Blogging Workshop – starting 30th August
Here’s something both fun and useful for all of you who have business blogs – SuperWAHM is running a Blogging Workshop starting 30 August.
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Who’s it for?
Anyone who has a business blog and wants to get more traffic, more readers, work more efficiently and turn their blog into a valuable tool for their business.
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How does it work?
It’s being run on a separate site at http://blogging.superwahm.com via a blog. Makes sense doesn’t it? Running a blogging workshop via a blog? Or maybe it’s just my weird sense of humour that likes that. Yes, probably just me….
The Workshop is based on Problogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog ebook. And if you sign up for the Workshop you’ll get a special discount code that Darren set up for participants, so you’ll get the 31DBBB ebook for only $18.95.
Each day there’ll be a post about that day’s task and learning from the ebook. You complete the task, read the learning, come back and leave a comment and/or link.
You can ask questions and have them answered by myself and a couple of other very experienced bloggers, as well as other participants.
We’ll be taking weekends off, to give us all a break and also some time to let the week’s learnings sink in and time to catch up if needed.
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What topics will you cover?
We’ll be looking at:
- Measure your statistics at the start and again at the end of the six weeks
- Write different styles of posts
- Come up with almost endless topics to write about (you won’t believe how easy this is!)
- Promoting and marketing your blog
- Grow a community of readers
- Develop an editorial calendar for blog posts
- Connect more and better with your niche market
- Plan for your blogging for after the Workshop – you’ll finish up with a clear plan ahead
And heaps more. 31 days of improving your blog, shaping it up so it’s working hard for your business.
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Couldn’t I do this by myself?
Sure you could. If you prefer to work through the 31DBBB ebook on your own then go for it. I find that when I’m in a group I’m more likely to do the work as there’s accountability. Plus in a group we all get to participate in the group thinking, different ideas and points of view.
Everything’s more fun in a group, when you can get to know each other, learn from each other, ask questions and just enjoy the learning process together.
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What if I miss a day or three?
You mean when life happens? First off, don’t panic. We’re not going to kick you out if you don’t turn up every day. You’ve got a couple of options if you miss a day or a couple.
- You can not worry about it and just join back in where the group is up to. You’ll miss a few tasks, but you can always do them afterwards.
- You can catch up the following weekend.
- You can do a couple of day’s tasks the next day you’re back with us.
The choice is yours, obviously the more you do the better your results will be.
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How much does it cost?
I wanted to offer this workshop for free, but I just can’t do it. So I’ve made it as affordable as I can – only $8 for the workshop. That’s right; you get me for six weeks for only $8.
Plus you’ll need to purchase the 31DBBB ebook from Problogger – use the discount code when you join the workshop and it’s only $18.95
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How do I sign up?
Glad you asked. You can go to SuperWAHM Blogging Workshop if you’d like some more information and sign up there.
Or if you’re ready to join now just click below and you’re in!
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Any questions? – as always you can email me and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.
Planning Your Posts
How many times have you sat at your computer wracking your brain for divine inspiration that will enable your fingers to fly magically over the keyboard, your screen to fill with meaningful dialogue and teachings, and will culminate in a blog post that will attract readers, be stumbled/twitted/dugg voraciously, linked to, commented on and hailed as the best blog post that ever existed? Well, this post possibly isn’t going to give you the actual topic for that blog post, because if it was then I’d be writing it myself, however it will help get you on the path to finding that topic.
What I am aiming to do is help you with that feeling of “What am I going to write about? This post has to be published today and I still don’t have a topic” type of writers block. I used to have this regularly, as in nearly every single day.
Plan your post topics in advance.
Simple, yes? But how many people do this? I’m not talking about writing your posts in advance, although that’s a great practice to get into, I’m talking about listing down your future topics.
Why? And what happens when that inspiration strikes and you write your award winning post? Where does that fit in? Glad you asked.
