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Why you need to invest in writing

invest in writingI had a fabulous meeting with a lovely lady recently and it got me thinking (again) about all the different skills you need in business. She was talking about all of the different elements that she was bringing together to make sure that the message she was sending reflected her values and the work that she does. Talking to me about getting the words right was the next stage in the process. She’d written a few things herself but hadn’t been happy with them. It’s a common theme when I speak to small business owners. There seems to be this feeling that they should be able to do it themselves. Writing is easy, right? If you’re holding back from working with a writer because you feel you shouldn’t have to, here’s why you might want to reconsider.

It’s not just about the visuals

Words matter. Your first impression of a person or a business will probably come from the visuals, but the words cement the relationship. It’s especially important in writing. When you talk to someone face to face you can read their expression and body language to help you understand. In writing you can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted. If you’ve ever read an argumentative comments thread on Facebook you’ll know what I mean. Trolls will deliberately bait others and twist their words. Others could genuinely have misunderstood you. Even people who agree with each other end up talking at cross purposes.

A second set of eyes on your writing could help you to prevent that from happening. It also means that you get to see your business from an outsider’s perspective to get the message right.

Writing is a skill

We all wrote essays and stories when we were at school. It’s often the people who studied English Lit that struggle most with the idea of hiring a writer. They know how to string a sentence together so why is writing for their own business so hard? The truth is that writing copy and content for a business is a skill all on its own. Talk to a group of writers and you’ll also find that they’ve all got their own specialisms based on what they’re good at and enjoy doing.

There’s more to it than just sitting down and writing. It’s about getting to know you and your brand. Your writing needs to be tailored to your audience which means you have to understand what they need and value. Working with a writer can help you to identify exactly who you’re talking to and how to create something that sparks the right reaction.

You don’t have to do it yourself

Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from learning to do your own writing. But if your skills lie somewhere else, do you want to? Do you want to spend a day writing a blog post when you’d much rather be doing something else? I don’t often tell people that they don’t have to do their own writing, but perhaps I should. I’ve held back because it feels as if I’m stating the bleeding obvious. Only, it isn’t always obvious.

There are lots of reasons why a small business owner might not outsource their work. Sometimes it’s lack of funds, or it could be that their business is their baby and they want to protect it. But I often find that it’s simply because they think they should do it themselves. It’s potentially counterintuitive, but just because something is in your voice, it doesn’t mean you have to write it.

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What success means to me

successI sometimes feel that I get bombarded by other people’s definitions of success. I hear all the talk about hustle and being a weekend warrior. Someone in one of the business Facebook groups I’m in even asked whether members were aiming for ‘five figures or six’ this year. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have those goals, if it makes them happy. My only issue is when it becomes the only definition of success.

I was at my regular networking lunch earlier this month and the host asked us to think about how we defined success. The people who spoke up all talked about being healthy and happy. They thought there was no point having financial gain if you couldn’t enjoy it. It got me thinking about how I define success for myself. Here’s what I came up with.

Having it all is tough

I used to have a prestigious career. I was a solicitor on a decent salary (not fat cat levels, but still pretty good). Between us, my husband and I earned enough to cover the essentials and still have enough to treat ourselves when we fancied it. My working hours weren’t too ridiculous but I still found myself arriving home worn out and snapping at my children. I can only imagine how bad it must be for people whose working day extends into the evening.

The crunch came for me when it became clear that I was going to have to go for promotion to stay in the profession. I chose to leave. I won’t go over that here but here’s the story if you want the background. It was a scary step but mostly it felt like a massive relief.

What comes first?

To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about how I defined success when I first started my business. We had bills to pay so I didn’t think much beyond needing to make some money. Over time I realised that I wasn’t necessarily reaching for the things that the business gurus were talking about. It wasn’t about mansions and having millions in the bank. I wanted to build a business that helped me to put the important things first.

Beyond having enough to live on I wanted time with my family. My kids are still small and I want to spend time with them. There were times when I felt as if I’d be heaped with scorn for only working during school hours or taking weekends off. Where’s the hustle in that? Over time I’ve realised that the people who’d be put off aren’t the ones I want to work with anyway.

Do I have success?

I’ve realised that I have more than one definition of success. On one level, I’m successful now. I’m (fairly) healthy and working flexibly so I can enjoy time with my family. Working this way can mean that financial success comes more slowly. For example, I’ve turned down endless invitations to networking groups because they clash with the school run so I daresay I’ve missed out on some business there. I’d like to have more regular work to make my income a bit more predictable so that’s the next level.  But even if I end up as a millionaire author one day I can’t imagine myself moving to a massive house in the middle of nowhere. I’m part of a great community where I live and consider that another form of success.

I suppose the important thing is that I’ve decided where my priorities are. When I think about financial goals they’re tied to personal ones, like a great family holiday or building my writing shed in the garden. What’s your definition of success?

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Why you need to track your marketing data

Track your marketing dataYawn. I know what you’re thinking. I’ve gone from creating mildly entertaining blogs about writing and marketing to suddenly deciding to bore you all to death. Unless you’re someone who loves numbers and digging into an analysis of the figures. If you are, thank you. I love you for understanding figures and data because that may mean you’re an accountant and people like me need people like you. However, this blog isn’t really for you. It’s for the people whose eyes glaze over when you mention analytics. If you don’t know why you need to track your marketing data, read on. I may never teach you to love analytics but hopefully you’ll see the benefits.

Numbers tell the truth

When you create content for your business you’re bound to have bits that you’re really pleased with and others that felt a bit half hearted. Some things will get planned ahead and others will be ad hoc depending on what’s happening that day. If you’ve shared something on social media and it gets lots of comments you might feel that it’s done well. However, your impression of how a piece of content has performed might not be accurate. Only the numbers will give you the real picture.

For example, a blog post that appeared to gather tumbleweed when you posted in on Facebook might have brought lots of new visitors to your website. Unless you’ve got Google Analytics set up you won’t know. It might have brought you a new customer or two but you’ve written it off as a failure.

Where do you focus your attention?

The way you analyse your data can be quite individual but there are a few common features. The easiest way to look at it is by focusing on your goals. For example, if you want to increase the number of customers you have look at where the existing ones came from. Did someone get in touch because they saw a post that dealt with a problem they’re having? Have they read your blog and followed through to sign up for your email list? If you want to build your social media profile look at where you’re getting the most likes, shares and comments.

Of course, this isn’t an exact science. People might lurk for ages without responding to your posts at all. Then before you know it you’ve got a new customer. However, looking at what your audience did respond to gives you a general idea of what’s going down well. It can also tell you when something hasn’t hit the mark. I once did a campaign aimed at travel agents. The responses I got were mostly from VAs. They were lovely people but I’d clearly got the message wrong somewhere.

Marketing data saves you time

You might still be wondering what the point of all this marketing data analysis is. The simple truth is, scattergun marketing doesn’t work. Even more importantly, you don’t have enough time to post here there and everywhere hoping that something connects.

Your marketing data will tell you if your customers are coming from Facebook, LinkedIn or somewhere else. They will tell you if your audience love quick tips but hate memes. It may even tell you that the blog post you thought was a dead duck brought masses of traffic to your website. The point is, your marketing data will tell you what to do more of to achieve the result you want so you can focus on the things that matter instead of guessing.

If you want some help looking at your data and developing a strategy that gets results, get in touch. Or if you’d just like some ideas for new things to post so that you can start tracking your numbers, just click on the image below.

Further reading

How to analyse your Facebook page post metrics

How to get an overview of your Facebook Insights

An absolute beginners guide to Google analytics from Moz

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Why you need to keep your marketing tone consistent

marketing tone consistentThis is another one of those subjects where I’ll forgive you for reading the title and saying huh? The question should really be – when you look back over the blogs and social media posts you’ve written, do they all sound like you? When you keep things consistent you’ll get better results from your marketing and your life will get easier.

