In recent years, blogging has become a staple when building your brand. Blogs provide a platform to connect with others through a direct line of communication. Not only is blogging a great way to expand your reach, but blogs also help keep your audience engaged in your business. In a world where humans are busier than ever before, and have the attention span of a goldfish, it’s important to stay prevalent in the forefront of their minds.

• Businesses that maintain a blog acquire more customers! This should be enough to get working on that blog!
• Your blog is communication directly from you. Clients love this personal connection. They also like having accessibility to you.
• Your blog is a forum to share all your social media outlets. The more followers you get, the more your business will grow. Tip: Be sure your social media URL’s are tagged in each post so readers are able to share the content easily
• When you plug in key words to your blog posts to make them SEO friendly, search engines then share this valuable content to those who are searching using these key words. This means more traffic for you!
• Blogging gives your company a voice. It creates a forum where you can discuss products, expertise, services, market trends and company initiatives. It’s a great place to build a stellar reputation and trust for your brand.
• Blogging opens up communication with your audience. Always try to promote two-way communication. When people take the time to comment on your page, be sure to reply. This proves there is someone on the other end who is truly listening.
• Blogging creates free PR. Once your posts start to get noticed, people come to you as the expert and often times start promoting you and your business. It’s a win-win!
• Blogging builds relationships and sales. Customers start to look at you as a reliable resource for information. This trust leads to sales and referrals, which, you guessed it, leads to more sales.
• Blogging allows you to tell the story of your brand. It’s a great place to offer insight into the company, showcase your employees and share your ideas. Emotional connections foster loyalty from customers.
• Blogging is an inexpensive way to build brand awareness, promote your products and services, and gain loyal customers.

Blogging can be very time-consuming, but is absolutely worth it, especially if you’re a small business or a service related business. Positioning yourself in the marketplace is key to growing your brand. Set a stage for your brand to be seen and the followers will come. By Holly Rust

One area that many businesses struggle with in online marketing is coming up with a social media strategy. Everything from creating social profiles to social content strategy can be daunting. Fortunately, your business doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Chances are, you can gain a good understanding simply by reviewing your competitor’s strategy. In this post, we’re going to look at how you can scope out your competitors and apply their best strategies to your social media campaign.

Selecting Your Competitors
Your first step in competitive social media research is selecting your competitors. You will want to find businesses similar to yours, but not limit your analysis to competitors of a specific size. For example, you may have a small local marketing agency, but you will want to include other small local agencies along with larger ones that offer similar services in your competitive analysis.

Choosing Social Networks
Next, you will need to choose which social networks to analyze. Most businesses will find that they want to start with the main social networks first: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you need to confirm whether a social network will be beneficial to your business, you can answer the following questions.

• Are your competitors on that particular network? If they are active and have a good following, then you need to be there.
• Are your target customers on that particular network? You can also create a test advertisement on that social network to see the size of an audience that fits your target customer demographic.

Having the answers to these questions can confirm your need to invest in social media marketing.

Analyzing Competitor Profiles
A great social media campaign starts with solid social profiles and pages. Here are some things you will want to analyze to see how your competitors have set up their social presence.

• What wording does your competitor use in their Twitter profile bio?
• What is their Facebook short description (the one on the front of their Facebook page)?
• What type of pictures do they use on Instagram?

Since you usually have less than 200 characters to describe your business to a first time visitor to your profile or page, you will want it to be great. See what your competitors have to say about their business, particularly noting keywords they include. And regardless of what your competitors do, be sure to squeeze your URL into both descriptions to increase the traffic potential from those networks. Especially on Twitter, as you will only see the URL in your profile in some areas of the site like search results.

Kristi Hines knows what she’s talking about – thanks for your Wisdom!

We asked “What is the best way to make sure your social media content stays on-brand, no matter which social media site you’re currently posting on?”

Here’s what Young Entrepreneur Council community members advise:

Assign 1 Person to Handle Social Media
Having one person handle all of your social media is the best way to make it consistent. It’s much harder to fit the pieces together later through copy or edits.

Use the Same Version of Your Logo on All Your Profile Pictures
We have logos for a reason — to make our brand recognizable anywhere, anytime. So even if someone scrolls right past your post, your business is still getting exposure every time you post.

Schedule Posts in Advance
Many social Media sites allow you to Schedule Posts so you can easily post on a regular basis. If you are just posting on the fly, it can result in a mix of content that drifts off into other lanes.

