On today’s episode of Visibility Talks, I’m so happy to share more about why blogging is so beneficial for other businesses by hearing from other businesses. It’s all very well for me to harp on about why blogging is so great, of course! I have a course to sell! So I thought it would be better to share words directly from those who actually blogged under my tutelage in the Blogging for Gold program.

Before I share their experiences, I really wanted to talk about why blogging is so important and also what makes me qualified even to talk about this because if you found me through a Facebook ad or heard about me through a friend or need reminding of why you follow me, of why you’re listening to this podcast, I thought I’d share today.

So what makes me qualify to talk about SEO, visibility and all that jazz?

Well, my background, I did a business degree. I was in marketing 9-5 jobs many years. I burned out, lost my job, packed up my life and went to live in Goa in India. And it was there, over 11 years ago now that I realized I wanted to live life on my own terms and I started my own business. And now I love to help creative business owners. I work with women all over the world to get to page one of Google, but not just SEO, I help women kind of get visible because I think that there’s so much that has been ingrained in us, particularly as women, not to be visible, not to show up, certainly not to look confident because we’ll be judged and certainly we have perhaps more of an anxiety because we’ve been told that we’re not allowed to share opinions, that if we’re not very good at something we certainly shouldn’t bother starting.

So I love to break things down into kind of easy bite-sized ways, and that’s really why I love to do these free kind of tasters with my challenges like the one starting on Monday 25th September. So I think this might be maybe the eighth challenge I’ve ever run. So I’ve been doing them for quite a few years now, and I really, really love it because a great big group of people come together, a group of women come together in a Facebook group. I’ve set up specifically for each challenge. So this one Get Seen and Get Sales, and I really try and help you as much as possible for over four days. And so all sorts of different people come in, educators, photographers, wedding venues, cake makers, florists, jewelry designers, artists, designers, yoga teachers, wellbeing coaches, therapists, personal stylists, and loads of different types of businesses.

It’s very simple to be more visible. It’s not always easy, and my job is to try and help you make it easier because most people want to be more visible who run their own businesses, but they don’t know what they want to be visible for. They don’t know what will happen when they are more visible and they panic and then they don’t work on their visibility. Most people don’t know what they want. People type into Google to find someone like them. They might have a vague idea, but they definitely don’t know how to use that in their websites and their blogs and their marketing.

So this is where I help people find the opportunities, find those opportunities to breakthrough and get more visible so that those sales and bookings can come through more effortlessly, not without effort. Obviously, you don’t start your own business and then think that everything’s just going to come to you.

I make it my personal goal to support everyone who signs up to my programs as much as I can with hands on support and it’s so wonderful to see so many different types of businesses flourish. 

In this episode

In this episode you’ll hear experiences shared by six brilliant business owners.

Carla runs CJ Hotel Consultancy which offers sales and marketing representation services to hotels, hospitality businesses and other accommodation providers. Carla has seen a huge increase in traffic thanks to a clear strategy, with new leads being generated thanks to blogging. Here’s what she said:

“I had wanted to try blogging for some time, and I had blogged sporadically before joining the Blogging for Gold course. The reason I joined the course is because I knew that there was a gap in my knowledge of how blogging should be done properly. And after following mad for some time, I thought it was about time to delve into that a little bit more and be guided by yourself in that it was great. I enjoyed having the structure of knowing what topics we would be covering each week and having the online user area to guide me through with information and texts that you provide and links to resources.

It allowed me to get in the headspace to be prepared for each session and prepare any relevant questions. I found the calls to be really motivating, and after each one, I was really keen to put into practice what we had just learned. I now have a keyword strategy in a clear direction of how to be found on Google by my target customer. I have seen a huge increase of traffic onto my website since blogging and new business leads have been produced through the blog posts that I’ve produced through Blogging for Gold. I really enjoy it blogging and have always got things to blog about. Now I’ve got plenty of content ideas. I’m busy operating my business on a day-to-day, but my rule of thumb is to now blog every six to eight weeks. And so far I’ve managed to keep this up, and I’m also safe in the knowledge that the blog posts that I have already created and continue to prom promote on my social media channels are still garnering lots of traction to my websites.”

Georgina Little is a brand photographer based in Suffolk who is on page one for all her keywords, and she’s even turning down business:

“Before Blogging for Gold, I never blogged, didn’t really know what to do with it, and I had done one blog. That’s a lie. I’ve done one blog, no SEO when look back at it now, it’s horrendous. So after I joined your free workshop, I absolutely a hundred percent knew it was the right thing to help market the business. Blogging for Gold was absolutely brilliant. The information was really straightforward.

