how to promote your blog and improve your search engine ranking with duncan wierman

Episode #6 with Duncan Wierman: How to Promote Your Blog & Improve Your Search

Engine Ranking

ThoughtLeaderRetreat.com/DuncanW ______________________________________________________________________________

1

Alan: Welcome content marketers and aspiring thought leaders. This is Alan Brymer here we’re going through Snow-

pocalypse II, because we got four inches last night, and they don’t page the roads in the middle of Richmond.

And I’m here with Duncan Wierman who is apparently going through the same thing, three inches where you are, and in

the South, like we said, they don’t handle snow too well. I’m kind of wishing I was on a cruise boat right now, kind of like

where you and I met, Duncan. Do you remember that?

Duncan: That is very true. It was a couple years ago now, but yeah, those were the sparkling waters of the Caribbean

and we were with a whole bunch of real estate investors on an investing cruise. It was a great time.

Alan: It was a great time. I’ll take a pay-cation any time I can. That was back when I had just developed my own home

study course and training materials about real estate investing and I was going to network and meet people who could

help introduce me to folks, help me find stages to speak on, etc.

There was a whole cruise boat full of them! That was a very productive trip and a lot of fun. I wish I could do that again

sometime.

Something interesting that’s going on, you guys, before we jump in this week, is I want to share something that I’ve just

started using myself. It’s called nimble.com.


Engine Ranking


2

I was looking for some kind of CRM or customer relations management software to use and there’s a couple good ones

out there that were a little more traditional. Like I had been using Asana which is not a CRM by nature, but there were

some other ones like Base and Pipe Drive, which actually looked really good.

But what was unique about Nimble is that you could pick 20 people who you think are cool, and that you want to meet,

and that you might want to work with, or have them as clients someday. You enter them in and it will show you

everything that they’re posting every day on all of their social networks, as well as who all your mutual friends are on all

your social networks.

Have you ever opened up Facebook and wished you could just see the posts from a certain targeted group of people but

you don’t want them to get lost in the mix? Well, you can do that now, and it gives you the chance to really warm

people up, reply to some of their stuff, like it, etc., before you finally reach out, or ask for an introduction, or contact

them directly.

I’ve been having some fun today setting that up, and I just thought I’d share it with you before we get started. Now,

Duncan here has a real estate technology blog that I’ve been following off and on for a couple of years.

One thing that I like about him, is his ruthless honesty in telling it like it is, and that has really tied into his own content

marketing and social media strategy.

I’ll let him tell his story real quick, but first I want to let you all know that’s at duncanwierman.com/blog.

How did Duncan get started with his blog, and how is it tied into his business?

Duncan, why don’t you tell us how you got started with that , and how your blog has tied into your overall business,

helping you find customers?

Duncan: Okay. I started actually real estate investing in June 2003, and the internet was much different as it is today.

However, during my progression - I am a marker and I needed to keep track of what I was doing.

Other people are always asking me questions about how I was getting so many deals when I was living in Charlotte,

North Carolina. It seemed like everybody was struggling and I was getting all these deals. I thought I would start just a

small little web diary of writing down my actions every day, so it sort of was like about tracking system for me, an

accountability system, but at the same time other people could read it.

It started out very small but then it just gained momentum, because I thought you know what, somebody shouldn’t have

to pay $800 to get this information. I just thought what a great meaning to share what I do and become a thought leader

in my industry, and not only to other real estate investors but to people who could use leads in general, like agents and

mortgage brokers, etc.

http://duncanwierman.com/blog


Engine Ranking


3

I then got this following of people that really helped me grow my real estate business and then you know I got into - I

got to make it pretty and brand myself and all that sort of stuff. It really started out as just a web diary to help me in my

business and share some things. Eventually, I got the following, I became a thought leader by really, it was just by

blogging.

I personally think if people are really limited to their budget for marketing, and they’re not getting results with off line

marketing, the number one thing I would suggest them to do before any other online methods is to start a blog.

Alan: Blog comes from “web log” and the way you used it was the original use for blogs, they were personal. It was like

an online journal, people just posting what’s going on in my life, here’s what’s new. Now, it’s more of a publishing

platform and way of educating people.

You have said what no one else was willing to say, and I’ve always respected that because there’s a lot of experts out

there. There’s a lot of people who are good at what they do, and the vast majority of them are just out there quietly

doing it every day, running their business.

But of those who choose to educate others, or even let’s just say bottle their knowledge and sell some kind of training

materials, finding those that you can trust is a little more difficult.

Being Ruthlessly Honest and Loyal to Your Followers

Those who are willing to say what no one else is willing to say really stand out. They stand out above the others, do you

agree?

