Don’t “Meh” Up Your Blog’s Headlines

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 “We really need to stop messing them up,” warns Ginny Soskey of HubSpot, referring to blog post headlines, because those headlines are “so crucial to our content’s success.”

Always on the prowl for OPW (Other People’s Wisdom) that can help the business blog content writers I train do a better job for themselves and their clients, I found quite a number of posts on the topic of blog post headline Do’s and Don’ts. As a result, I’m devoting this week’s Say It For You posts to curating and commenting on those poor-headline prevention tips.

Among the most egregious blog header errors, Soskey names Bait-and-Switch and Over-Promise-and-Under-Deliver, two variations on a failure to accurately describe the kind of content readers can expect to find in the piece. 

One popular misconception that I think leads to this kind of misdirection in headlines is that blog titles need to, above all, be “cutesy”. Cute is good, engaging readers’ curiosity even better.  Yet, above all, when readers click, they need to end up “where it says on the ticket”. In other words, when readers click on the link on the results page, they need to find material that is congruent with what the title promised would be there!

In fact, as I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions, when it comes to blog marketing, there’s more than good writing practice at stake; there is real danger for business owners and professional practitioners in using misleading blog titles. After all, it would hardly be a good idea for readers to perceive that this company or practitioner is not likely to keep its promises and deliver promised results.

But when it comes to titles, “honest” doesn’t equate to “boring”.  You’re shooting for accurate, SEO-friendly, AND enticing, concludes Soskey.  If you find your headline is kind of “meh”, she advises, keep on pushing until it’s something you’d go out of your own way to read!

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Lickety-Split Blog Content Writing

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Part of expecting the unexpected should include a crisis communications plan, advises Christine Birkner of Marketing News. Every so often, quick responses yield marketing gold, Birkner explains. She tells the story of how, when a blackout at the New Orleans SuperBowl left football fans waiting for play to resume, the Oreo Cookies marketing team quickly posted the slogan “You can still dunk in the dark” on all their social media sites. That message ended up reaching five times the number of people who actually watched the game!

Oreo took advantage of someone else’s crisis, but even when it’s your own problem, I believe any business or professional practice can exercise journalistic crisis control through blogging.  Even the best-designed websites are rarely flexible enough to allow day-to-day, even hour-by-hour updating, but with blog posts, especially when supported by other social media, businesses have the ability to put out the news about themselves with their own slant!

Even business owners with little time to manage social media or create content, can, through hiring a blogging professional, be assured of putting their own “spin” on reports about their company.

As an added bonus, material that is both recent and frequently posted is more likely to be indexed by search engines and help the business “get found”!  Meanwhile, if ever there is any negative news about the company, the blog is the perfect place to field questions and comments head-on.

Be flexible, cautions Birkner. Even though Oreo probably had an outline of all the tweets and posts they were going to do throughout the game, they had the nimbleness and the communications team to respond quickly.

Does your company or practice have a crisis communications plan in place?

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Things-You-Didn’t-Know-About Blog Content – Don’t Forget the “Why”

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I like tidbits as well as the next gal.  In fact, I find, online readers have a natural curiosity, particularly when you offer information related to a query they’ve already typed into a search bar.  That’s why little-known facts and statistics make for good business blog fodder. Generous sharing of tidbits can help a business owner or professionals come across as keeping up with the latest trends and discoveries in her field.

It’s all good, this tidbit thing, but with a caveat.  It’s not good enough to keep serving up facts, even interesting ones. I thought about that as a worked my way through the latest issue of one of my favorite publications, Discover Magazine, coming across the article “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Animal Senses”. Molly Loomis has all sorts of interesting things to tell.  I learned, for example, that:

  • Alligator skin is extraordinarily sensitive to minute changes in vibration, which helps the creature locate prey.
  • Elephants use seismic activity generated by their trunks and feet to communicate dangers and mating preferences.
  • Four-eyed fish” really have just two partitioned eyes, with the top half of each keeping watch for above-surface predators, and the bottom half watching for underwater enemies.
  • Up to 40% of a shark’s brain is devoted to the sense of smell. 

