All too often companies and individuals launch blogs without a strategy, goals, or even some idea of what a conversion is for the blog. This presentation discusses the various elements that make up good writing as well as great marketing content (after all, content IS marketing) and provide some basic guidance about developing a strategy for your blog.

1. Blogging + Marketing
making it work.

2. How can you bring excellent
writing to your blog, but still
create marketing copy that
leads to conversions.

3. How Web Content Is Different
• Visual
• Surrounded by distractions
• Snackable

4. What is good writing?
“No sentence can be effective if it contains
facts alone. It must also contain emotion,
image, logic, and promise.”
– Eugene Schwartz

5. Facts = Five “Ws”
• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why

6. Story
• Emotion
• Imagery
• Beginning –> Middle –> End

7. What’s Different About Marketing
Writing?

8. Marketing Writing Needs To Be:
• Urgent
• Relevant
• Real
• Clear
• Concise

9. Emotion Still Drives
Marketing Content
Emotions motivate people, and marketing copy
plays on these emotions:
- peer pressure
- self-improvement
- FOMO

10. Using Marketing Techniques
in Your Blog

11. Establishing Your Blog
• Goals
• Strategy
• Tracking
• Optimization

12. Setting Goals
Determine what a conversion
is for your blog.

13. Strategy
• Create reader personas
• Editorial calendar
• Curate other sources to add value

14. Track
• set up goals in your analytics program
• collect and evaluate reader feedback
• Check goals monthly or quarterly
• measure conversions

15. Optimize
• USABILITY
• ease of social sharing
• Go organic
• SEO is no longer all that matters

16. SEO
• Title
• Description
• Internal linking
* Schema markup works for some sites

17. Authorship vs. Author Rank
Authorship was for display purposes.
Author Rank is for determining trustworthiness
of the author

18. Story vs. Content
Key elements to good stories include:
• powerful opening and closing paragraphs
• story/journey with beginning, middle, end
• specifics
Key elements to good content include:
• simple words
• short sentences/paragraphs
• active voice
• scannable (sigh)

19. Marketing + Blogging
Content needs to tell a story using short sentences and
paragraphs, an active voice, be scannable, and have a
beginning, a middle, and an end.

20. DO:
• simple words
• short sentences/paragraphs
• active voice
• scannable (sigh)
• EDIT

21. DON’T:
• Use fluffy words
• Ramble
• Use cliches
• Don’t repeat yourself
• Don’t defend yourself
• Don’t overwrite

22. Write for other sites? YES.
• To get bylines for author rank
• Inbound links
• To establish thought leadership
• To break out of a niche

23. Cecily Kellogg
cecily@doublegoodmedia.com
cecilyk.com Womenspeakgeek.com
(coming soon)
@CecilyK (I swear a LOT)