I recently discovered the blog of Katie Freiling – a very successful ‘Attraction Marketer’ with a great blog full of tips about social media, personal development and internet marketing.

As a blogger, I like how Katie has used her blog to increase her authority BEFORE trying to promote any of her products or business opportunities. This is the key reason, in my opinion, why so many network marketers, for example, fail to build a successful, profitable and sustainable business.

One thing struck me above all else however, is a supercool strategy she’s using that has attracted over 660 comments in less than 2 months.

This amazingly simple, free strategy known as ‘Linkbait’ is an incredibly powerful way to get a ton of free traffic to your blog.

What is Linkbait?

There are many different forms of linkbait, but they all have one thing in common. According to Wikipedia:

Link bait is any content or feature, within a website, designed specifically to gain attention or encourage others to link to the website. Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature.

So check out this quick video I made to show you EXACTLY what this cool strategy is and how you can do the same!

Yesterday I spoke with Wendy Dashwood-Quick, a qualified coach and soon-to-be published author, about her experience using a diverse range of tools and strategies to promote her coaching business.

Wendy has successfully used a variety of methods to help build trust and rapport with potential clients, as well as to firmly establish her expertise as a coach in the areas of career change, time management and self-confidence.

During the call Wendy talks about her strategy of using free reports and ebooks to give away in return for building a list of names and email addresses of potential coaching clients.

This has led to her current project, the launch of her first ever published book, called “Discover Yourself On The Yellow Brick Road – 7 Core Principles of Career Success“.

Interestingly, Wendy is employing cutting-edge tactics to help ensure her book on its launch day has the best chance of going straight into the Amazon Top 100 sellers list. Wendy reveals the details of some of the best ways you can effectively motivate people to buy your product within a short period of time and create maximum publicity and impact for your launch.

Wendy is also making great use of the free social media tools available to any coach or business owner who would like to promote their product or service. These social media (or web 2.0) tools, include Facebook, Twitter and the use of blogging – and the impact they can have on the success of your business is considerable.

So enjoy this interview, and if you have any questions about how you can use the internet to market your product or service, please leave a comment below.

Interview with Wendy Dashwood-Quick

Yesterday I had the great pleasure to interview Paul Bailey and Gina Baksa from www.ActionPodcast.com, about the huge impact that blogging and podcasting has had on their coaching careers.

www.ActionPodcast.com

Paul and Gina are two of a group of four life coaches that regularly contribute to the blog and podcast at ActionPodcast.com. Although they only started their new podcast in December 2008, they’ve just celebrated their 5000th download this week, some four months or so later. Furthermore, their audience is actually growing at the fantastic rate of 100% every 2/3 weeks!

During our interview they revealed just how the use of technology has helped transform their businesses as coaches, both in the way they are able to attract new clients, as well as actually carry out their coaching sessions in a relxed and flexible way – to the benefit of both coach and client.

Paul also shares some great tips for any coach who is interested in starting either their own blog or podcast, and Gina talks about how easy it was for someone with a non-technical background to be able to publish her own articles on her blog site – all absolutely free!

Towards the end of the call Gina and Paul actually reveal how blogging and podcasting has changed their perspective on many things, even going so far as to say that the experience has ‘changed their lives’.

If you’d like to learn more about Paul and Gina’s experiences, this podcast episode contains the full 30-minute interview with them both – so enjoy!

If you’d like to check out the ActionPodcast.com blog and podcast you can do so at www.actionpodcast.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

My thanks to social media expert Dwayne Kerr for revealing the one strategy any coach can employ to grow their business and get more clients by using the power of online social networking.

Here is a great video from a larger-than-life American Internet Marketer called Perry Belcher about what is surely the most important trend for online marketing in 2009 – just as it undoubtedly was in 2008 – ‘being social’…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let’s be honest, being social has always been and will surely always be the most important way to ‘get ahead’, whatever that means for you. If you want to discover new opportunities in your business or personal life, then getting out and meeting people, everywhere and anywhere, is going to give you the best opportunities to meet new friends, business contacts, or achieve most anything else you might want to do.

Since becoming a member of a Business Mastermind Group my circle of contacts has increased rapidly and this has created opportunities for me in every direction. Opportunities that I would never have known about otherwise at all. Ever. And how did I get the chance to join this Mastermind Group? Through being social, of course, by attending a seminar back in October 2008.

This shouldn’t be news to anybody reading this, of course. If you’re a coach or you help people by providing therapy or other treatments then human contact is the essence of what you do. I bet you get more enquiries theat lead to new clients or patients through your immediate network of contacts, either people you know or who are referred to you by others, than any other means.

In 2008, however, being social on the internet has really hit the mainstream. Even the LA Fire Dept has started using Twitter to communicate news with the world. Maybe you have a Facebook account already? If so then congratulations, you’re already being social.

If not, then perhaps its time to start making new friends and contacts the social media way? I’ve been scratching the surface using Twitter and I’m already amazed at its potential for opening new and very personal channels of communication with people online. In short, being social is one of the most powerful ways for expanding your circle of contacts and making new friends.

Why not give it a try? You can always follow me at http://twitter.com/james_watson