In Blogging, a Thesaurus is Handy, Yet Must Be Handled With Care

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When she got to college, now-seasoned author Jennifer Blanchard relates, she learned that her obsession with her thesaurus was, in fact, a problem. Jennifer had tried to impress the editor of the college newspaper by using a variety of big words in her article,  but was soon taught that not all synonyms are created equal.

Still, when it comes to blog marketing, there’s no denying that word choice can, as the Palm Beach Content Company points out, “make the difference between a compelling post that converts and a boring one that drives readers away”.

With Webster’s Thesaurus of the English Language occupying a place of honor on my own Say It For You bookshelf, I can attest to both the usefulness of this little reference book in varying the vocabulary I use in blogging for business – and the pitfalls…

Here are just a few examples of everyday word pairs which my thesaurus offers as synonyms, but which could not be interchangeable in blog content:

Decide/ solve
Online searchers are searching for products or services to help solve problems they are experiencing. Each prospect must decide which of several solutions to implement.

Workmen/ artisans/ craftsmen
A workman or worker does labor. Artisans are skilled laborers who use tools and machinery to create projects designed for aesthetic appeal, while craftsmen are skilled creators of functional items..

Load/ cargo
A load is a burden or weight to be carried, while cargo is freight carried by a ship or plane.

Resource/ substitute
While a substitute is something a consumer sees as the same or similar to another product or service, a resource is material that (or people who) help us satisfy needs.

Alone/ lonely
Being alone is a physical state of being by yourself, while being lonely is an emotional state.

Award/ reward
An award is typically give in public as a recognition of achievement. A reward may be a cash prize or simply a positive result of an action.

Handle/ manipulate
Both these words imply touching or moving something with one’s hands. However, the wrd manipulation has negative connotations, such as people taking advantage of others.

Renowned novelist Stephen King didn’t think content writers should use the thesaurus, famously saying that “any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word”.

The opposite view is expressed by the Myovient English Learning Center: The most common use of a thesaurus is to avoid word repetition, and to identify replacements for words that seem too common or dull, creating texts that are more interesting because of the richer language that is used.”

Two things are true in blogging: A thesaurus is a handy tool. A thesaurus must be used with caution.

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Starting – and Sticking With – Blogging for Business

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While launching a business blog is a fearsome thing for many, sustaining the process is even harder, as Seth Godin discusses in The Dip.

Too many business owners and professional practitioners embark on blog marketing in recognition of its power to generate interest in their products and services. What gets them down is the week-after-week work of creating new, relevant, interesting, and results-producing…blog posts.

In the face of all the compelling reports demonstrating the value of blog marketing, Caslon Analytics tells us that most blogs are abandoned soon after creation (with 60% to 80% abandoned within one month!, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days. The average blog, Caslon remarks ruefully, “has the lifespan of a fruitfly”.

Problem is, as we well know at Say It For You, in blog marketing, it’s just not OK to quit. Those abandoned blogs belong to those who don’t recognize what Seth Godin describes as the “extraordinary benefits that accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most”. Google and other search engines tend to give more weight to websites that update their content regularly and that “keep on keeping on.” In fact, it’s the constant, consistent stream of new content that gives blogging its edge over other forms of marketing.

After years of being involved in all aspects of corporate blog writing and corporate blogging training, one irony I’ve found is that blog content writers who do nothing more than “show up” are exceptional! That’s because business owners who are able and willing to maintain consistency and frequency in posting to their blog are so rare. Remember, a company or practice might be achieving exceptional results, but potential customers and clients don’t yet know that, and that’s the message that needs to come across in the blog (and the latest entry cannot be six months old!).

Readers and search engines each know to “expect” fresh content. Freelance blog content writers are helping their business owner and professional practitioner clients build equity in keyword phrases over time, helping clients achieve those “extraordinary benefits that accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most”.

 

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The Magic of 3 in Blogging for Business

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Humanity has had a love-hate relationship with numbers from the earliest times, Ian Stewart writes in Britannica. Ancient Babylonians used numbers to predict eclipses; priests in ancient Egypt used them to predict the flooding of the Nile. Millions of otherwise rational people are terrified of the number 13. In Jewish culture, 18 represents good luck.

Over my years at Say It For You, I’ve come to consider the number 3 important when it comes to writing blog content.

3 elements of a blog post

  1. pictures and charts (the visual presentation of the blog
  2. the content itself (the facts and figures)
  3. the “voice”, the way the message comes across – first person vs. third-person reporting, humorous or serious, casual or formal

3-minute Shark Tank principle
From the time an entrepreneur is introduced to the time one of the sharks says “I’m out”, it is almost always three minutes, writes Brant Pinvidic in The 3-Minute Rule. If you can’t distill a sales presentation down to three minutes or less, the listeners will begin to make their decision without all the pertinent information. Given the very brief attention span of online readers, the essence of the message needs to come across in 3 seconds!

3-legged stool
In business blog posts I recommend a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of a business, a practice, or an organization.  Other aspects can be addressed in later posts. Offer three examples or details supporting the main idea of each post.

