Monthly Archives: February 2012

Guest Post: 3 Ways to Speed Up Your Blog Time & Still Write Quality Content

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photo credit: istock photo

Do you use blog writing to attract business? Do you wonder how you can double your blog output and still have a life? Do you worry about whether your blogs offer quality content that your target readers will love, so they will subscribe? Know the biggest benefit to strategic blog marketing means that Google will like your blogs. Each time you write a blog post, you build your website traffic.

I can relate. When I started a blog over 6 years ago, I got discouraged because of little audience response and little traffic increase. Against my better judgment, I quit. Now, after four years of using a WordPress blog, I realize I just needed to multiply my posts so Google would notice me and I’d get more targeted subscribers. As a writing coach, I already knew what I could do. I just needed to do it. You can relate, yes?

I recommend you post at least two times a week and share your blog URLs on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

For your best results, here’s my proven top 3 Ways to create quality blog posts faster.

One. Write a Title of One Specific Question to One Specific Audience and Answer it.

You may be marketing a book or your service. Your target audiences want their questions answered. Questions are one of the best ways to write a blog title. To find out where your audiences are now, you can poll your audience with a survey by email or on one of the social media platforms. Simply ask them to state their biggest challenge or problem.

They may have many questions. That’s great. You can leverage each blog post by a complete answer to their question. For example, book writers ask, “How can I write my book fast and sell it faster too?” Of the nine pre-marketing answers given to this in a book chapter of my “Write your eBook or Other Book – Fast!” I simply address one at a time in nine different blog posts. For example,”Do you know your Target Audience for your Book? This one blog post became 1000 words. That number is good for some audiences, but the sweet spot for blog length is around 500-800 words and many will want shorter lengths.

Two. Rewrite Similar Content for a Different Audience.

Many authors have multiple audiences, so to bring more sales, they need to write different blogs aimed at the needs of different audiences. For instance, one client who is a coach for eating disorders, now writes blogs for her three audiences – bingers, bulimics, and anorexics, because you can binge, but not necessarily be a bulimic or anorexic. She’s writing specific tips for each one. This approach will multiply her numbers and keep her audiences coming to her website, where she offers her other programs and new books we’re working on. Many general book titles will benefit from this approach.

Know your article’s purpose and specific audience and narrow your slant or focus your information just for them. They will feel as though you speak directly to them and get engaged with your post, leaving comments and clicking the links to your site where they can get more of you.

Three. Write a 500-Word tip blog post.

No matter what your topic is, your audience loves tips. This shortest “how to” blog post with numbered tips is the most popular of all.

*To create around 500 words, you need to…
*Choose a title that works for tips.
*Outline your topic.
*Write a one-two sentence hook or introduction.
*Include four to six sub points in outline form.
*Write each paragraph to support each sub point.
*Write only two or three short sentences for each paragraph.
*Create three to five paragraphs from each heading.
*Finish with a one or two sentence conclusion.

This kind of blog post blueprint will not only shorten your time, but will create consistent, organized, and easy to read blogs.

Now that you know three blog writing strategies that will keep your audience coming back for more quality content, will you share your latest blog writing challenges and successes with us?

25 year Book Coach, Judy Cullins helps you in business to write a “best seller” and build your brand with a short book to sell all the books and get all the clients you need. To double your blog writing, ask Judy about her blog coaching at bookcoaching.com/blog-editing.php

 

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Be Sure to Grab Your Seat: SistaSense Power Circle TeleSummit for Web Women Entrepreneurs

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SistaSense Power Circle Telesummit

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of LaShanda Henry, founder of Black Business Women Online. LaShanda is hosting another SistaSense Power Circle TeleSummit for Web Women Entrepreneurs, and I wanted to tell all of my readers about it. If you are a women entrepreneur with a business on the web you can’t afford to miss this fabulous event.

Are you ready to take your online business to the next level of greatness? The SistaSense Power Circle TeleSummit for Web Women Entrepreneurs is BACK by popular demand and its happening on March 1, 2012. LaShanda posted the registration page a few days ago and the virtual seats are going fast (BTW, there are only 50 seats available).

There will be a power house of speakers including some of your favorite business women from last year’s circle and 5 new women you need to have in your circle today! Speakers include: Pam Perry, Jai Stone, Richelle Shaw, Deborah Owens, Katrina Harrell, Beverly Mahone, Ananda Leeke, Tara Jefferson Pringle, and Artiatesia Deal.

The mission of this TeleSummit is to help women entrepreneurs take their online businesses to the next level with solid PR, branding, blogging, wealth-building, marketing, working with media skills and more. The Success of Your Business Depends on the Company You Keep! Get in Good Company by joining us for the next Power Circle – 12 Live Sessions + Access to all Replays –->> Use Early Bird discount code EAR10.

You don’t want to wish you were there and you don’t want to keep wishing things will just get better. Join us for the next all day Power Circle. To register today and get session details visit: http://bit.ly/ACOhQ8 and use discount code AFF10 if the early bird discount code has expired.

 

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5 Practical Tips for Blogging Your Way to Writing a Book

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Last week I published a blog post, Blogging Tips: How to Blog Your Way to Writing a Book. I wrote about the process that I used to write the content of my upcoming book from a series of blog posts.  I received a comment from a reader named, Tamara who said,

“Congrats on finishing your manuscript! I love the concept of blogging your way to publishing a book. I am a dessert blogger, so my question is do you think this can work for me too? I already have a few concepts in mind for cookbooks, but I think recipe development is key for me as opposed to writing lengthy blog posts. What are your thoughts?”

Tamara also left a similar comment on my Facebook business page, so I answered it there. As I was thinking of a response I got the idea for a blog post because there may be others of you out there who are thinking about using your blog to help you come up with the content for a book.

