Tag Archives: blogging for beginners

5 Proven Ways To Increase Blog Post Engagement

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blog post engagement

1. Evaluate your blog post’s headline.

Is it catchy enough?

If you’re struggling with catchy headlines or coming up with something that rolls off the tongue or piques your viewers’ interest, go to BuzzFeed.com and check out some of the headlines there for inspiration.

Is it Catchy Enough?

(above- Buzzfeed.com encourages readers to spend hours on their site, clicking headings that pique our curiosity)

You want to pique reader interest so ensure your headlines play on our curiosity.

Pay a lot of attention to your headlines. About 50% of the effort you’re putting into your post, you should be putting into your headlines.

2. Pay attention to your formatting.

Make sure that your posts are easy to scan, not necessarily read.

  1. Use short sentences.
  2. Use lots of white space
  3. Summarize key points in bold headings
  4. Bold key points
  5. Italicize sparingly
  6. Use bullets and numbering
  7. Provide at least 3 links to resources you mention in the post

Pay attention to your formatting

(this post from LinkedIn has all the right ingredients to encourage me to keep reading)

3. Use images and multimedia.

Historically, posts that are shared the most are the ones that have up to 15 images.

So at least use one image. If you can include a video as well, absolutely go for it.

People want to see photos and they want to see videos more than they want to read a big wall of text.

The most successful posts used images to show someone exactly how to do what they’re describing in the post, not just what to do.

Tips on using images:

  1. Take pictures using your smartphone or screenshots
  2. Pay for stock images
  3. Use free images found on the internet – search Creative Commons licence on Flikr.com for example.

HOT TIP on images:

See the eyeball heatmap image below. For any of you unfamiliar with a eyeball heat map, it tracks the amount of time people spend looking at various parts of a webpage. The longest times are red, followed by orange, yellow and then green.

According to KISS metrics, having an image of either a baby or a lady looking at the text you want someone to focus on, will encourage them to do so.

Hot tips on images

4. Longer blog posts are actually better

Recent studies show that posts over a thousand words are getting shared more and more often because they provide more value.

Instead of just skimming the surface of your topic, dive a little deeper. Provide a little bit more information and details to your audience and you will get rewarded.

5. Ask for what you want.

The very last thing a lot of folks forget to do is ask for interaction.

Ask for people to share your post with their network. Ask for comments and you will receive!

That’s your One Minute Tip. If you found this valuable, please consider sharing with your network. And if you don’t ever want to miss a tip, subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly tips in your inbox. Thanks so much for watching.


Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9RXALzJyY

Control Your Email Habits Before They Control You

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blogsAs a small business owner, few things are more important than good productivity and effective time management. Unfortunately, these aren’t always easy to achieve; especially when there’s Facebook to check, blogs to read, and a steady stream of emails to reply to.

Unlike Facebook and blogs though, email is something that no small business owner can or should avoid in the working day. The problems come when too much time is spent reading and rereading them while taking no action.

As we use MailChimp for our email marketing campaigns, we’re able to monitor our subscribers’ email habits. A few of the trends we’ve noticed from looking at this information is rather shocking; some people are actually opening our emails on up to 21 separate occasions.

Clearly this is a huge waste of time, and has prompted us to share a few tips on how to control your email habits before they control you.

Self-control with a self-timer

Assigning yourself a set amount of time for each task every day is a great way to ensure you don’t spend too long on just one and neglect the others. You can even set aside times for getting your fix of the non-work websites that are usually a constant temptation and distraction.

One of the most popular time management systems is the Pomodoro Technique, a method of assigning yourself medium length blocks of dedicated work time, usually around twenty five minutes long, interspersed with short breaks of five or ten minutes.

Giving yourself twenty five minutes of concentrated email time, perhaps two or three times a day if need be, will help to focus your mind on the task at hand, while giving yourself a guilt-free five or ten minute window to check Facebook or browse some blogs to refresh your mind in between.

Accountability looks good on paper

If you find yourself quickly checking your email and taking no action constantly throughout the day, it might shock you to learn just how many times you do this, even if the accumulative time spent doing so isn’t that much.

Every time you turn your mind to your email, no matter how briefly, you’re taking it away from all the other important tasks that need your attention too.

It’s natural to tell yourself you don’t do this too often while underestimating the real figure, but having a pen and paper with you and keeping a record of how many times you idly check your email throughout the day will help you see just how often you do so, which will in turn give you the visual evidence you might need to control this habit.

This technique isn’t restricted to just your email habits, either. Keeping track of how many times you unconsciously open a social media page or look at blogs you don’t actually read can help you cut down on that habit too.

