Okay, so if you’ve made it to this post then you should have already read the previous two posts in this series: How To Start A Successful Blog For Your Business and Choosing A Domain Name For Your Business Blog.  If you haven’t, go back and read those first.  Then jump back to this post, where I’ll be giving you a step-by-step guide for registering a domain name and setting up hosting for your blog.

I’m actually going to let you follow along as I do this for MYSELF.  I’m toying with the idea of starting a local handyman service as a complement to my other business interests, and so you’re about to get an exclusive peek over my shoulder as I go through the process of starting up MY new blog.

Step 1: Take out a pen and pad and write down at least five ideas for your blog’s domain name.  Remember the general guidelines I laid out in my previous post.  Using my own rules I came up with these five:

1. CincinnatiHandyman.com
2. CincinnatiHandymanService.com
3. CincinnatiHandymanServices.com
4. HesterHandymanCincinnati.com
5. TheCincinnatiHandyman.com

Step 2: Click here to go to Bluehost.com.  The landing page I’m sending you to should look similar to this:

Click the green button that says “get started now”.

Step 3: Select the hosting plan that best suits your needs.  The starter package is good enough for what we’re trying to do here, but if you will be starting more than one blog  (if you have more than one business, for example) then it would be smart to get the plus or business pro plan:

For my new blog I’ll be selecting the starter plan.

Step 4: Register your free domain name.  In the left box titled “new domain”, start entering the domain names that you came up with in step one.  Bluehost will tell you which names are available and which ones have already been registered by someone else.

The first three on my list were already taken.  HesterHandymanCincinnati.com is available but it looks a bit long and is not very memorable.  TheCincinnatiHandyman.com is also available, and I like that it has both my city and service in it.  It’s also shorter and will probably be easier for people to remember.  So that’s the domain I’m going with.

Step 5: Enter your account, package, and billing information.  The top of the page will look something like this:

After you’ve entered your general account information you’ll be presented with package options to choose from.  Select the plan from the drop-down menu that best suits your needs.  There are other upgrades available here to choose from if you are so inclined.  It just depends on what you want and your particular situation.  As for me, I won’t be needing any of these so I unchecked all the boxes:

Finally, enter your billing information and click the green “next” button.

Step 6: You’ll be presented with a number of available upgrades for your account.  You don’t need any of them, but if something looks useful to you then be my guest.  I’ll be skipping them all and clicking the green “complete” button at the bottom of the page:

 

Step 7: Create an account password.  First, click the blue button that says “create your password”:

Now click the box that says you agree to the terms of service, choose a password, and click the green “create” button:

Step 8: Log in to your account.  Use the password you just created and click the blue “submit” button:

Step 9: Click the “Hosting” tab near the upper-left corner of the page:

Step 10: Click the “wordpress” icon under “website builders”:

Step 11: Install WordPress.  A new tab will open and you’ll be taken to a site called mojomarketplace.com.  It should look similar to the image below.  Click on the green “install” button:

Step 12: Click the green button that says “Check Domain”.  Don’t change anything in the dropdown menu!  Just leave it alone and hit that green button:

Step 13: Check the box to accept the terms and conditions and click the green “install now” button.  You don’t need to check the “advanced options” box:

Step 14: Find your blog’s login credentials.  Click the black box in the upper-right corner that says “View Credentials”:

Next, scroll down a bit and click the link that says “View”:

Now you’ll be shown your unique blog login credentials.  This information is very important.  Write it down or save it in a protected spreadsheet!

 

Your blog setup is now finished.  Woo hoo!  If you had any problems along the way or need help getting this set up just contact me – I’d love to help!

Next step: Pick A Theme, Configure WordPress, and Start Writing!

Please Note: Some of the links above are affiliate links that will provide me a commission (at no additional cost to you). I am not recommending these products and services because of the commission I would earn but rather because I know they are helpful and are companies that I find to be competent and trustworthy.

Choosing the right domain name for your business blog is very important.  This is not a decision to make hastily.  The domain name is the one thing about your blog that can never be changed (without doing some url redirecting which is for advanced web experts only). Nearly everything else can be easily edited, fixed, or altered in some way.  Once you’ve registered a name, it’s pretty much a done deal.  So, you’d be wise to make sure you get this step right.

Criteria That Should Be Met When Picking A Domain Name

Every blog expert has slightly different ideas about picking a good domain name, but I’ll tell you the things that I personally take into consideration when I buy a domain name for a business blog.

