Where the !$?BLEEP?*%! Should I Blog?

You have heard all about the importance of blogging by now. Everyone says it’s the way to bring your marketing into the new millennium, and I agree. It's becoming more and more common for business owners to blog as a way to boost their visibility, share information with their customers, and network online. And when you’re blogging authentically, your perfect customers are more likely to recognize you when they find you. They gain trust in you and become more likely to work with you.

What I’ve discovered is that certain blogging or social network sites rank better than others. Though every web hosting program offers their own blog software these days, not all blogs are created equal. It makes sense that a blogging tool owned by Google, or one that hosts Google Ads, would rank better than others. Here are the sites I’ve found most useful for regular, every day entrepreneurs to get to page one of Google for their niche keyword phrases.

Blogger.com
Blogger brags that you can be up and blogging in ten minutes with their program, and that’s true. This is why I chose Blogger as my main blogging tool, and the first one I teach in my 10 week webinar “Attracting Perfect Customers Online.” You can see my Law of Attraction Marketing blog. Since Google owns Blogger, your posts will rank well when you use this tool.

WordPress.com
WordPress is a pretty sophisticated blogging tool with a variety of possible options for customization. I personally find this tool more complicated to use but it is more robust and vastly customizable. I recently designed a WordPress blog for my client the Creative Sage, and if you look at it you will see how robust the sites are. With WordPress you can customize a home page and link it to a blog. In this case, 3 blogs are linked from that one home page. I’ve also created some simple WordPress blogs that even with very little content are getting to page one of Google.

Squidoo.com
Squidoo is a site where you can share your expertise on a topic. Google puts AdWords on these pages so they rank really well. They’re easy to set up and you can put cool modules on them like YouTube videos, Amazon.com products for sale, pictures from Flickr, and the all important links to your main sites. You can see my squidoo lenses here.

HubPages:
Like Squidoo, HubPages is a social network site for folks who want to share their expertise in any area of life. Here’s the HubPage that got to page one of Google in only 22 minutes.

My suggestion is to post to these 4 blogging sites on a regular basis to exponentially expand the visibility of your message. But even creating one blogger post or Squidoo lens that links back to your website will help your site ranking. So what are you waiting for? Get off your bleeping butt and blog!

What the !$?BLEEP?*%! Should I Blog About?

Part 2 in a 3 Part Series on Blogging

I just learned that over 20% of the world’s population is now online according to the latest report from Internet World Stats. This is a growing potential customer base we can’t really afford to ignore. With the availability of free blogs and social networks, everyday entrepreneurs can speak to a wider base, amplifying our message to a national or even international audience while capturing better placement on the search engines. Gone are the days when only the technically adept could contribute new content to sites on a regular basis and get to page one of Google.

What New Content?

There’s the rub. Many of us have started a blog but only have one or two posts on it. We get to a point where we don’t know what to blog about. Here are some tips on creating blog content that helps you keep current customers interested, improve your search engine ranking, and help you attract more perfect customers.

What Do YOU Care About?

The Law of Attraction says that “like attracts like” so the subjects that interest you are likely to interest your perfect customers. You have access to knowledge that fascinates you and also will captivate your customers. Just sharing authentically about your passions and interests will grab their attention and offer true value.

Answer the following questions and see how many blog post ideas you can create.

1) What resources have you discovered that can benefit your customers?
2) What tips can you offer people that will make a difference?
3) What current events or news items are pertinent to your peeps?
4) What challenges have you faced and what have you learned from them?
5) What marketing messages do you want to promote?
6) What humorous antidotes to today’s reality can you share?
7) What interesting adventures have you taken recently?
8) What subjects are your customers searching about now?

Write down all the ideas you come up with and refer to them when you are looking for a new blog topic. How often you blog is up to you, what is sustainable for you. Consistency is key and if you're offering good value on your blog, you'll be rewarded by your expanding customer base.

Some Keyword Considerations

As you create your blog posts, make sure you consciously and consistently use the keywords and phrases you want to be found by AND that express your true purpose. I call these Magical Keywords and they empower logic with attraction.

It’s most important to use your keywords in the title, headlines, subheads and links on your posts and web pages. And if you submit your blog post to a variety of sites, you will be more likely to appear in searches for those phrases.

Why the @#Bleep?*! Should I Blog?

