Writing for Business

“When developing a business interest you have to assume a problem that you can promise to solve,” author D. Forbes Ley was advising sales professionals thirty years ago.  This week my Say It For You blog posts are devoted to some of the gems in Ley’s book “The Best Seller”. While SEO blog marketing wasn’t even a gleam in the eye when that book came out, it’s amazing how relevant the ideas are for blog content writers today.

Once buyers have developed an emotional interest in your product, they will reveal that with “buying signals”, Ley explained.  But, he continues, “when the prospects are still undecided because of lack of Want, you have to remind them of their hurt and rescue them.” Ley calls that the “Hurt and Rescue” selling tactic.

In corporate blog writing for business, a much softer approach is called for than the sort of face-to-face selling Forbes Ley was describing. Still, it occurs to me, reading that chapter of his book, that SEO marketing blogs will succeed only if two things are apparent to readers, and in the order presented here:

• It’s clear you (the business owner or professional practitioner) understand online searchers’ concerns and needs. That means calling to readers’ minds the costs, the risks, and the problems that drove them to seek information about what you know and what you know how to do.  In other words, the blog content puts the “hurt” front and center.  
   
• You and your staff have the experience, the information, the products, and the services to solve exactly those problems and meet precisely those needs. That’s the “rescue”, the solutions your expertise and experience will bring to bear.

What D. Forbes Ley was advocating thirty years ago wasn’t the “hard-sell” or “scare tactic” approach (which wouldn’t have been welcomed by prospects then any more than they would today).

As a business blogging trainer, I think the lesson here to content writers is to identify ways in which something potential customers value could be in jeopardy.  We then assure searchers they’re not the only ones to find themselves in this predicament and show them we’ve solved these precise problems for customers and clients many times before.

Call it the “Hurt and Rescue” technique for blogging for business!
 

“The salesperson can no longer ‘wing it’ in a sales interview; you will run out of time reciting boring facts while missing the golden opportunity to get involved with the Prospect and to get the Prospect emotionally involved with your product.”

Amazing.  Author D. Forbes Ley was issuing that piece of sales advice exactly thirty years ago! Yet, can you think of anything more relevant to blog content marketing today???  As a corporate blogging trainer, I know I can’t.

“When interesting and informative are no longer assets, bloggers have to come up with something else: emotional triggers,” observes Mike Alton on socialmediatoday.com. Blog content writing might be high-quality and informative and still not “make it out of the pit of anonymity,” he adds, for the simple fact that it doesn’t engage with readers.” Ín the end it’s not only information that attracts readers, but also emotions,” Alton concludes.

Face-to-face with a prospect, Marty Martin explains in the Journal of Financial Planning, the seller must first be a listener, uncovering both facts and emotions. That step must precede guiding clients to decisions.

In blogging for business, where face-to-screen is the closest blog content writers come to their prospects, what can ignite the kind of personal connection that gets the Prospect emotionally involved?

“Customers don’t want to feel like they are being told a brand story. They want to tell themselves the story. They want to be a part of the story,” is Coopers’ and Gruntzner’s advice to business owners in Tips & Traps for Marketing Your Business.  The authors recommend using blogs to tell a story. “Engage readers of your blog with fascinating story-like entries.”

One question bound to come up in any corporate blogging training session is this: Can emotional blog marketing be effective in B2 situations?

“Don’t be fooled by the misconception that B2B means presenting products and services to a company rather than to a real person,” says the k-ecommerce blogger. “A company is never faceless. Behind every decision there is always a person involved, and that person has feelings.”

Emotional marketing was “in” thirty years ago when the first edition of “D. Forbes Ley’s “The Best Seller” hit the shelves.  Today, I remind Indianapolis freelance blog writers, emotions remain the most powerful tool for moving people to action.
 

Negative developments are sooner-or-later things, I’ve found in six years of blog content writing for business owners and professional practitioners. But by being proactive and doing what David Meerman Scott calls “getting in front of a media crisis”, I encourage those owners and professionals to keep in control. In fact, as I explain to new Say It For You clients one very important function of your blog is correcting readers’ false perceptions and inaccurate press statements about your company, your practice, or your industry in general.

“The world sees what the search engines say about you,” says removeyourname.com, a reputation management service. Ethical forms of reputation management, says Wikipedia, includes responding to customer complaints and asking sites to take down incorrect information”.


As a blogging trainer, I had reason to think about the power of negative press while reading this month’s issue of Indianapolis Monthly Magazine, which resurrects some very negative – and 40-year old – press about Indiana legislator Marilyn Schultz charging the then all-male member Columbia Club with gender discrimination.

That Indianapolis Monthly Magazine article is an extreme case, I think, because the news is so very old, and because Columbia Club has since come so far in welcoming and promoting women. But sooner or later, with such oceans of content being posted online every second, from every possible source, every practitioner, owner, and organization leader will face the challenge of responding to negative content.

It’s ironic, in a way.  One goal of SEO marketing blogs is to move a company, a practice, or an organization UP, meaning in the direction of the top of Page One of Google. But, when there’s been some negative press, the goal becomes to “tamp DOWN” those negative search results with more positive content,  in hopes searchers will come upon that newer content first.

How do you exercise journalistic control through business blogging? It’s a matter of timing. Even the best-designed websites are rarely flexible enough to allow day-to-day, even hour-by-hour updating.

Business blogging help can turn out to help with customer relations. When customers’ complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with “in front of other people” (in blog posts), it gives the “apology” or the “remediation measure” more weight.

 With blog posts, businesses have the ability to put out the news about themselves – now, and with their own “spin” on it!
 

Fashion designers think about it; blog content writers should, too.  Varying lengths, that is.

One rule that is of business blogging help in particular is keeping sentences short. Short sentences have power, and, particularly in titles, can more easily be shared on social media sites.

While Brandon Royal, author of The Little Red Writing Book agrees, he reminds us that not every sentence needs to be kept short.  Instead, Royal advises writers to weave in short sentences with longer ones. Every so often, he suggests, a “naked” (extremely short) sentence can add a dynamic touch.

Ever on the alert for examples of excellent business writing, I found a gem in a recent USA Today issue. In “Stocks soar, so do Treasury prices; what gives?” reporter Adam Shell hits the bulls-eye in length-varying.

In fact, in my next corporate blogging training session, I plan to use Shell’s first paragraph as a rather extreme demonstration of the power of varying sentence length in business blog posts. The entire paragraph consists of one 48-word sentence followed by a six-worder.

“Not that Wall Street price moves ever make total sense, but what was odd about Monday’s rally, which powered the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to another record high, was the fact that the yield on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to its lower level of the year. “That means bond prices rallied, too,”

That entire USA Today article, I couldn’t help noticing, happens to be 148 words long, only half the ideal length for the typical SEO marketing blog. Its three paragraphs are 54, 35, and  59 words long, respectively,  effectively offsetting the long and short of it.

The third paragraph does even better, interspersing “naked sentences” with longer statements:

1. What gives? (2 words)
2. At one point Monday, the yield on the 10-year note fell to 1.65%, eclipsing Friday's prior low of 1.66%.(20 words)
3. It closed at 1.67%. (4 words)
4. At the start of 2013, the yield was 1.76%, and seven weeks ago, it hit a high for the year of 2.06%. (22 words)
5. The lowest closing yield on record was 1.4% on July 24, 2012. (12 words)

In fashion design, and in writing blogs for business, varying lengths engage interest!
 

Blog readers tend to be curious creatures.  What’s more, that curiosity factor is highest when readers are learning about themselves.  As a longtime Indianapolis blog content writer, I’ve found that “self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to the information presented in an SEO marketing blog. Popular magazine editors appear to agree as well, because current issues are full of tests, games, and quizzes.

Salvatore Didato’s book, “Who Are You? Test Your Personality” offers no fewer than forty quizzes to “reveal the real you”.  It’s not just the variety of quizzes that I found so helpful about this book; it’s the way each is presented that can serve as a model for business blog writing.

“How Daring Are You?” is the header for Didato’s Quiz #1, but rather than diving directly into the series of questions, the author whets his readers’ appetites with an introduction, citing a study done at the University of London’s Institute of Psychiatry showing that 1/2 to 2/3 of risk-taking propensity is probably inherited. Blog writers, too, can whet readers’ curiosity with a little-known statistic or fact at the beginning of a post.

Didato then continues with a ten-question true/false test containing statements such as “When shopping, I usually stick to known brands.” But, for business bloggers and business owners who are conveying information to online readers, what is most important is Didato’s commentary following that risk-propensity self-test.

