“All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary – it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.” Somerset Maugham. As a business person with an online presence, you write for the Web.

It doesn’t really matter which type of business you are in. If you have a website and/or a blog (which the majority of business people do nowadays), you either write the content yourself or you have someone else write the content for you. So, how do you get your web writing to stay consistent and compelling over time?

Which style guide should you follow?

The answers that you get to that question will vary, depending on whom you ask. There are several style guidelines to which web writers defer. Among them are the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook and the much newer Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World.

It is interesting to understand the differences between the style guides and the motivation behind why Yahoo felt compelled to release a style guide when AP has been considered the “gold standard” for such a long time, including the approach on a large number of commonly used online terms. The bottom line for you as a writer is that if you have integrity about the content that you are offering to others, you still care about editing, attribution and the assurance of reliable and credible sources of information.

Yahoo says that their style guide is different because it offers guidelines exclusively for writing on the web and that it discusses web-related topics, including topics on how to help people optimize web pages. The big question is whether AP and Yahoo can work together successfully to truly help people to write their web content and not confuse anyone.

The Associated Press and Yahoo style guides both offer useful guidance for everyone who consults them. The combination of the two books gives comprehensive advice on traditional writing as well as optimization for the web. People may be inclined to go to the AP Style Guide more often because it offers broader guidelines for the English language, grammar, punctuation and usage. The Yahoo style guide, on the other hand, targets a much narrower audience and focuses on the particular needs of certain writers.

Some people are of the opinion that the Yahoo style guide is not necessary because people have deferred to AP for such a long time. However, it is important to think in a more flexible and open-minded manner with the popularity of social media and peoples’ heavy involvement with online communications.

Which style guide should you consider the “gold standard”?

The AP Style Guide has established standards that, if followed, give the writing a journalistic voice, which also works well for the web. Short, clear and concise writing not only appeals to readers of print media but it also appeals to readers of online content. People don’t have the time or the patience to read long, complicated, involved content no matter how it is delivered.

Of course, there is some overlap between the two style guides. The most sensible approach may be to consult the AP style guide first and if there is some issue or question that has not been answered by AP, you should consult Yahoo. In other words, use AP as your primary source and use Yahoo as your secondary source.

Conclusion

Two reputable style guides have been discussed here. Both guides offer valuable advice, with one offering guidance that is more traditional in nature on the whole and one that is more contemporary. They are both essential to achieving consistency in your online writing and in presenting writing that flows, is well written and that appeals to the readers and makes them want to continue reading whatever you and your business offer them.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Many people have websites (for their businesses as well as for personal use) and many people have blogs. The issue is whether people truly understand the difference between a website and a blog. They certainly are not the same thing.

The following explains the basic differences between a blog and a website:

Blog

• Content is regularly updated.
• Not formal.
• Interactive.
• Informative and educational.
• Interactivity about industry/customer issues.
• Some people have a blog.

Website

• Content is static.
• Formal/professional.
• Interactivity does not exist. There is only one-way communication.
• Transactional.
• Communication about products and/or services.
• Almost everyone has a website. In fact, it is almost a requirement in business today.

A good way to think about a website is in terms of it being a virtual store that sells products and/or services. A website is the perfect forum to self-promote and advertise. Promotion and buying and selling are exactly what people expect when they visit a website. When they are at the point of making a purchase of some kind, they go to a website that will satisfy their needs.

They can either purchase something online directly from your website or they can use your website to find out exactly where your bricks and mortar store is located so that they can come and purchase products and/or services from you in person. Once a customer has bought something from you, there is a very high likelihood that they will not return to your store again.

It is also basically impossible to build relationships with your potential customers and existing customers on your website because the website is static. Once a person has purchased something from you, there is no potential for interactivity so the relationship will never have a chance to develop and grow.

Blog

A blog; however, is constantly supplying potential customers and existing customers with interesting and useful content and the blog enables them to interact with the blogger and the discussions that they have together can be potentially unending. Not only can you and your customers have discussions but they can also ask questions that you can answer.

Also, a blog provides a dimension to the content that you can’t get from your website content. Through your consistent and regular blog content, you will eventually be regarded as a subject matter expert in your niche and people will turn to you for answers. This will promote more and more discussions.

What is really being done in this case is that relationships are being developed and strengthened. Some of the people with whom you interact on your blog will never become your customers. That is perfectly acceptable. They can interact with you as much as they like and do not have to worry about any pressure to buy anything. A very important fact is that the people with whom you interact are getting to know you as a person, which includes your level of integrity, your passion for what you are doing and offering and your knowledge, knowledge that you impart to them.

Blogs have a lot of useful features that are very helpful in promoting interactivity. Blogs enable visitors to subscribe to them so they can receive updates on a very regular basis. They will always be informed when new content is added or there has been some update to the social media profiles of the people with whom they interact.

