by Elle Ray | Aug 9, 2016 | Blog Writing
Infectious Blogging Tips That Keep You Healthy
Prior to 1999, when you heard the word “viral,” you ran in the opposite direction — or donned a protective mask so that you wouldn’t catch a fast-spreading disease. The word “virus” comes from the Latin work for “poison,” and it has maintained its nefarious definition, even when it comes to computer use. A nasty computer virus can do all kinds of damage to your PC.
When a virus spreads, it is said to be viral, as in a “viral infection.” But today, “viral” has taken on an entire new identity in Internet parlance as a positive adjective (as in a “viral video”) or an attractive idiom (as in “go viral”). In other words, it’s not a disease, but something that’s become popular. Like many other words hijacked by the language of computers and the Internet, “going viral” is a good thing that requires no physician.
Videos can go viral. So can news reports, Twitter feeds and blog posts. In this article, you’ll discover blogging tips that can help make your blog post go viral. Words alone aren’t usually enough, but words provide the best starting point in anything viral-worthy.
Viral In a Broader Sense
In one sense, “viral” is the perfect word because the primary reason for even writing a blog for your business is to spread the word about yourself, garner more name recognition and establish your authority in your industry or on a certain topic. In other words, you want your business to go viral. The more eyes that see your blog and the more decision-makers who read your blog — the better your chances of earning more business.
For a blog post to go viral, it usually must accomplish at least one of the following objectives:
- Tap into a current trend, to either add relevant information to the discussion or poke fun at some part of the trend
- Hit on a newsworthy topic that reaches the level of “water cooler conversation” (an antiquated term for the first social media mechanism)
- Contain hot keywords that people are searching for
- Be easy to read, without long, complicated sentence and paragraph structures
- Be well written, with no errors — while communicating worthwhile content
- Get promoted on every possible social media outlet
- Make those who share it look smart, savvy, witty and hip
Making a Blog Go Viral
Taking the time to use all these blogging tips and do all the work required to make your blog go viral, the hit-or-miss process may seem insurmountable. And it is considered a hit-or-miss prospect. If it were formulaic, you’d see viral blog posts everywhere. But the public is fickle, and not every well-written blog post captures the attention it may deserve.
You can always invest in a blog post idea you believe in. You could hire writers at Ray Access to provide you with a “viral-worthy” blog post. You could then pass it on to another contractor to promote it to search engines and social media. With enough reach, your blog post could go viral.
Or you could settle on a few of the following blogging tips to make your blog post go viral. It won’t always work, but you might be happy with an occasional viral outbreak:
- Carry around a notebook or smart phone. When an idea hits for a trendy topic that your business can tap into, record it. Each week, before you write your blog post, pull out your notes.
- Prepare a list of keywords well in advance that have proven worthy. Weave them into your copy at a 1 percent saturation rate, which is once per every 100 words.
- Write about controversial subjects (either showing both sides or as a spoof that won’t alienate potential clients).
- Use inspiring, funny, fantastic or otherwise eye-catching titles.
- Rely on someone with a critical eye to edit your blog post before you publish it.
- Use awesome photos or graphics. Images attract the eye. The best images for your blog post may need a clever caption to tie it in.
- Set up automatic posting links on your website and on social media.
Don’t Accept Failure
If at first you don’t succeed, keep writing. That’s another reason to blog every week. You keep adding to your website and giving yourself another opportunity to catch a trend that goes viral. Never give up. If you use these blogging tips properly, you should see blogging success in the near future. Contact Ray Access for help going viral.
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.
by Elle Ray | Jul 22, 2016 | Blog Writing
Your Blog Post Word Count Influences Rankings
If you want to help your website move toward the top of the search results page, take all that search engine optimization (SEO) advice and lock it in the closet for now. If you want to make your site more engaging, ignore all those opinions about consumers dumbing down and not reading anymore. If you want to attract more website visitors, put aside any preconceived notions you may have about the Internet, its place in an intellectual society and who’ll read your words.
Internet readers are no longer impressed with a really low blog post word count. Anyone can throw a few words together, but when a blog post contains very little useful information, people are discovering it’s just not worth the time. Short blogs that are obviously designed to grab your so-called “limited attention span” are beginning to be recognized and tagged for just what they are — disguised ads and SEO placeholders.
