Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Business Blogging: 4 Ways to Have Fun and Profits

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Profit, Promoting Your Ezine +/or Blog

(Vacation time, so here’s another guest post, this one by Susan Long, freelance marketing consultant.)

If you’re writing your blog for more than just fun, you’ve probably thought about how you can make some money from it. There’s plenty of ways you can make cash from your writing, and you might not have thought of some of them before.

1) Putting ads on your blog

This is the most obvious way to make money blogging. You can sign up for Google Ads and Adbrite, which are two of the most well-known. The best thing about Google Ads and Adbrite is that you don’t have to have lots of readers to put their ads on your site. If you’re just starting out blogging one of these is the best way to start. You can also sell links in your articles with companies like TNX.net or Text Link Ads.

Once you’ve got more readers – say maybe once you’re getting a thousand hits a week – you can think about approaching bigger ad networks like Chitika and putting more “mainstream” ads on your blog.

And if you have a specialist or local blog, remember you can approach relevant businesses directly and ask them to advertise. For instance if you write a blog about soccer in your country, you could ask sports stores in your city if they want to advertise

2) Putting ads in your RSS feed

If you use Feedburner to optimise your RSS feed (and if you aren’t, why not?), you can easily put ads in the RSS feed of your blog, so people who read your blog through RSS will see ads.

3) Pay-per-post Read More→

Tags : blog marketing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, converting readers to clients, Online Marketing

Blog Writing: What Can We Learn From Reality TV?

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Blog Content

(Guest Post: I’m on vacation, so I invited Tim Handorf to write a guest post. Tim writes on the topics of online colleges and universities. He welcomes your comments at his email Id: tim.handorf.20@googlemail.com.)

As a blogger, you know by now that increasing your traffic means grabbing your audience’s attention and keeping it. The Internet is a veritable distraction mine filled with bells and whistles and flashing lights, so keeping a large audience enthralled and focused is a constant but rewarding challenge.

While Writing on the Web and other websites like it have featured dozens of solid tips for improving your blog writing, I’m going to offer a source of divine inspiration when the going gets tough. That’s right. Reality TV.

The invasion of reality-based shows in our popular imagination isn’t always mentally stimulating. Some shows, like Bad Girls Club or The Hills, are downright silly and immature. But I’ll be darned if they aren’t mind-bogglingly popular. And the range of viewership is startlingly diverse–even my mother, a woman hailing from a different country, culture, and generation–is obsessed.

One Sunday afternoon, splayed on the couch watching a marathon run of America’s Next Top Model, I started thinking about what, exactly, is it that makes these shows so attention grabbing, and what can I take away from the experience to get more readers reading my own blogs? Here are a few things I noticed.

1. People love personal stories.

I’m convinced that at the core of reality TV’s popularity is its microscopic look at personal detail. While your blog may not necessarily be a hub of personal confessions, always throw in some personal detail when writing any article, no matter how technical or abstract the subject matter is.

Nearly all readers desire seeing the person connected to her work. Even though America’s Next Top Model is about modeling, would anyone really care as much if we didn’t get the occasional personal glimpse into each model’s life? Probably not.

2. People love unique personalities. Read More→

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

Social Networking for Business: What’s Right for Yours?

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff

(As I’m on vacation for a week, I’ve invited Sydni Craig-Hart to share social networking tips.)

The big 3: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Everybody who’s anybody has a profile in each. And it seems everybody is preaching the same thing:

You HAVE to have a Facebook Fan Page
You HAVE to be on Twitter
You HAVE to join LinkedIn and participate in groups

But, do you HAVE to this? Will your business fall in the water if you don’t?

The answer depends on your target audience.

Remember, your target audience determines where you should be and how you spend your time. If your target audience spends their day on Twitter, then that’s where you should be engaging with them. While it may be a little challenging to have a full-fledged conversation, you can still interact and find out what their challenges are, participate in the conversation when they are looking for solutions and be a trusted advisor.

The same could be true if your target audience hangs out on Facebook. Maybe they prefer to interact there because there’s no character limit (like the 140 characters on Twitter.) They may like the back and forth conversation of posting comments on each others’ wall and seeing their updates throughout the day.

The point is, participating in social networking is like participating in live networking. You should only attend the “events” that make sense for you and your business. You should only be spending your time where your target audience is hanging out – otherwise you’ll miss the boat completely.

Nothing is more frustrating than spending your efforts pursuing a particular marketing strategy only to find that it generates ZERO results. Has that ever happened to you? If so, it’s likely because the strategy (or in this case the platform) didn’t fit your business. You may be chasing an opportunity that doesn’t even interest your target audience — and they’re not going to go looking for you either.

