You never close a stie down.  This site still gets a few hits every week, so it means something to keep it up.  But for the most part, we’re now moved over to Flat Rate Web Jobs & Patriot Connect.

Patriot Connect: Libertarian and Tea Party Websites & Work

Libertarian & Tea Party Fund-raising Websites are available over at our sister/offspring company “Patriot Connect”.

That site is for any grassroots/netroots/ron paul supporters that want to learn to raise money for the cause of liberty.  You can’t take any party money to get our services as there’s some “extra” stuff above and beyond the normal that people are getting.

Small Business Websites: Flat Rate Web Jobs

We’re handling all small business websites through Flat Rate Web jobs. This is where to go if you need a custom web site done in a few days.

Small business blogging can work, if you follow established best practices. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every single blog idea that flits across your subconsciousness.  You don’t have to be creative.

“If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”  -David Ogilvy

What you have to do is follow what works.  Do what we already know what to do and cover your bases beyond that.  Meaning this:  you know what messages work in your business, they work online and offline.  You have to communicate frequently first, and then rrefine your message.  People expect instant results, and that’s possible, but not without really top shelf communication.

So, if you’re not getting incredible results from your blog & social media, maybe you’re making one of these mistakes:

1. Not having info customers are looking for.
2. Not having enough information (show more leg)
3. Having information about YOU and not about what the CUSTOMER gets.
4. Having no contact/normal & formal business information for the customer.
5. Having no social proof that you do a good job (memberships & testimoinals)
6. Having old, outdated “coming soon” pages.
7. Having too many placeholders
8. Having too many different kinds of offers (nobody wants to deal with jacks of all trades, seem like a specialist).
9. Having a messy site.
10. Not having enough stuff about your company.
11. Putting blogs that are all about buying now, without informing the customers.
12. Putting posts out there that don’t help people understand more about what your business.
13. Not responding to comments.
14. Not loving links.
15. Not including metadescriptions with every post.
16. Not including some post structure.
17. Not including a business address on your RSS feed.
18. Making customers fill in a form if they want to talk and not giving them control (Really, really arrogant).
19. Not mentioning what you sell & why you blog.
20. Having 1000 categories with one post each.
21. Having six bajilion tags (kill tags)
22. Having dates all over the place on your blog.
23. Not backing up claims.
24. Having too many links.

There are more mistakes you can make, but take heart: it’s easy to do everything right, the path is well lit and easily viewed.

The current 2.0 obsession is personal branding. I respect some of the ideas.  Make a name for yourself, do what it takes to be known.  Get followers.  Be a rockstar freelancer.  Be buzzworthy.  Be an event.  Be a micro celebrity.  That’s what folks want.  Seem to be successful, fake it till you make it.  Total Crap.

It’s mostly crap, unless it’s a means to communicate how you serve people.

Sure, being known is important.  I get it.  But people are focusing on getting known first.  Before they have skills.   Before they focus on what they are here to give, how they are here t help.  “Know me.”  is the entitled cry that people have.   Things become about people in lieu of ideas, and the man and the work get muddled up so that an attack on the work is an attack on the man.  When we are all about us, then what happens is not good.

My Dream Personal Branding Workshop

Instead of a Personal Branding Workshop on how to dress, how to appear, how to be successful, how to look good, I’d change the focus.  I want to be known for helping small businesses.  I want to be known as the guy that taught small businesses how to make money from their blogs.  So, my workshop would focus on this: what are you giving to others.

My agenda:

• Developing a valuable giveaway to be known for.
• Creating usefulness for the public.
• Networking with other people that are giving value away.
• Putting the focus on the people you want to help.
• Creating a mindset of service, and the skillset to serve.

That’s it.  Customer focused.  I don’t matter to the customer.  What I look like doesn’t matter.  If I have a dog doesn’t matter.  What matters is who I’m here to help, what I’m giving to you, and how I can be of service to you.  Focusing on image first, without the heart of service will get some results.   Not nearly the results though, that are yours by focusing on how you can help other people.

