How to Blog Consistently: Create a Blogging Habit

Posted on by Shannan Seely

How’s your blog doing?

Remember in high school when the cheerleaders would spell the letters out loud for the word CONFIDENCE to the crowd? They’d yell “C-O-N … F-I-D … C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-C-Eeeeeeee!” The cheerleaders wanted people in the stands to join in the chant and encourage their team to victory.

For blogging, I think the word we need to pay attention to is C-O-N-S-I-S-T-E-N-C-Y.

If your company has a blog, and you’re not publishing consistently, then you’re probably:

  • Losing followers.
  • Missing new leads.
  • Losing online authority.
  • And your website may be penalized by search engines, including Google, for the lack of fresh content.

Maybe you’re feeling a little regret. A year is almost done and your company has missed the lead generation gusto a regularly published blog can bring.

Do you want a different result next year? Continue reading How to Blog Consistently: Create a Blogging Habit

Read This if You Take Writing Seriously

Posted on by Shannan Seely
Shannan with Ann Handley2
My picture with Ann Handley, after her presentation at Content Marketing World 2017

Were you assigned to write a blog post that’s due next week? Oh, horror of horrors! Are you worried about starting with a blank page? Do you dread writing a story from scratch?

Every bit of writing in marketing has an objective. And that can be worrisome if you don’t know your objective. If you think the words matter, then you take writing seriously. So if you’re in this camp, you may want to keep reading.

I’m sharing some pointers from Ann Handley’s presentation at Content Marketing World 2017  – Writing Secrets from Productive and Prolific Writers (the Jerks!): How to Create Better Content When No One Has Enough Time.

Her advice just might boost your writing today.  Continue reading Read This if You Take Writing Seriously

Why Defining a Strategy and Not Wavering Works

Posted on by Shannan Seely

At Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Amanda Todorovich gave a talk – How to Build a Killer Content Marketing Strategy – on Cleveland Clinic’s effort to grow an audience for the organization’s Health Essentials newsletter.

Todorovich, director of content marketing, manages a team of writers, designers, digital engagement strategists and project managers. Her team is responsible for the #1 most-visited hospital blog in the country.

The newsletter started at 0 visits and grew to 5 million visits per month in October this year.

I was inspired listening to her talk. She does not minimize the effort required or the mistakes made along the way. You hear about the trial and error. Her presentation shows the possibility of building an audience in a highly regulated field. Health Essentials is a living example of what happens when you do the work, persist and continue to do the work. Eventually, you will earn good results.

So how did she and her team reach this readership? Continue reading Why Defining a Strategy and Not Wavering Works

What Your Clients Ought to Know About Good Blog Content

Posted on by Shannan Seely
A quote from Albus Dumbledore on words are magical
Quote Print by Mini Press on society6.com

Your clients ask, “What is good content on a blog?” What do you say? Their inquiry may be a sign they’re ready to start a blog.

Perhaps your employees are helping the client plan a content strategy. In conversations, the client shares he doesn’t know the definition of the term good content.

A blog webpage is already set up on the company’s website. No blog posts have been created. All the marketing director needs to do is begin. If blogging was easy, the first post would have already been published. He wonders what the blog should be about.

Clients might be stalling, but they want to know:

What is good blog content?

It’s not “I’ll know it when I see it.” Vagueness is evil in marketing. Clarity is heavenly.

With over 409 million people viewing more than 22.4 billion pages each month, and that’s only blogs hosted by WordPress, your client needs guidance.

1 to 5 star rating
How do you rate a blog post?

Everyone has an opinion on what makes a book worthwhile to read or a meal delicious to eat. Preferences are personal. In judging content, readers decide. They determine if it’s high quality or super awful.

Does that mean we just write 500 words and hope someone will read it? No. There’s more to a successful blog than word count and luck.

What do you advise your clients?

In my opinion, all good blog content has 4 universal truths.

Truth 1. Sticks to Only One Purpose
Truth 2. Recognized as a Valuable Product
Truth 3. Crafted as an Un-Template Original
Truth 4. Leads the Reader Honestly

Let me share these concepts so you can foster an informative discussion about good blog content with your clients. Continue reading What Your Clients Ought to Know About Good Blog Content