In order to provide the solution to a problem, you need to be visible when your ideal prospects need you. Marketing you and your services is simply about educating your target audience about how you can solve their problems. You can’t be a day late to the party.

Take the time to do your research and find out EXACTLY which social networks your target market is hanging out in. This will tell you where you should be spending your time. And most importantly, you will see the return on your time investment as you’ll be connecting directly with the people who are already looking for you. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, social media marketing

No More Geek-Speak: SEO for Smart Bloggers

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

How can you learn basic search marketing for blogging in 5 minutes or less?

Scribe SEO Copywriting is a practical tool you install and use for each blog or web pages you want to publish. Once installed, you can get a report BEFORE you publish, which tells you how optimized your content is for search engines.

Before I started using Scribe, I assumed (because I’m pretty smart and I’ve been getting good search results) that if I wrote quality headlines and posts, using the keyword phrases I wanted to focus on, those little search robots would be pleased…

Wrong! By using Scribe, I learned which pages and posts were getting 100% scores… and which were only ranking 52%, 78%, and 90% with the little darling spiders. In seconds, after writing a draft, a report is generated, telling me what’s wrong with my headline, use of keywords, description, etc.

All I have to do is make a few corrections and usually I can get a 100% score on the 2nd try.

Trust me, I’m no geek. This is so easy a 3rd grader can use it. Do yourself a favor and try it out, you can always unsubscribe from the monthly fee ($27 for 300 analyzes a month). I am an affiliate, I recommend it, and I love it.

Here is a sample analysis… Read More→

Tags : blog content, blog marketing, blog traffic, content marketing with blogs, online traffic, Web traffic, web traffic search traffic

Compelling Content: Pushing Readers’ Hot Buttons

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

How do you write compelling content that attracts and engages readers? Ahhh, that question again…(followed usually by how do you turn readers into buyers?) This is the job of good content marketing and the challenge for online professionals who write blogs, articles, and web pages.

First, let’s deal with the compelling content thing. Your content isn’t going to market anything if you don’t reach inside the heads and hearts of your readers.

Obviously it’s all about your readers. The better you know who they are and what they like, the easier it is to write content for them.

Use emotional words and phrases, and think about triggering their hot buttons. There are universal drives and human motivators. It doesn’t matter if your reader is a 20-year-old gamer or a 70-year-old retired professor.

Human beings are all driven by hot button motivators. (See the excellent book by Barry Feig for more about this: Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons that Get People to Buy). Some of these are:

The desire to be first
The desire to know it all
The desire for control
The desire to love and be loved
The desire to enjoy and have fun
The desire for values or feelings of moral righteousness
The drive for prestige
The drive for self-achievement
The drive for power and influence
The drive to help others

What drives your readers? Do any of these hot buttons seem similar to your clients? How can you test your assumptions? Maybe you could push a few buttons to see what reaction you get? Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, converting readers to clients, Online Marketing, Patsi Krakoff, persuasion, persuasion triggers

Blogging Services: Content Marketing for Coaches

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

Here’s my latest video about my executive coach blogging services produced by iFlashVideo.com. I think they do a good job, but unfortunately, because they are a monthly service with a one minute limit, the voice is a little rushed.

Instead, they could have edited out a few words to make it a little calmer, in my opinion. But since they are a standardized service, they don’t do any editing or make suggestions. They just deliver what you give them, even though as clients, we aren’t always knowledgeable about what the results will be like. What do you think?

I have several executive coach clients for whom I ghost write and manage their blog updates, including updates to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn groups.

I absolutely love doing this, since I’m writing about leadership development, organizational change, and human behaviors. It keeps me on my toes with reading Harvard Business Review and the best business books around. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, content for coaches and consultants, content marketing with blogs, Dr. Patsi Krakoff, executive coach blogs, ghost blogging

Content Marketing with Emotions: Write with Feeling

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion

Are you writing with feeling? Does your blog trigger emotional reactions? Next time you review your writing, try to identify possible feelings in the reader.

Content marketing that doesn’t resonate emotionally can’t do a good job of building relationships, inspiring trust, and moving people into taking action.

Blog writers need to step away from their anonymous masks and get real, get emotional. It doesn’t mean you get all new-agey, touchy-feely. It means unless you get real with readers, readers won’t respond to you. You can still be professional and reveal your true feelings.

Emotions are either positive or negative. There are relatively few pure emotions:

Anger
Sadness
Fear
Enjoyment

These elemental feelings are universal. Specific facial expressions for fear, anger, sadness and enjoyments are recognized by people across diverse cultures.

Emotions can be complicated because they get combined, like primary colors. Jealousy may be a mix of anger and sadness. Guilt may be a combination of enjoyment and fear. Fascination may be an excited version of curious.

