Gravy Masters

"My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe." That, according to Harvard Business Review blogger Robert Sutton, is just one of twelve things good bosses believe.

I don't think it's going too far to say that bloggers for business share the mission with those good bosses. In the case of blogging, the job is shielding online readers from external distractions, "intrusions" and idiocy. Talk about distractions and intrusions! Technorati estimated the number of blogs at the start of 2009 at 200 million, with new ones coming online in the tens of thousands each day.

Even allowing for the fact that a large number of blogs are, for all intents and purposes, "dead", with no new content having been added in months and months, there is an awful lot of information (and an awful lot of misinformation) out there in the "blogiverse" on any topic under the sun. Looked at from the vantage point of professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, then, I think one important function of high-quality business blog posts is to help readers find their way, amidst that enormous deluge of information, to the information they need, put in a context that works for them.

If you're to serve as a "shield", that means offering searchers a common-sense system or grid to filter that ocean of information. 

• Establish credibility.  Use "only-ness" statements to demonstrate the uniqueness of your approach to your profession or area of expertise.
   
• Show your "measure".  A good part of the confusion felt by online searchers comes from the fact that, not having been trained in your field, they don't know how to judge how experienced you are relative to your competitors, if your prices are fair, and where you "place" in the big scheme of products and services.  The more logic and clarity you can provide in your blog post, the more readers will feel a sense of "relief" at having to search no longer for the information, products, and services they need.
  
• Keep it bite-sized. Offer a lot of good information, but exercise portion control, focusing on one key concept in each blog post.

Brick by brick, blog post by blog post, with user-friendly information posted frequently and consistently, you'll be building a human shield against distractions of every stripe!

 

Sure, the technique of using lists in ads, articles, and blog posts can be overdone.  Still, there's no denying - numbers are attention grabbers. When My Yahoo browser served up the titles "40 Fantastic Uses For Baking Soda" and "46 Smart Uses For Salt" - hey, I just had to know if this stuff was for real!

It was.  Melissa Breyer's Care2 Green blog contained a wealth of information about how baking soda makes a great stand-in for expensive personal care, cleaning, and deodorizing products.

Breyer's post demystified her topic, explaining that sodium bicarbonate regulates PH, keeping a substance neither too acidic nor too alkaline. How can you demystify YOUR services and products so that online readers feel they understand how the "magic" happens?

Breyer goes on through the full 40 "did-you-know"s about how baking soda is handy for just about everything you can think of (but never did), from helping your hair, to polishing silverware, to cleaning teapots, putting out fires. and sanitizing the septic system. What unusual applications for YOUR product can you use to capture readers' interest?

Notwithstanding the number 46 in the title "46 Smart Uses for Salt", according to the Salt Institute, I learned to my amazement, there are more than 14,000 ways to use salt (now I was really curious!). Some that inspired an "I didn't know that!" from me included:

• Preventing cake icing crystals
• Treating poison ivy
• Deterring ants
• Making candles drip-proof
• Brightening the color of curtains

As a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, I think using numbers in blog posts is less about grabbing attention with a catchy title, and more about demonstrating ways in which your product, your service, and your expertise are useful, perhaps in unexpected ways.

So go ahead - count those ways in your blog!


 

Thomas Edison refused to think of his more than 10,000 attempts to create a commercially viable electric light bulb as failures. "I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work," he said. This anecdote is one of many author Robby Slaughter uses in his book Failure: the Secret to Success, to illustrate how failure can serve as an indispensible ingredient in success.

Failure can be an important ingredient in blogging for business, as well.

• Positioning your company as a problem solver
  First, your blog post demonstrates you understand the problems the online searcher is dealing with.  In other words, your success in finding unique solutions probably came through failure. Perhaps you personally went through the same failure stages.  You know how frustrating it was, and your devotion to your business grows out of that experience.

Driving home the other day, I heard a radio commercial for a divorce attorney who deals with male clients.  The professional describes in passionate terms how his own negative experiences had shaped his career, making him determined to help other men avoid some of the heartaches he'd endured.

