Archive for Writing
Must Haves For Your Blog
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Blogs are a great way to connect and build relationships with your potential clients. Depending on what you talk about, they can help you reach a completely new audience and they give your audience a way to get to know you and your brand, and to participate in your community. All of these are important for both growing your business and growing your blog following. Often, however, even the biggest blogs make little mistakes. They forget or overlook some important features. Here are seven features to implement on your blog:
Subscribe or RSS feed. There’s nothing more frustrating, as a visitor, than finding a blog you enjoy and not being able to subscribe to it. People are busy, too busy to remember to visit your blog on a daily or weekly basis. Cut them a break, and yourself, and offer an option to subscribe to your blog so each new post is delivered via email, sent to a reader or shows up on their iGoogle page.
Contact/About information. Have you ever visited a blog and thought, “I wonder who this blog belongs to? Where are they? Who are they?” Trust me, readers think this and they want to know. If they can’t find out a bit about you, determine your credibility or make some sort of connection, they’ll move along. Retain your visitors by sharing a bit of information about yourself including a means by which they can contact you.
Comments. Some blogs intentionally do not allow comments and while they have their reasons, most people like to be able to leave a comment if they have something to say. If you’re considering not allowing commenting because you want to avoid spam, then check out a few of the spam blockers like Askimet, which is available for WordPress blogs. If you’re avoiding allowing comments because you don’t want to respond to them, consider outsourcing the job and having someone moderate your posts, or just set ten minutes aside at the end of each day to respond. People like the interaction and it draws more readers.
Archives, popular posts, popular comments, tags and other associated identifiers. People search and read blogs differently. Some simply read the most recent post and move on while others search by category or tag. Some people will want to read the most popular posts and others will want to sift through your archives post by post. Provide a number of options for your visitors to search by.
SEO plug-ins. One of the wonderful features about a blog is that it’s welcomed by the search engines due to frequent and easily indexed content. That being said, there are an abundance of quality search engine plug-ins, particularly for WordPress, which make optimizing your posts for the search engines quick and easy.
Social networking and bookmarking features. With Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, and other social networking and bookmarking sites growing in popularity, it pays to include options on your blog. You can ask people to tweet your posts, post or link to them on Facebook, Digg them and so on. It’ll draw traffic and subscribers.
Google Analytics. You want to know how many people are visiting your blog, where they’re coming from, how many posts they read and how long they stay on your site, right? Google analytics will tell you all that and more. To make good decisions about how to grow your blog, it pays to have the kind of information an analytics tool can provide.
Blogging is extremely popular and useful, and along with this popularity comes a bevy of useful tools. Take advantage of these tools and resources to grow your subscribers, profits and business.
Get Your Articles and Blog Posts Read
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Writing and creating content for your website is perhaps the single most important marketing and business-building strategy available to online business owners. However, in addition to simply creating content, you want to have your articles and content read. Articles that are compelling pull the visitor into your website where they’ll continue to search for more valuable content. They will begin to not only remember your website as a source of good content but also as a reliable business.
Here are five tips to get your articles and blog posts read:
Compelling Headlines
Your headline is the first thing that your visitor or reader will notice. It must grab their attention by appealing to their emotions, making a promise, offering a benefit, inciting controversy, arousing curiosity or stating something newsworthy.
Layout
How you present your content may very well be the next most important factor in getting your article read, right behind your headline. Articles that are heavy with long paragraphs are often skipped. Not because the reader isn’t interested in the content, they’re just not interested enough to spend the time reading the article for value.
In general, people tend to skim when they read online, and an article that is difficult or cumbersome to read won’t be read. Instead, use shorter paragraphs, short sentences and formatting like bold type, bullets or numbers, and subheadings to help your reader make a decision to read your article.
Intro Paragraph
Your intro paragraph is next in line in importance to getting your article read. It should be short and to the point, yet still compelling. Your intro paragraph is used to set the stage for the rest of the article. It’s where you let your potential reader know what you’re going to tell them.
Use Images
Photos, graphics and illustrations come next. For some reason we’re attracted to content with images. Maybe it’s because it breaks up the content or maybe it’s because a few good images can help you tell your story. If you can include relevant images in your content, it will draw the eye of readers.
