark,

Glad we could help.

Personal fulfillment and expression is a worthy addition to a blogging strategy.

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Hi guys,

Glad to hear you’re adding to your business strategy with a blog. Frankly, I love the podcast but it doesn’t come out frequently enough. I look forward to additional posts on your unique business perspective.

A suggested refinement to your strategy would relate to point 3 above, ie, engaging customers and building trust.

As currently written, this sounds a bit sales-ish. Like priming the pump. I submit that adding the blog is most powerful because it allows greater feedback and interaction with your followers – including the potential for a new set of followers/subscribers. That means greater market understanding, more finely tuned content and product offerings and finally, more sales.

So I don’t disagree with the end result of your item 3. It’s just that there is a key intermediate step that’s not currently emphasized in the wording.

Building out specific listening processes that support the intermediate step will ensure its value is captured.

Thanks for all the hard work – looking forward to more.

Andy

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Your right about putting natural contents on the net rather than just putting content just for the sake. It is better to have quality contents than quantity but bot so good. It is best to put what readers can use.

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Up until now my entire online presence has been my blog which has done quite well but now I’m ready to move into the product phase of my business. I’m stoked to take some of your ideas and put them into action and I’m signing up for the academy tonight! Great work guys.

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