Making your blog posts easier to read

Reading online is harder, slower and more uncomfortable than reading on print. By following these easy tips your blog posts will be better laid out and more concise, and your readers’ experience more pleasant. Here they go:

• Write less: Use 50% less words than you would use in print. Once you finish writing, go back and try to further reduce your word count.


• Use plenty of contrast: black type on white background always works best.


• Use headlines to break the discussion into several paragraphs. Breaking the discussion into small, manageable chunks makes things much easier for readers.


• Web users don’t read: they scan. Use elements that facilitate scannability: bolding key words and phrases, and using bullet points are two examples of this technique.


• Don't make your lines of text too long. With today’s high resolution screens, text that runs from one side of the screen to the other is very hard to read. Using a page layout with columns is a good way to keep the content area down to a width that makes reading comfortable.


• Try to convey one idea per paragraph, three to four lines each.


• Use hyperlinks to present complementary information instead of trying to include everything in the body of your post. Good bloggers use this technique a lot, not just to make their posts easier to read, but also to point readers to valuable resources and to give other bloggers credit for relevant content.


• Don’t use a font that is too small. I recommend using 10pt. or higher, and using font types that have been specifically designed for reading on the web, like Verdana or Georgia.

Tech Tags: blogging copy+writing usability

Top 20 Tips for Beginner Bloggers

1. Choose a topic that you know, like, and are passionate about. This way you will never get bored and will keep your audience always interested and asking for more.
   
   
2. Pick a topic where there is not a lot of competition. If your topic is too common, try addressing it from a particular angle or focus on a specific niche. For example, there are many sites that talk about cars, but few that specialize in only one brand, and even fewer that focus on only one model. The key to be successful is to find a specific enough topic with a large enough audience.
   
   
3. Open a Blogger account. It is free and easy to use. That way, you won’t have to invest in costlier platforms like MovableType or TypePad before you have the chance of finding out if blogging is for you.
   
   
4. Use a minimalist template, preferably one with a white background. This format is easier to read and pleasant to the eye when you combine it with color pictures.
   
   
5. Use pictures to dress up your blog entries and give your blog a more professional appearance. You can find excellent pictures at a very low cost in istockphoto.com, or even free in Flickr (don’t forget to ask the owner of the picture for permission before you use it).
   
   
6. In one of your blog’s side columns, list six or seven links to authoritative sites related to your topic. When the search engine robots visit your blog, they will find these links and your blog will benefit by association.
   
   
7. Write in simple language, short paragraphs and using bullet points. These are essential guidelines for writing on the web, and will make your posts easier to read and understand.
   
   
8. Always link out to the sources you use to document your posts. This is not only good etiquette but also a way to promote your blog and get links: when the people you link to find out that they’ve been linked to, they will most likely link to your post from their site or blog.
   
   
9. Check your posts for spelling and grammatical errors. This will make your blog look more professional and will increase the probability of other people linking to it.
   
   
10. Use labels to categorize your posts and keep your blog neatly organized. Blogger recently modified its software to allow the use of labels.
    
    
11. Participate actively in forums and discussion groups related to your topic. Find what are the most common questions and provide the answers in your blog. Then, direct forum readers to your blog. Try to also direct forum readers to other resources, or answer without necessarily linking to your blog, sometimes. If not, you may be perceived as self serving and only interested in promoting your blog.
    
    
12. Use HitTail to research topics to write about. HitTail gives you a list of the search terms used by those who came to your blog through a search engine. This search term list will give you ideas for future blog posts.
    
    
13. Allow your blog readers to email your posts to other people. Also, give them the option to bookmark your posts using del.icio.us, furl, or any other social bookmarking service. You can go to AddThis to download a smart button that makes it easy to bookmark your posts. You can find instructions on how to add the button to Blogger here. The easier you make it to share your blog posts, the more relevant traffic your blog will get.
    
    
14. Use Technorati tags at the end of your blog posts. Technorati tags are a way of classifying your blog posts by topic and have them added to Technorati’s index (Technorati is the most important search engine for blogs). Use this automatic Technorati tag generator to avoid having to create the HTML code manually.
    
    
15. Syndicate your blog allowing your visitors to subscribe to your feeds through their favorite aggregator. This way, they will be automatically notified every time you update your blog. You can use this tool to generate attractive syndication buttons, which you can then place in a side column of your blog.
    
