Is your blog content compelling? Are you attracting new readers, engaging with them, and growing your reader base?
In my last post, I shared an acronym that you should be using when writing blog content:
Content (compelling)
Assets (free)
Social Media
Track
Hemingway did not have the technological advantages that we have, nor a blog, but he knew how to engage his readers. As Larry W. Phillips describes in Ernest Hemingway on Writing:
Congratulations! Your reader base has grown to 5,000! You had 4,277 hits on your blog last month, and 737 legitimate comments!
If you’re a solo professional trying to get found online, these numbers could be PDG: pretty darn good. Small businesses, however, might find these figures PDA, pretty darn awful. My point is whatever the size of your biz, you want to grow your reader base, increase hits on your site, and stimulate comments, on your blog, social media, and LinkedIn.
If you’re not seeing growing numbers, take heart; you’re not alone. I know this because it’s one of the frequent concerns and questions my clients have: “How do I grow by reader base?” Here are 4 techniques you should be using to engage readers, and grow your reader base.
“Quality online content” depends on what business you’re in, who your ideal clients are, and how you can reach out and attract them with your solutions. Here’s a memory device when writing for your blog or website. Read More→
A 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.
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→
Do you know how to blog for your business using personality yet remaining professional? No, seriously – there’s an ongoing trend to be personal with blogs. I see it everywhere – blogs, email, newsletters. If you’re writing for business, you want to connect with your readers by using personal stories. But how much is too much?
Rohit Bhargava’s written a whole book about this, filled with examples of how companies are successfully using personalities to market their business products and services: Personality Not Included.
This is an important skill to master when it comes to writing a business blog that attracts readers yet keeps a professional brand. Where do you draw the line when it comes to sharing personal stories? Read More→
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→
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→
Is your blog content writing appealing to both thinkers AND feelers? If you aren’t appealing to these two types of communication (and decision) styles, you’re missing half of your readership potential.
When I’m blogging, I like to cite studies whenever I write about a concept, to prove my point. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types, noted psychologist Carl Jung identified four primary functions of consciousness:
Based on this, Isabel Briggs Myers, and her mother, Katharine Briggs, developed a personality inventory (Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory). Many professionals use this tool to help match their communication styles to other preferences.
My communication and decision style leans toward facts and data – (hold the subjective, touch-feely, please.)
If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I “preach” the importance of keeping your readers’ needs in mind. So when I write, I picture my reader. Of course, being human, I tend to project myself on to my reader: You will want the facts, not just the personal factors. However, I know that all my readers are not like me. Read More→
Business blogging can be frustrating for professionals. Does this happen to you? You sit down to (finally!) write on your business blog, you’ve done a bunch of research, you’ve created lists, outlines and even saved a few great blog post drafts, but you haven’t actually published any of your content… There always seems to be one more thing to check before you pull the ‘publish’ trigger.
I talk to professionals all the time who are ‘blog publishing shy’. Perhaps the most crucial stage of business blogging is implementation: PUBLISH THE POST! In this series of blog posts, I’ve been sharing my tips on the four stages of writing a great blog post. It follows the same steps of any creative process:
Preparation => Incubation => Illumination => Implementation
Business blogging is creative but it also follows steps. If you want to write quality content that reflects the quality of your services as a professional then follow these four steps all the way through to implementation. Creative blog posts are written by a process. Read More→
Do 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→
Once upon a time, SEO met up with Content Marketing, fell in love, and vowed to never separate, to always work together in harmony.
Anyone who’s been around the ‘Net a while understands a little about optimizing content so that the search engines can index it according to topic and relevance to readers. About ten years ago, someone decided to give a name to the type of marketing that occurs that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers: Content Marketing. How do the two differ and how are they alike?
This week, I invited Jack Dawson of webfia.com. to share his insights on working with SEO and CM together instead of separately.
There are many techniques that make up internet marketing, two of which include search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. SEO has been around for quite some time, more than a decade at least, while content marketing has only gained popularity in the last few years. Read More→