Keep Every Post Brand-Focused
Know what your brand stands for and include that in every post. Think about that before you post anything, including sharing content from others like users. Always include some context that ties it back to your brand. 

My Suggestion: ALWAYS use an Image
Google your topic and you’ll easily find a free one. Also do some research to see what size is best for each platform. Sara Ohara, WordPress Websites and Training

Thanks for your Wisdom Small Business Trends

Jeff is a client whom I’ve helped with his WordPress website several times – his latest Post talks about why he’s now a big believer in Social Media and Blogging. Thanks for this Bit of Wisdom Jeff Yeomans Fine Art

“I have to share a great recent experience. I’m a reluctant blogger and FB user but my opinion changed dramatically this week. Although I live in San Diego, I’m frequently in Laguna Beach at Studio 7, where I show my paintings. Last Monday, my wife suggested I let people know the days I’m planning to be in Laguna, just in case people who know me, or my work might make the effort to stop by.”

Sure enough, yesterday afternoon a surfing buddy from high school and his wife showed up unannounced (and really put me on the spot.) After 40+ years I didn’t recognize him (embarrassed, I really tried) but we spent the next hour or so catching up on each other’s lives and “talking story”. They’re down from Paso Robles visiting their new grandchild and stopped in. All because of my FB post! It was so cool — the afternoon flew by and to reconnect was “priceless” to quote that Visa Card commercial.

What I learned — make the time to use social media a little more. It can open new doors and old ones as well.”

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Writing a blog post should be entirely about helping your readers. Even though you are ultimately promoting yourself, your business, or your brand, self-promotion should take place behind the scenes.

That’s what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about. Underutilizing the tools at your disposal is dangerous, and it will drown your valuable content under the torrential downpour of posts and articles.

Here is the ultimate list of tips and tricks for writing an effective and engaging blog post.

Checklist for Writing a Blog Post

• Know your audience. You should only begin blogging once you understand your target audience (often called a buyer persona or ideal customer). If you know your audience—prospective clients, primarily—you can cater posts to their needs. Such knowledge will also help you to decide on topics and content to create, and you will be able to establish a tone that best suits your audience. Everything about your post should revolve around your readers, so figuring out who they are is a key step.
• Be smart about your TITLE. There are so many different ways to go with your title, so it’s important to pick the option that’s most likely to garner the all-important click. You can be super-direct and get straight to the point, which is great for informational pieces. Clever headlines can generate curiosity, but being too vague can also cause those who are not actually interested in your content to stumble upon the post. Ultimately, your title should promise to answer a question or provide a solution to a problem to get the best results.
• Make HEADINGS stand out. Not only should titles define your text, but headings and subheadings should also separate key ideas, especially if you are writing an article or a longer piece. It should be easy to tell where and why information is separated.
• Separate key phrases for scanning. Many readers simply scan through posts and articles to get to the good stuff. If you are providing an answer to a question, that question should be readily available through a quick scan. Even though you want your readers to stick around and read the whole post, the reality is that readers will find another post if they can’t easily find the information they’re looking for in yours.
• Keep sentences short and sweet. Long sentences drag on and make it difficult for readers to focus. While capturing reader attention is difficult, it’s only half the battle. Try to keep reader attention by using short sentences that increase readability. If a reader is only scanning your article, short sentences will still allow you to get your point across.
• Use a conversational tone, and share your personality. It’s better to speak with your readers than to speak at Even in professional articles, it’s possible to use everyday words to communicate your point. At the very least, be consistent with your tone from post to post, so your readers will become familiar with your blog personality. On the same note, try to tell a story, and write what only you can write. Adding a personal touch to posts will help you to build a relationship with your readers.
• Provide a service. Going along with knowing the needs of your audience, it’s important that you’re meeting those needs. Not only should everything in the post cater to your audience, but you should also be providing your readers with a service to meet those needs. For example, the aim of this article is to help readers write the best blog posts possible by providing helpful tips and tricks. Whether you are answering a question for your readers or providing a solution to their problem, it’s very important that your content is useful to your readers in some way.
• Try to be original. Of course, that’s always the goal, right? But try to do the opposite of what everybody else is doing. If everyone else is turning left, turn right. Even if what you want to say has already been said, though, try to say it in a different way. If that still fails, at least try to be interesting in the way you put everything together.
• Enhance accessibility. It’s essential that your post is user-friendly. Users with disabilities should have the same access to information as those who do not. That means no crazy fonts or patterned backgrounds. There should also be no walls of text; everything should be spaced well. Use your white space effectively to create breaks for readers eyes and brains.
• Create a call to action (CTA). Ending your post with a CTA is vital. What is it that you are trying to accomplish? Or what is it that you are inciting your readers to do? Make the next steps easy by adding in-text or button CTAs that direct visitors toward the desired action. Do you have an ebook that relates to the content of the post? Include a download button. Do you have a product that would solve the problem discussed in the post? Include a demo button. Decide what you want readers to do next, and make it easy for them to do it.
• Engage in social media. Even post-creation, your work is not yet finished. Now it’s time to share, share, share. Social media is your best friend here. Get a Instagram account; get an, Facebook, Twitter and Google My Business page. You need to share your post with the world, and you want your readers to share your article with others.

