To Be An Olympian Business Blog Writer, You Gotta Have Sole

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“Your chances of joining the Winter Games are about 1 in 35 million,” Mental Floss Magazine wants you to know.  What’s more, “training, genetics, and technique will only get you so far. To win a medal, you need the right kicks.”

Since “reading around” is one of the commandments I teach newbie Indianapolis blog content writers, and since Mental Floss is such an absolute embarrassment of riches in the trivia department, I can’t resist sharing two tips from the article “So You Want to Be an Olympian”:

1.  While you’ve but a smidgen of a chance of joining the Olympics, “you can swing the odds by picking a slightly more obscure sport.”

“In the strictest sense of the word, your competitors are striving towards the same goal as you. However, that doesn’t mean they’re targeting the exact same buyer persona as you are,” explains Tatiana Liubarets of writtent.com. Knowing our target market and focusing on our readers' specific needs helps us content writers swing the odds.

2.   You need the right “kicks, meaning the right tools. “The blades on speed skating boots are hinged at the toe and swing freely at the heel, generating the extra push skaters need. For short-track speed skating, the blades curve in the direction of the turn, making it easier to corner at high speeds, Luge competitors wear aerodynamic booties to keep their legs up and feet straight, while bobsledders were shoes studded with metal spikes for grip on the starting sprint.”

 ”Those that post blogs more frequently rank higher on Google or other search engines than those businesses that post only occasionally. Recent blogs rank higher than old content. But what's so important to understand is that the system values cumulative content. A business that has blogged for a year will rank higher than a competitor who's just begun to blog.”

When I posted those words a couple of years ago, it was two Google algorithm changes ago. “Today Google’s algorithms rely on more than 200 unique signals or clues that make it possible to guess what you might really be looking for. These signals include things like the terms on websites, the freshness of content, your region and PageRank,” explains copyblogger.com.

To be an Olympian business blogger, you’ve gotta have skill AND “sole”!
 

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Try, Test, and Change in Business Blog Writing

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“Clients, please take note: Getting it right the first time is critical,” Ken Honeywell of welldonemarketing remarks, referring to shooting TV spots. “And please take this to heart,” Honeywell adds: “Finetuning the creative work almost never results in a better spot.”
 
But, come all ye blog content writers, and hear Honeywell’s conclusion: “For the cost of producing one TV spot, you can produce a year’s worth of web content.”

Not only is that startling price difference an advantage of blog marketing, with blogging there’s the frequency element.  In other words, when it comes to blogging for business, there’s an essentially unlimited opportunity to do what a second Well Done Marketing exec, Scott Woolgar, calls “Try, test, and change”.

Don’t over-test, though, is Well Done’s advice. “Identify the top key performance indicators and analyze those.  What kind of visitors do you want, and how do you most want them to engage with you?"

As a corporate blogging trainer, I liked what fellow blogger Mark McDonald had to say, as well: “If you offer similar choices, people will not choose,” he observes.  “Stop marketing the similarities.  Market the differences.  You’ll find that people will be willing to sample you.”

Marketing differences can mean demonstrating ways to use your products and services in unusual ways or under unexpected conditions. We blog content writers can use “even if” myth-busting to make readers comfortable with trying out our stuff. For example:

  • Lasik eye surgery: Yes, even if you have astigmatism
  • Bankruptcy: Yes, even if you owe back taxes
  • White clothing: Yes, even after Labor Day
  • New cars: Yes, even with less-than-perfect credit
  • College degree: Yes, even at your age

Trying, testing, and changing make for a three-part success formula in blogging for business!
 

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Putting the Pow Into Your 2014 Business Blog Writing

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For most business owners with blogs, “putting the pow back” into their writing isn’t their biggest problem.  It’s “putting the pow back” into the blogs themselves.  Their used-to-be blogs, that is. In fact, according to passle.net, only one in eight businesses can maintain an updated blog. In a survey of 525 small and medium sized businesses, most admitted to not having at least three new posts in the entire year 2013!

OK, so you’ve lapsed – no “pow” left, and you’re trying to stage a comeback. The worst thing you can do, says Karen Skidmore of candocanbe.com is apologize.  “Never highlight the fact,” she says, that you, quite frankly, haven’t been able to prioritize this all important, value added part of your business.”

Where’s the value-add? “In today’s internet-based society, your business has to have a powerful online presence in order to stand out among your competitors,” asserts Nicole Beachum in social mediatoday. Business blog content writing is the centerpiece for that online marketing initiative.

So what’s the problem in finding “pow”? In the Passle survey, 32% said they didn’t see the point, 27% said they didn’t have enough time, 24% said they couldn’t write very well, and 20% said they ran out of topics to write about.

