All aspects of writing, idea generating, planning, process, execution, debrief, messaging and written communication is included in this category.
This week, one of my favourite blogs out there, Neuroscience Marketing, shared an answer to a controversial question:
Do web searchers pay attention to the domain name (the registered name in your browser address bar) where the link in the search results leads them?
His first response was what we would have expected, “No.”
But Roger Dooley says the numbers suggest otherwise. Stanford and Microsoft recently published a study showing that domains are in fact a variable in consumer buyer behavior.
So companies with lesser known domain names aren’t going to see the work get easier for them. The big consumer brands, so long as they stay relevant, will retain advantage.
But for smaller companies with a growing or established community of their own and a branded domain name, this can be highly advantageous. Seeing a brand-focused URL has more value than ever. The idea that multiple landing pages or micro sites are the key is waning. There are no numbers to suggest it, but the scrolling landing page with a benefit derived domain name might not be around for too much longer.
In my years online, I have noticed that a freshly named landing page selling a singular product doesn’t earn much of my trust. But if that domain still had the original brand in the address, I would assume that I could contact them for additional service or assistance, should I need it.
But I think the other lesson here is that for most things online, the shortcut to winning customers and search engine rank and revenue can no longer be sold as a get rich quick scheme. New benefit-focused domains, shoddy search optimization and limitless landing pages can all bring the search engines hammer upon you. It is only through the sincere effort of building great content, sharing it accordingly and turning visitors into ambassadors that you can stay on top of this fast paced industry.
And yes, the long way to build a trustworthy domain is still the best way, and it will only become more and more true as time goes on.
If you want to learn more about how we might be able to help you establish, refresh or rebuild your online trust, get in touch with us.
Image brutally stolen from www.timslatter.com — THANKS TIM!
These last few weeks, we have been getting some funky new clients specifically looking for blog support and social media help.
They have been running into issues managing their content, and in one case, they simply didn’t feel that they had the time to commit to their blog, even with an editorial calendar in the ready.
Maintaining your blog and appropriate social media channels is essential in building and maintaining your levels of traffic and reaching your online marketing goals. But your ability to gather and distribute information in an organized way could create more challenges than your efforts might solve. Time, ideas and, well, TIME are things that come up for people struggling to create original content for their followers
There are a few easy ways to distribute content. These may include:
Content curation is a great way for you to minimize your time and efforts bringing “new” content to your audience by simply using others’ materials that your viewers would like to read, see or interact with. You are essentially pushing another author’s content within your posts.
Content curation does not involve you having to do piles of writing (or having to hire someone like us to do so), so don’t mistake it for original content. You are simply pushing out someone else’s work on your site, and this provides some serious benefit to you:
So before your heebie jeebies kick in warning you of posting other peoples’ work in your posts, remember that crediting and providing your own take will go far in establishing your level of knowledge and uniqueness with your audience.
So go get ‘em!
Best of luck,
!d
And remember, you can always drop us a line, if you have any questions. Shy folks, feel free to comment. If you like the human touch, give a call or hit our contact page.
No flashing detour sign here...
So, this week being my birthday week, I like to spend it reflecting on my successes and challenges. It can be harrowing and humbling, but I do find it valuable.
Of our successes, the growth of our business has been joyous and exciting. The support from our clients and our network has been nothing short of amazing.
But I have one “challenge” that needs work, and I am setting the record straight, up front, for all to see.
The truth is, I haven’t been working hard enough on my blog, and it shows.
It’s not as if I don’t have enough to say. It’s not like I don’t already post blog content and social media messages for our clients. In fact, we have more blog content subscribers than ever. We find ourselves pushing 3-4 posts a day, which might seem a challenge, were it not for having a good editorial calendar to work from.