“Studies of group dynamics confirm that a pattern called ‘risky shift’ occurs when members of a group bolster each other’s daring and shift to more risk taking than when they are alone.”
 
I once heard WIBC Radio”s Denny Smith make a comment that I considered very relevant for business blog content writing: People are looking to their advisors for more than just information, he said. They need perspective.  In providing information to searchers, remember that they need some guidance as to what they can do about those facts, and ways in which the information can make a difference to them.

As a corporate blogging trainer, then, I’d remind bloggers to be “tour guides”. The quiz, test, or survey, engages their curiosity.  The next step is “nudging” readers towards a point of view – or a course of action!
 

If ever you’re tempted to become cavalier about the quality of your blog writing, just remember – it’s up to us professional content writers to counterbalance stuff such as this:

“So here’s an contra-growing old additionally anti-itchiness do-it-yourself solution which causes your body robust and as well as minimizes our itchies in icy temperatures, waterless local weather, ensure that it is a component of an article rewrites Christian louboutin men shoes craigs list program for sprouting younger and you wont amount to an prepare such as calf.”

(Can that be for real? Unfortunately, yes.  And a lot more like it is crowding our business blogging air space, too.)

As a corporate blogging trainer in Indianapolis, my favorite recommendation to business owners and to the freelance blog content writers they hire to help bring their message to their customers is something I learned from my sixth grade English teacher: “Autograph your work with excellence.”:

I confess that when I began to come across incomprehensible online content, my first “take” was that it must have been created by non-native speakers of the English language. Business owners or professional practitioners had needed content writing help, I concluded, and had chosen to outsource the work overseas to save on costs.

When I learned about “spinned content”, I realized that the “gibberish” effect in some of the incomprehensible text I was finding could well be the work of a computer program, not of some overseas content writer. (Spinned content is reproduced by replacing words with synonyms, for the purpose of re-using content and repeating keyword phrases many times with an eye to “winning search”.)

I can recall the time that, as a new member of the National Speakers Association, I was first introduced to the phrase, “the privilege of the platform”. Along with the privilege of addressing an audience, taking people’s time and attention, I was being taught, comes the duty to offer quality material and to present it in a quality manner.

Today, decades later, I realize that there’s a privilege to blogging, too.  That privilege comes with a duty we freelance blog content writers have to offer usable, high-quality, well-researched content, presented in quality fashion.  Our online readers have a right to expect no less.
 

“Everybody knows that Goodwill helps people, but what NOT everybody knows is how.” The Goodwill Guy then proceeds to tell TV watchers the Goodwill ABC’s:

1. You give us the stuff you’re not using
2. We sell it to someone who’ll use it.
3. Then, we use the money to educate and employ people.

Now, as far as marketing content goes, that’s impressive!  As an Indianapolis blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I think that Goodwill commercial model is exactly what every business owner or professional practitioner - and every freelance blog content writer - should aim for in blog content writing.

Step One consists of establsihing common ground.  What is it about your business or practice that “everybody knows”?  Blog opening lines need to be definitive rather than mysterious, making sure readers know they’ve come to the right site for the information, products, and services they’re seeking.

Step Two includes offering unique, less well-known information about your profession or industry. In blogging, whether you’re doing business-to-business writing or writing SEO marketing blogs for a professional practice, retail business, or not-for-profit organization, taking online searchers “behind the scenes” makes for content that is more compelling.

Step Three is the “why?”, the “what’s-your-purpose” question.  What drives the passion?
When working with business owners to arrive at the right tone and the right emphasis for their SEO marketing blogs, I begin by challenging the owner of the business or professional practice with the following question: "If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you're passionate about what you sell, what you know, and what you do, what would those words be?"

Goodwill’s passion is educating and employing people.  Give your online visitors the chance to get caught up in your passion.readers can get caughtknow exactly what your passion. I once wrote a reminder to eager-beaver business blogger newbies: In the dictionary, the word "belief" comes before "blog"!

 

From friends Julie and Kim, owners of Outside the Box Papers, I learned an interesting tidbit about a Victorian paper toy. The description of the thaumatrope reminded me of the way individual blog posts work together, over time, to convey content marketing “leitmotifs”, or themes, to online readers.

A thaumatrope consisted of a card with a picture on each side. The card was attached to two pieces of string.  Twirling the string made the two pictures appear to combine into a single image.

