Indianapolis Blog Content Writers Can Take Tips From a TV Movie

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Suppose you’re a freelance blog content writer in Indianapolis and your client is Labor Day. 

Your task, through your SEO marketing blog writing, is to attract online readers looking for information about Labor Day, engaging their interest to the point that at least some of them “convert”, becoming Labor Day clients or customers.

(LaborDay.com might be offering history courses, an e-book, picnic supplies, holiday decorations, food, parade float construction, or membership in a new society for Labor Day buffs.)
 

Here are some things you might do:

ESTABLISH COMMON GROUND.
Since today’s the first Monday in September, we’re “celebrating the economic and social contributions of workers,” as Wikipedia reminds us. (Of course, your readers all know this, but confirming they’ve come to the right place is always a good idea in blogging for business.)

OFFER SOME LESSER-KNOWN INFORMATION.
“In 1887, Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day a holiday. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.”

In corporate blogging training sessions, I often explain that it’s perfectly OK to repeat a theme you’ve already covered in former posts, adding a layer of new information or a new insight.

PLAY OFF CURRENT NEWS.
Watch for topics currently trending in the news, especially items that relate to your profession or industry.  (In fact, professional ghost bloggers like me are always on the alert for news items in each of our clients’ fields).

“Job Market Continues to Improve in Bartholomew Country” is an upbeat, Labor Day-appropriate example.  Once having introduced that tie-in to the news, though, the blog writer’s next step must be to offer “ client Labor Day”’s own slant on the information, answering the “So what?” “ and “Now what?” questions in readers’ minds. “What can YOU do to take advantage of the slowly-improving job market and land the right position after such a long dry spell?” is one direction the writer might take.
 

BUILD TRUST.
“You must make the audience sense that you’re comfortable with your information…and yourself,” advises friend and professional speech coach Jean Palmer Heck.

Merely by gathering information on their topic and presenting it as part of their blog, online content writers are providing a valuable service, but to go the next step, we must ensure that each blog post offers a perspective.  WHY is this information important to the reader?  What can that reader “do about it”? How can you help?

“The holiday is often regarded as a day of rest and parties,” Wikipedia concludes, adding that in U.S. sports, Labor Day marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons.”

Rest, partying, and footfall, are all well and good, but can you see what, at Say It For You, we see all kinds of blogging “labor” possibilities connected to Labor Day?

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Corporate Blogging by Any Other Name – Not as Sweet for Search: Part Three

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Titles matter –  in blogs, anyway.  That’s because the very first thing both readers and search engines are going to encounter is the blog post title. The keyword phrases included in that title will help the blog get “indexed”, or placed where the online searcher is most likely to find it. The title itself verifies to searchers that they’ve come to the right place to get the information they need. 

 I’ve been using headlines from the August 4th issue of the Indianapolis Star as a way to illustrate different elements Indianapolis blog writers ought to include in the titles of business blog posts.

As a corporate blogging trainer, I explained that blog titles have three jobs to do:

  • engage readers
     
  • offer an overview of the topic of the post
     
  • incorporate keyword phrases to attract search engine matches.
     

The headline reads “Buyers could flock to this auction”, and the article featured an announcement that the artwork of birds seen in Peterson Field Guides will be auctioned off next month. 

While Indianapolis blog content writers might appreciate the nice play on words (“flocking” to an auction of bird pictures), this headline would make for an ineffective blog title.  Remember, one of the main motivators for having an SEO marketing blog in the first place is to “get found” by the ‘right people”. (Who are those? People already interested in what you have to sell, what you know, and what you know how to do.)

Although the art auction would obviously be of most interest to bird lovers, there’s no mention in the title of anything to do with birds, bird artwork or Peterson Field Guides.  In order for targeted audiences to flock to your blog, they first must find it, then be induced to click on it!

Consider home-delivered newspapers passé, but at Say It For You, we know there’s nothing old-fashioned about carefully crafting the title of each business blog post!

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Sneaking in the Back Door With Your Blog Content Writing

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Breaking into a prestigious New York publisher without a literary agent was a coup, admits first-time author Diane Kelly, but she was up to the challenge.  More correctly, Kelly went around the challenge.  And the way she “sneaked in the back door” to meet editors is worth examining by every business blog content writer trying to accelerate the process of “getting found”.

As her first step, Kelly (just as everyone providing blog writing services must do), needed to go where her prospects (in her case, editors) were “hanging out”.  She’d written eight manuscripts, but she needed to let the editors know she was there!

The parallel here? Once you’ve achieved the big step of consistently posting content on an SEO marketing blog, the next thing is promoting the blog so people know it’s there.  That effort might begin by letting your existing clients and customers and all your business friends know about the birth of your blog.  You can, as blogger Chris Garrett reminds us:

 

 

 

  • Add the blog’s URL to flyers, business cards, and to your website
  • Email an excerpt from a favorite post to a select group of clients and business contacts
  • Tweet about your blog and tell your followers on Facebook, Linked In, etc.
     

