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10 Reasons Your Blog Could Be Bleeding Readers

September 25, 2012 by Guest Author

how to blog

by
Tara Hornor


BigStock: Eliminate frustrations
to get readership growing again.

Is Your Blog Bleeding Readers?

If you run a blog, then you probably struggle with the age-old issue of bleeding readers. It’s tough to keep folks coming back for more! But there are things you can do to make sure that your readers stay tuned to your blog.

At the end of the day, your blog should be about producing quality content that is relevant to your readers. If you’re giving them what they want, they’ll come back. But sometimes other elements of your blog can be causing frustration as well.

10 Reasons Your Blog Could Be Bleeding Readers

If your content is strong and you are still losing readers, you may want to analyze some of the following aspects of your blog site.

Awkward Layout

Your blog is your virtual home. So, like you would with your real home, make sure that it is warm and presentable for visitors. In other words, your layout should be both aesthetically pleasing and organized. If it looks as though you threw your blog layout together within two minutes (as in, it looks sloppy and haphazard), then your followers won’t want to look at it long.

Do you have too many ads? Are there too many things going on? Is it difficult to find your navigation menus? Consider simplifying your layout so readers focus on the content.

Overkill

While it is important to remain consistent with your blogging, avoid posting more than 5 or 6 times a week. No more than one post on a day, either. Posting more than this can make your followers feel as though you’re blasting them with too much content. Of course, this is very dependent upon the type of blog you’re running. News blogs, of course, will far surpass these limitations. The point here is to remember that too much content can be frustrating. If readers are following your blog and getting updates, you may be flat out annoying them with too many.

Unreadable

Choose fonts that are clear. Don’t make your readers work too hard to read what you’ve written. Additionally, don’t put your font in a color that is difficult to see. Legibility is a key factor in a pleasant reading experience.

Consider balancing white space as well. If your paragraphs are too long, you can cause readers to lose interest. This goes for content that is too wide as well. Therefore, balance your white space (the blank space in between text and graphics) by creating more readable width.

Offensive

If your posts are, on average, overly slanderous and offensive, then you will more than likely see a higher rate of no-returns. It is okay to be opinionated, but there is a way to word your opinions in a respectful manner.

We all like a strong voice that makes us think, smile, laugh, or generally incites an emotional response. But too much negativity just frustrates. So if you have a strong voice and find yourself losing readership, consider toning it down a bit.

Ignorance is Not Bliss

If you are an opinionated writer, make sure you know what you’re writing about. As a silly example, imagine you are ultra-anti-Twilight series. You write all kinds of posts bashing on various aspects of the movies and books. However, if you have not read the books or seen the movies, then you are an uninformed reader and will be viewed as such. While others may agree with your general view, your lack of expertise will eventually result in lost readers.

Length

Keep a balance in the length of your blogs. If they are all over 1,000 words, then you have a problem. You will overwhelm your followers. Occasional long blogs are okay, but make sure to separate them into paragraphs.

Various studies show various results. But generally speaking, posts over 1,000 words will take too long for readers to get through. Look at your metrics and see if you can find a trend in longer vs. shorter posts and adjust accordingly.

No images

People want to read blogs for entertainment, so entertain them. It is not necessary to post an image on every post, but an occasional shot of your post’s subject is appropriate and will add interest to your post. Images also help with search engine optimization, especially if you title your images with the main keyword of your article title.

Grammarly Misuse

See what I did there? Raise your hand if you cringed a little bit. So will your readers. If you are a person who struggles with grammar and spelling, then write your blog drafts in Microsoft Word or other word processing systems that will check grammar and spelling for you. Sites with poor writing and grammar are likely to be unfollowed.

Too touchy feely

We do not need to hear the nitty-gritty details of your life. A blog is not your diary, and it should not be treated as such. Of course, there are exceptions, but balance personal drama with valuable content. A good story requires some personal backstory so we can all relate to it. But keep the personal stuff focused on the point you’re trying to drive home.

Unemotional

Yes, this feels antithetical to the previous reason, but it is not. There should be a balance between personalizing your posts and gushing your deep, dark secrets. If readers wanted to read straight-up dry information, they would read the newspaper. So don’t write like a robot; give your blog a flavor of your personality and life.

Eliminate these 10 frustrations and your quality content will have even more power to keep readers coming back to your blog.

How do you keep your blog from bleeding readers?

Author’s Bio:
Tara Hornor writes about marketing, advertising, branding, web and graphic design, and desktop publishing for PrintPlace.com a company that offers online printing for print marketing media. Find her on Twitter as @TaraHornor .

