Entries Tagged 'blogging for business' ↓

How many times has someone suggested a marketing idea for your business to which you’ve responded: “But I don’t have time for that.”

It is our favourite excuse, used across the board, outlining our inability to find the time to exercise, socialise, meet up with family members, wash up, tidy a room…the list goes on.

But it’s also one of the feeblest excuses.

If I said to you: “If you want to grow your influence and online visibility, you must start a blog.” And your response was: “I don’t have time,” it would signal to me that you simply can’t be bothered. It would be better to say, “I don’t want to.”

Get your priorities right

If you don’t want to do the stuff you should do, fair enough – it’s your life/business.

But if you want to give it a go because you know it will be good for you or your business, it is very easy to find the time you need.

Think about what you do every day.

How many of those activities are necessary?

You could probably cut out the game of solitaire you play when you think no one’s looking. Perhaps reduce your coffee breaks from 10 to 2 or 3. How about not taking those extra long lunch breaks every day?

My bet is that you would easily be able to find half an hour to an hour extra every day if you cut out the unnecessary ‘tasks’ you burden yourself with.

The way ahead

During your day, write down everything you do and how much time you spend doing it. Be honest, if you have a sneaky game of solitaire, watch a bit of TV or sit down with the paper, write it down.

Then think about what you don’t need to be doing and put that time to something more useful.

If you are going to start a blog, set aside half an hour a day to write one post. That’s enough to get you started.

Before you know it, your days will be more productive, you’ll fall in love with blogging and your business will boom.

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. Follow her on Twitter and Google+

One of the biggest barriers to content marketing faced by many businesses is ideas generation.

Many decide it’s not even worth considering because they don’t feel able to come up with the constant stream of information a content marketing strategy demands.

But it doesn’t have to be difficult to generate ideas; you just have to look at things a bit differently.

How do you go about coming up with content topics at the moment?

Do you just sit at your desk and stare into space hoping for a blinding flash of inspiration to strike?

That might happen now and then, but you can’t rely on that to generate the constant stream of ideas you need.

That’s where Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Quora, LinkedIn and your customers come in to their own.

Want to know more?

Google – the ideas machine

Google can help you in a couple of ways: through Google Suggest and its related searches results.

With Google Suggest, all you have to do is enter your keyword in the Google search box and then wait for Google Suggest to do its magic.

Below you can see that I entered ‘How to train a puppy’ as my keyword and then Google provided a list of alternative popular searches, providing me with a range of topics that I can write about.

As an added bonus, when you search for that keyword, at the bottom of the search engine results page Google then provides you with a further list of related search terms .

So, from one simple action I now have multiple ideas for content generation.

Yahoo! and Quora

I’ve put these two together as they work in fairly similar ways.

Yahoo! answers and Quora provide content marketers with a plethora of information. They are a great place to start your research. Browsing both sites, using your keywords, will throw up all sorts of ideas based on the questions being asked by users.

After all, if people are asking questions it means they are looking for answers, so they are the topics you want to be writing about.

YouTube

YouTube isn’t just a video viewing website, it’s also a great source for content ideas.

It works in a similar way to Google Suggest in so far as you enter your keyword into the search box and then YouTube will list other related searches.

As you can see I’ve used the same keyword as in the Google example, but here YouTube has come up with a different range of suggestions, so now, one keyword has generated several different content ideas.

LinkedIn groups

Are you a member of any LinkedIn groups? If so, you’ve probably seen the emails that are generated when someone poses a question. Again, these questions are a rich source for your content ideas. Use them to write informative articles that you can then post on LinkedIn, your blog and other article sites etc.

Customers

Last, but by no means least, are your customers.

What better source could there be? Talking to them directly, or monitoring their questions (via email and social media) will unearth a rich source of content ideas, giving them the information they want.

Generating ideas for your content marketing strategy is easy. All you have to do is decide on the subject area you want to cover and then do one or more of the above to generate a whole raft of ideas that you can write about.

Do you use any other methods to generate ideas? If so leave a comment below and share them with us, it would be really interesting to get your take on this subject.

Author:

Sally Ormond is MD and head copywriter at Briar Copywriting Ltd.

Blogging is a great tool for marketing your business.

It gives you a platform from which to show your expertise and drive traffic to your website. But that only works if your writing engages with your audience. After all, if you want them to keep coming back for more, you have to create a connection with them.

The way you write will have a big effect on your audience.

1. Conversation

There are a lot of bloggers out there who struggle with the concept that writing in a conversational tone is the most effective way to communicate.

People don’t want to be faced with something cold, corporate and formal – they get enough of that already. They want something that is easy to read.

Writing conversationally is easy – just imagine you’re sitting with a friend and chatting about the subject you want to write about, use every day language and avoid ‘corporatisms’ like ‘innovative, market-leading etc.’

Using short sentences also boosts readability as does using ‘you’ (i.e. writing in the second person), asking questions (builds engagement) and avoiding adjectives and adverbs.

Above all, your personality must shine through.

2. Metaphorically speaking

Metaphors help you get your point across in a way that’s easy for others to understand. If you can liken your product or service to an everyday event, people are more likely to ‘get it’.

They really bring your writing to life.

