Category Archives: Blog Publishing

Are you ignoring blogging and losing business in the process?

Business blogging gets you more business

Yes, the good old topic of blogging and how it impacts the growth of your business. Here is a nice infographic on blogging and not blogging affects your bottom line.

If you’re not much interested in infographics I’m going to write down a few figures that have been discussed in the infographic. Here they are:

57% of companies that blog have one way or another acquired customers from their blog. This is actually true. Whenever I am regularly blogging – although the nature of my business is such that blogging perfectly fits the bill because it is mostly about writing and content marketing – my targeted traffic increases which in return generates more queries.
You may have been underestimating blogging for business. Do you know that 77% of Internet users in the USA have read blogs? Here are some more figures:
- 61% of US customers and clients have made purchases after reading blog posts
- 81% of American customers trust advice and information published on business blogs
- 82% customers claim that they enjoy reading relevant and topical information from various brands
- 70% of customers and clients learn about the companies they do business with through blog posts and articles rather than ads
If you publish blog posts relevant to your business 16-20 times in a month you traffic doubles
If you blog regularly the count of new visits to your website increases by 80%
If your business blog contains more than 200 blog articles you may get 4.6 times more traffic than those that have just 200 blog posts or articles
Small businesses that publish a blog regularly get 126% more leads compared to those that don’t
In a 30-day period if you blog 16-20 times the number of leads you get will increase 3 times
B2B businesses that blog regularly get 67% more leads than those that don’t

Why blogging sometimes doesn’t work for some businesses?

The main problem is quality content of course. You need to provide value to your visitors by providing exceptional content. This is also important because there is lots of noise on the Internet and you need to stand out.

Regularity is another aspect that you strictly need to keep in mind. There is no use creating high-quality content if you are not publishing your content on an ongoing basis. Spurts of publishing doesn’t help much and in fact it also wastes the time that you spend during those spurts. Regularity is a must. In fact regularity is so important that the blogs that publish daily have 5 times more traffic than those that post weekly or less.

Another problem is lack of exposure. How do people know that you’re publishing great content on your business blog? You need to promote your business blog content using appropriate channels including industry-specific forums, social networking websites, LinkedIn groups and Quora.

What is the greatest benefit of blogging even if it doesn’t fetch you direct business?

Your search engine rankings improve
Your content is shared on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, on a regular basis
The blog posts that you create will always exist in the search engine databases
Over the time the search engine rankings of your existing blog posts keep on increasing, getting you new traffic for a long time

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How to come up with relevant blog topics for your audience

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Relevancy is essential for meaningful engagement. If people don’t find your blog posts relevant to their needs they are neither going to read them nor promote them.

A successful business blog requires regular posting. Your publishing schedule shouldn’t be intermittent – it should follow a consistent schedule. The problem with following a schedule is you constantly have to come up with relevant, interesting and well-written blog posts.

Many of my clients require me to send them a blog post every day and fortunately, most of them send me their own topics because they want to improve their search engine rankings (of course there are many others who pay me extra to come up with topics on my own). When they are not able to come up with topics they send me a basic idea of the wording and the keywords they would like to feature within the topics and then accordingly I create them.

You should constantly keep this in mind that whatever you publish on your blog it should help the readers. After reading every blog post they should go back enriched in one way or another. They shouldn’t feel like they wasted the time they spent reading your blog post.

How do you come up with relevant blog topics?

One way is to keep track of conversations going on on social networking websites like Twitter and LinkedIn, but mostly Twitter. I have created a separate column in Hootsuite for tracking conversations on all the niches on which I need to write regularly (content marketing, content writing, blog writing, etc., for instance, for writing on my own blog).

This Moz blog post titled 3 Steps to Identify Blog Topics That are Relevant to Your Audience suggests that you can also take ideas from popular blog posts on your own blog, but then of course for that you have to be publishing for a long time and you have to be having some popular blog posts. This is a good way of knowing for what people come to your website and what sort of blog posts they find useful.