Creating great content is the main goal, but optimizing your post for visibility in search engines will help your great content get onto the screens of those who need it.

Thanks for your Wisdom Inklyo

For a while now, SEO has been one of the biggest buzzwords in the marketing world. But in truth, SEO is more than just a buzzword: it really works. Despite SEO’s ubiquity, for some business owners, deciphering just what SEO entails can be a challenge. This is especially true as the algorithms search engines use continue to evolve and improve over time. Whether you’re a new business developing an initial marketing plan, an established business seeking a marketing revamp, or a successful business ready to grow to the next level, SEO must remain a centerpiece of your marketing strategy. Quality content is a key component of any successful SEO strategy.

There’s No SEO Without Quality Content
Think of SEO as a chain of interlocking links: you are only as strong as the weakest component of your digital marketing plan. Hiring a designer to improve your website’s structure, searchability, and look is important, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t have the written content to back it up. Search engines crawl through the written content on your website, social media platforms, blog, business listings, and other digital presences to determine whether your business is what a customer is searching for. This is why it’s important to build out written and visual content in all directions: it helps your business make an impression.

What is Quality Content?
There are several best practices for creating and posting quality content. Some of the characteristics of quality content include the following:

• Fresh, original content updated on a regular basis
• A stream of new content placed on your website in the form of a blog
• Social media posts geared towards what your customers want and need
• Original, interesting writing with an authentic voice
• Factual information that potential customers will find to be of use
• Content that integrates well with the visuals you use
• Error-free, readable content
• Content that links to reputable, authoritative sources that are not competitors

Thanks for your Wisdom Shirley Wilson

• Someone who understands Facebook is explaining it to me
• Good health
• My health and my family
• LIFE!!!
• Having you for my teacher!
• GRATITUDE IS THE BEST!
• Learning new stuff!
• That I am taking your FB class, it has been informative
• Your class!
• Family and friends who are like family to love and be loved in return.
• Family & friends.
• Recycling and waste pickups
• My parents
• You for asking this question!

Then someone asked what I was Thankful for and I replied: “Right this minute I am thankful for this day that I spent teaching my very enthusiastic students about Facebook and eBay. I could go on and on and on…”

Life is about attraction. Humans are visual beings. We’re attracted to beauty. When eye-catching visuals captivate us, we use that focus to get a better idea of what a message truly is trying to say.

Visuals give us a better understanding of not just the message, but what’s behind the message — explained easier, faster, and clearer than just a cluster of written words. Content containing visuals like images or videos perform better — on average, receiving up to 94 percent more views.

Infographics can increase website traffic by 12 percent. Tweets with images or videos get, on average, a 35 percent or 28 percent increase in retweets, respectively. Most of all, let’s not forget to lean on science. Reading just words is insufficient for humans; content with visuals (i.e., photos) are easier to remember and are remembered more often.

Looking beyond blanket statistics, here are four evidence-based reasons why content needs compelling visuals to truly deliver the results needed to be successful.

1. Humans Prefer Visuals
   People are visual creatures by nature. It’s not just because of our modern-day short attention spans and, in turn, our preferences for video, animation, and imagery over text because of how much faster we can consume it. And they’re more available than ever before.
2. Visuals Generate More Organic Visibility
   In organic search, 60 percent of people are more likely to click on a business that has images showing up in search results than one that does not. When snippets don compelling visuals, they perform better. That’s why click-through rates are higher for content that contains images.
3. Visuals Help Capture Short Attention Spans
   While obvious, it’s probably the most important one on this list. The average person can get distracted (or bored) within a few seconds. That’s doesn’t give you much time to grab someone’s attention. So make sure you capture their attention the right way – and fast!
4. Visuals Are More Memorable
   Visuals don’t just stand out at first sight; they’re also easier to remember. Visual aids can improve learning by up to 400 percent and be processed 60,000 times faster than text alone.

