Can you write a blog post and publish in under an hour? How about 20 minutes? That’s my record. But as anyone who’s ever made love knows, fast isn’t always better. And sometimes it is.
There’s usually too much for small business professionals to handle. If you want to stay on schedule, you’ve got to learn to “just do it!” and do it fast.
Here’s how I research, write, add an image, compose a compelling title, and optimize for SEO and publish a blog post in under an hour. Read More→
If you’re in business and have a business blog, you’re frequently challenged by what to write. There’s always a lot you can say about your products and services, but how many different ways can you write about them before your regular subscribers get bored?
In my ebook Content Marketing with Blogs, I suggest business blog posts should be written with the 4 E’s as a guide: What you publish on your business blog should:
As anyone who runs a blog knows, that’s a tall order, and if you score high in one or two of these qualities, you can feel pretty good. But is it enough?
I recently purchased Joe Pulizzi’s new book Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less. It’s full of examples from big businesses but all his advice is great for small businesses and individuals as well. Joe is known as the godfather of content marketing as he has been a long-time promoter of quality content for marketing purposes. He founded the Content Marketing Institute.
The book is a treasure of information about the value of content marketing throughout all channels (blogs, e-newsletters, videos, podcast, and social media). Two questions stood out for me as key for any small business owner who wants to (needs to!) publish quality content on their blog: Read More→
How do you make your business blog really remarkable? Like, fascinating?
The main goal of writing a blog, whether for business or otherwise, is to get people to read what you write. Seems pretty simple. But attracting readers to a new blog (or even an established one) is easier said than done.
So how do you build a readership base and continuously gain new readers to keep your blog and your business going. Here are a few ways to make your business blog one to watch.
1. Keep up with current events – while you shouldn’t always write about what’s going on in the world, using relevant examples and anecdotes lets your readers know that you are knowledgeable.
2. Pay attention to your social media networks – what are people talking about on your social media pages? What are they asking you as a business? Consider using these questions and discussions for blog topics. You’re more likely to engage your customers by writing on topics they clearly are interested in than developing your own. Read More→
How can you attract more readers to your business blog? Blogs have become a social media platform for everyone. When you know how to blog, you can write about anything relevant to your business’ audience that will enrich customers’ knowledge and show how your business will be beneficial to them.
You can provide information on your blog that solves people’s key problems in your field, and they’ll keep coming back and become regular readers.
When your business website has a well-defined blog, and if you write or hire a writer to frequently update new content on it, you can be sure that your website traffic will go only one way – up.
But coming up with a successful blog can be a tough job. You need to make sure that your blog content stands out among other similar blog content on the web. The following tips will help you increasing traffic to your website through successful business blogging.
4 Creative Tips to Attract More Web Traffic Readers
1. Promote articles and posts on a variety of platforms
Social media has become an ever-present phenomenon now. You can’t expect your website to draw in huge numbers of visitors if you don’t have a visible presence on various social media platforms. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn are some names that come to your mind when thinking about content marketing for your website. But these are only a few among the vast resources available online.
Granted these platforms have a large online presence, but if you really want your business website to grow, you should consider specialized niche forms of social media also. Some of these lesser known platforms include Quora, Tumblr, and Empire Avenue. These platforms have a specific crowd following and due to the less competition on these sites, you are likely to have a greater penetration over the market. But search ones that attract your kind of customer, in your target audience.
2. Use SlideShare
SlideShare is another platform that doesn’t have all the hoopla surrounding bigger social media platforms. You, as a content writer, can easily create smaller and sharper overviews for your posts and upload those on SlideShare. These to-the-point overviews will appeal to a larger audience base and you can easily put links of the slides on your website that can be followed to read the overview on SlideShare’s website. Read More→
Do you do all your own blog writing? If you’re a lawyer, financial adviser, doctor or consultant, should you write your own blog? Or can you outsource it to writers and guest bloggers? One of the main reasons to have a blog and publish frequently is because it helps you get found, get known, and get clients. Yet professional service providers are often pressed for time.
