Why Your Next Hire Might Be A Blog Writer

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As a professional ghost blogger, I’m very conscious of the fact that the "For sale: baby shoes, never used" story I talked about earlier this week exemplifies just one of Ernest Hemingway’s many tips on effective writing. Brian Clark of CopyBlogger.com points out another valuable Hemingway lesson for bloggers – being positive, not negative. 

Clark interprets this to mean that, in our blog posts, it’s important to say what is rather than what isn’t. In other words, if you say your service is "error-free" or your product "pain-free" and "inexpensive", readers are likely to focus on the words "error", "pain", and "expensive": Instead, focus on the positive qualities of what you have to offer.

A second fellow blogger, Jameiah Earle, in Literary Kicks, had the most interesting things to add about the Hemingway baby shoes story: she calls that style "flash fiction", AKA "micro", "short-short", or "skinny", meaning under 1,000 or even 500 words in length. As Earle went on to explain why she likes "flash" so much, I kept thinking of blog posts, which, like flash, are short, concise, focused on one main point or idea.

If the "baby shoes, never worn" legend hasn’t been embroidered in the retelling, Hemingway may have dashed off that piece in a matter of seconds.  Well-researched and constructed business blog posts, on the other hand, take a bit more (truly a lot more) time and effort.

That accounts for Brian Halligan’s (Inbound Marketing) observation that "your next marketing hire…should be someone will great writing skills", rather than either a technical writer of manuals or a traditional career marketer.

With business blogging becoming such an indispensable customer acquisition and marketing tool, ghost blogging becomes an outsourcing solution for busy business owners who have long-long business goals but who are short-short on time.

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For Sale: Blog Platform. Never Used.

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Ernest Hemingway, challenged to write an entire novel in six words, scribbled these six on a napkin:

                                             For sale: baby shoes, never used.


There are any number of lessons, I think, that business bloggers can learn from the legendary Hemingway "demo":

Brevity
Six-word blog posts aren’t going to hack it in terms of SEO "Brownie points"; six-word titles certainly are. Since, as Brian Halligan points out in his new book Inbound Marketing, Google (and other search engines) try to match article titles with the phrase being searched, the more focused titles are on the business’ keywords phrases, the better..

Arouses Curiosity
"Show ’em a gun in the first reel" is an old screenwriter’s rule-of-thumb. The blog title is the "first reel", introducing the theme, hinting at "action" to come.

Emotional Impact
Yes, we’re talking about business blogs here, but blogs are a part of "pull marketing", and  emotions are what’s behind the "pull" in the posts. Professional speaker and speech coach Lou Heckler says a story needs to have moved/astonished/angered/tickled/amazed you for you to share it effectively with your audience. Never-used baby shoes have an emotional impact. While blog posts can be informative, filled with myth-busting proofs, it’s the emotional impact that keeps readers engaged.

The first few ingredients listed on a food container are the most important.  Since the first "ingredient" of a business blog post is, in fact, the title, take a tip from Ernest Hemingway and  make that ingredient count!


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Blogging For Business – Show ‘Em A Gun

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Preparing good speeches, says National Speakers Association President Lou Heckler, quoting NSA founder Bill Gove, means using all three of the "3 P’s".  As a professional ghost blogger and blog trainer, I’d venture to say, the 3 P’s can serve as a perfect template for blog posts.

Premise
What is this blog post really going to be about? The title and opening paragraph of your blog post are for introducing the "cast" (what you’ll be discussing) and "showing ’em a gun" (meaning a controversy, myth, or statistic) to arouse interest and curiosity in readers.

Problem
In films, the tension derives from the hero or heroine encountering obstacles and setbacks.  What problems and issues are your readers encountering?

Payoff
In this "third reel", you offer your unique proposition for solving the problem.  This is where you use the "gun" you showed ’em at the beginning of the blog post.

As you’re planning your speech, Heckler reminded us at NSA, you need to decide what your goal is.  What do you want your audience to think, feel, or do? In blog posts, this is the basis upon which you design your Calls to Action.

