Archive for blog content – Page 16

Get Search Engine Optimized- Fast

By Patsi Krakoff
Friday, August 13th, 2010

How do you know if your blog posts are optimized for search engines?

Good question… and no  easy answer… well, except for one which I’m going to share with you here!  Here are a few options for optimizing your content for search marketing:

  1. Study Google and search engine optimization (time-consuming)
  2. Hire an SEO person to do some optimization for your web content (expensive)
  3. Become a subscriber to a service called Scribe Content Optimizer (easy, instant & affordable)

Here’s how it works. You go here, you sign up, you install it to your WordPress blog. You start using a free plug in called All-in-One SEO Pack.

You write a blog post, you fill in the information on the SEO plug in, you click the Scribe analyze button, wait a few seconds and get a review of how well your content will do with search engines. You then get a list of things you can do to raise your search engine optimization score.

Okay, seeing is better than me telling you. Here’s a snapshot of a blog post that didn’t score well, and here’s one that got a perfect score. You can see for yourself that the Scribe report tells me what I can do to raise my score, to improve my search engine optimization.

And here is a screen capture of a post that got a perfect score: Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, How to...Tips, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web
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Content Marketing Results: 18 Ways to NOT Get Blog Traffic

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

What do you need to know about about the way people read online to make your content marketing efforts pay off?

What are you doing or not doing on your blog that screws up your traffic?

At least a few times a week I get an email from a smart professional who struggles with making their web marketing work to get found, get known and get clients. Here’s a typical one…

“Okay, Patsi, I’ve been following you for a while now, and your blog writing tips have helped. I’m posting twice a week, but I’m still not getting comments, and my traffic stats stink. Can you take a look?”

Of course, I have to point people to my consulting services if they want me to spend time doing a good analysis and provide specific solutions.

But often the problems and the solutions are common and universal. I can almost predict where the low traffic problems come from based on looking at a lot of blogs over the last five years.

Here’s a general overview of things I see many people doing on blogs that don’t bring good results:

  1. Frequency: Not posting enough
  2. Headline: not compelling or even clear
  3. Content: No clearly defined problem and solution, no answer to the “so what?” question
  4. Content: No keyword usage in headline, first paragraph, or in body
  5. Content: Too broad and general, need to hone it down to specifics, need to personalize it
  6. Formatting: Too many long blocks of text, need shorter paragraphs, subheadings
  7. Engagement: Too author-centric, not enough asking readers questions, addressing them as “you”
  8. Engagement: Not enough client stories, no quotes from other people Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content
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Attractive Content: Speak to the brains

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

How do you write content that attracts readers to your products and services?

I read somewhere that most of what goes into our brains never reaches our conscious mind:

Our five senses are processing 11 million pieces of info per second. Of these only 40 enter our conscious awareness.

Which means our subconscious mind does a terrific job of filtering what we need to pay attention to.

And…which is why there is new research about how to reach consumers based on how the brain works: neuromarketing.

The brain is made up of three parts, the old brain, the mid-brain, and the new brain. The first two are operating out of our conscious awareness, and they help decide what we need to become aware of.

What this means is that most of the time, we’re operating on auto-pilot. Especially when it comes to TV, but maybe we’re cruising when we’re online and even reading. We scan while thinking of other things. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Getting Read, On Writing Better, Online Marketing
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Blog Checklist: 10 Items BEFORE You Publish…

By Patsi Krakoff
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

What is a good checklist before you publish on your blog? I’m preparing some learning modules for a content marketing presentation and came up with this checklist of 10 items. Tell me what you think.

Here’s what happens, usually. You’re in a hurry, you write up a short post (300 words), hit publish, and then realize you’ve forgotten to write the headline… or select tags… or add any links or images!

Well, it’s easy to go back in and update your post… but what if the phone rings, you have a crises, you get distracted (this is my world)… and you’re stuck with an incomplete blog post.

Reminds me of going out of the house with your zipper undone…

So here’s my handy-dandy checklist to whip out before you hit publish…

  • Pick the topic, find a hook, tip, trend
  • Write 350-600 words (educate, entertain, engage, enrich readers)
  • Format post (bulleted lists, etc.)
  • Write headline (compelling yet clear, keywords)
  • Add image
  • Add links, including to your own previous posts
  • Check grammar, typos
  • Identify tags, categories
  • Search Optimization, (use Scribe SEO, All-in-One SEO Pack, YARPP)
  • Connect with social sites (use Sexy Bookmarks, etc.) Read More→
Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Getting Read, How to...Tips
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3 Biggest Challenges for Online Content Marketing?

By Patsi Krakoff
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

What are the three biggest challenges to marketing your business? I know, I know, there are so many, but if you could distill them into the most crucial for online content marketing, how would you do it?

(I’m always asking you, because some of my readers are very smart and think of things I don’t. So please feel free to add to this by leaving a comment…)

To me, it’s these three that count more than anything:

  1. How do I get found by the people who need my solutions?
  2. How do I get them to know me, like me, and trust me to do business with?
  3. How do I get clients? Convert readers to buyers?

