Why a Blog Might Not be Right for Your Business

I counsel many of my clients to have a blog. Blogs are great for driving traffic to your website, promoting your business, and engaging your customers and potential customers in your industry, but they are not right for everyone.

For one thing, blogs are a lot of work. In order for a blog to be successful, you need have a steady stream of quality content. Not weekly, or bi-weekly, but every day or nearly anyway. Depending on your market, it might be really hard to come up with quality posts on a regular basis unless you have a broad enough area that you have a variety of topics to blog on.

In addition to writing, you need to promote your blog. This takes a lot of time. It's more than just plugging it into some search engines. You need to read other blogs and comment, use forums and newsgroups, find backlinks, and so on. It's a lot of work.

You can hire someone (like me) to do the writing for you and even some of the promotion, but probably not all. I have some clients that must use their expertise in their areas of business to write articles and blog posts. I could do it, but it wouldn't have the same depth and breadth as if my client had written it. It's important to be seen as an authority and my area of expertise is marketing and PR, not real estate, tourism, travel, high tech and so on.

So a blog could be a goldmine for your business, or it could be a complete waste of time. You need to be honest with yourself as to whether you've got the time and material to make it a worthwhile marketing project. If not, spend your time elsewhere.

Priming the Pump

Sometimes it seems like we are just spinning our wheels with day to day tasks that get us nowhere. This is not true. Every little action creates momentum in our business, whether it's returning a single phone call or updating our websites. Each moment of outreach primes your pump for a flurry of activity in the future.

If you've ever used an old fashioned water pump, you know how priming the pump works. You pump and pump the handle and nothing comes out. If you keep doing it, you get a trickle and finally that trickle turns into a stream. Soon, water is gushing out all over the place. Business is kind of like that.

Attend a single party, hand out five business cards, or send ten cold emails; you are priming the pump. For example, I started an outreach at the first of the year by cold sending emails to every advertiser in a local magazine. I knew that if these companies could afford to advertise in this particular magazine, that they had money for my services. Here it is six months later and the single response I got from that initial outreach has signed on for a very large job. I did the outreach again this month. I had primed the advertisers by seeing my name and reaching out them before. Their needs could have easily changed in the last six months and now they might be ready for my help.

Still again, from that initial outreach people saw my name and visited my website. In the last month, two people have contacted me out of the blue about jobs. I've got myself a steady trickle. So don't get discouraged when a marketing or PR tactic doesn't work perfectly and bring in a ton of business. Look at it as an opportunity to prime the pump for even more business in the future.

Shanty at the dump

Shanty at the dump, originally uploaded by The Girl Wonder.

This represents one of the houses that some of the children I teach live in. Even if you don't want to participate through this blog, please visit www.childrenofthedumpvallarta.org and find out how you can help!

Those other blogs

Some of you have found you way here because I was trying to raise money for the school where I teach 3rd and 4th grade English. Unfortunately, my other sites had to be taken down for a variety of reasons, including that a malicious someone reported them to Google for breaking the terms of service, which I have since corrected.

I am still trying to raise money for the school as well as materials so here's how you can help:

1) all revenue from this site will be donated to the school.

2) You can make a donation directly through either the Children of the Dump site in the US or the Children of the Dump Mexico. Be sure to note "School of Champions" on your donation.

3) Start a collection in your neighborhood, work, school or church. The kids need school supplies, sports equipment, clothing, and more! Contact me for a list!

4) Come and visit. Come and see the school, meet the kids and learn about the program. We would love to have you in Vallarta!

5) Volunteer. We need English teachers and classroom assistants. Come spend a winter in Vallarta and work a few hours per day with the kids!

Paying by Page Views is WRONG.

I was reading my daily Media News Feed that I get from MediaBistro.com and this article jumped out at me. It's about why paying writers and bloggers by page views is wrong.

I'll give you a hint: the quality of the writing suffers. Go there and read it. Let me know if you agree or disagree....

Free Samples? Do I look like I work for Hickory Farms?

One my goals this year is to get a steady blogging job. I like blogging and I'm a prolific, if currently unfocused writer. With some focus, I can create great content and promote the heck out of a blog, but one of the biggest problems I have with blogging jobs is that nearly every ad requests several sample posts that fit their site. I find this ridiculous.

It's just another way writers and writing are devalued in the marketplace. For example, if hiring an artist, will you ask them to do three sculptures that might fit what you are looking for? Will you ask all the construction companies to each submit a section of fencing for your approval to make sure that it fits with your idea of what kind of fence you want? Perhaps the accountant will prepare several tax forms for you in advance and your house painter will paint a couple of walls for you to consider before you hire them. I think not.

If you want to know what kind of writer I am, read my portfolio. Whether my sample blog post is on heart disease or xBox live subscriptions should have no bearing on whether I'm qualified to write for your site. You can tell from my writing samples whether I have a sense of humor, can use punctuation, and if I can spell and/or string together coherent sentences. Why, pray tell, do you need three sample posts on the environment, or beauty products, or Wordpress widgets unless you plan on using the ideas that potential applicants submit to you for ideas later, after you've hired the person you may or may not actually be looking for?

Most freelance writers apply for hundreds of jobs per week. I don't have time to write three 500 word posts for a position that I might not get and that I won't get paid for. I certainly don't have time to check all those websites to make sure that they aren't using my writing without compensating me either, so my solution is to not send it. I'm probably eliminating myself from the running right away, but I don't give out free samples. I have a nice cross section of writing on my website, from press releases to radio spots. If they aren't enough to convince you that I'm what you're looking for, well, then nuts to you.

Dear Job Posters: Learn to Proofread

You might think that if you are posting a help wanted ad for writers that it's okay to have a post riddled with spelling errors, little to no punctuation and strange grammar. After all, you clearly need help with writing, right? WRONG.

First of all, these posts are so clearly unprofessional that I wonder if I apply for them, will I ever get paid? Is it some kid posting? Clearly the pay won't be up to my standards. I make all kinds of judgments based on the perceived professionalism of the ad.

For the love of God, spell check. Every program from Gmail to Word to Blogger has a spell checker. USE IT.

Proofread. I recently saw a post that asked, "What is a good door price for $25?" I assume the poster meant door prize. Not surprisingly, the post has no replies. Why? Because if you can't take the time to proofread the title of your post, you probably won't read the replies.

Don't Capitalize Every Word In Your Sentences Unless It's The Title Of A Book Or A Press Release.

DONT TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

Don't use excessive punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!

do learn to capitalize and use punctuation properly it makes it a lot easier to read your post when you do of course if you dont want anyone to read your post then just keep on doing what you do

Thanks!