Two Thesis Statements to Start a Blog Post

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It takes a great opener to fan the flicker of a reader’s interest into a flame, so, in blogging for business, I teach, opening lines are key. In fact, openers are key in all kinds of writing, as quickstudy.com’s “Writing Tips & Tricks” points out. Their thesis statement, Quick Study explains to students, will set the tone for their entire essay.

Of course, there’s more than one way to skin that thesis statement cat, meaning that the same information can be presented to blog readers in a variety of ways.  Quick Study offers students a great example of an assignment to write a persuasive essay offering the prompt “If you could travel to any city in the United States, where would you visit and why?”

Sample thesis statement #1: “If I could travel to any city in the U.S., I would visit New York City.”

Sample thesis statement #2:  “Some people dream of visiting Chicago, others would choose Los Angeles, but for me, no city would be better to visit than New York City.”

Let’s examine both statements from a blog content writer’s point of view.  

From a pure inbound marketing, keyword-phrase standpoint, the first statement might attract a consumer who’d typed “visiting Chicago” into the search bar.  Since the point of the essay was to tout the benefits of New York City, starting the piece by saying “I’d choose to visit New York City over any other city in the United States” might be a more “SEO-pure” approach.

The reason I prefer the second version has little to do with SEO. It’s about what fellow blogger Mark McDonald calls “marketing the differences, not the similarities.” Acknowledging that readers have many choices is a good approach to take in a business blog. Our job, though, is to help those readers (and that includes B&B prospects) make sense out of the ocean of available information, clarifying why we have (or why our business owner or professional practitioner client has) chosen to do business or to create a product in a particular way.

There are many other ways to write what, in corporate blogging training, I call the “pow opening line” (what Quick Study calls the thesis) to set the tone of a blog post. Isn’t it great to have choices?

 

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Don’t Let Your Middle Posts Fall Asleep

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When the setting becomes the story, that’s an “uh-oh”, Writer’s Digest’s Larry Brooks cautions historical novelists. “If your narrative is composed primarily of a series of moments and happenings…then your middle pages may already be asleep as a result.”

Books grounded in rich historical settings can lead to wonderful stories, Brooks concedes, but (and here’s the part so relevant to us Indiana business bloggers): “Readers need to identify what they should be rooting for.”

Shock advertising can, in fact, move people to action, I learned, reading reports from the British Department of Health on the anti-smoking campaign “Get Unhooked” (which was banned because the ads caused fear and distress in children). In business blog writing, though, while it’s important to appeal to readers’ need to avoid pain, you’re more likely to “win friends and influence people” in your blog posts by giving searchers a “feel” for the relief and comfort they’ll gain after using your products and services. In fact, the whole tone of blog posts has to be welcoming and reassuring: We know what we’re doing around here. Rest assured, we’ll listen to your needs and you’ll be taken care of.

So how do you avoid the falling-asleep-in-the-middle effect? Author Steven James teaches budding novelists to maintain suspense in their writing. One way to do that, James says, is to put characters or things that readers care about in jeopardy.

In the same way as historical novelists need to avoid presenting what is an essentially a series of disconnected moments and happenings, business bloggers need to avoid disconnected series of product descriptions and lists of service offerings.  

“WIIFM (“What’s in it for me?). That’s what your prospective clients want to know. A champion salesperson understands this and, rather than selling on price, sells value by way of the customer’s expressed value areas and by educating the customer on the cost of ownership,” teaches SalesGravy’s Steve Ferrante.

In blogging for business, always keep in mind – readers are rooting for themselves and they need to identify why and how you can help.
 

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Business Blog Content Writing – Playing Up Strengths for Two

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You can build a career as an author by playing to your strengths and going at your own pace, Writer’s Digest editor Jessica Strawser advises.

That’s excellent advice for us business blog content writers as well, I’d say, but there’s an extra step involved for us. That’s because we’re playing not only to our own strengths as writers and researchers, but at the pace of the business owner clients and professionals who’ve hired us to play to – and play up – their unique strengths.

Remind you of the old eating-for-two concept?  Weight gain during pregnancy is vital to the health of both baby and mother, explains fitday.com, “but everything within reason”.

I like to say that blog content writing actually bestows a “training benefit” on owners. What I mean by that, is when you blog, you’re verbalizing the positive aspects of your business or practice, putting your recent accomplishments into words, and reviewing the benefits of your own products and services. That “playing to strengths” may be given voice by professional writers, but the process of choosing themes, sharing strategies, and planning for content creation involves a synergy between owner and writer.

