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Written on 9/26/2012 at 12:06 am by

Write For Your Customers, Not Your Peers

Filed Under: Writing Content

This guest post is by Laura Roeder of LKR Social Media Marketer.

Think about your last ten clients. Did they hire you because they have the same level of knowledge and experience that you do? Or did they choose to work with you because of your expertise?

My guess is that they fall into the second camp: your customers look up to you because you’re farther ahead than they are. They expect you to provide them with advice and guidance to help them move forward in life and business.

Knowing this, why are so many blogs speaking to their industry and not their customers? You’ve seen it, and you’ve probably been guilty of it—posts filled with jargon and industry news. Maybe it seems like the articles your customers need are too simple: that information’s basic, it’s been written about before, and therefore, it’s not valuable.

Too many businesses err on the side of writing what they find to be useful or valuable, not what their clients need to know most.

Let’s use an example from my business, LKR Social Media. Our customers are people who learning the ropes of using social media for their businesses.

Because social media is our world, we know all the jargon, all the nuances, all the basics. It would be easy to gloss over some of the simpler setup details in our tutorial-style posts because we could make an assumption that everyone already knows how to do them. But, based on who our customers are, we can’t make that assumption!

We make sure that we always break down each topic to its simplest steps, making it easy for business owners at all levels to implement what we are teaching. We don’t assume that you already know how to set up a Facebook page, or mention someone on Twitter, or use RSS.

So, how do you ensure that you are writing for your customers, and not your peers?

1. Avoid jargon or technical terms

Use clear, concise language that everyone can understand. You do not need to use jargon or fancy terms to come across as an expert; simply blogging regularly and providing valuable information will accomplish that.

2. Break how-tos into action steps

Don’t assume that just because you know how to do something, everyone else does too. Break down instructions into simple action steps that someone just starting out on your topic can follow.

3. Write your posts for one person, not your entire audience

You might find it strange to think about singling one person out to write to in your posts. But the value in speaking to one person instead of a group is that usually, most people are sitting down, alone, to read your blog. There probably isn’t a huge group of your followers crowded around a laptop in a coffee shop all reading it together. For example, write “you” instead of “you guys.” The same goes for video blogs: speak to a single viewer, not to your entire audience.

If you find, after reading this, that much of your blog content was actually written for your peers (people at your level) versus your customers, that’s okay! It’s not too late to start. For your next blog post, keep these three pointers in mind to help you write content that will help your customers.

You’ll start to notice if this strategy is working by looking at a few key analytics:

  • how long people are staying on your site
  • how many articles they are clicking through to read in one sitting
  • whether you are getting more subscriptions to your email list
  • whether you are generating more sales.

Increased numbers in these areas are sure signs that you’re writing for the right crowd.

Laura Roeder, founder of LKR Social Media Marketer, is a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to become welcome-known and claim their brand online. Follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook!

Written on 9/25/2012 at 6:09 am by

Behind Every Great Blogger is an Even Greater Voice

Filed Under: Writing Content

Much is said of the great content that is required to become a great blogger.

None of it matters if you don’t have a great voice.

Great bloggers don’t settle for great content. Great bloggers understand that how you deliver your message is just as important as the message itself. Your voice has to resonate through a sea of white noise before its message will reach the market. You have to be memorable.

The opposite of being memorable is being forgettable. And unfortunately, many bloggers have this down to a fine art. They lack a voice that lends authenticity to their words.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If you pen the world’s greatest article and no one cares enough to read it, does it make an impression?

You may think that what you have to say is special. So special that the world should stand and marvel, but it won’t. It never will. Your voice—the charisma and authenticity that oozes from your words—is the difference between a reader that is engaged in your brand and a reader that nods at your post before disappearing never to be seen again.

Great bloggers lend identity to their work.

It’s the voice that readers fall in love with. Some bloggers have the knack of writing about anything and making it exhilarating on our eyeballs. That is because they’re in sync with their brand. We can hear their words as if spoken to us personally.

Position your brand correctly

How consistent is your voice? How easily can somebody, who may simply be passing through your blog, get a sense of your character, your position in the industry, and your value to the scarce few minutes in their day?

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “The first duty in life is to form a pose.”

We all create a mask, an identity in our heads that embodies what we hope to become, what we aspire to be. If you haven’t got this far, and if you haven’t assumed a pose, how can you expect your readers to remember what you stand for?

Great bloggers form a pose!

Your first job is to answer that pivotal question: “What do I stand for?” Once you know what you stand for, you must transmute those principles in to your writing.

How can we turn a blog in to a glowing beacon that relays our message to any passing mortal who stumbles across it? Well, there are four poses we can form that make this association easy for the reader.

  1. The industry expert
  2. The industry commentator
  3. The industry fun-poker
  4. The average industry joe.

Positioning your brand correctly means knowing the difference between each pose. I’m sure we’ve all seen plenty of examples of brand positioning gone wrong.

Have you seen the “expert” who can barely spell? He who takes more pleasure in bragging about his playboy lifestyle than in lending any information of credit to his chosen industry?

Or how about the comedian who tries to entertain readers with endless quips that are never funny? You can visit this author’s blog for plenty of that.

I’m sure some readers will object to the idea that their shtick needs to be pigeonholed. I hear it time and time again. “There’s no category for what I write about! It’s the noise that occupies my imagination! I can’t be stereotyped!” Well, no offence, but that’s just stupid. Stupid and wrong.

It’s not a crime to write about the unmoderated wackiness of your imagination (although I suggest you confine such brainfarts to a journal). But it certainly is a crime to expect somebody else to stumble across your erratic collection of thoughts and come away with a lasting opinion that isn’t, “Damn, what happened to the last 15 minutes? How do I get them back?”

