Sean Romanoff Communications

Get to the point.

That pretty much sums up the way to write a successful blog post. You can be clever, but be quick. You can be incisive, but be quick. You can be thoughful, but be quick. Are you noticing a trend?

More than any other kind of communication, a true blog post is a written conversation. And good conversation gets to the point. If you’re wondering, just think back to the last time a friend told you a meandering story.

I’ll assume you’re now convinced.

So with this empasis on speed, there are four keys to make sure your blog post does the job it’s supposed to do and does it quickly.

Headline – It’s the first thing a reader sees so it stands to reason that the headline is important. There are a variety of ways to write a headline but what has worked for this blog is the basic “how-to” headline often written in the form of a question. A business blog should convey useful information, so a reader needs to know what the subject is and what specific topic will be addressed. In this post the subject is business blogging and the topic is the keys to a successful post.

First sentence – Don’t let the first line be a throwaway sentence. It must push the reader forward. Short sentences are often good and surprising ones are great. But don’t fake it just for the sake of trying to shock. When you do that you run the risk of losing the reader forever because your credibility is shot

Length – A blog post needs to be long enough to convey value, but short enough that a person feels like it wasn’t a chore to read. A range of 250-350 words is a good rule of thumb.

Unity – Stick to the point. And don’t be repetitive unless you need to emphasize that point.

Follow these simple keys and your blog readers will thank you. Plus, they’ll make a blog more fun to write.

When it comes to business blogging, don’t reinvent the wheel to write your posts. In other words, have a process so you can write your blogs over and over again. This is another way to make sure blogging consistency doesn’t become an issue for you. Being consistent means people come to expect your blog to be posted on a regular basis and regular blogging can be overwhelming for writers and non-writers alike because, well,  that’s a lot of writing.

Assuming you have an editorial calendar for the week, you know what your topic is. So then you just write — right? Well, that depends.

Some people write best when they just sit down and write. Put yourself in your chair, put you fingers on the keyboard, and let the words flow. Don’t stop until you can’t think of anything else to say. Once you’re done writing, you edit and revise what you’ve written and voila — a blog post.

That works well for some. But others can’t think of what to say without a little more structure. Those people may be helped by getting their ideas out in a list or a mind map. But then those thoughts should be given an organizational logic by putting them into some kind of plan. That way you know what you’re going to write before you sit down at the keyboard (I recommend doing this longhand in a notebook) and after that the blog post pretty much writes itself.

Either way, figure out which process fits your personality best and run with it. You’ll write better posts and you’ll be able to keep writing them over the long haul. And that will give you a successful blog.

Knowing what you’re going to say is one of the biggest obstacles to blogging consistency. And blogging consistency is a key to a successful blog. When you don’t know what you want to blog about, it gets harder and harder to write. Eventually you post less and less frequently until you never write in your blog at all. Then your blog does nothing to market your site and actually can be a detriment to your ultimate success.

How do you avoid this problem? Create an editorial calendar.

If you have a daily blog, a monthly calendar should work well. Sit down and write out topics you want to discuss on your blog. Then break those topics down into sub-topics. The same thing was done with this blog where there were recently a series of posts on newsletters followed by the current series on business blogging. Keep in mind you can alter the calendar to address a hot topic in your field or in the news.

Near the end of the month, do the same thing again. Sit down and write out a number of topics, then break those topics down into sub-topics. Don’t worry if you sound repetitive or if there’s some overlap — that’s bound to happen a little over the course of a year. You’ll be surprised how you’ll treat a topic with slight differences each time you touch on it.

By using an editorial calendar and mapping out the topics in advance, you’ll never be at a loss for what to say.

If you’d like to discuss your blog, contact me today.

Stop! Why are you blogging?

Before you leap to your feet and say, “Hey, you already talked about why I should blog,” just hold on a sec. This post is about why you ARE blogging, not why you should blog. Assuming you’ve decided to blog, and you know who you’re blogging for, the next step is to figure out why you’re doing it. In other words, what  is your purpose.

There are a couple of important benefits to answering that question upfront.

The first is that you the more specifically you answer this, the easier it is to tailor your content. If your purpose is thought leadership, you may want to comment on what important people in the field are saying and doing. Or you may want to pose some of your theories or philosophies about the work. On the other hand, you may discuss the benefits of certain parts of your business if your goal is to get new leads. That way people who might be interested in your product or service understand more about who you are and what you do.

And the other benefit is you have a way to measure the success of your blog. Keep in mind that people often read blogs without commenting, so don’t let the comments you get — or lack thereof — influence you. There are other ways you can measure the effect your blog is having that I’ll talk about another time. But by expressing your purpose at the beginning, you make that measurement possible.

So before you get started, slow down. Take that spiral notebook I mentioned in my previous post and list all the different ways you could benefit from a blog. And there could be more than the one’s I mentioned, so don’t feel limited by that.

So you’ve bought in to the value of a blog for your business. You understand it keeps your site vital and dynamic. You know it can position you as a thought leader in your field. And you become a go-to source for information. That’s all good. You’re ready to get started, right? Well…sort of.

Before you put fingers to keyboard, you should answer a few questions. Key among them is – who are you blogging for?

What you’re really doing  by answering this question is identifying your audience. And this is important because it forces you to think about who your clients or customers really are. What do they look like? What are they concerned about? What are they interested in? Are they new or current clients or customers? Are you also talking to others in your field? Are you targeting anyone else at all?

