Multi-task your articles

First think about using a keyword tool. Google’s keyword tool is an excellent free tool for this, but there are other ones that are just as effective. Key in your topic and see what people are searching for. The results may surprise you. There will be lots of ideas for articles in those phrases and words and they may take you in a direction you hadn’t thought about (but it will still be connected to your subject matter.
Taking that search a step further you can search those keywords in Google or Yahoo and see what results come up there. That can lead you in some really interesting tangential conversations going on about your subject. For example your subject may be tennis tournaments, so you enter that phrase into a the keyword tool and the phrase “tennis link tournament” comes up. You then can search that phrase and almost 25 million results come up. Some of those may be things you haven’t written about yet.

A second possibility for article ideas is the trending topics on Twitter. Millions of people use Twitter and if you are doing topical articles you will be rewarded in the search engines. As this is being written “Ghadafi, Libyans, Osama Bin Laden, Jimmy Johns, We found love, and Lindsay Lohan” are all trends on twitter. How can you tie in one of those to what you write about? Or how can those inspire you to write about something? It’s food for thought.
Since we are talking about trends, we can’t overlook source number three, which is today’s headlines. Go to any of the major news sources, whether it’s Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, Al Jazerra or Das Bild. Current events spark interest across the board. If you can build an article that has today’s events as part of your keyword content you will get more interest and more readership. How does a disaster relate to your niche? How does an international conference impact your potential readers?

Fourth, what are other people in your niche talking about? If you aren’t reading your competition you are losing out. There is room for thousands of articles on any subject and we all have our opinions on things. You may agree or disagree with someone else’s point of view, and you can write an article that states your position without stealing content. Chances are if someone else is posting about a topic, people are thinking about it and would appreciate another educated point of view.

Your audience demands that you write. If you don’t write, you will lose them. So think about how you want to find new article ideas and about how you want to present them. Your content represents you and you want to keep it fresh and relevant. The process can be arduous, but it can also be rewarding. If you feel the pressure or writer’s block creeping up on you; consider guest bloggers or ghostwriters to supplement your work. If it’s flowing keep on going.

Do people look to you for answers?

First, no one knows what you want better than you do. It’s your website and possibly your idea that has come to fruition, so what goes on there is very personal to you. Odds are you have a website and you are writing about a specific subject because you are a subject matter expert.  (Are you a SME?)

Your content is really important to the integrity of the site. You want everything to be 100 percent accurate and reflect you in its entirety. If it doesn’t, it could possibly make you look like you don’t know what’s going on in your own field. Not good. The point of the blog is to build you up in your audience’s eyes and to grow a relationship with potential customers. If it’s not doing those two things, you may as well shut it down and start an ant farm.

But maybe you aren’t a writer. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and it is wise to recognize that. Just as you wouldn’t drill out a cavity and give yourself a filling, you don’t want to write your own content if it’s like pulling teeth. (Ouch. Okay, I formally apologize for that one.)

But here’s an example. My wife has a blog about decorating houses. She needs her “about” page written, but has been procrastinating on it for days. She’ll open up a word processing program and stare at the blank screen. She’ll even type a few sentences, but then agonize over how they are structured or how they make her look (and that’s good to a degree, but the assignment never gets completed.)

Some people can just sit down and write effectively and quickly. They do research so the articles (blog posts) communicate and educate. If you are lucky enough to find someone like that, you hire them if writing is not your thing. You still read the content before it gets posted and maybe make a few editorial changes, but those are easier than writing from scratch.

The other aspect of hiring a ghostwriter is that they should be familiar with SEO and keyword usage. For more on that visit here.  If you are writing without thinking about those two aspects chances are that your blog traffic isn’t going to need the autobahn, a footpath may be all that is needed.

But maybe writing is “sort of” your thing. If that is the case, then hire someone to create some of your content and occasionally write some of your own posts. That keeps your hand in the process, but allows you to spend time on building your business as well.

In a nutshell, if you like to write and you can do it rather quickly, I would suggest keeping a tight hold on that aspect of your on-line presence. If you like to write, but thinking about keywords and SEO gives you a headache, pass it on to an expert. Either way you do it, make sure you keep an eye on what gets posted to your website. Your expertise may be better spent on growing your business and you can always stay connected by replying to comments made on your blog posts.

For more on how subject matter experts are influencing business, I recommend this book.
(I am a big believer in becoming knowledgeable on anything I write on.. )

Get the right keys..

Probably the method most talked about is using keywords. For organic results with search engines that is very important. However, targeting the top keywords is unlikely to move you up the ranks. For most subjects there is too much competition on those words, so you need to use a keyword tool to find words that are less competitive and are searched less. For example, if you were blogging about makeup, you might want to consider “long tail” keywords like “makeup for women over 40” which is much less competitive than the generic “makeup.”