Part 1 of a 3 Part Series on Blogging

It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Maybe it already has. You’ll find out everyone already has a blog and you feel two years behind! Believe me, it happens to the best of us. Denial may follow. You could be there now. (And I’m not referring to a river in Egypt.) It may present itself like this.

“I don’t need to blog. I already have a website but I haven’t done much with it, and most of my customers come from word of mouth anyway.”

It may all be true, or you could be fooling yourself. In the past few years, Internet use world wide has expanded dramatically, by 40%. And that number is growing in every country on the planet. This is changing our every day habits, including our purchasing habits. Word of mouth is still a very strong marketing method, but I’m telling you, having a blog and a website allows people to get to know and like you before they call you, and more people can find you when you’re online in a big way.

Here are some really good reasons to blog. Check these out and then you can make up your own mind whether now is your time or not.

To Get People Interested in You and Keep Them With You
If you put valuable content on your blog, you will be offering a free benefit to your potential customer base. They are interested in your products and services, but may not be ready to buy just yet. Remember what Dale Carnegie wrote in “How to Win Friends and Influence People,“ that people will do business with people they “know, like and trust.“ Offering real value on your blog will help people get to know you until they are ready to do business with you.

Distinguish Your Brand and Show You’re Passionate About Your Business
With a blog, you can define who you are and authentically share your mission in a way that promotes everything you’re up to. Write about things you care about and let your potential customers get to know you better. Blogs are a great way to create current buzz about your offerings and keep people interested in you. And because you can update them easily yourself, you can keep your blog fresh with new content as inspiration hits.

Get Good Google Page Ranking
Many blogs rank much better than your average new website. That’s because Google, Yahoo and the other search engines consider blogs as ‘authority sites.’ Blogger (which is owned by Google) and WordPress perform extremely well on search engines. And pointing to your website from your ‘authority’ blog can help your website’s ranking as well.

Drive Traffic to Your Website
Create a blog to offer extra information about your product or service and the culture behind it, and then link it to your website or online store. Because blogs rank well on search engines, your blog may come up on searches before your main site, and capture the interest of potential customers who would otherwise not find you.

Be Seen as a Leader in Your Industry
Well, let’s face it. If you have a blog and others in your industry don’t, you have a leg up with potential customers online. Blogging is still new enough that you’re likely to be seen as exceptional if you have one, and you can be seen as ‘the expert’ in your field.

Look Who's On Page One of Google Again

I've been playing around with getting to page one of Google again and just discovered I'm almost completely dominating page one for "Wildly Attractive Websites" ~ ranking 1 - 9 out of over 55,000 for that query. I'm also there for "Attraction Marketing for Conscious Entrepreners" dominating the first 6 spots for that. It's so fun, and the more I do this, the more people find me for other queries, one's I haven't even thought of. That's where the magic comes in, the magic of attraction.

And by the way, did you know I'm number 1, 5, 6, 8 & 9 of over 2.2 million for the query "Law of Attraction Marketing?" That query is becoming more and more popular, too. I'm pretty proud of that because just a while back I was nowhere to be found on Google for this query, but now I'm looking like THE "Law of Attraction Marketing" expert, pushing ahead of folks who were in The Secret. I've really gotten the knack of this.

Do you want to learn how I do this?

If you own a small business and are not taking full advantage of the Internet to attract customers, now is the time to start. Over the past 2 years the number of people purchasing products and services online has increased by over 40%. The problem many business owners have is not knowing where to start. That's why I'm offering my 10 week webinar for web-challenged entrepreneurs, starting this Friday afternoon.

Here's what some folks are saying about "Attracting Perfect Customers Online: 10 Week Webinar for Web Challenged Individuals"

"I've been hearing about blogs for quite a while, but being new technology, I had no idea how to create one or what the purpose of one would be. Thanks to Julia, who demonstrated how to easily create one in just a few minutes, I now have one and am loving it. Writing short informational pieces delights me. And it's easy to maintain." Pamelah Landers www.HandsonCompany.com

"At the beginning of the 10-week class this all sounded like gibberish to me, but now I have a blog, several Squidoo lenses and I'm set up on Facebook. I sound like an expert!" Terri Moon www.educateandempower.com

"Thank you Julia for all your patience and support. Your style of listening for our true purpose and then helping us express that online is inspiring. I feel empowered." Nancy Marin http://www.squidoo.com/MonkeysforHealth

Let me take you by the hand and guide you step by step through the processes I use to get to page one of google time and time again, for various keyword phrases.

