More About Blogs And Bathroom Makeovers

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I found so many good tips in the ShopSmart Magazine article about bathroom makeovers,
I wanted to share those ideas with business bloggers looking for good ideas about setting up a blog site and then creating great content for blog posts.

 Makeover tips highlighted in my post earlier this week included calming and reassuring, using simple organizers, and redoing the lighting.  Here is more advice that holds true in designing blogsites and composing blog content:

Upgrade your showerhead…
Look for a showerhead with adjustable spray settings or a spa look, advises ShopSmart.

To me, serious blog marketers need to upgrade their analytics, to get detailed information (Which topics – and which key words and phrases –  are attracting the most readers? On which days of the week?  What are the primary sources of blog traffic?).  Without that "shower" of information, a business owner cannot make the "adjustments", fine-tuning the marketing effort to appeal to target customers.

Try a relaxing paint color…..
"Watery tones look fresh and clean when paired with glossy white trim.  For a restful, earthy vibe, choose sage greens, grays, or tans…"

If the blog platform is separate from the business’ main website, it’s important to have a "look" that’s consistent with the website.  Likewise, the "style" of writing for the blog posts themselves, whether you’re writing your own content, using a professional ghost blogger like me, or some combination of the two, it’s all part of the overall message you’re putting out there to attract customers and clients.

Color counts.  Design counts.  And, in blogging, more than anything, content – and the style in which it’s presented – counts!

ShopSmart Magazine ends its piece with a mini-reference list of where to find "cool bathroom stuff".  Here’s my mini-reference list of former blog posts that focus on ideas for blog content:

Take A Blog Tip From Einstein: Gain Renown Through Review
Six In A Fix For Blogs
Blogs Use Dentists, Redheads, And Sea Turtles To Teach

 

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Blogs And Bathroom Makeovers

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“You don’t have to do a major remodel to give your bathroom a fresh new look,” advises ShopSmart Magazine.  Since “freshness” is a basic building block for bloging, I found some of the bathroom makeover tips valuable for good content creation in blogs.

Calm your senses…
ShopSmart suggests introducing the smell of potpourri, scented bath salts, and fresh flowers to help bathers unwind at the end of the day, plus a sound therapy system to drown out unwanted noise.

Any calming and reassuring effect your blog can have will relate to relevancy – are you answering the question and speaking to the need that drove the searcher your way? Particularly at the outset of the post, unwanted noise needs to be “drowned out” and searchers calmed with a “Relax-you’ve-come-to-the-right-place” message.

The Conversion Chronicles blog mentions that it’s calming to users to feel in control of the system.  That’s why, advises Conversion advises bloggers that violating design conventions in setting up the blogsite is a mistake. The format needs to be engaging without being too "out there"!

Use simple organizers…
“Nothing takes you out of a serene mindset like a bunch of clutter, so include plenty of storage to keep things tidy and tucked away.”
 
Each blog post should center upon one simple idea or concept.  (This blog post, for example, discusses blog content, using the bathroom makeover article as the organizing structure.) In blogs, bullet points are the “storage shelves” that keep content tidy and avoid a cluttered feeling.

Make over the lighting…
“A new fixture can instantly transform the look of the room from out of date to stylish.”

For “illumination” in blogs, use bolding and italics to highlight key points, as well as images and photos to add illustration and visual appeal.

ShopSmart titled its piece “Instant Bathroom Makeovers”, and offered hints on giving an  existing room a new look.  Blogs, by definition, are a marketing “remodeler’s” dream, much easier to “refinish” than corporate websites. What was stale in yesterday’s post can be new in today’s.

As ShopSmart neatly sums up the matter, “Now all you have to do is….set your priorities and get going!”

 

 

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Blogging In Analog

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Though we live with digital technology, it’s still an analog world, because people are not machines, comments marketing maven Tony Fannin of Be Branded. In the midst of all the new media, we seem to have lost some of what great marketing is all about, laments Fannin, and what great marketing is all about, he says, is the human connection.

As I ruminated on Fannin’s insightful blog post, the thought occurred to me that blogging might actually turn out to be the most effective of all the digital media in bridging the human communications gap Fannin describes. Sure, I use Twitter, Smaller Indiana, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Confluence to help me locate people, broaden my business network, to stay in touch with colleagues and competitors alike, and generally to stay on top of goings-on relevant to my business and those of my blogging clients.

I must say the one undeniable thing about digital social media is that digital gets stuff done! Yet, like Fannin, I can’t quite suppress my yen for the good old days when "friends" weren’t collected with quantity in mind.

