Google just might have the answer for you – in this video I go through how to use the Google Wonderwheel search tool to help you with ideas for your topics.

Of course – model NEVER copy someone elses articles won’t you!

What other places do you like to get ideas for topics for your articles? Here are three other ideas that you might find of assistance:

1. Questions that you receive from clients or prospects – how can you turn those questions into an online article, content for your newsletter, an idea for on online video tutorial or podcast episode?

2. Your RSS feeds – if you subscribe to news channels, websites or other peoples blogs, their articles might give you an idea for a topic to write or speak about

3. The calendar – could you write something that is relevant to the time of year either in the annual calendar or the calendar related to your industry or sector?

Check out Google Wonderwheel and let me know what you think – is it a tool you would you could imagine using?

you might not realise it but your about page on your business blog or website is the second most likely page that people will click through to. It is important to have details about you and the team authoring your business blog as people want to check out who you are – they are genuinely interested in the authors of your business blog and they are also interested in assessing your professional credibility in the areas you are writing about.

Well the way I usually find my content has been posted to other peoples websites is through Google Alerts, a free service I subscribe to using the key words that are included in my articles and webcopy. You can access more information and the ten ways I use Google Alerts in a recent article I wrote.

Often there is nothing you can do if your article has been posted to these sites, but one thing I did when I saw the total copy of my newsletter, including information that I only provided for my newsletter readers, was to unsubscribe the person “farming” my content so they no longer received the newsletter. 

The other action you can take is to add a comment with your information about the article and the original source and copyright in the comments section of the “splog”.

I’m interested to hear what others do to overcome this issue - what actions do you take if you see someone has taken your content with out attribution?
 

Promoting your articles in your newsletter, your business blog and on your website is a great way to provide valuable resources for your clients and potential clients and will reinforce your credibility as an expert in your field.

You can also use your articles to drive more traffic to your website or business blog through article marketing.

However, less than 3 percent of professional services firms implement this no cost marketing strategy. So by taking action through writing articles you will certainly stand out from your immediate competition.

Writing articles and then submitting them to key online marketing sites or to sites who are looking for compelling and educational content extends your reach.

Article marketing is less difficult and time consuming than your might think and if properly executed can support you in attracting more of your ideal clients.

Authoring several articles, package them together and you are just a step away from having an information product or perhaps even your business book.

So why is it that many leaders in professional services seem to procrastinate in writing articles?

I usually get told by my clients that they do not know where to start or that they are afraid it will take them too much time to write an article.

So here are 5 tips to get you started in writing your first article – follow these tips and you will find you will write articles in less time than you ever thought possible:

1. Stuck for content? If you are not sure what to write about consider the questions that your clients most often ask you and want to know the answers to
2. Concerned about the style? Do not worry about winning a Pulitzer Prize. Write as you speak so you keep the style accessible and conversational
3. Not sure how much to write? Take your subject matter and write down seven things that your client or prospective client needs to know about the subject you are addressing. Then just write one or two sentences about each tip
4. Will it read well? When you have written your article, read it again and check your spelling and grammar. Make sure that you have a compelling introduction that outlines what your article is about and why it is important. Finish your article with information about how your reader can find out more about the strategies and tips you are sharing – of course with a reference to your services, solutions and products
5. Will it get read? You might have noticed with the newspapers that articles with a strong and captivating headline grab your attention and entice you to read on. Writing a magnetic headline will do the same for your article.

Now you have written your article you have effectively created for yourself a member of your sales team who can work for you 24/7 and 365 days of the year.

The key now is to continuing to write your articles and them marketing them wisely you will be sure to build your personal brand as the expert in your field.

YOUR ARTICLE WRITING AND MARKETING ACTION STEPS:

1. Set aside 60 minutes this week to write an article
2. Follow the 5 step process for writing your article
3. Put your article onto your website or blog and then look for other sites who would value your content and have your ideal clients amongst their readers.

NOTE: Every Monday on “Biz Growth News” I make available a full length branding and business development article.

If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested in accessing more articles about branding and business development strategies to grow your practice. If so you can register to join our weekly newsletter and weekly no-cost workshops at Biz Growth Live.

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish this article in your own online ezine or news letter, providing the article is printed in its entirety and is left unedited and you include the copyright notice and the following statement:

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2007. All rights reserved. Reprinted from ‘Biz Growth News’ (http://www.bizgrowthnews.com/), a Oneocean Ltd publication for leaders in professional services practices, featuring inspiration, strategies and tips to build your brand, attract your ideal clients and enjoy greater success with less stress.  Subscribe today at http://www.bizgrowthlive.com/.

You can publish and syndicate your articles through online and offline media and presents you as an expert in your field. And of course you can create your own valuable resource centre for clients in your own article directory on your business blog and website.

My articles, particularly in the area of personal branding, employer branding, corporate podcasting and business blogging, have attracted joint venture partnerships, enabled me to attract so many opportunities including being approached to speak at conferences and has resulted in the media contacting me to appear on radio shows or provide information for their feature articles.