Duncan: I do agree and my progression was not to attack in the very beginning. Honestly, in the very beginning when I

first started, I remember I spent $800 for a real estate course and it was a lot of money back in 2003. When I didn’t get

the service I expected with that money, I was really disappointed. So I swore to myself if I ever had something to sell I

would always be there to help another.

Then I was accused of now I’m trying contrarian marketing technique and I wasn’t trying to be a contrarian marketer, I

just really to be honest and give a real review, because one of the things I struggle with, I’m sure a lot of people do when

they try and do research online, there’s so many affiliate marketers out there, and they’re just blurbing the same stuff

over and over again, without any personal opinion behind it, you don’t respect reviews anymore online.

I’ve just became more vocal, and I think as a thought leader you have to have a strong opinion, and you know when

you’re out there not everybody’s going to like it, but even if you’re wrong in your opinion, people take notice, and again

that leads to more people seeing you and providing you with a backbone for thought leadership.

Alan: That happens in quite a few industries too. It’s often the newcomer that comes in and looks around and sees

what’s wrong with the industry, and then comes up with something that’s totally different, like for example with cell

phones, right? What does everyone hate?


Engine Ranking


4

Being locked into your plan, paying way too much and so what do you have now, you have Virgin Mobile, you have some

of these other guys coming into the game and just saying none of this bull crap, let’s talk about it. No one else wants to

talk about it. Let’s talk about it. It sucks. I would hate it, because I’m a human being. So you must hate it, because you’re

a human being.

I can tell some of the topics you’ve chosen, I’m guessing they were of personal interest to you as an investor, and that’s

a great way of knowing what your audience might be interested in.

I’m glad that you brought up reviews, because that is a type of content, for content marketers to put out reviews of the

other products or services that are out there.

They do build trust as long as you’re not blatantly pushing one of them because you’re an affiliate or whatever, but the

downside of leaving reviews is that you might piss someone off.

You might give them a bad grade, and then you run into them at some kind of function and things are weird, or you’re

silently thinking in the back of your mind, what if my business is hindered someday by burning this bridge, but honesty is

the best friend anyone can have.

What do you value? As long as you’re not being a dick about it, then who can really hate someone for being honest

unless that person is dishonest themselves.

Duncan: Well, I think - here’s the thing is we all know that collaboration is the key to success and also at the same time

you want to keep your enemies closer than your friends, but you are the sum of the people you hang around with.

I honestly can’t endorse people that I don’t believe in, because I have a following now that respects my opinion, and if I

gave myself up for a few dollars from this affiliate marketing, I would lose the respect of all those people’s opinion it

took me a long time to get into my camp.

I would rather have a little bit of awkwardness running into a guy that I don’t believe in anyway and tell my opinion. You

can still be nice about it, we can agree to disagree, but you’ve got to stand out from the crowd. It’s as simple as that, if

you’re going to get noticed online.

Alan: I have a friend who’s a business broker, and one of the things that they factor in when determining the value of a

business is this thing called “good will”. It’s not something that’s easily quantified, but it is an actual dollar amount that

you tack onto all your other assets and things that are going on in your company in order to determine what a

company’s worth.

Good will represents the sum of – I guess you could call it the sum of your brand. The sum of the relationships, the trust

that you have, everything that you’ve worked towards, it takes years to accumulate that kind of good will and trust, but

how long does it take to lose it?


Engine Ranking


5

Duncan: Exactly.

Alan: It could be done overnight. That’s something that I would guard very carefully. Now, those of you who are

listening to this let’s say that you’re in an industry where you don’t really work with affiliates or people who resell your

product, or you resell and recommend their product.

Still it comes down to the company that you keep, what kind of stages do you speak on? What kind of guest authors do

you have on your blog? Are you afraid to take a stand and talk about what else is out there or not?

It takes a real leader in an industry to point out the flaws in that industry. Quite often when someone does, everyone

says oh you’re being negative, you’re making it look bad. But if it is bad, it already looks bad, we might as well talk about

it, because that’s how problems get solved is discussing them and coming up with creative solutions.

Duncan: Exactly, and that’s why I love the blog, because that’s where you’re going to prove your credibility and your

point of view without fighting about it.

Duncan’s definition of a thought leader

Alan: Now what’s your definition of thought leader, based on those that you follow?

Duncan: Okay, well first of all, anyone can be a thought leader. Don’t think that you can’t be. Really a thought leader is

just a very informed opinion leader and they go to people in the field of expertise.

