Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Why Use Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn for
Content Marketing?

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff

True confession time: I am not even close to being smart about using social media for online marketing. No big surprise for those of you who know what an introvert I am. But still, I am using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and I think you should too. Here’s why…

I am a psychologist who helps others get found online, get known in their niche, and get clients. If you’ve read my story, you know how I started using the Web ten years ago, as a complete techno-klutz. All that changed in 2004 and 2005 with the popularization of blogging platforms like Typepad and WordPress.

This ushered in new business success for me and my former partner as The Blog Squad. If you’ve been online for a few years now, marketing your business using the Internet, you probably experienced the same phenomena… all of a sudden you don’t need to be a computer geek to get a site up and start making money.

Around 2004, sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter came along, but they didn’t really pick up steam until 2006 and later. What happened is beyond comprehension on some levels… and totally natural.

Now Facebook boasts one of the highest web traffic numbers and Twitter has become a news source re-broadcast on network TV news stations. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog marketing, blog traffic, business blogging, Content Marketing, SEO, social media marketing

Don’t Jerk Blog Readers Around:
5 Tips to Keep on Track

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

What’s the most frequent complaint I hear about blogging? Next to “I don’t have enough time,” it’s “I don’t know what to write about.”

Guess what? The two questions are related to the same problem: not enough clarity about business blog goals. Here’s how I help my clients solve this problem of clarity:

Define your business Ps & Q – (3Ps + 1Q):
=> What Problem do you solve?
=> Who are the People you serve?
=> What Products and services do you offer?
=> What makes you uniQue??
Create a course outline or a table of contents as if you were writing a book or teaching a class on this problem, i.e., your expertise
Make a list of keywords, categories and topics you’re qualified to write about and that must be addressed to solve the problems of your readers
Make an editorial calendar for each day of the week you’re going to be blogging. Make sure you cover all the topics and categories, and that your keywords are repeated frequently in posts and titles (search engine optimization).
Make a weekly blog schedule to include writing the content, sharing it on social sites, researching and commenting on other blogs, and formatting, editing, linking, etc.

Don’t underestimate the time it takes for all the peripheral upkeep of blogging. Maintaining a successful blog takes more time than just writing a post. And it almost always takes longer than the 30 minutes required for writing.

Do you jerk readers around?

When I’m working with my clients on their blogs, I often find their content is all over the map. Quite often, they Read More→

Tags : blog marketing, blog writing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, converting readers to clients, Writing for the Web

The 3 P’s of Content Marketing: What’s Your Position?

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing

What’s your positioning for your business? How are you unique?

I write articles, newsletters and blogs for executive coaches, leadership recruiting experts, and consultants dealing with CEOs. I don’t write financial or health topics. My business site is at ContentforCoachesandConsultants.com.

I also help coaches, consultants, authors, and other smart professionals with their online marketing. My content marketing consulting blog is here, at WritingontheWeb.com, all about online content marketing.

All sorts of content on the web must be published in order to get found, get known and get clients. Most of it is done on your business blog, which is quite simply, “The Best Darn Marketing Tool on the Planet.”

This blog is currently ranked #5 in the Top42 Content Marketing Blogs. As co-founder of The Blog Squad, I am passionate about helping professionals find and unleash their core message and get it published on blogs, newsletters and social media.

This is what content marketing is all about… what’s your core message and how can you get it out to the people who need your products and services? How can you make your messages memorable? Read More→

Tags : branding, Content Marketing, core message, Online Marketing, positioning

Content Marketing Institute Gives Best “How-to” Tips…

By Patsi Krakoff in Blogs We Love, Content Marketing, E-Books, Online Marketing

There are two great blog posts over at the newly launched Content Marketing Institute blog. If you’ve haven’t subscribed to this yet, do so. It has great promise for becoming THE place to get updates on how to “do” content marketing.

Here are the two posts I paid the closest attention to so far (although I probably should read the others as well…):

5 Ways to Extend the Reach of Your Ebook by Michele Linn
How One Small Habit Can Make a Big Difference to Content Marketers by Sarah Mitchell

The Content Marketing Institute is the brain child of Junta42 founder Joe Pulizzi, who has managed to gather some of the best and brightest marketers who are experts in content marketing tools and tactics.

The idea is to have a place where marketers can learn the “how-to” tips that bring the best results and save time, energy and money in doing so.

Tags : blog commenting, content marketing tips, ebook tips

How to Choose a Fascinating Photo for
Content Marketing Purposes

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, How to...Tips

What should you look for in choosing a photo to illustrate your blog post? Or to illustrate any other type of web content, such as web pages or sales letter pages?

It’s rare that I don’t take an extra ten minutes to select a photo for each of my blog posts. Yes, no more than ten, but often it’s done in under a minute. I’ll share my tips for saving time on this. (This photo, from iStockPhoto.com took 35 seconds to find and upload…)

Why bother? Because the brain is attracted to photos and if you choose an interesting photo that evokes curiosity, you’ll draw more people into reading your blog.

Go to any photo site and register as a user (free). These are royalty-free photos you can use. If you’re using any photos for commercial purposes, you should purchase credits.

Use the search box to type in what you think you’d like to use as a photo. If you don’t know, just type in a keyword, especially an emotion or an abstract concept that you’re writing about. You’ll be surprised the variety of photos a word pulls up.

For example, in my previous post about grabbing readers’ attention, the emotion I wanted to convey was curiosity. A search for “curiosity” provided 787 pages of photos that included people, animals, babies… Most of which I wouldn’t want to use. I chose one of giraffes because it looked curious.