Getting to know you

The phrase ‘know, like and trust’ comes out of my mouth with alarming regularity. That’s because it’s one of the key things you should focus on as a small business owner. It’s rare for people to see an advert or a post and respond immediately. Generally speaking, you need to build a relationship with your audience.

You’re probably already well aware of the importance of consistent visual branding. Using the same colours and fonts makes it easy for your customers to spot you in their news feed. It’s the same with your copy. People stop and read because they know what to expect. If your posts are generally chatty and fun a sudden run of bland and boring ones will be a real turn off.

Easy outsourcing

Do you have brand guidelines? That sounds very formal, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s basically having a strong sense of how you want to come across. I use the same colours throughout my marketing and choose images that I hope my audience will like. I also aim to write in quite a natural and friendly way. All of my guidelines are in my head but if I was working with a graphic designer it would be quite easy for me to brief them on the style I’m aiming for. They could also get a pretty good idea from looking at my social media feeds.

You might not be ready to outsource your design or writing to anyone else yet. But having a clear idea about how you want to come across will really help when you are ready. You can send a brief that says “I aim to appeal to professional women and want my copy to be chatty and friendly.” Simple, right?

Consistent shouldn’t = boring

The last thing you want is to send your customers to sleep. Just because they want to know what to expect from your posts doesn’t mean they all need to sound exactly the same. Just because you mostly talk about light hearted things it doesn’t mean you can’t throw in something serious now and again. If anything, it gives the serious stuff more impact.

You can keep things varied by telling your customers something surprising. Cover the same topic in different ways. If you find that all of your posts start with the same few words, try some different ones. As long as it still sounds like you, it’ll be fine.

Review your marketing

Are you good at keeping your tone consistent? To find out, one of the best things you can do is to review what you’ve already done. When you read your blogs or look through your social media feeds, do they all blend into one? Maybe you’ve gone in the opposite direction and everything sounds as if it was written by a completely different person. This can be a problem in bigger businesses where content is often written by lots of different people, but sometimes it can just depend on what mood you were in when you wrote it. When you’ve finished, think about how you actually want to sound. What will work for your audience?

If you’d like to get back to basics with your blogging and make it sound like you, no matter what you’re talking about, join me for my last ever blogging workshop on 4th June. All of your refreshments are provided and you’ll have time to write so you’ll go home with a finished blog and a plan for more. Along with a renewed sense of your own ability to put your personality into your marketing. Click on the image to book your place!

Further reading

If you need to do some work to help you work out who your marketing needs to talk to, start here.

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How often should I blog?

how often blogIt’s the million dollar question (well, probably). More importantly, it’s one of the number one reasons why people are put off writing a blog for their business. You probably already know about all of the benefits of blogging, like getting your customers to know, like and trust you, but somehow it keeps getting put to the bottom of the to do list.* If you’ve googled ‘how often should I blog?’ you may well have encountered articles that talk about putting a new blog post out once or twice a week. Yikes. The good news is, you don’t have to write a blog every week if you don’t want to. Here are some things to consider when you’re working out how often to blog.

*If your blog is at the bottom of the list because you don’t know where to start, click here to book your place on my last ever full day blogging workshop.

SEO

SEO is often one of the first things that gets mentioned in connection with blogging. It can also be a bit scary, so let’s get it out of the way early on. Blogging is great for boosting your search engine rankings because it gives you regular updates to your website. It encourages the Google spiders to index your site more frequently and helps it to be seen as relevant, so you’re more likely to turn up in a search. There isn’t a set definition about what ‘regular’ posting actually means, but the general consensus is about once a month.

It can help to give your blog posts some longevity too. If your blog turns up in searches people can still find it months or years after you wrote it. That means that you don’t have to post constantly to keep getting new visitors to your website.

