No-No’s in Blog Writing for Business

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Sometimes knowing what not to do can be every bit as important as knowing the correct steps for getting something done. That’s certainly true of good writing, and, I think, of business blog content writing in particular.  James Smith of Writers’ Digest and Jeremy King of Element Three both offer very useful lists of “don’ts” worth passing along to blog-it-yourself business owners as well as to freelance content writers.

  • “If and when”: Please, pick one, says Smith – use either “if” or “when”, never both. Same is true of “whether or not”.
     
  • “However” is hokey, Smith observes, even in fiction.  Even worse, it tempts you to string clauses together.
     
  • “For the purpose of” has no purpose, he adds. Say “to..”.
     
  • Don’t use “individual” for “person”.  And please, begs Smith, don’t write the redundant “one individual”.
     
  • “Vast” is a great word, but it doesn’t go well with “difference”, Using them together sounds as if you’re stretching the facts.
     
  • Stop adding an “s” to everything, cautions King.  You don’t apply for a job at Lilly’s or Nordstrom’s.
     
  • Know that “irregardless” is not a word, He adds.
     
  • Eliminate buzz words and phrases such as “take it to the next level”, “synergy” and “the bottom line” – sooo overused, implies King.
     
  • Stop ending sentences with prepositions, King adds.  “Print this”; don’t “print it out” or ask “where are you at?”
     
  • If you’re considering using an apostrophe, ask yourself if it’s a contraction and say both words aloud.  Let’s (let us) take your (not you’re, which would stand for you are) car.


It’s hard to break bad habits, Jeremy King acknowledges, but he suggests we ought to work at it.  I loved reading these pieces by Smith and King, realizing that, just because I happen to be a business blogging trainer and professional blog content writer in Indianapolis, I’m not the only one who thinks paying attention to detail is important.
 

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Behavioral Based Business Blogging

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Business blogs, I’m fond of saying in corporate blogging training classes, are nothing more than extended interviews.  Just as in a face-to-face job interview, searchers who read your blog evaluate the content, judging whether you’re a good fit for them.

Behavioral interviewers don’t focus on facts (the employer already has read those facts on your resume). Instead, the purpose is to ask questions that reveal the way you, the prospective employee, tend to function in various situations. In other words, the employer is trying to discover the person behind the resume.

Just as employers want to know how reliable you’ve been in the past, your blog posts need to include stories about how you solved client problems, and what lessons you’ve learned through your experiences, lessons you’ll be applying in your dealings with them should they choose to become your customers.

Employers will want to know what others are saying about you and your staff. That’s where it becomes so important to include testimonials and interviews in your content writing. As we Indianapolis blog content writers present you and your business to the public through your blog, we need to anticipate the questions readers would ask if they were interviewing you.

Alison Doyle lists the “Top Ten Behavioral Interview Questions”, designed to reveal how you work effectively under pressure, handle challenges, handle your own mistakes, set and achieve goals, work on a team, handle disagreements, motivate employees or co-workers, and handle difficult situations.

Behavioral questions. Doyle explains, are more pointed, more probing, and more specific than traditional interview questions. Transposed into business blogging, that tells us freelance blog content writers that we need to focus less on presenting facts and more on creating emotional connection with readers.  

Stories is one way to do just that. Stories, of course, are made up of words, yet stories, in a way, speak louder than words. The TED Radio Hour takes a look at the power of narrative. “Telling stories is that thing that makes us human. Stories ignite our imagination, and let us leap over cultural walls and cross the barriers of time,” TED explains.

Blogging for business means answering the behavioral-based interview questions before they’re asked!

 

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Drop-Dead Blogging for Business

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"Use 'hopefully' the way you use a gun.  If you don’t know how to handle it, leave it alone,” advises James W. Smith, Jr. of Writer’s Digest.  You wouldn’t say “Hopefully, you will die,”, he adds, even when you mean “It is hoped you will die”.  

Better to say “I hope you die,” says Smith. As I teach new blog content writers, using first person and second person pronouns adds power and personality to your blog. I teach Indianapolis blog writers they’ll be at their most effective when they are at their most personal. Even professional ghost bloggers, I explain, can write in “I” format when sharing a personal experience that brings out some important aspect of the client company’s products, services, or corporate culture.