I’m looking for one or two photos that are attractive to the eye and pull in the kinds of readers I target – smart professionals. So I don’t want any boring photos of people who look happy and content. That may sound strange, but there’s nothing that’s compelling about happy and content people. It doesn’t trigger any reaction on an emotional level. Read More→

Tags : blog formatting, blog photos, illustrations, photos for content marketing

7 Ways to Grab Blog Readers’ Attention
and Engage their Brains

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

What’s the first thing you need to do to grab readers’ attention when writing a fresh blog post?

1. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I always say, “Start with a question!” Ask the reader the problem you’re going to solve for them in your post. The brain is hard wired to seek out answers to unsolved questions or riddles.

That will engage them to think and create a desire to know more.

…But it’s not the first sentence that blog readers see. It’s not the first opportunity readers’ have to decide if they’re going to read your post or not.

2. The headline is. It is THE most important part of your blog post, and I recommend writing it last. There’s a whole bunch of tips you need to know about writing great headlines, but because it’s written AFTER you finish your post, I’m going to talk about it later. Tips 4, 5, and 6 apply to headline writing. Read More→

Tags : blog marketing, blog traffic, blog writing

6 Ways Blog Formatting Engages the Reader’s Brain

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Getting Read, On Writing Better, Pathway to Profits, Writing Great Blog Content

What are the two most important parts of your business blog post? Most experts will tell you this:

The headline
The call to action

The headline is what gets read and spread. It’s your “shout-out” on social media sites, in feed readers, email updates. It’s the bait on your fishing hook which draws people over to your blog site to read your stuff.

Writing magnetic headlines is crucial. And you know yourself that a well-crafted headline gets more traffic than a bland one.

The call to action is what gets you business results and turns readers into clients. Even when it’s not a direct “go-buy-click-here” request, it’s part of your funnel process. It starts the participation process.

But hold on there, wait a minute. There are 6 ways to format your blog posts that will help prime your readers for action. It happens before you ask readers to do something. It must happen, otherwise your readers won’t even read your complete post, they won’t get to the call to action part.

You must engage their brains. You must get inside their heads by triggering unconscious desires and thoughts.

Okay, that sounds a bit oowy-woowy and sneaky, maybe even dangerous. I’m not talking hypnotic suggestions or even tapping into Freudian drives of sex or fear…(although, heck, that sure works, too!)

But if your blog content doesn’t appeal to one of several persuasion triggers (reciprocity, social proof, etc.) then you’re not doing enough with your posts. Your readers may scan your post, without getting their thought processes going, and move on.

It’s not complicated. You’re probably already doing it (unconsciously)! How?

1. Every time you tell a story, you’re tapping into primitive drives to listen and pay attention. As humans, we’re wired to sit up, pay attention, and become alert when someone says, “Let me tell you a story…” Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog formatting, blog marketing, blog writing, Content Marketing, persuasion triggers

How to Convert Readers into Clients on Your Blog

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Writing Great Blog Content

If a blog is the best marketing tool on the planet, then how does it convert readers to clients?

It may seem like a stretch… like building a bridge over a river and leading readers across. Dare I attempt a pun … like, how do you lead them Over the River Buy? (Please don’t groan while I’m trying to entertain you…)

What’s the most important thing to remember when you’re writing for your business blog? I’m not sure I can answer that in a simple sentence, but let me try. I always say that providing solutions to problems is important, but then there’s…:

Write useful, relevant posts that exceed reader’s expectations
Educate readers, but try to entertain them while doing it
Engage readers, get them to think, stimulate new ways of looking at something
Enrich people’s lives, save them time, energy or money
Share resources that can help readers
Unravel the mysteries, make something complicated easy to understand
Provide a road map with directions on how to do something, including memory short-cuts
Build trust with readers so they ask for products and services Read More→

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

How to Use Content, Blogs, and Your Brain to Grow Business

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing

There were three great resources launched this week for learning how to use the Internet to market your business.

All you need is your smart brain, a computer, and a few tools to create content that attracts clients.

One of these resources is completely free: the newly launched Content Marketing Institute. This is a new site developed by Joe Pulizzi to teach you how to master content marketing strategies to grow business.

The other two new programs carry a small fee:

The Ultimate Traffic Formula is a $49 program on how to get more blog traffic. It’s packed with Time-Saving Tips for Smart Blogging, including audio files, workbooks, and two bonus ebooks: Get Them in the Door: Using Blogs, Email and Social Media for Retailers, and How to Start Business Blog
Start Blogging Today opened their virtual doors last week: This is a comprehensive how-to blog training site authored by Grant Griffiths and Michael Martine that I highly recommend for both newbies and people who aren’t getting blogging results. Read More→

Tags : blog marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Content Marketing Institute Teaches
How to Market with Content

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing

There’s a new kid in town and he’s got game. If you’ve ever wondered about what all the buzz is about with Content Marketing and how it impacts the way you market your business online, you’ve got to meet this new kid. He’s named Content Marketing Institute, but I just call him CMI.

He’s the brain child of Joe Pulizzi, of Junta42, one of the leaders of the Content Marketing movement, and the founder of the Top42 Content Marketing Blogs list published every quarter. I am proud to be a contributor and advisor.

Here’s the challenge. Many businesses are still operating under the mistaken assumptions of Web 1.0 and even 2.0 where you put up a website and spend money on pay-per-click and wonder why it’s not bringing in leads or business.

In today’s interconnected social media world, you’ve got to do more, and know what’s smart or not. Otherwise, you waste time, energy and money doing the wrong things. But there’s so much new stuff, it’s confusing.

How do I develop a content marketing strategy?
How do I create content that my audience will find valuable?
What are the best content marketing tactics for my audience and expertise areas?
How do I best manage the content marketing process? If I decide to outsource, how do I do that?
How do I measure what’s working (and what’s not) to make changes?

And unless you’re a big corporation with staff (and even so….) it’s hard to know where to spend your money and time. Read More→

Tags : blog marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing