I realise the title of this post might be contraversial but I do stand by it. Todays post was going to be one of my famous and much sought-after critiques (you lucky people) but then I got an email from Laura that I just had to answer (with permission). You said you don't do adsense and make money online articles like Darren Rowse and Yaro Stark, why is that when you have traffic to make money doing that? It's an interesting question. I have had blogs where I did the adsense thing. I still … [Read more...]

Since my limitations post yesterday I have had a couple of people ask me how they can blog about their work without breaking confidences or getting fired. Writing on your blog is not gossip. While you could get plenty of traffic from your industry by spreading juicy titbits about your competitors and colleagues you will more likely grab yourself a bad reputation rather than more work or industry profile. Language can be an issue. I am not talking about swearing and such, most business … [Read more...]

I have had this discussion before. You might remember it. Let me try again. "All you need is good content. Content is king. Write good stuff and the visitors will come" "Ugly sells" "Don't judge a book by its cover". Yeah, right. We think we buy products but what do we actually buy? Packaging. Promotion. We tell ourselves we just want the product but we buy packaging and promotion all the time. Does that t-shirt with the logo really provide more value than the t-shirt … [Read more...]

Picture a riverbank, popular for fishing. One part is beautiful, sunny, nice grass verge. A great place to just sit and soak up the atmosphere, let alone fish. Another part of the river is muddy, dark, cold. People do not even like to walk their dogs through there. Sam turns up one morning. Some old fool is stood there at the dark patch, freezing in his galoshes but Sam spots the sunny place is still free. He skips past with his tackle jangling, smiling at his good fortune. Later as … [Read more...]

In this business and indirect monetization blogging series I have been talking about how you can use blogs to gain attention and generate sales leads. Now we should really take a look at some examples. Here are five great blogs that sell. english cut: bespoke savile row tailors Just take a look at this quote. Because the diary was so full we didn't get to meet as many new customers as normal. I did think that we wouldn't take as many orders because of this. However my existing clients kept … [Read more...]

Blogs and online marketing. To even to seperate the two phrases in my mind feels weird. Bloggers are online marketers. You can't blog successfully without online marketing. Online marketers who ignore blogging are entering a marathon with their shoelaces tied together. A similar (and just as confused) debate is Blogs versus Websites. The question makes no sense. It is not an either/or question. But let's take a step back. Rather than think "blogs versus ..." remove technology, … [Read more...]

Selling with blogs? It's not so long ago that I might have gotten myself lynched for merely suggesting such a distasteful thing. Slowly though the blogosphere is coming around to the idea that commerce is not necessarily evil, that in fact businesses need to make money and that they do that by selling stuff. Blogs are actually well-suited to generating sales leads. Look at the AIDA formula Attention Interest Desire Action Without even resorting to pressure sales tactics … [Read more...]

Professional networking with blogs is something people do largely unconsciously. How can we use blogs for networking more intentionally? In this series I have been revealing how blogs can boost your business. Most businesses at some point will do the drinks, nibbles, business cards and handshakes thing. You might note I am not super excited by networking meetups, I am just too shy. Maybe you feel the same but we put up with that side of things because networking truly has business value. … [Read more...]

This is the third post in my series about blogging for business. In the first instalment I talked about how blogs can help your business profit and in the previous article I showed the ways blogs boost your website traffic. Now I am going to talk about using a blog to generate more fame, credibility and authority. First of all, what is "fame"? I would define fame as being a situation where lots of people recognise you. Society seems a little obsessed with fame. Fame for fames sake. The … [Read more...]

In the first post of this series I showed you how blogs generate indirect profits, publicity and leads for businesses. Let's take a look at how. A primary motivation for anyone to set up a business website is to gain visibility. They want people to visit. Blogs are well suited to achieving this. How Blogs Generate TrafficBlogs develop more visitors through search visibility - blogs are usually right out of the box quite well organised to be search engine friendly. With some tweaks they … [Read more...]