Remember when we used flash cards and other visuals in grade school to help us learn new topics? That’s because most of the human population consists of visual learners, or those who are able to comprehend and retain information better through the use of visual aids.

The majority of humans retain visual information much better, clearer, and longer than we are able to solely written words.

Conclusion
Visuals can very well be the difference between having your content seen or not. The numbers show just how much better rich media fares in the wild. Use it to your benefit, save money, and increase your brand following.

Thanks for your Wisdom Sam Hollingsworth

While many bloggers think that blogging is about lovingly crafting each post, the reality is that you need to promote your content to ensure each post reaches its widest possible audience. To this end, think outside the blog.

Since social media feeds on a never-ending stream of content, it’s ideal for accomplishing this goal.

Here are 10 tips for using social media to expand your blog’s readership by driving traffic from an array of platforms.

1. Claim your name on various social media platforms.

Ÿ       Link to your blog in each social media profile. Include your blog address (aka URL).

Ÿ       Use blog keywords in your social media description. Enhance your social media optimization by consistently employing your top keywords.

Ÿ       Continue your blog’s branding. Make your social media profile is recognizable by incorporating your logo and/or blogger headshot.

2. Include social media sharing buttons on your blog. Make it easy for readers to share your blog content. If they have to jump through hoops in terms of remembering passwords or signing in, you’re hurting your content’s sharability.

Ÿ       Add social sharing buttons at the top and bottom of your post. Don’t make readers scroll to the top to share your content.

Ÿ       Thank fans publicly. Make social connections who share your blog posts feel good by giving them a shout out of recognition on social media.

3. Share content regularly on social media. Don’t leave your social sharing activity to chance nor let it consume hours of your time.

Ÿ       Create a social media sharing schedule. Set a time and mark it on your calendar to check in on what’s being said on social media and to share information. Make this part of your daily work routine to streamline your activity and be consistent.

4. Give your social media shares the personal touch. While you can set up automated social shares, it’s more personal to provide contextually relevant commentary to information you share.

Ÿ       Provide contextually relevant social sharing. Tailor your social shares to the social media platform and avoid the cookie cutter approach.

Ÿ       Use the power of your community to help spread the word.

5. Leverage the power of images on social media platforms. Images are powerful tools to draw prospects into your blog posts.

Ÿ       Use images to attract readers. Include at least one image per post.

6. Respond to social media comments related to your blog posts. Encourage followers who’ve shared your content by answering comments on the appropriate social media platform.

Ÿ       Thank people who share and comment on your blog posts publicly. This is a great way to build your community.

Ÿ       Let people know that you’ve referenced them in your blog posts. Give them a social media shout out.

7. Be a good social media citizen. Participate on social media beyond sharing your own content.

Ÿ       Engage in social media activities. Become part of the community. Be selective and interact in one or more social media forums. One benefit is that, once people get to know you, they are more likely to share your content.

Ÿ       Help others on social media. Answer other people’s questions and where appropriate, share a link to a relevant blog post of yours.

8. Avoid the “Me, Me, Me” on social media. Mix up the content you share. Don’t limit your social media activity to promoting just your own content.

Ÿ       Curate other bloggers’ posts to help establish your authority in the field. In Peggy Fitzpatrick’s words, “Being generous with other’s content helps your own content and your social media karma.”

Ÿ       Schedule your social media. You don’t want to fill up other people’s social media streams with your blog posts in a short period of time since this will tick them off.

9. Test different strategies. Don’t just continue to do the same thing because it’s what you’ve always done.

Ÿ       Monitor what other bloggers are doing on social media. Keep an eye on other bloggers’ social media activity to get ideas for how to expand your own use of these platforms.

Ÿ       Modify your social media approach. Test using different forms of content and posting times.

10.Track your results. Don’t just guess what’s working, really measure your progress.

Ÿ       Use a social media call-to-action. This helps prod readers to read and share your content.

Ÿ       Measure blog activity related to your  goals. Count actions that contribute to sales.

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Obviously the content has a big part to do with it, but so many blogs with great content are never even browsed. Allow me to help with that!

Have a real “About Me” page

This is my biggest pet peeve with bloggers. While I hate when people don’t have an “About Me” page at all, I don’t think anything makes me more mad than seeing the default filler page.

