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Good blogging made simple

Published 18 February, 2012 | By TashWord

Blogging can be fun, it takes time, it can have great rewards for a business. For some, like me, thinking of topics and writing blog posts is fairly easy; for others, writing blog posts can be hard and nerve-wrecking.

So here are ten quick tips to give you confidence that your blog posts are going to work for you, not against you.

use a spell checker (within the blog software or elsewhere) and a grammar checker (tied in with many spell checkers now anyway)
read your blog post out loud as you proof read it – your tongue will stumble over mistakes you may otherwise miss
whenever possible, leave a day or two between writing and proof reading and editing your posts
relax and be yourself – a blog should show some personality and make the business human. A professional image does not mean you have to be stuffy and intellectual
write for humans, not search engines. It is important to include keywords but not at the expense of making the content easy to read
if you have little to say on the topic, write a short post – don’t add a lot of fluff and nonsense just to make it look longer
if a post is getting very long, consider dividing it into two or three posts – it’s easier to read, more visually appealing and you get more posts for not much extra effort!
ask questions and invite comments – the interaction can lead many places and adds a new dimension to your blog. Reply to comments, too, but that comes after writing the posts!
make the post easy on the eye – use sub-headings, images, bullet points, short sentences and short paragraphs as appropriate
make sure facts and opinions are clearly shown as such – facts need to be accurate and you don’t want anyone thinking your opinions are presented as facts. For your opinions, make them real – it’s ok t be controversial as long as your stand suits your brand

As you build confidence, there are many more things you can do for your blog but getting started and attracting readers is the first and shot critical step. Good luck, and enjoy blogging!

Posted in blogging | Tagged blog, content, simple, tips | 7 Comments

Making topics seasonal

Published 12 January, 2012 | By TashWord

My January enewsletter resulted in the question of how to make your blog or newsletter topic seasonal occasionally to generate timely interest and show an external connection.

Don’t assume you can only use major events (like Christmas, the end of financial year and Mothers Day) for a seasonal flavour to your blog and newsletter. Find seasonal things throughout the year that are relevant for your clients – especially things around times when your marketing may need an extra boost.

Here is a list of seasonal examples I’ve though of to get your creativity flowing…

at the start of summer, a hairdresser writing a hair care blog can discuss protecting hair from chlorine and salt
many businesses can find a new year’s link – make a resolution to get fit, sort out your accounts, update your will, care for your heath (quit smoking, visit a dentist, get your eyes tested, etc), buy new tyres or learn something new are just a few possibilities. Write about what is possible and give tips on how to achieve it
a car detailer could write a newsletter article on how to make a car nice before taking out someone special on Valentines Day
anyone in security (including computer security) can give blog tips on protecting empty homes and offices leading up to major holidays (Christmas, Australia Day and Easter for instance) when people won’t be at home
any business can support an awareness or fundraising event so write about your efforts even if not directly related to your goods or services – e.g. give a discount to all new parents during world breastfeeding week, offer a part of profits to the cancer council in Movember. Use the newsletter article or blog post to explain why the cause matters. The event or cause may not be related to your industry but make sure it does align with your brand and company beliefs.
write blog posts and newsletter pieces about clients or suppliers who do community work around a specific event (such as a client who shaves for ‘shave for a cure’ or a cafe who hosts a ‘biggest morning tea’)
in September or October, a VA could write about spring cleaning a filing system and a ducting specialist can write about the importance of cleaning heating ducts
a nutritionist could explain the benefits of hen eggs over chocolate eggs around Easter time
a physio interested in RSI topics will find plenty of examples during January with the Hopman Cup, Brisbane International and Australian Open underway
a town planner has the Tour Down Under and Tour de France to inspire blog posts about including bike paths in developments
Clean up Australia Day is a great time to post about reducing clutter (any organisers or storage solution people?) and cleaning (cleaners, cleaning product sellers and chimney sweeps)
a conservationist can give non-paper wrapping tips in December and environmentally friendly cleaning ideas for Clean up Australia Day or spring cleaning – in an electronic (not paper) newsletter of course!

What creative seasonal ties have you used in your blog posts and newsletter articles?

