Consulting Business 101: How To Manage Your Business Blog

A business blog is a part of a business site such as e-commerce, paid forum, affiliate, portal and crowdfunding.

A business blog is a non-branded page. It means its contents are updated regularly. Common contents published are case studies, press releases and product reviews.

Reasons For Blogging

1. A blog informs. It tells the people (new or repeat visitors) the W’s and H of a story worth sharing in their Facebook and Twitter.

2. A blog entertains. It provides facts and statistics presented with an amusing tone. For example, case studies highlight the success and challenges of a product or service.

When you write, make sure you have a balance mix of charts supported by personal stories.

3. A blog converts. It captures your readers’ attention, interest and desire.

Then, it compels them to act either by calling you via phone or give you their email addresses in exchange of newsletters.

4. A blog reveals a site’s success and failure. Your business site is an empty playground without a blog.

People visit your blog to understand who you are, what your ideas are and what your stories are. The more visits you have, the better conversions you’ll have.

5. A blog links multiple pages together. To ensure you make the best of a content, you link it to other branded pages such as FAQ, About Us and Contact.

Be extra careful though. Limit the number of links. A 500-word content must limit to three internal links (links pointing to the other pages of your site) and two external links (links pointing to a webpage outside your site).

6. A blog is your content playground. The great thing about blogs is, it’s possible to publish your own content, to syndicate content and to invite other people as guest bloggers.

This way, your blog offers variety of contents to all types of visitors. It also branches out to top industry talents.

7. Your blog represents. Be proud if you’re a blogger. It means you have something special to share to the world.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: A business site with regular blog updates will reveal something about you. A business site with no or few updates will also reveal something about you.

Which side are you on?

8. A blog optimizes for Local Search. All local blogs are local websites. Not all websites are local blogs. Therefore, start blogging if you’re running a local business somewhere.

It’s possible to optimize a blog locally if it contains features that target a specific location.

For example, if you have a tennis school in Georgia, it’s possible to direct all your posts to this state.

This way, people (living in community areas within Georgia) who are searching for business related to yours might find your blog in major search engines.

How To Manage A Business Blog

Managing a blog is a cycle. This cycle will consist of three parts. First part is pre-writing, which refers to all essential activities before you put your ideas into life.

Second part is writing, which deals with the science and art of writing. The last part is post-writing, which puts emphasis to persuading people to read, comment and share.

Part 1: Pre-Writing

Activities To Do

• Keyword research
• Content marketing timetable
• Researching relevant contents
• Gathering facts and statistics
• Outlining your ideas
• Re-reading your outline
• Edit your outline

Tools To Use

Uber Suggest

Uber Suggest is a free keyword generating tool. This tool gives you suggestions about a topic.

For example, if the keyword is tennis, you’ll have a list of suggestions such as tennis warehouse, tennis express, tennis elbow, tennis recruiting, tennis news, tennis ball launcher for dogs… so on.

The primary goal of Uber Suggest is to gather keywords and key phrases relevant or irrelevant to your topic. It gives you ideas what to research.

Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner is a research tool owned by Google. It’s mainly used to find relevant keywords for your campaign.

For blogging, Keyword Planner reveals the strength and weaknesses of a topic you want to write. It shows you how popular a keyword is and how tight the competition is.

Spreadsheet

Before researching, put all your gathered keywords on an empty spreadsheet and take time to sort it out.

This serves as your master list, which helps you create titles based on given keywords.

For example, if the keyword is tennis serve, your title shall be 10 Revealing Tips on How to Serve like Roger Federer | Videos Available Inside!

Then, you figure out its content type. For the above title, it’s an article with instructional videos.

Finally, you’ll put a date to write and a published date.

A date to write refers to the number of days you’ll research, write and edit while a published date refers to an exact day of its publication in your blog.

A published date is accomplished by a link.

Search Engine Bar

Google, Yahoo and Bing are the three most popular search engines today. They’re competing against each other but feel free to use any.

When researching for contents, search engines will help you get the right angles for your blog post. It saves times for research; therefore, you can immediately start outlining while searching.

Word Processor

This tool may be a big help before publishing a post. It’s a good practice to put your outline on an offline (MS Word, Notepad) or online (Google Docs) processor before hitting publish.

