A case can be made for either option. After all, no one knows your business as well as you do. You would be a logical choice. Then again, not all business owners count writing as a strength. In that case, bringing in a pro makes more sense. The same is true when your time would be better spent elsewhere, where you would see a better ROI.

Blogging involves much more than slapping some words up on a website. Professional bloggers understand this and offer you content that can more effectively appeal to your target readers.

Here are some things experienced freelance business bloggers bring to the table, some of which you might not have considered:

A professional blogger knows how to engage with your audience.

As professional bloggers, we know how to get your readers talking and entice them to connect with your business more directly. That allows you to have more meaningful conversations with prospects and customers rather than simply having them read your content.

Freelance bloggers can invest the time serious blogging demands.

You’re busy running your business. Chances are good your time is worth more in other areas (like closing sales) than it would cost you to hire a pro to manage your blog content.

Professional bloggers can help you develop a solid blog content strategy.

This should be based on your company’s goals for the blog — from search engine rankings to customer support. It’s not enough to publish content just for content’s sake. There should be some underlying strategy so every blog posts becomes a brick in building toward a larger goal.

Freelance bloggers understand how to craft effective content for the web.

Good blog content can be very different from other types of writing you might be more familiar with, such as newsletters or sales copy or even articles in print publications. People read differently on a screen than they do in print. Professional bloggers understand the formatting issues involved in writing effective blog posts, from making them visually scannable to keeping them search engine friendly while still prioritizing readers.

These are just a few examples of things professional bloggers can do for your business. You might hire a full-time blogger to manage multiple blogs or handle all social networking and community management as well. Or you can outsource blog content to freelance bloggers (like myself) when you need the content but don’t need or want a full-time commitment. Freelance bloggers can even ghostwrite your blog, so you get the credit.

Are you ready to make your business blog work harder for you? Do you need an extra set of hands to make that happen? From auditing your existing blog to helping you plan a new blog content strategy and writing your posts, I’m here to help. Contact me today to check on my availability and see what I can do for your company blog.

The post What Does a Freelance Blogger Bring to the Table? appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

Why Pre-Write Start-Up Content?

A lot of new bloggers are overwhelmed pretty quickly when they realize not only how much time they can spend posting, but also how much time they can spend marketing.

While some bloggers may prefer to “wing it,” launching a blog with a single post and trying to get right into a regular schedule, I prefer putting together a set of start-up content first, set to automatically post for at least the first week, but preferably enough content for a month or more. That’s on top of several articles that will be publicly available on the day you launch.

What Makes Good Start-Up Content?

It’s a good idea to start a new blog not just with a bit of background about yourself and the niche topic, but with a few primary articles that will attract your earliest readers. Think of linkbait (in the most positive sense of the word), and you’ll come up with ideas for useful content ideal for launching a blog (such as resource lists, advice not already available all over the Web, an interview with a “player” in the niche, etc.).

Most blog platforms will allow you to “drip” posts – you write them now and set a post date when they’ll automatically go live (so you don’t have to save them as drafts and remember to come back later to post them). Look into your specific blog host or blog platform to find out exactly how you can do this on your own blog.

This post was originally featured on January 24, 2008.

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Your content strategy is your long-term plan for the content on your blog. Although it can (and will) change periodically over time, having a long-term content strategy can help you avoid the common pitfall of quickly running out of blogging ideas.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when outlining a long-term content strategy for your new blog (valid for any niche):

• Are there any regular features you can include (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) that will not only keep ideas coming in for you, but that will build anticipation regularly with your readers? For example, I offer daily freelance writing job listings on one of my blogs, which brings me repeat traffic daily. On a related blog, I offer weekly links to other blog posts in the niche for people to catch up on the field’s news from the week that’s ending. You may find that a weekly tip would suit your audience, or regular interviews or features on other sites and resources. People like stability, and these “themes” can help you to get out of a rut if you can’t think of anything completely different to write about.
• Do you have any content series ideas for the future that would give you a longer collection of post ideas? For example, maybe you can write a 10-piece series on basic HTML, or a 30-post series on how to lose 10 pounds in a month. Make a list of all of the series ideas you can think of while you’re still excited about the new blog.
• Is it realistic to think you could get guest posters to offer content on your blog (or can you afford to pay a regular blogger to keep it fresh)?
• Is your niche topic news-heavy, where you can link to interesting news stories and write your own short commentary when you’re having an otherwise slow day in coming up with post ideas?

