Successful Blog

Ingredients to Make your Blog the One-Stop Shop for your Target Readers

by

If you are running a blog and relying solely on unique visitors coming from the Search Engines, and that too for a small set of keywords, then sorry to break it to you, but you (and your blog) are not standing on solid grounds. Mainly because a small shuffle in the rankings can send your blog tumbling back to starting point, and you’ll have to start from the scratch. Therefore, you should be aiming for a loyal readership from the day one. You have got to have some readers, who will be coming back to your blog on regular basis, reading your posts, sharing their opinions, sharing the good ones with their contacts at social profiles, and when needed, coming up with the guest contributions. But assembling this kind of readership is not easy. It is one thing to get someone to visit your blog for once (by the virtues of SEO or PPC) it’s another thing to convert these random visitors into regular readers. Your blog has got to have the following ingredients to provide your readers with a perfect mix that will make them bookmark and keep coming back to your website.

Updated Information:

Regardless of the theme or subject of your blog, you have got to keep your readers posted with all the developments or occurrences in your target market. Keeping you blog up to date doesn’t only mean posting news, instead you need to discuss these changes or developments, be it a sports blog, technology blog, SEO blog, politics blog, business blog, or a blog about blogging itself. Any blog that doesn’t cover the recent happenings or doesn’t stay on the ball will fail to convince the readers that this is a domain worth bookmarking.

Food for thought:

Keeping your readers updated with the recent developments is not the only requisite, instead you should be able to scrutinize all of these developments and help your readers understand by providing them with some food for thought, something to take home, for example how they can use a new technology, some marketing strategy, some upcoming trend, and the likes. There are hundreds of blogs out there doing nothing but rewriting the news. At the end of the day, it is the blog that goes one step ahead that gets the nod of approval from readers.

Humor:

Humor can make the most boring topics a lot easier to bear, and it is one of the easiest ways to hold on to your readers, but for some unknown reasons, very few bloggers dare to be amusing in their writings. The thing is that you don’t need to be Louis Harding or Erma Bombek, all you need to do is to relax and write in an informal way. Almost all of us have this inbuilt ability to crack a joke every now and then, when we are hanging out with our friends, so you can assume that you are writing for your friends, and not some critics (or search engines), chances are that you will find yourself coming up with some good tongue in cheek humor every now and then.

Personal touch:

A blogger is not a reporter or a journalist; in fact they are quite the opposite of each other. While people expect journalists or reporters to keep their personal likes and dislikes, or experiences away from the news or featured stories, blogs are meant to be a place where real people can talk about the real stuff with their own take on the matter. So, it is advised that you add that personal touch into your writings to help people related.

Controversy:

If you feel your blog is getting monotonous, and turning more into a dud with little or no activity, you can always resort to a little controversy. By controversy, I don’t mean delving into sensitive topics and hurting others’ feeling to make them speak, instead you can try and debunk some popular notion or myths, remember that we are talking about thoughtful write-up and not just trolling. For example, an SEO blogger can try to debunk a popular myth, or a tech blogger can confer some popular brand or gadget, or maybe a blogger taking on the fellow bloggers for some unethical practices getting common in blogosphere.

__

Rahil of Weight Loss Triumph is an online entrepreneur and a part time blogger. At his website, you can get a wewood coupon. These discounts and coupon codes will help you save while purchasing watches or other accessories from fossil or wewood.

http://www.weightlosstriumph.com/wewood-coupon-code-and-review.html

Would You Hide Behind an E-Mail to Let an Employee Go?

by

Many of us have been down that road no employee wants to travel; you are laid off or fired.

In my case, it was the former some six years ago while working for a company in San Diego. What made the action even more difficult to take was how it was handled.

To set the stage for you, I worked as an online editor for a publishing company. My responsibilities had grown during my five-plus years with the company from starting out as a staff writer, to temporary editor during some transitioning, to full-time online editor when all was said and done.

As I was nearing my sixth year of service with the company, I had a Friday that would forever change my life and especially how I would look at employers going forward.