They are really trusted sources who move people to do things or inspire them in innovative ways to turn their ideas into

reality, show them how to replicate their success, how to get out of their problem. It’s really a dedicated - you are the

mastermind of say a dedicated group of friends, family, followers, that we can make change, and you’ve got to seen as

the expert in your field.

Alan: Not everyone is an actual subject matter expert, because that takes years to accumulate that kind of experience.

Duncan: Very true. One of the things about blogging that you can do though, is you can piggyback on other’s expertise

by asking them to be a guest content writer, or a radio interview, and by putting your name with their name.

I know one guy in the real estate field, I mean he’ll go to any convention where he can get his picture with a celebrity,

and people just think, “Oh, he knows this celebrity; he’s an expert.”

That’s how silly people are, but it works, but yes, you need to be informed. That’s part of the game. As a real estate

investor, I’ve got to keep up with the latest trends, the latest legislation.


Engine Ranking


6

I don’t know if you remember when short sales first started, agents had no clue, and they were coming to real estate

investors, well help me do this, until they found how much money they were missing out on, and then I’ll do the short

sale, you just make me an offer. They wanted that control back.

Alan: It depends on how someone positions themselves. If they say, hey guys come follow me in my blog as I journey

into this industry and learn about it and share what I learn with you as I go, okay, that’s cool. I know a guy who did that

in the internet marketing world, YaroStarak.com - and now a couple years later, he’s got a great following, they trust

him. In the process of doing that, he learned quite a bit and is a legitimate expert.

Others are experts right out the bat, because they’ve been doing their business for years, and then suddenly start

vocalizing it. What you want to get away from is the people who pretend to be something that they’re not.

Duncan: Correct. I don’t like people to fake till they make it. I would rather go with the attitude of believe - it’s not fake

it till you make it, but believe you belong and those people you are in contact with are going to give you the inspiration

and the knowledge for you to succeed.

How Duncan grew his blog over the years

Alan: Can you give us some more details about how you grew your blog over the years? Like how often did you post?

What else did you do to promote it, in addition to writing? Did you ever have any guest authors or anything like that

along the way?

Duncan: Sure, actually about all of those things I’ve done. Obviously, you could have a blog that you’re writing along

and it’s in cyberspace if you don’t get the word about it.

There are some technical things you can do on the back end of your blog to make it search engine friendly, and how you

construct your post, and submitting it to news feeds. That’s all the technical stuff that one has to learn as a blogger to

make sure that that’s done with every blog post.

I use Word Press because it’s a great - it’s really a content management system. It has a lot of plug-ins that add new

feature and functionalities to the basic Word Press platform. You want to be able to share your content.

People don’t like your content, then that spreads virally through the different social media platforms. I like to integrate

videos, both from my blog into a YouTube channel. I always have a guest writer to add more content.

You’ve got to remember a blog is like marriage, just because you have a blog, if you don’t give it any attention, you know

nobody is going you any attention, so you have to have a publishing schedule, and you’ve got to commit to it.

I would think the least that you publish is at least once a week. Twice a week is great. I personally couldn’t do every day.

You could hire somebody to write the content for you, but I like to provide valuable content, rather than just


Engine Ranking


7

refurbished, rehashed content that is like why are you writing this sort of thing. It’s dribble, it really didn’t tell me

anything much besides leave me with some more questions.

Alan: That’s right.

Duncan: You have to add value in your posts. I’d rather blog a little bit less to once or twice a week and add value,

rather than just publishing content for content’s sake.

Alan: I believe in starting small and scaling from there. If you can’t do one post a week consistently for three months

straight, how could you possibly do two? If you can’t post it on the four main social media networks, why would you

need to post it on 30 different ones, unless there’s some automated way to do that?

Duncan: Correct, exactly correct. I’m always telling people about my blog. On the back of my business card, I have my

blog there and a give-away, for people to do that. I make it easy for them to sign up into my blog. The blog is going to

grow. There is just no way that it don’t grow, if you’re publishing all the time, and you’re providing value.

Tips for writing emails to promote your blog posts

Alan: How has email played into that? Because of all the ways to announce your blog. From what I keep reading, email

is still the work horse. It’s still the number one driver of traffic to your blog, because in social media you just can’t count

on them seeing your post.

Duncan: That’s very good. One of the things I see with people making a lot of mistakes is they write these really long

emails to get their content out there, and they’re wasting content on email because people’s lives are so filled with stuff

that they’re getting so many emails, they get undone. Never waste your content on the email. You want to give them a

teaser.

You give them one paragraph and a read more, and you drive them back to your blog, because your blog is where you

have those underlying processes where you’re sucking them into your sales funnel, getting the read more, buy more,

interact more. Your email is a great tool, but don’t waste your content in the email. Rather, direct them back to your

blog.

