I’m Rhoda, and I’ve been a writer for thirty years.  If you visit my website at www.sayitforyou.net,, you’ll learn that for many years I wrote financial advice columns for Indianapolis Business Journal, Indianapolis Star, Columbian magazine, and Radius Magazine.  Along the way, I composed travelogues and even some poetry for Mensa newsletters, and wrote motivational speeches to deliver at Toastmasters and at my investment seminars. Every word of these articles, poems, and speeches was written by me and appeared under my own byline.

Two years ago, with me now retired from my financial planning practice, my writing took a new and exciting turn.  I realized that, with the development of Internet commerce, marketing is more about driving business to websites than about people driving to stores.  Web logging, or “blogging” for short, was first used to share thoughts and carry on discussions.  Now blogs, I learned, have turned into a powerful marketing tool, part of Search Engine Optimization, drawing traffic to business websites.

And that’s where I saw a way to turn a problem into a professional opportunity.  All my business owner friends know that writing blogs in their area of expertise can help get their websites to pop up on Page 1 or page 2 on a Google search instead of on Page 19 or 20.  But how many small business owners have time to compose and post regular blogs?  Eureka!!  I had fixed on the perfect way to combine my love of writing with my considerable experience in marketing. (Psst!  Can you keep a secret?) I became a ghost blogger, and “Say It For You” was born. 

What qualities make for a great ghost blogger?  Drill sergeant discipline, for one.  Web rankings are based on frequency of posting new content, so blogging must be kept up faithfully, using search terms in the blog that lead web users to you.  A ghost must use her “third ear”, hearing not only what you want to say, but picking up on your unique style of saying it.  That way, the ghost can speak your message, in your ”voice”, to your customers. A good ghost blogger should not, herself, be seen or heard! 

In short, what do I do? Simply put, I Say It For You!

Sometimes I find my Say It For You blog posts taking on a "'Dear Rhoda'-advice-column cast.  (With 25 years of 'Dear Rhoda' financial advice columns under my belt, the format has a natural feel for advice on business blogging.)

Today, I thought I'd model the post after the "More Ways To Save" section in last week's Indianapolis Star, which offered advice on smart grocery shopping and meal preparation.

Here are just a few of the food-related tips business owners can heed when it comes to blog marketing:

Stock up on items you'll use.

(One customer bought 12 bottles of salad dressing at once, so she'd have it on hand for preparing various dishes.)

The blogging equivalent is to keep an "Ideas" folder.  Jot down any juicy word tidbits or clever sayings, clip articles from magazines, the newspaper, ads, brochures, billboards - anything you believe you'll be able to later incorporate into a blog post.

Be flexible.

(One shopper first looks for which items are on sale, then plans her meals around those items.)

Bloggers need to be flexible, too, building posts around conversations with other bloggers and business people, and centered around news items and issues of the day. Suppose  you just read about Michell and Barak Obama's theater date night in New York City. Relate remarks about what you sell or the services you provide to New York, big city life, married life, fashion, theater, babysitting, etc..

Develop some favorite websites.

(Cooks are advised to bookmark their favorite websites, so they can easily go back to find just the right recipe for either a family dinner at home or a big party.)

Business bloggers can do the same thing, bookmarking favorite sources of information on subjects that relate to their business, and favorite blogsites to link to. 

Repackage if necessary.

(If buying a ten-pound package of ground beef or other product saves money, go ahead and buy the larger size, advises the Star reporter, then rewrap into smaller packages you can save in the freezer for later meals.)

"Repackaging" is a way to get more out of your business blog, because the material you developed for your posts can be used for brochures, newsletters, e-books, and as text for video clips about your business. 

As I always say, "Your brand 'r you in your blog!" Serve up valuable information and they will come!


 

By the time they are young women, East African girls can carry up to 25% of their body weight on their heads, according to Don Vorhees, author of The Book of Totally Useless Information. The amazing thing is, those young women do this using no more energy than it would take to wear a straw hat.

I like to use this metaphor to illustrate some points about business blogging.  A small business owner's or professional practitioner's blogging efforts can have an effect on marketing results that is disproportionately larger than might seem possible from mere short, informal pieces of writing.

For business owners seeking to leverage their blog marketing efforts, it's worth noting the secret behind the East African ladies' carrying power: It's their remarkable posture control, Vorhees points out.  "They form a rigid straight line between their vertebrae and pelvis."  With very little movement of the head, neck, or shoulders, their power is concentrated.  Westerners, Vorhees adds, tend to bob and dip when they walk, wasting a lot of energy.

Blogging is "leveraged" almost by definition.  Internet commentators David Verklin and Bernice Kanner (Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here) say blogging is part of "marketing to the moment of aperture", offering the right product or service at the right time before the right prospect. Because searchers arrive at the blog seeking information on exactly what you do, what you sell, or what you know, there's a "rigid straight line" between the potential customer and your business!

At the same time, just as the East Africans maximize carrying power through focusing energy in a straight line, you can enhance the power of blog marketing through focusing each blog post on one central theme, then using key words to help direct traffic your way.

Blogging for business has a creative element to it, no doubt, as interesting, well-written content will engage readers and keep them coming back. Along with the art comes the science of blogging.  The science involves focusing on a theme and using key phrases to create that "pull marketing" power. 

The combination of art and science is the hallmark of East African basket-carrying and the hallmark of successful business blogging as well!

Multi-tasking is the big word around job interviews these days. Most small business owners find themselves wearing many hats and playing many roles in running their business. It’s important for entrepreneurs to use a “multi-tasking” approach when it comes to their marketing efforts as well.

As I work with business owners on their blog marketing strategy, I’m finding at the start of the conversation that most are already fully aware that blogging has become an indispensable part of any business tool kit. The only problem is that their efforts are being devoted to playing all those different  roles just to keep the business running, and so they lack the time and inclination (and sometimes, as my clients readily admit, the talent) to compose blog posts.

I want to share a true marketing story, recounted in Don Voorhees’ The Book of Totally Useless Information, about Blue Bonnet Margarine.  During World War II, butter was in short supply, and the Standard Brands company decided to add margarine to its product list, sponsoring a contest to name the new spread.  A company employee in Texas suggested naming the margarine after his state’s flower, the bluebonnet. That was the winning entry, but, as Vorhees goes on to explain, the company “didn’t use a bluebonnet flower for the logo but opted to use a blond woman wearing a blue bonnet”. They had re-purposed the name!

Remember that blogs can multi-task and re-purpose, too. There’s more than one important way in which small business owners’ or professional practitioners’ business blogging efforts can have a disproportionately large effect on their marketing results.  As professional website copywriter and blogger Matt Rouge puts it, "Blog posts contain valuable information about your business and your industry.  This information may be further used in email and print newsletters, white papers, brochures, and other media."

The blog can reflect different aspects of the business and different personalities. 
Whether you propose to do the blog writing by yourself, have your entire team participate, or collaborate with a professional ghost partner like me, the content in the blog posts will be a way of continually thinking through and reinventing your business brand.

Then, the material in those posts can be used to market your business offline as well as in the blogosphere.

 

In the U.S., processed foods are required to list ingredients on their labels, and the ingredients have to be listed in order of their weight in the final product. So, if tomatoes are listed first, that’s the main ingredient; if sugar heads the list of ingredients, that means there’s more sugar than any other substance in that product. It’s quite a simple concept, and one that’s paralleled in the way search engines evaluate and index blog posts.

When a search engine is visiting a website or blog, it reads the information on it, measuring the relevance of the material it finds to what the online searcher appears to be looking for. When the key words (which match what the searcher typed in) appear in the title of the blog post and towards the beginning of the text, it’s assumed that those are the “biggest deal”, indicative of what that blog post is mainly about.

There’s a second parallel I found between blogs and food labels. If a label says “Reduced Calories),that means that food product must contain one third less calories than a comparable, non-reduced-calorie food. By definition, blogs should be “reduced calorie” compared with corporate websites.  Blogs should contain at least a third less content than a promotional brochure or a website page, and should focus on one idea having to do with the business – highlight one product, one service, debunk one myth, one comparison, one testimonial from a customer, one true story, one link to a news story.

As a professional ghost writer of blogs, to me a “sugar free blog” is one that goes light on the hard-sell, and one that offers valuable free advice.

As blogging consultant Mack Collier points out, most companies spend too much time blogging about themselves.  The way to make blogs exciting, Collier advises, is by finding your "bigger idea".  In other words, rather than touting your company's pet grooming product, blog about the proper way to groom pets. In business blogging, best to keep things lean and syrup-free!

There are no federal guidelines, I learned, for the use of the word “natural” on food labels. Many foods whose labels say “natural” contain artificial preservatives, artificial coloring, or artificial flavors. To me, "natural" in business blogging means to keep the tone informal, yet informative, giving your readers a “taste” of your personality, as well as the special personality and culture you've created in your culture.

In fact, the special challenge I love about my profession of ghost blogging is to capture the special flavor of each business in their blog posts!  In fact, one of my clients described it as follows: "I cook my own stew, and my ghost blogger adds the condiments, spices, and flavoring!" 
 

 

Ghosts inhabit the kitchen as well as the blogosphere.  I don’t mean to burst anybody’s bubble, but Betty Crocker, whose face has adorned cake mix and flour packages for ninety years, never lived. She is, and always has been, a sales promotion, one of the most successful ever.

Things all started in 1921, when the Washburn Crosby Company, a forerunner of General Mills, was running a contest to complete a jigsaw puzzle of a flour milling scene. Thousands of entries came in, many with questions about baking problems. The company’s advertising manager thought it would be appropriate to have a woman answer those letters.  He chose the last name of a recently retired executive of the company, William Crocker, with Betty as a fictitious, friendly-sounding first name. A woman employee with a nice handwriting was chosen to sign “Betty Crocker.” Pretty soon “Betty Crocker was doing the nation’s first cooking show over the radio.  That show, the “Betty Crocker School of the Air”, ran for twenty four years!

By 1936, the company needed a face to go with the name. A portrait was commissioned blending the facial characteristics of several of the women employees (they didn’t have PhotoShop back then!). Over the years, “Betty” changed, becoming younger in 1955, more professional in 1980, and multicultural in 1996.

The point is, through the personality of Betty Crocker, Washburn Crosby Company and its successor General Foods Company were able to bring to millions of women a trusted kitchen friend.

As a ghost writer and ghost blogger, I’m sometimes asked how we do it.  How can we ghost bloggers write for business owners and professional clients without being trained in those fields ourselves?  A ghost blogger uses a “third ear” to understand what the client wants to say and to pick up on the client’s unique slant on his/her business or profession.

I’m the “Betty” for my business owner clients, answering their customers’ questions, and helping create a more personalized marketing conversation online. Often business owners and professionals, even if they enjoy writing blogs, lack the time to keep up enough “frequency and recency” to win the Internet search.

As I said in an earlier blog post, while I may not be a doctor, a lawyer, an auto mechanic, a telephone technology expert, a travel guide, a gourmet chef, or a tax expert – as a ghost blogger, I can still play one!  Just ask my ghostly colleagues Mrs. Butterworth and Aunt Jemima!
 

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PR consultant Mikal Belicove, writing in May's Entrepreneur Magazine, encourages readers to "Start a blog for your business". Belicove runs through a list of blogging platforms, including:
 

Free hosted platforms:

• Blogger
• Live Journal
• Vox

Premium hosted platforms:

• WordPress
• TypePad

Stand-alone platforms:

• WordPress.org
• Movable Type
• (My Say It For You blogs are hosted by Compendium Blogware.)

Bellicove concludes his mini-tutorial by saying "As you blog, keep in mind that content is king.  Always post fresh, original, and relevant content, and your blog will soon build a loyal following."

(I was taught at a sales seminar to replace "Yes, but.." with Yes, and…), so here's my "Yes, and.." on the subject of blog content:)
 
There's a thing called "bounce rate", which is a metric search engines use in ranking blogsites.  Once having found your site, how long do readers stay there before "bouncing" away to someone else's site?

