Ghost Blogger

Fnu Lnu, a term used by authorities to identify unknown suspects, is actually an acronym for First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown, a John Doe, as it were. When you're selecting keyword phrases to use in your website and blog content, it's useful to remember that you are the fnu lnu in the equation.  Online searchers don't know your name - or the name of your business!

In fact, unless your business name is precisely the service or product you provide ("St. Louis Cosmetic Dentistry" or "Cincinnati Heating Services Specialists" or perhaps "Best Doggie Care in Des Moines"), at Stage #1 of their search, what the majority of consumers are likely to have typed into the search bar are words describing:

• Their need
• Their problem
• Their idea of the solution to their problem
• A question

Blogging for business, then, means introducing yourself to strangers.  Not that it isn't a good idea to email links to your blog posts to existing customers and clients, but, for developing new relationships, your blog will be your central prospecting tool.

To convert those "strangers" to friends and customers, then, address your blog posts to them, and write about them.  Fact is, they're going to care about your name only if and when they know you care about their problems and needs, and that you have just the means to take care of them.

Because of the relevant, recent, and frequently posted content you've been delivering to the blogosphere, search engines have delivered prospects to your fnu lnu door.  Now that they've arrived, introducing what you sell, what you do, and what you know about - with your business name attached! - is what you get to do as the reward for all that diligence.

This is the stage when "Aha!-I've-Come-To-Just-The-Right-Place", readable, engaging blog content counts most. Getting from fnu lnu to Joey's Body Shop, Maggie's Hair Salon, or Hendricks Bankruptcy Law Office - that's the getting-to-know-you business blogging goal!

The "101 Tips from the World's Most Famous Authors" aren't specifically directed towards business bloggers, but many of them might be.  Ernest Hemingway, for example, advised using short first paragraphs ('nuf said).

Mark Twain had the idea writers ought to substitute "damn" for "very".  Since editors would likely delete the "damns", the writing would be left as it should be.  What this means for bloggers - let the information about what you sell, do, and know about make its own impression without help- from "very"s.

While there are differences of opinion on the use of exclamation marks, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought they're "like laughing at your own jokes."

"Show, don't tell," is the creative writing advice of Anton Chekhov.  "Don't tell me the moon is shining.  Show me the glint of light on broken glass," he explained.  In the case of business blogs, along with text, the "show me" can consist of photos, graphs, clip art, and videos to boost reader engagement and response.

When Stephen King teaches aspiring writers to "read a lot and write a lot", he might well have been addressing bloggers for business.  My version (as a blogging trainer): Reading + writing = blogging. King explains reader helps writers find their own style.  In blogging, reading other blogs can help you scope out your own blogging niche.

Anais Nin observes: "The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we're unable to say." A professional ghost blogger needs a "third ear" to hear not only what the business owner says, but to pick up on the intangibles of the business' culture that owner has created - and then translate that into blogs!
 

Talent advisor Jason Davis defines voiceover as "the art of using the voice to sell, inform, or entertain on radio and TV, narrations, and cartoons." While my own voice, I fear, is far too nasal to make for great listening, I've developed an interest in the art ever since someone dubbed me the "voiceover lady" in describing my work as a professional ghost blogger.

On second thought, Davis might not rule me out as a voiceover trainee. In answer to a wannabe's question, he explains that while clear speech is essential, it takes much more than a great-sounding voice to succeed in voiceovers. In fact, he adds, the skill lies in "the ability to take someone else's words (the script) and make them sound believable and sincere".

What really resonated with me was what Jason Davis added next in explaining voiceover:  It takes "a strong desire to do this and the ability to persist".  " Bingo!" I thought. "That's exactly true of business blogging, where, I've always said, one of the requisite qualities is "drill sergeant discipline". Since frequency of posting new content is important in achieving web rankings, perseverance comes very much into play.

Back to Davis' basic definition of voiceover as using the voice to sell, inform, or entertain, he might have been referring to business blogs. Blogs, in many ways, represent the "voice" of the business. In blogging for business, providing visitors with valuable information takes the lead, with any "selling" happening as a result. The more engaging and informative the content in the blog, the more likely it is for "click" - to the shopping cart or contact page - to happen.

I admit I was startled when an acquaintance labeled me "the voice-over lady".  The more I think about it, though, the more appropriate a label that seems for a professional ghost blogger!