Understanding SEO and how to make blogs work for you has been it’s, it’s been stardust basically because I now get found for so many of my keywords just through my blogs Q&A calls. The structure of the course was, it was, yeah, just it was perfect. It worked really well for me and you as a person the way that you taught us everything was second to none because I think all of it’s related to you. You didn’t try and overcomplicate things. The community was amazing. So yes, absolutely loved the way that the program ran. So in terms of the results, I mean I am page one of Google for all my keywords. I think there’s only a couple, and there’s the really hard ones where it doesn’t have a location that I’m not on page one now. So I am found for brand photography, I’m found for family photography. More people click on my website. I get regular enquiries.

Some of them I can say no to now, which I would never have done before because it was just a case of somebody’s inquired I can do it for. So now I get enquiries where I can actually say no because it’s not my bag, which is really nice to be able to say no to something that I don’t want to do. So yes, definitely more sales and more bookings. But yeah, I mean it has really changed everything about my business. This month has been one of the best, and it wasn’t looking like that, but that is all through family photography, which I am. I don’t do a lot of, and I actually don’t market at all on Instagram or Facebook anymore. That is purely from blogs, so awesome. So since I completed the course, I wouldn’t say I do blog a lot, but when I do blog, it makes a big impact. So I do need to do more.”

Jo runs Higher Holcombe, a woodland wedding venue in Devon and found the course amazingly revealing:

“Before I joined Blogging for Gold, it was something I knew that blogging was something I really needed to do, but I had no idea that you could optimize your blogs. So when I did the freebie, I thought, oh my goodness, there’s loads to learn here. So I decided to join Maddy on Blogging for Gold and the whole thing of keyword phrases and being relevant to your business and solving problems, these were things that I just found so amazingly revealing and it’s really encouraged me to carry on blogging and help solve my customer’s problems. So I feel good about blogging now. I think I know what I’m doing. There’s always room for improvement of course, but I’m even on page one of Google for some of my keywords. So thank you very much.”

Kerry Day is a printmaker and Lino print teacher based in Bristol and loved the accountability and motivation that Blogging for Gold offered, and loves getting more customers onto her website as a result:

“Before I did Blogging for Gold, I did do some blogging posts, but to be honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing and there wasn’t much structure to what I was writing. I saw other people writing blogs and I knew that they were useful, but I didn’t really know why and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just writing for the sake of writing a blog, and I quickly got bored of it and just gave it up. So being on the Blogging for Goal program, I found for me, being part of a weekly class kept me more accountable. I was able to work on my business, on my blog, learn new things, ask a question without feeling silly or if I was asking anything stupid, it’s all within a supportive environment.

And I felt the group was really friendly and really egged you on to do well with your website and your blog. I think the main result that came out of Blogging for Gold for me, it was very apparent my website was not up to scratch. I did what I think most artists do and think images of my work would be enough. But during the course, learning our words and blogging can really help with SEO and making you more visible on search engines and so on. It was clear my website at the time just wasn’t working for me and it wasn’t doing the thing I wanted it to do, so I made a decision to upgrade it and make it more workable. I think doing Blogging for Gold, I do feel more confident about writing blogs and working on my website. It’s always a work in progress and it helps me to keep visible and using the tools that we learn and see the work that I’m putting in is getting more results, getting more visitors to my website, and I’m getting more customers both with selling my work and with students coming to learn lino printing. So yeah, I’ve firmly recommend doing Blogging for Gold.”

Liz from Chester and Cooke designs and makes country living products based in Peterborough and Cambridge. Being on Blogging for Gold was a real eye opener for her, and she loved the confidence it gave her to be visible:

“Before I joined Blogging for Gold, I didn’t really have a clue about blogging, didn’t really know how it impacted on search engines, didn’t understand about SEO. I didn’t really know anything about it, so it was a real eye-opener. My experience of being on for Gold program completely changed my views and awareness of blogging. It just was a massive eyeopener. How blogging impacted on your Google rankings. I loved the course. It was so informative, it gave me lots of confidence to do it because I’m not really a confident writer. It was very structured. I loved the workbooks that you could download and work through as she went through the training course. It was great to always have Maddy there on backup if you had questions. We had Q&A calls, and there was also the community that you could go through for support on Facebook, which was great. It was lovely to always have that backup if you didn’t quite understand something.