The Number Continues to Climb
Just like the woman who says, “Size doesn’t matter, honey, it’s how you use it,” the saying, “Nobody wants to read a long blog” also is a lie. In fact, according to Orbit Media Studios, of the 1,000 leading blogs in 2015, the average length was 900 words, a 10 percent jump over 2014.
SEMrush found in a 2016 study that the average blog post word count for first-place entries on Google search results pages was 1,890 words. And serpIQ found that in 2015, the top 10 pages that consistently ranked high on Goggle searches contained a blog post word count of more than 2,000 words, with the top spot coming in at 2,416 words.
That’s a Big, Big, Big Blog Post Word Count
And if those words are strung together in an entertaining and easy-to-digest manner and if they impart useful information, they give readers a reason to keep reading. When a blog post has a high word count, it translates into a means for keeping visitors on your site for a longer period of time. That’s called “engagement” in the world of SEO lingo.
Blogs with high word counts are called “long-form content” in SEO parlance. Long-form content is identified by at least 1,200 words. Some experts say you need 1,000 and others say at least 1,500, but that’s like saying you need three people for a discussion, when some would argue that two or five make for a better discussion. In other words, the exact line in the sand is flexible.
Put two (or five) SEO professionals in a room, and you’ll undoubtedly get two (or five) hotly debated opinions on what makes for good SEO. The important point here is that the blog post word count should consistently reach long-form status, assuming you want to engage your audience and rank your website.
Who Has the Time?
You reply that you can barely scrape out a 250-word blog once a week. Or your in-house writer isn’t a novelist, but more of a rapid-fire Twitter genius who can put together a decent 500-word blog post when necessary. Or you can’t find enough to say to justify a blog post word count of 1,200 every month. It’s not an uncommon complaint.
But you can find help, and not from a blogger. Bloggers too are a thing of the past — or gradually leaving the scene in favor of true writers with a sense for trends, consumer preferences and marketing necessities. Today’s consumers want to understand and to learn; they’re tired of glib, short answers and incomplete access to the truth. They want full disclosure. To make a place for yourself in the content market now, you need to consistently produce long-form blog posts that have depth and substance. Your readers will find them inspiring, insightful and useful.
Where’s the Meat?
No matter what industry you operate within, you most likely can talk about it and its peripheral issues for days on end. Chances are that your spouse cringes when you get started at dinner parties because once you get started, you can’t stop talking about your business. But sit down at a computer to write about just one aspect of your industry that people might find interesting — and you choke up.
What’s that all about? It’s about being afraid — afraid to make a mistake that will be in print forever. A fear of not knowing the right words, not having a large enough vocabulary to increase the blog post word count confidently and stylishly. So today — right now, in fact — Ray Access is going to share the biggest writing secret of our industry:
“Write like you talk.”
That’s right. You know what you want to say. Speak to your audience as if they were sitting across from you at the dinner table. Anticipate their questions — you know you know what they want to ask — and answer them all. Don’t worry about fancy words. Just speak from your heart — talk about what you know. And then clean it up in the editing process.
Topics Galore
So, back to the issue about professional bloggers. Today, writers like those at Ray Access are not called “bloggers,” but instead are known as “content marketing professionals” or “content creators.” And content creators know how to take advantage of the many different techniques professional writers of every ilk depend on. Some of the skills a professional online content creator brings to the table include the ability to:
- Brainstorm a never-ending stream of trending, relevant topics
- Dig into the background and foreground of every topic to increase your blog post word count easily
- Shape the tone of a blog to suit your specific audience
- Sound just like you, as a matter of fact
- Tell a story
- Twist words to entertain
- Get to the point
- Elaborate on important points
- Drive traffic
- Improve engagement
Mix it up, but make sure your content marketing professionals are giving you at least one long-form blog post a month. That’s the blog post word count to count on. Otherwise, you may find your content marketing dollars are ending up like a splat on the ceiling.
Don’t guess what will stick. Ensure your readers stick by giving them content they can’t live without. That’s the kind of content Ray Access delivers.
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.
by Mark Bloom | Jul 19, 2016 | Blog Writing
Professional Bloggers Talk Writing Process
Potential clients, friends and curious business owners regularly ask the writers at Ray Access: “How can you ghost-write blog posts for someone else when you don’t know anything about their business?” They usually want to know how we’re able to capture the voice of another person or company and how we can write so authoritatively about it. It’s a good question, and one we answer earnestly.
