Trump This! Headlines That Grab Attention

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.

Gobble Gobble!

by Elle Ray | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog Writing

Is That the Turkey or Your Mother-in-Law?

That’s the question we’ve always wanted to ask. That sound — gobble, gobble — could be what turkeys mutter as they voice their displeasure. Or it could be what people (not just your mother-in-law) sound like at the Thanksgiving Day table. Or it could be both. Both, we could argue, represent this holiday.

happy Thanksgiving from Ray Access

Perhaps the bigger question is how that ties into the business of business blogging, since that is one of the things we do at Ray Access. It’s not such a stretch when you take the time to consider it. We cover a wide range of topics on this blog, from writing tips to ergonomic office furniture to small business tips to fashion advice (of all things). We can write about Thanksgiving if we want to.

Tying Your Blogs into Current Events

The point is that it sometimes the subject of your blog post doesn’t matter. You want to be able to reach out on your blog to attract a wide variety of readers. Readers who come to your blog are visitors to your website. If your blog is working properly, you are attracting the right audience. For Ray Access, our audience is anyone with a business or a message. So we cast a wide net.

You can do the same. Write about current events, holidays, or popular subjects. Use keywords that people are currently searching for. You may attract new readers and new visitors to your website. Once they arrive, they may decide to take a look around your website, especially if they fit your target demographic.

How to Write Current Event Blog Posts

what does Thanksgiving corn have to do with writing? The trick to tying your blog posts to current events is to find the angle that connects your business to the event or holiday. It’s not that difficult to do. For example, in this blog post, we’re discussing writing techniques for blog posts, but tying it to the Thanksgiving holiday. Reread that last sentence. Taken out of context, it seems like a stretch, and yet this post hits the mark.

Anyone looking for Thanksgiving tips, the sound a turkey makes or complaints about mothers-in-law may find our little blog post and gain some insight about writing. If they are also a business owner and find themselves in need of writing help, they’ll likely remember us.

At least, that’s our evil plan.

You Can Do It Too

All you need is to set aside some time — an hour, several minutes, whatever you can squeeze into your schedule — and brainstorm a few ideas about how to connect your business to current events. It can be a direct tie, as when we wrote a blog post for a gastroenterologist client about the illnesses on cruise ships in the news. Or it could be more abstract, like tying a business-writing business to the Thanksgiving holiday.

If you get stuck, call in the pros at Ray Access. We do this for a living. We can help you attract a wider audience while gradually raising your page rank. Content marketing works, but only if you keep at it. Don’t let complacency drop your page rank; let us help.

“Blog” Is Not a Four-Letter Word

by Elle Ray | Oct 10, 2013 | Blog Writing

What Your Blog Can Do… and What It Can’t Do

whether you're writing or reading a blog, you have to know what it is

When they first appeared in the late 1990s, blogs were running commentaries of writers’ lives, much like many Twitter and Facebook accounts today. Blogs were seen as one person’s opinion and deemed as little more expert than a diary. Unfortunately, many business people still consider a blog to be a four-letter word: unnecessary and not worthy of investment.

Like most things Internet, however, the blog has evolved and changed. Today, business blog have efficiently replaced the company newsletter in that it can contain news about recent business happenings or convey information on a single subject. Blogs may still contain opinion and commentary, but they are well respected as vehicles for passing along pertinent and sometimes vital communications.

What a Blog Does

Blogs are one of the primary means of communication between professionals today, according to Penn State University. Coupled with technological tools such as RSS feeds, blogs are an inexpensive inclusion in a marketing toolbox. They allow professionals to get their ideas out to their readers easily at little cost. Blogs are short, fact-filled articles that can be sent through email, posted on a website and sent to mobile devices.

The bottom line is that a blog is one of the best vehicles around today to communicate with your audience, whether they are customers, friends or followers. And since most blogs allow comments, the platform gives you an opportunity to connect with that audience, to have an exchange of ideas and to solicit feedback on your services or products.

Blogs vs. Newsletters

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Replace your monthly newsletter with a set of four weekly blog articles (which are called “posts”). You don’t need expensive software to write and publish your posts. Once you have a website, the technology to allow blogs is usually free and quickly learned. Since everyone has a web browser, you don’t have to worry about mailing costs, and since blogs are stored online, you don’t even need a filing cabinet to store your back issues.

