Your Worst Business Blog Post is 100% Better Than the Ones Never Posted!

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runnerThe words of 50-kilometer running champion Josh Cox, “Remember, your worst run is always 100 percent better than the person who never tries,” are words I wish everyone blogging for business would tack up on their computer. As Runners’ World Magazine points out, “You’ll never regret going for a run, but you’ll always regret not going."

One of the most satisfying aspects of corporate blog writing is that the content you post remains online, continuing to build your presence as each new batch of content is added. While, according to Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott, 95% of corporate blog readers will be first-time visitors to your blog, the odds of those online first-timers’ finding you increase with each new blog you post.

In essence the way the “matching” process works on the Web, blog content writing means never having to say you’re sorry about the time and effort you put in. I can honestly assure newbie Indianapolis blog writers, “Each time you post and your competition doesn’t, it’s a win!”

Sometimes, in corporate blogging training sessions, I recall the “Cathy” comic strip I used to enjoy so much in the Indianapolis Star. One strip in particular helps me explain why, out of all the different online communication tools we use on behalf of our clients at Say it For You, I am personally so “into” blog content writing.

Cathy and her boyfriend Irving are opening mail – she’s sorting through envelopes, he’s reading email.  “Who sends paper mail any more?” Irving jeers.  “People,” answers Cathy defiantly. When Irving rather tactlessly points out that most of her mail consists of ads and magazine subscription mailings, Cathy’s retort says it all for me: “Yes – people!  My mail is way closer to an actually human than you’ll get any time soon!”

“Way closer?” Not the most perfect syntax, but so “on the money” about blogging for business! Business blogs are where you meet the humans, the people running the business, the professionals providing the service, “way more” than brochures, billboards, or even corporate websites. Blogs are where you have people telling you not only what they have to offer but who they are.

As a professional ghost blogger with “way more” than 6,000 blog posts online (these Say It For You posts plus the corporate blogs we produce for clients), not to mention the thousands more posted by business owners and practitioners to whom I’ve offered business blogging assistance over the years, I can tell you this:

Josh Cox was absolutely right about the worst run.  The worst blog post writing is way better, in fact 100% better, than all the companies that never tried!

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Making Your Business Blog Writing Easy to Understand

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A favorite fellow blogger, David Meerman Scott of WebInkNow.com reminds readersSuper-guy how important it is to “make your writing easy to understand”.

Now, when I’m engaged in corporate blogging training, I sometimes critique newbie blog content writers’ attempts, always trying to keep my words positive and encouraging.

With my mother’s admonitions about tact firmly implanted in my mind. I don’t know that I could ever rise to the level of ruthless honesty Meerman-Scott showed in picking apart the content on the website of a company called ITA Software.


 "Founded in the mid-nineties by MIT computer science graduates, ITA Software has pioneered a new generation of travel technology. Our world-class engineers and travel industry experts are solving the industry’s most complex computing challenges, and in doing so reshaping its very foundations."


Meerman-Scott has one word for that text: Gobbledygook. The problem, he points out, with using language like game changer, innovative solutions, next generation, world-class, customer-centric, and the like is that “these words and phrases are so overused as to have become meaningless”.

As a professional ghost writer, I can see another fault in the ITA material. In offering content writing assistance, I’d advise ITA not only to avoid trite adjectives, but to find a more effective way to impart information without “showing off”, coming across as pompous, or simply selling too hard.

It can be far more compelling, in business blog writing, to have customers do the bragging in the form of testimonials. What’s more, the ITA website paragraph offered no usable information to readers relating to either the travel industry or the software field. Rather than positioning their business as the “go to” source for things readers want to know, ITA kept patting its own back!

There are several reasons, I’d point out to freelance blog writers, that David Meerman Scott’s rewrite of the ITA paragraph is a big improvement:

"ITA Software by Google helps air passengers, airlines, and online travel agencies by making it easier for people to comparison shop for flights. Because of the huge volume of real-time transactions in airline pricing, the ITA Software engine is central in the travel industry’s most complex computing application."

  •  It shows they understand their customers’ (the travel agencies’) problems and needs.
  •  It offers a taste of how the end customer will benefit (“making it easier for people to comparison shop for flights..”).

The David Meerman Scott blog post clearly illustrates three negatives and one all-important positive for Indianapolis blog writers to keep in mind:

  1. Stay away from gobbledegook, from big words, and from boasting.
  2. Above all, make your business blog writing easy to understand!

 

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Friday Wordsmithing Tip for Business Bloggers: Gendered or Neutral?

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gendersFor the third in this week’s Say It For You blog series sharing writing tips from different books, let’s tackle an old dilemma – pronoun gender. The Little Red Writing Book advises “Keep your writing gender neutral.” The question is: How can we blog content writers stay grammatically and yet politically “correct”?

For starters, corporate blogging for business is a pretty new, modern method of communicating with potential customers, so the last thing business bloggers want is to sound old-fashioned, using “he” and “him” when referring to a person who might be either a “he” or a “she”.

You remember that old joke where a person knocks at the gates of Heaven and St. Peter asks “who’s there?”.  The reply, “It is I. “Go away!” says St. Peter.  “We have enough English teachers here.”

In corporate blogging training, I continually stress how important it is to know your target readers.  If you’re writing blog content targeted at new mothers, for example, using “she” and “her” is appropriate. Otherwise, advise the authors, use “they” and “them”. (“One” goes back to the English teacher-trying-to-get-into-heaven problem.)

If you’re providing business blogging assistance to companies with clients of both sexes, The Little Red Writing Book has some good advice about acceptable ways to approach certain “politically sensitive” terms:

Instead of “TV anchorman”, write “TV anchor”, “fire fighter”, not “fireman”, “police officer”, not “policeman”, and “spokesperson” rather than “spokesman”. On the other side of things, it’s better to use “homemaker” than “housewife” and “flight attendant” rather than “stewardess”.

When it comes right down to it, people aren’t concerned about remembering your web address or even your brand, says Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware." With whom do consumers want to do business? As market research overwhelmingly demonstrates, "People like me", Baggott points out.

As a professional ghost blogger for so many different kinds of companies, I’ve found that it’s best to use “you” and “your”, conversing directly with those online visitors, who are, after all, asking themselves “What’s in it for ME?”

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Wednesday Wordsmithing Tip for Business Bloggers: Customizing for Customers

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Since this week my Say It For You blog is devoted to sharing tips from three different books,ketchup squirt bottle today I’ll share a thought on blog content customization from Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw.

One of the many anecdotes Gladwell relates in the book is, in two ways, especially relevant for blog content writers.   During a market research project for which H.J. Heinz Company sent researchers into people’s homes to watch the way they used ketchup, a three year old child reached for the 40-oz. bottle. His mother intervened, taking the bottle away from him and giving him a dollop on his plate.

The researcher had an epiphany: since a typical child consumes 60% more ketchup than a typical adult, the company needed to put ketchup in a bottle a child could control. The EZ Squirt bottle was born, made of soft plastic with a conical nozzle.  In homes where that bottle is used, ketchup consumption grew by 12%!

Lesson One: Those of us who provide blog writing services must know the needs of our audience.  Our corporate blog writing must speak to each blogging target audience in their language. The reason Gladwell’s story can be of such enormous business blogging assistance is that it reminds us to write content designed to let online readers know the company understands their specific needs.

Lesson Two: If you are four,” explains Casey Keller (until recently chief growth officer for Heinz), you don’t get to choose what you eat for dinner.  The one thing you can control is – ketchup! “It’s the one part of the food experience you can customize and personalize,” adds Keller. When it comes to SEO marketing blogs, success hinges on narrowing down your market and then doing everything you can to appeal to just that audience.

Remember that the secret Heinz discovered was allowing the customer to customize. Offer more than one Call to Action. Those who need more information before making a decision should be able to pick up the phone and call (and easily get a live person on the line!). Or for those not quite ready for that, they should be able to email a question (without needing to provide an entire personal biography in return!).  Or, for online visitors not quite ready even for that – they may choose to watch a video or download a white paper.

Are you serving up YOUR blog content writing in EZ Squirt?

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Monday Wordsmithing Tip for Business Blogging: Paint a Picture

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PaintbrushThis week my Say It For You blog will be devoted to sharing tips from three different books. (Always on the prowl for fresh writing ideas, I’ve managed to accumulate quite the little library on effective communication.)

Compare these two sentences, says communications consultant Milo Frank:

#1    “Deficits will badly affect the economy.”

#2    “Deficits will spread subtle, devastating poison through the economic bloodstream.”

The first sentence, Frank points out, is flat, while the second paints a picture in your mind.

Frank’s message is one every blog content writer needs to hear. Imagery helps make SEO marketing blogs more engaging.  In business communications, Frank acknowledges, there may be times when technical, precise language is in order.  The key factor to consider, though, is the listener, he says.  You want listeners to “see” as well as hear what you’re saying.

When it comes to providing business blogging help, I’d add, the key factor to consider is the blog visitor.  But, in whatever form you’re communicating, Frank teaches, “you can make your message colorful, interesting, and memorable with imagery.”

Of course, actual images – video clips, photos, stock art – can add impact to Indianapolis bloggers’ work, as I stress in corporate blogging training sessions.  Aside from actual pictures, though, freelance blog writers can paint pictures through words.

Is your company’s product smooth? Steely-hard? Satiny? Clean? Flowing? Razor-sharp? Crystal-clear?

Can I expect to feel happier after using your services? Confident? Healthy? Moved to tears? Powerful? Worthy? Safe? Warm and snug?

Help online visitors to your business blog assimilate your message through visualizing.  Painting word pictures is an important part of blogging for business!

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