Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

39 Experts Foresee Content Marketing Trends for 2010: ClickPredictions

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, E-Books, Online Marketing

How is online marketing changing?
What do you need to know about content marketing trends for your own business?
What are marketing experts telling us you need to pay attention to?

You may not have a large marketing budget or staff that keeps up with these things. Before you spend your precious money, you better be sure you're heading down the road of good investment, not letting money fly out the window.

There's no question that traditional marketing has been changing at a rapid pace, given technology and social media and new tools coming up every day. How is it going to affect you and your marketing efforts?

Here's a free ebook chock full of expert predictions, offered by ClickDocs, a specialty firm supporting best practices for whitepapers and ebooks. Ambal Balakrishnan and her colleagues have produced a fabulous ebook.

I recommend you read this because:

It's a fast read
It's important
It's full of tips on what's needed for good marketing

Besides, I was asked to contribute my two cents, and I'm proud to be among these content marketing experts.

Want to know what's in it, briefly?

Is Your Blog Connected to Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn?

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

Have you included social marketing, social media into your blog? You must do this.

Why? Because that's where people are these days, looking for information and connections on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

How do you connect your blog to these 3 sites? It's pretty easy (if I'm blogging about it and have done it successfully then you know it's easy, cuz I'm no "techie…").

This is all part of the class I'm teaching today with Joan Stewart aka The Publicity Hound. So I'm going to be strict and not tell you how to do this, simply that you MUST do it

Wanna get the details? Go register for the class, you'll get all sorts of tips, audio recording, handouts, etc.

Time-Saving Tips for Smart Blogging with Joan Stewart

Wednesday January 20, 2010 at 4 p.m. ET

On the phone, a teleseminar.

You must register and there's a small fee, but well worth the valuable tips, handouts and information.

I guarantee it will make your blogging for business easier, faster, more fun and get you more clients!

If you can't come, don't want to spend the money, for whatever reasons, then go log into your accounts on each of these three sites, and any others you belong to, go to settings, hunt for a feature that autmatically feeds your blog posts to your updates.

You should be able to figure it out, and if you can't, let me know.

16 Must-Have Marketing Tools for Blog Design

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Online Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars

What should you put on your blog if you want to use it for marketing, to attract clients?

Content is king, but if your design stinks, visitors won't get past the banner. They won't stay, they won't get to know you and they won't subscribe to your blog.

Worse, you could be spending a lot of your valuable time blogging for nothing. Bad blog design = bad marketing = no new business. Stinks, doesn't it?

If you care about attracting the right people, get a professional blog design or theme installed. You can do it yourself on Typepad, but you'll need a graphic designer to supply the banner with a tag line built in.

There are plenty of good freelancers available, but you'll need to know what to tell them. Here are my tips for good blog design and set up.

Design for Branding, Trust, Personality

Everything on your blog should reflect your branding theme, personality, and the problems you solve for your readers. Your banner should clarify what the blog is going to give readers.

These are branding issues that need careful thought. You may even need professional help if you want to get it right.

Joan Stewart is a good example of this. Her blog, at PublicityHound.net, features tips for people seeking PR and media attention. You know this immediately after arriving on the blog.

[15 second commercial break: Joan and I are teaching Time-SavingTips for Smart Blogging in two days, Wednesday Jan. 20, 2010. Sign up here…]

Personality Counts

Is Your Blog Really Sick? 8 Health Check Points

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

Is your blog sick? I don’t mean in a good way, like your blog’s really hip, slick and cool. I mean is it limping along on crutches with barely enough Google juice to keep the joints from creaking…maybe you haven’t been posting lately, then when you do, you make a few lame excuses and expect readers to care…

Maybe your blog is a reflection of you, just a mirror of your mind, an expression of your spirit or lack of it…you could put on a happy face, do some blogging, and then say to yourself, “There, it’s done, I’ve blogged.”

So what? You know that’s not what I mean when I say that a business blog is the best damn content marketing tool on Earth. But you can’t get fired up and fix what’s wrong if you’re not sure where the problems lie.