Producing a newsletter can be costly. One eight-page monthly newsletter professionally written and laid out can cost you up to $500 a month, and that price only goes up the more clients you have. In other words, newsletter technology doesn’t scale well. Blog posts, on the other hand, can be professionally written and produced for a little as $60 a week. They are much more accessible, and always available, to your clients.

A newsletter requires coordinating multiple articles produced in advance of publication. A blog post, in contrast, can be produced and published on the same day. Even if you post your newsletter to your website, which is always a good idea by the way, adds new content for search engines on a monthly or quarterly basis. While that’s good for search rankings, you can publish a new blog post every week, providing a constant stream of new content and forcing those search engines to re-index your site more frequently.

Blogs Are Better

So forget the old stereotype of what a blog is. It’s gone the way of the www. It’s no longer necessary to produce expensive newsletters. Join the 21st century and jump into the blogosphere. Because it’s not just a good idea; it’s what you need to get noticed. It’s what will set you apart from your competition.

When you’re ready to get started, contact us. We are communication professionals and can offer free advice. Or if you understand the value of a blog, but don’t have the internal resources to create one, can do the writing for you.

Writing Tips

by Elle Ray | Jun 19, 2013 | Writing

How to Master the Art of the Article Opening

Two of the most common openings we see for blogs, newsletters and marketing blurbs are:

“Well, here it is summer again and the kids are calling to come out and play, but we’ve got work to do…”

And

“I can’t believe it’s summer again and time for my next newsletter…”

writing on a laptop

Beginning an article is one of the most difficult aspects for unprofessional writers. Once they get started, however, the words seem to flow a little more seamlessly, and they can get to the point. Unfortunately, by then, many if not most of their likely readers (except for friends and relatives) have moved on to something … anything … better.

When Linda started on her first newspaper gig, her editor almost always cut the first line of her submissions. That first line tended to be mundane and uninformed (like the sentences above) or were filled with words she’d fallen in love with. (Don’t worry; she’s learned her lesson.)

Putting words on paper is one way to start a writing project — a task many people we know dread as much as public speaking. So take a page from Linda’s editor and start writing however you can, but then cut the first sentence or two. You’ll probably find the meat of your topic by the third sentence.

Write the Way You Talk

The next tip is to quit trying to impress your readers with your three- and four-syllable words, unless they’re college professors, medical doctors, or simple politicians. Do you normally talk that way? Probably not. Write like you talk and you’ll find the process so much easier. And your audience will find your writing so much easier to read.

You can get your message across without torturing your readers. If you have important information to impart, the last thing you should do is write really, really long sentences that cause readers to stop and ponder your meaning. Write crisp, clear sentences. Help your readers understand, especially if you’re writing an online article.

In the long run, through many trials and errors, even after overcoming my fear of not being good enough and trying to get it right the first time, trying to make it perfect and then even when I try, it seems I don’t get anywhere quickly, then I begin to feel like I can write a sentence that makes sense, especially when the words just don’t seem to come very easily and I understand how writers feel when they are blocked and can’t write anything. That’s hard.”

Ugh. Even though you may find this kind of run-on sentence in a daily newspaper or so-called professional magazine — don’t do it yourself. It may be counter-intuitive, but it’s much more difficult to make information clear and concise than to run on forever. Bite-size information is more palatable. Just like a good meal, you don’t swallow the whole thing in one gulp. You take your time and savor each bite. Let your writing be that way. Your readers will appreciate your brevity.

We Are Writing Pros

For professionals like us here at Ray Access, writing is an art, a skill and a talent. It’s our passion. We sit down at the keyboard and don’t stop until we’ve produced a great article anyone can read and understand. The writing task that you might agonize over, we long for. The words that you struggle to put down on paper, we can twirl and twist and type out with flair.

Our best writing tip? Either brush up on those dormant writing skills so you can compose straight, clean prose … or let us help you get it right. Words matter, whether you’re writing an online blog or marketing brochure. Don’t lose your audience before the final period.