Compelling Bio
Credentials is the last tip. Sometimes a website visitor does two things: they read the headline and then they scan down to see who wrote the article and if they’re qualified to talk on the subject. This is particularly important if you’re publishing articles on websites, blogs and ezines that are not affiliated with your business website. Create a bio paragraph that puts you in a good light and boosts your credibility and authority.
Getting your content written is half the job, getting it read is the other half. And in addition to these top tips, it is of course essential that you market your content with a variety of marketing and traffic generation strategies.
Content Marketing for Solopreneurs: Solve writer’s block with an idea catcher
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Linda Dessau of You Talk, I’ll Write shares her knowledge about how to keep track of all your inspirations in this guest post. We all need help with our writing – blogs, newsletters, email and more – Linda is the expert. Don’t miss signing up for her video – 7 Secrets of Content Marketing Success.
For solopreneurs who have decided to implement a content marketing strategy, there’s nothing more disheartening than writer’s block. After all, content marketing is no quick fix—it requires consistent effort to deliver the high-quality content that you will get you noticed and remembered by the people who will use and refer your services. The pressure is on!
One of my favourite tools to help with writer’s block is the idea catcher. An idea catcher is—literally—a place to catch your ideas as you think of them, so that even if you don’t have time to develop them in that moment, they’re not lost. When you’re sitting at your computer, an idea catcher might be a file, an online journal or mind mapping program, or a “draft” post saved in your blogging account.
When you’re away from your desk, carry a small notebook or audio recorder with you at all times, and have somewhere to store your notes, such as a folder or an “idea inbox” on your desk.
Key benefits of the idea catcher include:
- Awareness. You’ll start noticing ideas more when you have a mechanism in place for capturing them (result: more creativity)
- Choice. With a pile of ideas to choose from at any time, you can select the one that has the most juice for you in that moment (result: higher quality articles)
- Abundance. Ideas tend to multiply, with one idea sparking another, so that even if you don’t develop them all, you will have thought of more topics than you would have otherwise (result: you have more fun, get better results, and stick with it)
Aside from always having an idea catcher at the ready (and I mean always—I even have a waterproof pencil and notepad in my shower) here are three other things you can do to generate more ideas every day:
- Feed your mind with information—not just about your area of expertise, but whatever interests you. You’ll be amazed at the connections you can make and the articles that can come out of it.
- Get out and experience more from life. Try new things, meet interesting people, travel and support the arts. You will have more to offer and share when you get home.
- Fuel your body for creativity by getting enough sleep, rest and water. When you are rested your brain functions at a higher level and tasks flow more easily. Drinking water will hydrate your body and your mind, essential for creative work, but just being near flowing water can also inspire creativity.
Once you have multiple idea catchers in place and implement these feeding techniques, your writing will take on a new rhythm and sense of ease. Leave the struggle behind and start filling your idea catcher—you’ll be thankful for those gems the next time you’re staring at a blank screen.
Linda Dessau is the founder of You Talk, I’ll Write and the Idea Generator blog. She ghostwrites and edits content for newsletters, blogs and social media. Her clients are coaches and others who want to build trust, relationships and credibility while growing a service-based business. Feeding your idea catcher every day is only one of her 7 Secrets of Content Marketing Success—you can discover them all when you sign up for the free video.
Organize Your Business
Posted by: | CommentsAs an entrepreneur, your systems are the processes and procedures by which everything in your business runs. When your systems work, everything runs smoothly, or as smoothly as possible when running a business.
Systems are essentially a step-by-step process written out for each aspect of your business. They help you stay on track, they make you more efficient, they streamline your business and they help you see where you can improve and where your business is excelling. When your systems work, everything runs smoothly. When they don’t work…well you get the picture.
Some potential systems include:
- Customer service
- Marketing
- Sales
- Product creation
- Product development
- Purchasing
- Production
- Producing an ezine
- Billing
- Invoicing
- Outsourcing
Systems are particularly useful when you’re outsourcing a task to a virtual assistant. If you’ve done the processes in advance, then, you’ll have everything written down from the very first to the very last step, and your virtual assistant will know how you like your business handled.
