Ghost Blogger

I plan to use the State Farm goodneighborEXTRA e-newsletter I received the other day as a positive example to blog writers.  And, while of course a newsletter covers more topics than should be shouldered in any one blog post, there were several aspects of this particular newsletter issue worth emulating in SEO marketing blogs.

When providing business blogging assistance, one piece of advice I often give is to provide valuable, put-into-practice-right-away information to readers. Interestingly enough, that very piece of advice is the one that encounters the most resistance from business owners thinking of starting a blog. Owners of personal service businesses, in particular, voice fears of giving away valuable information “for free”. What happens in the real world, though, is quite the opposite.  Business owners can use corporate blogging for business to position themselves as “go to” people in their field.

Freelance blog writers may want to use only one main piece of advice in each post, but the State Farm newsletter included no fewer than six different advice articles:

• Trouble-Proof Your Roof
• What To Do With a Windfall
• Reversing the Dropout Rate
• Watch for Animal Crossings This Fall
• Make Your Home Workshop Safer
• 3 Steps to Winterize Your Home

The State Farm newsletter editors apparently agree with my advice to those providing business blogging services:  Include Calls to Action in each post. With the click of the mouse, readers could register for the StateFarm Nation Rewards program, email their agent (Jim Guffey is my own longtime agent), or visit him online.

When it comes to corporate blog writing, I teach indianapolis blog writers to make the “ask”  in the form of a CTA, inviting readers to add a product to their shopping cart, download something, request information, subscribe to the blog or newsletter, or register a “Like” on Facebook. Remember, what we’re discussing here is corporate blogging for business!

“Hoosiers can have exotic animals, but a state permit or USDA license is required,” explains reporter Mary Beth Schneider in the Indianapolis Star.  Indiana blog writers don’t need licenses, but there are some basic rules I’ve found I should emphasize in offering business blogging assistance.

Rule #1 for blog content writers should be the (admittedly subjective) Rule of Good Taste. While the tone of blog posts can (and should) be more conversational and less formal than the tone of your website or company brochure, it’s better not to risk offending the fussiest of readers by using poor grammar or just plain bad language. Claims about the company’s products and services should come across as reasonable and provable, with the use of “special effects’ technology kept in modest proportion.

One lesson I've learned as a professional ghost blogger comes from the fashion world, where understated style tends to create a better overall impression .  Yes, in business blog writing you can go “a little wild and exotic” in terms of  showing your uniqueness within your field, but accomplishing that within the bounds of good taste is always a good idea.

Rule #2 for freelance blog writers is to always stick to “white hat” techniques in the effort to “win search”. While SEO marketing blogs are meant to improve visibility, attract more online traffic to the website, and generate sales, above-board blog content writing is above all relevant, providing the sort of on-topic, useful information that searchers need. At the extreme, “Black hat” techniques such as link manipulation can result in getting a client website banned (by a search engine) from search results altogether. On the other hand, explains Wikipedia, “SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, …and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience.”. 

Rule #3, I stress in corporate blogging training sessions, is simply the Rule of Good Writing.  Following Kurt Vonnegut’s advice “Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or enhance the action”, I tell Indianapolis blog writers ton keep the content compelling by leaving no doubt in readers’ minds how much you care – about your industry, your products, and your customers. Clarity and focus lend power and strength to the material, while variety in adjectives and sentence structure keep posts interesting.

“State Lets You Go a Little Wild – But There Are Rules,” reads the headline of Mary Beth Schneider’s article about exotic animals.  Corporate blogging for business, I might add, works the same way!

For me, playing with words isn’t confined to providing blog writing services. I love word puzzles of all kinds.

The best website content and the best blogs (yes, even the best SEO marketing blogs) give readers insight into a company’s core beliefs in addition to information about products and services that company offers. That’s why, earlier this week, I pointed to the annual report of charitable organization Art With a Heart, where the “What we do” page uses just one-sentence to tell readers what they do, a devoting the rest of the page to “What we believe.”

When I offer corporate blogging training sessions, I try to make sure, especially when it comes to  “newbies” to corporate blog writing, they understand the importance of conveying business owners’ core beliefs through their blogs.

In general, blogging can help achieve quite a number of goals:

• Building good will
• Staying in touch with existing customers and clients
• Defining
• Announcing changes in products and services
• Controlling damage when it comes to negative PR or complaints
• Recruiting employees

Of all these goals served by writing for business, though, the most important might be ”humanizing”.  Existing customers need their trust reinforced. Online searchers need to come away with the impression they will be dealing with real, likeable people, not just with ”a company”.

After years of providing business blogging assistance, I’ve come to realize that, where the business owner is doing his or her own writing, or whether they’re collaborating with  professional blog content writers, the end result has to express the brand in terms of the people behind the brand.

Barbra Streisand touched on this idea when she sang “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” Online blog readers need people.  Potential customers need people. Best blogging results happen when writing for business is by people, about people, and for people!

What blogging is about is business people defining and articulating what makes them human!

The 2009 annual report for the Indianapolis charity Art With a Heart is set up to resemble a children’s book.  The content of the report itself could serve as a wonderful model for the most adult among Indianapolis bloggers.

As a professional ghost blogger who trains blog content writers, I was fascinated by the Art With a Heart “What we do” page.  There are two sections on the page. The “We are…” section is one sentence long; the “We believe…” section contains seven short, powerful paragraphs.

Unfortunately, I realized, almost all SEO marketing blogs appear to use a ratio that is the exact opposite, with the majority of the corporate blog writing devoted to describing “what we do”, in other words, to describing all the services and products the company or organization offers. Too little space seems to be devoted to “what we believe”.

When I'm offering business blogging assistance, I emphasize that the best website content – and the best corporate blogs – give online readers a feel for the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs about their industry and the way they want to serve their customers.  Those intangibles are precisely what makes a company stand out from its competitors.  Those “we believe” statements can turn out to be the business’ most powerful calls to action.

There are many details in the projects and programs offered by Art With a Heart, yet their annual report manages to express them all in one statement:

“We are encouraging Indianapolis youth through success in art.”

I’d ask business owners and the freelance blog writers who tell their stories  - Can you find the one statement that expresses the core of what the business brings to the world?

Now, (I add in corporate blogging training sessions), tell me what you BELIEVE!

By the way, here are a few of the things Art With a Heart believes:

…that we can positively affect some of the city’s neediest children emotionally, intellectually, and creatively.

…that the processes used in creating art, such as planning, problem-solving, analysis, synthesis, and self-evaluation, will be used again and again by our students throughout their education.

…that the success and pride in accomplishment these students experience will develop into a desire to enhance their own surroundings…

Indianapolis blog writers composing content for businesses might challenge the premise of this Say It For You blog post.  After all, Art With a Heart is a charitable organization. Can this core-beliefs-over-core-products-and-services emphasis really be as appropriate and effective when the content is about a for-profit business, with the goal being not only to win hearts, but to make the cash register ring?

Give me your thoughts.....

A great opener with a lame last line is.., well, lame. Sure, it’s super-important in blogging for business to have great titles and strong, curiosity-stirring openers, but as I teach in corporate blogging training sessions, you’ve got to “close your parentheses” (Uh, oh – shades of my undergrad degree in English Ed.!).

In this Wednesday’s Say It For You blog, I cited blogger Graham Jones’ opener as a great example of a bandleader-type “downbeat” of an opening line. “Search engines are after one thing…” Jones’ post begins, discussing ways to improve search engine rankings.

Unfortunately, as a professional offering business blogging assistance, I have to give Jones a “C” for the ending of the post.  By my lights, at least, Jones offers well-written, valuable, and interesting information, only to let the reader down at the end. The blog post sort of “tapers off” without a catchy ending line to sum up and emphasize the content. 

The Seth Godin piece that began with such delightful definitiveness  - “There are actually two recessions”, offers the perfect example of the advantages of using a catchy ending line to emphasize, review, and leave the reader with no doubt about the writer’s point of view:

“This revolution is at least as big as the last one, and the last one changed everything.”

Brian Clark’s blog post “Little Known Ways to Write Fascinating Bullet Points” (with the opener I quoted the other day - “Oh, those magical bullet points..”  ends by remarking that bullet points are maligned because most people don’t know how to write them. Clark urges readers to “put a little time and effort into making yours fascinating.” What this post demonstrates is a tactic I often suggest to freelance blog writers for Say It For You and to business owners, which is to put a call to action in the text of the blog post itself.

Of course, in corporate blog writing, it all matters – the title, the opening line, and the reader-friendly, relevant, updated, useful content.  Somehow it’s not the same, though, without a great finish. If the opening line in blog content writing is the conductor’s “downbeat”, the closing line represents the final notes of the symphony – “TA-DAH!

“Your page titles are an important part of your web design,” small business consultant Lorraine Ball reminds business owners. Blogger Michael Gray agrees, explaining that, while you want the title as “click-enticing”
(meaning search engine attention-attracting) as can be, titles need to be enticing to readers – as well as short enough to be easy to share on social media. 

Some favor putting the website name in blog titles, Gray remarks, yet he recommends leaving the website name off if that would make the blog post title overly long.

In Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I always emphasize that “catchy” and “enticing” can’t be adjectives to strive for only in the titles of SEO marketing blogs. Once the “click” has happened, I tell content writers in Indianapolis, your task is to keep the reader engaged with valuable, personal, and relevant information, beginning with the “downbeat”, which is what I call the first sentence of each post. (Think of an orchestra conductor bringing the baton down to signal the start of the music.)

In order to offer the most specific and detailed business blogging assistance in this very blog post, I did some “strolling” around the blogosphere to find examples. Reading others’ blogs is invariably a great way to learn and gain new perspective for your own blog content writing, I’m fond of telling all business owners new to blogging, and all new freelance blog writers, for that matter!)

Here’s a great opening sentence from Graham Jones, writing about search engine ranking for blogs:

“Search engines are after one thing…”  (Can you see how Jones grabs your attention right away with that “downbeat” opener?)

A second catchy opener I found was in Brian Clark’s piece about bullet points:

“Oh, those magical bullet points.  What would blog posts, sales letters, and bad PowerPoint presentations be without them?”

In corporate blogging for business, readers need to know, right away, what the post will be discussing, but they also need to get interested - right away.  Well-crafted opening lines can accomplish both those things for readers.

Seth Godin (so well-known a writer that he could get away with breaking all the rules), offers the perfect example of a great “downbeat” first liner in a blog post about marketing in recessionary times:

“There are actually two recessions.” There are no links, no keyword phrases for marketing, only a real grabber of a first line.

There are blog content writers and there are blog content writers.  To move into the second category, begin at the beginning, bringing your baton down with catchy, curiosity-building titles and opening lines.

“The smallest words in our vocabulary often reveal the most about us,”asserts James Pennebaker in “The Secret Life of Pronouns" (in the September 2011 issue of Science in Society). Hidden inside language, explains Pennebaker, are “small, stealthy words that can reveal a great deal about your personality, thinking style, and connections with others.”.

No information could be more important for blog content writers, since words are the power source in blogging for business. As I explain in corporate blogging training sessions, words and pictures are the tools we use in business blogging to create connections with others.

James Pennebaker, I learned, is a social psychologist who developed a computer program to analyze the language people use, discovering that words associated with positive emotions have therapeutic value.  From the vantage point of the freelance blog writers I train, however, the most important discovery to come out of this research involves the use of pronouns.

The Pennebaker team’s most striking initial discovery was that the more people changed from using first-person singular pronouns (I, me, my) to other pronouns (we, you, she, they), the better their health became!  The scientists went on to discover that gender, age, social class, and leadership ability al related to their choice of pronouns.

These discoveries could be of the most amazing business blogging help, I realized. One of my own discoveries in abandoning my generational bias towards long, individually composed pieces of business correspondence and traditional marketing brochures was that the core “mission” of blogging for business is to humanize online communications.

In four and a half years of providing business blogging services in Indianapolis, I’ve realized that whether the business owner him or herself is doing the writing, or whether they’re collaborating with a ghost blogger partner, the very process of deciding what to emphasize in the blog is a process of self-discovery!

And, since engaging readers’ interest in blogs is about expressing your understanding of their problems or dilemmas (“It’s- not-just-you-we-solve-this-problem-all-the-time”), pronouns in your business blog are your way to “get down and human”!

Short vs. long – that is the question.  At least that’s what Indianapolis bloggers might conclude from my Say It For You business blog post earlier this week.  There’s more to that question, of course, and lots more to the answers, as Brandon Royal demonstrates in The Little Red Writing Book.

Royal warns writers that “Vague language weakens your writing, because it forces the reader to guess at what you mean.”  “Choose specific, descriptive words for more forceful writing," he advises. Sometimes, the author adds, “to be specific and concrete, you will have to use more words than usual.  That’s OK.”