Planning your topics in advance helps with:
- Avoiding writers block when you haven’t a clue what to write about
- Saves the mental angst and energy of having to come up with a topic two hours before the post is due to be published. That mental energy is much better directed towards writing content, not topics.
- You can tie your posts in with other marketing and products that you have. For example, writing a series of posts leading up to the launch of a new product or service. The posts drive interest and curiosity about the product – watch your sales rise.
- It save time, both in creating a topic and writing the post.
- You create a strategic plan for the content of your blog which adds value and interest to your posts. This will increase the quality of your content and help attract and retain visitors to your site.
- If you know your topics in advance, you can mind-map and draft them in odd moments of spare time. I regularly draw mind-maps of posts while sitting in the car waiting for my daughter to finish her dance class.
- And it’s easy. So easy. Try it and see.
How do you plan your topics? Three easy steps, (so easy you’ll wonder why I wrote them out, however I know if I don’t write them out, then someone will email or comment and ask how):
Step 1. Write a list of topics. Write down anything that comes to mind as a potential topic. Brainstorm. Look at comments that have been left on previous posts, emails you’ve been sent, questions you’ve been asked. Go through the list and delete any that won’t work.
Step 2. Take a piece of lined paper, or a Word document, or even a spreadsheet, and write the dates you plan to publish posts down the left hand side. I have posts planned for four to six weeks in advance. Note any holidays, conferences or other activities that could interrupt your writing and posting schedule.
Step 3. The hardest step. Decide what topic you’re going to post on what day and write it in. You can group similar topics together, plan series of topics on a subject, plan topics for product launches and seasonally relevant topics. Remember to include any dates that you plan to use Guest posts.
Now put the list up where you can see it, and start writing. I carry a copy with me in my notebook, so I can refer to it when I have some spare time; you may or may not want to do this.
Have fun planning your topics, and I’d love to hear how you plan and organise your blog posting. Leave a comment and tell us how you do this.
Email Goof-Up, or Don't Diss Your Customers
I was sent an email yesterday that originated from a café in a largish town in Victoria, and has since gone viral and been featured both online and in printed media all over the world, on Facebook, Twitter and heavens knows where else. It’s about a silly email mistake, and is also a lesson on a) never disrespecting a customer, and b) never ever putting negative comments in writing. Here’s the email trail, profanities removed:
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From: Morrissy Family
Sent: Tuesday, 28 July 2009 12:41 PM
To: Abbey Sherwell
Subject: soft cafe group may results summary
Hi Abbey,
May 2009 results collated on my own spread sheet are as follows:
Gross Turnover $8,537
less discount ($2,024) 25% with cap at $15 for $60 spend
Net Turnover $6,513
255 vouchers average $33 per voucher
$8537 divided by average spend per customer = 580 people
We were unable to train staff before May to document the spend when cap was reached, so I took an average of those who spent more than $60 to gain a more accurate total spend. Is our spend high based on your averages , can you give me some feedback from your prospective and industry averages, Thankyou, Craig Morrissy
—– Original Message —–
From: Abbey Sherwell
To: Morrissy Family
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 12:55 PM
Subject: RE: soft cafe group may results summary
Hey,
This guy is a dick…as you know, I have been trying to get him to track and he has decided to do it himself in some kind of f*****d up way! Is there any way we can put these results into our spreadsheet to get some kind of ROI?
Basically from what he’s given me, he has earnt 8,537 from the program and invested 2,024. He’s had 255 vouchers but that is from all 3 locations.
Why are all the people I deal with so f*****d in the head???
Abbey Sherwell | Account Manager
The brand new 2009/2010 Entertainment Books are here! Many community and fund-raising organisations now have the books available. Visit
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From: Morrissy Family
Sent: Tuesday, 28 July 2009 1:00 PM
To: Abbey Sherwell
Subject: Re: soft cafe group may results summary
Thanks Abbey, recieved your feedback,
cancel our business with you immmediately, please inform your boss that vouchers will not be redemable at our cafes from tomorrow.
Craig Morrissy
I’m involved in a few networks of business peopele aroung Geelong, I can insure that they will be all recieving a copy of your email.
