Blog, Blog, Blog! Just Don’t Ignore Lovers Or Customers Too Long

A writer myself, I’m always interested in the doings of other writers, and I love reading pieces about the writing process itself. Since the success of business blogging is so very dependent on the sheer discipline of continually posting new content, I was especially interested in some advice for writers I found in The Autobiographer’s Handbook. Author Anthony Swofford tells writers:  “Wake up.  Drink coffee. Write.  Ignore phone, ignore email, ignore world. Write.” Then he adds (I imagine with a rueful smile born of personal experience) the part I think is so absolutely apropos for business blogging: “Ignore everything, just don’t ignore your lovers for too long.  They might not stick around.”

Writing allows you to create a message and communicate it.  Writing blogs allows your message to literally reach to the ends of the Internet world.  The challenge lies in “getting found”.  Very, very few searchers online will click through to Page 15 or 23 on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engine, so the first goal of business blogging is to win rankings and get your blog as close to the top of Page 1 as possible.  One key factor in getting to those coveted top spots (and staying there) is frequency.  Composing blogs isn’t like working on your autobiography.  Swofford advises writers working on their book, “Ignore the world.  It’ll all be there when you are done”.  Well, with blogging, while it’s not as much work as composing an autobiography, you’re not “done”; to keep on top, you need to keep on writing!

Ghost blogging, as I brought out in The Don’t-Do-It-Yourself-Trend Hits Clothing And Blogging, is part of a broader trend on the part of business owners to focus their own time on making and selling products or on doing consulting with their clients.  Of necessity, the business owner delegates marketing functions, especially writing, to hired professionals. The reality is exactly as Swofford advises, except substitute “customers” for “lovers”. He says, “If you ignore them too long, they may not stick around”. Business blogging is all about attracting new customers and clients.  Ghost bloggers make it possible to do that without neglecting service to existing customers. As a professional ghost blogger, I have the satisfaction of helping my business owner clients “have their cake and eat it too”!