Sean Romanoff Communications

Red ink pens.

They’ve long been the standard tool teachers use to correct papers. And they’re a curse to every student who’s ever seen something they’ve written dripping red. Why? Because you’ve broken the rules, of course.

The rules. Those things that make sure all of us communicate in roughly the same way. Some might tell you it’s how to tell “proper” English from what the rest of the riff-raff writes or speaks. But that’s not really what the rules are all about.

They’re really about making sure we can all understand each other. If every person followed their own rules of writing, we’d quickly lose the ability to make people understand what we’re trying to say.

So then the rules are good, right?

Well, not exactly. Anyone who’s been paying attention to this post so far should have noticed that I’ve broken the rules several times already. Microsoft Word is telling me I’ve already written three sentence fragments – on purpose.

So then the rules aren’t so good?

Well…let’s get a little clear about this. Rules are good in the sense that they set the parameters of the game. In this case, the game is writing well.

But the rules do cause problems. Here are just a few of the biggies – they limit choices, they extinguish creativity, and they destroy individuality. It sounds awful. Don’t worry though. This is exactly what the rules were designed to do. By making a standard form, we can usually understand the writing of every single person who puts pen to paper.

If you want your writing to stand out though, you can’t simply follow the rules and expect you to be a good writer. You need to have a sense of style and write with your own voice too.

So how do you balance when to follow the rules and when to follow your own style. Clear communication is what you’re after. If communicating clearly means you should follow the rules, do it. But if you can’t get the idea across the way you want to without ignoring or bending a rule or two, then follow your instincts. Most of the sentences I’ve written here follow the rules, but I’ve broken a few when I thought the writing was better doing it my own way.

Here are a few of my own rules that help me create my personal style:

• Use contractions – it’s more like the way we all speak.
• Try a sentence fragment here and there – it makes a point, so long as you don’t do it too often
• A paragraph can’t be too short…but it can be too long.

Just remember that the rules are there to help you. If you feel like they’re holding you back, go ahead and break a few.

Sean Romanoff is a copywriter and online marketing consultant. He specializes in blogging, WordPress web sites, article marketing, social media, and all other aspects of creating an effective online presence. To contact Sean, just click here.

“Hi! I’m Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman, and I’m damn glad to meet ya!”

That’s one of the great lines from the iconic movie Animal House and it’s easy to see why. Otter, as Mr. Stratton was called by his fraternity brother, was so earnestly phony. He wasn’t damn glad to meet any of those prospective pledges to the Delta house.

That’s how so many bloggers treat their readers. They don’t really care about them. They only care about what they can sell them.

Listen, making an honest buck is something we try to do. But too many bloggers treat the relationship with their readers in strictly economic terms. Oh they try to hide that by writing in conversational colloquialisms. They use little phrases and regional dialects to try to convince you they’re just average guys. But they’re not. They’re the modern version of the used car salesman. And they should be approached just as cautiously.

Even though a good blogger may want to sell you things either directly, through affiliate relationships, or through list sharing, you need to feel confident that any recommendation coming from a blogger is genuine. What are business bloggers to do if these are the models they see?

Provide your readers with genuine information.

If you give the people who read your blog genuine information, they’ll come to trust you. If you’re honest about when you’re selling something and your financial interest in a recommendation, they’ll trust you even more. Rather than becoming a master sales person, make your recommendation the gold standard.

Trust me, you’ll have more happy customers and they’ll be happy to recommend you to their friends and family. That’s the kind of community you want to build because it’s made of the kind of loyalty money can’t buy.

 Sean Romanoff is a copywriter and online marketing consultant. He specializes in blogging, WordPress web sites, article marketing, social media, and all other aspects of creating an effective online presence. To contact Sean, just click here.

In one of the early scenes in the movie Ray, producer Ahmet Ertegun chastises a young Ray Charles for trying to sound like other popular artists of the day. And as the recording session unfolds, he helps Charles find his own voice. Of course, Charles’ voice would ultimately be one of the most popular in the history of music.

You don’t have to be quite that ambitious, but that’s the attitude your blog needs.

And that voice is essential making your blog unique – like it comes from you. That’s the quality that separates the truly engaging blogs from the countless others that clog up the web.

So how does cultivating your voice benefit your blog?

Well, the first thing it does is attract readers. That’s easy to understand if you just think about your own life. You’re more likely to do business with someone who is genuine and authentic because you know you’re dealing with a real person. It’s not as easy to establish a direct relationship online. A blog is the first step in that process.

And that relationship grows because a personal voice gives your blog credibility. If you sound like you, your blog posts are more like a conversation with your readers. As they listen to you, they can weigh the truth of what you say. An honest dialogue with your readers gives you credibility that you must protect because it takes a long time to build and can be destroyed in one ill-advised statement.

