Archive for blog content – Page 2

Business Blogging Time-Saving Tips for You (and Your Cat)

When it comes to business blogging, how do you save time and still get results? How do you make blog tasks so easy your cat could do it?

It’s the dog days of summer but around our house that expression isn’t acceptable. Doodles and Buster would have a cat fit. Here in Mexico we’re in the rainy season, when the heat of the Summer is tempered by the cool nightly rains. Which brings our year-round average temp to a mild 73.  Not bad when you’re a tennis enthusiast and enjoy time outdoors.  Which is why it’s even more important to me to save time when blogging.

Over the years I’ve purr-fected my blogging system. And as a thank-you to all my content marketing blog clients (shout out to all my new and renewing content subscribers who took advantage of our sale last week), I want to share it with you all. Plus I figure it will be good Kitty Karma – maybe it will even help keep the cats off Facebook. They want their own pages now… Read More→

Social Proof: Why It’s So Important

Customer FeedbackWhy is social proof so important when writing on the web?

This week I got a call from a person who wanted to buy a subscription to executive coach articles to use for her new newsletter. What sealed the deal? The testimonials from other subscribers.

Recommendations, testimonials and client stories are a powerful persuasion tactic. It’s one of the key persuasion triggers that get people to take action. It’s called social proof.

Do you remember the landmark book Influence, by Robert Cialdini?  He wrote about six weapons of influence, and it turns out, social proof is one of the most powerful mechanisms for triggering buying decisions.

We are heavily influenced by social persuasion, we can’t help it. Our brains respond to our strong need to belong and fit in, and it all happens in our unconscious minds.

Read More→

4 Ideas to Generate Blog Topics

Blog Blogging Communication Connect Data Social Concept

How are you doing with your 2015 blog goals? Are you publishing blog topics that include compelling, relevant content that solves the problems of your readers?

A study on B2B content marketing has shown that 70% of businesses online have more content now than they had last year, and of these, 80% are doing so through corporate blogs.

These smart professionals understand the effectiveness of blogs, but blogging is not without challenges: figuring out what blog topics to focus on, conducting appropriate research, writing great content, and ensuring it has been optimized for search engines. If you’re stumped about what to write next, try these four ideas and see how far you get.

1.  Part of your writing process should include keyword research, and nothing can help you accomplish this like Google SERP (search engine results page) analytical tools.  Many free versions are available online, including SERPs.com. Read More→

Business Blog Writing: How to Avoid Time-Suck

Avoid Time Suck

How do you avoid time-sucking traps when it comes to blog writing?

If you’re anything like me, you may have found yourself (a time or two!) with nothing to show after sitting in front of your screen for 90 minutes.  Yup. It happens to the best of us.

You sit down with your coffee, open email, and an hour later still haven’t posted on your blog. You decide you need inspiration, so you check out your feed reader.

Ninety minutes later, you still haven’t started a new blog post. You’ve probably read some really great stuff, but now you’re really behind schedule, and time is money. You feel anxious, overwhelmed, and you move on to client projects (but I’ve got a tennis match so I’ll have to come back later…)

Sound familiar? Change a few details and I bet this is your story. Read More→

2 Sure-Fire Ways to Inspire Your Blog Writing

Business-blog-writingA few years ago I polled readers and asked what their biggest blogging challenge is. Turns out, it’s not lack of time, it’s lack of inspiration. Does your blog writing lack inspiration? Is it hard to get really fired up when starting to write a post?

I get that.  When I was just starting out as a blogger (was that really over 15 years ago?!) I could just feel that screen staring right back at me.  What can a blogger blog about to other bloggers?

Lack of inspiration comes from not being sure you’re doing it right, or doing it well, and lack of confidence that it will be worth it… in other words, fear and doubt.

Fear and doubt go away when you know what you’re doing, and have a system that will allow you to move forward confidently.

Here are two ways you can side-step fear and doubt, and write frequent, consistent quality posts and develop a blogging habit that will grow your abilities over time. Nobody starts out writing well. Yet, everybody’s got a piece of genius within them, so it’s a question of finding it and putting it on paper, quickly, before any demons get in the way. Read More→

Blog Design Blink Test:
Simple, Easy Navigation

Navigation and SimplicityIn order to impress visitors and showcase your business expertise, your blog must pass the “blink” test.

As I mentioned in my previous post, your blog design must incorporate three critical elements:

  1. Branding/Personality (Banners, logo, photos)
  2. Navigation/Simplicity (Layout, use of white space and read more)
  3. Quality Content (Problems you solve for your readers)

Navigation/Simplicity

Your blog design should offer easy navigation, easy ways to find solutions to their problems.

Read More→

Business Newsletter Tips: Don’t be the Grinch this Holiday

If I’ve said it once, I’veBizBook-Nuggets said it a thousand times: your business newsletter content must solve problems for your readers or help them meet a need.  So, if your newsletter topic is something that you can’t cover in an e-newsletter, don’t be the Newsletter Grinch: give it the attention it deserves and cover it properly on a blog page.  Your audience will appreciate your attention to detail, as long as you provide value.

In my previous blog post, I shared tips to get your business newsletter read, specifically, how to grab attention with a compelling subject line and headline. But once you get your readers to open your email newsletter, make sure they keep reading by offering compelling, relevant information.

For example, I create and distribute a newsletter called Biz Book Nuggets (if you haven’t subscribed, you can sign up in the upper right corner of this page.)  This newsletter includes insights gathered from all the leadership business books I read. Read More→

The Biggest Mistake Business Bloggers Make (and how to avoid it!)

Oops!The biggest mistake business bloggers make is that they are frequently ego-centric. This isn’t necessarily all bad, it simply doesn’t bring the blogging results that smart professionals expect.

Bloggers are so passionate about their message and their expertise, they preach. They shout. They proclaim. They implore. They explain. They document and support their logic.

But they forget about that old background tune that repeats in the head of all readers: “What’s in it for me?” Bloggers assume that their readers are like them and interested in the same things.

How to Avoid Bad Blogging

If you want good advice, refer to the classics. There’s no better style writing advice than The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B.White. Here are 10 tips that adapt Strunk and White’s advice to blog writing (the first 8 are from Dean Rieck over on Copyblogger and is titled The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide): Read More→

The Scariest Blog: No Personality

Scariest Blog PostWhat’s the scariest blog post you have ever read?  For me it’s a blog or website without any personality.

Storytelling and personalization is the key piece in content marketing as I see it. People are good at writing about what they know. They aren’t as good about expressing who they are and why they do what they do.

If you’re not writing real stories, your content – on your blog, in your newsletter, on your web pages – runs the risk of being boring. You may be excited about what you do as a professional, but your clients will get bored or overwhelmed if you just throw information at them.

What’s your back-story? Read More→

How to Lure Readers to Your Blog
from Social Media

Lure Social Media Readers to Your BlogLet’s face it; sometimes it’s hard to draw people’s attention away from their many social media accounts.  I know that I’m guilty of not being willing to leave the social media site I’m browsing to visit an outside blog or article. So how do we as blog writers get people to leave the social media bubble and head on over to our blog to read and then share what they read on social media?

Here are a few ideas to get reader’s eyes off of their Facebook or Twitter page and onto your blog: Read More→