Creating your systems
The first step to creating systems is to realize what processes your business uses. Simply make a list of the processes you go through on a daily or weekly basis. Once you have your list, it’s time to actually create your systems. They’re created initially by simply writing down the steps to accomplish a task. As new processes are added to your business, you’ll simply create a new system for that process. For example, if you add on an affiliate program then you’ll have several new system like a payment system, a communication system, a recruiting system and so on.
Once your systems are created, the processes can be fine-tuned by using several steps. Firstly, you may want to simply evaluate the process you’ve written to see if it works and if there are any loopholes or steps you’ve missed. Secondly, you may want to include goals and measurements to determine whether the system is a success.
For example, if you have a customer service system and your goal is to have 100% customer satisfaction, and you end up losing 20% of your customers due to an inadequate customer service policy, then you know the system needs to be tweaked.
Storing your systems
Because you are a business owner, you are probably on your computer at least 50% of the working day, and more than likely you’re on it almost 100% of the working day. This means it makes sense to organize your systems on your computer. A simple file with the date and the name of the system will make them easy to access. You’ll also want to organize your goals and how you’re going to measure the goals.
Systems are a business owner’s best friend. They’ll help keep you on track and running smoothly today, tomorrow and for years to come.
What is List Building?
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the hardest things in business is actually drumming up the business. Whether online or off, you need people to DO SOMETHING if you want your business to be a success. For online business, one way to reach the people that will be most interested in your product or service is through list building.
What is List Building?
In the fewest words possible, list building is the process used to create an inventory of people who fit the niche market you are promoting. The
assumption usually is that if you cast a wide enough net to find people, you will eventually find the right people. This method is not only backwards, but also costly in time and energy. Instead, cast your net to catch only your niche market – go smaller when building your list.
There is more than one way to develop a list for your business. Here are just a few of the more popular (and successful might I add) ways:
- Opt-ins
- Free Giveaways
- Contests
- Email Marketing
- Article Marketing
- Blogging
Whatever methods you use, it is important to know where you are coming from and where you are going before others will follow you.
Getting Your Name Out There
In order for others to follow you they need to know who you are and what you stand for. To that end, you will want to network with others. Your time is better spent building your brand before you build your list.
Do you routinely buy from someone you’ve just heard of? Not normally right?
Neither does anyone else. That is expected in business. Trust is earned over time and you must begin with curiosity in order to build up to trust.
Viral marketing is one of your best assets when it comes to getting noticed and building your list. Ask JV partners, complementary businesses in your field, other business owners, etc. to help you out. If they have websites, blogs or are a part of forums, let them pass the word around about you and what you do.
On your end, visit websites and blogs associated with the product or service that you sell. Get involved, ask questions, and show your face. These are the people you will ask to endorse you to lend credibility to your products.
During your promotion, your traffic will increase. People will know what you have to offer. Now you can use one, two or all of the above bulleted methods to begin building your list. Visitors will lend you their personal information (name and email) if they like what they see. From that point, it is up to you to keep them interested enough to become a loyal customer.
Become an Expert By Writing Articles
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What’s the first thing you notice when you click on a website? There are words everywhere! No matter what other media marketing tools you use on your site, the ones that people still gravitate towards include words. Use words in article marketing to help you gain expert status as an online business owner.
Why Articles?
You might be wondering about articles. Perhaps you have shied away from them up until now because you don’t write very well. Maybe your 12th grade English teacher scared you with her writing assignments. You don’t have to go into therapy to write an article – simply write what you know.
Articles are the quickest and easiest way to drive traffic to your site. When people type all of those keywords into search engines, they are looking for information. It can come in a variety of forms but the one that most people know and are comfortable with is the article format. On your website, hopefully you have some form of content displayed there to keep your visitors happy.
Writing the Articles
Since you know a lot about the subject of your business, use that knowledge to elevate yourself to the level of expert. You probably have enough information trapped in your head to write a hundred articles.
How should you write? Create a list of topics that are related to your business. Because the subject matter is familiar, it will probably only take you about 30 minutes to write a 400 word article. This length is pretty typical for blog posts and article directories.
