Come Back and See Us in our Corporate Business Blog!

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Author and seminar leader Peter J. Fogel lists “Top 10 Ways to Motivate People to Buy Frombusiness invite Your Website”. In this article Fogel was addressing the needs of professional speakers, but as someone who offers blog writing services and corporate blogging training, I couldn’t help thinking how valuable much of his advice could be for blog content writers.

“Research shows that, by improving the headline (of your sales copy), you can boost sales by as much as 50 percent.”
In SEO marketing blogs, titles have a double importance.  Titles make searchers want to learn more of what you have to say, telling them they’ve come to the right place for the information, products, or services they need.  From the standpoint of search engine optimization, asblog maven Ted Demopoulos puts it, “Search engines assume that if text is in the blog title, it’s important.”

“Consumers buy benefits, not features. For example, a car that goes from zero to 60 in eight seconds is a feature.  The fact that it allows you to merge into traffic swiftly and safely is a benefit.” Most business blog posts make claims.  The claims may be understated, exaggerated, or exactly right, but readers don’t know how to put those facts or those claims into context.  In fact, the No.1 job of Indianapolis bloggers, I’m fond of repeating during corporate blogging training sessions, is illustrating how any product or service a business has to offer has the potential to help readers with THEIR problems or needs or help fulfill their wishes and dreams..

“Remind visitors to come back and visit. People usually don’t buy the first time they visit a website..” Well-written, engaging material in your blog makes readers want to come back for more, or, through an RSS, have you “come to them”. Whether the business owner is composing blogs or using business blogging assistance, the goal, of course, is to establish a connection with online readers. The more sustained that connection, of course, the greater chance for turning seekers into customers and clients.

“It’s the little things that count in boosting your online conversion,” Fogel reminds us. In fact, blogging for business is all about little things done frequently over time.

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Whisper it From Your Corporate Blog – I am Different!

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You must learn how to differentiate yourself, advises friend and online marketing consultant Phil Steele, stressing that it’s not good enough for a small business owner toshout it from the rooftop claim “better service”, since everyone says this.

Steele’s specifically referring to having an effective website, but we blog content writers can continually enhance the process of differentiating by providing fresh, new content in a company’s SEO marketing blog.  How does that accomplish differentiation in the mind of readers?  Blog content is the ideal vehicle for further explanation, more details, updates, stories, and for expressing owners’ beliefs about what’s most important to them in serving clients and customers.

In “Shout It From the Rooftops”, Phil Steele has hit on the most important point of all, which is that before any marketing message can be formulated about the competitive advantage any business has, business owner themselves need to arrive at an understanding of what those  competitive advantages are! Freelance business blog writers can be of greatest service to their business owner clients by helping them do just that.

"Around here," (business owners must ask themselves), "do we…

  • Do things faster?
  • Do things at a lower cost?
  • Do things with fewer errors?
  • Provide a more engaging experience? (How?)

When I offer corporate blogging help to business owners and employees, though, I caution against crossing the fine line between exercising “bragging rights” and bragging. Even when corporate blog content is focused on the competitive advantages your business has, it has to be about THEM, not about you and your business. In fact, during corporate blogging training sessions I explain, you can “shout it from the rooftops”, to use Steele’s metaphor, but until your content is centered around the needs of the readers, they’re simply not going to “hear”!

“Once these competitive differentiators are defined,” Steele goes on to say, “you’ll need to package and promote them in a distinctive way that lets website visitors not only know that you can solve their problem, but you have a competitive edge over those who offer similar products or services.”

The beautiful thing, I would add, about the frequent providing of new content in blogging for business, is you won’t need to shout – you can “whisper” your sharply defined differentiator message, getting the message across over time.

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Could Penny Press be Talking About Corporate Blogging for Business?

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“Quotefalls” are a type of puzzle I like to solve in PennyDell Puzzle Magazine, and I Quotefallsfound one puzzle solution the other day that might’ve been written specifically for blog content writers:

“There’s a big difference between having to say something and
having something to say.”

Since, as I teach in corporate blogging training sessions, such a large part of the success of any SEO marketing blog is tied to the frequency with which new content is posted, that means business owners (and we, the professional ghost bloggers they hire to create blog content on their behalf), in essence have to say something, at least every few days!

The problem isn’t a lack of “something to say.”  After all, explaining each product and each service a business offers, and doing that in understandable, engaging fashion, helping online readers envision the positive results of taking action, plus describing whatever special slant or approach the business takes in its marketplace compared to the competition – Heaven knows, there’s plenty of fodder for freelance blog writers to turn into regular blog posts.  That seems to hold true – for the first week, maybe the first month or so…

But what happens after that? With more than four years writing for businesses and professionals of every ilk, hiring writers to help with the task, and offering business blogging help to owners, managers, and employees, I’ve seen it happen again and again.  Energy flags, new ideas come few and far between, with the intervals between blog posts growing longer as time passes.

The very best business blogging advice I can offer at that point is itself a quote (but not at all puzzling!):

"The more you know about, the more you can blog about.”

To deliver quality writing of any kind, including quality business blogs, we blog content writers simply must keep educating ourselves, reading everything from books to blogs, from websites to billboards, reading newspapers and magazines, even comics.  We need to be out there networking, talking to people and hearing their opinions, listening and then thinking about how to take what we’ve seen and heard and use it to bring our message (or our clients’ messages) to readers.

No, providing blog writing services isn’t easy, but, in many respects, it is simple.  Enrich ourselves, and our writing will take on a richer quality.  There IS a big difference between having to blog something and have something to blog about.  WE blog content writers make that difference. 

Quality blogging ‘R us!


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Ghost Bloggers Can Be Like Tiger Woods’ Coach

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Tiger WoodsFriend and business coach Jack Klemeyer has a very interesting take on why top-notch professionals, Tiger Woods included, hire professional coaches – “Coaches offer a bird’s eye view on whatever it is that is going on.”

Over time, Klemeyer noticed, Tiger has been on his best game when he is using a coach. Each time the golfer has decided to go it alone without benefit of coaching, his game has seemed to suffer.  This begs the question of whether Tiger’s coach is a better golfer than Woods himself. Since he obviously is not, how then can the coach give Tiger pointers, tips or advice to improve his game?

As a professional ghost blogger offering corporate blogging training, I think Klemeyer’s answer is very relevant to the whole field of ghost-blogging.  Since very few business owners can take the time to compose corporate blog content with enough consistency and frequency to make a difference in search results, how can freelance blog content writers (who are obviously not as knowledgeable in that field), possibly do an effective job of it on business owners’ behalf?

Ever since Say It For You was established to provide SEO marketing blogs and web content for business owners, I and the writers under contract to me are out to accomplish the following:

  • Provide information that is valuable to readers and which satisfies the needs that brought them online to find answers
  • Demonstrate the particular expertise and history of the company or the professional practitioner and how they are different from their competitors
  • Provide a clear navigation path that brings readers closer to becoming  clients and customers of that business or practice

    “A good coach,” says Klemeyer, “can see things objectively without emotional connection to the situation.” In an ideal corporate blogging situation, whether          the business owner him or herself is doing the writing or collaborating with an Indianapolis blog content writer like me, the very process of discussion what
    the focus of the blog will be is one of self-discovery for the business owner.

Two recent testimonials from Say It For You clients prove this point:

Financial planner in Texas:  “Say It For You helped me, a numbers guy, put into words what I know in my heart but couldn’t verbalize.”

Owner of corporate instructional design firm: “We specialize in a relatively technical profession and I was initially concerned that an outside party might not be able to truly grasp what we do and the business problems we solve. I was so pleased by how quickly our Say It For You ghost blogger was able to gain a deep understanding or our profession and what we wanted to communicate.”

Golf coaches and ghost bloggers share the mission of bringing out the best in our clients!

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Control/Z-ing and Control/-V-ing by Content Writers in Indianapolis

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Tech maven Patric (“Mr. Noobie”) Welch’s for-the-masses “noo” tip of the week reminds readers to use the Ctl-Z key combination to undo mistakes.

Patric Welch, Mr. NoobieIn the same vein, in corporate blogging training sessions I advise business owners that one function their SEO marketing blog can serve is correcting mistakes – not only mistaken information that may have been inadvertently published in a former blog post, but as a response to a negative reader comment or to negative publicity in general.

Ironically, I caution those new to blog writing for business, many of the comments you recieve are actually more likely to be negative in tone (or represent attempts to promote readers’ own businesses by “piggybacking” on your blog)! In the case of any negative event or negative comment, I explain, business blogging is the ideal tool for you to quickly react. Many business owners report that solving a customer’s problem or complaint resulted in them becoming loyal fans. In short, c+ontrol-Z ing” in blog content writing means using the blog for what social media expert Kyle Lacy calls “controlling your message.”

Fellow writer Dan Eldridge reminded me of a way blog content writers can use the key combination which is the opposite of Ctl-Z,  Ctl-V (“Insert”).  Say there’s been a change in a situation described by an Indianapolis blog writer in an earlier blog post.  The situation has now changed.  The content writer can go back to that original post and, at the very top or the very bottom of the post, write an update, usually in bold type. That way, when online readers come across that post, they’ll get a true picture of the situation as it is now, because it’s been “Control-V’d!

Don’t you just love the flexibility of business blog writing?   As a professional ghost blogger, I certainly do!


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