While the whole ghost writing issue is certainly an interesting topic, this article deals with the writing process and how it applies to writing for others. At Ray Access, we follow a strict three-part procedure:
- Research
- Write
- Edit
The Writing Process of Ray Access Bloggers
This process is valid for many forms of writing, but here we’re applying it specifically for writing business blog posts for other businesses. It doesn’t matter who the client is or what the business does. Ray Access writers use the same process for everyone.
That doesn’t mean the end result is the same. It means the process is the same. We put the same amount of energy and enthusiasm into every blog post that Ray Access delivers. If you’re curious about how it might work for you, send us an email. Or try the process for yourself. These are the steps Ray Access takes for every business blog post:
Step 1: Research
First came the idea, and the idea was good. Ray Access generally plans its clients’ blog topics in advance. Brainstorming ideas, doing keyword research and reviewing hot topics and news items yields a slew of industry-related blog topics. We ask our clients to approve the best of the bunch, and they often select the ones that best fit their strategic goals.
The writing process then continues with online research. When people ask us how we can write about medical, plumbing or financial services, the answer is always, “through careful research.” Ray Access writers can write about any subject they can research. For example, medical websites like the Mayo Clinic or the National Institutes of Health offer a treasury of reliable information, making medical research readily available.
Regardless of the subject matter, however, research has to be done properly. Any Wiki is liable to contain inaccurate data. User-informed websites lack authority. Even other blogs may be wrong. At Ray Access, we insist on the facts. If we’re not sure, we crosscheck information. While our clients review the work our writers deliver, we aim to get it right the first time.
Step 2: Write
Yes, everyone who works at Ray Access is a good writer, a true professional with training and experience in various forms of writing. It’s not just about words, sentences, paragraphs and sections, though. It’s about flow, meaning, delivery, language and tone. Rhetorical writing is the art of effectively persuading a readership through words. It’s imparting information in a way that not only effectively communicates, but also influences action.
The writing process is at the heart of Ray Access’ business. We’re essentially content providers and content marketers. We deliver value to our clients because we’re able to connect with their audiences. Online writing has been called a science and an art, so when Ray Access writes for an online audience, we use keywords properly. Because it matters.
The online audience has shorter attention spans, but hungrier appetites. When they want to know something, they want to know it now and they prefer to get all the information they need in one place. Ray Access writers satisfy that hunger.
Step 3: Edit
No blog post is complete without a careful edit. Another set of experienced eyes catches any typos, grammatical mistakes, misspelled names and missing words. But the skilled editors at Ray Access also improve the article with incisive changes, such as:
- Tightening up the copy
- Choosing more powerful words
- Eliminating the passive voice
- Crafting stronger openings and endings
- Inserting calls-to-action
The editing step doesn’t involve mere proofreading. Sometimes, whole paragraphs get moved around. Other times, whole sections are replaced. As any writer will tell you, “Good writing is rewriting.” Editing is a vital part of the process. Ray Access has understood this from the very start. It’s the difference between what’s on websites and what’s on effective websites. It’s part of the Ray Access advantage.
You can either use this writing process yourself or contact the writers and editors at Ray Access to get the most effective and most engaging content for your blog. And we’ll even ghost write it for you.
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.
by Mark Bloom | May 16, 2016 | Blog Writing
Hit for Batting Average or Swing for the Fences?
When you’re blogging for your business, you often have several goals in mind:
- You want your blog posts to attract visitors, especially new visitors, to your website.
- You want every one of your carefully crafted articles to go viral, bringing your company fame and fortune.
- You want your blog to have a consistency that reinforces your brand identity.
So what’s most important? Or do you need all three for successful business blogging? The experienced writers at Ray Access can answer these questions, but to make it more understandable, especially to those of you who appreciate the nuances of the sport of baseball, the explanations below come in the form of an analogy using the National Pastime. Everyone, even those who don’t like sports at all, should understand the key concepts by the end of this article.
Goal #1: Attract Visitors
Attracting visitors to your website is akin to bringing fans to the ballpark. If your team doesn’t bring in paying fans, your team may fold or be forced to move out of town. Either way, it’s bad for business.
The more fans you can entice to come to the park — through promotions, advertising or producing an exceptional product (i.e., a winning team) — the more successful your business. So attracting visitors (especially new visitors who’ve never seen your team) is actually the Number One job of business blogging. If your blog doesn’t do that, you might as well pack up and go home.
