Lisa Sharp

Last August we hired Josh Lyons to help SVN | SouthLand Commercial with its marketing. I remember he talked about all this great stuff we could do to increase leads. To be blunt, I wasn’t so convinced that I wanted to waste my time on the stuff he wanted to do. One day, we were talking about blogging, and I told him I thought it would be a waste of my time. I doubted I’d get any leads because of my blogging; yet, I said I’d try it… giving it a kind of a trial period, if you will.

Not a whole lot happened right away, but after a few months passed, Josh started sending me email updates about SouthLand Commercial showing up in Google for business brokerage terms [That’s my specialty]. Next thing I knew, we were ranking on the first page of Google searches like “Selling a business in Pensacola.” We started showing up for several terms like that, but here’s the kicker… when you click the results in Google, you go straight to my blog posts! If I hadn’t written those posts about selling businesses, I wouldn’t have even showed up in Google! That was a pretty good indicator that blog writing was worth my time. Who knows how many people have contacted me because they found me on Google, because of my blog. I don’t even know, but I know I show up because of my blog writing, and each time someone calls me because they found me from that type of Google search, that’s a lead attributed to my blog writing.

Showing up on Google took me from doubter of blog writing benefit to optimistic blogger. I still hadn’t seen a solid lead that I could specifically attribute to blogging, even though I knew some leads could have found me from a Google search, because of my blog. But I wanted a real lead that I could attribute completely to someone reading my blog, aside from Google leads. Well, I kept writing, and next thing I knew, my desires came true. I got the kind of leads I was wanting!

Josh decided to send out an email to all our investor contacts. That email was completely geared around spotlighting my business brokerage blog posts. Next thing you know, my phone was ringing and I was asked to represent clients… clients who discovered me because they read that blog email from Josh, and because they saw from my blog posts that I was someone who could help them sell their business. At that point, I had solid leads that were a direct result of my blog posts being shared via email.

I used to doubt that blogging was worth my time, but then, I saw the value and became a believer. Let me give you the following summary points to wrap up why I am now a blogger:

Blogging generates leads through Google, even if I don’t know which specific leads came from my blog.
When people find my blog through email or social media, they see that I can meet their needs, and I get solid leads that I can attribute to my blogging.
Having a bunch of posts about my specialty (I currently published 11 blog posts) gives my more credibility that local competitors. I can always direct potential clients to read my blog posts and let me know if they have any questions.
Frankly, it isn’t tough to write 350+ words a month, especially when I have someone like Josh to clean it up for SEO and get my name out there. Seriously… this testimonial is currently 615 words long. In a blog post, all I need to do is write a blub about what I already know. It’s worth the leads.

So, I’m a believer. I write at least one blog post a month. I give it to Josh to clean it up for SEO purposes. Then, it gets published/promoted and I get leads. If anyone is uncertain as to the value of blogging, then read this testimonial and know that I was once a doubter, but I benefited from blogging, and so can you.