Archive for Content Marketing – Page 73

Content Marketing: a primer for business people who want to get found quickly on the Web

Global_search_concept
What’s the easiest, fastest, smartest way to get marketing results for your business on the Web?

Here’s a clue…it’s in the tag line of this blog: Content Marketing! Here’s why I say that…

Imagine you’re starting out online – maybe you’ve been in business forever, but you’re just taking your business onto the web. You don’t have a large staff or a big budget. You look at the Web from your own perspective and try to imagine how your potential customers would search for you.

They’d use certain keywords, wouldn’t they? Maybe you don’t know squat about "keyword optimization" or "search engine marketing" or any of that. But I’ll bet you can guess how your prospects might look for your products and services, can’t you?

Okay, that’s step one. You might want to use a keyword tool like the one at www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com to see which keyword phrases are more popular. Or not.

You can guess what the next step is… put up lots of pages on your site writing about what your company can do for people. What are the benefits they get from using your products and services?

Read More→

Blogging Blahs Gone Bye Bye…

Happyfreeballoon
I’m not depressed anymore. This week has taught me so many things, like how swiftly you can connect with colleagues through Twitter and Facebook, how we’re all in this together, how wise other people are, and how kind they are for holding out hands and uplifting words and birthday greetings. And I could go on and gush but it’d just get messy…

Thanks to all the friends who sent birthday greetings and warm wishes. Back at ya!

How to Get Your Blog Buzz Back

Depression
Now I’m getting depressed. Not only am I now officially "old" (and believe me, I’ve got a black belt in denial) but I haven’t been nominated for Michael’s best writing blog list. Okay, I know you don’t want to hear my whining.

But maybe it’s time to beef up this blog. I haven’t been feeling my blog buzz lately and I’ve just been sliding by. This sometimes happens to my tennis and when it does, I ramp up my workouts.

Here’s my plan for getting my blog buzz back:

  1. Read my favorite writing blogs daily and leave a few comments (Use Michael’s list of great blogs)
  2. Use those blogs to inspire my own writing
  3. Post something at least every other day, even if it’s just to refer to a great post found elsewhere
  4. Write at least one meaty post a week, where I reconnect with this blog’s purpose of teaching content marketing on one form or another
  5. Figure out a way to get more reader participation, maybe a poll or survey or contest
  6. Take frequent breaks from my own work and visit what our clients are doing – stop isolating

Read More→

Happy Birthday, Blog

Happybirthdaycake_3

I’ve got a birthday the same day as my blog. This blog is four years old Thursday September 4, 2008. I am a few decades beyond that, but I feel like only 24 or 34…

Who else do you know celebrates their birthday on the same day as they started their first blog?

Web Pages: Why it’s important to write content, not just copy

Maleworker
What’s the difference between web copy and web content?

This is an important distinction if you want your online presence to be more effective. Web content refers to all the pages with relevant information that educates, entertains and engages your readers.

Web copy refers to the content specifically designed to sell or persuade readers to take action.

Why should you care about this distinction? Most people, when they take their business online, get a website designed and put up sales pages for each product and service they need to sell.

They neglect to write multiple content pages. You need as many pages of content as you can stand if you want to get Google juice for all the versions of your keywords and keyword phrases. (Think blog posts/pages, for example.)

The most overlooked part of the online marketing picture is Web content pages – designed to inform your readers and clients. You need to write content that provides solutions to your client’s problems.

Bob Bly, prolific writer and online marketer knows the difference. He’d like to teach and sell you a whole course in how to "become a six-figure Web content writer." Here’s his definition of Web content vs. Web copy:

Read More→

Sales Copy Review- 5 things to rewrite

Filefolderspiggybankandmoney
How often do you go back and re-read or rewrite your sales pages? If you’re like most professionals, probably not often enough.

This week I’m rewriting sales copy for our ebook on business blogging (Build a Better Blog). It’s been up on the Web for more than 3 years and although it has been tweaked here and there, it needed to be written for the 3rd edition due out soon.

It’s amazing to see how your writing evolves and how your sales copywriting improves over time. But if you never go back and rewrite your sales pages, you won’t be able to implement your new skills and improve your sales copy.

