Blog Writing Service

“When it comes to writing a love letter, remember: It’s not a card.  It’s a letter,” cautions Tom Chiarella in a wonderfully sentimental Readers Digest piece.

Sometimes, in corporate blogging training sessions, I find myself issuing a similar caution: " When it comes to blog content writing, remember: It’s not an ad.  It’s a blog.”

As a professional ghostwriter of blogs for business, I’m keenly aware of the fact that when people go online to search for information and click on different blogs or websites, they don’t want to “be sold.” Sure, readers know the providers of the information are out to do business, and that the business owners and professional practitioners sponsoring the blog would like to convert them into clients or customers. But, if the material is valuable and relevant, the readers will stick around, so long as the blog doesn’t come on too strong in its Calls to Action.

Blogs, I explain to newbie freelance blog writers in Indianapolis, are more like advertorials than advertisements.

And, while blogs aren’t love letters, either, a lot of what Tom Chiarella had to say, I found, could be applied to writing for business and can be used by anyone who provides business blogging services.

“First, sit. Letters take time.  Writing takes a while.  Three lines can’t do the work of three paragraphs.” Crafting your message when blogging for business takes time and discipline. A website cannot tell your story completely, nor can it engage your potential and current customers with fresh content in real time. Blogging is more effective than any other medium at communicating your story in a timely manner, spread over time.

“Be loyal to the past you share. Use detail to show what you remember and that you remember.” Blog content writing reveals your story.  Why this business or profession?  How did you get started?  What connects you and your readers?

Remember, it’s not an ad.  It’s not a website page. It’s not a long article.  It’s a blog.

 Never one to “nap” when it comes to corporate blogging training, I’m on the alert for ways to keep blog content writers awake and active. Three visits to websites in the blogosphere’s “bedroom community” sparked some great ideas business owners and professional practitioners can use to keep their SEO marketing blogs energized over long periods of time.

Furniture Today blog
“Bedding is an impulse item,” asserts Jim Green of furnituretoday.com. “When you want one…well…you want one… When the consumer gets the impulse to buy a new mattress, he/she will commonly act upon it quickly.” 

(Here’s the part that relates to blog content writing:) “The best merchants put the message out there on a consistent basis to capture the customer’s attention whenever it arises.”    That’s precisely true in blogging for business. To capture online searchers’ attention “whenever it arises”, it’s crucial for you to maintain frequency and consistency in posting blog content.

American Freight blog
“American Freight Furniture and Mattress is excited to announce that the Lakeland, Florida location has moved to a larger space and expanded its inventory.”  One excellent reason for posting  business blog content is to make announcements of news about the business or practice.

Clarifying ways in which you differ from your competitors is another: “American Freight is a warehouse-style discount furniture story open to the public that specializes in furniture obtain through dealer cancellations, factory closeouts, retain chain buyouts, and wholesale liquidations.” American Freight goes on to explain why that’s good for the customer.  As I often explain to business owners, in writing blog content in Indianapolis, always assume readers are asking themselves, “So what?”

Bedroom Furniture Portland blog
Like American Freight, Bedroom Furniture Portland is making use of their corporate blog to make an announcement: “We finally got our store hours up at the store!  Our hours for those who want to stop by and visit are by appointment Tuesday, Wednesday – Friday 10-5, Saturday 12-5, Sunday 12-5, closed Mondays.”

In another post, the bedroomfurnitureportland blog features a testimonial. “With just a few emails and phone calls, Susan was able to answer all my questions…In a couple of weeks after placing my order, the furniture came and I was completely satisfied with the quality and detail of the items.”   Customer success stories and testimonials like this one boost the credibility of your business with new prospects.  At the same time, I explain to Say It for You freelance blog writers who create content for clients, the process of providing a  testimonial reinforces the relationship that client already has with the business or practice.

You may not be selling mattresses, but, whatever the products or services you provide, always imagine that when online searchers want one…well…they want one. 

Will your business blog content be there to tell them you’re there, ready to satisfy their wants?

“Did you know that…?” can be four winning words when starting a conversation – or beginning a business blog post. 

After all, when a business owner (or a professional ghost blogger writing on her behalf) shares a little-known fact about an everyday thing, not only does that showcase the business owner’s expertise, it can bridge gaps and break down barriers. 
 

Why? Tidbits are “neutral ground”, and readers tend to drop their resistance and their fear of “being sold”.

In corporate blogging training sessions, I encourage Indianapolis blog writers to use etymology, (the history of words), to offer interesting information relating to their industry. A florist, for example, could take a tip from Richard Lederer’s piece in the Mensa Bulletin about the anthology of flowery words.

As a homeowner, for example, I’ve looked upon dandelions as weeds. Still, I was fascinated to learn (there’s the “Did you know that…” effect again) the English used to call the yellow, shaggy plant a “lion’s tooth” because of its jagged, pointy leaves.  The French translated “lion’s tooth” into “dent-de-lion”, which, said with an English accent, becomes “dandelion”!

Internet vocabulary has evolved with such speed, its etymology is on steroids. One tidbit I’m fond of sharing with Say It For You clients is (did you know that…?) before the term “web log” became “blog”, writers would refer to their work as “zines”? Today, there are kittyblogs, anonoblogs (anonymous), miliblogs (military), kittyblogs (about cats), and even splogs (spam blogs).

Etymology impacts SEO marketing blogs in more ways than one. As an Indiana blogger working to help clients "win search", I realize that not only may online readers not know the name of my clients’ business, they may not even know the correct terminology for the product or the specialized service they need! All those readers can do is describe the desired result, or resort to “kadigans” such as thing-a-ma-bob or whatchamacallit.

Business blog content writers can anticipate that very problem, working from back (the history and etymology of business terms) to front (the end results that buyers can anticipate).
 

Super Bowl Ad Tracker calls it “an ode to the significance of manufacturing”, referring to GE’s commercial, set in a New York pub, in which a worker proudly exclaims, “We make the power that makes the beer.”

I liked the piece, too, and for some of the same reasons Ad Tracker mentions. For one thing, as a professional ghost blogger, I can see a number of parallels between creating that kind of engaging TV spot and corporate blog writing.

“The nod”:
Included in the GE “ode”, there’s a “nod”, notes Dale Buss of Ad Tracker, meaning a nod to Bud Light, official beer of the NFL. In similar vein, blog content writing verbalizes the positive aspects of a business.  Unlike traditional advertising copy, though, blogs take a softer, more “advertorial” approach, with just a “nod” towards the business’ recent accomplishment and its products and services.

Heartstring pulling:
Unlike just about every other major Super Bowl advertiser Buss explains, GE didn’t plan to use humor, but “to pull at our heartstrings instead”. That same idea is expressed by mRelevance, who see blog content writing as a chance for business owners to be real humans, not hiding “behind a slick corporate website”.

In fact, before providing business blogging assistance to any new Say It For You client, I always perform a “reality check” in the form of the following question: “If you had only 8-10 words to describe why you’re passionate about what you do, what you know, and what you sell – what would those words be?”

“Our goal with the ads was to show the pride and passion GE employees have for the products they make,” GE’s spokesperson shared with brandchannel. As blog content writers soon learn, one very important reason behind writing for business is to express that pride and passion is real time.

What about SEO marketing through blogs? Unlike giant GE, who could count of millions of Super Bowl viewers being there to discover their message, local business owners depend on blog content writers in Indianapolis to help them win search.

In the TopRank online marketing blog, Lee Olden summarizes the results of a recent survey of business owners for whom blogs are part of their search engine optimization efforts.

• 87% successfully increased SEO as a direct result of blogging.
• 54% began to see SEO benefits from blogging earlier than expected (0-3 months).

Still, as I caution in corporate blogging training sessions, blogs are not magical, guaranteed search engine ranking magnets. In fact, blog content writing should be considered just one element in an overall traditional/online marketing strategy.  In an Indianapolis pub or networking meeting, we corporate blog writers might borrow a boast from that GE worker: 

We make the power that makes the online marketing strategy!
 

A common refrain they hear from their Australian dentist advisees, Dental Web Strategies admits - It’s really hard to find enough time to blog on a regular basis.

At Say It For You, we know. Business blog writing is hard work.  It seems everyone acknowledges the important role SEO marketing blogs play, but in the real world, 80% of business blogs end up neglected or even totally abandoned. 

Actually, most business owners can think of quite a number of things they want to tell the world about their products, their professional services, and their customer service efforts.  Somehow, in the execution stage, though, inspiration appears to run dry;  the need for business blogging assistance becomes all too apparent.

Dental Web’s suggestion is one that business owner bloggers and professionals blogging to promote their practices need to hear: Answer a common question.   This is so easy, says Dental Web, “your dental assistant could do it in her sleep”. The question might be one dental patients really ask on a regular basis, they add, or “something you find yourself explaining anyway”.

Common explanations make for easy-to-access content, Dental Web emphasizes to its dentist members. Since dental assistants hear the doctors using that content all the time with patients, they can repeat it verbatim.

A related suggestion for “solving the content crisis” comes from Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott.  Baggott, however, suggests “mining” emails sent to customers and newsletter material as fodder for blog content writing. Email, he observes, tends to live in a different “silo” from blogs, so that much wonderful content created by company employees goes forever unindexed by search engines.

Over my years as a professional ghost blogger, I’ve found that business owners and professionals have many stories to tell.  They want to – and need to – share the benefits of their products and services, the history of their business and their own journey, news of importance to customers, how-to information, and their own perspective on trends in their field. Lack of running out of content ideas may be their biggest fear, but it’s actually lack of time that sabotages so many business blogging efforts. That’s precisely the point at which freelance content writers can come to the rescue of all that wonderful content “hiding” in emails, newsletters – and owners’ and dental assistants’ minds! 
 

It’s gotten to be a habit of mine - I read signs. We Indianapolis blog content writers can learn a lot from signs, I’m convinced - from how to go about engaging people’s interest, to how to fairly represent a business owner’s or professional’s mission.

One day, driving south on Meridian, I noticed a sign out in front of the Indiana Blood Center. Its message was short and sweet:

                        ”Craving cookies?  Come on in!”

Well, I’ll tell you, I’m a professional ghost blogger, and I offer business blogging training, and… for the rest of that day, I just couldn’t get the message from that sign out of my mind.

First off, the way SEO marketing blogs work was perfectly captured in the two very short sentences on the Indiana Blood Bank sign:

Through the search engine optimization process, potential customers search online for a product or service they’re interested in. Because you have a “sign” outside (the keyword phrases you’ve used in your frequently posted blog content), the search engine has “delivered” those potential buyers to your “digital doorstep”.

They’ve got the “craving”; you’ve got the “cookies”.

 You invite those customers to “come on in” by clicking on the link to your blog post.

Another good thing about that sign is the “bonus”, meaning the cookies. Jimmy Brown writes in incomeondemand.org that offering a bonus that’s both desirable to customers and easy to deliver gets prospects excited and increases the likelihood they’ll take action by buying your product or service. The Indiana Blood Bank is doing exactly that – using an incentive to get extra “sales” (blood donations).

But, arresting as the message was, and, as much as I like cookies, there’s something I didn’t at all like about the “deal”. You see, the Indiana Blood Center sign was doing something that I caution freelance blog writers to avoid – pulling a “bait and switch”.

Remember, the first thing online readers will see on your blog is its title, and largely based on that title, those searchers will decide whether to “come on in” and read your blog content. The title carries an implied promise that “what you see is what you’ll get”. In other words, in corporate blogging for business, the post needs to deliver on the promise in its title. Not that donating blood isn’t a noble cause, but no fair inviting me in on the basis of my craving for cookies, leaving out that I will first need to have my blood drawn!

If ever the Indiana Blood Center asks for Say It For You’s business blogging assistance, I plan to suggest the sign be changed to read, “Raise your sleeve if you crave cookies!”

Zipping points, according to witty public radio host Michael Feldman, are over-used phrases he believes should be kept inside our heads and never allowed to escape our lips – or pens!

Feldman’s warning certainly applies to business blog content writing.  Sure, in Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I urge freelance blog content writers to use a less formal and more conversational tone.  But, pu-leeze, I’ll now add, make the Feldman “no-no” list your own, avoiding once-popular expressions such as “going forward’, “operationalizing”, and “low-hanging fruit”.

(Readers, you're invited to comment by sharing your own 'no-no" list of trite expressions!)

Lists have always been basics in SEO marketing bloggers’ tool kit, but they’ve been lists of keyword phrases and of categories. Now, having laughed my way through Feldman’s bathroom reader “What D’Ya Know?”, I plan to refer to two lists in my work as a professional ghost blogger: 

1. Keyword Phrases
2. Zipping Points

What that means is that never again, in my writing for business owners or professional practitioners, will I refer to “ramping up”, “outsourcing”, “getting your game on”, or “knowledge acquisition”, much less “manage expectations”, or “prioritize”.  No longer will I describe any Say It For You client’s product or service as a “game-changer”.

Mr. Feldman, I can tell you your list is going to be of great business blogging help. My professional ghost blogger mouth and pen (keyboard?) are “zipped up”, you will be happy to know!

“Viable, changing content becomes the engine that powers your website,” cautions friend and fellow blogger Phil Steele. A professional blog content writer like myself, Steele urges business owners who lose enthusiasm at any point to recruit someone “who can keep things afloat for you.”

One very useful pointer in the Steele blog post “A Ferrari Without an Engine” concerns objectivity.  “Too many business blogs serve as extended advertisements,” he warns, suggesting business blog writing would be better aimed at taking a bird’s-eye view of one’s industry, and only then relating back to one’s own business.

I find that advice particularly appropriate for my Say It For You clients who are professional practitioners.  Offering an industry bird’s-eye view is a good idea in all blogging for business, of course, but it’s especially important for doctors, accountants, lawyers, life coaches, and others offering personal services to use blog content writing to make three things very clear:

• their specialty or niche within their field
• their special “philosophy” about their area of practice
• their unique approach to providing client services

In marketing lingo, “dripping” means sending out a series of small messages, usually through email, to customers or prospects over time. Radio advertising, in which the idea is to hit as many people as possible, as many times as possible, is a form of drip marketing, because most listeners need to hear something several times before they act.  Freelance blog writers can help business owners and professional practitioners employ a similar technique through their inbound marketing campaigns in the form of blogging.

The industry overview Steele talks about, you know, taking a bird’s eye view of one’s professional field or industry, then relating back to one’s own business? That can be one tall order to fill on a single web page - or ten web pages, for that matter. Corporate blog writing is a much better tool for the job.

Viable, changing content is what’s needed to convey objectivity.  And, remember, objectivity is an object in blogging for business!

When things aren’t going right in business, the natural tendency is to point fingers away from oneself – whatever’s wrong, it’s the fault of that guy or gal over there, that other department, or that other manager.” says Bill Jeffries, President & CEO of Executive Strategies International.

That’s why, in working with employees to develop high-performing teams, Jeffries insists the “senders”, (aka the blamers) come along to the sessions with their “send-ees”. Similarly, in the Israeli Defense Forces, an officer is always expected to lead from the front. The famous cry of the officer is "aharai!" (follow me).

Does all this have anything to do with providing business blogging assistance? I really think so. It doesn’t matter, in my book, whether business owners or professional practitioners are doing their own blog posting or hiring professional ghost bloggers like me to help. The blog’s message might be well-thought out, or it might even be unintentional. Either way, wherever there’s a blog, that blog is conveying the values and beliefs of the owners.  You might say blog content writing is one way of inviting online readers to “come on in” and become part of the process of bringing those values to life.

The business owner offering advice through blogging for business is, in a way, the sender. (He or she’s giving advice, issuing Calls to Action, and “driving” traffic to the website, basically assuming a leadership role.  The online reader searching for information, products, and services is the send-ee in the typical corporate blog writing scenario.

Thing is, the cry of the blogger had better be “aharai!” (the cry of leading from the front), not the cry of either salesperson or movie director. In a blog offering information about health products or services, it needs to be obvious the content writer is a believer in and user of those very products and services. What reader can be engaged in advice about stock trading when the advisor has all her money in CD’s? In corporate blogging training sessions, I stress sincerity and passion over facts and figures when it comes to SEO marketing blogs.

Freelance blog writers in Indianapolis – how many ways can you say “Follow me!”?

