Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Technorati: Ezines Are Not Dead!

By Patsi Krakoff in Online Marketing, Writing Better Ezines

The leading blog directory, Technorati, who tracks all blog posts, has gone back to publishing a newsletter, called The Technorati Buzz Monitor. Read why they decided to go back to an ezine here.

This adds more weight to my article about ezines not being dead recently published in my Newsletter Nuggets ezine (Oct. 5, 2006), which I’ll include here:

I read a colleague’s newsletter this week that was titled “The Death of the Newsletter.” In it, he expressed concern that his ezine wasn’t getting delivered and that excess spam was spoiling email as an effective way to get his message out.

Instead he was now writing daily on his blog, and he invited his readers to sign up for his RSS feed so they could get regular updates from his blog postings.

Customized Articles You Can Use

By Patsi Krakoff in Buying Content

Attention executive coaches, management consultants, OD specialists: If you want help finding good material for your newsletters, Customized Newsletter Services has a catalog of articles you can buy and rewrite for your purposes. The research is already done for you, based on leading business books, Harvard Business Review, strategy + business.

March 2007: Good Boss, Bad Boss: 20 Bad Habits Leaders Should Stop Doing Now

Write an Article in 20 Minutes

By Patsi Krakoff in Writing Better Ezines

Is it possible to write a 400-500 word article or blog post in just 20 minutes, and still have quality content? Yes, it sure is, according to Jim Estill, and I agree with him. So much so that I am reprinting his article here.

Jim Estill is a featured author on Chris Knight’s Ezine Article directory.

It takes me only 20 minutes to write a 400-500 word article or blog post. This article (that I wrote in 20 minutes) explains some of the tricks I use to accomplish this. I started thinking seriously about this when I started blogging. Blogging gave me a deadline (almost every day) and I did not want to spend more than 20 minutes each day on blogging. Many of my blog entries are actually less than 500 words so take me less time.

1 – I start with a list of ideas and concepts I want to cover. Usually I write this list in point form. For me, I do this the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper.

2 – I often “incubate” an article for a few days (that does not count in the 20 minutes). What I do is start roughing out some topic ideas then leave it. Because I have thought about it, ideas tend to come to me that I frequently add to my points. Of course I always carry a notebook for ideas.

HitTail: Long Tail Marketing Made Easy

By Patsi Krakoff in Teleclasses & Seminars

Conversations with Experts presents…

HitTail: How to Leverage The Long Tail
Wednesday, October 18, 2006, 8:30 p.m. ET (no charge, registration required)
Guest Expert: Mike Levin, HitTail.com

A handful of tech savvy businesses are beginning to look past analytics and keyword generation services and use a new tool that funnels users to their Web site without spending a dime. HitTail.com is a new product from Connors Communications that not only analyzes the words people searched on to find your site, but also makes suggestions about future writing topics that will guarantee even more hits. The current issue of BusinessWeek says HitTail can turn your site into a “click magnet.” For a more detailed explanation, watch this quick video.

Along with being the leader of Connors Communications’ in-house SEO team, Mike Levin is the founder of HitTail, a free tool for taking the overwhelming Long Tail data generated by web searches and turning it to manageable information in the form of writing suggestions. Recently, Mike spoke at MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit in Colorado on the topic. Previous to joining Connors he worked with Prophet 21, now Activant, and Scala Multimedia.

Conversations with Experts: How to Build Your Business On and Off-line
Hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.

Conversations with Experts is sponsored by Build a Better Blog System.

Blog for Fun and Profits – New Teleclass Wednesday October 4

By Patsi Krakoff in Teleclasses & Seminars

Seems like we’re on the teleclass circuit these days. Last week we were invited by Kelly O’Neil to speak about blogging as a pre-event for her UpLevel Intensive at which we’ll be presenting in San Jose Oct. 13-15.

This week we are guests of Jeff Herring and Build Your Ideal Practice. We’ll be talking about…

How to Blog for Fun, Prospects and Profits
Led by The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman
For Build Your Ideal Practice, October 4, 2006, 12:00 p.m. ET (9:00 a.m. PT)
FREE! Register here to get call-in details.

The Blog Squad’s 1st Video

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Online Marketing, Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog

Okay, so it isn’t Oscar material, and we just put this together at home on Saturday, but take a look at our first marketing video, "Meet the Blog Squad" on YouTube.

If you see me starting to laugh towards the end, the big smile is because Dewey the cat walked over to try to weasle his way into the shooting.

11 Rules of Writing

By Patsi Krakoff in Grammar & Common Usages, Writing Better Ezines

I just discovered this site called Junket Studies Tutorial in New Jersey dedicated to better writing, better grammar, and one of my favorites: better usage of commas! (I refer to my post "Where Have All the Commas Gone.")

You may not understand some of the lingo; it is, after all, in the language of grammatical structures. But go to the site and follow the links, and learn to become a master of these common errors! Here they are:

1. To join two independent clauses, use a comma followed by a conjunction, a semicolon alone, or a semicolon followed by a sentence modifier.

2. Use commas to bracket nonrestrictive phrases, which are not essential to the sentence’s meaning.

Chris Knight Reviews Our All-in-One Ezine Publishing System

By Patsi Krakoff in Writing Better Ezines

We’re very pleased that Christopher Knight of EzineArticles.com and EmailUniverse.com has reviewed our new product All-in-One Ezine Publishing System.

Being biased of course, I’d say his review is balanced and fair. Check out Chris’ review here.

Copywriting Help: Books I Use

By Patsi Krakoff in How to...Tips

After I wrote my previous post about why you need to write, I was thinking about the tools (books) I use to help me with my writing tasks. In this context, I refer to the writing I do nearly everyday that involves marketing and promotion. I was looking at the pile of books next to my desk and realized there are a few I refer to a lot so I thought I’d share the resources that help me write.

Phrases that Sell by Edward Werz and Sally Germain

Words that Sell by Richard Bayan

The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy

Advertising Headlines that Make You Rich by David Garfinkel

These books help me with inspiration and phrasing for email and sales letter headlines, subheads and descriptive phrases for our products and services.

Do you have a favorite resource or book that helps you with your writing? If so, please share it with us here by posting a comment below.

You Must Write

By Patsi Krakoff in How to...Tips, Online Marketing, Writing Great Copy

Yes, as a business person, you must write. You must write all the time.

Writing doesn’t come easily to me and my writing tends to be straightforward and not really clever or fun. I’m lucky to have a partner who is a writer and who does like to write. And, as a business owner, I have to write all the time.

Blogging definitely helps with my writing. But another thing helps as well. Studying what other successful marketing people do. I subscribe to A LOT of ezines and I get a ton of promotional email. Rather than being annoyed by it, I embrace it.