So since I have finished the Blogging for Gold course, it has really just impacted my understanding on why we blog, and it’s given me a far clearer direction of how I market my products, so I understand where my rankings are for my products and I can check weekly or however I want on my keywords. And I’m pleased to say that a lot of my products are on page one for Google, so that’s great, and I can regularly keep an eye on that so I get more click through to my website and sales from my website, which is great. Really since the course, I feel so much more confident about blogging. I understand the importance of it, and I at least blog once a month, if not twice, three, four times a month. And yeah, I feel a lot more confident, especially using things like yos to check the SEO capabilities of the blog I’ve written to. So yeah, it’s given me a lot more confidence about what I’m doing and the impact that my blogs will have. It obviously also gives you content for your social media, so that’s great as well.”

Naomi is the founder of Calibre VA services based in Worcester loved the worksheets and the lightbulb moments that all amounted to recognising the value of blogging as a marketing tool

“Before joining Blogging for Gold, I honestly did not recognize the value of blogging at all. I had absolutely no idea how much blogging could push sales and alert Google to my business presence. And as such, I had never blogged before. But from the get go, from week one of your Blogging for Gold program, the insights that you shared, they just drew me in. I loved the worksheets that went along with the program and which I could personalize to my business. And the value that you provided all the way through the program was honestly second to none. I had so many light bulb moments relating to keywords, blogging in general, and how to use Google to my advantage.

And in terms of accountability, I especially enjoyed the live group sessions where we could also ask you questions. One of the most amazing things about Blogging for Gold is that the training is ours for life. And so although it’s been a couple of years since I first completed the program, I’m actually going through the program once again with my current business in mind. Blogging for Gold has really brought me clarity in terms of my goals and business strategy, which is just amazing moving forward. And just as a final comment, Blogging for Gold has made blogging an accessible tool for my business. And once my new website launches in the autumn, you can honestly rest assured that I will confidently be taking everything I have learned in this program and applying it to my business. And I’m just so grateful, Maddy, for all the exceptional value that you continue to deliver to fellow business owners with programs like these. Thank you so much.”

Here’s what you’ll learn when you join my free blogging Get Seen & Get Sales challenge starting Monday 25th September

MONDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER

DAY ONE 9.30AM UK TIME

Let’s start at the beginning – your motivation to do what you do! Plus I’ll share details of how you can win a prize for participation and enthusiasm.

TUESDAY 26TH SEPTEMBER

DAY TWO 9.30AM UK TIME

We’ll get you thinking about who uses your products + services + what they might be thinking about!

WEDNESDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER

DAY THREE – 9.30AM UK TIME

You’ll get to know a secret tool that is OH so easy to write your next (first ever?) blog post and easily write it ready to go!

THURSDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER

DAY FOUR – 9.30AM UK TIME

I’ll show you how to structure a blog + get it found on Google + open the doors to Blogging for Gold!

You can register for free here: https://maddyshine.co.uk/get-seen-get-sales-2023/

Related episodes

If you enjoyed listening or reading about this, then you might enjoy last week’s episode too – “Why is blogging so important?” with Franky from Love Audrey where we address the key questions:

• What is blogging and why is it so important?
• Where do we start with blogging?
• Where can we find blog topics?
• If we feel like rubbish writers, what can we do?
• What is one key thing that we wish everyone knew about blogging more often for their businesses?

More free advice?

Want more free stuff? You might enjoy these related blogs from my archives. Of course, starting next Monday 25th September, you can join my free 4 day blogging challenge ‘Get Seen & Get Sales’ here, after which doors will open to my Blogging for Gold program.

https://maddyshine.co.uk/how-long-should-a-blog-post-be/

https://maddyshine.co.uk/why-is-blogging-important-for-seo-anyway/

https://maddyshine.co.uk/do-i-really-need-to-blog/

https://maddyshine.co.uk/six-things-to-do-with-your-blog-post-once-youve-hit-publish/

You can check out more about my blogging course Blogging for Gold here and my upcoming free 4 day blogging challenge ‘Get Seen & Get Sales’ here.

Thanks for listening!

Please do hit the subscribe button, share this episode with your pals, tag me on Instagram if you enjoyed it – maddy.shine. If you want to find out more about working with me then do check out my website maddyshine.co.uk.

And I’ll see you next time!

Maddy x

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