Archive for About Blogs – Page 14

Business Blog: 4 Reasons to NOT Write Your Own

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, February 7th, 2011

(Guest post by Adam Kosloff)

You’re swamped.

You barely have time to scan the headlines of your favorite news feeds. Probably the only reason you clicked on this article was to check out whether it might provide instant value to you. Can this article save you time and/or money and/or hassle?

Hopefully, it can. And not because this article will tell you anything you don’t already know – rather, it will remind you of business principles that you already apply in your everyday professional work but which you forgot once you started marketing online.

Here’s the message, loud and clear: 99% of busy business professionals and attorneys should not – repeat, not – waste their precious productive hours writing their own blog posts and website content. If you are guilty of this practice, stop it. You will burn yourself out, and your business will suffer – even if you enjoy doing the writing.

Not convinced? Consider these four arguments.

  1. You earn the most money – and generate the most productive return on your time – when you stay in your “area of strength. The more time you blog, the less time you will have available to serve your clients. Let’s do the math. Say you’re an attorney who bills out at $250 an hour. Currently, you write three blog posts a week. It takes you about an hour to write each post. $250/hour X 3 hours = $750.This means you are investing a whopping $750 every week into your blog. Are you really getting a return on that investment that justifies this practice?
  2. You are not a professional blogger.You have been trained as an attorney, corporate executive, or entrepreneur. Even if you consider yourself a master writer and communicator, web writing is its own very cagey animal.Creating ongoing, tonally accurate, riveting web content requires specialized skills that you must hone over years of practice. Undoubtedly, you could learn how to write more effectively for the web. But why bother? Your time and resources are extremely limited. You must husband them for the crucial tasks of operating your core business. Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks
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3 Tips for Better Blog Writing

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, January 31st, 2011

I’m glad to see that there are more agencies focusing on content marketing for small businesses. I stumbled upon The Content Factor and found their approach to blog writing and white papers refreshing:

The Content Factor provides good advice for content marketing strategies:

But to be successful with blogging, you have to recognize some key differences:

  • The best blogs are personified. Readers like to feel like they know the blog writer and feel some of the blog writer’s personality and humanity come through. One good way to do this is via the slice-of-life approach; what happened to you today that relates to some business insight you can offer?
  • Blogs should not be looked at in the traditional sense as corporate communications. If you just regurgitate press releases, or take very little risk with your blog posts, you will not attract very many readers.
  • Blogs have to be kept up. Once you fall behind, you are dead. We should know. We struggle with our blog as well.

Three great tips to keep in mind for your blogging strategies: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content
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Blogging with Personality and Tim Ferriss

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

How much personality should you show on your blog without becoming an ego-blogger? Apparently you can share a lot of personal stories and anecdotes, even become a little outrageous and contrarian, according to Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek and now The 4-Hour Body.

I recommend listening to his short video about sharing your personality on your blog, an interview done by Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included. I was at this Blog World conference when Rohit interviewed Tim, in 2008. While it’s not a new interview, there are several nuggets that are timeless.

I don’t know if you’ve read Tim or not, but he’s a master at blogging and marketing his books.  While he could come across as Mr. Big Ego (his accomplishments are many), he does not.

Tim masters two things that make him credible and trustworthy: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Coaching/Personal Development, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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Content Marketing with Stories: Better than Facts

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Good stories are what make a blog interesting and fun to read. More importantly, if you’re trying to influence people to buy into your ideas and ultimately your business, there is evidence that stories work better than facts.

A 2007 study by Jennifer Edson Escalas, a marketing researcher at Vanderbilt University, found that people had more positive reactions to advertisements that were presented in a story form than to ads that were factually straightforward about the products.

In another study, when information was labeled as fact, it was subjected to critical analysis. Apparently humans have a tendency to want to make factual information wrong, compared with information labeled as a story, which people accept more easily.

In his book Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin writes, “People just aren’t that good at remembering facts. When people do remember facts, it’s almost always in context.” The way to put facts into context is to transfer them through the use of story. A story is all about context.

So if you’re a professional with a blog, or writing content for your web pages or e-newsletter, what kinds of stories should you be writing? On a blog, it’s easier to do since it’s a personal communication tool. It’s easy to share client experiences and stories about the work you do.

I’ve written extensively about how to craft blog posts, and given you some outlines and templates for structuring blog posts. Most of them center on writing about how to solve a problem for your readers. The best way to gain attention and engage readers is through storytelling.

Here are some ideas for triggering stories: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web
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3 Easy Tips to Target Readers with Your Content

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, January 3rd, 2011

This is a guest post from Sam Briones, a freelance writer, who explains how to get targeted traffic to read your online content.

You may be on your keyboard all day and night, writing about content that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. You know that what you are writing makes sense, and more importantly, your expertise could change someone’s outlook, or even their life!

However, you don’t seem to be getting responses. You check your blog, and the only comments are from your mother. What’s wrong, and how do you fix it?

While there are many writers out there who can really deliver, content-wise, the truth is, most of these writers aren’t marketers, or lack the marketing skills to get their work noticed by the people who may actually find the information they provide useful. If you’re one of those individuals, you can change that by following one or more of these easy tips.

1. Have the right domain name: You may love to write about web design, but if your domain name is something like Katlovesdogs.com, then nobody will ever associate your website or blog with design. In choosing your domain name, make sure that it states what your website is actually about. That way, it can also be searchable when people type in keywords.

2. Submit your work to article submission sites: You’ve gotten your domain right, but people are still not visiting your blog. Maybe you just need to inform a wider audience that you are indeed out there. Try taking a few blog posts or articles and submitting them to some article submission sites like ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff
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Neuromarketing and How Content Marketing Works

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

What are 3 ways to frustrated your reader’s brains? Last week, I presented a speech at the 5th International Customer Media Congress in Haarlem, The Netherlands. Besides sharing what neuromarketing is teaching us about the brain and marketing, there are tips here for most web-based content publications.

