When the average consultant thinks about their website, they generally focus on how the website looks. Most consultants want a website that looks sleek and professionally designed. They think that having a sleek website is the most important thing for attracting new clients online.
That’s why they’re shocked when I tell them that there are two things that are way more important to their online success than the look and feel of their website…
Now I’m not saying that you should have a sloppy looking website. Your website should look professional and well put together. But as long as you cross that threshold, you should really be focused on two other components of your website that will make or break your ability to find clients and sell passive income products via your website.
Those two components are: (1) your strategy for collecting e-mail addresses and (2) your website’s blog.
Are You Surprised?
Most consultants are surprised when I tell them this. They hear “e-mail sign-ups” and “blog” and they laugh, because that sounds so basic and so… 2001. But I can tell you from personal experience, and from talking to hundreds of other consultants and online marketers, that your e-mail sign-up funnel and your blog can both make or break your online business.
I’ve already written a lot about why building your e-mail list is important and how you can build your website to best accomplish that task. You can read more about those topics in the following articles:
How to Build Your Online Presence to Generate Passive Income
How to Build a Bigger E-Mail List for Your Business
In this article, I’m going to focus on your website’s blog. We’re going to talk about why it is so important, and how you can make sure yours is helping you find new clients and sell more info products.
Why Your Blog Matters: SEO
The primary reason your blog matters so much is for SEO (search engine optimization). One of the best ways to build more traffic for your website is by publishing articles that appear in search engines when people search for terms related to your business (e.g. if you’re a fundraising consultant, you want your website articles to show up when people search for “write a fundraising plan” or “how to raise more money.”)
The best way to get search engine traffic is to write lots of blog articles for your consulting website. You can use a number of strategies to find the best topics for your articles and to help your articles get top rankings in Google and other websites. These strategies are at the heart of the SEO process. If you want to learn more about how to implement good SEO strategies on your website, I suggest you read SEO Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide by Neil Patel, which is a great (and free) primer.
Even if you decide not to dig into the weeds with SEO though, you should know that posting lots of articles on your blog will ultimately drive more traffic to your site, because your articles will show up more often on search engines, which will send more visitors your way.
Other Reasons Your Blog Matters
In addition to SEO, there are a number of other reasons your blog is crucial to your business website’s success:
First, having a regularly updated blog shows customers and potential customers that your business is active and engaged. If someone goes to your website and sees the same information and articles that have been there for years (or decades), they’ll assume your business just doesn’t care. If you post regularly, they’ll have a reason to come back over and over again and to stay engaged with you and your company.
Second, your blog can be a great way to prime customers to buy. Remember, you can make money from visitors to your site in a number of ways, including selling them consulting or freelance services and selling info products like webinars and classes. For more information on using your blog to sell info products, read Your Guide to Passive Income Blogging.
3 Tips for Making Sure Your Blog is Helping You Find Customers and Clients
As you create and update your blog, here are 3 tips for making sure that your blog is helping you find new customers and clients (as well as building your relationship with your current customers):
#1: Post a New Article Weekly
The most common question I get about blogging is, “How often should I post?” My answer for businesses is always the same: if you’re at all serious at blogging, you should be posting at least one new article per week. Sure, you can get away with posting once every other week or even once per month, but to reap the best rewards from your blog, aim to post each and every week.
#2: Post Articles on the Right Topics
Avoid the temptation to go off topic in your blog posts. If you want to use your blog to help cultivate your customers (and potential customers), they need to see you and your blog as a reliable source of information in your niche. If you are a consultant who works with golfers to improve their swings, and you post articles about cooking or politics, chances are those will be a distraction to your audience.
#3: Let Your Blog Posts Do Double Duty
One of the best ways to leverage your time is to let your blog posts to double (or triple) duty. Write your blog post and put it up on your website. Then, send out your blog post as a newsletter to your e-mail list. Then, post links to your blog post on social media. Then, use the blog post as the kernel of your next podcast or online video. You can write your post once and use it multiple times over a number of different channels.
Photo Credit: Werner Moser from Pixabay
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