In order to really be effective, blogs should have new postings at least once or twice a week. Fresh, original content is very important. The content is exactly what attracts and retains people and many of those people will eventually become customers.

The true purpose of a blog is to provide helpful, valuable, informative and interesting content that helps other people and that they find interesting. A blog’s purpose is definitely not to advertise or to do a hard sell on anyone. If you try to use your blog in that way, you will be very disappointed with the results. You will not be able to build relationships with anyone and you most likely won’t sell very much. People don’t buy from people whom they don’t trust. The only way that they will trust you is if they get to know you.

All in one

One approach that has proven very effective is building your website with blog software, such as WordPress. Blog software has the capability of providing you with both static web pages (pages) and blog pages (posts). Since both are necessary for the success of your online exposure, this allows you to design a web presence that contains a traditional website and a blog using one tool. Among the other benefits are:

• One homogenous look and feel.
• Ease of optimization for SEO.
• Sharing of add-on plugins between the pages and posts.
• Ease and speed of designing and developing the web presence.
• Ease of maintenance and updating of content since the entire web infrastructure is based on a content management system (CMS).

Conclusion

Blogs and websites work in very different ways, serve very different purposes and produce different short-term results. However, they are both necessary to increase your online exposure and to strengthen your online business reputation. It is important to have both as part of your online presence. They function well together and undeniably, you will see positive results over the long term if they are a part of your business online.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

You have heard the term “bounce rate.” It is the percentage that represents how many visitors leave your website directly from the page on which they entered the website. A high bounce rate usually means a low conversion rate.

There are several reasons why you might be experiencing a high bounce rate, such as

• It takes too much time to load your web page
• Your landing page is too complicated to navigate. It is not user friendly
• The wrong sorts of visitors are being drawn to your website

With that said, there are several ways in which you can lower your bounce rate significantly, which will be good for your business.

Website and layout design

Your website design is one of the most important factors when it comes to bounce rate. Your website should have colors that are pleasing to the eye and you should try to avoid graphics that “pop out” in the middle of the page because those are very distracting. Your website content should be arranged in a manner that is logical and there should not be an over-abundance of words. You absolutely should have your website designed by a professional. Also, you need to make sure that the HTML of your website is valid so that similar results show up in all of the search engines.

Strong headline

Of course, the headline is the first thing that people are going to read when they land on your website. If the headline doesn’t entice the visitors, it will be all over. Your headline must communicate what the visitor will gain from visiting your website (What’s In It For Me [WIIFM]). In other words, the visitor needs to know that you have the solution to his or her problem.

Well-written text

You need to make sure that your title, headers and meta-tags of each of your web pages are relevant to the rest of the content. You might want to have an abstract in the first paragraph of your text or try to answer questions in your opening paragraph that your readers have asked. Optimizing your content is, of course, extremely important so that the search engines will give you high rankings.

Friendly language

The language in which your content is written should be friendly and human. You should never have content that sounds like you are a corporation instead of a person, no matter which business you are in. Short sentences are definitely recommended. You must speak to your target audience in their language.

The size of your web pages

It is very important to make sure that the sizes of your graphics are appropriate. You also need to make sure that the text/HTML code ratio is as low as possible. Try to keep the loading time of the pages as short as possible. This is important because the users will be more inclined to visit your website again and again if it is easy and quick for them.

Easy navigation

Your website must have a menu that is easy for users to navigate. When people visit a website, everything has to be simple for them. If possible, your website menu should not be on the bottom of the screen. You should have the content arranged in categories and keep important pages a click away and no more, if you can. Another sensible thing to do is to suggest relevant products and/or services on your web pages and to put links in logical and strategic places so that they can benefit your visitors.

Optimize your website for the best keywords and key phrases

When considering search engine optimization (SEO), always remember to optimize your web pages for the most relevant keywords. You should have 1 to 2 terms on each page. Your keywords should appear in important parts of your website, such as your titles, headers and opening paragraphs.

High-quality links

We all know that links are extremely important when it comes to increasing your exposure online. You need to make sure that the links that are pointing to your website contain anchor text. The links should always be relevant to your offerings and they should lead to content that is interesting and informative.

Conclusion

When it comes to your website, you need to successfully lead people to what you have to say and what you have to offer. You must consider many different things. Not only are traffic generation and website views important but bounce rate, the average amount that a visitor spends on your site and conversion rates are also extremely important and are strong contributors to the success of your online marketing campaign.