Visitors to your blog want to know more about you, your expertise, your talents and focus. They expect to read what you write to get familiar with you before they call or consider hiring you. This means you will need one or two hours each time you write a fresh post. And a good blog has fresh content at a minimum once or twice a week. How can you ensure you’ve got the time for blog writing so that you build up quality readership?
The solutions: The systems I’ve found to work best with the clients I serve involves a combination of learning to write quick posts, getting contributions from qualified guest authors, and using an appropriate content subscription service. I’ll explain each. Read More→
Liberace was well-known for his flamboyant lifestyle both on and off stage. During the 1950s-1970s he was the highest paid entertainer in the world. That’s pretty amazing considering he was a pianist. His career spanned five decades. I just saw the HBO film “Behind the Candelabra,” with an amazing performance by Michael Douglas in the starring role, with Matt Damon as his lover. (And, yes, these two actors do kiss in the movie!)
Why do you think Liberace was so popular? I loved the movie, and found myself strangely attracted to this character. I remember my stepmother gushing over Liberace and wondering why. I think it’s because we love drama, and we love it when people are excessive.
What can we learn from Liberace about better business blogging? Although he was a master at expressing himself through music, Las Vegas shows, records, TV, and concerts, he didn’t write. Had the Internet been around, however, he would have skillfully used it in the same way he employed public relations expertise to deny his homosexuality and project “family values.” Remember, this was a time where no one was openly gay.
How can you make your business blog a little more flamboyant or sexy? Here’s how you can take away some of Liberace’s style and wisdom and apply it to your business blog:
Want to make your blog stand out? Try finding unusual facts and weird blog content. Give your blog a unique look and feel by publishing unusual blog content. With such an abundance of content available on the Internet, how can you make your blog unique?
By providing information that is uncommon enough to intrigue a visitor. Where can you find this unusual blog content?
1. Infographics – Infographics are a popular trend when supplying facts. Normally, they are based on real information and designed in a way to give it visual appeal. Proper developers of these factual images cite their sources which you are able to verify yourself. Be wary of false imagery, however. Anyone can build a so-called infographic without using true information. It’s always better to research the source for these facts in order to remove doubt and prevent damaging your reputation. Read More→
The Search Engine Optimization landscape has changed dramatically over the last couple of years. One of the side-effects of these changes has been the fact that many low-cost SEO tactics have lost their effectiveness and power.
Consequently, a lot of small businesses and professionals today are struggling to achieve their SEO goals on a restricted budget. After all, for small companies, hiring an expensive agency is often not feasible. Having said that, there are still a lot of smart yet pocket-friendly SEO tips that businesses can implement on a shoestring budget.
Here are 4 top SEO tips for small businesses on a shoestring budget:
Contribute to High Authority Blogs in Your Niche
Aim your energies at quality blogs. This will help you to develop referral traffic, cultivate thought leadership, and garner authoritative and quality links. Of course, you’ll only be able to do that if you generate remarkable content that offers actionable information.Here are a few strategies that can help you identify quality blogs:
a) Create an account on platforms like myblogguest, etc. These platforms create a meeting point for bloggers and blog owners looking for guest blogs, so you can easily identify quality opportunities.
b) Download the Google Chrome PR plugin. It will let you see the PageRank of every blog you visit instantly. While PR is not the sole indicator of a blog’s quality, PR 2+ blogs that show regular updates and host quality posts, can be good prospects.
c) Run a Google search for potential high authority blogs by using the niche areas you want to blog about with the keyword “guest blogs”. For example, let’s you want to write posts about e-cigarettes, your search query could be “E-cigarette guest blogs”, “quit smoking guest blogs”, etc.
Publish Quality Content on Blogs by Content Curating and Accumulating Content
Content curation is the act of collecting, discovering and offering digital content that surrounds some specific subject matter.Content is the most effective SEO tool there can be, if used right. But, the major problem that a large number of business owners or bloggers face is the lack of quality blog content. Luckily, there are gazillion resources available that can be used to generate interesting content ideas.That’s where content curation comes in. Simply put, content curation involves:
a) Researching and putting together top blogs on a subject.
b) Quoting important paragraphs from the blogs, and giving them proper citations and credit.
c) Adding your own spin, or interpretation to what’s already been published.