Believe me, as a corporate blogging trainer, I’ve heard all those alibis. One obvious answer (one that, on the surface, might appear self-serving) is for businesses and professional practitioners to hire freelance blog content writers. But how in the world, you might reasonably ask, can we contract writers who are obviously not as knowledgeable in that particular field as the owner or practitioner, possibly do an effective job in conveying their message?

One client put it this way:  “My blogger helped me, a numbers guy, put into words what I know in my heart but couldn’t verbalize.”

A big part of successful blog content writing involves getting the “pow opening line” right. In SEO-conscious marketing blogs, of course, it may be the keyword phrases in the title that start the job of getting the blog found. To sustain the “pow” effect, present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy, challenging statement. “Pow” endings tie back to the openers, bringing the post full-circle.

Whether you as a business owner are doing the writing or collaborating with an Indianapolis blog content writer like me, make sure to put the “pow” back into your 2014 business blog writing!
 

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Another Year, More and Better Business Blogs

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Did you know – there are as many as eighty different New Year’s Days celebrated around the world?  I’ve been lucky enough to celebrate two of them each year (Rosh Hashana in the fall and the one set by Julius Caesar that we’re observing today).

There’s much for me to be grateful for. My very first piece of writing as a professional ghost blogger went “live” in October of 2007, and last night ushered in the eighth year for my business blogging content writing company Say It For You. In 2013 my writers and I crossed the 10,000 mark of blog posts, web pages, newsletters, brochures, e-books, and articles completed.

Lots has changed in the search engine marketing and social media world, but I’m proud that the “Power of One” focus of our business model has stayed the same:

  • One writer. Each client company is assigned a single blog content writer dedicated to understanding and giving voice to that business' goals.
     
  • One client per field. Say It For You accepts only one client in each field of business per market. That way, all writing done as part of that client's marketing strategy and tactics development can be devoted towards helping that business stand out from its competitors.
     
  • One-on-one contact. Initial in-person meetings and phone conferences, plus periodic meetings for follow-up and assessment, help our corporate blog writing remain true to clients' changing needs.


Some “not-to-do” New Year’s resolutions I urge on the Indiana blog content writers I train:

  • Not squeezing too much content into any one blog post.
     
  • Not getting too technical, focusing on concepts and results that readers can achieve.
     
  • Not getting too sales-ey.


“To-do” positive New Year’s resolutions for business owners, professional practitioners, and freelance blog content writers include:

  • Addressing readers’ needs, problems, and questions, always keeping content about them rather than about you.
     
  • Using varied forms of CTA (Calls to Action) that offer choices to online searchers.
     
  • Debunking myths about your industry.


Ready or not, here comes another year! Join me in a toast to more and better business blogs!
 

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Cliches in Business Blogs – Plagues or Positives

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“If you want to make your writing smooth as silk and solid as a rock, you should avoid clichés like the plague,” quips William Jeanes in the Saturday Evening Post. But, kidding aside, are clichés to be avoided at all costs (oops!”) when it comes to business blog content writing?

Cliches are words and phrases that, according to OxfordDictionaries.com, “have been used so often that they’re no longer very interesting or effective.”  Examples of phrases rather overused in business circles include “When all is said and done”, “at the end of the day”, and “par for the course”.

Are clichés ever OK? Angela Ackerman of critiquecircle.com thinks so. “Cliches can be justified when it’s important to get something across to the reader quickly…when the best choice may be a familiar wording that’s instantly recognizable,” she observes.

As a business blogging trainer, you might say my feelings are mixed on the subject of clichés. On the one hand (oops, again), I wouldn’t want to create an impression of laziness or a lack of careful thought, which is a risk oxforddictionaries.com sees in using clichés. But, as Paul Gillin, author of “Secrets of Social Media Marketing” advises, we bloggers need to “make it human”, and good writing when it comes to blogs is conversational. “Write like a person!” Gillin says.  One thing about us “persons”, I’ve found, is we tend to sprinkle our conversations with clichés.

At least one of the bottom lines (gotcha!) for blog content writers in judging whether clichés have a place in their content relates to defining the market for the blog. Who will be reading the stuff?

Equally important, who is saying the stuff? Business coach Donna Gunter calls it the WYSIWYG approach (what you see is what you get), referring to authenticity in advertising and promotional materials. Successful content creation consists of capturing the unique style of the business owners, practitioners, and employees who will be delivering the service and products.

At the end of the day, we at Say it For You have come to realize, clichés can be plagues OR positives.  It depends.
 
 

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