Blog content writers can take a tip from friend and fellow blogger Susan Young of Aimfire Marketing. When we’re delivering information to online visitors through blog content writing, we should pay attention to three of the cautions Young issues about sending press releases.
 

• Include the most important information up front, (so the reporter/producer knows the overview of the story before going into the details).

Remember, the reason online searcher find your SEO marketing blog site in the first place is that what you provide matched up with whatever need or want those searchers typed into the search bar! Those readers need confirmation that they’ve come to exactly the right place to fulfill their needs and wishes – and they need to know that right off the bat!
 

• Stick to the main idea; don’t include too much information in your release or pitch.

When it comes to business blog writing, I explain to business owners for whom I'm providing blog writing services, minimalism means focus.  Presenting, then illustrating, a single concept, leaving the rest for another day, is the very essence of effective blog post creation.
 

• Research your targeted publications to ensure they’re a good fit for your story.

To be an effective marketing tool for your business, your blog must to be the result of a well-planned strategy aimed at a specific segment of the market.  Never try to appeal to  everybody – talk to the ones most likely to be reading what you have to say.

Breaking media etiquette rules may get your pitch deleted or ignored, Young points out.  As all good freelance blog content writers know, failing to engage online visitors upfront, including too many ideas in one blog post, and not knowing your audience’s needs will get you “bounced” in a big way!

Stopped at a light on my way to provide business blogging help to a Say It For You client, I had just enough time to read some rather arresting billboard content.  This health service provider’s “ad” was really a mission statement.  IU Health pledged:

• To be driven by excellence
   
• To handle any challenge
   
• To never slow down
   
• To always stay in front

That billboard, I realized, illustrates a truth that everyone doing business blog writing -  and everyone providing business blogging assistance, needs to keep in mind:  The way I state that truth is “Your brand ‘r you in your blog”.

What I mean is that blog content writing is about a whole lot more than what you do, what you know, and the stuff or services you sell. It’s really about who you are, and about what you pledge – to yourself, and to the clients and customers you serve.

In fact, as an important part of my process in clarifying the message that a business owner or professional practitioners wants to convey through blog content writing, I challenge each of them to answer the following question:

If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you’re passionate
about what you do, what would those words be?

Having seen that IU Health billboard, I realize there’s another way to provoke the sort of introspection that gives rise to compelling, highly personal blog content writing – a sort of fill-in-the-pledge exercise:

• By what are you driven?
   
• Why must you never slow down in your quest for excellence in what you do?
   
• Why, in your field, is it important to “stay in front”?

And, whether a business owner or practitioner is doing the blog writing or collaborating with a professional ghost blogger partner such as Say It For You, the blog is an embodiment of a brand – and of a mission!

An “ice page”, I learned, is a web page on which the primary content has a fixed width, usually set to the left side of the window. (More flexible settings are called “jello” or “liquid”.)

Interesting. Since I train blog content writers in Indianapolis, I immediately realized that “ice” in blog writing can be a time-saving device.  After all, the primary excuse business owners use to explain why their corporate blogs have fallen into a state of disrepair (or been outright abandoned) is lack of time.

While up until a few days ago I wasn’t familiar with the term “ice page”, I am familiar with the general concept.  In fact, when company owners or professional practitioners (or the professional ghost bloggers they’ve employed to help them) express doubts about their ability to keep generating new blog content over extended periods of time, I have been introducing them to an “ice” concept which I call the leitmotif.

Effective blog posts for any company, professional practice, or organization can be planned around key themes.  (Leitmotifs are the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony, for example.) Those themes, like “ice pages”, are fixed ideas that form the basis for blog posts.  But around those pieces of “ice”, blogging for business means filling in new details, examples, and illustrations (the “jello” and “liquid” elements that bring variety and freshness to individual posts).

That’s why, at Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, our discussions are not about ways to continually find brand-new ideas, but on building “e.g.’s” and i.e.’s around the business’ or the practice’s core themes.

A teacher for many years, I know that every lesson needs to be offered in a variety of formats, because students have different learning styles.  Blog writing services need to incorporate the same principle – the basic messages remain the same, but since online readers have different tastes and needs and learning styles, SEO marketing blogs must offer a variety of styles and material. 