I particularly liked the examples Royal culled from interviews with job candidates. (Besides doing corporate blog writing and offering corporate blogging training, I serve as Executive Career Mentor at Butler College of Business, and our program trains students in interviewing skills.) A common job seeker’s mistake, he points out, is using a “shopping list” of traits, rather than using concrete examples of strong points:

Candidate:  “Not only did I develop important operational skills in running a business, I experienced the challenges entrepreneurs face on a daily basis.” 
Question left in interviewer’s mind:  What challenges are those?

Candidate: “Growing up in both the East and the West, I have experienced both Asian and Western points of view.”
Question left in interviewer’s mind: What are those Asian and Western points of view?

Candidate: “I am energetic, loyal, creative, responsible, and ambitious.”
Questions left in interviewer’s mind: Really?  How can I tell?  Why don’t you support a few of those traits with concrete examples?

Anyone involved in business blog writing should try some of the writing exercises Royal offers in the book, to practice replacing vague language with words that are specific and concrete.

Vague: “Firms should advertise to increase sales.”
Specific: “Billboard advertising is low cost and has been shown to increase sales as much as 10% in a given region.”

Personalizing examples makes them even more memorable and specific, a piece of advice that can be applied to any SEO marketing blog.  Back to the short-vs.-long question, stories and testimonials take up more space, but make for far more impact than general marketing claims.

Short vs. long, clear vs. vague, specific vs. general – who ever said this blog content writing thing would be a breeze?

“This is one of the holy wars in the world of blogging,” says Dave Taylor, referring to the question: “Are long blog entries better than short ones?”

Who decides what’s too long and what’s too short?  Either the reader or the writer, says Taylor.  In corporate blog writing, he explains (and as we content writers in Indianapolis know), there are no editors, layout people, or government regulators to dictate the length of any SEO marketing blog post.

As a corporate blogging trainer, I felt my own approach to the subject was vindicated when Dave Taylor cited a common piece of editorial advice about how long a book or article should be: “Write just enough to cover the material at the appropriate level of detail, then stop.” That dovetails nicely with the rule I cite when offering business blogging assistance:

“Make blog posts as long as they need to be to get the point across (choosing  just one point to emphasize in each post to begin with),
but not a single sentence longer”.

BlogRevolter.com offers a different and very interesting take on the optimal length for blog posts. “In a short blog post, sometimes the writer neglects to provide information…Write the entire article and allow it to stretch,” is the advice.  “That way, searchers will get their entire question dealt with.”

So, as a professional providing blog writing services, to what side of the “holy war” do I lean?  Both! 

Reminds me of the old tale of two men who came to their rabbi for help settling a dispute.  After hearing the first man’s story, the rabbi declared “You’re right!”  Then the second man told his side, and the rabbi exclaimed “You’re right!”  A third man was puzzled.  “Rabbi, they can’t both be right!”  Said the rabbi, “You know, you’re right, too!”

In corporate blogging for business, it’s important to offer enough information in each post to convincingly cover the one key theme of the post. When posts start pushing the 450-500 word mark or beyond 500 words, it might be time to downsize. Remember the Milo Frank rule: “The attention span of the average individual is 30 seconds.”

The trick to business blog writing is telling stories.  The trick to finding story ideas for writing business blog posts month after month, year after year may be, as Malcolm Gladwell says in What the Dog Saw, “to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell.”

Gladwell discusses the biggest challenge any SEO marketing blog writer faces – the human instinct to assume that most things are not interesting 

Gladwell reminds us that we:

• flip through the channels on the TV
  
• go to a bookstore and look at 20 novels before picking one to buy

We have to be choosy, he explains; there's just so much out there. And, in fact, during every corporate blogging training session, I have to remind would-be blog writers of that very challenge.  To counteract the fear of reader ennui, I add Gladwell's words of inspiration: “If you want to be a writer, you have to fight that instinct (to assume most things are not interesting) every day.”

Clicking on – or away from – any one web site or blog post is much easier than browsing through 20 novels and even easier than flipping TV channels, I caution Indianapolis blog writers.  In fact, online searchers tend to be scanners rather than readers, making any SEO marketing blog writer's task even more of a challenge.

