Everyday Terms Explain Complicated Concepts in Blog Content Writing for Business

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In SEO marketing blogs, one technique corporate blog content writers can use to engage readers is building a blog post around an unlikely comparison in order to explain an aspect of their business or professional practice. For one thing, suggesting a totally new way of using your product or service, an “off-the wall” comparison may open up new possibilities for that potential customer to do business with you.

Given the short attention span of the typical web searcher, putting elements together that, on the surface, don’t seem related can be a good teaching tool.

But, to avoid “over-seasoning the meal”, corporate blog content writers need to be careful and avoid overstretching those comparisons.
 
Mental Floss Magazine writer Adam Raymond understands the challenge of explaining highly complicated and even abstract concepts, and his way of using kitchen items to help get those concepts across could be of business blogging help, I imagine.
 

  • The “Big Bang Theory” of our universe’s origins is like baking a blueberry muffin.  (As the batter’s temperature rises, the muffin expands and the blueberries, representing the planets and stars, grow further apart.)
     
  • The philosophy of Existentialism, which holds that individuals are responsible for giving their own life meaning, is explained with ketchup.  (Ketchup is used as an ingredient or as a topping for other foods, but it must find meaning in its own existence.)

My corporate blogging training question is this: What process or product that you employ in your business or profession can be explained using a kitchen item?

Is Raymond overstretching with his metaphors? Similes are simpler to use in corporate blogging for business, as we can see from a second Mental Floss article dealing with oversized vegetables.  Had Meghan Healy instructed readers how to cultivate 65-pound melons, that wouldn’t have been nearly as engaging as her title “How to Grow a Cantaloupe the Size of a 4th Grader.”

 Online searchers almost certainly lack expert knowledge in your field. That makes it difficult for them to judge if your prices are fair, how experienced you are relative to your peers, and where you “place” in the big “scheme” of products and services. Is your business “small”? Compared to what? In what ways is “small” better for this particular service or product? Is your approach to your field different from most others? Is that good?

Use everyday terms to explain complicated concepts in blog writing for business!


 


 

 

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The Power of Pronouns in Corporate Blog Posts

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“Writers who use a variety of pronouns ('I' and 'me' but also 'we' and 'you' and 'they') laugh more and take fewer aspirins than those who stick to first person singular,” observes psychologist James Pennemaker.
 

I’m not sure business blog content writers who use a variety of pronouns self-medicate less than content writers who use first either first-person pronouns only (“I” and “we”) or speak in second-person (“you” and “your”) only. I am pretty confident, though, that the varied-prounoun SEO marketing blogs will generate ”healthier” results for their clients’ businesses and professional practices.

Nobody likes guys or gasl who can speak of nothing but themselves, you know, the “But-enough- about-you” types.  Yet, as a corporate blogging trainer, I stress the importance of first person business blog writing because of its one enormous advantage – it shows the people behind the posts.  In first person, blogging for business can in reveal the personality of the business owner or of the team standing ready to serve customers.

       “At —— Dry Cleaners, we believe….”
       “At ——— Heating & Air, we always…..”
       “Despite the widely held belief that….., I’m convinced that……”

On the Say It For You website are listed five categories that are typically covered in business blog writing.

  • The benefits of your products and services
     
  • The history of your business and your own journey
     
  • Successful case studies and testimonials
     
  • News of importance to your customers
     
  • Your perspective on trends in your industry

Your perspective can be provided only by you, in first person, straight to the readers:  I/we think…. I/we feel…..  I/we want…..   I/we dream about….. I/we know……  “It seems that, in the blog world, the more personal, the better,” is the way fellow blogger Natalie Clive puts it.

In a way, though, all content writing for marketing blogs is second person writing, all about the “you”s who are the targeted readers. Imagine that for every piece of information you write about your own company or professional practice or organization, the reader is going to be asking “So what?” Bottom line, content writing for business had better be about the “you”s’ wants and needs.

What place does third person writing take in business blogging? Facts, statistics, explanations of how products work, can all be stated in third person.

       “Insomnia costs U.S. $63 billion annually in lost productivity”

       “The fastest-growing group of bankruptcy filers consists of older Americans.”

Since following Pennbaker’s lead about varying our pronoun use appears to be healthy advice for us freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis, might taking two or three pronouns make our readers call us in the morning?
 

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In Corporate Blog Copywriting, Remember – If They Don’t “Get” Annie, They Might Not Get Out Their Checkbooks

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 “Annie Get Your Checkbook”, the title of an Indianapolis Star feature article last month, reminded me of something blog content writers need to keep in mind when it comes to using pop culture references.

The newspaper story was about an auction at which 100 or so items that had once belonged to 1880’s sharpshooter Annie Oakley would be up for sale.  I “got” the title, which was alluding to the movie and Broadway show “Annie Get Your Gun.” As a girl of around 5 or 6, I remember my father buying me a recording of the song “Buttons and Bows”, which I would play over and over again (shows you how old I am!).

But, as a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I had to wonder – how many readers today would “get it”? Readers might find it just as easy for many to think of Orphan Annie and the show “Annie”, I realized. “Use pop culture references sparingly,” cautions Joanne Brooks of Helium.com, offering two main reasons why:

  • You want your work to have relevance several years from now.
     