There I was, mixing-and-mingling at a Dance Kaleidoscope fundraiser a couple of weeks ago. Nibbling hors d'oeuvres, I was enjoying a chat with a small group of people when a young man approached.  Recognizing we'd met somewhere before (but not remembering my name), he offered, "I've met you - you're the voice-over lady!" Well, that impromptu opener certainly suggested an interesting perspective on what I do as a professional ghost blogger!

The dictionary definition of voice-over is "a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television, film, theatre, or other presentation. The voice-over may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialist voice actor."

A ghost blogger is a specialist - in writing, and in particular, writing for the Web, posting short, engaging pieces using keyword phrases with consistency over extended periods of time. Most business owners lack the time to keep up that effort.

A ghost blogger serves as a "reporter". Television news, according to Wikipedia, is often presented as a series of video clips of newsworthy events, with the reporters describing the significance of the scenes shown through voice-overs. A skillful ghost blogger for business offers blog visitors a more personal and even a more analytical perspective on the information they might find on the company website.  The information may be available through the website, but the ghost blogger's challenge is to helps readers understand the "So what?" and why the information could be meaningful for them.

A ghost blogger is a translator.  Television voice-overs are used in several European countries as an alternative to dubbing entire dialogues, to make the program material more understandable in different localities (Wikipendia).In a way, I think, business ghost-bloggers "translate" the corporate message into terms with which target audiences can best relate.

Anyway, I think my young acquaintance may not have been far afield in his description after all.  Next time you introduce your professional ghost blogger - go ahead and say, "Please meet Rhoda, our company's voice-over talent!

 

You might say that the Learning Around For Your Blog hobby horse I've been riding for the past two weeks is my way of saying "No way!"  You see, one complaint I hear far too often from beginning business bloggers - or from business owners putting off business blogging - goes something like this:

"I'll run out of ideas after the first three blog posts! After all, I can say only so many things about my business, right?"

No, not right, not one bit right, is the point I've been trying to emphasize in my last five blog posts. Because what I've found over the years I've been a professional blogger and business blogging trainer, is that as long as we bloggers keep listening and leaning, we stay excited.  And when people read our blogs, they can sense that excitement. Who wants to do business with you if you're bored?

"Reading around" and "learning around" is my prescription for keeping blog post content fresh and engaging. You learn snippets of O.P.W. (Other people's wisdom).  You put your own slant and insight on those thoughts to relate them to what you do, what you sell, and what you know about.  It's truly a magical formula, and (as they say on late-nite TV), you don't even have to go to the gym!

In my own history, career #1 was teaching.  I can vouch for the truth of the old saying that the best way to reinforce what you've learned is to teach it to someone else.  In a way, that's what I've been expressing in this series about business blogging ideas.

In blogging, we're "teaching" about our business to our online visitors. When we really work at finding different ways to do that, the side benefit is we gain deeper understanding of what our own business is really all about!

Idea "hooks" for business blogs can come from the funniest places - and I mean that literally! From interactive buildings to luggage concierges to golf swings - everywhere you stop to look and listen, you can find unique ways to present your own ideas and to explain to online visitors exactly what you sell, what you do, and what you know a lot about.

Awhile back, for example, I used a conversation between characters in a comic strip to explain and defend the process of ghost blogging.  The situation was that Cathy and her boyfriend Irving were opening their mail.  He was reading email on his laptop, while she sorted through piles of envelopes.


He: "What's all that?"

She: "Mail."

He: "Mail? Who sends paper mail?"

She: "People".

He: "People?"

She: "Yes. Unlike you in your cold electronic bubble, I get mail from people."

He looks through some of her mail. "This is all mail from magazine subscription departments!"

(Here's where my "third ear" perked up at Cathy's punch line: "Still way closer to an actual human than you'll get any time soon with email!"

"See?" I wanted to shout to business owners with no blog (rather than admit their lack of time and discipline needed to consistently post information online, critics would rant about the lack of "transparency" in ghost blogging, totally missing the point Cathy explained so well:)

Blogs, even ghost-written ones, are way closer to an actual human "voice" than you get with brochures, billboards, and traditional websites!

Can you find an idea for conveying your message from a comic strip character?

