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Another Year, Not Just Another Blog

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2016 Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Everybody, it seems, has advice about how to make your blog better than ever in 2016. John Egan, writing in the Huffington Post, sort of sums it up in two words: “Aim high”, by which he means never sacrificing quality merely to achieve quantity.

BlogTyrant makes some predictions about blogging SEO in 2016 centered around speed, because “even a second or two of lag can cost your business thousands of dollars”. Learning “how to shrink stuff” – photos, images, graphics, etc. can save loading time. Blogtyrant predicts that guest posting will still be one of the “absolute best ways to get your name out there and grow traffic.”

As a checklist for themselves, blog content writers might wish to use the judging criteria for the UK Blog Awards 2016, which include the following five aspects of a blog:

  • Design
  • Style
  • Content
  • Marketing
  • Usability

“Determine why you are blogging,” advises Maisha Walker of Inc.com. Walker outlines the four reasons a website exists to aid a business, and suggests ways to measure success for each goal:

  • build a brand (what awareness studies will you do?)
  • generate leads (How many phone calls or emails to you want to get from your blog?)
  • generate direct sales (How many readers and page views will it take?)
  • generate advertising revenue (How much do you hope to make? How many readers and page views do you need to do that?)

“Your previous years’ outreach can clue you into what balance will work best. Take stock of what you did the past year: What was a home run? What was moderately successful? What underperformed? And what were the reasons for your content’s success or failure?” Amanda Hicken of prnewswire.com advises.

Then, looking towards the coming year, Hicken says, go through the holidays, seasonal events, and conferences that impact not just your industry, but also the industries related to your target audience. Uncover other newsworthy topics and trends by using a monitoring tool. But, she cautions, “don’t fall into the trap of operating on autopilot”.

How will you approach blogging in the new year?

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Blogging to Tell Them What to Think About

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Thinking manHara Estroff Marano, writing in Pyschology Today, says she won’t tell you what to think, but will tell you what to think about.  While in this article the psychologist is offering food for thought in the spheres of dating and self-motivation, I couldn’t help but love that line of hers, realizing how very apropos it is for us business blog content writers.

In fact, a point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions is this: whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you need to voice an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.

On the other hand, if you, as a business owner or professional practitioner, try telling people what to think, that’s a surefire way to lose friends and customers in a hurry. Yes, your blog is your “podium”, meaning you get to showcase your business so customers will want you to be the one to provide them with the product or the service they need. But they need to arrive at that point as a result of their own thinking.  Dr. Marano hit the nail on the head – don’t tell readers what to think; give them all the facts they need to think about.

How can blogs help potential clients and customers make better, sometimes complex, decisions?

  • By suggesting questions readers can ask themselves while choosing among many options. (Do they want ease of use? Current functionality? Future capabilities?)
  • By “mapping”, meaning showing how choices are related to consequences.  How much sooner will your mortgage get paid off if you add $100 each month to your payment? How should the prospect feel about the purchase (Relief? Trust? Premier status?)
  • By offering easy ways to make choices, so that the decisions are not pressure-packed.

You might say the art of blogging consists of supplying facts, and then putting those facts in context.  As bloggers, we’re giving them the raw materials to think about, but we need to go one step further, demonstrating why those facts matter, suggesting ways readers can use the information for their own benefit.

To the woman concerned that the man she’s been dating has been legally separated for the past twenty years, Marano suggests, “Could it be that your online friend values clinging to the comfort of the status quo?”

Are you giving your readers something to think about?

 

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We’ll Say It For You – “Happy New Year!”

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Hard to believe, but my little ghost-blogging and content writing company, Say It For You, is New Year's champagnecelebrating its eighth New Year’s today!

Our content, some 20,0000 unique writing selections by now, may be found in clients’ corporate brochures  and website pages, in press releases, “nurturing emails” and Facebook posts. Primarily, though, our pieces populate the blogosphere.

2015 was certainly a year of learning for me, and ideas for material were everywhere I looked, from magazine and newspaper articles, radio and TV broadcasts, and even billboards and print ads. Networking groups were my classrooms, and our Say It For You clients our best teachers.

More than ever, I realized, our readers need even more from us than expert advice and information.  We need to put all of that information into perspective and become thought leaders. It became more and more evident to me that at least half the time I spend creating a blog post is reading/research/thinking time. That meant continuing to build my collection of books that serve as blog content writing resources.

As 2015 draws to a close, I’m revisiting my Say It For You mission statement:

Say It For You is a premium blogging and marketing service that provides your business with    enhanced potential for improved standing in search engine results and reader engagement. More than just a collection of keywords, our blog posts are strong, thought-filled messages about your business or practice.

