A question I get from business owners and insurance agents a lot is who has time to blog? My answer is me and you. We all have the same exact 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Entrepreneurs that write weekly blogs do it because it is an important marketing strategy. Blogging builds an audience, increases web traffic, increases recruiting, increases customers and builds credibility. One will never find time to write a weekly blog, but rather schedule the time to write a weekly blog.

The entrepreneurs I know that don’t blog regularly spend up to three times as much money on marketing and advertising than entrepreneurs that take time to blog. We are all looking to grow our business. If spending an hour or less once per week increased sales and reduced overhead, why would you not take the time to blog?

Here are 5 important tips about blogging I have learned over the years.

• Content—Blogs will fail without good content. You must realize you are not the smartest person to ever own a business. You don’t have trade secrets. There is always somebody building a better mouse trap. Just write about something useful or helpful. Chances are you learned a lesson from the “school of hard knocks” and if you can help a fellow entrepreneur, then do it.

• Never Sell with Your Blog–The idea of blog marketing is to be useful. Readers smell an advertisement within the first few words and move on. Never sell yourself or your product or service in your blogs.

• Your Title Matters–Without a clever or useful title, no one will ever find your blog to read it. I have found that questions get more readers than statements

• Your Image Matters—It is important to have an eye catching image at the beginning of your blog. Effective images draw the visual reader and the kinesthetic reader in as much as your effective title. Always purchase or give credit to someone else’s image.

• Share Your Blog— You need to consistently share your blog on all of your social media sites. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and multiple blogging sites are a great way to share your knowledge and become the expert you are online.

Don’t worry about being perfect, just be useful and teach others what you have learned. Build your audience and they will help you build your business. Get started this week by making time to blog. You will be amazed over time what it will do for your business.

“The process for finding, creating, and consuming information has fundamentally changed with the advent of the web and the rise of blogging”—Ryan Holiday.

Image by Stuart Miles at www.freedigitalphotos.net

yourfriend4life.com

Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, grandfather of 2, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, employee benefit specialist, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger, author and team leader with over 31 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.