But this inconsistency on our blog has done some damage. Our traffic has dropped noticeably. The page views, the number of phone calls and email contact forms are not what they once were—even from a few weeks ago. Though we are still working hard on the more “personal” sales, we haven’t concentrated on the one thing on our website that moves people through our sales process—that magical point where they say to themselves, “We want Red Paper Clip!”
Last week, I had a conversation with a new client about their challenges with starting and running their blog. They have suffered similar consistency issues, but those were moreso focused on them not knowing what their audience wants to read.
It’s especially important for busy businesspeople to get results from every activity they perform, and blogging, when done effectively, is one of the best means of converting visitors to buyers and buyers to ambassadors.
So here is my gift to you. The seven snags that can stagnate a new or established blog. These quotes were taken from clients of ours (and our own team), so enjoy!
Few of us are James Joyce or Anne Rice, and frankly, the web doesn’t need them. Your posts don’t need to be perfect. They need to be relevant. They need to be clear, and they need to sound like a person is on the other end of them.
Getting some help from a professional is a definite possibility (in fact we encourage it), but technology can help if budgets or timelines are tight. Consider recording your posts using a speech to text app like Dragon Dictation. You can clean up the writing after the fact, but talking into your smartphone for 3 minutes would yield an ample sized blog post, and the art of blogging, whether spoken or written, improves with practice. More is better!
We understand that sometimes people work in highly specialized fields. Engineering, architecture, parts manufacturing, software development…. Clients coming from these endeavours often complain that no one wants to learn the inner workings of their industry. Sadly, they couldn’t be more wrong. People are generally curious, and any opportunity to explore how things work tantalizes that curiosity. Share those human-interest insights in your business, and reveal how things come together. Just be sure that it remains focused on what your buyers want to know.
Also, building and maintaining an editorial calendar will help you to narrow the topics that matter, and keep you on top of deadlines.
Blogs are one of the easiest ways for people to find out quick information and move ahead with whatever they were doing before they clicked. This is why tips-and-tricks blogs are so bloody effective.
That said, we need to know what people are seeking to do when they come to visit, and at that point, you can set goals for how many of those people you want doing things. Set measurable goals that you can track and make them timely goals (consider page ranking in search, conversions, audience interaction or social media sharing). It gets easier to attract more page views and conversions if you’re setting goals, analyzing the results and making changes.
Investing in your blog can be highly profitable if you do adequate research, track and measure movement and post content regularly. This last item is what we’ve struggled with recently, and frankly, it will be the last time we do so. Seeing the irregular dates and blog posts makes a website look unkempt, like having a shabby storefront. Those lovely souls who made the trek to come see our blog are suddenly unwelcomed by the sloppy site of it.
One post a week is enough to keep it looking fresh, and it is the minimum for maintaining a solid business blog, in my opinion. And yes, it’s a commitment that we’re making to our blog. 
One of the most important measurables to study when looking at your blog data is your actual readership. Google analytics is helpful in determining where they are and where they click, and your comments section is a great way to learn about the sites they represent, as most comment threads require readers to list their websites before they comment. Thank them for participating, check them out and add them on Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn (if possible). Comments are open invitations for introduction; embrace them.
This is a consistent problem that we see with established blogs. They have great content, and they have a following, but the inquiries are just not coming in.
At this point, it’s important to learn what people are coming to your pages to do. Are they researching possible providers of your product/service? Are they looking for tips, tricks and ways to solve their problem immediately? Are they friends or clients just popping by to support you?
More importantly, do your buyers know what you want them to do once they get to your website?
Calls to action play an important role here, and offering easy ways for people to go where they want to comes into play as well. But meeting your readers’ expectations comes first. How are you asking them to move forward? Have you enquired about what people want to see (or see more of)? Surveys, polls and other interactive touch points are useful for learning this, but be careful not to overdo it.
I hate the thought of my posts being published only to fade into oblivion hours later. This is where social media sharing can minimize that possibility. I use Buffer to load up my future tweets (you can use hootsuite or tweetdeck as well), and this guarantees that my posts (as well as our clients’ posts) get in front of people without annoying anyone. I also use SocialBro [link] to determine the best times to post, marking which days in the week would get the best exposure.