Remember that when the visitor comes to your site, they must always find what they are looking for. If they don’t find what they are looking for within 8 seconds, they will move on. That is all the time that you have to make a really strong first impression. Your content must always be clear and concise, you should never have distractions on your web pages and you should always allow your visitors to have the option to search and you should make suggestions for other pages that they might find interesting and helpful.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne. You know that the road to the success of your business online is paved with rich and informative content. The more content you generate and syndicate, the better.

Writing does not have to be an arduous or excruciating process for anyone. Writing involves a creative formulation of thoughts and ideas and the ability to put those thoughts and ideas on paper. The more you write the easier and more enjoyable it will become for you. It is critical to devote a certain amount of time to your writing each week, including the first phase, which is the thinking phase in the process. It is important to remember, of course, that your writing needs to satisfy (and please) your readers and the search engines. Remember to write in simple language that is easy for readers to understand.

Inspiration

Inspiration can come to you from many different places and many different people. You can train your mind to always be receptive to ideas around you, which you may be able to use in writing for your business. Possible inspiration is all around you. You just need to recognize it when you see and hear it. Another wonderful source of writing inspiration is people. You can glean ideas from conversations as well as other people’s writing.

Once you have decided upon the topic for your content, your next challenge is writing it in the most perfect way possible. With business writing, you run the risk of the content seeming dry (or even boring). With that in mind, it is very important to make sure that you keep your content as lively and interesting as possible. An excellent way to do that is to have some humor in your writing. Another good way to capture the attention of your readers is to open with a quote, which will lay the conceptual groundwork for the entire article (as was done here).

Passion

As a business person, you have a passion for whichever topics you are writing about. The topics (or concepts) are precisely the reason that you have chosen the business that you have chosen. You have a passion for your brand, products, services, website and business. Because of that passion, you have a guarantee that your writing about your business will be of high quality and exciting.

If you were to publish mediocre writing, you would be putting your business’s reputation and longevity in jeopardy. Your expertise and vast knowledge is critical to the success of your business and your successful writing of content, business articles and press releases for your website is an extremely important component for you and your business. You definitely will not be offering up fluff because you know that your readers will read right through the fluff and what keeps drawing them to your website and your content is your deep understanding and credibility in your area of expertise. Smoke and mirrors will ultimately not help you to help anyone or to sell anything.

Good qualifications

You are extremely well qualified to give advice, tips, tricks and other pearls of wisdom in your industry. With that said, if you are feeling insecure about smoothly converting your knowledge into words that other people will be drawn to, will find helpful and useful, and that will increase your business’s online reputation and exposure, the following tips will help.

• Always write and publish original content: Always providing original content to your readers is what will produce positive results when it comes to increasing your website traffic and ultimately allowing your business to become more successful. The idea of always providing content that is fresh and valuable and that hasn’t been written by anyone else anywhere else is critical to the success of your business. Of course, there will be other people who will write on similar topics; however, they will write differently than you will write. Duplicating other people’s content is never a good idea (not to mention that it is unethical) and you will also not please the search engines if you do that.
   
• Be meticulous about grammar, spelling and punctuation: You have finally reached the point where you are able to put your wonderful ideas on paper so that others may benefit from them. The last thing that you want or need is to have grammatical, spelling and/or punctuation errors in your content. Having mistakes in your content is one of the easiest ways to lose readers. Errors distract the reader from the content and they make a giant statement about your lack of attention to detail. If you are not confident that you will catch those types of errors, it is advisable to ask someone else who you feel is strong in that area to help you.
   
• Choose a writing style that works well: Everyone who writes has a unique “voice.” You need to establish your voice and stick with it consistently. Another thing to consider is that different voices are appropriate for different types of writing. For example, you will write differently for your business if you are selling auto parts than if you are an attorney who specializes in criminal law. The voice should come easily once you have really established your writing style.
   
• Have fun with writing: The more you write on topics about which you feel passionate, the more fun your writing experience will be. Additionally, once you start to see how offering high-quality content is paying off for your business, it will drive you to really want to write more and more.

Conclusion

Writing high-quality content will achieve several results, among them, your writing will compel people to come back to your website repeatedly. Great content is at the heart of the success of your business. The more content you write and publish, and then, subsequently syndicate to social media channels and business directories, the more people will notice what you are doing, be interested in what you have to say and want to build a relationship with you. So, keep writing as often and as much as you can. Content is the yellow brick road to a successful and exciting business.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Link building is the process of building links back to your website. Back links are links that go from other websites back to your website. More back links mean higher search engine rankings.

There are several ways in which to build links and some methods are more effective than others. The following are tips for effective link-building.