Or, your blog post tells the story of one customer's many failed attempts to find a solution, culminating in a happy ending your service or product helped create.

• Positioning failure as a standard by which to understand how a successful outcome would look and feel
  
  Slaughter writes about four-star New York restaurant Le Bernadin. When it became known that Le Bernadin chefs use cheap, artificially flavored fake Swiss cheese as one of their ingredients, reviewers naturally jumped to negative conclusions.  All that changed after Bernadin's executive chef explained to Newsweek that the cheap cheese was not used in food, but as a benchmark. Because its taste remains identical all year long, the Swiss cheese gives the chefs a point of reference. 

Often new customers and clients who have never tried a product or service before literally do not know how good yours is - because they've never tried your competitors'!  A blog post can compare the less-than-successful results customers experienced in the past before finding you!

For success in business blogging, try stirring in some "failure"!

 

The true stories of injured construction worker Ralph Orlando and fever-delirious middle-aged railroad dispatcher John O'Connor capture the history of Mass General hospital, along with the role that teaching hospital has played in the development of medical technology, better than any textbook ever could.

In his book Five Patients, best-selling author Michael Crichton uses a teaching technique that bloggers with a business message to convey would do well to imitate. Good business blogs, of course, offer valuable information to online readers. But, the technique Crichton used in his book can be bloggers' ace in the hole:

People want to do business with people.

People relate to stories about people, not to facts and statistics.  As a professional ghost blogger for business and business blogging trainer, I realize that's one lesson we bloggers all need to tape to our computer screens: Let stories about people tell the story of your company, your products, and of the services you provide.

And who are the "people" to tell those stories? 
 

• Your workers and service providers:  
  In blog posts, feature individual boots-on-the ground employees of your company who deal with the customers and solve their problems. 
  
• Your customers:
  Use customer stories to show (rather than tell) exactly how problems and challenges were overcome step by step, using your expert advice or with adapting the products you sell to unique situations. 
  
• You:
  Tell stories to illustrate how you came to choose this line of work, why you care so deeply about serving customers in this particular way, and showing some of the obstacles you've needed to overcome.
  
  Whether it's politics or business, there's no denying the power of storytelling. In Tips & Traps for Marketing Your Business, authors Scott and Birk Cooper and Fritz Gruntzner confirm: "Customers don't want to feel like they are being told a brand story.  They want to tell themselves the story.  They want to be part of the story."

Michael Crichton offers valuable information about the ongoing progress of medical research, including the fact that surgical advance has been in great part dependent on increasing the effectiveness of pre-operative and post-operative procedures.  But he shows us that with people stories, like that of 22-year old Peter Luchesi with the nearly severed hand.

So go ahead - in your blog posts, tell stories people to people.  Get down and human!

“Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action,” is Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to short story writers. Bloggers for business, I think, would be wise to follow that rule as well.

Reveal character:
Author and speaker Debbie Weil says the #1 rule for blogging is: Write from your passion! The whole advantage of blogs is that they’re short, conversational, and, above all, personal. People want to do business with people (in fact, as Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware would say, they want to do business with people just like them!)

Your personality and character need to be revealed in each blog post. There must be no doubt about how much you care – about your industry, your products, your clients and customers – your blog must unmistakably demonstrate to online readers that in you they’ve found the “real deal”. (Just as in a face-to-face meeting, genuine character cannot be faked, but what I’m saying is your blog must let your enthusiasm shine through the screen.)

Advance the action:
The majority of traffic to any business blog comes from first time visitors, who may not, as Weil points out, even realize they’re reading a blog. Now that they’re here, you’re given a chance (very brief but very valuable) to prompt them to take the next step.

Usually we think of CTA’s (Calls to Action) as being a click on a button or widget:”Click here to contact, enroll, order, call, subscribe, etc. To me, though, as a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, each whole post is in itself a Call to Action! Your compelling description of how your solution (product or service) makes the reader eager to move to the next step.

Truly great blog posts offer far, far more than keyword phrases strung together in an attempt to “win search”. By revealing character , you advance the action!