One concept I emphasize in corporate blogging training sessions is that focus is what helps blog posts stay smaller and lighter in scale than the more permanent content on the typical corporate website. What helps the separate posts fit together into an ongoing business blog marketing strategy are the blog "leitmotifs". 

In German, the word leitmotif means "leading theme".  In music, the leitmotif is used when the composer wants listenes to recall a certain character, place, or concept, Chloe Rhodes explains in the book A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi.

At Say It for You, when our Indiana freelance blog content writers are sitting down with business owners or professional practitioners who are preparing to launch a blog, one important step in that launch is to select 1-5 recurring themes that will appear and reappear over time in their blog posts. The themes may be reflected in the keyword phrases they use to help with search engine optimization.  But, more than that, themes are broader in scope than just key words.

• Letimotifs reflect the core beliefs of the owners, the reason they got into their fields in the first place.
   
• Leitmotifs reflect owners’ unique slant within their industry or profession.
   
• Leitmotifs are “dominant colors” that tie together different product descriptions, different sets of statistics, and different processes used to deliver a service to clients.
   
• Leitmotifs unite different testimonials from customers and clients.

In content marketing, each blog post is like one side of a thaumatrope.  Looked at in isolation, each side of the card presents one picture.  As blog content writing continues over weeks, months, and years, there will be a cumulative effect. Those many separate blog posts, ”tied together” through letimotifs, will create a beautiful, “Who-We-Are” picture!





 

Truth be told, I’m not crazy about slide presentations. But at the AWAH (Art With a Heart) fundraising breakfast a couple of weeks ago, there was one particular slide in Executive Director Andrew Lee’s Power Point that I liked.  I liked it a lot, as a matter of fact.  The slide was titled “What We Do”, and I found myself thinking what a great template it could be for business blog content writing.

The slide had four bullet sections, with an arrow pointing downward from each to the one below:

•  WHEN people give us money…..
   
•  WE send an experienced art teacher to a school
   
• WHERE they give fun, high quality art classes to underserved kids
   
• THAT educate, inspire, provide hope

What did I find to like about that message?

First, as a corporate blogging trainer, I teach new Indianapolis blog content writers to help readers follow their logic to a conclusion. Online searchers rarely read. Instead, they scan. With a minimum of effort on their part, those searchers need to be able to discern what it is you do and that they've come to the right place.

Second, there are many personal pronouns: “People give US money…WE send teachers…THEY give classes...  Blogs are more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces. Your readers want to meet the people behind the blog. The message is “WE will be taking care of YOU!"

That slide makes very clear what we can expect AWAH to do, and the “template” is one that freelance bloggers can easily use in marketing a business, a professional practice, or an organization:

WHEN YOU (the writer is telling readers)…hire a professional realtor/bankruptcy attorney/cleaning service/cosmetic surgeon/house painter/massage therapist….. like (name)
WE….take the following steps
WHERE….we....provide the following products and services
THAT….benefit you in the following ways……

It’s really quite a simple formula, that AWAH template.  Translated into my own business, it means that when we offer business blogging help to Say It For You clients, we’re helping them tell their prospects, “Here are the results you can expect when you give us money!”
 

Remember “streaking”?

To grab attention, streakers ran naked in public places.

For us Indianapolis freelance blog content writers, there’s a lot to learn from Brandon Royal’s The Little Red Writing Book, and I’ve devoted all three of this week’s Say It For You blog posts to some of Royal’s excellent pointers on writing in general. SEO marketing blogs. which multi-task as promo pieces, advertorials, bulletins, tutorials, and mission statements, are, above all, a form of written communication. Sharing the wisdom is part of my own mission to improve the quality of the writing in business owners’ and professionals’ blogs.

One rule that is of business blogging help in particular is keeping sentences short. Short sentences have what I call “pow!”. Short sentences, particularly in titles can easily be shared on social media sites. Focused content, I teach in corporate blogging training sessions, keeps readers’ attention on the message.

That doesn’t mean, though, as Brandon Royal reminds us, that every sentence needs to be short. “That would create a choppy style,” he says. Instead, “the writer must judge how to weave short sentences with longer ones” and use sentence variety.

