I need to Blog … But what shall I write!
Many business owners resist starting a blog in the first place simply because the idea of coming up with things to say on a weekly (or more frequent) basis is daunting. But assuming your business is in a niche you love, you should never face a shortage of topics to write about.
Truth is, if you’re excited about a subject and open to comments and discussion, the choices for interesting posts are endless. Still, there will be instances when your writing well runs dry. That’s why I suggest you make a list of ideas so you’ll have prompts for a good start.
Here’s just a handful of places to find ideas:
On other blogs. Follow the leaders in your industry to find out what they’re talking about. You can provide your own personal perspective about the latest topics, or you might want to predict what will happen next. For example, if everyone’s talking about the challenges of outsourcing overseas, you could write about the legal considerations of outsourcing to freelancers abroad, or maybe about cheap places to outsource domestically.
On forums. Reading industry forums can provide you with a fly-on-the-wall view of what people are experiencing, wondering about, and doing in your industry. Even though you may not want to actively participate, you can eavesdrop on what people are saying and create a blog that answers questions or adds new insights.
In the news. Some of the best blog posts are those that describe how a current event impacts a particular niche. If it’s time for the Olympics, for example, and you have a photography blog, you could discuss the very best lenses and methods for capturing action shots. A marketing blog could cover the ways the International Olympic Committee is selling the Games, and a fashion blog could talk about how the Games affect fashion.
In the past. Recent or more distant history is an excellent place to find ideas. A recipe site could include descriptions of old-time cooking, or talk about how the average American meal regimen has changed over time, or provide recipes still in use today that haven’t changed in the past hundred years.
The overall idea with a blog is to use it as a lens for your niche. Your job is to check out the world as it relates to your market, letting people know what’s important, interesting, and noteworthy. As you scour newspapers, books, TV, and the Internet for related ideas, ask yourself, “How does this impact my market?” You’ll get a good idea of how to begin. And if you love what you do, the rest will come quite naturally.
Remembering Your Audience
When online entrepreneurs speak about blogging, they usually consider all of the ways it can help them. They wax nostalgic about traffic, sales, and their soon-to-be-achieved “expert status.” But what they often forget is always that to achieve traffic, revenue, and attention, you need to provide something your audience wants. If you are centered on your organization and what blogging can do for you personally, you are going to alienate your potential customers.
Here are the most notable five mistakes that bloggers make and the way to prevent them:
- Thinking “What do I want to write?” vs. “What does my audience desire to read?” It’s okay to include some personal information or stories every so often. But remember that your target market doesn’t care an excessive amount of about your brand-new car or your kitten’s coeliac disease – unless it features a direct touching on their life or even the niche you’re currently talking about. If the website is all about natural health cures for pets, then are the gory details of Fluffy’s gastrointestinal distress. Otherwise, concentrate on your readers’ biggest worries and problems and just how you can solve them. Save the chit-chat for your therapist or your spouse.
- Taking “informal” past an acceptable limit. One of the greatest mistakes many bloggers make is to get carried away in their efforts to become informal, with the result that they seem downright unprofessional. By their very nature, blogs tend to be casual, according to conversation and interaction. Just avoid getting sloppy. Be sure to check spelling and grammar, and capitalize words where. Think about it… Would you trust a brain surgeon who cannot be bothered to capitalize and punctuate properly?
- Becoming undependable. You don’t have to blog daily if you do not wish to, however, you have to blog consistently. In the event you blog fifteen times 1 week after which disappear for a a short while, you’ll appear flaky and disorganized. Instead, utilize the scheduling function on your own blogging service to set up a regular posting routine. If you want to take a seat one time a month to publish, that’s fine. But be sure to set up your posts so they really be visible on a regular schedule.
- Ignoring the interactive part of blogging. Blogs should be dialogues. You begin the the conversational ball, and your readers catch it and toss it through comments, e-mails, and even responses on their own blogs. If you write try not to listen or respond, you’ll seem distant and unapproachable. It’s crucial that you care what your visitors and readers have to say.
- Making your blog read being a press release. Customers love blogs simply because they believe they’re finding a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the business. However, if your post reads like a corporate pr release, no one is going to stay around. After all, they can read your annual report. Instead, share with your readers what you are focusing on, the challenges you’re facing and just how you’re overcoming them, and details about your process. Occasionally, you may even request advice on how you can solve a business problem. Asking individuals to provide input allows them to feel like a part of the team and increases brand loyalty.
As you can see, these aren’t difficult concepts to understand. You don’t have to write Pulitzer-winning prose or answer complex “meaning of life” questions. Instead, you should be yourself – your better self! – and keep the readers’ interests in mind.
Getting the Most out of Your Images
Savvy bloggers utilize every opportunity to improve their appeal to engines like google. Why should you care? Because each and every time your website or post comes up in the search engine results, there is a possibility to drive additional people to your blog… and that means more readers and, if you are selling something, more customers!
