Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

How to Make Yourself Blog When You Just Don’t Feel Like Blogging

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, On Writing Better

Here’s a tip for how to make yourself write a blog post when you’re totally uninspired. Use other people’s inspiration to motivate you.

For example, take a look at what you’re reading on the Web right now. If it’s good enough to catch your interest, maybe you can use that spark to create something new for your readers?

Here’s how I went from barely awake blog procrastination to publishing this morning.

You can tell a lot about a person just by reading the titles of the web pages they’ve got open. Right now I’m reading posts on Harvard Business Review:

And one on Hubspot: “12 Inspirational Writing Tips from History’s Greatest Authors.” Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, writing on the web

Better Blog Writing: Getting Hooked by Your Own Hook

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing Great Blog Content

It must have been the coffee. But there I was at 5 a.m. looking for a “hook,” a magnetic headline that would draw readers into my client’s blog like bees to honey. The client needed a post that day, and I needed to write and edit what she’d given me quickly. After all, my morning tennis partners were waiting for me.

Eureka! I cried as I found a cleverly compelling hook, saved my post as a draft and ran off to the tennis courts. Only, when I returned to the office two hours later, my client had a left a message, “Uh, …it’s great except for the headline and lead. Call me back.”

I blame it on the coffee. The hook was indeed inspiring, only it had little to do with the message my client was trying to convey. But a little caffeine and dopamine in the brain can fool you into thinking your writing’s great – and never mind it’s missing the point. Read More→

Tags : blog content, blog writing, business blogging, content marketing with blogs

Blog Writing Tips: How to Become Productive and Prolific at Those Tasks You Hate

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks

How can you develop more productive blog writing habits? When are you going to stick to your content marketing calendar? What’s it going to take?

I know many small business owners who purposely procrastinate on writing and finance tasks they hate. Are you one of these professionals who work better when you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in? Think about it. Read More→

Tags : blog writing, business blogging, content marketing tips, productivity, writing tips

Creative Work, Blogging, Writing and Resistance

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

Ever get stuck? Everyone encounters resistance when it comes to blogging, writing, and creative work. It’s so easy to give in, isn’t it? When it comes to doing work – putting words on the page… or electrons on a screen – you can’t escape getting stuck.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a scientist, blogger, CEO or rock star. Work requires you to actually do something. When you sit down to do it (or stand up, whatever), you experience stuckness – a state of mental morass punctuated by mind chatter and an inability to move. Read More→

Tags : blog writing, business blogging, content marketing with blogs, creative work, resistance

Key Content Marketing Strategy: Answer Readers’ Questions

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

Does your website answer readers’ questions? This is a key element of a smart content marketing strategy. You must devote a few key content pages to answering readers’ questions about your business products and services.

Otherwise you’re not helping them solve their problems. You won’t keep visitors on your site for long; it will be “click and bye-bye.” Read More→

Tags : business blogs, Content Marketing, content marketing tips, content strategy, Online Marketing

How to Research Content
for Your Expert Ebook

By Patsi Krakoff in About Expert Ebooks, Books, Content Marketing, E-Books

How should you research content in order to write your expert ebook? This is a huge question for most writers, and a major reason why some ebooks never get written or finished.

The field of online research methods is new and expanding rapidly. Using social media is a new opportunity for gathering information, but it’s complex and time consuming.

In some ways, research has never been easier. The Web is a goldmine. But it’s also a sink hole into which many writers fall, never to be seen again. Some writers die from an overdose of information, others simply disappear and give up, telling themselves there’s simply too much already written. Read More→

Tags : Content Marketing, expert ebooks, online content

Research Before You Write an Expert Ebook

By Patsi Krakoff in About Expert Ebooks, Books, Content Marketing, E-Books

If you want to write an expert ebook that sells well on Amazon, you need to research first to find out:

What’s already been published in your field of expertise?
What titles are selling well?
Where are the gaps in what’s already been published and what hasn’t yet been covered?
What do readers seek out the most?
What prices, what lengths, what covers are best?

I’ve been experimenting with ebook research software and I’m pretty impressed with what the developers have come up with. In particular, there’s a group of programs that can help Amazon authors get the information they need from Amazon sales: KDSuite.

This software has the ability to pull up data from ebooks in categories so you can compare sales info. It provides information on bestsellers, marketing, and keywords. There’s an additional program which creates ebook covers. Read More→

Tags : expert ebooks, Online Marketing

Bloggers Block? How to Get Your Creative Writing Mojo Back

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better

Ever get stuck with blogger’s block? Can’t get a spark of creativity going? Fingers just lay there on the keyboard like wet noodles… How can you get your creative writing going again?

Finding yourself in the horror of a creation-less void is never good. Your mind empties of anything that seems worthy of being said, and you feel helpless.

Writer’s and blogger’s block is a completely natural event experienced by writers, usually as a side-effect of writing for a deadline. Everyone has experienced it, and it’s not uncommon to panic a bit when it happens.

Here are some suggestions from a writer who’s been around the block…

Content Marketing Adventures in Mexico: Stuck on My Own Roof

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web

I’ve got a Mardi Gras parade dancing down my street right now, in my sleepy little village of Ajijic, near Guadalajara in Mexico. It happens three or four times a year, always because of religious fiestas: the whole village dresses in costumes on floats with music blaring as loud as possible.

It’s so loud it’s hard to think. I couldn’t finish my content marketing project for a client, so to get a good view, I went up on my roof to watch. It seemed like a great idea at the time.

And it was great… until I wanted to come down. I realized that dropping over one roof top ledge to another is easy enough. Not so when you’ve got to go back up and over the ledge and it’s just out of reach. Read More→

Ebooks for Experts: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Write

By Patsi Krakoff in About Expert Ebooks, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, E-Books

I’ve been blogging recently about how experts need to publish their own ebooks as part of their strategy to get found, get known, and get clients through online content marketing.

Here are 10 questions to ask yourself before you write a single word of your expert ebook:

Download the questionnaire here: www.Ebooks4Experts.com.

Over 10 years ago, professionals started using blogs to communicate to clients. As co-founder of The Blog Squad, I proclaimed blogs to be ‘the best darned marketing tool on the planet!’

To some extent they still are, but the key for experts is to excel with quality content. A blog is only one channel for online content marketing, along with social media networking sites. Another key communication channel is publishing expert ebooks. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, expert ebooks