1. It should be short, if possible.  Three words or less is ideal.  Four is okay if one of the words is “a” or “in” or “the”.  Any more than four words and it will be hard for people to remember.  Do you really think a potential customer is going to remember your domain name if it’s something like JacksMowingandLandscapingServicesofOrlandoFlorida.com?  Of course not.  Instead, Jack would be better served to go with something easier to remember.  JacksMowingServices.com.  MowingByJack.com.  Better still: OrlandoLawnMowing.com.  Which leads me to criteria number two:
2. If your services are specific to a city or geographic region, then the domain should have your city name in it, if possible.  This, more than anything, is for the benefit of the search engines so that they will send you more traffic and qualified leads.  One of the things that the Google algorithm takes into account when returning results for a search phrase is the text within the domain names of websites.  It uses the logic that if some or all of the text in the domain matches some or all of the text in the search phrase, then it’s a site that is more likely to give the user exactly what they’re looking for (whether it be information, products, or services).  If a user searches for “house painters in Memphis”, then all other variables being equal, Google is more likely to display results that have “Memphis” in the domain name than results (sites) that do not.
3. It should have your most popular service in it, if possible.  This is for the exact same reason as #2.  If somebody searches for “house painting” in your area and your domain name has the words “house painting” or “house painters” or “house painter” in it then there is a much better chance that Google is going to give you a favorable location in the search results.  The higher you are in the search results, the greater the chance that a user will click on it, which lands them directly on your blog and gives you the opportunity to grab a new customer.
4. Try to get a .com, and stay away from hyphens.  Domain names that end with .net or .biz or .org extensions are at a disadvantage, in my view, because most people will forget the extension and assume it’s a .com.  If somebody at a party asks you what your website is and you say “HoustonWindowReplacement.NET” (maybe you had to settle on .net because the .com was taken), when that person goes to look for your website the next day I can almost guarantee that they will type in “HoustonWindowReplacement.COM”, which sends them to your competitor’s site, in all likelihood.  Epic failure.  Instead, try slightly different wording and go for a .com.  You could try ReplacementWindowsHouston.com or NewWindowsHouston.com or HoustonWindowInstallation.com.  For the same reason, I recommend staying away from hyphenated domain names.  Nobody will remember the hyphen!

It’s not always possible to nail all four of these criteria, but get as many as you can.  Some of these things might sound nit-picky, but it can mean the difference between a blog that just sends you the occasional lead and a blog that takes your business to a whole new level.

“But These Blog Name Ideas Aren’t Cool…”

It seems like I hear this a lot.  People think their blog domain name has to be clever or cutesy in some way, but for a business blog that targets a specific geographic region or service this simply isn’t the case!  In this situation you’re not trying to become the next big blogger about sports or politics or entertainment (in which case a more brandable name would be understandable); you’re simply trying to pull in more local leads for your service business.  Sticking your city name and service in the domain name might look a little ugly and weird at first, but it’s a necessary evil in my view.  Sure, if you can find a way to meet all of the above requirements AND make it sound good, too, then go for it!  But, I think you’ll find that this could be difficult.

Alright, so now I want you to write down a list of five or ten potential domain names for your business blog that meet all or most of the above four rules.  If you missed the first post in this series, then I recommend you go back and read it: How To Start A Successful Blog For Your Business.  If you have your list of contender domain names then you’re ready to move on to the next step in this series: Registering A Domain Name and Setting Up Blog Hosting.

Usually when I tell contractors and service providers that they should start a business blog they look at me like I have two heads.  I think most people hear the word “blog” and associate it with politics, entertainment, or sports, but the truth is that blogging is one of the best kept marketing secrets of successful small business owners.  It is, hands down, one of the most effective and efficient methods you can employ for growing your business.  Intrigued?  Read on.  I’m going to walk you through the entire process of setting up a blog that gets superior results.

But, you might ask, what qualifies me to speak with authority on this subject?  Simple. Because I AM an authority.  I have started dozens of blogs over the last several years for a variety of ventures and purposes, and I know from experience what does and doesn’t work.  I also know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to set up and promote a blog.  I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself.  First, let’s address that question that is probably already on your mind: How on earth is a blog going to grow my business in any sort of meaningful way?

Blogging For Your Business Can Hook Boatloads Of Leads

I want you to imagine all the potential customers in your city as fish in a lake.  You are the fisherman, sitting in your boat, and you’ve just cast your line into the water.  A single rod and reel.  A lonely worm wriggling on the hook beneath a bobber. Though you know the lake is teeming with fish, there are only so many you can catch in one day with one rod and reel. You go home that evening with four respectable catches, but nothing to brag about.

