When writing for your website you need to grab people’s attention quickly. “If you’re alive I am the coach for you” just isn’t good enough

As I wrote before, you need to grab your website visitors quickly

How you work, what you have to offer and who you work best with is unique. Being so close to it may make it difficult for you to see what about your approach is attractive to potential clients, and what words to use

The best people to ask are your clients. Contact them and ask them what they got from working with you, how they describe what you do to their friends or colleagues, and what is particularly attractive about what you do

Do this by phone, email or face to face – and make sure you write down their exact words. Don’t start summarising your findings in your own words – this is about discovering the words that your clients use

And finally, when explaining your services, first list the benefits, then explain the features that provide these benefits. You need to generate interest first (what’s in it for me), before establishing credibility (so this is how it works)

Imagine your home page is a roadside billboard. It has two seconds to grab the attention of your target audience, before they’re gone forever

I am currently working with a client to convert their website to WordPress. They are using the opportunity to review and revise their website text. I realised they offer some excellent services, but that it takes too much work to find out to discover this

On your website make sure the first pages visitors meet (such as your home page and the “about” page) grab your target audience quickly. On the rest of your website write as much as you like, with full background information to your services, long articles to display your expertise and plenty of valuable information

To pass the drive-by test:

• Know who your website is for. The text (meaning), the words, the images, colours and layout all need to work together to show your visitor that this website is for her, or for who she is aspiring to be. A website selling health products needs to show images of health. A website aimed at executives needs to use the same language that executives use
• Quickly and clearly show or describe the benefits of your service or product

I recently started offering coaches help to (re-)structure their website text

Creating structure out of chaos is one of my natural abilities, and it always surprises me that not everyone enjoys doing this. It is so natural to me, that I don’t quite see how I could sell it

What I’ve started doing is to “step up” when I feel I can genuinely add value for a client. I simply offer to do something for a client, being very clear upfront about the cost, and without trying to sell the benefits. Judging by the feedback I’ve had this is being received as helpful. And I’m getting more business, doing what I enjoy doing. A win-win situation

When you see something that needs doing, that will help your clients with their goals, that you could do well and would enjoy doing, take courage and step up

Just remember the following: Don’t over-promise, such as exaggerate your qualifications or experiences. If you’re not quite confident yet about the value of your contribution, offer a money-back guarantee

1. Judy Barber, www.judy-barber.com
2. Keith Collins, www.theinnercoach.eu, “My Daily Spiritual Life Lessons are on my blog at www.theinnercoach.eu together with my Articles, E-Books, Resources, Conundrums, Revelations, Core Beliefs & Fundamental Questions“
3. Ana Antunes da Silva, aimtobe.co.uk/life-and-business-coaching-blog/, “I alternate personal and professional topics”
4. Biana Babinsky, www.avocadoconsulting.com/marketing/, “I blog about growing your list with social networking web sites and online marketing”
5. Maggie Currie, creedencetrainingacademy.wordpress.com/, “I have a blog that alternates between coaching and personal.”
6. Sharon Eden, www.sharoneden.biz/blog, “Blog about leadership and inner leadership“
7. Nicola Cairncross
   1. NicolaCairncross.com/blog/ – success and motivation,, speaking etc
   2. TheMoneyGym.com/blog/ – money, personal finance & wealth creation – about to be rejuventated but over 1500 posts
   3. BusinessSuccessFactory.com/blog/ – how to use internet marketing to market your business more effectively.
8. Jehangir Mehentee, www.pincltd.com/?page_id=230
9. Helen Harrison, www.monkswood.wordpress.com, “The posts cover values-related matters and discover what career /life you’ll love and enjoy.”
10. Paul Elliott, www.practicalprofitsolutions.co.uk, “They’re all niche, they’re all promote specific products and apart from being income streams in their own right they lend credibility to our main blog”
11. Penny Waite, www.pennywaite.co.uk, “Mostly about EFT with different scripts to tap through for various different results. It’s for beginners and the more experienced.”
12. Martin Goodyer, www.martingoodyerblog.com, “Psychology behind the news”
13. Wendy Buckingham, http://goalachieving.wordpress.com/, “small but perfectly formed and updated not as regularly as it should be”
14. Aboodi Shabi, www.aboodishabi.com
15. Edna Murdoch, coachingsupervisionacademy.com/community/csa-blog/, “Coaching Supervision Academy has one too! Both informational and reflective pieces for coaches….enjoy! “
16. Justine Swainson, justinecoach.wordpress.com/, “recently in the longlist for the Wales Blog Awards ”
17. Jacqui Malpass
    1. jacquimalpass.wordpress.com/
    2. jacquimalpass.blogspot.com/
18. Denise Taylor, www.amazingpeople.co.uk/blog/, “I’ve had a blog for years, and cover mainly career related topics, plus in October I did a reflections of a career coach series, the more practical side of my reflective practitioner diary.”
19. Liz Lyon, dtfcoaching.wordpress.com, “it’s my Personal Dictionary of Career & Coaching”
20. Annabel Sutton, www.annabelsblog.com/, “general musings on life, the universe and everything and coaching issues “
21. Inga Deksne, ingadeksne.co.uk/life-coach-blog/, “I’m writing about staying healthy and fit having a busy life style, Law of Attraction in practice, Become Project Manager of your life – taking control over your life”
22. Steve Preston, www.smpcareeradvice.com, “I have a separate Career Advice blog. I set this up so that people who wanted something for free have it plus it gives a completely different perspective and exposure to the web”
23. Lisa Marsh, yourgreatlife.typepad.com. “It is mostly focused on fertility and family-building issues, but also has some posts on health and parenting topics as well. Some of the posts are syndicated, and appear on other blogs, including those belonging to the American Fertility Association and Access Diagnostics.”
24. Alun Rees, www.alunrees.com/blog
25. Jane P Lewis, thecareersuccessdoctor.com
26. Angus McLeod, angusmcleod.com/category/am-blog/