Something Smells Here

On that Friday, I began my day working from home since we were allowed to do that from time to time. Just the day before, I was at my desk in the office working and nothing seemed terribly unusual. The owner of the company and I exchanged usual pleasantries and went on about our work days.

I left the office later that afternoon at my normal time, unbeknownst to me that it would be the last time I would ever set foot in that building again.

The next day (Friday), I started my work assignments online from home when I got an e-mail from my manager. She asked if I was coming in the office that day to which I replied no.

She then e-mailed to ask if I had time to do a conference call with her and the company CEO, something that seemed a little out of the ordinary for a Friday. I was never a Dean’s List student by any means, but I like to think that I make up for that lack of book knowledge by being rather street smart. The bottom line is something smelled here.

I e-mailed the manager back to ask her if something was up and she responded a few minutes later to say that I was being let go.

Okay, I don’t know how you would handle such an event, but about a dozen different emotions ran through my head at that time. The first and foremost one was why was this not done face-to-face the day earlier in the office?

Hiding behind a Computer

As it turns out, the owner of the company had his daughter-in-law (my manager at the time) do his dirty work for him. All the respect I had for that man over a five-year period went out the window in about 30 seconds. At least the way I was raised, you handle your business face-to-face with people, not hide behind a computer screen.

I would go on to find out that the CEO, a man that told me one day to my face his door was always open and I could always talk to him, was the one that orchestrated my dismissal. He also chose to hide behind his computer and not get on the phone with me at the least to give me an explanation of the dismissal. Again, he didn’t owe me that, but his previous words rang rather hollow at that point.

In 23 years of employment, I have come across some very good companies to work for and one or two that were not so good.

In a sense, what happened that Friday morning over a computer screen altered my outlook to a degree on employers forever.

One thing that will never change, I will always give 100 percent to any person that is kind enough to take me on and ask me to work for them; to do anything less is not the way I roll or how I was raised.

Secondly, however, I will never get as attached to a company as I did to that one six years ago.

The people at that company that I thought were my friends, the ones I traveled to conferences with, the ones I went to ballgames with, etc. dropped me like the plague when I got laid off. While they certainly were under no obligations to stay in touch with me, it really opened my eyes as to who your true friends are in such a scenario.

Years later I am happily employed with another company and coming up on a year anniversary.

What happened six years was a good learning experience,  one that will always make me look twice at people.

Some would say doing that is unhealthy and unfair to others – I see it as a way to never put myself in that position again of thinking those I worked with were any more than that – co-workers.

So, what are the ways you have been laid off or fired in the past?

Photo credit: ehow.co.uk

Dave Thomas, who writes on subjects such as VoIP phone service and credit card processing writes extensively for SanDiego-based Business.com.

DO it Scared

by

by Patty Azzarello

cooltext466496263_leadership

Recently, I keep finding reasons to think about being scared. Or more specifically, getting reminded that being scared is OK.

Successful people spend as much (or more) time being scared as they do feeling confident and comfortable.

The difference is that they do it anyway.

My worst moment…

Here is the story of what might be the worst moment in my career.

I was in my early 20’s and I was a sales engineer. My job was to demonstrate technical products during the sales process.

It was my first week on the job after being trained on one of the two products in our product line. The sales force was not supposed to schedule demos for me for the second (more sophisticated and specialized…”scarier”) product until I had a chance to get the training. So much for “supposed to”…

I found myself in a room of customers who demanded that I do a demo of the product I didn’t know. I told them that I could show them the product, but I wasn’t prepared to do a full demo. So I launched the product and they started firing questions at me. I must have said, “I don’t know, I’ll have to find out and get back to you” at least 30 times. It was humiliating.

Talk about uncomfortable. I don’t think I knew the answer to a single one of their questions. I didn’t even understand the questions. It was painful. I was used to being seen as smart and competent and prepared. I was SO embarrassed. Then it came…

One of the customers said to the sales person in a frustrated, angry tone. ” Why did you bring HER? She doesn’t know anything!”

You know what happened?

I didn’t die.

Yes, it was very painful, and beyond uncomfortable, but it didn’t kill me.
What it did do, was give me a list of 30 important questions customers have about this product.

