Tag Archives: Blog Writing

Business Writing

Wow, My Blog Sucks: 6 Ways to Get Over It and Get Better

January 29, 2012 – 9:20 pm
Your blog sucks and it's ok that your blog sucks!

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.

1. No Original Content

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.

2. Self Centred and Self Promoting Blogs

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.

3. Poor SEO and a Lack of Traffic Because of It

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.

4. Poor Blog Organization

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.

5. Lack of Frequency, Lack of Consistency

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.

6. You Only Suck Because You Think You Suck!

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!

Idris Fashan

Idris Fashan is a content strategist, percussionist, writer, marketer, vegan, political junkie and cat lover. He used to love walks on the beach, but being a Prairie boy now, he's gotten used to freshwater. He is also the Managing Partner at Red Paper Clip.

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Business Marketing Writing

Business Blogging: 7 Quick Tips, 7 Absolute Truths

January 16, 2012 – 7:13 am
Businesses, get ahead using your blog!

"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.

Tip 1: Growth does not equal saturation

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.

Tip 2: Let your data be your guide—er, DRIVER

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.

Tip 3: Treat your business blog more like a moving magazine

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.

Tip 4: RSS is D-E-D: Stick to email marketing for leads and business

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.

Tip 5: Mobility isn’t the it-girl, but she’s about to be!

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.

Tip 6: There will always be bloggers who know more, but only YOU can tell your story.

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.

Tip 7: Use SEO blogging best practices to stay visible.

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

Idris Fashan

Idris Fashan is a content strategist, percussionist, writer, marketer, vegan, political junkie and cat lover. He used to love walks on the beach, but being a Prairie boy now, he's gotten used to freshwater. He is also the Managing Partner at Red Paper Clip.

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Business Strategy Writing

Write Optimized Blog Posts in One Hour

December 19, 2011 – 10:32 am
Write optimized Blog Posts: Four Tips

"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.

It’s not a novel. It’s a blog.

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.

Keep a notepad (or maybe an iPad)

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…

Write in mind before writing on the page

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…

Outline the blog

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…

Remember the most important trick: Put Your Reader First

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.

Idris Fashan

Idris Fashan is a content strategist, percussionist, writer, marketer, vegan, political junkie and cat lover. He used to love walks on the beach, but being a Prairie boy now, he's gotten used to freshwater. He is also the Managing Partner at Red Paper Clip.

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Marketing Writing

Optimize Your Old Blog Posts: Don’t Forget!

December 12, 2011 – 6:56 pm
Your Old Blog Posts Can Be Great SEO Opportunities

This should be on every "exit."

We’re having a lot of fun right now.

We’re working with X5 Management on their blog and website. They are an outstanding team. And as we have been working with them on their website content, blog strategy and blog writing, their understanding and skills have grown at a rapid rate. (We highly recommend you visit their site and enjoy their offerings on taking business to the next level.)

When we work with our clients, we tell them that their improvements in creating content is a great thing. It doesn’t matter what level anyone begins at, progress is a wonderful thing.

But when it comes to your blog, what should you be doing with your old blog posts? You know, the ones you might have thought were fine at the time, but you may be afraid to revisit for fear of wanting to alter them altogether.

Don’t Agonize, Optimize!

Ouch! But seriously, you don’t have to go there.

One consideration worth examining involves revisits and possibly a few edits, but rest assured, you won’t have to make faces about your writing.

Instead, you can optimize your old blog posts using a few tricks for SEO (search engine optimization). Cleaning your posts up for search saves you having to do any heavy content editing while still giving you a leg up in marketing your blog to your community and beyond.

It’s possible that your blog posts haven’t really been optimized at all. Not to worry, you need not focus on every post—just the ones that get the most traction.

If you are familiar with Google Analytics, try running it through your posts and track the ones with the most views. This will give you your to-do list.