Want to be a better blogger? Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blog engagement, blogging, business-blogging, How-to-Blog, increasing comments, LinkedIn, small business

Earn Money Blogging? Not Unless You Avoid These Pitfalls

August 24, 2012 by Guest Author

How to blog series

by
Emily Green

cooltext443809602_strategy

Blogging can make you money but only if you avoid some of the annoying pitfalls that can actually cause you to lose money instead of gaining it. The following are several common and very costly pitfalls that bloggers all over the Internet encounter on a daily basis.

The Time Sucker That is the Internet

The Internet is a minefield filled with numerous distractions. There are social media outlets, games, blogs and search engines that just seemed designed to distract and waste your time. However, if you are looking to make money on your blog you need to avoid these distractions at all costs and apply yourself to networking, writing blog posts, researching and interacting with visitors.

If you are finding it hard to avoid distractions consider some of these time saving methods:

  • Set a timer
  • Block distracting websites
  • Create a schedule and stick to it

Will Write Soon – Losing Contacts

Contacts are everything in the blogosphere. It can often be easy to assume that the contacts that you have made in the blogging world will be there forever, but if you don’t keep in touch you’ll notice that they slowly start to disappear. Avoid losing contacts associated with your blog by devoting a few hours every week to emailing, tweeting and touching base with your numerous contacts and with Android tablets that are designed to keep you online 24/7 there is no reason you can’t keep in touch!

Due Date Delays

Guest blogging or writing blogs for others can be a great way to earn cash, but you have to be willing to stay on a strict schedule. Many of the blogs that welcome you with open arms to guest blog or blog for them have strict schedules they need to keep. When you agree to blog make sure you stick to the deadlines, not only will it help ensure you get paid for your writing but it helps build your reputation within the blogosphere community.

People Pleaser – Catering to the Billions on the Internet

There are billions of individuals on the Internet and as a blogger it is your role to make sure that you don’t offend them. Offending your audience is a sure fire way to send them packing to another blog and cost you money. Remember the more visitors you get the more money you can make! Offending a part of your audience will certainly cost you in the end.

That doesn’t mean you can’t voice your opinion or talk about controversy. No, it just means that you will have to keep comments and blog posts classy and within the limits. And if you do make a risky comment or blog, just remember you risk losing that audience.

Need a little extra cash? Looking for a way to earn money? Grab a computer or a tablet and start blogging. Just remember avoid these four common pitfalls and you’ll be on your way to earning money just for writing and blogging of favorite topics.

Author’s Bio:
Emily Green is a freelance writer and a lover of technology. For work or play, she prefers using an Android tablet . Follow her on Twitter as @emgreen85.

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blogging, blogging pitfalls, Blogs, business-blogging, earn money blogging, How-to-Blog, LinkedIn, small business

Blogging Tools of Engagement that Attract Attention

August 4, 2012 by Guest Author

How to blog series

by
Grace Nasri

6 Tools of Engagement

There are currently billions of webpages indexed across the world today; as the number grows, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate one blog from another. The six sites below have created tools to help bloggers increase engagement, attract attention, and differentiate their blog from the rest.

1. FindTheBest’s Interactive Widgets: Adding interactive widgets to blog posts is one of the best ways to drive user engagement and increase time spent on your site. FindTheBest () a data-driven comparison engine, offers hundreds of product and service widgets to enhance posts and reviews. The interactive and customizable widgets (http://www.findthebest.com/widgets) have an added bonus of being monetizable—bloggers receive 100 percent of all affiliate revenue.

2. Visual.ly’s Infographics: Infographics have grown in popularity over the past year, partially because it’s easier for most people to consume and retain information presented in the form of an image or graphic rather that pure data or text. Visual.ly allows bloggers to create customized infographics for their blogs. Other sites like Stat Planet, Tableau and ManyEyes are starting to pop up that make it easy to build customized infographics.

3. Flickr’s Photos: Posts with photos, graphics or other illustrations not only look more enticing, but they can also drive traffic from image searches; when photos are saved with relevant keyword tags, they will show up in an image search and when a user clicks on the image, they will be taken to the affiliated blog. In addition to Flickr, sites like WikiMedia’s commons and Google’s image search are also great sites to find relevant images and graphics, but be sure that the licensing allows for republishing.

4. Pixlr’s Photo Editing Software: For bloggers who don’t have Photoshop but want tools to be able to edit their photos before posting to their blog, Pixlr’s Editor provides online photo editing tools for free.