If you haven't heard of kadigans, you probably do know their cousins the "thingamagigs". I used the word thingamagig myself the other day in the hardware store.  I was after a… well, you know, that thingamagig that hangs over the shower nozzle and holds the shampoo and hair rinse? Luckily, the store clerk quickly realized that what I needed was a shower caddy.  What I'd done, not knowing the correct term for the item, was use a kadigan or placeholder name.

Placeholders are words referring to objects or people whose names are unknown, irrelevant, or just temporarily forgotten. "Whatsherface" would be one example of a placeholder. Back in high school, our class performed Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta Mikado.  The Lord High Executioner sings about his "little list";

 ….apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind
Such as What-d'ye-call him, Thing-'em-bob and likewise Never mind.
And St-st-st and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.

Anyway, after the shower caddy incident in the hardware store, I realized that I'd learned a lesson about business blogging and about online search.  Even though I hadn't known the correct term for the item I wanted, only the result I wanted (a neat shower stall), Ace Hardware was able to make a sale and I got my need filled.

As a professional ghost blogger helping my business clients "win search" through business blogs, I realized online searchers are often in the same boat as I was that day at Ace.  Searchers may not know the correct terminology for the product or the specialized service they need, so they may just describe the desired result, or they may resort to kadigans.

So, in order to capture those searches, you've got to be able to match up your blog content with kadigans.  Content that describes the end result from using your product or service can snag kadigan-driven traffic. Content that describes how your product is used can capture attention from searchers   Remember, that day in the hardware store, I wasn't looking for a thingamagig or a whatchamacallit - what I wanted was  a neat and organized shower stall!

Not only is it smart to assume your potential customers don't know the name of your business, assume they don't know the "name" of the solution to their problem!  The reader, by using placeholder words, is saying to you, the business blogger, what W.S. Gilbert was saying: "The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you!.

 

Reading fellow blogger Michel Fortin’s post “Does Your Copy Have Personality?”, I was reminded that personality self-assessment tests have been around for years. I personally remember the Xerox version (back from insurance sales training days), while today as a college career mentor, I discuss Meyers-Briggs results and DISC profiles with my student mentees.

Different types of assessments tests have been popular at various times over the years, and there have been different names for the four different “quadrants” on the diagrams. The general idea is that understanding and relating to people with styles different from one’s own is a skill well worth perfecting.

• Drivers  (aka “directors “) are concerned with results.
  To appeal to drivers, blog about how your products and services helped solve problems, how long that took, and how much it costs to get there. In short (literally), give ‘em the bottom line!
  
• Expressives (aka “relators”) care most about how they’re perceived and about feelings.
  To appeal to blog readers in this category, emphasize the prestige that comes with using your products or services, and how customers can use those to express their own creativity.
  
• Analyticals (AKA “thinkers”) are preoccupied with details.
  To appeal to this audience in blog posts, offer lots of statistics, measurement, steps in a process, and lists of product ingredients.
  
• Amiables (aka “sociables”) are interested in relationships and in pleasing others.
  To appeal to blog readers who are in this category, blog about how your product helps others and helps build and strengthen personal relationships.
  

Now, not all of your blog visitors will fall neatly into one of these categories, and not every blog post is going to hit the spot with every reader. As Fortin puts it, you can’t be all things to all people. In fact, when it comes to ads, he says, writing copy that’s bland and “vanilla” in order to avoid offending anyone is a strategy that will, more often than not, prove appealing to no one.

As a business blogging trainer, though, I can offer reassurance. In blogging for business, there’s more “wiggle room” available.  You can write with one audience in mind today, and appeal to another tomorrow or next week. The trick, of course, is learning, over time, what works best for your business.

That’s not a lesson any business owner can learn by skipping over the trial-and-error part of the course!

• Understand the different markets that are available on the various social networking sites.
   
• Understand the varieties of tactics that can be employed to best communicate with your target audience on those social sites.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

• While existing newsletter strategies already in place for existing customers is still important to a degree, the ability to develop new social networking strategies is equally important.
   
• Don't forget, the percentage of the population that regularly visits Facebook is the same as the percentage of your customers that are on Facebook, as well.
   
• If your customers are on Facebook, you need to reach them there.

