The New York Times recently featured a blog post about Pat Flynn. About four or five years ago Pat was let go from his job. He decided to start a website that turned into a blog that has now turned into a successful podcast.
It’s always interesting to see how people use blogging to make money and build their business. There are a variety of different stories. Pat’s story is in the personal finance industry and it’s certainly something individuals and businesses can do in their own fields.
When The New York Times covers the art of business blogging you know that there is credibility involved.
Here are a few excerpts with my additional thoughts.
How Pat Flynn Created a Business Using a Blog
Do you have a business blogging story?
Share it in the comments or contact us to have your story shared here on the GBW Blog.
All excerpts from How Pat Flynn Uses Podcasting to Build His Business.
Pat Flynn
Blogging is Really About Creating Content
It was early in 2008, before he was laid off, that Mr. Flynn first experienced the power of the Internet. While studying for the LEED exam, which certifies knowledge of green building practices, he created a blog where he posted charts, cheat sheets, and notes from reference guides. Months later, he found out that more than 10,000 people were visiting his site each day.
This is how most successful blogs begin. The owner of the site starts creating content aimed at helping a targeted group of customers. Pat’s blog was no different. He simply got to work creating something people wanted and after some time he gained traction.
Sell Your Business Without A Pitch
One of his lessons is that he gives his content away free and makes money by selling ads and training courses. When it comes to selling on the Internet, he said, “the best sales pitch is no sales pitch at all.”
Using content like content on a blog is about building an audience and earning trust. From there you have people that buy in to what you’re doing and that is how you earn customers. Pat didn’t give the hard sales pitch to his blog readers. He trusted that if he provided content that they would in return purchase the products he sold and in the end it’s worked out really well. This strategy can work for businesses of all kinds.
Referral Traffic Comes From a Variety of Sources
In part because Mr. Flynn often tells his podcast listeners to go to his blog for additional information, links or show notes, the blog now has more than 50,000 subscribers. The podcast has helped build an audience for Smart Passive Income videos, an e-newsletter and an e-book.
Businesses often start looking at blogging as a way to increase traffic from search engines. This is certainly one of the ways to bring in traffic, but it’s about more than just SEO and search traffic. Blogs become powerhouses because they have a variety of referral traffic. You want to diversify your traffic from sources that include search engines, email newsletters, social media sites and even podcasts.
Conclusion
Pat Flynn is one of the successful business owners out there that uses a blog to grow his business. The blog is certainly not the only way he grows his business, but it does appear to be a big part of the growth.
Blogging can be part of your growth too.