A second way of climbing the ranks is through backlinks to your blog. Gaining backlinks can be done by commenting on other blogs and websites and leaving contact information in the forms. Make sure the comments are not generic and that they show you actually read the blog post. “Great article. I’ll be sure to bookmark your site and subscribe to your RSS feed” may sound nice, but it is sure to be deleted as spam, even if it happens to be true.

Next you want to think about your blog’s content. How much do you have? The more relevant content you have the higher you will be ranked, generally speaking. A site with ten pages will not rank as high as a site with one hundred pages. Keep adding content on a regular basis. If you don’t have time to write that many posts consider hiring a ghostwriter to get you content. Make sure you read any content you get from them to make sure it isn’t just keywords and crap. You always want quality over quantity and don’t be afraid to pay a little more for that. You get what you pay for.

Fourthly, use key phrases within your content. I spoke about long tail keywords – phrases are just an extension of those. Group your keywords and phrases closely together to get even more attention by the spiders that crawl the web. Use keywords tools to find phrases that people are searching for. This will definitely impact your Google ranking and help you with marketing your blog.

Don't stuff your blog posts with keywords

Lastly, make sure you don’t over-pack your articles with keywords and phrases. A good percentage of keywords is somewhere between two and eight percent. More than eight percent also makes your content “read funny” and will likely discourage return visitors. People recognize quality content and avoid blogs that obviously are stuffed with keywords.

Here’s a sixth thing to think about (consider this a bonus.) Think about your target audience the whole time you are writing. If you are looking to attract a younger crowd your vocabulary and keyword content might be more techie or fresh, while an older audience might use more traditional word choices.

A quick recap – use long-tail keywords, get back links, add content on a regular basis, use “key phrases” in addition to key words, keep those items between two and eight percent of the article and aim your content at a particular audience. Following these suggestions you are very likely to increase your page ranking for your blog.

Content = Traffic

It’s simple really. To get targeted traffic to your blog you only have to do two things. 1) Write quality content that helps people solve their problems. 2) Consistently write quality content that helps people solve their problems.

Most people skip the second part.

Blogs can be the flavor of the day at many businesses. Some hotshot comes in and offers to build a superior website that is going to use search engine optimization (SEO) and it has all the bells and whistles. It will have fancy flash that is reflective of the latest and greatest movies out there. And it has a blog option.

Your boss gets all excited about the awesomeness of it all and dashes off the first of many insightful posts on the state of the industry and the latest offerings and his knowledge is beyond question. But after one or two articles the blog slowly fades away into the sunset.

This scenario happens all the time. Flash moves on and needs to be updated, so the site designer keeps busy, but you’re not getting new customers.

No content = No Traffic

The truth is that a blog needs to be updated on a regular basis with usable information. If someone from sales or marketing is responsible for your blog it is going to be all about the great deals your company has to offer and the latest gizmo you have added to your catalog. This is not the sort of blog that builds relationships and adds customers.

Your blog should be an ongoing source of information. Knowledge is the key to bringing in your niche market. If you are selling high performance cars your blog should be about how car enthusiasts can increase their car’s horse power, or improve its performance and handling. It should not be about the latest beast you have for sale. (Don’t get me wrong, occasional posts like that are fine, but they shouldn’t be the bulk of your blog.)

If you talk about aspects of their cars that home enthusiasts can improve on, they will begin to look at you as an authority. They will also likely have you make those improvements. Many people like to think they could do the work themselves, but when it comes down to it, they don’t have the tools or the time, or whatever. Something will be holding them back, and they’ll want that improvement now.

That is also an important aspect that you want to cover; A call to action towards the end of the post. “wouldn’t you like that overhead cam in your car right now? If you don’t have time, we can help make that a reality and we won’t break the bank making it happen.”

Again, the call to action shouldn’t be on every post. The blog posts should mostly be sharing information. The relationship between the reader and the blogger is one of trust built up over time. Regular posts (at least one per week) are the key to making that happen. Do not overlook the importance of providing quality information over an extended period of time. The sheer volume of informative content will eventually define your niche market, make your website stand out as a valued resource, and get your blog noticed. That will translate into customers.

Most people approach a business blog using the “Field of Dreams” strategy.

If you build it, they will come. You also hope that they will come ready to spend money on your products and/or services. But an important factor is using keywords and that is often overlooked by people writing small business blogs.

First you need to find the keywords you want to use. But that is only the start of the battle. It’s an important part, but it’s only the beginning. What are people searching for? If you have a plumbing business are they searching for plumber, or fix pipes or maybe toilet repair? You have to explore all those phrases to come up with the right keywords to use in your article.

