How does content marketing work for executive coaches and consultants? What makes someone pick up the phone and call you to inquire about your coaching services after they read an article you publish in your newsletter or blog?

Ah, yes, but there’s the problem right there in red, the “ACTION” word. How do you get readers to contact you?

It’s all fine and dandy to publish interesting articles that show off how smart you are… but there has to be something that compels readers to take further action… like email or call you about how you can help them.

That certain “something” lies in how well you communicate your personality, values, and authenticity to your readers. I can’t do that for you, but I can supply credible, interesting, and quality content for your newsletters and blogs.

Then, all you have to do is add your own stories and anecdotes to connect the dots back to your web pages and contact page.

May I suggest you visit this page at ArticleNuggets.com, and listen to the short video I made about what may be missing from your content marketing?

My solution is to provide ready-to-publish blog posts that are easy for you to add your own personal client stories. That saves you time and energy with research and writing.

Visit ArticleNuggets.com and see if this content subscription can help you get more action from your web pages and blog.

A subscription of 12 article topics are delivered as 5 article nuggets written in blog style, using the personal pronoun “I” so that you only have to add your own stories from the work you do. You also add links back to relevant web pages about your services and products.

Each nugget can be modified. Keywords are already hyperlinked for you. You can use “as is” but it’s suggested you make each nugget your own by adding your perspective and links.

In this way, 90% of the work is done for you. When you think of the times you’ll save writing and researching, you won’t want to do without this service. To find out more, go to ArticleNuggets.com.

How do you know if your blog posts and web pages are optimized for search engines?

Good question… and no  easy answer… well, except for one which I’m going to share with you here!  Here are a few options for optimizing your content for search marketing:

1. Study Google and search engine optimization (time-consuming)
2. Hire an SEO person to do some optimization for your web content (expensive)
3. Become a subscriber to a service called Scribe Content Optimizer (easy, instant & affordable)

Here’s how it works. You go here, you sign up, you install it to your WordPress blog. You start using a free plug in called All-in-One SEO Pack.

You write a blog post, you fill in the information on the SEO plug in, you click the Scribe analyze button, wait a few seconds and get a review of how well your content will do with search engines. You then get a list of things you can do to raise your search engine optimization score.

Okay, seeing is better than me telling you. Here’s a snapshot of a blog post that didn’t score well, and here’s one that got a perfect score. You can see for yourself that the Scribe report tells me what I can do to raise my score, to improve my search engine optimization.

And here is a screen capture of a post that got a perfect score:

What can you learn from reviewing each post before you publish and fixing it for the search engines?

For one thing, I’ve learned that sometimes I am not clearly identifying keywords in the title or beginning paragraph, and sometimes I don’t use enough hyperlinks. Also, sometimes I will  use a keyword too often in a post. This makes search engines think that I’m keyword-stuffing.

The truth is, I simply don’t use enough alternative words and synonyms. By verifying with Scribe, I can tweak my post to make it more search engine friendly without destroying the quality of the content for readers.

Details? It costs me $27/month for the pro version and I can use it on my own blogs as well as my client blogs, the ones for whom I do ghost blogging. I can use it up to 300 times in one month, which is more than enough for my purposes.

Interested? Please use my affiliate link, here, for Scribe SEO Optimizer. You won’t regret it, it’s so easy to use and it’s a teaching genius. Soon, after a few weeks, you’ll be getting 100% perfect scores on your first try…

If you’ve ever struggled to publish a page on the Web, for example, a sales or landing page, here’s how you can use your easy WordPress blogging platform to avoid the hassles. I’ve interviewed Suzanne Bird-Harris.

Here’s how you can find out more about how to Create Great Sales Pages Using WordPress. Free audio, PDF transcript and slides available.

I hosted a teleseminar this past month and the recording is now available:

The Ultimate Traffic Formula with Michael Martine of Remarkablogger

Access to handouts, worksheets, action steps and MP3 audio file.

Information and registration here: Get More Blog Traffic $49.00

If you’re not getting good results from your online marketing, don’t miss this workshop.

There are three bonus ebooks included. You get access, for free, to Time-Saving Tips for Smart Blogging, a $39 value audio program + 23 pages of worksheets on best blogging practices.

Plus, How to Start a Business Blog and Get Them in the Door: Using Blogs, Email and Social Media for Retailers. All in all, this is a comprehensive program for any professional who wants to use the Internet to get found, get known, and get clients.

