5 Tips for Beautiful Blogs

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Linda Anger

Content is King, it is true. Your blog must be an easy and informative read or viewers will click off in the blink of an eye.

But Content isn’t Everything.

The visual side of your blog is important, too. Here are 5 Tips for Beautiful Blogs:

  1. Choose and stick with a single font face, or at most, two complimentary fonts.  Use a sans serif font (like Arial) for headlines and sub-heads, and a serif font (like Times) for body text. Too many fonts and colors are visually disturbing.
  2. Use images to enhance your content, and set them to work proportionally with  and enhance your content. Clutter is nasty, balance is beautiful.
  3. Use simple, bold headlines to make your point. Edit down to 5 words or less.
  4. Keep your content short and informative. Anything beyond 300 words becomes a chore to read on the fly. If you have more to say, break it into multiple posts.
  5. Make your subject line enticing. If it’s not, the chances of people clicking through go way, way down.

 

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

Did you Know?

The Write Concept offers blog writing and other social media programs for entrepreneurs, small business, and nonprofit organizations.

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© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

 

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Three Tips for Better Blogs

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Linda Anger

Sharon looked me straight in the eye and said: “I hate blogging. I don’t know what to say. It takes me forever to write two paragraphs and they end up being nothing but a bunch of blah-blah marketing statements. But I know I have to do it to stay competitive.”

Owner of a small consulting business and responsible for “everything,” Sharon echoed a sentiment I hear almost daily: Blogging is a piece of the success pie, and it has become a huge challenge for those not trained as communicators.

What can you do to make your blog better for your readers AND better for you as the producer?  Here are three tips to get you back on track:

1)  Focus on the Goal of your Blog.  Is your intent simply to keep your name Top of Mind with your customers and prospects?  Are you focused on Lead Generation, website traffic, or building your reputation as an information hub?

 

2)  Remember What Drew You to Your Industry.  Way back when, on the day you started your company or made the decision to take a job in your current industry, you were excited about it. There was something that thrilled you, that satisfied you beyond just the paycheck. What was it? What emotion did it trigger? Find that energy again, and write from that place. It might be helpful to create a list of the reasons you started and the dreams you had about your career.

 

3) Tell stories. Stories pull the reader into an experience, and the more they see themselves in that experience, the more willing they will be to keep reading and remember you when they need your product or service.

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

Did you Know? The Write Concept offers blog writing and other social media programs for entrepreneurs, small business, and nonprofit organizations.

Follow us on Twitter  and Facebook

© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.

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Why LinkedIn Groups are Good for Your Business

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Linda Anger

LinkedIn—it’s the quiet member of the Social Media triplets, longer-winded than Twitter, less social than Facebook. Yet, as is often the case with the less noisy sibling, from a business-building standpoint, LinkedIn is the golden child.

Nestled within LinkedIn’s powerhouse of tools is the Group function. Here we can connect professionally with the like-minded on topics as diverse as cooking and aerospace engineering, and engage in useful discussion.

Over the years, I’ve made some great connections through LinkedIn Groups. One of my favorites is the WM Freelance Writers Connection, where I joined a discussion started by Vincent Frogameni, a freelancer in Springfield, Massachusetts, on the Top 3 Freelancing Mistakes.

Because of my responses in that forum, Vincent asked to interview me—a request to which I quickly, and gladly responded. The interview is posted on his blog.

This is good for Vincent’s business because every interview he does with other writers and marketers drives traffic to his website and links him, via perception or reality, to the experts in his field.

This is good for my business because being interviewed adds to the perception that I am an expert in my field, and also drives traffic to my website.

Get started with LI groups, if you haven’t already. Jump into existing discussions, or start one of your own. Then be proactive, like Vincent, using the relationships you build to boost someone’s business – and at the same time, your own.

My father used to say, “still waters run deep.” In the Big 3 of Social Media, LinkedIn is the “still waters,” and the Groups function one of the gems beneath the surface. Dive in!

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4 Tips for Effective Copy Writing

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Linda Anger
  1. Don’t waste money on internet copy writing courses. Find the writers whose work resonates with you and follow them.
  2. Don’t waste a reader’s time with 6-page long letters full of highlighted text and screamingly large headlines.
  3. Do follow the advice of Joseph Pulitzer, one of the greatest journalists of all time. He said: “Put it before them briefly, so they will read it, clearly, so they will appreciate it, picturesquely, so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”
  4. Learn to be a ruthless editor, and don’t stop until every unnecessary word is eliminated.