With thousands of blog posts under my belt, one lesson I've learned is that if the typeface in your blog is too small, if the lines are too closely packed, if paragraphs are overly lengthy, those things are off-putting to blog visitors.   Illustrations, bolding, italics, bullet points - all the "couturier" touches are important in holding readers' attention.

So, when all is said and done, which counts more - content or couture?  A great blog post will incorporate BOTH!

 

Interesting, how expressions come into our everyday language…

In the old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle hung over the fire.  Every day they added things to the pot, eating mostly vegetables and only very rarely getting meat, I read on RootsWeb.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.  It was a sign of wealth that a man could bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little and share with guests and they'd all sit around and chew the fat.

Blogging is very much about sharing, and each blog post is part of conversations already happening - both online and off.  Your business has "wealth" to share in the form of valuable tips, insights, products and services.  But the sharing can't all be one-way.
Business blogs need to operate like talk shows, I've been thinking, and not like one-way outbound broadcasts.  That's why blogs are on the WEB, going and coming in all different directions.

There are a number of things to keep the conversation going.  You can build a blog post or two around a customer success story.  You can ask for feedback from clients and from guests and readers, either in the form of a testimonial or an opinion.  It's vital to encourage comments and to respond to comments quickly. Keeping a pulse on other blogs is a great idea, and, so long as you properly attribute ideas and quotes to their source, it's more than OK to put your own spin on something you read on a competitor's blog. 

When it comes right down to it, no business blog can be successful without becoming part of the big conversation in the blogosphere.  When you post your business blog (or hire a professional ghost blogger like me to do it for you), you're "cutting off pieces of the meat" and sharing the wealth with "guests" so they will stick around and chew the fat!

 

When Mensa members were asked to recall the best piece of advice they'd ever received, Pam Olsen came up with one we business bloggers don't really need to follow:

"When assembling a large project, wait until the very end to tighten the screws!"

Bloggers don't need to wait until the very end. As Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware explains, that's because "search engines put high value on pages that are frequently updated."  Baggott compares blogs to traditional websites, whose content tends to be only infrequently updated.

The end of one blog post is hardly the end of the blog, and it will hardly be laborious to "loosen the screws" in order to add to your message, update it, or correct it. As web designer John Raleigh explains, "Blogs make it pretty easy to get the job right."

The beauty of blog marketing is not only that it tends to beat websites in "winning search", it's that you can do well today what you may not have done so well yesterday or the day before.  And, since blog posts appear in reverse chronological order, your best blogs will be the ones searchers see first!

Put your best blog foot forward today and every day, of course.  But bloggers for business can say along with Scarlett O'Hara of Gone With The Wind, "Tomorrow's another day!"

 

Beginning strong is important for business blogging.  Using key words and phrases in the title of the blog and early in the text shows readers they've come to a source of information that matches the inquiry they typed into the search engine.

But, very much like a speech, where you have only a very few seconds to capture the rapt attention of your audience at the beginning, but where having a strong finish is important as well, that's how it is with blog posts.

Speech coaches advice against memorizing your speech - with two exceptions: the opening line and the closing line.  Jack Valenti, author of Speak Up With Confidence, says, "The conclusion of a speech is one of the most powerful elements, often cementing all that you have said…Memorize that last paragraph."

I receive a monthly email newsletter from professional speaker Todd Hunt. The latest issue had a great anecdote that really brings out the importance of a strong finish in any encounter.  A colleague had taken Todd to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  Their server, Trevor, diligently refilled their drink glasses as needed.  "Nothing unusual about that", says Hunt.  But, after they'd paid the check, the server asked, "Would you like another Diet for the road.?" That extra bit of customer service, remarks Hunt, probably cost Cheesecake Factory a nickel at most.  But now, Todd's telling his thousands of newsletter subscribers about the restaurant's exemplary client service!

Business bloggers can take a tip (pun intended) from this restaurant tale.  At the very end of each blog post, put in just one more "soft" CTA (call to action):
"To find out more about _________, click here.
 "To sign up for _________, click here."

Try this technique for your business blog for the next few weeks.  Let me know how it works for you.  I'll be curious to to hear about the results.

And, hey, to learn more about how a professional ghost blogger can help drive more traffic to your business website, click here!

 

Search engine optimization is the science part of the art-science mix inherent in blogging for business.  The technical definition of SEO is "the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines or 'natural" search results".

Since eye-tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a page top to bottom and left to right, looking for a relevant result, getting your blog placed at or near the top on Page One of a search engine's results page increases the number of visitors to your site.

So, in your business blog, what are the best things to do with key words and phrases to try to place high?  According to blog mavens Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos, those key words and phrases should be the first words in your blog title and then reappear in your first lines of text.  Using the example of a vegetarian dog food company's blog, Holtz and Demopoulos advise against the title "Feed Your Dog Right" in favor of "Vegetarian Dog Food Is Good For Your Dog", or, even better, Vegetarian Dog Food and Dog Treats" (which uses two key phrases).

SelfSEO.com  cautions against "stuffing keywords", suggesting that the percentage of key words in your text shouldn't exceed 3-5% of total content.  (That amounts to approximately three per page, and I've gone one over that in this post).

As a professional ghost blogger, I frequently need to remind my clients (and often myself) that SEO isn't everything. Fellow blogger Tony Fannin points out that when heavily-SEO'd sites with lots of information were compared with sites with more personality and design, visitors liked the branded and designed sites more and spent more time exploring those sites.

On the other hand, as I've often remarked in these blog posts, SEO is important in that online searchers are scanners, not readers, and it's vital to confirm very quickly that they've come to the right place for help.




The line Renee Zellweger's said to Tom Cruise in the movie Jerry McGuire , "You had me at hello", became a favorite overnight. 

When searchers arrive at your business blog, you want them to become engaged immediately.  In essence, the response you want from searchers is "Your blog had me at SEO!"

 

Nothing like a good blooper in your blog to keep you humble, I must say.  A week or so ago, intent on making a point about using business blogging to provide information rather than to sell products and services, I inadvertently provided some misinformation in my own Say It For You blog post!

In my post, I was holding up as an example of good writing a wonderful "advertorial" I'd found in the Indianapolis Star, provided by the Wild Birds Unlimited company. The article was all about goldfinches, and I liked the fact that it stayed true to feature/benefit format, a lesson I think business bloggers should take to heart.  To emphasize my point, I said I'd found no "Buy our goldfinches" in the message, only lots of information that might make me want to buy goldfinches. 

My comeuppance came in a no-uncertain-terms comment from Sarah of Wild Birds Unlimited, letting me know Wild Birds doesn't sell goldfinches. Apparently, according to Sarah, I was one of the "lots of people who still don't understand what Wild Birds Unlimited offers".  (Not to be defensive, therein might lie a lesson for Wild Birds, too!)

In "They Never Said That", Reader's Digest talks about a different sort of common blooper - attributing a famous quote to the wrong speaker (not to mention "doctoring" the quote itself!). ReadersDigest.com calls the Internet "that most powerful engine of misinformation".

The most popular quote of modern times, according to the Digest, is "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".  President Kennedy credited Edmund Burke for that, and Presidents Ford and Reagan repeated his error, but the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has found no evidence whatsoever linking that quote to Burke.  Actual changes to quotes turned Leo Durocher's "The nice guys are all over there - in seventh place." into the pithier "Nice guys finish last", and "Beam us up, Mr. Scott" into "Beam me up, Scotty!".

If you don't blog frequently, you won't attract negative comments, but neither will you attract the attention of search engines who in turn deliver readers to your blog site.  The real lesson here is not to avoid bloopers at all costs, but to encourage comments and reply to them, even if humble pie is the menu of the day for you. 

Business blogs are about conversation.  Sure as my name is Rhoda Israelov, one of these days you'll put your foot right in your …blog.  And sure as Say It For You, someone will comment on your mistake!

"Search engines are the key to finding specific information on the vast expanse of the World Wide Web," explains Webopedia. There are robot-like engines called "web crawlers" and human-powered search engines that submit data to be indexed.

Each search engine visits a website, reads the information on it, follows any links that connect that site to others, and uses an "algorithm" to measure the relevance of the material it finds to what the online searcher appears to be looking for. Periodically, the crawler returns to the site to see if any of the information has changed.