5. Vimeo’s Videos: People consume and digest data through different formats and channels, while some are more drawn to text and data, others find video content more engaging. Sites like Vimeo make it easy to upload, share and post videos. But Vimeo isn’t the only video sharing site. Site like Blinkx, Vimeo, UStream and YouTube are some other great places to find engaging videos relevant to your blog post.

6. SpeakerText’s Video Transcription Service: Video content, while highly engaging, is not easily searchable by search engines. Video transcription services like SpeakerText specialize in transcribing the content on your video, which helps search engines index your content.

Maybe you’re using one or more of these already. Try the rest. Keep alert for tools that will raise the engagement on your blog.

What tools of engagement fuel your blog?

Author’s Bio:
Grace Nasri is the managing editor at FindTheBest, a data-driven comparison engine. Her articles have been published in The Huffington Post, Reuters, VentureBeat, The Street, Technorati, Asia Times and more. You can see a full list of her articles at GraceNasri.com and can find her on Twitter as @GraceNasri

 

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Blog Review, Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, blogging, blogging-tools, engagement on blogs, How-to-Blog, LinkedIn, small business, tools of engagement

Blogging Tips: Finding Your Voice

August 2, 2012 by Liz

How to blog series

by
Rob Pell

cooltext443809602_strategy

Why Is Finding Your Voice Important?

If you’re just starting out, it’s difficult to know how to address your audience. From the first instance, that audience won’t actually exist; you will need to build it gradually over time. This makes it even harder, how are you supposed to know how to speak to someone if you don’t yet know who you’re speaking to?

This why finding your voice is important. The specifics of who you are addressing or talking to do not matter; what matters is finding a voice that suits your style, subject matter and personality.

Personality

Writing a blog is not the same as producing news copy. You might be writing a blog about a very recent or developing event and so are tempted to write it in a ‘newsy’ style: don’t, newswriting is a stilted, stripped back and very artificial style of writing. It is used to give the reader the information in the most clear and concise way possible, with little elaboration other than what is necessary.

Try to resist the trap of falling into a newswriting style because once you’re in it’s difficult to get out of. We’ve all read the papers and seen news broadcasts; we know all about ‘the news’ register. If you start your blog post with something along the lines of “Soft drinks giant Pepsi have announced record breaking profits following the release of…” you will very quickly get locked in to that newsy style.

The audience of a blog is looking for something more than just news; they require personality, rather than the cold and clinical form of news copy. Let this shine through; sprinkle your copy with opinion and comment; use a conversational tone; drop in clauses like “I don’t know about you but…” or “my thoughts on the subject are…” and give your writing the space it requires to breathe.

Structure

Of course a blog post does have its own duties to fulfill. For example, it must be interesting and informative. When you begin a post, note down the different points you want to cover beforehand and plan a structure which allows you to retain your personality and conversational tone without resorting to a banal listing of the facts.

Planning in this way will give your work structure and life and will allow you to tailor your article towards a specific outcome. It also keeps the blog sharp and concise and allows you to avoid losing your way as can happen when we become absorbed in our writing.

You will want to include your key phrases in your blog, but do not over do it with these. The primary thing to maintain is your blog’s quality; as long as it is engaging, informative and fun to read you will retain a good core audience. If your blog posts have awkward key phrases shoehorned in all over the place, are difficult to read or are nonsensical, it doesn’t matter how good your SEO tactics are, you are going to lose any new audience members you bring in for the simple reason that your page just isn’t up to scratch.

Finally, always remember to enjoy your blogging. This is paramount and will shine through in your writing.

What helps you find your voice, the voice that connects with your audience?

Author’s Bio:
Rob Pell is a technology enthusiast, all round geek and happy employee of Simplifydigital, the UK broadband, digital TV and home phone experts. Simplifydigital are accredited by Ofcom and provide independent consumer advice on digital services.

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Audience, Blog Basics, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blogging, business-blogging, connecting with audience, finding your voice, How-to-Blog, LinkedIn, small business

What to Find Out Before You Start a Business Blog – 25+ Web Resources

July 31, 2012 by Liz

How to blog series

We All Start Somewhere

cooltext455576688_blogging

Most of us who started a blog before LinkedIn and Twitter, while Facebook was barely finished code, got to the blogosphere one at time. We picked out our templates and our blogging platforms and decided what we would blog about. We learned the culture, the rules, and how to use the tools. And all of us learned HTML — the alphabet of blogs.

It was an apprentice culture. We learned the craft from other bloggers. At the same time we linked our blogs, read and commented, we got to know and connected to other bloggers. Much of the information was passed on as we got to know each other. If we needed to know how to do something, we just asked someone who had been blogging longer than we had. Some started building courses and putting together tutorials, probably because they realized they were repeating themselves — an audience existed to learn these things.

Then things changed. Somewhere around 2006, bloggers got serious about making money, running business from their blogs. Social media brought millions of people who had heard that blogs could help their business have a presence online.

It’s no longer an apprentice culture. Still, we all start somewhere. Now, resources exist in the form of blog posts written to answer frequently asked questions and courses to teach the masses. Still, the best way to start is to have someone point you in the right direction.

What follows are 25 how-tos and guides that represent over 65 resources that offer top-notch information for a solid start on a successful-business blog.

What to Find Out Before You Start a Business Blog – 25+ Web Resources

You wouldn’t build a business or a building to house one, without doing a little research first. At least, I hope not. Before you start or restart your business blog, do some research to give you context as you make the initial decisions so that you be confident about the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Here is what to find out before you start a successful business blog.

  1. Prelaunch Blog Review Checklist
  2. 10 Blogger Best Practices: Guides as You Extend Your Reach
  3. Don’t Buy that New Domain Name Yet
  4. 10 Questions about Starting a Business Blog Answered
    An FAQ with links to articles answering basic questions for starting a brand new business blog.
    1. Why should I start a business blog?
    2. What blogging application should a business blog use? WordPress or Blogger?
    3. What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
    4. Are there any advantages to hosted vs. self-hosted (through a third party)?
    5. Should comments be allowed?
    6. Is it okay to moderate comments?
    7. What should I write about on my business blog?
    8. Are there any rules to business blogging such as content, ethics, etc.?
    9. Are there any security issues that I should be aware of?
    10. Is there anything else I should know about starting a business blog?
  5. How to Start a Business Blog Series
    A ten part series for starting strategically:
    Part 1 covers the basics and benefits of starting a business blog
    Part 2 is on determining the purpose of a business blog
    Part 3 is about choosing authors for a business blog
    Part 4 covers policy-making for business blogs
    Part 5 is about blog platform and website/blog integration
    Part 6 is a continuation of blog platform and site integration
    Part 7 covers business blog design considerations
    Part 8 is about how to choose blog categories for a business blog
    Part 9 tells you what you need to know about creating initial blog content in the pre-launch phase
    Part 10 was a very interesting look into business blog crisis management planning and its importance
  6. 8 Things to Do Before Starting a Business Blog
    WeBlogBetter SlideShare Presentation with notes.
  7. Blogging to Build Your Business
    Why and how a blog builds a marketing platform essential for growth.
  8. Which Business Blogging Strategy Is Right for You?
    Resource Nation defines distinct approaches to business blogging
  9. Checklist: How to Start a Business Blog
    A brief checklist from Hubspot
  10. How To: Choose The Right Platform For Your Business Blog
    Criteria for choosing the blogging tool that will be your home.
  11. Blogging for Business: How to Choose the Best Blog Platform
    A quick comparison of Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr
  12. 7 Real Ways a Blog Raises Influence and Increases Expertise

  13. 8 Sales Rules for Writing – No One Kills a Messenger who Writes for Readers
  14. Cardinal Sin #1: Launching With No Content
  15. How Images Can Make Your Blog Post Demand to Be Read
  16. Writing a Good Business Blog
    by Dummies.com
  17. HOW TO: Create a Successful Company Blog
    by Venture Capitalist Mark Suster for Mashable
  18. Do You Know the Five Cornerstones of an Outstanding Business Blog?
    by David Hobart, Managing Director of Pure Content
  19. How to Hire a Great Web Writer, Copywriter, or Blogger
    What they do, What to look for, Where to look, What to ask.
  20. 10 Steps to Creating a Network of Guest Bloggers
  21. Paid Guest Blogging-Why Business Owners Must Hire Professional Bloggers
    The benefits of getting professional blogging help
  22. The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy (And How to Beat It)
  23. Blogging policy examples
    Sample policies – every company and blogger will have to modify them to meet their own needs
  24. IBM Social Computing Guidelines
    A great example for enterprise level policy
  25. 24 (of the) Best Business Blogging Guides, Tips and Tools of 2011
  26. The Most Important Blog Post You’ll Probaably Never Read

Take a look at the ones that answer the questions you’ve got right now. Then revisit this page to revisit it when the new questions come up tomorrow and the next day. You might also visit the New Business Blogger Page to find out more about building a successful business blog.

