De-cluttering a Business Blog Post

March 31, 2015/0 Comments/in Business writing tips/by Rhoda Israelov

When my latest issue of the Tucker Talks Real Estate newsletter arrived in the mail, it was a wakeup call. “At the end of the workday,” the lead article read, “you’re ready to leave behind the endless barrage of emails, conference calls, and meetings.” There are steps I could follow, the author reminded me, to make my home a more tranquil place, starting with reducing clutter.

It occurs to me that business blogs could use some de-cluttering as well, and I wanted to share my ideas on that with my business owner and professional practitioner readers, as well as with other freelance content writers.

The concept is that, once you’ve built up a nice collection of posts in your business blog (congrats to you – most bloggers abandon ship after a few months), it’s time to make a commitment to keeping the blog organized, clean, and easy on the eyes.

“Get rid of things you don’t need or use,” is Tucker’s advice, “and find a place for everything else.” One form of “cleaning house” for us blog content writers is to re-categorize. Hopefully, using the blogging platform software, every blog writer has “filed” each post in a “category drawer”. But, just as happens at home, where somehow spare toothbrushes get put in the sock drawer, posts were “misfiled”. It’s a great idea to systematically re-read each of your past posts to see what main theme or “leitmotif” each one actually emphasizes. That, in turn, allows you to reduce the number of categories, which not only makes the blog more useful to readers, abut more “tranquil” for you as you create and file new material.
Minimizing “clutter” in blog content itself doesn’t necessary mean chopping the number of words (although Meryl K Evans advises bloggers to “shoot for 500 words or less, because “Readers want to get to the heart of the matter and get out.”) It’s more about making the posts readable and easier to look at, with shorter paragraphs, photos, bullet points and bolding.
Does that Tucker advice to “get rid of those things you don’t need or use” apply to your blog posts? Yes and no. No, you don’t want to send old posts to the trash heap, because they are part of the “equity” you’ve built up in using your keyword phrases. But, yes, you need to revisit your strategy – are you promoting the blog on the “right” social media platforms (the ones where your target customers “hang out”)? Are you establishing a clear navigation path from the blog post to the right landing page on your website? Has your target readership changed?

No way around it – from the cabinets under our kitchen sink to our business blog content writing (including both past and future posts) – it’s time we spent time de-cluttering!

Mind Tools for Business Bloggers

March 27, 2015/0 Comments/in Business writing tips/by Rhoda Israelov

As part of our ongoing training for tutors at Ivy Tech, we were to read an article from Mind Tools about dealing with unhappy customers (the idea being to better equip us to handle the occasional unhappy Learning Lab student). It occurred to me that the material was well worth sharing with business blog content writers.

“Once you’re aware that your client is unhappy, then your first priority is to put yourself into a customer service mindset,” is Mind Tools’ advice. This means that you set aside any feelings you might have that:

the situation isn’t your fault
your client’s made a mistake
he or she is giving you unfair criticism

“Adjust your mindset so that you’re giving 100 percent of your focus to the client and to the situation….Resist the temptation to try to solve the situation right away or to jump to conclusions about what happened. Instead let your client tell his story.”

One very important function corporate blog posts can serve is damage control.

I teach freelance blog that stories of their clients’ past mistakes and failures can have a humanizing effect, creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame the effects of their own mistakes!

But what about negative comments that readers make about a business, using social media? Well, to an extent, when customers’ complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with “in front of other people” (in blog posts), it gives the “apology” more weight. In other words, go ahead and “let the client tell his story,” which then gives you the chance to offer useful information to other readers and to explain any changes in policy that resulted from the situation.

But, even when there haven’t been negative comments or outright complaints, we’re out to engage our blog readers and show them we understand the dilemmas they’re facing, going right to the heart of any fears or concerns they might have.

If there are misunderstandings or negative myths surrounding our products and services, let’s get those out on the table. Where better to do that than in a business blog?

Reading Along, Does Your Blog Whiz past?

March 25, 2015/0 Comments/in Business writing tips/by Rhoda Israelov

When Adam Davis of Buzz Feed teaches you grammar, he first shows you a video clip in which some well known TV or movie actor is doing it wrong.

