Sometimes it seems the world and his wife wants to be a writer. There is no shortage of blogs online, so it is no surprise that large numbers get ignored. Frankly, blog writing probably isn’t worth the effort for many PROs. An exception, of course is you are writing your blog in an effort to increase your profile, to help you find your next PR job.
Neil Boom, managing director at agency Gresham PR, says that he gave up his blog for three reasons: “a) because it turned out I rarely had anything I particularly wanted to say; b) I didn’t get any feedback, so it was soulless and pointless; and c) I began to wonder if the world really needed yet more words. I suspected it didn’t.”
Boom says that in the end, he realised, micro blogging on Twitter (@MrBoom) suited him better, as “it doesn’t demand profundity – so I never feel it’s like handing your homework in”.
But there are some benefits to blog writing, for example, it provides a media platform and allows you to directly engage with an audience. Last, but by no means least, it is a means of influencing search engine rankings.
If you do decide to write a blog it is important to take the right approach. As Stephen Waddington, managing director at PR agency Speed, says: “The internet is littered with lots of rubbish PR blogs that have been abandoned or aren’t managed properly. They fail because they don’t develop an appropriate tone of voice and aren’t written with an audience in mind.”
Waddington points out that another advantage of blogging is that it helps you to understand how blogs work: “Bloggers complain that PROs don’t understand how to work with bloggers. We are increasingly working in a participatory media environment and blogging is a great way for PR practitioners to build skills. There can be no better way of understanding how blogging works than by running a blog yourself.”
If you do decide that a blog is worth your time and effort, here are some top tips:
1. Good titles are vital.
Get to the point, be as clever as you like with puns, but your title should not mislead your reader. Make the title relevant to your audience – assume the title is your readers’ initial filter to judge whether your piece is going to be of interest to them.
2. Don’t over capitalise.
Blogs shouldn’t be novels, keep it short, to the point, keep your reader interested. And always write for your audience, not for yourself. Write as though you were talking with your friends down the pub.
3. Put your blog on an external blog resource like Wordpress and then embed it within your site.
Sites like Wordpress have a strong SEO ranking by Google and the backlinks from the blog to your own website are extremely valuable.
4. Start a blog as early as you can.
If you are writing a blog for a new product launch, don't start the blog on the day of the launch. Start it three months earlier or six if possible. Then, by the time the product is launched, the blog already has momentum and can be picked up on Google searches.
5. Get the keywords right.
For each blog post, select a keyword phrase that is important to your brand (such as charcoal liquid eyeliner) and embed that phrase at a ratio of 3 or 4 per cent in the copy. Therefore, if the post is 300 words long, you'll mention the keyword phrase 10 or 12 times. Do not go above this ratio as Google could “sandbag'“ your site.
6. Always use pictures to accompany each post and tag them using keywords.
Video links are a good idea too.
7. External links will boost your blog.
Include relevant external links within posts where possible, so posts become an important news resource for readers.
8. Directly respond to reader comments.
Once you’ve built up a community of readers, ask them what they’d like to see more of. Asking questions encourages a dialogue.
9. Keep up to date with other blogs.
Curate links of other people’s content if they have said it better than you could have done.
10. Have a style.
In terms of subject, style blog posts always tend to work well.
11. And finally...
Whenever mentioning a client brand or project, it is always important to include a disclaimer.
This list was compiled with help from Ged Carroll, director of digital strategies at PR firm Ruder Finn; Nik Thakkar senior digital publicity manager at PR agency Exposure (@nikthakkar); Alastair Turner, managing director at agency Aspectus PR; Nick Vangelis, senior account manager at agency Skywrite PR; Mark Wainwright, social media account director at agency Launch Group; and Jeremy Walters, independent PR consultant.
Written by Daney Parker
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