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Category Archives: marketing methods

Why you need to write two headlines for your posts

Written on Thursday 17 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Just as you thought it was difficult enough to write just one satisfactory headline for your post, now I’m telling you to think of two! (Don’t worry if you’re a WordPress.com blogger, this requisite is for those on WordPress.org blogs.)

But even so, I can’t stress enough the importance of the headline. It has many roles, all which are vital for both humans and internet robots alike. It needs to capture the attention of both, and satisfy the needs of each.

For humans it needs to connect with the reason why they want to read this information. You need to present the subject matter in such a way it relates to their search criteria, provides a solution to their problem, stimulates a desire, maybe tickles their sense of humour, and sticks out like a sore thumb so they can’t fail to notice it.

This is the same for the search engine spiders, but in a different way. You’re not dealing with psychology here, but with logarithms that are programmed to search for particular words. The answer is to give those words to them – find out what people are searching for, and if they are suitable, high quality and much sought after, stick them in your headlines (and the rest of the post too).

The clever bit comes with how you combine these fabulous words the spiders desire within a headline that grabs the attention of your readers. And nobody says this is easy – headline writers in newspapers are paid well for their ability to compose such things.

So why two headlines? Well, if you have installed the plugin ‘All-in-one-SEO-pack’ in your WordPress.org post, you will see at the bottom of your Post Editor page some more fields to fill in, and one of them is marked ‘Title’.

What I suggest is that you create your human-biased headline for the title of the post, and your spider-influenced headline for the ‘Title’ field at the bottom of the Post Editor page.

The human-headline will appear in RSS feeds in Twitter and Google Readers, whereas the spider-headline appears in the title at the top of your browser window and also in search engine indexes and RSS feeds into social media such as LinkedIn Groups (usually accompanied with what goes into the ‘Description’ field that follows after).

And as each have a good chance of being seen by humans and spiders alike, they need to be understandable by both, which makes their composition all that much harder!

blogs and blogging, marketing methods, Writing tips - Tags: All-in-one-SEO-pack, Google Readers, headlines, importance of the headline, LinkedIn Groups, logarithms, problems and solutions, RSS feeds, search criteria, search engine spiders, title, Twitter, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, words - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

What uses do password protected and private pages have?

Written on Wednesday 16 March 2011 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

There is a lot more than just writing posts in blogging. Even in a WordPress.com blog there are extended facilities not many people realise are available, or know what to do with them.

My analytics revealed a lot of interest in password protected and private pages. This is quite exciting, as it allows WordPress users to create a simple membership-only portion in their blog; somewhere where only invited readers are allowed to access and read the contents within.

I first came across this idea from another blogger, who used his e-newsletter to communicate to his followers, informing them that only they, as special members of his list, were allowed to have a password that unlocked specific pages in his blog to learn the vital information they contained.

This favouritism certainly worked on me, and I felt honoured to be party to this secret system. It was a clever ploy to keep me in the fold and make me feel special, to ensure I would value the information he was allowing access to, and to maintain the concept that even though it was free to me, it might not be so to others.

If this was used within a WordPress.org blog, there could be some monetary value added towards the access criteria, or it could merely be a practical resource to enhance an ‘Inner Circle’ type membership, which a coach may have set up for specific clients in certain fields.

And once past the main password protected page, there could be a veritable maze of protected pages available for individual members, each containing sensitive and confidential material only available to those who know how to gain access.

And private pages? Their contents are only visible to Administrators who have access to the Dashboard within the blog, so I suppose if the blog was a complicated and intricate website, with much information to conceal from the outside world, then they would be valuable here.

blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, marketing methods, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: allowed access, blogging, blogs and blogging, e-newsletter to communicate, Inner Circle membership, membership sites, password protected pages, private pages, sensitive and confidential material, unlock specific pages, Wordpress, writing posts - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Would Victorians understand blogging?

Written on Friday 10 September 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Blogging is definitely a 21st century phenomenon. So why am I thinking of it in 19th century terms?

Quite some time ago I posted a question on LinkedIn asking how would a Victorian gentleman view blogging. The responses were as varied as they were interesting, some even replying as if they were Victorian gentlemen themselves! Apart from the florid language and lengthy time taken to describe things, it was a good insight to break down blogging into its most basic format, to view it without all the bells and whistles that adorn this platform that could also confuse the true reason why to blog.

The internet was viewed as the telegraph, and therefore a blog is somewhere to publish your news through the telegraph system to reach a much wider gathering than through letter alone. Of course, sending a letter to The Times would certainly reach many readers, and the Victorians were compulsive letter writers (as well as reading them), but a blog could resemble an inclusive Gentleman’s Club through which you could submit your thoughts and musings, ideas and innovations, gripes and grumbles, retorts and responses, to both a private and public audience.

This opportunity to broadcast yourself as a source of authority, where readers will take your opinions as fact, would be much less expensive than writing and printing a series of pamphlets. These might be in danger of not reaching their intended audience, be wasted in their distribution, and be limited in their extent of circulation, and certainly could not enable their recipients to respond immediately through the same medium.

Your letters would reach their recipients much quicker than the usual method of postage, without the initial cost of paper, envelope and a stamp. And if you wanted to change your mind or add more to your message, this could be possible even after distribution. Replies may even be instantaneous, resulting in an immediate response of your own, thus adding to the conversation which could elaborate further on the subject matter.

And it would be worth while reading other gentlemen’s letters on their similar methods of communication, just to keep in the know, monitor what your competitors are doing, and steal a march on other exciting projects by acting first. Every time you reply to these letters, your signature will allow other readers of these missives to find out who you are and read what you have written, thus extending your expertise in the subject and your presence in the community.

And there is also somewhere where you can leave your visiting card for interested persons to access, find out more about you, and even take the opportunity to visit you, either at your Club or in person. You would only have to distribute one visiting card, as it would be able to be seen by a great many more persons than leaving it on the table in a Club or another social meeting place in the hope that it might get noticed.

What other elements of a Victorian business man’s life might be improved if he had this wonderful innovation they call a ‘blog’?

blogs and blogging, marketing methods - Tags: audience, blog, blogging, communication, conversation, ideas and innovations, letters, LinkedIn, publish your news, source of authority, visiting cards - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

How can a blog become a business?

Written on Friday 27 August 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

Someone on LinkedIn asked a question if blogs are businesses. Many of the answers wittered on about affiliate and sponsored advertising, as if making money made your blog a business. I sometimes wonder how much money these blogs actually do make… I personally ignore all advertising I see on blogs and just concentrate on the posts.

There is also the old adage that a blog can help your business (and I’ve written plenty about that before), but have you considered how a blog could be adapted to become an integral element of your business, rather than a useful accessory?

You could adapt your blog to become a blogsite (a website using a blogging platform such as WordPress that is self-hosted) to become a more substantial business tool. The alternative to having irritating adverts would be to write the pages to incorporate e-commerce (shopping carts) for visitors to buy e-courses, products, services, etc, because the blog is self-hosted, you can include any kind of HTML or web-programming for money-making functions.

Your entire blog can be adapted to become a very effective website, suitably programmed to attract SEO, internet and audience traffic, and RSS feeds to social media and elsewhere. The blog news-stream will attract a readership which can be directed to the other pages on your blogsite, which in themselves should be transformed into effective landing pages for email and Google Adword campaigns. I note there are effective sales pages programmes available for WordPress now.

Why not take advantage of a blog’s ability to become a membership site. The privacy and password protected posts and pages will enable you to gain paid-for subscriptions for members to view certain elements of your business. You could also build up a membership or forum, like a sort of ‘Inner Circle’, or even provide individual page access for particular subscribers or customers. This feature is extremely easy to set up, even for a WordPress.com blog (see my e-courses on the sidebar).

This proves I don’t see blogs merely as somewhere to post up your thoughts, or even somewhere to put up advertising, but certainly occupying a viable position for making a business successful.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, marketing methods, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: advertising, blogs as businesses, blogsites, business tool, ecommerce, Google Adwords, LinkedIn Questions, making money, RSS feeds, SEO, traffic, websites, Wordpress - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

5 top tips for a successful post

Written on Friday 14 May 2010 by Alice

Fairy Blog Mother

The Fairy Blog Mother is always open to questions about blogging, so when one client showed me a draft post she had compiled to go into her new blog (which I have been designing for her) to ask for my approval, I realised I could share them with you too. Here they are listed below:

1. Short and snappy: I know people do write long blog posts (I know, I’m guilty - there are plenty of examples in this blog) but a good rule is to keep your post to within 250 words (or if you can’t visualise that, about three good sized paragraphs will do) to maintain the reader’s attention. Since a blog is really a conversational medium, it’s not really suitable for long articles with deep intricate discussions, so these are better off posted in article directories.

2. Capture their attention: A good headline is vital on many fronts. It is usually the first point of call for your posts, so should be designed to draw the punters in, say exactly what’s on the tin, and can be enhanced by being stuffed full of keywords for Search Engine Optimisation purposes, especially as it also doubles as a link when used within a RSS feed.

3. Be up front: Explain exactly what the subject of your post is in the first paragraph, ideally within the first sentence. Research has shown that people usually only read the first 25% or spend an average of 96 seconds on a blog post before they decide whether it’s of interest or whether it’s worth reading – therefore don’t leave the most important or most interesting part until last, in case your readers never get there!