3 levels of involvement
While having a clear Call to Action is important in blog marketing, truth is, not every searcher is going to be ready to make a commitment. In your business blog, therefore, It makes sense to offer 3 different levels of involvement (subscribing to the blog, submitting a question, taking a survey, for example), and an ”ultimate decision does not need to be made now

3-pronged strategy
Working Mother magazine is an example of a 3-part plan of attack: Compliment-criticism-course correction. In discussing various “Mon” personality types, writer Katherine Bowers would compliment the “Drama Mama” or “Snowplow Mom”, suggesting ways in which that parenting strategy is great, followed be a critique – where that mothering style is off-track, then offering “course correction” options. Those same 3 prongs could be used in a blog focused on financial management, healthy living, pet care, or fashion.
https://www.workingmother.com/content/you-know-type-mom-parenting-styles

The rule of 3 in writing
The rule of three is a writing principle that suggests that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers. The audience of this form of text is also thereby more likely to remember the information conveyed because having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern.

How The Power of Three Can Make Your Communication Effective

When it comes to blogging for business, make sure to remember the Rule of 3!

 

 

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Blog Content Writing – Up For the Count

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word count for blogs

One “fake fact” included in Alex Palmer’s book Alternative Facts is that part of the reason Charles Dickens’ novels ran so long is that he was paid by the word. Truth is, while his novels’ length was often dictated in advance, Dickens’ earnings were pegged to the number of novels sold.

Today, some professional writers for hire choose to charge based on word count or page count, while other ghostwriters prefer to charge flat project rates or hourly fees, varying by experience, subject matter and location, Brafton, a leading UK content marketing company explains.

As much as we all wish for it, there is no simple answer to the question “What is the right length of a blog post?” A longer blog post doesn’t necessarily rank better than a short one. The reason search engines generally appear to favor longer posts is because they are detailed, hence considered to be providing more information to readers. But, when writing blogs, one needs to consider the topic, the goal, the target audience, the industry, and the competition to find which length works best. Focus should be on quality, not quantity.

You know your business and your customers better than anyone else, so why would you hire a ghostwriter to take over such an important task as blogging? There are plenty of reasons, Shandra Cragun of BKA Content explains:

  • You lack the time to write lengthy, informative blog posts.
  • Writing isn’t your strong suit.
  • The content creation process overwhelms you.
  • You want to elevate your brand’s story with well-written and highly engaging content.

In terms of word count, Cragun observes, there are some topics for which only so much can be said, while there are others about which a lot more can be said. Don’t give a ghost blogger a word count request that far exceeds the collective information on the subject, she cautions.

Opinions have always differed on the optimal size for a blog post. Having composed blog posts (as both a Say It For You ghost writer and under my own name) numbering well into the tens of thousands, I’m still finding it difficult to fix on any rule other than “It depends!”

Chip and Dan Heath’s book The Power of Moments describes research that found that when people assess an experience, they tend to forget or ignore its length, instead rating the experience based on the “peak” (best or worst moment) and the ending. My conclusion about word count? As Albert Einstein famously said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

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Add the Fred Factor to Your Business Blog

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user friendly blogs

Within ten minutes of his house are two giant hardware stores that are known for their low prices , Mark Sanborn relates in his book The Fred Factor, but he never goes to either one. Instead, Sanborn goes to a smaller store about ten minutes away. There, when you walk in the door, knowledgeable helpful staff members greet you and take you to the exact spot where you can find what you need. And, Sanborn adds, they ask enough questions to find out if what you asked for is what you need for the job. All organizations have access to the same information, training, compensation systems, and processes. So why do some succeed and others flop, Sanborn asks? The secret is passionate employees.

How can that “Fred Factor” be made to come across a computer screen, I wondered. With so many potential customers meeting you online these days, rather than in person, how can you replicate the feeling of being greeted by “knowledgeable and helpful staff members”? First-time blog site visitors can, indeed, become customers IF, Neil Patel explains, “you listen to them and give them a good visitor experience.” The goal – moving visitors upwards through the “trust pyramid”, from awareness to understanding, then belief, and finally to action.

The process begins, Patel says, with defining your ideal reader. See that customer as one person, not as groups of people, then develop a unique selling proposition around that very person. Just a Sanborn was saying about his favorite hardware store, success is all about solving problems and making customers happy. What valuable gift can you give to your first-time blog visitors in order to excite and retain them. Put yourself in their shoes and feel their pain, Patel says.

Sanborn was impressed with the fact that the hardware associates were right there at the door to welcome him and help him navigate to precisely the right shelf to find what he needed. In precisely the same way, now that visitors have found their way to your blog, your immediate challenge is to put them at ease by assuring them they’ve come to the right place and convey that they are valued.

Translating a face-to-face shopping experience into a digital visit is the challenge we blog content writers take on. Saying you offer superior customer service is never enough – you have to specifically illustrate ways in which your company’s customer service exceeds the norm. Stories of all kinds help personalize a business blog. Even if a professional writer is composing the content, true-story material increases engagement by readers with the business or practice. Case studies are particularly effective in creating interest, because they are relatable and “real”.

You might not think of simplifying your website navigation as another way to personalize your service, but it absolutely is. Both the content of your blog posts and the navigation paths on the blog site had better be easy, calling for fewer keystrokes and less confusion. Just as the hardware salesperson asked questions before taking Sanborn to the right section of the store, the website can help “steer” visitors to the right click.

Think of ways to add a “Fred Factor” to your website and blog.

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