Blogging Basics – Page 13

Business Blogging Etiquette: How to Properly Use and Share Other People’s Ideas

November 17, 2014 By Linda Dessau

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So you’ve started a business blog – congratulations! Now you can provide valuable information to prospective customers and keep your website fresh with new content. If you’re like most of us, though, you may sometimes struggle to come up with that content.

One strategy I recommend to business bloggers is to continually read industry news as well as other blogs about your topic. This is bound to spark new ideas for you to write about and share.

When you use someone else’s post as a springboard for your own, you help your readers connect with new ideas. You’re also building strong connections with other bloggers – experts in your field – and these relationships can lead to more content, referrals to your business, and more exposure for your blog.

Whenever you’re using someone else’s material, remember these basic etiquette tips:

Include a link to your source – This helps your readers get more background information on the topic and further their learning. Linking to reputable sites increases your own credibility with readers as well as search engines.
Use the permalink – That means linking to the specific page for that particular blog post or article, rather than the home page of the site or blog. Otherwise you risk confusing or frustrating your audience, who may not be able to find the content you’ve described.
Comment instead of copy – Summarize some of the ideas in the original article in your own words, and then hone in on what you think is most meaningful and relevant to your particular audience. If you choose to include any quotes, keep them as short as possible to adhere to fair use guidelines.
Respect images as well as words – When it comes to photos, assume you do not have permission to share an image you’ve found on the web, unless you have purchased reprint rights or used a royalty-free image site.
Connect on social media – While it used to be the norm to have dialogue in the comments section of a blog, that trend is definitely changing. As Jeff Korhan explains, social media is a better place for comments, and for conversation. If you’ve mentioned, quoted or linked to someone in a blog post, tag them (@username) on social media. As a bonus, the person may turn around and share your post with their network.
Look for win-win-win options – If you find a blog post you’d really like to copy to your own site, try this instead: Contact the author and request an interview about the topic. That allows you to co-create fresh content that’s specifically suited to your readers and their needs and interests.
Have someone interview you – There is nothing unethical about hiring a ghostwriter for your blog. After all, they are still your ideas, you’re just outsourcing the process of polishing, publishing and promoting them online – in a way that attracts new customers to your business.
Keep your promises – While none of us can or will do this perfectly, aim to set and keep a regular blogging schedule. After all, how you do anything is how you do everything, and when you blog consistently you demonstrate your commitment, discipline and desire to help.

Even though you can publish a blog post in an instant, pause first and make sure you’re using ethical practices and building good relationships across the web.

For more tips on using other people’s materials in your blog posts, see: How to Share Great Content Without Plagiarizing.

For personalized help in applying these techniques on your own business blog, book a one-on-one blogging consultation with Linda Dessau.

How to Customize Your Blog Post Excerpt to Attract More Readers

November 10, 2014 By Linda Dessau

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A blog post excerpt is a brief summary of your blog post. Depending on your blog settings, this text is displayed in lists of posts and pages, such as:

Search results pages – both on your own site and on search engines such as Google
Category pages – if readers are interested in a particular topic, they may click on a category name in your sidebar or at the top or bottom of an individual post – when they do, they are taken to an archive that lists all posts in that category (the same applies to tag pages)
Monthly archive pages – while I don’t recommend displaying a monthly archive of blog posts on your business blog sidebar, excerpts are used on this page as well

Why customize your blog post excerpt?

The blog post excerpt is like a commercial for your blog post. Your readers need a reason to click through to a particular post, and your excerpt shows them the potential benefits.

Without a customized blog post excerpt, not only are you missing an opportunity to attract your ideal readers and customers, you could be turning them away. That’s because by default people will see the beginning of your post but it will be cut off arbitrarily (for example, WordPress cuts off after 55 words).

If you have a bullet list or other special formatting early in your post (as I do above), it can really compromise the readability and effectiveness of this text.

Another key benefit of customizing your blog post excerpt is that you can include keywords and phrases that your ideal customers may be looking for. This won’t affect your ranking, but it does affect how your listing is displayed.

In Google search results, for example, these words will be highlighted in bold if they match what the searcher had typed into the search box. This will draw more attention to your post and reinforces the benefits to the reader.

How do you customize your blog post excerpt?

Content: Put yourself in your readers’ shoes, after they’ve already read your post. Why are they glad they clicked? What key lessons did they learn? What benefits did this have in their life or business? Summarize what’s in it for them.

Length: The experts at Moz recommend 155 characters (including spaces) as the ideal length of a meta description. Use this guideline for excerpts as well, so you can streamline your blog writing and promotion and use the same summary for both purposes.