So, is it a challenge that can be overcome?  Is it a challenge worth overcoming? Make that a resounding “Yes!”. Apparently, business owners agree. According to HubSpot.com, corporate budgets for blogs and social media are up more than any other aspect of marketing expenditures.  

“Call it noise, call it the next big thing, or just call it stupid....Blogging has become a huge thing in today's world,”, says blogger Ryan Farley, stating that nothing gives him more confidence in a company than to see the knowledge of its employees via their blogs. “Corporate blogging gives you the opportunity to communicate with your customers and potential customers in an entirely new way... You will establish your company or yourself as a voice of authority and expertise in your industry and your customers will be there to witness it first hand.”

Blogging has  become so strong that the word “blog” made Merriam-Webster's 2004 Top 10 Words of the Year list, Farley emphasizes. That fact alone should be enough to spark interest on the part of business owners.  The blog writers' challenge is to engage the interest of online searchers with recent, relevant, and story-based content!

Anyone involved in corporate blogging for business should read the latest e-newsletter by business speaker Todd Hunt, who warns readers that Five Guys Burgers and Fries has an unusual application for the word "little".  If you order a Five Guys hamburger, I learned, you're served two beef patties, while their "little hamburger" order contains only one.  (Anywhere else, Hunt points out, two patties is called a "double".)  So, I thought (not to be "punny"), what's Todd Hunt's "beef"? That the customer discovers the anomaly only after he's ordered, paid, and then opened the foil package, Hunt explains.

As a professional involved in providing both blog writing services and corporate blogging training, one principle I emphasize to business owners and freelance blog content writers is to deliver on the implied promise of the blog post title.  In other words, online readers should not "open the foil package" by clicking on a title only to find that the content doesn't match up. 

Todd Hunt implies that two thin patties is not a good thing when you were expecting just one fatter one (even if the quantity of beef is the same).  Since online searchers tend to scan rather than read, the "impatience factor" makes surprises even less welcome when it comes to SEO marketing blogs.

An interesting study out of Rensselaer Polytechnic and Texas Tech University addresses the writing of navigation in online help systems.  Overall, the largest problem participants reposted in using the help system wasn't in processing the information, but in the frustration they experienced in finding the correct help topic!

While this may not constitute a perfect parallel, I think the findings in this study could be useful to blog content writers.  Providing startling statistics or surprising insights in business blogs is a very good way to add value and engage readers.  But those readers are likely to experience only frustration if there are surprises when it comes to the blog post content not matching the title of the blog post! Surprises aren't fun after you've "opened the foil"!

Corporate blog content writers – do these words sound like a call to action (or what?):

“Winning over modern B2B buyers is becoming an increasingly difficult task,” warns Marketing Sherpa.com, citing new research showing a 50% decline in the overall effectiveness of website design, SEO, and email in producing business-to-business bottom line results.

That’s the reason that in corporate blogging training sessions, I urge business owners, marketing directors, and freelance blog content writers to begin where email and website SEO and design leave off, using fresh and frequent blog content writing to “bring in the cavalry”.

“What about that decline in SEO effectiveness Marketing Sherpa was talking about?” asked several Indianapolis blog writers. “Can any SEO marketing blog succeed in business-to-business marketing?”

In his Tradesmen Insights blog, John Sonnhalter offers several answers to that very question. (Sonnhalter’s B2B marketing communications firm targets the construction and industrial markets.)

Websites are mostly static – “Once a contractor has been to your website, why does he need to come back?)  Your blog can get him to follow you on a continuing basis, Sonnhalter explains.

Blogs exhibit thought leadership, increasing brand awareness. “This encourages others to link back to you,” Sonnhalter adds.

Blog content can be repurposed by using it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, giving you additional exposure, points out Sonnhalter.

As a professional ghost blogger, I heartily approve of Sonnhalter’s advice to blog writers to write guest posts on other people’s blogs and to invite others to write guest posts on theirs. This is something I encourage business blog writers to do, and which is a frequent practice of mine at Say It For You.

Just as in business to consumer marketing, B2B marketing boils down to somebody at a computer (or perhaps using a handheld mobile device punching some words into a search bar.   Whether those “somebodies” are individual consumers or administrative assistants to CEOs, whether they’re purchasing agents or small business owners or Grandma, those online searchers have needs and wants that they’re looking to fill.