Empower yourself to get found online and start attracting now!

ATTRACTING PERFECT CUSTOMERS ONLINE: 10 Week Webinar for Web Challenged Individuals

Early Fall Session Starts Friday, September 26th at 2:30 - 4 pm
Classes run every Friday for 10 weeks skipping a week
for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Autumn Session Starts Tuesday, October 28 at 9:00 - 10:30 am
This is my last webinar of the year. It runs consecutive Tuesdays
through December 30th.

SPECIAL REGISTRATION BONUSES

In addition to 15 hours of live instruction, you'll get over 45 hours of "Home Study" courses in Magical Marketing, Branding from the Heart, and Creating Wildly Attractive Websites so you can master your attraction-based marketing plan now.

I'll also include a free 1/2 hour consultation after the webinar completes to help you with any special requests or questions.

To find out more about the webinar, check out my Flash Video or the Audio Recording of "How I Got to Page One of Google by Sharing Myself Authentically" on my website http://www.graphicgirlz.com/teleconference.html

Or call me at (707) 823-3316

I'm looking forward to empowering you to attract your perfect customers online!

Obama Tweets on Twitter! How About You?

Barack Obama is widely known as the Social Networking candidate. Last year he recruited Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes to build his own social network My.BarackObama.com , he was the first of all presidential candidates to capitalize on the strength of his Facebook groups and now he is by far the most popular person on Twitter.com, now surpassing Digg founder Kevin Rose by over 13,000 followers.

This is significant news for anyone studying new internet marketing trends. Obama has been successfully using these social networks to mobilize millions of people and raise tens of millions of campaign dollars. He has unearthed the power of Facebook (where he has over 1.3 million supporters) to organize real-world events and gain the Democratic Party nomination for president over Hillary Clinton, the former party front-runner. Some predict he’ll be able to use his advantage on social networks to beat out McCain come election day.

What Does This Mean for You?

Social Networks are not just for kids or political candidates. Business people can use these fun free tools to network with friends, associates, colleagues and family, and passively market to these folks just by adding short updates, links, and posts. Just as Obama (ok, Obama’s aids do the actual work) uses Twitter to update contacts on what he’s doing and where you can learn more about it, you can use Twitter to let followers know about your latest blog post, what you’re doing in your business right now, or your latest sale. After I publish this blog post, I'll surely go to my Twitter account to announce it and post a link.

Similarly, on Facebook it’s easy and fun to stay in touch with people without inundating them with emails. I’ve used Facebook as a tool to follow up with people I meet at business networking events as well as a fun place to connect with old friends.

Hey, if you’re on Facebook or Twitter, let me know and we’ll connect there! Once we're connected, send me a note if you want to learn more how to use these tools to your advantage.

Want to learn how to use Social Networks to Attract Perfect Customers Online? Check out my upcoming 10 week webinar for web-challenged individuals. I’ll be offering a free introduction to this webinar on September 19th to show folks how I got to page one of google in 22 minutes by sharing myself authentically online. See details at http://www.graphicgirlz.com/teleconference.html

Don't Bother with Internet Marketing

...Unless you want to attract perfect customers online.

You can probably tell I've been listening to those Marketing guys again, the big gun types who psych out their customers with reverse psychology. I know, I know, but I couldn't resist trying that one. But seriously, despite their often distasteful techniques, I always learn new things from these fellows, and I'm grateful they are so free with the latest internet marketing tips. I feel it is my role to glean the best from their strategies and translate them into a more authentic, softer marketing style that is palatable to my perfect customers.

The fact is, more and more consumers are going online for major purchases, including for vendors and service providers of all kinds. It is becoming more and more important to be online for our perfect customers to find us, and to be online in a big way, in more than one place. The more Internet pages we can create, the more easily folks can find us.

So the question becomes, which Internet properties are the best to use?

Thanks once again to my Marketing Shark buddies for answering that question for us.

Do You Squidoo?

Have You Created any Hot Hubs?

Have You Tweeted a Perfect Twoosh on Twitter?

Are you LinkedIn?

