Seriously, if you are not using this at the very least for your BLOGGING then you are truly missing out. And as I will present in the next week or so the next step (which is NOW by the way) is creating full blown websites based upon Wordpress, without ever knowing a word of code!

In fact our woes with developers and designers may be over, as for the large part there usefulness is now redundant.

But for now I want to show you my evolution of Wordpress, this is important because I want to show you that its functionality has evolved massively in just a few short years in to something EVERYONE needs to sit up and listen to, because it really is the platform for creating your own websites right now!

1.I built a BLOG using wordpress.com, the interface was a bit clunky 3 years ago, and it was for the more geeky type of person like me, blogger.com was king in the blogging world as it was really easy to use. What’s interesting blogger.com has not moved on that much, where as Wordpress has moved from geek to something much more user friendly.

2. Someone built a website for me, actually it was my first e-book: The Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook. They used wordpress to develop it… I hated it, I hated the interface, I couldn’t change stuff, I was annoyed cos I wasted lots of money. So I rebuilt the website myself using HTML code.

3. However much I hated Wordpress at that time, it peaked my interest in setting it up on my own web servers to play with… SPOT THE NERD!

4. Started finding custom BLOG themes for Wordpress that could make my blogs look a little more appealing from the standard boring themes.

5. Discover the plugin function on Wordpress, which suddenly expanded the functionality of wordpress ten fold, and more importantly was helping to boost the search engine rankings for the sites.

6. Now early in 2009 I really got in to Wordpress and started building BLOGs for myself and custom blogs for myfitgeek clients. EasyFitnessBlogs proved extremely popular and has shown many new people the WordPress way is a better way.

7. Started building websites using WordPress (rather than just BLOGS), more themes started appearing that improved the functionality and ease of set up and changing the look and feel of the site.

8. Autumn 2009, I am now ONLY building websites using Wordpress, everything from BLOGs, Sales Pages(this one here took me just 15 minutes to build!), Product Launch sites, full blown websites for your business , and now…

9. …Membership sites using an incredible piece of software that is a plugin for WordPress.

10. What’s more, the barrier of entry to building these sites has reduced MASSIVELY. For 90% of sites you don’t need to know code or get your head in to FTP. In fact most of the time the most technical bit I do is get someone to build a custom header to fit my site and bingo site is ready to roll!

So why am I tell you all this?

Well, in the next week or so I am going to release a couple of “how to” videos that will show you step by step of how to start your own WordPress based site, and then on Jan 1st I will be launching a new site aimed at helping you get the very best from using Wordpress, Search Engine Optimisation, List Building, Video editing, editing HTML code (if you really want to learn that stuff), where to get the plugins and themes that I use, as well as a step by step process to building your own personal trainer website, WITHOUT EVER NEEDING A DEVELOPER.

To me this is a BIG game changer, and a welcome one too for many fitness professionals who have been bitten by dodgy developers, who waste your time and money.

I’ll also be taking a select few through a special coaching program to get all this stuff done super quick, and get your professional looking site done, ranking high in google, and collecting new leads every day.

The next few weeks are gonna be super exciting, hopefully you are ready for the ride.

Speak soon

Tim

Stay on top of this thread… and get the videos when they are released.. enter your name and email address below:

I additionally posted the article to my http://timgoodwin.eu BLOG as well as the http://personaltrainerluxembourg.com BLOG.

7 hours in and I am on Page 1 for the search term “Paul James Personal Trainer”

I am going to try to push this a little more and see where it gets too… then feed back with the results in a few more hours.

Plus I’ve just noticed that my article is linked from the number 9 entry on the first page, which is a social bookmarking site link.

There is a real buzz around this guy at the moment, so I thought I would post an article and track how my posting got on on Google.

The local time here is now about 17.30 and I have just taken a screen shot from Google to show you where this is at right now.

Click the image to view a larger version, and you’ll see that it is currently number 21 on Google for the search term “Paul James Personal Trainer”

I’ll check back later to see how I am getting on…. but this is a combination of things I do with my BLOGs to ensure I get great exposure with every one of my articles for specific keywords.

Whilst you can do so much more to get your posts found than the system I am going to explain here, what I would say is there is always a balance between spending inordinate amounts of time on search engine optimisation, the reality is as fitness professionals we have clients to train and much better things to do with our time.