We also like to post comments on LinkedIn groups, on other blogs, and on popular Facebook pages. This is a great way to expose your blog to new audiences. Remember that your comments need to have perspective and not just be you shouting about your stuff on high; otherwise, you run the risk of looking like a spammer, and your credibility goes out the window. Also, for those souls with the time and chutzpa, guest blogging on relevant (and more famous) websites can bring even more eager eyes to your blog. It’s a greater investment, but guest posts immediately boost your credibility with new audiences, simplifying the equation for those ready to read your work or buy from you.
So there is my confession. At the end of my birthday week, I pledge to do more for our blog, and arrest the neglect that has plagued it these many weeks. When I consider what it’s done for us, it makes sense that I ask you to join me on this journey, and consider what things you can do to make your blog work better for you.
Oh, and remember, you can ask us anything. Just leave a comment below with your question or send us an email and we’ll get back to you.
Here’s to your blogging success!
Id
This week, Dana Ditomaso posted a fabulous link on Twitter (if you don’t already follow her, you should now), and it led to the Everywhereist, a fun travel blog written by Geraldine, a colourful storyteller.
In this post, she lays out her 16 tips for beginning bloggers. Although she runs a travel-focused blog, her writing is great and her understanding of blogging is based in experience.
No amount of money could meet the value of that.
For people who recognize the power of business blogging, you will find Geraldine’s tips brilliant. She spares the usual, “you can do it” preciousness that plagues bloggers who try to make life easier for newbies.
For experienced bloggers, her rules may seem familiar, but they are written with a personal flare that deserves to be shared. I actually found numbers 5, 6 and 10 worthy of separate posts in their own way.
Enjoy!
If you would rather visit the website yourself, here it is. It’s pretty. And she travels a lot.
Idris
http://www.everywhereist.com/my-16-tips-for-beginning-bloggers/
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I don’t profess to know very much about anything, desserts and the career of Jeff Goldblum excluded (what? I have my passions). Other than being an authority on these two very important topics, I consider myself a rather middling resource. And yet, time and again, I get emails in my inbox from new bloggers who want me to share my “wisdom” with them.
I, personally, find this equal parts hilarious and misguided. You might as well ask me for driving directions or financial advice (other topics of which I am uniquely unqualified to discuss). When it comes to blogging, I honestly and truly don’t know what I’m doing. I’m still figuring things out for myself. I still make tons of mistakes.
But I have kept at it for two and half long years and for six-hundred-fifty-five posts (including this one). So for those of you who are literally asking for it, here are my tips for new bloggers.
Be Yourself, like she does, er—is...
So that’s it: the grand total of my wisdom as it pertains to blogging. I’ll be the first to note that I only spoke to style, voice, and tone. If you are looking for something more technical, I strongly suggest you check out my husband Rand’s tips for not-just-travel bloggers and my pal John Doherty’s blog post about SEO.
And if any of my fellow bloggers have any other useful tips for beginners, please feel free to share them in the comments.
Ain't it the truth!
Hear ye, hear ye!
I bet you wonder why on earth I haven’t been posting for the last two weeks, okay maybe not. ;)
BUT we’re been busy managing our clients’ work, and frankly, they will always come first.
We do have some great news, though. I was asked to post on the X5 Management website this week.
Here it is. http://x5management.com/blog/are-you-content-with-your-content/
It’s pretty good, so I recommend you pay Mike, Joseph and the X5 team a visit. Their blog is very informative and balanced.
I hope my entry fits in.
Have a great week!
Idris
Don't worry, this is just a prop! Your blog will be fine.