Part 2: Writing

Activities To Do

• Writing your ideas
• Elaborating sub-topics
• Hours of editing

Tools To Use

Word Processor

A word processor is your ideal partner in writing. It allows you to use its paragraphing and grammar tools whenever you are and wherever you are.

Hemingway Tool

It’s a free recommended app for all bloggers out there. First, you simply need to copy and paste your article in an empty area.

Then, it reveals to you how bold and clear your writing tone is. It also tells you the sentences you need to edit or delete.

It grades your overall writing tone; therefore, you’ll understand why and where your writing get complicated.

Grammarly

English is the universal language. Whether you’re a amateur or professional blogger, this is the paid tool to buy when you want an automated proofreader.

A subscription plan will include a spell check, plagiarism checker and MS office add-in.

Part 3: Post-Writing

Activities To Do

• Post your blog post in Facebook Page
• Post your blog post in Facebook Groups
• Post your blog post in LinkedIn
• Tweet the link once every day
• Convert the article into a press release
• Convert the article into a promo video
• Convert the article into a newsletter
• Send the link to your friends via email
• Convert the article into a slide presentation
• Convert the article into an ebook
• Syndicate the article

Tools To Use

Social Media

Every social media site provides a backlink to your blog. Whether you’re in Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, your goal is to give your followers a reason to visit your blog.

Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use design tool, which allows you to design and download a visual content for your blog, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Canva is for free. It’s also possible to download professional designs for $1.

Analytics

An analytics is either a free or paid tool. It measures the performance of your blog per day.

Make a habit to study its pattern. Take note of the number of visits per week, number of clicks per week and number of conversions.

Social media has its own analytics tool. Yet, it’s possible to link every channel to your primary analytics.

Keep going once you’re done with one topic. It’s time consuming but always keep in mind – with patience and consistency, great results follow.

Consider hiring a team of virtual assistants if you can’t do the suggested activities all by yourself.

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

5 Reasons Why You’ll Use Twitter For Online Marketing (Part 1)

Nowadays, Twitter is perceived as Facebook’s little brother. It currently ranks second as the most popular social media platform with 284 million actives users (Jeff Bullas, 2014).

Once you include online marketing in your mix, below are the reasons why you need Twitter:

Reason 1.

If Facebook improves brand awareness, Twitter acts as a stream for conversation.

Your responsibility is to keep tweeting until the influencers hear you.

Influencers are the popular people in the industry relevant to your business. They are either businessmen, athletes, celebrities or international brands.

These people have the power to create a buzz. For example, if you’ll launch a new product tomorrow, you’ll receive more attention if these influencers will talk about it.

Reason 2.

Twitter is the best content marketing channel for visual contents.

In Facebook, posting contents will annoy your friends. They will unfriend you. They will also block your posts in their feed.

In Twitter, it’s a great habit to regularly tweet with a photo + a shortened link. Your content will receive more engagements.

Just be extra careful though. Your followers will want to unfollow you if their feed is flooded with your tweets.

Regular tweeting is about the right timing. For example, if you post the first content at 12 noon, you post the next content at 4:00 then at 8:00 etc.

Reason 3.

Twitter is a free monitoring tool.

The https://twitter.com/search-advanced allows you to explore the popular keywords, people, places and dates.

You can use it for thorough research. It allows you to find the influencers, the leads and the relevant hashtags.

Free Analytics is available. It measures the performance of a tweet. It also allows you to study your followers’ demographics.

Reason 4.

Content curation is easier with Twitter.

You’re a content curator once you create a Twitter account. You either curate news, videos, how-to tips, photos etc.

Your online reputation improves if you keep curating contents. It means you’re sharing the best piece of content for free.

Reason 5.

Twitter is a real-time media.

Use Twitter when you want fast and up-to-date information 24/7. It never fails to amaze you.

Real-time tweets will give you plenty of facts and opinions from news reporters, bloggers and influencers.

*****

LEADS AHOY provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

12 Reasons Why You Need A Blog

Reason 1.

A blog is a non-branded page of a site. It updates regularly. It publishes new information and it entertains new regular visitors.

