The Blog-Studio

Writing for your readers

Your blog (be it purely promoting your business, handing out business advice, talking about recent topics etc) likes to be read. There are many ways (free, paid-for) methods to attract readers to your blog, there are even many blogs around to help you do so.

Liz Strauss on Successful & Outstanding Bloggers is a great source for this. Liz is all about creating conversations, the whole blogging world over. One of her latest post is on "The 7 Secrets to a Fiercely, Loyal Community of Readers":

• Be Interesting
• Be Simple
• Be Positive
• Be trustworthy and Respectful
• Be Consistent
• Be Remarkable
• Be Readable
• Be Generous and Satisfying

"Readers and a writer work have a relationship like diners and a chef. Only part of that relationship is what is served up from the menu, the rest is the experience. Every successful chef . . . writer . . . first grade teacher knows that."
ME “Liz” Strauss

While you're at Liz's blog, grab the feed of her blog, start reading, learning and join the conversation. But.... be nice.

 

Blog learning

At last I am becoming excited about "blogging", what I thought was a basically  on line ramblings of people who have nothing better to do with there time than put their personal thoughts and opinions on line. Then the "Penny" dropped with a sudden flash of inspiration the dawn of a new way of marketing my company gently rose on the distant horizon and shone brightly in my face like the first ray of sunshine on a summers day, Eureka!

Thanks to the Blog Workshop and my good friend Karin I am now on my way to becoming a "Blogger" to help me in my business and to promote my website www.betterwatersolutions.co.uk and that for me is the main reason for me to blog but not the only reason, what I have learnt over the past few years about nutrition, diet and supplements to help in the fight to ease the symtoms of Eczema (there is no known cure) I can now share with many other people and to receive feedback from sufferers on ways that have helped them and to also share with them my knowledge about the positive effects of water quality.

Blog Workshop - 18/09/2007

We are about halfway through the workshop and it is great! I am attending the workshop as I wish to start to generate more enquiries for my business - Credit Control Solutions Ltd. I have recently had a new website developed by Mike Perk of World Wide Creative. The increase in traffic and enquiries since the re-design is phenomenal ! I wish to continue to build on this increase in traffic/enquiries by starting and managing my own blog. I also wish to find other relevant bogs on which I can make comments thereby improving traffic and enquiries still further.

I must confess, although I had heard of blogs before, until recently, I did not realise that they could have such a positive effect on my business. I wrongly assumed that a blog was something similar to MSN Messenger or Myspace.

I believe that a blog will help me to create my "Personal Brand". This will in turn help me to convert more sales through my business. After all, people will only buy from people that they like and people that know what they are talking about. How else can you demonstrate this if not by means of a blog? A blog, in my view should help to break down barriers, establish relationships and improve credibility - it does this by encouraging two-way communication.

I am firmly committed to the sayings "What goes around comes around" & of course the BNI adage "givers gain" This means if you do your best to help people, good things will happen to you.

In my view business owners are insane to dis-regard the power of blogging. A workshop such as the one I am attending today is invaluable to ALL business owners. I believe that my re-designed website, coupled with blogging should increase our turnover by as much as 100% within the next 12 months!

Lesley and Karin are brilliant workshop tutors - give them a call "you know it makes sense"

Jamie O'Connell - Credit Control Solutions "Making Your Cash Flow"

Finding a new blog

For my personal blogs I have been using Blogger (mainly because it is free). When I was informed of a new blogging course on the Blog Studio I was upset that I could not attend. Luckily due to the popularity of the course a second course was arranged which tied in with my trip back to the UK.

I am looking forward to learning how to use Typepad as our company blog The Heavy Chef is posted on Typepad and at present Mike has to post all my comments for me. I am sure the reason he has not shown me himself is so he can monitor my sometimes harsh reviews & comments.

Today I will probably set up a new personal blog, we already have a family blog and the other week I set up a recipe blog - which is a great online resource for me when on my travels without my cookbooks. Unsure what to do the blog on but I am sure I will think of something before it gets to that bit.

Nicola Perk

The importance of the 'about page'

The 'net' is filled with useful information, be it on 'static' websites or on blogs. Perhaps your blog will fill a gap in someone's knowledge base too someday. Starting a blog can feel/sound like a massive and/or time-consuming task, but mostly it's about getting the basics, the foundation right. 

David Peralty on eXtra For Every Publisher has written an excellent post about one of those basic issues: the about page on your blog:

Picture, Purpose, Power, Personality and Promotion.

Summarised:

"With the above tips and a little creativity, your about page can help promote your site, your brand, and yourself. Make sure you take your time, plan it out, give it your best, and a proper picture never hurts."

Your about page is important; reading and implementing the tips from David gives you a good start in building those foundation blog-blocks