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—– Original Message —–
From: Abbey Sherwell
To: Morrissy Family
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 1:07 PM
Subject: RE: soft cafe group may results summary
Craig,
If you could let me explain, I would appreciate it.
I know it looks awful but it certainly was not as intended.
Abbey Sherwell | Account Manager
The brand new 2009/2010 Entertainment Books are here! Many community and fund-raising organisations now have the books available. Visit
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From: Morrissy Family
Sent: Wednesday, 29 July 2009 10:40 am
To: (email addressees removed)
Subject: Fw: soft cafe group may results summary
To all business people on my data base,
this is no joke, be wary of what marketing groups you align and trust to be supportive of your business.
Craig Morrissy
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Wow. How many of us have accidently hit reply rather than forward on an email? I know I’ve done it a couple of times, thankfully with no bad consequences beyond having to apologise and being slightly embarrassed. What Abbey did wrong here (apart from not checking who she sent it to!) was putting in writing negative thoughts regarding one of her customers.
Maybe Abbey was having a bad day. Maybe this was the 37th email she’d had that day with incorrect figures. We all have days and customers who totally drive us up the wall. It’s not at all uncommon for any of us to need to vent sometimes about the customer from hell. (Anyone want to hear about the schizophrenic client I had who ended up stalking me? *shudders*) However; there’s a time and place and appropriate means to do so. Email is not it. Any form of writing is not it.
Go and complain to someone in person. Talk to them. Yell at a tree if you need to, and you can kick and hit the tree too. Then when you feel better and slightly calmer, go back and deal with the customer.
I think Abbey and Craig have both learnt of the power of viral marketing, or at least the viral aspect of it. In these days of instant email, twitter, facebook and other forms of social media, anything that is put in writing is able to spread across the world within minutes. Think before you write, think before you post something. If your words were spread through the internet, would you be happy to have them read all over the world?
Abbey Sherwell was fired from her job because of her email.
On Sex, Home Business, Keywords and SEO
There’s been a lot of talk on the net lately about how Google is moving away from actual keywords and is ranking sites based on content. Which means all the writers who write ‘articles’ (I’m using the term loosely there) stuffed to the gills with keywords will be out of business. They’re going to have to start writing proper articles, filled with useful content, and only a few keywords used in an appropriate context within the article.
Here’s the disclaimer: I’m no SEO expert. I only recently realised that I had to enter details in to my SEO WordPress plugin. I’m also no expert, if there is such a thing, on how Google ranks sites, or even how search engines find and display information. I’ve done some research on it, done a lot of reading, and I have quite a few friends who are professional writers as well.
I have been told that having keywords in your title, in <h1> tags, helps because it tells the search engines give those words priority. I’ve also been told that having the words ‘Sex’ and ‘Home Business’ also tend to rank well (this article has both sex and home business in the title deliberately) and they attract a lot of traffic to your site.
However, if someone is coming to my site because they searched on the word ‘sex’ then they’re unlikely to be interested in the business information available here. Finding the site through ‘home business’ would help them certainly. I’m not too sure that I’m the right person to help them if they searched on ‘sex home business’ though! I’ve also had a lot of searches for “make money online quickly” which pulls up this previous post, however I’m pretty sure those people are disappointed as well. 
For those of us who aren’t experts in SEO and are uncertain of how Google works (does anyone really know?) the best way to optimise your site with keywords and for SEO is simply to write quality content. People will find you, other sites will link to you, your site url will be passed around as a go-to quality site that is worth the time to read.
Search engines are machines and websites aren’t read by machines – they’re read by people. You need to write for people and not for search engines. Good quality content, with enough keywords that fit organically within the context of the article will ultimately do more for your SEO and rankings than stuffing an article so full of keywords that it’s unreadable nonsense. And in the process you’ll attract the customers that you want to bring, who will in turn bring others.