 If you’re ready with fresh, relevant, up-to-date, and useful information to greet their clicks (whether on Google, Bing, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook), that helps stack the deck in favor of your business success!

“The visitor experience means giving your website visitors exactly what they are looking for,” says online marketing maven Ford Saeks. “It means making it obvious where to click on your landing pages, what choices they have, how they can contact you, buy, download or find a solution to their problems or desires.”

As an Indianapolis blog writer offering corporate blogging training, I remind business owners and blog content writers that, in a very real way, each blog post itself constitutes a call to action. Author Peter Guber, in Tell to Win, describes “the hidden power of story”.  What that means to me is that, in blogging for business, we need to present stories that in themselves are calls to action for readers because the readers see themselves in those stories.

Remember, the reason those readers found your site in the first place is that what you provide matched up with whatever need or want they typed into the search bar! Those readers need confirmation that they’ve come to exactly the right place to fulfill their needs and wishes.

On the other hand, different searchers might be in differing states of readiness to act. Readers who are ready to buy should be able to do so right away, using the fewest possible steps. For others who need to learn more, you can offer to answer their question, offer a subscription, a sign-up for your e-newsletter, a video for them to watch, a white paper they can download, a webinar, a product sample, etc.)

Sales trainers often speaker of reaching “Influencers” who in turn will help “Decision Makers” choose where to buy products and services. Since an effective SEO marketing blog plays an important role in any company’s overall marketing strategy, it’s crucial to compose blog posts (both in terms of using the right keyword phrases and in terms of the style, tone, and general “voice’ of the blog content) with those Influencers in mind. 

In fact, something else for freelance blog writers to keep in mind is that influencing the Influencers can prove even more important in business-to-business (as compared with business-to-consumer) blog marketing!

A recent Career Bliss survey about job satisfaction determined that (of all things!), the 4th most hated job in the U.S. is senior web developer.

Well, when I discovered this story on yahoo.com, you could’vet knocked me over with a feather, as the old saying goes. First of all, as a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I often work with web designers and developers as part of a business’ marketing team. If those professionals were filled with hate towards their bosses, it wasn’t obvious to me.  I mean, if the Yahoo.com article had been talking about septic tank cleaning crews, I could understand them hating their work – but web developers? Furthermore, despite the varied aggravations that are a part of any career, I consider my own work life to be more blissful than not. Long story short, my curiosity was piqued.

What CareerBliss found is that senior developers reported a high degree of unhappiness in their jobs, attributable to a perception that their employers are unable to communicate coherently and lack an understanding of the technology! (My first reaction to this revelation was – “Duh! – isn’t that why they hired you?”) In short, there was a patience issue on the part of those IT specialists, who expected everyone to know the ins and outs of the latest technology, not realizing that lack of knowledge on the part of their employers represented their own job security!

Blog content writers understand this very issue of a “knowledge disconnect”, specifically the one between the business owner and the blog reader, and use that “disconnect” to the advantage of their business owner clients. In fact, searchers arrive at a business’ SEO marketing blog precisely because there are things those readers don’t understand and which they may not have the time to learn – they’re looking for someone who does know and who does understand, and whom they can trust to help them solve whatever problem they’re facing.  Those readers need to see corporate blog content that oozes patience with readers’ (read potential clients’) lack of technical knowledge in that field.

Perhaps because I’ve spent so many years as a teacher, seminar speaker, and columnist, I see the opportunity to bridge the gap between consumers’ knowledge and the advanced expertise of professionals and entrepreneurs as a source of win-win “bliss” for all parties concerned.

Corny as it might sound to a senior web developer, providing blog writing services and giving ‘voice” to business owners’ love for what they do – I rate that pretty high on the happiness scale!

Sometimes it’s OK for business blog writing to elicit a “Well, how about that!” response; it needn’t always be “How do I get some of that?” 

In other words, while one obvious motivation behind any SEO marketing blog is converting lookers into buyers, not always, as I caution both business owners and those offering them business blogging help, is it possible to “have them at ‘Hello!’”.

Sometimes, though, you can “have them at ‘how’’“, by providing unusual facts that arouse curiosity about your subject, along with information readers can put to immediate use. Unusual and useful are both good components for business blog content, as I assure attendees at corporate blogging training sessions.

The Time for Kids’ “Book of How” is made up entirely of such information tidbits that can be used by blog content writers as lead-ins for talking about their particular way of doing business or creating a product or service.