When you type in a phrase on Google (or Yahoo, MSN, About.com, etc.), you're actually searching the index for that phrase.

Remember me saying in a former blog post that business blogging uses both science and art? Proper use of keywords to enhance Search Engine Optimization is the "science" part the equation; writing interesting and relevant content for the blogs is where the "art" comes in. In fact, the reason ghost blogging is so fascinating a profession for me is that very combination of art and science.

One of my favorite "reads" is a magazine called MentalFloss, and a recent article dealt with modern technologies whose discovery was based on studying the animal kingdom. 
A featured creature was the lobster.  A new x-ray technology is based on the way lobsters see things.  X-rays don't like to bend, and are therefore difficult to manipulate. The only way we have been able to scan bags at airports or view bones and organs is by using very large machines that emit a torrent of radiation.

Lobsters, crawling 300 feet below the surface of the ocean, have more efficient x-ray vision.  They can take different reflections and focus them together to a single point, forming an image by "bending" those reflections. (The Department of Homeland Security has already invested millions in the LEXID  - Lobster Eye Xray Imaging Device - they hope LEXID will find contraband).

In a way, web crawlers use a LEXID-like process to gather many bits of information from many different locations on the World Wide Web and index that information into one source.  Web crawlers are the ultimate lobsters of the Internet!

 

 

Bob Truett from Alabama wrote an interesting piece in his Mensa group's newsletter about animal tails.  Truett cites five purposes for tails:

Balance:
As the animal runs, leaps, or climbs, the tail helps it stay in balance.

Temperature Control:
In cold climates, an animal covers itself with its bushy tail; in warm climates, the tail may be waved like a fan.

Defense:
Brush-tailed porcupines swat enemies with their tails, while garden lizards wiggle their
tails to distract their opponents.

Grasping:
Monkeys come to mind; they can hang by their prehensile tails.

Social Purposes:
You can almost read a dog's mind, says Truett, by observing his tail.

"Did you ever wonder what our world would be like if humans had evolved with tails?" asks Truett. 

Well, at least in the marketing sense, we do, explains Chris Anderson in his landmark book The Long Tail, referring to the niche marketing that is so relevant to business blogging.

The concept of the Long Tail is based on the fact that, in the physical world, there isn't enough shelf space to carry everything for everyone, and so a chart showing the demand for different products and services would "tail off" the end of the page. In the digital world, by contrast, there's room for everything.  The Internet can offer the entire gamut of products and services by connecting consumers to providers.

So, while you have no tail, long or otherwise, "your small business itself has a long tail, one for you to mine and monetize," says Anderson.

Can a small business benefit from having its own blog?  Make that answer a definite "yes".  In the online world, you don't need big numbers - or big dollars - to make a big difference.  The people who find your blog (and from there your website) are precisely the ones who were searching for your kind of product and service in the first place!

 

"The first mistake that an adviser can make is to come in with a solution before understanding the problem," writes Fred Barstein in Employee Benefit Adviser Magazine.  "Start by asking what is working with the plan," is Barstein's best advice.

These days, many businesses are lightening up on traditional forms of marketing in favor of reaching out to the online world through "pull marketing". Blogging for business is all
about the new pull marketing, but the traditional principles of planning and strategic analysis still apply.

The standard question I pose to each business owner considering adding a corporate blog to her marketing strategy is, in fact, about what's working well now. 

Next, I ask "Do you envision blog marketing enhancing what you're already doing, targeting the same type of customer, or will you use the blog to attract a new segment of your target market?   By what standards will you measure the success of your blog?"

"What's working NOW with your website?" is the question TopRank online marketing blog recommends as a starting point.  When prospects visit, what type of content are they looking for and where do they click on your website to find it? What CTA (Call To Action) in the blog posts will guide prospects in a direct path to fulfilling their needs, thus converting from prospects to buyers of your products and services?

The bottom line in all this?  Blog - but first, ask what's working. Then, begin your business blogging strategy with more of the same in mind!