One of the biggest things to keep in mind is that many bloggers are excited and passionate about their blogs when they’re new, but that fizzles to some degree when they realize exactly how much work is involved in the writing, marketing, etc. of their blog. It’s vital to understand early on that the ideas can seem endless in the beginning, but they can seem to dry up down the road. Take advantage of that start-up mentality, and plan as much of your long-term content strategy as possible, and avoid blogger’s block in the not-too-distant future.

This post was originally featured on January 22, 2008.

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Blogging as a Marketing Tool

Blogs can be effective marketing tools. For example, you might use them to show off new products or to drive more traffic to your website as a whole. This blog business strategy is when your blog indirectly brings in money by promoting the larger business to a targeted audience. The blog brings in leads and sells them on whatever you offer.

Blogging as a PR Tool

Blogging can equally be an important public relations tool. In this case, your company or organization would use a blog to build and maintain a community. You can gather feedback from visitors. You can directly communicate with your customers (and actually answer their questions and concerns). You can share company news. And you can build your, or your company’s, reputation as an authoritative source of industry information.

Blogging as a Business Model

Business blogging doesn’t always involve adding a blog to an existing company’s Web presence. Sometimes the blog is the business. This is when you use the blog to directly make money. You can do that with advertising. You might run an affiliate blog. Or you might even sell your own products directly on the blog itself (like an author using a blog in place of a sales-oriented static website to sell their books).

How do you use blogging as a business strategy? Tell us about it in the comments.

Note: This was originally published on September 12, 2012.

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1. They’re afraid that their readers won’t come back if they don’t like a more controversial blog post.
2. They’re afraid of nasty comments and flames being left on their blog.
3. They don’t want to be the center of attention if their controversial blog post ignites a viral debate.
4. They’re afraid of alienating fellow bloggers that they’ve built a network with.
5. They’re afraid of the potential of losing advertisers (especially if they monetize their blog with private ad sales).

I won’t say that those concerns aren’t legitimate. But if you want to be successful in blogging (just as if you want to be successful in any other kind of business), you have to be willing to take risks if you want to reap the greatest rewards. Controversial posts aren’t a bad thing, as long as you handle them as objectively as possible and as professionally as possible (and that doesn’t mean you have to be “nice”). Here are some of the benefits of writing controversial blog posts:

1. They can bring in a lot of traffic, including repeat traffic from new readers who share your opinions or like your style.
2. Controversial blog posts often work well as pieces of link bait. They have a natural viral quality about them… if people hate what you say, they’ll link to you when they bitch about you on their own blog; if they love what you say, they’ll link to you to show support against all the naysayers. I know “link bait” has become a dirty little word in some circles, but as long as your posts honestly reflect what you believe, it doesn’t matter what you call them – we’re not talking about sensationalist headlines, gossip, or BS posts solely for links here.
3. They give you an idea of which other bloggers in your niche or industry share your concerns, opinions, and values, and can serve as a springboard into a networking opportunity with like-minded folks. They also give you an idea of people with different values and opinions, letting you know who to talk to for a constructive argument to hear opposing points.
4. Even if people get utterly pissed off with what you have to say in a controversial blog post, as long as you’re careful from a legal standpoint, the animosity will usually blow over.
5. Controversial blog posts help you to build a reputation as an expert in the niche, if you can write both controversially and intelligently. They can even lead to job offers from clients who enjoy your style.