Failing to moderate your own content is the fast lane to mediocrity. Your mother may still read it, of course. Whose doesn’t? But the rest of us? I’m afraid we’re too busy—busy watching paint dry.

If you want people to remember you, better yet to save a moment in their busy packed schedules to listen out for your voice, you must optimize your memorability. Now there’s a new industry!

Let me introduce you to four characters that are time-proven assistants to your readers. They help every reader that ever passes through your blog to make a snap decision about whether you are worth following.

The industry expert

The blogosphere would be a much better place if every fledgling writer didn’t attempt to achieve expert status from day one.

I’ve noticed that many new bloggers just love to brand themselves as experts. Nine times out of ten, it is completely without merit. Some of the worst offenders are music bloggers.

Take Pitchfork as an example. Pitchfork is considered to be an industry expert for the alternative music scene. It has a very distinctive voice.

Have you ever read a Pitchfork album review? It’s like a scrabble contest to see who can pluck the most pretentious sounding adverb out of his backside. Somehow it works because Pitchfork—for better or worse—has carved a reputation as an authority source. The writers are qualified to deliver what we expect of them: fluffy, metaphorical nonsense.

However, take your typical unwashed 17 year-old kid who thinks his English C grade qualifies him to preach to the music industry from a holier than thou pedestal, and it’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to get downright “LiveJournal” in here, and fast.

Posing as an expert in a field where you are quite clearly just a fan is not going to win you any blogging awards. You will instead become a living, breathing case study of Mr. His Own Biggest Fan, the pompous know-it-all. That guy we read from time to time to laugh at, but never with.

Let me give you a tip. The secret to posing as an industry expert is to have some bloody credentials to begin with. You don’t need to be the smartest mind in your industry. But you do need to know more than 95% of your readers, which is surprisingly easy if you dedicate time to your craft.

The best tool for the industry expert, besides promotable credentials, is social proofing. Has your writing been featured on major sites that you can slap under a banner labeled “As seen on…”? Are you making any radio or podcast appearances that can be crowbarred in to a Media section to suggest noteworthiness?

The industry expert must leverage the psychological tools at his disposal to make us look up to him. Before we ever subscribe to an industry expert’s blog, we must respect him. Without respect, his pose is worthless.

The industry commentator

We have grown very used to our information sensors being bombarded on a daily basis. Information is constantly at our fingertips. It’s on the web, on our mobile devices, on television, in the newspaper, and spewing from the mouths of our friends and family.

There is a growing demand for The Industry Commentator. He is the soul brave enough to sift through all the news and views at our disposal, and then condense them in to a bite-size portion that we can devour in one sitting.

Curators of great content and interesting information are worth their weight in gold. They save us time, energy and eyeball fuel. We cling to their blogs because we can’t bring ourselves to confront the overfilling RSS reader of all those sites we promised to keep up with.

So, what makes a great industry commentator?

Once again, the voice is crucial. Industry commentators have a special skill for taking the goings-on of the world and rephrasing them to provide a simple resolution: “What’s in it for me?”

All of the most popular tech bloggers have carved their reputations not by reporting what is happening in Silicon Valley, but by telling us why it matters. How might it change our lives?

In 2010, Mike Arrington sold TechCrunch, the world’s largest and most influential tech blog for a figure upwards of $25million. TechCrunch was (and still is) a success because it condensed and curated the madness of Silicon Valley in to small posts that somebody sitting on the other side of the world could live through.

Did we have to sift over hundreds of startup pitches and press releases to find the one nugget of information that meant something to our lives? No, because TechCrunch did it for us. This form of curating is vastly under appreciated, and yet it is the driving force behind many of the world’s most successful blogs.

If you want to build a blog as an industry commentator, you must be in touch with the core concerns of your market. What matters in their lives?

This question, and only this, should determine what gets published on your WordPress and what gets trashed for another day. If you attempt to curate your industry with information that means nothing to the people that matter, your value will be remarkably similar: Mr. Who?

Selective, interesting insights are the way forward if industry commentating is your calling.

The industry fun-poker

I often wonder why bloggers take their work so seriously. One of the easiest ways to slice through the white noise and produce content that matters is to poke fun. There is a constant demand for fun content that offers us a brief moment of escapism.

It’s fun-poking content that so often ignites virally and ends up plastered across our Facebook feeds. Why is that? It’s because people have enough serious in their day already.

Is there a better example than The Oatmeal? Penned by Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal taps in to the public frequency with sketches that satirize popular culture—and inevitably end up slapped across our Facebook walls. One look at popular posts such as “What it’s like to own an Apple product,” and “How a web design goes straight to hell,” and it’s clear that Inman is a master of poking fun.

Inman hasn’t even confined himself to a single industry! 20 million page views per month say it all. The hits don’t lie. Laughter sells.

Regular well-crafted content that stirs a smile, or better yet a laugh, is tough to write. It demands a voice that is both powerful and authentic.

Whether it’s satire, sarcasm or slapstick brilliance, very few writers have the ability to pull off humour and make it work. Perhaps more importantly, a bad writer who walks the fine line and tumbles is likely to ruin his reputation in doing so. Badly timed humour ranks up there with our wannabe expert in the cringe worthy stakes.

I strongly recommend you avoid becoming the industry fun-poker unless you have a razor-sharp wit and a thick skin (others will be quick to take aim at you).

On the flip side, those who are talented and skilled at poking fun in their industry make for some of the most entertaining reads in the blogosphere. If you have the talent, you will make a name for yourself quickly.

The average industry joe

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that all successful bloggers adopt expert or aspirational status. Often the messages that touch us most dearly are those penned by the Average Joe.

If you can pinpoint the archetypal reader in your market, you can then turn your blog in to an ode to that character’s hopes, concerns and dreams. By doing so, you will leverage the power of being “one of the people.” You need only look to every presidential race in history to see what lengths politicians will go to in pursuit of the “man of the people” tag. It’s worth its weight in gold.

