SEO Blogging Archives - Page 11 of 11 by Mark Murnahan

6 Reasons We Didn’t Hire a Social Media Consultant

I know you are expecting it to be snarky, so I will try to avoid letting you down. Yeah, you guessed it, I am writing yet another “Mr. Smarty Pants” article on social media. This time it is about some of the very good reasons for not hiring a social media consultant. Without further delay, I want to introduce Mr. John Lunchbucket of Clip Away Paper Clip Company to explain some reasons his company didn’t hire a social media consultant.

Number 1 – Obscure Market Audience

“We sell paper clips. It would be pretty boring to blog, tweet, and Facebook about that, don’t you think? I doubt anybody could make our business more fun or engaging.”

If that is the attitude you take, Mr Lunchbucket, you are right. You should probably carefully avoid social media. Come to think of it, you may do well to stop marketing your business completely. You wouldn’t want to bore people with paper clips such as explained in this video:

Number 2 – We Can Do It In-House

“Jerry in accounting set up our Twitter and Facebook accounts and he sends out some stuff every day. He says that by handling it in-house we can save a lot of money. “

I guess I really do understand this idea. After all, I was thinking about going to dentistry school so I can take care of my kids’ teeth one day.

It is good to spread the work around. It can show off the company’s best assets … the people. However, the sad part is that Jerry didn’t have anything more productive to be doing. Now I know why. While Jerry is busy handling bad marketing efforts, the accountant over at the competition is counting the money Jerry used to account for.

Number 3 – Localized Market

“We only provide products and services in a localized market. The Internet is better suited for companies doing business with a broader geography.”

This is fine if the people in your market area don’t use the Internet, like at the bottom of the ocean! I suppose that the enhanced search engine ranking from those links on other Websites talking about your company would be considered wasteful. Maybe you should save some of that recognition for the competition. When I ask the people at your competitor, can I quote you?

I am glad you have such a good grasp on my job, Mr. Lunchbucket. I hope you don’t go into my line of work like everybody else who “knows” the Internet as well as you.

Number 4 – The Expense

“It has been a tough year, and our budget is shot. We just can’t justify spending money on something that could take months to see a return on our investment.”

You are correct, Mr. Lunchbucket. It has been a really challenging year for a lot of companies. Thanks for pointing this out for me, because I really only like to do business with companies willing to plan for being around in a year or more.

Something to consider is whether it has been hard for your competitor, too. If so, but they get a leg up on you, how much harder will it be next year? If you only market during the best of times, you are doomed to fail. Allow me to share a wise quote with you:

“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” –Thomas Jefferson

Number 5 – It Doesn’t Work!

“We already tried social media and it didn’t work. It was a big waste of time!”

Yep, it sure was a waste of time. It is a good thing you figured that out early. Maybe Jerry in accounting can get back to counting all of that money you are making through your newspaper and phone book advertisements. Good luck in the coming year!

Number 6 – We Ran Out of Reasons

“We ran out of reasons, but we are pretty sure there are others.”

Hookers Write the Best Blogs

Who would have guessed that hookers write the best blogs? In this fast-paced scan-and-click Internet world, what are people actually reading? It may sound crazy, but you could learn a lot from a hooker.

With over 200 million blogs on the Internet, who can slow down and read the whole thing? Hookers know the answer, and it is really pretty basic. When you hook the reader right up front, they will have more reason to keep reading and want to know more. So keep reading! I wrote this to help you get more productivity from your time online, and if you are a blog author, to help your readers get more from your articles.

Bloggers and Hookers

If you are a writer, it is your responsibility to assure readers a good value for their time. But first, you must give them an incentive … a hook. Thus, a writer with a good hook could be called a “hooker”. In order to do this, effectively, you really must think about the way you read. I have often found myself scanning through information in such a mad rush that I sometimes miss the good stuff. Consider for a moment how many articles you start to read but never finish. You only get a fraction of the message because you toss them aside and click on the next flashy thing that catches your eye. Your readers are not so different. A look at your Website statistics will show how long an average visitor spends on your site, and it is never as long as you would like. So, if you are a good hooker, “turning the trick” is the next big battle.

Turning the Trick

This happened to me just yesterday. I was reading a blog post that I thought was kind of interesting. I put it aside and figured I would read the rest later. I thought it was good enough that I tweeted it (sent a message using Twitter.com), but I almost didn’t finish it. Just a moment later, I saw that somebody “re-tweeted” it. The article very nearly ended up in my vast “to read” pile (which often remains unread). Once I read just a bit more, I could not stop … I was hooked! The terrible part is that I almost missed reading something that I ultimately found very interesting and useful.