Authors Dan and Chip Heath, in Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, mention Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, business blogging, content marketing with blogs, persuasion, persuasion triggers

Brain-Based Blogging: The 4 F’s of Action

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Blog Content

How is blogging and online content marketing like psychotherapy?

One of the things I like about blog writing and publishing content on the Web is the connection to people. While “real life” connections put you face-to-face with people you know, publishing content on the web connects you distantly with people you don’t know.

You get a chance to poke the brains of strangers within a certain niche. The only thing that makes your readers similar may be their interest in the niche you are writing about, because you solve problems they have, because you share interests and passions with them.

And yet, in our mammalian brains, we all react to similar things, even when we’re brought up in different cultures across the globe. There are similar persuasion triggers, similar drives, similar emotional hot buttons.

Although I no longer work as a psychotherapist, I apply psychology and knowledge about the brain and human responses to everything I do and write. Let me share some thoughts I had this week about how people respond when they read online.

In the brain, emotions are closely linked to action. In our mammalian past, they were the single most important function of our brains. Our survival depended on quick action. If we had to think first, we’d be some tiger’s lunch before we decided where to jump.

Feelings do not require reflection or thought. We feel, we act. We think later and justify our actions based on input from our more highly advanced reasoning brain.

Strong feelings are hot-wired into the brain’s action centers, provoking any one of the “F” actions:

Feeding
Fleeing
Fighting
Fornicating

Emotions are simple and clear so that action is easy and fast. We wouldn’t be here talking about content marketing if our ancestors hadn’t become good at all four “F” actions, especially the last one.

How does this translate to Web usage? Read More→

Content Marketing Tips from Computer Games

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Writing Great Copy

What can we learn from online computer games about content marketing for business? A lot, apparently. If you write content designed to trigger action in readers, pay attention to this.

My husband, Attila the Honey, plays World of Warcraft, an online game that’s part of the multi-billion dollar gaming industry. If you think computer games are just for kids or young people with too much time, think again. Money spent on games has now surpassed movies and books.

(He swears that his online gaming is market research for his company Razerzone.com, but I don’t buy it.) I do believe it’s true that online games are good for your brain as we age. He’s speaking this weekend at the local Lake Chapala Society about this.

I just watched Seth Priebatsch, a Princeton dropout (something he’s proud of), who’s chief ninja at SCVNGR (“scavenger”), on the online speakers site TED.com. If he’s speaking at a TED conference in Boston, he’s got to have something important to say, right? You can watch it here. (A big thanks to Susan Weinschenck for this link.)

Here are three dynamics we can learn from online games that can be applied to content marketing:

Appointment dynamics: this persuasion trigger is probably what Cialdini would call the scarcity or urgency factor. There’s no greater example than Happy Hour in bars: show up at a certain time, you get rewarded. It’s also at play in the game Farmville, a popular game that already has 70 million players. How can you use this to persuade readers to take action? Think about your business and how you could include an appointment dynamic to urge responses. (Like all things, there’s a cool way to do this, and a way NOT to do it!)
Influence and Status dynamics: When games confer a red badge or gold or virtual money to players, their ego and pride causes them to continue playing. What ways can you inspire loyalty and engagement with your readers/ clients /prospects? What’s in it for them? How can you use the status trigger to persuade people to use your services or products? Read More→

Tags : blog marketing, blog writing, computer games, content marketing tips, content marketing with blogs, persuasion triggers, web marketing

Mental Skills Make Better Content Writers

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Persuasion, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Copy

Content marketing, even with a strategy and a plan, has a lot of decision points along the way. It’s easier with a map and a system, but there’s still a million choices that need to be made.

How do you decide what to write about? You’re a busy professional, you have a lot to say, you read a lot, you think a lot. You probably work with a lot of clients and they have problems that you try to help them solve. All that is good stuff to write about and publish on the Web so you’ll get found, get known, get clients.

Wait a minute, let me be clear about what I’m really asking you. The question is how do you decide, how do you make a decision? Do you experience options in your mind, preview consequences, and decide?

Do you observe your mental processes as they unfold? Some people do, and others don’t, they just operate impulsively and intuitively.

There’s no right or wrong answer here. But I think the ability to stand back and watch your mental processes unfold is interesting and informative.

For one thing, if you know a few things about how you make a decision, you can also imagine what goes on in the minds of some of your clients and readers. Not everybody’s exactly like you, but some of them are. This gives you insight into possibilities.

This is important when you’re writing on the Web, when your composing blog posts. And you already know how important it is to get in the shoes of readers when you’re composing a sales or landing page. Read More→