    Mind you, every one of the twenty tidbits covering that 8 ½ x 11” magazine page was interesting, and, no, I hadn’t known any of those facts about animal senses before. Yet, after I’d finished working my way through the material, I was still left with a “So what?” feeling.

In business blog content writing, tidbits can be valuable tools, but the big “IF” is whether the blog writer puts those tidbits into perspective and relates them to the central topic of the blog. A “triggering tidbit” is tied to explanations of the blogger’s own company’s products, services, and culture.

Indianapolis blog content writers – in fact any freelance blog writers –  need never run out of ideas if they keep a collection of interesting tidbits of general information on hand. But then, I advise, use each tidbit as a jumping-off point to explain some unique aspect of your own products or service!

 

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A Tasting of “Take” in Business Blog Content Writing

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“Here it is,” declares Karen Berner of Delish: the crème de la crème of food bloggers, proceeding to offer a sentence or two about no fewer than 100 food-related blogs.

Since I love to cook, I of course enjoyed meandering through the food blog list, with side trips into quite a number of Berner’s selected sites. And since I train people in corporate blog writing, the visual “tasting” exercise had the additional benefit of reinforcing my thoughts on “take” in blog content writing.

“Take”, to me, is what gives any business blog post its power.  All well and good to gather and collate and curate information from other writers – that certainly provides value to your blog readers. After all, you’re taking the time to research the field and see what ideas and concepts are trending in your industry, presenting those ideas and findings in a neat little package that readers can digest without having to do all the scut work themselves. But to me, the real value gets added when content writers add “spin” to the curated material, basing the comments on the  business owner’s or practitioner’s own business wisdom and expertise.

Without a doubt, Delish has done something that’s important for all business owners and professionals to do – find out what is being said by other bloggers and other spokespeople about your business topic. Share that valuable information with your own readers.

The success of your blog marketing efforts will be very closely aligned with your being perceived as an expert in your field and by your positioning yourself as a go-to source of information.  There’s one more thing, though: presenting a definite perspective on your industry.

How many different perspectives can there be on food?  Lots, as the Delish list proves.  There are blogs on vegetarian cooking, food that is beautiful, cooking that combines the bitter with the sweet, blogs that offer advice on cooking equipment, one blog with a personal story tied to each recipe, a blog about the joys and sorrows of running a family food business, a blog that uses whimsical line drawings to illustrate recipes, one about cooking as a stress reliever, one with table-setting ideas, and one about travel.

At Say It For You, we all gather and collate, curate and quote, but no business blogging recipe, we teach, can be complete without adding the unique seasoning of your “take”! on the matter!

 

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Tying Blog Content to Top Topics

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“To have a fair idea what people are searching online can make or break an online business,” says Ashish Paliwal. Even though today’s most searched topic won’t be what’s talked about tomorrow, he adds, knowing what’s popular definitely gives you an edge.

Sex (no surprise) has always topped the search popularity charts, with health, celebrities, and sports following close behind. Job searches, software and music have always been popular, Paliwal points out.  Of course “how-tos” (everything from becoming fit to killing oneself) have maintained top spots.

Getting personal is a huge element in the success of any SEO marketing blog. Sure, Indianapolis blog content writers must focus on personal anecdotes and on the personal values of the business owners and of the people delivering professional services. But, to give the blog that needed extra boost, the content should actually reflect and even allude to current happenings and concerns.

When we bloggers enter conversations that are trending at the time and tie our blog content to those current events, that serves the dual purpose of “playing off” already existing popular interest while possibly earning search engine “Brownie points” as well.

The tactic of using your business blog as a sort of “update center” on what’s happening is especially appropriate for businesses in industries undergoing changes – new legislation, new discoveries, new technological advances.  Real estate, mortgages, jobs, and life sciences are three areas that spring to mind, but no matter what the industry, keeping blog material relevant depends on staying current.

Keeping up may be the secret to moving up (in search engine rankings, that is), while offering real value to your existing clients and all those soon-to-be customers!

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