You might want to go through the blog posts that you feel are the strongest posts, the ones you want shared and found. Add these to your list, but put them at the TOP.

Next, find out what these posts are optimized for by running Wordle. This forms the keywords into a tag cloud. The largest words in the cloud are the most often used terms or phrases.

Run those terms through your keyword tool (if you don’t have one, try Google’s Keyword Research Tool) to find other terms that will fit well in the post. Build a short list and keep it handy.

Have a look at the post and make sure those terms end up in the content in your titles. Make sure those terms use title tags H1 and H2, and they are not just bolded body content. Make sure the best keywords or phrases end up in your image tags and your URL, too.

Five Fast Blog Optimization Tips

Once you get through the content, you might want to do a little housekeeping for those few blogs that are lacking:

  • Images: Put images in place if there aren’t any on your post (don’t forget the tags).
  • Check for your call to action. If it’s not getting any traction, replace it with something new. If there isn’t one there, well, get cracking.
  • It’s obvious that if you had social share buttons set up on your website, those buttons will appear on all blog posts. But if there are posts that don’t have likes or “+1’s,” make sure you do so to your own posts.
  • Add links in the blog content that connect related blog posts to each other. This is one of the most under completed SEO techniques, and it reflects well in search.
  • If you don’t already have one, add a related posts plugin to your blog (for WordPress, the Related Post Plugin is one of the standards). This will increase traffic and help to elevate those older posts.

Yes, it might still seem like extra work and effort to make any of these changes to those pieces that are parts of your website’s past. But remember: You shouldn’t worry about doing it all in one swoop. Any adjustment you make to them will make a difference to the algorithms that rule the web.

Also, it saves you having to make any heavy edits to your already-posted content—because none of us have that kind of time!

If time is an issue for you making your blog or website a success, please visit our Contact Page, fill our the form, and we’ll get in touch with you.

Idris

Idris Fashan

Idris Fashan is a content strategist, percussionist, writer, marketer, vegan, political junkie and cat lover. He used to love walks on the beach, but being a Prairie boy now, he's gotten used to freshwater. He is also the Managing Partner at Red Paper Clip.

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Business Marketing Strategy Writing

Who is Lululemon?

November 15, 2011 – 1:32 am
Lululemon "Who is John Gault?" bag

Photo credit goes to Rick Marazzani at MindPosts

Recently, Lululemon began distributing shopping bags with “Who is John Galt?” printed on the sides, following up with a blog post explaining the company’s decision. Unsurprisingly, this has put Lululemon at the center of controversy as some identify with the message and others paint it in a less favourable light, as a libertarian message endorsed by a company that sells a lifestyle based on conscientiousness and harmony.

I’m not here to discuss Ayn Rand’s politics. Instead, what interests me in all this is whether Lululemon is really all that off base in using such a loaded and controversial literary symbol.

What Were They Thinking?

In its blog post, Lululemon explained itself by saying that it’s John Galt’s pursuit of greatness over mediocrity that is behind its latest marketing inspiration.

Fair enough. No little kid responds to, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with, “I want to be mediocre!” And hey, the notion that we can all be whatever we want to be and rise up above circumstance with the right mindset is soothing, kind of like a comfy pair of yoga pants and a cup of hot herbal tea, no?

What’s contentious here is the philosophy of how such greatness is achieved. According to Rand, it’s by acting in self-interest and having a government that stays well out of your way. It’s political.

Using politics in your marketing is ballsy, and those behind the campaign had to have known this would earn the company some enemies.

Or has it?

Who Wears Lululemon?

Something tells me that the people passing Lululemon’s blog post around on Twitter and Facebook and talking about how disgusting this all is aren’t regular Lululemon customers. Lululemon lost the love of the leftist and hippie yoga crowds long ago with its pricing, upscale locales, sweatshop labour allegations, and ubiquitous presence on the bodies of well-to-do so-called “yuppies” and “yummy mummies” in line for an extra-hot skinny latté at Starbucks.

