Category Archives: Blog Publishing

10 ways to get regular content for your website or blog

Continuous writing

To be successful on the Internet you constantly need to communicate with written words. Written words – the content on your website or blog – constantly convey your thoughts to your visitors. They attract new visitors and keep the old visitors hooked to your writing. But this also involves writing regularly. The more regular you are, the greater is the level of interaction and communication. Agreed, networking and interacting on other blogs and online forums do play a vital part, eventually it is your content that wins you the day.

Unless you have ideas of encyclopedic dimensions it is very difficult to come up with new ideas and new matter on a daily basis. You can do this without external help if this is the only thing you do: thinking about and generating content for your blog or website. But if you have only got, say between half-an-hour to one hour, to think about what to write, collect your thoughts and plan them and then write them down, it becomes an uphill task and often gets assigned to the back burner. Here are a few things that can help you get regular content for your website or blog:

Hire a content writer or a team of writers: You can hire writing services according to your budget but this is the best option if you have no time to research and write content for your blog or website. The person that you hire most probably has experience researching online and coming up with fresh and relevant content. This doesn’t mean that you assign the entire responsibility of creating content for your blog a website to your content writer, you will need to constantly keep a vigil and make sure that the content tallies with the fundamental philosophy of your blog or website.
Subscribe to RSS feeds: There can be an information overload when you are subscribed to too many RSS feeds but your RSS feeds subscriptions can prove to be the best resource to get fresh writing ideas. You just need to stick to the most important blogs and content websites while tracking your RSS feeds. Don’t rush while subscribing because this will eventually lead you to around 1000+ subscriptions and the mere number will dissuade you from even opening your RSS reader. Subscribe to RSS feeds judiciously and follow them closely in order to get fresh updates.
Use blog search: Many search engines, including the good old Google let you conduct searches on various blogs. You can use your favorite search term to check what all people are writing on it and then come up with your own content accordingly.
Read about your topic: Reading gives you lots of writing ideas as it fills your mind with your thoughts and wisdom. Whether you agree with what you are reading or not you have something to say, either pro or against. Reading also expands your knowledge-base and the more you know the more comfortable you get writing on your topic. Read books relevant to your field, read blogs and websites that talk about your topic, and interact on online forums. Of course you will need to keep a tab on your time in case you don’t have much time to spare.
Visit content aggregation websites: Content aggregation websites such as popurl.com, alltop.com, digg.com, etc. publish lots of highly relevant and contextual links with great regularity. Make it a point to visit these content and aggregation websites routinely. It is better if you can go to them at least once a day but you can decide your schedule according to your work schedule.
Interact as much as you can: Regular interaction exposes you to newer opinions and varying ideas. Interact with people who are already doing great things in your field. For instance if you want to write about blogging then you should try to regularly interact with people who are successful bloggers. You can use social media networking websites like Twitter and FaceBook to keep track of the ongoing conversations. For these social media networking websites there are many online tools that help you track conversations according to topics and keywords. Actively participate in these forums. But be sure of what you are communicating.
Use your existing content for new ideas: Many of your existing blog posts and articles may carry further topics and subtopics. Sometimes an entire article can be created out of one subheading. For instance, if you wrote a blog post on the benefits of regular blogging you might have written about using blogging as a great blogging tool and you might have written just one paragraph on the topic. Why not write a complete blog post or an article on that?
Invite your visitors to give you ideas: Lots of bloggers ask their visitors what they would like to read on the blog. I think this is a great way of getting new writing ideas because after all the most difficult part of writing regularly is getting writing ideas. Once you have a topic it is much easier to come up with the content. You can ask your visitors to give ideas regarding what they would like to read on your blog or website through the comments section.
Maintain an ideas file: Ideas are like the sparkling fireflies; they happen randomly and unless you have reached Nirvana, you can hardly control them. It is always better to devise a mechanism to preserve them whenever they grace you. You should maintain an ideas file and keep storing ideas whenever they occur so that you can refer to it whenever you need to get some new writing ideas.
Be passionate about your topic: Your mind brims with new and exciting ideas when you are passionate about the theme of your blog or website. Your passion helps you focus and work harder towards collecting your thoughts and expressing them; people can feel the passion in your words and expressions. But can you be passionate about something you are not comfortable with? This dilemma is often faced by professional writers because they have to write on myriad topics with unwavering interest. How do they keep the flame of passion burning all the time? They derive their passion from the fact that they have to write well no matter on what they are writing. In a similar manner you can seek passion in your topic too.

Aside from these activities you can also syndicate content from various organizations that provide regular content to blogs, online magazines, online newspapers and websites.

When you regularly update your website or blog it shows that you are serious about talking to your visitors. It doesn’t always have to be prim and proper and you can be especially yourself on your blog provided you are not discussing your pyjama parties and doggy excursions all the time on your Internet marketing blog; the content should always be relevant to your theme and must always have a target audience.

With what frequency should you publish your blog

Benefits of publishing regularly

There are many benefits of publishing blog posts regularly:

You build keyword-rich content faster

The more you write the more keywords and key phrases you cover with your content. As you keep on adding new blog posts to your blog the search engines gather and organize your links and then rank them according to their keyword relevance. Blogging everyday is the fastest way of getting good search engine rankings.

Better social media and networking exposure

Social media and networking is about rampant activity. Something is always going on and everybody is vying for attention, whether organizations or individuals. Hence it is very easy to forget names and brands. If you post every day it gives new fodder to your followers and friends. You encourage them to reach out to you and share their opinion. You constantly engage them and give them a reason to visit your blog daily.

It establishes you as an expert and an authority

I don’t mean to say that if you publish everyday and even if you’re publishing trash you become an authority in your field — no it doesn’t work this way. But it helps if you’re content is of high-value and frequent. Visit Seth Godin’s blog and you will notice that he gives remarkable advise without missing even a single day. Although I haven’t personally checked it people say that he posts even on Christmas. He is known for his great advice and he is also known in the blogging world for not missing even a single day of posting. Besides, sharing knowledge makes you more knowledgeable too as each time you publish something related to your profession you need to study and come up with valuable, usable information.

Aside from these benefits, again, it depends on what you are trying to gain through your blog. More than frequency what matters is quality. Even if you publish one blog post every month make sure that it is high-quality because eventually that is what gets you recognition from people as well as search engines.

Blog success has got a lot to do with persistence

Creating blog posts that really make an impact

1 Reply

Yesterday I talked about why your business needs a blog, so today, let’s briefly talk about creating blog posts that produce real results. Now what do we mean by “real results”. For that you gotta figure out why you blog.

Are you simply blogging to improve your search engine rankings? Although there is nothing wrong in that, if you are blogging simply for SEO, you are missing the whole point of blogging. Blogging is a branding tool, it’s a communication means, SEO happens – a good thing though – as a byproduct. If you publish blog posts that can really help your visitors (they should return enriched) then you are automatically improving your search engine rankings.

Enough with the SEO gripe; if you want to create effective and impactful blog posts, there are two ways of achieving that:

Following the herd
Evolving your own, distinct style

Both these methods work. For instance, these days lots of blog posts are created in a list style, something like

5 sure shot ways of harassing your neighbors
10 social skills you shouldn’t try in public
55 jQuery plugins to totally destroy your website
7 psychopathic tendencies that make your baby adorable

…you get the drift.

These lists abound on the Internet, and they’re really great in terms of collating great information and presenting it without having to write well. I mean, you don’t need to stretch your writing skills much if you’re creating monosyllabic bullets.

Evolving your own style is difficult, but it’s a better way of embarking upon your blogventure. It gives you your own voice and renders you a unique personality.

Other than these, there are standard ways that help you create impactful blog posts:

Give enough time to a new idea

Stop having blog-post-publishing dreams as soon as you hit upon your great 21st century idea. Jot down the notes and prepare a draft. I don’t mean you should take hours preparing posts that can be prepared in 20 minutes, but if there is an idea that warrants some prolonged thinking, give it some time, even a few days. Remember that it’s not important how many posts you publish, but what’s the quality of those posts.

Create titles that draw attention

By reading your title your prospective reader should be able to make out precisely what you offer in your latest blog post. Learn from the “screaming” newspaper headlines. They are created so that you immediately grab the copy and start reading the news.

Your readers may come across your blog post title anywhere: on your blog, on a search engine result page, on another website or blog, or on a social media bookmarking or networking website. A dull, uninspiring headline is never going to make them click the link. But don’t mislead your readers; if your title offers chocolates, don’t give sugarcanes in the actual post.

