7 Reasons to Create Long Blog Posts

by Mark Bloom | Nov 27, 2018 | Blog Writing

Longer Articles Serve Multiple Purposes for You

The content experts at Ray Access encourage you to write consistently, regardless of the length of each article — as we’ve advised you in the past. Consistent blog posts, delivered every week (or more frequently), help your website rank higher with the search engines. All that extra content helps visitors and search engines alike learn what your business is all about.

Long blog posts can do more than 350- to 500-word articles. Short articles provide just enough space to explain one key point or share a short list of tips or tricks. It’s just too short to delve into a topic or shed real enlightenment about any subject. And the best blog posts — shareable articles — are those long blog posts that educate, inform and entertain.

Research Supports Long Blog Posts

Multiple expert sites suggest that the best length for a blog post is 1,600 words, such as:

One of the reasons this is so perfect is that this length takes an average reader about seven minutes to get through. Most people who find your topic interesting have seven minutes to learn something useful. If it’s any longer, readers tend to lose interest.

How Much Is 1,600 Words?

How much do you have to write to reach 1,600 words? If an average book contains about 250 words per page, then count on 1,600 words fitting close to six and a half pages. The same is true of double-spaced, typewritten pages. That’s much less than a chapter. You can write that.

Another way to look at it is to compare how other documents stack up. For example:

The Declaration of Independence has about 1,450 words.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech has a little more than 1,600 words.
The average 10-minute speech has 1,500 words.
This blog post contains approximately 1600 words.

The Long and Short of It

It still holds true that consistency wins the long race for gaining exposure, which is a vital first step toward generating new business. If you post on your blog regularly, you quickly build up a treasure trove of excellent resources for your customers and potential customers. And every blog post, long or short, stays on your website forever for anyone who wants to find it.

Even if your blog posts are short, around 500 words, they can still offer benefits to your website. But they need to be useful to your customers. They need to explain your point of view clearly, and it’s best if you write about topics that aren’t widely available. Give your audience real value, and they’ll remember you. They’re more likely to return in the future.

On the other hand, you have more opportunities in your long blog posts to build your case. It’s one thing to share your opinion on a matter of relevance to your customers. It’s another to back it up with research. A longer post packs more punch. It’s more persuasive. And that’s often the reason you write blog posts: to share information, tips and insights so that when your readers are ready to buy what you sell, they’ll think of you.

Why Everyone Doesn’t Write Long Blog Posts

Long blog posts are inherently more difficult to write. They take more time to complete than short blog posts. But since longer posts are proven to have a better response rate than shorter ones, it’s a trade-off in terms of what’s better for drawing people to your website. Of course, your results may vary. Your blog posts still need to be entertaining, engrossing reads.

Additionally, not every topic deserves 1,600 words. You need to dig deeper to find those juicy topics that your customers may find interesting and worth their time. If you’re a plumber, write about a common problem, and offer a number of reasonable solutions that don’t involve “call your plumber.” If you’re an accountant, a list of year-end tasks could make a valuable long blog post.

7 Reasons to Write Long Blog Posts

And now for the primary purpose of this blog post: to share with you why we recommend that you write long blog posts at least occasionally. Find some extra time once a month to craft a blog post that approaches 1,600 words. Here are the reasons why:

Search engines like long blog posts. As research progresses year by year, the top-ranked sites had longer and longer content. Several years ago, a 900-word blog post may have received top marks, now it’s 1,600 words, and the mark seems to get a little longer every year. If you write long blog posts for no other reason, this one is compelling, since writing blog posts is a way of attracting readers and search engines in almost equal measure.
Longer articles keep visitors on your website for a longer period. If you’re writing engaging content in your blog posts, readers are more likely to read until the very end, which keeps them on your website. This fact matters because other studies have confirmed that the longer a visitor stays on your website, the more likely that person is to buy from you.
You can cover a topic completely in a longer post. As mentioned earlier, you have the space to go into depth about the topic you’re covering in a long article. In a longer piece, you can set up the situation, walk readers through your points, one by one, so that by the end of the article, you have persuaded your audience to adopt your advice. That’s the essence of successful rhetorical writing.
Your readers stand to gain a greater ROI for their time. In other words, your audience gains a greater understanding of your arguments or your reasons for following your recommendations. If they follow you all the way to the end of the article, their payoff should be exponentially greater than that from a much shorter article. Make sure that remains true; reward your readers for reaching the end.
Your website can stand out from the crowd. Because most businesses don’t create long blog posts, yours will automatically stand out. While some marketing experts, like Neil Patel, suggest creating 3,000-word blog posts, which is all well and good if you have the kind of subject matter that holds up for a good 15-minute read! We believe that a 1,600-word bog post gives you enough space and your readers enough time to absorb your topic. This length also keeps you as the writer from rambling or diverging onto other topics.
Longer articles are more popular. They also exhibit longer staying power. The reason is that long, rich content is shared more than the short bursts of opinion that short blog posts too often contain. Marketers have determined that blog posts longer than 1,500 words are shared more on social media sites. As odd as that sounds, research has backed it up.
Practice makes perfect. Writing is a craft; the more you do it, the better you get. Your first long blog post may not turn out great, but with practice, you will improve. Additionally, if you get in the habit of writing long blog posts now, even occasionally, you’ll be more likely not to blanche at the prospect of writing a white paper or even a book. If you don’t want to put the time in, just ask Ray Access to write it for you.

If You Do It, Do It Right

Almost everyone can write, but not everyone can write a long blog post and write it well. Remember that you’re writing for people first, not search engines. Keywords are fine to use, but don’t overstuff your article with them. At Ray Access, our recommended use is one percent density — that is, once every 100 words or so. We’ve written about best practices for using keywords before.

Also, keep your article moving forward. Break it up with subheadings, as we do in this blog post. Make every word count. Extraneous fluff gets in the way. Say what you want, and say it in your own voice. Readers will connect with you and be more likely to follow you to the end. And that should always be your goal.

Final Thoughts from Professional Writers

With so much evidence on the benefits of long blog posts, you should start writing them right away. They’ll attract more attention and keep visitors on your website longer. Longer blog posts that are also engaging and pertinent to your audience should lead to more sales and a greater name recognition for your business. As professional blog writers, we can vouch for the efficacy of writing long articles for your website.

Then again, if your long blog posts are well-written, well-constructed, interesting and informative, the ultimate length may not matter that much. So don’t set out to write exactly 1,600 words. Instead, concentrate on the content. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short so your readers have white space to rest their eyes as they make their way through your masterpiece.

Addendum: By the way, did you realize that a list of seven items is perfect? More items on the list and your readers won’t be able to remember them all. Too few items on a list means it’s not as valuable — at least in the minds of your readers. The magic rule is: seven, plus or minus two. So when you’re writing your next blog post, regardless how long it is, strive for that magic number. Another solid tip from the experts at Ray Access.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

Need Blog Ideas? Read This First!

by Mark Bloom | Nov 13, 2018 | Blog Writing

Blog Ideas Generator for Business Blog Writers

If you identify as a business blog writer and you get paid for your efforts, congratulations: you are a professional writer. You can wear that badge with pride. But it can also be a burden, as you have to come up with blog topics to write about every week. Even the best professional writers sometimes don’t know where to turn when the well seems to run dry.

The good news is that the well never really runs dry. Stop digging and look around. Ideas are everywhere. Here is all you need to know when you hit a temporary roadblock: a blog ideas generator you can refer to whenever you feel the need — because like all things digital, this blog post is available online all the time.

Is a Blog Ideas Generator a Device?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just whip out a doohickey every time you got stuck, and it would supply you with countless ideas? Well, that doohickey exists, and you have it in your hands. It’s called a smartphone. Connect to the internet and ask it any question you want, including:

What should I write about today?
What’s trending in the news?
Why did I choose to become a writer?
What is a blog ideas generator anyway?

Bam! You’ll get instant answers (true or not) to your question. That becomes fodder for your imagination and grist for you to write about. You can even find websites dedicated to sparking your creativity — just search for “writing inspiration” and away you go. But there are other ways to generate ideas, as well.

Get Up, Stand Up

Sitting at a computer in a room is like solitary confinement. It’s easy enough to pass the time, but it doesn’t always spark your imagination or provide ideas for your next blog post — unless you’re in a room with a panoramic view. So whenever you feel stifled, stand up and get outside!

Take a walk, either in the city or better yet into nature. There’s something about wandering among trees, strolling through a field or hiking in a desert that brings ideas to mind. Get past the immediate concerns, such as:

I wish I’d remembered to wear shoes.
I’m really thirsty.
Why is that man wielding an axe?