Maybe your blog needs a yearly physical checkup. Here’s Patsi’s quick fix check list for diagnosing blog problems…

Take a look at your blog and examine it for the following signs of health:

Blood pressure: How’s your traffic these days? Last week, last 30 days? Has it gone up or down in last 3 months, 6 months, 1 year?

Fast Blogging? What About Truth and Meaning?
What Shakespeare & Seinfeld Can Teach Us

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

"There's method in the madness." ~ William Shakespeare

Can you blog quickly AND create meaningful value for your readers?

It's one thing to be saving time with speed blogging tips I'm giving you here this week. But if you're writing junk that has no depth, if you're just saying what's been said before, no one will stay to read. Your readers won't subscribe, they won't buy, and they won't take any action, except to click away.

Here's the crux: how do you go deep when you're in a hurry and got a million other things to do? How can you write great blog content that serves your business marketing goals, when you've only got a half-hour?

Read books. Read Shakespeare. Go to the source. Go to the well. Read the classics, read history, read what geniuses have written. Watch movies, TV. Then blog about it.

How to Save Time & Money with Smart Blogging in 2010

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Teleclasses & Seminars, Writing Great Blog Content

Be smart. Turn your blog into the best darn marketing tool on the planet. Joan Stewart (The Publicity Hound) and I (The Blog Squad) will show you how. Join us January 20, 2010 at 4 p.m. ET for this Smart Blogging teleseminar. Sign up here: http://snipurl.com/smartblogging.

Speed Blogging in Action: Step 1 Pick a Problem

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Teleclasses & Seminars, Writing Great Blog Content

5:46 a.m. Ready, set, GO!

How do you speed up your blogging? Here are some ways I solved the blog writing problem this morning. Since I started a blog series yesterday, 6 tips for faster blogging, I already had step 1 figured out: Pick a problem.

How can I write 3 tips about this 1st step of blog writing?

(Sometimes this may take far too long, because of inner demons…. As reader M. Scott Schaffernoth commented, "Great tips for making what can be a daunting task much more approachable, especially for those who hate/fear writing.")

Sometimes what you face yourself as you write about your expertise can reveal an interesting perspective on a problem, and your readers may experience similar pain. Write about it. In this case, if your readers' pain is writing, then you've got great fodder.

6:00 a.m. Other times, you may not be sure what to say, so you'll need to do some quick research. Here's where to go, but be careful not to get lost and waste time.

6 Tips for Speed Blogging: The Blog Squad in Action

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks

5:45 a.m.

How do you save time with your blog writing tasks?

You know 3 times a week is a bare minimum posting frequency if you want to get good "Google" juice. But it's not like you've got nothing else to do.

Here's my favorite speed blogging tip:

Pick a problem or pain point your readers tell you about
Make a list of 3-5 tips that solve it
Look at what's already written
Decide if you want to copy & paste, link back, rewrite, or write something new
Ask readers a question, write a brief introduction, list the tips, conclude with call to action and ask another question
Add a photo, add any links to people, places, books

Friendly Persuasion: Blogging as a
Content Marketing Tool

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

What makes blogging work as the best content marketing tool there is online? I say it's the best, but maybe you don't see it that way. Maybe you see it as a chore…

Business blogging works because it's a persuasion tool. It is the most powerful marketing tool on the planet. It works because readers have a chance to know, like and trust you. KLT is essential before people buy anything from you.

It works because of reciprocity and social proof, two powerful persuasion triggers. Reciprocity is what happens when a person gives something to another: the other person feels obliged and wants to reciprocate. When you give generously of your knowledge on your blog, and respond to people's needs, you are creating a relationship of trust and building reciprocity.

5 Things You Need to Know When You Blog
for Content Marketing Results

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Profit, Teleclasses & Seminars, Writing Great Blog Content

How does content marketing with a blog turn into profits?

How do you turn readers into customers who buy or hire you?

How does participating in social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn get results in terms of new clients?

It's one thing to come up with fresh blog content that educates and entertains readers. It's another thing to sustain that energy that it takes to frequently post on your blog… especially if you're not seeing the money right away.

Stay on track with conversion goals by asking and answering these 5 questions each time you blog…