Copying Copy

The point of a blog is to update it frequently, with interesting content that invites readers to stick around, leave a comment, and return to read more.

I don’t have that much to say.  If I had, I’d write a book.  The truth is, my noteworthy insights are rare.

Most of what you find here is what the legacy media would call evergreens, articles that you can hold in a drawer (or on a thumb drive) and run any time.  Many professionals already know what I tell you about the basics of SEO, for example.  It’s true--it’s just not really news.

Then why do people from all around the world read this blog? They can easily find information about SEO or public speaking on better-known, easier-to-find websites. 

Could it be the very obscurity that draws them here?  Search engines look constantly for fresh content, as we’ve said.  So everybody wants new words on their websites.

At the same time, search engines penalize duplicate content.  If they find the same text on multiple websites, the search engines figure that somebody’s trying to game the system.

So what’s a site owner to do?

a)      Write fresh material every day.  It doesn’t have to be newsworthy.  It just has to be new

b)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else and copy paste it

c)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else, and mash it through article rewriting software to change the nouns and the verbs

d)      Offshore the process

A relatively obscure blog like this one is a good place to find words to copy, because other people are unlikely to find it and copy it.  

I'm not really worried about duplicate content yet.  I am worried about looking ridiculous.  Spammers have run my press releases through rewriting software before.  The results would have been hilarious--if my name hadn’t been on them. 

If this blog is your, “um, somewhere else,” and you’re here to borrow copy, I can’t really stop you.  All I ask is that you

e)      Take only the evergreens.  They have better search terms anyway.

f)        Make substantial changes, like more than 40%

g)      Please, leave my name off your final product.

If you’re here to read, hi there and welcome!  Please leave a message and tell me what else you’d like to read about.

Sales Enablement

 

Insightful messages are great, but Tom Pisello reminds us that if they’re not what the B to B sales force needs, they’re useless.

In Is Marketing Too Busy?  The Forgotten Sales Professional, Pisello, the “ROI Guy,” recommends a Content Marketing Institute article by Jennifer Watson, The Audience Content Marketers Can’t Afford To Ignore – But Almost Always Do.  

I agree with both Pisello and Watson.  It takes humility to acknowledge that you’ll never know product attributes and how they meet the needs of potential customers as well as the sales people do.  Given that, once you do your best job, it takes creativity and ingenuity to figure out a way to make your sales enablement programs easily available to the sales force with the tools they use daily.

Watson includes a link to an eBook, The New Rules of Sales Enablement by Jeff Ernst.  Whether you’re from sales or marketing, you’ll want to have a look at this book and forward it to your friends.

What if the media call and you’re not ready?

High-profile employees at large firms receive training in public speaking, including speaking on camera.  If they suddenly have to speak up on behalf of the company, they and their bosses are confident that they’ll come across well.  In the best cases they’ll express exactly what they’re supposed to.  They’ll be articulate and poised.

The rest of us may want to be that suave, but it’s not really that important, is it?

It is if you have a dream.  If you have a product or service you want to persuade others about, you need to speak compellingly.  And if you suddenly have a big breakthrough and the media want to talk to you, would you want to say, “No…thanks, really.  I’m just not a good public speaker.”?

They have other stories to cover.  While you’re gathering your wits, they’re turning to their next assignment.  Too bad, so sad.

That’s why, if you want to promote something, you need to be ready to speak.  That’s why I joined Toastmasters eight years ago. 

At Toastmasters you practice giving speeches in a friendly environment.  Fellow club members give you feedback about your speeches.  If you like speaking, you can also participate in contests.

Toastmasters needs you to fill in other roles, such as leading the meeting, being the “humorist” (telling one joke), and counting the number of times speakers say “ah” and “um.”

Toastmasters membership costs under $100 per year.  If you put in the time, you get something invaluable back—the ability to say the right thing at the right time.

Here’s the link to my club, the Murray Hill Speakers Club.

Here’s the link to Toastmasters International, where you can find a club near you.

If you’re serious about marketing, drop by a meeting for free and learn more about the program.

gurlz ONLY

Attention, gentlemen: this post is about menopause.  You might want to click away now.

LOL!  Can’t you hear those trackballs spinning frantically?

This really is about menopause.  It’s about how I can only think of one reason why the International Sleep Products Association (ISPA) hasn’t already implemented this marketing campaign:

“Congratulations!  You’ve reached menopause.  No more worry about staining your bedding, so buy the best.  Celebrate by treating yourself to a luxury mattress.  

As a special treat, if you tell us you’re over 50, we’ll include a set of 500-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets as our gift.”

(They’ll actually card everybody—nothing like the thrill of being told you don’t look your age.)

I see spots (hee hee) on the Lifetime Channel and OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network.  I see ads in the women’s service magazines.  I see this as huge.

The only possible reason that they haven’t already initiated this campaign is that they haven’t thought of it.  Yet.

Gives me something to look forward to.

New Year’s Resolution, part 2

To follow up on yesterday’s post: yes, you do want to update your site frequently in order to woo (or wow) the search engines.

Not everyone has the desire or facility to come up with something fresh and witty every day.  As Gene Fowler once wrote:

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

 I don’t digress when I say that yesterday I grew tired of looking at all my excess labels.  If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of any post, you’ll see a few labels, words that I thought applied to whatever I was writing about that day.  They help bloggers organize their posts, and, yes, they help the search engines find the posts.

