I’ll begin this post with a disclaimer. Most blog posts of this nature are pure Pablum – general enough in nature to be completely worthless to anyone who truly needs help in this area. Such posts must be so general that they tend to be worthless because each business blog post is simply a single MARKETING TACTIC which is performing a role in your overall MARKETING STRATEGY.
Launching a business blog is not a marketing strategy – it’s a marketing tactic. The business blog posts you write have a job to do – and that’s to carry your business’ marketing message.
The reality is that a great business blog post for one business is not a great business blog post for another. Business blogs not only have to be different than “regular” blog posts – but they also differ amongst themselves.
That’s why it’s really hard for me to offer “quick and easy” one size fits all advice on how to create a great business blog post.
However, I can share one common element of every great business blog post. The one thing ALL great business blog posts share is a great blog post title.
The business blog post title
The words you type into the title box of your blog post are the hardest working words on your site. Assuming you’ve tweaked your blog’s permalink settings, the words you choose to type into the title box above your blog post become part of your blog post DNA. Those words become part of the url – and that plays a huge role in how the search engines will “view” your blog post today and for years to come.
Pleasing the search engines isn’t the only reason to create a creative blog post title. Because while it plays a role in how your blog post is seen by the search engines, even more important is how that title affects the HUMAN visitors to your site.
The blog post title holds the promise of the content to come – it’s what entices human visitors to click and to read more. In the end, we must never forget that the only reason any of us CARES what the soulless programs that index the web do with our content is because those soulless programs can bring us the eyes of soulful human beings.
The blog post title is the first point of connection. Those words will often be used to spread your post to the social media network. Whether it’s through Twitter, Facebook or even through your RSS feed – your blog post title is often the foundation for the message which is spread.
Your business blog post title sets the reader’s expectations – and puts the content contained within the post into context for the reader. Without a great blog post title – the best blog post in the world will be overlooked and ignored.
So what makes a great blog post title?
It’s one that grabs the attention of your target audience.
“Rats” – you may think. “There she goes again – prattling on about targeting your audience for effective marketing.” (I thought writing a book – Beyond the Niche –
You can’t create a great blog post title if you don’t know your target audience intimately!
Your great blog post title catches the attention of your target audience and entices them to read more – the more being your compelling, tightly targeted content which was created as part of a sound marketing strategy.
Your business blog post title is the “headline” that will excite, entice and motivate your target audience to go further and read the post.
This past weekend – an email listserv of which I am a member “blew up” because of a well titled blog post. The post title acted as a literal lightning rod – causing one member of the list to share the blog post title on the list which drove hundreds of other members to the blog post.
A well worded blog post title created a lot of traffic.
By the time I followed the link – the blog post in question had over 300 comments approved less than 72 hours after posting. The blog post author’s most recent tweet was expressing delight at the traffic her blog was getting.
By choosing the right five words – the author was able to “push” an emotional button in her target audience. By simply knowing what makes her intended target audience “tick” – she was able to create a blog post title which motivated her audience to not only take action – but motivate others to action as well.
What’s happening on this listserv is probably happening other places as well – including Facebook and Twitter – where people are sharing her blog post by simply sharing the title of the post.
I call this kind of blog post a Pillar Blog Post in the 8 Week Power Blog Launch course and your blog should definitely strive to include this type of attention getting blog posts – but expecting to create such blog posts – or blog post titles – daily is not realistic. Trying to achieve that can lead to business blog paralysis – which is the worst business blogging affliction of all.
Business blog paralysis is where you fail to create ANY blog posts for your business blog because it’s not “good enough”. The blogger I mention here as been blogging for several years – and has made several “stabs” at connecting with this audience in previous blog posts. Because blogging is so easy – she’s been able to “tweak”her message over hundreds of blog posts until she finally created one which hit it’s mark and called people to action.
However, because while the mechanics of blogging are “easy” the ART of blogging isn’t – this blog post wasn’t the author’s her first attempt to “connect”with her target audience.
It wasn’t her first attempt – but it’s obviously the most successful and it all began with a great blog post title.
Feel free to share your most compelling business blog post title in the comments below.