However there is nothing more powerful in terms of building your personal credibility and your personal brand than authoring and publishing your business book.

If you join me each week for “Biz Growth Live“ you will know that we recently ran a series of interviews with experts about writing, publishing and marketing your book.

But perhaps this education was not sufficient to get you moving and you are looking for more assistance?

Well my good friend Andy Wibbels, is launching a programme next week – Write your book in 45 days. Andy actually re-wrote his e-book to create his first book ”Go Blogwild – a guide to small business blogging” in just 3 weeks, so he knows what it takes.

So if you are aiming at writing a book for-print book or a digital e-book, but no matter what you do you just have not been able to take action, take a look at the Write your book in 45 days book-writing group.

The programme starts on Wednesday 25 April 2007 and you will meet by phone at 8pm ET (1am on Thursday mornings if you are in Ireland or the UK).
 

In professional services, many business leaders are trading time for hours as they charge on an hourly billable rate.

Creating information products that can be sold for passive revenue or used to generate more leads and attract more clients is a strategy many professional services experts would like to implement but many fail to do.

So here is my quick start 7 step guide to building your brand online while at the same time creating your first information product in less than 30 days that I shared with my client:

1. Consider the biggest problems that your clients face
2. Create a 7-10 stage response to addressing these problems 
3. Over the course of the next two weeks, write an article each day of around 500 words addressing each steps – at the end of the time you will have one article per step
4. Submit your article to the leading article marketing site, Ezine Articles which will enhance your visibility online
5. In week three, take all the articles and record yourself reading each one out loud
6. During this week, brief a designer to create compelling packaging for your new audio product
7. In week four, have your audio edited then make it available on your website and as a physical product either as a lead generation tool or to sell to increase your profits.

In this example I am recommending you turn articles into an audio product. You might prefer to create a booklet bringing together your articles.

Either way, implement this seven step approach and within 30 days you will have a articles markeitng your expertise online 24/7 and have a new information product that you can use for lead and profit generation.

If you are looking for assistance in bringing your information product to life, you can post your questions about information product creation here and I will make sure that I answer them.

Can you afford not to turn what you know into cashflow through information products?

One of the strategies I enjoy teaching my clients is how we can achieve so much more in terms of outcomes and results and attract more clients by leveraging our time and repurposing what we do.

There are three key strategies that will attract you more clients if implemented effectively and consistently – networking and referrals, speaking and presenting, writing and publishing.

All three strategies position you as the expert in your chosen field and can attract clients to you like a magnet.

For today let’s explore the strategy of writing articles.

Yet I often hear the complaint:

But I do not have time to write.

This is where the art of re-purposing comes into it’s own. As you think about writing articles consider the following tips:

Always write about your field of expertise – as an example I read an article on a compelling subject and one that I knew would be relevant and of interest to my clients. I contacted the author and invited them to be a guest expert on my Biz Growth Live programme where he would have exposure to a host of potential clients.

Consider my dismay when the author replied to say that that was not in fact his area of expertise. How much time had he put into writing an article of 1000 words researching a subject that he is not an expert in.

The article raised interest and was attracting new clients to him, but he was not in a position to deliver so lost out on attracting more clients to his practice.

That is not a smart investment of time and energy. It also impacted his reputation and credibility – I am not likely to pay much attention to his future articles given this experience.

Make sure that if you writie an article that attracts more clients to your practice that you are going to be able to provide information, products and services relating to that article.

Consider how else you can use the article – never write the article only to be used once.

How can you re-purpose the article perhaps for your newsletter, into a blog post, into an article for an article directory, into the core of a teleseminar or webinar programme, into an article for a journalist, into a short special report or even into a chapter for your business book?

I always recommend to my clients that before they write a single word in an article they have a vision and a strategy for how else it will be used.

Your goal is to get your words to work harder for you.

Be inspired by your clients – you probably get many questions each week from your clients on problems and challenges they are faced with.

Before you create an email in reply to them, think about writing the reply as an article that you could then send to your client, include in your news letter or add to your website.

The questions your clients ask you are great catalysts for articles and you can quickly create a resource bank of articles for your clients to refer to on your website which will be valuable to your current and future clients.

Writing articles is a very powerful strategy to grow your practice and attract more clients. Applying these three tips will ensure that you can attract even more clients in less time.

Article marketing will enable you to extend your reach, connect with ideal clients and it enhances your ability to be found in the search engines.

However not all articles are created equal.