With well-defined “ice” content as the core around which that “jello” is created, that otherwise formidable task becomes a whole lot easier for blog content writers!

Years ago, at a National Speakers Association meeting, I remember being taught to create a “one-sentence speech”. 

The idea was that anyone who’d been in the audience should come away being able to summarize in one line what I’d said; otherwise, my speech would not have been well-constructed.  Today, as a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer in Indianapolis, I apply that same “one-sentence” rule to business blog writing.

A second step, useful in both speech preparation and blogging for business, is to apply the Rule of Three.  I first heard of the Rule of Three at Toastmasters, but came across it again today in a SpeakingResource blog post. With each blog post focused on one main idea, freelance blog writers would use three points to illustrate and to expand on that idea.

Daniel Janssen of Speaking Resources suggests one possible arrangement:
 
1. An anecdote
2. Some statistics or facts
3. A personal experience

Blog content writers for a professional practice, for example, might describe three benefits readers could derive by availing themselves of that practitioner’s services.

Or in blogging for a business that sells three different versions of a given product, each of the three paragraphs might describe which situation would be best matched with each version of the product, (A company that sells a hair product with different formulas for curly hair, frizzy, or fine hair, for example, might devote a paragraph to each type).

The same concept holds true for Sapeurs in the Congo, who “wear designer clothes and serve as ambassadors for moral conduct, proper etiquette and peace” and who have very strict fashion rules, including a dictate that the perfect ensemble may contain no more than three colors.
 

From fashion to speechifying to corporate blogging – stick to the One-Sentence Speech and the Rule of Three!

Long before corporate blog writing became the centerpiece for conveying a business’ message to potential customers, none other than poet Walt Whitman understood the importance of connectivity in SEO marketing blogs.

“To have great poets,” Whitman asserted, “there must be great audiences, too.”

As I consistently stress when offering business blogging assistance, blog are not only for reading, but for acting, reacting, and interacting. In other words, in the world of corporate blog writing, it’s not enough to be a “poet”.  You have to have readers.  “Your personal brand visibility is made up of your search engine ranking and how many eyeballs physically see your content each day,” explains Chad Levitt (quoted on P. 150 of Branding Yourself).

Great audiences, though, must bring more than just their eyeballs to our clients’ websites, as we Indianapolis freelance bloggers know, and being “influential” online means a whole lot more than being found.  Blogging for business has to mean business, which means “having the ability to push your followers and friends to action”, as Levitt explains, and that action needs to be in accordance with the business’ personal branding plan.

There’s more than one reason for using the blog writing process to build great readership:

Backlinks – The more links pointing back to a blog, the more importance search engines will attribute to that blog.  “Blogging is about community.  Don’t expect people to read your blog if you aren’t reading and commenting on theirs,” tweets @Justheather.  So right – leaving comments on other people’s blogs and writing about those other people will, sooner or later, Heather suggests, get them to write to and about you.

Richer content – The lesson I try hardest to impart in corporate blogging training sessions is: “The more you know, the more you can blog about”.  Business content writing in blogs is the result of a lots of reading and listening on the part of the blogger.

Decades ago, poet Walt Whitman knew that a key element in effective poetry writing was the cultivation of great audiences to enjoy that poetry.  The right kind of readers – (those with an interest in your topic who value your products and services and are willing to pay for them), are the “great blog audiences” every business owner and professional practitioner wants to attract!

“If they’re in your session, they’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid,” explained well-known humor speaker and coach Bill Stainton at our most recent National Speakers Association of Indiana meeting.  Stainton was offering a tip to conference “breakout session” speakers, but he might well have been coaching content writers in Indianapolis.

Conference attendees who choose to attend sessions titled “Better Employee Relations”, “Applying the New Federal Regs on Manufacturing”, or “Orange Growing in Your Own Back Yard”, for example, already have an interest in one of those topics. The point Stainton was emphasizing to us speakers is that in such a situation, long introductory remarks are superfluous;  the session leader needs to get to the heart of the matter straight away.

