>As I am writing Blog #99 after my first two years of writing blogs, this is what I have learned. First, the title is very important, and it should be a question. Second just because I like a certain blog doesn’t mean it will be successful. Third, content is huge. Writing about things people want to learn about is paramount. It must be useful information that people are searching for in their own lives. People love a good challenge and they almost always want to know something they are not supposed to know, a secret if you will. Lastly, the most successful blogs are about helping others and not about me or my products and services.
Here is my Top 10 List of most read blogs over the first two years:
1) Corporate Psychology Test You Were Not Supposed To See– Lesson learned was that it sounds like a secret and it was a quick fun learning experience. This was my number one blog by over double number two. It was shared more than 300 times on social media and gathered north of 60 comments.
2) Excuse Me, Were You Listening?– This is a useful bit of information that illustrates people are not good listeners, but they really want to be. It has a fun video exercise link in it that again illustrates people like a good learning experience.
3) Sometimes Struggle Is What We Need– Lesson in this blog was we all struggle at different times in our lives. This blog has a great little story illustrating that struggle is just part of the process needed to reach our goals. This one was truly one of my favorites to write.
4) $3 Million Cup of Coffee?!– Lesson learned on this blog is “curiosity killed the cat”. I learned title is so very important along with an interesting picture. The title has to be so interesting that most people have to click on it to see what it is all about.
5) When Someone Asks You What You Do…- Lesson learned here is most business professionals and insurance agents do struggle with their elevator speech. We are very familiar with our occupations but to shorten it into a 30 second elevator speech is difficult for most.
6) Do You make Money on LinkedIn?- Lessons learned on this blog illustrate over a billion professionals around the world are on LinkedIn but very few understand how to unlock the power of LinkedIn and actually make money. I shared some easy ideas.
7) Math Equation: 5 friends = You– Lessons on this blog people can get into heated debates when beliefs are challenged. I never meant this one to be controversial but the comments did get a bit heated. From a volume stand point controversy can be good.
8) I’ll Tell You Why People Should Buy From Life Insurance Brokers- This blog is very popular with other insurance brokers. I have been asked permission from insurance brokers to share with their teams and life insurance agents to share with their clients who were thinking about buying online. It was a true and interesting story that happened to me and inspired me to write this blog.
9) Which Is Larger U.S. National debt or U.S. Life Insurance?- I learned from this blog comparisons will get you a lot of search engine traffic. This was a good way to increase traffic from another source. I learned Google likes questions.
10) How Many Messages Should I Leave?–Another blog about an issue a lot of insurance agents and sales people struggle with. Where is that line between aggression and restraining orders. I did enjoy writing this blog and bringing it into today’s technology.
It is my intent to give some valuable information to those sales professionals and insurance agents that know they should be using blogs as a large part of their marketing platform, but have no idea where to start. All of my lessons have been purely through trial and error and if I can save someone some of my headaches, I wanted to share theses lessons to help others. Be sure to be helpful not “salesy” with your content and always include a good corresponding picture. A great online resource, I use is www.freedigitalphotos.net and follow the rules, these are free of charge.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often”.—Winston Churchill
Image by Stuart Miles at www.freedigitalphotos.net
Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger and team leader with over 26 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.
I did the corporate psychology test was pretty interesting.
Cool, what was your score?
Nice summary Tim! I really like your down to earth writing style, I am glad you contribute to our group thanks so much!
Jack, thank you for your kind words and encouragement. It is my pleasure to be a contributor.
Thanks Tim I appreciate it!