Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

9 Must-Read Books for Intelligent Content Marketing

What are you reading? You may not have much time to keep up with the latest biz books in your field. But some of us (me) spend a lot of time reading. Let me share with you what I'm reading now that I think is really worthwhile.

You may wonder how these relate to writing on the web, or marketing, but trust me, they do. Psychology is the meaningful connection linking marketing to people in any field or profession.

Here's what's on my night table, my desk, my lounge chair out by the pool, and next to my stationary exercise bike:

• Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It, by Marshall Goldsmith
• Rules of Thumb, by Alan M. Webber
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin
• Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• The Healthiest Meals on Earth, by Jonny Bowden
• The Mature Mind: the Positive Power of the Aging Brain, by Gene D. Cohen
• Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, by Janice Redish
• Drive: the Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink
• Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices, by Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria

What's on your reading list?

The Outline – 3 Questions to Ask for Content Marketing

(This is a guest post by Linda Dessau, You Talk, I'll Write, and it's great advice for article, newsletter and blog writing.)

"I know we all hated them in school but outlines really can be helpful and worth your time." - Lynne Klippel, March 27, 2010 on Twitter

Last week one of the students in my group program (Content Creation Capsule) proclaimed, "This is exactly what I needed!" What had her so excited? An article outline.

An outline can be as simple as a set of questions. In fact, I often provide questions to prospective newsletter contributors to make it easier for them to draft their article. I simply tell them what I'm curious about in terms of the topic. I do the same thing when I'm interviewing guests for teleseminars.

Let me use this article to demonstrate a really simple set of outline questions:

Content Marketing Favorites: 6 Good Article Hooks

This week I'm on vacation, and repeating some of my older yet evergreen posts because they are worthy of being repeated. This one was published in September 2009.

Linkbait Content: 6 Ideas for Article Hooks

As you might have read, I'm doing some blog improvements with Easton Ellsworth and his Visionary Blogging program. One of the things we talked about was creating what he calls "linkbait content" for my executive coach marketing site, ContentforCoachandConsultants.com.

I'd like to share his linkbait ideas and some of mine, because these ideas for content are good and easy to translate for any niche.

Unless you are a techy-type, and into search engine optimization, you might not be clear on what "linkbait" really means to you and your online content marketing efforts.

Wikipedia defines Linkbait like this:

Link bait is any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. Matt Cutts of Google defines link bait as anything "interesting enough to catch people's attention." Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature.

Here's why this is important:

As you might have read, I'm doing some blog improvements with Easton Ellsworth and his Visionary Blogging program. One of the things we talked about was creating what he calls "linkbait content" for my executive coach marketing site, ContentforCoachandConsultants.com.

I'd like to share his linkbait ideas and some of mine, because these ideas for content are good and easy to translate for any niche.

Unless you are a techy-type, and into search engine optimization, you might not be clear on what "linkbait" really means to you and your online content marketing efforts.

Wikipedia defines Linkbait like this:

Link bait is any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. Matt Cutts of Google defines link bait as anything "interesting enough to catch people's attention." Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature.

Here's why this is important:

3 Things to Write (or Speak) About...

Here are 3 things to write about if you want to attract readers, showcase your expertise, and get clients:

1. Problem
2. Solution
3. Action steps

I know this is really simplified, but anytime you have to write a blog post, article, newsletter, email promotion, or speech, you can't go wrong if you follow these three points.

Most of us try to include the kitchen sink. We go into all the problems, the history of the problems, and all of the manifestations possible. Keep it simple: Problem - solution - action.

This is a great outline to follow if you've got to write a speech or presentation. Denise and I are using this outline for our speech about The Blog Squad's expertise in business blogging. This week we're in Manhattan Beach at the Ayres Hotel, addressing a group of professionals at the Speak Your Way to Wealth conference.

Problem - Solution - Action: Now, for those readers who are more experienced in making presentations, this may seem like a no-brainer. The problem is that when you're an expert in a particular niche, you want to teach everything you know to your audience.

Blogging with Photos, One Bite at a Time...

If you get stuck on what to write on your blog, start with a photo. Any photo. I usually peruse IstockPhoto.com and download interesting photos whenever I have time.

First, it amuses me what you can find, especially searching for abstract terms like, "values" or "content" or "serendipity." Secondly, I know if I'm stuck and haven't a clue, I can find a photo and build an entire philosophical discourse around it, and even tie it into a program we have going!

Case in point: this happy elephant. I post it, then write a headline and first paragraph to tell you "how to eat an elephant, one bite at a time."

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed when faced with copywriting assignments and Internet marketing for my business. Sort of like trying to eat an elephant - there's just too much there for one tiny fork.