For these reasons, major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing love to crawl and index blogs.

Reason 2.

There’s freedom in blogging. You’re in control of what to publish and what not to publish. You can write news. You can publish case studies filled with statistical data.

You can embed your YouTube videos. For more active engagement, you can even attach polls and conduct contest in all your blog posts.

Reason 3.

A blog is your business notebook with a personal touch. New visitors prefer to visit it rather than see and read what’s written in the About Us, FAQ, Rates & Packages and Contact.

Reason 4.

Content marketing starts with a blog. Most of the time, your blog publishes visual contents such as articles, photos and videos.

These are the types of contents that can convert frequent visitors into subscribers if you include a vibrant call-to-action above the fold.

Reason 5.

A blog reveals your online reputation. People can tell who you are based on the following:

• Blog’s appearance
• Update frequency
• Writing tone
• Placement of texts, links and call-to-action

Reason 6.

You don’t have to be a professional writer to be a blogger. You’re a business blogger not only because you can write well but more because your contents can convert:

• readers into frequent visitors
• frequent visitors into subscribers
• subscribers into leads
• leads into buyers
• buyers into repeat customers

Reason 7.

A blog markets your products and services well. Unlike traditional advertising like TV and radio ads that only last for 30 seconds or less, the information you write in your blog are for long-term.

The people can bookmark the link in their browser and reread it over and over again.

Reason 8.

It’s possible to optimize your blog for local search. For example, you opened two branches for ABCD Catering. Your main branch is located in Seattle and the other is in Chicago.

If you only have no budget for a website, it’s best to create two separate blogs with similar brand design but with different contents.

Reason 9.

You can use your blog to generate more leads. Contents that always keep your audience happy, inspired and hopeful will keep your phone busy. It rings and rings for your help and support.

Reason 10.

Content conversion is easier when you start with a blog post. A blog post, a 500-word article with a photo for example, can be converted into a press release, a promo video, an e-book, an infographic, a slide share, a podcast and an e-newsletter.

Reason 11.

Blogging isn’t too technical. All it requires is creativity and imagination. Let your ideas flow freely, write it down and edit it later.

Reason 12.

Blogging is free. It only requires you to have a free email address to create an account in WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr. There are also limited number of free templates you can use to get started.

*****

LEADS AHOY provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

10 Reasons Why There’s No Guarantee in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO isn’t about sales.

It’s about marketing. Search engine optimization is defined as a process of improving a page visibility in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

In other words, it requires you to perform an array of online marketing techniques that will attract and convince more people to visit your site.

SEO belongs to the top portion of the funnel.

SEO is a big part of internet marketing. Its primary goal is to attract people through the use of visual and audio contents.

SEO neither negotiate nor close deals. These tasks are handled by someone who manages your e-mail marketing campaign.

SEO isn’t a magic pill.

Like mentioned above, SEO is a process. Success doesn’t happen overnight. Success comes to those who work hard consistently.

SEO isn’t Google. Google isn’t SEO.

People keep complaining that their site is penalized. They keep hating Google over and over again like he’s a serial killer.

Here’s a slice of truth: Google, Yahoo and Bing don’t own SEO.

Instead, they create smarter guidelines to do SEO. Their guidelines will not harm your site if you follow them.

SEO is a dead fish without content marketing.

It’s impossible to separate SEO from content. Search engines read what is written in your content. These search robots look for quality key phrases and quality information.

SEO isn’t all about link building.

Link building is a technique of creating a number of quality links pointing to your site.

It’s not about circulating a link (for example: homepage url) wherever you want instead, it’s about choosing the right channel to put a link.

Don’t pay SEO services for ROI.

Hiring a consulting firm is a choice. It means you’re hiring a team of consultants who will make sure your page ranks and stays page one in Google, Yahoo and Bing for the right keywords.

ROI belongs to the bottom part of a marketing funnel. It deals with the following:

• number of opt-in subscriptions
• number of newsletter sign-ups
• number of purchases

You measure these metrics using an analytics.

White Hat SEO is for long-term.

Due to tight competition, SEO offers no guarantee. Your site can disappear in search results if a page remains inactive.

A well-optimized page ranks high because it’s updated and it’s circulated across the web.

