How long should a blog be?

I was asked this only this morning - and it’s a question that comes up frequently.

What was my answer?

“That’s a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question!”

Not very helpful - but it’s true.

SEO people will tell you that you need to write 300, 500, 600 words or more, but there’s more to your blog than just SEO.

Seth Godin writes a daily blog - and some of them have been less than 50 words, but occasionally he’ll write an article that runs to well over 1000 words.

What is the secret?

• Decide what is the point you want to make
• Put your case for the point
• Stop writing 

If it takes you a dozen words to make your case, don’t pad it out with lots of additional prose - or your message will get lost in the verbiage.

If you need to explain things in more detail - go for it.  My tip is to read it back aloud when you’ve finished and you’ll see where pruning needs to take place!

If you’re writing to inspire people, educate them, share your experience, ignite their thinking - you only need enough words to engage their interest and achieve your objective.

Quod erat demonstrandum!

Are you staging a revolution?

We’re well into January and business owners are focused on the year ahead.  Did you set New Year Resolutions for your business as well as your personal ones?

I have a theory about New Year resolutions - in fact I call them ‘Revolutions’.  This is because they come around again every year if you don’t achieve them (a revolution) or they change the world (also a revolution)!

When you’re looking at your business, most people refer to them as ‘goals’ - and you don’t need it to be New Year to set them - but it is often a place to start.  However, goals are only achievable if there’s a solid plan behind them.

Have you translated your big goals into action plans with a detailed to do list and tasks allocated time in your diary?  If you break down big targets into many small steps you’ll find achieving them is not such a big leap.

If you have a team you don’t have to do it all yourself - you can delegate tasks to other people.  In fact, if you’re running a business you definitely should delegate much of the work to your team - that’s why they’re there.

Even if you’re a small business you don’t have to do it all yourself.  Trusted contractors are essential to allow you to do the stuff only you can do.  That might be a VA, a marketing agency, a PR specialist, an accountant or bookkeeper - or other experts that can add value.

Briefing your team

Whether your business is big or small, your team are there to help to achieve your business goals.  As your business goals are likely to change from time to time, depending on market demands, customer demographics, competitive activity and the economic climate - the activities that each member of your team is responsible for may need to be adjusted.

Communication is the key.

Many companies send out a newsletter to let their customers and contacts know what they’re doing and what’s new, but it’s even more important that the same kind of regular communication goes to your team.  The content may be different, but they need to know what they’re aiming to achieve and why if they’re going to be a real help.

This includes outsourced workers too.

There’s a saying:

Understanding creates commitment

If your team are just blindly following their job description they won’t be able to make smart decisions and their motivation and job satisfaction will be low.

Keeping everyone in the picture of where you’re going and why will make a dramatic difference to performance and results.

Generating a revolution

Revolutions happen when people are fired up - without seeing an exciting future on the horizon, there’s no fire in anyone’s belly.  If you want to take big steps forward your team are your rocket fuel - but you need to light their fuse!  Isn’t that what leadership is all about?

Why would you write a book?

The idea of writing a book crosses most people’s minds at some point - there is a saying that everyone has at least one book in them - but have you ever seriously thought about it?

If you are a business owner, trainer, coach, consultant or speaker to have a book with your name on it is a powerful marketing tool.

If you can put ‘author’ after your name, you’ll get a level of respect that your competitors will have to work very hard to achieve.  A book is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise and enable you to reach out beyond your immediate network.

These are good reasons to write a book - but you do need to write a good book to achieve the outcomes you want.  Not all books are good!  Some are barely readable!

What makes a good book?

The first essential is that you have a clear message.  Regurgitating other people’s ideas won’t get you decent reviews.  

There are many books on virtually any subject you care to name, but that doesn’t mean you need to come up with someone completely new.  What you do need is your own unique approach to this subject.  What will make your book work is - YOU!

If people are interested in a subject they will read lots of books around this subject.  They’re looking for insights from different perspectives - and your take on the subject is what will make your book stand out.

A good book needs more than just a clear focus though - it needs to be well structured and, more importantly, edited by a professional.

When you’re writing a non-fiction book you definitely need a structure to gather information around each of the contributing subjects that sit under the main umbrella.  If you plan your structure before you start to write you’ll find the writing much easier as you will have a ‘map’ of where you’re going.  All you need to do is to fill in the detail.

Editing isn’t optional.  No matter how good a writer you are, an experienced editor is important.  They’re not there to correct your spelling, grammar and punctuation, but to ensure the content and context works for the reader from the first page to the last.

An editor will see things the author is too close to see and will suggest things like:

• Developing an idea with more detail
• Moving specific pieces of information to a better place in the narrative
• Adding a case study or anecdote to demonstrate a point
• Taking out unnecessary detail that may cloud the message
• Improving the chapter ‘recipe’ to make it more appealing for the reader
• Polishing the copy to give it more energy and make it more readable.

The spelling, grammar and punctuation will be tidied up as the editor works - but it’s still important that the final manuscript is worked through by a proof reader to do a final tidy up.

How to get started

Ideally, get some advice from a professional.  That might be a publisher, an agent or an editor who can help you to put together your plan.

