Blogging is an instrumental part of your content marketing initiative and can be your main traffic driver. But there are certain things that need to be in every blog post for it to be a successful marketing tool. Here are 10 ways to make every blog post as magnetic as a chocolate dollar bill.

1. Visualize the person reading your post and write to them

Successful bloggers don’t write for everyone. They have a specific reader in mind and they write about topics that appeal specifically to them. It helps to visualize your prospective reader (read: client) and write to that person. It’s important to know the following about your reader:

• Likes
• Dislikes
• Informational needs
• Current knowledge of your topic

2. Create a catchy headline

The blogosphere is a crowded place. If you want people to find (and read) your blog posts, you must write headlines that; 1. Capture their attention, 2. Address their informational needs directly and 3. Make powerful claims.

Examples: “5 Surefire Ways to Get a Promotion,” “How to Find and Hire the Right Contractor,” “Are You Getting in the Way of Your Own Success?”

3. Become a storyteller

People need to be able to connect with your message in some way. The easiest way to accomplish this is by storytelling. Telling your customers what you do and how you do it is not as compelling as sharing a story about how someone tried something, learned something, succeeded, failed, etc. Stories can convey a problem, approach and solution all while engaging the reader and softening your “sell.”

4. Write like you talk

You don’t want your blog to sound like a corporate brochure. Using plain, casual language is best and will give your blog personality. A sense of humor is welcomed in blog writing.

5. Give your post structure

Your headline will dictate your structure much of the time, for example, if your headline is “5 ways to…” then you will have 5 different numbered points in your post. Otherwise, break up paragraphs with section headers that explain what you plan to write about, and move the reader through your thought process in an organized fashion.

6. Use short sentences and short paragraphs

The average blog post should be between 250 and 500 words. Short sentences and short paragraphs will make your blog posts easier to read (read: scan). Most people do not read every word, they look for key words and read maybe the first sentence per section. Breaking longer posts into short paragraphs with the most important information in the first sentence will ensure your reader gets your point.

7. Engage instead of solve

The point of blog posts is to pull your readers into a conversation with you and entice them to come back. Don’t solve all their problems in one post. Give them just enough so they return again and again to learn more.

8. Get to the point

Tell your reader what you plan to talk about in the first few sentences and then get to your point. A blog post is no place to get extra wordy.

9. Eliminate weak words

“We were very excited at receiving the opportunity to briefly tell the group about what we provide to our clients,” is much better said, “We were excited to speak to the group about our services.”

10. Use spellcheck and good grammar

This is a big one. You are trying to establish your authority here, so don’t sabotage your efforts with typos and awkward sentence structure. We all make the occasional mistake, because, well, we’re human. But, you don’t want your readers distracted from your message because your post is sloppy. If you aren’t a great writer, pass your draft along to someone else to read and edit before you publish.

KCFX ICE Awards

Independent creative professionals don’t have a lot of opportunity to showcase their work unless competing with large advertising firms in nationally organized awards competitions. In Kansas City, Independent and small creative shops have the Kansas City Freelance Exchange, a not-for-profit group whose main goal is to advance the visibility of and opportunity for the more than 200 career freelancers and independent creative professionals within the advertising and marketing community.

Each year the group hosts a competition that showcases and honors the work done by Kansas City’s most talented graphic designers, copywriters, photographers and web developers. This year marked the changeover from the past Freebe Awards to the newly branded ICE Awards. Write Click, copywriting and new media company, was awarded four ICE awards including Best of Show.

“It’s easy to overlook the talent of Kansas City’s solo advertising and marketing professionals because our work isn’t as high profile as the work that comes out of bigger agencies, says Thomason, Owner of Write Click. “I feel so honored to be the winner of these prestigious awards in such a competitive industry, and I hope to continue doing great work for great clients in the coming year.”

Write Click received a Silver ICE Award in the Direct Mail category for a sales/marketing letter written for ListMart of Parkville, Mo., a Silver ICE Award in the category of Interactive for a radio spot written for Nill Bros. Sports of Kansas City, Kan., a Gold ICE Award in the Web category for web copy written for 1-800-Got-Mulch of Kansas City, Mo., and a Best of Show ICE Award for the 1-800-Got-Mulch web copy.

The awards banquet was held on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at the David Morris photography studio and was emceed by NASCAR racecar driver, Jennifer Jo Cobb.

“I have had a number of people contact me and congratulate me on my article in Smart Businesses to Watch! I have to give the credit to you for your copy and making me sounds so good on paper! I am very appreciative and wanted you to know all the kudos coming to me are really for you.”

I recently conducted a small survey among my clients and prospects concerning the state of their online marketing efforts, and I learned three things: 1. Most every business has a website; 2. People have little direction when it comes to using their websites and social media for their business marketing purposes; and 3. Most respondents felt like they could be doing much better in regards to their online presence than they’re doing currently. Just those three things tell me that each and every one of these businesses need a content marketer.