As much as we enjoy being sucked in to the leader-to-many relationship that guru bloggers thrive by, we are just as susceptible to those who do a fantastic job of branding themselves as voices of the crowd.

Do you remember the controversial flurry of “fake blogs” two years ago where marketers would write user-submitted tales of “how I dropped 30lbs in 4 weeks“, or “how I make $497/hour working from home“?

These blogs, scandalous as they were, tapped into a timeless psychological flaw where we place more value in what people just like us are saying. It means more when it comes from somebody who lives across the street, than it does from an expert who we share no common ground with.

I’m not suggesting you adopt a voice of outright deceit. But remember that there’s only one thing more inspiring than the rags-to-riches tale of an Internet stranger, and that’s the rags-to-riches tale of an Internet stranger who looks, acts, and thinks just like yourself.

There is an entire industry built around the concept of Work At Home Moms that stands as testament to how “ordinary” you can be while still speaking for a huge and significant crowd. The most successful WAHM bloggers are famous not because they set out to change the world, but because they relate to a huge number of readers and provide inspiration for everyday living.

You don’t need to be spectacular to be widely read. Spectacularly engaging will do.

One particular word of advice that will fare you well: those who can put in to elegant words what their peers can only feel intuitively in their heads will always inspire and captivate. If you possess this gift, use it. Let your blog become the voice of expression that readers can link to and say, “I agree with that guy.”

The average industry joe fights the corner of his market so that the crowd does not have to. They need only link to his thoughts. He is the beating heart of the market. He knows what makes his readers tick and he has a voice that spells their thoughts better than they ever could in a Facebook status or tweet. That is a powerful voice.

Finding your voice

An expert, a comedian, a curator, or a conveyor of public sentiment, it matters very little what position you decide on for your brand. Your objective remains the same:

Form a pose and hold it.

Decide on the message you want to promote and dress your blog for that purpose. Every personality trait, every post written, every hastily scribbled comment at 1am must align to the image you want the world to embrace.

It’s only when you find a memorable voice that your readers can decide whether they want to hear more of it. And guess what? Not everybody will. That’s okay. It’s a compliment!

Will you be stereotyped? Absolutely.

Will you satisfy everybody? Let me put it this way. If you do, not enough people are reading.

If your writing is so personal that it comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, you should probably stick to a bedroom journal in the dead of night. There is not a recognised blogger in the world that can claim to be so special that everybody loves his work.

The truth is, the blogosphere is growing fast. Competition for eyeballs is getting fierce. Our attention span for unknown bloggers is fleeting like never before. I’m pretty sure even my next-door neighbour’s cat can be seen taking time out of chasing mice to update WordPress. Everybody is doing it!

If he’s blogging, and I’m blogging, and you’re blogging, and 321,000 ProBlogger subscribers are also blogging, who is going to read any of what we have to say? People don’t have time to read between the lines, assess your character, weigh up what it means, and invest in whatever that might be. There’s enough decision fatigue in the world already.

Readers want your past, present and future handed to them on a plate. They want to know what you can do for their lives, and how quickly you can do it. For that reason, a stereotype driven by a powerful memorable voice is your best friend.

I challenge you now to answer, in one sentence, “What does my voice stand for?”

And if you don’t know, why should I? Why should anybody? Find your voice and you will find an audience.

Martin Osborn is the editor of the affiliate marketing blog, Finch Sells. He is a 24-year-old entrepreneur with over 10 years’ experience in the fine art of wasting time online. You can download his Affiliate Marketing 2012 Survival Kit for free.

Written on 9/21/2012 at 12:03 am by

Kickstart Your Stalled Blog Content, Part 3: Let Your Publication Inspire Your Next Post

Filed Under: Writing Content

Over the last week, we’ve been kickstarting stalled blog content. We’ve worked through the process of planning, writing and editing a post, and I hope that by now some of you might have published that post.

At this point, I hope you’re thinking that kickstarting the content on your neglected or burdensome blog hasn’t been such a challenge after all. We’ve taken a pretty pragmatic approach to the challenge‚ and if you’re feeling inspired, you could certainly go ahead and refocus your content strategy now, for example.

But I’m going to assume that, while you’re feeling positive, you haven’t miraculously found more time to dedicate to your blog, nor have you rediscovered a hidden passion for it that makes you want to take the breaks off and hurl yourself into creating content for it.

Instead, I’m assuming that you want to keep the blog going, to see where it leads, and that after some time publishing quality content, you might reassess your priorities and see if it’s something you want to keep going with.

So what we need here is a process for keeping your blog content rolling in that time.

Our first post described a process for sparking ideas, and of course you can certainly repeat that now. But today I wanted to show you another way to build directly on the success of your most recent post—something you can do whether you’ve only ever published one post, or you’ve only published one recently.

Check the stats

As a first step, check the stats on that post.

Maybe you have barely any stats—maybe only a handful of people visited it. Okay. If you haven’t already, share it with your social networks and promote it any other way you have. This might give you a few more pageviews or shares to work with.

The aim here is to have some figures for the post, so you can compare it with past publications—however old—on your blog. Ideally, you’ll be able to see if it attracted many readers, and be able to gauge if the visits it attracted were engaged—so bounce rates for the post would be helpful.

This information leads directly into our next assessment: comments.

Review the comments

Did anyone leave a comment on your most recent post? I like to balance comment counts against visitor stats and shares, and also look at the quality of comments that are left, since that’s a good gauge of reader engagement.

If your post only received three visitors, and each of them left a comment or shared the post, that’s good news. If, on the other hand, your post attracted 100 pageviewss, but no comments or shares, you may have some work to do to reengage your readers.