Keeping your blog on track with a publishing calendar

Alan: You’ve had an editorial calendar and stuck with it all that time. Tell us a little about that. Like how far in advance

do you plan? How well do you know your topics and what’s going to come out on which week in advance?

Duncan: Well, this does take a little bit of planning and if I didn’t have a calendar, I probably would get off track quite a

bit. It’s like having a business plan. You’ve got to follow the plan, and in the business plan, you have a marketing plan,

and a web plan. We have a publishing plan that we just use one month in advance.


Engine Ranking


8

Starting out one month in advance, so we line it with - here’s the four weeks in advance, what we’re going to write

about and that day that I have to brainstorm for my next four articles, that might take a little bit of thought but nothing

is always easy.

You also at the same time want to make sure that you’re making how many tweets about it per day, what are the

tweets, we’re seeing the drive traffic to it. We have a twitter plan, a Facebook plan, a YouTube plan that’s all feeding

back into the blog, to promote our content.

Start with one social media network and expand from there

Alan: I heard you speak at an event once where you talked about social media networks. In fact, I think you’re the

reason I started using Twitter and Facebook in the first place back in 2007 or something like that.

Duncan: Yes, I must say they’ve really taken off.

Alan: Yeah, we’ve got that thing snowballing for sure. No I mean I thought it was done. I saw my wife, now ex-wife using

Facebook, and I was like what is this? This is so dumb, you’re just wasting time, blah, blah, blah.

Then once I heard you could make money with it, I started using it, and then I discovered oh, this is a cool way to see

what my high school friends had for lunch today. Now, in all seriousness it’s fun to connect, but let me get back on topic

here.

You suggested of all these different networks, and there was probably more back then, they’ve kind of consolidated

since, but pick one and start using it for a month.

Duncan: Right.

Alan: So I choose Twitter, then I connected with all my friends, starting using it, I said okay I get this. The next month try

something different. Try Facebook, bam, the next thing you know I’m on Facebook.

That’s a lot more manageable, and especially if you have a unique strategy for each one, it can be just too much in the

beginning. I always suggest people start small and go with it, and your advice was in harmony with that.

Tips and Tactics for growing your Twitter following

Duncan: Right. Well, I’ll tell you a really cool little trick with Twitter that you can do, because most companies and I like

to look at my competition, I reverse engineer their websites, their market, because it’s very transparent, if you know

what you’re looking for.


Engine Ranking


9

We have software that does this for us too is that we’re looking everywhere our competitor has left their mark where

they’ve been reviewed, where they’ve been mentioned. I can go to these sites and counteract that force to increase my

visibility versus theirs in the same topics, veins of thought, etc.

You want to check them out and see who’s following them on Twitter, because once you know who’s following them on

Twitter, you just go into their page, and you go follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, right, and Twitter is sending these

people from your competitor an email saying hey Duncan is now following you on Twitter, right.

They’re going to say who the heck is Duncan, and of course you’re going to have this lovely Twitter profile that matches

their need and has been branded to you, and they’ll say oh, yeah, I need to know that stuff too, and they will follow you

back.

That’s just to give yourself a little head start to get some notice on Twitter to do that.

Alan: That’s targeted marketing, and that does help initially, because you don’t want people coming to your profile and

you have two followers, at least have a couple hundred right off the bat.

Duncan: Correct.

Alan: From doing that. What else is good is social media groups. Facebook has groups. Google Plus had communities.

LinkedIn has groups. If you have written a blog post anyway, and if you have written some email copy, saying, “Hey guys

check this out, here’s a summary, here’s the link” anyway and you’re going to post it anyway on their site, it only takes a

couple more minutes to go to the five relevant LinkedIn groups and post it in there as well.

I did that this morning as a matter of fact, announcing an episode of this, and it’s one of those things where, it’s not

going to be your biggest traffic maker in the world, but it has a cumulative effect, and it just takes a couple minutes, so

why not do it.

Duncan: Right. Even if you’re really that lazy, there are some tools out there for a couple dollars you can buy to do it for

you, add in as a plug-in, so you just blog once and it distributes it everywhere, there’s quite a few tools like that, or on

your publishing schedule, I can give it to my virtual assistant and they do all that.

The big thing is there’s techniques and strategies to get your blog noticed and as long as you’re provide value, so you

earn people’s trust, that’s what’s going to make you this long term authority and increase your sales.

Alan: I could see my assistant out there posting things for me, and I am training her to do that right now, as I get more

clear on exactly how I want it done. But software…maybe I just haven’t seen the right kind. I’m very wary of it posting

things, if it does it automatically, it just might not be done right.