Don’t take this post the wrong way. I’m not trying to sell you on hiring me (although that wouldn’t be frowned upon). I’m simply pointing out that while most people feel the need to better market their businesses online, they don’t know where to start. So if you’re one of those people who is overwhelmed by the growing number of social media outlets, but you’re still feeling pressure to compete in these spaces, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

When I first meet with a client, I like to set one thing straight right out of the gate: you do not need to be everywhere to make an impact online. That usually makes them feel a bit better. Then I like to give clients my super simple explanation of how to use social media for their business: social media is the “how,” content is the “what.” What that means is that without content, you don’t have anything of value to talk about in social spaces. Conversely, without social spaces, your content has less of an impact on your prospects. So, the two are forever intertwined. Which brings me to my point of why your business needs a content marketer.

The Job of a Content Marketer

Content marketers are experts at extracting information from clients and turning it into problem-solving, relationship-building content to distribute throughout the Web. Content marketers start by doing research into where your prospects are online, what they’re already reading, what their informational needs are and the keywords that will help them find you. Then we take that information and decide which social media outlets will be most beneficial for you to participate in and create content for those outlets.

Here’s the reason I’m in business: without a content marketing and social media strategy, you could be wasting your time in spaces where your customers are not, talking about things that aren’t interesting (or helpful) to them. This usually hits my clients right between the eyes (not to mention the pocketbook). But with the right content marketer on your bench, you’ll have a clear online direction and you will start building relationships that will sustain your business for years to come.

It’s amazing what a little planning and direction will do when combined with the power of the social web!

We start with a sound strategy, then Write Click uses proven SEO copywriting techniques to create content that drives traffic to our clients’ websites.

At Write Click, we’re all about what you want. That’s why as we’re planning our content strategy for 2010, we need your feedback. Please click on the link below to take a SUPER short survey that will help us write blog posts, email newsletters, etc. that interest YOU. We want to know how you use content marketing and social media tools for marketing purposes and what you’d like to learn more about. So take a moment and fill out our quick survey. Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,

Jayme Thomason – Write Click SEO

Take the survey now

I don’t know about where you live, but in Kansas City, tow truck drivers seem fairly aggressive in their “customer acquisition efforts.” Drive on any highway in Kansas City and you’ll see them. Perched on frontage roads and sitting in parking lots ready to come to the rescue of motorists in need.

I’m not an expert in the industry by any means, so maybe it takes this aggressiveness to make a living as a tow truck driver. Some might see this laying-in-wait strategy as sort of vulture-like, waiting to pounce and take advantage of people in need. Or, you could view tow truck drivers as the cowboys on the white horses, coming to the rescue. However you look at it, I think we can learn a couple things about content marketing from these savers of stalled cars.

1. They know exactly where their customers are and that’s where they hang out.

2. Because they hang out where their customers are, they’re ready to jump into action when they see a need.

Tow truck drivers know who their target audience is, mostly rush-hour commuters on highly traveled roadways. So that’s where you’ll find them hanging out. Do we have as good a handle on who (specifically) our target market is, and where (exactly) they hang out online? If not, here are three places to look for them:

Blogs – do keyword searches for blogs within the industry in which your customers work and start reading the top 5. You need to educate yourself on what your target customers are reading so you know where your content can add value.

Forums – forums are a great place to look for the “pain” of your target market. Listen for specific issues, questions and problems and then create valuable content that addresses those things.

Social Media Communities – sites like Facebook and Twitter are great places to find out what your customers care about and what they’re interested in, in their own words. Listen for those interests and words and then create content for each.

So what can we learn from our tow-truck-driving friends of the highway? When approaching our content marketing efforts we need to be more aggressive about finding out where our customers are hanging out online, pay attention to their needs and jump to their aid with relevant content. Approaching content marketing with this type of customer-centered strategy could have an amazing impact on your business.

Imagine your customer saying, “Wow, I was just commenting about how hard it is to hire good HR people and then company x posted a great blog about just that topic! They must be paying attention!”

This is what we’re all trying to accomplish with our content marketing efforts – one relationship and solved problem at a time.

I just met my ideal client. It’s great to have your ideal client defined in your marketing plan, but it’s simply magical when you meet one. She’s my ideal client for the following reasons: 1. She is a solo-preneur in a service business giving everything she’s got to the business she believes in. 2. She totally gets what I do and how it benefits her business. She understands what content marketing is and has embraced it as the sole means of marketing her little business. And 3. It doesn’t hurt that she’s only the sweetest attorney I’ve ever known. If I EVER need a divorce, I know who I will call. (Not in a million years, hubby, just making a point.)

Here’s how well this client ‘gets’ SEO content marketing. She has dedicated the last year to writing 3-4 great posts a week, creating a HUGELY dense blog, packed with great content. It’s built on a Wordpress platform, putting it one SEO step ahead already and every post has meta tags, titles and descriptions.