So consider your post’s visitors and actions, and see how you feel about this information as a measure of the post’s “success.”

Consider the niche

Finally, look around in your niche. If you followed this series to the letter, you probably published this post because it filled a gap in the information available in the niche.

So now’s a good time to check the main sources of content in your niche and see if any of them have either followed your lead and responded to your post, or published something that covers the same topic in the same timeframe.

You might also do a few keyword searches for the topic of your post, and related topics, to get an idea of what’s been published on the topic beyond your niche. This, too, might spark ideas for posts that you hadn’t considered before.

Your next post

Whatever the answer to these questions, this quick analysis should present you with somewhere to go with your next post.

You either know that readers did or didn’t find your last post engaging. You know others in your niche either have or haven’t taken the topic up.

Perhaps that other coverage (or lack of coverage!) suggests that you should (or shouldn’t) write a follow-up piece. Perhaps the feedback or lack of interaction indicates that there is—or isn’t—more demand for content on this topic, or a related one. In that case, start researching, using the advice from the first post in this series to plan the post, if you like.

If the answers are all negative—no comments, few views, no coverage by others in your niche—then you might feel a bit lost for where to go next. In that case, you could also repeat the exercise from our first post in this series. Or you could instead look at past posts that did well with your readers, and have a think about why that was—was it the topic? Format? Timing?

If you can identify some elements that may have had a hand in making past posts popular, you can try to tap into a parallel concept or approach now, and see how that resonates with readers.

And if you’re really stuck, take a look at our posts on bloggers’ block.

Keeping committed

From this point forward, it’s up to you. But the first post in this series should give you a good template for planning, writing, and editing you posts, and making the time to get those tasks done.

And the second post provided some tips for fitting those tasks into a busy life.

So hopefully you’re in a good position to follow this process and keep your blog going a bit longer—long enough for you to see if you’ve still got the passion and push to revamp or reinvigorate the blog properly.

If you have any questions, or tips or ideas you can share, we’d love to hear them. Tell us in the comments.

Written on 9/18/2012 at 12:03 am by

Kickstart Your Stalled Blog Content, Part 2: Make Writing Work For You

Filed Under: Writing Content

On the weekend we looked at a little exercise for kickstarting stalled content on your blog. This approach can be useful for reviving a long-neglected blog or just for reinvigorating your blogging when you’re struggling to keep up a regular posting routine.

For all the advice you can read online about blogging productivity, the one thing no one else can do for you is actually sit down and write content (unless you hire someone to do just that—which is an option for some, but not one we’ll consider here). But for many of us, finding time to write is a challenge and even when we have a great post idea, it can be difficult to get it out onto the page or screen.

For those who joined in on the weekend—who decided to participate themselves and kickstart their stalled content—I hope you’ve had a chance to write up the post you planned back then. We scheduled time for writing and editing back on the weekend, so hopefully you’ve been able to stick to that schedule.

But life can get in the way of blogging—believe me, I know! So if you’re falling behind your plans, or you’d just like some tips for the next time you’re struggling to fit writing and editing into your day, these ideas might help.

Break it up

The first post in this series introduced the idea of breaking up the writing task: in that post we researched and planned the post (which in itself was broken up into a series of individual tasks you could tackle when you had time). We then set aside separate time for writing, and for editing and publishing.

By breaking up the writing task, you can make it more manageable. You can even break up the writing itself: spending five or ten minutes of each section of the post you’ve planned as and when you have five or ten minutes available.

While this can make it difficult to keep the thread going, if you have a solid plan and a writing tone or voice that is effortless for you, this approach can be a good solution if you’re really strapped for time,

Tasks for times

Tackle the right part of the task at the right time—or whenever you have time. If you write better in the afternoon, try to schedule your writing then. If you edit or research better in the mornings, try to schedule that task to fit.

Perhaps you regularly find you have a few minutes’ spare at some point in the day. Try using that time for research or post planning, rather than tooling around on social media or checking your web stats. You’ll be surprised how much you can get through when you make the most of what might otherwise be wasted time in your blogging day.

While it won’t always be possible, knowing the best times to do the tasks involved in producing content can help you write better posts on a more consistent basis—not to mention that it can also make each task easier.

Make a habit of it

Get into the habit of using “dead time” like commuting or waiting places in this way. The trick, though, is to make a habit of this kind of work so that it’s a natural part of your day or week.

While you probably don’t want content planning, writing, and editing to take over every minute of what is currently your spare time, you can make decent inroads into blog productivity by using a reasonable percentage of your empty time in this way.

And if it’s a habit, there’s no argument—you don’t even think about opening up Evernote to compose an irresistible opening paragraph (or unforgettable ending) on the morning bus. It simply becomes part of life.

Focus for 15

For many of us, it’s the thought that we won’t get a post finished in the time we have available that puts us off even starting.

To get around this—especially if you’re the kind of person who likes to sit down and focus when they write—consider writing in 15-minute bursts.

Set a timer for 15 minutes and dedicate yourself to writing the post for that time. Don’t do anything but write, and write as much of the post as you can in that time. Stop as soon as the 15 minutes is up (or finish the sentence or thought if you like). Do another 15 minutes the next time you have the time to spare.

Do this three or four times, and you’ll likely have your post drafted. The advantage is that the time you’ve scheduled for editing will give you a chance to clean up any inconsistencies and make sure the flow is smooth.

Do it on the go

If you can’t find more time for your blog, find ways to fit content production tasks into the time you already have.

If you can write texts or emails on your phone, you can get down the bare bones of a paragraph or two (in Evernote, for example) while you’re on the commuter train in the morning.

Driving? Consider recording yourself dictating parts of the post, its key points, or outline, while you’re behind the wheel. Waiting in the doctor’s office or the car while your kids play sport? Take the laptop or tablet and work on your post. Even the ad breaks in your favorite t.v. show can be useful for doing short-burst topic research.