• Anchor text that is targeted: Once you start focusing on links on other sites, you must have anchor text that is targeted. Bear in mind that you should not have the same text everywhere. The search engines will take notice of that (not in a good way). You should have a few phrases that you use interchangeably and you should also use the proper name of your website. If it is only possible for you to get an image link, be sure that the website owner places your anchor text or the proper name of your website in the ALT tag of the image.
• Keep your eye on links in and out: The search engines pay attention to where your links appear and they decide how much benefit is returned to your site. If your site has a great deal of inbound links, it will add to your credibility. At the same time, if you are linked to a website that has poor-quality, outbound links, your credibility will not be enhanced.
• The relevance of the website: It is extremely important for your links to have great relevance to what your website is all about. You need to be sure to pursue links in places that are relevant and it is important to focus on how those websites are optimized. The relevance of the links will add more and more to your credibility and to the credibility of your business. Valuable links are links that come from pages with relevant and useful content.
• The importance of page rankings: Page rankings are extremely important; however, they are not the only important thing to consider. It is very possible for a website that has high page rankings to have low value. This situation applies to websites that sell links. It is a good idea to avoid websites that use phrases such as “sponsored by” and “paid for by.” It is possible that those types of websites may not be ranked at all by the search engines.
• Don’t be generous when it comes to link building: As is the case with volume of content, it is the same when it comes to volume of links. More is not necessarily better. It is not a large number of links that will earn you higher rankings on the search engines. It is the quality of your links. It is not always a simple thing to figure out which links are higher quality. If you pay attention to online marketing consultants and take their advice when it comes to link suggestions, you will probably end up with better-quality links. The more valuable your links, the higher your website will rise in the search engines.
• The value of social networking: Getting links into places where there are opportunities to do social networking is of the utmost importance and an extremely effective approach. The search engines pay attention to websites that are very active with continually adding fresh content and you will have higher search engine rankings because of it. Social networking is also very valuable because you are establishing and building valuable relationships with people who will eventually want to do business with you.
• Clean links: You need to make sure that the links that you have on your website are clean. If your links have any extra codes that shouldn’t be there, they are of no use to your website.

The reason that you have links on your website is to increase your search engine rankings. Even though it is sometimes difficult to determine good quality from bad, over time, it will get easier and you will see that it will become second nature to you.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

At the root of content marketing is a clear understanding of what your customers need and the ability to satisfy their needs in an informative, compelling manner. Your content should be engaging and should promote further discussions.

There are many ways in which to market content effectively. One of the reasons why content marketing is effective is because it is not pushy. The information that you publish is educational in nature and you don’t ask for anything in return. You can expect people to be receptive to this type of marketing because they don’t feel threatened in any way.

The following are some tips that will help you to accomplish your marketing goals when it comes to online content:

• Establishing trust: Without trust, people will not buy what you are selling. The first thing that you need to do is to listen to your customers. The easiest and most effective way to understand their needs is to ask them questions. Once you understand what their issues are, you can solve them. By offering them useful and informative content, you will be doing just that. The more helpful content you offer them, the stronger your relationship with them will be and the more they will trust you.
• Listen: Listening to what is being said about your company, your customer service, your brand and your competition is the start of your content marketing campaign. Traditional marketing methods for accumulating data for your business include focus groups, customer surveys, and other tools for acquiring customer feedback. Online discussions, however, can be tracked and measured with free tools such as Search.Twitter.com, Google Alerts, etc.
• Pay attention to analytics: It is very important to pay close attention to what people are searching for online. There are tools that allow you to understand which keywords are popular. Web analytics tell you which specific keywords drive traffic to your website and exactly which pages people go to when they want to find answers.
• Stop selling: If you push your products too much in your online content, you will turn off your customers and potential customers. Your customers want to be educated in some way. In other words, they want to learn something from you that they didn’t know before. Not only do they crave the education but they want it with no hard sell attached. No strings attached! When you offer high-quality content to your customers and potential customers, they will start to trust you and to feel that you are credible.
• Publish great-quality content: Content that is well written as well as educational is like a nugget of gold. The content, if written correctly, is enticing and entertaining and it makes the readers feel that they want to return time after time for more. With that in mind, your content marketing campaign must contain top-quality content, which is written by writers who really know how to tell a story well. It is important that you be selective when it comes to deciding which content to publish and make sure that the quality of the content that you publish is always the very best.
• Offer tips: The content that you offer must be informative, insightful and useful to your customers. You should make sure that your content contains helpful tips and sound advice. Tips are very important because very often they turn prospects into customers. Your tips will often either solve your customers’ problems or improve the quality of their lives in some other way. This will cause them to gain more trust in you.
• Talk the talk: It is extremely important for you to have a good handle on how to “speak” with people in your industry. You need to be certain that you have the perfect voice for your audience. You should do a thorough amount of research before you even think about establishing a voice. If you do that, you will be able to connect with your audience more effectively as well as having a better chance of being recognized favorably by the search engines.
• Solve your customers’ problems: You should offer content to your customers that specifically communicates how your products can solve their problems. Always make sure that you follow the marketing principle “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me?). You can offer the most amazing products and/or services in the universe; however, if those products and services don’t solve your customers’ problems, it won’t matter.
• Write regularly and frequently: It is important to get as much content as possible out there. You should make sure to work content writing and publishing into your weekly schedule. No matter what frequency you choose for this, make sure that you are consistent each week. People will start to look forward to seeing your fresh content on certain days of the week each week.

