Do You Sound Like Your Blog?
We talk a lot about how building a web presence with blog software can extend the reach of your voice. Like singing into a can and communicating to the masses at the same time.
It’s important to think of blogging more in terms of a conversation than a marketing or public relations piece. Compelling conversation will make for a compelling marketing tool, not the other way around.
Write Like You Talk: Writing in a conversational tone (yours) can will be more attractive to readers than marketing-speak or prize-winning prose. Sometimes, it can be as simple as replacing a comma (,) with an ellipses (…). One of the best compliments you’ll hear is when people say they can ‘hear you talking’ in your posts.
Keep it Short: We’re all busy people. If you want your posts read (especially in feed readers), be considerate of your readers’ time. A goal of 200-300 words is a good start. Short posts are good. Longer posts can be broken up into parts or with well-placed bullet points.
Links are Resourceful: Be generous with relevant hyperlinks to other sites, blogs and of course…your own web pages. If your blog has no links (or only links to your own stuff), you’ll look like a dead-end. They call it ‘surfing’ for a reason. A dead-end blog will end up a dead blog.
Post Frequently: Every post becomes an individual page in your site (a permalink). This creates page depth. Search engines favor relevance, depth and frequency.
Synchronize Your Communication: If you find yourself talking or emailing about a certain topic multiple times in a short period – blog it. You’ll find it expands the conversation outward and cuts down on your email and telephone time.
Don't let blogging be a hurdle to extending your voice (and your ears). We overcame fax machines, email, cell phones, having a dot.com...it's just a matter of time and effort.
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