If you want to be truly comfortable as a blogger, it’s important that you be truly comfortable with yourself, and your opinions, first. Controversy doesn’t have to be edgy – it’s about sharing your thoughts on your side of an issue that interests your readers. Here’s how I look at it – if you have nothing to “say,” why on earth are you even blogging?

The post Why Controversial Blog Posts are a Good Thing appeared first on Pro Business Writer.

Someone wanted to know whether it was better to write for bots (search engines) or human readers. Their purpose seemed obviously to lean towards making a solid content-rich site. Because SEO is always a hot topic (because frankly most people are either too lazy or too dense to look beyond it for quality traffic sources), you’ll find a lot of information like this around (paraphrased):

“Write for search engines first to get rankings and traffic, and then start writing for readers to keep them.”

I had a total “duh” moment when I read that, thinking I must be on a total idiot binge lately on the webmaster front.

Actually, that suggestion is beyond stupid as far as content strategies go. Let’s break it down into to your two most basic options:

1. If you want to build an authority website or blog in a niche, and have a site with long-term potential, you write for the readers.
2. If you’re building sites only thinking about the short term quick buck (driving search traffic to sites loaded with high paying keywords), then you write for the bots.

If someone had the goal of number one above, but started off with the model of number two (as the forum “geniuses” suggested), the site might very well find itself doomed to failure. Why?

Because if the starting content (which is ranked well and the reason viewers are getting to the site) is nothing but SEO’d-to-death content for those rankings, those visitors aren’t going to come back. The only way to get visitors coming back (necessary if you want to build an authority site of any level) is to always write unique and interesting content for your readers.

Starting off with the wrong content strategy can seriously screw up the reputation of your site or blog even before it really gets going. Don’t make that mistake. Know what your ultimate site goals are from the beginning and tailor your content strategy to the right audience.

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• Corporate blogs are a way to disseminate important and timely information to your visitors, customers, or other audiences about your company, before that information is sent out by someone else (and more directly than using a press release alone). This allows the company to appear more transparent with members of their market.
• Blogs offer benefits over other social mediums of connecting with a target audience due to the fact that editorial control (over posts and comment approvals) is in the hands of the company or their blogger.
• A corporate blog allows the company to be officially represented by an authority individual (CEO, other executive, etc.).
• Blogs are a natural networking tool, allowing a company and its owner to network with others in their industry (which can lead not only to connections, but also backlinks leading to targeted traffic and greater exposure).
• Blogs are usually updated fairly often, which search engines love. A well-optimized blog can help to draw in additional search engine traffic that might be interested in what the company has to offer.

Corporate blogging isn’t for all companies. Not all owners, CEOs, or executives are good bloggers naturally, and not every company will realize every benefit of business blogging. As with all things, know your market / audience, and tailor your efforts to them.

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1. Using the business blog to present company news, or the owner’s (or other high level executive’s) take on industry news issues.

2. Using the business blog as a way to educate the public, and more importantly your target market, about your products, services, etc.

3. Using the business blog as a tool to offer free industry information or articles, as a means of then driving Web traffic to other areas of your business site.

By creating a business blog for any of those reasons, you also have a free or inexpensive, yet powerful, PR tool. There are a variety of public relations benefits to business blogging, such as:

1. The ability to disseminate news.

2. The ability to quickly and directly gather feedback from your target audience.

3. The ability to build a company or personal reputation as an authority source in an industry or niche.

In order to best take advantage of the PR benefits of blogging (sometimes referred to as the marketing benefits of blogging), it’s important to keep the blog honest and ethical by industry standards. As much as blogging can be a PR benefit, it can also lead to negative publicity just as easily (such as if you were to release false information or just hype about a new product release), so always keep your business motives in mind when deciding to launch a business or corporate blog, and when deciding whether to blog yourself or hire a ghost writer as your business blogger.

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