The next day I sat down with the product manager and asked him to explain to me what those 30 questions meant, and how to demonstrate them in the product.

Within a week I was the second most competent (and in demand) sales engineer to demonstrate that product. By contrast, there were other sales engineers at the company who stayed scared to demo that product, so they never even tried. Their careers did not advance.

Scared is OK

That one experience allowed me to be scared for the rest of my career, but to also know it’s OK. I was genuinely scared every time I got a promotion. I was scared many times in big presentations, meetings or negotiations.

That man’s voice was in my head saying, why did you bring HER. She doesn’t know anything.

But that lesson allowed me to realize:

1. That you can be scared, screw up, even fail, and you will survive.
2. That failure-learning cycle is far more valuable than the safe, not-doing-it approach, where you learn and accomplish nothing.
3. Over time it get’s easier. If you force yourself to act when you are scared, every time it gets easier to act when you are scared.

In brief — do it scared.

Scared and Successful

Ultimately, I was able to be scared, and still perform really well most of the time. My way of working would be to push forward, be scared, and do it anyway.

I still cringe sometimes. I am not perfect. I forget things, and get thrown off sometimes. But now when that happens I always think about what I learn from the minor embarrassment and feedback. It makes me better next time, and forever after. I would not improve without some amount of trial and failure.

If you never put yourself out there, you never get the feedback, practice, insight, and ideas to tune what you are doing to be more successful. You just stay stuck.

And it’s also important to realize that if you mess up a few times in dozens or hundreds of outings, it has no impact whatsoever on peoples’ impression of you. Those moments just fade away as you replace them with the improved, excellent ones.

Fear and Competence

People who are not held back by fear have broken the link between fear and competence.

What I mean by this is that some people when they feel scared, have a tendency to think that is a sign that they are not worthy. They think…

If I am scared and I feel vulnerable, that must mean by definition that I am not good enough to be in this situation.

This is not how successful people think. Successful people break the link and say something instead like…

I feel scared and vulnerable, so it’s going to be harder than I expected to put myself out there. Damn, I guess I have to do it anyway.

It breaks my heart when I see gifted people hold themselves back because they are too nervous to step forward.

One woman in particular I am thinking of did some breakthrough medical research, but was not comfortable being the one to present it. Guess what happened.
The presenter claimed the credit and she got pushed aside. What should have been a breakthrough moment in her career turned into a setback.

The invisible risk

Staying in the background because it is more comfortable, does nothing. It adds no value, you don’t learn, and you fade into the background. In terms of being vulnerable, in reality you are much more vulnerable if you are invisible, than if you are out there.

Being out there and being imperfect, trying to move things forward, and committing to contribute is actually a much less risky way to behave in your career.

Leaders Step Forward

It’s not about being flashy or having a big personality. Leaders drive outcomes and then they communicate about them. Even the most humble, introspective, introverted leaders put themselves out there when they need to. And it is very powerful.

The power comes from showing that you are taking ownership for the outcome of the communication, not from the song and dance. Leaders step forward and show others that they care.

I saw a TED talk by Dr. Brene Brown about Vulnerability and Shame. I’ve included a link below, it’s really worth watching, but I wanted to point out a couple of things that really struck me on this topic of fear and success.

1. Everyone feels vulnerabilty and shame

Everyone. Not just some people. Not just most people. Everyone. If you are human you feel shame (unless you are a psychopath).
So there you have it. Vulnerable or Pshcyopath.

I found that very comforting. To think because I feel scared, I am not good enough, makes no sense – because everyone is in the same boat. Another reason to do it anyway.

2. There is no Creativity or Innovation without fear

There is no success without failure. Great ideas and big successes come from people who are willing try, fail, and keep going. Good ideas stem from bad ideas. Failure is necessary to progress.

Do it scared, and you might get someplace.

The words she uses, which I really like are “Daring Greatly”.

Here is the link to Dr. Brene Brown’s talk “Listening to Shame”.

Her research and her talk are about much more than these two points. It’s worth the time…

What about you?

When have you been scared or failed, built success out of it. Please leave your story in the comment box below.

