Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

Kind words from the Profit Lounge

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“I host the Profit Lounge SIG.  It’s a monthly worldwide teleconference call for coaches.  Linda Dessau was my guest speaker this month and she discussed “5 Secrets That Will Improve Anything That You Write.”  Her tips were practical, powerful, and easy to understand. I know the coaches on the call, including myself, will begin to put her knowledge into action today!”

Steve Borek, End Game Business, www.endgamebusiness.com

I love speaking to groups! If you host a group who would benefit from writing tips or article marketing strategies, please let me know!

I also got this feedback about the Idea Generator blog update emails:

“I get ideas just reading your emails. I once wrote five blog posts off the top of my head just from something you mentioned in a newsletter. Aaah, if all newsletters could spark such creativity. Thank you!“

Joan Bell, http://www.lifecoach101.com

Defining a perfect article opener

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I was listening to a silly radio ad about winter tires the other day, and it reminded me of a very common (but sometimes forgotten) article opener – the definition.

A definition is helpful when you're using a phrase your readers may not be familiar with (as I defined the term plain language in this blog post), but it's also an interesting way to start any article.

Often we use the same words over and over again and start making assumptions about what they mean, and how they apply to us. So try giving your readers the gift of a fresh perspective on a well-used term.

Here are some definitions that might be interesting to explore:

  • Career coaches: Teamwork, reward, motivation, development
  • Life coaches: Vision, balance, boundary, happiness 
  • Parenting coaches: Discipline, love, need, model
  • Business coaches: Sell, service, alignment, success
  • Spiritual coaches: Faith, surrender, meaning, awe

Writing prompt: Head over to Merriam-Webster or another online dictionary and look up the formal definitions of the terms you use most often in your coaching conversations. Explore alternate or deeper meanings that could spark some insight for your readers. You can also check out these other 10 article openers.

How a fellow shower thinker got my attention on Twitter

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We had a great call on Tuesday, called How to Find, Feed and Fill Your Ideas Catchers So You Never Have Article Writer's Block Again!

Thanks again to my co-host, Laurie Foley of Intuitioneering, and please stay tuned to the Idea Generator update emails on Tuesdays to hear about future calls and other resources.

One of the topics we covered was how to keep your idea catchers perpetually full, when I shared what I've noticed about the creative power of water. Next thing you know, I got a tweet from Alex Carter, the Non-Profit Coach (Alex was featured in October's IAC VOICE), about a friend who keeps an erasable marker handy to capture shower ideas – ingenious!

It was great to hear from Alex and to continue to conversation we started on the call, but what was ever cooler was the tweet that came next.

You see the good folks at the Calmar Consulting Corporation, a husband and wife team of self-confessed shower thinkers, must have a Twitter search set up to find just such topics, and they were quick to "re-tweet" the message (forward it to their own followers).

And because I'm alerted when my name is mentioned, all of a sudden they were on my radar so I could discover them and write about them here. Pretty savvy use of Twitter, don't you think? If you have a look at their Twitter stream you can see examples of other little gems they've picked up on Twitter that are a perfect match for their product.

And what is their product?

Why, AquaNotes, of course – a waterproof pencil and paper set for the shower!! I just placed my order, and I'll definitely let you know what I think of them!

Article marketing: Where is the best place to submit your articles?

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An Idea Generator reader asked, "How can I manage my article marketing efforts? Specifically, what are the best sites to post on and how do I monitor what’s working/not working so that I can determine where I am getting my best ROI and focus my efforts on posting to those sites or writing about those topics?"

There was a wonderful and vibrant discussion about this topic earlier in September on the New Coach Connection (NCC). If you join today, you can search the discussions for "EzineArticles" and read all of the posts.

Kathy Mallary, a consistent, generous and wise contributor to the NCC list and blog, shared a link to this post on the Copylicious blog, A tale of two article submission sites. In it, Kelly makes some excellent points that really had me pondering the future homes of my own articles.

This was also around the same time that one of my articles was flagged by EzineArticles, "because it contains a link which promotes a mass article generator, which we do not allow." Of course they were referring to my Top 10 Article Generator, which I promote in my author resource box. When I followed the instructions to get it cleared up, I got no response and had to follow up again.

Eventually the article was released, but I must say the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. And as many of you know, I've been a long-time fan.

Regarding ROI and statistics, when reviewing EzineArticles' robust statistics, I discovered that I actually have a very LOW click-through rate from my writing and editing articles. People are reading them, and even sometimes emailing them and publishing them on their own websites and newsletters, but they're not clicking the link in my author resource box. At least not as often as I'd like them to.

I haven't done a thorough analysis of why the author resource box wasn't working for me, but I did rewrite it so that my new articles will hopefully get more click-throughs. I haven't yet gone back to change the articles I've already published (sounds like a job for my VA!).

Whatever stats are available to you, review them regularly to see which articles get the most interest, AND which articles lead to actual results for you.

I've often suggested that people submit to both general and targeted article directory sites. For a new article directory site that is laser-focused on helping coaches find clients, check out Coach Spotlight.

Write from the headlines: Rude people

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Last week, Toronto’s public transit system started cracking down on rude riders. That got me thinking about the many ways that coaches can help us in our encounters with rude people.

  • Career coaches: Are you the victim of workplace bullying?
  • Life coaches: Five important lessons that rude people are here to teach you
  • Parenting coaches: How to deal with the rude behavior of other people’s children
  • Business coaches: Are rude customers still always right?
  • Spiritual coaches: How to lovingly detach from the rudeness of others

Writing prompt: Use one of these article titles as a springboard to a topic that is custom-made for your own audience. I’d love to hear your take on it – you can post a link to your article as a comment below. Please, and thank you.