COMMENTS
You nailed the problem of many of the my clients (many of them are realtors) horn-tooting and little of interest for target audience. This problem is easily solved by hiring some one else to toot your horn or say interesting things to your audience...
Due diligence.... stay the course and have a structured list of Do's and Don'ts for every action (review often).
I am drinking the HubSpot medicine, working through the 'workouts', while maintaining the faith that we'll get there.
Without a doubt inbound marketing is not easy, nor a one time event. Funny you mentioned Realtor Jane, I have had a few conversations and walked away from them as sometimes it is intuition that tells you 'it might not be worth the effort'. If I don't see the ambition over the hype, I go for the exit strategy.
Inbound marketing just looks easy, but there is a complete science behind it. It looks easy to drive a golf ball 280 yards, because you do it every now and then, but it is tough to be consistent and straight. Everyone is competing for the same turf, any advantage is helpful
This is a really good site and I like what your saying some people just seem to be able to blog like a seasoned pro. I'm trying to give newbies the same opportunity at http://www.bloglikeaseasonedpro.complease check it out. Again thanks for the information.
One mistake newbie bloggers make is simply assuming that because they are blogging on a specific topic, that people will simply flock to their blog.
Blogs are no different from websites in that they need to be keyword optimized. That means using SEO in meta data -- installing a plugin like the All in One SEO Pack is a great start. Then select your keywords carefully and use them stratgeically.
Blogging blindly about a given topic, even a topic of high interest, does not mean you'll get swarms of traffic. Likely there are lots of competitive blogs. When just getting established it is important to do serious keyword research and select some long-tail keywords that will be easier to rank for. Then build the blog and individual posts around those keywords. By targeting keywords with less competition, you'll have a far better chance of ranking well for your given keywords. And if your content is good (see the great tips in the original post above), you'll start gaining loyal followers.
I've been reluctant to start a blog for fear it would be an exercise in futility. Using the ideas presented in this post, I think I'll give it a whirl. Thanks for the tips!
Great advice. I'm in the process of setting up my blog to accompany a new site that is under construction. I certainly found this information very helpful. Thanks very much for this post.
I totally agree with Dan Tyre, inbound marketing is a bitter sweet science. Its time , patience and carefully thought out tact. The worst thing one could do is to start posting in one of the flea market blogs and making tacky links from anywhere. I'd work on getting affiliates to promote my products if I am product of my own, or helping other people out if you are ad based. Those are the best way of getting targeted traffic.