27. Sally Lever, www.sallylever.co.uk/blog, “In it I seek to explore the heart and soul of downshifting to a more sustainable, ethical and holistic way of living and working, in keeping with the needs of the planet, humanity as a whole and ourselves as individuals. “

28. Oma Edoja, www.getcleargetknowngetclients.com/blog, “It is updated at least twice a week, with tips to help you attract more clients!”
29. Alasdar Browne, www.alasdar-browne.com/

30. Janice Taylor, pittabread.wordpress.com/, “My blog is a general mix of personal and professional, still pretty new but slowly growing”

31. Michelle Sze Wong, http://michelleszewong.wordpress.com, “My coaching is based on the cognitive-behavioural approach and my professional interest is in stress management”

32. Kirsten Hearn

    1. kirstenhearn.wordpress.com. “general, political and opinionated”

    2. hoppingwithrockdove.wordpress.com, “a series of walks around London”
    3. rockdovebiglondonhug.blogspot.com, “account of a year in my walking life doing the Capital Ring”
    4. blackbirdowl.blogspot.com, “a series of pilgrimages themed with an element for each year, going back to 2006″

Technically blogging has become very easy. WordPress, TypePress and other tools and services let anyone set up a blog within 30 minutes or less

The real challenge is figuring out how to make it work for you – what to write about, where to find the time, how to find an audience

For inspiration, ideas and a look behind the scenes of successful blogs I recommend “Blogging Heroes”, by Michael A. Banks. The book contains “interviews with 30 of the world’s top bloggers”

The book is an easy read, using interview questions to solicit bloggers’ personal stories

Each of the 30 chapters finishes with a summary of the main learnings from the blogger interviewed. Whilst I skipped the summaries, I can see how this can be useful reminder or check list when taking action on the book’s lessons

There are some obvious commonalities between many of the successful bloggers, making the last third of the book somewhat repetitive. Still, I found it the book a real page turner, probably because of the personal stories. Getting plenty of repetition helps to reinforce the book’s lessons, and may give it a bigger impact then reading a book full of theory

What most surprised me is how little, if at all, the top bloggers work at building up an audience. Most of their time and energy goes into writing about their passion, creating huge amounts of quality content and driving readers to their blog

Whilst few of us have the time, energy and passion to replicate the success of the bloggers in “Blogging Heroes”, the book does offer some great insights into the art and business of blogging

Recommended for any (aspiring) personal and business bloggers. Get it from your library now or buy it from your favourite bookshop

