If you are a competent professional, these people will know it. When they have opportunities, they will think of you – not because you’re hitting them over the head with your desire to get ahead, but because they enjoy your company. We all want to work with people we get along with.

Make it easy for people to come to you.

If you are a competent professional, these people will know it. When they have opportunities, they will think of you – not because you're hitting them over the head with your desire to get ahead, but because they enjoy your company. We all want to work with people we get along with.

Make it easy for people to come to you.

I have an answer both of the last two questions of the week. I created a group blog, http://www.everettseniorresources.com targeted at seniors in the Everett, Washington area. The beauty of the group blog is that all the contributing businesses share the same target market, but have to make a much smaller time commitment to writing, researching, and updating the site.

In the Seattle market I saw a group of realtors create a successful blog, http://www.raincityguide.com by having a dozen or so experts each blog about a specific real estate niche. Contributors brought different perspectives such as a single family expert, a condo specialist, a real estate lawyer, and a mortgage broker.

Trying to duplicate their success with I started recruiting businesses in the Everett area that had a similar customer base as our insurance agency that would not compete directly with our business. I finally got an Estate Attorney and Assisted Living facility to join on as our founding members. We officially launched the site in May and there was virtually no traffic at first. Over the last few months we have steadily added long tail keyword searches. I just noted today that we are ranking 1st for the Keyword term “Everett Estate Planning” and in the top five for “Everett Assisted Living”.
It took a lot of time to recruit the members and get the project off the ground, but now the site seems to be taking off. You have to have patience – it has taken us three months to get any traction on our targeted keywords. Outside of the website, we have already shared a couple of leads offline amongst the participating companies, so it has worked well from a networking perspective as well.

I have an answer both of the last two questions of the week. I created a group blog, http://www.everettseniorresources.com targeted at seniors in the Everett, Washington area. The beauty of the group blog is that all the contributing businesses share the same target market, but have to make a much smaller time commitment to writing, researching, and updating the site.

In the Seattle market I saw a group of realtors create a successful blog, http://www.raincityguide.com by having a dozen or so experts each blog about a specific real estate niche. Contributors brought different perspectives such as a single family expert, a condo specialist, a real estate lawyer, and a mortgage broker.

Trying to duplicate their success with I started recruiting businesses in the Everett area that had a similar customer base as our insurance agency that would not compete directly with our business. I finally got an Estate Attorney and Assisted Living facility to join on as our founding members. We officially launched the site in May and there was virtually no traffic at first. Over the last few months we have steadily added long tail keyword searches. I just noted today that we are ranking 1st for the Keyword term “Everett Estate Planning” and in the top five for “Everett Assisted Living”.
It took a lot of time to recruit the members and get the project off the ground, but now the site seems to be taking off. You have to have patience – it has taken us three months to get any traction on our targeted keywords. Outside of the website, we have already shared a couple of leads offline amongst the participating companies, so it has worked well from a networking perspective as well.

It really does amaze me how much one can learn for free by reading and listening to the experts, as well as engaging the community in general.