 “How Do Chili Peppers Make Your Mouth Burn?”, for example,  offers the type of interesting material an Indianapolis blog writer might include in a restaurant blog, as a lead-in to explaining how that restaurant caters to customers who prefer very spicy cuisine, as well as to those who prefer tamer fare.

“How is Chocolate Made?” illustrates a good blog content lead-in for a candy company or bakery, while “How Does a Toilet Flush Away Waste?” might form the lead-in for a blog post offered on a plumber’s website..

During the process of helping new Say It For You corporate blogging clients, I often find that, during the planning stages for the blog, the business owners voice a concern that if they “give away too much information for free”, the prospects will go away and do it themselves, or, armed with the information, shop for the same product or service on the basis of price alone!

What is so important to convey is that the opposite is usually the case – interesting and useful business blog content is a great way to demonstrate business owners’ knowledge and experience in their field. Blog writing for business is one way to ”have them at ‘how’”!

Gallop found that no single factor more clearly predicts the productivity of an employee than the relationship with his direct supervisor, explains professional trainer Marlene Chism.

Since my goal in corporate blogging training is to help companies initiate productive relationships with customers and clients, I thought Chism’s list of “bad-boss” behaviors to avoid might prove very useful to blog content writers as they smooth the path for online searchers who are considering using their companies’ products and services.

Leadership No-no: Multi-tasking – Focus on and be present to the person in front of you.

I’d point out two things to Indianapolis blog writers about focus:

1. The most effective individual blog posts have a razor-sharp focus on one, and only one, aspect of the business or on one opinion or attitude the business owner has about current happenings in his/her field.
   
2. So much information has been put out there in the form of corporate blogging for business that it becomes essential for blog content writers to focus on a target audience,  The loud-and-clear needs to be that you understand them, you serve their specific needs, and that you’re targeting them.

Leadership No-no: Eye-rolling - You’re showing you don’t respect the other person and come across as superior or snobbish.

The typical website explains what products and services the company offices, the geographical area in which it operates, and who the players are. In offering business blogging assistance, I explain that the blog is there to flesh out the intangibles, to express those things that make a company stand out from its peers.  The SEO marketing blog helped bring readers to the blog, but now the content must address the unspoken questions

• So, is that any different from all the others?
  
• So, is that good for me?

The skill in providing blog writing services  lies in answering those questions while yet allowing readers to feel they’re being given valid information and then being encouraged to draw their own conclusions.

Leadership No-no: Justifying mistakes – You have a higher rank and have to play a higher game, not shifting blame but taking responsibility.

With it being such an easy matter to add new material on the blog, business owners can exercise control over the way the public perceives any negative developments.  In fact, a business blog is the ideal vehicle for correcting any inaccurate press statements.  But, rather than justifying mistakes, by remaining current and involved, blog content writers can help the business directly confront whatever is happening, take responsibility, and explain what new measures have been put into place to avoid such mistakes in the future.( In a situation involving only one individual, the conversation can be continued “offline”.)

Fixing these no-no behaviors can pay big dividends, Chism explains, building a more loyal and engaged workforce for any leader. For business owners or for those they’ve hired to provide business blogging services, learning to avoid these bad-blog behaviors can help build a more loyal and engaged readership.

Author and seminar leader Peter J. Fogel lists “Top 10 Ways to Motivate People to Buy From Your Website”. In this article Fogel was addressing the needs of professional speakers, but as someone who offers blog writing services and corporate blogging training, I couldn’t help thinking how valuable much of his advice could be for blog content writers.

“Research shows that, by improving the headline (of your sales copy), you can boost sales by as much as 50 percent.”
In SEO marketing blogs, titles have a double importance.  Titles make searchers want to learn more of what you have to say, telling them they’ve come to the right place for the information, products, or services they need.  From the standpoint of search engine optimization, asblog maven Ted Demopoulos puts it, “Search engines assume that if text is in the blog title, it’s important.”

“Consumers buy benefits, not features. For example, a car that goes from zero to 60 in eight seconds is a feature.  The fact that it allows you to merge into traffic swiftly and safely is a benefit.” Most business blog posts make claims.  The claims may be understated, exaggerated, or exactly right, but readers don’t know how to put those facts or those claims into context.  In fact, the No.1 job of Indianapolis bloggers, I’m fond of repeating during corporate blogging training sessions, is illustrating how any product or service a business has to offer has the potential to help readers with THEIR problems or needs or help fulfill their wishes and dreams..