Conclusion

Content marketing, along with the other types of marketing (online as well as traditional) are all important elements that make up a successful marketing campaign. You should consider that all of the parts need to work together to make the campaign a great success. Content really is an important part of the success of your business. The more useful information you share with your readers, the more they will appreciate your expertise and credibility and the more they will consider you trustworthy.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Content syndication is a method for distributing Web content to many online sites. Syndication is so important because it generates more traffic, improves SEO rankings, and increases brand awareness.

The easiest way to set up Web content syndication is to create Web feeds that give your subscribers a summary of the Web content that you have added recently. Web feeds allow your visitors to subscribe to and acquire frequent updates that are delivered automatically by either a Web portal, Email or a news reader.

The content that is the most appropriate for syndication includes:

• Articles
• Press releases
• Audio (ie, podcasts and mp3 files)
• Videos
• Forums
• Blog posts

How to get your content published

If you have a website, audio and/or video content or photographs, you can offer an option of a feed of your content. If you wish to do that, you should choose your feed reader (such as Feedburner), set up an account and add a subscription button to the bottom of your Website pages.

Why content syndication is so critical for Internet marketing

When you make content syndication a part of your online marketing strategy, as has already been mentioned, you will increase your brand awareness, improve your rankings in the search engines and generate more traffic to your website. The result of this is that your increased traffic will be more qualified and more targeted, which will eventually convert into sales and high-quality inbound links that lead to other pages on your website and/or blog.

Repurposing your content is also a sensible thing to do at times. That way, you are getting a great deal of value out of your content for the time that it took you to write and publish the content. If you repurpose your content efficiently and on a regular basis, you are making use of a very effective content syndication tool and getting a great deal of mileage out of it.

When people are searching for information online, they are looking for very specific information. They are looking for information that is relevant to them and to their problems. It is usually information that is entertaining, newsworthy or educational. On rare occasions, they are at the point when they actually want to buy something, although that is not typical.

With that in mind, the first objective that you should have when it comes to your marketing strategy is to engage your visitors with meaningful and relevant information that meets their needs and their search criteria. If the visitors like what they read, they will probably take the next step of subscribing to your content so that they can receive ongoing information updates from your business.

The elements of content syndication

The content that you are syndicating must be educational, newsworthy and entertaining. It is important to remember that the majority of people who are seeking information on the Internet are not yet at the point where they are ready to buy a product or service. In most cases, they are doing research in an effort to increase their knowledge and to get answers to their specific questions.

If you write content that is focused on fulfilling the needs of your online visitors, those visitors will probably be willing to buy your products and/or services at some point. If you succeed at delivering content that offers solutions to their problems, you will be creating brand awareness for your offering and you will succeed at holding their attention until your visitors get to the point where they are ready to buy your products and/or services.

Your business objectives should be to nurture your visitors, convert them to becoming your customers and deliver good and/or services that make them become and remain loyal customers.

How to successfully run a content syndication strategy

There are several steps that you should follow when it comes to your content syndication strategy.

• Write non-sales, high-quality content that is educational, newsworthy or entertaining that targets your niche.
• Form a network of people who want to share content
• Syndicate your content to your network of people who want to share your content
• Make it easy for your network to subscribe to your content
• Make sure that your subscribers are always informed of future content that you publish
• Always include a link to your sales page at appropriate intervals in your autoresponder Email sequence.

The best method for writing and publishing your content

If you are serious about writing and syndicating your content, you should have a blog. The following are very compelling reasons for you to set up a blog.

• Driving traffic to your website: Because the content in a blog is changing all of the time, it is very good for search engine optimization (SEO). A regularly updated blog provides keyword-rich, fresh content that search engines love to index. New content will be indexed very quickly and this will cause your website to have a higher ranking when potential customers are searching for your products and/or services, which will drive more traffic to your website.
• Building relationships with customers and potential customers: Your business’s blog gives you the opportunity to communicate with your customers and potential customers by leaving comments. Blog discussions are two-way conversations. Building relationships will help your customers and potential customers to find you credible and trustworthy. It can also help you to turn potential customers into customers eventually.
• Becoming a subject matter expert: The information that you offer in your blog can help you to educate your customers and potential customers. If you share your knowledge and truly believe that you have the capability of increasing knowledge in others, you will be regarded as an expert in your niche and people will trust you and eventually will want to buy what you are selling.
• Testing products or ideas: Because of the informal nature of a blog, people find it easy to give you feedback on your new products and/or services, which serves as early market testing. Additionally, you can use your blog to publish a new idea or concept to see how much interest is generated from it.
• Enhancing your business’s relationship with the Press: Once your blog gets industry recognition, the Press will check on your new content on a regular basis. The positive result is that you and your business will be receiving more and more media coverage.
• Notifying you of issues: A blog has the ability to draw your attention to a problem or issue before it gets out of control because you can receive instant feedback from your readers. You can receive instant feedback on your products and/or services, marketing campaign, customer service, etc.

