Blogging for Business – Halona Black

October 7, 2013October 7, 2013

The Truth About Writing Original Blog Content

Entrepreneurs often work very long hours — particularly in the beginning stages of their business. You find yourself not only responsible for serving your customers, but all the stuff that goes on in the back office as well. You are doing the marketing, the accounting, you’re going to network events, etc. The work never ends. As a result, you may be thinking about shortcuts that will help you to get more done in less time. Marketing is often one of those things that can be systemized to save you time.

Your blog is a marketing tool that many healthy brands either love or hate. If you’re a prolific writer, blogging may be right up your alley. Non-writers would rather scoop their own eyeballs out with a melon baller than to write something that other people will read.

Blogging is an important marketing activity because it builds credibility and it helps potential paying customers find you during online searches. However, as an entrepreneur building your healthy brand, you may feel like using pre-written content — or PLR (private label rights) content — is the way to go.

What is PLR content?

PLR content is pre-written blog posts or articles that can be sold to business owners to use on their blog. The same content can be bought by anyone who has the money to pay for it. It’s sort of like going to Macy’s to shop for a blouse. You may purchase a blouse you like, however it doesn’t mean you have exclusive rights to that blouse. Others are free to purchase a copy of that same blouse in Macy’s stores all over the world.

Just say no to pre-written content

When it comes to content for your blog, you want to make sure that the content you use is original. Why? For starters, one of the purposes of a blog is to differentiate you from others who may do similar work as you. Second, each blog post you write is another opportunity for search engines to rank you using certain keywords and phrases. The better quality of the content, the higher your chances of being ranked on the first few pages of Google’s search function. How will Google know that your blog posts on liver detoxification are quality if you and 100 other coaches used the exact same blog posts?

If you absolutely need to use PLR content for your blog, you can use it to inspire your own original blog posts. Don’t just copy and paste the material and slap your name on it.

Alternatives to PLR content

My advice is to avoid PLR content for your blog at all costs. If you really want to have a successful blog, you have to make the space blogging in your marketing calendar. Some tips to help you find the time to blog are:

Decide how often you want to blog. Once per week? Five times per week? What matters most is that you are consistent.
Look for guest bloggers. If your blog has a bit of a following, you may be able to attract quality guest bloggers who can write relevant content for you during the times you are too busy to write something for yourself.
Hire someone to write for you. Partner with a profesional writer who knows you and your business.

Have you ever used PLR content on your blog? What would make blogging on a regular basis easier for you?

October 4, 2013October 4, 2013

How to Win New Clients with a Guest Blogging Strategy

Have you thought about using guest blogging as a strategy to grow your audience? Guest blogging is the act of writing guest blog posts on another blog with a similar target market as your own. For example, if you are a health coach who serves people with stress management issues, you may want to seek out a popular blogger that caters to professional women in corporate America. This can be considered to be a complementary relationship in that it helps the both of you to expand your work to a new audience.

What can healthy brands gain from guest blogging?

Guest blogging is a great strategy to increase your ranking in search engines by creating links that are directed to your website. When another legitimate, authority website links back to your website, it tells Google that your site is also a reliable, professional website.

Guest blogging also allows you an opportunity to grow your audience. You are reaching out to bloggers that write about topics that complement your business, making it more likely that they will be interested in clicking on the link to your blog to join your email list.

Guest blogging increases your authority in the eyes of people who are looking for experts. Conference organizers, magazine writers, TV producers, and web writers are looking for experts every single day. They need these experts to give weight to the stories they produce. After blogging about fibroids on my other blog, I have gotten phone calls and emails from ABC News and many other health websites looking for quotes related to black women and fibroids.

Guest blogging also doesn’t cost you anything but maybe a couple of hours of your time. In some instances, you may even be paid to write a guest post. What more of a reason do you need to add guest blogging to your marketing plan than that?

Strategic Guest Blogging

It’s important to take a strategic approach to guest blogging because, let’s face it, time is money. You don’t want to waste your time blogging in places that don’t make sense for your business model. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself before approaching other blogs for guest blogging opportunities.

#1 What will guest blogging help you achieve?

What do you hope to achieve by guest blogging? Are you looking to add to your email list? Do you want to drive traffic to your blog? Do you want to introduce a new product or service to those who are likely to be interested? Your goal can be any one or a combination of these. Just be clear on what your goals are because that will influence what bloggers you approach and what you write about.

#2 What kinds of blogs or bloggers will you partner with?