I hope you enjoy it and learn something. Let me know if you have questions…

Categories : About Blogs, Brain Based Content Marketing, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Persuasion
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How to Write a Content Marketing Blog Post

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Here’s a little review of steps involved in writing and publishing a blog post:

Once you have written the body of the post, it’s time to check for effectiveness:

Before you publish, here are a few smart things to check for: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content
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Content Marketing to the Male Brain

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

What can we learn from brain science about how to market to men?

79% of men are alienated and barely able to recognize themselves in the ads portraying their gender (Business Week, 2006)

The Old Spice site has some great TV clips that do a good job of appealing to men’s views of themselves, using humor and exaggerations of stereotypes.

Here’s what else grabs the attention of male brains…

Attention: They live in the ‘now.’ They are concrete thinkers that like to consummate, finish. Men are goal-oriented. A male axiom is “get it done.”

Men are interested in power and in looking good, even more than being good.

Time– Men tend to hone in, more quickly than women, on what they’re looking for. Men are not browsers. A male motto, “Get what I want and move on.”  Provide clear links to what they are looking for.

Causality– Men are concrete and tend to tightly focus their awareness. Their notion of cause and effect is linear and men are visually-oriented because of this concrete perspective.

Seeking clarity, men create absolute distinctions: black-white, yes-no. First- last, winner-loser.

Men like to feel unique and special, and as such they will follow their gurus, heroes and sports stars and teams.

Celebrity endorsements and affiliation – If Michael Jordon wears them, they’re good enough for men.

Look at Steve Jobs, Richard Branson: If the company president is a rebel and a renegade, then others will join their cause and identify with the company and their products.

Other people – For the male it’s every man for himself. Men prize individuality and self-reliance. They conceive of other people as “my competition.“

They ask, “What will your product do to make me better than the others?”

Look at Razerzone.com, a manufacturer of PC gaming hardware such as mice. This company publishes a gaming guide to show “noobs” how to rapidly improve their online game scores. It’s a list builder that is responsible for the company going from a list of 8,000 to 200,000 in less than 2 years.

It’s their key content marketing piece, and there are others. The president, RazerGuy, has his own blog, and they have active participation on Facebook. There are even Razer fan sites built by evangelists, and many tattoo the company logo, a three-headed snake, on their bodies.

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing
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The Real Reason Behind Blog Procrastination

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Hi, my name is Suzanne Bird-Harris. I’m a WordPress consultant and online business coach. Patsi asked me to guest post on her blog, and it comes at a good time, on the heels of an interesting blog survey…

In a recent survey, I asked readers what their biggest hurdle was when it came to blogging. Not surprisingly, 25% of respondents said they were complete blogging newbies and needed guidance on the fundamentals of blogging…the technical know-how as well as content creation strategies.

Another 55% consider themselves capable, but know they have more to learn where technical know-how and content creation strategies are concerned.

The final 20% consider themselves competent and ready for advanced topics.

But, when I asked this same group where they experienced hurdles to overcome in blogging, look at the breakdown of the answers I got:

I’m not at all surprised that almost 72% see time as a major hurdle. I think we can all identify with that. But here’s the bad news:

Time is not the major hurdle you think it is. How much would ‘time’ be a factor if you knew exactly:

  • Why blogging is important to your business?
  • How to get a post up and out to the world?
  • What to blog about to reach your goals?
  • Where to promote your posts so your ‘right’ people see them?

Mmmmm…probably a lot less than it is now, don’t you think? If you’re one of the competent 20% ready for advanced topics such as SEO, this program I’m going to suggest is likely not for you. Check what’s covered, just to be sure.

Confidence (or lack of, rather) is the major hurdle.

Let’s face it, feeling like you don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to blogging really stinks. Besides making you think your learning curve is steep and endless, no one I know wants to do anything as public as blogging until they’re confident they know what they’re doing.

Confidence is born of knowledge and experience. But why gain them the ‘hard way’ – and in front of your audience, no less?

Would you like to move from frustrated to confident in this lifetime? How about before the New Year?

Blogging 101:
6 Weeks to Confident Blogging Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars

Business Blogging: Blast Past the Blunders

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Here’s how to bust out of blog oblivion: Blogging 101: 6 weeks to Confident Blogging with the Queen of WordPress, Suzanne Bird-Harris.

The latest survey of small biz professionals revealed most people struggle with “Time:” 72% say they don’t have enough time to update their blog.

But we often say that, when in fact the reason we don’t have time is because we’re not sure what exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, or how to do it.

Once you master a skill, you can get it done quickly. And, if you’re successful at it, you want to do it again and again.

Here’s what the survey reveals:

  1. 72% struggle with enough time to blog
  2. 54% of people say they struggle  to know what to write about
  3. 52% aren’t sure how to apply SEO strategies to increase the reach of their blog

No wonder people run out of time. If you sit down to blog and have to figure out these two important things (#2 and #3), well, there goes your day!

To remedy this, Suzanne and I are going to teach the solutions to #1 and #2: blog writing and SEO workshop in January 2011.

In the meantime, get prepared by mastering the basics. If you’re struggling with your WordPress blog, don’t miss Suzanne’s Blogging101 workshop: 6 Weeks to Confident Blogging. (Don’t miss the early bird discount – you must sign up by Friday, Nov. 5,  2010 to save $50.)

You can read more about the details of the 6 week workshop on Suzanne’s Blogging101 web page here.

Here’s what one of her clients said about her: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Ezine & Blog Classes, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars
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