You’ll eventually get to a deeper place. It may be ironic, but getting out helps you dig inward. The act of walking is in itself a blog ideas generator. Exploit it, and you’ll not only find ideas worth writing about, but you’ll improve your health as well.

Don’t Get Boxed In

Coming up with fresh ideas means thinking outside that proverbial square thing we all get trapped in occasionally. If your box is full of medical ideas, think of sports, the economy or fashion. When you feel free to explore another topic, new ideas emerge. This kind of blog ideas generator allows you to combine seemingly disparate genres and combine them into something fresh.

In fact, most breakthroughs happen today when two different fields of expertise are somehow combined. Think of socioeconomics or biotechnology. This technique works to inspire you to write engaging new blog topics, maybe even ones that no one else has ever thought to write about before.

Forget Everything

Perhaps the best piece of advice is the one most often overlooked. Professional writers and successful authors all adhere to it, and you can follow their lead very simply. What’s that advice? Just write.

That’s all there is to it. If you think of yourself as a writer, sit down and write. What comes out at first may be garbage, but maybe you just need to clear away the cobwebs to reach the treasure. If you write often enough and long enough, you will eventually get to “the juice:” the mood or mental place where writing gold awaits. Go for it. Expect it to be there and you’ll find it.

Or take a break and read some rules for writing magnificent stuff from Ash Ambirge’s The Middle Finger Project. No matter what you do, if you’re a writer, you’ll find a way to a blog ideas generator that works for you. We know — because that’s our cross to bear too, as well as our reason for being here. Happy digging!

Content Marketing and SEO in the Real World

by Mark Bloom | Oct 30, 2018 | Content Marketing

How Can Content Marketing and SEO Co-Exist?

Here’s a true story, brought to us — and now to you — by one of our new clients. We won’t mention any names to protect everyone’s privacy. Since the story relates to all businesses, our client’s industry, location and size don’t even matter.

Every business needs to attract new customers, and many use content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to achieve results online. Content marketing can’t replace SEO, but SEO can’t be effective without content marketing. While they have to co-exist, your business has to find a workable balance between them.

Differences and Similarities

Both content marketing and SEO are inexact sciences. Both take some time to take effect and pay off. Both use the power of internet searches to prove that your business is the best option to the potential customers searching for products or services like yours. Yet each serves a slightly different purpose:

SEO uses various techniques to bring visitors to your website. It delivers visibility, so people can actually find your website. And a good SEO expert or firm makes sure your website attracts the right kind of people: those who may buy from you.
Content marketing, on the other hand, provides relevant information in a way that website visitors can understand and digest. It answers questions and builds trust. It’s content marketing that persuades visitors to actually take action and contact your business.

SEO Services Can’t Do Everything

Content marketing and SEO relate to each other, but neither can ignore the other, and that’s the crux of this story. In this case, the client was working with an SEO expert, who was doing everything he knew to perfect the visibility of the client’s website. Some of these techniques included:

Doing keyword research to pick the most appropriate phrases to target
Providing backlinks, linking to the company site from other reputable websites
Identifying website pages to ensure that the site covers all the necessary bases

The issues began when the client questioned the SEO expert. It wasn’t about the results, as they hadn’t even progressed that far. The SEO expert was only concerned with optimizing the site, as that’s the focus of SEO. But the client wanted an appealing site, too, one the company could be proud of.

When the SEO expert claimed the look and feel of the website wasn’t important, the client felt offended, and the relationship spiraled downhill from there. Now, we’re not stating that all SEO experts act this way. Most base their techniques on solid research. But even SEO experts disagree on strategy among themselves.

Business Requires Trust as Well as Results

The client made the painful (and expensive) decision to release the SEO expert. It meant admitting the relationship was irreparably damaged. It meant acknowledging that the money already paid was spent in vain. It meant that the client still had to find a way to market the business, somehow bringing content marketing and SEO into harmony.

Enter Ray Access. The client contacted us and presented the dilemma. While a content marketing firm like Ray Access can produce website and blog content to get the business noticed, we’re not in the SEO business. We don’t provide backlinks or track traffic.

How Content Marketing and SEO Work Together

So the client wanted to be sure that we could help the business move toward its goals of growth. Can content marketing replace SEO? No. But content marketing builds long-lasting, organic value, meaning that once it’s in place, the value of the content stays high for a long period of time. If it’s done correctly, content marketing answers the questions potential customers are typing into their search engines.