4. A quick read: Most people scan a blog post to get the gist and make a decision to read further. Sub-dividing your post into bullet points or subheadings to help towards maintaining short attention spans, facilitating skim reading habits, enabling subject recognition or just break up over-long text. Numbered posts like this one at good, as they aren’t difficult to write, and can very easily provide your reader the information they crave.

5. Command a response: Blogs thrive on reader interaction which in turn provides links, another vital element. Each comment’s link is a gateway for internet spiders, as well as new material (or spider food) for the search engines. Comments can be stimulated by controversial, confrontational or poignantly educational posts (like this one?), or you could pose a question or statement to invite a comment, just like the one below:

Can any of you think of more pointers to add to my list?

What 3 elements make up SEO?

Written on Monday 9 November 2009 by Alice

Both kinds of blog

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the natural or organic method of getting your website placed higher in the search engines, as opposed to paying for online advertising.

As a result it is a task that is never ending, always requiring you to be one step ahead of your competitors, and any successes tend to be short lived, as Google responds to all new material that is posted online, and it is always the latest contributions that are indexed at the top.

But it is a process that should not be ignored. Even if your website or latest blog post reaches its desired placing for a short time, it has got there, and who knows will look at it or read it while it resides in its lofty position. The more times you manage to attain this prize, the higher the chances of recognition, acknowledgement and conversion through response.

To explain simply, SEO work on three main elements: new content, links and keywords. I know all SEO experts out there will be saying ‘Oh, but you’ve forgotten this element’, and of course they’re right, as experts they should have many tricks up their sleeves to attain the final goal: get as high as you can in Google. But if you understand these three elements, there is no reason why anybody can’t give it a try.

New Content: search engines rely on their spiders: mathematically driven robots that ‘crawl’ the net looking for new material that has been posted. Once found, they feed greedily on it before passing it onto their master, the search engine, to be indexed. If your website or blog, especially the blog, has regularly published new content, it stands a better chance of being placed higher than any old material from your competitors.

Links: spiders need to have a method of entering and leaving your website or blog. Think of links being the doors or portals spiders use to find new content. Incoming links allow spiders to enter and feed, and outgoing links (especially if they are relevant to the content and final destination) will enable them to leave and visit other suitable sites, giving you brownie points as they do so.

Keywords: relevance is vital for spiders to work effectively. Keywords should be relevant to the content, destinations of links, and popularity of searches, eg what people are searching for at that moment. It would be wise therefore to properly research suitable keywords that are not only popular but truly reflect your new material and business. It’s simply like a game of snap, and the best results are attained through correct recognition of a match!

Now that you know these three elements, take them into consideration next time you post up something new on the net.

blogs and blogging, marketing methods - Tags: destination of links, indexed in Google, keywords, links, new content, popularity of searches, search engine optimisation, SEO, SEO experts, spiders, three elements - 3 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Learn how to link in to LinkedIn

Written on Monday 2 November 2009 by Alice

Here’s just a small visual e-course I quickly compiled to demonstrate how easy it is to submit articles into groups in LinkedIn:

http://www.designyourmarketing.co.uk/How to create submissions in the BinB LinkedIn group.pdf

Let me know if it helps to make it easier to contribute. The more activity there is in these groups, the more there is to read, the more promotion members can make, the more new material there is for the internet spiders, and the more interaction from members also contributes to search engine optimisation.

So how about it – go on, give it a go!

blogs and blogging, marketing methods - Tags: activity, groups, interaction, internet spiders, LinkedIn, members, new material, search engine optimisation, submit articles, visual e-course - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

What is the difference between an article and a blog post?

Written on Monday 3 August 2009 by Alice

An article is a lengthy piece of writing, written in an expert’s point of view, aimed at explaining a topic in great detail. A blog post is a shorter piece of writing, usually in a ‘conversational’ style, aimed at updating or educating your readers, or to spark ideas and interest in your business.

Articles are produced to promote the author’s expertise and prowess at writing and research, hence why they are long. A blog post should take one subject and explain it succinctly within a few short paragraphs, written from multiple view-points to gain the comprehension of the reader.

Articles can vary in length, and even though they are online, are designed to be printed out for leisurely reading. Blog posts are meant to be read immediately. The subject should be introduced within the headline and first sentence, and the concept within the first paragraph. As most blog readers only read the first 25% of a post, or spend an average of 96 seconds, getting the jist across at the very beginning is important to achieve your post being read in full.

Twitter has minimalised this even further (hence why it’s called micro-blogging). There are just 140 characters to get your point across and capture your reader’s interest, but you do have the advantage of interaction: a tinyurl link can be added to direct the reader to a blog post or article for further reading.

blogs and blogging, marketing methods - Tags: articles, blog posts, blogging, blogs and blogging, educating, expertise, experts, headlines, links, readers, research, subjects, succinctly, Twitter - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

What are your blogging barriers?