Before I start I will remind you all that Search Engine optimization for your website or BLOG is NOT a one shot thing. Many personal trainers have paid developers to sort all the SEO stuff out for them but ended up being disappointed that their sites are still not being ranked well.

RELEVANT  and REGULAR NEW content is king for a highly ranked site. Google likes quality content, google likes new content.

So you need to be posting new posts regularly, probably once or twice a week is about optimal… I don’t always achieve this but I try to sit and write content whenever I have a gap in my day between clients to get new posts down on paper…

I do sit and write on a daily basis as a matter of habit, it will certainly improve your “voice” on screen and make your content more genuine.

When it comes to putting the new BLOG post up this is the process  I go through.

1. Type up the article and create a keyword rich title for the post.
2. Search for a handful of relevant and interesting images that fit with the article. Google Images is a really useful place to “borrow” images. When inserting them make sure you add alternate descriptions which match the keywords of the title.
3. Bold some of the key terms and keywords through the article.
4. Where relevant I create hyperlinks to other articles and pages on my main website to give my normal sites backlinks!
5. Using the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin on wordpress, I update the meta tags for the post… which includes the title tag (the one that appears in the very top bar of the browser). A descriptive and keyword rich description tag, and the keywords tag, which includes the top 4 or 5 keywords I am using for that article
6. I use the tags feature on Wordpress to add keyword rich tags for the post.
7. And finally use the categories section to categorize the post… which just happen to be keyword rich category names too!
8. I then publish the post and send an email to my list telling them about the new post, and asking them to make comments against the post, and if they like it to bookmark it on facebook or twitter.
9. Then a really important stage to maximise your posts exposure… Go to http://www.pingler.com and register the link to the post and this will update about 100 directory services for BLOGs
10. Finally go to all the social bookmarking services you use and bookmark your new post. For example facebook, twitter, stumbleupon, Myspace etc etc

And that’s it.

The whole process takes about 45 minutes depending on the article length and how many bookmarking sites you use.

Yes I could do more things, but if I end up spending more time I don’t believe you necessarily get much more benefit for the time spent.

Give this process a go with your next BLOG posting and I assure you your posts and site will appear higher up in the google rankings.

As ever provide your comments below, I really want to hear about your experiences with this, and if you like this post please bookmark on your favourite social bookmarking sites )

Tim

PS. I’ve reopened the website for Easy Fitness BLOGs. Get a professionally designed BLOG, optimised and ready for you to start posting for only $297. Click the link below to get yours today.

Easy Fitness BLOGS

Now I don’t get anything for referring you to Frank, i just thought this video would explain how powerful having a BLOG can be for your business.

Frank is a bit crazy and the intro to the video is quite long but quite amusing, but once you get on to the educational bit you’ll see why I sent you there.

Watch Frank’s Crazy video right now

Once you’ve watched the video and are ready to get started with you BLOG, follow the link to Easy Fitness BLOGs to get your BLOG today

“What about traffic to my blog?”

In other words, how do you get people to your blog?

This is a great question, and I am really pleased that so many of you are asking it – it shows that we have some really sharp readers. 

You see, not to long ago, we were in the “build it and they will come” era.

“Webmasters” were cold-calling businesses, and showing them some fancy looking site and giving them some pie-in-the-sky sales pitch about how they would build some fancy site for them (really just one of those brochure sites), and then they would tell them how many million users there were on the Internet… and if only 1% of those people visited the site, it would mean wealth beyond dreams.

OK, maybe I am exaggerating a bit… but not very much!

With all these questions I have been getting about traffic, it is obvious that we have all gotten a little more sophisticated – or at lease we have been through the wringer a few too many times.

In any case, this is the deal with traffic (but hey I am by no means the ultimate guru on traffic but I have been studying this stuff non-stop for a couple of years now):

KEY POINT #1: Traffic is important, but conversion is just as important… and maybe more so.

You see, if your blog doesn’t convert visitors into leads, and then leads who know, like and trust you, it doesn’t matter if you are getting 10,000  visitors to your site every day. It really is that simple.