Every business website needs compelling content to present its case to motivate visitors to respond with a call or email message. Content marketing and SEO both work to bring visitors to the site, although content marketing’s strategy is more inbound-focused than outbound-focused. But SEO alone can’t help visitors once they arrive on the site. Content marketing creates the environment that turns visitors into customers.

Contact Ray Access today to discover how content marketing can help your business.

How to Take a Vacation When You Own a Business

by Mark Bloom | Oct 9, 2018 | Small Business Advice

You Need a Vacation for Small Business Owners

When you own your own business, it’s a 24-hour-a-day job. Small business owners have to wear many hats — managers, salesmen, customer service representatives, bookkeepers, marketers and more. You name it, and business owners have to take care of it. So what about a vacation for small business owners? How is it even possible, given the never-ending responsibilities?

Vacations, or any kind of downtime, are vital. All that pressure to succeed, with the entire company depending on your focused attention, puts a tremendous strain on your mind and your body if you’re a small business owner. You need time to recharge. You need a change of scenery to rejuvenate. You need the space to reset your brain so you can more easily overcome future obstacles.

The Burnout Dangers Are Real

According to Small Business Trends, 77 percent of small business owners suffer from some form of burnout. As many as 80 percent of small businesses fail within 10 years. Stress contributes to that figure.

Burnout does more than reduce your effectiveness on the job. It interferes with your passion and changes your priorities. Burnout can lead to failure, according to a 2016 Medium.com report. Small business owners, along with many office workers in the country, often work more than 60 hours in a typical week, which adds to the stress.

Taking a Vacation for Small Business Owners

Since 98 percent say a vacation for small business owners relieves stress, you need to find a way to make vacations happen for you. If you’ve learned to schedule uninterrupted work time, you can schedule a vacation. If you’re a solopreneur, you may have some additional hoops to jump through, but arguably, a solopreneur needs the time away even more than other business owners.

To encourage you to take a vacation for yourself, the co-founders of Ray Access have created this blog post to explore some tips for getting away — and making the most of the time away that you have. Not all the tips below may apply to you, but it’s our hope that you’ll learn something new and gain the wisdom to apply it.

Tips to Maximize Your Vacation

Put it on your schedule. Don’t pencil it in; chisel it into stone. A vacation for small business owners can only come about if you take it as seriously as a meeting with a new client. Once it’s on the calendar, schedule around it.
Take the time you can. If you can only get away for a weekend — or better, a long weekend — take it. Go away someplace, even if it’s the next state or the next county. The change in scenery matters, as does the change in routine. These changes break established patterns, allowing you to regroup even in a short amount of time.
Do something different. You don’t have to cram your vacation full of activity to force you to forget your day-to-day duties, but change up your environment. If you work daily on a computer, go camping or take a hike into nature. If you live in the plains, get to the mountains or the beach for a different kind of fun.
Leave someone you trust in charge. If you have a business partner, let them carry the ball while you’re away. If you have a trusted employee, leave her in charge. For solopreneurs, this isn’t always possible — and you may have to rely on your auto-reply for a couple days.
Use technology … lightly. If you must, put aside time every day you’re away — but no more than 30 to 60 minutes — for work-related activities, such as writing emails, making phone calls or reading status reports.
Alert your clients. Schedule your vacation for small business owners when you don’t have a pressing deadline or project milestone. Tell all your clients that you’ll be away. Let them know when you’ll be back. They’ll understand and appreciate your honesty.

You’ll be amazed what some downtime can do for you. You’ll regain your edge and refresh your passion. You may even think of new ways to do things or new products or services to offer. Time away from your daily chores frees your mind and relaxes your body. Don’t wait until burnout strikes; take a vacation for small business owners to save and revitalize your business!

Writing for Online Readers

by Mark Bloom | Sep 10, 2018 | Content Provider

Or What Happens When You’re Reading Online

If you’re a Baby Boomer, part of the largest generation ever to inhabit the earth at one time, you can easily remember a time before the internet. You remember when “the media” included just newspapers and the three main television networks. You remember when a long-distance phone call meant an extra charge. You remember when all the reading you did was from a paper page printed in ink.