The next day, determined to catch more fish, you take ten different fishing poles with you. You stick a worm onto the hook of each one and cast all ten lines into the water, all in different directions off the boat.  Not surprisingly, by the end of the day your boat is literally overflowing with with new customers (ahem…I mean fish).

Okay, so this analogy is a bit silly, but it’s an illustration of how active blogging can pull in boatloads of new leads for your company.  If all you have is a one-page website, or if all you’re doing is relying on your facebook page to hook leads, then you’re the fisherman who only has one line in the water.

On the other hand, if you have a company blog set up and actively write new posts week after week, then you are the smart fisherman with many different lines in the water at the same time.  With each new blog post you write, a new line is cast into the lake.  I’ve worked with several contractors who have consistently added to their blogs for years, and literally have hundreds of different posts.  That’s a lot of bait in the water!

Search Engines Will Send Traffic And Leads To Your Business Blog

I won’t get too much into the geeky details here because I don’t want to lose your attention, but basically this system works because of the search engines (most notably Google).  When you publish a new blog post it gets indexed by Google.  It puts more skin in the game for you as far as the search results are concerned.  If, for example, you only have a one-page, static website then there are a limited number of search phrases that are going to pull up your site in the results.  But if you have a blog with dozens or even hundreds of posts then the chances of one of them being displayed in the search results for any given phrase are exponentially better.  In essence, it casts a wider net and provides a much greater opportunity for potential customers to find you on the web.

And, yes, people really do look for contractors and home improvement advice on the internet.  Lots of people, as a matter of fact!  Many people, myself included, don’t even use their phone books anymore.  When they arrive at my doorstep every six months I throw them directly into the recycling bin.  When I need something I go to the internet first.

Here’s an example.  Let’s say I’m a homeowner and I have a plumbing issue in my home. The kitchen sink is clogged and I don’t know how to fix it.  I go online to Google.com and search for “how to clear a clogged drain in the kitchen”.  The search results pull up and I see that one of them is a blog post titled “How To Unclog a Kitchen Sink” (I see the worm dangling in the water, to continue with our fishing analogy).  I can also see that the web address of the post has the name of my city in it (we’ll dive into this part more later), so I click on that result (I take a bite of the worm and a hook snags me).  This is a very possible scenario, by the way, because Google often tailors results to your exact geographic location, whether you know it or not.  Now I’ve arrived at a post that perfectly answers my question.  But I realize that it looks like a messy job and I don’t want to fool with it (I’m being reeled in).  I think I’ll hire a plumber to fix it.  Who do I hire?  Well, the plumber who writes this blog sure seems to know what he’s talking about, and his blog sure looks professional, and he provides services in my city.  I think I’ll give him a call for a quote. Oh, there’s his phone number conveniently placed in the header of his blog.  I pick up my phone and give him a call (the fisherman pulls me out of the water and into the cooler I go).

The real beauty of this is that that same worm will continue to catch fish after fish after fish in the future.  Once I’ve written the blog post and published it online it stays there perpetually.  Yes, writing that post took a few hours and I had to take some photos to put into it, but at the end of the day it’s going to pull in leads for my business as long as search engines are in existence.  I work once and reap the benefits for years to come. What could be better?  And we’re just talking about one post.  Imagine if your blog had 20 posts?  Or 100?  Or 500?  Throw more lines in the water and you’re going to catch more fish – it’s simply a numbers game!

Additional Benefits Of Having An Active Business Blog

Taking up more space on the search engines is reason enough to start a blog, but there are lots of additional advantages:

• An active blog that gets traffic has value.  It is a business asset, no different from the company pickup truck or table saw.  If you sell your business at some point your blog will enable you to command a higher asking price.  This assumes that you’re using paid hosting with your own domain name and not a free blog platform (more on this later).  I’ve personally sold a handful of blogs over the years, and I can attest to the fact that if they are cared for and pull in traffic then they are worth cash money!
• Your ability to connect with other local contractors increases dramatically. Contractors in other trades will often stumble across your blog while researching on the internet.  Many of them will reach out and contact you through your blog in efforts to swap leads or help each other grow.  Or they may offer to send you qualified leads in exchange for cash (this has happened to me on several occasions).
• It helps to prove that you are a legitimate authority.  If you have a blog that is chock-full of helpful and and detailed information, it demonstrates to anyone who reads it that you know what the heck you’re doing and you’re not going to screw up a project.  It demonstrates COMPETENCE, which is what consumers really want.  This perception will also allow you to charge a little bit more for your services.
• Local media outlets may occasionally contact you in an effort to get a quote for a story.  When a local reporter or news writer is researching an item intended for the nightly news or the daily paper they quite often will go to the internet to look for local experts they can quote.  Let’s say the weather is unusually cold and a writer wants to put together a quick piece about how to prevent pipes from freezing and busting.  Odds are good he’s going to search Google for a local plumber who looks experienced and intelligent so he can ask some questions.  Low and behold, he sees a post from your blog in the search results that is titled “How to Prevent Pipes From Freezing in Winter”.  He calls you up, you give him a few helpful tips, and he mentions you and your company in his article.  The next day the article is published in the newspaper and BOOM, your phone is ringing off the hook with new prospective customers.
• If your blog becomes popular, there could be opportunities to make money directly on the site.  Using a blog to generate leads for your company is the main purpose, but if you really put in the effort over months and years then you will discover ways to monetize your blog’s traffic with ads or by selling products or information on the blog itself.  I won’t get too deep into the weeds with this topic, but take my word for it that having a very popular blog opens up all kinds of new avenues for generating additional revenue. Google AdSense is the easiest way to make money with ads on your blog, but often times you can make more with your own product, ebook, or service that is sold directly on the blog. The majority of you just starting out with a blog will want to focus on harvesting leads for your service, but just keep these other ideas in the back of your mind for the future.
• Unique opportunities will present themselves out of nowhere.  Having a popular blog literally gives you a global audience, and there’s just no telling who might stumble across it in the search engines.  The blog that you’re currently reading (RichContractor.com) is a perfect example of this.  A year or so ago I was contacted by a representative from a major publisher who enjoyed this blog and wanted me to write a book for them about how to become a successful contractor.  I respectfully declined because I’d rather focus my efforts on the blog and not a book, but this is an opportunity that would have never presented itself if I didn’t have a blog.  More recently, a director of programming from HGTV stumbled across my blog and made contact.  Where that could lead is anybody’s guess, but, again, if this blog did not exist I would never have heard from this person.

There are so many reasons to have a blog and so few reasons not to have one.  It’s just a no-brainer, in my opinion, if you’re a contractor or service provider of any kind.  Bottom line: it elevates your profile and can help to take your business to the next level.

Starting A Blog Is Relatively Cheap And Easy

But this all sounds like it’s probably expensive and too technical for me to figure out, you might be thinking.  Not true!  Use the host that I prefer for my blogs and you’ll get a free domain and hosting for $3.95 a month.  And if you set things up the way that I’m about to teach you, then you don’t need to know a lick about coding, programming, or web design. If you can type and use a mouse then you can create a nice blog.  There really is no excuse to not do it.  I’m sorry, but if you aren’t willing to spend less than five bucks a month trying something new to grow your business then I don’t know what to tell you.  I honestly don’t.

Okay, sorry for tangent.  Now let’s get to work creating your blog.  In my opinion, there are four main things you can do to give your blog the best chance of success:

1. Set it up properly.  In other words, don’t even think about using a free platform like Blogger.com or Tumblr.com.  I’ll explain more in the next post of this series, but take my word for it that you need to use the WordPress.org blogging platform on your own domain with a paid hosting account.  I prefer Bluehost for most of my blogs.
2. Make it as helpful and useful as possible.  Let’s say you have a deck-building business and your blog has a post entitled “The Pros and Cons of Using Composite Decking”.  A searcher who finds this post in the search engines should read your post and think to themselves, “Wow, that was an amazing post.  It answered my question in detail, it had photos to illustrate concepts, and it even gave me some new ideas and options that I had not previously considered”. Every post on your blog should aim for this high standard of quality.  As with most things, the more effort you put into your blog the more you will get back out of it in the form of new business leads and increased exposure.
3. Have patience.  It will take time for your blog to really take off and flourish.  If you start a blog on Monday and expect the phone to start ringing with leads on Tuesday then you’re in for disappointment.  It will likely take months of effort before you start to see an effect on your sales.  I’ve noticed that the most successful bloggers are the ones who stick with it for years and just keep writing amazing post after amazing post.  It has a compounding effect that eventually can take a business to staggering new levels of success, but you have to be in it for the long run.
4. Take guidance from somebody who has already had blogging success. That would be me, of course.  If you get stuck or have a question, leave a comment below or send me an email.  I’m happy to help!  Use Bluehost and I’ll be better able to understand any issues you might have setting things up.