A couple of the questions posed to Jessica Strawser when she first took over as editor of Writer’s Digest in 2008 would make a good start for eliciting great business blog post fodder to pay up the strengths of a business or practice:

What’s special about the craft of writing to you?
"If you care enough to blog," David Meerman Scott says, "you should care about letting people know who you are." Enthusiasm, says corporate trainer Roger Dawson, means believing in your industry, your company, your product, and your ability to serve your customers. It’s that special enthusiasm that needs to come across loud and clear in the business’ or the practice’s blog posts.

Which do you see as more important: The craft side of writing (how-to’s, grammar, style) or the business side (marketing, etc.)?
Your business brand isn't something you create; it's something you are. Your unique way of doing business reveals who you are and what you're passionate about, which aspects of your profession or industry you see as most important.

Yes, indeed, I tell aspiring freelance blog content writers in Indiana: You can build a career as a ghost blogger by playing to your own strengths, but also by playing up the strengths of your client companies and professional practices.
 

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Time to Hire a Professional for Your Business Blogging?

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Bringing in COOs and CFOs from the outside to steer the ship? How can they possibly help run a business with no former hands-on experience in that industry? In Financial Planning Magazine, Charles Paikert explains why many financial planning firms are discovering it’s time for them to hire a “professional”.

“We were entrepreneurs,” one CEO told Paikert in the interview. “We were producers, rainmakers, and managers, but we did not have a great deal of experience when it came to leadership.”

Generally, entrepreneurs don’t have a great deal of experience when it comes to writing blog posts.  In fact, as Honkiat.com points out,”Unless you’re a writer by profession, having to write every day is unrealistic. You have a business to run.” John Jantsch of ducttapemarketing agrees: “Outsourcing content creation is an essential tactic, especially for small businesses.”
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/

Many things have changed in the seven years since I created Say It For You to provide concierge blog content writing, but the reality for business of having businesses or practices to run hasn’t changed a bit.

“Let's face it” observes John Jantsch in the book "Duct Tape Marketing", "as a small business owner, you are really in the business of marketing.”  And, he continues, “there’s no longer any dispute about the importance of content creation for attracting new customers and for retaining regulars. Content gets the business noticed online and helps it stand out from the competition.”

The problem, of course, lies in the implementation. Can bringing in professional writers “from the outside” to steer the blog help?  How can they possibly help tell the story with no former hands-on experience in the industry?

In an interview for the New York Times, blockbuster mystery novelist James Patterson offered a very matter-of-fact explanation for his own use of ghostwriters, explaining that he is more proficient at creating the story line than at executing it. He remained the rainmaker, outsourcing the content execution.

Since so many professionals and business owners lack the time or the inclination to compose blogs, that's where a professional ghost blogger handles the job.  Whether it’s financial planning or mystery writing, there’s no mystery about it, only improved online marketing.
 

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Setting the Scene for Your Business Blog Post

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“The world of your story is more than just its physical location,” cautions Jeff Gerke of Writer’s Digest.  The first chapter of a book needs to include details that establish in the mind of the reader what is “normal” in this story world. As a classic example of what he means, Gerke refers to the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark". All in the opening scenes, we learn that Indiana Jones is a man of action, that this is going to be an action-adventure story, that it takes place in 1936, that the action will be outdoors, and that there is going to be a comic tone to the tale.

Modern-day movie-goers have probably seen the trailers of a film long before they put themselves in seats at the theater.  For business blog content writers, it’s not quite that simple. Online readers haven’t read “reviews”, and the title of our blog post the first thing they see. Yet, Gerke’s emphasis on establishing the “normal” for your blog world is very relevant to blogging for business.

Nolan Wilson of benchmarkemail.com offers tips for writing engaging blog post titles, including urging writers to “Deliver on your promise in the body of the post.”

Like the “world” of a novel or film, the “world” of a blog post involves a lot more than its location  (in this case its website). “Tone in writing refers to the writer's attitude toward the reader and the subject of the message. The overall tone of a written message affects the reader just as one's tone of voice affects the listener in everyday exchanges," the OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab explains.” Tone is present in all communication activities. Ultimately, the tone of a message is a reflection of the writer and it does affect how the reader will perceive the message. "The business writer should strive for an overall tone that is confident, courteous, and sincere,” OWL continues, “and should be written at an appropriate level of difficulty"

In online content writing, the opening lines need to establish that readers have come to the right place to find the information they were seeking. Those opening lines establish the general “setting” for the specific focus of that day’s business blog post. Establishing the setting includes clarifying the “slant” of the post – will readers find “how to” information? A list of sources for products? Some cautions and “don’ts? General definitions and categories?

The world of your story is more than just its physical location on the website.  Establishing what’s “normal” early in each blog post will help your readers relate to the content and decide to take action!
 

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