Today’s evaluation is of Sold By Style, a business blog for a home staging company up in Canada. And, in this evaluation, I talk about it from a different standpoint than many other bloggers – generating leads for an offline business.

Here’s the video….

Simply put, a blog is a powerful marketing tool for any business, online AND offline. The thing is, one has to keep in mind what their intentions are.

For most offline, service-oriented businesses, lead generation is the top priority. What I see too often is a business blog which is acting like any other run-of-the-mill blog. When you read blogs about blogging in an effort to improve your’s, it can easily lead to the idea that you do what they do in order to succeed. That isn’t necessarily the case at all. People like me cater to bloggers, and that’s an audience with a specific set of typical traits. What I do on this blog is designed to cater to those traits. For an offline business, you are catering to a completely different crowd, with their own set of traits, and a different goal.

If you want a LEAD in your business, you want (a) a phone call, and/or (b) an email address. So, the entire purpose of your site should be to get those things. Anything which distracts from that is just that – a distraction.

Most business blogs don’t need to ask for RSS subscribers (the target clientele is very likely to not even know what RSS is). They don’t need to ask for retweets because, in most markets, the target clientele doesn’t use Twitter. The phone number to the business should be obvious and on every page.

The best use of a business blog is to create great content designed to attract interest and then funnel the reader directly into your goal – a lead.

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Some of the take-aways from this evaluation are:

• Taking into account the brand new arrival to your blog, you always need to take into account defining your blog very quickly for them. Witty blog names don’t necessarily define it, so it is important to use a blog byline which clearly defines the brand to them.
• Provide a clear offer to get people onto the list. Vague offers like “free gifts”, “get my newsletter”, etc… these don’t really deliver. They are too vague. People don’t give away their emails that easily.
• Always take into account the value proposition of your blog. What value are they going to get from it? Specifically.
• The sales letter has to spell out the benefits.
• One of the problems with some personal development blogs is that they lack specifics. Have something on offer that translates into problems solved in real life. Without that, this blog is going to have a difficult time getting off the ground.

Also mentioned: Release videos on TubeMogul.com to spread them across multiple channels.

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Some quick take-away’s:

• Always take into account the frame of mind of the person viewing your call to action. It is easy to think it makes sense, not realizing that the people looking at your site don’t necessarily have the same thoughts as you do.
• Be careful of using potential words in your call to action which people may not understand.
• Be careful of too much visual clutter. While a site can look good, it might not perform very well when there are multiple things to do on the screen. You want the design of the site to aid the reader’s eyes in finding the most important element on the page (which you need to identify).

Also recommended: Run a click-tracking test using CrazyEgg to see where people’s attention is being pulled.

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The post is: Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of ProBlogger And John Chow.

The gripe? They don’t reply to comments on their own blog.

Today, I thought I’d do something a bit different and just post a video. So, I tested out Youtube’s ability to record a video direct to the web. Here we go…

What Do You Think?

Do you expect replies from bloggers when you post a comment? Do you get offended when they don’t reply?

And, do you agree or disagree with me when I say that engaging in conversation has to be taken up to a point, but at a certain point it becomes a hindrance to your success?

Let me know!

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Hope you enjoy. I tell ya one thing, this video makes me look like a damn whale. I should call Jenny Craig.

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Just getting started here in Las Vegas for BlogWorld. This video would have been up sooner, but wifi issues delayed it. So, I went to a tweetup and talked to a lot of great folks. More on that later.

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[flv]http://s3.amazonaws.com/trvideos/video1d_small.flv[/flv]

View the original video on Tony Robbin’s site.

I see so many people who act as their own worse enemy. They have all the tools for their success, but they run into one huge barrier that they don’t even see as a barrier – THEMSELVES. The power of the mind is more vast than any of us really realize. The mind, and we as spirits, have power over the world of the physical. Even if it doesn’t seem that way, it is true. And I think that this video by Tony Robbins really speaks to that sentiment.

What do you think of the video?

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It is called the Blogging Wealth Gap.

In this report, I reveal the most important ingredient to why most bloggers make little to no money with their blogs. I also have a followup video to the report which expands on the information and provides some valuable information on turning your blog into a big money magnet.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the report.

And very soon, you’ll be seeing a brand new, and much more involved report from me. Stay tuned.

Get Your Copy of the Blogging Wealth Gap.

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In fact, when I talk about how I made over $12,000 from my blog while on a cruise, THIS was the cruise I was on when that happened!

If you want to read about how I did that, then opt-in to my mailing list to the right and you’ll get my free report and, in it, I give the full breakdown of how I set it up.

And if you ever go on a cruise, you might check out this ship. It really was a nice ship. And I recommend you get a balcony!

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