Get found, get known, get clients… there’s a lot that goes into creating content on the Web that leads to results, and each marketing task, each piece of content, each program you offer, falls into one of these categories or challenges.

I did a survey on this in April, 2010: Readers say that getting traffic, building a list, and converting readers to clients are their biggest challenges. It’s still a matter of findability, creating trust and getting people to take action.

Get found: What does this mean?

You’ve got to be easily found when an ideal client sits down to the screen and looks for solutions to their problem: Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits
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Is the Social Web Changing How We Write?
How to Write Like You Talk

By Patsi Krakoff
Monday, July 5th, 2010

This week’s guest post is by Barb Sawyers, Sticky Communications who recently published a great ebook on how you can write better for the web.

Hello, Patsi’s readers. I’m Barb Sawyers, a blogger who shares her interest in encouraging people to write like they talk.

Patsi was telling me how some of you don’t find writing for the web to be as natural or fun as talking. Sometimes you don’t think you’re connecting with your readers.

Seeing as we’ve all been talking since we were toddlers, and go back to what sounds right when we’re not certain, you’d think writing like you talk would be easier.

But something happened at school and at work that turned the pleasure of communication into hard labor, for both writers and readers.

Then along came the Internet, blogs, Twitter and Facebook: Overnight, it seems, our online social lives and writing was pulled back into conversational mode.

But how do you reverse years of conditioning about what writing should be? Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content
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Blog Content: Are you personal… or all business?

By Patsi Krakoff
Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Do you stay on track with your blog content and business goals, or do you share personal stories and events that are peripheral?

I got an interesting comment on a post I did beginning of June and I can’t stop thinking about it. The post was about staying on target with your business goals when you create content for your blog. Don’t Jerk Readers Around: 5 Tips for Staying on Track.

First Eileen said she didn’t agree with my premise that you might be jerking readers around if you’re not staying on track with your content:

“I’m not sure I agree with this. My blog niche is arts and crafts. Most of my favorite other artsy blogs do this routinely. One day they blog about what happening at home. The next they may share a tutorial or run a contest or review a book.”

Then Keenan said, “I agree with Eileen. Although you don’t want to be completely all over the map, changing up your subject matter is critical.

“Blogs represent people. They create connections to their readers through their personalities. When a blog stays on topic all the time, it begins to feel white-washed like any on or off-line newspaper or magazine.

“Personality plays a huge role in a blog. Blogging about those things that are part of the authors passions, likes, dislikes, opinions etc. allows followers to connect with the blog. It’s what makes blogging different than reading commercial news. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Getting Read, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content
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What Makes You Mad?

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, May 13th, 2010

In a previous post about What Drives You, I explored some of the personal reasons behind my energy and drive in my business. This is important for you to do as well. As you work in any business, especially your own, you should know at the deepest levels where your fire is.

Keep asking yourself “why?” and “how come?” you are driven to do what you do. Where is your fire? What makes you angry? There is energy in anger, and when you uncover it, it will keep you motivated.

I’m not talking about the unhealthy kind of anger, the kind where you try to get back at someone for some real or imagined insult.

Look at your anger in terms of a higher purpose. How can you use your anger for a higher good?

Read More→

Categories : Pathway to Profits, Patsi's Story
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Why a Content Marketing Strategy Review Matters

By Patsi Krakoff
Thursday, April 9th, 2009

Content Marketing Matters!

It really does. As I wrote previously, we are in the Dawn of a New Content Marketing Era and Telling Beats Selling.

Advertising isn’t working.

Content Matters

But if that doesn’t bring up a lot of questions for you, it should.

How do you write content that’s interesting and informs, but at the same time sells you, your products and your services?

When you write content that markets for your business, you face certain challenges.

On the one hand, you write so that readers will get to know you, like you and trust you.

Then, you turn around and blurt out, “Oh, and by the way, BUY MY STUFF!” Uh-huh. No, I don’t think so, that doesn’t work.

To top it off, you may be an independent entrepreneur or a small business without a large budget to hire copywriters and web content specialists. You may write your web pages yourself. You publish your own blog, plus an e-newsletter.

How do you learn to “do” content marketing in a way that works for your business, your targeted audience?

Ah, so many questions, so few answers. While there are a few content marketing books published, and a few more are in the works, there aren’t too many places to learn what you need to know.

Your content should be reviewed for how well it:

  • Grabs readers’ attention
  • Focuses on a solution to a problem 
  • Educates and informs
  • Entertains and engages readers
  • Enriches the lives of readers
  • Inspires action
  • Comes up in search results for main keywords
  • Gets the results you want to achieve

You can get your blog and website content strategies reviewed for a small fee. I usually work with small businesses and independent professionals and partnerships. For more information, please read this page, How Can I Help You?

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