Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Recession-proof Your Business: Listen to What the Experts Do

(Please note: the following blog post is a promotional announcement about our January 09 CD sale. The CDs are offered at a 61% discount. The sale ends when supplies end, or when February comes around...)

"Every single money-sucking business problem you have is going to be resolved, one way or the other."

That's what I heard the other day, and it's true. Whatever your problems, with your business or your blog, things either solve themselves...or you aren't in business any more!

No business, no problem! I know, that's rather grim, but maybe you could use a little help so this doesn't happen...

Do what smart professionals do:  Get immediate professional advice and learn what you need to do differently:

• Get a healthy Reality Check on your situation...
• Fix the profit-leaks in your business, for your blog and all your content marketing efforts...
• Learn how the smart pros like Tom Antion, Joan Stewart and The Blog Squad are still reeling in leads and converting them to customers...
• And quickly get busy making your business work like crazy

7 Top Ten Ways to Get Readers to Respond - What's Missing on this List?

"Calls to Action" isn't just about asking for the sale. When it comes to writing content that markets for your business, you must interact with readers and get them involved long before you ever ask for the sale.

In Leesa Barnes' recent Blog Squad interview on Social Media Telesummit II, we talked a lot about how blog authors must actively encourage audience participation. Here are 7 out of 10 ways to do that:

1. Run a poll
2. Ask readers questions and ask them to comment
3. Do a survey
4. Run a contest
5. Ask them to submit their tips, ideas, and suggestions. Example, a post I titled, “What would you tell this professional to do?” brought in many comments
6. Ask them to contribute resources and links
7. Write a top ten list of great blogs in your field, then ask them to contribute additional ones. This will let you know what your readers are reading and give you an idea of what they appreciate. (This is a great way to build links because people on your top ten list will post on their blog about being included in your list…)

What's missing from this list? Any other suggestions? What is one of your most responsive tactics? Hit the comment link below and share...

Get the Best Out of Your Business Blog

You won't want to miss Leesa Barnes’ Social Media Summit II. It's Leesa's second year of presenting the telesummit with expert info on what's new in Social Media and what you really need to pay attention to for growing your business on the Web.

On Friday, January 23, 2009, at 1:30 p.m. ET, The Blog Squad presents this program:

Get the Best Out of Your Blog: How to Create Massive Visibility on The Web

Think about it: Many of your ideal clients go online every day, and some have problems only you can solve …but sadly, most of them can't find you.

In order to build desire for your products and services you need to be findable online. If you want to take your business from doing OK to doing great, you need to have massive visibility online. With the proliferation of easy-to-use web tools, you can easily connect with more people than ever before.

If your goal is to transform people's lives doing what you love, then you need to create massive visibility online. The best way to do that is with a business blog that's optimized.

You'll learn how to use your blog to:

• Get you massive visibility so your ideal clients can find you
• Reverse the client chase, to attract your ideal clients online, spending less than 30 minutes a day and $10 a month
• Tap into the pool of 1.4 billion people world-wide who are connected to the Internet and looking for information and solutions
• Connect with ideal clients in a more intimate way so they are driven to contact you, already pre-sold to buy your products or services
• Leverage the power social networking sites without wasting your time

Don't waste time trying to guess what's best. Learn from the experts. For more info and to register, click here.

You won't want to miss Leesa Barnes’ Social Media Summit II. It's Leesa's second year of presenting the telesummit with expert info on what's new in Social Media and what you really need to pay attention to for growing your business on the Web.

On Friday, January 23, 2009, at 1:30 p.m. ET, The Blog Squad presents this program:

Get the Best Out of Your Blog: How to Create Massive Visibility on The Web

Think about it: Many of your ideal clients go online every day, and some have problems only you can solve …but sadly, most of them can't find you.

In order to build desire for your products and services you need to be findable online. If you want to take your business from doing OK to doing great, you need to have massive visibility online. With the proliferation of easy-to-use web tools, you can easily connect with more people than ever before.

If your goal is to transform people's lives doing what you love, then you need to create massive visibility online. The best way to do that is with a business blog that's optimized.

You'll learn how to use your blog to:

• Get you massive visibility so your ideal clients can find you
• Reverse the client chase, to attract your ideal clients online, spending less than 30 minutes a day and $10 a month
• Tap into the pool of 1.4 billion people world-wide who are connected to the Internet and looking for information and solutions
• Connect with ideal clients in a more intimate way so they are driven to contact you, already pre-sold to buy your products or services
• Leverage the power social networking sites without wasting your time

Don't waste time trying to guess what's best. Learn from the experts. For more info and to register, click here.

8 Simple Writing Steps to Connect with Readers

Your writing on the web must connect with readers. Easy to say, really hard to do. Readers are different and come to your blog or article searching for different things, motivated in various ways.

But there are definite "best practices" you can study and learn to make this easier and better. So here's a simple list to get you thinking and practicing...

1. Be clear, be very clear about your point
2. State your point clearly, simply
3. Make a list of key sub-points to make it easier to scan
4. Include emotional language as well as the facts
5. Illustrate your points with anecdotes, examples, stories of real people
6. Use metaphor and anologies to spice up your writing
7. You can go deep, but avoid complicating or over-intellectualizing
8. Write conversationally, Include pronouns such as "you" and "I"

3 Ways to Write Content that Brings In Business

Denise Wakeman answers a question over on our Build a Better Blog site that's an important key to effective business blogging: 3 Ways to Motivate Blog Readers to Take Action.

This is a key piece of the content marketing puzzle: how do you write so that readers become clients or customers? How do you provide valuable content that educates readers yet also works to bring in new business?

