Archive for category: the Say It For You blog

“Good”, or “good enough”?  That’s one of the big debates in business blogging circles these days. As a professional ghost blogger, I’m always reading what other bloggers have to say, and just the other day, I found two blogs representing the two extremes of business blogging strategy.

Computer programmer Robert Plank calls himself a fast food copywriter.  That means, he says, he can write sales copy “that’s good enough”, and he can do it quickly and consistently.

When you go to a fast food restaurant, you go there to save time and money, Plank points out. You get your food in a matter of minutes. The food doesn’t have to be healthy, nor is it necessarily unhealthy, either.  It just has to be fast, and taste the same every time.

I must confess that, before coming upon Plank’s blog, I’d never thought of my blog posts in terms of restaurant menu items. I would hope every blog post I create conjures up an image of a maitre d’ and linen rather than one of golden arches! To be sure, Plank writes sales letters for clients, not blogs. Anyway, Plank’s big on seven word sentences and the “copywriting equivalent of a McDonald’s fast food worker…and NOT an artsy fartsy gourmet cook.”

Representing the total opposite end of the business copywriting thought spectrum was a blog by Roman Jelinek (writing a guest post on David Risley’s blog) Jelinek shares his view that few but quality posts are better than frequent and rushed posts.  He recalls the 19th century scientists Gregor Mendel who collected data and studied results for seven years before publishing the paper that led him to be recognized as the father of modern genetics.

Before you make a post, says Jelinek, do research, looking in odd places for sources to which most people don’t have access. Make connections in your blog post.  Show your readers something they don’t see every day. Time spent preparing will be returned to you in blog readership, and in driving business to your website, is the implication).

So where do I stand in all this?  I agree with David Risley when he says “If you take forever to write your posts, you will probably not see the rewards for your time.” Fact is, search engines reward frequency and recency of blog posting, so one very high quality blog post each month or even each week simply isn’t going to even “place” from an SEO standpoint.

I’m probably closer to Jelinek’s corner of the ring, though. Blog posts are out there, and stay out there, representing your business. Blog posts do need to be well-researched, they do need to make unusual connections to create interest and to keep readers coming back – you definitely want to aim for quality. After a couple of years and thousands of blog posts on behalf of different business clients, I can tell you, quality beats fast food – forks down!

 

For online searchers, nothing beats landing on a blog that has just the information, the products, and the services they were looking for. That’s doubly true when readers get the “people like me” effect, convinced they’ve come to the right place to talk with business owners who understand their needs.

I think that’s why, back in Journalism 101 class, we were taught to “put a face on the issue” by beginning the article with a human example  A story about rising food prices, for example, might begin with “Susie Hellenbecker’s putting things back on the shelf. With the price of cereal and fruit so high, she’s decided there’s no longer room in the budget for those, or for her favorite salad dressing.” 

Stories of all kinds (“case studies”, customer testimonials, famous incidents from the news, Hollywood, folklore – you name it) help personalize your blog post and add to the “rainbow connection” atmosphere. Even if your professional ghost blogger is doing most of the writing, employees and customers can provide anecdotes with which readers can identify. And, if someone writes a great comment on one of your posts, turn that into a story, too! There’s nothing like a good anecdote to drive home a point in your blog.  If you don’t have a true tale that’s a perfect fit for your message, try Anecdotage.com.  You’ll find thousands of funny stories about famous people on this website.

Let’s say, in my Say It For You blog-about-blogging, I want to stress how important it is to properly attribute any material that isn’t yours to its proper source.  Here’s a “case in point” I can use to help blog readers relate to that idea:

         Famous financier Otto Kahn, known for his patronage of the Metropolitan Opera, saw a sign hanging above a run-down store: ABRAM CAHN, COUSIN OF OTTO KAHN.          Kahn’s  lawyers threatened the owner with legal action.  Several days later, Kahn personally visited the store to see if the offending sign had been removed.  In place of the old sign was this one: ABRAM CAHN, FORMERLY COUSIN OF OTTO KAHN.

Another anecdote on the site is from baseballer Yogi Berra: "If the people don’t want to come out to the park," Berra once philosophically declared, "nobody’s gonna stop them."

No need for that philosophical attitude. With all the engaging, fresh content you’re putting in your posts, readers are going to want to come out to your blog!