Secondly, once you have those keywords they need to be placed strategically in your article. Simply throwing the word toilet repair into a post ten times isn’t going to make magic happen. It’s not just the “beginning, middle end” strategy. You need to think about how close those words are to each other. Proximity is also searched for when the spiders crawl and search a site. So going with our example, you might want “Plumbing and toilet repair” rather than “Plumbing toilet repair.” Using the “and” separates the keywords. In the second example google groups those into one keyword rather than two. Close is good, too close is bad.

Third we want to remember density. Density is the percentage of times a keyword is in an article. Have you ever read an article that made sense, but instead of using pronouns they kept using the proper noun?

Example: When you repair a toilet, the toilet must be disconnected from the toilet water source.

That reads much more smoothly if you write: When repairing a toilet make sure it is disconnected from the water source.

The first example is using a technique called “keyword packing” and some people think it will help with their search engine ranking. That is not the case. You should have a “keyword density” somewhere between two and eight percent. (Plain English – for every hundred words you should have around 4 or 5 keywords. You want no less than 2 and no more than 8.)

Finally, how much do your keywords stand out? Their prominence is important, too. Do you use heading and subheadings in your articles? When spiders and bots crawl around a blog post they notice the use of headlines, so you want to think about using that feature a bit as you are creating. But again, you don’t want to overuse the headline feature in your business blog. That’s basically packing and doesn’t work.

If this sounds complicated, well, it is and it isn’t. The rules change fairly often, but they are simple. The problem comes in that unless you are doing this on a regular basis you have to keep referring to notes on what to do. That can become time consuming.

Using keywords in your business blog can generate results for your small business. As readers recognize you for your knowledge they will also know who to turn to when they have need of your services.

If all this sounds too complex, visit my home page. I am more than happy to create high value laser focused content for you.

If you are thinking about how to attract new customers to your business you should really consider a blend of social media marketing and consistent blogging. This may seem like overkill to a small business, but the truth is that even small businesses need to spend some money on marketing and advertising and social media marketing can be one of the least expensive ways to get the word out.

Everyone agrees that word of mouth and referrals are the two best ways to get customers. But why do those methods work so well? It’s because your customers have a relationship with you as a person and as a business. That relationship is really what social media marketing is about. A lot of people will try to tell you to “Tweet” or make a Facebook page and do updates, but what do you tell people on those updates?

Most businesses don’t use social media effectively. You need to drive people to take action, and part of that action is either directly making a call for your products or services, or visiting your website and then making that call. So how do you get them to your website? The answer is social media. But what do they find at your website?

Often it is a static homepage and a “contact me” page. If you are a bit more savvy you will have an “about” page that will help people get to know you, but the best thing to building a relationship is to have a blog. People can have the wrong impression of what a blog is. It doesn’t have to be your online diary. It should be a series of articles, updated regularly that conveys useful information to your potential customers. Maybe it even help them “do it themselves” in the case of minor repairs, or explains the use of products like yours.

Blogs shouldn’t be sales pages. They are used to build relationships and help people make decisions on their actions, and maybe give a slight “call to action” as well. If you have a plumbing business maybe you talk about things that indicate issues and how people can avoid costly repairs by catching and fixing problems early. If you have a restaurant, maybe you talk about food and drink pairings or how to prepare simple dishes or give away some of your secrets (but not recipes.)

The whole purpose of the blog is to develop a relationship with potential customers and to get them visiting your website when they think about your speciality, whatever that may be. Social media should be used to give small pieces of the puzzle and direct people back to your website’s blog to get the whole story.

Are you building relationships?

By adding a blog to your website you manage to do three important things at the same time. First you help people with their problems and they begin to view you as the “go to” resource. Second, the more content you have on your website, the higher you climb in the search engine results. That means you are more easily found online. And finally it gives people a reason to bookmark your website and make return visits. All of these build relationships and are ways to attract new customers.

As you can see, I practice what I preach. I blog regularly on all my business sites and I try to give you good information you can use. Of course I would like to have you as a customer as well, writing articles for your blog on a weekly basis, but also managing your social media. These go hand in hand and as a regular customer you get package deals.

Check out this article on Business Week’s website on blogging and social media. It’s not going away. True in 2005, updated constantly and still getting traffic every day. Yeah, it’s part of their blog now.)

Comment, write, ask questions. I will answer them promptly and to everything I can to help you succeed and get more clients.

First of all, content is king. Quality content is king as far as readers are concerned, but search engines crawl your site on a regular basis and it is noted whether the number of pages is growing and if there is more content added to existing pages. Googlebots crawl through your site monthly to see if there’s anything new there. So keep adding quality content to please your readers and make those ‘bots work.

Next we’ll talk about backlinks because that is a popular way to get your page ranked higher. If you have backlinks from a top ranked site they have a little more impact on your site than if you have links from a tiny little site over in the far reaches. For example a backlink from The Huffington Post or Boing Boing is going to bring more bang than Cousin Edgar’s Cookie Shop.