Goal #2: Go Viral
Having a blog post go viral is like hitting a homerun. It’s a big success, the best possible outcome from business blogging. Going viral means your blog post has been seen by thousands or hundreds of thousands of potential customers. It’s been shared on social media and garnered many comments. A viral blog post is like showing your company’s commercial during a telecast of the World Series.
But to accomplish viral business blogging, you need training and luck. It’s more difficult than it is to hit a homerun. And experts have stated that hitting a round baseball with a cylindrical bat is the most difficult thing to do in any sport. Hitting a homerun, then, is even more complicated. Yet somehow, it happens.
If you really put in the effort for every one of your posts in your business blogging efforts, you may get lucky and have some of your posts go viral, but that kind of effort takes time. You have to:
- Find the most attractive, most topical, most desirable and least competitive keywords (i.e., get your head in the game)
- Write a blog post that captures the imagination of your target market (i.e., refine your art through batting practice)
- Promote the blog post to the right audience at the right time for maximum visibility (i.e., make sure the media’s watching when you swing)
- Hope that the day you publish your masterpiece isn’t a big news day and your blog post gets swallowed in a sea of indifference (i.e., pray the game doesn’t get rained out)
Despite your best efforts, luck is always a factor. All you can do is put your best on display. The rest is up to the public — or at least the sliver of the public that forms your target market.
Goal #3: Blog Consistently
When you’re business blogging, being consistent week after week is similar to hitting for a high batting average. A hitter with a .300+ average gets on base more often than a slugger trying to hit homeruns every time up. That makes him “a tough out,” meaning he always finds a way to get the job done and so more often comes through in the clutch.
In business blogging, that kind of consistency has value. It shows you’re dedicated, professional and committed. When you post a new blog every week, you may hit homeruns rarely, if ever. But people get talking about you. Maybe they even look forward to your next blog post to appear.
Like hitting for a high batting average, business blogging takes focused and consistent work. You need time to come up with your topics. You need skill and practice to write week after week. And it matters that you write well. Producing garbage isn’t valuable to anyone. You can’t be up at the plate hacking at pitches like a golfer. You need a clean, level swing and a good batting eye.
Which Approach Scores More Runs?
Homeruns are dramatic. They can take your breath away, especially when they come at opportune moments. But if you swing for the fences every time you step to the plate, you may strike out more often than connecting. Dave Kingman is the perfect example of this all-or-nothing approach. Kingman hit 442 career homeruns, averaging 37 per season, which would put him in the top five most seasons. And yet Dave Kingman is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Hitting for a high average is also a beautiful sight — lacing line drives to the outfield wall, blooping base hits just over the infield’s reach and occasionally blasting a pitch into the seats. Most batting champions these days are not homerun hitters. 
Tony Gwynn is the perfect example of this consistent approach. He averaged a .338 batting average over 20 years, easily good enough to be in the top five most seasons. Tony Gwynn is in the Hall of Fame.
So in the end, when you take on the project of business blogging, you’ll score more runs by being a consistent hitter than by swinging for the fences. If you try for a homerun all the time, you may not publish often enough to make a difference. And your odds for an article going viral actually increase the more often you blog. So follow the example set by the writers at Ray Access: blog weekly, promote your work, and connect with your audience.
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.
by Mark Bloom | Apr 15, 2016 | Blog Writing
Your Blog Posts Keep Your Website Relevant
Here at Ray Access, we specialize in writing website content and blog posts for businesses. We’re professional writers and experts at creating online content that works. Together, the principal writers at Ray Access have decades of writing experience and over ten years of online writing experience. But this article isn’t about why you should hire us; it’s about why you should listen to us.
She’s listening to us; you should too.
A website is only as good as the visibility it provides you (how easy it is to find) and as valuable as the leads it generates (how much it contributes to your bottom line). Consider your company’s website and ask yourself:
- Is it visible? Does it show up on searches?
- Does it draw traffic? Does it attract new visitors?
- Are the right people finding it? Do potential customers come to your website?
- Does it generate leads? Are you getting phone calls and emails from people who found you online?
If you answered “Yes” to these questions, keep doing what you’re doing; it’s working. Otherwise, start making plans to revise your website content or your website content will make you irrelevant.
