Business BlogHeadlines to Turn Heads

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Possibly, there is one area in which your content is letting you down, suggests fellow blogger Chris Garrett of socialmediaexaminer.com, referring to the need to make business blog headlines more compelling.

The standard headline, Garrett explains, tends to fall into one of five categories:

  • News
  • Goals
  • Problems
  • How-to’s
  • Pure entertainment


But, to really get readers to stick around and read the blog post itself, he says, we need to hit readers’ emotional hot buttons.

That’s good advice, I believe, for both business owners and for us Indianapolis blog content writers. It’s passion, I’ve found, that cements the connection between our Say It For You clients and their potential clients and customers.

What techniques can be used for tugging at heartstrings?  Truth be told, some of copyblogger.com’s Brian Clark’s headline templates are a tad too “sales-ey” for my taste:

  • The “Give Me (short time period) and I’ll Give You (blank)” promises a strong benefit to be had by readers within a very short period.

  • The “If You Don’t (blank) Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later” plays on the fact that readers don’t like feeling excluded..:


Two others on Clark’s list of headline suggestions are more to my liking:   

  • Do You Recognize the (number) Early Warning Signs of (blank)?

  • Do You Make These Mistakes?


Putting things readers care about in jeopardy in an SEO marketing blog gives you the chance to demonstrate that you have the solution. By assuring searchers they’re not the only ones to find themselves in this predicament, you can show them you've solved these precise problems for customers and clients many times before.

Are headlines one area in which your content is letting you down?

 

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In Business Blogging, Open Strong. Leave the White Noise to the Sidebar

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“When it’s your turn to speak, start with a bang, not the white noise of housekeeping,” Laurie Guest, CSP advises emerging public speakers. Opening strong, she adds, means being purposeful about your opening, with no definitions, quotes from famous people, three-point textbook approaches, or “Nice to be here… yada, yada, yada”.  

At Say It For You, I offer similar advice to emerging blog content writers. In fact, 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.  Once the visitor has actually landed, though, it takes a great opener to fan that flicker of interest into a flame.

Sometimes starting your speech with a quote is okay, Guest concedes, particularly if that quote is not familiar to most in the audience. (Notice that’s the very technique I used to open this blog post!). But, if you “curate” someone else’s material, be sure not only to attribute it to the source, but to put your own spin on it.  After all, it’s you and your ideas they came to hear, she reminds aspiring speakers.

Consultant Brian Walter has something to say about openers as well. In order to powerfully position what you do and what your company does (Walter’s referring to elevator-speech business introductions), you must start with a WOW that creates surprise and interest, he cautions.

Calls to action may be inserted at various points throughout a business blog post, but the white noise of your blog’s “housekeeping duties” is best omitted from the text of the post itself. The list of CTA options can include readers contacting you via phone or email, subscribing to a newsletter or to an RSS feed of the blog itself.  The sidebar can connect readers to your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media accounts, and allow them to take advantage of some special offering or to download a white paper or booklet.

Within the blog post itself, however, it’s key to focus on one message. Attempting to cover too much ground in a single blog post, we strain readers’ attention span.

Open – and close – strong, leaving the white noise housekeeping to your blog page’s sidebar.
 

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Getting Up Close and Personal in Your Business Blog

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One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional bloggers is that we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  That’s the reason I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”. I think people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

 I was reminded of that “power of the personal” the other day while sitting in the Willow Lake Starbucks.  On the wall were three big chalkboards introducing the baristas who worked there.

Mallory:
Been with Starbucks since: September, 2010
Favorite drink:  Iced vanilla bean coconut
On my day off I like to: run, read, and write.

Eight other baristas were introduced in similar fashion on the chalkboard.

“Have you ever felt a personal connection with a blogger who you’ve never met and have no real reason to feel connection with? You read their blog day after day and in time come to feel like you know them—as if their blog posts are almost written as private messages to you? That personal connection can bring a blog to life,” says Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.