Quality over quantity

One of the main objectives of blogging is to offer your audience something they’ll find useful so they see you as someone who knows what they’re talking about. You stand a much better chance of that happening if you give yourself the time to write a good quality post. If people read what you’ve written and enjoy it they’re much more likely to read the next one and the one after that. If you’ve churned out three or four posts without putting much thought into them, people won’t come back for more.

When you’re coming up with topics, think about the areas where you have something valuable to say. (If that sounds scary, read this blog or come along to my workshop.) If you write one blog post a month you only need 12 for the whole year.

Give yourself time

I sometimes feel as if marketing has taken over my life. Thankfully, I’ve now recognised that as a sign that I haven’t got myself organised. Winging it generally ends up with faffing and suddenly an afternoon’s gone with nothing to show for it. Planning ahead, whether it’s for the whole year, the next quarter or even a month at a time, gives you a focus. Then when you sit down to schedule your Facebook posts or write a blog you know exactly what you’re doing.

Only you will know how long it takes you to write a blog post. If you’re writing for the first time maybe block out an afternoon to focus on it. Then make it a regular thing. Put it in your diary once a month – if you’re busy and it’s too much you can reduce the frequency. Alternatively, if you have the funds you can always write a couple and outsource the rest.

If you’d like to learn more about blogging and develop some seriously good blogging skills of your own, join me for my full day workshop at Bawdon Lodge Farm on 4th June. It’s the last one I’m doing so book now if you’re even remotely curious. Tickets are available here.

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How I knew it was time to leave

time to leaveI’ve been along to a few different networking groups since I started my business. You meet an incredible range of different people with all kinds of businesses. These days I find myself speaking to a lot of people who have a job and a side hustle. Some of them want to turn the side job into the main business and others just want a bit of extra money every month. It all means that I’m hearing more and more conversations about the right time to leave a job.

It’s a tough one. Even when you’re unhappy in your work a regular, predictable income is hard to leave behind. How do you decide where the tipping point is? I made the leap so want to tell you about the things that helped me make the decision. If you’re teetering on the brink of a new business adventure I hope they help you too.

The good (but not great) job

I used to be a solicitor. After university it took me a while to get a training post, via a couple of legal secretarial jobs which introduced me to the right people. I qualified as a personal injury solicitor and got a job with a national firm. My team represented the companies that had been sued.

I really enjoyed it to begin with. When you deal with personal injury claims you hear an interesting story every time a new file comes in. I got to know lots of different people and learn about what made them tick. It’s hard for me to pinpoint when the dissatisfaction started to set in. All I know is that by the time I went on maternity leave with my first child, I’d started to wonder whether I really wanted to do this work for the rest of my life. I had ambitions to be a novelist but saw that as a long term prospect at best.

Crisis point

When I returned from my second maternity leave a lot had changed. There had been reforms in the industry which had started to affect the day to day work. I had a meeting with two of the partners who told me that I needed to think about applying for promotion as I was too senior to carry on case handling as I had been. It would have meant managing financial targets and other members of the team. I’d half expected it but somehow it was still a shock.

I went home and sobbed. There was no way I wanted to be a manager. I’d mentored people before and hated it. It was time for me to find something else.

Time to leave

On reflection, the decision to leave was pretty easy. It was a choice between leaving or going through a rigorous application process for a promotion I didn’t want. My husband and I sat down and worked out that we could survive on his salary while I built a business. Even if I’d decided to build the business on the side I would still have looked at the budget. We worked out how much we needed to cover the essentials first, then the things that weren’t essentials but which we weren’t prepared to live without. It helped me to work out what my priorities were.

I suppose that’s the one golden nugget I want you to take from this story. If you’re making the leap, be realistic. How much do you actually need to live on and are you making it yet? Are you at a point where you can’t build your business any more without cutting your hours or leaving your job altogether?

