When you outsource writing for your blog, newsletter, video or any type of content marketing, be very clear about your content marketing goals. In fact, it doesn’t matter if you’re outsourcing to another writer or doing it all yourself.

1. What do you want your visitor to do after reading or viewing your article, blog or video?

For example, do you want them to buy a product? Call a phone number?  Register on a form with their email address? You should have a specific action you want your visitor to take after reading your article or watching the video.

2. Who’s your target market or audience?

Be very specific here, for example you could say, “My target market is new real estate agents who want to generate more leads.”

3. What makes you better than your competitors?

What is your unique selling proposition? Why should someone should listen to you? What makes your product or service different than everything else out there? Be specific.

4. Why might the prospect not buy your product or services?

What are his/her objections? What are their biggest pains and fears (reasons)?

5. Describe your customer persona (avatar):

Please describe how your IDEAL average customer behaves. For example, what is he or she thinking and feeling? Where do they hangout? What do they like? What are their biggest pains and fears (reasons)? What do they want to achieve?

6. What will your customers gain?

Provide the main benefits your prospects will achieve (up to 10 bullet points.)

7. How do you want to structure your content?

Decide whether you want the article/blog/video to be story-based (i.e. “Here’s Tom, bla bla bla…”) or if you want it to be more direct (i.e. “Have you ever wanted to be a filmmaker that bla bla?”) Or, you might want to start off with a piece of data or research. Or a poignant quote from a respected source.

So many professionals I know just start writing and let it flow. These are the same ones that procrastinate blogging … because they don’t feel the “flow.” I believe it’s because they haven’t reviewed these content marketing questions regularly. They aren’t clear about their content marketing goals.

Clarity stimulates ideas. These questions can clear out the pipes so the writing can flow better. What do you think?

(Image: Freedigitalphotos.net)

I look at content marketing as an experiment or adventure. Some things work well and you do more of them. Others, well, let’s hope you haven’t wasted money as well as time.

Steve Allen was a famous comedian who started The Tonight Show, in 1954, long before Johnny Carson became the host (and later Jay Leno). Allen started off in radio but got his first TV job as an announcer for wrestling matches. Here’s what Wikipedia reports:

Allen’s first television experience had come in 1949 when he answered an ad for a TV announcer for professional wrestling. He knew nothing about wrestling, so he watched some shows and discovered that the announcers did not have well-defined names for the holds. When he got the job, he created names for many of the holds, some of which are still used today.

The point I’d like to make is that if Allen hadn’t taken that first job offer, he might not have had the same career path and ended up one of the most respected and admired comedians of all time. He could have just as easily become a jazz pianist in an orchestra.

Instead, he eventually created a new genre of entertainment, the late night comedy-talk show. And he was a pioneer in TV wrestling entertainment. And he still had time to publish over 10,000 songs and win a Grammy for The Gravy Waltz (1963).

Allen wasn’t following any guidelines for his career.  He went with what interested him. When people try to follow too many rules and guidelines, for example, for content marketing and social media, they end up with mediocre results. Why end up where everyone else is?

I look at the 50′s and 60′s as the beginning of television entertainment. It was a time of great upheaval, with many pioneers experimenting with how to use TV. Today, we are in a similar period of upheaval. It’s the era of content marketing and the Internet.

Everyone, especially small business owners, is using blogs, website, and social media sites to get found, get known and get clients. Many gurus proclaim to know the way to content marketing riches. But we are still in early days. Those small business professionals that have the courage to experiment and looks for creative ways that truly work for promoting their business and connecting with customers will win.

Perhaps the focus should be on the customers you want to attract for your business. What will help them, entertain them, engage them?

It is the most popular document sharing site available, with over 50,000 uploads each day. Yes, that number is correct. This is key for those of us that use content marketing online to get found, get known and get clients. Pay attention to what I’m going to tell you…

Scribd clearly has established its authority and web presence. The high online activity makes Scribd ideal for content marketing purposes.

OK, here’s the question: why would you want to market through a site that is based on sharing documents? Document sharing is a great way to promote brand awareness, bring eyeballs to your content & marketing collateral and increase link building (and we love link building.)

Most of my clients have flyers, press releases, articles, etc. and why not share this content as I did with this Mother’s Day brunch menu and and for another client’s article on hospital safety for Alzheimer patients.

If you have all of your marketing materials just sitting on your computer and not getting out into internet land, then you are just wasting space. Today, most of us operate our business and personal life online.  Using Scribd makes uploading all of your documents a simple task.

