Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Editing Teleseminar Transcripts – Some things you gotta do yourself

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Teleclasses & Seminars

I admit it: I hate editing transcripts. It’s not something you can easily outsource either. I’ve got a good editor and a good proof reader, and we use a great transcriber for our teleseminar audios. But have you ever read through an unedited transcript?

Garbage. People don’t use English correctly. Forget about the extra hums and hahs, and incomplete sentences. Besides that, some people – excuse me, I mean me, myself and I – don’t express thoughts firmly and concisely.

If you offer transcripts of your teleseminars, be sure to edit them thoroughly. People don’t like to pay for unedited and incomprehensible scripts. Even though it takes time to go through them line by line, if you don’t, you will earn yourself a bad reputation for the quality of your information products. You can’t afford that.

The only solution is to edit and get someone to read through your edits and edit all over again. Make sure your transcripts contain easily readable sentences, even to the point where you change what was actually said on the audio file. This is why you can’t hire an editor to do this task for you. Since you were on the call, you will be able to interpret and add meaning to your transcripts. An editor can’t do this for you.

We’ve seen too many "Home Study Kits" that are nothing more than audio files with poorly transcribed and unedited scripts that don’t explain what the speakers really meant to say. If you offer such products, make sure you give your clients good value.

Back Home Blues

By Patsi Krakoff in Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi

You know how hard it is to get back to work after a vacation, right? And I love my work… Here’s what made this the best vacation ever…

This was a celebration of my 10-year marriage anniversary to Rob Krakoff, entrepreneur extraordinaire, and super dad to Huey and Dewey. (Also known as PapaRocky to grandkids Alex, Zach, Spenser, Jordan and Megan…)

Dia de Gracias en Puerta Vallarta

By Patsi Krakoff in Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi

I think I spelled that right, as in Happy Thanksgiving from Mexico! The Hubby and I are soaking up the sun this week away from computers and email. I brought my new Flip video and PowerShot digital camera so stay tuned for some audio visual treats!

For all our US readers, I hope you are enjoying a few days with family filled with love and thankfulness. Blessings and love!

Writing Content for Your Website: Do you need pain pills?

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

Some of us enjoy writing, so I forget how painful it can be for most of the world. Colleague Rich Brooks shares his experience working with clients who come to him for web design and creation.

Content Creation is Painful
by Guest Blogger Rich Brooks
Flyte New Media

Before the job starts:

"I’m just going to take the content from the current site."
"This stuff is going to write itself."
"I expect to knock it out over the weekend. After all, this is my business."

After the job ends:

"That took twice as long as I thought it would."
"That reminded me of sitting in the dentist’s chair during the Novocaine shortage of ’94."
"You Web monkey bastards! You told me writing content was easy!"

No matter how much you love your job, no matter how passionate you are about what you do, writing content is going to be much more work than you think.

I had a prospect in here this morning who straight up said to me, "I know that writing content is going to be painful." He got it.

Writing content is a big pain. Since the content has to be written we can’t free the client from that pain (unless they want to hire a copywriter.)

However, we have put together a Content Intake Packet that leads clients step-by-step through the process of maximizing their content for readability, search engine optimization, and engagement. It doesn’t lessen the workload, but it makes it manageable.

I guess we’re in the pain management business.

Rich Brooks
Pusherman

What to Do When Someone Steals Your Content

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Today’s guest blogger is John T. Unger of TypepadHacks.org, a great resource for customizing Typepad blogs. John’s post is a great review of what to do about content theft, all the way from thanking them for the links, to reporting them. John also writes about RSS feeds and whether it’s best to use full feeds or partial. I agree with him, I like reading full feeds, what about you?

What To Do When People Steal Your Blog Content

This article reprinted from the TypePad Hacks Weblog. The original article can be found online here.
© 2007, John T Unger

In a recent comment, Sylvia Forester asked

What can we do to stop Bitacle from stealing our posts and making money off of them?

Rather than responding in the comments, it seemed like a good topic for a full blog post. Copyright and IP law are much too large a topic to cover extensively here, but I can provide a few thoughts on where to start.

I haven’t looked at Bitacle previously, but with a quick scan of a couple pages it appears to me that they do include a link back to the original content when they repost material. This may in fact be a benefit to your blog, as people who use Bitacle for search may find you for the first time and become regular readers…

There are a number of sites that I allow to republish content from the TypePad Hacks blog in order to reach a wider audience. They send a fair bit of traffic and I don’t begrudge them a few advertising dollars in exchange. On the other hand, it is possible that your reputation could be harmed by spam blogs harvesting your posts and republishing them on sites that contain offensive or dangerous material.

