A number of my clients and coaching colleagues offer special VIP programs and VIP coaching packages. These offers are only available to a few ideal clients. They offer a high level of support and come with a high investment cost.
Blogging offers so many great rewards. A chance to get your expertise out there and create your legacy. A chance to educate your market. A great way to get Google to notice your blog and get you higher up in Google rankings. A way to give your market a taste of your style, knowledge, skills and personality so that they can get to know, like, trust you and ultimately buy from you.
Although the list of benefits can reach from here to the moon we sometimes slack on our commitment to blogging. Why is that? Are we too busy? Have we run out of ideas? Or have we just become bored of the blogging process?
For me, I know that writing is not my favourite way to create a blog post but for some odd reason it’s been the ONLY way I have blogged for years! Bad me. I know that I can pump out blog posts faster and more often if I created video blog posts, which I will be a ton this year.
Let’s look at a few more ways to spice up your blog posts and pump out more blog posts more often. See which one resonates with you and get going.
If you’d like to share a PowerPoint presentation or even your desktop in your video you can use ScreenFlow (for Mac) and Camtasia (for PC and Mac) to record your desktop.
Once your video is uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo embed the video into a blog post.
So which of the above 6 different blogging formats do you like the most? Which ones have you already tried? Which ones excite you and which ones bore you? Leave your replies in the comment box for me. Thanks!
By the way, I know this blog post contained only text. My future blog posts will contain video and maybe even some drawings! I’ll go dig out my crayola markers now!
level3nyc asked: I just took a break from setting up my VIP WordPress site for my clients. I decided to explore my now 1 hour old tumblr site, and this is the first blog post I saw. I am in the middle of setting my WishList membership for my clients. Too ironic ant timely. Great post.
Thank you Level3NYC for taking the time to post this. Irony and timing, indeed!
A number of my clients and coaching colleagues offer special VIP programs and VIP coaching packages. These offers are only available to a few ideal clients. They offer a high level of support and come with a high investment cost.
Are you offering a VIP service, or thinking about it? If so, I invite you to keep reading and see how you can easily add value to your VIP programs, at a small cost to you and make your VIP service stand out from all the others. Sound good?
I suggest you create a dedicated online area for each of your VIP clients. This can be as easy as setting up a WordPress “page” for each one of your VIP clients. On this page add one or more of the following:
Widgets are sidebar and footer elements that you can add, remove, organize and customize. Some plugins include their own widgets in order to make it easier for you to display them in your sidebar and footer. You can use these widgets (and the pre-installed widgets) to customize the look and functionality of your sidebar and footer.
Here’s how to do it:
Did you like this tip? It came right from my book “Does This Blogsite Make My Wallet Look Fat?”. Also available on Kindle!
Slug is a funny name isn’t it? It always makes me smile. A slug is another neat WordPress tool for controlling the permalink (website address) of your blog posts. Here’s how it works in our example: http://wpblogsites.com/wordpress-
blogsite/dont-forget-that-blog-post-idea/
The section in bold is what’s called the slug, and you can change it to anything you like. If you don’t like the website address that WordPress came up with automatically, but you don’t want to change your overall permalink settings again, you can simply change the name of the slug for this one specific post.
Did you like this tip? It came right from my book “Does This Blogsite Make My Wallet Look Fat?”. Also available on Kindle!
Recently Google released their own twist of Facebook’s “like”, that is “+1”. You may have noticed the “+1” logo on blog posts and in Google searches, it looks like this 
What is a “+1”?
Clicking the “+1” button on a blog post or search result means that you recommend it, you think it rocks and that you think your friends should check it out. You are basically giving it your approval much like you do when you click the Facebook “like” or retweet someone’s tweet.
When your friends, contacts and others see that you have “+1’d” something they see that it has been recommended and approved by others. Knowing that other’s “+1’d” something tells them that it’s popular, worth a read and valuable. Social proof is a big thing lately eh? :)
Why you should pay attention to +1’s
When you see +1’s in search results you may find yourself gravitating to the results with the most “+1s” as those have been read and recommended by others in your network (be sure to be logged into your Google account to see all the “+1’s”
Add it to your blogsite!
Use the “Google +1 Button” WordPress Plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-1/) to add a “+1” button to your blog posts, pages and on your home page so that others can “+1” your site.
If you want more control over where the “+1” appears on your site use the “Google +1 Button Advanced” plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-plus1-button/)
What do you think of the “+1”? Let us know by adding a comment.
There is never enough time in the day to do what you want to do. Your inbox just gets bigger and bigger. Your “to do” list gets longer and longer. Your brain feels like it’s about to explode. Grrr!
When this happens the best thing to do is spot the one thing that is taking up most of your time, or better yet, what is taking up most of your inbox? In some cases you will want to delegate that to a virtual assistant in other cases you may find that a great online tool can automate a process for you.
When I found that a good chunk of my emails were requests for coaching, meetings and discovery sessions (where the potential client and I (or my OBM) speak to see if there is a connection and how we can help them), I knew I had to automate this process. My clients and potential clients live all around the world and so time zones become a factor when lining up appointments. Instead of analyzing my calendar, writing out the days and times I am available, then calculating the time in their particular time zone, sending that off in an email to the client, then they have to analyze their calendar and get back to me. Unfortunately there have been times when the client replies with a time and date that works for them, but by that time another client has claimed that appointment time, so we have to start all over again! Has this happened to you? It’s kind of embarrassing!
