Step Up Your Blog Posts

It’s easy to fall in to a rut with your blog.  So, how do you maintain the online presence you want, keep fresh content, and keep your audience engaged?  Here are a few tips that will help you keep your focus… and keep your followers.

1. Understand your blog’s focus. Don’t ramble on about a multitude of topics. Remember your blog’s purpose, and keep all posts centered on that.
2. Set up Google Alerts or RSS feeds for industry-related topics. The best way to gain credibility on your blog is to be viewed as an industry expert.  In order to do this, you’ll need to be prepared with the latest trends and topics.
3. Stay relevant and mix it up.  You’ll get burnt out if you’re constantly reading the same industry blogs and articles. Sing up for a conference or a webinar.  This is a great way to spark creativity and refuel your blog content.
4. Be sure you have links, or icons, for all of your social networks easily available for readers on your blog. If someone likes what they read, they will want to find a way to connect with you.  If the links to your social media networks are no where to be found, that reader might lose interest.
5. Don’t overlook the importance of your “subscribe” button.  Make sure it’s easy to find, and in a convenient location for the reader.
6. Write for a busy professional in your industry. Think about it – do you read articles with 500-word paragraphs? Probably not.  Keep the paragraphs concise, try to use bullets or numbering, and get to the point.
7. Interact.  If you receive comments, post something back.  Sometime it’s just a “thank you!” and other times it might be an answer to a question, or even direction to a previous post you’ve written.
8. Use the free Google Keyword Tool to make sure you’re using the proper keywords that are bringing people to your blog via search engines. Don’t miss an opportunity to help your audience find your blog.
9. Find another industry expert to do a guest post.  This is a great way to bring a fresh angle to your blog.  Plus, you just might learn something from the guest blogger!
10. Avoid self-promotion. Don’t use every post to sell your new book. Don’t constantly pitch your company’s services to your readers.  Your blog should serve as a resource for trends, news, hot topics and information – not a sales outlet.

Hopefully these ten tips will help you keep your blog on track, and take your online presence to the next level!

Tags: blog, online presence, tips for blog

Use ‘Google Sets’ for Geo-Targeted Search Engine Optimization Campaigns

Let's say you're an Internet marketing agency. And let's say your client is the Iron Maiden Repair Company: a national business that repairs iron maidens* in markets all over North America. One day the client comes to you with a serious problem:

CLIENT: "Hey, man, sup?"

YOU: "Hi, how have you bee–"

CLIENT: "Awesome, hey look — our Columbus and Cleveland locations are really rockin' but we're not doing any business at any of our other locations."

YOU: "Sure, we can help."

CLIENT: "Awesome."

YOU: "We just need to target the search traffic in those other markets. Where else do you have repair stores?"

CLIENT: "Everywhere."

YOU: "OK, well, do you list all of these locations on your website?"

CLIENT: "Yeah, it says we offer iron maiden repair… everywhere."

YOU: "Awesome."

Like any savvy marketer, you want to make sure your client is targeting geographic specific searches in all of their markets. Thus, instead of simply offering "iron maiden repair everywhere," your client needs to offer "iron maiden repair in Detroit, MI." And they also need to offer "iron maiden repair in Chicago, IL." They need to offer "iron maiden repair" in every individual market. This way, no matter where the customers are searching from, they will find the Iron Maiden Repair Company whenever their iron maidens break… or need cleaned… or whatever requires them to need repair.

I thought this blog post was about 'Google Sets'…

It is. So the first step in creating your geo-targeted search campaign is to create landing pages for all of the cities you want to target. In this case… everywhere. Well, 'everywhere' is a lot of cities. In fact, it's all of them. And if content is still king when it comes to search engine optimization (and it is), that is going to be a lot of content.

Writing a unique landing page about iron maiden repair in every city in North America would probably be a bit daunting, and quickly get repetitive. Since each geo-targeted page will only show up for searches in its specific market, having a paragraph or two of canned copy about the repair services is OK. But you still need unique information for each page. What makes iron maiden repair in Philly different from iron maiden repair in Los Angeles?

