plan first then get your business online

Start by making a plan of what you want to achieve with your free WordPress blog website

Start your online presence by making a plan of what you want to achieve with your free WordPress blog website.

plan 

Get a notebook and jot down everything you can in answer to these three questions:

  • what do I want to achieve with my blog?
  • what will I write about?
  • how often will I write?

Yes, I know it’s old-fashioned to use real paper, but it works very well and enables you to flick back and forth and make alterations and additions quickly and easily… especially if you use pencil, which can be easily rubbed out.

And later, when you’re working on your blog, the notebook at the side of you is a more convenient reference than repeatedly using the Alt + Tab keys to flick between umpteen open documents on your pc.

Here are some suggestions to get your lists started. Add to them as ideas occur to you.

what do I want to achieve?

  • write articles that help people
  • promote GNLD products
  • find customers
  • attract new team members
  • provide team training
  • earn money from affiliate programmes

what will I write about?

  • GNLD products you have used
  • List of the benefits you noticed for each product
  • Benefits your customers have told you about
  • How to join your team
  • How to get started in the GNLD business after they’ve joined
  • The things you like about the GNLD business that will help your new team members
  • Benefits of working from home

how often to write?

Search engines like to see a blog that’s alive, that’s constantly having new info added to it. Plan to write regularly, approximately an article a week.

articles

Online, it’s all about eyeballs. You want people to know your blog exists…for them to visit it and find what they’re looking for… and for them to recommend your blog to their friends.

People look for all sorts of information online. News… weather… latest cellphone… what their favourite singer is wearing… health topics… nearest GNLD Distributor… to name just a varied few.

Unlike a traditional static website, it’s very easy to add information to a free WordPress blog. Although your main topic is GNLD, you can attract extra visitors to your blog by writing about subjects indirectly related.

For example, if you research and write an article about arthritis, it gives you a chance to mention that many people find omega 3 fatty acid supplements very helpful. In your article about arthritis, provide a link to the article you’ve already written about GNLD Omega 3 Salmon Oil Plus. In this way, people searching for information about arthritis will come to your blog, in addition to those people searching for info about omega 3.

Remember to write your article as helpful info, not as treatment or prevention of arthritis. It’s okay to say your Aunty said her knees have stopped aching after taking GNLD’s Omega 3 product. It’s not okay to say the product cured her, because GNLD Distributors are not licensed to treat, diagnose, or prevent disease. For that, a registered medical degree is necessary.

benefits

Generally speaking, people aren’t interested in the science. They’re interested in the answer to the question: “What will it do for me?”

When you’re writing about products, talk less about the science and more about the benefits of the GNLD products you have used.

Your readers will expect you to wax lyrical about GNLD products, so write about the benefits people you know have enjoyed. Nothing beats personal experience stories, especially when they are third-party ones.

Be truthful; don’t be inventive… and remember not to make claims about curing people!

concise

Nowadays people lose interest quickly…even faster online… so don’t ramble on.

Make your articles short and to the point.

It’s helpful to use bullets to list things, thus avoiding great blocks of text.

Split your article into small sections, each with a sub-title. This also breaks up blocks of text, making it easier and more attractive to read.

Then, split each section into very short paragraphs of short sentences.

Avoid verbose office-speak, such as “in terms of changes going forward”, when “future changes” is what you mean.

photos

Take photos of the products yourself for your articles, so there are no copyright issues.

It’s not permitted to download and use photos from GNLD’s websites. GNLD pays a licence fee for their use, and the licence does not cover use of the copyrighted photos by Distributors.

be truthful

When writing about the benefits of the GNLD business, resist making wild exaggerations of income. Stick to truthful statements, like you find on GNLD’s websites.

training

Start a list of ideas for “how to” articles you can write for your team members to read, to help them with their own business development. The more successful they are, the more successful you will be.

seo

Getting the main search engines (Google and Bing) to find your blog and list it in their search results comes under the heading search engine optimisation, usually shortened to seo.

The more you tweak your blog to help search engines find your articles, the nearer page #1 in the list of search results your blog will go.

Most people scroll down page #1, maybe page #2, and then they go off somewhere else, so it’s important to be near the top of the search lists.

There are all sorts of things that can be done to help you get the number 1 page on Google. Nowadays seo is a science in its own right, and there’s no need to get side-tracked with it at this early stage. You’ll learn as you go along. For now, enable and use the very helpful Google prediction service in your browser.

search word prediction

In the settings of your browser, you’ll find the possibility of allowing your search engine to offer suggestions…called predictions, because the search engine is trying to guess what you’re searching for, before you’ve finished typing it in the box.

For example, if you use Chrome browser, go to Settings > Show advanced settings > Privacy > tick the box: Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar.

Open Google search and start typing GNLD in Kenya in the search box, or GNLD in whatever country you want.

Type slowly, so you see the suggestions offered to you. The suggestions are based on all the searches people have done in Google to find information relating to GNLD in that particular country.

Next, enter a few subjects from the list of topics for articles, which you wrote in your notebook.

The predicted words and phrases are the ones people actually use when they’re looking for stuff. This is really useful info for you, so jot down the words Google predicts for you.

Later, when you’re writing a post about a topic on your list, use some of the predicted words in your post title, as well as in the actual content of the article you write. It will help Google find you and offer your blog higher up their search results list.

Before you go and sign up for your free blog, you’ll need to think about and write down more stuff, which is detailed in the next post: pages you need on your website.

See you there :-)