If you have great ideas or advice for starting up a Business Blog, tell us in the comments. If I get enough I’ll pull your comments together into a new post.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Want to be a better blogger? Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blogging resources, business-blogging, How-to-Blog, LinkedIn, small business, start a business blog, why blog

How to Write Powerful Content that Powerfully Connects

July 25, 2012 by Guest Author

How to blog series

by
Chris Nosal

cooltext443809602_strategy

How To Write Powerful Content

Being able to connect with your customers is one of the most important skills you could possibly learn in both blogging and in business, because your ability to connect with your customers is what translates into dollars, keeps your business running, and adds value to your customers’ lives.

In this blog post I want to detail some simple and easy but very powerful tricks that you can use to really connect with your readers and customers.

How to Really Connect with Readers

Basically, I’m going to show you some psychological “hacks” that you can use to capture people’s attention, and literally captivate them with every word you write (or say).

If you’ve ever watched Steve Jobs give a presentation (such as his presentation on the iPhone in 2007), you’ll notice he does one thing that 99% of speakers don’t:

He does’t start by focusing on how powerful the phone is, how fast the processor is, or how it’s different from all the other phones.

He starts by talking about how it is something revolutionary that is going to completely transform and revolutionize the way we (as humans) live our lives forever, and the incredible changes that are going to take place, for the first time in history, in our lives as a result of this groundbreaking discovery.

Now, which is more exciting:

A new electronic phone … or something that is going to change the way every person on the planet lives their lives forever for the first time in history?

Can you guess why people were lining up by the millions to get the iPhone yet, while no other company has ever had such a response to their products?

This same formula worked time and time again for the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad; with people obsessively lining up by the millions sitting out in the cold for 14+ hours just to get their hands on one.

Which leads me to my next question:

What did Steve Jobs do here that was so powerful?

Going back to the iPhone example, Steve knew that people didn’t want just a phone; they wanted a story to emotionally connect with their phone.

The idea was that by buying an iPhone, you’d be among the first to experience something revolutionary and new that is going to transform your life like never before.

You weren’t just buying a piece of plastic that could make calls and manage your daily activities — you were buying something that was going to change your life, and change the world, and you were part of a revolution that was changing the world.

This is so powerful because, on a mental level, humans don’t connect with logic.

We want to FEEL like we’re a part of something; like what we’re doing has a purpose.

How to Write Powerful Content that Powerfully Connects

So, now that we’ve covered the basics, how do you personally apply this information (and this formula) to write blog posts that really pull your readers in, and literally compel them to read everything you write?

While there’s a lot of information on this topic, I’m going to break down the main points here in to a very simple formula that you can instantly use to skyrocket your results in just two simple steps — and here they are:

Use Visuals

If I use vague, bland, abstract words like communication, potential, integrity, or commitment, how do you feel? Now, how do you feel when I use words like ice cream sundae, swimming pool, or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?

Did you notice what I did there?

The second list of words creates a FEELING, and activates your imagination through mental pictures already associated with those words. Use imagery like that and you’ll move just talking to communication where your reader is actively involved and participating in what you say.

Create A Story

If I mention a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, you’ll notice you get a picture of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in your head, as well as the emotional experience that goes along with the image; I’ve just completely gotten your focus on what I’m talking about, and I’ve captured your attention using your emotions.

Now, let’s make this ten times more powerful by adding a story to this image

If I say, “I was sitting at home after a long day of driving, and as I sat at my kitchen table I wrapped my hands around the wrapper of a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup. As I slid the wrapper open, and slowly slid the chocolate out, I began to put it in my mouth, and then proceeded to softly chew on it as the peanut butter flavor soaked up in my mouth.”

Now how does that compare to just say or writing, “I ate food yesterday”?

With the second option, you’re just reading text on a page.

But the first example takes a vague piece of text and brings it to life by getting your emotions and your imagination involved, and holds your attention and focus on exactly what I’m talking about.

Even more powerfully, what I did in the first example actually built an emotional connection with the reader.

The Keys To A Powerful Blog Post

The most important thing about your writing is that it captures people’s attention on an emotional level, and that your writing really connects with them at a one-on-one level. Do this by connecting a clear and specific mental image with a story that emotional involves your audience.

The best part is that it takes practically no effort to make these simple but very powerful changes as you’re writing. And the more you apply these techniques to your writing, the better you’ll to become at communicating and connecting with people.

What sort of content powerfully connects with you?

Author’s Bio:
Chris Nosal writes about social skills and communication mastery at popularitysecrets.com. He is the author of Popularity Secrets, and also does personal coaching and consulting.

Want to write compelling content? Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Content, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blog-writing, connecting with readers, content strategy, How-to-Blog, LinkedIn, powerful content, small business

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