As a Boomer, you still may consider a smart phone a newfangled device, cool as it is. Touch screens still feel a little like science fiction. Yet most people are reading online these days. While many Boomers still get the daily paper delivered, that’s becoming a quaint custom instead of a necessity, sort of like it was to get milk delivered in days past.

A New Way of Reading

When words are on a page, and that page is bound either into a physical book or as part of a physical newspaper, your brain processes it as part of the whole. If you’ve read any literature, as most Boomers have, you know the challenges of Kafka or Dostoyevsky. Long-winded sentences, full-page paragraphs, chapters without end. They were wonderfully rewarding and terribly complex.

When you read online, however, your brain sees only the words on the screen. You tend to rush through a page to find what you’re seeking — the answer to a question or the pertinent point. Few read great literature on an electronic device, unless the device is specifically branded as a “reader.” As a result, reading online actually changes the brain chemistry.

The Consequences of Reading Online

A new book from Maryann Wolf, as summarized by Angela Chen, explains how reading everything online programs your brain to expect immediate payoffs and easy access. You can lose patience for reading in-depth. Try reading a 19th-Century classic after spending eight hours doing online research or even six hours on Facebook. You’ll discover how difficult it seems.

Is it changing the way we absorb information? Will it affect how we relate to each other as human beings? These are questions beyond the scope of this blog post and this writer. They are, however, interesting questions to ponder.

Writing for Reading Online

The writers and editors at Ray Access understand the differences between reading online and reading offline. We employ techniques that help people read online — that’s one of the things we do that sets us apart from our competition. Our tips to write for online readers include:

Write short, crisp sentences. You can’t write run-on sentences and expect readers to keep up. Keep sentences short, and let ideas flow more easily, one to the next.
Limit your vocabulary. In stories and novels, you can let your imagination soar. It’s important to find the exact right word, and if your readers don’t know what it means, you can assume they’ll look it up. Not true with online reading. Make everything understood the first time through, or your readers are liable to click away to another website.
Keep paragraphs short. A long paragraph is a big block of text on the digital screen. No matter how wonderfully written it may be, it looks daunting on a web page. And it does nothing to help readers find what they’re looking for. By keeping your paragraphs short, you provide white space that helps your readers’ eyes, too.
Place images to forward your ideas. Like short paragraphs, images — photographs, charts, infographics, whatever — break up the text and provide variety on the page. And if the image adds to the meaning of your content, so much the better.
Create short sections. Short sections of two to three paragraphs, broken up by bolded headings, increase white space. Formatting your page this way also aids readability and scanning. If online readers tend to scan, you make it easier for them to do that. Short sentences, short paragraphs and short sections introduced by illustrative headings all play important roles.
Use a large font, spaced appropriately. Baby Boomers, no matter how good their eyesight, appreciate a larger font size, generous kerning and significant leading.

These tips aid reading online for anyone, but especially if any part of your audience includes Baby Boomers. And Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are sure to comprise at least some of you target audience. If they don’t — they should. They’re the ones with the money today!

Website Hosting Basics

by Mark Bloom | Aug 28, 2018 | Small Business Advice

The Hosting You Choose Affects Your Website

Learn website hosting basics to see through the haze

Your company website provides not only a virtual storefront or salesperson all day, every day, but it also sets the tone for your online presence. Sure, social media campaigns help spread your gospel and online ads promote your goods and services, but all those posts and clicks ideally link back to your website, where website hosting basics come into play.

Your website is the base of operations for your business on the internet. Optimizing your website means keeping it responsive, mobile-friendly, up-to-date and welcoming. The more accurately your site hits each of these targets, the more likely your company is to benefit from your online presence. The best websites actually make money for their companies by generating leads that turn into customers.

What Your Website Needs

Every website requires three things to operate efficiently:

Your unique content
A unique website domain name
A stable website host

Your content is how you connect to your visitors. It includes the words, the illustrations and the links that tie all your pages together. Without effective content, your website is nothing but an empty shell. You can either craft your content yourself or hire a team of writing professionals to write it.

Finding a domain name may be the easiest of the three steps, but it’s no less important. Imagine if Coca Cola had called its website carbonatedsugar.com instead of coca-cola.com. It would likely have been much less effective. A domain name can make the difference between memorable and forgettable.

Finally, for website hosting basics, a website host is the company that houses your website files and makes them available to everyone on the internet. You can spend thousands of dollars on designing and developing your website, but if you opt to go with the absolute least expensive host, you’re limiting how effective your website can be.