Every Business Needs a Website
You may laugh at that. Of course every business needs a website! But the Internet is still a relatively recent development. While every business is now online, not every business sees the value in being online. They’re there because that’s what everyone tells them. “Ok, already. We have a website.” But that’s the wrong way to approach your online presence.
Going online isn’t a necessary evil; it’s an opportunity to grow your company potentially beyond your neighborhood or city. It’s a new way to find new customers. Your business needs to have an online presence not because everyone else is going online, but because it makes good business sense. A good website not only pays for itself, but it generates income.
The Role of Your Blog
So how does your blog fit into your website content? A continually updated blog does many good things. For example, a blog:
- Adds valuable content to your website
- Helps your business connect with your customers and potential customers
- Establishes your expertise in your field
- Answers questions people have about your industry
- Allows you to explore topics the rest of your website content doesn’t address
- Attracts more people to your website
- Connects new keywords to your website, making it relevant to a wider audience
- Injects some personality into your website, whether that’s fun, poignant or sophisticated
No Hard Sell
One purpose specifically not listed above is “Sells your product or service.” A blog is not a sales tool; it’s a marketing tool. Its purpose is similar to social media’s:
- To build brand awareness and community
- To educate and inform
- To entertain and engage
If you can accomplish all three of these points, your business will be top-of-mind when someone’s ready to buy. And that’s important for two reasons:
- Not every visitor to your website is ready to buy at that moment.
- People do business with companies they like and trust.
Use your website content to generate revenue long-term. Use your website to convert visitors. But use your blog to build a community. When your audience (or fans or followers) views your website as the Go-To place for information about your industry, they’ll be more likely to buy from you than from your competitors. Find out more about Ray Access’ blog writing services.
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.
by Mark Bloom | Apr 1, 2016 | Blog Writing
How to Get Your Blog Posts Noticed Online
There’s no trick to writing good quality content. Find a suitable subject, do your research and then write clear, engaging copy. If it’s shareable information, people will appreciate it. But only if they can find it. And that’s where you need to pull out all the stops.
The trick to gaining attention for your blog posts is to develop a headline that will get noticed. At Ray Access, we practice what we preach. The headline for this article, for example, uses a specific word that’s been in the news a lot lately: trump. Sure, this article has nothing to do with Donald Trump, the 2016 presidential candidate, but it may appear in many searches organically. It’s one way to get your blog posts noticed.
This article is not about Donald Trump
Your Headlines Get Your Blog Posts Noticed
Writing headlines is an art that all bloggers need to master. No matter how good your writing, no matter how important your message, if no one can find your blog, no one will read it. Headlines that grab attention not only get your blog posts noticed, but also entice people to read them. A good headline is a home run, to use a sports metaphor (which also might garner some organic search results).
The headline to this article taps into current events, which is only one strategy. You can also use keywords that people are searching for. Online tools exist to help you find the “hot” keyword searches. For example, check out merriam-webster.com for daily trending keywords. And remember the “evergreen” topics and buzzwords that people search for all the time. Keywords in your headlines get your blog posts noticed!
Your Headline Must Not Deceive
When you’ve found the perfect headline, make sure it explains what your article is about. While enticing people to read is the goal, if you deceive your readers, promising something you don’t deliver in the body of your article, you will lose credibility. Maybe forever.
As long as you can tie the headline into the subject of your article, you can get away with it. Refer to the headline for this article again, for example. Yes, it uses the word “trump.” Yes, it may come up on organic searches for people looking for information about Donald Trump, the presidential candidate, but it doesn’t deceive anyone about what it’s about. Only people interested in this topic will read it.
Your Headline Has to Grab Attention
It’s often not enough just to include the keyword or keyword phrase you want to target in your headline. The entire headline has to grab attention. The Internet is awash in information. Every website is fighting for attention in an era when attention spans are shrinking. Yours has to stand out enough to grab the eye and encourage a click.
A good headline attracts eyes from everywhere.
Writing headlines is a learned skill, one that improves the more you do it. So practice. Give your next blog post a headline that grabs attention, like this one does. It doesn’t have to be perfect, so don’t spend hours on it. But it has to be good enough, so do put some effort into it. Keep at it, and you’ll learn to get better. If you produce online content, you should want to get your blog posts noticed. You should want your words to be read. An attention-grabbing headline will trump your competition and get your words noticed.
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.