“Remind visitors to come back and visit. People usually don’t buy the first time they visit a website..” Well-written, engaging material in your blog makes readers want to come back for more, or, through an RSS, have you “come to them”. Whether the business owner is composing blogs or using business blogging assistance, the goal, of course, is to establish a connection with online readers. The more sustained that connection, of course, the greater chance for turning seekers into customers and clients.

“It’s the little things that count in boosting your online conversion,” Fogel reminds us. In fact, blogging for business is all about little things done frequently over time.

You must learn how to differentiate yourself, advises friend and online marketing consultant Phil Steele, stressing that it’s not good enough for a small business owner to claim “better service”, since everyone says this.

Steele’s specifically referring to having an effective website, but we blog content writers can continually enhance the process of differentiating by providing fresh, new content in a company’s SEO marketing blog.  How does that accomplish differentiation in the mind of readers?  Blog content is the ideal vehicle for further explanation, more details, updates, stories, and for expressing owners’ beliefs about what’s most important to them in serving clients and customers.

In “Shout It From the Rooftops”, Phil Steele has hit on the most important point of all, which is that before any marketing message can be formulated about the competitive advantage any business has, business owner themselves need to arrive at an understanding of what those  competitive advantages are! Freelance business blog writers can be of greatest service to their business owner clients by helping them do just that.

"Around here," (business owners must ask themselves), "do we…

• Do things faster?
• Do things at a lower cost?
• Do things with fewer errors?
• Provide a more engaging experience? (How?)

When I offer corporate blogging help to business owners and employees, though, I caution against crossing the fine line between exercising “bragging rights” and bragging. Even when corporate blog content is focused on the competitive advantages your business has, it has to be about THEM, not about you and your business. In fact, during corporate blogging training sessions I explain, you can “shout it from the rooftops”, to use Steele’s metaphor, but until your content is centered around the needs of the readers, they’re simply not going to “hear”!

“Once these competitive differentiators are defined,” Steele goes on to say, “you’ll need to package and promote them in a distinctive way that lets website visitors not only know that you can solve their problem, but you have a competitive edge over those who offer similar products or services.”

The beautiful thing, I would add, about the frequent providing of new content in blogging for business, is you won’t need to shout – you can “whisper” your sharply defined differentiator message, getting the message across over time.

“Quotefalls” are a type of puzzle I like to solve in PennyDell Puzzle Magazine, and I found one puzzle solution the other day that might’ve been written specifically for blog content writers:

“There’s a big difference between having to say something and
having something to say.”

Since, as I teach in corporate blogging training sessions, such a large part of the success of any SEO marketing blog is tied to the frequency with which new content is posted, that means business owners (and we, the professional ghost bloggers they hire to create blog content on their behalf), in essence have to say something, at least every few days!

The problem isn’t a lack of “something to say.”  After all, explaining each product and each service a business offers, and doing that in understandable, engaging fashion, helping online readers envision the positive results of taking action, plus describing whatever special slant or approach the business takes in its marketplace compared to the competition – Heaven knows, there’s plenty of fodder for freelance blog writers to turn into regular blog posts.  That seems to hold true – for the first week, maybe the first month or so...

But what happens after that? With more than four years writing for businesses and professionals of every ilk, hiring writers to help with the task, and offering business blogging help to owners, managers, and employees, I’ve seen it happen again and again.  Energy flags, new ideas come few and far between, with the intervals between blog posts growing longer as time passes.

The very best business blogging advice I can offer at that point is itself a quote (but not at all puzzling!):

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

To deliver quality writing of any kind, including quality business blogs, we blog content writers simply must keep educating ourselves, reading everything from books to blogs, from websites to billboards, reading newspapers and magazines, even comics.  We need to be out there networking, talking to people and hearing their opinions, listening and then thinking about how to take what we’ve seen and heard and use it to bring our message (or our clients’ messages) to readers.

No, providing blog writing services isn’t easy, but, in many respects, it is simple.  Enrich ourselves, and our writing will take on a richer quality.  There IS a big difference between having to blog something and have something to blog about.  WE blog content writers make that difference. 

Quality blogging ‘R us!