The better your site converts, the more money you make. And the way our blogs are built, when your blog delivers a lead… that lead is already pre-sold to a large degree. So you are not only getting more business, you aren’t working as hard once you get that business.

Another key thing about conversion – the better your conversion, the more liberties you can take in spending money to get visitors to your site.

You see, a lot of traffic sources are free. However, you can also pay to drive traffic. Well, if your site is converting 5 visitors out of 100 versus your competitors site converting 1 visitor out of 1000, then you can spend more money to drive people to your site.

KEY POINT #2: The best traffic is local.

The traffic that you want at your blog is traffic from people that are local to you (in a geographic sense). This is the traffic that is going to turn into personal training clients or bootcamp sign ups.

It probably won’t help you much if someone who lives in Russia visits your site, and you are in  Nottingham. 

The good news about this is that it is easier to “win” free traffic from the search engines if that traffic is local.

This is a nice paradox – the local traffic is not only easier to get, but it is a lot more valuable.

But most of the “big boy” generic cookie-cutter site providers completely miss this point.

Our blog system and training is designed to help you capture that local traffic. Obviously, I can’t give away too much on this… because I guarantee that my competitors are
watching me. But this is a key area of traffic that we are going to dominate.

Which leads to another big point…

KEY POINT #3: This isn’t just a blog!

Because of the software we use, Wordpress, we have access to one of the most powerful content management systems on the internet today

This is critical for expanding your site to more than just another generic blog – there is little point in providing something to you that you can get from somewhere else for free.

Your blog can morph in to many different things:

• A video blogging system, for example a whole library of exercise videos that you produce.
• A podcast portal, with you interviewing experts in your niche for your visitors to listen to.
• The ability to add static pages that promote your services and sell your products
• The basis for affiliate marketing other peoples products and services.

And with some further development from our base build you can create “members only” areas to truly monetise your blog!

How can you do all this stuff, well we are going  start by teaching you the basics and then give you the step by step guides to doing more as your blog expands.

Ultimately all these extra features convert your traffic in to regular visitors, sign ups and then to paying clients.

BOTTOM LINE: Traffic is critically important. You need a system that CONVERTS that traffic to dollars, you need a system that captures LOCAL traffic, and you need the ability to add the CONTENT that boosts the “know, like and trust” then have in you to become a client.

Regards

Tim

P.S. We have two very cool traffic techniques that are working right now to get search engines to list new blogs VERY quickly. We will cover that in one of our first follow-up sessions after we launch the system.

P.P.S. I know people are wondering about what this will cost. There has been a lot of speculation in the emails I am getting. Let me say that it will NOT be $999, and it will NOT be even $499.(these are some of the numbers that have been getting thrown around in comments I am getting). Don’t worry – it will be FAR less than that. I will be addressing this question soon…

The basic concept is around creating a BLOG, with some content getting enough traffic and then selling advertising on your site. Great idea in theory, but in practice it doesn’t work. I’ve tried it, it wasted more time, effort and money than it made. In fact I made nothing, cos I didn’t get anyone to advertise on it (

The other option is to create a BLOG and then put google adsense on your page. The idea is that you get enough traffic on to your blog who will read your content and then click on the google adwords adverts that appear and you get a cut of the money the advertiser has paid for the click. Once again great in theory, but in practice it doesn’t really work. I’ve tried this too and made a whopping 0.23 USD from it.

Now for some people this does work, if you have enough visitors, you can start making some money, but to be honest it is much to much like hard work.

It seems as if these marketing gurus have been misleading us, those sneaky guys!

However, I know of a way that is actually more likely to make you money from your BLOG that is much more accessible and doesn’t require a critical mass of traffic or any selling of advertising space.

When you create a BLOG you are building relationships with your readers, that IS the primary purpose of having a BLOG. It is a means of engaging new people in to your ethos of fitness and showing them you know your stuff by writing posts that are both informative and conversational (hopefully a bit like this BLOG). Also adding videos that you have created and possibly finding others that are entertaining and informative, related to your BLOGs subject.

Over time your readers will grow to know, like and trust you, but ultimately the reason you are writing the BLOG is to bring those readers in to your group of paying clients/customers.

You’re not writing this BLOG for fun are you! Are YOU?

So what do you sell them?

