I want to learn more about digital marketing to help my clients do better in the digital world because there’s so many options, variable and so much competition for attention. I selected a course that ties together blog-writing, SEO and social media.

The way the instructor approaches it includes a lot of ‘you don’t need to hire somebody else to do this stuff… you can do it yourself for free, quickly and easily.’ I know it’s true people can you can do a lot on their own – with platforms like WordPress and being in charge of your own social media. He also keeps saying it doesn’t cost anything.

It does cost time. And requires thought.

Most of the clients and prospects I know just simply don’t have time to do this kind of thing. It’s especially difficult to get professionals like lawyers to take even ten minutes (they’d rather be billing $600/hr). However, a huge, awesome tip given was using Dragon Dictation to write a blog quickly.

He demonstrated his ritual of looking for competitive opportunities among key words, dictating a blog post, posting it, optimizing it for Google and then sharing it socially. It really does only take 10 minutes. But that’s assuming that people can dictate a blog off the top of their head like I am right now (thanks for the Dragon Dictation tip) and that they’re comfortable with all the software.

Using dictation removes all the typing and allows free flow of thought, but it still relies on writing in the sense of verbally expressing thoughts in a coherent and compelling way. Some people simply aren’t comfortable or able to do this on demand. Even I find it a bit challenging. Thankfully, Dragon Dictation seems to ignore the ums and ahs (had to add manually here).

Top three things to get in the blogging groove?

• Start with baby steps and learn one thing at a time.
• Make a checklist for the ritual of posting a blog and sharing it.
• Then schedule and set aside the time every week to do this.

Making the post useful and something readers will care about is an art in itself. We professionals take for granted what we know, and what fascinates us about our chosen fields versus our readers.

There is no doubt – blogs help SEO

One thing we do for clients, as a full service marketing firm, is convert their brain-dumps into interesting and educational blog posts. Perhaps Dragon Dictation can make that part of the process even easier for them and us. The challenge and key to success is doing them regularly. It takes three weeks to make a habit but the SEO results are undeniable. How can people know how brilliant you are if they can’t even find you?