And it is those bodies that Lululemon is marketing to.

Chances are, if you’re the type to have a hate-on for Ayn Rand, you’re not—and never have been—Lululemon’s target market.

The reason so many people are upset at Lululemon’s “Who is John Galt?” campaign isn’t because their much-loved athletic wear provider is a turncoat. It’s because it further reinforces what they already know Lululemon to be: A corporate retailer that has found its niche in high-end, fashionable athletic attire and that aims to profit off of the latest trend in all things yoga, pilates, and dance.

Those Who Try To Please Everyone Please No One

Fact is, Ayn Rand, or at least Lululemon’s interpretation of John Galt, likely resonates with those who are able and willing to spend $100 on a pair of stretch pants. There’s nothing disingenuous about Lululemon’s marketing here. People are strongly divided on the issue, to be sure, but those on the side of Lululemon are exactly the ones Lululemon sought to appeal to.

When it comes to everyone else, well…

No love lost, right?

 

Having not looked at Lululemon’s market research and having not consulted them on their choice of words, I can of course only guess at the company’s motives and provide distant assumptions about the campaign’s effectiveness. However, if you’d like to see how you can use the written word to connect with your best people, contact us to arrange for a free consultation.

Geneve

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Business Strategy Writing

Your Business Blog Deserves More Attention than Your Website Content

November 6, 2011 – 7:00 am
Neglect your business blog at your peril.

Image blatantly stolen from the Stillwater Public Library Blog. THANKS, GUYS!

Blogs: The kids are alright.

There is no shortage of blogs and blog marketers touting the power of blogging, and you’ll see no exception to that here. Blogs are a central part of effective online marketing, and they provide numerous benefits for businesses seeking to build leads, community and authority in their industry. And with the people-driven nature of blogging and blog marketing, businesses of all sizes can quickly benefit from them.

Blogs are lovingly described by social media experts as the centrepiece from which all social media should take place. But blogs for business can be so much more. In fact, blogs can be the leverage point for how a business creates and connects competitive researchers, readers, buyers and ambassadors, as well as encourage deeper interactions among those groups.

It seems far easier to justify a business website than it is to justify a business blog. Much of this is because the same metrics are used for each.

This is an incorrect way to think.

Where the boardroom meets the water cooler

Blogs enable companies to facilitate connections between people who may be directly or indirectly connected to the brand. These individuals, by being completely human (with attitudes, experiences and opinions) contribute to the “energy” of your blog. Therefore, the critical creative decisions you make about your blog must have these people’s interests in mind.

As you begin to build your blog, consider the type of impacts and conversations you wish to facilitate. The reason that I mention this is that the kinds of conversations you have, for some, is as important a measure as your number of visitors.

Plan and define success

You can define the success of your blog based on reputation/social interaction, visitors, search engine ranking and the redirects of your readers to other areas of your website (landing pages, forms, etc). We like to call these points of conversion.

People may be interested in your company, but the reasons for visiting your blog can be for much deeper reasons, and these should not be ignored. It could be for a specific post a writer had posted. It could be the controversial or contrarian position your company takes on a related topic, or it could be a guest blogger of mention that interests your readers. These organic interests should be reason enough to consider your blog a key entry point to your website, your conversion tools or your enrollment methods. Perhaps your email newsletters will see even more interested readers that the ones you recruit in person or over email.

Either way, we say your business blog requires more attention than your website. You’ll get more bang from it than you can imagine. And since people have become more familiar and active on business blogs, you’ll do best to plan, set and move toward your goals. It will come back in relevant and measurable successes.

Cheers,

!d

Idris Fashan

Idris Fashan is a content strategist, percussionist, writer, marketer, vegan, political junkie and cat lover. He used to love walks on the beach, but being a Prairie boy now, he's gotten used to freshwater. He is also the Managing Partner at Red Paper Clip.

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