If you continue to do this over time, you’ll form a long term bond with your readers. They’ll trust the information you tell them in your posts and listen to the recommendations you make. Don’t take that relationship lightly. It’s truly an honor to be given that level of trust.

 Without that voice you and your blog will never achieve that level of trust because it will be as flat as your computer screen.

Sean Romanoff is a copywriter and online marketing consultant. He specializes in blogging, WordPress web sites, article marketing, social media, and all other aspects of creating an effective web presence. To contact Sean, just click here.

Well, at least the blog title is new.

For the past few months my blog has been known as Marketing Rocket Fuel. I’ve used that title because I believe that online marketing is one of the most effective methods you can use to grow your business, both in terms of new clients or customers as well as in reducing your costs. But during this time I realized I had a problem.

The title didn’t really reflect what I was trying to convey or what I was about. It was a disconnect that would hamper my future growth of my blog and my writing and consulting business. I needed to better define my niche (more about the importance of that in a future post).

By redefining my approach more accurately, readers will know what my approach to marketing is. Plus search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing will better understand what I offer as well. So when people use search words and phrases that apply to what I do, they’re more likely to find me.

So today I am rectifying that problem.

What will change for you? Not that much. You’ll notice that I’ll write about business blogging from soup to nuts. And I’ll also look at other aspects of business marketing that relate to blogging like web sites, article marketing, social media, success stories, and long form pieces such as special reports, white papers, and ebooks.

I hope you’ve like what you’ve heard so far. Just know that at Effective Business Blogging you’ll get good tips and honest information about what makes an effective business blog and how to make one work for you.

Sean Romanoff is a copywriter and online marketing consultant. He specializes in blogging, article writing, social media, and all other aspects of creating an effective web presence. To contact Sean, just click here.

We like to know what’s coming.

Oh, there’s a lot of lip service paid to the value of spontaneity, and there is value in letting things develop without form at times. But usually we like to know what to expect, especially when we’re looking for information.

Readers come to look for a certain pattern in a blog post. That pattern lets them skim for information when they don’t have time to read the entire post, and it gives them a level of comfort that helps build the reader/blogger relationship. Plus from the blogger’s or writer’s perspective, it offers a repeatable format. That’s extremely important when you’re the only one maintaining a blog because you can be more efficient. But it can also help when a blog has multiple contributors so the format doesn’t vary too much from post to post.

The structure of my posts is sort of a three part approach. First I introduce the topic I’ll discuss. Next I try to throw in three tips or points, although sometimes there are more. If I can put them in a bullet list or identify them with subheads in bold, I do that. And then I offer a conclusion usually centered on how this helps make a blog or blog post better.

Despite the temptation for some writers to just wing it, the better approach is to plan out a structure for all your posts. It’s better for the reader, as well as the writer. And you end up with an ongoing relationship as a result.

Sean Romanoff is a copywriter and online marketing consultant specializing in blogs, articles, and all other aspects of making your web site effective. To contact Sean, click here or go to www.seanromanoff.com.

A picture is worth about…oh, 350 words.

 At least it is on this blog. That’s because my typical blog post is about that length. And I make sure to have some kind of image with every post. But why do you need one in a blog post and how do you pick the right image?

 An image can do something words can’t do — it can become associated with an idea and stick in the minds of readers. Think of word, any word. It can be anything — dictator, corn, flag, whatever. More than likely you have a strong image that you connect with that word. That’s what a picture can do that words can’t. It connects with people in a way that is immediate and permanent.

 But in the best case, it’s not just the picture itself. It’s also the words. Words get more specific than a picture can by itself. Pictures can enhance the meaning and impact of your words which makes your words more powerful and your ideas more influential.

Of course, you can’t forget that images simply make your blog posts more attractive. You can have the best ideas written with flowing prose, and if it just looks like a giant block of text, you’re not likely to get very far. By making your posts more attractive, your blog has more appeal and so you’re more likely to get people to read what you write.

 Picking the right image can be tough though, especially if you need a picture that evokes an idea. It’s easy to pick a picture of a tree when you’re writing about trees. But it’s not so easy to pick one when you’re writing about a topic that’s intangible – like freedom. When you do choose an image make sure there is an obvious and strong connection between it and the words. This is more art than science, so practice a bit to get the hang of it.

 One important tip though: be sure you have the right to use the image. Pictures and other images are copyrighted just like words are, and you don’t want to illegally use someone else’s hard work. It’s not good business ethics and it can get you into trouble.

 It’s really this simple, though. Images help you communicate better and have more attractive blog posts. Make sure you give the choice of what image you want to include the time and energy you should.

Don’t draft where you post.