    
16. Post frequently. It is the only way to keep your audience interested and coming back. Two or three times a week is ideal. Once a week is the borderline minimum that I recommend to keep your audience engaged and maintain adequate visibility in the search engines.
    
    
17. Keep a large number of posts in the main page of your blog. Search engine robots usually won’t crawl and index all your blog pages, however they will visit your main page frequently. The more content you keep in your main page, the bigger the chance of it popping up in the search engine results pages.
    
    
18. Use Google Adsense to monetize your blog. Blogger lets you add Google Adsense easily and seamlessly in several locations within a page. The best locations are within the content, and on top of the page simulating a navigation bar.
    
    
19. Don’t use Google Adsense excessively, at least at the beginning. Your initial focus should be not to monetize your blog, but to build your audience and establishing your blog's reputation as an authority within your topical community. A blog that is deep on content and lean on ads is more likely to attract the kind of links needed to become relevant to users and search engines.
    
    
20. Once your blog is established and generates abundant, relevant traffic, you can monetize more aggressively, not only with Adsense but also with affiliate links and, why not, maybe even by selling your own products.

You can see a real example of all these tips at work in this blog ;)

Tech Tags: blogging blogging+tips social+bookmarking technorati delicious seo smallbusiness marketing

Using Testimonials to Increase Sales

Testimonials are like referrals: they greatly increase the probability of converting prospects into customers. Bob Leduc, a sales consultant with over 30 years experience in marketing and sales, estimates that sales letters with testimonials perform up to 65% better than the same letters without the testimonials.

To get testimonials, he suggests to give customers a postcard asking them to tell you what did they like about your product or service, and then mail the postcard back to you (postage paid). Most of them will be glad to do that for you. You can then sift through the postcards, select the ones you like the most, and ask those customers for permission to use their feedback as testimonials in your marketing pieces.

Kevin Nunley, an experienced copywriter and web marketer suggests us to "get someone who is a recognized name in your field to say something good about what you sell. Let them mention their own interest in the testimonial. This is why blurbs on book covers go, "Best book I've ever read," Joe Blow, author of How to Get Rich. Joe lends his good opinion as a way to get a mention for HIS book".

Another good way to get testimonials, especially if you're just starting out, is to pay somebody to review your product, service, book, website, or whatever it is that you offer. There is a new service called ReviewMe that does just that... there is a caveat, though: ReviewMe reviews must be unbiased (you cannot pay for a positive review). However, if you practice rule #1 of getting testimonials: "always provide a great service and deliver what you promise", you will do OK.

Finally, here are some more testimonial basics:

• Testimonials must describe a specific benefit, for example: "your product allowed me to accomplish three times as much in half the time", instead or "your product is great".
  
  
• Always include the name, city and/or website address of the person giving the testimonial. You can omit the address, for privacy.
  
  
• Send the person giving the testimonial a thank you note, or, even better, a small, symbolic gift like a gift certificate of a free sample. However, make sure you do this after you've received authorization to use the testimonial, or it will look like a bribe and may offend the customer, who most likely would have been glad to give you the testimonial with no expectations of receiving anything.

Tech Tags: small+business copywriting marketing

How To Write Effective Sales Letters

No matter what business we are in, we need to be able to produce marketing material that sells. David Frey, president of Marketing Best Practices Inc. reminds us that we don't have to be award-winning copywriters to create effective sales letters, that writing great sales letters is more of a science than an art, and that anybody can produce compelling sales pieces by following a 12-step template:

1) Get attention
2) Identify the problem
3) Provide the solution
4) Present your credentials
5) Show the benefits
6) Give social proof
7) Make your offer
8) Give a guarantee
9) Inject scarcity
10) Call to action
11) Give a warning
12) Close with a reminder

Read the full article here and learn more about the 12 steps to writing effective sales letters.

Tech Tags: small+business copywriting marketing

Blog Writing Styles

Blogs have taken the web by storm. They have allowed all kinds of people, interested in the most varied subjects, to communicate and interact with each other. The posting styles that bloggers use can be very different, and I have identified two major styles.

Some bloggers seem to prefer short posts, usually a personal comment backed by one or more supporting outbound links. Others prefer long posts, usually more elaborate dissertations that may or may not include outbound links.