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All comments are welcome. Foul or otherwise distasteful language is not.

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Twitter Tip: S&H Greenstamps

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Linda Anger

Way back in the day — that is, when I was a child — mothers across America paid cash for groceries and came home with a supply of tiny green stamps. We kids would fight for the right to lick the stamps and put them in the S&H Greenstamp books.

Yes, boys and girls, there was a time when stamps had to be licked.

Greenstamps were the first “trading stamp” rewards program offered in America. Wikipedia says that in the 1960s, The Sperry & Hutchinson Company (S&H) issued more stamps than the U.S. Post Office, and they were available everywhere. In those long ago days, there were no credit cards or computerized cash registers, either. How ever did we survive?

It would take months to fill a book… longer to fill 10 or 30. And every month, Mom went  through the catalog to pick out her reward. When she made it, when she had to 10 or 30 books she needed to “win,” she’d take that stack of stamp books to the post office. Many weeks later, her prize—a breadbox, a carving knife, or a supply of 100% cotton kitchen towels—would arrive in our mailbox.

All these years later, I mention S&H Greenstamps to a pair of 30-somethings, and they look at me like I’m some sort of dinosaur speaking some sort of alien tongue. Being that I am a generation above them, that may very well be true, and there’s a lesson in that for me, I’m sure.

I Tweet this experience, and the next thing I know I’m being followed by @S&HGreenpoints… the 21st century incarnation of the company founded in 1896.

Here’s the point:

S&HGreenpoints is a 19th Century company with a 21st Century marketing mind, using social media to monitor what is being said about them and their products, good or bad.

We should all be doing the same. Set your dashboard (TweetDeck or Hootsuite) to show whenever your Twitter name is mentioned. Pay close attention, and follow up on everything. Thanks to the people that mention you favorably, and find out what you can do to change the dynamics with those whose mentions are not so good.

Then tweet about it, please.

And follow me on Twitter while you’re at it…. @TWCinMI.

Have a Twitter story? Please share it with us in the “Comment” area. Thanks!

 

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Your Words are Your Reputation

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Linda Anger

It used to be that reputations were ruined by pencil scrawls on public bathroom walls, or derogatory notes passed in class. A single word or phrase could destroy your life – but that is ancient history, right?

Not so. Spelling errors
Every post on your websites, blogs, or social networking sites impacts your personal and business life.

Now, I am a writer, so maybe I’m hypersensitive. But from my perspective, messages containing spelling or uncommon usage errors cause me to question whether the writer pays attention to quality in other aspects of their business — particularly when I see similar errors across multiple messages.

Here are three examples I’ve seen in the last week. The improperly used/spelled words are in blue:

More homeowners choose us to market there properties then any other agency.

… those of you that have been apart of the community…

… few our harnessing the true power…


Maybe the people who wrote these posts were in a hurry. Or, maybe they don’t care if their message is misconstrued or they look foolish. But the world is watching, and judging.

Double check your emails – even your Tweets – before you hit “send.” Have someone else proofread your web content and articles before they go live.

Your reputation is at stake.

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

© 2011 The Write Concept, Inc.  All Rights Reserved. Reprinted from “Voice and Vision,” an electronic newsletter proudly published by The Write Concept, Inc. since 2000.
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One of Those Days

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Linda Anger

Having one of those days, darling? You know what I mean – one of those frustrating, exhausting days in which everything you had planned is blown out the window by the things you didn’t anticipate?

The kind of day when you needed only to focus for one good hour to complete an important project, but the phone rings nonstop, the computer crashes, or the one person Hair Pullingyou desperately need to consult has left on vacation? The kind of day in which the faster you go the farther behind you fall?

Any street-corner guru will tell you: what happens in your life is not important. Hate your job? Not important. Dumped by the love of your life? Sorry, not even close to important. Diagnosis: Cancer?  To this I can personally and emphatically say, “Not important.”

That same street-corner guru (who happens, just like you, to be my brother) will tell you: What matters is the way you respond to what happens.

Look, my friend –I made it through radical surgery and nine months of chemotherapy by conducting little experiments just to amuse myself, and refusing to attend the pity party. You’d be surprised at how people react to a bald lady singing out, “Good Morning!” as she race-walks down the hospital hall at 6 a.m., grinning like the Cheshire Cat, morning after morning.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of my long-time favorite American authors, said, Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I, myself, prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

So when the day is long, your schedule has been tossed and torn by the winds of change – when you think nothing could be worse than getting what you got, or not getting what you wanted ­– turn your mind around, and give yourself a good belly-laugh.