Whatever decision you make, good luck! Let me know how it goes.

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How long does your blog need to be?

how long blog postHave you ever asked yourself that question? I hear it a lot and it’s often from people who are hesitant about blogging. I suspect that there are even more people who don’t ask how long their blog needs to be. They assume that they need to write ‘War and Peace’ for every blog post.

The truth is that the answer is ‘it depends’. Sorry if that makes me sound like a lawyer, old habits die hard. There are all sorts of things you need to take into account when you’re writing your blog and before you start each post. There are plenty of experts who’ll tell you that anything under 1,500 or 2,000 words isn’t worth doing as it doesn’t offer enough value. Personally, I disagree. Some posts do need to be that long, or even longer. It doesn’t mean they all do. Here are just a few of the things I think you need to think about when you’re deciding on a word count for your blog.

What’s achievable for you?

Starting a blog is a steep learning curve. When your blog isn’t the main focus of your business you need to fit it in around all your other priorities. There’s no point spending hours slaving over a blog if it means you’re turning away paying customers. It’s also going to get exhausting very quickly.

Writing a regular blog can boost your search engine rankings as Google will index your website much more frequently. The key word is regular – there’s no point writing one or two then letting it fizzle out because you don’t have time. Google likes anything over 350 words (although there are rumours that might change). It’s far better to write a short blog once a month and keep it going.

What’s the subject?

The length of your blog will often depend on the topic you’re covering. I always suggest breaking topics down so you can focus on one thing at a time. Focus on a narrower subject means that you don’t need to write a lot to do the topic justice. It also helps you to stay on track without getting overwhelmed.

Some subjects will still need a longer blog to make sure you cover everything. This is particularly true if you’re offering an in depth guide or describing a process step by step. Often it won’t feel as long because your readers are dipping in and out for reference or following the instructions.

Would a blog series be better?

If you’re covering a big topic in depth, think about breaking it down into a series. I wrote a series of blogs about blogging which covered everything from coming up with topics to the final edit. I could have written one big post but breaking it down made it feel more readable. It also meant that readers who were only interested in one part of the process didn’t have to wade through the rest.

Doing it that way meant that I was able to invite people to subscribe to my mailing list to get the full series. I might eventually turn it into an eBook as well. There’s nothing to stop you doing the same.

What will your audience read?

Of course, the key consideration has to be your audience and what they have time to read? Their needs can vary. They might want shorter blogs most of the time but something longer when they want to learn a new skill or research a topic in depth.

My blogs generally end up at around 500-600 words. That doesn’t just help me to cover the topic properly. I’ve had more than one reader tell me that they read my blogs when they’re drinking their tea. A 600 word blog is just the right length for that so it helps me attract readers. When it comes down to it, that’s the whole point of writing a blog.

Do you need some help and inspiration for your blogs and social media posts? When you sign up to my mailing list you’ll receive a free copy of my eBook ‘Stop hiding your business! 5 ways to be seen online’. You can unsubscribe whenever you like and I won’t share your information with anyone else.

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Why you need to know your customer

Know your customerI’m going to say something that might make you go a bit twitchy. When you’re marketing your business you need to decide who you want to target then focus on them. It sounds fairly logical, doesn’t it? Yet small business owners everywhere get very nervous when they hear it. They say things like ‘but I might make someone feel excluded’, ‘what if I lose a customer because they don’t think it’s for them?’ or ‘but I can sell to anyone’. I understand the worry. As small business owners we need to work hard to attract new customers and build trust. The idea of putting people off just seems counterintuitive. However there’s another important factor to consider. We have limited time so we need to spend it wisely. When you get to know your customer you can do just that.

You can’t market to everyone

A lot of people get hung up on the idea that they can sell to anyone. Mainly because it’s true. You can sell to whoever you like, but it doesn’t mean you should market to everyone. The main issue with ‘everyone’ marketing is that it doesn’t actually speak to anyone. It just sounds bland, generic and boring.