The most important way to be successful at content syndication is to keep adding a lot of fresh content. If you promote this effectively, it will act as a magnet to your website. New visitors will be drawn to your website every day and the more visitors who visit your website, the more potential you have of their eventually becoming customers.

However, as important as posting large amounts of fresh content is, it is important not to forget that the placement of that content is also critical. The following are some helpful tips.

• Set up a Feedburner account so that your feed can be accessed by others easily.
• Share your feed on your social networks. There are several social media channels that can read and publish your content feeds to your fans, followers and friends. They will appear as a status update on your various social media profiles.
• Submit your content to various social media submission directories.

Building a content syndication process

You want to endure that your content syndication process delivers your content to all of the appropriate social media channels.

• Publish fresh, high-quality content that has nothing to do with sales.
• Syndicate the content to numerous social media channels that have a large number of followers.
• Increase the visibility of those syndications by generating comments on the postings.

A helpful thing to do is to join various social media channels, such as LinkedIn and Facebook and to join groups on those sites that are relevant to your industry. You will engage people online easily if you share common interests with them and you demonstrate to them that what you are offering will benefit them. Once you have shared your content with them, you will see that they will want to share your content with other people with whom they are connected.

Avoiding duplicate content

The search engines don’t like duplicate content. There are some ways to avoid problems with duplicate content.

• Make sure that you always wait until your content is indexed by the search engines before you attempt to syndicate.
• If you had a syndication agreement with a specific website and that agreement is now finished, make sure that you revise the content enough so that the search engines don’t view it as duplicate content.

Conclusion

Content syndication is the way to get your word out to many people at once. The more content you generate and syndicate, the more people will pay attention to you and your business and will begin to regard you as an expert in your industry and a person with credibility and one whom they trust. The light at the end of that tunnel is increased business, which ultimately means increased revenue and greater success for your business.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

As you know, there are many ways to market your business online. Using a combination of marketing methods can be very effective. Video marketing should definitely be included in your strategy along with other methods that work well for you.

The videos that you use as part of your overall online marketing strategy should be short, effective and attractive and those videos should be based on keywords and key phrases that are able to endure over a long period of time.

Videos are effective because they catch the attention of your audience much more effectively and quickly than text, photographs or audio. As they say “A picture is worth a thousand words” and when it comes to marketing strategies, videos help to communicate your business’s brand and messages in an extremely effective manner.

Many people consult the Internet to help them make a decision about which they might be confused. Videos communicate information in a way that is informative and entertaining and, at the same time, it allows the person who is viewing the video to understand the subject better than they did before watching the video. Video marketing also offers a much wider scope than other forms of online marketing techniques. There are many different ways in which people can access videos. Another advantage that video marketing has over other forms of marketing is that it leaves a more lasting impression on the viewers. If the viewers remember your video, they will be inclined to want what you are offering.

If your marketing does not cause you to stand out from the rest of the crowd, you won’t get anywhere. If you focus your headlines on really grabbing your audience in an exciting way (and there are several methods for capturing your audience’s attention, such as using humor, shock, etc), you will capture the attention of a large number of people before you know it.

Before the tips are discussed here, remember that you need to lay some groundwork for making videos, which you will include in your Web presence. One of the first things that you should remember is to have good light for when you are shooting your videos. Additionally, you should have decent equipment (not necessarily expensive, professional equipment) that produces results that you are comfortable posting online.

The following are tips that will help you to use video marketing effectively for your business:

• Short videos: Make sure that your videos (whether you post them on your own website or a website like YouTube) are no more than 5 or 6 minutes long. If you have a video topic that you feel needs to be expanded way beyond the 5 or 6 minutes, it is a good idea to do a series of videos to cover the entire topic. People will be more inclined to watch and will really get a lot out of your videos if you feed them to your audience in small doses.
• Sales pages: It is sensible to post your videos on your sales pages and to take that opportunity to discuss your products and their benefits or some business opportunity that you are offering to others. The video is helpful in making your potential customers comfortable and the points that you make in your video about your products are reinforced about your sales letter.
• Key words: Search engines pay a great deal of attention to videos. When the search engines are looking at content and figuring out how to rank the various websites and their content, it is essential to do everything possible to make sure that your website appears as high as possible in the search engine rankings. You should do research to make sure that the keywords that you use in your content is optimum. You should choose keywords that will attract the kinds of leads and traffic that you want to pay attention to you and your business. Try to find out what your target audience is interested in and what they are looking for. Make sure that you include your keywords in headings, tags and resource boxes.
• Clear structure and purpose: By using the appropriate keywords, you are ensuring that your video will be targeted properly. You need to make sure that your video answers the questions that your audience is thinking about when they start searching for answers. You need to make your communication and your content as clear as possible at all times.