If you want to read about SEO from a person who knows a lot more about it than me, my good friend Marc Pieniazek is currently writing a series of posts on SEO. I’ll be reading his posts avidly to learn more about SEO, and I highly recommend you sign up for his RSS feed so you don’t miss any as well.
For now, I’m going to be watching my stats with interest to see how well the keyword stuffing in the title draws traffic and from where. Popcorn anyone?
How to Increase Repeat Readers
This is the third of three guest posts brought to you by Marc Pieniazek of Welsh Scribe.
In this final instalment of the 3 part series on writing effective blog posts we take a look at the all important but oft overlooked end of the post. Previous posts in this series discussed the importance of the title of the post and how to structure your copy to keep reader’s attention.
You’ve worked hard to entice the reader in with a catchy title and you’ve managed to keep their attention with compelling copy so the last thing you want to do is to end on a weak note and leave that reader hanging.
Thoughts like “now what?” and “is that it?” do nothing to compel the reader into doing something. They feel unfulfilled, like dining out in a fancy restaurant yet leaving hungry despite having a full course. If that was you would you return to dine there? Then why should your reader’s come back for more if your writing doesn’t fulfil them?
Talking of food. The first and most essential thing you need to do is what’s called sandwiching your copy. Let me explain.
Bringing The Closure
We all know what a sandwich is right? Two slices of bread with something in the middle as a filler. Well what would your sandwich be like if it only had one slice of bread? That’s right it wouldn’t be a sandwich.
By the same token you need to end your post on the same note you used to open it. In traditional teaching the structure is along the lines of telling your students what they’re about to learn, teaching them and then telling them what they just learnt.
Sounds a bit repetitive and redundant I know but this repetition has an important psychological effect. It’s called closure. The easiest way to create this closure is to simply mirror your opening paragraph. If you start with a problem then end with the solution.
When you make a sandwich you probably start with two slices of bread. Do the same with your writing start with your opening and closing paragraphs. Then add the filling.
Take a look at how I sandwich this post.
Beyond Psychology
So you’ve made a nice sandwich and your readers are feeling all the better for consuming it but it doesn’t mean they are going to do what you want them to do.
Sure they’re much more likely to return for more which is always a good thing but there are things you can do to increase those chances.
Promise them something at the end. This 3-part series is one example of enticing readers back to your blog. TV shows like LOST and 24 end on cliffhangers. As viewers we just have to know what’s going to happen next so we tune in again the following week. Can you end your blog posts on a cliffhanger?
The end of your post is also where you insert your call to action; subscribe to RSS for example, use social media to promote the blog post or even get them to buy from you. Whatever it is you want them to do just remember you must explicitly ask for it.
Now you are armed with all the knowledge you need to end your posts. Make that end note a strong one so that you don’t leave your readers hanging.
This also concludes the 3 part series on writing an effective blog post. Time to re-read the previous entries to see just how I integrated all the tips into each of them.
I hope you enjoyed this short series. Please do comment with your thoughts or questions.
Marc is a freelance writer and SEO specialist who helps freelancers build a profitable business. Grab his RSS feed today
How to Write Copy That Keeps Readers Attention
This is the second of three guest posts brought to you by Marc Pieniazek of Welsh Scribe.
This is the second post in a 3-part series. The previous post looked at writing headlines that attract attention and enticed readers to continue reading. In this post we’ll take a look at some of the best ways to maximise that attention once you have it.
Hopefully by now you’ve realised the importance of a great headline, the power it has to draw potential readers in and get them to read your copy. But the battle is far from over.
When structuring a blog post bear in mind that many readers have a short attention span. It’s no-one’s fault, it’s in our nature to filter the information that we’re bombarded with. Still, the last thing we want is to have someone click away from your blog post without reading it.
At the very least you want to give them the opportunity to skim through and take what they can. We can do this by breaking up the text.
Bitesize Chunks Are Easier to Swallow. Start with an excerpt or an introduction, something that gives the reader a quick overview of what to expect from the post. Keep them short, 3 or 4 sentences at most. Consider making them visually distinct from your copy as well by using italics.