Personal Branding Tips That Matter

But if you focus on helping others FIRST, if you focus on making it so that people win from working on you…you get more.  That’s what’s making me wealthy.  When I switched my service from “what can Chris get” to “what can Chris do to help,” the world radically changed for me.   That is making me financially secure faster than any skill I’ve ever acquired.   My personal branding statement isn’t about me, it’s about what I do to help.

• Focus on caring first.  People smell BS.
• Focus on giving more to others.
• Focus on being of service in every way.
• Focus on what service you give to others.

That’s it.  The people that do this with the highest level of authority and skill are all about this simple idea are all about this.  So ask: is your message making you a star, your content a star, or what you’re here to give a star?  What is more attractive to others, your success, or your service?

Personal Branding For Small Business and soloprenuers has to be about what you’re doing for others.  Period.  I’ll hit this more often and do some case studies as time permits.

1. We deliver as much real value as we possibly can at low prices.
2. We are the fastest company to deliver blogs & systems for small businesses to communicate.
3. We Do What We Say We’ll Do When We Say We’ll Do it.
4. Our customers get their investment back–and more–when they use our products.
5. We give our customers training on everything we do for them.
6. We work with small business owners first and are set up to honor their needs.
7. We do this stuff: We set a good example when it comes to efficient content creation.
8. We collaborate with others and honor our partners relationship with their clients.
9. We honor people that help us.

Look, loads of social media and blogging companies are around.

And they all make fancy and slick blogs.  Some of ‘em have video.  Get it?  Good.  Deal is this: you need sales.

Not branding.

Not PR.

Not publicity.

Real, bonafide sales.  Checks.  Money.  Oh, sure, long term you wanna look good, but the bottom line is this: you need to make sales to be successful.  You might have people that are ‘aware’ from you, or you can have people that ‘have bought’ from you.  Your call.

It doesn’t matter where you rank in the search engines.  You could be “Columbus’s Best Realtor” and if you’re not getting the phone to ring…

…why are you blogging?   Why are you connecting?

So, with that said, our focus is on sales.

Not activity.

Not “almost sales”  Honest to God small business revenue that you can send to your AMEX.

So, how’s that done?

#1- grab my content checklist.  Your bucket needs to be FULL.  You need to have things like your PHONE NUMBER listed.   Your site has to be more or less done.

#2- be yourself, be friendly.  Loads of good examples here, but trying to be nothing, or “all things to all people” is a fool’s errand.  You’ll fail.

#3- Follow up.  I use infusionsoft.  But you can use whatever floats your boat.  Make sure you reconnect with people….automate as much as possible.

Personal branding, or, personal identity.  Whatever you call it, it’s one of the core functions of a small business.  Making sure people know ‘why you’re different & better,’ is a big job.  You don’t want to sound like every other Financial Planner, you don’t want to sound like just another gray suit.  People that already know you should think of you as the go to guy for something.

The problem is, that financial planners all wanna be Jim Cramer.  Or Suze Orman.  Or someone that is a loud and bold talking head.   Blogging coaches all wanna be Darren or Brian Clark. Realtors wanna be Donald Trump, or with their blogs Greg Swann. Personal branders wanna be Dan or NameTag Scott.

New bloggers carving their niche fail.  Not because those guys are so good, and inimitable (though they are).  But because you can’t win by being an echo of someone else.  You don’t win by trying to duplicate what someone great wrote.  You win by being yourself.  By figuring out what that means, and by chiseling out who you are, a post at a time.  A good example of that is Cristina Favereau.  She’s not someone else, she’s herself.  And she’s got a niche.  Some traffic. She’s not the #1 blogger in the world, and probably doesn’t want to be.  But she’s herself, she’s a voice, and she’s credible.

IF she tried to be Penelope Trunk, she would have failed, because that’s a different set of values, beliefs.

So what do you to to not imitate someone else?