The Skinny on Website Hosting Basics

To get the best deal and the best results from your website hosting company, it helps to know what to look for. The features that matter most depend on your specific needs, but common things to inquire about include:

Price, usually per month or per year. You may even get a discount by paying annually. Find out what’s included for that price. Some companies charge extra for each request!
Platform-readiness. If you’re building a WordPress site, for example, make sure the host supports that platform without any hidden fees. That’s one of the big website hosting basics.
Uptime support. How responsive will they be to your requests or to emergencies? You may not need 24/7 support, but then again, if your website is your business, any downtime can cost you money.
Speed. Some hosts cram as many of their smaller clients as possible onto a single server. Your website stays up, but its load speed slows way down due to the load. A slow website doesn’t encourage visitors to remain on your site. No matter how well designed your site is, if it’s slow, it’s not going to be effective generating customers.
Security. Does your host offer secure sockets layer (SSL) security? That puts the “s” after the “http” and adds a layer of security that Google for one now expects. Your host should also do more to protect your data, like protection against hackers.
Backup and recovery. Find out how frequently they back up their systems, including your website. Ask if they can restore your whole website or even a single file from a previous version.
Storage space. Some hosts limit the amount of space you can use on their servers. It may seem like a large amount when you’re starting out with a six-page website, but as you blog and add pages and images, you may need more and more space. Make sure you won’t have to pay extra.

All Website Hosting Is Not the Same

Website hosting basics include learning how each company differs. When you know what to ask, you not only get the best deal, you get the best service. It’s your business. Make sure you get:

The fastest servers
The most up-to-date software
Lots of space on the server
No competition or sharing for server processing
Servers that don’t crash
Backup servers to ensure your website is always online
Protection from hackers
Prompt response to queries

The Difference Between a Web Page and a Landing Page

by Mark Bloom | Aug 14, 2018 | Content Provider

Why Writing Landing Pages Is Inherently Harder

Given that a search engine can theoretically serve up any properly keyworded page for the right query, how can there be a difference between a web page and a landing page? Isn’t every page a landing page, since anyone can land on any page at almost any time? Theoretically, yes. Practically, no. If you’re confused, you’ve come to the right place and asked the right question.

Who can tell the difference between a web page and a landing page

Before you read any further, let’s define the terms. Learning the difference between a web page and a landing page requires that you be able to tell the two types of pages apart. Here are working definitions:

Web pages, according to the TechTerms dictionary, are the documents that make up the World Wide Web. They’re written in HTML (hypertext markup language), PHP, Perl, ASP or JSP. Your internet browser translates the document’s code into what you see on your screen. Every web page needs one or more files stored on a host computer, reached through internet protocols.
Landing pages, per Hubspot, are standalone web pages, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign, that let you capture visitor information and attempt to convert that visitor into a future customer. When an online ad delivers a curious visitor to a targeted landing page, the page calls the visitor to act — usually to purchase a product or a service.

Simple, Right?

Simply put, all landing pages are web pages, but not all web pages are landing pages. But when writing a page, the difference between a web page and a landing page is much more complex. Web pages can be about almost anything. Their purpose can be to:

Inform
Entertain
Persuade
Sell
Fundraise
Pontificate
Rant

The only purpose of a landing page is to coerce a visitor into action. That’s it. So, the real difference between a web page and a landing page is one of intent. Not every landing page wants to sell you something, but every landing page wants you to take another step toward a goal.

Writing Website Pages

The web pages on your business website (or your clients’ sites) each have a specific goal, based on the page. Web pages may provide office hours and contact information, share your company’s competitive advantages, detail the benefits of your services or products and even identify the type of customers you serve.

Ray Access has written about the techniques for writing specific web pages earlier, and you can catch up on some of our advice here:

Know the difference between a web page and a landing page before writing

Writing Landing Pages

Landing pages, on the other hand, may have to do everything a website needs to do — connect with the visitor, build trust and explain the benefits of working with you — on a single page that also persuades the visitor to act. That’s a hefty order and a lot of responsibility for one page. That’s why there are so many poorly constructed and ultimately unsuccessful landing pages online.

Most landing pages, however, have one inherent advantage that other website pages don’t have, and you’re encouraged not to overlook this difference between a web page and a landing page. When you’re writing a landing page, you’re writing to people who already have an interest in the company’s products or services. They did a targeted search or clicked on an advertisement to get there.