This is the first in a series of posts about creating a successful blog.  Now please read part two: Choosing A Domain Name For Your Business Blog.

Please Note: Some of the links above are affiliate links that will provide me a commission (at no additional cost to you). I am not recommending these products and services because of the commission I would earn but rather because I know they are helpful and are companies that I find to be competent and trustworthy.

This is a guest contribution from Jonah Canter of Canter Construction.

When I first started out with my construction company I actually had zero customers. This is a typical problem when you first branch out into the trade and figuring out how to quickly and effectively gain a reoccurring clientele base is a key strategy to success. I didn’t want to spend money on internet marketing nor did I want to go house to house with flyers. I personally find those types of methods land you window shoppers or those who smell blood in the water and expect you to basically work for free. That is not to say that these are not successful for some contractors but I personally did not find value in them.

I had a couple of neighbors who were in real estate and I had learned that they all needed a contractor who could help them when issues came up with inspection reports. The issues themselves range from minor punch out items to major structural issues. They could not find a contractor who was willing to take the small and the large jobs.. They also had a preference for working with one contractor to repair all the items. The less hands in the process the higher the rate of actually getting through to the closing table. So it dawned on me that I should start to develop a strong relationship with the real estate community in my area.

HARVESTING REALTOR EMAIL ADDRESSES

I started out by going onto the websites and manually harvesting all of the publicly available e-mail addresses. One thing I quickly noticed was that not all real estate companies listed their agent’s emails publicly. Other websites had contact forms they required you to fill out in order to get in touch with the agents. Using a bit of common sense and a little bit of searching I realized that companies, in general, standardize their e-mail naming convention.  For example the email may be @ourcompany.com. If you know that this is the naming convention for the end of every email the next step is to find out how they organize the first part of the email address. A search for the company name and any press releases can be helpful. Usually, press releases will contain the name of a person within the organization for contact.

For instance:

For general inquiries please contact jane.doe@ourcompany.com

For this example you know that they use first name {dot} last name as their email naming convention. From here you are armed with the information that can help you when harvesting clients at this company. Now you can look at the names of the agents and know exactly what their email address should be.

I organized my spreadsheets by the company names and tailored each of my messages specific to their organization. For instance, I had started work for one realtor and in my pitch to his colleagues I mentioned that I work with other agents at your company. This provided confidence that if Agent A was using me they should inherently trust me and at least consider me for jobs. In total I harvested around three hundred leads and sent each e-mail personally. They were all template driven by company and the copy and paste effort this was much better than using an automated email service. Typically, emails from these types of companies are in HTML format and have a high rate of ending up in a person’s junk mail folder.

NETWORKING WITH REALTORS CREATES EXPONENTIAL RESULTS

Out of the 300 e-mails I had 32 replies. Out of those 32 replies I actually picked up 15 new realtors that wanted me to start looking at jobs for them. You may think that is a small percentage at 5% (15 realtors) but that is actually a wonderful response rate and actually 10% if you include everyone who responded in general but may have not given me immediate work.

The immediate impact of this was not apparent until I realized how my network expanded. Agents who were on the buying side and had no knowledge of my company were now hearing that my company was doing the repairs. So I not only gained the selling agent but also work from the buying agent. In the middle of all of that were the customers, both buying or selling who potentially would provide me with more work. It was a wonderful situation to find myself in because in a lot of cases the clients buying the house had ideas for what they wanted to add or update and I was the first person that came to their mind.

In the example above, the one realtor contact I made actually gave me the opportunity to put my company in front of three other people. And at only 15 realtors, say giving me only one job each, that has a potential for 45 new jobs. I can also tell you that if you impress a realtor they will always use you for their own clients, refer you to future clients or within their own internal network of agents. So the benefits of harvesting real estate leads are exponential.

This process lends itself specifically to General Contractors because they are capable of doing a wide range of trade work for customers. Specialty contractors may find results that vary from what I have mentioned since they limit the amount of work they may be able to perform.

I have found no better way to quickly gain leads at zero cost. The key to this is taking the time to compose a direct and professional email that targets what realtors are looking for. It also helps out to have a website with pictures of your work and client testimonials. On my website I also included a tab that was specific to realtors and the needs they have. Remember, they do not know you from Adam so placing silent reminders that you are professional and trustworthy will go a long way in your pitch.

Jonah Canter is the owner of Canter Construction, a full service building and remodeling company. For more information on this article or for general questions you can reach him directly: jonahcanter@gmail.com or visit his website http://www.canterconstructionsc.com