I have literally seen it on blogs that have been running for months. Why would you post every week and allow yourself to care about your blog, but then not care enough to take five minutes out of your time to either change the default text or delete it? When you blog, your goal is to get followers. For every follower you have, you get a guaranteed pair of eyes on every post you create. How awesome is that? People only follow bloggers who produce great content regularly and care about their blog enough that they won’t just stop posting. When you didn’t bother to change the default “About” page, you’re pushing people away from the start.

Now, most of you probably changed your About Me page, but I bet you can do better. Let me push you. People want to know you. They want to see you. Some of you right now probably scoff at the idea and you probably scoff at social media too. Take this into mind: Blogs are social media. These are real people who are reading your blog and these are real people who you are hoping come back to read your next post. You have to make them want to come back and giving your blog a face and back story is a great way to do it.

I personally think every About Me page should have at least one or two real pictures of the blogger. Nothing screams “Hey, I’m a real person just like you! I just happen to write on a blog!” quite like a real picture. Make one professional and make one fun, maybe of you doing a hobby. Remember that this isn’t your LinkedIn profile. You don’t have to be suit-and-tie and 100 percent professional here. Open up a little and tell the reader your pets’ names. Share your dream or details from your life. It doesn’t have to just be your education and experience!

Put yourself as your blog’s profile picture

I literally would argue about half of the blogs I visited today had the gray WordPress “W” as their profile pictures. When you go through the WordPress Reader or you’re looking at comments, the only thing you can see are blog names and their profile pictures. I would imagine most people don’t even go to blogs with the “W” pictures because they assume they are either bots or just not good blogs. On the other hand, a bright smiling face can invite people in. That tiny picture can humanize your entire blog. When people are commenting, they feel like they are having a conversation with a person and not a website!

In case you don’t know how to change that, you can go to the WordPress Dashboard, then to Settings. From there, click on General and you can upload your picture all the way on the right.

Utilize your tagline

“The greatest WordPress.com site in all the land!”

I have seen that tagline over five times today. Why? I don’t know! While it is slightly humorous, most WordPress users will immediately detect it as one of the default taglines. You can just scroll up a few inches and read everything I wrote for the default “About” page. This tagline makes it obvious you don’t care enough about your blog to change it from the default. Either that or you don’t know how to change it.

If that is the case, I apologize. Go to your blog’s Dashboard, then use the left menu to go to Settings, then click on General. It will be right there under the Site Title.

Include pictures in your blog posts

Nothing scares a blog reader more than a block of 1,000 words with no pictures in between. Pictures are nice, informative and sometimes pretty. Even more important, pictures give the readers a slight break from just reading words. The pictures don’t have to knock it out of the park, but they really help. Sometimes you can’t find a picture for your topic and that does happen, but try to avoid it. You might get a sympathy like, but that doesn’t mean the person read your post. Some of you need to break your words up with pictures, or at least with page breaks.

Pictures tell a story on their own. They are powerful and it is even better when you are the person who took the pictures. If you go to an event or you are writing about a hobby, get a picture of you there. It shows a connection between your writing and the picture. Readers love pictures. At least I do!

Answer comments on your posts

Hundreds of people will look at your posts and only a few will comment. That is just how it is. The few that comment usually really like your post or at least agree with its point. So few readers actually take the time out of their day to comment and you have to acknowledge them. Commenters are almost always genuine people who want to interact with you. Ignoring them is basically slapping them in the face and not appreciating the energy they put in to read and comment on your post. Hundreds go by without commenting. Please reward the few that do it. Better than that, I think if someone reads and comments on your blog post, you should try to go to one of their posts you like and comment on it. They are blog owners just like you. Don’t you feel good when you get comments on a post you worked hard on? Well, return the favor! I love and appreciate every comment I get. Every single one.

Interact with other blogs

The WordPress Reader is absolutely wonderful. You can see which blog categories are popular and you can even view them. If you have a tech blog, you can see all of the recent blog posts that were labelled under the “Technology” category. Then, you can read through the posts and like the ones you find interesting. You can even comment on the posts you really like. This interaction usually causes the other blogger to return the favor or at least visit your blog to see who you are. Commenting on similar people’s blogs can possibly end in you getting an interested follower.

I’ll say it again. Blogs are social media!

Just remember that readers like knowing you as a person. Pictures of yourself and little tidbits about your personal life can help the reader see you as a hard-working blogger and not a faceless website.

That being said, your blog should be your pride and joy. If this information conflicts with how you want your blog to look, simply ignore my advice. You being passionate about your blog is much more important than what someone else thinks is the “right way” to make a blog.

Do you have any comments or other tips? I would love to read them! Write them below if you wouldn’t mind. I do value your opinions.

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