 

Economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the phrase "creative destruction" to describe the process of new technology continually replacing the old. Nowhere is creative destruction more evident than in business marketing.  "It's a whole new ball game," say David Verklin and Bernice Kammer, authors of the book Watch This. Listen Up.Click Here. Blogging for business is certainly one of the new ways to play ball when it comes to marketing strategy.

By the time you've finished reading one page of their book, Verklin and Kammer point out, 200,000 would-be car buyers and 5,000 would-be brides will have researched wheels and weddings on Google. In fact, using "search" to navigate the Net is so ordinary, google has become an accepted verb! 

If your business isn't being "creatively destructive" by adopting online marketing strategies, the implication clearly is, you'll be inhaling competitors' dust! Roughly three new blogs are started each second of the each day, according to Technorati. Only problem is, keeping them up with enough consistency and frequency to make a difference has proven a problem for more than half of business blogs.  In fact, my profession of ghostblogging was born out of this very not-so-creative "destruction" on the part of business owners too busy running their business to also write about it!

A small business owner's or professional practitioner's business blogging efforts can have a disproportionately large effect on marketing results - IF those efforts are kept up.  Those positive effects are enhanced when the information in blog posts is "re-purposed" for print newsletters, brochures, and ads, as professional website copywriter Matt Rouge remarks.
It's ironic, but true.  With blogging, business owners can have the "creative" without the "destruction"!

The newer technology of blog marketing and more traditional marketing methods can enhance each other, with "old" and "new" playing off each other's strengths, creating business as they go!

 

When I'm talking to new clients about setting up their blog, I sometimes need to address their fear of giving away valuable information "for free". Those "giveaways", I hasten to explain, are exactly what makes blogs successful in positioning you, the business owners, as "go-to" guys and gals.

Business bloggers can take a lesson from a Wild Birds Unlimited Nature Shop "advertorial" I found in the paper.  Along with color pictures of the American Goldfinch, there were some 500 words of text.  I counted a mere eight of those words that were used to promote the company; the rest were devoted to interesting facts about goldfinches.

Wild Birds stayed true to feature/benefit format, sharing with readers that goldfinches don't nest until mid to late summer, long after most other birds have started their families.  "This very delay in nesting affords bird enthusiasts the opportunity to focus their attention on goldfinches during this exciting time of song and activity, especially since other birds are less active because of their new family lives."

In short, I found no "Buy our goldfinches!" messages, only lots of information that might make me want to buy goldfinches!

True, the Wild Birds article is a printed piece, not an online blog.  A well-crafted blog, however, might use this same feature/benefit formula, adding key phrases to help online searchers find their way to the blog post, and from there to the company website, through search engine optimization.

Blogs need to provide just that kind of immediate value to readers, making those online searchers glad they found your blog and inviting them to learn even more by clicking through to your website.  Like small birds, small blogs provide big value - and a potential big payoff to your business.

Myth-busting is one of blogging's best uses, I've found.  First, correcting misinformation reflected in customers' questions and comments highlights your own special expertise.  Second, myth-debunking makes for engaging blog-reading!

Just the other day, I read a fascinating "debunk" in the newsletter of Central Alabama Mensa.  The article was about, of all things, plum pudding.  Author Richard Losch engaged my attention by posing this question: "Have you ever wondered why there are no plums in plum pudding?" (Actually, I hadn't wondered about that; nonetheless, I was hooked.)

Plum pudding, I learned, is a steamed dish made out of flour, suet, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, and spices.  The ingredients are stirred frequently while they ferment.  When the pudding is steamed, it swells up, or "plumps".  In time, people began to drop the  "p" and called it "plum" pudding.

Common myths surround every business and profession, and you can use these to create captivating content for your corporate blog posts, engaging readers' interest and enticing blog visitors to keep coming back.  And, while these myth-busting tidbits are probably not appropriate for the more permanent website content, they fit perfectly ino blog posts, "plumping" up the overall effect of your online marketing.

One of the goals of any business blogging effort is to create "conversation" between the author (the business owner, employee, or perhaps a ghost blogger like myself) and the audience of readers.  Myth-busting is perfect for keeping conversation alive, say blogging mavens Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos.  Invite comments and questions, and then address those just as soon as they appear on your blog site!

