TIP #1: Plan Your Articles
Map out 20 -30 article titles ahead of time. This keeps your topic mix fresh and helps avoid writers block. If you know the direction you’re going, you don’t have to re-think each time you sit down to write a blog post.

This is also a good time to plan keyword placement. Make sure your articles are informative, but also have a 2-3% keyword density to maximize your search engine optimization. Investing time in crafting your blog post titles. Spend some time and think about a title that will attract and captivate the imagination of your target audience.

TIP #2: Build Off Other Content
You don’t always have to reveal earth shattering news or tips on your blog. It can be just as effective and valuable to your audience to make recommendations, product reviews, or point them to other informative websites. One example of this is embedding a YouTube video in your blog post, commenting on the video, and then add some suggestions or recommendations of your own. The key is sharing information or videos that your audience will care about, not any video will do.

TIP #3: Have a Point and Get To It Fast
Blog posts should be at a max 500 words. The key is drawing your audience in with the first 1-2 sentences. Replace the lengthy introduction paragraph with one sentence. The second sentence should be your thesis, argument, or point that you are trying to make.

TIP #4: Simple Language
Most of your audience will be people who want to learn something from your article. Short sentences are attractive, easily readable and understood. Like getting lost in translation the point you so anxiously wish to make can be lost by the time the reader finds his way to the end of a long sentence. (an example of what not to do)

TIP #5: No Excuses, Just Do It Already
Writing and procrastination have a tendency to go together. The worst thing you can do is not update your blog on a regular basis. Blogging 4-5x per week will yield amazing SEO benefits. Stop putting it off until tomorrow and start typing something now. You’ll get better with each blog you write.

Take the $300 per month you’re spending on a print ad or mailer and invest it in content creation. By content creation I mean articles. Short 500 word articles that use your keyword phrases and pertain to your business or industry. If you were writing a newsletter to send out to your existing customers what would you tell them? Use this mindset to outline and write 20-25 articles a month.

You can hire someone to write these for you. There are plenty of starving English majors looking for this type of work. Personally I recommend you write your own articles. In the process of writing your articles you revisit the needs of your customers and what’s important to them. Taking the time to thoughtfully respond to their needs helps you when you meet them face to face or on the phone. In order the keep pumping out new articles, you’re forced to keep-up and research your industry news, events, and competitors.

Now take each article and post it on your blog. Don’t do this all at once, you want a nice trickle rate of 4-5 articles per week. Each article you add to your blog should be tagged with keywords and make sure you set your blog to ping. Read More About Pinging Here

Think of each article your write as a new ‘doorway’ that people can use to find you and your business. Each article is a page that Google and other search engines can use to index you on their sites. The more pages indexed the more likely potential customers will find you. The more articles you have the more you look like an expert in your field.

Now that you have articles you can leverage that content to market on other websites too!
Read how to repurpose content here:  Repurposing Your Content

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Are you looking for referrals, website traffic, feedback, communication, or establishing yourself as an expert?  I already know your answer, “I want all of those things”.  You will get more bang for your time if you focus on one goal at a time. My personal recommendation to beginners is to focus on the goal of establishing yourself as an expert and authority.  By reaching this goal the other goals will fall into place.

What Can I Contribute?

Social media is not like traditional advertising or marketing. It is more like referrals, in networking it is not about making sales at the after hours mixers.  You need to build a rapport with your online network by providing good information, recommending resources, and sharing ideas and feedback. Think about what you can give to your audience. What information or ideas do I have that would be of interest to your network? Approach it from the attitude, ‘I am here to help’ before you even think about asking for the sale. Start by writing articles in the range of 300-500 words and posting them on your website or blog. Then read about how-to Repurpose Your Content and turn the same information in your articles into tweets, wall posts, and videos.

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