Archive for business blogs – Page 3

Ghost Writers Needed: For Business Blogs Everywhere

Ghost-BloggersMany professional business blogs need ghost writers. How else can busy professionals maintain quality content and frequent publishing schedules?

What about you and your blog? How can you consistently publish on your professional business blog and never have to worry about coming up with ideas, researching facts and stats, and writing compelling, quality content that solves problems for your readers?

I’d like to tell you an easy answer, like, “All you need to do is outsource!” But it’s not at all easy to find quality ghost blog writers who understand your business and clients, is it?

Here are some other objections I hear from my blog consulting clients about outsourcing to ghost writers, along with my responses: Read More→

Why You Should Write Quality Blog Content

Best-Business-BlogQuality blog posts are key to your business getting found on the Web. While that may sound obvious – (“Of course, why would I write something ho-hum boring?”) it’s harder than you might think. Not everyone agrees on what quality content is.

Quality content scores high with readers, your target clients, and with search engines. If you want to get found, get known and get clients online, you need to write and publish quality blog posts that resonate with your readers.

There’s a lot of emphasis on publishing frequently. Most professionals and small business owners are told that once or twice weekly is a bare minimum. But none of that matters if what you write is boring, mediocre, confusing or poorly written and formatted.

What is quality content? Sure, you know it when you read it, but what are the essentials? It depends on who you’re writing for. As writer Ginny Soskey at Hubspot blog points out:

“There are lots of concrete principles of writing that can help determine the “quality” of a piece of content. Verb usage, spelling, sentence structure — these all have defined rules that, for the most part, have stayed pretty constant. It’s black and white. That is wrong; this is right. 

“Then there are the gray areas in writing. Stylistic preferences. Imagery. Storytelling.” Read More→

Why Use Animated Videos on a Business Blog?

animated-drawingsAre you considering creating an animated video for your business blog? Did you know that blog posts and articles with images perform 91 percent better than those without them (Skyword study, 2011)? Have you done a Google search lately that has video content that you can’t resist checking out? Oh yeah. I love video. You know what else I love? Animated videos!

Why is that? As a kid I always read the “funny pages.” I still do; I immediately locate the “strategic humor” in Harvard Business Review.

Apparently 90 percent of information transmitted through the brain is visual in nature. Visual content is processed 60,000 times faster than the written word.

Visual design is critical to every page you have, but never is it more important than helping your readers and customers understand your products and services. You can more easily explain the value of your business services in pictures than words.

Here’s an example from the clever marketing folks at wizMotions.

Animated videos aren’t something you can create at home, unless you’re a talented graphic designer. And most studios doing them charge quite a bit. I researched this and found a new studio with very reasonable prices: wizMotions.com.

Check out their services and portfolio to see if they might be able to create a short animated video that can spotlight your products and services. Tell them I sent you if you do. (I am not an affiliate, but I love their services!)

(P.S. This is not the first time I’ve used an animated video. I wrote about my first experience with this company when they were called Hypnovid. Interestingly, while researching “animated videos” on Google, my post “Get Blog Readers’ Attention with Animated Video” shows up on page 1 of search results. Now that’s what I call good performance for a blog post!)

What do you think? Have you considered using visual content for your business blog?

Epic Business Blog Content: 2 Questions Every Blog Owner Must Ask

Epic-Content-Joe-PulizziIf you’re in business and have a business blog, you’re frequently challenged by what to write. There’s always a lot you can say about your products and services, but how many different ways can you write about them before your regular subscribers get bored?

In my ebook Content Marketing with Blogs, I suggest business blog posts should be written with the 4 E’s as a guide: What you publish on your business blog should:

  1. Entertain
  2. Educate
  3. Engage
  4. Enrich

As anyone who runs a blog knows, that’s a tall order, and if you score high in one or two of these qualities, you can feel pretty good. But is it enough?

I recently purchased Joe Pulizzi’s new book Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less. It’s full of examples from big businesses but all his advice is great for small businesses and individuals as well. Joe is known as the godfather of content marketing as he has been a long-time promoter of quality content for marketing purposes. He founded the Content Marketing Institute.

The book is a treasure of information about the value of content marketing throughout all channels (blogs, e-newsletters,  videos, podcast, and social media). Two questions stood out for me as key for any small business owner who wants to (needs to!) publish quality content on their blog: Read More→

5 Ways to Make Your Business Blog Remarkable

Blog-VisibilityHow do you make your business blog really remarkable? Like, fascinating?

The main goal of writing a blog, whether for business or otherwise, is to get people to read what you write. Seems pretty simple. But attracting readers to a new blog (or even an established one) is easier said than done.

So how do you build a readership base and continuously gain new readers to keep your blog and your business going. Here are a few ways to make your business blog one to watch.

1. Keep up with current events – while you shouldn’t always write about what’s going on in the world, using relevant examples and anecdotes lets your readers know that you are knowledgeable.

2. Pay attention to your social media networks – what are people talking about on your social media pages? What are they asking you as a business? Consider using these questions and discussions for blog topics. You’re more likely to engage your customers by writing on topics they clearly are interested in than developing your own. Read More→

Is Your Business Blog “Just Okay?”
Here’s How to Change It

Best-Business-BlogLet’s be honest – in the realm of successful business blogs yours is probably mediocre. Not bad, but more likely “just okay.” Hey, at least you’ve got a blog and are doing most things right. But mediocre is a long way from spectacular.