Reasons to love Scribd:

• IT’S FREE
• Gain exposure to search engines
• Track reads and downloads
• Build business relationships
• Document sharing available via direct link or embed
• Unlimited uploads of most file types
• Bulk upload tool for desktop
• Social networking with Twitter opportunity
• Page fragment caching

The point of Scribd is the ease of access to documents. Scribd allows us to simply browse and click opposed to download. Uploading is extremely manageable. When a document is uploaded, you have the option of choosing a category, a subcategory, and numerous tags in addition to title and description. One of my favorite features of Scribd is the bulk uploading tool for your desktop. It is free and downloads quickly. The desktop tool allows people to upload as many documents as necessary without ever having to go to the Scribd website.

Keep branding in mind when creating titles and description. Once you are done uploading and editing, the documents will become available for viewing on Scribd immediately. All documents can be saved for editing and published at a later date. You can also add file subsets for organizational purposes within Scribd.

Sharing is simple too. Take any document off of Scribd and insert it into any website without worrying about the file type. If you have a blog, embedding documents is something that could be very beneficial. When you are looking at a document in Scribd, you will notice the embed option in the upper left-hand corner.

After you click that, you will be given the embed code.

Copy the code provided and paste it into your website or blog or you can share it from within as well.

It will then be published and appear the same way it does on Scribd.

I created a new Scribd account for a client and it’s still too early to know the reads and downloads, but you can follow your stats very easily. Basic stats appear on the homepage but if you click on them, you will be provided with a more detailed description in both bar graph and line graph charts including favorites, downloads, comments, and reads.

It is important to comment on documents within your niche. The goal is to encourage people to review your documents and possibly respond back. Scribd is a great place to stay connected through networking with the intentions of increasing viewership and brand awareness. Scribd has recently gone social. Like Facebook, there is a section for updating your recent activity.

Recently, Scribd created an E-book store for those interested in selling their documents.

So, if you’re looking to share your documents, get noticed, I recommend Scribd. You can also use this on your business page on Facebook tabs to share content as well.

About the Guest Author:

Christine Buffaloe from Serenity Virtual Assistant Services is a social media “ninja”. Since 2005, she is not only helping them implement their online and offline marketing plans, but has been instrumental in assisting them with their social media strategies.

Let’s face it, publishing frequently on a business blog is time consuming. Depending on how swift your writing and blogging skills are, it can take you 1-2 hours to publish a post of 350-500 words, including the writing, editing, linking, adding an image, and updating social sites. And you’ll need to do that two times a week, or more.

I usually advise my clients that a blog for your business should focus on communicating the solutions to the problems you solve. That’s pretty clear and direct. While a business may have many products and service offerings, and maybe several different buyer personas, it generally provides unique solutions to customers’ problems.

A business blog will make more sense to readers when it’s focused and clear about the solutions it promotes. (Not to mention it will gain favor with search engines that index the content according to keywords and subject matter…)

But what if you’re a professional service provider? Like a doctor, lawyer, consultant, writer, or web designer? Your services may cover a variety of problems and solutions, especially if you’re a general practitioner. And your customers could be anyone with a pulse…

Case in point… I’m a psychologist who makes a living writing for executive coaches. And I also provide web writing services and content marketing consulting. Recently, I’ve gone back to coaching, however, and in particular health and wellness coaching.

I decided I need a new blog to promote wellness coaching services. Neither of my current business blogs, ContentforCoaches and WritingontheWeb, would be a good platform for health and fitness topics.

It wouldn’t make sense to readers and it certainly wouldn’t make sense to the search engine algorithms. Here are the questions to ask to help determine if you need to start a new blog:

1. Is there an over arching common problem your varied services solve?
2. Is my target audience the same for both business offerings?
3. Are there similar keywords people would search for to find both?
4. Do my current readers also search for topics in this new related field?
5. Are the services and products related closely enough to keep them together as sub-categories?

If you can’t find a link that joins your products together, it’s probably because they aren’t closely related. The people who want information about one won’t want information about the other.

You need a new blog. If you’re serious about getting found, getting known and getting clients, you’ll need a new blog. Yes, it’s work and time, but you may as well get started now. You’ll be glad you did in a year or two.