She may not have split ends, but when the movie star says “You need to really focus”, that’s an example of a split infinitive. Sure, when creating a blog post, you do really need to focus on one concept. You also really need to keep the two parts of the infinitive (“to” and “focus”) together!
No, Warner Brothers. That actress shouldn’t be saying “There’s towels in the closet.” There ARE towels in the closet. “Towels” is a plural object, so “are” is the appropriate verb.
And, Dev Patel, you’re a favorite of mine, but don’t be putting apostrophes where they don’t belong, as in “Put it in it’s place”. The apostrophe in “it’s” means “it is”, and I know that’s not what you meant.
My favorite of the David film star quotes is this one: “Walking along, cars whizzed past”. The cars aren’t what’s walking, for heaven’s sake! The participle “walking along” is left dangling with nothing to attach itself to, Davis points out.

“I won’t hire people who use poor grammar,” says Kyle Wiens in the Harvard Business Review. Isn’t that a bit extreme? No, because Wiens has a “zero tolerance approach” to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid. Language is constantly changing, he admits, but that doesn’t make grammar unimportant. “Good grammar is credibility, especially on the Internet.”

In today’s competitive business world (as any good freelance blog content writer needs to keep in mind), corporate blogging for business represents an ideal tool for “getting personal” and earning trust.? Business blog writing needs to be real.

Being real, though, doesn’t mean being sloppy, as I’m constantly reminding business owners and professional practitioners during corporate blogging training sessions.

Reading along, does your blog whiz past?

Did That Business Blogger Know What They Were Doing???

March 23, 2015/0 Comments/in Business writing tips/by Rhoda Israelov

Adam Davis of Buzz Feed shows video clips, in each of which a famous movie actor is committing some sort of grammar “crime”. For example, we see Meryl Streep remarking, “That person knew what they were doing.”

“’They’ is plural, so unless you’re talking about more than one person, you need to say ‘he’ or ‘she’”, explains Davis.

Y’know, that he/she/you/one thing seems to come up a lot in blog content writing. I hate to think I’m one of those people Lauren Davis of i09.com says is not being helpful, who are just asserting their perceived linguistic superiority, and I’d hate for business blog content writers I’d helped train to write stuff that packs the punch of a very boring textbook.

Of the two Davis bloggers (Adam and Lauren), I tend to side with Adam, who apparently realizes that grammar mistakes in content writing for business are very much like wardrobe mishaps, in that they call attention away from the kind of impression we intend to make on behalf of our businesses or professional practices.

Women’s Lib turned out to have created some new problems for writers. “When I was growing up,” observes Lynn Gaertner-Johnston, “the automatic choice would have been the male pronoun.” Streep would’ve said “That person knew what HE WAS doing.” “They” is an awkward choice when Streep is talking about one person, and using “she” no matter what gender “that person” actually was is even more awkward, I suppose.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s CliffsNotes agrees that remedying the problem of gender bias in pronouns isn’t easy. “When possible, rewrite sentences using third-person plural forms,” they advise. “Diplomatic people keep their opinions to themselves.”

Did THOSE business bloggers know what THEY were doing????

Good-and-Good Blogging for Business

March 18, 2015/0 Comments/in Business writing tips/by Rhoda Israelov

The six-student presentation at the Hasten Hebrew Academy the other evening was definitely “good and good”. Principal Miriam Gettinger explained why that expression could be used to describe an effective sermon (her husband’s a rabbi). In fact, I couldn’t help thinking, “good and good” should be the standard of excellence in any communication, perhaps particularly in blogging for business.

A sermon with good content that is nice and short? That’s good and good. A sermon with good content that drags on interminably? That’s good and bad. Any sermon with poor content but that is mercifully short – well that might be described as bad and good. Worst of all is a sermon with poor content that is too long – that’s bad and bad, Gettinger pointed out.

“How long?” is one question I hear a lot at corporate blogging training sessions. Typically the business owner or freelance blog content writer is referring to the recommended length of blog posts, or, sometimes, the question refers to the blog post title.

As a longtime professional ghost blogger, working to create marketing blog content for a variety of Say It For You clients, I think the “good-and-good” standard applies. Of course, the most effective length for any one blog post is whatever it takes to hit the main points of the one topic that is the focus for that post.

When it comes to effective blogging for business, we need to “know our size”, exercising “portion control” in the length of paragraphs, of blog titles and of entire blog posts. Blogs need to be conversational rather than billboard-style, and be sprinkled with enough keyword phrase use to attract targeted online traffic.

First and foremost, (the first “good”), the content, needs to be helpful to target readers. Then, make each blog post as short as possible, but no shorter.

You might call that a recipe for “good-and-good” in blogging for business!

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