3. Empathise and inspire

Start your post by empathising with your readers and showing you understand the problem they have. Then go on to share some tips that are easy to implement.

So where does the inspiration come in? Well, at the end of your post make sure you give them an uplifting paragraph that fires them up to follow your example.

4. Be real

No one is perfect (nope, not even you), so although you want to be seen as the market leader, no one is going to believe you got there without making any mistakes along the way.

As you share your information, show your human side by telling your readers the mistakes you made and how you put them right.

5. Show your interest

Last, but not least, it’s important you show your readers you’re interested in them.

Ask for their opinions and comments and when you get them respond to them and start building those all-important relationships.

Above all have fun with your blog, be natural and be conversational. Be wild and start a few sentences with ‘and’, or ‘because’. Be open and honest and share great information – people will flock to you.

Have you tried anything different to boost engagement through your blog?

What has worked for you in the past and what wasn’t so great?

Leave a comment below and let’s chat.

About the author:

Sally Ormond is a copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. She also loves to blog and cycle – but not at the same time.

Are you fed up hearing about the wonders of blogging?

Yes, we all know that it boosts your credibility, visibility and drives traffic to your website, but it’s such hard work constantly coming up with new ideas.

And sometimes it feels as though you’re writing for an empty room because no one shares or comments on your posts.

So what’s the point?

The point is the credibility, visibility and traffic thing mentioned earlier. And if you find you’re not getting any shares or comments it says more about your blog posts than your lack of audience.

Every post you write has to be aimed at your readers and that means writing stuff they want to read about, which probably isn’t going to be what a God awful journey into work you had.

So before you start typing, think carefully about what you’re writing and ask yourself these questions:

1. Does it target my audience?

Every blogger has a niche; their area of expertise. Because every blogger is an expert in their field people are drawn to them to learn and get tips. So is the blog you’re writing related to that niche? Is it answering the questions your audience is asking?

2. Credibility

If you’re using statistics, facts and figures in your post, are you sure they’re right? There’s nothing worse than using incorrect information because some bright spark will notice and shout it from the rooftops, damaging your reputation.

Always check and double check before using them.

3. Is it unique?

Obviously your content will be (won’t it?), but I’m thinking more about the way you write. Even if you have a favourite blogger, the worse thing you can do is try to emulate them.

Your audience want something different, they want to get to know you and that means developing your own style, writing personality and voice. That way your work will stand out and be instantly recognisable.

4. Useful?

Is it, really?

Think carefully about what you’re writing – is it worth reading? Will it add value to your audience? If they find it useful they’ll share it, but if it’s a load of pointless ramblings they may well look elsewhere for the information they need.

5. Simple

When writing your blog (or anything for that matter), always keep your language and sentence structure simple. People don’t want to be faced with complex words and dense swathes of text; they want something that’s quick and easy to read and that’s useful.

6. Shareability

This one really is a combination of everything that I’ve mentioned so far. If you tick all the boxes from 1 – 5 your content will be shared, widening your audience.

7. Your goals?

Although you are primarily writing for your audience, your blogs also have to achieve your own goals.

Whether that’s to drive traffic to your website, build links, promote your name and business etc.

So next time you write a blog post, bear these points in mind and make sure both you and your audience get something out of it.

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd and blogger.

In today’s search driven world it’s a given that you should be blogging.

After all, Google has an insatiable appetite for fresh, quality content so if you want to keep in its good books you have to give it what it wants.

But blogging just for you isn’t going to cut it. Even if you blog religiously you need to widen your reach to be a success and that means guest blogging.

By persuading other bloggers to take your posts you’ll increase your web presence and reinforce your status as an expert in your field. This is especially true if you approach websites that are prominent in your particular industry.

I know what you’re thinking, guest blogging is hard work – that’s true, but if done well it will pay dividends in more ways than you can imagine.

Expose yourself

Please don’t take that literally.

Writing for other people will widen your reach as an expert, as with anything, the more often you’re seen the better. It’s just like adverts – consumers have to be exposed to a brand several times before they are ready to buy. So the more people who see your name (and in the more places it’s seen) the better. It will become lodged in their brain, so when they need your particular service they’ll call you.

Web cred

This is street cred for online marketers.

The chances of you being accepted by a big hitter in your field immediately are slim, so start off with some smaller sites to build a portfolio of guest posts. Then you can approach the big players.

Let’s face it, the bigger the website the more credibility you’ll get.

Incoming!

The beauty of guest blogging, other than getting your name plastered all over the web, is that it will generate valuable inbound links to your website.

Now, admittedly, not all websites will allow you to place self-serving links in the body of your article, but they usually allow an author’s bio that can contain a link back to your website.

Of course the bigger the fish you land, the more kudos the link will give.

Social media

How will guest blogging widen your social media audience?

Simple, just about every blog out there offers social sharing buttons. So when your article is read and loved (as it obviously will) the reader will probably share it through social media. It will then be seen by others, generating more Google+ and Twitter followers for you.

So as you can see, guest blogging isn’t just about getting links. It’s about gaining the right kind of exposure online and in the social world.

It takes a lot of time, but the rewards speak for themselves.

Author:

Sally Ormond is an international copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd