Healthy Plate Business Blogging

In honor of National Nutrition Month (last month), my friend Mary Ann Wietbrock published a blog post that exemplifies some of the key advice points I’ve been offering in my Say It For You business blogging tutorials:

• “Grabber” opening line or focus sentence
  “What is on your plate?” Wietbrock asks.  Sure, in any SEO marketing blog, it’s the keyword phrases in the title that start the job of getting the blog found.  Burt, once the online visitor has actually landed, it takes a great opener to fan the flicker of interest into a flame.  In fact, a big part of blog content writing, I’ve found, involves getting the “pow opening line” right.
• Visual
  The picture is colorful and illustrates the precise points the author is stressing in the text. In business blogging, every post needs a visual element in order to be truly effective.  While the words you use to tell the story are the most important part of blogging for business, what visuals do is add interest and evoke emotional responses.
• Easy to understand chart
  “This plate of food has the following essential nutrients and takes less than 5 minutes to prepare,” the blogger assures readers. For each nutrient, she lists the amount and the reason that nutrient is important (the 112 grams of protein help build muscle, while the 292 mg. of potassium help keep the heart calm). Charts help organize the information in readers’ minds, aiding the learning process.
• Offer of resources
  “Menus available at www.cardinalelements.com” takes readers to the relevant page on the website. One way to add value to a blog is aggregating resources for the benefit of your readers, in the form of outside content  – giving proper credit – along with your own. In fact, by “marinating” our own ideas in others’ material, we never run out of fresh content to satisfy both the search engines and the searchers.
• Calls to action
  There are at least four calls to action in this one short post: Contact at… phone number and website. Request menus.  Sign up for Lunch & Learn. Comment. Does asking for a customer’s business invalidate the good information provided in the blog? Not in the least.  When people go online to search for information and click on different links, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of information are out to do business.  As long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or a customer.

Does your business blog include all the elements of a “healthy plate”?