Posted in blogging, newsletter content | Tagged article, blog, creative, seasonal, topic | Leave a comment

The grammar of blog headings

Published 6 October, 2011 | By TashWord

It may seem like a strange blog heading, the grammar of blog headings, but I was asked the question so here is my answer!

The heading or title of a blog post is usually the first thing someone will see and has a huge impact on whether anyone reads the actual content of the post, and therefore on the success of that blog post. Making it enticing is worth spending some time on, and you don’t want to undo those efforts by using inappropriate grammar and spelling.

So what is the correct format for a blog heading?

Do not write it all in capital letters – that is considered to be yelling and therefore arrogant, plus it is harder to read anyway
Unless you have a formal and old-fashioned brand style, use sentence case rather than title case for the heading – that is, use as few capital letters as is necessary
Use basic grammar and punctuation rules such as a capital letter for a noun, match plural/singular nouns and verbs, and put apostrophes in the correct places
Check all words are spelt correctly
Make sure the title makes sense. Titles can sometimes have fewer words than an equivalent sentence (e.g. ‘the grammar of blog headings’ is fine for a title but in the body of a post I need to add more such as ‘the grammar of a blog heading can impact on your credibility.’) but include enough words to convey the meaning (I couldn’t use ‘The grammar blog headings’ for instance)

Have you noticed bad grammar in any titles? How did that impact on you reading that blog post (or article)?

Posted in blogging, grammar & details, writing | Tagged blog, grammar, heading, title | 7 Comments

Judging spam comments

Published 12 September, 2011 | By TashWord

Having just deleted another batch of spam from my blog, I thought I’d share how obvious some of it is – and how you can avoid your comments being filtered out as spam.

Flattery is common “this is the best blog”, “you write so well man” and “you must be an expert on this” are some recent examples in my spam folder. Genuine compliments are a good strategy, fake flattery is likely to get your comment deleted quickly
Sounding impressed but never giving any specifics is also a common spam technique so they can use the same message in many blog posts. “I’ve been searching for this information” and “I was just discussing this topic the other day with my cousin” have been in my comments innumerable times; a genuine message would be specific and relevant, such as “I needed to know about clear communications” or “Some friends and I were just discussing keywords“
there is a discrepancy between the name, email address and URL usually means it is spam. If your name is Mary why wouldn’t your email address be mary@ or m.smith@? However, if the domain of email and URL disagree, I refuse to click on the link or accept the comment. So to get comments accepted, be honest and transparent.
multiple links will be picked up by spam filters, but even the inclusion of one link in a comment makes me wary unless I know the person commenting. I look carefully at any comment with a link and decide if it looks safe enough to try the link myself – I certainly won’t accept a link without checking its content. Sometimes I will accept the comment but disable the link first, and I don’t think I’ve ever added a link in a comment I’ve left elsewhere unless they have the ‘latest blog post’ facility provided.
really poor English is often a give away, too – and the ones that are obviously nonsense made up of part sentences should need no explanation. Poor writing of course is not 100% proof of spam so I do read these comments to assess if they are genuine or not. My tip is to make your comments read well to avoid being thought spam and to give your comment more credibility and weight.

Do you have any other tips for spotting spam comments for what they are?

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged avoid, blog, comments, spam | 3 Comments

Hard stuff pays off

Published 5 September, 2011 | By TashWord

I really liked this comment by Hugh MacLeod:

Because Facebook and Twitter are too easy. Keeping up a decent blog that people actually want to take the time to read, that’s much harder. And it’s the hard stuff that pays off in the end.

Besides, even if they’re very good at hiding the fact, over on Twitter and Facebook, it’s not your content, it’s their content.

The content on your blog, however, belongs to you, and you alone. People come to your online home, to hear what you have to say, not to hear what everybody else has to say. This sense of personal sovereignty is important.

Ownership of your content is important, but I particularly liked the acknowledgement that sometimes you have to accept the harder option as it is likely to produce the greater rewards. Sure it s easy to have a static website, fill your blog with others’ content, or post self-promoting or vacuous content on Twitter, but a quality blog will give much better long term results.

Do you think the hard stuff generally pays off more in the long term? Have you ever consciously chosen to do then are stuff to reap the reward unlikely to come from the easier option?