We’ve had a really fun-filled week. We met with a few clients of our good friends at Paper Leaf Designs, and we spoke candidly about business blogging and what it can do for them. One of them complained about their blog saying it wasn’t fresh and they thought it sucked when they looked around at others in their field. It can sometimes seem daunting or painful when people scope out top drawing business blogs with dozens of weekly entries and a warm basket of fresh comments beneath each post. I wish I had an extra 30 minutes to tell them what they really needed to hear, but time wasn’t on our side, so I asked if I could blog about it.
So here are six simple ways to get over your sucky blog.
This is by far the most dangerous play you can make on the blogging pitch. Syndicated content moves around the internet because it is created and promoted by content farms. These are the Monsantos of website content. They drown the world with drivel of low nutritioonal value. Don’t be a part of the problem. Prove yourself valueable. Use your blog to bring your expertise and understanding to your readers.
I like to follow the Golden Rule of Blogging: Love thy reader as you would have them love unto your blog. Don’t get caught up with telling too much of your story and miss out on sharing your customers’ perspectives. They deserve to hear about themselves as much as they deserve to learn about who you are and why you do what you do.
There are very simple steps to take to make sure that people can find you. SEO can seem like a complicated realm to navigate, but it doesn’t have to be. Label the tags for your photos and use appropriate keywords in the description and title tags for each blog post. Be sure to use links for websites you cite and link previous blog posts (that are relevant to the current post). This will go far in helping new visitors find your blog. Read our post about blog optimization here.
This is problem that we often encounter when we first visit a newly launched blog. They might have useful information, but if the blog isn’t properly organized, we can’t shop around. I simply refuse to revisit poorly set up blogs. I am far too impatient to deal with it. Keep an archive handy for people to click through, and have well managed categories, topics and search tools. Using your keywords will be a good start point for how you might want to label your content.
Frequency is the mother of relevancy. The world will only want to frequent your website if you have new content for them to digest on a regular basis. Also, people will shop through your archive, so if you don’t post consistently, you might look unreliable. Imagine if your favourite monthly magazine suddenly decided that it was too busy and published bi-monthly to take a break… Not acceptable. It’s good to treat your blog with the same reverence. Your people should matter that much. An editorial content calendar and schedule will help prevent you from such pitfalls.
Our beloved coach, Mike Mack from X5 Management recently shared a quote from Henry Ford, and he keeps it framed on his wall. “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” The fact is that every blog sucks, since every blog starts from the same place, the beginning. The world’s best and most heavily read blogs began with one post, and even the most seasoned blogger knows that the biggest room in their house is the room for improvement. Don’t fret about your social media promotion. Don’t frown because your post lacks comments. Don’t complain about your design or cry about not having crazy apps that make everything look more professional. It gets better if you work at it, but it takes time to master anything, especially blogging. All of those other factors will work their way in if the focus is in the right place.
Remember the Blogging Golden Rule, and if necessary, follow Mike Mack’s lead and get in up on your wall.
And since that’s such a fine idea, we’re doing it too.
Have a great week!
Idris
If you are ready to have a serious conversation about your business blog (or lack thereof), get in touch with us. We’d love to help you out!
End police brutality!
We at Red Paper Clip hear it all the time: “I’d love to start blogging, but I’ve just never been that good at grammar, and I don’t want to look like an idiot.”
And such fears aren’t unfounded. There’s no shortage of Grammar Police patrolling the Internet, ready to chase down any opportunity to show off just how much they know.
Now, I’m no Fowler or Grammar Girl, but I suppose one could call me a grammarian of sorts. When I worked at MacEwan, I had to teach grammar, among other things, and nothing gets your grammar butt in gear faster than having to explain errors and teach new skills (as opposed to just making corrections as a copyeditor would).
I get the whole Grammar Police thing. I really do. I’ve been known to post the odd “Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling” article on Facebook or to lean over and share a giggle with Idris as we pass a billboard with a non-deliberate error. Sometimes, laughter is the only way to scratch the brain itch that comes with seeing a misspelled word, misused term, or misplaced comma.