The problem is that you want to create a good page of content connecting each city to the nuances of iron maiden repair, but you're missing a bridge. What other information can you include? Research is the obvious solution, but you need a jumping off point.

Enter Google Sets.

Google sets is an interesting tool that is part of Google labs: labs.google.com/sets. You enter a few items that are related, and Google Sets gives you more items that might belong in that list: a sort of semantic association list generator. Although the formula is officially top secret, the information likely comes from Google's research and information about user search habits and tendencies.

In this case, you enter items related to your service and your market:

1. Iron maiden
2. Repair service
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Metal Bands
5. Medieval Torture

Google will then generate a list of new items that relates to the items you've entered. These results may seem bizarre at first, but after you study them for a while, you'll begin to understand them. Each of the items in the new list somehow relates to the group of terms that you entered. Of course, not all of the suggestions will make for great info on your landing page. But if you play around with it enough, you're likely to find a gem or two.

Perhaps the list will include new industry slang for "iron maiden repair" that customers (and the competition) in Flint, MI are using.  Or maybe you'll learn that magicians are an audience in that market that is frequently in need of iron maiden repair. If nothing else, you'll likely gain a few ideas to help create unique content for your landing pages that is search engine viable.

Tags: geo, geo-search, geo-targeted, geo-targeting, internet marketing, iron maiden, search engine optimization

“You’ll Have to Murder Your Darlings”

A tip for overcoming the first great hurdle in writing:
getting started.

I am an ex-freelance writer, current copywriter and always
creative writer at heart. When I was studying creative nonfiction as an
undergrad at The Ohio State University, I had the privilege of learning from an
outstanding professor. This individual has been nominated as a Pulitzer Prize
finalist for his latest work of fiction. In addition to the well deserved
accolades this individual has received for writing, this professor is a
tremendous teacher and writing coach.

This professor shared with me a piece of advice that has
stuck with me to this day and resurfaces every time I begin to write a new
piece: for work or for leisure, poetry or prose. This advice follows closely
with the advice of celebrated poet and essayist Annie Dillard: her famous
advice to "tear up the runway."

This advice applies to writing of any kind: writing copy for
advertising and marketing, writing an email explaining a report or data
presentation, pitching a reporter for a story, or even composing a corporate
email. The universal appeal of this advice is due to the fact that all writing
must start somewhere.

Nearly all writers will find a “runway” that gets a piece of
writing off the ground. The impetus which gets your work moving in a direction
can apply to something as ordinary as a blog post or as large as a novel. The
point is that, more often than not, this "runway" will take an author
to a place that he or she was not intending to go with their writing.

Dillard advises that it takes courage to write. Perhaps the
most courageous action that a writer can take is to tear up this runway. As
long as it navigated you to find that hook, that idea which got your creative
gears going, you should erase it from your mind and the page. You no longer
need it and it will take away from the real story; the “runway” merely served
as a way for you to get there.

This professor agrees with Dillard: to a point. I don’t
remember exactly what he said verbatim, so I will paraphrase. While this
individual also thinks that it takes courage to be a writer, they feel that
tearing up the runway is just one courageous act out of many that a writer will
have to make. A good runway which lifts you off to a great idea for a story or
a piece is a darling. You will find, as you write, that you will have many darlings:
these little parts of a piece that seem wonderful, intelligent and meaningful.
You will hover over these darlings for days, admiring them, wondering how you
were able to come up with something so clever.

But then you will have to murder your darlings, because
these darlings don’t belong in your piece. You may want to save them, after
they are dead, to bring them out some other day, for some other piece, but they
usually don’t fit. It takes courage to murder your darlings, but it takes
intelligence to understand when they don't belong.

This professor was a great influence on my development as a
writer and I admire and respect them deeply. I agree so much with this notion.
Often times I will write something that I think sounds a little wonderful, clever
or unique. The more I try to shape it to fit in with what I am writing, the
more I realize that I am actually shifting the entire focus of what I am
writing to fit around this little darling. The sooner that it is dead and
forgotten, the sooner I can get back to focusing on what I am really trying to
accomplish with a piece of writing.

- Tommy Redmond

Tags: copywriting tips, Writing, writing for advertising, writing for marketing, writing marketing content, writing tips