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Disagree Agreeably in Your Blog

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You’ve no doubt been exposed to the streaming TV ad for Vroom, in which a guy is strapped to a chair in the back of a car dealership. The dealer finally uses a pair of jumper cables to zap his victim back to reality, where he’s sitting on his front lawn watching Vroom deliver his new sedan.

Tempting as it is to knock your competition, there are some very good reasons not to do so, Cedric Voigt of Ballou PR writes:

  • It makes the story all about them.
  • It makes you look like a follower, not a leader.
  • You are not objective, and your target audience isn’t stupid.

At Say It For You, we absolutely agree. Negatives against competitors are a basic no-no. Yes, , in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition.  But, to get the point across that readers should want to choose this business or this practice, or these products and services over those offered by the competition, it’s important to stay positive.

The People’s Pharmacy Q&A column in the Indianapolis Star the other day exemplifies taking a firm stance on a subject while acknowledging that there are other opinions. The reader had been diagnosed with “white coat syndrome”, because her blood pressure would dramatically increase in the presence of a doctor or nurse. Her question was this: “Do I really need to take drugs for high blood pressure when my pressure is high only in the doctor’s office?”

Pharmacists Joe and Teresa Graedon disagreed with the recommendation given the reader by her doctors. However, rather than “knocking” those doctors, the Graedons offered a three-part response:

  1. Acknowledging that there are alternative approaches — “Doctors disagree about the need to treat white coat syndrome. Some think it signals reactivity to stress.” Because people are frazzled in many different circumstances, these physicians believe drug treatment is appropriate.”
  2. Offering evidence backing up their own viewpoint — “An Italian study of early 1,200 elderly people with high blood pressure found that white coat hypertension raised the risk of a cardiovascular event slightly but not significantly.
  3. Firmly restating their own view — “You could ask your doctor about reducing your medication. To prepare for that conversation, you may want to read our eGuide to Blood Pressure Solutions.”

When it comes to comparing yourself to others, accentuate both the reasoning behind, and the positives about, your way of doing things! Differentiate, don’t disparage.

 

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Guest Post: How to Increase Organic Traffic to Your Blog

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The term “organic web traffic” describes the way visitors arrive at your website as a result of “natural” search.

Organic traffic is the reverse of paid traffic, which defines the check-outs generated by paid ads. Organic visitors locate your site after making use of an internet search engine like Google or Bing, and are not “referred” by any other web site.

The simplest method to increase the natural web traffic of your website without getting a traffico anomalo google error is to routinely publish quality and relevant content on your blog site.This is, nevertheless, just one of several techniques to use for getting new visitors.

The science that focuses on enhancing organic circulation is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Organic traffic comes as a result of searches used by readers through search engine, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

Since organic traffic is free, that is the kind of website traffic that proprietors want the most.

HOW TO BOOST NATURAL WEBSITE TRAFFIC:  11 LEADING SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION TIPS

The challenge for any type of organization ensuring that when people look for a product and services like your own, they find you and not your rival. But there’s no need to rely on pricey pay-per-click advertising and marketing; there’s plenty you can do to increase natural web traffic at no charge except your time.

1. Direct content to your readers, not to internet search engines
Get to know your customers’ personalities, in order to know whose problems your content is solving. By producing quality educational content that reverberates with your perfect customers, you’ll naturally boost your Search Engine Optimization.
Talking about those primary problems, using the keyword phrases they use in search queries is the best path to increasing your audiences. Writing for search engines alone is useless; all you’ll have is keyword-riddled rubbish.
Pleasing your target audience will result in also pleasing internet search engines.

2. Feed your blog site routinely
Blog writing is perhaps the most efficient method to raise your natural site website traffic. Blog content lets you go deeper than your website permits, creating a big, expanding brochure of practical, persona-optimized web content targeted to your market niche.
On the other hand, poorly-written, “spammy” web content will do more damage than help. Avoid it.

3. Connect to the blogosphere
The blogosphere is an area for reciprocators.
Read, comment on, and link to other individuals’ websites as well as their blogs, specifically those operating in your market. That will encourage them to read, comment, and link to your content bringing in even more leads.
An excellent area to start is Quora. A cool tactic for getting your voice out there is to spend some time answering individuals’ concerns on Quora as well as supplying genuine, valuable and concrete understandings for the certain location you are a professional in.
Tip: Always use a VPN while using Quora, which will give you more specific results according to the country designated in your VPN.