—–
Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advisor. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…

Successful-Blog is proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Influence and Intimacy: 5 Solid Ways a Key Customer Strategy Grows Business Faster

by

IRRESISTIBLE BUSINESS: Strategic Foundation

Let Everyone Build for Every Customer

When I took the job at the small publisher, it had been losing over 10% in revenues ($millions) every year for the past three years. It was a dream job, I would get to conceive and drive the strategy that would turn the company around and build a customer base of fiercely loyal fans. For them, it was a moment of truth, the company had recently downsized by more than 50%. For me, it was an “Ok, big shot moment. Let’s see what you’ve learned from all that experience.”

I read all of the current product. Over the years, every product had somehow come to be defined by the same 5 buzz words and were for the same customer group — defined as all teachers inside and outside the classroom. I realigned and differentiated it so that teachers could choose the product that best suited their classroom situation.

Then I chose the first new product we would publish and it raised some alerts. The 20 manuscripts I had selected were from an Australian publisher. They were written at a 7-year-old reading level, but were far too racy for 7-year-olds in American schools.

The Founder of the company said, “These books are … um … a little irreverent.”
The President of the company said, “Yes, I’d describe them as irreverent too.”
I said, “And that’s exactly why we’re going to publish them.”

They said things like

  • Parents of second-grade kids would go ballastic if 7-year-old brought these home.
  • Second-grade kids will never understand these.
  • Second-grade teachers will never buy these.
  • States will never fund these.

I replied something like

Every publisher is building books for every kid. And they’re not intimately close to any of them.
We’re going to publish these books for the 13-year-old boys reading at a 7-year-old level.

And so Second-Chance Reading was born.

5 Solid Ways a Key-Customer Strategy Grows a Business Faster

The situation was clear. The investors were unhappy at the downward moving growth curve. A turnaround was imperative for survival. We needed to grow the business quickly and meaningfully. The strategy was simple. Get clearly-defined product to market that would attract a fiercely loyal key customer group.

By identifying teachers of severely vulnerable students — 13-year-old boys reading seriously below level — as a key customer group, we were taking advantage of these 3 solid ways to grow a company faster, easier, and more meaningfully.

  1. Focus is attractive: You can build a website and an offer that shows you know your key customer deeply. If you serve everyone, you serve no one well. I want a company that wants me as a customers. When I walk into a hotel or a restaurant or visit a website, I know immediately if it was designed with people like me mind. Trying to build a location or a website that appeals to everyone flattens the attraction. Teachers, gamers, and CEOs don’t share expectations or sensitivities. Focusing clearly on the key group you will serve means that when they arrive they’ll see immediately that you “get” them intimately.
  2. Intimacy leads to expertise: You get to know the problems. A teacher, a farmer, and a CEO have problems in common. However, those problems play out on different fields with different rules. When you focus on a clear key customer group, such as all teachers of 7th graders who read below level, you see the same problems across similar situations. You get to know the issues and what triggers them deeply. You develop strategies that serve the customer more meaningfully because you’re intimate with their needs, desires, and restrictions.
  3. A clarified group: Your impact is spread more quickly. If you work with one teacher, one farmer, and one CEO, your impact is diluted by the simple fact that teachers, gamers, and CEOs rarely talk business to each other. Three teachers of 7th-grade students who read below level are much more relational. They’re much more likely to trade techniques, offer support, and share success stories. They’ll tell their friends about you.
  4. Simple shareability: You are easier to share. Whether it’s a networking room at the Four Seasons in NYC or conversation on Twitter, a key customer strategy keeps you top of mind, much like a key word keeps you top of Google. If you are well-known for one thing, much like Oprah is known for being a talk show host, the minute someone mentions that one thing in conversation, I think of you and your product or service.
  5. Thoughtful extendability: You can build out infrastructure and customer base simultaneously. Having a key customer focus grounds a strategy that allows you to build a solid foundation. From that foundation, you can move out to people who know the first key customers — their friends, partners, vendors and other relations. The marketing effort it takes to extend to these new groups — for example: 8th grade teachers of students reading below level, parents of 7th grade students reading below level, teachers of 7th and 8th grade students who need reading practice — is less costly and less risk than developing a fully-new market and your reputation precedes you. Your business can project when to enter the market and what the return will be on investment.