Basically, what that means is when you use Say It For You, you receive the following benefits in addition to impeccably written posts:

  • A single writer dedicated to understanding your business and keeping abreast
    of topics in your industry. That writer is ready to interface with your SEO expert, marketing consultant, or web designer.
  • Say It For You works with only one client in each field of business, so that all research and promotional efforts are devoted towards benefiting you and your business.
  • You will have personal contact with your writer, including regular in-person meetings or phone conferences. Your writer is always available to discuss content and strategy.
  • The ideas and input of writers with strong background in business. Our writers have expertise in finance, marketing, operations, event planning, autos, seniors, international commerce, healthcare, and more.

    Eight and a half years and 20,000 pieces of writing later, we find that every day there’s something new to celebrate and to share!  Happy New Year!

 

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Cleaning Out Your Blog Topic Closet

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Goodwill storeWhile trying on clothes at a couple of new shops in Fishers and Carmel, I couldn’t help thinking about a blog post I’d written almost six years ago about the Goodwill Guy and Clothes You Shouldn’t Wear.

You’ve probably seen those Goodwill ads. The principle is, there are four kinds of clothes, and only one of those kinds should stay in your closet. The other three – the clothes you can’t wear, the clothes you don’t wear, and of course the Clothes You Shouldn’t Wear – should be going to Goodwill (so that someone who should be wearing them, can.

I’d categorized blog post content the same way.  (I’ve thought this whole thing through again and reworked some of my ideas with the benefit of six years of hindsight)…

Posts you don’t blog might include (but perhaps should):

  • Posts that would take some  real time to research
  • Strong opinion pieces
  • How-to instructions (fear readers might go DIY on you)

Posts you really can’t write:

  • Information that is not related to your topic
  • Topics that are too broad and really outside the scope of your expertise

Posts you really shouldn’t present to your readers:

  • Information that is overly technical for the average reader
  • Negative remarks about competitors
  • Posts that are too general, repeating the common wisdom with nothing of your own “slant”

So then, what sort of posts absolutely DO belong in your blog “closet”?

  • Employee posts, created by real people who are actually doing the work and talking to your customers
  • Testimonials from customers and clients
  • True tales of problems you’ve actually helped solve for your customers
  • Wisdom from other sources that can be useful to your readers

Clutter” in blogs is actually a positive. There’s only so much room for clothes in even the most spacious closet, but once I’ve put content on this Say It For You blog, for example, it can remain on the Internet forever.  (This post is actually #1052 for me, yet all my 1,151 past blog posts haven’t disappeared. All that content remains, available to readers in reverse chronological order, a very good thing when it comes to “winning search” online!)

Hate to say this, but it’s perhaps not our blog that needs periodic de-cluttering, it’s us.
As we continue blogging month after month, year after year, we need to be our own Goodwill Guys –

What sort of posts are we writing, but perhaps shouldn’t be (or at least not so often)?

What posts have we been lazy about that absolutely belong in our blog?

 

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Blogging to One-Tank Destinations

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kind rijdt autoHave you visited the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Notre Dame, Indiana? How about the Five Points Fire Museum in Lafayette, IN? I haven’t been to either, but after learning through the Columbian magazine that those would be “one tank destinations” for me (I live in Indianapolis), I’m adding both locations to my vacation day fun possibilities list.

There’s a valuable nugget of wisdom in this for us blog content writers, I realize. Had that article in the Columbian been about two faraway, exotic destinations, I’d probably have simply turned the page. Instead, I cut the item out of the magazine, posting it on my kitchen bulletin board.

Thing is, in marketing, it’s all about accessibility and ease when it comes to triggering action on the part of readers, whether in print or online. Making a business’ or a practice’s products and services accessible and easy to acquire or use has to be at the top of our best practices list when it comes to writing content for business blogs.

What are some ways to make the information in blog posts “one-tank”, meaning easy to access and easy to put into action?

  • Offer answers in a few, short, well-thought-out words, with longer answers to follow if requested
  • Insert Calls to Action at various points throughout a business blog post
  • Remind readers of the annoyances and hassles they’re experiencing with their present providers and products.  Go on to describe the perfect, hassle-free solution to their problems.
  • Don’t just say “Contact us.” (What exactly do you want your reader to think, feel, or do?) Have people fill out a form where they tell you “where they want to go”.
  • Focus on one specific step readers can take. Choose a very specific problem or need, and offer a very clear and compelling solution.

    Are you taking your blog readers to one-tank destinations?
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