Article directories are the places where you will be submitting your articles to gain visibility. When you write articles, use the bio box to provide a link to your website so interested readers can find your business.
Some types of articles work better than others when it comes to promoting an expert status:
• How-To’s
• Tips
• Reports
With how-to articles and tips, you are sure to gain the reader’s attention with bulleted and numbered points. Using numbers in the title also alerts the reader that your work is something they want to check out. When you can put what you know into a format like this, you actually become an instant expert. And, the writing is fairly straightforward even for those who doubt their skills.
A report can be created from ten or so articles that you have written on a similar subject. Marketing the combined report on your site as a guide to “Learning Social Media” or whatever the subject of your business is.
Writing and submitting articles will get you noticed. Linking them to your website can increase your sales as you go from business owner to business expert.
Get a Deeper Relationship With Readers Using Newsletters
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you started your online business, you knew that you would have to have the traffic to make it a worthwhile venture. With your marketing plan, ideas were already recorded to help that become a reality. Here’s one you may not have thought about: newsletters. They bring the reader into the “know” and that could mean dollars and cents to you.
A business website gives visitors the basics of your operation. You want to use your resources to tell them about what you do and why they need to get involved with you. There is not always enough space to put columns or tidbits that would be important to readers but not necessarily part of your main marketing agenda.
Newsletters are designed not only to inform but also to let readers get to know you. There can be a column written by you that thanks them for being loyal readers and customers (leading them to buy if they haven’t already). You can share honest appreciation for what they do for you.
The Magic of Ezines and Newsletters
When you don’t feel as though “fun” things like contests and freebie offers belong on your website, however you want your readers to know about them, put them in a newsletter. Your online newsletter is also the perfect place for more in-depth items like affiliate program information and new products and services. There are several formats for online newsletters:
• One page layout that you email to subscribers
• Multiple page PDF format they can access through a link in email
• Layout in the form of a webpage
Usually, newsletters are sent to subscribers. These are readers who come to your site and opt-in for it by giving you their email address and name. Each month they get an email with your newsletter or link to the newsletter.
For longer newsletters with more information, you can create a PDF they can access, download, print and share with others. This way, your newsletter goes viral to people who know your readers.
Creating a “Subscriber Only” section on your site gives them access to newsletters that have video or animation that they won’t see if they had a PDF. This makes readers feel special that they have a place just for them on your site.
Your format is up to you. Whatever you feel that will engage your readers, use it. In the beginning they may not want a lot of flash since it could be viewed as trickery. Keep it simple until they ask for more.
Client Spotlight
Newsletters are a way to highlight those readers who want to be known. Maybe you have visitors who have joined your affiliate program or have opted in the previous month for the newsletter. Listing their names gives them a place of importance in your business.
What will you place in your newsletter? Creating one, to catch all the “tidbit” information that readers really love, helps them feel like a vital part of your enterprise.
Why are Relationships with Readers Paramount?
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How do you build trust with others? You get to know them and find out what they are all about. It is easier to do that face to face, yes, but it can also be accomplished in cyberspace if you are willing to work at it. But, why do any of that anyway?
Building relationships with your readers, whether through your blog, your ezine or your social media efforts, is vital to your business. Remember that your goal is monetary benefit and for that you will need people to visit your site. But, visiting is not enough in and of itself.
Think about it in these terms. Let’s say you launch an incredible new product or service. You advertise everywhere that you can think of. In the first months of your launch, your unique visitors go up 100% (it’s possible!) AND the sales go through the roof.
In your bliss don’t forget that the journey towards one-time sales is a short trip. If you made five or six figures in each of those months, it still wouldn’t compensate for the next eight months of basement stats because none of those customers came back. That’s no way to run and grow a successful business enterprise.
Instead, strive for repeat visitors every month of the year. How do you do that? You build a relationship with each one of them. No, you don’t have to know them all by name, but you will want to pay attention and give them what they want to keep them coming back.
Readers are more than just people who come to hear what you have to say, they are looking for something. It could be your product but they won’t stay where they are not appreciated.