Can’t write in chunks like this? That’s fine: why not use those times for other blogging tasks so that when you do get back to your desk, your schedule is clear enough for you to devote some time to focused writing.

Keep the content flowing

If you joined us on the weekend, have you written the post you planned? Have you edited it?

Do you have any tips to add to this list? I’d love for you to share your advice with us in the comments. And don’t forget to check back on Friday, when we’ll be looking at your published post and using it to inspire your next piece of content.

Written on 9/15/2012 at 12:08 am by

Kickstart Your Stalled Blog Content, Part 1: Six Steps to a Fresh Post

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Writing Content

Just starting a blog? Longing to revive an old, forgotten blog? Or just feeling guilty because you’ve let your blog languish without a post for a little too long?

Typing a post

Image courtesy stock.xchng user tikideputy

If your blog’s fallen behind your ideal post frequency, you’re in luck. Today, I’m going to give you a six-step plan for kickstarting stalled blog content. The work we’ll do today takes just 40 minutes in total, but you can split it up in to five- and ten-minute blocks if that’s all you can fit in.

Then, over the coming week, I’ll check back in with you periodically to see how you’re going—and provide some more tips for staying on track along the way. Are you ready to kickstart your content? Let’s go!

1. Take stock: readers, niche and blog: 10 minutes

First up, let’s take stock of what’s going on on your blog, in your niche, and with your readers. A good way to do this is to start by looking at the leading sites in your niche—not just blogs, but all sites and other media (press, for example) that your target audience might use.

Look closely at:

  • current news, events and trends
  • what readers are linking and sharing
  • what readers are worried or concerned by
  • where your niche seems to be headed in the short- to medium-term.

Do this now, and in ten or fifteen minutes’ time, you should have a pretty clear picture of what’s happening in your niche—an essential step if you’re reviving a blog you’ve left to languish for a while.

Next, visit your own blog. What topics have you covered most recently (even if that was a while ago)? Where does your blog sit relative to the competition, and to readers’ interests?

Hopefully, this review will give you a clear idea of some gaps in niche coverage that you can fill on your blog. It might also spark your ideas or opinions on topics that are important to your niche and audience right now. We’re off to a good start!

2. Think of three questions readers are asking: 5 minutes

After step 1, you’ll probably be fairly clear about the kinds of things readers are trying to learn or get information on.

Take a minute to write down three questions they’re asking. You might like to write them as if they’re questions you’re tying into Google or some other search tool, or you might just narrow down to fairly specific topics.

These questions don’t have to be actual questions you’re seeing readers ask in blog comments. They might be suggested through the interactions your audience is having on social media, or questions other leaders in your niche seem to be asking, and which are getting some attention from readers.

What you’re really looking for here are audience needs that aren’t being fully met by the content that’s available in your niche right now.

3. Write answers to those questions: 5 minutes

You’ve got a list of three questions; now answer each one in a sentence or two.

In those answers, make sure you’re 100% clear on the meaning of what you’ve written (it’s all too easy to jot down a one-sentence answer and find out later that it was full of holes!), and that you know why you answered the way you did.

Being able to rationalise your points of view will be essential when it comes to writing your next post!

4. Choose one Q&A to expand on: 10 minutes

Hopefully, you’ll find at least one of the questions you’ve identified really interesting. Pick that one, and note down a bit more about it.

You might get into the reader question in a bit more detail, or jot down the logical components of your answer—perhaps just in bullet points or using keywords.

The object here is just to get clear about the nature of the question, and the key elements of your answer. You might also have a think about some of the content you’ve seen on the topic online (if you have seen any) and identify what’s missing from that content. Should you cover those points in your post? Where would they fit?

You might notice now that you’ve got a brief outline for a post. You have a topic, a question for the post, and an answer split into a number of elements. Not bad for a half-hour’s work!

5. Write down what’s different about this advice: 5 minutes

You might be tempted to skip this step. Don’t.

Here’s where you clarify for yourself what your post will provide that no other content on the topic does.

This isn’t just an informational question—though of course knowing what advice or detail your post will offer uniquely is important. But let’s not overlook what you bring to the equation as well.

Perhaps your post will hinge on your own personal experience of the topic, and will provide unique insight from that experience.

Perhaps the approach will be different—maybe all the coverage so far has come from one side of the industry, or of a debate. Perhaps you’re going to provide another perspective from a completely different viewpoint.

Or maybe you’ll use a different format from the rest—one that makes the issues more approachable and digestible, and helps readers understand the topic more easily.

6. Schedule writing time, editing time, and a publication date: 5 minutes

This is the last step for today! You’ve just created a plan for a unique piece of content that responds directly, and uniquely to readers’ needs.

All you need now is the time to write it.

Check your schedule and set aside three blocks of time:

  1. 40 minutes for writing
  2. 30 minutes for editing, on a different day
  3. a publication date.

Commit to these dates and times—make them non-negotiable. Tell us when they fall in the comments, if you like. What I’d love is if you could fit them into the next week, because I’m planning to check back in with you on Tuesday and Friday to see how you’re going.

On those days I’ll be providing tips to help you keep your content kickstart on track, so it’ll be great if you can work along with us. If not, that’s fine—I’d still love to hear when you’re planning your writing, editing and publication in the comments.

Don’t forget to check back on Tuesday, when I’ll reveal some of the tricks I use to blog when I have no time in my schedule. Hopefully, they’ll put you in good stead for keeping the content rolling on your blog long after you’ve kickstarted it back into action. See you then!

Written on 9/11/2012 at 6:01 am by

Finding a Mentor-writer—and What to Do Once You Have

Filed Under: Writing Content

This guest post is by Karol K of imcreator.com

Who is a mentor-writer? This question is probably on your mind right now. Even more importantly, why do you need one?