Logistics: First you’ll need to find the excerpt box/field in your blogging platform. In WordPress, this isn’t always displayed automatically. If you don’t see it, look for the Screen Options menu at the top right-hand side of the screen, and make sure Excerpt is checked.

Next, in order to customize the meta description of your blog posts, you’ll need to be using an SEO tool (plugin) such as WordPress SEO by Yoast or All-in-One SEO Pack. Once that is set up on your site, you will see this additional field where you will paste your excerpt text.

When you customize your blog post excerpt, you show your readers and prospective customers the value they can expect from you, your blog post, and your business.

When Your Business Blog Loses Focus, You Lose Readers

October 20, 2014 By Linda Dessau

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People read business blogs to get useful information. They want that information in small, shiny nuggets mined from the blogger’s best thinking. When bloggers don’t focus sharply on a topic, readers can’t easily find information they can use.

Business blogging has the same requirements as other business communication such as reports and proposals. Readers expect a focus and a purpose. Without them, people’s minds will wander off the screen or the page, and writers will not accomplish their goals.

These opening statements are from Lynn Gaertner-Johnston, the founder of Syntax Training and the Business Writing blog. I asked Lynn to share her insights into this important topic.

What is the impact of lack of focus in business blogging?

Without focus, blog posts leave their readers with a vague feeling. Readers will not enjoy, remember, or forward the links for blog posts that aren’t sparkling gems inspiring thought or action. Enough unfocused posts will turn readers away permanently.

What are your top three writing tips for blogging with focus?

Imagine your readers.

Think about what they expect and need from you. For instance, for my Business Writing blog (http://www.businesswritingblog.com), longtime subscribers are looking for fresh ideas on business writing, along with expert advice they can share with less experienced writers. My other readers are people who land on the blog because a search took them there.

Bloggers who imagine their readers and their readers’ wants and needs have an easier time focusing their blog posts on valuable content.

State the purpose of the post in one sentence.

For example:

This post reviews the book [fill in a book title] to share a few practical pearls with readers and advise them on whether the book is worth reading.
This post shares an anecdote about my visit to the casino to highlight good customer service and help readers see how they might serve customers with style.

When bloggers know the purpose of a post, they can recognize when they are losing focus. Self-editing and discipline are easier when there’s a clear reason for them.

Narrow your focus.

For example, rather than writing about the ten mistakes people in your field make, write about one big mistake. Describe one meaningful incident that took place on your vacation—not the entire trip. Write about just one challenging interview question you were asked. Tell readers how to do one small but important aspect of their job or craft well.

What are the challenges of focused writing on a business blog?

Turning one’s daily experiences into a focused, worthwhile topic challenges many business bloggers. The key to meeting that challenge is—again—to think about the readers and how or why they would find those daily experiences valuable.

I observed a woman whose dog she was “walking” was lying on the sidewalk in the sun. When I asked whether the dog was okay, she told me the dog just enjoyed the sun. She said their walks could take forever. How could I tie that charming moment into a blog post on business writing? I wrote about writers having to allow enough time for writing, just as that woman allowed enough time for walking her sun-loving dog.

Another challenge in business blogging is the need to come across as an expert. When bloggers write honestly about the stupid things they have done, it’s a huge challenge to maintain focus on their expertise. A solution is to tell about the blunder with a focus on how it made the blogger a better marketer or [fill in the blank with the area of expertise]. Blog readers can learn valuable lessons from our mistakes, but we have to focus on our learning—not on the mistake itself—or we risk losing readers who lose confidence in us.

What is the benefit of focused writing on a business blog?

Focusing helps us write great blog posts. A meandering story is not going to please anyone but the writer. Yet a focused story, anecdote, example, list, tip, product review, lesson, etc., can satisfy our readers perfectly. Focus helps us communicate our expertise and value in small, exquisite pieces.

Lynn Gaertner-Johnston is the founder of Syntax Training, offering business writing courses in Seattle, Washington. She has been business blogging for 9+ years. With the tips, ideas and resources she shares at her Business Writing blog, she aims to quash the bad writing habits that linger in the cubicles of 21st-century organization.

Business Blogging: Is Sidebar Clutter Sabotaging Your Results?

September 29, 2014 By Linda Dessau

At home, we often don’t see clutter building up around us because we’re looking at it every day. We have a “system” and we know exactly what every pile or piece of paper is, yet the overall effect looks like a disaster zone.

The same may be happening on your business blog. There are so many cool options for adding content to your business blog sidebar. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

You may have good reasons for everything you’ve added to your sidebar, but when you put it all together it can add up to clutter. The dangers of a cluttered sidebar include:

Your reader can’t find what he or she is looking for
It looks unprofessional
It’s visually jarring and unpleasant
It’s confusing

Any of these things can drive a reader away, or detract from your credibility and trust while they are on your site.