There’s nothing worse than spending time and energy writing on your blog and not reaching the very people who need your help, the ones who have the problems you solve.

I take that back, there is one thing worse, and that’s NOT to write your message at all. At least when you publish on a blog, you put it out there on the world-wide bulletin board. Eventually someone will see it, and if you do a few things right, many will see it.

In my ongoing traffic survey, www.surveymonkey.com/s/getmoreblogtraffic, more than 80% respond that they don’t have enough readers to their blog, and more than half report they’re not sure how to attract their ideal clients.

If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please do so now. I’d like to find out what your challenges are with driving traffic to your blog.

If you’re going to use a business blog to drive sales and grow business, you’ve got to tackle the traffic problem. But don’t worry, you don’t have to hire an SEO expert and spend a lot of money. You don’t have to be a techie-geek type either.

A business blog is the best darn marketing tool on the planet, but only if you use it right. I found out the long, slow hard way. I fell into blogging backwards. I randomly wrote about my favorite topics without any training about keywords, search engines, tags, etc.

I was lucky because almost immediately people began to find me, even though I’d been working online for five years already. Within a year, my list had tripled and revenues had doubled, and it has continued to grow steadily ever since. I attribute all my business growth to blogging.

When I started blogging in 2004, Facebook had barely started, Twitter didn’t exist and nobody was using LinkedIn. All that’s changed and now social media has a major impact on the way visitors find you on the Web.

Writing optimized, compelling, keyword-rich content on a blog is the quickest, least expensive, easiest way to grow sales and build your business.

Don’t do like I did. Don’t rely on random luck. If you’re going to spend time and energy blogging, do it right, do it smart. It’s not rocket science, and you’re probably not simplifying your traffic-driving tasks the way you could.

Here’s a suggestion: Take the survey and let me know what your questions and challenges are. If you don’t want to do that, leave me a comment here on this blog.

The other thing you could do (just saying) is sign up for the Get More Blog Traffic workshop I’m doing with Michael Martine May 12, 2010. There’s a fee, but what you learn could make the difference between blog success and blog oblivion. Find out more here: Get More Blog Traffic.

I know many successful consultants who don’t have much time to take care of their online marketing presence. I understand. Even if you’re publishing short blog posts, it takes time to read up, write, and hit the ‘publish now’ button.

Surfing to find information that’s relevant in your niche can lead to getting drowned in a tsunami.

Websites and blogs: You can’t live with ‘em, or without ‘em. No matter how well you’re doing in terms of keeping your pipeline of clients full, you’ve got to look good on the Web. By looking good, I mean, you’ve got to have a full body of content that reflects your intelligence and your professional credibility.

To make things more complicated, along comes Social Media, places like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. What do you need to know about using these sites, and what can you afford to ignore?

Then there’s video, YouTube, and other places to publish content on the Web (article directories, ebooks, podcasts…). Ay, caramba…

To help you sort through the essentials of using the Web to get clients, I’ve created an online learning program called Content Marketing for Online Profits. You can gain access by registering here. I suggest you read it, because it will cut short the learning curve and give you the essentials of what your online content marketing strategy should be, especially if you’re a coach or other service consultant working to provide services to organizations or individuals.

Here’s my video clip I put together in about 30 minutes using a Logitech Web cam and uploading it to YouTube. Okay, it’s a very amateur clip, but it gets the job done. I wanted to do a better job of polishing it up, but you know how that goes, ran out of time, etc…

You may have heard that Content Marketing is the “way to go” when it comes to marketing your professional services on the Web. But what does that really mean?

And, once you publish a website or a blog with plenty of content pages, or an e-newsletter, how does that content work to get you and your business found on the Web, get leads, and convert readers to clients?

If you’re a busy executive coach, someone providing  leadership training and development, you’ll need to learn a few things about online marketing, just to keep in the game. And the Internet “game” changes so quickly, how do you know what to do and what to ignore, with all the new social media sites and online tools?

I hope to  cut short the Web marketing learning curve with this online ebook, Content Marketing for Online Profits. All you need to do to get access to this important information is to register here. It’s completely free.

Included in the final chapter is a Content Marketing Survey about content marketing and blogging, that I know you’ll find helpful, since you’ll be given a personalized assessment of your own content marketing needs.

Go ahead and register to access this online ebook, then tell me what you think. I’d love to get your feedback.