Let me take this from the top.

Is there a writer or an author you’ve always looked up to? Someone whose writing style is exceptionally interesting? One who can write a sentence in a way that makes you stop and think “darn, that’s good”?

I’m sure you’ll find someone who fits the description if you take a minute to think about it. Maybe it’s an author you’ve been reading forever. Or maybe it’s someone whose work you’ve found just recently. The timespan doesn’t really matter; what matters is that their style of writing is so addictive that you can’t stop reading.

But that’s just the definition of a good writer, so what does upgrading this person’s status to a “mentor” do for you?

What can a mentor do for you?

A couple of things.

First of all, they inspire you to grow as a writer. When you read their work, you simply pay closer attention to all the things they are doing. This is very motivating by itself. You start thinking, “wow, I need to write something just like that.”

Secondly, they show you a way of writing you wouldn’t have stumbled upon otherwise. Every writer who has somehow gained your recognition is likely to possess their own voice and style (the thing that makes them so recognizable). Being aware of this and noticing this style consciously can do a lot for your own style of writing.

You can use their work as a benchmark for your own writing. Whenever you finish an article or post, you can put it against a piece of your mentor’s work. Is your flow equally as good as your mentor’s? If not, there’s room for possible improvement right there.

How to choose your mentor

Now, I’m not going to tell you who you should choose, or why my mentor is better than yours. This is not the point. The point is to have a mentor who’s unique to your own style and the way you see quality writing.

So you’ll have to give it a little thought and select, on your own, just one writer who gives you the most inspiration.

The easiest way of doing this is to simply take a look at your bookshelf. One writer (or two) is likely to dominate it. You can also include the writers you find in the online world. A good place to start in that space are with the blogs you read the most.

My writing mentor is Jeremy Clarkson. Yes, the Top Gear guy. Why him, of all people?

As it turns out, I’ve been reading his books for a long time now. I’ve bought everything he’s ever released. Every single one of his books is extremely entertaining and interesting to me. His style is just exceptional.

At some point when reading one of his books I simply decided that I need to write more like him, and that was it. That was the moment. He became my mentor.

Again, this is only my perspective, you may (and should) have a different opinion. But that’s okay. That’s the whole point of a personal mentor-writer. Other people don’t have to agree with you, or tell you that there are other writers who are better. It’s no one else’s business who you choose.

What to do once you have a mentor

The first rule is to read everything they write. Every writer evolves, mentors included. Evolve along with your mentor. See what’s changing in their style, the topics they cover, the novels they write, etc. Just be up-to-date with what’s going on with them.

The second rule is to read their work consciously. What I mean by that is to read it in a twofold way, so to speak. First, you obviously like to read your mentor’s work, so enjoy it like you always do. But more than that, be aware of the technique and the style they’re using. Notice all the clever sentences, funny references, engaging paragraphs. To put it simply, be aware of what you’re reading.

The final step is to develop and improve your own style after being influenced by your mentor. A specific style is what distinguishes one writer from the other.

For example, every web design blogger can write a post on “How to design a proper about page.” But every one of them will create the post in a completely different way. The point is to find your own way of delivering a message. Your mentor can help you with that because they are likely to already have a distinct and noticeable style.

Finally, grow as a writer. Take all the inspiration and information you’ve gotten from your mentor and put it into your own work.

What not to do

This is basic, but it needs to be said: don’t be a copycat.

You’re supposed to get inspiration, not to copy your mentor’s style entirely. This advice sounds obvious, but you really need to be careful here. It’s quite easy to start copying your mentor subconsciously without even noticing it.

Keep in mind that you probably have a voice within you that’s just as good as your mentor’s. You only need to find it and bring it to the surface. And yes, I really mean it!

Now, there’s one more step. It’s not mandatory by any means, but it’s a nice addition to the whole approach I’m presenting here.

Contacting your mentor

Because why the heck not? You probably have a lot of questions to ask, a lot of things to say, and a lot of things to thank them for. Being able to speak (or email) your mentor directly might just be the motivator you need to get to the next level.

Contacting your mentor might not be easy, and might take some time to get through all the gate keepers and all kinds of other people. But when you finally manage to get in touch, it’s totally worth it.

Do you have your writing-mentor already? How did you find them? Let me know, I’m curious.

Karol K. is a freelance writer, and a blogger. If you want to check out what he’s up to, feel free to hit him up on Twitter (@carlosinho).

Written on 9/10/2012 at 12:03 am by

Forget Willpower: Here’s What You Can Do to Dominate Bad Blogging Habits

Filed Under: Writing Content

This guest post is by Bea Kylene Jumarang of Writing Off the Rails.

You tell yourself you need to exercise, but you don’t do it. You tell yourself you need to write, but then you go on Twitter. Or, my favorite situation, you tell yourself you need to save more, and then you blow out your cash on that shiny new bag.

It’s a vicious little cycle, and you know you need to end it, but you don’t. Of course, you tell yourself it’s your fault, and add in, “If only I had a little bit more willpower.”

Well guess what? Willpower’s no good.

It’s a limited resource and it’s generally a bad one to draw on when it comes to eliminating bad habits. Barring sudden epiphanies, you’re going to stay stuck in your cycle if all you do is tell yourself that you need more willpower.

What I’m going to show you in this post is a different approach, and how you can use it to remove and replace bad blogging habits.

1. Eliminate temptation

Okay, I realize that sounds trite and sort of stupid. Still, you would be surprised at how many things just need to be removed in order to remedy your bad habits. Like Robert Downey Jr. says in Due Date, “If you’re allergic to waffles, don’t go to a waffle house.”

Now, let’s apply that to you. Say you’re a blogger who’s a little too addicted to being online. You know that it damages your productivity, but you tell yourself you can limit your online time just by having more willpower. If that sounds like you, please do take a reality check. You already know it doesn’t really work that way.