Instead you should write all the drafts of your blog posts in whatever word processing software you use. For most of us that’s Microsoft Word and composing all your drafts there makes sense for several reasons related to your writing, but also because you have another place where all your posts are stored. This way they can be revised slightly, and much more easily, for use in other contexts, such as article marketing or creating a special report.

 But before we get ahead of ourselves, there are some much more immediate benefits to using Word to create your blog posts. One of the most important is that you can catch mistakes more easily. You can’t underestimate the value of this. While WordPress now has spell-check (something missing in early versions), it’s not nearly as strong as what you get from Word which also has grammar check. That helps if you type the same word twice, use the wrong word, or misplace a line of text.

 You also get a better sense of what your post will look like because you see it in a larger format than the posting dialog box you get in WordPress. That also helps with revising because it lets you move text and quickly see how the change affects the post. This is very difficult to do in WordPress.

 One quick tip, though. DO NOT do your formatting in Microsoft Word. When you cut and paste your formatting won’t look the same. Just type out your text in Microsoft Word and paste it into WordPress, and you’ll be fine.

 In fact, your blog posts will be so much better, you’ll be better than fine.

It’s called the lead for a reason. You want your reader to get somewhere. But you’re not sure exactly how to do it. Well, you just have to grab them by the hand and take them where you want them to go. And you do that in the first paragraph of a blog post.

That first sentence creates a sense of curiosity, but it has to be followed by copy that engages the reader enough to keep going. How exactly are you supposed to do that? Here are three strong ways to engage your blog readers and keep them going with you.

The first is to identify a problem that’s causing your readers pain. It may even be a problem they haven’t anticipated yet. But you don’t want to simply point it out — you eventually want to offer a solution.

Another way to get your readers engaged is to tell a story. The easiest source to find a story is your own experience, but you don’t want to go to that well too often. Find clients, friends, or colleagues that have a compelling story. When people get involved in a story, they naturally want to know more. Make sure you hook people early, so don’t wait too long to get to the meat of the story.

And the last way is to simply volunteer some new information. It has to be pretty new, though. And because it’s new, it naturally creates a sense of curiosity. We all want to find out about the latest thing, no matter what that thing is.

Start your blog with one of these methods and you’ll be well on your way to having readers who anxiously look forward to what you’re going to say next.

Don’t throw it away!

What am I talking about? That grating tendency so many writers have, no matter how experienced, to write something so boring, so trite, or so meaningless that you could delete that first line entirely and it woudn’t affect the blog post at all. It essentially becomes a throw away line.

A strong first sentence is essential. After the headline (and subhead if you have one), it’s the next most important line. That’s because it has a very important job.

The first thing a first sentence should do is grab the reader’s attention. You can use a quote, a question, or even a statistic (if it’s the right statistic) to get the ball rolling. One of the best, and easiest ways, to get started is with a surprising or shocking statement. That’s what you see in this post. The sentence, “Don’t throw it away!” isn’t what you expect in a blog post about the first sentence of an article or post.

One thing it shouldn’t be is a simple statement of information. While I’m a big proponent of proof and evidence to support your appeal, you can’t lead with that unless it’s a piece of information or a statistic so unusual it will shock the reader on it’s own. If not, save it for later.

The other key function of a first sentence is to move the reader along. To do that, it needs to inspire enough curiosity to get the reader to read the next sentence. “Don’t throw it away,” is designed to make you wonder what you shouldn’t throw away. Your first sentence should always motivate the person to read the next one.

Beware of this habit. It has a nasty way of creeping into your writing and making it weaker than it should be. If you follow these guidelines, you’ll write first sentences that are the envy of copywriters everywhere.

The secret? Curiosity.

Reading that sentence is an example of the power of that very quality. Give people a reason and they will dig for information, especially if that information can help them make their own lives easier or better. And although there are any number of headline formulas –  and many books can give you loads of simple headline writing methods — there are three easy ways to spark curiosity and get your target reading, which is the purpose of a headline.

Lists – Mentioning a list in a headline gives the impression there is a wealth of information within. Pick a topic people are interested in, and they’ll dive right into a post that promises a certain number of hot tips or best practices.

Questions – We don’t like questions left unanswered. But it’s not just the question itself, but the right question that makes the difference. A question that requires only a yes or no answer, no matter how intriguing, is dangerous because with a “no” you risk losing a potential client or customer forever. Go for questions that start with what, where, why, and how because they tend to start a conversation. And that’s what you want to happen.

Inside information – That’s what you find in the headline above. Words like secret, exclusive, or lost give the impression the information within isn’t known by everyone. A possible edge like that makes even the most cynical among us dig a little deeper.

Keep in mind that a good headline merely gets your foot in the door. To keep the conversation going you have to deliver on that promise and do it in a way that’s fun and engaging.