My financial practice is an interesting creation of the internet era. I don’t do a lot of face-to-face networking, and I very rarely host dinners or live events. It’s not that I’m against doing these things but rather than they are expensive and time consuming, and I’m not very good at them. If these things were required to build a practice these days, then I would have never gotten off the ground.
I really don’t go out looking for clients. Most of my clients end up finding me after reading an article I wrote that made sense to them. In addition to my own blog, I regularly publish on Yahoo Finance, Forbes and Kiplinger’s, among other sites, so I manage to get in front of a lot of eyeballs.
I often get asked how I got into financial blogging. And my answer is always the same: I have no idea. It just sort of happened.
It was an odd experiment in trial and error, which means that I made every mistake there was to make before finally exhausting them all and managing to do a few things right. For any aspiring financial bloggers out there, I’m happy to share a little of what I’ve learned the hard way. This is by no means an exhaustive list and by no means a guaranteed path to success. There is always an element of being in the right place at the right time, but perhaps this list can better your chances of getting to that right place at the right time.
So with no more ado, here are my tips for cutting your teeth in financial blogging.
1. Use your real name and face. I have a simple policy on Twitter and StockTwits. If a person has a ridiculous handle (“KickassTrader47”) and uses a picture of a Star Wars character as their profile picture, this is not a person I take seriously. And the same goes for bloggers. First off, using your real name and face creates accountability. You can’t hide from your opinions or past recommendations. You own them, for better or worse.
And remember, as a writer you are building a relationship with your readers, even if you never meet them in person. Using your real name and face make you more personal and allows readers to identify with you and bond with you. That builds loyalty, and you need that.
There are exceptions here. One of my favorite bloggers goes under the pen name Jesse Livermore because his employer won’t allow him to write under his own name. And of course, there is “Tyler Durden” of Zero Hedge, who has created something of a cult following as a doom and gloomer. But these are the exceptions and not the rule. And if you’re wanting to build a brand around yourself, you need to use your own name and face. And don’t forget to smile in the photo.
2. Produce a ton of content. I’m always surprised by which posts of mine really get traction… and which ones flop. Thoughtful posts I’ll spend hours researching might barely get noticed… yet some hatchet job I threw together while watching Battlestar Galactica reruns might go viral. There is really no rhyme or reason to it. It seems to be totally random.
But that’s the nature of the internet. On any given day, a piece you wrote might get lost in the shuffle. But the very next day, an opinion maker might happen to stumble across an article you wrote and post a link to it. So the key is to simply get as much content out there as possible. It’s a numbers game. Put enough good content in front of enough eyeballs, and you’ll eventually get traction. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and you shouldn’t expect instant success. Just make sure that you consistently publish content that readers will find useful or insightful.
Not every post has to be a masterpiece. I’m published blog posts that were nothing more than an embedded StockTwits tweet or a YouTube video. Just publish something that conveys an idea, even if it is a simple one.
3. Find publishing partners. SeekingAlpha might be the single best thing that ever happened to the aspiring financial writer. Anyone can submit an article. Now, not every article gets prominently published, of course. That’s up to the editors. But anyone that has a good idea to share can share it. Writing for SeekingAlpha got me noticed by InvestorPlace, which in turn got me noticed by other publishers. All of this is part of building name recognition and your personal brand.
You should also reach out to other bloggers and quote posts that you like. And when you do, make sure the blogger knows about it. Find their Twitter or StockTwits handle and post them the link. That can lead to retweets and to more eyeballs for your post.
4. Optimize your posts for search. “Search engine optimization” sounds complicated. It really isn’t.
Sure, you can get really scientific about it, but you don’t necessarily have to. Following a couple basic steps will get you most of the way there. First, you should obviously include the terms that would be relevant for search. If you are writing a piece about Walmart’s earnings release, you should probably include the terms “Walmart earnings” and “WMT earnings” somewhere in the post. You should also try to include those terms in the title of the post and the URL if possible. Second, include relevant outbound links… and if possible, get others to link to you. The more embedded you are in the web, the more you matter to Google.
Along the same lines, if you write about individual stocks, regularly post your pieces to StockTwits and include a cashtag. For example, if writing about Walmart, include “$WMT” in your tweet. This will get your tweet in the message stream for that stock… and get you on the Yahoo Finance page for that stock too under Market Pulse.
5. Have fun. And finally, have fun with it. If you enjoy what you do and your personality comes out in the posts, people will gravitate to you. If your posts read like a lifeless Reuters press release generated by a computer, they won’t. People crave human interaction and want to read the work of a real person, typos and all.
I try to keep it somewhat professional though certainly not formal. Basically, this means that I avoid profanity and personal insults and try to avoid industry jargon (no one wants to read about EBITDA). But importantly, I try to make it lively. You don’t have to have the writing skills of Ernest Hemingway. You just need to have something a interesting to say.
And finally, I would add that superficial touches can make a big difference. Add a stock photo from Flickr or Google Images to add a little color to your post. And stock charts from BigCharts or any number of other sources make for a nice effect too.
Best of luck. The pool of quality financial bloggers gets bigger every day. There is no reason why you can’t be one of them.
Charles Sizemore is the principal of Sizemore Capital, a wealth management firm in Dallas, Texas.
Photo credit: Mike Licht