Another suggestion is to take hints from your competitors’ websites. Although the Moz blog post advises you to use one of their own tools in order to track the performance of individual websites and links, you can also do this by manually visiting websites and going through the comments section. Normally popular blog posts attract way more comments compared to those that are not very popular. You can also gauge the popularity of a particular blog post if the publisher happens to use some social networking plug-in that shows how many times that link has been shared and recommended.

My favourite way of coming up with relevant blog topics for my audience is to maintain an ideas list. This list comes handy when you need to publish every day. You need to develop a habit of quickly jotting down ideas as soon as they come to your mind. You can use Evernote or any of the note-taking applications freely available. You can also use the voice recorder of your phone to quickly capture your thoughts.

11 essential ingredients for creating great blog posts

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The objective of every blog post that you write and publish should be to get maximum exposure from your targeted audience, and not just exposure, but also sharing love. Maximum number of people should share your blog post link using their social networking and social media profiles.

There are some key performance indicators (KPI’s) that help you decide whether a blog post that you have published is successful or not. It’s not necessary that you fret over every blog post because there are some blog posts that you publish simply for the heck of the pleasure that you derive out of the process and the sort of interaction you have with your visitors, but if you’re publishing a business blog, then it’s very important that you know exactly what you’re doing on your blog and how you define success. A blog post would be successful if

It creates enough buzz to attract new customers and clients to your website
It makes more people click ads if that’s how you make money off your blog
More people subscribe to your newsletter if that was the intention
It helps you get more search engine traffic for your targeted keywords
It increases your longtail keyword traffic
It gets greater attention on social media and social networking resulting in the outcomes mentioned above

There are some fundamental ingredients that you can use in order to make your blog post successful. 11 such essential ingredients are published in this Copyblogger blog post in the form of an infographic, but below is the bulleted compilation of these ingredients:

Create a killer headline that draws people from search engines and other websites to your website. Your headline should present to your audience the central message of your blog post in a most compelling and attractive manner.
Make a great opening. Your headline should be followed by an impressive opening that prompts people to read further. Otherwise all the advantage gained by the headline will be lost.
Use persuasive words. Such words not just give an adrenaline rush they also instil a sense of purpose in the process of writing as well as reading.
Be authentic. It will help you stand out.
Take every sentence seriously. Write good sentences.
Use bullet points to highlight main points of your blog post.
Divide your blog post under various subheadings giving a clear idea of what awaits.
Use the art of storytelling to keep your readers hooked.
Don’t reveal all your cards at the same time. Withhold your information and keep revealing small bits every couple of paragraphs.
Use attractive images to give more meaning to your blog posts.
Make a convincing conclusion so that people are not left clueless.

How to write a quick, in-depth blog post even when you don’t have time

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If you are publishing a business blog one of the greatest hurdles you’re going to come across is publishing blog posts regularly, on an ongoing basis. Otherwise your blog, no matter how well-written, well-maintained it is, is going to lose steam. People will lose interest. Since they will not be aware of your publishing schedule their visits to your blog will be erratic at the best. In order to draw people on a regular basis, you need to publish blog posts regularly and there needs to be a set pattern. But as a busy entrepreneur how do you manage that?

Of course, being a professional content writer my advice would be to hire yourself someone like yours truly, but if you don’t want to do that and you would rather write on your own, here is how you can manage to produce in-depth blog posts on a regular basis even if you are running short of time.