OK, obviously you are going to sell them your stuff. Personal Training, your bootcamp, weight loss classes, e-book if you have one. But really the amount of stuff you have to sell them is kinda limited.

Selling other peoples stuff is where you can also look to monetise your BLOG. This is easy, many products out there have what’s called an affiliate program, where you can register as an affiliate and sell their e-book, course, software on their behalf.

Think Turbulence Training, or Dax Moy’s Magic Hundred, they can be sold by you as an affiliate. Often you’ll make 50% commission on every sale, sometimes much more! This can have a very positive influence on your bank balance, and truely make good money from blogging.

There is one caveat to this, ONLY sell stuff that you believe in yourself, that means you have to buy it yourself, use it and actually like it.

You don’t want to annoy your trusting readers with products and services that suck do you… You’ll see from time to time I will recommend a product, or the adverts on the right hand side of this page are all of stuff I have used and continue to use. They are products that I really think you would benefit from, the same should go for what you recommend too.

So certainly making money from your fitness blog is possible, but remember to be selective with what products you promote and always continue to provide entertaining and informative content.

COMING SOON

Now if you don’t have a BLOG yet, or you are still using Wordpress.com or Blogger.com to host your BLOG, then in just a weeks time, on June 8th, I will be releasing a brand new MyFitGeek service to help you get your blogging really working for you. So make sure you keep a check on your emails over the coming week for more information about this exciting new project.

You’ll want to stay alert too because you really cannot miss out on what I have coming.

I’ve got too many BLOGs! At last count I have about 8 and I just created a new one just last week. Keeping up with updating all these sites is a right royal pain in the butt. It is not easy to have new content coming through on a regular basis and is always difficult to maintain a freshness with your content too.

Ultimately all that effort and time to get a great looking BLOG up and running has been wasted and you basically have to start from scratch again.

I’ve had BLOGs that have remained dormant, one that went great for well over 18 months but, then started to look a little dated so I kinda forgot about it… A shame really as it really wasn’t all that bad and the content on there was pulling great search rankings. But I got busy doing other stuff, I got busy with my clients, the bootcamp I run, and the other projects I have my head in and it very quickly gets forgotten.

The solution to this is to have a system.

A system of writing new content each week without fail. I have three afternoons where I don’t have clients, this is when I write.

I force myself to write, I just start writing on a pad and do that for 30 minutes without stopping, sometimes it flows and i produce some stunning content. Other times it is like pulling teeth, and the result is not so great, but I get at least something down every few days each week.

Other fitness marketers have similar rituals, I know for a fact that Craig Ballantyne gets up every morning and writes for an hour. This is his habit to make sure he is producing content all the time.

So set in your schedule a time to write, and write free flow for at least 30 minutes. Don’t get me wrong it is hard work to get started sometimes but once you are in the habit you’ll produce stuff regular as clock work.

The solutions your “friendly” web developer will suggest will often be their excellent in house content management system (or CMS). Having been exposed to some of these in my time, exactly NONE of them have been particularly useful for all the things suggested in the first paragraph!

If your developer suggests their CMS, politely decline!

The only one I have come across that is any good is Wordpress. Having already discussed wordpress in previous posts you’ll get the idea that I do like this software.

I like it a lot!

Not only do we get some cool wordpress themes, some top class wordpress plugins, but also the best CMS you’ll ever find.

The wordpress CMS has gone through many iterations and is now considered a “mature” software, meaning it is relatively bug free, extremely user friendly and has a really easy learning curve.

The fact that there are literally thousands of add ons and themes for this software tells you it is really well liked by the “geeks” of the world too and is certainly here to stay for at least the next few years, which is more than you can say for the CMS from your developer!

I’ve set up quite a few BLOGs now for my own business and other peoples businesses, and the CMS back end is easily adopted by my clients, which makes my life really simple too!

One other thing with Wordpress, it is not restricted to just BLOGs, you can set up actual websites with it too! Whilst a little cumbersome for a simple website, more complex sites can happily thrive on a Wordpress back end, making updating and managing you web site an absolute doddle!

So the next time you are wanting to get a BLOG or a website built, consider using Wordpress, or asking your developer to build it using wordpress, so that you have much more control over the management of the site.