Why? Again, willpower’s no good.

So what do you do? Once you open your laptop or tablet, or wherever it is that you write, get your writing done first. The moment your device boots up, go straight to your word processor. Don’t open a browser. Seriously, don’t even think about it. Just click the word processor icon and start getting words on a page. Remember, you’re not a writer until words are on the page, and you’re not a blogger until you have a blog post published.

Got that? Eliminate temptation. It’s the first step.

2. Now, just show up and do it

So here you are. Your word processor’s open, but you’re just itching to close it and come back later. You’re thinking of all the emails you might have, or how many tweets have piled up in your timeline. You’re in the danger zone.

Solution? Tell yourself out loud, “I will not open my browser. Instead, I will write 1000 words.”

You’d be shocked at how a verbal affirmation can do wonders for your behavior. By speaking the words out loud, your thoughts get redirected to the affirmation you just said. And did you notice the 1000 words bit? That wasn’t random. That amount is a manageable daily goal. It’s not that hard to reach, and it’s a specific, measurable number. Remember, getting specific with your goals is always a good idea.

Now you might say, “But I need willpower to reach the goal!”

I get that, which brings me to the words, “Just show up and do it.”

If you’re a writer, just start writing. Turn off your internal editor and just get words on a page. Just write. Free yourself up to write really badly, because at the end, you’ll have something. Far better to have a poor chapter or a flat blog post to edit, than to have nothing at all.

Each time you’re tempted to stop, whip out the verbal affirmation again. “I will not open my browser. Opening it will make me unproductive. I will finish my writing.”

If you just keep on going, you’ll find that you’ve gone over the 1000 word goal, or you’ll have finished the blog post you needed to write.

Here, I’m giving you the template—you can apply this advice to whatever blogging task it is that you want to get done. That said, it’s a good thing to know what your personal limits are. That way, you can customize your affirmations depending on how many words you can normally write.

It’s now time for the feel-good step in this process.

3. Reward yourself

Let’s say you’ve finished your writing goals, or you’ve done your blog post. Congratulations! Two things can happen at this point.

The first possible outcome is that you might feel so good you’ll want to continue. If that’s what you feel, by all means do it. However, if you’re just starting out on the road to dominating your habits, the better thing to do is to stop and reward yourself.

This is pure conditioning, by the way. Studies show that we do what rewards us, and we actively avoid what punishes us. As much as you may want to claim being above such caveman simplicity, in the end it’s a matter of psychology and common sense.

So, what I want you to do is just stop. Go say a verbal congratulations to yourself, and then reward yourself with something that makes you happy. Now would be the time for you to open your browser, check your email or say hi to Twitter in all its 140-character glory.

To be clear, you can only reward yourself if you did what you set out to do. Don’t go cheating (hint, use the verbal affirmations and stop yourself), because cheating will defeat the entire purpose of rewards in the end.

4. Take it a step further: automate

The three steps above are a rinse-and-repeat process. You just do the whole thing over and over again to replace bad habits with good ones. Of course, ones the habits are in place, you won’t need rewards because the actions will be automatic.

However, you can still tweak this process to get even better results. If that’s what you want, my advice to you is to automate. To make it easy, here are some extremely actionable automation posts, courtesy of finance whiz Ramit Sethi.

How can you apply automation to your blog writing?

The answer is, you can’t. The only things you can automate are the things that get you even more writing time.

Let me give you an example. Social media is a huge distraction when you want to get writing done. Usually, that’s because you’re always on the hunt for things to tweet or link to. Now, I love Twitter, so this applies best to that service. If you want to get more time and not have to manually tweet, you can use a scheduler like HootSuite or Buffer. If you’re more of a Facebook person, HootSuite also has scheduling for that.

Throughout the day, you can list content in these apps, then just schedule the updates for the next day. With that method, you’ll have more time to write and get other errands done. Even so, you’ll still have the added comfort of knowing that you’re sharing great stuff.

These are my tips on dealing with the limitations of willpower. If you have some to share, I’d love to know in the comments!

Bea Kylene Jumarang is a fiction writer and the blogger behind Writing Off the Rails. When she’s not working on her books or her blog, she’s writing on tissues inside a Starbucks café, or socializing with people on Twitter.

Written on 9/7/2012 at 12:07 am by

How to Hit Content Scrapers Where it Hurts

Filed Under: Writing Content

This is a guest post by Robert from The College Investor.

If you’ve been blogging for any period of time, you’ve inevitably had your content stolen.  In fact, you’ve probably already taken steps to protect your content from being copied. And you’re also probably familiar with how to go about filing a DMCA takedown request.

However, I’m here to tell you to wait on doing that, and follow these two steps first!  You see, content scrapers are stealing your content for two basic reasons—to make money off it, or to build a site for links and/or traffic with it.

As such, to really hit them where it hurts, you need to hit them at these basic levels. And it only takes a matter of minutes!

Hit them where they make money

Most content scrapers are in business to use your content to make money.  If you’ve found their site, you will usually see some type of monetization, like AdSense. 

Now, a huge part of being in compliance with Google AdSense Terms of Service is to only publish original content, and not plagiarize or steal content.  If an AdSense Publisher is caught using someone else’s copyrighted material, it will result in the banning of their account, and the forfeiture of any revenue.

You can use this form to file an AdSense Complaint, and when you do, make sure that you select “This site is distributing someone else’s copyrighted material, possibly without permission.”

If you’ve read about being banned from AdSense, you know that it is very hard to get another account—you have to use a totally separate entity (such as a business), or another person has to open the account for you. Even so, if Google suspects any connections between the old and new account, the account will be suspended before first payment is made anyway.

