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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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The right way to blog for business
I recently read a study about blogging by Thom Singer at ProBlogger, in which he shared his experience in blogging for his business over the past year.
Since Thom is primarily focused on promoting himself and his business by educating his target audience, he's got the right mindset. Far too many business owners get confused and diverted off course by the advice of professional bloggers who make money off traffic monetization. Don't let anybody make you feel bad by slamming you with "rules" of the blogosphere that say not to promote yourself, your products, or your services.
It's true that you shouldn't blatantly market or use any type of hard sales techniques on your blog. Instead, you should be educating people about your niche or industry -- and differentiating yourself from your competitors -- not by attacking them openly, but by sharing your opinions, your approaches to problems, and your solutions that highlight your passions and expertise.
Measuring success by RSS subscribers instead of real numbers is another dangerous idea floating around the blogosphere. Thom had this to say about his regular readers as measured by RSS subscriptions: "With over 100 regular readers, I feel OK about my blog."
I'm not sure, but it sounds like Thom is not jumping for joy at those results. Yet elsewhere in his case study he mentions direct sales of his book and new partnerships that have come directly from his blog. Those are the measurements that really count for business owners.
Unless you're in a techie niche, your target market is like the majority of the public -- they use the Internet to find information when the urge hits them. Then, when they're doing a Web-based search and come across your content, most people don't even know that they've landed at a blog. Recent studies show that only 4 percent of Internet surfers use RSS, and just a little more than that really understand blogs. So expecting the number of RSS subscribers to give you any type of meaningful feedback is ridiculous.
You're a business owner with your own products and services. So building your prospect list, making more sales and creating more lifetime clients is what you should focus on.
You should be monitoring traffic and tracking results that measure:
» The number of people who grabbed a special offer and joined your prospect list
» The number of sales you've made that can be traced back to your blog
» Up-sells to and re-purchases by existing clients that come from articles, podcasts, or videos on your blog
Keep these measurement goals at the forefront and blogging for your business will become a lot more effective, and a lot more fun.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.