Engine Ranking


10

You know how when you’re posting a Facebook update, you insert the link and a little thumbnail appears and then you

can tweak the title just right, the description just right, the text above - the status update itself just right, choosing the

perfect thumbnail, etc., I haven’t seen any technology that gets that just right for you. It’s like it almost has to be lovingly

handcrafted, so please prove me wrong here.

Duncan: Well, I will say for any beginner, when they first start, don’t try to automate the process before you know how

to do it manually yourself. I think everybody should know how it works, do it once, a couple times manually, because

then it’s easy to teach somebody else to do it for you.

Of course, I’m a software guy, so we built software that does this for us. I’m just lazy, so I built software to do a lot of

these things for me. That’s just part of the process.

Alan: You made it yourself for your own use?

Duncan: Yes, I did. Actually what I can do, Alan, what I can do is, I have a free trial version of it, I meant to tell you this

before we spoke, but the people can download a trial of it for personal use at onlineleadfinder.com and not only is it a

lead generation tool, but it is a social marketing posting tool.

It literally can get your content out to thousands of groups at a time.

Alan: Well, there’s an idea. I’m going to check that out, because I’ve been posting manually. I have a good feel for which

groups I want to post in, and which ones will just let you straight up post a link versus have more of a discussion and that

means you have to change how you put the message in there.

So I’m going to check that out. Everybody else, check it out on the page this podcast is located on, which is - I know this

in advance, because I’m doing it by name now, so it’s easier to remember, thoughtleaderretreat.com/duncanwierman.

Finding clarity and calmness in your business and life

Your editorial calendar, going back to that, I get more done doing things in a batch. I don’t like picking something up,

putting it down, picking it up, putting it down, it drives me nuts, just like making my bed. It’s like every day I’m like

wasn’t I just doing this yesterday, I wish I could make it once for the week, but it doesn’t work like that.

An editorial calendar, however, you can sit down and review all the different ways or all the different topics for your

blog, and then assign them weeks in advance, and I love that, because I hate being under the gun every week, saying

what am I going to write about next week.

Duncan: Yes, Alan, I’ve got to tell you if there’s one thing - I would suggest a blog for online marketing, but for success in

any business is people just got to focus their attention on one thing at a time. They’ve got to get away from the shiny

object syndrome, they’ve got to focus on what they’re doing for work at one time.

http://onlineleadfinder.com/

http://thoughtleaderretreat.com/duncanw


Engine Ranking


11

They can’t be surfing, stock trading, answering emails and talking to their wife at the same time. People have just got to

focus one thing at a time, and it gets done much faster, much clearer, and that’s really going to rocket them to success.

Alan: I’m seeing that trend more and more, and I like that, because just like it took the promise of making more money

to get me on social media, that might be what it takes to get people to practice mindfulness.

Now is that the most noble reason? No, but if someone realizes I have trouble focusing, I have trouble concentrating,

and they actually see how it can improve their condition, that might be what finally gets them to be into it.

I don’t know if you know this, but that is the values of this community, of thought leader retreat, we’re really into

wisdom, mindfulness, just being able to be calm and centered and relaxed and focused on the task at hand, because the

last thing any of us wants is a business that even if it’s successful, is just something that drains you.

Duncan: Um-hmm, exactly.

Alan: That’s something that nobody wins from. I’m all about that, not only to improve your mental health and your

relationships to be present with your loved ones, present with your children, and not thinking about something else, but

it can lead to business success as well.

I think it’s needed now more than ever because everyone’s got their face stuck in their phone, and they’re texting

someone while listening and driving, and smoking a cigarette, and breaking open a piñata all at the same time.

Duncan: That’s crazy. It’s insane.

Alan: It’s absolutely ridiculous and the millennials even more so.

Duncan: Right, the other thing I would have to say with blogging, to pull it a little bit back to blogging is I know

everybody wants to have an opinion is that you’ve got to allow for people to engage on your blog. Every blog post they

make, they’ve got to ask for that comment, like, “What do you think about this? What’s your response? Would you

agree?” Something that gets people to think oh it’s okay for me to leave a post, good or bad.

You want to have the comments open. You want to reply to every comment. Now, yes, you should moderate it, I mean

some people can be jerks and post their own links in there to sell something, or use foul language, what have you. I say

content is king, you’ve got to earn people’s trust with content, but the engagement with people is the queen, and that’s

how you lock the people in. Make sure your blogs allow for engagement, and you actively monitor and respond.

How long should your blog posts be?

Alan: I love it. How long are your blog posts typically and how long do they take you to write?


