Exactly Why Your Blog Should Be Your Home Base

Let me give you an example.

Suppose that you want to discuss a really controversial topic. Each platform has its own “guidelines,” as they call them – they really amount to a list of rules. They tell you what you can write about, and what you can’t. They tell you how long, or how short your posts can be. They tell you what you can put in your resource box too. And many, if not most, have absolutely no place at all for people to interact with you. In other words, there’s no place for comments.

When you have your own blog, you make your own rules. I can tell you – as a seasoned internet marketer that I still have articles that are rejected because they violate the guidelines of one person or another in a directory. I find that really annoying. I know that I write high quality content. It’s a waste of my time to submit it somewhere only to have some minimum wage neophyte reject it over a technicality.

Having my own blog makes that irrelevant. It doesn’t mean that I won’t use the other platforms, but it does mean that I have more control over the content I create. The only thing that could cause a problem is if what I had to say was so bad that my web host closed my site – and that’s not something I’m planning to have happen!

With your blog, you can say what you feel needs to be said.

You also get to decide when it will be published. I mentioned already that when an article gets rejected it wastes my time. One reason for that is that there isn’t enough information given by that platform to tell me what the problem is. So I have to write to them, grovel a bit, and then wait for them to reply. I once had a problem that lasted for 2 weeks. Nothing got published during that time. If I had a blog, it wouldn’t have mattered. The same thing is true for you. No matter what the policies are for someone else, you can just keep cranking out your posts day in and day out.

You can also decide where to put your content on your blog. If you write for an article directory, for example, it appears along with the content of thousands of other people. But if it’s on your blog, it’s just you. And, you can put it anywhere you want to.

If you use guest bloggers, the fact that they write for you just adds to your credibility as an expert.

So your strategy has to be to get your prospects from the search engine results to your blog so that they can read, watch, or listen to the high quality information you have for them. That’s so that they will join your list and eventually buy the life changing products that you’ve created to help them solve their problems.

That’s the foundation, everything is built on that, everything.

On the one hand you have to get your expertise in front of your prospects. But on the other your expertise has to draw them to your blog so that they can discover for themselves that you’re the expert they need.

Why EVERY Piece of Content Needs to be the Best

So the next question has to be, how do you do that?

It starts when you begin a relationship with them. I’ve already mentioned in another training the need to create relationships with your visitors once they come to your blog. But actually that relationship starts before they get to it. It starts when they encounter your content for the first time. It starts when they read the very first article or post, listen to that first audio. It starts then because it’s their first opportunity to meet you.

Think about it like this. The only way the prospects will become aware of your expertise is if they do a search, then click on a link that takes them to something you have done. I’ve said that already.

But it means that no matter how much content you’ve produced, their first impression is going to be with just one small part of it. That’s one reason why everything you do has to be not just the best you can make it, but the best there is.

There’s another part of this that’s even more important: the first article, blog post, audio, whatever it is, it has to speak directly to them. They have to know in their heart that you’ve created that content just for them. That’s because your goal is to begin a relationship with them as soon as they come in contact with you. Then everything that follows will build on that new relationship. You can have no way of knowing which bit of your expertise they’ll come in contact with first. You have to make sure that everything that you create is capable of doing that.

The flip side of that is that if they don’t connect with you for the first time, they probably won’t come back for a second look. This is so important. Everything that you create must be focused on starting that all important relationship.

You can see once they’ve discovered that, and they know that you know what you’re talking about, they’ll start to look for your content elsewhere. They may go back to the search engine results. They may even search on your name. Chances are they’ll eventually find their way to your blog. That’s exactly where you want them to go.

Your Content’s Theme

The next thing that we have to think about is the theme of your content. The best way that I can think of to help you see how important this is, is to show you how some people do this successfully and how others don’t. A good place to see this in action is found on ezinearticles.com.

Now it really doesn’t matter which category you choose. But since this training is about blogging, then you might want to look there… Go to the category called internet and online businesses. Scroll down to blogging and click on it. Over on the right side of the page, click top authors in blogging. You’ll see on the page the names and pictures of their top 15 authors. What I want you to do is to start at the top, and look at the categories where each author has contributed.

What you can do is click on the name, and then scroll down past all the articles then on the bottom you’ll see a list of all the different categories that they’ve contributed to. Most of the time you’ll find that those categories will complement one another. But occasionally you’re going to find people who have written in so many different categories that you can’t be sure what their theme is. That’s a problem. If people can’t recognize the primary theme of your content, then they won’t know if you can help them. Do you see the connection?

Your blog is part of that content equation. In fact, it’s the sum of everything else that you produce. The theme that permeates your content elsewhere on the web has to be consistent with the theme that you want on your blog. Not the other way around. It’s your blog that defines the theme, and everything else must contribute directly to it.

You’re probably beginning to really understand why your blog lies at the center of your content marketing strategy. When people click on a link that takes them to an article or a guest blog post or an audio or a video, if that content is anywhere except on your blog, then it must enhance the expertise that you’ve shown on that blog.

If it doesn’t, it will confuse people. And people who are confused go someplace else where they can find the answer to their problem more easily. They don’t want to have to guess what the solution is. And they certainly don’t want to have to think about whether or not you’re the expert in the niche, never mind the one they need.