Today’s blog post hits a bit close to home, but the story is worth telling because it shows how powerful blogging about a topic of passion can be to building community, inviting quality business leads, and contributing to greater prosperity.
My husband Steve Juetten is a Certified Financial Planner™ professional based in Bellevue, WA who offers fee only financial planning. His message is that you can take control over your money and your life, and he blogs about this message just about every other day at Examiner.com. He started the blog because we agreed that sharing his expertise in a manner that would reach a wide audience of potential clients would be a powerful way to attract the right clients to his door.
Steve prefers connecting with people in small groups or on a one-on-one basis. That means that attending networking lunches and other group events isn’t the perfect way for him to invest his time. Blogging opens the door for Steve to share his valuable expertise and empowering point of view with a growing audience so they can sample his approach and find their way to him.
Steve has been learning from Darren Rowse of www.problogger.net and Yaro Starak of www.blogmastermind.com and getting into action on the tried-and-true approaches they recommend for building blog traffic and influence.
To follow is Steve’s account of what has happened in his financial planning practice since he started blogging in January.
My new business activity is about double in the first four months of the year compared to the same time in previous years. I can’t give all the credit to the new blog because the economy has been terrible and people have felt the need to seek help from my specialty. However, as a result of the blog, I’ve been asked to review three books on personal finance and several online sites that offer personal finance software. In addition, three investment product suppliers have found me and opened a dialogue about their products. Many of them are linking back to my blog posts from their sites, bringing new readers my way.
The top tactics I use to build viewership are:
So, Steve is growing his influence and enjoying more new business activity than in prior years. A Google search for his name reveals plenty of favorable and influential results that reinforce his expertise, and his Examiner.com blog appears on page one.
He is inviting opportunities to connect with influential authors, business owners, and others who are happy to link back to his posts about them, bringing his potential blog readership to even wider audiences. Business is good and getting better every day. And all of this has happened since January 30, 2009.
So, if you are pondering the prospect of blogging, Steve’s progress over four months offers proof that good results await.
DIY Publicity Tip: Learn more about blogging from Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak via the active links above. Both offer abundant, free, and fee services. Their blogs and free reports are high value and worth your time. If ths timing is right for you to add blogging to your marketing mix, you know it. What you do next is up to you.