• Nearly 2700 websites were viewed, with an average visit of 57 seconds per site.
   
• One hour and 53 minutes is spent on Google
   
• Two hours and 40 minutes on AOL (which could be considered the first social networking venue)
   
• Three hours and 8 minutes on Yahoo (including their popular email service)
   
• And a whopping five hours and 25 minutes on Facebook, an 82% increase over the same time a year earlier. And their popularity just keeps growing.
  • As of February 2010, the average time spent on Facebook was up to more than seven hours per month.
  • The average user spent more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined.
     

• You need to stay abreast of the ever-changing landscape of the segmented target markets that are using, or not using any longer, particular social networking sites.
   
• You should include your social networking site information on your offline marketing materials, including TV, radio, and especially print advertising. The mere presence of those Facebook and Twitter logos on your website says something about you to your audience.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

• Alter text size, print the page
• Send a page as an email
• Create a bookmark
• Post directly to news and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace

• A full-function Content Management System (CMS) that creates static non-product pages as easily as product pages with a WYSIWYG text editor.
• Events Calendar
• Polling Capability
• Media Manager
• Flash Video Manager
• Customized RSS news and/or blog feeds to web pages.

“Just how big is the oil spill in the gulf?” read the Indianapolis Star article headline, going on to offer “a little mathematical context” to put the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe in perspective.

While there’s no really positive perspective on the oil spill, as a professional blogger for business and blogging trainer, I have a really positive perspective on the technique the Star journalist used to make matters clearer to its readers. Helping online searchers take your “measure” could be considered the main mission of each of your blog posts.

The Star used several unlikely comparisons concerning the oil spill’s first two months:

• The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak in two months.

• The amount of oil spilled would fill 9200 average-sized living rooms.
   
• Were the oil to be poured into gallon milk jugs, the lined-up jugs would stretch 11,000 miles.
   
• Converted into gasoline, all the oil spilled in two months would be enough for all American drivers combined to travel for three hours and 43 minutes.
   
• Divided among all Americans, the oil would fill four soda cans for each person.

Online searchers may know what they need.  They may not know what to call that need. They almost certainly lack expert knowledge in your field. That makes it difficult for potential customers to know if your prices are fair, how experienced you are relative to your peers, and where you “place” in the big “scheme” of products and services.  Is your business “small”? Compared to what? In what ways is “small” better for this particular service or product? Is your approach to your field different from most others?  Is that good?

Remember, your website explains what products you offer, what services you provide, who the players are in your company, the geographic areas where you operate and what type of clients you have. The reader, though, may have difficulty translating all the data into the “Why-is-that-good-for-ME” terms.

How big is your big? How small is your small, how local your local, how fast your speed?. How special is your special way of serving customers?

How many average-sized living rooms will your customer satisfaction overflow fill?

 

Randy Michaels could have made an excellent blog trainer, but the CEO of the Tribune is far too busy training his news anchors not to use newspeak.

We bloggers for business tend to be preoccupied with words we should be using (those keyword phrases that help our blogs get found by the search engines), but Michaels has come up with a list of words and phrases to avoid. With the idea of delivering news in a down-to-earth, conversational manner, he trains his newsmen and women to pretend they are "speaking knowledgeably to one person".  By NOT using what he calls "newspeak", they enhance their reputation as communicators, he teaches.

What a great standard for blog-writing for business, I thought while reading the article. Write copy that reads as if you (or your ghost blogger) were sitting down talking to readers one at a time. (The expression "all of you" is near the top of Michaels' no-no list; others include "flee", "seek" "aftermath", "alleged", "area residents", "at this point in time", and "behind closed doors").

One question I pose to business owners prior to beginning a corporate blogging project is this: "If you had only 8-10 words to describe why you're passionate about what you sell, what you know about, and the services you provide to clients, what would those words be?" (If you're really being passionate, you're probably using words from Michael's approved list!)

In Personal Branding with Social Media, Spinweb CEO Michael Reynolds wrote something that really connects with Randy Michael's rules about using conversational language:

"People want to do business with people they like and trust.  All the business branding in the world will not close a sale if the prospect does not like and trust the person with whom he is doing business….Social media allows us to deliver those trust factors," concludes Michael Reynolds.