Another type of game theory

One irrefutable fact of life is that people are more likely to work on tasks if they enjoy them. Another fact of life is that nobody enjoys wading through a backlog of emails. The obvious solution here then is to somehow make email a fun endeavor, and eliminate the boredom that constantly drives people back to browsing social media and non-work related blogs. If only there were a way.

Welcome to the Email Game.

Easily found on Google, the Email Game is a web application that turns the task of clearing your inbox into something enjoyable, which of course helps motivate you to get through them quickly, eliminating the bottleneck that is your inbox and freeing you up to get on with the next thing on your to-do list.

Take control of your email habits today

Spending time on email every day is unavoidable for small business owners, but nurturing good habits can ensure that time is spent well rather than wasted. Every minute saved on not idly checking your inbox can be spent on something more productive.

It can even be reassigned and become time reserved for browsing social media, reading blogs, or any other leisure activity that can help relax your mind and maintain your concentration on the important tasks of the day.

A Beginners Guide To Blogging For Business

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Today on our one minute tip we are going to start from scratch with blogging for beginners.

What is a blog post anyways and why would you want to start blogging as a small business owner who already has a million things to do?

3 reasons every business owner should be blogging:

You want people coming back to your website, you want people sharing your website on social media and you want your website to be found on search engines.

So one of the most effective ways to kill all those birds with one stone is to blog!

A blog is actually just a fancy name for an article. 500 or so words is all you are looking for.

How to Blog for Business, Step 1: Brainstorm topics.

Think about what your customers or perspective customers always ask you about your business.

If you can think about 5 or 10 topics, pick one and start there.

How to Blog for Business, Step 2: Answer customer questions

Then think about 3 points you normally use to address that question or that topic to your customer.

Expand on those points.

Sit down and write if that is easier or you can use your voice recorder tool on your smart phone which can translate your words to text and will basically write your blog post for you!

Once you are done your 3 points you have expanded on, just add a summary and introduction paragraph to the beginning.

How to Blog for Business, Step 3; Create a Catchy Headline

Think of a catchy headline, like, “3 Mistakes That Most People Shopping for a Fireplace Usually Make”.

Then post this on your website and try to do it on a fairly consistent basis, even once a month is better than none at all.

That is your one minute tip! If you liked this tip, please share and follow our youtube channel here:

 

The Complete Beginners Guide To Blogging

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If you’re wondering how blogging can benefit anyone marketing a business, look no further!

Here we’ve outlined what the benefits of blogging are, how often you should blog, what to blog about and BONUS what to do if you’re not good at writing.

5 benefits of regular business blogging:

  1. Creating a regular blog post is a fantastic way to help the search engines find your website.
  2. Posting fresh content will make visitors want to come back to your website over and over again.
  3. It will give you something to talk about on social media.
  4. Blogging helps establish you as about leader in your industry by increasing your reputation for your expertise and credibility.
  5. As a customer service and sales tool it can help educate prospects on the details of your offering & benefits

photoHow often should I blog?

I recommend that every professional and business start blogging at least one post a month.

How do I start blogging?

Typically each blog post should be between 300 and 500 words.

It should take about an hour to create a blog post and then maybe another half an hour to edit it.

Be sure to schedule a time in and keep that commitment to yourself.

What if I am not good at writing? 

If you are not very good at writing you can use the various voice recording tools to translate your speech into text– then you can always edit it later. (I use the voice to text tool on my iphone).

What should I blog about?

The first thing to do when you are starting to blog is to come up with a topic.

  1. Topics to blog about things that your customers or future customers are concerned with.
  2. If you have a frequently asked questions page on your website, for example, you can start by creating a blog post to provide in-depth answers to each one of those questions.
  3. Visit your website statistics or Google analytics and review the keywords, or what people are typing into Google to get your website that will give you plenty of topics.
  4. Get Interviewed: Another easy way to get blog posts done is to have somebody interview you, record it and then publish those interviews.
  5. News Related Posts: You have things that happen in your business that you can write about, such as a move, expansion, hire, new product line etc.
  6. Piggyback on trends: Whether it’s the latest movie, or an internet meme, see if you can find away to incorporate the trend with your business.
  7. Seasonal posts: Whether it’s Hallowe’en or New Years, there’s always a seasonal event you can capitalize on for new ideas.

Ok I have a blog post- now what?

Once you created your blog post you can then post it on your website and share it with your existing and future customers through your email newsletter and your social networks

You can then repurpose your blog posts by creating videos and custom images to accompany the blog post.

Be sure to review your website statistics to see what posts got the best response, and ask your friends, family, customers and staff to provide you with feedback and help share your post.

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