But I am sick to death of seeing the posturing that critics use to elevate themselves while hurting and belittling the writer. I’m talking about people who comment on Facebook walls or novice bloggers’ entries just to show the writers how little they know and how unworthy they are of posting on the Internet. I’m talking about people who go into the Remedy Café bathroom with a pen just to correct people’s graffiti and make them feel awful for having dared wield a Sharpie without having perfect command of the English language.
I’m talking about people who probably aren’t even good writers themselves.
You see, teaching grammar forced me to strengthen my own technical knowledge of writing, but it also taught me to appreciate what people are up against when it comes to developing writing skills (which is another blog post altogether!). It taught me that people should never be afraid to express their amazing ideas and use writing to engage people because they still struggle with to, two, and too.
It taught me that good grammar doesn’t always equal good writing.
Here are my reasons for thinking it’s time for everyone to put down their red pens and lighten up on each other:
Sure, you may make fewer mistakes than the average person, but you still make them. We all do, no matter how knowledgeable or experienced we are as writers or how good we are at editing our own work.
And frankly, there’s nothing funnier to an actual writer than seeing self-professed grammar nerds picking on others while using less-than-perfect grammar, punctuation and syntax themselves.
Well, at least not in the sense that the majority of people never struggled from time to time with mechanics. Before curricula moved away from strict grammar instruction in favour of less-formal writing instruction, students did learn how to parse sentences in grade school, but studies have shown that the link between that specific kind of formal grammar instruction and consistent application of these rules is highly debatable. (Note: I’m not saying all forms of grammar instruction are ineffective!) True, most written communication had fewer errors, but also keep in mind that CEOs and managers had secretaries and assistants who handled many of these pieces.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but having flawless blog pieces hardly guarantees you followers. If you fancy yourself a grammarian, take a few minutes to scan a few blogs from the first ten of the Top 100 Blogs. I’m willing to bet you’ll find more than a mere handful of errors. Readership in the blogging realm has far more to do with your ability to engage readers with relevant content than it does with flawlessness.
So, if your fear of blogging (or any other form of writing) stems from your concern that the self-appointed Grammar Police are going ticket you for every error in grammar or punctuation, remember that most real writers don’t behave that way. Why? Because they’re too busy working on their own stuff to troll others’ work for errors, and they’re thanking their lucky stars for the editors and copyeditors that have their back for anything formally published.
And if your fear of writing for your business comes from not knowing what to write or having to add yet another item to the task list, contact us to see how we can help.
"A blog-blog-blog..."
Tomorrow is going to be a great day. Mack D. Male, one of Edmonton, Alberta’s blogging elite will be hosting a seminar downtown at the Alberta Business Link. For those who can make it, there is no need to RSVP. Just show up with some business cards and GET YOUR LEARN ON.
In honour of Mr. Male’s upcoming session, I would like to share some perspective on business blogging and where the Red Paper Clip team sees it going.
The consistent growth of business blogging over the last few years is impressive. Email marketing and social media promotion of business blogs are new but essential methods to build leads, authority and community. Their flexibility through the use of platforms and services like WordPress, MailChimp and Aweber makes it easy for even the most novice of content creators.
But the continued growth of business blogs hasn’t slowed down the readership. In fact, it continues to blossom in ways that puzzle even the craziest economists. The readership resource is far from extinguished. For new bloggers, the water’s still warm.
Don’t ever let a content strategist, social media person, or anyone who has a job on the Interwebz tell you that data doesn’t matter. One of the greatest advantages of the internet is that everything is trackable. Use this to your business blog’s advantage. Track clicks through Google Analytics, search socially trending topics on Twitter trends and Google Alerts, and get a sense of what people really want to know. Your relevance to them—and your popularity—will skyrocket within a few posts.
