Your Blog: A Critical Part of Your Online Marketing Lead Generation Strategy

Because of the power of the “world wide web” your online business potentially has a global market.

Many new online marketers start out by joining a company that has products which they really love! In the process of becoming a dealer or independent representative, the company often provides a “marketing website”. (Note: this website is called a “replicated” site. It is IDENTICAL for EVERY rep or distributor!)

Ask yourself this: How are potential customers going to find the generic website provided to me by my company?

The short answer is: they aren’t!!!

The reason is that search engines specifically ignore replicated websites in favor of unique (that is, interesting and valuable) content that will be useful to their customers – the “searchers”.

If you are going to be successful in any online business, you have to be better and different!

So the first thing that you must do is create a hub or “nerve center” that is a unique piece of Internet “real estate” just for you!

I am telling you that you need a blog!

In your blog you can post short articles and reviews of your company’s products. When correctly structured, these articles will get the attention of the search engines. The articles also provide links to your replicated company sales site.

You can post links to your blog posts on Facebook and Twitter. This is much more effective than simply posting links directly to your company website (or capture page) which is really just a form of spam.

Your blog can both feature and link to YouTube videos. (Google loves YouTube videos and ranks these higher than most other forms of content – but that is another topic.)

So the first order of business – the first strategy to help your prospective customers find your products and services – is to stake out some “Internet real estate”. This is in the form a blog.

I have used several free and paid sources to learn about blogs. I caution you to build a basic blog to start, and leave the finer details and the broader subject until later. WordPress.org is the preferred platform, and this site has tutorials to help you get started.

Blogging is one important component in personal branding. Remember, you have two important objectives for your marketing:

1. To be FOUND in the vast universe of websites, blogs, videos, press releases, forums, etc.

2. To rise above or be more visible than your competitors.

It is also important to remember that YOU are not the company that you represent. You are an affiliate or an independent representative. The company’s products or services are not YOURS! You are a vendor of these products.

By directing traffic to YOUR blog/website, you are creating your brand and building credibility. Your blog places you above at least 95% of the reps attempting to market the same products or services using the generic “sales” site provided by the company. (Unfortunately, these sites are still required – in most cases – to complete the actual sales process, so they can not be totally ignored.)

At the same time, you can not afford to “put all your eggs in one basket!” It is a fact of life that companies come and go. They add and drop affiliate programs or networking divisions. Some just go out of business. New companies with new and better products may spring up next month.

Your business is that of a sales agency. As such, you need to be structured to sell anything. This underscores the importance of building your personal brand, what I refer to as “You, Inc.”

You don’t want to build a business for another company. You want to build your business!

Likewise, you don’t want to create a customer list for your chosen opportunity. You NEED to build your own list of prospects and customers – a list that you can potentially sell multiple products and services over many years!

“You, Inc” is the business model you want to follow, right from the start!

You ULTIMATELY want to build a business that provides multiple products and services to your customers. Your business is providing solutions. These solutions come in the form of the products and services of multiple companies!

Your blog is the “nerve center” of your business and provides a central hub for all the other interconnected media.

There are literally THOUSANDS of social media sites, article directories, press release sites, video hosting sites, ad forums. ANYTIME you post something to one of these sites, it NEEDS to be linked back to your blog. Every mention, “Like”, “friend”, and post adds to the relevancy of your blog.

Every online marketing lead generation strategy (paid ads, email campaigns, and other media) directs traffic back to your blog. This creates a viral synergy that will help you get noticed by the search engines. Without this compounded, “spider web” of content you will remain invisible – and poor!

Most importantly, your blog provides a direct way to build your very own list of subscribers! This is another huge topic beyond the scope of this article. For more information, please go to randreek.com and access the free training provided in the Marketing Training section.