I'm actually taming the beast since I've learned how to break big projects down into prioritized pieces.

Denise and I have chunked Internet marketing steps down into a clear Pathway to Profits. Last year we opened up our program to teach others. You can be a part of our Blogging and Beyond Mentor Group for a mere $9.95 trial month.

You get access to monthly teleseminars, including the one on copywriting with Lorrie Morgan Ferrero this Monday Dec. 10.

Related Posts on using Photos:
Easy Blog Photos Make Your Blog Fabulous
Tips from the Experts About Using Photos on Your Blog

Related Post on Blogging and Beyond Teleseminars:
Spend Less Time Selling and More Time Making Money
Blogging Education Opportunities with the Blog Squad
Copywriting Made Easy: Faster, Better, & More Fun

15 Ways to Find Content for Your Blog

Denise and I kicked off our first advanced blogging class yesterday, Better Business Blogging, with a select group of 10 professionals all eager to improve their blogs. It is so great working with a small group of passionate people, as opposed to spouting the blog gospel to the hordes on large bridge lines.

Each week we highlight several of their blogs and give suggestions for improvement. We're following our CODA system for blog improvement: paying attention to Content, Outreach, Design and Action. Yesterday we worked on blog content issues.

Here's my list of 15 ways to find content for writing your blog posts:

Finding Content for Your Blog

1. Set up Google Alerts for your topics and subtopics
2. Set up Technorati WatchLists
3. Monitor your blog feeds of your favorite blogs
4. Use other people’s blog posts as inspiration and jumping-off points to write your own post
5. Use a poll tool such as Vizu.com and set up a vote from readers on biggest challenges,

Article Marketing Tips from The Internet Article Guy

We hosted a great article marketing class with Jeff Herring yesterday on our Blogging and Beyond mentor group teleseminar. Jeff is widely known as The Internet Article Guy, and he's got plenty of tips for using articles for Internet marketing.

He's a master at teaching professionals to simplify the article writing process. He says, "If you can write a 7-item grocery list, you can write a 7-tip article." He even sells article templates which can get you started. Both Denise and I have used his templates.

Once you write several 500-word tip articles, they should be submitted to the article directories, for example, EzineArticles.com.

You can submit the same article to different article directories, but when you have them on your website, article should be at least 20% different to avoid the duplicate content ding from search engines. This means changing the headline and first paragraph, and taking a slightly different angle in your article.

Formatting an Article Into Adobe PDF

This is the next step in our serial writing project. Take your full article, after it is edited, and convert it to an Adobe PDF file. This preserves your formatting and content across all computer systems so that it can't be distorted or changed.

It makes delivery of the document easier and more stable. You can also add some formatting to it for easier readability and attractiveness.

In your word document program you can create boxes with shading and create a title page. You can also create other boxes to highlight particular points in your articles. Make sure you also have any web sources linked before you convert it to PDF form.

Depending on the length and value, once it is formatted into a PDF file, you may wish to call it a special report, or an ebook which can be either given away as a bonus for signing up or subscribing to your newsletter, or sold.

Previous posts on serial writing:

Serial Writing Formula: 1+5+2=7+1

Confessionals of a Serial Writer

Make a List of 5 Key Points

Summarize your List & Ask Readers

Editing your Blog Posts as Articles

Editing the Full Article from Your blog Posts

Editing the Full Article from Your Blog Posts

Continuing our series of blog posts about writing articles that can be used for many purposes (ezines, blogs, article directories, special reports), we come to the next part: how to edit the full article after you have created several stand alone articles from your blog posts.

Edit the full article: gather each individual article and copy and paste it into a word doc, with each headline but minus the resource box. You can keep the headline for each article if you wish, and break each article into sections with a line separating them. The resource box is included at the end.

Of, if you wish, you can delete the headlines, and rewrite it into one stand alone full article. This is more work, because you'll have to change the beginning paragraph of each of the individual articles where you explain the context. Your choice.

The most important part of editing the full article - besides writing a captivating headline - is the summary and the conclusion. I'll review why here:

Editing Your Blog Posts as Articles

After you've posted daily on your key points of a concept, and written a summary with a call to action, it's time to gather the individual posts together and edit them as stand alone articles.

Since they are already written, this isn't difficult to do. You must keep in mind, however, that you are developing individual articles that you can use for multiple purposes. They must "stand alone" so you  want to briefly explain the context of each step and how it benefits your readers.

A primary purpose of editing your blog posts is to make them clear to people who read them without any prior knowledge of who you are. Edit for brevity and clarity as much as for grammar and typos.

Cut out all extra words. Ask yourself "so what?" at each paragraph; keep being clear about what's in it for the reader.