Stick to a single topic

Handling a single subject has many benefits:

It paves way for multiple blog posts
One concept is easier to understand and remember
It’s less confusing
It’s more focused
You can keep coming back to it to add more value
It’s easier for your readers to save or bookmark your link under appropriate categories and tags

Offer a workable solution

Avoid offering probabilities, as anybody can do that. Offer solid solutions in your blog posts. When a reader leaves your blog, he or she should feel that, yes, the world is a bit better after reading your blog post. Providing solid solutions also encourages people to

Bookmark your link
Promote it on social media and networking websites
Link to your blog post from their website, blogs and newsletters

Ask for opinion

Blowing your own horn after a while tends to get boring. There needs to be some involvement and engagement. Make your readers an active part of the thought process. Ask for opinion. Nudge them for a feedback. Question them, probe them, you can even incite them. Your every blog post should try to trigger a reaction.

OK, I have got only this much time for today’s post. Got some ideas for creating great blog posts? Share them in the comment section and I’ll include them here with a link back to your website or blog.

Why your business needs a blog (20 reasons)

2 Replies

Why does you business need a blog? If you think this question has already been put forth thousands of times, you’ll notice social media experts like Chris Brogan are still raising it. It means how important it is, and it also means there are still some people who wonder whether they need a business blog or not.

As Chris has rightly stated, not every business needs a blog, but if a business has a blog, that business has an edge over other business. Blogging is a great communication tool, especially if you have built up an audience for it. And if you are a big company, even the press knows about your blog.

When you have a business blog you don’t need to depend on media and other PR agencies to reach out to your core market. Of course it’s easier said than done. It takes effort to build an audience. If you simply keep on publishing formal press releases full of corporate jargons people are not going to throng to your blog. You need to publish content that really makes an impact. People should find it useful.

That’s a reason why many businesses shy away from starting a business blog. They know it’s a long-term commitment and a blog that is not well-managed can sully the image of the company.

Nonetheless, a business blog can be a great asset.

How a blog can help your business

Every blog, whether it is a personal blog, a business blog or whatever you may like to call it, is a platform once you have built an audience. You can take some examples from real life. In real life, some people have a certain reach. They wield an influence and we often admire them for that and secretly also fantasize to achieve the same status. When you have a reach your voice can be heard. You are never isolated when people are eager to listen to you. If something goes wrong and you need to communicate your point of view, people know where to reach you. This is where your blog can help you, provided it is targeted and the people who should actually listen to you come to your blog.

Building an audience of course, takes time and effort. Unless you have a big budget your business blog cannot evolve into an exciting platform just in a couple of weeks. So in order to build a successful business blog, you have to accept that, and prepare accordingly, that it is going to take time and effort. After that, it just becomes a routine, but this is a topic for another, dedicated blog post or article.

A business blog also improves your search engine rankings. After a while it becomes difficult to go on adding content to your business website, but you can easily do that on your business blog. Search engines are constantly looking for new, fresh and relevant content and they often find this content on blogs because blogs are updated frequently. Most of the blog posts are also subject-specific. This makes their content structured and easy to index as well as rank. You normally create a blog post to write about a particular subject.

When you have valuable content on your blog people have a reason to link to your individual blog posts, consequently, giving you genuine back links. Search engines like Google want people to link to you for the value you provide rather than the amount of money you’re ready to pay for the back links. This they might be doing for their own monetary gains (because they are selling their own link advertisements) but this is the reality.

People like to do business with entrepreneurs they respect and can trust. Chris Brogan, for instance, whose blog post I have linked to in the beginning of this blog post, is a trusted name. He has developed this authority by continuously publishing high-quality content on not only his own blog, but also on other blogs and websites. Your business blog allows you to establish you as an authority figure in your field. Since you are constantly sharing your expertise, and this expertise helps them, they respect you for that and eagerly do business with you.

Again, whether you want to have a business blog or not is up to you, once built, it is certainly a platform that puts you in a formidable position vis-à-vis your competitors.

20 reasons why your business needs a blog

Here’s a quick list of 20 reasons why your business needs a blog, gathered from various sources on the Internet.

To create hundreds, or even thousands of pages that the search engines can index and rank.
To educate and inform your customers and clients.
To tell your visitors how you feel about your product or service.
To engage your visitors in meaningful conversations.
To build a vibrant and responsive community around your brand.
To build and sustain your own communication and broadcasting platform.
To keep all the stakeholders in the loop.
To establish your authority in your field.
To share useful information with your visitors.
To tell your current and prospective customers and clients that you aren’t just looking for business, you are also interested in establishing long-term relationships.
To show your non-business, human side.
To tell your side of the story.
To showcase your ability.
To tell the world how you change the lives of your customers and clients for better.
To give your company or organization a unique voice.
To attract inbound links.
To improve your author rank.
To solidify your social presence.
To give people a reason to come to your website regularly.
To improve your conversion rate.