1. Get Local. We miss out on acres of diamonds.  I’m not the worlds foremost blogging expert.  Not even top hundred.  But I am in the top hundred in Columbus, OH.   And, I’ve done a million dollars worth of local sales on my blogs.  Who can say that?  There’s plenty of business in your own damn back yard.
2. Be Yourself. You can appreciate the good things about what big time bloggers write.  Yo u can even link out to them.  But bottom line: be yourself.  If you disagree, it’s fine.  If you agree, it’s cool.  If you want to nuance the point, hey, good on ‘ya.  If someone says something that you loved, take that ball and run with it.
3. A little bit at a time. I’m always tempted to write a manifesto of what the new market’s going to be like.  I kind of did that with F#@% therapy. But, I’m better off carving out chunks of things I kind of get than trying to write the post that clarifies all.
4. Realize it’s OK to sell Whatever business you’re in, a business blog exists to sell.  And, teaching people stuff sells them.     Teach ‘em what you know about the products you sell.  Not the played and trite consumerist bullcrap, but the real stuff you know works & sells.
5. Don’t assume anything is common knowledge.  Seriously.   A lot of people that are experts start by assuming everyone knows the ‘basics’ of their industry.  Accountants and others can seriously win big by teaching some basics on their blog & keeping it all local.

It’s better to grab what you can, by being yourself, by staying local, than it is to try, from day one to compete with the best in the world.

As Kurt Vonnegut said:

” A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world’s champions.”

You can keep it local and expand your turf inch by inch by inch…and be a community treasure by being yourself.

I set up real estate blogs on a regular basis.  Several a month, and I enjoy the promise that comes with creating a new blogger.  But…there are ingraned habits that come with being a Realtor that absolutely, positively kill the chances that an Agent has at making a blog work well.   The leap of faith to make a blog that makes money for the clients, AND follow best practices (which are across the grain).

So, in order to help Realtors blog better, I’ve made a list.  And even if you’re not a Real Estate Agent, you’ll probably benefit from this list–but the problems are most specific to Realtors and the way that they blog.  Real estate is an image conscious business, and Realtors want to present an image that they have in mind.  This runs at odds with the current transparent Real Estate vibe.

1. Not blogging frequently enough. Once a month?  Don’t waste your time with a blog.  Once a week?  Maybe, but if you’re just starting, especially, you need new, fresh, local content 3 times a week.  It’s not as hard as you think to be consistent–just do some MLS math.  People wanna know what’s up with that.
2. Not keeping It Local Enough: All real estate–in particular–is local.  Obama’s housing plans are cool fodder, but how are they gonna impact smaller areas?  Nobody cares about the WHOLE market, people care about their little niches.
3. Saying Preposterous Things: “Now is a great time to buy, or sell, a house,” is my favorite.  That’s a classic.  WTF?  Which is it?  Just time for a transaction?  That’s not believable.  Similarly, people have big time BS filters.  EVEN if you believe a big bold statement to be true, you gotta watch it, and not shock people, or else they’ll put you in the category with chicken little.
4. Not being themselves, not keeping it ‘real’ Loads and loads of Realtors try to be all things to all people.  Tim Ferriss said that this was the surest way to insanity.   Brian Brady is america’s #1 mortgage broker.  He’s also a Republican.  And he admits it.  And his clients that supported Obama still work with him,.
5. Ignoring Search: Again, you don’t need to have national prominence in your blogs.  You gotta be hyperlocal.  Chicagoland Realestate = Fiercely competitive.  DuPage County Real Estate = better.   Naperville Real Estate = Possible win.   Eagle’s Edge Naperville Condos = GREAT.   The more specific you get, the more traffic you get because you create pages that beat back the competition.  You can’t win by fighting Yahoo Real Estate Search.
6. Spending too much time keyword stuffing. Look, putting stuff in metatags is probably a waste of time.  People put every possible keyword in a metatag i.e. “search for homes 90210, Beverly hills homeseearch, 90210 house prices”.  Waste of time.  Good search optimization starts with good headlines, good metadescriptions, and good content.  That’s it, baby, end of story.
7. Not linking to other (even competitor) Realtors. You gotta give to get.  And you should be exchanging links with established and trusted real estate blogs.  Even in your area.  You and the person you’re sharing links with both rise above all the people that don’t.  What I’d do would be pick up a couple of  people on the otherside of town.
8. Not killing your trolls: Read this post. Good Realtors have some blogging issues.  Is your number easy to find, or do you funnel people arrogantly to a webform?  (Customers like control).  Is your face up there?  People wanna deal with people.  Not fill out webforms.  Put your contacts in there.  If you’re frightened about spam, get Gmail.
9. Making It All About You It’s about your customer, not your sales records.  It’s about having real people on your website saying good things about you.  Go, today, buy a flip cam.,  Carry it with you.  Put it up & make sure you have it linked from the main page.  You can brag about yourself, or you can do a good enough job to have other people do it for you.  Your choice.
10. Not Having a Real Offer. It’s 2009.  People still pitch a free CMA as if that was the end all, be all.  Not happening.  People want custom search.  People want an information advantage over their neighbors.   People want something that they can’t get.  Guess what, that might take work.  (Tim and Julie Did a decent job helping you with a quick offer).