Whether your business is a corporation or a sole proprietorship, a key customer strategy keeps the most loyal of your fans close, limits risk, and raises your visibility to grow your business faster, easier, and more meaningfully than any simple campaign might.

Campaigns make sales.
Relationships build businesses.
Deep relationships are irresistible.

What are you doing to build a stronger key customer strategy for your business?

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Thanks To Our 2012 SOBCon Sponsors

by

We are very excited to have 3 amazing core sponsors for SOBCon 2012:

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting allows you to host an online meeting with up to 15 people – so you can do more and travel less. Using our web conferencing tool, you can share any application on your computer in real time. Attendees join meetings in seconds.

DexOne

At Dex One®, we care about small business success. It’s why we provide smart, searchable advertising, free marketing consultations, and expert online resources—all designed to help local businesses like yours get found and chosen by new customers.

Mojaba

Mojaba(tm) is a mobile-web publishing platform for creative agencies to build stunning mobile websites for their clients.

Thanks to our sponsors!

Please visit our sponsors because without them SOBCon wouldn’t be possible!

Influence: 7 Keys to a Trust Network that Will Grow Your Business

by

IRRESISTIBLE BUSINESS: A Trust Network

The Strongest Networks Thrive on Trust and the Truth

cooltext443809602_strategy

Last September, a man I admire and respect gave me what is possibly the highest compliment of my business life. We were speaking of filters and sharing information, when he said …

Even those who see the world differently, trust you to tell them the truth.

Good news, bad news, exciting developments, dire warnings — Data is simply information.

Information is nothing if we can’t trust it.

Without information we trust, we can’t move without risk.

7 Keys to Trust that Will Establish Your Business, Your Brand and Your Reputation

One of my most popular interactive presentations is called “Who’s Telling Your Story?” It outlines a clear strategy to enlist and inspire a deeply active community of fiercely loyal fans who spread your story and protect your brand. The first key point in that presentation is to know your story and to build your network before you need it.

But not all networks are equal. The network that builds a business, a brand and a reputation is connected by deep trust and consistent behavior.

That trust network is not simply a contact list, a customer base, or even a team of people who love the company and it’s customers. That trust network is people who tell our best true story, move to action when we ask, and protect us from threats. A network like that doesn’t happen by happy accident. It takes deep commitment, consistent trustworthy behavior, and relentless focus.

Here are the 7 Keys that attract the people who will join your truest trust network and bring their fiercely loyal friends.

  1. Identify and hold true your deal-breaker values — the qualities that define you.
  2. Communicate your goals and intentions. Let people know the why behind the what you’re doing.
  3. Make and keep promises and commitments to yourself, your team, and your larger community.
  4. Anticipate needs. Don’t assume others’ needs are what yours would be.
  5. Be aware if you offer treat people differently and know why you do. Those of us who care know, do you?
  6. Own your actions and their impact. Apologize quickly, well, and concisely for bad judgment, bad behavior, and bad math.
  7. Tell the truth … as gently or as firmly as the people and situation suggests you should.

Think of your best bosses, your best teachers, the best team you ever were on, your best friends and coworkers, how many of these seven did / do they have? How much better would they have been / be, if your answer was all seven?

To build a community network that brings you information you can trust, do all 7 for the people who love you now and the word will get out faster, easier, and more meaningfully than any story you might tell.

Start by doing the first with a vengeance. Then get moving on the second. As you do them, notice how the way you see your business changes and the they way people respond. Move sure and slowly. Keep all 7 Keys in the decisions you make and notice how your decisions become more focused and how those decisions attract people you trust.

The value of information is in how much you trust the source.
The essence of influence is trust.

A reputation of trustworthiness is a barrier to entry that’s hard to cross.
A trust network of people who share that trust and act on it — employees, volunteers, vendors, partners, customers, shareholders, advisors, friends, family — amps that barrier up exponentially to irresistible.

How will your own trust network that will grow your business and your brand?
Get started.

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!