The short posting format is easy to write and read. Everybody with a strong interest in a certain topic will probably know of many good articles, citations, resources and products related to that topic. It is not hard to launch a blog about that subject, and steer readers in the right direction via regular short comments sprinkled with useful outbound links.

If done properly, this kind of format is conducive to turning a blog into a "hub" (a site that offers many useful outbound links). The drawbacks of this style are that the outbound links will send visitors away. Also, short posts don't usually get many inbound links and are harder to index by the search engines. This means that short posts will usually have trouble ranking very high. On the possitive site, if you post relevant comments regularly and send your visitors to useful resources, they are likely to come back often.

The second format, the long post, is usually an article about a specific topic. Instead of pointing readers to other resources, the post itself is the resource. This type of post is more difficult, since not all bloggers have the ability to write long, articulate, compelling pieces. Long, well written articles, tend to attract inbound links and raise the link popularity of the blog where they are posted, therefore they are more likely to rank high in the search engines. Long posts made of original content will turn a blog into an "authority" (a site that other sites in the same topical community link to).

It is not uncommon to find bloggers using both posting styles. In fact, I believe that the combination of short posts and long posts is the format that is best suited to make the blog more interesting and valuable for readers and search engines alike.

Nick Usborne's Web Copywriting Guide

Nick Osbourne is one of my favorite web copywriters (you can find some of his great articles in my website's archives). Nick understands what it takes to write effectively and persuasively for the web, and offers his readers a ton of value through his Excess Voice website and his Web Copywriting Blog. I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter. In times like these, when dime-a-dozen newsletters are chocking our inboxes, Nick's is one of the few that are really worth reading. Fortunately for us, Nick is offering his new guide to Writing for the Web, a 35 page PDF document detailing the 7 biggest challenges faced by web copywriters, free of charge to those who subscribe to his newsletter. These are some quick links to some of Nick's best web pages:

Excess Voice Home:
http://www.excessvoice.com

Excess Voice Newsletter Archives:
http://www.excessvoice.com/archive.htm

Excess Voice Newsletter Subscription Page:
http://www.excessvoice.com/newsletter.htm

Web Copywriting Tips page:
http://excessvoice.com/web-copywriting-tips.htm

I am sure you will find this information useful and that you will add Nick to your A-List of web marketing resouces.

The Long Copy vs. Short Copy Debate

There is the camp on the hill that say “long content is better”. It’s never about length of copy, it’s always about whether you have communicated your offer to your audience effectively and answered their wants and needs. That’s all. If you can do that in one line then why write a saga about it?

There are some equally ridiculous theories about short copy and using embedded links within page content to get people to move through your website and be subjected to more short pages. People mistakenly assume that if I have to scroll down a page that it’s bad from a usability perspective. Let me ask those people, when was the last time you went to a website page you were really interested in and stopped reading because you had to use the scroll bar?

Read more about the Long Copy vs. Short Copy Debate in this interesting article by Steve Jackson, editor of Conversion Chronicles.

Why Do You Need Good Copywriting

While getting traffic to your site is important, it means nothing if your website doesn't convert. Other than having the right product for your target audience at the right price, the best way to increase conversion rates is with good copywriting. My two favorite copywriting authors are Robert Warren and Nick Usborne. You can find Robert Warren's articles in article archive page. You can also download his 10 page special report: "Ten Copywriting Blunders That Are Poisoning Your Website". I have also posted one of his most recent articles: "Don't Let Hyped Copywriting Destroy Your Business" on my website. Nick Usborne publishes Excess Voice, where you will find a new copywriting article in every issue. Previous issues of Excess Voice are archived here. Remember, whether your website's conversion objective is to get your readers to subscribe to your newsletter, fill up a form, ask for more information, or buy a product from you, your chances of success will increase significantly if you pay close attention to your web page copy.

SEO and Copywriting

A common misconception in internet marketing is to have the expectation that SEO is all we need to be successful online. In reality, you need to do much more. Search engine optimization will give you traffic, but it is ultimately your copywriting that will make the sale. While it is very important to know how to write for the search engines, it is also very important to know how to write for humans, since they will be the ones making the purchase. There are some good resources out there for online copywriting. Some sites I regularly visit are Nick Usborne's Excess Voice (you can subscribe to his free newsletter), and Robert Warren's website (I just posted this copywriting article by him on my website). Another good copywriting resource is Kevin Nunley's website, where you will also find hundreds of bite-sized internet marketing tips across a wide variety of topics.