This content is provided by Carol Farbe. For more information, please visit my site for great tips.
If you are ready to move your brick and mortar business online, you need to have an online presence. You can hire a webmaster to set up a site for you and can charge you big bucks. It is stationary and will have very little updates to it. Another option is to set up a blog yourself for a lot cheaper. You have control over it and can update it as often as you like. I believe every business needs to have an online presence. That’s not as easy as it sounds. It does take a little work before you start your marketing blog so I’ve included a checklist to help you get started.
Select Your Topic
□ Keyword research and competition analysis
□ Select your keyword
□ What’s your hook?
Write Your Post
□ Research your topic
□ Create an outline
□ Write your post
□ Add a P.S. and call-to-action
□ Edit your post
Before you publish
□ Check for keyword placement and density
□ Spell check and review for grammar
□ Add an image with keyword in alt tag
□ Check all links to make sure they work
□ Write SEO title (title tag with keyword)
□ Write SEO description (description tag with keyword)
□ Set featured image if theme allows
□ Select appropriate category
□ Assign post tags
□ Schedule post or publish immediately
After you publish
□ Share on Twitter
□ Share on Facebook (page and/or profile)
□ Share on Google+
□ Share on LinkedIn (if relevant)
□ Publish excerpt to Tumblr, Posterous or other Web 2.0 platforms
□ Tell your email list about the post and ask them to share it
□ Bookmark on main social bookmarking sites (Stumbleupon, Delicious, Digg, etc.)
□ Comment on blogs with related topics (preferably Commentluv blogs where post will appear below your comment)
□ Comment in forums with related topics
□ Answers related comments in Q&A sites with link to post
□ Distribute to key article directories (rewrite it a bit first)
Repurpose your post
□ Record yourself speaking the post and distribute on podcasting distribution sites
□ Create slides with key points and share on Slideshare
□ Record yourself talking about each point on your slides, using the article as script. Convert to video and distribute on video distribution sites (e.g., YouTube and Vimeo)
□ Convert the article to a pdf and distribute on pdf distribution sites (e.g., Scribd)
□ Keep it in a file for inclusion in a future report or ebook. Once you have several articles on different parts of the same topic, put it together into a report and use it to build your list, distribute to your affiliates, make rebrandable and share, etc.
Review this checklist. Post regularly to your blog with fresh new content. If you need help coming up with new content, check out private label rights, or PLR, for ideas. Your customers will now be able to find you online. What’s keeping you from transferring your business online through a blog?