If this sounds like a bunch of gibberish to you, you're not alone. But these are some of the Internet properties I use time and again to get to page one of Google and attract my perfect customers online. Chances are if you haven't heard of these sites yet, others in your industry haven't started using them in their internet marketing strategies either.

The time is ripe to get on board with these free sites and start sharing about what you have to offer (authentically, of course!)

But Silly Rabbit, Aren't Social Networks for Kids?

Some of you are thinking, "well, my kids use these sites, but I wouldn't know where to begin to use these for business." Others are thinking, "I use social networks and read blogs for fun, but how can I turn that into profit?"

The fact is that billions of dollars have been spent making the new social networks fun and easy enough for a child to use. As business people, we can use this to our advantage in our Internet marketing, even if we are "Web Challenged."

Because Google and other search engines tend to rank these sites well, linking to your main offering site or blog from these sites will help your search engine ranking dramatically.

See How it Works For Yourself in my Free Webinar

If you'd like to see first hand how I'm using these social networks to attract perfect customers online, come aboard my next Magical Internet Tour and see "How I Got to Page One of Google by Sharing Myself Authentically."

The Magical Internet Tour is coming to take you away on Friday, August 22 from 9 - 10 am pacific time.

To register, email webinar@graphicgirlz.com with the subject "Register Me in Free Webinar 8_22_08" Learn the Steps in My 10 Week Webinar Intensive [more info http://www.graphicgirlz.com/teleconference.html]

Authentic Sharing Attracts Perfect Customers

Have you grown tired of the constant barrage of advertising messages bombarding you each day? The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that the average American is exposed to about 3000 advertising messages a day costing corporations billions per year. In the old paradigm for marketing, businesses are instructed to target their audiences and inundate them until they are brainwashed into buying.

If you’re like me and thousands of conscious entrepreneurs, you’re looking for a new paradigm for marketing, one that is authentic, one that recognizes and honors our intuition and chosen life paths, one that attracts rather than targets perfect customers. I’m here to tell you that we can get the word out about our products and services without brainwashing anyone or producing hype. We can attract our perfect customers by sharing ourselves authentically.

What You Seek is Seeking You

The Law of Attraction states that those with a similar energy are attracted to each other. How we are being, as well as how we are marketing, determines whether or not our perfect customers will be drawn to us, and whether they will recognize us when they do find us! There are people out there who are seeking you, your products and services as well as your personality, your approach, your mission.

When I consciously realize my perfect customers are seeking me now, my marketing takes on a different color. I realize that when my perfect customers find me (or my website, my post cards, my fliers, etc) they will only know me as who they are seeking if I am authentic and come from the heart in my marketing. If I am engaging in competitive marketing strategies or hype of any kind, my most perfect customers will pass right by me. But when I share my true self in my marketing, my perfect customers breathe a sigh of relief. They call me and say, “I know you’re the one I want to work with.”

5 Easy Steps for Attracting Perfect Customers

If you want to attract your perfect customers, there are 5 easy steps you can take today to get started.

Step 1) First, you want to determine who your perfect customers are. Get out a piece of paper and write at the top “The qualities of my perfect customers are…” and start making a long laundry-type list. Everything you can think of that you like in people you work with/for goes there like personality traits, how they find you, their resources, what they say about you, etc.

Step 2) Write a short statement of what your true inner calling is. This is also the true inner calling of your perfect customers, which you will discover as you begin attracting them. When you are authentic to your true passion and joyfully sharing your soul's calling, then you are ready to attract your heart's desire.

Step 3) Create another long list, answering the question “What do I want my perfect customers to expect from me?” Ultimately the question here is what do you really desire in life, what do you love to do and want people to pay you for. Answering this question will help you to create the business life of your dreams.

Step 4) On the back side of your Step 3 list, answer the question “What am I improving to become more attractive to my perfect customers?” Take all the items from Step 3 that aren't fully realized 100% yet and put these on your Step 4 list. Look at these items now and ask yourself, "Who would I have to be to attract this?"

Step 5) Get out there and share your mission authentically. Now that you are focused on what you want and you have clarified your mission, get the word out about what is important to you. Try creating a ’30 second speech’ for the next Connections meeting that truly reflects your purpose and mission. Use words that mean something important to you and watch as your perfect customers flock to you.