 

There's just no end to the "learning around" process for business bloggers. Last week I talked about learning from feature stories in newspapers and magazines, from visits to sports training center, and from current controversies in your field. The whole idea is this:

To keep coming up with fresh ideas and stimulating content for your blog posts, you need to be stimulating your own mind by reading what other people have to say, and then using that material to illustrate the information you want to convey to your blog readers!

In my case, I need to come up with new ways for my blog readers to become better bloggers themselves, or to understand what I, as a professional ghost blogger can do to help. So when I came across a story about the Flylite company, I knew I'd found a good way to explain why ghost blogging is part of a national "don’t-do-it-yourself" trend.

Flylite customers pack their bags - once. The "clothing butlers" take it from there, cleaning and pressing the clothes and polishing the shoes. The clothing is scanned into a virtual online "closet", so that travelers can click and drag to "pack" their bag, which will be delivered to any U.S. destination.

I used this to demonstrate the ghost-blogging "concierge" business model, explaining that your "blog butler" picks up the information, "cleans, presses, and polishes" the material, delivering it directly to the Web.

The point of all this is, bloggers for business complain to me all the time that, after a few months (sometimes sooner), they find themselves out of ideas.  Ideas, though, are all around, all the time - the trick, as the grandparents' Dick and Jane readers used to say, is Stop, Look, and Listen!

 

You can say only so many things about what you sell, what you know about, and what services you offer customers and clients, right? Wrong. Sustaining an engaging business blog over the course of years is very do-able - so long as you stay engaged.  In fact, as a business blogging trainer, my theme for this week's blogs is "learning around".  That means staying alert for tidbits and teaching tools (after all, what is a blog if not a teaching tool?) to keep fresh ideas flowing for your business blog posts.

What I've found over the years I've been a professional blogger is that, as long as I keep learning, I stay excited and readers can sense that in my blog. If you're a business owner, you'd have to agree with the next statement: What you learn isn't always peaches and cream.  In every industry there's controversy. 

People disagree on the best applications for the product you sell.  Some might even say your product does nobody any good at all.  There's controversy about best business practices, and about different approaches to providing professional services.  There's controversy on what types of investments are good for retirees, about whether pale or vibrant colors are best for bathroom walls, and about whether club soda is good for stains on shirts. There are always going to be different ways to skin the proverbial cat; while you may be convinced your way is best, not everyone will agree.

In my own profession of ghost blogging, there's lots of controversy - everything from "transparency" issues to how many keyword phrases belong in any one blog post.  In 2008, for three long weeks, my blog was "knocked down" from its spot at the top of Page One of Google by all the back-and-forth speculation about whether rapper Kanye West was using a ghost blogger.  Rather than ignoring the controversy, I needed to "weigh in", which I did. 

From my point of view, I wrote, all the excitement was "proof" that blogging works to drive traffic and interest (no matter who writes the blogs)!

"Read around" - read other people's blogs and articles, so you can be aware of controversies in your field.  Then - blog, so readers know where you stand and why. Controversy can be a blogger's best friend!

 

This week, my Say It For You blog posts are all about picking up ideas from everywhere and everything to keep your business blog full of fresh, interesting content.

Visiting an indoor golf training center, I learned about a teaching system called "Straight Line Golf".  (Traditional golf instruction focuses on correcting players' individual weaknesses; Straight Line takes all players through the same teaching track, and focuses on getting the ball straight to its target.)

No, I hadn't come to the golf center to blog or to do business, but (listening with my "third ear") I picked up a "signal" that this straight line training holds a valuable lesson for business bloggers. For us, the "line" begins when someone browses the Web searching for information about a product or service related to what our company offers.  The search engine brings the visitor in a straight line to our blog.  The blog, in turn, leads in a straight line to the website, and then to our "Contact Us" page or shopping cart.

That means everything about your online marketing needs to be consistent with everything else, with your blog's engaging content and keyword phrases being the conduit for the "match".

I got another "third ear" idea from an unlikely source that resulted in What's on Your Blog Bumper?.. Stopped in traffic one day, I saw a personalized license plate on the car ahead of me saying "Celebrate the Arts.". Now, there's not much room on a license plate for a lot of words, and the driver of the car behind doesn't have much time to read the plate.  The "lesson" here, though, is that, for just a moment, that plate was bringing the topic of the arts to the top of my mind.