Most pay-per-click advertising networks have some sort of reporting tool, so if the site isn’t using AdSense, you may still have an avenue for justice.

Hit them where they get traffic

The other reason why content scrapers steal your content is to use it to either build links or build traffic to their sites. However, if you’ve paid attention to any SEO news lately, you’ve undoubtedly read about Google’s search algorithm update. The search engine will now take into consideration valid copyright removal notices when it generates search results.

As such, it is essential that you report these scraper sites to Google using their Content Removal Form. This way, the offending sites will have their search results hampered, and may even be de-indexed.

It is also important that you submit the request to Google first, because they will usually verify the validity of the claim within 24-72 hours. If you get the content removed via DMCA, and then file a complaint with Google, the scrapers will stay in business because Google won’t see the plagiarized content.

Hit them where it hurts

If we all hit these content scrapers at these basic levels first, before we get our content removed from their sites, we can seriously impair their ability to make money and gain traffic, and hopefully slow down their actions.  I’ve had a lot of success with this in my niche, and I know you can as well.

Have you taken direct action to go after content scrapers and other who plagiarize your content?  Share your story with us in the comments!

Robert blogs at The College Investor, a personal finance blog dedicated to college students and young adults, and My Multiple Incomes, where he discusses his goals and methods to develop multiple income streams.

Written on 9/3/2012 at 12:00 am by

Why Every Writer Needs an Online Community

Filed Under: Writing Content

This guest post is by Nicolas Gremion of Foboko.com.

As a kid, finding writing inspiration and confidence was easy. From picking out the right green pen to recounting your puppy’s every move, it was simple to delve into your own life to create work that was fascinating (if not to the rest of the world, at least to you and your mom).

As we get older, however, the writers’ sphere seems to close tightly. Workshops are meant for “serious” writers, books on the craft of writing focus on how to snag an agent, and people doubt that anyone but a full-time, paid writer needs a creative outlet.

None of this could be further from the truth. The vast majority of writers are people with day jobs who write and blog for fun. Rather than sequester themselves away in order to write the next Great American Novel—or blog!—these people need supportive communities in order to develop their craft. And they don’t have to look any further than the very computer they’ve been composing on.

The social element of writing

While writers and bloggers may have a mystic reputation as hermits, they need people. Bloggers want people to love our blogs. Who better to tell you what’s good—and what’s not—than your audience?

Likewise, most blogging inspiration comes from real-life experiences; we have to talk to people, not sit alone in a room. As part-time authors, we tend to think we don’t “deserve” help; our fear of failure or ridicule outweighs our need to tell our stories. But it’s not fair to our stories—or our readers—to avoid doing the hard work of improving our storytelling abilities.

That’s where online communities come in.

Online writing communities, like Writers’ Café, Writers’ Beat, or my company’s Foboko, enable bloggers to get help throughout the process of creating an ebook, a short story, a report, or any other blog post.

Writing isn’t the only thing that goes into creating a post: choosing the perfect title, brainstorming, researching, storyboarding, editing, developing artwork, and inserting backlinks all play a part. No one excels in all these areas, and soliciting feedback from people with more expertise can help you overcome any obstacle.

Putting your draft post in front of people is like having a test audience for a movie. You have a built-in opportunity to fix what isn’t working, which can make the difference between writing a mediocre post and an outstanding one. Online platforms take it one step further and eliminate a range of other worries you might be having.

Why online groups are best

The transfer of information online is seamless. Whereas traditional workshops involve taking notes, exchanging emailed documents, and sending revisions back and forth, sites like Foboko allow you to send images directly, access others’ work to edit, and provide recorded feedback.

Everything’s stored in one place; it functions like an online document that tracks every change made by every user. Collaborations are instantaneous, and you can always refer back when you have questions or doubts. (If you already do your writing online in a blog or personal website, you’ll especially feel the benefits of these systems.)

When you’re concerned about your professional reputation as a blogger in your industry, getting feedback from friendly readers is essential.

The size of online communities is limitless. People from all walks of life can see your work, and you can gain feedback from people who belong to different ethnic groups, geographical areas, industries, and religions. Think that won’t lend authenticity to your finished product?

Best of all, online groups allow you to work on your writing skills anonymously and affordably. There aren’t expensive fees to join. Instead, you can start building a list of potential readers; by building an online following, you have proof of demand, to encourage a traditional publisher to pick up your book idea or simply to encourage you to keep writing your blog.

The ease of collaboration online makes the process efficient and helps you go further. DeviantArt, for example, is a community that helps artists tweak and improve their work. Rather than receiving feedback from a single artist, the participants get perspectives from a wide range of artists. They take into account the styles and tendencies that fit them best to create a stronger work of art.

Online writing communities can do the same for your blog.

The value for first-timers

If you’re still skeptical about how an online community can help an inexperienced blogger, think about this:

  • You don’t have to travel to attend these events. You can actually get more work done at your desk while collaborating with others.
  • Your anonymous status will alleviate any anxiety about going public with your work.
  • Your requests for help can be archived and referenced later. This goes both ways—you can also see how other newbies worked through problems previously.
  • You can avoid pitfalls and overcome writer’s block when learning from others who’ve gone before you. You can learn about everything from layout to legal agreements to work habits.
  • Your confidence will never grow from hiding in your home office. But it will blossom when you’re mentored by a more seasoned blogger or writer. S/he can motivate you to blog regularly and get out of your own way.

Writers all wonder one thing: am I any good? The only way to know is to ask others. Opening yourself up to feedback can help you see where you do excel—and get help in the areas where you don’t. With the assistance of an online community, you’ll eventually produce work that someone other than your mom would like to read.

Nicolas Gremion is the CEO of Paradise Publishers, Inc., and founder ofFoboko.com, a social publishing network where members get support writing their books from peers and connect directly with readers.