As a professional ghost blogger for business owners and professional practitioners, I realized that breakout sessions at a conference are an almost exact parallel with corporate blogs. If readers have arrived at your business blog, it’s because they already have an interest in your topic – they’ve already “drunk the Kool-Aid”, and are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer. It’s now up to you to assure those visitors, through the words and pictures in your business blog content, that they’ve come to precisely the right place to get what they’re after.

In any talk, not only a breakout session but even a keynote address, Stainton explained, the first five minutes must be indicative of what the audience can expect. What will be the format and presentation style (humorous/ serious, questions welcomed/questions held to the end?) and “stance” (problem-solving/ informational/motivational?). The audience will go along with any number of different approaches, but they want to know “the deal”, meaning what they should expect.

When I’m offering corporate blogging training sessions to business owners and their employees, or talking to freelance blog writers, I’m telling them the same thing.  It’s just that a couple of seconds, not five minutes, describes the “window” of time blog content writers have to “get indicative” and capture readers’ attention.

Yes, online readers who arrive at your business blog may have already tasted the Kool-Aid and apparently are interested in more of it.  Your task is to keep them engaged with valuable, personal, and relevant information, beginning with the “downbeat”,(which is my term for the first sentence of each post).

Yes, those visitors are drinking Kool-Aid, and the only question remaining is – will they be drinking your brand?

Realtors quoted in the Indianapolis Star and New York Times reporter Matt Richtel each offer advice to consumers that I think all Indianapolis blog content writers should heed:

“Curb appeal,” report the realtors, “is critical to attracting the public.  If prospective buyers don’t love it from the curb, they won’t even schedule an appointment.”

In blogging for business, curb appeal starts with the title of your blog. Even if the search engines have delivered readers to your link (on page 1 of Google, for instance) the title must be appealing to readers, and, ideally, short enough to be shared on social media sites. In fact, having engaging titles in SEO marketing blogs is the equivalent of applying fresh paint and new handles to the front doors of a house you want to sell.

The New York Times article, on the other hand, is reporting on cars.  The increasingly complicated “infotainment” systems on the dashboards in cars distract drivers and cause accidents, federal traffic agencies are beginning to realize. .

For business owners, distractions are plentiful, and many a blog, begun with the best of intentions, ends up neglected or with the effort totally abandoned. With SEO marketing blogging on the rise, more and more business owners and professional practitioners are running out of time and hiring freelance blog content writers to take up the slack.

Those providing business blogging services, on the other hand, need to avoid distractions on the blog page itself.  Anything that takes readers’ attention “off the road”, away from the message and the Call to Action is distracting.  Overdoing the visuals with complex charts, graphs, and diagrams, even too much Flash technology on a blog page can divert attention away from the core message of the blog.

Focused blog content writing for any business or practice adds curb appeal and avoids distractions.  Remember, business owners want online visitors coming past the “curb” and into their website.  We writers want those readers keeping their eyes on the road to all the valuable information, products, and services business owners and practitioners are eager to provide!

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“All bloggers would like to get more interaction and participation from their readers and visitors,” says vandelaydesign.com.  (As a blog content writer and corporate blogger trainer in Indianapolis, I found nothing new in that observation.)

Imagine my delight, though, to learn that, aside from the obvious conclusion that engaging readers through our business blog writing helps increase the response to our Calls to Action, we freelance blog writers may be helping protect against dementia in seniors!

Getting social, according to a 15-year study of older people in Sweden, may prevent dementia by providing emotional and mental stimulation. Subjects in a University of Michigan study did better on tests of short-term memory after just ten minutes of conversation with another person.

What are some of the ways Indianapolis blog writers can encourage more interactivity through our corporate blog writing?

Vandelaydesign.com advises displaying the most recent comments in the sidebar of your blog. In corporate blogging training sessions, I go one better by advising blog content writers to periodically compose an entire blog post around a question posed by a reader.

Two other Vandelaydesign suggestions include putting a link on your blogsite that says “email to a friend” and adding a “share on Facebook” link.

Two tactics I often incorporate into my Say It For You blog writing services include using “tests” and surveys to engage readers and help them feel they are part of a conversation with my business owner clients.

Engaging in conversation can provide mental stimulation for people of all ages. It’s nice to know, though, that memorable business blogs can help improve customers’ memory!

