Content marketing is one of the best ways to attract inbound leads to your business. Marketers who embrace blogging see return on investment because of the exposure and the gravitas it adds to their brand reputation. The main issue that many service-based sales professionals struggle with is knowing where to begin.

Key Points

• Blogging is a great way to garner exposure
• Utilize forums and optimize for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Own your town and become a community expert

As Jen Benvenuto says: “It’s really nothing to be intimidated by. You simply have to regard your blog like a professional diary where you document the journey you’ve had within your industry.” Jen is ReminderMedia’s real estate expert and blogger, and when she became a first-time homebuyer earlier in the year she was able to draw upon her experience navigating the home-buying process for inspiration.

Once you’re in the habit of writing blog posts, you can publish beyond your personal site. For real estate agents, two great sites to publish are Active Rain and Inman. Medium.com, a site for anyone to post, is more for general blogging, regardless of your industry. If you don’t want to bother with blogging forums, you can always expand your reach by putting all of your work on social media.

When it comes to choosing a subject matter, write about anything that provides value to your sphere, even if that value is strictly entertainment. Inman has a great list of blogging ideas to get you started if you run into early-onset writer’s block.

Once you start publishing, you’ll want to dig into SEO, which is all about getting your site to show up in the right Google searches. If you want to beat out Fortune 500 companies and get your site to appear in searches for things like “real estate” or “home insurance” it’s going to be an uphill battle of epic proportion. One thing you can do is own your town. When you localize your content and have the name of the town you service sprinkled throughout posts, people will find you when they search your profession and the town you work in. Think about it, if you want sushi, do you just type “sushi” in Google, or do you search, “sushi in Manhattan”? Also, think about answering the questions your client base will be typing. If your prospects will be trying to figure out how to get pre-approved for a mortgage, write a blog that explains the process.

When it comes to writing a solid headline, always write something that will plant the seed of intrigue. You want to grab the reader’s attention, but you don’t want to produce clickbait. Clickbait will only do harm to your reputation in the long run.

After you’ve created the final draft, including your catchy headline, push it out across all your social media channels to maximize eyeballs in your post. Once you start producing content on a regular basis, consider sending out an email newsletter to get even wider distribution.

Action Items

Following the podcast, our goal is to provide you with as many actionable tips as possible. For this episode, they include…

• Write a piece of content that’s geared around your expertise
• Share it on LinkedIn, your blog, and in an email to your list

As always, take action on these tips!