Always make sure that you focus on your topic and don’t digress. This will ensure that your videos are giving a lot of value to others. Before you start shooting your video, it might be helpful for you to write an outline of sorts. This will make it easier for you to stay focused on your topic. Use a script, if you feel that it helps you. You can also mention links to other videos that you feel are valuable on the same topic if you feel that your audience will benefit from them.

• Look straight into the camera: The whole reason why you are making the video is so that you can connect with your audience. You are connecting with them by the topic that you choose for your video as well as the way in which you communicate the information on the video. Always bear in mind that when you are shooting a video, you are actually speaking to other people. You must always keep in mind that the purpose of the video is to solve their problems. Real people have real needs and wants. They also have real fears and real dreams.
  If you follow your outline or script, which you should place right next to the camera for easy reading, you always appear to be looking directly into the camera.
• Call to action: The call to action on your video should be very precise and short. It is extremely important to communicate clearly to your audience about what you want them to do after hearing the Call to Action. When it comes to your Call to Action, you shouldn’t give your audience a lot of options from which to choose. It will just confuse them.
• Comments on your video: Video is a very personal and a very social means of communication. Your goal in making the video, of course, is to create as much buzz as possible. Once your audience has become interested in your video, they are likely to return to find out what comments other people have left about the video. When people leave comments, they often leave tips in those comments. The more comments people leave, the more potential value the discussions have.
• Write content about your video: It is a wonderful idea to write a blog article on the same topic as your video. Once you have written the article, make sure to add the link to your video to the article. You will be surprised at how much mileage you will get out of it. If you have a substantial list of contacts, you should send them an Email to let them know about the new video that you have just posted. In the Email, ask them to pass the information along to their contacts. This will cause your video to go viral and it will reach well beyond your own sphere of influence.
• Link to other content: You should get as much use out of your video as possible. You can marry different types of marketing by using the link to your video. All you need to do is share the link with all of your contacts and all of the different marketing methods that you use for your business. You need to make full use of all of your social media channels. Post the link to your video anywhere and everywhere. All places are appropriate.
• Recycling your video: In addition to sharing your video on the various social media channels, you can also put your video on a CD or DVD and hand it out. You can give it away for free and ask for contact information or some other Call to Action in return.

Summary

Video marketing is an extremely effective and important part of your online marketing strategy. Remember to always keep your video brief, focused, structured, clear, and get the most use out it that you can. Video marketing is one of many methods that you should use to strengthen what your business offers and how you communicate what’s in it for your audience. In other words, through video marketing, you will show your audience how you are able to solve their problems.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

You need to include a Call to Action on all of your business content. The whole point of the Call to Action is to entice people to take an interest in and visit your website.

What is a Call to Action?

A Call to Action is what you want your readers to do after they have finished reading your content. It can be a link at the bottom of your content upon which you want them to click to lead them back to your website. It can be a link asking them to connect with you on one of your social media channels. It can be a request asking them to subscribe to your newsletter. This is usually accompanied by a free offer, for example, a free Ebook or White Paper, to entice the reader to carry out the call to action.

As it is, some of your business’s website readers will read your content and that will be the end of it. However, others will read on and want to either leave comments or communicate with you privately. Many of your readers will also want to share your content with other people and a Call to Action is very important so that more and more people will want to visit your website, which, in turn, will hopefully generate more business.

It is important for you to make it as easy as possible for your readers to interact with you. If you want your readers to subscribe to your business’s website or newsletter, ask them to do so and show them how. If you are selling a product and/or service, give them a simple way to do that. If you have some content that you want your readers to vote on or rate, request that they do so.

Why is a Call to Action important?

Motivating your readers: Many people are reactive rather than proactive. They will respond to your Call to Action only if you tell them to click on the link or tell them to respond to another one of your requests. Of course, this should have an incentive with it. If you encourage them to leave a comment at the end of your article and express their opinion, they will do it.

Action propagates more action: When your readers see that other people are responding (or taking action) to your content and to the discussions that follow the content, they will be more inclined to respond also. They will see that it is simple and fun to start or jump into an already-existing discussion.