  • Pop culture references can delay reading and cause you to lose your audience.
     

My own observation, based on working with Say It For You blogging clients from many different industries and professions, is that it’s a challenge to find the precise style of communication that will best connect with target readers. (While this is especially true in business-to-consumer blog content writing, even with suppliers and distributors, you want to avoid anything that is a barrier to understanding.)  “Huh?” is hardly the reaction blog content writers aim to elicit in readers of any SEO marketing blog.
 

To be fair, newspaper readers are a different breed from today’s online searchers:

  • Demographically (I like that term better than the phrase “older”) we’d be more likely to understand the fifty-year-old reference
     
  • In the way we process headlines (we don’t “click away” that quickly).

The point I want to stress to business owners and freelance content writers in Indianapolis is simply this: The clearer the words in the title are to the searcher, the easier it will be for them to engage, navigate, and transact.

In corporate blog copy writing, it’s a simple equation: If they don’t “get” Annie, they might never get their checkbooks!

 


 

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Freelance Blog Content Writers in Indiana – Meet Julio!

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“Meet Julio:
College student
Speaks Spanish
Loves espresso”

Online sampling company uSamp uses survey panelists for market research. The eight words shown above, taken from the company’s ad in American Marketing Magazine, deliver a powerful message. Freelance blog content writers need to keep that message in mind when composing content for business owners’ and professional practitioners’ blogs. Knowing your reader goes well beyond mere demographics.

“Smart marketers know there are many subsets of every group targeted; not every message will work on every person,” cautions entrepreneur.com. Smart writers of SEO marketing blogs know that, too. 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.

The Julio example is a perfect illustration. Blog content writing needs to go beyond the facts.  Julio is, in fact, a Spanish-speaking college student. But the detail about the espresso? Now you’re talking – to him!

There’s an even broader point to be emphasized based on this ad, and it’s one for not only the corporate blog writers, but for the business owners and professional practitioners who hire those copy writers. Blog writing is not the be-all and end-all of marketing.  It’s a tactic, an important piece of what is hopefully a larger strategy for the marketing of a business or practice.

The old conundrum from college philosophy class about the tree falling in a forest comes to mind.  There may be blog content writing, there may be calls to action, but if the writing is not targeted towards the right buyers, there will be little business accomplished. Three directives from Darren Rowse, editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips, are de rigeur for business bloggers:

  • Define your target readers
  • Identify where and how they gather
  • Provide useful content, delivered in the appropriate way

As a corporate blogging trainer, I concur. Your research may tell you where to find Julio – at the college Spanish club.  But if you want Julio to find you, start with some interesting information about espresso!

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Long Tail, B-to-C Indianapolis Blog Content Writers

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“Investing in SEO means you’re probably optimizing for long-tail search,” according to Hubspot.com.

Thankfully for most non-techie Indianapolis blog content writers, the next two sentences in Hubspot’s white paper are less cryptic: “A long tail search term is long, usually containing three or more terms.  And the longer a key word is, the more specific it gets.”

As a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I felt quite “validated” by Hubspot’s advice to business owners:

“If you do little else with your SEO other than blog utilizing keywords important
to your business, you’ll see significant gains.”

Validation of the Say It For You emphasis on high quality writing (including using correct grammar and spelling and properly attributing quoted material to the original authors) comes from no less a source than Google itself:

“Our recent update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites”, said Google employee Wysz (quoted by Erik Deckers in “Why Your Blog Needs to be Well Written”).

For blog content writers in Indianapolis who want to create SEO marketing blog material, but lack the resources to implement a full optimization program, using long tail search terms in blog posts is good start.
 

In Hubspot’s example, there is a marketing company that wants to draw traffic to its website..  Were the freelance blog content writer for that company to use only the search term “marketing”, that is so broad a category that it would be extremely difficult for that small company to “get found” online among the millions of providers, worldwide, that offer all manner of marketing services.

Just by adding a second element to the keyword phrase, the business blog writing – and the search- become much more focused: “Marketing analytics consultant”.  The content writer has narrowed the field to analytics consultants, and the chances of that site getting found have been tremendously increased.

Hubspot adds a third term to its illustration: Boston. The two “tail extensions” make the keyword phrase " marketing analytics consultant in Boston" very specific.  By narrowing the target audience, the writer would have increased the odds of the site getting found.

And this is precisely the point at which questions frequently arise in my Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions. What if my goal is to attract business throughout the Midwest, not merely in Indianapolis? Well, nothing stops you from alternating long tail, localized search terms or even using several in one blog post, such as “Carmel, Indiana HVAC”, “Heating and Air Conditioning in Greenwood, Indiana”.  Hubspot adds that local search terms appeal to mobile searchers, who are closer to the point of purchase.

So, is SEO trumped by skilled blogging for business? Not in the least, warns Hubspot. “Constant quality content creation will get you far, but it will only get you so far.”

In the meanwhile, for those of our business owner and professional practitioner clients on a limited budget, our long tail, B-to-C Indianapolis blog content writers will keep bloggin’ along!

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