Never Fear the “I” in Blogging for Business

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Blogging for business has many aspects. Corporate and professional practitioner blogs are part promo, part advertising, part bulletin, part tutorial, and part mission statement, but the bottom line is that blog content writing is just that – writing.

This week, I‘m building my Say It For You blog posts around the wisdom in Brandon Royal’s The Little Red Writing Book. While it’s true that blog content writing can’t be approached in the same manner as, say, magazine article writing or peer-review academic writing or novel writing, when it comes right down to it, good blogging is based on good writing.

“‘Often personal examples go hand in hand with the use of the personal pronoun “I”,” explains Royal. “Do not be afraid to use this pronoun; it’s personal and specific. Readers appreciate knowing how a situation relates to the writer in terms of his or her personal experience.”

As a corporate blogging trainer, I think that statement about being personal is especially truly when it comes to the content in SEO marketing blogs.

To demonstrate that you understand the problems the online searcher is dealing with, it can be highly effective to relate how you personally went through the same failure stages. To the extent you can truthfully say, “I know how frustrating the problem is, and that’s why I’m devoted to solving that problem through my business or profession,” that gives your blog content writing “I” power. Next best to the business owner or professional relating an “I” experience which drives their passion, is anecdotes and testimonials (other people saying “I”).

At first blush, this “I” advice may sound like a contradiction of a principle I’m always emphasizing to newbie Indiana business bloggers, which is that their blogs aren’t meant to be all about them and their companies – it's meant to be about those searchers who need what they do, what they have, and what they know. But truly, there’s no contradiction. Personalizing examples, as Brandon Royal puts it, simply makes them more memorable.

Never fear the “I” in blogging for business – so long as it’s for the purpose of personalizing the information you want to convey to your readers!
 

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Business Blogging’s Brevity/Detail Tradeoff

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“A trade-off exists between brevity and detail,” Brandon Royal explains in the Little Red Writing Book. Sufficient detail will make a piece of writing longer, he adds, but “examples and details are the very things people remember long after reading a piece.” Specific, descriptive words, he advises, make for more forceful writing.

Specific and descriptive wording makes for more powerful business blog content writing, too. As a corporate blogging trainer, that’s something I need to stress to beginner bloggers. Corporate websites provide basic information about a company’s products or a professional’s services, but the business blog content is there to attach a “face” and lend a “voice” to that information by filling in the finer details. And it’s those very details, more than any list of professional credentials or corporate accomplishments, which end up winning the hearts of online readers.

So, what about keeping SEO marketing blog posts short? Each post, I teach, should contain a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of the business or practice. After all, readers come online searching for information, products, or services, and they are not going to take the time to read the full text of even a relatively short blog post) without assurance that they’ve come to the right place. That’s why I teach new freelance blog writers in Indianapolis to address readers’ “What’s-In-It-For-Me?” questions at the beginning, rather than later on in each post.

That’s precisely where the tradeoff between brevity and detail comes in. We need “close-ups” for emotional connection and impact, and our challenge is that “close-ups” use up more words. Brandon Royal suggests a compromise that can be very useful for business owners’ and professional practitioners’ blogs: Keeping individual sentences short helps us in the brevity department, while adding other, short sentences to fill in the details helps with emotional impact.

Short, but not terse, brief, yet filled with impactful detail. Whoever said effective blog content writing was going to be an easy task?

 
 

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Business Blog Writers Strive for Substance, With Style

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“Stop selling.  It may sound counterintuitive, but, seriously, stop selling,” Rheba Estante tells professional speakers. “Speakers who earn top dollar have substance that sells itself.”

Substance sells products and services in blog content writing as well. To deliver “substantive” blogging for business, blog writers need to follow Estante’s advice to stop pushing the PR and start focusing on “knowing what your audience wants and delivering that.” That’s the only road to being seen as an authority and a go-to resource for important things, Estante cautions.

What is substance?  Speaker Magazine says it’s the difference between façade and fact, between appearance and reality.  It’s about providing proof. As a corporate blogging trainer, I really related to one line in that magazine article about “Substance, With Style”:

“It isn’t what you’ve done, but what you’ve learned – and the insights you can share – that give your expertise substance.”