Good marketing tells people that you can solve their problem or provide something that makes their life better. It gives them a lightbulb moment because they’ve finally found someone who not only understands their challenges, they have the solution as well. Potentially it can also have them knocking your door down begging you to take their money. When you get to know your customer you’re not excluding anyone, you’re just focusing on the people who really need you.

Know your customer

How do you get to know your customer? If you’ve got a few already that can make it easier. The product or service that you offer makes a difference too. Think about who you work with now, or who your repeat customers are. Are they male, female, old or young? Are they at a particular stage in their life where they need what you offer? You can also think about who you love working with. The customers who come back time after time because they love the service or the quality of your work. Are there any common features?

It also helps to think about what challenges you can help with, or what your customers aspire to. It helps to focus on what’s happening in their life generally. This can really help when you’re talking about something your customers may not have thought about before. For example, maybe you want to encourage people in their 40s or 50s to make a will. They might think they’re too young but they’ll almost certainly have something that they want to protect. Think about what those things are and your marketing will be much more effective.

Get to the details

Hopefully you’re starting to get a bit of insight into who your target audience are likely to be. You’ve probably got some idea about their gender and what age bracket they’re in. Depending on your business you might also have worked out a bit about their lifestyle, for example their income level, whether they’re homeowners or have children. Next, you need to think about the details.

I’m not a big believer in creating an overly specific profile for your ideal customer. By that I mean the sort of thing that says ‘my ideal customer is called Sophie, she’s 25, works in a shop and only drinks green tea.’ If that works for you, great, but it’s just a bit too detailed for me. However, there’s a lot to be said for working out what types of things your audience are interested in. Do they love fine dining or do they prefer takeaways? Out every weekend or in their pyjamas by 8pm? Who do they follow on social media? Is their parenting style #soblessed or #fml? (if you don’t already know what that stands for I’m not telling you…). Knowing all of this helps you to talk to your audience using language they can relate to which makes them more likely to trust you.

Do you need some help and inspiration for your blogs and social media posts? When you sign up to my mailing list you’ll receive a free copy of my eBook ‘Stop hiding your business! 5 ways to be seen online’. You can unsubscribe whenever you like and I won’t share your information with anyone else.

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How you can find blog topics at networking events

Blog topics networkingThere are three questions I always hear when I talk about blogging. One of them sometimes isn’t a question at all, just a statement. “I would write a blog but I don’t know what to write about.” (The other two questions are ‘how long does my blog need to be?’ and ‘how often should I be blogging?’ – we’ll get to those another time.) When it comes to finding topics for your blog, there are hundreds of different ways to go about it. I’ve written about a few in this blog, but this time I’m going to be focusing on how to find new blog topics when you’re networking.

Ah yes, networking. It can strike fear into the heart of a business owner who just wants to be left along to do the work. We’ve all heard the horror stories and probably experienced some as well. In a nutshell, the right networking group with events that suit you is a truly wonderful thing. You’ll meet people like you and get great support, as well as business and referrals along the way. It will also help you to come up with new blog topics. Here’s how.

Getting to know your customer

Networking lets you meet lots of other business owners and find out what makes them tick. If you’ve already identified the kinds of businesses you want to work with you can seek them out. You can find out what their challenges are but also learn more about their life in general. That helps you to get your marketing message where they’ll see it.  You can also find out who would be a nightmare to work with so you can avoid them.

Knowing who you’re talking to helps you to choose more relevant blog topics.

Talking about what you do

I know that standing up in front of other people can be scary. It’s worth doing because you get to tell people what you do and how you can help them. I’ve stood up and talked about writing blogs for businesses in front of people who had no idea you could pay someone to do it for you. Equally, you’ll never get any business if people don’t know you exist.

Finding out what surprises people about your business means you can write a blog to educate them.