If you are using article marketing in your practice but have found it had not yielded the returns that you expect, here are 7 keys to review your articles against: 

1. Powerful headlines – ensure that your headline is not obscure but promises to deliver value. Consider the headlines in a newspaper – they capture the essence of the story in less than 10 words.
2. Summarise your promise – the opening paragraph should reinforce the promise of value in the headline, summarise the content of the article and read in a way that it flows into the rest of the article, drawing the reader into the article.
3. Make it accessible – rather than trying to over impress your reader with long sentences, make your article accessible.  Keep the number of words to between 10-16 words per sentence. This keeps the energy high and makes your writing accessible.
4. Break it up – increasingly we scan read on the web. Most people will read your article online so make it easy for them to grasp the content. Using bullets or numbers is a great way to increase the amount of white space and allows the article to breath.
5. Lose the jargon – review your article and check for any jargon. Keep your language engaging and straightforward. Re-read your article and see if you can simplify it further.
6. Check for errors – make sure that you spell check your article. Mistakes in your article will not enhance your credibility with your readers or enhance your personal brand.
7. Review your resource box - at the end of the article, you will be able to write a short bio and call to action. Keep the resource box short and compelling. and make sure that the link to your website is relevant to the article.

If you have not tried article marketing, then I highly recommend Ezine Articles which is one of the most effective and extensive article marketing sites on the web.

So what’s stopping you? Start writing articles to build your online brand and attract more clients today.

Increasingly building our corporate brand and our personal brand online is becoming more and more important and this year I’ll continue to add strategies, tips and tactics here at Biz Growth News that will enable you to build your online brand.

One area that many of us know about and yet many of us fail to implement effectively is the importance of key words.  I learnt most of what I know about search engine marketing from my great friend and SEO expert Jessica Bowman.

I have to admit that I know more than I implement, but if you are good at implementing here are a few tips for you!

Key words as a strategy to being found in the search engines really only works if you ensure that your copy includes the key words that your potential clients search for you with.  When I did my key word research I realised that how I described my business in my copy was not the key words people search under in the search engines.

And I didn’t like the terms that they searched under!  You see I might have used terms like “grow your business” but few people search on that.  So my copy may have read really well for people finding it, but the copy itself was not helping me be found in the search engines.

So do take time to use key word research tools to find out the terms people key into the search engines when looking for services such as yours and then ensure that you build those words into your title pages, your headlines and also the main body of your copy of your blog post or website. 

It’s recommended that for every 200-300 words of copy you have no more than three key words and you need to replicate your key words around 5-6 times. 

I experimented last week and I adapted a blog post for an online article directory.  The post was short but very valuable content and was key word rich – the key words were relevant to the content.

Within 48 hours not only did I see the article posted on other peoples blogs (I track my name and my blog name with Google Alerts) but also in my Google Alerts for that key word.

Key word strategies really can work and can help you build your corporate brand and your personal brand online to expand your success whether that be finding your next great career move, attracting media attention or finding more clients.  But do remember three things:

1. write valuable content – don’t be afraid that you are giving your secret strategies away – if you only have one secret than you’re probably not yet an expert in your field.  If you do provide a host of content it positions you as the expert and a centre of influence in your chosen subject and that will encourage potential clients to seek you out as not only do you know your subject, if you provide all this content at no cost, what wonderous outcomes can they expect if they pay you for your expertise!
2. write for your reader – implementing a key word strategy is important to being found by the search engines, but you have to write fluidly so that it makes sense to your potential client.  So be mindful of your key words but ensure that your copy is fluid in it’s style.

I’d also highly recommend that you check out an excellent post by Brian Clark over at Copy Blogger about writing content that Google loves and also a great post by Jessica over at Search Engine Journal about Google page rank.

If effectively executed this can be a very effective business strategy that will enable us to attract more clients and therefore enabling us to grow our professional services practice.

Here are 5 keys to effectively implementing this strategy:

1. determine what your clients most want and will be prepared to ultimately invest in and create your “taster” product or service around this so that they not only receive immense value but realise that you are an expert in this matter
2. wherever possible, ensure that you productise your service in the form of an ebook, white paper or audio programme – that way you will be able to leverage your time and resources rather than providing many hours of free coaching or consulting
3. ideally deliver your information product from the internet with a requirement that your potential client provides you with their name and email address which will enable you to to build your list of potential clients who you can then market to over time to enhance the likelihood that they will become a fee paying client
4. ensure that that free product, coaching or consulting you provide is of the highest standards – because you are offering it for free it is still critical that it supports your brand, your corporate identity and reflects what you stand for.  If a potential client does not perceive your offering as both addressing their needs and wants and being professional in its delivery, you reduce the chance of this prospect becoming a new client.  An example for me recently was a free audio tutorial I accessed from a branding coach where the audio was of such poor quality I could not bear to listen to it.  The content may have been great but I just did not stick around to listen to it and if i were looking for a branding coach I am unlikely to purchase any products or services from this branding expert as I did not perceive them as credible and professional.
5. market and promote the fact that you offer the consultation or product at no cost (here are 11 suggestions to start with) on your website, your blog, your podcast, your newsletter, in your email signature, through online press releases, through article marketing, on your business card and through strategic alliances, business partners and joint ventures.  I will be covering this last strategy in more depth in a future blog post.

Using this free to fee strategy, you will be sure to attract more clients and fill your professional services practice.