You may find it useful to talk to your clients about what they would want to know from a book on your specialist subject.

You also need to research other books and authors in the genre you plan to write in - to ensure you’re not reinventing the wheel.  What are you bringing to the table that is a different spin on the subject - or offers a different approach to it?

Whether you’re comfortable writing or not - if you’re serious about writing a book - put writing time in your diary in regular slots.  With your book structure in place you should not be facing ‘blank screen syndrome’ and as long as you stick at it, you could be surprised at how quickly your first draft is completed.

Is your website up-to-date?

When was the last time you looked at your website?  If you’re thinking that’s not something you need to do - after all, you KNOW what’s on it - time for a rethink.

You may think you know what’s on your website, but, if you have more than a handful of pages and you haven’t looked at them for months, you might be surprised at what you’ve forgotten!

So it’s time to give your website a review - what should you look for?

Information check

Things go out-of-date - not just your services, but, if you quote prices or have packages, it’s a good idea to check if they’re still relevant.  Even if the information is accurate, it’s good to think about whether they’re working or not.

Market demands change and a smart business owner stays up-to-date with them.  Are your offers or packages actually working?  If they’re not, it might be worth removing or revamping them.  Maybe do some quick and dirty research to find out what people are looking for most right now (enter your key products or services into answerthepublic.com - and see what people are searching for).

Do you need to add new products or services you’ve launched since the last time you updated your website?

Copy check

There’s never one way to say something - the English language is rich and has many different ways to express the same thought.  Re-read your website copy:

• Do your headlines attract the reader and make them want to know more?
• Is it clear what each page is about?  In other words is it easy for the website visitor to understand what each page is about?
• Is it easy to understand the details?
• Does every page have a call to action (what you want people to do next)?
• Is there an attractive image to engage the reader’s eye at the top of the page?

Refreshing your copy regularly is a great way to keep the search engines interested too.

TIP:  Don’t try and do it all at once - make a list of the pages and check over a few each month.  If you’ve only got 10 pages - then one per month and take a month off in the summer and at Christmas!  Having a schedule that is part of your marketing activities means you stay on top of it.

Technology check

In theory, once your website is live, nothing should change unless you change it.  But the reality is that sometimes - for no good reason - links stop working.

You (or one of your team) should check your website at least once a month and ensure that all your links do work.  That includes:

• All the menu options
• External links that link to other websites
• Internal links that link one page to another - or link a page to a blog post
• Links that launch an email or your enquiry form in the call to action on each page
• Any links to social media

TIP: If you have hundreds of blogs - as we do - it’s hard to keep up with all the links in all the blogs.  You might consider keeping a spreadsheet of all the blogs and highlight the ones that have external/internal links and just check those.  You can then just click the link in the spreadsheet and go straight to that blog.  Our list also shows the categories so it’s easy to find them.

The secret is in scheduling

If you don’t have a plan, it’s easy to let this get away from you.  Put time in the diary to do these checks.  If you post blogs monthly, that would be an ideal time to do your checks as you’re on the website anyway.  However, I suggest you read the page you’re checking in the same way as any other website visitor and only log into the website editor to make the changes.

Don’t forget to look at pages on different devices too - the content and links won’t change, but will look different.

What’s in your 2022 marketing plan?

Here we are in a fresh new year, full of potential.  If you’ve been using the quiet time between the Festive Frenzy and the New Year celebrations to do a bit of thinking about where you want to take your business in 2022 - you’ll need some strategies to support your goals for the year.

Content

This is a big area and includes:

• Articles for your blog
• Copy for your social media profile/biographies
• Copy for your website
• Items to pitch to publications
• Content for your newsletter
• Email campaigns to promote your offers, new products /services or holiday promotions.

These all need to be part of your plan.  If you’re thinking ‘I already have copy on my website’ or ‘I’ve already completed my social media profiles’ - it’s time to review what’s there and ensure it’s still up-to-date and the message is on target.

If you think it’s too early to start planning email campaigns - it’s better to have these scheduled in so you can invest time in advance and ensure your series o messages is compelling and persuasive, rather than thrown together and rushed!

If you send out a monthly newsletter, knowing in advance what the key subjects are for each month will help you to avoid that ‘blank screen syndrome’.

Here’s a huge tip - write articles for your website blog and repurpose them for your LinkedIn profile, extract short quotes for social media and use the article as the lead item in your newsletter.  You can even convert an article into a short podcast or a series of slides to turn into a video presentation.  Don’t reinvent the wheel!

Social media

The more people who know about you, the more potential customers you can reach.  This means you need to ensure your social media presence is:

• In the right places - where your ideal customers are looking
• Delivers great value - so your potential customers can see the kind of expertise they’ll get
• Consistent - more than a random post when you have time.  You don’t have to post every day, but you do need a regular posting schedule and your posts need to be customer-focused (not endless promotion) 
• Interesting for your target audience.  Post what people like and more people will engage and follow you.

A social media planner will pay dividends to ensure you capture ideas, content, useful links and more - and then know what’s going where and when.

Fail to plan; plan to fail

You may have heard this saying - and it’s true.  A little planning goes a long way towards a structured marketing plan that rolls smoothly on all year long and keeps delivering warm leads into your business.