We’re pleased to introduce Adrian Bird from The Apprentice Finder! Adrian came on our Blogging and LinkedIn Training Workshop last year (2014). He’s kindly and enthusiastically written this post for you to read about his experience with Social Progress. So if you’re wondering whether or not to invest in some training for yourself or your employees/colleagues, do have a read and see what Adrian got out of the workshop for his business…
Master article writing for business success
With it being the end of January, I (like many others no doubt) am gathering information in order to complete my tax return before the 31st January deadline. Whilst doing this, I came across this certificate I received last year for completing a Blogging & LinkedIn course with Janet Bebb of Social Progress.
Before the course I had already written several articles for my business The Apprentice Finder as I’d heard that blogging is a great way of informing clients and prospects alike of how you can help them. I was using the WordPress platform at the time and still do now, but in a different way today thanks to Janet which has led to much higher levels of traffic and enquiries through my website than I previously enjoyed.
Adrian Bird: Completed the LinkedIn & Blogging Training by Social Progress in 2014
So what made the difference?
Well for me, the one golden piece of information Janet gave me that day was to make sure that I embed my blog within my website as it would increase traffic to it. Prior to this, I had been hyperlinking from text within the blog on WordPress to my site, thinking that people would click on the link and get to my site anyway. I’m sure one or two did, but most will have read the article and then carried on whatever they were doing without visiting my website. As I have full control over the content on my site, it was easy to embed. I still create new posts in WordPress, but as soon as I have done that I export the post to my own site too.
Social Media
In order to drive traffic towards the articles I use social media. Twitter is my preferred platform, but I do also regularly use Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn to get more unique visitors to the site.
When I look back, I was getting about 50 unique visits a day last June at a point in the year where apprenticeships are getting to the forefront of everyone’s mind. Through a combination of regularly writing original content, growing my following and posting regular links back to content I’ve now got traffic of over a thousand unique views a day which has led to an increase in enquiries for me too. That’s 20 times the traffic I was getting 8 months ago!
Only the start
If I’m being honest, I feel that my online journey is only just beginning as I constantly look for other ways to further enhance my online presence. So, if you’re at a point where you know you could do much more with your online presence, please book a session with Social Progress as they will make a difference. Then if you get to the point where you need somebody to help with managing it all, I know someone who could help you find a Digital Media apprentice…
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Thank you to Adrian for writing this post! We love to hear how businessmen and women have benefited from their training sessions with Janet and how they are implementing the skills learned within their own social media platforms and blogs today!
If you are interested in finding out more about the Social media training and workshops that we offer at Social Progress feel free to visit our “What’s On” page. We currently have Part-Funded Social Media Workshops scheduled for Social Enterprises which are part of the Kirklees Social Enterprise Champions Programme – a partnership between Kirklees College, Crellin Consulting, CASE Futures and Social Progress Ltd to support growing enterprises in the development of established and strategic organisations. We also have some in-house workshops scheduled from April. All workshop details are on the “What’s On” page.