10 Creative Blog Content Strategies

Having a solid blogging strategy can build your credibility, generate leads, and ultimately assist with the development of your entire online marketing plan. The key is to find the right content that will keep your readers engaged, informed, and coming back for more!

But what exactly should your blog content include?  This is a question I hear over and over again.

The following article titled, “Don’t Let Blog Content Confuse You” by Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound is very informative. Joan shares with us exactly what types of content you should include in your blog to maximize your exposure and increase readership.

Don’t Let Blog Content Confuse You

If you’re an expert, you’d better be cranking out lots of content
in these formats:

Blogs. Ezines. Twitter posts. Facebook notes. Articles at article
directory sites. Articles at your own website.

Yet some Publicity Hounds are easily confused about what kinds of
topics to write in which types of formats, particularly when
writing for their blogs.

Over the weekend, Publicity Hound Michele Nightengale, who
teaches bricks-and-mortar businesses how to market online, told
me she’s going to start blogging. But she’s confused about
the difference between content for her blog and content for
articles at her website.

“I can’t seem to differentiate them in my mind,” she said. “The
ideas for my articles page and my blog are identical. I can only
think to post my articles on my blog. How do you treat them
separately and without too much duplicate content?”

She’s right. There’s a lot of overlap. Here’s how I differentiate
the two:

Articles posted at article directory sites like
http://www.EzineArticles generally focus on helping people solve
a particular problem. The structure of these articles can follow
various formats. But in general, they offer solutions to a
problem. And they’re about 500-700 words. Examples:

• TV Publicity: 6 ways to find your way onto the local evening news
• Inflight magazines: 8 topics editors love to write about
• Hiring a publicist? Know the 4 ways they charge for their services
• Public service announcements have these 6 elements

Almost everything else, I told her, is fodder for a blog. Think of blogging as journaling, or keeping a business diary. It usually includes much more opinion than how-to articles do. And the writing can be a little more personal and informal. You can use a blog to:

• State an opinion on a topic.
• Comment on somebody else’s blog post or article and link to it.
• Comment on something happening in the news.
• Offer a quiz for a reader.
• Present a question from a reader and then offer the answer.
• Present a case study.
• Disagree with somebody else’s position on a topic, and explain why.
• Discuss something in your personal life that relates to something in your professional life.
• Review a book, home study course or other product you’ve bought.
• Comment on a service you have used.

The ideas for blog content are endless. If you’re still short on
ideas, create several Google Alerts at
http://www.Google.com/alerts for topics you want to blog about.
Google will then email you as often as you wish and let you know
what articles, videos, news stories and other content about those
topics appear online.

I’ll address the topic of avoiding duplicate content in an
upcoming issue of this newsletter. But in general, you don’t want
to use identical content at your website, blog and article
directory sites.

If you’re new to blogging, or if your current blog isn’t
generating the traffic or sales you had hoped, you’ll learn some
quick tips from Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, aka The Blog
Squad, during a f~ree teleseminar from 4 to 5 p.m. on Monday,
Jan. 26. It’s called “Boost Your Biz with a Blog” and Denise and
Patsi will explain how they differentiate blog content from all
the other kinds of content they produce. You’ll also learn about
the biggest mistakes bloggers make and how beginning bloggers can
sabotage their own success.

Register at http://www.blogsquadteleseminars.com/joan/.

Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine
featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity.
Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email
the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a News Release.”

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