Written on Thursday 23 July 2009 by Alice

Many people have told me that they are afraid to start blogging. Digging further into this revealed a number of different fears, and not necessarily about the technology side, which I thought was the main reason. Yes, technology is a hindrance, but it is something that can eventually be overcome with guidance. It is the psychological aspects that can be real barriers.

One psychological area is how you appear to your public. Are you as good as your peers, so is what you write worth reading? Everybody else seems to have such intelligent things to say, and your little contribution will be swamped.

Not so! If you are really passionate about your subject, and know it inside out, what you write about will always be interesting to others. You are the expert here, so why not let others know about it? What you think is just ordinary may be totally new to others, especially if you are able to explain it in a different way to the other bloggers.

Another way to overcome this barrier is to watch and listen (read) other blogs, and follow (or subscribe to) experts as they regularly post. This passive observation will enable you to understand more about how others talk about their businesses, how they publicise their benefits and solutions, and how they increase their visibility and therefore their reputation.

It will enable you to sort out the real experts from the time-wasters who have nothing particular to say, and the latter should fire you up in to producing your own viewpoint to counteract their crass statements. Don’t just sit there stewing, correct it within your own blog!

Another way to contribute your two-pence-worth is through commenting. If you like what someone has posted (or even disagree), then leave a comment! It doesn’t have to be much, but it does have to be more than just ‘Nice post’.

I advise always to be polite, complimentary or forthcoming, even if you are totally disagreeing, to maintain your good character. Remember how horrid it is to receive negative responses that drain all your self-confidence, so don’t go down that road. Stand in good stead with other readers and encourage them to offer their own sides in the argument.

And another barrier is if you are unsure of your own credibility to write well. All I can say to this is, practice. I didn’t start out writing well, so I read lots of blogs and learnt a few techniques, and started writing posts to see how it went, and eventually I picked up a style that seemed to work.

One technique is to imagine talking to your readers, so write like you’re having a conversation with them. It will enable your readers to warm more towards you and your posts. If you find this difficult, try yabbering away into a dictaphone and then transcribe it as a post – this will train you into your conversational style; you can always edit it into good English later. And once you’ve accomplished this ability it will make writing posts that much easier.

If I haven’t covered all the reasons why this stops you from blogging, then why not let me know? If I have enough information I could write another post about it, and acknowledge my sources appropriately (thanks go to Helene Cooper and Ute Wieczorek-King for their ideas). And remember, leaving comments helps bring traffic to your sites too.

blogs and blogging, marketing methods - Tags: barriers, blogging, blogs and blogging, business, comments, conversation, fears, guidance, increasing business visibility, marketing methods, posts, psychological, technology, traffic, writing - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Never give up on your marketing

Written on Monday 15 June 2009 by Alice

I read somewhere that small businesses really ought to spend 40% of their time doing marketing if they want to survive. 40%! That’s quite a lot, especially if you’re a sole trader or only have a few employees, but if you think about it, a lot of what you do would be already considered as marketing without you really knowing it.

Write down all the marketing activities you already do, and I expect you’ll be surprised. Certainly contributing to a blog is one of them. Writing your newsletter, answering questions from clients, writing a sales letter, updating your website, writing the words to advertise your next promotion, getting new literature printed, networking, thinking of a new elevator pitch – I could go on and on.

Next, split up these tasks into their respective areas. By reducing them down to their bare elements they become less oppressive and more manageable. Concentrate on what you enjoy doing the most, and see if you can farm out the less deletable to someone who does enjoy doing them or knows more about it.

Set up a marketing system – mark out on a calendar your tactics ahead, focusing on next week or month or even a year. Work out how they will be achieved systematically and automatically, planning in advance so that nothing is missed out and you know exactly what the end goal is. In fact, why not work backwards from the final product? This method will certainly sort out the time factors much more easily for you.

Try new marketing methods – there may be new ones you haven’t thought of that might make a big difference. Do lots of research and ask others who may already be doing it before you take on any large projects, but certainly dabbling won’t do you any harm. It’s always good to keep in the know.

And don’t forget to keep asking questions to make sure you are on the right track. Do a poll or a questionnaire, find out where your target market is hanging out, what they need and want, and what solutions will be the best thing for them. Be able to adapt your business accordingly – you must keep up with changes.

And remember, marketing is not a quick fix. It does take time, because what you are aiming to do is to gain the trust of potential clients. It can take several months for a marketing cycle to produce results, so don’t get despondent if nothing seems to be working immediately. A watched kettle never boils, but you will get your cup of tea in time.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, marketing methods - Tags: blogging, blogs and blogging, business, customers, marketing activities, marketing methods, new marketing methods, newsletters, online and offline, questionnaires and polls, questions, relationships, strategy, trust - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?