Next time you're composing a blog post for your business - shoot for the one-on-one style!

 

The bucket on the left contains sand.  The other bucket contains an identical amount of rice.  With my eyes closed, I bet I can tell you which bucket holds the sand without touching the bucket or any of its contents. How is the trick done?

A professional ghost blogger and blog trainer, I'm in the business of blog posts, not buckets.  But this simple riddle from David J. Bodycombe's book Mind Benders illustrates a very simple technique for engaging interest in a blog, and doing that in the very first sentence of each blog post.

Keep in mind that I, before reading the riddle, had never faced this precise dilemma of learning which of two buckets contained sand.  Even so, I found myself wanting to figure out the answer. In a blog post, of course, the question or dilemma would be related to the topic the online searcher was looking for, describing a problem that reader had probably faced or was facing right then. That means the technique of posing a question at the start of the blog post would be even more effective at engaging readers' interest!

• "Just prior to leaving for a week's summer vacation, John wanted to completely turn off the air conditioning in his home.  His wife Judy, disagreed, saying they'd save more money by turning the thermostat up to 80 degrees, so that the A/C wouldn't be working so hard. Who was right?"
   
• Which is less damaging, foreclosure or bankruptcy?
   
• Is club soda or cold water better for dabbing on a food stain on your clothes?
   
• Is keeping the windows closed all summer a good idea for allergy sufferers, or should fresh air be allowed to circulate every few days?

The "trick" is to pose a question to arouse curiosity or debate, then "weigh in" on the question to demonstrate two things:  You understand your readers' problems, and you know the answers to this kind of common dilemma or question.

The simple two-step blogging process involves:

1. Opening with a poser.

2. "Closing" (the deal) with valuable insights and information to demonstrate searchers have come to the right place for the products, services, and information they need!

 

Employee benefits professional Mel Schlesinger believes in the power of four little words.  Writing in Employee Benefit Advisor, Schlesinger recommends a simple technique: After a prospect or client has agreed to move forward with a purchase, adding an "Oh, by the way…" to describe an add-on service or product feature can make a big difference in sales.

As a professional ghost blogger and blog trainer, I'm always talking about focus. Each blog post needs to emphasize and illustrate one - and, ideally, only one - key concept.  That said, can business bloggers use Schlesinger's four little word idea? Make that a definite "yes".

• For a dental office blog post with information about veneers, an OBTW might say, "For a list of foods that can discolor new veneers, click here."
   
• For a travel agency blog post about packing smart, an OBTW might say "Don't forget trip insurance."

You can lead to your By The Way item with a link to another page, an offer of a down-loadable white paper, or simply tell readers to watch for information on that other product or service in your next blog post.

The beauty of the OBTW technique, Schlesinger points out, is in its simplicity. "If you try to discuss the second product during the presentation of your proposal, you risk clouding the issue and having the entire proposal ignored…By adding an 'Oh, by the way' after the decision has been made to move forward with you, you make it a very simple decision for the prospect."

Keeping the primary focus is even more important in blogs, because online searchers tend to be scanners rather than readers.  The truth is, many will not ever get far enough into your post to even notice the OBTW part. 

For those who do, though, you can use the four little words to let them know you have lots more helpful information, products, and services to fill their needs.

Some headlines convey a potential benefit; others convey a problem. Gappers, though, says advertising maven Michel Fortin, make people want to close the gap between the two, so they keep reading.  Headlines, he adds, can be newsy, sensational, controversial, intriguing, or inspiring, but "all that matters is that headlines get readers to keep reading".
In fact, Fortin compares headlines to resumes, which are not meant to land a job, but to land an interview.  "Headlines are the ads for the ad copy," he teaches.

Two Fortin tips on "gappers" are excellent advice for business bloggers, I find:

• Adding a negative situation to the headline is effective, because it appeals to more dominant emotions of readers.  It's more powerful, Fortin tells plastic surgeons, to ask, "Suffering from wrinkles?" than "Do you have wrinkles?" Rather than saying "Lose 40 pounds in 6 weeks!", it would be more powerful to say "Shed 40 pounds of disease-causing fat in just 6 weeks!"