By figuring out who your audience is, you will know the content you should include as well as the style, tone, and words you choose. These decisions will give your blog consistency so readers will instantly know it is meant for them. Once they make that decision, it’s up to you to keep providing the kind of information on you blog that will keep them coming back again and again.

One way to make sure you capture all this information is to take a spiral notebook and quite literally write out the questions and answers. This book becomes your personal blogging guide, and serves as the rudder for your blog. Of course you can change your answers to any of the question at another time, but it gives you a single place to keep all your thoughts about your blog and what you hope to achieve with it.

So NOW you’re ready to get started, right? Well, almost. And we’ll get to that next.

“I don’t even know what a blog is.” That’s one of the first things I hear from potential clients when I suggest a blog for their web sites. Well the easy answer is that a blog is a shorthand name for a weblog, a sort of online diary. But for a business it can be much more.

One benefit of a blog is that it provides a steady stream of new content for a web site. That’s a good thing in the eyes of search engines like Google and Yahoo. When they see that a site is regularly updated with new blog posts, they see it as a place that’s active and dynamic. Sites like that are given a priority in searches.

But you also benefit from what you put in a blog because it gives you the chance to show thought leadership in your industry. In other words, it gives you the chance to be seen as an expert. And as an expert you have more influence, and in many businesses you can charge more for your expertise.

People also come to see you as a source for information in that field too. When they need to learn things about your area of expertise, they come to you for the inside scoop. And this establishes a relationship. It might extend your relationship with a current customer or it could maintain a relationship with a potential one.

And these are just a few of the reasons every business should be blogging. But even if they are the only ones you see, your blog will be well worth any time and energy you put into it.

How do you create a successful newsletter?  Regardless of whether you choose to have an electronic or print newsletter, you want it to be a success. But most businesses have no clue about how to do that or how easy it is.

The biggest issue for most newsletter publishers is failure to follow through. And the easiest way to ensure that is to plan out an editorial calendar. If you have a print newsletter that probably means a quarterly schedule of articles makes more sense, while with an electronic version you’ll probably want to have a monthly schedule of articles — although the number of articles will be far fewer than in a print newsletter.

When clients object to planning it out, most say they want to be flexible about what will appear. But having a plan doesn’t exclude reaction to timely issues or newsworthy events. In fact, you want that kind of material. The editorial calendar gives you a plan, so you’re not caught trying to figure out on the fly what will end up in it. It gives you a rudder. And a rudderless ship can’t steer or change direction — and that’s the very thing you want to avoid.

By creating an editorial calendar, you actually give your newsletter more than a chance for success.

Speed or heft?  Cheap or…well, not so cheap? One of the key questions a business needs to consider when it’s going produce a newsletter is whether to go with an electronic or print version. As you can tell there are marketing advantages to each.

Let’s start with print. It’s traditional and it’s tangible. Never overlook the value of those two qualities. By being traditional, it should meet certain expectations for length and quality. If it’s less than four pages, don’t even bother with print. A  print newsletter is also a tangible thing.  You can hold it, feel it, and most importantly save it.  If you create a document that has benefits within, it’s much more likely the recipient will keep it around — at least for awhile.  Not only is your message given extra value, but your very business is treated that way too.

On the other hand, you cannot overlook one of the main values of an e-newsletter — price. They are relatively cheap to produce.  You also have more options when it comes color and design because of that lower price tag.  So what’s the down-side?  Well, think of the many e-newsletters you get…there is a great temptation to simply delete them.  The potential antidote to that is an interesting subject line and a brief, but benefit-filled, article.  Since it costs less to produce, you should probably opt for a monthly schedule while most print newsletters are quarterly.

So how do you decide?  Know your USP. Know your goals. And know your budget.  Talk it over with your copywriter and you’ll be on your way to a successful newsletter.

So you’ve decided to use a professional copywriter for your newsletter, but how do you make sure people will want to read it?  As tempting as it may be to load up your newsletter with useful information, that only makes it worth reading. Yes, that’s what I said…useful info only makes it WORTH reading.  That’s not the same thing creating something they WANT to read.

The first step is to give your articles personality, and that personality should be yours.  Even if it’s chocked full of benefit oriented copy, those articles should be delivered with a strong dose of individuality. Your newsletter should read like a one-on-one conversation with your reader.  Although you want to avoid too many quirks and colloquialisms, your writer should give you copy that sounds a lot like the way you speak. That’s conversational writing and it draws in many more readers than you’ll get with dry, general copywriting.

Once you have articles that sound like you, the newsletter you’ve created is truly YOURS.  And you’re the reason people come to your business in the first place.

If your web site isn’t saying what you want it to say, it could actually be costing you clients or customers.  The question is, how do you know? One key is to look for how often you talk about yourself.

The temptation with any web site is to talk about what YOU do, YOUR expertise, and things YOU’RE doing. Of course you have to give some information about you. But you should spend most of your time talking about your potential client or customer. By doing this you let them see that you care about and understand them. You also let them see how you’ve helped others who have similar problems or needs. And you begin to earn their trust by not making every issue about you.

Go through your site and see how many times you refer to yourself. Generally all you have to do is look through your site and see how many times you say the words “I,” “we,” or use the name of your business as the subject of a sentence. Now do the same thing but instead count the number of times you use the word “you.” If the first number is bigger than the second number, you have a problem. And a site audit may be needed to discover other ways your web site may be under performing.