Blog posts, I realized, need to do just that.  Your potential customer is scanning various websites and blogs and yours comes up.  If something in your blog post is "right on" for that reader, your company will be, at least for a little while, "top of mind" for that reader.

Can a license plate help you explain what you sell, what you know, or what services you provide?  Point being, you don't ever have to run out of ideas for blog posts if you keep on , looking, listening, and "learning around"!

One quality that make for a great ghost blogger is a "third ear", I always say.  That's because a ghost uses that extra "ear" to hear not only what the business owner client wants to say, but to pick up on that owner's unique style and business beliefs (the things that often aren't expressed in words).

When I think more about it, though, all bloggers need to do more of that third-ear type listening.  Time to write is scarce for business owners.  We know that.  Many lack the discipline to keep up the blogging frequency needed to win search.  There's something else, though, that I hear from many business owners and managers - they've run out of ideas!  A month or two into blogging for their business, the glaring question is, "So, what else is there to blog about?" 

Read around, learn around, is my advice as a blogging trainer.  Ideas are all over the place, all of the time, in fact, but you've got to "hear" and make the connection. This week, I'm going to devote my Say It For You blog posts to "signals" you can pick up of Other People's Wisdom (O.P.W.).  You can share OPW to help visitors to your blog understand what it is that you do, what you sell, and what your business is really all about.

Take feature stories, for example.  You know, those interesting spots you hear on radio or TV or read about in magazines. Ask yourself: "Could I use that story to explain…..?":

Back in 2008, I read in Newsweek about a New York City building that was being turned into an interactive keyboard by wiring an antique organ to various spots around the place. Rock singer/artist David Byrne said he was tired of people going to concerts as passive consumers "waiting to be filled with music" emanating from a stage.  "Playing the Building", by contrast, he explained, would come to life only when the public participated.

I "heard" that story with my "third ear", and realized I could use it to demonstrate the interactive nature of blogs, which are available for acting and interacting between businesses and their customers. 

Could this story make a point about the way YOU do business?

As a business blogging trainer, one concern I hear a lot from business owners is that they'll run out of things to say in their blog posts.  Many can think of a fairly long list of things they want to share about their products, their professional services, their customer service standards, and their overall fix on their industry or profession.  But, looking at their business blog from the front end, most can't even imagine what they'll have to say two weeks from the start date of their blog, much less two or three years into the future!

Dr. Orison Swett Marden, father of the self-help movement in America, has some relevant advice: "Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther."

I found a very practical tip in an article by Steve Merchant in The Mind, in which Merchant explains the difference between two common abbreviated Latin terms, e.g. and i.e.. Both can be used to help keep blog post ideas flowing. E.g. stands for exempli gratia (for example), while i.e. stands for id est (that is), Merchant explains. 

Effective blog posts are centered around key themes. As we each continue to write about our industry, our products, and our services, we'll naturally find ourselves repeating some key ideas - in fact, that's exactly what we should be doing to keep our blogs focused and targeted. The variety will come from the e.g. and the i.e's.

It's the different examples we use - of ways our company's products can be helpful or the ways problems are solved using our services - that lend variety to our blog posts, even though those posts may be centered around the same few central ideas. We can incorporate unusual comparisons and illustrations to help explain our subject or to debunk myths. Continuing to write on the same topic, using different e.g's allows us bloggers for business to continually present interesting and engaging material to engage online readers.

The i.e.'s work in much the same way.  As bloggers for business, we say some of the same things over time, but we use other words to lend variety to our blog posts. And, since our blog is our teaching tool, we must remember that "students" learn differently. One online visitor might prefer a detailed listing of features and benefits of our products and services, while another might become more engaged by a testimonial or a tie-in with the news.

Our websites typically contain the main facts about our business -  who we are, what we do, and how we help solve problems. The blog posts are variations on those basic themes. 

In other words, what allows us bloggers to keep going as far as we can see, and then, when we get there, to go even further, IS the fact that blogs are "in other words"!

 

Blogging is modern marketing at its best, but bloggers can take advantage of an ancient method of solving proportions called the Rule of Three. 

Basically, the Rule of Three is used when you know three numbers and are out to find a fourth.  Remember those high school algebra problems we used to have to solve:

If ten men can dig a trench in four days, how long will it take seven men to dig a similar trench?