In the beginning of this blog, I was label-happy.  I made up new labels every time I mentioned new subjects, which is why I only had one blog entry labeled “food pyramid.”  It was like setting up a filing system with paper files that only contained one sheet of paper.  After a while all those files get in your way.

I did something about those extra labels, deleting a lot of them.

Here’s the funny thing: that was good for my search engine optimization as well.  The search engines can’t really tell if I’ve just added important and timely news to my blog (only you can do that.)

To a search engine “spider” a deleted label is as much an update as is a trenchant blog post.  So’s a deleted comma.  I could edit my site every day, deleting a comma tomorrow and adding it back in the next day.  The search engines would think I was making serious changes and would think my blog had hotter news in it than the completing blog at the next IP address, which didn’t make daily minor tweaks.

I’d rather add new and interesting blog posts, but even when I do something dull like administer my labels, it’s nice to know that even that may help one more reader find this blog.

NJCommunique's New Year’s Resolution

In 2011, I will update my blog more often.

As a writer, I study ways that I can encourage more people to read my work online.  One way to do this is to write so that the search engines find it.  The more relevant the search engines think this blog is to internet users’ queries, the higher up on the page this blog appears on the search engine results.

People are impatient.  The closer a website is to the top of the first page, the more likely they’ll click on it.  If they click on my site, bingo!  I have more readers!

This process is called search engine optimization.

If I know that a lot of people search on the term “LinkedIn,” I can use the word “LinkedIn” and any synonyms I can think of, frequently within the post.  “Aha!” the search engine says to itself, “this post must be really relevant to the query because it concentrates on the subject—look how many times the word LinkedIn repeats.  I’d better recommend this page to people who want to learn about LinkedIn.”

Another way that the search engines check web pages is to see how many other web pages refer to it.  If a lot of other people recommend my page to their readers, my page must be good.  This is especially true if the website that refers to it is prominent.

I use this fact to a certain extent.  My LinkedIn profile includes a link to this blog.  If I think my friends might be interested in a certain post, I also mention it on Facebook.  If I wanted to, I could visit strangers’ blogs, leave comments there and include a link back to this blog.  I don’t usually bother.  I do have an offline life.

Another thing the search engines look at is how frequently the website is updated.  If nobody updates the website, the search engine figures it’s been abandoned or that the information on it’s outdated.  Search engines want to see sites with frequent changes. 

I like this blog to have good search engine results, which is why I vow to update it more often this year.  Thanks for visiting, and y’all come back now, you hear?

Off-the-wall idea for churches and houses of worship

 

Houses of worship of any religion should always be looking for ways to attract new members.  Here’s one you may want to try.

Distribute a letter to recent arrivals and neighbors.

• ·        For neighbors, use church volunteers and door hangers.  Target the houses and apartments nearby.  The more volunteers you have, the farther afield you can go.
• ·        For new arrivals, check municipal records for property transfers and mail out the letters.

The letter:

Welcome to (community name)!   (Or “Hello, neighbor.”)  If you’re interested in joining a house of worship, the congregation at (house of worship name) invites you to visit us at (address). 

(House of worship) is special because (unique selling proposition).

Our services are at (day and time).  If you have questions, please visit us on the internet at (URL) or call us at (telephone number).

Whether you decide to join our congregation or not, if you visit us we’d appreciate your honest and anonymous feedback about how you felt when you visited.  Here’s an anonymous survey.  If you care to fill it out, please send it to (PO Box number/city/state/ZIP)

We hope to see you soon.

Sincerely,

(Religious leader name)

(Religious leader title)

PS If you’d like more information, please do call us at (telephone number).  We promise no sales pitches!

The survey

Thank you for visiting us at (house of worship).  Your anonymous answers to this survey will help us understand how new visitors feel when they visit us.

Why did you visit (house of worship)?

• ·        I received a letter.
• ·        A friend or neighbor invited me.
• ·        Special occasion:
• ·        Holiday service
• ·        Special service such as a funeral
• ·        Other ___________________________________________________________________

• ·        When you visited us, did at least one person greet you with a friendly smile and an introduction?     Yes/No
• ·        Did anyone invite you to return?  Yes/No

•  ·        Was the building itself welcoming?  (Were there any physical barriers that made it difficult for you to participate in the service?) __________________________________________________________________

• ·        Have you visited a (denomination) church before? Yes/No
• ·        Was it difficult to follow the service? Yes/No
• ·        If it was difficult, why was it difficult to follow the service? ________________________________________________________________
•  
• ·        What did you think was the best thing about our service or our welcome?  ________________________________________________________________
• ·        What did you think was the least positive thing about our service or our welcome? _________________________________________________________________ 

Please answer the questions below on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “completely untrue,” 3 meaning “neutral,” and 5 meaning “completely true.”

                                                

                                                  Untrue           Neutral           True

                                                          

I felt welcome at the service        1         2        3          4          5

I might return to (house of

                                 Worship)         1         2        3          4          5

• ·        Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your time with us?   __________________________________________________________________

                         

Thank you so much for filling out this survey!  We’re always trying to ensure that (house of worship) is as welcoming as possible.  Your opinions will help us.

Please mail this survey to PO Box number/city/state/ZIP

A special note from (religious leader): Thanks again for visiting us!  We hope we’ll see you again at (house of worship).

(Signature)

I can’t think of any congregation that wouldn’t benefit from feedback from visitors.  You’re welcome to use this idea, and if you do, I’d appreciate your opinions!

Happy new year.