Here are a few reasons why reader relationships are so important to your site:
1. They have friends. You never know who is visiting and reading your site content. One thing that you do know is that they have a sphere of influence with someone. That sphere can be yours if they are satisfied with their relationship with you.
2. They have money. What started out as simply a visitor can be converted to a customer who uses your products or services if they trust you. Now you have the potential for repeat business.
3. They represent a portion of the population. Whatever their connections, they can be useful to you in building a better business. Online business owners can provide organic backlinks for you, bloggers can ask you to guest post for them, avid social bookmarkers can help lift you to expert status by linking to your content.
Repurposing Your Content
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Repurposing your content makes good business sense and it’s a good way to squeeze out as much value as possible from your current content. Also repurposing helps your customers by providing fantastic content in a variety of ways.
Here are just a few ideas to help you repurpose your content:
Recycle. There’s no need to just use great content once. Recycling your content benefits everyone in a positive way. A good way to do this is to think about each piece of content and how you can reuse it.
A few ideas may be to:
1. Take a special download report and use the content for article distribution. The report is only available for download on your website but you can use several articles within the report to distribute to article directories. That content will then work to bring you new subscribers to your site.
2. Use product content to create an autoresponder series. If you have an info product available for sale (or a free one) you can take snippets of that content and turn it into an autoresponder series. This way your customers can preview the content through the autoresponder series and the autoresponder series can promote the actual product.
3. Use the content on your website for a product. If you have articles on your website or blog you can easily turn these into a product. Simply choose a collection of articles you’ve previously written and make them available in download format for customers.
You can choose to use this content as a free giveaway to gain more subscribers, or you can turn it into an actual product for purchase. Not everyone is likely to look through your whole website or blog to find the content. Also, people will often pay for the convenience of having the information at their fingertips without having to search for it.
4. Use your newsletter to attract search engines. If you have a regular newsletter which you send out make sure you also add it to your website or blog pages after sending. This will help you attract more search engine traffic and will give customers an archive to view previous newsletters.
5. Turn your audios into content. If you have audios on your website, use them to get more free search engine traffic. Have the audios transcribed and place them on your website or blog pages. This also gives your customers options, as some people will prefer to read rather than listen to an audio.
With a little thinking and planning you can make your content go a long way.
Make the Most of Your Article Marketing Pt. 2
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Spice Things Up with a Dash of Copy
The most important function of any article is to inform its reader. But, your article must get and keep their attention in order to inform, right? Absolutely!
Many people neglect to focus on the fact articles need to be compelling, but they also need to sell if you’re trying to make money online. There are many elements of copy you can include to make your articles compelling and lead people to a certain action. You can create interest and increase action with things like:
• Attention grabbing headlines and subheadings (These draw the reader in and leave them wanting to know more)
• A hook line (This will keep them reading)
Keep in mind that everyone is very busy these days, if you want to get your article read from beginning to end, you will have a higher chance of success when you add a bit of creative copywriting.
Lead Your Readers Onward
If you remember nothing else about people who buy online, remember this:
You will make more money when you TELL your reader what to do next!
Yes, we humans are fickle creatures. Even if your reader thinks she knows what to do next, that doesn’t mean she will do it. Always remember to tell your readers what to do or where to go after they’ve finished reading your article. Because, believe it or not, even when they know what they want or what they should be doing next, Internet users are indecisive. Like a child who is just learning the ways of the world, your reader needs to be taken by the hand and led to the next step.
For instance, if you want your reader to visit your website to learn more about your product or service; send them there. If you would like your reader to complete a survey or give their opinion on the topic they just finished reading about, tell them where to go to do so.
This is where your author or resource box comes into play and can quickly become your best friend. Use this area to tell a bit about yourself or your website, and give your readers something to do. Give them a clear call to action.
Writing an article is not difficult as long as you put the right strategies in place. Know what information is relevant to your target audience. Be as well versed in the area you’re writing about as you can in order to provide superior information. Next, create an outline to help keep you organized and focused. Throw in a bit of captivating copy to create interest and keep them reading. Finally, tell them exactly what you want them to do next to achieve maximum benefits from your article marketing efforts.