For readers for whom high school is but a distant memory, the process goes like this:

A:C = D:X

A (the ten men) is to C (the four days) as D (the seven men) is to X (the unknown number of days)

So why am I talking about the Rule of Three in my Say It For You blog about blogging?  Since a core purpose of business blogging is to engage readers, you as the business owner want online visitors to your blog to mentally put themselves in the D slot.  In other words, as you're describing how your product or service solved clients' problems, the reaction you'd like to elicit in blog readers is sighs of relief that they've found you - you can now solve their problems!

• If, with the AirFlow Breeze, homeowners were able to set the thermostat two degrees higher in summer and still enjoy cool rooms while saving money, I can save even more money!
  
• If Classic Cleaners was able to restore a fifty-year old senior skirt, restoring MY twenty-year old dress should be simple!
  
• If that executive who dripped sweat out of fear of public speaking could learn to make presentations to the media, Jean Palmer-Heck can help me overcome my fear of speaking!

In other words, while your blog might offer the story of one or two favorable outcomes of using your product or service, readers will realize you understand their problems and are used to dealing with their issues.  The readers will have put themselves in the D slot! And, because by their very nature, blogs are constantly adding new content, the likelihood of readers associating their situation with the problems and solutions described in your blog posts will be multiplied by the Power of Three!


 

Attending a trade show for one of her clients, marketing professional Amy Lemen experienced an "Aha!" moment about the "who" and the "how".

Most of the vendors at the show, Lemen realized, demonstrated through their displays and messages that they knew who their target customers were.  In other words, most of the trade show companies were OK on the "who" part.

But only a handful of vendors, she noticed, were OK on the "how", meaning how to let their customers know their business "was specifically focused on meeting their target customers' unique set of needs."

The Lemen article might have been discussing the key challenge for business bloggers.  Your website content and blog posts can demonstrate that you're offering all the right products and services your online visitors need. Despite that, you might still be experiencing a very high "bounce rate", meaning that visitors to your blog are thinking to themselves "No, that's not what I meant!"

Identifying target customers is only half the battle, Lemen points out.  "The other half is appropriately signaling to your target customers that you understand, serve, and are targeting them." One way to accomplish that, she says, is by offering cues that you understand the situations and challenges they face when they're using your type of product or service.

The more your customers "see" how you understand them and are dedicated to them, the more differentiated and persuasive you become, according to Lemen. As a professional ghost blogger and blog trainer, I couldn't agree more.  Because of their short, informal, and ongoing conversational style, blogs are actually the perfect vehicle for putting out such targeted "cues" saying "I see you. I really see you!"
 
You've used blogs to win search and you've been found.  They've seen you. Now it's your turn to demonstrate to those potential clients that you really see them!

Blogs do it better, I realized all over again while reading my Home and Away magazine from AAA Hoosier Motor Club.  AAA Vice President Suzanne DeCelles' article, "Travel Beyond the Internet" is what college English teachers call an "argument paper", telling the professional travel agent's side of the do-it-yourself-travel story.

Could a traditional corporate website bring forth the "argument" in favor of doing business with a particular company as compared to its competitors? Sure, but hardly in as chatty and person-to-person tone, I don't suppose, as a blog post.

Actually, the DeCellis magazine article might easily be turned into several blog posts, with each one focused on a different aspect of the answer to the frequently-asked question:

 "Why use a travel agent when Web searches offer a myriad of options  for vacation planning with just a quick click?"

            
Why you?
Your blog offers the chance to present your expertise, your unique approach to your field and the business principles you live by.

""Instant access to detailed information about any hotel, resort, or vacation or cruise destination is only one facet of the research an experienced travel agent conducts," explains Decellis.

Story board
Your blog offers the chance for you to tell your story, or to allow a customer to tell a story about you in the form of a testimonial.  As Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware points out, people like to do business with people they know. Your blog lets them get to know you.

"A few years ago," Suzanne DeCellis relates, "a travel advertisement featured two hotels, both listed as first class.  One was dilapidated, the other rustic and quaint." The pictures were somewhat inconclusive.  The caption: "Only your travel agent knows how rustic a property should be!"

Your company website can offer relevant and engaging information to online searchers.  Your blog is more in the Paul Harvey camp, letting searchers in on the "rest of the story"!