Engine Ranking


12

Duncan: The best blog posts are no more than 500 words. A short blog post is considered 250 words. I’ve got to tell you

though, don’t try and write 1,000 word blog page, unless it’s very technical, because people’s attention span again are

very small.

In my course, I actually what is the perfect blog post? Because from the way you use your test with images, where you

place them to your headline, to your sub-headlines, to your call-to-actions, they’re all - that mix that I recommend is

going to get you more leads because it’s pulling you in with the images, you’re getting your teaser content up front,

sucking them in with your subheads, always a call-to-action along as you go, and then comments.

I would stick to no more than 500 words.

Alan: You say that 500 words or so is the best, but best in what way?

Duncan: Well, I’m trying to educate on my blog. To educate somebody in one of my marketing methods, I like to keep it

as simple - I’ve really got to dumb down a lot of stuff, because I’m a real geek, Alan.

I’ve got to remember that “geek speak” sometimes is not known by anybody, and people are new to blogging and

technology, so if I can’t really express myself in a page or two pages, then I’m not really doing a good job.

Alan: What is it with the geeks? I was just interviewing someone yesterday on the show who said they’re also a self-

proclaimed geek. I guess we just all attract to each other.

Duncan: Yes, I’m somewhere between Sheldon and Leonard, I’m somewhere between there. I’m a Trekkie, but maybe

that’s why I’m so interested in technology and marketing.

The other thing with blogging and like anything in marketing is you’ve got to just put it out there, test it, judge your

response and always have a constant never ending improvement mentality to do it again.

Don’t give up. If you didn’t get a lot of response the first time, you know just put it out there again.

Alan: I hired a writer once who wrote regularly and had been for some time for the Huffington Post, and it didn’t work

out unfortunately, but one thing she told me was, that’s their standard length is about 600 words per post. I’m sure

there’s a reason behind that.

At the same time, though, I’ve seen some contradictory information out there, I’ve seen Neal Patel post some research

showing that longer posts get ranked more in search engines, maybe because they look more authoritative, or there’s

more content there to deal with.

But, I can also see how as a reader, sometimes if you just want to get one quick answer or address one point, you don’t

need all the fluff, right, just give me the facts, and I can see where that’s coming from as well.


Engine Ranking


13

Duncan: Yes, I understand if you’re using long posts, you have the possibility of getting ranked more, because you’re

probably putting more types of keywords relevant around the central theme in a post, but at the same time, if you’re

using the correct formatting of plug-ins, and making it SEO friendly behind the scenes, you have just as much chance to

get it to rank high as a long post.

If I take it back - in the old days when you went to buy something on the internet, you had these 20 page sales letters.

They would send you this great big sales letter in the mail. They think oh, the longer it is, the more you’re going to get

sucked into it. We’re finding today the long sales letters don’t work anymore, now it’s all video sales letters and

webinars.

They suck you in on a quick video to show you how it works or drive you to a webinar rather than a sales letter, or at

least get you into the funnel with something short, and then they can program you for longer.

A simple strategy for ranking your blog posts for certain keywords

Alan: The friends I have who offer search engine optimization services almost always across the board suggest not

targeting the big mega keyword.

Duncan: Right.

Alan: Like me, this blog is about content marketing, right, well there’s a lot of competition for that, and so if I were

trying to rank for that, then yes, I would write a ten-foot long content marketing mega post, you know 100 things about

content marketing and blah, blah, blah.

Maybe someday I will, but for now it’s actually satisfying to pick some phrase that’s a little more obscure, but just knock

out a quick 600 word post about that, and then lo and behold a month later you come back, and there you are. You get

to see yourself in the Google results for that phrase.

Maybe only 50 people a month are searching for it, but if you do that four times a month for five years, those rivulets

add up and turn into streams and rivers.

Duncan: That’s exactly it. And I agree with them, I mean it’s funny, when I did my Google Ad Words campaign when I

first started, I just used the word stop foreclosure, and put my ads up.

What I found after the weekend, I had spent $4,000 at $22 a click for that word versus when I redid it, I did stop

foreclosure Greenville, South Carolina, and my cost per click went down $1.25 and I got way more leads.

Again, focus, instead of trying to do it, you think these highly competitive keywords all over the place, focus it to an area,

and exactly to your passionate niche that you’re about, that’s going to help you.


Engine Ranking


14

Alan: It’s also very motivating to see progress. If it took two years to rank for some mega phrase, a few people would

just keep writing, and writing, and writing, without seeing an increase in traffic. To see it increase over time from all

these posts adding up, that just works with the whole snowball analogy that I put with content marketing and it just

keeps getting bigger and bigger after a while, but it takes a while to get there.

