On 22 July 2013, I posted my first blog on this website. Here we are just over 4 years later, posting my 200th blog post. So this week, I am going off topic and I am going to talk about blogging and whether I have found it to be beneficial.
People ask me the same questions. This provides me with content to write about. By simply writing the answers to their questions as a blog post, I am providing a library full of free information on areas of personal finance. And if that person wants to engage a financial advisor to help them out, who are they going to contact…
If you want to know something you Google it. If your blog is well written and enough people click on your blog, it will go up the Google rankings and be easier to find in Google searches. For example, I have written a number of articles on what happened at Custom House Capital, as has all of the national media. If you Google Custom House Capital, Bluewater articles appear twice on the first page, the same amount of times as The Irish Times and The Irish Independent.
Having written 199 other articles, I am getting my company name out there on the internet on a whole host of personal finance topics. Some of them are on page 1; my article on deemed disposal is the top ranked article on the subject on Google. Lots of other are buried way down. Remember, if you aren’t on page 1, you don’t exist!
When someone is looking to engage a financial adviser, they are going to look them up online. If you can see that this person has written extensively on personal finance, they can get a feel for what the advisor is about and if they know what they are talking about. If they like what the adviser says, they will give them a call.
Writing a blog takes time every week, so you need to block a certain amount of time every week to do it. Being consistent is key. You have to write a minimum of one post a week. Don’t expect results instantly. It took me a number of years of writing before new clients told me they found me through one of my blogs. Now it is a consistent source of new business, but it took years to get to that stage.
What problems do you find with blogging? Or are there articles that you would like me to cover in the future? Let me know by sending me an email at steven@bluewaterfp.ie