Many of my students, lately, are asking me how to start a blog. A lot of them want to know how to start a blog for a life success coaching business. Maybe because it’s the new year… resolutions to finally create a blog are catching fire. To create a blog is one thing. To build a blog is quite another. Learning how to get your blog noticed, how to make money from your blog, how to get your blog noticed and then increasing blog traffic… all of these elements are essential to the whole purpose of writing a blog to begin with.

When students or clients ask me how to start a blog, my first question is WHY do you want to create a blog in the first place. The most common answer I get is that they want to drive traffic to a place where they can capture people’s interest in what they are doing. Then, not surprisingly, they want to know how to increase blog traffic fast. So, for instance, if you want to start a blog for a life success coaching business, you clearly need to attract people that are interested in self-development, in creating “success” in their lives, perhaps in their career, financially, maybe with relationships or in terms of a specific skill like public speaking or being more assertive.

To attract these specific kinds of people–self-identified “prospects”–to your blog, I teach my clients to meet them where they are, enter their lives and learn who they are. Many such prospects can be found in the social media, seeking out life success coaches. They appear on search engines, typing in questions about self-development, or maybe even asking how they can connect with a reputable life success coach. There are specific online techniques I teach clients for capturing the attention of these people who are specifically seeking what they have to offer.

One such technique is to direct friends and visitors of your social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg and others… to YOUR BLOG. If they are out there seeking expertise that you have, and if you can show them in your blog how you apply your expertise to solving their problems or making their lives more valuable… then YOUR BLOG is a great place for them to improve their lives. Your job is to send them there. Post links to your site in the social media, let people know you have valuable information and methods they can apply. Let them know that YOUR BLOG is the place to go to find this.

Some of my clients have voiced concern that such a technique is self promotional. Of course it is. If you are in business, and especially if the business is focused on the professional help YOU have to offer, then you better promote yourself. YOU are your entire offer.

The only concern you should have about being self-promoting is if you are pushing your promotion on people who have not asked for it and may very well have no interest in it. That is simply spamming people. It’s analogous to the door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman of old, who would knock on the door (not too many doorbells in those days) and throw a handful of dirt on the floor as soon as someone opened it. Then he’d “sell” you on how great his vacuum is, if you’d just let him in to clean up the mess he just created. This is spam. Don’t do it if you want your blog to be taken seriously, and moreover, if you want your professionalism to be undisputed.

There ought to be plenty of people out there who want your services. (If not, you better reconsider the value of your business at the outset.) People who are interested in your services (1) need to be attracted to explore your invitation to visit your blog, (2) need to have sufficient trust in you as a person that they are willing to give you the information you request to follow up with them, and (3) need to be able to clearly and quickly see how you can help them and at what cost.

Attracting people to your blog at the outset is a matter of meeting them in social circles (the social media) and letting them get to trust you from a personal standpoint. This is accomplished by offering information, insights, perspective, tips… anything you think will be of value to your target prospects. These things can be shared in the social media, with links back to your blog. Once on your blog, the prospect will be able to get the immediate information, insight or tip he was looking for, plus will be afforded the opportunity to spend some time on your blog and get to know you better.

Once the prospect knows you sufficiently to trust you, he or she will most likely proceed to exploring your blog to determine your offer and pricing. At that point, they will be likely to give you their contact information so you can contact them and give them more detailed information about how you can give them the products and services they are looking for.

So this gives you an idea of the power of having and why you should have a blog, one method of getting your blog noticed and, finally, how to make money from your blog. This information is pertinent to those my clients who want to know how to start a blog for a life success coaching business as well as for those who want to promote an MLM opportunity or teach people to play the guitar.

There are MANY other techniques to explore in order to create a blog that is effective and valuable to people, and in order to market your blog to prospects that are looking for what you have to offer. Perhaps the most powerful way, in fact, to promote your blog, is to syndicate it through the efforts of other bloggers who have the same goals in mind… creating and maintaining a blog that will drive prospects to them. This is called “content syndication” and the people who come together to help each other out in this way are often referred to as a “tribe”

If you’d like to learn more about My Tribe, I’ve got GREAT NEWS. We’re doing a FREE… Absolutely FREE WEBINAR in which we will give you all the basics of getting started with Social Media techniques to Drive Your Internet Marketing campaign and to Drive leads to YOUR BLOG. No buying leads, no paid advertising… all free techniques to market online. You do not want to miss out on this. Space is limited. Please, leave a comment below, or call me, or email me… do whatever works best for you, but PLEASE get yourself registered for this FREE WEBINAR before it fills up. Worm to the early bird, guys!

PS: THE BEST place to REGISTER FOR THE FREE WEBINAR and join in the action is here: MY TRIBE