Brandon calls really, really short sentences "naked", and he suggests that occasionally, these add a dynamic touch to your writing. As an example, he cites a campaign for dark beer. “I like beer.  Beer explains more about me than anything in the world,” it begins. That first 3-word line has “pow!”. In corporate and professional practitioner blogs, two to four word “naked” opening lines can be used to capture attention as well.

Naked sentences stand out in blog content writing!

 

Blogging for business has many aspects. Corporate and professional practitioner blogs are part promo, part advertising, part bulletin, part tutorial, and part mission statement, but the bottom line is that blog content writing is just that – writing.

This week, I‘m building my Say It For You blog posts around the wisdom in Brandon Royal’s The Little Red Writing Book. While it’s true that blog content writing can’t be approached in the same manner as, say, magazine article writing or peer-review academic writing or novel writing, when it comes right down to it, good blogging is based on good writing.

“‘Often personal examples go hand in hand with the use of the personal pronoun “I”,” explains Royal. “Do not be afraid to use this pronoun; it’s personal and specific. Readers appreciate knowing how a situation relates to the writer in terms of his or her personal experience.”

As a corporate blogging trainer, I think that statement about being personal is especially truly when it comes to the content in SEO marketing blogs.

To demonstrate that you understand the problems the online searcher is dealing with, it can be highly effective to relate how you personally went through the same failure stages. To the extent you can truthfully say, “I know how frustrating the problem is, and that’s why I’m devoted to solving that problem through my business or profession,” that gives your blog content writing “I” power. Next best to the business owner or professional relating an “I” experience which drives their passion, is anecdotes and testimonials (other people saying “I”).

At first blush, this “I” advice may sound like a contradiction of a principle I’m always emphasizing to newbie Indiana business bloggers, which is that their blogs aren’t meant to be all about them and their companies - it's meant to be about those searchers who need what they do, what they have, and what they know. But truly, there’s no contradiction. Personalizing examples, as Brandon Royal puts it, simply makes them more memorable.

Never fear the “I” in blogging for business – so long as it’s for the purpose of personalizing the information you want to convey to your readers!
 

“Stop selling.  It may sound counterintuitive, but, seriously, stop selling,” Rheba Estante tells professional speakers. “Speakers who earn top dollar have substance that sells itself.”

Substance sells products and services in blog content writing as well. To deliver “substantive” blogging for business, blog writers need to follow Estante’s advice to stop pushing the PR and start focusing on “knowing what your audience wants and delivering that.” That’s the only road to being seen as an authority and a go-to resource for important things, Estante cautions.

What is substance?  Speaker Magazine says it’s the difference between façade and fact, between appearance and reality.  It’s about providing proof. As a corporate blogging trainer, I really related to one line in that magazine article about “Substance, With Style”:

“It isn’t what you’ve done, but what you’ve learned – and the insights you can share – that give your expertise substance.”

I think that observation is extraordinarily relevant to anyone writing for business. The facts (which are the raw ingredients of corporate blogging for business) need to be “translated” into relational, emotional terms that compel reaction – and action – in readers. The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.

The function of the business blog writing then, is to give readers “proof”, but even more, a deeper perspective with which to process the information you’re offering. Truly effective SEO marketing blogs don’t appear to “market” anything. The substance sells itself.
 

If you’re into Egyptology, it’s easy to find books on the subject. One tells you how to “Run Like an Egyptian”,  others how to “Walk Like an Egyptian”, “Think Like an Egyptian”, “Treat Your Lady Like an Egyptian Goddess”, or even ”Shop Like an Egyptian” .

None of these seemed to have any usefulness in terms of blogging for business. I did find a number of interesting ideas I can use in corporate blogging training sessions in a Mental Floss Magazine article entitled “Gift Like an Egyptian”.

“Want to make your presents felt while globe-trotting? Author Laura Turner Garrison begins.

• "In Egypt, a gift recipient will generally wait until after the gift giver has left to unwrap his or her treasure.”

It’s possible that some readers of your SEO marketing blog won’t be ready to take action just yet. They may want to wait until later to “unwrap the gift”.   In offering business blogging help, I remind writers to offer different options. Visitors ready to buy should be able to do that right away, but others may want to watch a video or download a white paper to learn more, or merely “favorite” your url and “unwrap” it later.

•  In Japan, Garrison explains, “your gift may be declined numerous times before it’s accepted.”