SEO means consistency.

Never hire a consultant if you expect success in six months. This agreement won’t work. Keep paying your consultant for as long as you can afford and for as long as he delivers.

SEO is infinite.

For as long as you need to market your business online, you need SEO. It never dies.

*****

LEADS AHOY provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

8 Reasons Why Color Psychology Plays A Role in Content Marketing

1. Bright colors attract attention. It’s the reason why you either read, watch and browse visual contents such as articles, e-books, newsletters, videos, photos and infographics.

Photo Courtesy of: Entrepreneur

2. Contents with pure colors bring emotions. According to Joe Hallock, 34% of voters choose blue for trust, 76% pick red for speed and 28% choose orange for fun.

3. Colors direct your customers’ eyes where to look. For example, when Person A wants to get your blog updates, he will search for a yellow rectangular box to register.

4. Colors tell your customers what to do. For example, a red button instructs your customer to download the free e-book before it expires in 48 hours.

5. Blog posts with high-quality photo receive more unique clicks than those without. The photo supports the written texts in every paragraph either it’s inserted on the left, right or center.

6. Colors affect your conversion rate. It’s believed internet ads in full-color receive more clicks than those in plain white and black.

7. In Twitter, a tweet with quality photo, hashtag and link receives more favorites and re-tweets.

8. A color is your brand. People notice your existence if you consistently include them in your logo and other visual contents.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Content Marketing 101: 12 Tips for Effective Business Case Study

1. A business case study is a written or visual content that highlights the success and challenges of a product or a service.

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2. Embrace different types of learners to guarantee more clicks, more shares and more downloads. A study gets more interesting if it’s presented in an infographic, slide presentation, video or podcast.

3. A written study must be simple and concise. Hubspot recommends you to divide your layout into seven sections namely title, executive summary, about, challenges, solution, results and supporting visuals. Download its free template here.

4. Open the study with an attention-grabbing title. One-line titles will work effectively but a title in two-lines will open more rooms for juicy words.

5. Use bullets, bolded texts and colored images for an easy to read formatting.

6. Keep your sentences short and active. Passive sentences are long and boring to read.

7. Results are results. These are the picture proof people want to know. For this reason, results must show real numbers not only percentages. It must also present a pie chart instead of explaining away.

8. Insert customer reviews that are impartial and realistic. Reviews will help the readers decide whether they buy immediately or they register to your weekly newsletter first.

9. Never end your study without the call-to-action. A call-to-action persuades the readers to visit your website or download your free e-books.

10. Put your case study where the people can easily see it. For example, put the link on the right upper side if you’re going to put it on your website.

11. To attract more attention, consider converting your case study into a newsletter and send it to your email list. This strategy doesn’t only persuade your target audience to read a story but also download your free offers.

12. Make it a habit to write case studies whether you have a big company or a startup. A case study is an inspiring success story that will develop long-term trust.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Content Marketing 101: 15 Tips for Effective Syndication

1. A syndicate article is a written content. The article is already published in your blog but you choose to re-publish it in selected and high-quality syndication sites.

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2. Syndication is entirely different from content duplication and guest blogging. Duplication occurs when you publish identical and low quality articles on the same website. These articles provide no value.

Guest blogging, on the other hand, allows you to publish an original article to other websites. The article contains quality information and a backlink to your website.

3. In syndication, Google reveals it only shows the version that is most appropriate for the users. This version may or may not be the version you want to rank for (Source: Webmaster Tools Help).

4. Do it right and you’ll save more time. This technique only requires you to copy and paste either an entire or a portion of the copy but with a link to the original version.

Its primary aim is to expand the reach of your content.

5. Only choose to syndicate in high-quality sites, which give your article a lift in search ranking.  Quicksprout’s Neil Pattel enumerated 11 syndication networks while Kristi Hines listed 10 other sites for syndication. It’s best to choose a site with its own analytics.

Other rules in syndication include…

6. It’s best to syndicate an article manually. Automated syndication is possible but it may not yield the quality version. Most websites may not also publish an article conducted by a paid or free software.

7. Only syndicate the best article in your blog. Informational how-to articles are preferred than those with promotional spins.