What are the common myths in your business?  Plump up your blog content, in turn plumping up traffic to your website.  Who knows? Like Jack Horner, you might stick in your thumb and pull out a plum!

The teen job-hunting tips offered by the family finance organization Share Save Spend might have been written for bloggers.

Stay In The Sweet Spot
"Your kid may now be up against adult competition for retail and restaurant jobs, so steer him to city-run youth programs, amusement parks, pools, and camps."

Target your blog posts to a specific niche in your market, selecting key word search terms that are not so competitive you have little chance of "winning search". Expert SEO (search engine optimization) advice can go a log way in moving your blog higher in search engine rankings.

Capitalize On Face Time
"Employers may be more apt to hire your teen if he frequents their business, so advise him to look for HELP WANTED signs where he's a regular (comic stores, guitar shops)."

This piece of advice relates to blogs in several ways.  First, to increase traffic to your blog, go "out" and visit other blogs, leaving comments and starting a dialogue. Second, you can put out a survey question, or set up an opinion forum, anything to  make visitors feel a personal touch.

Keep The Presentation Professional
"In a crowded market, he has to set himself apart.  Help him make business cards and/or resumes highlighting his qualifications."

As I've emphasized in former blog posts, when posting a blog in the name of your business, you're "putting yourself out there" every bit as much as you would be in a job interview.  You always want to make sure poor usage and misspelled words aren't detracting from your message and from the impression you're leaving with readers.

"In today's economy, just finding a summertime gig may be hard work for your kid. Get the job-seeking going with smart strategies," advises Share Save Spend.

Attracting the attention of search engines and the loyalty of readers is hard work for your blog - no doubt about it!  Blog posts need to be well-researched, create interest in readers and keep them coming back. 

 

Awhile back, I blogged about four distinct business roles that financial planner Stephanie Bogan says must be filled if a business is to succeed.
  
Finders are the "rainmakers" who develop new business.
 
Binders use their presentation skills to consummate the business with new clients.

Minders are relationship managers and provide client service.

Grinders take care of office and administrative tasks.

The point of the article Bogan wrote for Financial Planning Magazine was that the different roles represent different strengths, and not everyone can be strong in all those areas.
Then, just recently, I read a review of a book about Walt Disney that suggests that the great man was able to play three different roles in his business. 

"There were actually three different Walts: the dreamer, the realist, and the critic.  You never knew which one was coming into your meeting," said one of Disney's animators.

Disney the Dreamer could visualize extraordinary scenarios, for films as well as business projects.

Disney the Realist made things happen.  "He had the ability to co-ordinate teams of diverse workings to bring his dreams to life."

Disney the Critic "subjected every piece of work to rigorous scrutiny."

As a professional ghost blogger, I work with different business owners who have different skill sets and different personalities.  Most entrepreneurs are aware that blogging is becoming an indispensable tool to market their business and to drive traffic to their websites.  In many cases, though, their efforts are devoted to being Finders and Binders, while their staff members' time is devoted to being Minders and Grinders. That's why they've enlisted me to be part of their marketing team, to bring the discipline and frequency of posting that win search engine rankings.

Our challenge is to utilize all the unique skill sets and reflect those in the company blog posts.  The beauty of blogging is that while today's post can focus on the "dreamer" aspect of the business, expressing the passion of the business owner, tomorrow's can focus on the "realist" aspect, offering a mini "how-to" course on getting the most out of the product or service.

Some companies use a combination plan, alternating blogs written their own team members with professionally ghostwritten posts. The blog reflects different aspects of the business and different personalities. Airflow Technologies, for example, has at least four or five different bloggers telling about Airflow's indoor air quality product line and offering readers valuable tips on keeping their homes well-ventilated.
 
Think of a blog as nothing more than an ongoing conversation.  People drop into the group, stay awhile, then might move on, while others stop in to chat.  Whether you propose to do the blog writing by yourself, have your entire team participate, or collaborate with a professional ghost partner like me, the content in the blog posts will be a way of continually thinking through and reinventing your business brand.

Just as Walt Disney's associates never knew which of his personalities might show up at a meeting, there's just no limit on which aspects of your business show up in your company's blog!