Top 5 Speaker Awards For Blogs

Each year, Speakers Platform recognizes five top speakers.  These Top 5 awards are for excellence, which is measured several ways:

• Expertise
• Professionalism
• Innovation
• Client testimonials
• Presentation skills

These same five quality "measuring sticks", it occurs to me, might be used in creating top-notch content for business blog posts.

1.  Expertise:
Corporate training company owner David Markowitz uses his blog to provide timely and useful information to people working in FDA-related industries.  By making his blog a "go-to" site for his target market, he provides proof he understands the needs of his target clients. Your blog is your way to showcase your own expertise, but also to showcase your website as the link to information from many authoritative sources.

2.  Professionalism:
Providing valuable information to readers in generous portions without being too "sales-ey" is one facet of acting professionally in business blogging. The way you link your blog to other websites is important to the way you are perceived as well.  While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery and all, always provide a link to the writer or source you’re quoting, or whose idea you’re using as a jumping off point for your own comments.

3.  Innovation:
Online searchers will undoubtedly have heard some of the information you’re providing before.  It’s your unique slant or innovative approach that’s likely to elicit that all-important "Never thought of it that way!" response.  Your blog post is a way to show readers that this is no cookie-cutter company they’re about to meet. I always advise clients to use their blog to provide information – particularly new information – related to their field.

4. Client testimonials:
Client success stories and testimonials can be turned into a success story for your blog.  Showing how you solved problems for clients in the past boosts your credibility with prospects.  Real life tales add interest to any piece of writing.

5.  Presentation skills:
The meat of the matter is always the content readers find in your blog post, but, just as presentation matters in a restaurant, an important part of the blog post is its presentation. The way you use language to make the text interesting, different, conversational, yet right "on point" will go a long way in engaging readers and assuring them they’ve come to exactly the right place to find what they need.

I remember one of my high school teachers posting a sign on our classroom wall, saying "Autograph your work with excellence!"

Before putting it out on the blogosphere, measure each of your blog posts by at least one of the Speakers Platform Top 5!