Blogging Like a Pro

A lot of contractors are testing new approaches to attracting business, such as blogging. Southern California's Kevin Shaw does an excellent job.

Kevin puts thought into his posts. They're organized. They're informative. Moreover, in our searches at the Service Roundtable for content and plumbing ideas through Google and other means, Kevin's blog posts have popped up a couple of times. In fact, I was reading a terrific post on mold and thinking about potential content that could be developed around the issue when I noticed I was on Kevin's site. I'm not sure how I got to Kevin's site, indicating he's creating magnetic content that attracts.

If I lived in the San Gabriel Valley, Kevin's blog would impress me as a consumer. As he continues to build it, the blog will only become more magnetic and more impressive.


Cross Posting

Another company I've stumbled across repeatedly is the Irish InsuranceWorks. What this company does extremely well is cross post articles on a number of different sites. For example, you can find their article on water hammer...

On BizArticles.net

On ArticleCompilation.com

On Creative Content Publisher

On Free Article Directory

On Article Dashboard, where it was picked up by The Home Improvement Blog

On Article Pros, where it was picked up by the Home Improvement blog, which is different from the one cited above

On Articles Alley

By cross posting, the author has increased the odds that bloggers will stumble across his article and republish it, which happened. He expands the number of websites linking back to his site, raising his search engine ranking. He increases the odds that his target audience will see the article.

Writing well in a blog is only part of the battle. You've also got to take active steps to build an audience. Cross posting is one way to do that (note to self... start taking your own advise and cross post).

(c) 2009 Matt Michel