How can you make your business blog visually appealing, even sexy? Blog formatting is key; in fact, it makes the difference between readers scanning and leaving, and staying to read. Here are four simple ways you can jazz up your site and get more blog readers:

1. Add images –I have run across many business blogs that are nothing but pages and pages of text. While the information they provide may be valuable, it’s not very visually appealing. Try to add images to your blog posts to increase the appeal of your posts. Smaller images can easily be found for free on sites like Freedigitalphotos.com or you can pay a small amount for access to larger sized stock photos. By providing your blog post with a relevant image you can increase the number of readers and also grab the image search queries for your blog post topic.
2. Make it easy to read – One thing that I run across from time to time are blogs that are obviously never read by their writers. These blogs have text that is almost the same color as the background or text that all runs together. Elements of the blog page overlap with each other and as you scroll down, ads get in your way. It is not easy to read the information even if you wanted to put in the effort to do so. Make sure that your blog is easy to read and break up your posts with headers or points so that readers can scan for relevant information. By making your blog easy to read you will increase the number of people that stick around long enough to make your blog profitable.
3. Be careful of ad placement – I know that many bloggers need ads on their blogs to make them profitable. However you should be careful where you place them. Not only is ad placement important for search engine optimization, but people also notice when ads are badly placed. Pop ups, floating ads, loud ads or flashing ads can distract from your blog content and work to counter purposes. Instead, make the ads appear a seamless part of your blog and you’ll get more clicks.
4. Make it flow – Last but not least, make sure your blog flows. I hate trying to navigate a clumsy blog where even getting to the next post is a hassle. Do not put too many widgets or add-ons on your blog. Instead, make sure the links or buttons you do have work well and are in a place easy to get to. By making your blog user friendly you will get readers to stay on it longer, which usually means increased profitability.

Do not underestimate the value of appeal to readers. While search engine optimization is important, it’s the real readers that count. Make your blog appealing to them and most of your SEO work will fall into place alongside.

About our Guest Author:

Jason Miner plays a vital role for www.blogcarnival.com.  He is an expert in writing topics of different categories.  He is helping the carnival team to grow & working on making this an even better place for bloggers. (Image: by Stuart Miles at Freedigitalphotos.net)

Most bloggers and those who run small businesses that publish blogs are not natural-born writers, or even trained writers. Most businesspeople studied things such as marketing, communication, or business.

It’s not often they’ve studied English or creative writing. Yet it’s becoming expected that businesses have a well-written blog, as well as expertly-written content on their website.

Some businesses can afford to hire professional writers to author their blog and/or website. This is great, if you can handle the expense. Many small businesses are not willing or able to pay a writer when first starting out. So how can you brush up on your writing skills in order to maintain a professional blog and website for your company?

There are lots of resources for business bloggers available in many different mediums. Here are some ideas:

1. Books: Good old fashioned reading can definitely help you to review grammar and sentence structure rules. There are many good books out there on writing. A search on Amazon for “writing skill reference books” turns up many titles that are well-reviewed by customers. Most can also be purchased in an eBook format for reading on the go. You could certainly purchase one of these books and read it when you have a few free moments. Any effort you put into learning more about writing well will show in your material.
2. Websites: There are many blogs and website that are dedicated to helping people improve their writing and grammar skills. The great thing about finding information online is that it is free and easily accessible. Just be careful, because there is nothing governing these sites, and there is no guarantee that the information that is being presented is one hundred percent accurate. If the site that purports to be teaching about spelling, grammar, and writing, make sure that those things are represented well on the site; i.e. look out for sites that say they will teach you to have better “grammer.”
   (Note: James Chartrand and Men with Pens is a great resource for learning online writing skills, and they have a course starting shortly.)
3. Classes: If you have a bit of time to spare, taking a class in the basics of writing can improve your writing skills dramatically in a relatively short period of time. Writing classes are offered at community colleges, universities, online schools, trade schools, and Coursera. Coursera is a relatively new service that offers classes for free that are taught by instructors from major universities. The classes that they offer change constantly, so if they aren’t offering what you are looking for right now, keep checking back.

Brushing up on writing skills is a good idea for anyone in the business world, and particularly for those who incorporate writing into their business and website on a daily basis. Your readers will take you more seriously if your information is well-written. This can translate into sales and interest in your business!

About our Guest Author: Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

Thousands of blog guides exist, but do they really help or just cloud the issue further?

This is what you need to know when it comes writing to a better blog, one that’s really readable.