The following are some tips for writing a stronger and more effective call to action.

• Use a variety of Calls to Action: Sometimes, it is advisable to use different Calls to Action in different articles, depending on the context of your article and what you decide you want your readers to do in response to your article. As you try different types of Calls to Action, you will figure out quickly which ones work best for you. It is important to continually try to improve what you have. Remember to always have the marketing principle WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) in mind when it comes to satisfying the needs of your readers. Some examples of effective Calls to Action are
  • Please visit our Facebook Fan page to learn about what happens behind the scenes.
  • Join LinkedIn group “X” to be able to interact with other cutting-edge, subject matter experts in your niche.
  • Follow us on Twitter to be the first to take advantage of our new promotions.
• Write an obtainable and easy Call to Action: You can run a contest where you offer great prizes and have a high-quality audience that you have selected carefully. Your contest rules are 1. The contestant should write a blog article that links back to their website. 2. The contestant should generate (or have generated by others) 10 comments on their article. 3. The contestant should get their article retweeted 3 times. This is a good example of a contest where the rules are difficult to follow and it is not fun to play. If you run a contest like that, you probably won’t get a large number of participants. If your contest rules are simple and easy to follow, you will have a much better chance of getting people to join in.
• Write an obvious Call to Action: Explain clearly what you want the reader to do. After sharing valuable content with your readers, your ROI (return on investment), if you will, will be their continued and loyal connection to you and your business. They will know to connect with you from what you say in your Call to Action.
• Don’t offer too many Calls to Action in one article: If you offer too many Calls to Action in the same article, you will confuse your readers. For the best results, you should keep everything simple and to the point.
• KISS: You should use the KISS (keep it short and simple) principle when it comes to writing Calls to Action. Simplicity is the most effective approach. With regard to your goods and/or services, you should show what you are offering, list the price(s), state which problem it will solve for your customers and your customers’ needs and then strongly encourage that they do business with you through a strong Call to Action.
• Urgency: Your Call to Action should communicate a sense of urgency. When your readers read your Call to Action, they should be left with no doubt about what you want them to do right now. For that reason, “Click Here” is not a strong Call to Action because it gives them the option to come back later, if ever. “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” are stronger and will get you more immediate action

Summary

Not only is the presence of Calls to Action critical in your content but the way that you present the Calls to Action and how effective you are at enticing the reader to connect further with you and your business and also of utmost importance and if done correctly, will ultimately lead to greater success for your business.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

Your tagline is the most important advertisement that you will ever write. Your business’s tagline expresses personality and attitude and connects to people on an emotional level.

What is now referred to as a tagline used to be called a slogan. In essence, a tagline is a clear and concise phrase that lets your audience know exactly what your company is offering. There is a true art to writing taglines. The perfect tagline will make a huge difference in how and whether people pay attention to what you are selling.

It is important that your tagline makes a big impact. You need it to be remembered by everyone who reads it. It needs to be catchy. If you are having difficulty choosing between cute and direct, direct is probably a better choice. Once you have gotten your audience to pay attention to and remember your tagline, the next thing that you want them to do is become interested in buying what you are selling.

Humorous taglines can be very effective sometimes (done tastefully, of course). People love to be entertained. There are too many issues in life that are not funny. If you can use a tagline that makes your audience forget their issues for a little while, you have a shot at their becoming your customers.

It is all about “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM). Your customers and potential customers are not interested in how wonderful your product is and how great your services are. The only thing that concerns them is what you are going to do to solve their problems. Your campaign of taking care of your customers’ needs should start with your tagline. When they read your tagline and it makes them feel good and satisfied, that puts them one step closer to becoming your customer.

If a tagline is doing its job correctly, it is inspirational and thought provoking. Some examples of effective taglines are “Do it your way,” “When you care enough to send the very best” and “Are you in good hands?” Taglines make people feel good about the product and/or service and if they decide to buy, they will feel even better.

There are many ways to approach tagline writing.

• Connect the product/service logo to the tagline
• Use short phrases that have a rhythm to them
• Promise something to the customer if they buy
• Connect the product/service with a customer’s need that may not be tangible

When you are building your brand (and even later on when you are strengthening your brand), your business’s tagline is an extremely important part of your business. You should have the tagline written and in place from the beginning of your branding campaign.

Your tagline will help people to identify with your brand consistently and over a long span of time. In addition to your tagline being an essential part of the branding of your business, it will also cost you very little money, if any at all.

Your business’s tagline will create a first impression and your audience will remember that tagline for a very long time, even if they don’t always remember the name of your business. Your tagline has the potential to work indefinitely for your business. If, however, you ever get to the point where you feel that your tagline is old-fashioned and outdated, you can always write a new and more appropriate one for modern times.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.