Paragraphs need to be shorter than usual. Grammar sticklers forgive me; when it comes to blogging – one sentence does make a paragraph.
Headings and subheadings need to convey what’s coming up next or be intriguing enough to get the reader to slow down if only for a moment. If you can do both then you are onto a winner.
Take the previous post in this series as an example. One of the subheadings was to “Steal From Others”. Quite a provocative statement and one that hopefully had it’s desired effect.
Write lists. They are short and let you get your points across quickly with little effort required on the reader’s part. Lists should contain your most salient points, the ones you want your reader to take away with them even if they ignore every other word you’ve written.
Use bold to make parts of your copy stand out. The trick is to use it sparingly however. Like lists, highlight only the salient points.
Closure. There is one more thing to do with your post content to make it truly effective. Ending it properly. It’s no good leaving your readers hanging wondering what next.
That however is the topic of the next post in the series.
So now you have a variety of ways to make your blog posts easier to digest. Remember, don’t stop at the title, once you have the reader’s attention don’t let it slip through your fingers.
Marc is a freelance writer and SEO specialist who helps freelancers build a profitable business. Grab his RSS feed today
How to Write For the Web
Today’s post, and the following two this week, are brought to you by Marc Pieniazek of Welsh Scribe.
Marc has the honour of being the very first Guest Poster on this blog! He writes great copy, has a wicked sense of humour and is a lovely guy to know. I hope you all enjoy his posts here as much as I do.
This first post in a 3-part series explores the structure of a blog post, in particular what you need to do in order to draw the reader in and get your message across.
Lets face it. Writing for the web is totally different from any other form of writing you have to do. Take a novel for example. Unless you’re a 3 year old, you don’t care that your book doesn’t have any pictures in it but we all know how important it is to have an image in our blog posts.
The most critical factor however is attention span. Not only do you have to grab a reader’s attention but you have to keep it. A difficult feat in this day and age.
Fortunately there are a few things you can do to increase your reader retention.
Start At The Top
The title is the first thing any potential reader will see and is therefore the most important element in any online writing. Don’t underestimate its power.
You can have the most important message mankind will ever hear, the best product or service guaranteed to solve every one’s problems but if your title fails to attract attention, that message won’t be spread and no-one will buy that super product or service of yours.
Steal From Others
T.S Eliot once said, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
Marketers call it a swipe file.
If you want to know what titles get the most attention then copy what works. Not word for word, obviously, The title has to remain true to your post. “Top 10 Fashion Tips From The Celebs” is no good if you blog about dog grooming.
Brian Clark has an entire series on how to write magnetic headlines. Well worth a read but if you’re looking to get off the ground quickly here’s a list of time-tested titles that draw in the most readers.
• The “How To…”: It’s no coincidence that this post begins with the words “How To”. How to articles are the most sought after content online.
• The “Top X…”: Another extremely popular type of article or blog post is the list post and an easy way of creating a list is by compiling a Top 10 or 50 or 100.
• The “X reasons/secrets/ways Why…”: Expanding on the above point about list posts are titles containing a number of reasons or ways why something will work. The best example is Brian’s article 7 Reasons Why List Posts Always Work. On my own blog, the top 3 popular posts are of this format.
• The “[celebrity] Guide To…”: Everyone wants to be successful at something and there’s no better example of success than a celebrity. This is why my post “What the Phantom Of the Opera Can Teach You About Writing” is still getting traffic or why “The Winnie the Pooh Guide To Blogging” received 132 comments.
So there you have it. Next time you write a blog post try fitting the title into one of the above categories. Spend a considerable amount of time on it, your post deserves it.
In the next post in this 3 part series I’ll take a closer look at the body of the blog post and what you need to do in order to get your message across, even to those that just skim through.
Marc is a freelance writer and SEO specialist who helps freelancers build a profitable business. Grab his RSS feed today.
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The web's business planning expert - just for work at home mums. Together we'll find the time for you to make money.