What other mistakes do Realtor bloggers make?

If you want to get on a path to blog right, just visit this link.

Most people talk about shooting themselves in the foot.  An idea that you cripple your chances before you begin doing something, then have to work double-hard to fix it, to correct it, to do it right.  I think that people are actually shooting themselves in the head.  Making their jobs and lives easier in an effort to be predictable.  Making burnout and jobswitch damn near inevitable.  Making adult failure spiral something that comes almost inevitably.

How?

#1: Being Too Attached To The Deal In Front Of You. What’s worse than the stink of desperation?  The way people approach you when they  absolutely have to sell you?  The oily used car sales guy that has to sell right now.  When you HAVE to sell to make the rent, mortgage, or whatever, people can smell it a mile or ten away.  When you HAVE to sell people, that need drives people away, repells people like nothing else.

EVEN a little bit of this behavior makes your job twice as hard.  It’s the “where’s my deal” calls.  It’s all the little things that show your client that you’re not sure about your value, and when you’re not sure, they’re not sure.

#2:  Not being Transparent About What They Are Getting: Look, people want to know what they are buying.  People want to have a list of what’s included in as many places as you can stick it. Leaving anything out, leaving any detail missing from your website, from your brochure is gonna cause people to not want to buy from you. They have to have an A-Z list.

#3:  Not having references posted prominently on your site. Whatever it takes to earn testimonials, do.  They are worth their weight in gold.   Making them is critical.  You need social proof that your product is good for 2 reasons:  if the product doesn’t work, then the people blame themselves.  This provides people with an implied target, someone for them to tattle on if you let them down.  Being transparent makes people feel that they won’t get let down.

4: Not having Some Type Of Guarantee. Create a Guarantee That You’ll Live With.  People want to feel like they are protected somehow, and a guarantee is a way to do that.

We do whatever we can here on this site to set a good example for freelancers.  We try to live by the advice we preach.  Sometimes, in staying ahead of the curve, we fall behind, but we want to be and seem to be the very best small business blogging company, a step at a time.

So when you begin to blog, the first thirty days sets the tone.  It’s been said elsewhere that the space shuttle expends more of it’s energy in the first 10 minutes than it does the rest of the time it’s on the trip.  Getting out of earth’s gravity, and getting to a point where it can achieve orbit is the ‘hard ‘part.

Getting started right is the difference between success and failure.  You can stumble on success by having great content, but the thing is this: you don’t need to be perfect to win, you just need to be done.

A video n the first 30 days as well as a great checklist follows for members.

Nothing’s perfect.  Not even this keyword research video.   But the bottom line is this: keyword research is market research. See, it’s the way you learn what to write about.  It’s the way you figure out what the market is asking for.  Doing keyword research right, and then applying what you’ve learned is one of the big skills to have.

The below video & homework helps with just that.  Beyond the cut  is the info that YOU want.