Posted in bit off track, blogging, business info & tools, social media | Tagged blog, content, hard, pays off | Leave a comment

Reading resources

Published 26 August, 2011 | By TashWord

I’ve managed to catch up on some newsletter and blog reading in the last few days so I thought I’d share some of the more interesting ones so you can benefit from them, too.

All related to business today, some back-end details (like blog security) and some customer related issues, but all worth a read. In order that I think of them…

How to do yourself out of a thousand bucks – the ethics of business

Social media, trade secrets and why you shouldn’t give a rip about the competition – great message and enjoy the graphic too!

Why perfect is the only acceptable business measure

5 easy tasks to outsource as you grow your business

how to keep your WordPress blog secure

Working at home blog carnival – in particular, I liked the included posts by Eldon and Blogging your passion (and my own of course!)

Customer Service Carnivale

Preparing business for difficult times

Happy reading! If you have any comments on these posts, I’d love to hear them…

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged article, blog, business, communication | Leave a comment

Missing out on comments

Published 20 July, 2011 | By TashWord

I just came across a great blog post and wrote a comment in response. Part of the process was answering a security question to avoid spam which is fine.

The questions was “what is one plus three?” It wasn’t a challenge to find the answer but I did wonder if I should write ‘four’ or ‘4’. Given the question used words, I did too.

Unfortunately, the comment form just disappeared with the message “You got the spam message wrong” in its place. Not only was my beautifully crafted response gone forever, I wasn’t given the opportunity to write a replacement comment – and that blog misses out on another comment.

If there is any ambiguity about a compulsory question, there must be a second chance at answering it. Better yet would be clarity about the expected answer – for instance, it could have asked “what is one plus three? (answer in digits)” or “Give the number (in digits) equal to one plus three”.

A simple error yes but the consequences are that they missed getting a comment – How many comments do they miss each week because of this spam question? – and they have lost credibility as a site that values clarity (sorry to say it was a content writing service site, too).

What sort of spam protection do you hate or love?

Posted in blogging, business info & tools, web content | Tagged blog, clarity, comment, spam | 2 Comments

Linking from a blog post

Published 11 July, 2011 | By TashWord

Recently I had a conversation with another blog owner about the number of links included in a blog post; we were specifically discussing guest blog posts but the concept really applies to your own blog posts as well.

Links between blog posts are like a mini internet

He stated that he only accepts two links in a blog post and that having multiple links to one blog from within a post is of no real benefit. Do you agree with the lack of benefit? I don’t.

To me, including links is a means of giving more depth to whatever I am writing about. For example, if I am writing about good business communications I may link the terms good spelling, using capital letters and consistent style rather than explaining the value and meaning of each.

Of course there is also the advantage of potential additional traffic through increasing the number of links to and within my own blog. Even if only one link works for search engines, multiple links give a human more opportunities to visit my blog which is also important.

So for search engines, one link in a post may be sufficient but I see other reasons for adding links and judge the correct number of links by the content of the post (if you look through my blog you will see some posts have one or no links while others have many links).

Side note: limiting the links allowed for guest bloggers is a reasonable strategy, however, to avoid someone trying to spam your blog rather than providing quality content. I respect such limits and live to them when I supply guest posts, even when I think there are more links of value to the reader.

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged blog, guest blog, link, value | 2 Comments

Being open in blogs

Published 8 July, 2011 | By TashWord

One of the reasons behind the success of blogging is the humanising aspect of it.

What does that mean? Well, the personality and thoughts of the person blogging come through in their posts, especially if read a few posts, so you see the human being behind the website. This is particularly true for businesses who previously had a static set of pages with information but showed little of the person(people) behind it.

So where do you draw the line between showing yourself and staying professional in a business blog? (That was a question to you rather than being a rhetorical question!)

I was inspired to ask after reading a blog post by Tuan where he openly discusses his blog traffic results for June– he gives actual figures as well as celebrating the fact he has reached a new high in traffic (congratulations Tuan!) and what he learned along the way. So many people will exaggerate or imply they are doing well but Tuan’s honesty is refreshing – and he does have a lot if visitors, too!

So would you be as open about Tuan, at least on certain topics, or do you prefer to keep a wall between you and your business image?

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged blog, honesty, humanising, openness | Leave a comment

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