This is a guest post by Rana Shahbaz.
I am a huge fan of doing easy things because I believe to achieve success in any field you need to do quite a few things over a longer period consistently. For example, everybody knows how to build biceps and most of us love to have those as well. Actually it is not rocket science to build strong and big biceps.
However, where most people lack is consistency, because you can’t have big and strong biceps in a day or so. You need to push weights up and down (easy thing) consistently for a few months (difficult part).
Therefore, if you select the difficult route to success, chances are you can’t pursue that difficult activity over a longer period and if you do, it will not be enjoyable.
For example, if you are a football lover then it would be fun if you could pursue a football career because:
- You can play longer hours.
- You will not get sick of travelling and training.
- You will be more passionate to achieve your goals.
- Whole career and life will be enjoyable for you.
So the question is, as a blogger, what is easy and fun for you?
To me, the following things are easy:
- Writing blog posts
- Using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
- Creating blogs
- Marketing
- SEO
Why are these things are easy for me? Because they is my passion.
So why not offer the same things that you like to do and are easy for you to do for those people who need those services and are willing to pay good money for them. All you have to do is prove to them the following things:
- You know what you do.
- They can trust you (establish rapport with them).
- You can show them results.
There is a huge opportunity out there to earn good money from your passion. Over 40% of small businesses have no online presence yet and with the introduction of local search, you can get them on top of Google easily for local search terms.
And trust me, once you manage to get regular income from doing things you enjoy, life changes. You can earn good money from your own blog, but it is getting harder and harder due to so much competition. And if you are just starting out, it is not an easy thing to earn a living over night from a website.
Most of the top bloggers are able to pursue blogging as a career because they have multiple streams of income. I am sure you can relate to it. Once you have few different sources of income, you will see a huge improvement, clarity and confidence in your writing.
Services You Can Offer
Now you might be thinking, what type of services you can offer to local businesses? Here is the small list of things you can offer to local businesses and position yourself as a local business marketing authority.
Simple website or blog creation: You can set up WordPress sites which are easy to deploy and maintain.
Blog / article writing: As a blogger you should be master of doing this! Offer this service to them to be their regular content creator.
Professional Facebook landing page creation: You can create their Facebook business page and, if they are willing, pay to get the extra personalization of the page design. You can get it done under a $100 easily.
Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn account creation: You can help them to create their presences on these sites – you can also offer your time to manage it once they have these social media properties.
Claim their Google places: You can help them to claim their Google places and optimize it for their keywords. You can charge good money only for doing this.
How to use social media consultation: After establishing the trust of happy customers, you can start offering full-time social media marketing consultation.
Search engine optimization: Most bloggers know basic SEO, or at least know how to get it done from third party. You can cash in on that as well.
Pay per click campaign management: For those people who require immediate results, you can offer them pay per click campaign management services as well and charge for it.
I am sure you can add to this list in the comments section below.
And the good news is that you don’t have to do all of the work listed above yourself. If you want to, there are services available where you can outsource most of the things very inexpensively.
Here is the Deal
Don’t go for every local business. Target those who can understand what you are offering and, most importantly, have money to pay. In my experience, you should start with service based businesses such as real estate agents, solicitors, accountants, restaurants, and similar. Other options include, local or regional banks, insurance agents, bigger liquor stores and even payday loan companies.
Your Views
I am always interested in what you have to say about this business strategy for bloggers – feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section below!
And I wish you a very happy and wealthy blogging journey. Don’t forget me when you become a local business marketing authority! 🙂