In blogging for business, you want to be perceived as a subject matter expert offering usable information and insights. Once readers feel assured that you know your stuff and that you care about offering good information and good service, they might be ready to take action.
 

•  “Brazilians are somewhat superstitious about the color of their gifts, including the wrapping; black is an obvious no-no.” In Russia, I learned, “sending a birthday present late isn’t rude.  In fact, sending one early is considered incredibly bad luck.”

Knowing our target readers’ culture is crucial for freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis when composing content for business owners’ and professional practitioners’ blogs. There are many subsets of every group targeted, and not every message will work for every person. At Say It For You, we realize online searchers need to know we’re thinking of them as individuals and that we understand their problems and wishes, not merely their stats.

Running like, walking like, thinking like, and shopping like Egyptians – that’s all well and good for general cultural knowledge and sensitivity. But blogging like an Egyptian? That means learning about our target readers and then writing business blog content with them in mind!
 

No, I didn’t say we Indianapolis blog content writers should be compared to a mooch, (you know, that parasite-like person who’s always asking you for favors and never reciprocating).

I was referring to MOOC’s, those Massive Open Online Courses) offered by universities and organizations. Always on the alert as I read my Indianapolis Star for interesting material that can be of business blogging help, I was fascinated to read about Ball State University instructor Christina Blanch, who’s teaching 5,000 students from around the world about, of all topics, Gender Through Comic Books.

I was also fascinated to learn that not every university has as positive an outlook on MOOC-ing as BSU. Purdue’s Chief Information Officer Gerry McCartney characterizes MOOC’s as marketing devices.  “They are not an educational device,” says McCartney, “not in their current form.”

Maybe MOOC’s are all about marketing rather than about university-standard education. Since at Say It For You, we’re all about content marketing strategy, we’re more than OK with freelance blog writers being thought of as the MOOC-ers of the Internet. Still, I’d have to point out, business blogs are massive educational instruments in their own right. Anyone providing business blogging services should be able to state “Wow! I learned something today!” and those writing for business should aim for the target readers being able to make that same statement about the informative material they’ve been offered. In fact, information (as opposed to promotion), is what successful business blog content writing is all about.

In the world of academia, MOOC advocates consider those online courses a “disruptive innovation” that will transform higher education for the better. Critics compare MOOCs to trucks that deliver groceries but can’t influence changes in nutrition. It’s certainly true that blogging for business has its own advocates and critics (when blog content writing is compared with more traditional websites and even with alternative marketing strategies).

I found what Karen Head, Director of Georgia Tech’s Communication Center, had to say especially interesting:

“As instructors test the new pedagogical environment, college may not be able to meet the growing need for sophisticated support system.  In our case, we cannot wait, so we continue to make adjustments day by day.”  

Blogging is growing by leaps and bounds, both as an online marketing strategy and as an  educational and  opinion forum. The lesson for me as a freelance blog content writer serving my business and professional practitioner clients is both complex and simple:

We business bloggers will need to continue to make adjustments day by day!


 

I think Holly Becker might be onto something, especially when it comes to a few of the 15 blogging tips she offers readers of Where Women Create Business magazine.

Of course, as a freelance Indianapolis blog copywriter, her reminders to

• Know your audience
• Set a schedule
• Keep going

have become “old hat”, but as a corporate blogging trainer, I loved Becker’s observation that “perfection is not the goal.  …Bloggers are relatable and that is our competitive edge.”  

One excellent piece of advice Becker offered is simply “Sleep on it. If you write a post but are not sure whether you should post it, don’t water it down or delete it – save it as a draft. Read it the next day and see what you think.” In fact, with quite a number of my professional practitioner Say It For You ghost-blogging clients (doctors, lawyers, accountants in particular), all of the blog content we create needs to be preapproved by the client after checking for accuracy and compliance with the regulations in their field.

“Experiment more”, Becker advises bloggers, trying new layouts and formats.

“Inspire with imagery. On days when you cannot write, post a few photos and let the images speak for you. Form a few coherent, short-but-sweet sentences to accompany the photos.”  Besides offering a text-writing ‘break” for the blogger, photos can have an extra purpose: in SEO marketing blogs, embedding keyword phrases in the tags of photos can help in the overall effort to “get found”.

My very favorite of the Becker tips is the very practical suggestion to “Read your post aloud. Hearing your words may help you to better structure your copy and to edit or even add to what you already have.”