For most business owners with blogs, “putting the pow back” into their writing isn’t their biggest problem.  It’s “putting the pow back” into the blogs themselves.  Their used-to-be blogs, that is. In fact, according to passle.net, only one in eight businesses can maintain an updated blog. In a survey of 525 small and medium sized businesses, most admitted to not having at least three new posts in the entire year 2013!

OK, so you’ve lapsed – no “pow” left, and you’re trying to stage a comeback. The worst thing you can do, says Karen Skidmore of candocanbe.com is apologize.  “Never highlight the fact,” she says, that you, quite frankly, haven’t been able to prioritize this all important, value added part of your business.”

Where’s the value-add? “In today’s internet-based society, your business has to have a powerful online presence in order to stand out among your competitors,” asserts Nicole Beachum in social mediatoday. Business blog content writing is the centerpiece for that online marketing initiative.

So what’s the problem in finding “pow”? In the Passle survey, 32% said they didn’t see the point, 27% said they didn’t have enough time, 24% said they couldn’t write very well, and 20% said they ran out of topics to write about.

Believe me, as a corporate blogging trainer, I’ve heard all those alibis. One obvious answer (one that, on the surface, might appear self-serving) is for businesses and professional practitioners to hire freelance blog content writers. But how in the world, you might reasonably ask, can we contract writers who are obviously not as knowledgeable in that particular field as the owner or practitioner, possibly do an effective job in conveying their message?

One client put it this way:  “My blogger helped me, a numbers guy, put into words what I know in my heart but couldn’t verbalize.”

A big part of successful blog content writing involves getting the “pow opening line” right. In SEO-conscious marketing blogs, of course, it may be the keyword phrases in the title that start the job of getting the blog found. To sustain the “pow” effect, present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy, challenging statement. “Pow” endings tie back to the openers, bringing the post full-circle.

Whether you as a business owner are doing the writing or collaborating with an Indianapolis blog content writer like me, make sure to put the “pow” back into your 2014 business blog writing!
 

“If you want to make your writing smooth as silk and solid as a rock, you should avoid clichés like the plague,” quips William Jeanes in the Saturday Evening Post. But, kidding aside, are clichés to be avoided at all costs (oops!”) when it comes to business blog content writing?

Cliches are words and phrases that, according to OxfordDictionaries.com, “have been used so often that they’re no longer very interesting or effective.”  Examples of phrases rather overused in business circles include “When all is said and done”, “at the end of the day”, and “par for the course”.

Are clichés ever OK? Angela Ackerman of critiquecircle.com thinks so. “Cliches can be justified when it’s important to get something across to the reader quickly…when the best choice may be a familiar wording that’s instantly recognizable,” she observes.

As a business blogging trainer, you might say my feelings are mixed on the subject of clichés. On the one hand (oops, again), I wouldn’t want to create an impression of laziness or a lack of careful thought, which is a risk oxforddictionaries.com sees in using clichés. But, as Paul Gillin, author of “Secrets of Social Media Marketing” advises, we bloggers need to “make it human”, and good writing when it comes to blogs is conversational. “Write like a person!” Gillin says.  One thing about us “persons”, I’ve found, is we tend to sprinkle our conversations with clichés.

At least one of the bottom lines (gotcha!) for blog content writers in judging whether clichés have a place in their content relates to defining the market for the blog. Who will be reading the stuff?

Equally important, who is saying the stuff? Business coach Donna Gunter calls it the WYSIWYG approach (what you see is what you get), referring to authenticity in advertising and promotional materials. Successful content creation consists of capturing the unique style of the business owners, practitioners, and employees who will be delivering the service and products.

At the end of the day, we at Say it For You have come to realize, clichés can be plagues OR positives.  It depends.