How Much Can A 10-Gallon Blog Hold?

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"Alas, the 10-gallon hat falls 87 percent short of its promise," laments Mental Floss Magazine (Mar-Apr 2010). "The discrepancy is the result of poor communication, not poor measurement," the article is quick to clarify.

Early versions of the cowboy hat came from Mexico, we learn, where the hats were decorated with colorful braids called "galons".  The taller the hat, the more galons it could hold.

Ever on the hunt for hints about effective communication to improve business blogging, I found at least five galons’ worth in the Mental Floss piece:


  • The sales mantra "Underpromise; over-deliver." holds true in blog marketing.  Go light on heavy claims of results from using your product or service to avoid falling short on your promises.
     
  • Blog posts are the perfect vehicle for myth-busting (clarifying, for example, that the average Stetson holds 3 quarts, not ten gallons).
     
  • Clarity is paramount in blogs.  Say less in each post, but take pains to ensure readers unfamiliar with industry jargon still get the point.
     
  • Questions in blog post titles help capture interest:

                    How much…?
                    How far….?
                    How long….?
                    How little….?
                    How true is…..?

  • History tidbits engage readers’ curiosity, evoking an "I didn’t know that!" response.

So, how much can a 10-gallon blog hold? Just enough to assure searchers they’ve arrived at the right place to find what they need!

 

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Businesses Bloggers: Who DO You Want In Your Rear View Mirror?

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Three things Casey WIlliams never wants to see in his rear view mirror, he says in IndianapolisStar.com, are the new Ford Taurus, the Chevy Caprice, and the Carbon Motors police cruiser. all models driven by Indiana State Police.

In business blogging, by contrast, your "rear view mirror" is exactly where you’d like to see your competitors. Continuing to post blog content consistently and frequently, using keyword phrases in your titles and sprinkled liberally through the content of each blog post – all those things raise your chances of rising in search engine rankings.  Add extra engine power from links, social media, and even videos, and you’ll be on track to leave rivals in the dust.

"Great content," says Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware, "depends on understanding the keywords that drive your business." Beggott suggests using online tools to understand the keyword phrases that drive not only your business, but traffic to your competitors’ websites.

Once you’ve gathered this critical intelligence, he explains, you can use it to create pages (blog posts as well as "landing pages" on your main website) titled with those key phrases. 

A police cruiser, whatever the automobile model, in your rear view mirror, would probably prove  to be a less-than-pleasant experience.  The sight of online competitors’ "grilles", on the other hand – now that would be a sight for any business blogger’s eyes!

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Blogs Are Not Scrabble

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"Regardless of what you’re writing, whether it’s a sales letter, blog post, company history, or proposal, the golden rule of clear communication should be communicating clearly," Indianapolis Business Journal’s Jim Cota reminds us.

At an annual National Press ceremony, the Center for Plain Language (whose goal is to get government and businesses to communicate more clearly with citizens and customers) presents two awards: ClearMark (the best), and WonderMark (the worst), the latter so named because the judges were left wondering what the writers were thinking!

Cota’s conclusion: In the interests of clarity, "Save the long words for Scrabble!".

The author I featured earlier this week in my blog, Lynne Truss, might add, "Use punctuation". As a professional ghost blogger and business blogging trainer, I’d have to say both pieces of advice are rock solid for writing blog posts to drive business.

Save the long words for Scrabble:
If the purpose of your blog posts is to welcome prospects who’ve found you online and convert them into customers, the language you use must be easy to understand. Always keep them and their needs in mind.

Use punctuation:
The last award you’d want for your blog is the WonderMark.  Minding your commas and apostrophes in blog posts will avoid having online searchers wonder what, exactly, you were trying to say (or, worse, where – or if – you learned eighth grade English)! 

There’s only one kind of wondering you’d like for readers of your blog to be doing:
wondering if there are even more reasons why what you have to offer is what they need to have!

 

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Eats, Shoots, and Blogs

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New York Times bestselling author Lynn Truss takes a zero tolerance approach to punctuation.

If ever it occurred to you to downplay the importance of commas, get ready to change your mind after reading the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. To understand the book’s title, think of:

  • a panda or koala, who eats the shoots and leaves of plants
  • a cowboy who enters a diner, eats, shoots (his gun), and leaves (departs)

Without proper punctuation (in this case a single comma), readers would have a hard time understanding what the writer had meant to convey.

According to Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott, blogging for business is about instant customer gratification. So, think about this for a moment: If online searchers can’t tell whether you’re referring to a panda or a cowboy, they will simply click and leave! Ignoring clarity by failing to use proper punctuation in blog posts is done at business owners’ peril.

In her chapter That’ll Do, Comma, Truss explains that commas serve two functions:

  • to illuminate the grammar of a sentence
  • to point up rhythm and tone

Basically, commas can help your blog post (as Niecy Nash might put it on Clean House) do "what it came to do", which is to clearly convey what you do and what you’d like readers to do about that..

Speaking of "you’d", as a business blogging trainer I preach reading ten other blogs or articles for every post you write.  If you try that, paying attention to punctuation, you’re sure to notice that the apostrophe is the most misused punctuation mark in our language.

(More about the apostrophe in a later blog post, but IT"S a shame about ITS abuse, isn’t it?

 

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When You Do X, Y Happens. Blog About Z.

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Calls To Action, or CTA’s, are a vital component of business blogs. Future’s Now Brendan Regan says business owners’ marketing outreach needs to extend from the driving point through to a "conversion". 

On a blog page, the CTA can be on the right margin (Call 1-800……, Contact ———, sign up for RSS, etc.).
Or, the Call To Action can be in the body of the blog post (To buy now, click here…).

To me, though, each whole blog post is in itself a Call To Action. I was thinking about that after hearing Julie Reed of Miller’s Health Systems talk about managing productive conversations with employees. Reed suggested using the formula "When you do X, Y happens. I prefer Z". (This approach avoids any hint of personal criticism of the employee, but explains why the outcome of certain behaviors is nonproductive, and then suggests a better way of doing things.)

Myth-busting is a very good use for blogs, because you’re opening the eyes of readers to a new way of thinking about your product or service. Addressing misinformation is one way of shining light on business owners’ expertise.  At the same time, people generally don’t like to have their assumptions challenged.  The Julie Reed formula can come in handy here.

When you do X:  When you, the blog reader (hasten to assured readers many people have the same misunderstanding or are making the same natural mistake) do a certain thing…

Y happens: Describe the problems that can arise from that course of action, that type of shortcut, that product, etc.)

Suggest Z: Describe a better way of using the product you sell, or a better solution your company offers for their problem.

Whatever your "Z"  is, it will become the Call To Action for your blog post!


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