“When journalists write pieces, they write so a person can look at the headline and say ‘Wow, that looks interesting.’ When somebody reads a retirement document, you want them to say, ‘Wow, I learned something today.’” 

Employee benefit advisers say their biggest challenge is overcoming the apathy that many employees have toward saving for their retirement, and that the secret is in the way the message gets presented.

In “Using Blogs to Educate your Stakeholders,” Kat Liendgens says that same thing applies to corporate blogging for business. When you make sure, in your business blog, to educate your users not only about new features and products, but about the benefits of those products and features, she explains, you’re ensuring continued buy-in.

“Wow-that-looks-interesting” headlines that stoke curiosity constitute tactic #1 in freelance blog writers’ anti-apathy strategy.  “Gappers”, according to advertising maven Michel Fortin, are headlines that make readers want to close the gap between the problem named in the headline and the solution. (I’ve used a variety of that tactic in this Say It For You post by posing a question.)

When it comes to creating “wow-I-learned-something-today” content, as a corporate blogging trainer, my mantra is a simple one:

“The more you know about, the more you can blog about.”

 In other words, in order for us freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis to deliver high-quality website materials, articles, and corporate blogs, we simply must keep educating ourselves, reading everything from newspapers and magazines to billboards and advertisements, and listening to everything from TV and radio shows to casual conversations.

Blogging for business, I repeat, is a matter of enriching ourselves so that our content can be richer.  Anyone providing business blogging services should be able to state “Wow! I learned something today!” - every day!
 

My Say It For You business blog writing advice pieces this week were all triggered by items in the latest copy of Scientific American Mind magazine.  One corner of one page features only a headline, which was taken from a CNNHealth story:

“Insomnia costs U.S. $63 billion annually in lost productivity”
 

Citing startling statistics like this one is, without doubt, one tactic blog content writers can use to capture readers’ attention.  But my experience as a ghost blogger for business – and as a corporate blogging trainer – has shown me that statistics, even the startling sort, aren’t enough to create positive results for any SEO marketing blog.

Why not?  The fact that a serious problem exists (even if the searcher suffers from that very problem) is not enough to make most readers take action. And in the final analysis, of course, the success of any blog marketing effort depends on that action. As Health.com puts it, “People who have trouble sleeping rarely see their problem as an illness that requires treatment.”

True, as I stress in corporate blogging training sessions, blog content writing has one enormous advantage over traditional “push marketing” tactics. What blogging does best is deliver to corporate blog sites customers who are already interested in the product or service they’re providing!

While it may not in itself galvanize customers into action, including “startling statistics” in corporate blog writing can serve several functions:
 

• Assuring readers they are hardly “alone” in their need for solutions to their medical, financial, or personal challenges
   
• Assuring readers they’ve come to the right place for help, and that this blog content is being offered by a business or professional practice that knows the field and is “up” on recent developments in it.

Once that basic connection has been established through the attention-commanding statistic, the blog content writing can focus on creating the emotional connection with the reader.  At Say It For You, in fact, we believe that more intense connection is what blog writing services should be all about!

 If you’re not sure, in doing corporate blogging for business, which content is best placed at the beginning of your blog post, you might consult researchers in Israel.

In the course of a study of Israeli rulings on convicts’ parole requests, scientists discovered there were more parole approvals at the beginning of a session than at later points in the day.  They attributed the difference to the breakfast or snack the judge ate just before starting!

From my vantage point as a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, my conclusion about these research results is simple: We blog content writers need to pay attention to them.

The author of the Scientific American Mind article explains: “Judges often organize their cases according to the time they are likely to require. Shorter cases are often dealt with first, to allow busy prosecutors and defense attorneys… to leave court and get on with the rest of their day.”

In offering business blogging help, I’d offer the same sort of advice, and for the same reason.  Online searchers want to “get on with the rest of their day”. When it comes to SEO marketing blogs, business owners and those doing corporate blog writing for them must heed Peter Guber’s advice: “Capture your audience’s attention first, fast, and foremost.”

While those providing business blogging services need to create valuable content throughout each post, it’s important to place key information, including Calls to Action, in the opening paragraph. It appears that “right after breakfast” (meaning right after the blog’s opening lines) might be the best time for customers to make your cash register ring!