 

"Making things happen, meaning sales, web hits, engagements, etc. is not just a function of how many people you reach; it's also a function of how many times you reach them, and how much you spend reaching them,". Bryan Farrish explains to speakers trying to get radio interviews.

The idea of blogging for business is an almost exact parallel to Farrish's idea about radio interviews: You want to hit as many people as possible, several times, and do so for the least amount of money as possible, he says. In reaching these goals, he goes on to say, you're going to have advantages with small stations in smaller markets.

Each one of the advantages Farrish mentions relative to radio fits for blogging, I found…

• Most listeners need to hear something several times before they act.  (Since smaller stations are more likely to ask guest back, you'll have several "shots" at your audience). With short, focused blog posts appearing with frequency, you're more likely to not only "win search", but gain repeated opportunities to spread your message. Through links and archives, your Individual readers are easily able get back to earlier posts, or navigate to other sources you've found.
  
• Small stations are more likely to put you on their website, plus announce your website during the interview, Farrish tells speakers. Readers are more likely to leave comments on your blog rather than communicate with you through a traditional website.  Its simple for interested readers to sign up for an RSS feed to your blog, and even list it on their blog roll. Traditional websites are not flexible - or small - enough to move with ease among online conversations.
   
• With smaller radio stations, you'll reach a larger demographic of listeners (with fewer stations in small cities, each station has a broader spectrum of people listening to each). With blogs, the reach is basically unlimited!
   
• Smaller stations' advertising rates are less. You can't get lower advertising rates than the zero space-cost for blogs!
  
  When you think about it, smaller might be a lot better for both radio stations and blogs!
         
   

It was a sign post, not a blog post, that caught my attention during a recent visit to the Indianapolis Zoo.  Whoever wrote the copy for that placard promoting the zoo's new cheetah exhibit, though, would make a great blogger for business!

The sign itself, I might mention, was affixed alongside a 30-yard track where visitors were invited to try running as fast as cheetahs.  In other words, the zoo was engaging its audience, rather than merely having them gaze passively at cheetahs. That mini-promotion serves as an excellent model for Commandment One of blog marketing: Thou shalt engage thy readers!"

The title of the signpost used two "keyword phrases" (as every good blog title should), creating a tie with a current happening (the Indianapolis 500):

Like a Race Car, a Cheetah Is Built For Speed

Race Car                                     Cheetah
Chassis                                      Skeleton
Tires                                           Claws
Paint Job                                     Spots
Brakes                                        Footpad
Engine                                        Heart      

This "post" discusses cheetahs in scientific terms, (explaining, for example, that cheetahs have extra-large heart chambers), but makes the information easy for "readers" to understand by comparing the unfamiliar with the familiar and the timely.

One core function of blogs for business is explaining yourself, your business philosophy, your products, and your processes.  An effective blog clarifies what sales trainers like to call your "unique value proposition" in terms readers can understand. And one excellent way to do just that is by making comparisons with things with which readers are already comfortable and familiar!

Like a racecar, a cheetah is built for speed.  What is your business "like"??

"White noise", produced by combining different frequencies, can be used to drown out or mask distracting sounds. Students use white noise machines with headphones to help them concentrate on homework; hotels provide white noise machines to help guests fall asleep. White noise devices are used in psychiatrists' waiting rooms to protect patents' privacy.

Bloggers for business need help drowning out all the "noise" created by their competitors. Sleep Well Baby white noise machines, for example, needed to "drown out" the "noise" of 1,599,000 competitive websites made in order to appear on Page 1 of Google (Sleepwellbaby.com ranked #1 on Page 1 the day this post was composed).

In fact, business blogs are favorably positioned to eclipse noise made by both traditional websites and pay-per-click online advertising.

Website "noise":

• Frequency:
  Since search engine algorithms appear to assign "value" (what I like to call "indexing Brownie points") to pages that are frequently updated, traditional websites simply can't compete with the much more frequently changing content of blogs.
   
• Keyword phrase use:
  A well-designed website page might be very keyword-rich.  Still, there's no way a website can complete with the cumulative use of keyword phrases in blog posts over weeks, months, and years.

Pay-Per-Click Ads:

The third way (besides blogging and websites) to use search as an acquisition tool is buying "AdWords" in the hopes of ranking among the top results for a percentage of words purchased. (Every time a searcher clicks on your listing, you pay a fee, hence the Pay-per-click name.)  According to the Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Study, PPC users typically target as many as a thousand keywords as compared to the couple of dozen bloggers use to win search.