Speaking of quantity, quantity in social media is much too great, and at the same time too limited to serve as communication "comfort food" or evenas meaningful business dialogue.  Corporate websites, at the other end of the spectrum, are relatively static; even the more flexible platforms can hardly be called nimble. Blog posts, on the other hand, are like the "just right" bowl of soup in the Goldilocks story, not too hot or too cold.

Blog posts in general are not too brief, too formal, or too cavalier. Like group email, blogs are personal and conversational, yet you don’t need permission from recipients to hold that conversation – after all, readers are the ones who sought you out online!

Even without hefty helpings of reader comments to turn a post into a party, blogs are personal in that readers get a sense of real people talking.  In fact, the very essence of my work as a professional ghost blogger (and the reason for the name of my company Say It For You) is for me as your "ghost" to speak your message, in your "voice", to your customers.  In other words, in this brave new digital world, my goal is to say it in analog!

 

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Don’t Make Searchers Reach For New Silverware

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The Conversion Chronicles blog mentions that web users hate coming across PDFs while browsing, and that’s certainly true for me.  I liken it to the experience of coming across a giant chunk of meat or chicken in my soup. (Should I put down the spoon and reach for a knife and fork?) The PDF format breaks readers’ flow, explains Conversion.

Let me add something here:  If you’ve found the perfect example of a concept you’re trying to get across in your blog post and that example just happens to be in PDF form, you can still use it.  You attribute the statement or the example to its proper author, and faithfully quote the excerpt – just leave out the link.

There’s one of the Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design that I’m not sure I agree with.  Conversion says it’s bad practice to set up links in such a way that they open in a new browser window. The reason behind Conversion’s aversion to links in new windows? "Most current operating systems have miserable window management", and readers, according to Conversion, have trouble backtracking to your blog post, anyway.
 
That hasn’t seemed to be a problem for me, and, far as I can tell, my readers seem to have no trouble returning "home" to my blog post following a romp in other windows.  (Try that following the link above, and let me know how that works for you, OK?)

The most important website mistake Conversion mentions is one I’ve also mentioned in my Say It For You blog posts, one that really is a big mistake for websites and especially for blogs – failing to answer readers’ questions. "Users are highly goal-driven on the Web," says Conversion.  "The ultimate failure of a website (ditto for blog posts, I’d add) is failure to provide the information users are looking for."

Above all, in each blog post, first tell ’em valuable information on exactly the topic they searched on.  That way, readers are reassured they’ve come to the right place.  Then, go ahead and tell ’em why YOU are the right guy, the right gal, the right company to provide what they need! Stay on topic, not off on a tangent. As your readers enjoy their soup, they should have no need for a knife and fork!

 

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Blog To Control Your Own Journalistic Slant

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I read the most fascinating business story on David Meerman Scott’s WebInkNow blog.
As a professional ghost blogger, I make my living doing blog marketing for companies.  But, after reading the WebInkNow blog post, I think I’ll give myself a new title – Brand Journalist!

The true tale Scott referred to in his post began in 2008 in Port Wentworth near Savannah, Georgia. There was a tremendous explosion at the Imperial Sugar Company plant, with fires that burned almost two weeks.  Meanwhile, the media relied on search engines to put together stories about Imperial for their TV, radio, and newspaper sound bites and articles.  As you may imagine, this information was not necessarily complete or up-tp-date, and certainly some of it was not what Imperial’s owners would have chosen to say about the company.

So, after the crisis had passed, Imperial hired a veteran CBS news reporter, a print journalist, and a photojournalist and literally started a news service of its own.  Now, Imperial can control the stories by putting out accurate information on its own website and through press releases.

Not to stretch a point, I believe a business – whatever business or professional practice that is – can do the same, namely exercise journalistic control through blogging.  Even the best-designed websites are rarely flexible enough to allow day-to-day, even hour-by-hour updating.  With blog posts, businesses have the ability to put out the news about themselves with their own slant on it!

And, just as Imperial Sugar hired professionals to generate timely releases, many business owners with little time to manage social media and to create content, can, through hiring a blogging professional, be assured of putting their own "spin" on reports about their company. What’s more, material that is both recent and frequently posted is more likely to be indexed by search engines and help the business "get found"!  Then, too, if ever there is any negative news about the company, the blog is the perfect place to field questions and comments head-on.

Henceforth, not only will I think of my blog posts on behalf of my clients as "press releases", I plan to think of myself as a Brand Journalist, helping to clarify the particular
expertise of each client and helping set the facts straight! "

Extra! Extra! Blog all about it!"

 

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