About two years ago, I worked with a client who wanted help with positioning himself as a go-to authority in his industry. He initially found me through an article I had written somewhere (as most of my clients do) and wanted me to basically perform miracles for him. Okay — I’m a miracle worker sometimes (dusting off my shoulders:), so I took on the challenge.
My first job was to take a look at his business and one of the first things that I took inventory of was the types of content he had created and in particular if he was creating content that resonated with his ideal clients. He wasn’t, and at first, he didn’t get it. He would occasionally write articles and publish them, but never with any purpose or rather enough purpose. Never strategically. He really just wrote what he thought was important for his ideal clients to know, titled them what he wanted, and waited for them to come. They didn’t come.
And that’s my point here.
If you are going to spend your valuable time creating content such as articles, wouldn’t you like to make sure that they are working hard for you, and pulling more of your ideal clients towards you? Of course you do!
So here are a few points you should consider when sitting down to write an article this week. Think about your ideal client during this entire exercise – not yourself:
1. What is the point of this article? Is it to entertain your ideal clients? Am I solving a huge challenge for them?
2. Did I write this in a way that my ideal clients can understand and relate to? Am I using language that they use or am I talking above their heads or to the lowest common denominator.
3. Have previous clients asked you about this topic? That’s always a good indication that you will attract more ideal clients with content designed around the same topic.
4. Are you publishing the articles places where your ideal clients visit? Why are you guest posting at a home business site if your ideal clients are frustrated and burned out CEO’s?
The key to filling your business with not just clients, but clients that you LOVE working with, is to ensure that you know who those ideal clients really are and that you create content that they are looking for. I’ll be talking more about how to create client attracting content like this in my upcoming teleclass, “The 5 Biggest Shifts You Must Make When Writing, Publishing & Marketing Articles That Attract Clients!” . Register right now!
Hello Lisa,
By reading your post, I felt like your client who wanted to position himself as an authority in his branch.
How come I didn’t see it before? Because I was focusing on myself – not on clients – when writing articles, thought as a way to build credibility, not to attract ideal clients.
In my mind, being understood was not important, compared to being identified as an expert, even difficult to understand…
Thanks for that!
Mike
Absolutely Mike.
Writing articles a.k.a. educating your ideal clients is really one of the best ways to prequalify them and do some of the heavy lifting for you before you work with them. Plus, you get the added benefit of credibility and visibility!
Thanks for stopping by:)
Hi List,
Now-a-days, we don’t see any article directories listed in SERP (about 90% i don’t see). if Google has a way to identify such directories then i don’t think it adds value interms of SEO (for Google). Article marketing may still benefit to get some targeted traffic from other sources…
Thanks