Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Do You Make These 7 Blogging Mistakes?

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From the Latin, meaning, "my bad."
From the Latin, meaning, “my bad.”

Blogging is an effective way to build your web presence, connect with customers and help new customers discover you. But all is not perfect in the land of blogs. Here are 7 common business blogging mistakes that you need to avoid.

1. Bizarre Design and Layout

It won’t matter how good your posts are if your blog is tacky or confusing. Make sure the colors, style and layout fit with your target market. Also watch out for off-putting features such as distracting flashing graphics, pop-ups and loads of ads. Make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for.

Take a look at websites and blogs in your niche to get ideas. Look at the colors and design features that they employ. Use the type of design that your readers will expect to see. [Read more…]

Add A YouTube Video To Your Blog

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youtubeLooking for a blog post idea? Posts do not have to be only the written word. A video can make a great post and–here’s the really cool part–it doesn’t even have to be a video you created. Whether you’ve found a video on YouTube that you just have to share with the world or you have created a video and uploaded it to YouTube, adding it to your blog is as easy as click, copy, click, paste, done.

Why Embed YouTube Videos in Your Posts?

You might want to add a video by you or someone else showing how to do something you are explaining in a post. Or you simply might want to share something interesting and useful you found. Although a video can stand on its own, it is a good idea to add some text saying why you are sharing that particular video, describing what it is about, or offering other comments about the content. If it is your video, you might even want to put a transcript of the video on the page. (Lots of people like video, but there are others who prefer text. And the search engines can index the text on the page.)

If you are comfortable creating videos, this can be an easy way to come up with a post. Create a short video, upload it to YouTube and embed it on your site. Even if you have never made a video in your life, though, you can use videos created by others. Most videos on YouTube have simple code that allows you to embed the video. That means that you can legally and ethically copy and paste the video into your site.

How to Embed a YouTube Video

I am going to share the specifics of adding a YouTube video to a WordPress post, but the basic technique will work with many other video sharing sites and other blogging platforms or HTML sites.

Ready? [Read more…]

How To Write a Credible Product Review

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writing product reviewsWhen making a purchase decision, reviews are a valuable way to gather information. Many people will search for “(product name) review” or similar terms, so product reviews can bring traffic to your website. When you review products for which you are an affiliate, your reviews can also put money in your pocket.

In order for your product reviews to be effective, they must be credible. A review that only raves about the product and does not include any drawbacks is not as useful or believable as one that gives both pros and cons. Of course, if you are earning an affiliate commission on a product you review it is especially important that your review is honest and objective. Writing a hype-y review just to make the sale may earn a few dollars for you today, but you will lose the trust of your readers. That can destroy your business in the long term.

Part of that honesty (and something that is legally required in the U.S.) is that you disclose your affiliate relationship. At the very least the fact that you use affiliate links on your site needs to be in your policies and disclosures page. Ideally, it should be on the same page as the review, or even noted next to any affiliate links.

Here are some tips to make your next product review worthy of five stars: [Read more…]

Rejecting a Guest Post

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reject-a-guest-postAccepting guest posts at your blog is a great way to build your readership, create relationships with other bloggers, give your readers access to another perspective and give yourself the occasional day off from writing. There are many bloggers who are willing to provide quality content for your blog in exchange for the exposure and links they receive from a guest post.

But what happens when you request a guest post and you can’t use what is submitted? It may be that it is badly written, or it may be a good post but not right for your blog. Here are some ideas on how to handle the situation:

First, do not ignore the submission. The polite thing to do is to let the blogger know that you can not use the post. Once they know that you are not going to use it, they can submit it to other sites or post it on their own blog.

If appropriate, you might ask for revisions. Maybe the post is close, but just not quite right for you. In that case, you could suggest changes that might make the post work for your blog. Perhaps the language is a little rough for your readership, or the post takes a controversial stand that goes against your beliefs. (Note: One reason to have guest posts is to inject a new perspective, so having a point of view that is different from yours can be a good thing. However, you are not obligated to run posts that you find offensive or in any way inappropriate.) Let them know what would have to change for you to run the post. They can choose to go along with the changes or not.

If the post is all wrong, or just bad, say no. But do it nicely. “Sorry, but this post is not a good fit for my blog. Thank you for submitting it,” would be fine. “What were you thinking? This is rubbish,” uh, not so much.

Chances are that the guest poster attempted to craft a good piece for you. If it misses the mark you don’t have to publish it, but you do have to be nice (or at least polite).

Looking for guest posts, or for blogs accepting guest posts? Subscribe to Blogger LinkUp. It’s free!