Archive for blog content

Better Business Blogs:
Correct Those Broken Links

business-blogsAre you keeping your business blog fresh? If you’re like me, and you’ve been blogging for a number of years, chances are some of your links may no longer work. This guest post, from Susan Boggs, offers tips for successful bloggers and blogs on how to find and correct broken links.

In a perfect world, we would always know exactly what the Big Search Engines want from us and our business blogs, always and without a doubt. We would engrave them into stone and follow them judiciously. Our blogs would rank high for our keywords, and life would be wonderful.

Ah, yes, nirvana.

Unfortunately, in this world we call the Internet, blogging is not always quite that simple. The good news?

Life is still wonderful. Read More→

5 Ways Blog Analytics Improve
Your Business Blog

Blog Analytics

How do you use your blog analytics? There are many easy-to-use blogging analytics tools out there, but the really successful bloggers know their results and tailor their blogs accordingly.

This is the fifth element in the CAST system for effective blog content:

Content (compelling)
Assets (free)
Social Media
Track

Here are the top five practices in business blog tracking, using analytic tools, and what to do to improve the performance of your blog so that you and your business blog get found, get known and get clients. Read More→

How to Create a White Paper:
Get Found Online and Grow Readership

White-paper-digital-assetsIf you want to grow your reader base, that is, if you want to get found and get known online, small businesses and entrepreneurs will offer prospects and clients online information for free, such as a white paper, a report or a compelling article. This is part of the CAST acronym for ways to grow readership.

CAST Your Net: A is for Assets

I’ve been blogging about ways to grow your reader base using this memory device:

Content
Assets
Social Media
Track

I’m referring to digital assets, or content that is offered as a service to your readers. Your assets should range from free to fee: Read More→

3 Reasons Why SEO and Content
Marketing Fit Together

SEO-and-Content-MarketingA Note from Patsi: This week’s guest post is about SEO and content marketing and it’s really important. Why? Because if you write your own blog, you may think that quality content is all you need to get found online and attract clients. It’s not.

I don’t care how good your writing is or how important you are as a thought leader in your field. Your blog needs good Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. But don’t let that scare you. Here’s what you need to know, from guest author Derek Iwasiuk.

For a long time, search engine optimization was all about tricks and tactics. People used to do anything as long as their sites rank at the top and they get the much needed traffic. Some of the techniques that website owners used to get to the top were totally unethical causing outcries from various quarters. This, however, has completely changed thanks to the updates made to the major search engines. If you inquire from any SEO company, they will tell you that nowadays, it is all about content marketing. Here are some of the reasons why you should invest in lots of content so as to rank high in search results.

  1. Content marketing fulfills SEO’s demands

On its part, SEO issues demands. There are lots of things that you need in order to succeed in search engine optimization. Be it links or any other, you need to make sure that you use the ones that will actually make your site to rank high. Content marketing on the other hand fulfills those demands. It is what you use to make sure that there is enough for professional SEO services. It therefore goes without saying that at the end of the day, the two are just one. Read More→

Blog Readers: 7 Psychological Ways to Emotionally Connect

Stuck on my roof

How do you create an emotional connection with your blog readers? More importantly, how do you get them so inspired they want to take action, like join your list, opt-in, comment, or buy something? Here are some psychological secrets to keep in mind.

When writing on the web – either in a blog post, a newsletter or other forms of content marketing, readers are more likely to respond to your offers of service or products if there is a resonance between you. An emotional connection is forged when your reader experiences being on the same ‘wave length’ as you. This can be done several ways.

I have to warn you: this is not always easy to do in an email, ezine or blog. Why? Because people are so different, and what is appealing on an emotional level to one is averse to another. Read More→

Great Blog Content:
2 Reasons for Writing Stories

Great-blog-stories

Are you writing stories with feeling on your business blog? If your blog post doesn’t resonate emotionally, you can’t do a good job of building relationships, inspiring trust, and moving people into taking action.

As I mentioned in my last post, great blog content appeals to people who are both thinkers and feelers.  To do this, blog writers need to get real with readers – they need to step away from their anonymous masks and get emotional. If you don’t, readers won’t respond to you.  Read More→

How to Write Blog Posts: Awesome Graphic

Do you know how to write blog posts so that they actually get read? Some people think blogging is easy: Write it and it will be read. If you’ve ever written a blog post, you know that’s not true, and it’s hard to craft a post people will read. This infographic was created for Salesforce Canada and it says it all; it will help you put together a share-worthy post.

Click To Enlarge

Anatomy of a Blog Post

Via Salesforce

Blogging Strategies for
End-of-Year Business Blogs

How are you doing on your business blogging strategies for 2015?  Have you been hitting the targets and benchmarks you set for yourself?

I don’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions, but after 15+ years working with executive coaches and consultants, I know that having clearly defined goals and expectations for a business blog or website is critical to help you get found, get known, and get clients. Setting strategies and goals will improve how you show up on the Web.

If you haven’t set any goals, or you’re just starting out, here’s how you can still get in the game and get some traction in 2015. Read More→

Tips on Writing a Great Blog Post:
Give it a Rest

Bird BandageIt’s the rainy season here in Mexico – a great time to do a lot of reading, writing and recovery – at least, that’s what I told myself when I scheduled my shoulder surgery.  But I’m having trouble with my blog writing.  And now I’m stuck. I’ve got Blogger’s Block.  (Yes, even experienced bloggers can get stuck from time to time.)

So I pull out my bag of great blog post tricks, and determine where I’m stuck in the process.  And that’s it.  I had altered my writing process.  But that shouldn’t matter… should it? Read More→

The 4 Step Creative Process for Writing Blogs:
(& Happy Birthday to WOW Blog)

Writing-BlogsDo you struggle with the creative process of writing blogs? Do you cringe when you need to find a topic for your blog? You’re not alone.

Over the past 11 years, I’ve written a ton of information about writing great blog posts and newsletters, as well as e-books, white papers and articles to increase your visibility. Sometimes it feels like I’ve already written as much as I have to say. There’s nothing new, it’s been done before.

But then I remember that people forget and new people come to visit all the time. It’s motivation to keep my blog posts fresh and interesting.

So how do you choose a topic for writing blogs that will be most relevant to your readers, and hasn’t been said 1,000 times before? Trust the process and get busy.

Almost 100 years ago, Graham Wallas observed that creative solutions appear sequentially:

Preparation => Incubation => Illumination => Implementation

The same is true for writing quality content – blog posts are written by following a creative process. Read More→