Maintain an ideas file: If you know what you want to write, you can write it quickly. A big problem is when you have time, you don’t know what to write. This problem can be solved if you have an ideas file or a section where you can store your ideas. I use Evernote for that. Whenever I get a new idea that will require lots of research, I create a new note and then as I come across various bits of information while surfing the net, I keep copy/pasting that information in that particular note so that by the time I get down to actually writing the blog post, I have everything ready.
Create an outline: You don’t necessarily have to complete a blog post in one go. Remember your purpose is not to complete and somehow publish the blog post in a couple of hours, your purpose is writing and publishing quality content on your business blog. Don’t compromise on that, so don’t be in a hurry. Even if you have time to jot down just a single line, do that and then stop worrying about the blog post. You may initially feel that you aren’t doing much, but when you are maintaining multiple blogging ideas you will very soon come across a situation when you have lots of material at hand on an ongoing basis.
Use a mind mapping tool:
These days I find myself using Free Mind quite often. It is a Java-based mind mapping tool. Mind mapping tools are a great way to organise complex ideas. If you’re not used to the interface you may find it off-putting initially but once you get used to it, it will be an invaluable productivity tool in your kitty.
Install a blogging app on your mobile phone:
You may get an idea while travelling and unless you have some system to quickly store it, it may be lost for ever. I have the WordPress app installed on my mobile phone and whenever I need to collect my thoughts on a blog I create the entry and save it as a draft. Then, as and when I come across ideas and information, I just use my phone to update the draft. Finally, when I sit in front of my computer I give the finishing touches to the draft and then publish the blog post.
Don’t get bogged down by the size of the blog post: Although here I’m talking about writing in-depth blog posts you don’t need to begin every blog post with the same purpose. Just focus on the single sentence and you will be amazed how the floodgates to new ideas are suddenly opened. Even if that doesn’t happen, there is no problem with posting just a single paragraph if you think you are running behind your blogging schedule. Later on you can always update a blog post that you have already published – there is no rule against that.
Crowd source your content:
You can create a simple blog post and then ask your visitors to drop in ideas in the comments section on how a particular blog post can be improved. You can also seek opinion on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

How to pitch for a guest blogging assignment

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Guest blogging is a great way to not just increase traffic to your website but also get visibility on other blogs and websites. Back in the early 2000’s when nobody knew anything about blogging I started my web design business backed by scores of articles that I had written for other websites. They were mostly about web design and web development telling people how to achieve various things with HTML, JavaScript, and sometimes PHP. I got lots of traffic. Those days competition wasn’t much so I also got decent traffic to my website that in turn, gave me decent business. I must confess that when I started my content writing business I lost my mojo for writing for other websites and even when blogging entered the scene rarely did I write for other blogs. Although I help my clients guest blog for other blogs and even advocate this aspect of content marketing, I myself haven’t really been into it for a long time.

Benefits of guest blogging

There was a time when people used to guest blog mainly for SEO purposes. The people who write Google ranking algorithms started frowning upon external links that people obtained just for the sake of obtaining external links. Page rank also mattered – what is the authority of the page that has your link? Search engines like Google also started penalizing websites that would just put links from other websites in lieu of money or link exchange. The only alternative left was, guest blog on other websites so that when they published your blog, they would also include a small bio that would include a link to your website. If you did that with high-ranking websites, the effort was worth it. Your website or blog immediately showed improvement.

Then again things began to change. In this blog post the Chief Search Engineer Matt Cutts at Google declared that:

Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.

Back in the day, guest blogging used to be a respectable thing, much like getting a coveted, respected author to write the introduction of your book. It’s not that way any more.

The statement made sense; people were actually using guest blogging to boost their search engine rankings which, in itself is not bad thing to do, but the quality begins to be compromized when the sole purpose is improving your rankings. You know what happens when people simply start sending you email messages to promote their products and services.

Are you wondering why I’m talking about this while I’m trying to tell you how to pitch for a guest blogging assignment? If it doesn’t help you, if it doesn’t improve your search engine rankings and if search engineers at Google frown upon it, why should you indulge in it?