A lifelong networker myself, I liked reading that one way Diane Kelly had a “sneaking in the back door” was very “up front” – she made sure to show up (sometimes as a volunteer) at conferences attended by editors, inserting herself “into the scene”.

“I’m a firm believer in networking,” says Chris Garrett.  And, while Garrett’s mainly referring to social media-based business networking, he allows that “real world networking is great for deepening relationships and forming close bonds. If you want to increase your visibility in a certain group, niche, or tribe, start discovering them and introduce yourself,” he adds.

I remind newbie freelance blog content writers, in blog marketing that what brings people together in any networking venue, online or off, is a desire to do business! Whenever I’m interviewing a new client for my Say It For You business blogging company, I ask that client to tell me in just eight to ten words what they care most about in their business, what keeps them going.  And that’s precisely the kind of conversation we get to have with business owners at in-person networking meetings!

“Sneaking in the back door isn’t always easy,” says Kelly, “and it isn’t always quick. But," she concludes, “with a lot of hustling and a little luck, anyone can stage a coup, just as I did.”

Staging “a coup” in blog marketing isn’t always easy or quick, either.  But the beauty of the blogosphere is that it has many different doors, all of them open to business owners and professional practitioners who want to tell their story to the right people!

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What Goes On In Blogs Must Go Up

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In an earlier blog, From Meat to Mustard, I explained that as a professional writer, I take pleasure in nicely turned phrases.  Since words are the tools of my trade as a ghost blogger, I’m a bit more aware than the average Jill of how writers and speakers use words.  So, whether I’m reading a novel or a news magazine, listening to a talk show or to a weather report, I always have a sharp eye and ear out for ways in which ideas are given impact through the choice of words.


 


In the April’s Washington Monthly Magazine, editor Charles Peters comments on various political doings.  He mentions a government-wide problem of people at the top not knowing what’s going on down below.  Peters explains that in an organization, and specifically in our national government bureaucracy, bad news tends to be buried. “No one wants to tell bad news to the next fellow up the ladder, for fear that….his or her career will suffer”.  It’s the title of this little section of the editorial page that I found so fascinating: “What Goes On Must Go Up”.  First of all, in just six small words, Peters is able to capture the essence of a monumental problem prevalent in large organizations. He “hits the nail on the head”.


 


Since ghost blogging is never far from my mind, once I started thinking about those six words, I saw that they could contain a valuable lesson about business blogs.  In an organization, stuff is “going on” all the time. But nothing changes so long as nothing “goes up” to a level where there’s some call to action and where there’s someone with power to make the change.  In a way, the situation is the same with a business blog.  A lot can be going on – lots of good information and content, posted frequently, well-written, relevant – it’s all great. But absolutely nothing is going to happen unless your blog has some “call to action”.  Your potential customer needs to progress to your website, and the blog has to have created an urgency – something the reader now wants to do, to get, or to find out more about. In short, not much will be going on unless the customer is going up to the next step in the process of doing business with you.     

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The AWAH Template for Business Blog Content Writers

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Truth be told, I’m not crazy about slide presentations. But at the AWAH (Art With a Heart) fundraising breakfast a couple of weeks ago, there was one particular slide in Executive Director's Andrew Lee’s Power Point that I liked.  I liked it a lot, as a matter of fact.  The slide was titled “What We Do”, and I found myself thinking what a great template it could be for business blog content writing.
http://artwithaheart.us/?doing_wp_cron=1364924869.5106999874114990234375

The slide had four bullet sections, with an arrow pointing downward from each to the one below:

* WHEN people give us money…..
?
* WE send an experienced art teacher to a school
?
* WHERE they give fun, high quality art classes to underserved kids
?
* THAT educate, inspire, provide hope

What did I find to like about that message?

First, as a corporate blogging trainer, I teach new Indianapolis blog content writers to help readers follow their logic to a conclusion. Online searchers rarely read. Instead, they scan. With a minimum of effort on their part, those searchers need to be able to discern what it is you do and that they've come to the right place
http://blog.sayitforyou.net/blog/ghost-blogger/blogs-let-readers-be-lazy-lobsters

Second, there are many personal pronouns: “People give US money…WE send teachers…THEY give classes…  Blogs are more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces. Your readers want to meet the people behind the blog. The message is “WE will be taking care of YOU!"

That slide makes very clear what we can expect AWAH to do, and the “template” is one that freelance bloggers can easily use in marketing a business, a professional practice, or an organization:

WHEN YOU (the writer is telling readers)…hire a professional realtor/bankruptcy attorney/cleaning service/cosmetic surgeon/house painter/massage therapist….. like (name)
WE….take the following steps
WHERE….and provide the following products and services
THAT….benefit you in the following ways……

It’s really quite a simple formula, that AWAH template.  Translated into my own business, it means that when we offer business blogging help to Say It For You clients, we’re helping them tell their prospects, “Here are the results you can expect when you give us money!”

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