So, in the example above, where did this all go wrong? I had actually read far enough to know it was a good article. The hook had been set, right? Wrong! The author almost lost me, and not because it got boring, but rather because he did not set the hook deep enough, fast enough. If the author had fully engaged me in the very beginning, I could have probably suffered through a lot of boring reading, just assuming there was something coming to re-spark my interest.

Quality Ad Copy

Quality ad copy always starts with a hook. If you get that part right, the rest is much easier. If you canont come up with the right hook, get help from a friend or hire a professional.

Quality ad copy with a good hook is more important on the Internet than any other place. You only have seconds to reach your readers. I don’t know any writer who feels good about losing a reader early, and when it comes to business writing, it hurts your bottom line. I personally love to look at my reader statistics to see people spending a lot of time on a page. This means they are actually getting what I tell them. It means I have done my job well, which is very satisfying to me. Be sure to look at your statistics, and if users are coming but not staying long, you are probably not setting the hook.

Am I a Hooker?

Yes, I am a hooker for hire. I got you to read this far, didn’t I? If I can do that, just imagine what I can do to help you reach more people and “hook” your audience. Of course, I don’t want to lose you here, because the good stuff is yet to come. If it will help you, take a deep breath, stand up and shake, get a cup of coffee, or do whatever you need to do, and then when you are ready … come back and read some more of my blog. Perhaps my section on SEO Lessons and the importance of quality Internet marketing will interest you, or take your pick from the left side of this page. This is all here to help you, and I will try to not let you down.

Origin of the Word “Hooker”

Since this blog post refers to hookers, I thought I would share this clever video to explain the origin of the word “hooker”. Enjoy! Oh, and Please Tweet This!

How Often To Blog

Writing a blog is different to every blogger, but a common question is how often to blog. If you blog too often, you could burn out, but if you do not blog often enough, your blog may grow stale. Also, if you blog just for the sake of article frequency, the quality can suffer and you punish your readers. So where is the perfect balance?

How Often to Blog Depends on Your Purpose

What is the purpose of your blog? If you are seeking a readership wanting the very latest information, you should blog often. If you are blogging to compile a collection of useful information such as this blog, the quality is more important than how often it is updated. There are a few advantages to frequent blogging, but as a rule, if it does not serve your readers well, don’t do it. Blogging too often just for the sake of blogging can create a real risk becoming little more than static.

Blogging for SEO

Blogging for SEO is effective, but SEO should be the effect and not the cause. This is another article for another day, but if you are blogging to enhance your search engine optimization, the question of how often to blog will be secondary to how to blog well. If the articles are well written, it will likely do well at reaching search engine users and people are more likely to link to your blog (linkbait, yet another article). In any case, providing a useful and content rich Website should be the goal of every Website owner.

Blogs and Bloggers

Each blog has its own style which is developed by the author (blogger), and the readership will generally grow based on that style. Not so unlike any other publication, the readers will come to have expectations of the quality of the writing and how often the blog is updated. If all goes well, the author and reader will grow a relationship like I wrote about in another article titled “Relationships and Internet Marketing“. Even in the information age with exponential growth in publications, the relationship between the writer and their readers still holds a value. Advice columnists like Dear Abby grew a huge following because she reached out to the readers and developed that relationship. Even in the face of huge competition for readers, every blogger has this opportunity. If you think about it for a moment, you can probably identify a writer or two who really stand out in your mind as a favorite. Many of us have a favorite writer, and something we come to expect from our favorite writer is consistency. For example, for this particular blog, I write an article every other day or every third day. It is still in its infancy, so I may shake it up a bit from time to time, but you can generally expect how often I will blog.

Know Your Blog Readers

I blog for you, and I blog for SEO. I want you to read this and I want it to be useful to you. I also want to be sure that a lot of people find the article. This requires much consideration of what you want to read, how often you want to read it, and if you are new to my blog, just what you may have typed into your favorite search engine to find this. I know that much of my audience is other SEOs, but then there are others who may be seeking information about my services as a search engine optimization professional and writer. Who is your audience? Knowing your readers will help you to develop an ideal pattern in the length of your blog posts, the content of your blog posts, and also the frequency of your blog posts.

What is Your Blog Budget?

Whether you are budgeting your time to write your blog, or budgeting your money to hire me to write it for you, you should have a blog budget. The benefits should outweigh the cost. This will have a big influence on the quality of your blog, as well as the benefits you will receive from your publication.