Generally speaking the more backlinks you have the higher you will be ranked. If you think about your site as a giant bowl, incoming links are like faucets filling the bowl and outgoing links are like adding drainage holes. Thus if you trade links with a higher ranked site, you are making out better in the deal, if that page is within your niche. For example a health related site would do better if they get a link from WebMD than if they get one from Kelly Blue Book (a vehicle valuation site.)

HINT: If you want to see who is linking to you on Google, simply go to the site and type in “link:” and your website URL and you can see what’s happening on that front. The links listed will be ones coming from your own pages as well as incoming links, so if you have a link for a sub-page on your main page that will also be listed. One thing you should keep in mind is that your website isn’t gaining anything in page ranking. Only individual pages have ranking on Google.

Keywords, not keyboards...

Lastly we’ll touch on keywords. Keywords are the terms that people type in to search for solutions to their problems. Their problem might be that they don’t know where that latest viral video is located online, or it could be that they have gout and are looking for a homeopathic cure. The thing is that all people search differently, so you have to use keyword tools to figure out how they are searching. Once you know the terms you need to sprinkle them throughout your articles. Be sure to have the keyword or words in the first sentence, somewhere in the body and then again in the last paragraph. More terms are better, but you want to make sure your posts and articles make sense and convey information or entertainment value.

Here’s the sweetened condensed version. If you want to improve your Google ranking keep three things in mind. First, have good content and lots of it. Secondly, work on getting incoming links from quality ranked pages that are related to your niche, and third be aware of keywords that people are searching for and have those words in your content. There are many other factors involved in improving your search ranking, but those will get you started down the right path.

Thinking about different things and learning about new subjects actually cause neural pathways to form, so by doing various brain exercises you can change the brain, and that’s a good thing. This has been studied for many years now and is beyond doubt. The more you do some action the more those neural pathways are reinforced, similar to having muscle memory. Even something as simple as using a fork (or your mouse) with your non-dominant hand will build new pathways in your brain.

Even by doing something as simple as playing games you can enjoy the consequences of faster reaction times, better recall and improved problem solving skills. Do any of those things appeal to you? (Some days I would just be happy if I could remember where I put my car keys…) Human brain games make learning and thinking more fun.

While doing a bit of research on this phenomenon I stumbled across a website, Lumosity, that has brain strengthening exercises in the form of games. It is free to use a variety of basic games there and they do challenge your eye hand coordination a bit, as well as your thinking powers. They may not be as much of a challenge for younger people used to video games, but either the thinking part of the eye hand coordination part will challenge you.

Whatever age you are learning is a positive thing. Whether it is something as ordinary as a crossword puzzle or extraordinary as learning a new language you should challenge yourself every day to keep your mind sharp.

My Aunt Minnie

So as you put pen to paper, or hover over your keyboard, you need to be thinking about that person. Who? You ask. The very specific person that you want reading what you are about to write. Is it your Aunt Minnie or is it Donald Trump? (Or is Donald Trump secretly your Aunt Minnie?) Seriously, if you don’t have a target audience in mind you are likely to attract no audience. Like the Traveling Wilburys say, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. So we want a specific road to get us to that destination of our desired target audience.

The average reading level of the internet audience is eighth grade. So unless your target audience is rocket scientists you better stick to a fairly simple vocabulary and construct your sentences appropriately. This article isn’t for the average reader; it’s for the beginning/intermediate writer, so slightly more advanced vocabulary is permissible.
A reader also is not going to want to jump into a huge block of text, so the paragraphs should be no more than two or three sentences. This makes your page easier to look at and less intimidating. Breaking it up with a couple of related graphics is also highly desirable.
People love pictures and a picture is worth a thousand words, so a couple pictures are going to really enhance the message you are trying to deliver. On the flip side you can’t expect your pictures to carry weak writing, so make sure the content you deliver is useful and interesting as well.

Is this your target audience?

So what does your audience want to see and read? This is really important. If you just sit down and start randomly throwing your thoughts down on paper your story is likely to meander around and never come to any conclusion. People want to finish up reading something either amused or educated in some fashion. (This isn’t to say you need to be a professor or a comedian, just try to stay away from boring.)
To wrap things up, let’s look at the main points. First, always think about the audience you are trying to reach. Second, don’t push away your audience with a huge wall of text – break it up into smaller paragraphs and add some related graphics. And third, think your article through so it doesn’t wander around and end up being a waste of the reader’s time. If you are not writing for your audience you’ll end up not having one.

If you are interested in getting  high quality, original writing done for you, visit my home page, please.

Do it now before you get engrossed in all these fine quality posts and forget.. : )