• Have a system for collecting ideas for your next blog posts
  • A physical file for collecting scraps of paper, such as a shoe box or a suspension file. Every time you get an idea write it down on a piece of paper. Any piece of paper will do, even the back of an envelope
  • A computer file. Mine is called “Blog scratchpad”
• On a regular basis, sit down and look through your ideas file. Write one, two or more draft blog posts. Do this quite quickly. Don’t worry too much about style, punctuation or spelling. Just get the ideas down as quickly as you can
• You may need to do some research for one of your blog posts. Don’t let this slow you down or distract you whilst writing your draft. Instead put some marker in your text (such as “Do later”) and continue (with thanks to Mindy Gibbins-Klein of The Book Midwife™ for suggesting this during her presentation at the recent Euro Coach List Conference)
• Put your draft posts away for now, and come back to it the next day. Now do your editing. Check for spelling, grammar, style and punctuation
• Ask someone else to proofread your blog postings. If you do your own proofreading, leave your writing for a couple of hours. Force yourself to only read the posts for spelling mistakes
• Decide on a blogging schedule. How often do you want to publish new blog posts. With software such as WordPress you can schedule blog posts in advance. Your posts will magically appear on your blog as scheduled

Ask your colleagues, clients and contacts about their on-line presence – their blog, Facebook profile, LinkedIn profile, Twitter username and other pages and profiles. Visit their profiles and pages. Look at each page carefully. Ask yourself:

• What is this person doing to connect with others? What interactions do I see? Do they make it easy to interact with them? Do they engage in on-line dialogue?
• What impression do I get from this page about them? Does it make them look professional, approachable, helpful, distant, disinterested?
• What do they have to offer? Who does this page speak to? What would they like me to do next, what action do they want me to take from this page?
• What is their approach to attracting business through social media. Do I think their approach is effective?
• What are they doing poorly? What are they doing well? What can I learn from this page?

Keep notes, print off excellent and poor examples. Complement people on their great online presence. Ask any questions you may have about their page or profile

After a while you may notice your own strategy coming into focus. You may even notice yourself just doing it, just getting on with your own social media marketing

Good luck

Here is my own contribution to the discussion, relating Denise’s question to what is happening on-line

—————————–

Could it be that our altruistic ‘genes’ developed when we lived in small groups? If someone did you a favour you’d better return the favour or they’d never help you again. It made sense to ‘keep score’

Nowadays, with billions of people, many very mobile, it doesn’t make as much sense any more. What you might call “communities of location” aren’t working as well as they used to. They have become too big and too fluid

On a hopeful note, we are now seeing many communities of interest (like the Euro Coach List) developing. We are coming together based on what they are interested in. We are learning to work together in new ways. Just think of open source software, Wikipedia, Barak Obama’s election campaign, the Euro Coach List Conference and even on-line gaming

Marketing is more and more about being truly helpful. I recently heard the expression “good customer care is the new marketing”. The idea is that you look after your clients well, so they will do the marketing for you through word of mouth advertising.

We have come full circle. Years ago, if a baker cheated his customers the whole village would find out very quickly. So the baker made sure to do a good job. With people moving into cities and more mobile, this link got lost. Thanks to the Internet, and especially social media, the world has shrunk again. If a global company mistreats their workers they may lose customers on the opposite side of the world. Once again it makes good business sense to be a good business

Hopefully the tide is turning and people will become more and more gracious and helpful over the coming years

• Gather friends, followers or contacts and send out adverts to them. This is the old fashioned way, all about the numbers, and not recommended
• Create a place where your target audience can discuss a topic which they’re interested in. Be seen as the leader of the community, for status and credibility
• Be interested in a topic, contribute to discussions, share resources you’ve found on your topic. This will get people interested in you

Whatever you do, have an online base. This could be a website, blog, profile page, or all of them linked together. Clearly describe and show what you have to offer, who you work with, what the benefits are of working with you. Encourage visitors to take the next step, for instance, sign up for your newsletter or contact you to arrange a trial session

There are many detailed books on social media, for instance on Facebook, which will take you through all the different features step by step with lots of screen shots. And there are many books about social media from a marketing perspective

Plenty of information, but which book is right for you?

Go to your local library and take out a whole bunch of them. At home go through them at your leisure, read the ones you like and ignore the others – at no cost

Ask you library whether they have an on-line catalogue. Here in the south west of the UK we have a central on-line catalogue for all libraries in the south west. Search the catalogue on-line and reserve books from any of the member libraries. For only 50p it will get taken to your local library and you will receive an email once your books have arrived

Pick a topic you’re interested in, such as “Facebook” or “Social media”, search the online catalogue and order all books which look vaguely interesting. Take the whole stack of books home and see which one speaks to you most. If you come across a book which is particularly useful you can buy your own copy from your favourite store

Concerned about paying library fines? You may be able to get an email when your books are nearly overdue, and renew the books on-line. No more worries about getting books back too late or having to rush back to the library to renew books

Getting books from the library removes the pressure of getting just the right book. Instead get as many books as you can carry, read the ones you like and ignore the rest

Enjoy