We’ve entered a really interesting time in content creation and management. Today, it’s easy to post images, diagrams, client testimonials, comments, questions, videos, clickable links and audio conversations. Take advantage of these content possibilities by looking at your business blog more like a magazine and less like a sidebar newspaper column. I’ve seen industrial business blogs that look more like climbing magazines (by design, of course), and they earn a much higher yield of leads and traffic than their more conservative counterparts.
The fact that I have to further explain so-called Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to new and established clients is proof that they are never going to catch on. I can’t be bothered to tome on their history (since I predict that their death knell might be in 2012), but here is a great explanation. I always suggest that companies keep their email lists close to their hearts, because it’s where some of your best leads will always come from.
I like imagining mobile and smartphone communication like I imagine Zooey Dechanel’s recent explosion on television. Dechanel’s been in film for a few years, and she’s been working her skills on the big screen just fine. But since earning the lead role in The New Girl, she has been surrounded by a crack team of comedy writers and producers that has really shaken the industry up. Mobile phone use is the same. We’re sitting in a perfect storm of mobile market advantages (ease, cheap prices, easy applications, ubiquity) and the world has thus responded. Keep mobile users in mind when preparing your blog topics. Avoid anything that might not translate well to mobile users, and they will continue to visit.
The proliferation of business blogs has created one problem: There is so damn much information out there, readers often don’t know who best to follow. Many of us in the same profession may have similar views on best practices. So how do you keep those lucky few who visit? Tell your story and keep it up top in your messaging. Readers like to connect with people more than information. Be human. Be courteous. Be professional. Be yourself.
People will read only what they can find. Using simple and effective search engine optimization practices will ensure that you rank where you need to, captivating the right audience to build those leads. Great content is invisible without good SEO. We’ve a few good articles on the matter here.
So for those of you in Edmonton, I look forward to meeting you at the Business Link seminar tomorrow!
Bests,
Idris
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got 50+ emails, phone calls, to-dos and miscellanea that was supposed to get handled in the onslaught that was Christmas break.
Well, now that we’ve come out from under that pile (not by having finished it, but by having it brushed aside for two weeks), I have laid my New Year’s resolutions on the table.
Unfortunately, the 2012 to-do pile just overtakes them.
If you’re anything like me, you probably sat down with your team. You’ve probably talked about those outstanding things your business should have completed this year. This might have included upgrading your website content or writing X number of blog posts a month, and you may have felt pressured to push those closer-than-future regrets into business resolutions.
And you may have even coupled this with the obvious business disclaimer, “We don’t have time to write/complete/edit these web pages/blog posts/ebooks/reports.”
It might hurt to hear this, but your content for 2012 looks a lot like your content for 2011.
Don’t let your content slide. We can help you take control of your content.
This is normally the part where I get into a diatribe about how we do it. But we have web pages for that. Instead, I want to give you a leg up on fulfilling your own content requirements.
And this all begins with an editorial calendar.
This is your chance to do what magazines, newspapers, research institutes and professional writers do. We all rely on editorial calendars to clarify the roles of our team, the themes, topics and ideas for the content, and (most importantly), the deadlines for each part of the content. It gives you a chance to plan a process for delivering your content in a timely way so it doesn’t have to infringe on your other work or your peace of mind.
For those of us in the writing industry, editorial calendars can be complicated project architectures separating the roles of contributors, editors, and even typesetters and publishers.
That said, we don’t need to use anything complicated, and neither do you. But we all deserve to have the tools to stop saying, “There’s no time to get this done.”
We’re a Mac-outfitted office, but we tend to use Google Calendar. Apple’s Calendar is painfully elementary, and Outlook (as clean as it is for PC networks) isn’t as clean for us. Many people prefer to use shared spreadsheets. What you prefer doesn’t matter as much as picking the method that others can use comfortably.