Here is our exchange on Facebook:

Now here are five practical tips for blogging your way to writing a book:

1. Announce your intention to write a book on your blog

Announcing your intention of writing a book publicly on your blog serves several purposes at once. It creates a sense of accountability. Now that you’ve announced it publicly, you better believe that your readers are going to ask you about how it’s going, and it makes the project more real to you and that might motivate you to stick with it until it is finished.

2. Blog about the theme of your book

If you are working with a publisher, then you’ve already done the work of creating a book proposal for your project. Now you will tailor your blog posts to fit in with the outline of the book. You will not be writing the entire book—word for word—on your blog. You will still have additional sections to write outside of the blog, but if you are having trouble finding time to fit writing a book into your crazy schedule, and you already have an established blog, your writing gets to do double duty for you.

3. Set a deadline for completing your book

Working towards a deadline can be a great motivator. Let your readers know what your deadline is for finishing the manuscript. You might even put one of those countdown clocks on your blog that displays how many days you have left to finish. This will create a sense of urgency and drama and help pull your readers in. It will also spur you on to stick to your writing schedule to avoid public humiliation if you don’t finish on time.

4. Get your readers involved

In the case of Tamara, who wants to write a dessert cookbook, she will not necessarily write most of the cookbook on the blog. As I mentioned in the Facebook comment, she can use her blog to share photos as she goes through the recipe development process, she can write about the ingredients she is using, where and how she sources them, her inspiration for the dessert items, where she gets her ideas from, and how she narrows down which recipes get included in the book and which ones get cut. She can involve her readers in all of these kinds of posts by asking them questions and soliciting their feedback.

5. Set a daily or weekly writing goal and stick with it consistently

Setting and keeping a daily or weekly writing schedule is the only way you will get you book finished. I set a time limit of 30 days, and the goal to write a blog post every single day for 30 days straight. You will have to figure out how many pages your book will have, and then estimate from there how many of those pages you want to write on your blog, and then set your deadline date.

An additional bonus to using your blog to help you write your book is with every blog post you are building your writer’s platform. You are establishing the audience for your book well in advance of publication.

I hope you found those tips to be helpful. I think that with just a little bit of creativity you can find a way to write many different kinds of books on your blog. If you have blogged your way to writing a book, please include a link to it in the comments so we can go take a look.

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Blogging Tips: How to Blog Your Way to Writing a Book

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I’ve been blogging for many years, and looking over my blog archives I’ve often figured that there was enough content there for a book. I’m a freelance writer, so much of my writing time and energy is devoted to writing for my clients. I’m also a single mom with three kids and I run a business from my home, so I had lots of excuses for not finding time to write a book.

There are countless benefits of being a published author. Whenever I introduce myself as a writer, people almost always ask if I’ve published a book. I have grown weary of making excuses for why I haven’t published a book, so last year I decided to use my blog to help me come up with the content for a book. I gave myself a focused challenge and I write a post every day for a month. I then took those thirty blog posts and expanded them and added additional content. Now I have got an almost completed manuscript for a book based on the content of my blogging challenge.

This morning I came across this article, 7 Things You Must Do Before Writing Your Book, which is full of great tips for those who are thinking about writing a book. The author, Ofili, writes about the power of blogging to help you get your book written, ” I put myself on a strict and disciplined regimen of writing at least one 1500 article every month. I did this unfailingly starting January of 2011 and at the end of the year, I had 20+ quality articles chapters and over 25,000+ words in my book.” The secret is to commit to a focused writing schedule and be consistent.

There are a few benefits of blogging your book. One of those benefits, as Ofili mentions in his post, is the opportunity for instant feedback from your readers. Another benefit is that you are establishing a platform, building an audience for the book and getting your name and writing out there in the world. The best benefit, I believe, is the responsibility to your readers to blog consistently. Once you hook your readers in with what you are writing, they are going to want to stay in the loop and find out what happens.

Bloggers who want to become authors should go ahead and give it a whirl. Choose the topic of your book and focus your blog posts around that theme. Tell your readers what you are doing and get their support and encouragement. The positive comments I received when I did my blogging challenge really motivated me to stick with it no matter what.

Now that my manuscript is almost finished I am researching publishing options. It will launch first as an ebook, so you will be the first to hear about it when it drops. Keep on writing.

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Writing Tips and Tools: ProWritingAid.com

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I stumbled across this writing tool when they started following me on Twitter. I checked out the website and gave it a try. There’s a blank field on the main page of the website where you can paste your written copy and then click the ‘analyze,’ button. The pro writing aid software analyzes your writing and gives you suggestions for revisions in categories such as:

  •  Overused words
  • Sentence variation
  • Clichés & Redundancies
  • Repeated words & phrases

The pro writing aid tool also analyses sentence length, clichés and the pacing of your writing. If you are going to hand your writing over to a human editor, you might want to first pop it into this free tool and make the suggested corrections that you agree with and then see what your editor has to say.

I tried it with an article I wrote this morning, and I found the edits useful. It pointed out to me how much I overuse certain words, it revealed my penchant for beginning sentences with conjunctions and prepositions, and it showed how I could improve the pacing or my work. I also tend to write long, rambling sentences. Long sentences are fine as long as you vary the length of all the sentences in that piece of writing. Every single word should carry its own weight.

I often coach beginning writers about the importance of separating the creative process of writing from the mechanical process of editing and revising. After you have written something, set it aside for awhile and then run it through prowritingaid.com to help improve the finished product.

While it’s never going to replace a human editor, prowritingaid.com is a handy, free tool that you can use to run your writing through to clean it up and catch common errors.

 

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