Duncan: Well, I hope people when they’re writing the blog, when they’re setting it up, get at least Google Analytics

since it’s free and allow Google to monitor their growth of their pages, who’s looking at what, where their traffic is

coming in from, what search word was searched to get to the blog, because you need to be looking at your analytics

every week to adjust your marketing, to get more traffic. Very, very important in blogging is analytics.

Alan: That’s yet another habit to set. And that’s difficult, because I’ve had times where I post regularly, promote

regularly, but just don’t quite get my butt in the chair every week to go back and look at the analytics.

This whole content marketing thing it really is a commitment, but it’s the kind that works, and you can also see which

blog posts are the most effective and that helps you to know what to write about in the future.

Are you able to track which keywords and posts lead to subscriptions and sales?

Duncan: Sure. In my course I go through the basic things you want to be tracking as a newbie to the advanced things

that you want to be tracking that you might need to get another type of tracking program, you know as you move up in

the world.

You’ve got to track everything, to put it that way, and the analysis of that is what’s going to help you get better and

better and better. It does take some time. It can be a monster, but this is a business, but it’s a home business so people

have just got to dig in and do it, and don’t give up.

Alan: That’s right. It’s just like anything, even if we were realtors and our main marketing method was door knocking,

right you’re still not going to have success with that in just a month, or two, or three, or so, you should give that a whole

year and see how that goes.

Duncan: Yes.

Alan: Well, let’s go ahead and skip to the brain pick section of this episode. I’m going to ask you some rapid fire

questions, Duncan.

Duncan: Okay.

Thought leaders that have influenced Duncan


Engine Ranking


15

Alan: What thought leaders have influenced specifically and how?

Duncan: Wow, that’s a good question. I like to read a lot of biographies of influential people, and just stacks of them,

always reading business books. I think people should always actually be reading a hard copy something I like to hold a

book in my hands. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished more in reading.

Read biographies, read Tony Robbins, anybody who has made a success in their life in business I’m going to be reading

their book.

Alan: What’s a good biography to read?

Duncan: Trump actually has a very good biography.

Alan: The Art of the Deal?

Duncan: Yes. The Art of the Deal. It’s a good book.

Alan: He didn’t seem like such a douche in that book. He seemed like a pretty regular guy.

Duncan: Yes, he has a bit of an ego, but that’s okay, I have an ego too. The thing is he’s very, very successful, he’s

earned his position, and he’s doing a lot of good things too. Even Mark Cuban, I mean these are great guys, all those

sharks, you know for the most part, they’re all great people. Robert Herjavec, who’s going to be on Dancing with the

Stars, by the way.

Alan: I didn’t know that.

Duncan: Yes, it got released the other day. They’ve got some great stories. I was always amazed when I was living down

in South Africa is that we would have people from other countries in Africa come to South Africa and they’d literally

make a fortune because of the work ethic they had versus people who had been living there.

It’s actually like the immigrant stories here. How comes these immigrants can come here and rise to the top? It’s just

because they have a great work ethic.

Alan: That’s right. I bet Robert is going to do well on Dancing with the Stars, because of his work ethic and his story of

being an immigrant and building his business from nothing.

Duncan: Yes.

What blogs, podcasts, and magazines do you read or listen to?


Engine Ranking


16

Alan: He’s going to put the foot work in that’s required. It’s going to happen. What blogs and podcasts or magazines do

you listen to and read?

Duncan: Well, I love traveling, what I do with my money is I love to spoil my girls and travel, so I’m always reading travel

magazines, because it’s a magazine. Earlier in my career, I’d read the success magazines and that and they were

inspiring.

Podcasts, I do listen to quite a few different internet marketing podcasts, I’m always listening to what other people are

doing. I have a chat group of like all the really super tech guys of the internet in regards - I would almost call them

hackers at what they’re doing, what they’re seeing. I’m always asking the question well how could I use that in real

estate investing?

I see what they’re doing, and say well could I tweak that for real estate investing? So I think it’s important to have a

circle or a network of people in your field that you can constantly bounce ideas off of an questions. If you’re a real estate

investor, you’ve got to join your local REIA, at least that will get you into a network.

Be part of a mastermind group. Listen to the people in your field, just like you’re listening to this podcast, and hopefully

you can take one idea away from this that will inspire you and get you more leads.

Alan: I’ve gotten some of the best ideas from business people outside of my particular industry, or even non-business

people.

I like hanging out with artistic people. When business is done for the day, right, and it’s time to hang out with your

friends, do you continue to hang out business people? Sure, sometimes, but I like hanging out with artistic folks, because

we have a lot in common. Some of their ideas are way, way out of the box.