8. Limit your syndication to five to twelve quality sites. Search engines might only get suspicious if you’re going to publish in 100 sites.

9. Learn the right timing. Don’t syndicate an article all at once, rather publish it in one site every other day.

10. Syndication is an online activity that observes consistency. It produces multiple copies of the original; therefore, do what you can to preserve its length, tone, number of links, placement of links and authorship.

11. Syndicate safely. When in doubt, insert a “No Index” tag in the meta name to make sure search engines refrains from indexing the page. Here’s how.

12. Sometimes, confusion in duplicate content occurs. It’s inevitable. That’s why; to play it safe, you’re going to insert rel=canonical inside the link tag. This command gives the search engines an ability to identify what’s the original copy from not.

13. Once published, keep all the links in a spreadsheet.

14. Apply changes to all copies once you improve the original version.

15. Don’t expect too much. Success in syndication doesn’t occur overnight. Make it a habit to perform the above steps and you’ll see improvements in the long run.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Content Marketing 101: 15 Tips for Press Release Writing

1. A press release is a written content. It’s basically a news story about your company, event, product and service written in third person perspective.

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Its primary goal is to entice a group of journalists and bloggers to write more articles about your story.

2. The style of writing follows an inverted pyramid. It’s limited to answering the questions what, who, why, when, where and how. You’re also allowed to insert “comments” from an interview.

3. Your tone should be professional from the title until the concluding paragraph.

Take time to say what you want but make sure you express these ideas concisely. The required length of a news story is one page. A two-page story is the maximum but more than that, it’s already an article.

4. Make it a habit to write and rewrite your headline. A headline should be written in simple present tense, which summarizes the content of the story in 15 words or less.

It’s a smart strategy to add a sub-heading to expand the main idea. Effective subheading only gives support, so keep it to one line.

5. Lead refers to an opening paragraph, which is written in 50 words or less.

It needs to contain the most specific details of the story such as statistics, date of an event and complete name of a person involved in the story.

6. There are different ways to write an opening paragraph. One, it summarizes one major angle of the story such as what or who.

Two, it reveals the key facts right away. You’re going to get rid of buzzwords such as innovate, unique, leading provider, pleased to, new and improved.

These buzzwords make a weaker story. Journalists read and heard it a million times.

7. The subsequent paragraphs support your introduction. It expands the idea of what, when, who, where, why and how. Comments from a reliable source are inserted too.

See to it each paragraph only contains one or two sentences. Each sentence contains no jargon slang words.

8. The concluding paragraph serves as your call-to-action. It convinces your readers to either call or write you back.

9. Insert a colored photo at the beginning of the story. A quality photo of the right size grabs more attention.

10. Thoroughly re-check your spelling, grammar, punctuation and facts. Consider using tools such as Plagium and Grammarly.

11. Think of your targeted audience when editing your story. Will they love the angle?

Sometimes, you’re required to put an extra punch in one angle or two. How will you re-angle the story if it’s necessary?

12. Decide where to submit your story. Are you going to target the local press? specialist press? consumer press? national press? Or, will you send different stories to different press publications?

Remember: A press release is a news. It’s your announcement and it’s your responsibility to choose the right group of journalists.

13. If you’re going to e-mail the story to a press distribution, hypnotize the journalists with an irresistible subject line.

A subject line easily attracts attention if it contains ten words or less. It either asks a question or offers a realistic solution to a problem. For example: How to Market Your Visual Content in 3 Easy Steps

14. Consider using a paid press release distribution. This service allows you to register an account, write the story in a word processor and publish it in a number of news publications.

Make sure you choose the right syndication tool. The service needs to distribute news in selected but quality sites, which rank high in search engines.

15. Track your performance. Make it a point to check how many people click and read your press release. Paid distribution tools provide detailed analytics.

In press media, consider asking the total number of news publications. Find the exact link of your story, compile it in a spreadsheet and connect each to your own analytics.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Content Marketing 101: 10 Tips for Video Promotional Campaign

1. A video is a visual audio content. Its primary goal is either to inform, entertain or promote a product, a service or a company.

Photo Courtesy of: Entrepreneur

In the world of internet marketing, a video usually promotes.