First, many of the advisories broadcast by Google engineers don’t normally work in the real world. There are still SEO benefits of guest blogging because links from quality websites do matter. What Matt Cutts said was guest blogging shouldn’t be done just for the sake of improving your search engine rankings. He talked about low quality links coming to your website that can anyway get your website penalized whether you get those links via guest blogging, link exchanging, or simply by buying the space. If you stick to the quality guidelines, if you provide value to the readers of the blog post or the website where you are publishing your guest blog post, there should be nothing to stop you. Here are the benefits of publishing a guest blog post:

You get exposure to new audiences
By giving expert advise you build credibility in your niche (for example I should be writing more and more guest blogs on content writing and content marketing just to show how much I know of it)
It strengthens your brand across the Internet when your presence is seen on various websites and blogs
It makes you a subject-authority
It lessens your reliance on search engines for traffic (high-traffic websites and blogs can send you tons of direct traffic)
It improves your SEO, yes.

So how do you pitch for a guest blogging assignment?

Thoroughly study the blog: It will be very odd to pitch for a blogging assignment for my blog (that is on content writing and content marketing) that talks about how to dominate the real estate market even during the times of depression, unless of course, you intend to do it with the strength of content marketing. Spend some time reading the blog where you want to pitch. Understand the tone. Get a grasp of the audience. Is it a light-hearted blog? Do they have very serious blog posts? Are they always looking for a great headline? Do they normally publish lists? Only when you have thoroughly understood the nature of the blog you think about guest blogging for it.
Start interacting with the publisher on a regular basis: If you simply one day shoot an email pitching for a blogging assignment there is a great chance your email will be ignored. Not that the publisher doesn’t care about you, it’s just that being a successful blogger, he or she might be receiving 100s of such pitches every day and he or she would rather respond to people he or she is familiar with rather than someone totally strange. So start finding your favorite publishers on Twitter and Facebook and establish a contact with them. Engage them in meaningful discussions without nagging them or wasting your time. They should be able to respect you and remember you on the basis of your interactions. Interact with them for at least a couple of months before pitching your guest blog, preferably, although this differs from situation to situation.
Start interacting with authors of multi-author blogs: There are many blogs and websites where multiple authors write. On such blogs it’s very difficult to elicit response from the editor or the owner and one can only write for such blogs if he or she already knows someone who has access to the editorial team. If you want to pitch for a guest blogging assignment to such a blog, start following their main writers and start engaging them on a regular basis. Then, someday, you can ask them to refer you to the editorial department where you can submit your article or blog post.
Write to serve the audience of that particular blog: Remember that you are not guest blogging to promote your own business (at least not directly). You are adding value to that blog. You are offering something valuable to the audience of that blog. They may have never heard of you so they’re not interested in knowing what a great person you are, or what a great product or service you have got. They are used to a particular format of content on that particular blog. So stick to that format.
Don’t treat the guest blogging assignment as a stepchild project: You may wonder why you should invest enough time on your guest blogging assignment when it is being published on another blog rather than on your own blog. It should be the opposite. Since you are writing on another blog you should put in more effort (not that you shouldn’t put in enough effort for writing for your own blog) because one, someone is providing you a ready-made platform, a platform that he or she must have built with lots of hard work and dedication and two, since it is a branding exercise you don’t want to give a wrong impression by getting average or ordinary content published to serve such a big audience.
Use a convincing subject line while sending your pitching email: Even if the editor or the editorial team isn’t aware of your existence you can sometimes send emails pitching your guest blogging assignment. Use a convincing subject line that clearly states that you want to guest blog. Most of the blogs have a separate section used for accepting guest blog posts. Use that section instead of sending to a random email ID so that when they receive your message, they know that it’s a guest blog post pitch. Clearly mention in the email body what you intend to convey to the audience of the blog and why you think it is an important topic and also why you think it hasn’t already been covered on that blog.

As you must have noticed I have focused less on sending email pitches and more on preparing the ground for sending such pitches. Although I haven’t been guest blogging much (I should), what I have experienced is, sending random pitches rarely elicits responses. If you randomly approach people then it becomes a game of numbers, something like, if you send 50 emails then maybe 5 will respond. If you want to do that, go ahead, there is no problem in that. But if you want to optimize your time, rather than sending 50 emails and then hoping that 5 people will respond, I would rather start interacting with people who can actually help me get through. So more focus should be on networking rather than the number of pitches that you send.