Here’s what I mean by “successful business blog.” To me, in my world of professionals who use the Internet to get found, get known and get clients, a successful business blog is one that works for what it was set up to do. That may differ according to the business goals of the blogger, but it should include goals like:

  • Attracts readers in a targeted niche
  • Grabs their interests in a particular topic or problem
  • Provides interesting perspectives, solutions, and knowledge
  • Entertains in some way, through variety and utility
  • Consistently provides relevant value
  • Offers interactive options such as downloadable information, comments, etc.

How would you know if your business blog is successful?

  • Through a growing number of readers
  • Growing numbers of comments
  • Increasing links from others who cite your posts
  • An increase in the number of people who write or call you to inquire about products or services
  • Increasing opportunities to expand business or marketing
  • Better results on search pages
  • Occasional awards such as “Top 10 Health Care” Blogs, or “Top 50 Leadership Blogs”

The top blogs in any field are usually listed on the Web, and a Google or other search will help you find them. But few business people do this. They don’t research, they don’t learn from what others are doing.

In the past several years I’ve had calls from three people faced with similar business blog dilemmas. They hired me, we worked together for several months. And they went on their ways. Now, all three are on “Top Blogs” lists, and are doing well. Here are a few examples from my clients:

How to Become a #1 Expert with a Blog

Dr.CharlesParkerAre you #1? If you’re a doctor, lawyer, author, or consultant, you’d like your clients to believe they’ve come to the best professional around. It may be hard to make that claim. Unless, of course, you can stake out a niche online, and show that you’re a number one expert in your field with a blog.

Dr. Charles Parker, for example, is an excellent psychiatrist and certainly not the only one with years of experience treating people with ADHD – attention deficit disorders. But he is #1 in health care blogs for that specialty, according to ShareCare, a key site that ranks health care providers and links them up with people in need.

Dr. Parker’s blog is at CorePsych. I know him personally because I helped him get started blogging. I didn’t teach him everything, but I remember the day he called me from his office in Virginia, with questions. That initial phone call stands out because I was still in a fog, getting coffee at 5 a.m. in San Diego. He was on ET, of course, and ready to go. I don’t usually pick up the phone that early, but that day I did. Read More→

Your Business Blog: Should You Make Money with Sponsored Posts?

For-Hire-b y-Steve-Bremner-istockWant to make money with your business blog? There are a lot of different ways to use your blog to make money. One of the most common is soliciting blog sponsors who pay a set dollar amount monthly or yearly to write sponsored posts.

A sponsored blog post can be a paid opportunity for a guest author; sometimes a company will sponsor a post written by the blog author about their product or service. Your business blog can use these sponsored posts to provide a valuable service to your readers.

These sponsored blog posts must be on a topic that would be interesting to your blog’s reader base. The blog publisher can negotiate how much to charge for sponsored posts. And sometimes, the post is published free, but the blog owner gets a commission for any referral sales.

Here are some pros and cons when it comes to having sponsored blog posts on your business blog –

Pros:

  • Money! Of course, allowing sponsored posts or writing them yourself will generate revenue for your blog. You can set the cost per post for your blog, negotiated with the companies that you would like to have sponsor posts.
  • If you choose companies that you honestly think your readers would be interested in, you can create great relationships and introduce your readers to good companies that they really find beneficial.
  • Sponsored posts can add some variety to your blog posts and bring new readers. Bringing in new topics that are still related to your typical blog content can draw in people who might not ordinarily find your blog.

Cons: Read More→

Engage Your Blog Readers with Meaty Content

Meaty-contentYou already know that, “Content is King” on the Internet, but great content is what helps you build a community of loyal blog readers who buy from you. Your goal should be to engage blog readers with the highest quality content you can muster, with absolutely no fluff. There is far too much garbage floating around online that doesn’t help to solve your target market’s problem or add anything new to a discussion.

Good business blogs – the ones that have large readership – are like good restaurants. You go there for a good meal and leave pleasantly satisfied. Compare that to fast food places that serve greasy high-fat meals: you feel bloated and stuffed but not healthy.

Keep in mind that many people and Internet users have short attention spans. Not only do you need to have great content, but you need to present it in the right way. Think of what food at a French restaurant looks like compared with your local McSnack basket.

Don’t run the risk of having visitors to your blog click away. Once they leave, it’s unlikely they will return. Seize the opportunity to capture their interest by giving them content they can sink their teeth into from the beginning.

Start with a Topic You Can Build On

Let’s say you have a financial site and you choose a topic such as payday loans. This is a tool many people are using these days and they have lots of questions about. How can you make meaty posts about this topic? Read More→

Is Your Business Blog Sexy?
4 Simple Ways to Get More Blog Readers

Like-Love-by-stuart-milesWhen it comes to business blogging, many professionals forget that there is more to it than getting information out on the page. The appeal of business blogs and sites has a lot to do with readers’ impressions.

How can you make your business blog visually appealing, even sexy? Blog formatting is key; in fact, it makes the difference between readers scanning and leaving, and staying to read. Here are four simple ways you can jazz up your site and get more blog readers:

  1. Add images –I have run across many business blogs that are nothing but pages and pages of text. While the information they provide may be valuable, it’s not very visually appealing. Try to add images to your blog posts to increase the appeal of your posts. Smaller images can easily be found for free on sites like Freedigitalphotos.com or you can pay a small amount for access to larger sized stock photos. By providing your blog post with a relevant image you can increase the number of readers and also grab the image search queries for your blog post topic. Read More→