4. Use long-tail keywords
Better than using the most prominent search phrases in your market is choosing keywords that are more detailed and specific to your services or product.
In time, Google as well as other internet search engines will certainly recognize your website or blog as an information source for that certain subject, which in turn will boost your web search position while helping your perfect clients find you.
Keep in mind that positioning on Google has to do with having a sphere of influence for a certain niche topic.
This article, for example, is targeted tor those that want detailed advice on enhancing natural website traffic. We’re not targeting every SEO-related keyword.

5. Get your meta down pat
The meta title, the URL, and the description are the three crucial ingredients for maximizing traffic for a website or an article. It’s simple yet reliable.
Meta summaries and meta data are your way of telling Google precisely what you’re speaking about.
We make use of a variety of devices, including Yoast Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress, HubSpot’s SEO tools, and Ahrefs to help us optimize our web pages.
But it’s not enough to just ‘mount a plugin’, You need to work on describing each web page in turn.

6. Continually create quality content
Try to compose and release content as often as possible, but not at the expense of top quality! The more high-quality content — including full-sized articles as well as posts — you have on your site or blog, the more opportunities you provide for getting found through organic web traffic.

7. Use internal links
As soon as you’ve accumulated a respectable catalog of content, you can link to older posts, as well as to your own website, guiding visitors to appropriately related content.
Internal linking keeps visitors on your website longer, which helps improve your search rankings.
Don’t, however, overuse interior links. Overuse may begin to look like spam.

8. Encourage incoming web links
Google prioritizes websites that have a lot of inbound web links, especially those coming from other reliable sites.
Urge clients, buddies, family members, distributors, industry mavens, and fellow blog writers to connect to your website.
The more inbound web links you have, the higher your website will rank, because the more reliable sources link to you, the more reliable your site becomes in the eyes of search engines.
Beware Search Engine Optimization “snake oil salespeople”, though. Attempting to trick Google with spammy links from low-reputation websites is a sure path to failure.
Some web links can in fact, damage your Search Engine Optimization.

9. Blow your own horn
In addition to linking to other websites and getting them to link to yours, you can promote your blog content by linking it to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon etc.
If individuals are “hanging around” your web content on social media, that sends a strong signal to Google that the material is relevant, helpful, and intriguing.

10. Use social networks
Build visibility on social media networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
This is a way to get your name and internet site address out on the net. Add “share” buttons to your website to make it easy for individuals to share your content.
Most important, of course, is to compose material worthy of sharing!

11. Use metrics to maximize results
Use Google Analytics to track site visitors to your website and blogsite.
Learning where readers are coming from and which search terms led them to you allows you to fine-tune your content.
Ultimately, to enhance natural, organic website traffic, Give searchers what they want – quality, guidance, and insight..

Millie Oscar writes SEO and technology-related articles and her articles have appeared in a number of sites, including EzineArticles.com, ArticlesBase.com, HubPages.com, and TRCB.com. Her articles focus on balancing information with SEO needs–but never at the expense of providing an entertaining read.

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Curating Without Copying – the Mayberry Man

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“An arrogant movie star is trapped in a modern day Mayberry where he’s given a chance to discover the true meaning of friendship and family,” reads the review of the new movie Mayberry Man.

“The Mayberry Man movie nods to ‘Andy Griffith Show’ without copying,” writes Domenica Bongiovanni in the Indianapolis Star. The movie’s creator, Stark Howell, had assigned himself a tall order, the reporter points out – capturing the spirit of the original show without mirroring The movie was meant to appeal to a very targeted audience (fans of the former show and of the Mayberry festivals), and finding ways to be original was going to be the challenge.

Howell himself refers to the film as “almost a period piece without being a period piece,” noting that the message is one for post-COVID, 21st century viewers re-examining their priorities in light of the world of yesterday, where there seemed to have been more generosity along with more pie-eating contests.

From my blog content writer’s point of view, what this film’s creator has achieved is curating without copying, serving up existing material and then offering his own unique insights relative to that material.

“Curated content and duplicate content are NOT the same thing,” explains Kudani.com. “Duplicate content is frowned upon, while curated content is encouraged.” Content curation is going out on to the web, and finding high quality content, and then organizing and streamlining that content in a way that provides an additional level of value to your readers and followers.”

Needless to say, as we teach content writers a at Say It For You, the content being curated must be properly attributed to its original author. Howell hardly pretends to have created the persona of Andy Griffith; he is demonstrating to modern day viewers a way to glean wisdom from that earlier and more innocent environment.

