Download - Boost your online profile
photo: Kathleen Murtagh
BOOST YOUR ONLINE PROFILEFOR DEVELOPERS
@blairwadman
ABOUT ME
• 8 years’ Drupal experience
• Wrote Master Drupal 7 Module Development
• Been building my own profile on BeFused.com (now mostly about Drupal) for 8 years
• Contracting in London for the last 5 years
• Focusing on remote freelancing & consulting and selling products
@blairwadman
18k
5.5k
2014 Traff ic Growth - BeFused.com
Bui lding an onl ine prof i le is extra work
photo: Dave C
WHY DO IT?
Building an onl ine profi le
• Give back and help others
• Sell a product
• Position yourself as an expert
• Generate quality leads
2007 to present
2013 to present
2015
2007 to present
The story of 2 developers & a cl ient
• 2 developers: Bob & Alice
• 1 client: Tim
Based on a true story
no developers were harmed in the
making of this story
Bob & Alice• Both have 8 years’ Drupal experience and worked on
some high profile projects
• Both are experts at backend Drupal development
• Drupal dev is just a job
• Doesn’t share his knowledge publicly
• Shares her knowledge by blogging
• Google loves her content
• People know her name because they read her stuff
• They have trust in her knowledge & expertise
Bob Alice
Tim
• Tim is building a complex Drupal site for a client
• Tim has a problem he can’t solve and needs a hardcore backend Drupal developer
• He doesn’t know anyone directly, but has read Alice’s content before and likes it
Tim’s world
• Bob does not exist
• Alice does & already trusts her expertise
• Tim contacts Alice & convinces her to help him
Posit ioning & Authority
• Alice has positioned herself as an expert via education based marketing.
• The client approaches her in a totally different light
Positioning: how you are perceived
Education based marketing:Tool to build authority & attracts prospects to you without needing to reach out to them
18k
5.5k
@blairwadman
How did I increase my profi le?
• Mountain of knowledge stored
• Solve problems & learn new things all day long
• Teach those things regularly
TEACH WHAT I KNOW
photo: Ben Russell
Mix of long & short tutorials
• What is a Drupal developer? (1376 words)
• 11 tips to keep Drupal up to date with security releases (943 words)
• Rolling back a Drupal site following Drupalgeddon (1030 words)
• Improve Drupal email delivery rates by using Mandrill (599 words)
• How to backup your Drupal database to Amazon S3 (889 words)
• How to (almost) eliminate comment spam with Drupal (643 words)
• My top 10 Drush commands (584 words)
• Essential Drupal development tools (2118 words)
• How to structure your modules directory (1366 words)
• Automate Drupal site updates with a deployment module (1913 words)
• How Drupal returns a page request (800 words)
My guidel ines
• Don’t overwhelm readers or assume too much
• Explain steps clearly
• Illustrate with graphics
• Use a proof reader (use draftin.com)
• Write daily. Publish weekly
• Include some evergreen content
• Mix of long in-depth posts & short posts
Pil lar posts
• Long in-depth posts (1000-3000 words)
• Tutorials, how-to’s, guides, video tutorials, cheat sheets
• Tend to convert well, get shared the most & attract the most traffic from Google
• Can take a long time to write
Smaller posts
• 200 to 1000 words
• Code snippets, quick tips, short tutorials
• Do this on a regular basis
TRAFFIC
photo: J P
People focus on
• SEO
• Keyword research, link building, competitor research
• Advertising
• Adwords, Facebook
• Social media strategy
• LinkedIn profile
Instead, focus on
• High quality content for a single audience
• Publish regularly
• Create awareness
don’t overwhelm readers explain steps clearlyillustrate with graphicsproof reader
editorial calendar
Q&A sites Forumssocial mediaconferences
planet drupalguest postspodcastsdirect outreach
photo: Alfred Hermida photo: miss insomnia tulip
Cat reads article Cat gets distracted
Cat never returns to your website
Capture Email & offer more value
• Email frequently
• Start and build relationship with your audience
• Ask them questions to understand their problems
• Helps build trust
Call to actions
BeFused Funnel
tutorials snippets articles
newsletter free course
premium book
consulting/ freelancing
Anonymousvisitors
Email subscribers
Premiumcontent
Premiumservice
Caveats
• This is a long-term game
• Need other client sources
• It’s more about giving back than getting clients
• Clients don’t necessarily care about technical posts!
QUESTIONS
BeFused.com
BlairWadman.com
@blairwadman