In other words, think of a negative situation that is now present, or one that will be without your product or service, and write your headline about it.  That draws readers into the copy of the blog post, where you explain how they can close the gap between the bad situation and the solution. 

• Start the headline with a verb, painting as vivid a picture as possible, advises Fortin.  "Zoom Past the Confusion" is a much better headline than "Get More Clarity!"  Rather than saying "Poor Fiscal Management Leads to Financial Woes", he says, try "Don't Let Poor Fiscal Management Suck Money From Your Bottom Line!".

As a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, I think Fortin's onto something with the "gapper" idea.  After all, SEO and keyword phrases get searchers to your blog.  The first thing they see on the Google (or Bing, etc.) page is - your title. Now you've got to pass readers' "So what? What's In It For Me?" test. 

Headlines that make people want to close the gap between:

• Where they are & where they would like to be
• The problem & the solution
• The puzzle or dilemma & the answer

 - those are gappers!

(With profuse apologies to the late President Reagan, each time you write a blog, tell yourself - this one's for the Gapper!)

A tiny chapter in the Book of General Ignorance illustrates a big idea for business bloggers - posting content with an eye for "getting found" by online searchers. Answering the question "How did Nome, Alaska get its name?", authors John Lloyd and John Michenson explain it was by mistake!

As a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, I found the first thing that resonated with me about that little chapter is that it's a myth-buster.  Myth-busting is a great way to generate content for your business blog - it's fun, it's informational, it's engaging, and it gives you a chance to showcase your own expertise in your field.

As with any other business strategy, myth-busting works best when done with a certain degree of finesse.  Remember, the idea is never to showcase the readers' ignorance or to "make them wrong" (so that they'll know they need your expert services).  Quite the contrary - you want a reader that feels "in the know", armed and ready to make intelligent choices.

There's a second reason, though, that I love the Nome story - it's a prime example of what I've nicknamed an "accidental organic donor". See, the story of Nome goes back to the 1850's, when an officer on a British ship noted the existence of a prominent point of land in Alaska.  In his notes on the manuscript map, the officer scribbled "Name?" (a reminder to look up the name later).  But when the document was being copied and the map of Alaska was being updated, a cartographer misread the note and wrote it in as Cape Nome (instead of "name"), and Nome it's been ever since!

In other words, sometimes there's a disconnect between what the online searcher originally  wanted and what he or she accidentally finds.  When that "accident" turns out to bring a new reader to your blog, (and if your content engages that reader's interest, the mistake can result in your converting a mistake into a customer!


 

Just as shoppers are presented with lots of choices while browsing at the mall, Internet browsers have lots of choices about which sites to "enter".  If your "store window" doesn't do it for them, they'll be quickly moving on to your neighbors' stores.  That's why advertising blogger Michel Fortin stresses the importance of headlines in ads and in business blogs.

So, OK, you get them to come on in and check out your blog. What keeps those "shoppers" from turning around and walking right back out into the mall?  Your blog content. Obviously, It's got to be on the mark - recent, relevant, and on point with whatever motivated the search.  We've all been there, done that - or gone away and not done that, as the case may be!

I think the Egg McMuffin story illustrates how testimonials in your blog can make the difference between engaging online readers - or losing them before you have the chance to even start the conversation.  Mental Floss Magazine's "Egg McMuffin: Born of McLovin'" explains that back in 1972, Herb Peterson, who ran a McDonald's in Santa Barbara, California, loved eggs Benedict.  Peterson created the Egg McMuffin (grilled Canadian bacon on a steamed egg over a slice of American cheese squeezed into an English muffin) and got scolded for serving it without authorization from McDonald's executives. Even McDonald's founder Ray Kroc thought the idea was crazy.

(Here's the part I think is so relevant for bloggers:
"But, when Kroc saw how much customers liked the new sandwich he changed his mind."