“Remember, the internet is all about sharing,” Kudani reminds readers. I agree, I think of curation as sharing+. As a freelance blog writer, I’ve always known that linking to outside sources is a good tactic for adding breadth and depth to my blog content.  Linking to a news source or magazine article, for instance, adds credibility to the ideas I’m expressing on behalf of Say It For You client companies. What’s more, I tell owners and content writers, when you link to another blog content writer’s comments about the subject you’re covering, that’s a way to reinforce your point, at the same time showing you’re staying in touch with others in your industry.

As the Mayberry Man clearly demonstrates, curation is capturing the spirit of original content without mirroring!’’

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For Finding…Teaching…Leading….Following…Blogging to Praise

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This fall’s issue of Employee Benefit News had the most wonderful section featuring the 13 winners of Excellence in Benefit Awards. Honorees were praised:

  • for finding unexpected resources…
  • for shining a spotlight on top talent…
  • for putting people over profit…
  • for leading and advising with empathy…
  • for teaching, not preaching…
  • for thinking beyond the benefits…
  • for following the facts….

“Highlighting your employees’ achievements is the key to success”, J2, the Montreal-based procurement management company reminds visitors to its website. But small businesses might feel they can’t afford proper employee recognition,  HR & employee engagement company Gethppy.com realizes, offering suggestions for shout-outs, offers of professional development opportunities and non-cash awards..

At Say it For You, we encourage our blogging clients to use their blog as an employee recognition tool. Highlighting employee accomplishments in a blog brings a two-way benefits: When readers learn about an employee’s enthusiasm and how that person put in extra time and effort in serving customers, that tends to cement the customer’s own relationship with the company or practice. As featured employees proudly share those write-ups with friends and family, the blog becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

When you blog, we remind business owners and professional practitioners, you verbalize the positive aspects of your business or practice in a way that people can understand. You put your recent accomplishments down in words. You review the benefits of your products and services and keep them fresh in your mind. In other words, you are constantly providing yourself with training about how to talk effectively about your business.

While you may encourage your own employees to read the blog, not every employee will not be interested in contributing content. In fact, it’s not unusual for some employees see blogging as just one more task making their work load heavier. Everyone likes to be appreciated and thanked, though, and the blog is the perfect place to do just that.

Do you have a team member who should be praised by you to your readers?:

…for finding unexpected resources?
…for finding new and better ways to do things?
…for thinking beyond the basics?
…for leading and advising with empathy?

Think about featuring your team members in your blog!

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Blog Title Questions That Make Them Go “Hmmm…”

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Browsing through the latest issue of Breathe Magazine, I couldn’t help noticing that titles that were in the form of questions were more likely to have me stop turning the pages and start reading the article. I realized that what was giving me pause is wondering of that question applied directly to my own situation.

“Addicted to Work?    Hmmm…am I?
“Are You an Empath?”     Hmmm…am I?
“Are You Playing the Victim?”      Hmmm…is that what I’ve been doing??

The tactic of using questions in titles is one I’ve often suggested to blog content writers. After all, people are online searching for answers to questions they have and solutions for dilemmas they’re facing, and often we can help searchers formulate their questions by presenting one in the blog post title itself. Sometimes the question in the title serves to arouse readers’ curiosity about which side of the issue your opinion is going to represent.

Those Breathe Magazine questions, though, seemed to be taking things to a whole new level, I thought. Sure, in a publication about mental health, readers expect the content to be more “touchy-feely”. But couldn’t that technique of using title questions to make readers stop and examine their own business practices and purchase decisions work for all business owners and professional practitioners, I wondered? Hmmm…

“The purpose of a blog post headline is to convince readers to click on the link, or to scroll down and continue reading the post. A good title grabs attention and compels your target audience to check out what you have to say,” Team Kapost of uplandsoftware.com writes, and “questions create intrigue, serving as an invitation to participate in a conversation”..

Open-ended questions help you create better content, advises Neil Patel. But, before you can successfully convert blog readers into customers, he adds, you have to know what they’re worried about. (Then, as you become aware of their problems, you can have the case studies you need to provide a better experience, Patel explains.)

The specific genius in open-ended questions that make readers go “Hmm” may lie in the fact that one thing people tend to be worried about is – themselves! The blog topic might be plumbing, or hairstyles, or sports equipment, but title questions that force readers to stop and question their own ways, feeling compelled to read what you have to reveal about them – well, those titles can be show-stoppers!.

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