Doin’ the Biz Blog Boogie: Two steps to profits

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

Do you know how to do the two step biz blog boogie? It goes like this: take Rich Brook’s blog post on 10 Tips for a Profitable Blog and do step 1 and step 10.

Guest Blogger —Rich Brooks
President, flyte new media

There’s no doubt that more businesses are realizing the power of blogging to establish their expertise, rank higher at the search engines, and improve their communication with prospects and customers.

But as more companies jump into the blogosphere it becomes more difficult for your blog to get noticed, and therefore to make you money. Here are ten quick tips to make your blog a profitable marketing tool.

1. Blog for your audience. As the blogosphere matures, the face of business blogging is changing as well. Although the discourse can still be freer than your Web site or email newsletter, people want content they can use. A few posts in a row about what you had for breakfast and you’re toast.

10. Leverage your blog traffic into real business. Don’t forget that this is your business blog, not your personal one; you’re looking for a return on investment. Create appropriate calls-to-action in the form of links that drive traffic from your blog to your Web site or online store.

Just don’t be too heavy handed; visitors won’t become subscribers or customers if you’re doing nothing but self-promotion. Use a deft hand to establish your expertise and build relationships with readers, but make it easy for them to buy from you when they’re ready.

Blog for your customers because nothing else will have an impact if you don’t focus on their needs. Blog for your business because the purpose of a business blog is to help your company grow and succeed.

To read steps 2 through 9, visit —Flyte New Media Blog

Thanksgiving Vacation – What I’m taking with me…

By Patsi Krakoff in Fun and Irrelevant Things About Patsi

Of course I’m taking my laptop, and so is the Hubby. I’ll catch up on reading some ebooks I’ve downloaded, do some editing and maybe even some fresh writing. The hubby will use his for playing World of Warcraft…

I just got my Amazon purchases: a Flip Video, a Canon PowerShot A560 digital camera, Sony earphones that go over the ear so they don’t fall out while working out, and three books: the Experience Economy, Authenticity (both by Gilmore and Pine) and The Future of Management by Gary Hamel.

This vacation might be a little more sedentary: I twisted my knee and I’m not sure I’ll be able to play much tennis. So I’ll play around with these new toys, and – hey, here’s an idea: maybe I’ll just relax! Hasta la vista!

Publishing Content So That People Can Find You: What form should you publish in?

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits

It used to be that writing content was the way to inform people, establish your expertise, and seed the search engines with keywords. The more content on your website or blog, the more keywords, the better your chances of being found by the people who need you and your services or products.

All that’s changed. Now you can easily publish in video and audio, giving visitors a more complete view of who you are, what you know, and whether or not they would want to do business with you.

Here’s a list of all the tools you can use to get found online:

How to Get Found on the Web: Putting on the shoes of your clients

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits

When our clients want to know how to take their existing business online, we usually tell them they must get published, get found, and get leads. Your online presence, whether a blog or a website, must do these things:

Clearly define what business you’re in (what you can do for visitors)
Show your expertise in your field
Begin a relationship with readers by connecting with their needs
Offer them something for free in exchange for adding them to your list
Continue to entertain or inform them through content, based on what they want or need

It’s all about them, your visitors or readers to your site. The more you address their issues, their problems, their interests, the better your site will work for your business.

Your site, website or blog, must offer content with keywords that work as bait. When someone sits down and types in what they are looking for in a Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search box, will they find you? They will if you’re updating your site frequently with those same keywords and phrases.

But most professionals set up their websites to be all about them, their business, their great products and services. Unless you’re well known, people aren’t going to be searching for you or your products or services, are they?

Put on the shoes of your clients, and figure out how they would go about finding solutions to their problems. Then write about that and publish your content on your website pages or blog.

Blog World Videos: How blogging helps build businesses

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars

We interviewed top professionals at Blog World about what benefits they got from writing on their blogs. Some of their responses may surprise you…most are positive that the 20 minutes a day spent writing on a blog brings great returns.

Denise used her handy Flip Video camera to record, upload, and post the videos to Build a Better Blog with just a couple of clicks of the mouse…