Below are a few easy ways to use the images you set on your blog for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes:
- Optimize the file name. Your camera may automatically generate an image file name like “234455.jpg.” The major search engine shave no idea what to do with that! Instead, before uploading to your blog, rename the file to something distinguishable like “easy-pumpkin-pie.jpg.” Make the title descriptive with some of the keywords, but don’t overload using a fifteen-word title.
- Make use of the alt attribute. Search engines use the alt attribute field to determine the content of the image; when the alt field is empty, the engines have no information to go on. If you’re using WordPress, it’s easy to alter the alt information. Upload your image while using “Add Image” function, then inside the “Alternative Text” field, add your alt text info, again utilizing your descriptive keywords.
- Use the title attribute. The title ‘s what appears whenever your cursor hovers on the image. Complete information for that title just like you would the alt attribute, utilizing the same method in the “Add Image” function on WordPress.
- Make use of your keywords inside your post. It seems obvious that you’d desire to use keywords in your text, however, many bloggers forget, thinking it’s enough to include them within the title and/or the attributes above. It is not! If your post is all about steps to make home décor items from dryer lint, then you must state that phrase many times within the text of the article, and illustrate the post with a photo of revamped dryer lint. The file name with the photo, as well as the alt and title attributes, ought to support that keyword phrase.
SEO is mainly good sense. Take into consideration what individuals would type into Google or their best search engine to steer these phones your site post. Then use that phrase wherever you are able to – without overdoing it.
Catchy Blog Headlines
You’ve heard it before: People DO judge books by their covers, plus they judge blogs by their headlines. If the headline isn’t entertaining or compelling, your potential readers will expect the same as the rest of your blog post, infact they may not bother to take the time to read it.
Let’s face it, writing great headlines can be a challenge. After all, you need to make it catchy in addition to incorporating your keywords for seo purposes. But if you keep your focus on your readers, you will find that there is a lot of crossover between what the future prospect want and what the engines like google want. After all, the various search engines desire to deliver the ideal results with their users.
Below are great tips for writing effective post headlines:
- The point of your posting. Each post needs an individual call to action, along with a single point. Picking a headline that supports this aspect may help make sure the all this post stays on topic.
- Put the keyword first. Engines like google give higher priority for the words at the beginning of the title. So if you feel writing about parsley’s many benefits, rather than writing “Twelve Powerful Many benefits of Parsley,” rephrase so that it is, “Parsley: Twelve Powerful Health advantages.”
- Keep it short. Common wisdom is the fact that Google will simply display as much as 66 characters in the title and definately will crop the remainder. That’s one more reason to place your most important words up front.
- Make it interesting. The best titles certainly are a bit mysterious or clever. Just don’t sacrifice clarity in the interest of cleverness! You’re far better off going with a straightforward title than being so obtuse that somebody scanning titles on the internet doesn’t have idea what your post will likely be about.
- Make a promise… and deliver. Tell people what you are planning to tell them, and then spend the rest of your post delivering on that advertise.
Headline writing – like most of online marketing – is really a balancing act. You must balance clarity with interest, and cleverness with SEO. Simply do your better and turn into in keeping with your look.
7 Reasons to Choose WordPress for Your Website
If you’re ready to create your business website, “how” you build it – what software platform you choose – is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make.
As of Sept. 2009, 202 million websites worldwide used WordPress, making it the most popular blog software in use today. WordPress is a great tool for small business owners. It is versatile, free, and easy to use.
Here are 7 reasons why I recommend it:
- WordPress is versatile. It meets the needs of start-up businesses and seasoned pros. If you just want a blog, WordPress delivers. If you want an easy-to-use professional website, choose WordPress for its type-and-publish simplicity. And if you want both a business website and a blog, there is simply no better program available today.
- WordPress is free. You don’t have to purchase the software. The basic themes (and there are plenty to choose from) are free. Most plug-ins (software tools that help the site operate more efficiently) are free. Online resources, including blogs and forums, are also free: This means it costs you nothing to become proficient with WordPress.
- WordPress is easy to customize. Begin with a basic theme, and you can change the colors, layout, theme elements, and more. You can also create a completely unique theme, one that is as individual as you are. This part isn’t free – but by leveraging an existing theme it is affordable.
- WordPress is all about “WYSIWG” – what you see is what you get. That means updating your content (something you have to do often) is easy. You type, test the page, and go live. This is also called CMS – content management system – and no one makes it easier to manage your words than WordPress.
- WordPress is a global solution. That means it is designed to work on every browser, in almost every country, in almost every language. There’s peace of mind in knowing that your business website can do its job – selling you – everyplace it goes.
- WordPress works with Social Media. This means Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the other social media tools, all work seamlessly on your WordPress business website.
WordPress grows with you. As your business evolves, so will your website. WordPress makes it easy to update everything from your theme, logo, color scheme, to page layout. It’s a snap to add or delete pages. When you’re ready to add a blog, offer a free ebook, or build a mailing list, you don’t have to change software programs.
