Why Wasted Words Kill Good Ideas And Cost Sales

by

It’s easy to take the nuts and bolts of our communication for granted. We can all talk and read and write, after all. But as soon as we start to put our own ideas out there – making the leap from reader to blogger, or from consumer to persuader – how we communicate starts to matter. Words become tools. To get a grip on what we’re doing with them, we need to dissect the language that we otherwise take for granted. [Read more…]

How to Elevate Your Blog Posts in Three Easy Ways

by

Blog posts

With so many distractions hitting you from every direction, and, let’s be realistic, thousands of other blog posts written on the same topic as yours, it can be hard to keep things fresh. Content can often go stale lacking the life, and energy it once had. While you can continue writing as your normally would, there are a few ways to fire things up so to speak, potentially bringing more value to your readers. [Read more…]

How to Brainstorm Blog Post Topics

by

brainstorm blog post topicsThere are several ways that bloggers can come up with ideas for their posts. However, there are always days (or weeks!) when writer’s block rears its ugly head and we are struck with no blog post ideas.

Fortunately, there were a few great places of inspirations where you can find blog post ideas without having to waste time sitting to drum up ideas on your own.

Here are some ways to brainstorm blog post topics. [Read more…]

Stealing Blog Posts From Yourself

by

I’m a thief. Not in the Robin Hood philanthropic way, but in the robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of way. Let me explain. I recently started a blog about my puppy just for the fun of it. Unlike my other blogging endeavors, I have no real goal or agenda. I simply want to chronicle the experience of raising my first Shiba Inu.

Other dog owners have been stumbling across my work and writing me with their stories. In turn, I’ve begun very lengthy e-mail exchanges with other Shiba owners. We laugh about the breed’s inherent traits that drive us batty. We swap stories on how to train the stubborn pups. Overall, I think the e-mail trails are fun to read; valuable to any dog owner.

But that’s the problem. [Read more…]

Nothing to Blog About: Backlogitis

by

Nothing to blog about article series logoWe all have it. The email inbox reaches 1,000 unread messages like some virtual red flashing light indicator of procrastination. You’ve got 600 tweets to read and 45 DMs to respond to. Your WordPress blog is still version 2.5 and your WordPress Theme only works with WordPress 2.1. The To Do pile on your desk resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa. You’ve got Netflix movies stacked upon Blockbuster videos past due to return. And your blog is begging for a blog post.

The symptoms are all there.

You have backlogitis. [Read more…]

Nothing to Blog About: Not Every Blog Post Should See the Light of Publish

by

Nothing to blog about article series logoAs mentioned in the last article in Nothing to Blog About, not every idea is worth publishing. Not every blog post is publishable. Not every blog post should see the light of the public eye. And sometimes that type of blog post is stopping us from producing blog content.

I can’t tell you the many hours I’ve spent struggling over a blog post, determined it had value and needed to be published. I’d beat at it, thrash it, rip and tear it apart, only to decide it wasn’t ready, nor was I, to have this ever be published.

Has this happened to you? A blog post you want to publish sits in your drafts or stares at you from your blog screen screaming, “NO! NOT YET!”

Are you listening? [Read more…]

Nothing to Blog About: Hit the Ideas File

by

Nothing to blog about article series logoIf people judged me by the number of ideas I generated in single day on the subject of WordPress and blogging, I’d be the Einstein of the blogosphere. If they took a peek into the all the various files, folders, virtual and physical, I have to store all of those ideas, they’d pack me up and send me to the mental institution.

I come up with ideas for things to blog about constantly, rarely running out of ideas. The problem is that few of these see the light of day, or I get so caught up in the ideas, I can’t get past the idea to the Publish button.

As part of this series called Nothing to Blog About, we’re talking about how to stir up your mental pot when the bloggy brain bogs down and content cannot be found. From among the various options suggested already, I’d like to resurrect the traditional idea file. [Read more…]