• There’s no such thing as ‘blog style.’ However, the easier it is to read the better. Break it up, make it easy for the reader. That means short, sharp paragraphs and the same with sentences. If a paragraph is more than five lines, you’ve gone too far.
• People don’t want to read blogs. At least, not ones that have no value. Put your point across early on, and they’ll read the rest of it.
• The key to achieving a better blog, whether you measure that by how many people read it, share it on social media, or comment on it, is to make everything as clear and as simple as possible.

Cut It Out

Oscar Wilde once said that you should never use a long word if there is a short one available that means the same thing.

If it’s good enough for one of the greatest writers that ever lived, then it is good enough for you.

People don’t care if you know a word with six syllables, and certainly have no time for a ‘henceforth’ when you could just say ‘now.’

Speed Readers

Very few people can actually speed read properly, but everyone will attempt to do it with a blog.

• Use bullet points to give people reference points
• Use a picture to break up the monotony of endless text, and use your keywords in the most important places where you want people to stop and read.
• Any excuse you have to not write in a traditional manner, take it.

Forget About Word Count

When you write to a word count, you start to waffle, like it or not, that is the bottom line.

Don’t use 800 words if you can say it 200. Google might like longer and more informative pieces, but quality is still king.

Make your blog readable, and watch it become even more of a success.

About our guest author: This post was written by Rob Reeve at Bright Local who are market leaders in bringing local SEO tools to businesses.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

They’re genuinely surprised that with the money they spent on their website, no one is coming to see it, indicate they like it, let alone pick up the phone and call.

As for LinkedIn and Facebook, they’re baffled why people don’t interact with them. It doesn’t take a genius (and I’m no genius), but my guess is they have a “me-site,” a “me-blog,” and “me pages” on social media sites.

Instead of generously sharing information about their field of expertise, they share “me-formation.” There’s an “I” in information, but that doesn’t mean you should always talk about yourself. Content should be focused on readers, not you and your business. Sure, people want to know about you, but actually they want to know what you can do for them.

Start everything you write online with a focus on customers and the problems that you can solve for them. Then follow up with building trusting relationships with your readers that lead to sales.

Here’s how online content marketing works for small businesses:

1. Relationships: Whenever you write content (blog posts, e-newsletter articles, emails), keep the focus on what problems you can solve for your customers. What are their struggles? What do they most desire? Connect with them by writing for them and about them.
2. Quality Content: To quote Copyblogger: “Deliver great content.Then keep delivering great content, but in a strategic and focused way.” Start with a killer headline and move strategically through the copy to a stirring call to action. Traditional copywriting technique works amazingly well online, for web pages, blogs, email, and even in social media.
3. Make a Worthwhile Call to Action: Every once in a while, make a great offer that benefits the reader and involves money. Everybody is selling something, but if you’re not asking for the sale, you won’t get it. It can be a small purchase or large, might be a product, a service, a download, an idea, or a worthy cause. Whatever you’re selling, it’s got to be worth the price.

There’s a reason to publish a blog for your business, and it should be aligned with your business goals. If you’re trying to establish yourself as a go-to expert or thought leader, it requires publishing a lot of quality content. But remember, it’s just as important to make an occasional offer at a good price.

If you’ve done a good job building relationships with your readers, they will trust you and want to try out your offer. That’s what content marketing does. It provides quality information that leads to sales. It’s designed so that you and your business “get found, get known, and get clients.”

While these three steps are a broad outline, I believe they form the foundation of good content marketing. When I see online content that doesn’t work to bring in clients, it’s usually because one of these three steps has been lacking. What do you think?

(Image: Freedigitalphotos.net)

In order to get the online results you deserve (leads: phones calls, emails, sales!) your web content should be well-written and SEO optimized — as well-thought out as anything else you do to market yourself and your small business.

So who writes the web content? That’s a good question. For small businesses, it’s often the owner or an employee who takes charge of producing and updating the website and blog content. And that can often be a poor decision. If your content is written by someone who’s not a professional freelance writer and isn’t trained to effectively write for the web, it’s usually fairly obvious.

Telling your brand story in clear and compelling language and in a way that gets people to want to buy from you is what a website is supposed to do. And if current and prospective customers come to your site and find copy that’s poorly written and/or filled with spelling or grammar errors, that inattention to detail might well cost you their business.

But don’t despair. Most small businesses can’t afford to have a trained writer on staff, but there’s another option when it comes to writing content for your business website. Freelance writers are professional writers who work on a contract basis. You can hire someone to write the initial content and then update the website yourself in the future, or you can hire someone to continually update your site on an as-needed basis.