But even “I hope you die” pales next to “Drop dead”, adds Smith. One rule that is of particular business blogging help is keeping sentences short. Short sentences have what I call “pow!” Not only can short sentences, particularly in titles, be more easily shared on social media sites, but focused content keeps readers’ attention on the message.

Brandon Royal, author of the Little Red Writing Book, calls really short sentences “naked”.  It’s not that he recommends making every sentence short (which would create a choppy style, he admits), but that short sentences add a dynamic touch to your writing.

Another way to achieve greater “pow”, according to James Smith, is to cut down on the adverbs. “Use stronger verbs,” he explains, “and you’ll find you don’t need the help of adverbs. That’s a great tip for bloggers. While it may be the keyword phrases in the title that start the job of getting your blog found, once the online visitor has actually landed, it takes a great opener to fan the flicker of interest into a flame. The shorter, more direct, and more personal that opener is, the more “flaming” is likely to happen.

Drop-dead sentences stand out in blog content writing!
 

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Star Business Bloggers Test Themselves Before They Study

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Highlighting key information and writing notes in textbook margins aren’t as much help to students as once thought, explains Scientific American Mind. As a corporate blogging trainer, I was very interested in the magazine’s list of effective study tools.  After all, we want our readers to remember the information we’ve provided, and we hope they’ll take action on the advice we offered in our blog content.

Get visual. Graphics help students understand and retain the material in the text.
For blog content writers, a single visual that captures the essence of the post’s point enhancese “curb appeal”.  At the same time, it’s important to avoid distractions on the blog page itself that might take readers’ attention “off the road”, away from the message and the Call to Action.

Share your progress. Composing updates about what you’re learning, and teaching others really help in retention of the material.
Sharing on social media is the modern day equivalent of those updates. Joining conversations on Facebook and Twitter and encouraging opinion-sharing by readers help keep your blog content engaging.

Test yourself before you study. Psychologists have known for decades that taking a test helps people retain what they’ve learned.  Newer research shows that retention is even better if you take the test before you know anything about a subject (so you are all but guaranteed to get the answers wrong.) The concept is to guess; then, when you find out the real answer, you’ll never forget it.
Blog readers tend to be curious creatures, with that curiosity factor is highest when readers are learning about themselves. As a longtime Indianapolis blog content writer, I’ve found that “self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to the information presented in an SEO marketing blog.

Star students test themselves before they study.  Star business bloggers get visual, and help readers share the insights they gain and test themselves before studying!
 

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Don’t Promulgate the Histogens in Blogging for Business

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My friend and fellow blogger Karl Ahlrichs, as usual, is offering excellent advice to employee benefits professionals, and, as usual, I’m finding that his advice works for blog content writers.

“People want the answer in a few, short, well-thought-out words, with a long answer to follow if requested.”

Karl complains that he’d sat in a workshop on voluntary benefits trends that went on for the first five minutes without speaking plain English. “We need to promulgate the histogens and project profitability based on actuarial calculation….yadda, yadda” sort of thing is what he heard.

I’ll tell you – after six years writing blogs and web page content for businesses and professional practitioners of every type, I’ve come to conclusions very similar to Karl’s.  Simply put, our challenge as content writers lies in finding the sweet spot between the informative and the yadda yadda.

“We need to get good at the power of summary,” says Karl. He used to think the average adult attention span was three minutes, but then learned from a presentation coach that he had a mere six seconds to make his point with a modern business professional before they mental shut him off. “Yikes!” was Karl’s reaction, shortening the phone message he leaves for prospects to the following: “Hi, I can explain all of Obamacare in 30 seconds.  Call me, and I’ll do it for you.”

Given that Karl was making an outgoing “cold call”, while our blog marketing draws inbound traffic based on an already existing interest in our topic, we Indianapolis content writers don’t need to keep our posts to 30 seconds’ worth of reading..

Still, let’s keep reality in mind: people want their answers in a few, short, well-thought-out paragraphs, with longer answers to follow if requested (that’s why we have CTA’s or Calls to Action as part of business blog writing).

Thanks, Karl!  We promise not to promulgate the histogens in blogging for business!
 

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