Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

When more than 600 professionals in marketing, advertising and PR get together in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame City, you know the event is going to be a smash hit! Joe Pulizzi’s Content Marketing World 2011 was all that and more. The program agenda read like a who’s who in online marketing and included industry rock stars like Sally Hogshead, David Meerman Scott, Mike Stelzner, Brian Clark, Jay Baer, Lee Odden, Ann Handley and many, many more. Even at the end of two full days of seminars, panel discussions and content how-to’s, I was still trying to catch a waterfall in a water cooler cup.

For me, the focal point of the conference (beyond curiosity about Lady Gaga’s bizarre meat dress, currently on display at the Rock Hall) can be summed up in this phrase: fascinate, compel and convert your audience using the power of story. If you want to succeed in online marketing today, content must be a foundational pillar, not some website architect’s last-minute add-on.

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There are a lot of different ways to say the same thing. Anyone who has performed keyword research knows that people search for a lot of the same things using very different phrases and terminology. For example, if you’re looking to build your online business, you could search for: internet marketing, website marketing, online marketing, website promotion, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, SEO, and a dozen other variations.

Or if you’re a physician looking to manage health records online, you could search for: EHR, EMR, electronic health records, electronic medical records, medical software, personal health records, practice management software, and so on. One of the problems many business owners and SEOs come up against is how to optimize their site for each of these variations that all potentially mean the same thing.

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I don’t consider myself a real blogger. To me, real bloggers don’t have jobs, they just get paid for writing about their opinions. Kinda like journalists.

I’m just a small business owner that happens to blog on a few times a week. But since my source of income is my business blogging takes a back seat to business needs. Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a full-time blogger or ghost writer so they have to work blogging into their many business-owner duties. And because those duties are so heavy on the business owner, blogging generally falls by the wayside as more pressing matters are attended to.

Many small business owners are out there thinking “Blogging? That’s just one more thing to add to my already over-booked work schedule. No thanks.” I feel you.

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Whenever a new medium emerges and becomes the “it” thing. Everyone flocks to it until the next shiny thing comes around and then that becomes the new “it.” Inevitably, those on the cutting edge of “it” always decry the downfall of the previous “it” which then becomes “that”. “That” is obsolete. “That” doesn’t have long-term value. You need to give “that” up and put your money in “it.”

But “that” doesn’t always go away no matter how much “it” gains in popularity.

Remember radio? Of course you do. We still listen to radio. Sometimes even listen to it on old fashioned radio tuners instead of over the internet or via satellite. But didn’t you hear? Radio is dead. Radio “died” with the invention of the TV.

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Each blog post you write should leave your readers fully satisfied. Like sex, a good meal or even a good TV show, each blog post must be enough to leave people happy but wanting more at that same time. While every performance may not be better than the last, you have to leave the expectation that the next performance will be at least just as good.

Developing a good blog isn’t about being a one-hit wonder. If all you have in you is one post then you’re better off guest-blogging for someone else, instead of trying to build a blog of your own. But if you want to develop your own blog with your own following then you’ve got to be able to deliver the goods on a regular basis.

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There is an old adage that says you need to leave people wanting more. The essence of this is to make sure you don’t give so much that your audience becomes bored, but to give them only enough to keep them wanting more. Give them just enough to satisfy, but also wanting the encore.

A blog is different. You don’t want to leave them wanting more, but instead you want to give them far more than they expected. Of course, leaving them wanting an encore isn’t such a bad thing either.

Give them more while leaving them wanting more

As writers we often get caught up in words. Even as I’m writing and editing this post I’m concerned that it’s not long enough. That I don’t have enough words on the page. But good writing isn’t about adding more unnecessary words just to fill a quota. In fact it’s often just the opposite. It’s about eliminating the words that are not necessary so those that you keep make the most impact.

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Having a good headline, a good article and even a good-looking site isn’t always enough to maintain an audience. To keep people coming back to your blog day after day you have to go through the extra effort to keep your visitors interested in your content.

Think of your blog as a TV show. How many shows start out strong but can’t maintain the interest as time passes? I remember years ago watching the show Alias. It quickly became one of my favorite shows that I looked forward to watching each week. Then somewhere around mid second season it jumped the shark. (The post-Superbowl episode when SD-6 was brought down and the sexual tension between the two main characters… oh, never mind. Yes, I’m still holding a grudge!) Alias just as quickly became one of the many shows that I threw away.

While you don’t need to have sexual tension in your blog content (or an evil mastermind, for that matter) to keep people interested, you do need to have an element of anticipation. Your readers should want to come back and read what you have to say next. But unlike a TV show, the anticipation of each “episode” of your blog needs to provide a release, leaving the reader completely fulfilled.

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It’s just a fact of life, good looking people get more attention. We walk through the checkout line in the grocery store and see half a dozen magazines filled with beautiful faces on top of beautiful bodies. A good looking woman walking through the mall is bound to turn a few heads. Commercials are filled with models that pass the schwing test. (Yes, I pulled out my 80′s innuendo reference manual for that!)

Our love of beauty isn’t just focused on the human body. We love well manicured lawns, beautiful sunsets, and gorgeous building architecture. Some of us even go to restaurants where the food is pretty. Face it, we are very visual people.

It strikes me as odd, that as much stock as we place in things that are wonderful to look at, we often don’t take as much care with our blogs. I understand that it’s not easy putting together a website that looks good. It takes effort, skill and often a good amount of money. So instead of doing what needs to be done we skimp. Blogs, on the other hand are far easier, it’s just a matter of finding a good theme and running with it. But for whatever reason, that often doesn’t happen.

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You have a good idea for a blog post, but getting people to keep coming back and reading day after day takes more than a good idea. You have to execute that idea in an appealing way.

Ever wonder why so many commercials we see on TV revolve around sexual appeal? Because sex is appealing. At least when it’s packaged properly. Commercials using fat, bear-bellied men or “average” looking women are few and far between. Everyone is nicely toned, handsome or strikingly beautiful.

Blogging is no different. The best titled “pickup line” in the world is only going to get you so far. To get anywhere you have to prove that you’ve got the goods that go with it.

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When writing a blog post the title of the post is your pick-up line. That’s your first opportunity to make a first impression. Deliver a poorly crafted pick-up line and there is a good chance your blog post sit there alone and unread. Craft a strong pick-up line and you at least have a shot of pulling them in to see what else you got going for you.

The headlines below headlines all come from search engine marketing blogs. These headlines may not be “sexy” like what you might see fronting the gossip mags in the checkout line, but for the industry, these turned out to be some attention-getting headlines. In fact, while the headlines themselves didn’t win any awards, the articles that followed certainly did.

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