Social proof widgets

In the quest for social proof (statistics or quotes that demonstrate to website visitors that others use and trust your website, products or services), some people overload their blog sidebar with too many of the wrong things.

For example, there are widgets that will automatically update your sidebar with a current count of your social media followers, your latest status updates, recent comments from your followers, or even photos of some of your followers.

These widgets have two big drawbacks because they can easily:

Distract your reader. Depending on the content of each particular message, this may detract from your goal for the website – the action you wish your reader to take. And because most of these widgets link directly to the social network, it’s also very easy for your reader to click away and get lost amongst the hundreds of conversations happening at any given moment on those sites.
Raise doubts about your social media status. If you install the widgets before you’ve built much of a following or gained consistent engagement and activity on those pages, this will be glaringly obvious to everyone who visits your website.

There are ways to display social proof effectively. Once you have built up a solid following, look for options that post your number of followers, allow people to follow you without leaving your site, and/or ensure any links open up in a new window.

Links to social media profiles

Speaking of links, should you have links to your social media profiles on your website, and if so, where? In a workshop at the recent Content Marketing World conference, Andy Crestodina called these “leaks in the bucket,” because if these links are too prominent people will use them to leave your site and could easily get distracted from what they were doing or reading.

Chris Brogan told me the same thing while I was redesigning the Content Mastery Guide website, so I put my social media icons on the Contact Us page. I’m considering Andy’s suggestion to put them in the footer, though. That’s because as a content curator, I appreciate when these are easy to find so I can properly credit and tag the authors of the content I share on social media.

Category archives by month

As I discussed in a post about the best ways to link to older blog posts, it’s a mistake to use up precious blog sidebar space with a list of months. Instead, use widgets that display the titles of your most recent posts, along with a list of categories that reinforce your credibility as an expert in those topics.

Unfocused blog posts

Let’s travel a little west of your blog sidebar to the main column of your blog. Is there clutter hiding here? There may be, if any of your posts are unfocused, outside your main topic areas, or more like diary entries than content marketing.

By clearing the clutter from your business blog sidebar, you’ll freshen up your blog to be more welcoming and useful to your readers. In turn, that leads to longer website visits and trust that you’ll provide more value – both on your blog and with your products and services.

3 Secrets of Business Blogging for Busy People

September 9, 2014 By Linda Dessau

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A client asked me to write a guest post that would take his readers behind the scenes of his blog. As a busy executive VP, he wanted to answer a common question:

“How do you find the time to blog every week?”

Ultimately, he decided not to reveal his biggest blogging secret (that he uses a blog ghostwriter), so I reworked the post to give you the benefits of our blogging experience.

While some people question the ethics of ghost blogging, what I do is take my client’s ideas, words and expressions, and put them together into a blog post written in his voice.

Here are the three most important things we do to keep my client’s blog rolling week after week:

1. We have a blogging schedule

Aside from holiday weeks or times of intensive travel, we’re committed to publish a new blog post every Wednesday. In order to make that happen, we line up as many posts as we can so we don’t have to scramble at the last minute.

I keep a calendar of upcoming blog posts and when they’re scheduled, and tell my client what we need to be working on next. We also have a recurring blog writing call booked in our calendars every two weeks. If one of us can’t make it, we always reschedule so it doesn’t get dropped.

2. We have systems in place

Because there are several moving pieces in the process, especially when we’re working with guests (see below), it’s important for us to use replicable systems that keeps us on track

For example, we use Microsoft Word tracked changes so he can quickly review and comment on my drafts and tweak as needed. At the bottom of that initial draft, I use a text expansion program to paste in a blogging promotion template for the social media updates my team posts to my client’s accounts via Buffer.

3. We love our guest bloggers

As passionate as my client is about his subject, sometimes he’s either not inspired by any topic in particular, or there’s too much going on in his business to devote as much attention to the blog.

At those times we rely on his connections to other related experts in his industry. Not only do guest posts give him a break from blogging himself, they bring more value to his readers with new perspectives and insights.

I work with our guest authors to either interview them and write up the posts (much as I do for my client), polish up something they’ve written for us, or re-print a post they’ve published on their own site.

All guests are promoted with bylines at the top of the article and a bio – with link – at the bottom. As well, we mention our guest bloggers on social media and tag them if we can.

Think you’re too busy to blog for your business? Try these three tactics and let your voice be heard! Or hand over the whole process with Content Mastery Guide’s business blog writing service.