In other words, stories about customer satisfaction turned around the skeptical attitude of the executive nay-sayers. That's precisely the reason it's so important to use customer satisfaction stories as content for your business blog. No ad copy, no claims, no statistics can ever wield the power of "people just like them" praising the product or service.

Testimonials go a long way in answering the five why's:

• Why this reader (is a good fit for your product or service)?
• Why you the business owner?
• Why this offer?
• Why now?
• Why this price? 

Whatever your "Egg McMuffin" is, be sure to showcase its fans in your blog!

Communications coach and friend Myrna Selby forwarded a video to me relating to a psychology study on focus. In fact, the two professors who co-authored the study have published a book called The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us.

The directions are to count how many times girls in white shirts pass the ball to each other.  In other words, the viewer is directed to focus on one aspect of all the different things going on in the video.  But (and this is the whole point), when you focus on one aspect, you miss the others.

To me, that premise hits the nail on the head for the way websites and blogs relate to each other.  Websites present the big picture – the different services and products the company offers, who the principal players are, the mission statement, the geographic areas the company deals with, the “unique selling proposition” – in other words, the whole enchilada!

But, just like in the video, where the viewer can’t focus on everything that’s happening at once, on a website, each page and each block of content takes the mind away from all the others.  It’s exactly the same as focusing on the number of passes by the players dressed in white and missing the gorilla!

What each blog post does, then, is focus on just one aspect of your business, so that online searchers can feel at ease and not be distracted with all the other information you have to offer. In previous Say It For You blog posts, I’ve compared blogging to job interviews.  Each post is like one question at the interview.  The question might be about your technical knowledge in a given area, or it might be about your reliability, or about your salary expectations.  The interviewer will expect you to stick to that one subject in answering that question in the most direct way. That’s exactly what each blog post is designed to do.

Online searchers may look at your website, and that’s a good thing, but it’s your blog that will help them “see”.  Each single blog post makes it clear why this one set of products you have, this one service you provide, and this one piece of special wisdom you have relates to just what they need!

Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum is inspirational for business bloggers, and not only in terms of finding blog ideas in unlikely places such as the O-Z file cabinet label from which he took the name Oz.

Although he lived a hundred years ago, Baum was able to use the then-equivalent of social networking to promote his book. A Mental Floss Magazine article about Baum's life explains that, while "the Wiz" may have been an immediate hit with children, librarians disapproved of the book and took it off their shelves, waging what was dubbed the "Wizard War of 1957".

While LinkedIn® would not make its debut for more than half a century, Baum had "friends", beginning with William Buckley, who wrote favorably about Oz in the National Review. Twitter® was unheard of as of yet, but apparently Buckley managed to "tweet" his approval to other famous authors such as Gore Vidal and Nora Ephron, who then "retweeted" to Ray Bradbury and William Styron.  Pretty soon, Baum's friends had a "buzz" going for his book.

Bottom line (although not online!), through promoting the book, creating friends and followers, those who "liked" Wizard of Oz overcame the librarians' negative reviews, and Baum  was able to take his place among the ranks of classic children's fairy tale authors.

It's not enough to just blog - you've got to spread the word about the blog and create "buzz"!

If ever there was an example of drawing ideas from everywhere and everything (what I’ve been calling “learning around” for your blog), it would be L. Frank Baum and his book The Wizard of Oz.

As a child, a Mental Floss Magazine article explains, Baum had loved reading fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, but “loathed the dark, grisly endings”. He wanted to create a world where wonderment and joy are retained.  So what would Baum call his utopia?  Scanning his office for ideas, family legend holds, Baum stared at his filing cabinets, drawing inspiration from the label “O-Z” on the bottom drawer.

The oh-so-important lesson here for business bloggers relates to the fact that blogging is no sprint.  A long-term, drawn-out effort is required in order to “build equity” in keyword phrases, gather a following, and gain – and sustain – online rankings.

From both my work as a professional ghost blogger these last three years and my work as a business blogging trainer, I know just how challenging it can be to sustain the discipline and “the faith” needed for long term business blogging success.

Ideas, on the other hand? That’s the easy part.  Just stand there, listen, look around – and learn!