Hearing about challenges

Alongside the bits where everyone stands up and introduces themselves, there’s the more general chat. That’s where you get to find out what people are struggling with and what’s going well. It could be an opportunity for you to pitch your services, but there’s more to it than that. Your blog doesn’t just have to be about your services. If they’re struggling with something that you’ve experienced too, write about it. It helps you to build a relationship with your audience as they can see that you understand their lives.

Social media

I’m a member of a couple of face to face networking groups that also have active Facebook groups. Of course, I’m also part of quite a few Facebook only groups. They’re a really useful source of blog topics because people can ask for advice outside the regular meetings. Answering questions is a great way to show your expertise, but you can also answer the question in a blog post.

It’s worth remembering that if people are asking a question in person (or in a Facebook group) there are probably others who are typing it into Google. If you’ve written a blog post with the answer they could be finding their way to your website.

Do you need some help and inspiration for your blogs and social media posts? When you sign up to my mailing list you’ll receive a free copy of my eBook ‘Stop hiding your business! 5 ways to be seen online’. You can unsubscribe whenever you like and I won’t share your information with anyone else.

Further resources

If you want to take a more technical approach to topics and improve your SEO, Ubersuggest is a fab free tool.

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Are you making one of these blogging mistakes?

blogging mistakesBlogging is wonderful as a business marketing tool and a creative outlet. If you’re writing a blog to promote your business it’s important to know what’s going to appeal to your audience so you can tailor the content to them. You can also air your personal views via blogging. There’s loads of scope to talk about whatever you choose.

What you write about (and how you write it) is completely up to you. There are still a few cardinal blogging errors that you’d be better off avoiding unless you want to attract a whole heap of trouble.

Ranting

Its fine to tell a story about something that went wrong in your business. This is especially true if you learned something from it or handled it well. It could be a story that helps your customers understand why you do things in a certain way, or if they can learn from it too.

By contrast, a full on rant is never going to go down well. All it does is show your potential customers that you’re petty, possibly vindictive and prepared to blame anyone but yourself. Your audience don’t have enough information to know whether you’re in the right and could start wondering if they’re going to be your next target. Don’t write until you’ve calmed down and got some perspective on the situation. You never know what you might learn.

Blogging swearing (possibly)

I almost didn’t put this one in. Some people love edgy content and don’t object to a bit (or a lot) of swearing. Unless you want to be deliberately confrontational from the outset, approach with caution. I write blogs for a lady whose speech is peppered with the F word but I’m still not going to put it in her blogs. There are other ways to express your personality. You can be full on and confrontational without pulling people up short with an expletive.

If you want to go for it, it’s up to you but I reckon you need to be very sure of getting a positive reaction before you try it.

Plagiarism

In other words, don’t steal other people’s work. You might be lucky and avoid getting sued for pinching someone else’s copyrighted work, but do you really want to take the risk? If the original creator has a decent online network you could find your social media posts being bombarded with comments where they share the original work for comparison. You’ll get great reach but all it will do is make you look silly.

Read other people’s blogs for inspiration if you must, but don’t copy and paste them outright. If you want to share, give credit where it’s due. Blogging is hard work as it is without someone else pinching your work.

Boring blocks

Paragraphs are a wonderful thing. Subheadings are even better. It’s a sad fact that a lot of people won’t read every word of your blog. They’ll just skim it to find what they need. If they click on the link to be confronted by one big blob of text they won’t hang around for long. Even people who want to read every word will find it daunting and give up.

Subheadings and proper paragraphs make everything easier to read and your

Too much jargon

If you know you’re writing for an audience of industry professionals who use all the same acronyms as you, carry on and use them. If you’re a specialist writing for the general public, keep the jargon out of it. It doesn’t make you look clever. All your potential customers will see is someone who wants to look clever whilst blinding them with science.

A blog is meant to make you more approachable. Share your expertise in language that your customers will understand. You still get to look like an expert and your customers will know that you’re not going to pull the wool over their eyes.

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