That’s why; it’s recommended to keep the length of your promotional video short (ideally, less than a minute), direct-to-the-point and will include call-to-action (a contact number or an e-mail address).

2. The duration of informational videos is expected to be longer than promotional videos. Ideally, it lasts for three to five minutes.

An informational video educates. Its aim is to let you understand the what and why of a new idea, of a new product or of a new service.

Just remember: You’re making your audience sleep if it’s longer than the recommended time frame.

You also need to make sure you never fail to put a call-to-action (a website, a phone number, an email address) at the start and end of the video content.

Search Engine Land made an informational video on September 2011, which is entitled “What is Search Engine Optimization/SEO.” It’s three minutes and 29 seconds long.

Play the video below and observe how they use moving pictures and talking voice without explaining too much.

3. Music videos entertain people. These videos are expensive to create but it’s the type that receives tons of clicks, views, replays and shares.

Yet, no matter how short or long an entertaining video is, the description area needs to include the link to your online store.

Click here to observe how John Legend’s All of Me manages to receive more than 459 million clicks (as of April 15, 2014) since it’s uploaded on October 2013.

How does the video look like? What details are written in its description area?

4. Tutorial videos are popular. These videos are similar with informational videos but are longer in duration.

Whatever the topic is, a tutorial video shows you the step-by-step procedures.

Fitness instructors upload instructional videos in their channel to get attention. They also want to convince people to subscribe after.

Below is an example of a tutorial video. Observe the technique he used to motivate you to get ripped.

5. Choose the right tool. Creating a video for online promotion doesn’t have to be complicated.

You’ll love what you’re doing when the tool is easy to use and affordable. There are available tools out there. Some are free but the most recommended are paid.

For quick presentation, we recommend you to use PowToon. It’s a drag-and-drop online presentation software that use animations in presentations. You can sign up for free.

6. Make use of micro video apps such as Vine and Video on Instagram for your promotional teasers.

Your target audience will get more involved if you regularly upload teasers about your company, upcoming events, product and service.

7.  Browse other video channels. Study how they create their video content and how they create titles.

What you write in the description area also matters. It needs to describe your video briefly. Simply inform what the idea is about instead of selling the idea.

The ideal placement of link is located at the opening paragraph where people can see it immediately.

8. Set up a schedule board for your videos. This will help you create a fresh strategy each week.

For example, if you release a new product for whitening teeth, uploading a new video once every week is recommended than uploading ten promotional videos all at once.

9. Embed your video in your articles, newsletters and press release. Make a way to include it in your story.

The written texts need to support the video in such a way that people will want to watch it.

Remember: More embeds. More shares. The higher chance your audience can see it.

10. Re-use an existing idea. Take time to browse your blog if you have nothing fresh to upload in your video channel.

Find that new angle in the story. Identify what specific keywords that support the angle. Once done, convert the angle into a promotion.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Content Marketing 101: 15 Tips for Effective Article Writing

1. Article research

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An article is a written visual content. It’s probably the most common type of content you can find in blogs and forums.

For this reason, make it an every day habit to conduct research before writing.

Usually, the research process for an online publication starts with a keyword research. Experts recommended you to use a free or paid keyword research tool.

After collecting necessary keywords, it is followed by finding the right information about the topic.

You’re going to experiment with those keywords and explore the first twenty results.

Next, with all the information and sources you have outlined and listed, you’re going to start write the title, the opening, the body and the conclusion.

Remember: Article writing isn’t quality article writing without editing. This is the final step, in which you’re going to point out the necessary changes.

2. Article with keywords

Search engines love well-written and well-researched articles. They crawl, index and rank these contents regularly.

That’s why; don’t simply write articles for the sake of writing. Keep in mind articles for online publication is about marketing. Its aim is to build a connection with your readers, potential buyers and existing customers.

So, it’s helpful to think about your audience while you write. Ask yourself: What do they want to know?

Also, think about the placement of main keywords search engines want to see.

3. Article with photos

Your article is SEO-friendly if you’ll include some relevant photos and videos before publishing. Chances are, articles with photos and videos receive more attention than those without.

Be careful!

There are times an article with other contents will look too ambitious. It may also cause confusion to some readers.