Personal doesn’t necessarily mean over-casual or informal.  In fact, for us freelance blog content writers, getting the tone exactly right for a new client is the big challenge. Crystal Gouldey of AWeber Communications names five different “tones” to consider when planning a blog:

  • The formal, professional tone
  • The casual tone
  • The professional-but-friendly tone
  • The sales pitch tone
  • The friendly sales pitch tone


Consistency is important. “It will be very confusing for subscribers if you talk to them one way and the next week you talk to them in a different way,” Gouldey says.

When it comes to blog content writing, I believe, there’s a very special purpose to be served by using first person pronouns and keeping it conversational in tone – even for very serious topics.  The blog is the place for readers to connect with the people behind the business or practice. Using first and second person pronouns helps keep the blog conversational rather than either academic-sounding or sales-ey.

Even if the blog is for a doctor or a funeral director rather than for a barista, there’s room, I believe, for getting up close and personal!
 

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Supercharge, Simplify, and Curate in Your Business Blog

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This week’s Say It For You blog posts, including this one, have been inspired by an exercise book. I must confess that “Inches Off Your Tummy” has done double duty in the inspiration department, encouraging me to try all of the Jorge Cruise at-home exercises detailed in the book, but at the same time suggesting wonderful ways of organizing blog content writing.

Each chapter of Cruise’s book begins with an inspirational quote. I encourage freelance blog content writers and business owners alike to curate, meaning to gather OPW (Other People’s Wisdom) and share that with their readers, commenting on that material and relating it to their own topic. Cruise is trying to motivate his readers to develop a healthier lifestyle, and he increases the momentum by bringing in quotes from famous people. Some examples:

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” (J.P. Morgan)

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” (Andy Warhol)

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” (C.S. Lewis)

A second “formatting convention” that I liked in the “Inches Off Your Tummy” book is that, for each exercise, Cruise explains two different ways to modify that exercise:  You can super-charge it, making it more challenging, or simplify it, (going slower or bending or stretching just halfway).

Not all of your blog visitors will share the same learning style, and not every blog post is going to hit the spot with every reader. Sharing with readers different ways your products and services can be used to solve their unique problems, you can can write with one audience in mind today, and appeal to another tomorrow or next week.

Show online searchers how they can supercharge or simplify what you have to offer to suit their own needs!
 

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Top Beliefs for Exercise and Business Blogging

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Do you think business owners’ top beliefs should be on their prospective customers’ need-to-know list? I certainly do!

So, apparently, does exercise trainer and best-selling author Jorge Cruise.  As part of the introductory section in his book “Inches Off Your Tummy”, Cruise lists his top 10 beliefs about health and fitness.

That Top Beliefs list, by the way, is one of the reasons I’ve chosen to devote this week’s Say It For You blog posts to ideas I gleaned from Cruise’s exercise book. As a corporate blogging trainer, it’s long been my own belief that, when online searchers arrive at your website, they need to find a lot more than product and service descriptions, price lists, and testimonials. Blog readers, I’m convinced, are mostly what Barbra Strieisand calls “people who need people”; they want to meet the people behind the page.

I especially loved these three of Cruise’s passionate statements:

  1. “I believe the human body is designed for movement, not sofas.”
     
  2. “I believe that yesterday is history – no matter what happened – and today is an opportunity.”
     
  3. “I believe anyone can sculpt the body he or she wants.”


What I believe is that in blogging for business, compelling personal belief statements like these powerful. I often begin by questioning the blogging client: "If you had only 8-10 words to describe why you're passionate about what you do, what you know, and what you sell, what would those words be?"

For business blogs to be truly effective, I believe, they need to be the "voice" of the company or professional practice. That "voice" can change over time, and a blog, of course, is no one-time effort, but something that develops over months and years. And what I'm finding is this: the very process of creating content to "put out there" in your blog forces you, over and over again, to answer the question of "What-do-I-want-my- business/practice-to-be-as-it-grows-up?"

It’s healthy, in both exercise and blog content writing, to examine – and express to readers –  your top beliefs!
 

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