Denise"s response is this:

1. Connect with readers on your blog
2. Interact with them on your blog
3. Move readers off your blog to a deeper experience

This same good advice can apply to other things you write. After the main body of an article, email broadcast, newsletter or blog post, provide opportunities for people to get more involved: download a free report, attend a teleseminar, or meet in person at conferences and workshops.

Learn to use social networking sites for your own business...

  Social Media Telesummit 2009 with Leesa Barnes

Here's an opportunity to learn what's needed for your business about using these new online networking and social sharing sites.

An eight day online event with 18 social media marketing experts.

The Blog Squad will be presenting on January 23 at 1:30 p.m. PT about...you guessed it...business blogging.

There are so many great speakers that I will be attending most of the events as well, or at the very least listening to the audio replays.

The social media landscape is evolving so fast that it's critical for businesses to not only use social media marketing in order stay ahead of your competition, but also learn best practices so you get the most bang for your buck and your time.

Join Denise and I for the Social Media Telesummit!

How to Write for the Web - Copywriting Intensive

 Here's an opportunity to immerse yourself for three days and learn how to write great content for the Web. This is important for any small business professional, even if you hire a copywriter for your big projects.

Why? Because everything you write on the Web, your blog posts, your Twitter messages, your email broadcasts, should do all of these things:

1. Grab the attention of your ideal prospects
2. Keep them interested to read your entire message
3. Connect with them on a human level
4. Provide useful information that appeals to learning styles
5. Move your readers to some sort of action

Otherwise, your content will not market you, or build your brand, it won't attract the right people, and your business won't grow using the magnetic power of the Internet.

No other skill is as important than writing for the Web. Okay, delivering your products and services is important, but if your writing doesn't interest prospects, you won't have customers!

The American Writers and Artists Inc. (AWAI) is teaching what you need to know about web writing:

AWAI Web Copywriting Intensive:
Words That Work - Converting Your Web Traffic to Cash!
Austin, Texas, February 15-18, 2009

What would you tell this professional about starting a blog?

I got an email today from someone in Switzerland wondering if she should start a business blog:

Dear Patsi:

I am a counsellor and life Coach based in Geneva, Switzerland. I have had my own practice for 11 years, but now I would like to take it to the next level and increase my client base. I have been thoroughly intrigued by your views that Blogs are the way to  go  "Fishing"!

I specialize in the field of eating  disorders anorexia and bulimia. One of the things I want  to do is get the word out to a maximum amount of people about the groups I run for the mothers and other family members of people suffering from anorexia.

Question: can you see blogging being used effectively for this or does this fall outside the topics most generally used?

Maureen Pilkington
Citadelle-counselling.ch

Here's my reply:

Maureen, most definitely. I'm sure if you do a search on the web you will find other professionals already blogging about this topic. This is a good thing for you, because joining in and commenting on other blogs is a way to get attention and get readers back to your own blog.

In fact, that is the best way to go about starting a blog in a topic: research on what's out there already. Look at what's being done that's effective, and what's not. There are usually many professionals AND amateurs out there in any niche. Some will be good, some not.

Remember that blogs started out as online diaries, but a business blog isn't about writing personal stuff, rather should be used as a marketing tool by building relationships, reporting case studies, sharing client successes and challenges.

It's the best way to get found, attract ideal clients, and establish your expertise. A website won't easily do what a blog will. Your business blog is a place to publish content, communicate your core values and beliefs and have a conversation with people who need your services.

What else would you tell someone about starting a blog for a private practice in Geneva?

New Year's Writing "Won't Do" List

Enough of the goals "to-do" lists of new marketing tools to tackle in 2009. Take a good look at the content you're already publishing on the web for your business. Focus on the quality of your content.

Okay, maybe you want to start using Twitter...but even so, same guidelines of writing apply. More so, with only 140 characters to use to connect with tweeps.

I love this post by Ardath Albee, Marketing Interactions. She posts a "won't-do" list for the New Year, and says:

As you evaluate your content development and messaging strategy, be sure to stay focused on what's important. Just remember to check yourself against this Won't Do List. Or make up your own.

I won't:

   1. Talk AT my prospects and customers.
   2. Bombard them with stuff focused on pushing my company's agenda.
   3. Spam anyone who hasn't given me permission to contact them in the related context.
   4. Try to control the conversation.
   5. Pitch anyone under the guise of education.
   6. Jump into social communities without listening.
   7. Bore people to death with my content.

That's Ardath's partial "won't-do" list for content marketing in 2009. What would you add for your own list of things you'll strive to avoid this year?

For me, I am very guilty of #5: pitching under the guise of educating. I'll start a post innocently, sharing important stuff, then switch to... "Oh, and by the way, if you haven't registered yet for the class we're doing on this very subject, here's the link." Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, unless you do it too often. Then it's very inelegant and unbecoming...

What's on your "won't-do" list for 2009?

5 Key Content Marketing Posts for Your Business Blog

One of the most read posts on this blog has been Pillar to Post: Do you have 5 pillar articles on your blog? In it, I discuss a suggestion from Yaro Starak that you should have at least 5 important stand-alone articles that are key for your readers and put them where they can have easy access.

Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice.

On a Typepad blog, you create a typelist or side-bar item and put the titles to these articles there. You can title the list something compelling, like "Content Marketing Keys," or, "How to Write Content that Markets for You." You would, of course, substitute your own niche topic.

Have you done this for your business blog yet? I have been reviewing this blog, as I do every January. I see that I intended to do this but never got around to it. I posted one stand-alone page: Why Writing on the Web is key to Internet Marketing Results.