Write for a blogger that has a complementary business or audience who reaches a similar market. For example, if you work with women who are long distance runners, you may want to approach women bloggers who write about running. Pay attention to the kind of following they have. Many of these lifestyle bloggers have thousands of subscribers and followers on social media. More importantly, they have a group of responsive followers who buy everything they recommend. Keep a list of all the bloggers you think you may be interested in writing for and why.

#3 What should you write about?

It makes great sense to do a bit of research on the blog to find out what kinds of posts are useful to their readers. What does the blog or the business aim to do? What kinds of posts are most popular as demonstrated by the number of comments, questions, and shares on social media. This is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to getting taken seriously when approaching other bloggers with ideas for guest posts.

It is also important to know that you should NEVER approach another blogger to write a post making a hard sell to their readers. You want to offer their audience information that gives them great value and will compel them to click over to your website and learn more about your services and products organically. For example, if you are an herbalist, you may choose to write about how certain herbs can keep you from getting sick during the cold and flu season. That is the type of article that will demonstrate your expertise. If the reader is interested in learning more about you, they will click on the link in your “about the author” piece usually at the end of the blog post.

#4 What are the requirements for writing the guest blog post?

Once you identify your list of potential bloggers to approach for guest blogging opportunities, be sure to check their blog for guest blog requirements. Many blogs will have a page on their website menu detailing what to do if you are interested in writing a guest post. It’s important to pay attention to those instructions as every blogger does it differently. If they don’t have any details on guest blog post requirements, you can contact them directly via email to inquire about how to do so using the technique in step #5.

#5 How do you write a guest blog query or proposal?

Again, it is essential that you pay attention to what the blogger is asking for in your proposal. If you choose to do your own thing, you risk your email getting deleted without so much as a “thank you for applying” note. Some bloggers require that you send them your piece completely written while others ask for a brief synopsis of what you plan to write. You can send an email that looks similar to the following,

Dear (Blogger Name),

My name is __________ and I do (your profession and website). After doing some research on your blog, I think that your readers would be interested in learning more about (give one potential topic with a tentative title). This topic is important to your readers because __________. I can be reached at (your email and other contact information.

Keep it short and to the point, making sure to focus on the value you are giving to your readers and NOT how you writing for them will do so much for your business.

Have you done any guest blogging? What gave you the biggest headache?

October 1, 2013October 1, 2013

How to Turn Your Fans and Followers Into Subscribers

Are marketing companies beating down your door promising to bring you 1000+ Facebook followers in a day? Do you think you need 20,000+ Twitter followers in order to be relevant? Let me be honest with you. The number of Facebook and Twitter followers you have is only half the battle. Getting them onto your email list is what matters.

I watch a lot of healthy brands spend a lot of time on building their following online without the use of a blog or email list. You create crafty posts that people comment on and share with others. You take lots of beautiful photos personalized with quotes of the day. Then what happens? Your Facebook or Twitter account disappears, or somehow your content gets lost. And all those likes and followers you worked so hard to build up are now — GONE. Now what?

Now you’ve got to take the time to build your community all over again. Oh, how it sucks to be you.

This is one of the main reasons why creating a blog with an email list is so important. You own your own website and your website list. The company you pay to host your website and manage your email list backs up your information so that the information you need will be there when you need it. You are not at the whim of some outside social media company who will be gone tomorrow with all your followers in tow.

People who are on your email list are worth way more than your social media followers. People who actively make the decision to spend a quick minute to join your email list are making a strong commitment to learn more about you and what you can do for them. They are saying, “Yes, I like you and welcome opportunities for you to sell me stuff.” This is way more powerful than someone who just pressed the LIKE button.

So how do you lure your followers to your email list?

Give them a preview of what’s coming up next week on your blog. On the day before your next blog post or newsletter comes out, tell them about the new piece of content you have coming out tomorrow with a link that will lead them to your subscription page. Plain and simple.
Have a juicy lead magnet. A great lead magnet is what you are giving away for free in exchange for their email address. This can be a mini e-course, an e-book, a quick recipe book, a series of short videos, etc. Be creative and remember that your giveaway should give your subscribers a taste of what it is you can do for them.
Share exclusive content with your list. What can you give your subscribers that no one else will have access to? Will you be giving them first dibs on a coupon code to purchase items on your site? Will they learn about special classes that will give them an opportunity to learn directly from you?

Hey, want to subscribe to my list? Subscribe now and get a FREE mini e-course, 5 BLOG BLUNDERS THAT CAN SABOTAGE YOUR HEALTHY BRAND!