Learning the Difference Between a Web Page and a Landing Page

Anyone can write a web page. All you need are a domain, a host and a rudimentary knowledge of HTML. You may need something to write about, but even a vague opinion may be enough to get you started.

Writing a landing page takes skill. Marketing is an inexact art and science. Different experts offer different advice when it comes to writing landing pages vs. writing web pages. Ray Access has its own advice, based on experience for ourselves and for our clients. Your results may vary, but here are our best practices for writing landing page content:

Length doesn’t matter, but focus does. Each landing page can have just one focus. (But keep it reasonably short.)
The content has to be scannable, powerful and enticing. This is rhetorical writing, writing to persuade.
Social proof — testimonials of real, existing customers, complete with photos — helps visitors overcome their doubts.
The right call to action — a briefly worded phrase that encourages the visitor to act — makes all the difference. Cut to the heart of the matter. What do your visitors want the most?
Your contact form shouldn’t be too onerous. Ask just for the necessary information, so it’s as short as possible, but no shorter.
Remove all other links from the page. That means a landing page should have no menus, no sidebar, no extraneous content at all. Its entire focus is to get the visitor to act.

You can learn the difference between a web page and a landing page, but learning how to write for each one takes practice and guidance. An ineffective landing page is a waste of bandwidth. A successful landing page pays for itself in no time. If you’re still struggling with the difference between a web page and a landing page, contact Ray Access for expert content, no matter what your purpose.

The Definition of Fake News

by Mark Bloom | Jul 31, 2018 | Communication

A Nonpolitical Look at Language and Learning

You can learn to recognize fake news

Fake news is apparently everywhere. On television. In print. Online. You can’t help but trip over it every day, no matter where you get your news. It has invaded our culture and perverted our political system.

At Ray Access, we’re not interested in writing about politics, but we are passionate about language. So, these questions kept popping up: What is fake news, really? How do you define it? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, fake news is:

“False stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views.”

In other words, fake news is propaganda, which the same dictionary defines this way:

“Information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people’s opinions, especially by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts.”

Definitions, Please

The reason the term fake news has caught on — or gone viral, as the saying goes — is that it’s succinct and catchy. It’s just two common words, but two words that until recently were never joined together. Everyone, even a child, understands what fake means. And most adults realize that news is more than an acronym for North, East, West and South. So, let’s examine each word for its meaning:

Fake. Not the real thing, an imposter or substitute. Margarine is fake butter. Naugahyde is fake leather. Cubic zirconia is a fake diamond. Of course, these examples can be proven fake fairly easily.
News. Information published or delivered as meaningful and relevant. The weather is news, although you could successfully argue that tomorrow’s weather is mere speculation. Sports scores are news, as is current traffic and this week’s lottery numbers. News is, by definition, a report of past or current facts.

Putting the Ache in Fake News

When considering the term fake news, based on the definitions above, you may think it contains facts that aren’t real. But real news is a reporting of something that’s already happened. The games are over, and the scores are in. No one disputes that. The stock market rose or fell by a certain percentage. It’s the same number regardless where you look. Doesn’t that make it real?

The issue that the term fake news raises — which is both brilliant and chilling — is not the reporting of facts, but the interpretation of those facts. Is it fake news to declare that the stock market rose or fell because a popular sports team won or lost? Suddenly, the cause-and-effect logic of reality skips a beat, and anything seems not only possible, but probable.

fake news: one plus one is three

What’s in a Report?

Fake news also plays on people’s base fears that the media or the government can’t be trusted. If you buy a dozen eggs, and one turns out to be bad, you may not want to try the other 11. If you visit a distant city that seems just like your hometown, suddenly every city is the same, and it doesn’t matter where you live. Similarly, if you pick out one quote from a newscast that is proven false, you no longer believe anything on that channel.

Additionally, while the definition of fake has stayed relatively stable over the years, the term news has morphed again and again. Today, celebrity gossip is delivered as news. News isn’t just what a person said, which is all that actually is real, but what he meant by it, which is pure speculation. Today’s news has a spin, and it may be classified as fake if it spins away from the direction you lean.

Stopping Fake News

The simplest way to stop fake news is to question the term itself. When a report is labelled with that phrase, ignore the words and ask questions to determine what about it is fake and what about it is news. You may learn that it’s fake, but it’s not really news, as this article defines it. You may learn that it’s not fake and it’s not even news. Whatever you learn, you’ll have learned more than if you had simply accepted the label.