There’s less cleaning up to do.

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

© 2011 The Write Concept, Inc.  All Rights Reserved. 

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Make No Little Plans

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Linda Anger

I receive an inspirational email every day from the Napoleon Hill Foundation. This one really spoke to me. I hope it brings you encouragement as well:

 

Napoleon Hill

YOUR JOB WILL NEVER BE ANY BIGGER THAN YOUR IMAGINATION MAKES IT

Daniel Burnham, the turn-of-the-century architect and civic planner whose plan for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair had an enormous influence on contemporary civic design, was quoted as saying,  “Make no little plans.”  He knew that to achieve great things we must have grand ideas. If you can imagine it, you can create it. And if you can create in your imagination the job that you would like to have, it is possible to create it in the real world.

How grand are your ideas? Are you re-creating your job or your business, with a better future in mind, or trudging through the year hoping someone else will do something to improve your situation?

There wouldn’t have been an 8-cylinder engine if Henry Ford had given up on his dream when his engineers said it couldn’t be done. How long might it have taken NASA to get to the moon if John Kennedy hadn’t insisted that it be done in a certain time frame, even though the technology didn’t exist at the time?

Make No Little Plans. Dream – Dream BIG. Your job—or your business—will never be any bigger than your imagination makes it.

Please leave your comments below – - and Thanks!

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

© 2011 The Write Concept, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
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How to Write More in Less Time

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Linda Anger

The real “art” of writing compelling copy—words that matter and draw people into the story—is in knowing what goes where and how to edit for story potency.

Geologic TimeA hint from Copywriting 101: Your first draft will never be your best draft, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be full of great fodder for the finished piece, whether it is a short story or a magazine article, blog post, or the concept for a full-length novel. Your first intention should be only to get words on paper, or on screen, if you prefer. Just get your thoughts down as if you were talking to a friend, and try to do it in ten minutes or less. Then walk away for at least two hours.

When you come back, it’s time to organize and edit. For a 300-word article or post, give yourself no more than 30 minutes. Read it out loud to yourself, note changes needed, then walk away again.  I know some will argue this point, but in my novel writing, I rarely sit for more than an hour before I need a mental and physical break, and I do edit as I go along.

The final round of the practice is to read your piece out loud to someone you trust to tell you the truth. If you stumble over words or phrases, change them. If your sentences are too long, break them in half. If you’ve used industry jargon or ten-dollar words, clean things up. If you’ve wasted too much space with unnecessary introductory material—a common error for new or untrained writers—your friend should tell you. Get rid of it. Make it worth your reader’s while.

My very first copy writing instructor drilled in into our heads to look for the parts of what we had written that we really loved—the sentences or phrases to which we were emotionally attached—and cut them out completely. This is the “kill your darlings” process, a challenging exercise in non-attachment and journalistic excellence that, in the end, will make your writing stronger.

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

© 2011 The Write Concept, Inc.  All Rights Reserved. 

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Networking Shortage Predicted

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Linda Anger

Saturday morning, 6 a.m., I’m scanning news articles in my email box. The first headline to catch my attention reads: Networking Skills Shortage To Continue Through 2014.

Networking Circle“Hhhmmm… that’s curious,” I thought. Networking training is everywhere, and most people I meet are at least reasonably good at expressing the essence of their business. So, how can a number cruncher predict the world would be “short” of networking skills for another three years?

I read the opening paragraph three times before I looked at the news digest banner, and realized the article was about computer networking – routers and switchers and those other mysterious things I simply don’t comprehend.

I admit I was sleepy, and still in my pajamas. Still, this laughable moment had a point.

The headline of the article was appropriate for the venue in which it was published and the article fully proved the author’s point. The disconnect was in my brain. I translated the headline and opening words relative to my own life and experience, and it was a totally silly misinterpretation.

The moral of this story? Miscommunication happens even with what you might think are the most innocent words and phrases. As you write your next article, email, or letter, be mindful of the various ways in which even common words could be interpreted – or misinterpreted. Choose your words carefully, make clarity your primary focus, and take misinterpretation in stride.

And never read the news in your pajamas.

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

© 2011 Linda Angér & The Write Concept, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
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