September 30, 2013September 30, 2013

3 Keys to Writing Quality Blog Content for Your Healthy Brand

Every healthy brand needs a blog to build a relationship with their customers. However you want to make sure you build your blog content strategically. I often peruse the blogs of healthy brands, many of which feel more like ghost towns rather than a place I want to hang out and learn more about your product or services. So how do you get your customers, and future customers, to notice your content in the first place? Here are 3 keys to get your health brand blog content started in the right direction.

#1 Answer your customers’ questions

Are you talking to your customers or clients on a regular basis? If you’re not, you’re missing out on a prime opportunity to create new ideas for blog content. What questions do you get over and over again? Chances are that if your customers are asking those questions, there are other potential customers in the world who have the same questions. Do them all a favor by turning their questions into a series of blog posts.

If you care at all about SEO, or search engine optimization, you may have noticed that Google has made yet another update to their search algorithm. The latest Google update called Hummingbird supports searchers with finding the answers to their questions using natural language. This is great for you if you follow this ESSENTIAL TIP to writing a blog post that your customers will read. If you take the time to simply answer your customers questions, you will ALWAYS be in Google’s good graces.

#2 Use effective blog post titles

The titles of your blog posts should give your readers a clue about what the post is about. Why? Think about how much information you scan on a daily basis. This includes your emails, your favorite websites, Facebook posts, your Twitter feed, etc. What do you tend to click on? You are more than likely going to click on the headline that gives you a clue about what the post is about. Take a look at the headline for this post, for example: 3 Keys to Writing Quality Blog Content for Your Healthy Brand. I identified the following information:

What am I giving away? —> 3 tips (simple and easy to digest)
What is the subject of the post? —> writing quality blog content
Who is the audience? —> healthy brands

Make life for your readers a lot easier by being as clear as possible with your titles. If they don’t click on your post right away, they will at the very least share it with others via social media to those who may be part of your target audience as well.

#3 Don’t write to go viral, write for your customers {TWEET THIS!}

New bloggers and brands put way too much pressure on themselves trying to create content marketing campaigns that will go viral. Viral means that your content gets shared across social media thousands, if not millions, of times, in a very short span of time — very similar to how a flu virus spreads. You’ve seen them: wacky wedding proposals, babies that dance, stupid animal stunts, etc. While you definitely want your posts to be seen and read, you want your content to be seen by the right people — namely people who can’t wait to buy your products and services. So do yourself and your customers a favor and write exclusively for your audience.

Do you have questions about writing good blog content for your healthy brand? Write your questions in the comments below.

September 13, 2013September 26, 2013

Why Your Healthy Brand Needs a Blog

There are literally millions of blogs and even more blog posts out there on the internet. Why should your healthy brand invest the time and energy into creating one?

Blogs help build relationships with customers

Some businesses only reach out to their customers when they have something to sell. This can be a major turn off for a lot of consumers. Blogs are a soft way of knocking on your customer’s door and reminding them that you exist.

People or businesses that have bought from you — or those that may want to buy from you in the future — want to stay in contact with you. They want to know your opinion on relevant topics, the latest on your new products, they want first dibs on coupon codes and sales, etc. Help your current and future customers stay in contact with you by offering a blog subscription via email or rss.

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Looking for an email subscription service? I highly recommend Aweber to help you create your money making email list.

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Well written blog posts can help your business rank high in Google

Blog posts can help potential customers discover you during their internet search for your product or service. For example, if I am looking for monkey trainers in Wisconsin, I would type in those keywords in my Google search and perhaps review the first two to three pages of results. If you are a diligent elephant trainer who blogged regularly, you would use the keywords, “monkey trainers Wisconsin,” often in your blog posts, making your site pop up in the Google results (alright, the algorithm for Google searches is way more complicated than that, but you get my point…). I’d be able to read the posts you wrote and decide if you were the the type of monkey trainer I was looking to hire.

Good blog content sets you apart from your competition

Blog posts are a great way to set your business apart from your competition. Just about every health company with a web presence will write a mission statement somewhere on their site. However, who really reads those things and commits it to memory? It is much easier to express your mission and values in your blog posts.

If your company sells iron pills, you may want to blog about why your iron pills are better than others. Are your iron pills suitable for pregnant women? Does your company refrain from using animal by-products or artificial binders? Are the pills easy on the digestive system? Your answers to these questions say a lot about who you are as a company and your values, much more than any dry mission statement can convey.

Are you ready to get your blog started? Do you already have a blog and want to know how you can improve it? Write your thoughts in the comments below.