There was a time I was in love with blogging… I had already been in the business of content marketing for 5 years on the Web, using an old-fashioned website platform.
In 2004, I started blogging. It changed my life and opened doors and filled a few piggy banks. But my lover wasn’t really “the blog.” It was being able to speak with a world-wide audience. It was like magic.
Writing on my blog is my way of reaching out to people looking for ways to write content on the Web so that they can get found, get known and get new business.
A blog is still “The best darn content marketing tool on the planet!” But it’s not about “the blog…”
This year I switched from Typepad to WordPress, and I’m creating a new banner to reflect the changes.
When’s the last time you reviewed your site or blog banner?
For a while now I’ve been playing with some ideas. The name will remain the same, but the tag line will read,
“How to Use Online Content Marketing to Get Found, Get Known, and Get Clients.”
I wrote about these three big marketing challenges a few days ago, and I’ve blogged about them over the past five years.
Without doubt, people who use the Internet to market their services must find ways to solve these three issues, or they won’t stay in business long.
You might notice there’s nothing in my new tag line that mentions blogs, blogging, or WordPress. Because, just as I predicted a few years ago, it doesn’t matter if you’re blogging or not. What matters are results.
(I predicted the buzz about blogs would die down simply because everyone would be using a blog platform, such as WordPress, to build and manage their websites as well as blogs. The blur between the two has already merged.)
We’ve been told that world-wide, there are a billion people online, and we can reach a global audience for free. So it doesn’t matter if you’re using a traditional website platform or WordPress, or even Blogger (well, why not?), if that’s working to get you found, get people to know, like and trust you, and you’re converting readers to clients.
It’s not the messenger, it’s your message. It’s not how you do it, what matters is that you do it effectively.
For myself, I’m constantly learning, reading, and evolving (hopefully!)… I’m not sure where I’m going to be in 5 or 10 years, but I am intuitively following a direction. I’m sharing these ideas here with you, about changes to how we process Web content and marketing, and would love to hear your thoughts. Read More→
Blog Content: Are you personal… or all business?
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→