The more complex way to stop news that’s fake is not by shutting down newspapers or censuring speech. There may always be lies, just as there may always be poverty, crime or taxes. The way to ultimately stop fake news is not to shut the mouth that speaks, but to change the eye that sees and the ear that hears. Learn to discern facts from speculation. Learn to be wary until facts emerge.

A Transferable Skill

What does this topic have to do with a small business that writes website content and blog posts? Why write about fake news at all? It’s simple, really: media literacy is a transferrable skill. Media literacy is the ability to comprehend what a news report is really saying. If you can learn to tell real news from fake news, you’ve become not just a better citizen, but a smarter consumer as well.

Media literacy is a skill not many people cultivate today, but it’s a skill that benefits you every day, especially online. When you’ve read as many websites as the team at Ray Access has, you get a sense of what’s real and what’s fake. Is a promise genuine or an attempt to sell you something? When you can determine the answer to that, you won’t need anyone else telling you what’s real and what’s fake news.

Blog Consistently for Best Results

by Mark Bloom | Jul 17, 2018 | Blog Writing

A Business Blogger Has to Write Every Week

This blog post is the 225th published on this website. As a business blogger, Ray Access has been blogging every week — with few interruptions — since the first blog post went live back on August 28, 2012 (nearly six years ago!). For 225 times, we’ve found something to write about. And every week, we wrote something we felt was worth sharing with other writers, entrepreneurs and website developers.

A business blogger writes consistently

The point isn’t to toot our own horn, although 225 blog posts is something to celebrate. The point is to stress that the key to a successful website is a consistent blog. And for almost the whole time we’ve been blogging for ourselves, we’ve also ably performed as a business blogger for our clients (see some of our examples). They understand the value of consistent blogging.

Consistency Draws Attention

Just as with social media, you develop name recognition — the first step in the sales process — with consistent postings. If you’re on social media once a month, no one will remember you. But if you’re there every day, your audience eventually recognizes your name.

The same is true for business blogging. If you publish a blog post once a month or even less frequently than that, no one will know or care who you are. You’d have to get lucky enough to write a viral article, which is very, very difficult to do. But if you blog — and promote your work — every week, week in and week out, people will come to recognize you and your business. They may even look forward to your words.

Quality Always Counts

But if you’re publishing useless advice or tips that everyone already knows, your readers will come to recognize your name and learn to stay away. Even if you publish consistently, you’ll be building a reputation, but one you won’t want. A business blogger has to add value to the online conversation with every post.

Part of the puzzle is knowing your audience. Only then can you write about topics of interest. Only then can you deliver insight and value to your community. No one online has time to wade through boring preambles or irrelevant facts. If you can write well about your business or industry, you can make a name for yourself, a reputation that attracts an audience. Writing quality always matters.

A business blogger aims for better quality

How to Be a Business Blogger

Ray Access has been blogging for long enough to have picked up some tips to share with you. To blog consistently for six years, you need several tools beyond a website platform:

Develop business blogging ideas. Coming up with a new topic every week can be a challenge. Ray Access has the advantage of a superb partnership that shares this burden equally. We also use the two-headed approach to brainstorm blog topics for our clients. You either have to devote time to it or call in a professional.

Use a clear or entertaining voice. How you relate to your audience helps you stand out from the crowd. If you’re consistently clear and thorough, that makes you a dependable source. If you’re funny or entertaining, that makes you worth a visit. Whichever voice you choose, be consistent.

Learn how to tell a good story. All good nonfiction writing has to inform. While that’s true with every type of writing, it’s especially true with business blogging. A business blog has to engage its readers and hold them until the end. That’s easier to do when you have a story to unfold.

Promote your blog wherever you can. A business blogger has to reach out to his audience. Bring your blog post to them. Make it easy to find your words. When you take the time to promote your blog, you widen your audience and attract new visitors. In fact, that should be the goal of your blog.

Be consistent. You don’t get to 225 blog posts without being consistent. You don’t get to be successful without consistency. Rain or shine, whether you’re feeling inspired or not, make your blog a priority, and it will catapult you and your company into an enviable online entity.

If you can’t do blog writing, hire someone who can — someone like, you guessed it, the business blogger pros at Ray Access.

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