I saw this question posed in a LinkedIn discussion, but I hear it all the time: Should I have an email newsletter or a blog? The answer is: it’s the wrong question. Most small businesses should have both, and the question should be: What kinds of email newsletter and blog should I have? By “email newsletter” I mean something […]
Check Your Site For Outdated Content
If you’re not visiting your own website regularly, you could end up with outdated content, and the consequences can be serious: from visitors trying a phone number that no longer works, to visitors seeing your company as lazy because there’s a signup link for an event that took place last year. Here are some key types of […]
The Question And Answer Post
Answering questions from your customers and clients is a great source of material for your website’s blog. Not only are you providing valuable information, but you know that this is information people are looking for, so it will really help your search engine visibility. Even if you already have a Frequently Asked Questions page, you can […]
Write Descriptive Anchor Text For Your Links
Anchor text is the clickable text that visitors see in a hyperlink; text that’s usually uniquely coloured, underlined, or both. Best practice is to make this anchor text descriptive of what visitors are going to get when they click the link. The other day I came across this example of weak anchor text: In this […]
Finding New Material In Old Reports
No new studies you can report on in your field? Time to start mining past studies and reviving some old material or finding new twists on old figures. Pick any topic relating to your business – I’m sure you’ll find many if not dozens of recent studies on that topic. Your task is to extract the […]
The Old Patent Post
In every field there’s a long history of invention, some of it quite… unusual. Finding these unusual inventions and blogging about them can be a great source of both entertainment and sometimes education. A client of mine – a singing teacher – was looking for something fun to blog about and I suggested she try Google […]
When Sending Away Visitors Is A Good Thing
I often hear clients say they don’t want any external links on their site because that will take visitors away. But sending them away can be a good thing. I was working with a liquor store on improving their content and one of the pieces they were working on was a history of wine. The first […]
The “Lessons Learned From” Post
It’s amazing what you can learn from Game of Thrones. The lesson to be learned from this search on Google is that people love to read articles that relate a topic to their favourite show, movie, book, personality, and so on. It can take a bit of work to make the necessary connections, and you may […]
Record Your Ideas For Blog Posts
Many writing coaches will tell you that recording yourself talking about your ideas is a great way to get your thoughts out of your head. The theory is, even if you’re not comfortable speaking in front of groups, you’ll probably be fine talking to yourself out loud. And who doesn’t already talk to themselves… Well, the principle […]
The Memorial Post
When a person dies, we like to remember what they did in their lives, and this can be a source of writing ideas for your site. Whether it’s someone generally famous or someone well known in your business or simply someone you knew, the key is to find a memory that relates to something important to your […]
Check Your Spelling Because It Matters
Spelling errors on a business website say something about its owner(s): lack of attention to detail, lack of knowledge, lack of pride in their business; even more so when the misspelled words are related to their business. Would you trust this dog trainer? Unless you have other information about this person, like recommendations from people you trust, […]