To avoid problems, make sure to use the right sizes of the photos. Place the videos on the center if you want more clicks.

4. Article conversion

To maximize your content marketing efforts, it’s best to learn how to convert your article into other written contents.

For example, rewriting your how-to 852-word blog article into a press release or a case study.

5. Article’s format

Quality article writing makes use of several formats to persuade readers to read its content.

Figure out how to present your ideas in such a way the information are easy to remember. The presentation either answers a question, enumerates tips, compare two different ideas, etc.

6. Article answers a question

When an article answers a question, your primary goal is to clarify and explain an issue in detail. Your readers will need your expertise to open their minds about the given topic.

Titles are ended with a question mark. Examples are What Does Global Warming Mean?, Have You Ever Wondered What Content Marketing Is?, What is Leads Ahoy and Why Should You Care?

7. Article avoids pain

The “avoidance” article helps your readers survive a bad consequence. This type of article enumerates a list of not recommended activities – don’ts and shouldn’t.

Sample titles are: 100 Ways to You Should Never Do While Saving Money, 3 Ways to Avoid Traffic Jam

8. Article gives simple offers

An article that gives value focuses on what’s inexpensive, free, easy and fast. It easily captures attention because your goal is to provide simple solutions (not promotions) to their routines.

Sample titles are: 5 Places To Get Cheap Airline Tickets, 10 Easy Ways to Get Concert Tickets for $35, Get Rid of Pimples for Free

9. Article provides hot trends

If you’re curious what these hot trends are, it refers to the new releases and talk-of-the-town controversies.

You’re going to tell an entertaining story filled with technical terms or lingo, which your readers already understand. The story is about a person, a place or an event.

Sample titles are: Top 9 Trends in 2015 Summer Collection, Hot 100 R&B Songs For The Week, Top 10 Hot Movies This Week

10. Article teaches the how

A how-to article enumerates the steps on how to accomplish something. Its aim is to explain the steps in correct order and write each step in detail.

Sample titles are: How to Cook Spicy Chicken in 9 Steps, How to Learn to Ride A Bicycle in 7 Days Or Less, How to Buy A House in Chicago, Illinois

11. Article offers top tips

A “Top Tip” article is entirely different from “how-to” but quite similar with “avoidance.” Here, your goal is to establish credibility as an author.

You provide useful and valuable information (what, why, when, who, where) rather than give advice. Yet, to make sure your tips are the best among the rest, limit it to ten tips or simply expand that one biggest tip.

Sample titles are: 5 Top Tips for Improving Your Credit Score, My #1 Tip for Effective Content Marketing, 4 Top Tips Before Hiring An Online Consulting Firm

12. Expert article

An “expert perspective” article borrows ideas from an authority person. Your main responsibility is to interview them (or read their story) then, write down what you have understood.

Here, your goal is to present their accomplishments, to enumerate their strategies and to understand their future plans. It’s mainly about them, not you.

Sample titles are: Rafael Nadal: His 12 Insider Secrets to Success, 77 Expert Tactics in Chess, 101 Expert Tactics for Tennis Serve

13. Stories

A personal article focuses on stories, which talk about new perspectives, laws, principles and rules. Your goal is to offer life lessons (insights) than give lectures (do this and do that), which your readers already know.

Sample titles are: 100 SEO Success Stories, 75 Basic Principles of Saving Money, 98 Critical Lessons I Learned About life

14. Article review

A review article gives impartial information about a product or a service (IMPORTANT: It isn’t a sales letter).

You’ll receive more conversions if the review provides more facts such as specifications, colors, dimensions, weight and performance test data.

It also presents a balance swing between the positive and negative if it contains testimonials from random customers. Sample titles are: Should Young Businessmen Buy Stocks?, What’s Wrong With Oreo Milk Cookies?

15. A vs. B

This article is similar with a product review but with a spin. Here, you compare two similar products at one time. You emphasize their strengths, weaknesses, similarities and differences.

To receive more attention, find a way to condense the information into one visual comparative chart. Of course, don’t forget a put a red call-to-action button below the chart.

Sample Titles are: Nike vs. Adidas: Which is better?, Pros and Cons of LCD and LED Flat TV.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/