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Building Sales Through Your Web Authority

If you have worked hard to become the authority in your field or industry, now’s the time to use that clout to leverage sales. But exactly how do you do that?

By using your platforms of course! If you have created web authority with your blog, your e-newsletter, or your own website, now is the time to add the marketing push to make it all translate now into sales.

What I routinely will do is to create a timed promotion and then heavily promote what I am offering or selling on my platforms. If you have the ear and readership of your audience, you will not alienate them with a judicious use of self promotion.  I mainly use my monthly e-newsletter for my special promotions and not my blog but you may choose otherwise.

In fact, as you have worked hard to establish yourself as the authority in your field you have shared, tips, strategies, and your intellectual capital. Now’s the time to call in the “chips”. I don’t mean change your message all the sudden and use your platform for a “spamming marketing machine”, but I do mean, making sure that client’s and prospects know what you sell and service, and that you want them to call you when they need help. Done in a non-threatening, non-pushy way, you will find that you are providing a real service to those reading or watching your platforms.

So here’s my little “bug in your ear” on this specific topic. We provide webmaster services if you didn’t know. We don’t need to have designed your website to provide content updates to your website or to tweak it for performance. Webmaster services are a core business for us and we employ two contractors to assist us with updates. Typically updates are completed within 24 to 48 hours and sometimes even on the same day. Although we are not a good technology match for every website, those that we do work on, we are attentive to detail, and provide very affordable fast service. Our minimum billing is only $7 and our hourly rate is $68 per hour rounded up in 6 minute increments. So, if you need a responsive webmaster on your side, think of McCord Web Services! Now that was painless wasn’t it?

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August Newsletter is Posted

We’ve just posted our August e-newsletter. You can view it here.

Topics for this issue are:

Ghost Blogger Spotlight on Sue Guirl, Director of Writing

Give Your Browser a Tune Up

How to Set Up Email Member Groups

We’ve returned from vacation at Myrtle Beach and are ready to roll. Stay tuned this week for posts on how you can turn your “Web Authority” into sales.

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Does It Hurt You to Post Three Times a Week?

It may not hurt you to drop from five days a week to three, but go less than posting to your blog three days a week and you will definitely lose readership and subscribers. It is definitely a tough road to hoe to build back up after you have had a significant drop in traffic. It takes time posting five days a week and great content.

Once you have arrived at the level of activity that you desire, then you need to balance the time you expend on your blog with your other business needs. This is what I do. When I had started posting sporadically for nearly six months due to personnel issues and sheer blogging burn-out, my traffic took a dive. To rebuild, it has taken will power and work. For over four months I have now blogged five days a week and now I am simply ready to move back to three days a week. Typically I blog ahead and do one week ahead on Saturday. If I find something great to write about in the middle of the week, I just do an additional post. If the post is not time sensitive, I will simply use it as one of my write ahead posts.

Personally I found blogging five days a week exhausting. For professional clients typically we will break a five day a week gig into a project for two writers. It is simply tough to consistently write great content every single day on one topic. Try it for an extended period and you will understand what I mean.

If you post less than three days a week some portals like My Yahoo will collapse your RSS feed on the page and post a note saying “no new posts in the last seven days” even if this is not exactly true. Post on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule and feed collapse is prevented.

So should you write three, four or five days a week? I recommend if you are starting your blog five days a week for the first three months to build content and readership, then cut back to a long term plan of three days a week to maintain what you have and not lose headway.

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Microsoft Clip Art Gallery and Free Images

This is a hidden tool for some people something they simply did not know about, but Microsoft does allow commercial (not logo use) of there clip art and photo images. If you have Office, then you have this tool – the Microsoft Clip Art Gallery.

Access the Gallery from Start> Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Clip Art Gallery. Then go online and load up your Gallery with new neat free images and sounds at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx. You’ll love the selection. Just add the items to your basket and then click download and run to load them onto your disk.

We use these free images for blogs, websites, and newsletter content. The EULA states that you can use them for commercial web use, but not for logos or things that are proprietary to your business. But that means you can use them for website images, brochures, and so much more.

Updated as of 7-14-18: Microsoft no longer supports the Clip Art Gallery. There may be other free images resources available online. One to consider may be PikWizard.