It’s day four of our week on building a blog that matters. This week I’m telling the story of how I have built this blog as part of supporting my life coaching business. Now it’s time to focus on partnerships that generate traffic and revenue.
Today we are going to cover two different things: my process for getting the content out and the places to get some advertising. Before you can put up ads that show different services you either offer or recommend, you need to be active on your blog, making regular posts. I worked for more than a year just writing and posting every day with no ads about me or anyone else. That was through WordPress.com, just getting a message out, gathering a following of people to my site.
When focusing on building traffic to your site, there are so many people who claim they can teach you so many short cuts that look good initially, from things that border on spam to putting your link in places that are just not related to what you write about. Yes, you might get a few more people to read your site, but in the long run you will be working all the time to get more traffic yet not targeting the right people.
When I started my blog it was to be an extension of my coaching business. I wanted to become a writer and this gave me the place to practice and write about those things that mattered to me. So when you read my site, it provides information that anyone can come by and read for free. The idea was to create a place for sharing ideas to help people grow; to give those who cannot afford a life coach the input and guidance they need to make some steps to change their lives.
I start each week by creating a topic or a theme, then I find five subjects that help break that theme to a step-by-step process or that relate back to that theme. I usually have those written out and planned a week ahead of time. Then I spend about an hour a day per topic seeing what others have written about it. I want to know what is out there and not just repeat those things we have heard every guru say about how to get your life straight. I work to find a person, a movie, a rock song or a story to go with it. I search on a regular basis to find real stories that have RockStar appeal.
I generally write my topic two days before, and then have a final read-through the day before and see if anything in the news from the day before can be added. We then use a great tool, Drop Box, where my partner, Gwynne, picks the blog up and edits it. (That is what makes me sound like I actually paid attention in English class.)
Once she is done editing it, I pick it up from the ready box and add to the post in my WordPress software. Then I look for pictures and connecting links to show you great places to find out more. Some of those links connect to other blogs and programs and if you find one of their resources good and buy it, I get paid a bonus. It’s a concept that you are probably familiar with if you’ve ever visited Amazon, for example, Amazon.com with the widgets you see. They show products that are available from them that may be close to what you initially searched for. This is what I am talking about. While I’m not currently working with Google Ads, that is another similar option for generating income from your blog.
I set up these links and programs and things for advertising to be able to build a small income from the very fact that if someone is looking for something and they get the idea about it from reading something in my blog, they can click on it and purchase it right there on their computer.
I know some of the people who teach how you can make a six-figure income from the blogs. Both of the programs that I spoke of early in the week from Corbett Barr and Steve Scott can take you to that point, if that is where you want to go. I am not going to say they are millionaires at their blogs. I know they do make an income that allows both of them to be free and travel frequently.
I’m not a teacher of how to build a million-dollar blog. I am a coach who helps people build a better life and then find a solution to bring in a long-term income from it. My coaching does help some to create a niche blog like I have. Some of my clients actually are working towards becoming coaches also. My coaching is about being a RockStar and we know RockStars as unique people who created an awesome world for themselves. If a blog is what will do that for you, then I hope these tools help.
Come back tomorrow as we finish out our week talking about how to use the social media to get your message out.
I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time to live your dream, to love what you do and those you share life with. Building a blog that matters is a way to become a RockStar in your world.
