Web logs made easy

That sounds soooooo boring – but that’s where the term ‘blog’ came from.  It was originally a sort of online diary – think ‘Captain’s log web date …’ from Star Trek.

These days a blog article is so much more than a diary post, but if you remember the origin of the word, that might help to give you some ideas for what to write.

You could:

• Write about something that has happened to you this week, using it to make a point.
• Explore a question someone has asked you, in detail.
• Write a case study (a story) about a project you’ve worked on.
• Think about something you’ve done for a customer and explain how it all works.
• Pick something that’s been in the news and write something topical that relates to your business on the subject.
• Take a testimonial you’ve received from a client and explain what you did to get the accolade.
• If your business lends itself to before and after pictures, you could use these to explain the transition from before to after.
• You could do a profile of one of your team, explaining how they help your customers, the problems they solve and outcomes they get.
• If you support a charity, you could write an article about the charity, how you work with them and why you chose them.
• If you use particular equipment to deliver your service to customers, you could talk about how it makes life better for them (and your team).

Take a look at your diary and see what you’ve been doing during the week and then get creative.  However, there must be something that makes that interesting and/or useful for the reader. 

It’s all about structure

If you’ve never written a book before, it can seem like a mammoth task, but, if you get the right structure in place, writing is made much easier.

There are three elements that create your building blocks in a non-fiction book:

1: The chapters and how they flow.

2: The ‘recipe’ that you’ll apply to each chapter, so you have a pattern into which your content fits.

3: The content for each chapter.

Build your ‘story’

If you’re writing non-fiction, it’s easy to ignore the story aspect.  But even in a non-fiction book there must be flow, so the chapters need to move logically from one subject to the next.  

Even if you write chapters that can be read in isolation, like in a handbook or a ‘how to …’ guide, there must be some progression in from chapter to chapter.  For instance, when I wrote The R.A.V.E. Toolkit, I wanted to give people a reference book that would help them to market their small businesses, but the chapters began with the basics and worked up to more complex marketing tactics as the book progressed.

With The Reputation Gap, my co-author, Peter Roper, and I started by setting the scene and then progressed through various aspects of reputation building, with sections featuring case studies and then the action plan.

Every book is unique and needs a structure that works for the subject and the author.  It may not be a story in the traditional sense, but there needs to be something to lead the reader on their journey from subject to subject.

Once you have your chapter subjects established, it’s time to go a step closer to your content.

Create your chapter recipe

This is particularly relevant for non-fiction books.  Before you begin writing, create a format that you will apply to each chapter.

This may include:

• Quotations
• Stories/anecdotes
• Case studies
• Models
• Examples
• Practical things to do
• A summary – either at the beginning or end of the chapter

Or anything else you want to include.

The chapter recipe means that each chapter will look similar and give the reader a ‘comfort blanket’ to keep them engaged.  This means that if you start Chapter 1 with a story, you should do the same for all the other chapters.  If you end with a quotation, do the same for each chapter.

This may sound tedious, but in reality it will make life a whole lot easier when you start writing.

Gather your content

Now you have the subjects and format for your chapters, it’s simply a case of gathering the information to populate them.  Effectively, you’re filling in the gaps!

If you take the time to build the structure, the writing will be much easier.

What is your website’s prime purpose?

Isn’t that obvious?  It’s to present your business to the digital viewer, of course.

People talk about ‘brochure’ sites, in other words, websites that display your wares.  But a good website is much more than that.

It needs to

• Engage potential clients quickly
• Have enough energy to keep people’s attention
• Solve – or at least indicate that you can – the visitor’s problems
• Operate seamlessly with no requirement for your visitor to work hard to find what they want
• Speak to your visitor directly in their language, but your voice.

To write great headlines and compelling copy you need an in-depth understanding of what your visitor wants.  What problems can you solve for them?  What is keeping them awake at night and what solving their problems will do for them.

It sounds pretty simple … so why do so many, otherwise attractive, websites start with a headline: 

Welcome to our website

Which of those 5 points above does that tick?

I know it is polite – it’s like saying ‘How do you do?’, but you really don’t want a conversation around that!  If I’m in a hurry to identify if you’ve got what I want, you’ve now made me jump over an obstacle that hasn’t helped me.

Using digital devices has decreased patience – everyone wants instant gratification and, if they don’t find it, they’re on to the next on their list.  Flick, flick, flick.

Take a moment to think about the last time you were looking for something specific online.  Did you care about being welcomed to the website?  Did you even notice the headline?  It wasn’t useful information, so you were already scrolling down looking for what you wanted.

The problem is that, if the website owner has started with a ‘nothing’ headline, it doesn’t bode well for what is further down the page.  

The days of 300 words to describe your offering are long gone.  You’ve got 100 words, if you’re lucky.  Your headlines have to work harder to get people’s attention and encourage them to read even a single line.

The language needs to be focused on ‘YOU’ (not ‘we’) to reassure your reader that this is for them.

The sentences need to be crisp and concise, the paragraphs very short and the call to action impossible to miss.

Your website’s role is to persuade the visitor to take action; not to think about it and come back later (they won’t).  Not to search through the menus for what they want (if they don’t find it at first look, they’ll go elsewhere).  Not to try to look behind your polite headline and proud copy to see what good guys you all are, (they don’t care).

It needs to be obvious.  Knee-jerk reaction – ‘Yes, found it’.

And every page on your website needs to do that – in isolation.