I like to leave time at the beginning of the month to gather ideas about my industry, pulling favourited tweets, emails from my subscriptions, magazine articles I clipped, notes from websites, etc. The timing of this isn’t important. Just make sure you leave one hour a month to gather or assemble these things and collate them into possible ideas. Believe me: It gets easier as you go, and you can move along whatever doesn’t get used the month before (assuming it’s still current).
Most people get stuck here. They get the calendar started and they get the team on board. They gather materials, and then they get caught in committee purgatory. That lifeless place is where good ideas go to die.
Don’t do it. Don’t share everything. Instead, take the agreed-upon ideas and assign them outward. If you have a team of one or two, it gets pretty easy. If you have a team of three or more, don’t share who will do what. Assign tasks and allow them to trade. They can see what might be due when. Allow them the chance to update the responsible parties and move on. A great example is assigning a website content rewriting. You might find that people fear writing the home page or the about page. Don’t let that slow you down. Assign it to who you think the best candidate might be and move on. People can broker their good deeds as trade without committee-style conversations slowing the calendar down.
Now you have a calendar that lays out who is responsible for what content and when it is due. You now have a tool that saves time, effort, and most importantly, backtalk and quips about there being no time to see it through.
As I am often told by one of our architecture clients, “Planning IS execution. Do it right and the labour becomes the easiest part.”
If pulling together a working editorial calendar still feels like an impossible task among your 2012 to-dos, CLICK HERE and we’ll get in touch with you directly. We’re happy to help.
Good luck,
Idris
"This wouldn't be a bad time to think about my blog... where's my notepad?"
I know we tend to go on and on about blogging and content optimization, but it’s so hard for us not to! Blogs are great for providing fresh, relevant content and they can dramatically improve your search rankings, customer base, community and brand.
But blogs can be brutal for busy people, and the time required to build an effective blog can seem daunting. For those few who take the plunge, coming up with strong, strategic blogs that speak to your audience and fulfill your website goals becomes too much to bear. Stale, dusty or rusty business blogs are commonplace.
What most people don’t realize is that blog writing isn’t like writing fiction. As most professional writers will tell you, web writing is more design, planning and adjusting than it is idea generation, language or prose .
And since most people don’t have a handle on the tricks that we use to stay on top of our blogs, here are some short tips that you can use today that will get you writing optimized blog posts in an hour, not an afternoon.
Having a way to talk about what you know is critical to writing good content, especially for blogs. I always find that my best ideas come at those times when I am finishing up with a client or am just hanging out with friends. Keep a notebook handy so you can record your thoughts, other people’s questions or opinions. You can tighten these ideas later, but building the list is a huge advantage. Flip through it once a week to…
Give yourself time to create a picture for how you want your blog to be structured. The more time you spend on this, the stronger the flow of your blog will be, and the shorter the time you will need to assemble your ideas as you…
Create a short list of the central parts of your blog post. You’ll need an introduction, a few short points and way to get out quickly that hits the spot. Take those elements and simply fill them in. Remember that Google, as well as readers, love short, snappy content with headlines, sub headlines and lists. No need to wax poetic. Simply state what’s on order and finish up, but…
Putting the reader first to most means keeping the blog focused on the reader’s frame of mind. We agree, but just as important is thinking about how your reader will find your post. Think about the search terms they use and how they could fit in the blog content, headlines and subheads. Be sure not to neglect your blog tags, meta information and image tags (if you are using WordPress or other blog content platforms, this is easy to do). We’re big fans of Yoast SEO for WordPress for helping us to manage meta information (get it here).
It’s like we always tell people (who will listen): Writing is a process that gets better as you practice and refine your process. The writing becomes easier, faster, and normally better. We’ve seen blogs improve their ranking with a dozen posts of optimized blog content, and there is no reason why any business cannot have a successful blog. By using these 4 tips and following through on them, you’ll build a solid, optimized blog archive that will help the right people find you and make the right decisions on your website.
If time is an issue for you making your blog or website content work, please visit our Contact Page, fill our the form, and we’ll get in touch with you.
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