So in comes my superhero www.timetrade.com! Just create an account with TimeTrade, set up an appointment type, tell TimeTrade what days and times you will accept appointments, then send your clients the link to your TimeTrade calendar for that specific appointment type.
I suggest you connect your Google or Outlook calendar to your TimeTrade account. TimeTrade will add any new appointments to your calendar and if your calendar states you are “busy” during any of the times you claimed you were available for appointments it doesn’t allow clients to book appointments at that time. This prevents overbooking!
Once an appointment is made an email is sent to you and your client confirming the appointment. It’s pretty sweet!
So instead of asking your clients to book a time with you “manually” over an email exchange, send them a link to your TimeTrade account and decrease the number of emails swelling up your inbox.
You can also use this tool to allow potential program participants connect with you by providing a link within your sales copy. I am currently using TimeTrade to book discovery calls with those interested in my “Fat Blogsite Profits” program starting June 1st. Interested but wonder if this program is for you? Schedule a 15 minute discovery call with Sandra to ask questions and get clarity: Book your discovery call here. 
Are you using AudioAcrobat to record your teleclasses, interviews and blog posts etc? If you aren’t, take a good look at it as it allows you to record audio three different ways and gives you a number of options to publish your audio such as a link to download the mp3, audio play buttons to put on your site and more!
Recently AudioAcrobat has added a new option that generates a fully optimized link to increase traffic and buzz for your media. If you want to share your media file on social networking sites and blog platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Diigo and more, and who doesn’t? Take a look at their “Campaign Link” when you are ready to publish your audio. See the screenshot below to see what the option looks like in your account and check out the what the link looks like.
Why would you want to share your media anyway? I wondered this myself, the first time I saw this option, as I always use AudioAcrobat to record my client calls and paid for teleclasses. I definitely don’t want those special calls to be shared and downloaded on the web as they are private and paid for by my clients.
However, when I recorded my complimentary call earlier this week, “8 Core Superhero Web Strategies”, which promotes my upcoming program “Phat Blogsite Strategies - 8 Core Foundational Steps”, I wanted the audio to be listened to by as many people as possible. It made sense to make use of this option!
So when you have a free audio that you are recording that promotes your expertise, why not give your fans the opportunity to share it with as many people as possible? I’m sure they would be happy to!
The biggest mistake I see from bloggers is that they park themselves in front of their laptops ready to write a blog post and think that a great blog post idea will come to them. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Have you ever had a great idea while sitting at your computer? Probably not. So how do you gather great ideas ahead of time so that you are ready to write when you do sit at your laptop?
First get out of your office and don’t bring your laptop with you! Go for a walk or better yet take a shower or wash the dishes. They say that the sound of running water hightens creativity.
Next grab a small notebook (or start a “note” in your smartphone) and keep it with you to write down any ideas that come to you while you are away from your computer. Don’t try to rely on your brain to remember them. If your brain was that powerful you wouldn’t need an address book/contact list for your email system, you’d have everyone’s email address memorized.
Keep that notebook with you when you leave the house. I know that some of my greatest ideas have come when I am people watching. Yes, I love to people watch. Humans are fascinating.
When writing down your ideas, do not get stuck trying to create a fancy title at the moment. In fact just write the idea or some key words. You just need enough information to get you started when you do sit in front of your computer.
Many of my clients have used this strategy and have reported that it makes blogging easier, they publish posts more often and they have stopped banging their heads on their keyboards! :)
I’m often asked what my favourite WordPress Plugins are and so I’m offering a you a sneak peek at my top 5 essential plugins. I mention about 20 plugins in my book “Does This Blogsite Make My Wallet Look Fat?” and I will mention more specific and advanced plugins in my upcoming program Phat Blogsite Profits - 8 Core Foundational Steps.
I use Cookies for Comments to block as much spam as possible. It’s hard to completely avoid comment spam these days as there are people employed for $2 a day to spam blogs!
You got to know how people found your site, where in the world they are visiting from, what they “Googled” to find you and how long visitors stay on your site. I suggest two programs here Google Analytics and Sitemeter.com.
Sitemeter has both free and paid for versions. The free version is great and offers very valuable stats, however the paid version allows you to track each visitors every move on your site. This allows you to see where each visitor went and how long they spent on each page. Ok, so you there isn’t a WordPress Plugin for this statistics system but I really like them so I couldn’t keep it from you!
The Google Analytics plugins I use are Ultimate GA and Google Analytics Dashboard
Ultimate GA
will place your Google Analytics code on every post and page of your blogsite for you. No need to copy and paste the code Google Analytics gives you onto each and every page.
Google Analytics Dashboard displays your latest stats on your WordPress Dashboard, so you can take a quick look at your stats when you first login.
I have used a number of WordPress plugins to back up my WordPress sites and my client’s sites. BackupBuddy is the only one that will back up both your database (posts, pages etc) and your WordPress files (uploads, themes and plugins). I love it!
The All in One SEO Pack will help you add more key words to posts and change the way Google sees your site.
Google XML Sitemaps will nudge Google, Yahoo and Bing, to tell them you have new content so they know to add you to their search results!
Make your blogsite easy for Smart Phone and Tablet users to read and navigate through your site. Psst…this keeps them on your site longer and keeps it eye-friendly so they come back for more. My favourite plugin that comes with a few different themes for each Smart Phone and Tablet is PluginBuddy Mobile
There you go