So what’s the problem, you ask? Her site was not ranking very high in search engines and she was frustrated because she had dedicated so much time to this project. In the beginning, she was given some rather dated advice regarding her blog. She was told, “as long as you post something every week, you should have no problem ranking high in search engines.” If only it were that simple. After doing a little digging, we identified a few reasons people weren’t finding her site and then developed a game plan of how we were going to turn things around.

Problem #1 – The keywords she was using to optimize her posts were too broad.
The more narrowly you can define your keywords, the easier it’s going to be for you to ‘own’ them, i.e. rank on the first page of Google. The terms she was optimizing for were hugely competitive terms like ‘divorce’ and ‘custody.’ It’s going to be really hard for her to rank for keywords like that and much easier for her to rank for terms like ‘Kansas divorce attorney’ or ‘Kansas City divorce counsel.’ Our game plan includes a keyword study to try to find those key words and phrases that meet at that zen-like point of high popularity and low competition.

Problem #2 – There was no way for people to share her content.
While her posts had comment and trackback functions, there were no social media sharing buttons, which is a HUGE traffic killer. Bottom line with blogs: readers need to be able to share your content with others through Facebook, Stumbleupon and the like, and your blog needs the backlinks. Links are important not just because they help your search engine ranking, but they also drive quality traffic to your site, as in people who will hire you. Our game plan? Add a simple social media sharing button to all her posts and focus on creating high quality content that people will connect with and share.

Problem #3 – There was nothing driving people to her blog to read her content.
While she had a ton of content on her own site, there were no other avenues from which people could find her site except for typing in her url or stumbling upon it from a search engine. That’s where the marketing part of content marketing comes in. Content marketing is about taking your content and publishing it in places outside of your own site so readers can find the content and ultimately your blog site. We created a game plan to re-purpose some of her existing content and use them as articles on 3rd party article sites and guest blog posts. We also plan to use optimized news releases to talk about her unique services.

The cornerstone of successful content marketing campaigns is great content, and she’s certainly not lacking in that department. Once people find her blog via a solid content marketing campaign, they’ll be blown away by all the delicious content and she’ll see her business grow.

Write Click Launches New Website and Uses SEO Content Marketing to Maximize Clients’ Online Visibility

SEO copywriting company Write Click SEO now offers full-service SEO content marketing and social media strategy services to help clients build online presence.

KANSAS CITY, MO – Veteran copywriting company Thomason Freelance LLC has re-launched with a new name, a new website and new business focus. Now called Write Click SEO, the Kansas City based SEO copywriting services company specializes in helping businesses large and small increase their visibility, credibility and overall effectiveness on the web. Unlike radio, TV or direct mail campaigns, SEO content marketing is a more cost effective way for small businesses to cultivate the kinds of relationships that turn into sales.

“54 percent of Americans use the Internet instead of the phone book to find local services, and over 40 percent of all searches are for local businesses and services,” says Thomason. “This is huge for small businesses. It means small and growing businesses can level the online playing field and greatly increase their sales by implementing a smart SEO content marketing strategy.”

Google places high emphasis on quality SEO content and states on their site that “One of the most important steps in improving your site’s ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content.”

By using sound SEO content and social media strategy, including keyword-rich web copy, SEO copywriting, email newsletter content and SEO news releases and articles, Write Click provides full-service SEO content marketing solutions for Kansas City businesses.

“Website content is just one piece of the SEO marketing equation. We start with in-depth keyword and competitive research and integrate keywords seamlessly and naturally into all the content we write. Then we use that as a basis for content marketing through social media outlets utilizing article marketing, SEO press releases, HubPage development, social media profiles and email newsletter services,” says Thomason.

According to Thomason, “Write Click’s philosophy is simple: Create valuable SEO content for people first, search engines second. After all, it’s people who turn into customers, not search engine crawlers.”

About WRITE CLICK
An SEO Copywriting Company

Write Click provides SEO content marketing services. We help businesses like yours fully utilize the web as a relationship-building, sales-making tool. Using SEO copywriting techniques, our content marketing strategists help our clients get more traffic to their websites, achieve greater online visibility and rank higher in keyword searches (translation: more sales). Don’t let your website gather dust. Put it to work for your business. Visit www.writeclickseo.com to find out how.

I’ve been a professional copywriter for several years, and I would say my skills in this area are above average. As smart as I think I am, I managed to make a horrible SEO blunder on my first website. Prior to the re-launch of my business I ran a few SEO tests on my site to see how it did without any SEO content intervention and the results were bleak. To my utter horror, I only used the word copywriter four times on my whole site! Four times!

I realized that my creativity had been killing my search rankings. How? Because I paid little attention to what people were searching for when needing my services (um…copywriter) and instead had been trying to differentiate by branding myself a “message strategist.” Sounds cool, doesn’t it? But because no one was actually looking for a “message strategist” in search queries, I’m sure my business suffered.

Moral of the story. Creativity is great, but not when it comes to keywords that will make or break you. Test your site for the keywords you think people use in search queries. Don’t like the results? Try re-writing your content with new, more universal keywords.