Here’s a list of things to review on your sales pages after time:

  1. New insights on benefits: Your current customers tell you how your product has helped them, in ways you might not have thought about. Are all the benefits spelled out?
  2. New testimonials: Some clients have written or called with amazing results you can use with their permission. Include new social proof from people who are typical and/or well known.
  3. New features: Your product or book or service improves so be sure to highlight how the new edition or new version is better.
  4. New stories: Your own personal and professional experiences are a great way to seduce readers and engage them into becoming fans.
  5. New voice: Over time, you will develop more of a persona that goes along with your brand. Use your personality and your unique voice as much as possible.

Read More→

Top Content Marketing Blogs – we made the list!

Junta42_top_blog
We made the list of Top Blogs for Content Marketing again this quarter. Thanks, Joe Pulizzi, of Junta42 for keeping us informaed about the importance of content for successful business strategies. This blog went from 25th position to 19.

Getcontent
I highly recommend you check out the blogs on this list and learn more about how to write content that connects and builds relationships with your customers.

For more on the whole concept of content marketing, be sure to get and read Joe and Newt Barrett’s book, Get Content, Get Customers. It’s a must read.

Seeking Transformation: What Is It That You Really Do for Your Clients?

Pink_present
Denise and I had a session with a mentor this week about our upcoming speaking gigs. I don’t want to tell you who he is just yet, or what his real expertise is. But we worked with him for over an hour to flush out the core outcomes our clients derive from working with us and buying our services and products.

This is one of the most important pieces of work you must do when writing speeches, sales copy or other content that persuades people to want to do business with you.

What are the truly transformative benefits that your clients experience? What services do you provide to your clients that are profoundly meaningful to them?

When it comes to our blogging expertise and products, of course, our clients benefit from having a professionally customized business blog that is optimized for business and branding. There’s no doubt about that. But what else?

But what are the outcomes they experience as a result of working with us? Now that’s a much harder question to answer. It differs from client to client…but there’s no doubt that asking the question and exploring possible answers leads to writing better speeches, better sales copy, better marketing.

What are the benefits that are truly transformative and extend deeply into making our clients’ lives and work better, faster, more efficient, more meaningful and more enjoyable?

Read More→

3 Things to Write (or Speak) About…

Problems
Here are 3 things to write about if you want to attract readers, showcase your expertise, and get clients:

  1. Problem
  2. Solution
  3. Action steps

I know this is really simplified, but anytime you have to write a blog post, article, newsletter, email promotion, or speech, you can’t go wrong if you follow these three points.

Most of us try to include the kitchen sink. We go into all the problems, the history of the problems, and all of the manifestations possible. Keep it simple: Problem – solution – action.

This is a great outline to follow if you’ve got to write a speech or presentation. Denise and I are using this outline for our speech about The Blog Squad’s expertise in business blogging. This week we’re in Manhattan Beach at the Ayres Hotel, addressing a group of professionals at the Speak Your Way to Wealth conference.

Problem – Solution – Action: Now, for those readers who are more experienced in making presentations, this may seem like a no-brainer. The problem is that when you’re an expert in a particular niche, you want to teach everything you know to your audience.

Read More→

Building a Freelance Business on the Side

Where_are_you_going
As I got on the freeway at 8 this morning a noticed the guy next to me, a car with a surf board on top. And I thought this is a great life and a great place to be. Here I am off to the tennis courts and this fellow is going to ride a few waves. Where were you going in your car this morning?

I used to be in a suit and heels driving off to a job at 8 in the mornings. Well, to be truthful, most of my life I’ve worked for myself, but I had a brief period of driving and working for companies in an office somewhere, sometimes commuting as far as 70 miles each way.

What drove me crazy about working for someone else in an office was the amount of wasted time. I like to be productive, not waiting for someone to ‘get back to me,’ or sitting through mindless meetings.

If you’re still working at a job and would like to be freelance or self-employed, start like I did. Start your Internet business while you’re still getting a salary and build it up until you can afford to become independent.

You can be creating content and blogging or at least working on some parts of your side business during some of those meetings or in the time after you’ve done your regular work. This is important because if you’re like many entrepreneurs, you have more ideas than brains, and you probably can’t tell which idea will end up being worth it.

Read More→