Now, are they the type that have an ego, work a lot, get things done? No, not so much, but the ideas, I found really help

me see things from a variety of perspectives, and the same thing goes for reading a variety of magazines and books.

“Visualization without execution is hallucination.”

Alan: What’s a really good quote from a thought leader you’d like to share?

Duncan: What’s a really good quote from a thought leader. You got me on this one. My mind is blank at the end of the

day here, and I wish I had one. One that I’m actually - what I’m saying to people right now in my presentations is

“Visualization without execution is hallucination.”

I mean everybody wants to be something or succeed in something. I think everybody has that desire, and they see it, but

they don’t execute on it. If they’re not going to get more training, they’re not going to do the work needed, they’re only

kidding themselves. That would be my quote for the day is “Visualization without execution is hallucination.”


Engine Ranking


17

Alan: That sounds good. For thinkers, for geeks, for smart people it is so fun, it is actually fun to get swept up in the

world of ideas and concepts and seeing what’s possible and seeing the end result, but time and experience teaches that

you can only get so much done and we almost always severely underestimate how much time and work is really

required in order to make something happen.

As a result we take on more than we can handle and just end up with hallucinations or mental masturbation as other

people call it.

Duncan: There you go.

Alan: Yes, instead of implementation.

Duncan: Honestly, I would sit people down and I’d ask four questions of people as a take-away from this is you’ve got -

a thought leadership is somebody who’s going to have a personal brand, to define your personal brand, you’ve got to sit

down and you’ve got ask the questions, who am I? Why am I here? What do I believe in? What value do I give for

whom?

With that, all that equals you as your brand, okay. That’s going to make you the power of that community-centered

business, and you’re going to get more people who are going to be loyal to you, to the cause, they’re going to be

bringing you deals, you’re the center of attention, and you’ll be making more money than you can ever imagine, if you

answer those questions and start getting it out there.

Alan: That sound so much more solid, grounded, real, and centered than something like “How do I make money?

What’s another way to make an extra thousand bucks a month” or something like that.

Duncan: Right.

Alan: That’s going from the inside out instead of being opportunistic and finding some - here’s some opportunity that I

don’t really care about, but I’m going to cash in on it. That’s cool, but it’s not really being unique is it. It’s not your

unique skill set, your values.

I don’t want to have someone else’s values, or values I don’t care about all day, because that’s how I’m spending a third

of my life is work.

Duncan: Right.

Duncan’s publishing schedule for blogging and social media

Alan: My career, so why not have it all. Well, why won’t you tell us real quick, before we wrap things up about the free

resource that you’re offering to our subscribers?


Engine Ranking


18

Duncan: Okay, so we have my publishing schedule for blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, etc. You’ll just pull it up it will

have the days of the week, the times, down on the bottom of an excel spreadsheet, you’ll see the different sites and

how that’s planned out, and they can get that from your site I believe.

Also, if you’d like a trial copy of the software, it’s 25 free leads a day unlimited, they can go to onlineleadfinder.com,

very simple. I guess I’m going to give you five rules to leave here is guys, with blogging, be diligent, be consistent, be

relevant, be interesting, and be yourself, and you are going to do massively well.

Alan: I love it. That sounds good, Duncan, thank you very much. I can’t wait to start trying your schedule. I think I’m

going to - how do I put this - when you’re just starting something it’s not super cool to start from scratch. It’s cool to

take something and then tweak it for your particular needs.

I appreciate you sharing that resource, because even if they don’t share as many posts per week, or the same times of

day or whatever, you have provided some structure for people to get in and tweak and then to begin working with, and I

love it.

Duncan: Good.

Alan: No one is a bigger advocate of having a plan than me, and then working that plan, and implementing, like you

said, so thanks a lot for your time today, Duncan, I really appreciate it.

Duncan: Thank you, Alan hopefully, we can catch up again sometime in person.

Alan: I hope so too. Everyone listening, thank you for your time, for taking the time to invest in your business and to

learn content marketing from the pros.

I suggest everyone go to thoughtleaderretreat.com/duncanwierman, there you can get a transcript to download or to

read, to print, save, do whatever you want, as well as the bonuses that Duncan offered, his blog schedule that you can

tweak and modify as well as a free trial of his lead generating software.

Until next time, everybody have a fantastic week, and best of success to you with your content marketing and thought

leadership endeavors.

http://onlineleadfinder.com/

http://thoughtleaderretreat.com/duncanwierman

how to promote your blog and improve your search engine ranking with duncan wierman

Presentations & Public Speaking

duncan wierman

real estate investing

real estate technology

investing cruise

kind of crm

social networks

im kind

cruise boat