White noise is never noise for its own sake. The real goal in using a white noise machine might be better concentration on homework, better sleep, greater privacy. In much the same way, when bloggers for business use white noise tactics, it's never for SEO's own sake.  Drowning out competitors' "white noise" can help business owners and online searchers focus on the conversation at hand, matching up the products and services with precisely the people who need them! 

Advertising maven Donny Deutsch looks for the human, emotional connection between a product and its audience. "The market is not an abstract entity," says Deutsch, but "real people with real desires and needs". Pointing to the "great fiasco" of the New Coke, Deutsch says the product failed because it was attempting to solve a problem that didn't exist.

On the other hand, he points out, "every revolutionary idea predates the public awareness of a need… Every visionary's dilemma is convincing people that they needed something they didn't know they needed."

As a professional ghost blogger for business, I realize blog marketing doesn't attempt to create a new market where one doesn't now exist at all.  On the contrary, blogging is "pull marketing", designed to attract searchers who have already identified their own need for a particular product or service. 

That is not to say that, through your blog posts, you can't introduce readers to a solution they hadn't known was an option for them. In fact, because an effective blog is part of an ongoing conversation (as compared with the more static content on traditional websites), there is the chance to introduce your unique approach to satisfying customers' needs.

No matter whether you're using traditional push marketing (mailers, ads, commercials, etc.) or blogging, at the end of the day, as Donny Deutsch emphasizes, "if a product doesn't meet a need, all the marketing in the world can't sell it." On the other hand, he points out, "some of the most successful businesses are new twists on old ideas".

Blog posts, I've found, need to be written for the customers of the right kind, the ones who need what you've got to offer. Your unique combination of

• Art (engaging content about your special approach to your field)
• Science (winning search through frequent posting of relevant content with strategic use of keyword phrases),

has gotten you "found" by your target audience. Now is when that human, emotional connection between the product or service and the audience Deutsch was talking about can begin!

"Start with a brief description of the news, then distinguish who announced it, not the other way around" is one of the 10 Essential Tips For Writing Press Releases.

Writing about the "what" before the "who" is good advice for blogging as well as for press releases.  The opening sentences of each blog post must make a clear connection between what the searcher needs and the "what" your business has to fill that need.

That means writing about them, and only then about you and your business. Describe the issue or problem to show you understand what brought the searcher to your site:

• Even with air blowing through the vents, your room still feels stuffy….
• With an important presentation coming up, John feels terrified….
• Dressing for a business interview is a matter of following three simple rules….

Once you've "hit the need on the head", your blog post can go on to describe your solution in the form of a product or service you offer.

Writing about the "what" can take the form of describing how readers will feel after using your product or service. The other day I heard the most wonderful Michigan.org radio ad that was designed to evoke listeners' feelings :

    When was the last time you stopped to taste an apple, not just eat it….
…the rich smell of pines in the morning
…the laughter of children coming off the lake
…the echo of the wooden deck under our bare feet…
…a place that remembers the taste of fresh ice cream dripping in the sun…

(www.Michigan.org won the Travel Industry Association's Mercury Award for best state tourism radio advertising campaign.)

Help readers begin reading each business blog post with the end in mind.  The details can follow. Make the connection through the "what", and the "who" will be sure to follow!

Three marketing mavens, one message:

1. Marketing expert Theodore Levitt told his MBA class at Harvard something bloggers for business would do well to heed: "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole."
   
2. "Truly successful marketers use reverse branding," blogger Ryan Karpeles emphasizes.  "People rarely think of your actual brand first.  They think about what they want.  Then they decide who, specifically, can fulfill that desire."
    
3. Ron Karr, writing in Speaker Magazine, advises, "Sell the outcomes.  When someone's deciding how to spend her limited budget, she will invest in services that help her achieve her goals. In other words, she wants results."

Consumer Electronics retailers, says Karpeles, are constantly telling customers that they have "all the best technology" at "prices you can afford". The lesson here:  Customers don't want technology.  They DO want to have an incredible home theater experiences.  They DO want to capture family memories.  They DO want to print documents from any computer in their home.

Are you describing products and services in your blog posts, or are you selling outcomes?

Do your blog post titles convey the message, "Positive outcomes can be found here!"?