Conduct Competitive Link Analysis Using Free Tools
One of the things that helps your website rank higher is the number of links from other reliable and reputable website that link back to your website. There are two ways you can do this, either get someone to do it for you or do it on your own.
Look for websites that are linking back to your competitor’s website. You may use Open Site Explorer, to do this. With OSE’s free services, you may not be able to get all the data, but you’ll still be able to gather information to get started with your own link building activities.If you can stretch your budget a little, you may as well opt for paid membership for detailed information about your competitors link-building activities. There are lot’s of tools like, SEOSpyGlass, Majestic SEO, etc, that you can use.
Use External Proficiency and Expertise Tactically
Before engaging in a complete retainer based relationship with an agency, seek out the following kind of arrangements:
a) Monthly consultancy: Some SEO agencies or consultants do sell hourly consultations, which is a very smart way to garner some useful insights for a lesser fee.
b) DIY SEO audits: You may use free tools like Seoptimer, WooRank, Goingup, etc to do a review/audit for your website, so that you can identify the areas that need improvement. Then hire contractors and assign them specific tasks suggested by the tool, and implement the changes that require minimal technical expertise in-house.
c) Use free SEO tools to keep track of your performance: Free versions of tools like Ranking Checker by SEOmoz.com, SEO Analyzer by Sitening.com or SEO for Firefox by SEOBook.com, can all be of great help.
When it comes to budgeting, you have to make a choice between investing time or money. For small businesses, these cost-effective SEO tips make a lot of sense, however, if you adopt them you have to be prepared for some time investment, especially if you plan to implement all of them in-house. Good Luck!
Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver company that provides SEO services to businesses across North America. If you would like to invite the author to write on your blog too please contact www.pitstopmedia.com.
You already know that, “Content is King” on the Internet, but great content is what helps you build a community of loyal blog readers who buy from you. Your goal should be to engage blog readers with the highest quality content you can muster, with absolutely no fluff. There is far too much garbage floating around online that doesn’t help to solve your target market’s problem or add anything new to a discussion.
Good business blogs – the ones that have large readership – are like good restaurants. You go there for a good meal and leave pleasantly satisfied. Compare that to fast food places that serve greasy high-fat meals: you feel bloated and stuffed but not healthy.
Keep in mind that many people and Internet users have short attention spans. Not only do you need to have great content, but you need to present it in the right way. Think of what food at a French restaurant looks like compared with your local McSnack basket.
Don’t run the risk of having visitors to your blog click away. Once they leave, it’s unlikely they will return. Seize the opportunity to capture their interest by giving them content they can sink their teeth into from the beginning.
Start with a Topic You Can Build On
Let’s say you have a financial site and you choose a topic such as payday loans. This is a tool many people are using these days and they have lots of questions about. How can you make meaty posts about this topic? Read More→
Having guest bloggers post content for your blog can be a great tool to get more readers to visit your site. Typically, guest blogging involves a good deal of cross-promotion, which can be beneficial for all parties involved. Guest blogging has recently become much more common, likely because bloggers are seeing the good things that can come to their blog when they invite others to share.
A guest blogging relationship can be as basic or as involved as you and your guest blogger would prefer. You may just want to invite one or two writers to write posts that are their take on content that you typically share. You may want to consider a long term relationship with one or more guest bloggers, trading posts with them on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. Many bloggers who are willing to contribute to your blog are likely to want you to reciprocate. Again, this can be beneficial for everyone, because interlinking between the two blogs/sites can help your search engine and page ranking.
So how do you find guest bloggers? You can start out simply. Think about some of your favorite blogs to read. Do any of them publish content that is directly related to your business, or that could fit in with your posts? Chances are you can probably think of at least a few blogs like this immediately. Consider emailing the blog’s author and inquire about a guest post or blog swap. However, when you write the email, you need to make sure you write a compelling email offer, one that is personal. You will receive a better response if you do so. Read More→