I think that observation is extraordinarily relevant to anyone writing for business. The facts (which are the raw ingredients of corporate blogging for business) need to be “translated” into relational, emotional terms that compel reaction – and action – in readers. The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.

The function of the business blog writing then, is to give readers “proof”, but even more, a deeper perspective with which to process the information you’re offering. Truly effective SEO marketing blogs don’t appear to “market” anything. The substance sells itself.
 

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Indianapolis Blog Writers Count to 13

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Like all trainers, I’ve tended to develop “hobby horses”, points I find myself emphasizing over and over when offering corporate blogging help. Using word tidbits is one of those “hobby horse” things for me. A good word tidbit is any particular combination of everyday words that helps readers have an “aha!” moment, where they’re able to unify things they maybe already knew, but either hadn’t really understood or hadn’t translated into action.

If you’ve ever wondered where the phrase “baker’s dozen” comes from, here’s the “skinny”:

In the 1200’s British bread makers were notorious for cheating customers by giving them very skimpy loaves. Finally King Henry III decreed that loaf “shorting” would be punished with beatings or jail sentences. To stay on the good side of that law, bakers would actually give 13 loaves to any customer ordering a dozen.

When it comes to keywords in blog posts, it seems, content writers tend to err on both sides of the “dozen”, either neglecting keyword phrases or over-stuffing. By using keywords in the title and in the first sentences of the blog post, we assure our readers that the information they’re seeing is intended for them. If we “short” keywords, we’re also not letting search engines know which topics we’re targeting.

As I caution newbies to corporate blogging, though, it’s not effective to target too many keywords. “Stuffing blog posts with keywords makes the text unnatural-sounding, which, as bloggingpro.com explains, “provides a negative user experience and will probably get you penalized by search engines.”

The Google Webmasters site has something to say about keyword use as well: "Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords. Google’s recommendation: "Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context."

 

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Blogging Like an Egyptian

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If you’re into Egyptology, it’s easy to find books on the subject. One tells you how to “Run Like an Egyptian”,  others how to “Walk Like an Egyptian”, “Think Like an Egyptian”, “Treat Your Lady Like an Egyptian Goddess”, or even ”Shop Like an Egyptian” .

None of these seemed to have any usefulness in terms of blogging for business. I did find a number of interesting ideas I can use in corporate blogging training sessions in a Mental Floss Magazine article entitled “Gift Like an Egyptian”.

“Want to make your presents felt while globe-trotting? Author Laura Turner Garrison begins.

  • "In Egypt, a gift recipient will generally wait until after the gift giver has left to unwrap his or her treasure.”


It’s possible that some readers of your SEO marketing blog won’t be ready to take action just yet. They may want to wait until later to “unwrap the gift”.   In offering business blogging help, I remind writers to offer different options. Visitors ready to buy should be able to do that right away, but others may want to watch a video or download a white paper to learn more, or merely “favorite” your url and “unwrap” it later.

  •  In Japan, Garrison explains, “your gift may be declined numerous times before it’s accepted.”

In blogging for business, you want to be perceived as a subject matter expert offering usable information and insights. Once readers feel assured that you know your stuff and that you care about offering good information and good service, they might be ready to take action.
 

  •  “Brazilians are somewhat superstitious about the color of their gifts, including the wrapping; black is an obvious no-no.” In Russia, I learned, “sending a birthday present late isn’t rude.  In fact, sending one early is considered incredibly bad luck.”

Knowing our target readers’ culture is crucial for freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis when composing content for business owners’ and professional practitioners’ blogs. There are many subsets of every group targeted, and not every message will work for every person. At Say It For You, we realize online searchers need to know we’re thinking of them as individuals and that we understand their problems and wishes, not merely their stats.

Running like, walking like, thinking like, and shopping like Egyptians – that’s all well and good for general cultural knowledge and sensitivity. But blogging like an Egyptian? That means learning about our target readers and then writing business blog content with them in mind!
 

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