Either way, by working with a professional freelance writer, you’ll ensure that your site will be filled with well written, relevant and SEO optimized content that will help maximize the impact of your online presence.

Working with a freelance writer also offers a myriad of other benefits that can help boost your business and reputation and free you up from the headache of trying to do it all yourself. Here are just a few examples:

• Blog Content: Whether you’re in the market for a few blog posts or prefer to completely outsource your blog content, a freelance writer is an ideal solution. Not only will you receive polished content that’s ready for publication—you’ll also know that your blog is regularly updated, something that can prove challenging for time-strapped business owners.
• Press Releases: Press releases are an important part of your integrated marketing efforts and can help you keep media outlets and prospective customers updated about what’s going on with your company. If media coverage is what you’re after, it’s smart to hire a writer or, even better, a PR professional who has experience writing and distributing press releases to do it for you.
• Social Media Updates: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media updates call for writing that’s called “microblogging.” And there’s an art to crafting messages that can be delivered in small soundbites. A freelance writer can probably help you craft some of your social media content and you’ll be amazed at how effective the right kind of messaging can be for you and your small business.

Resources

Once you’ve decided to hire a freelance writer, there are a number of sites and resources that can help you find candidates. Don’t hesitate to ask your friends and colleagues for referrals. Or try sites like Guru.com or Elance.com, which allow freelance writers to bid on projects or assignments. Another good place to look for freelance writers is, believe it or not, on Craigslist—I’ve had great luck sourcing writers there.

After you’ve identified prospective candidates, be sure to get several writing samples from them so you can familiarize yourself with their specialties and the quality of their writing. And depending on your scope of work, you might want to start your chosen writer on a few smaller projects to make sure the partnership is an ideal fit before you dive into more intensive work.

One more tip? Remember that, as with nearly everything in life, you get what you pay for. Don’t expect stellar quality from a writer whom you pay pennies. It’s important to find a balance between budget and quality if you do decide that hiring a writer is the way to go.

About our Chamber of Commerce Guest Author: Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

That’s a term we’re going to be hearing a lot about. I first read about it in Harvard Business Review in a 2007 article called Cognitive Fitness by Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts.

Originally coined by Michael Merzenich, cognitive fitness refers to the capacity of a person to meet the intellectual demands of life. It is evident in an ability to:

• Assimilate information
• Apply rules of logic
• Comprehend relationships
• Detect patterns
• Identify emotions
• Create new perspectives
• Develop reasonable conclusions and plans

If that’s not a job description for the professional content marketing writer, what is?

Brain Coaching for Writers

I predict a new wave of professional trainers and coaches who can be hired to improve your thinking abilities. Like personal trainers and nutritionists, you could aim to vastly improve the quality of your work and productivity through brain coaching. Why not?

Cognitive fitness can be developed by formal education, being actively mentally engaged in life, continuing to learn, and exercises designed to challenge cognitive skills. You do intellectual workouts whenever you engage in professional activities, just like each time you play tennis, you practice your game, your backhand, your serve.

What if you had a trainer who could stretch you, coach you, challenge you to think better? Well, I think it’s a great idea. But let’s say you don’t have the kind of money required to hire your own brain coach. What can you do that’s time and cost effective, and fun?

3 Steps to Cognitive Fitness for Writers

Here are a few suggestions, and how I’ve personally tried them out.

1. Step outside your field. Neuroscientists have shown the brain will grow new neurons whenever you challenge it with variety. The best way to prevent your brain from aging is to stimulate it with new learning, new activities. When you do, your brain will use its pattern recognition system to compare old knowledge to new. This is a great way to think up new and different metaphors for your writing. I’ve found that learning a new language is also a good brain workout.
2. Within your field, seek out experts in other domains. Recently I attended a Writers’ Conference in San Miguel de Allende. I learned about writing fiction, plays, dialogue, memoirs and characterization. Some of the same ‘rules’ apply, but with a larger variety. Every time you learn, you expand your big picture thinking and stimulate neurons to grow and connect.
3. Take breaks. Just like you need to recuperate between sets of a physical weight-training workout, your brain needs fresh air and breaks to keep it vital. I use a variety of brain refreshers: bits of housework, kitty playtime, TV shows… whatever brainless activity you can do will help you be even more creative when you get back to work.

What do you say about this? I’d love to hear your experiences keeping your writer’s brain fit. (Image: Freedigitalphotos.net)