Brian Halligan, co-author of Inbound Marketing points out some key mistakes for business bloggers to avoid.  One of the lowest- converting (meaning least effective at gaining new buyers for a product or service) is "Contact us." That’s too general, says Halligan. (What exactly do you want your reader to think, feel, or do?) Have people fill out a form instead of just emailing, he advises. That way, you capture users’ contact information in a database of people who may not be ready to buy just yet.

Whether it’s a film or a blog post you’re planning, the 3 P’s is a good template for delivering a concise message with emotional appeal, and…some bang!

 

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What Do You Get When You Pit A Blog Against A Lexus?

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I’m no car buff, but that TV commercial really caught my ear.  "What do you get when you pit a Ford Escape against a Lexus?" the announcer asked. The answer, unexpected as it was arresting: "Bragging rights."

So I’ll give you one better:  What do you get when you pit business blogging against pay-per-click advertising?  Bragging rights again. According to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware, "There are two basic ways to use search as an acquisition tool" (referring to acquisition of new customers): Pay-Per-Click and Search Engine Optimization."

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a form of paid advertising on the Web. (You the business owner bid on keyword phrases.  Every time an online searcher clicks on your listing, you pay a fee.) According to the Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Study, marketers using PPC typically target more than 1,000 of these keyword phrases in an attempt to rank among the top results for a dozen out of the 1,000 they’ve selected.

By contrast, blogs need to target only 1-2 dozen total keyword phrases (with the blogging company paying no fee when the sties get "found" and clicked on) to achieve comparable search results.

What if the "Lexus" isn’t a PPC but a website?  How do blogs stack up against traditional websites?  Since search engines assign value to pages that are frequently updated, traditional website pages simply can’t compete with more frequently changing content on blog pages. While a website page might be very keyword-rich, the cumulative use of keyword phrases over months and years , and over pages and pages of relevant content builds up the kind of "equity" that leaves traditional web pages in the dust.  Again, bragging rights for blogs.

As with any tool, blogging for business works only when – and if – it’s used.  Good corporate blog posts may earn bragging rights when compared with other marketing tactics, but only if business owners actually keep up the pace.  The fact is, few entrepreneurs, even given the help of talented and passionate employees, can spare the time to post relevant, new material with enough consistency and frequency to improve search engine rankings.  Often a professional ghost blogger can help those owners earn bragging rights and convert online searchers to new clients and customers!

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Blog Links: Both Clickable And Readable

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"Links are the lifeline of blogging," says homeschoolblogger.com.  Inbound links to your blog are tracked by "web crawlers" and help your blog move higher on search engine pages, SEO mavens explain.

Today, though, let’s talk about different kinds of outbound links, and the different ways those can in fact serve as lifelines to your blog.

Internal links:
a) From your blog post to one of your own website "landing pages".
(You’re using the link to guide the reader along a smooth navigation path, hoping to convert that "looker" into a buyer.)

b) From the present blog post to one you posted at some point in the past.
(If the reader wants more information and you’ve already provided further details on the subject in an earlier post, the link makes it easy for the reader to find.)

External links:
a) From your blog post to a news source or magazine article.
(In your post, you’re showing how some current happenings relate to your product or service, or you’re expressing your company’s point of view about a news development relating to your industry. Linking to news sources lend credibility to your blog and positions you as the "go to" place to find out what’s happening.)

b) To someone else’s blog post on your subject.
(This type of link shows you’re staying in touch with others in your industry and that you’re confident you have special value to offer within a competitive environment. In fact, visiting others’ blogs can help you improve not only your blog posts, but your products and services!)

c) To a website or blog you’ve quoted to illustrate a point.
(Linking to others is a form of networking.  I like to shoot an email to business owners whom I’ve quoted or mentioned.  They’re usually flattered and quite often begin to follow my blog and post a comment or two on my site.)

When homeschoolblogger.com mentions that blog links should be readable as well as clickable, they’re talking about hyperlinking the text.  In other words, rather than writing something like "click here" (which interrupts the flow of thought), you write in conversational tone and simply create a link that the reader can choose to ignore or follow by clicking.

There’s a reason we call the internet a World Wide Web. It’s all about connections and links!

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