- Susan Weiner Investment Writing

POLL: What are your blog’s goals?

January 20, 2013/in blog/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Why do you blog? I’d like to get a better sense of why my readers blog and the obstacles they face. That’s the focus of this month’s two-question survey.

Talking with students in my blogging class for financial advisors, I often hear that they’d like to attract more clients. In fact, some of them take the class because they’ve seen a drop in new business when they’ve stopped blogging regularly. Those folks seek a way to rediscover their energy for blogging.

Educating people also typically ranks high. Advisors would like to prevent their readers from making mistakes and put them on a path toward better financial futures.

When I recently asked on Facebook and Twitter about goals, some additional goals surfaced. I’ve included these as options in Question 1. Please check all the goals that apply for you.

I will report on the results of this survey in a future issue of my e-newsletter.

By the way, I’d like to thank blogger Chuck Rylant for inspiring this poll with a series of exchanges on the Investment Writing Facebook page.

Blog “out of season” for better value

January 7, 2013/in blog/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Bicycling along the Cape Cod Rail Trail on a Veteran’s Day weekend reminded me of the
benefits of traveling in the off-season. Similarly, a blogger who posts about topics when they’re “out of season” can reap benefits.

Rail trails can be uncomfortably crowded during the summer. If I pass pedestrians, I must move quickly so I don’t run into cyclists or other folks coming from the opposite direction. The unpredictable behavior of little kids and dogs is a constant challenge. Contrast this with the serenity of riding off-season with my husband. The path was empty most of the time during our November outing

A blogger’s “out of season” ride

For a financial blogger, the equivalent of the tourist season is writing about taxes in April, college graduations in May, and holiday gifts in December. Sure, those topics are in the news then, but you’ve got lots of competition from other writers, just as I ran into lots of traffic on a popular rail trail on a summer Sunday afternoon.

It’s better to blog about seasonal topics well ahead of time. There are several benefits.

Your readers need to plan ahead to implement your suggestions for April 15 and other important dates.
Reporters seeking story ideas are more likely to use you if they find you early. Print publications have especially long lead times. A monthly magazine may plan its January edition three to six months ahead, with its writers working with a lag.
You can recycle a seasonal blog post as the relevant event approaches. For example, if you publish a Thanksgiving-themed post in September, you can email it to clients in October and pump it out via social media in early November. By the time of Thanksgiving, your blog post will have permeated your target markets.

Have you tried this?

If you’ve tried this, please report on the results you’ve achieved. I’m also interested in your tips on this topic.

Focus your blog post or lose your readers

January 3, 2013/in blog/by Susan Weiner, CFA

“I’m trying to frame the hawk,” said my husband pointing

My husband’s best shot of the hawk

our camera at a spot high above the Cape Cod Rail Trail. He didn’t want a teeny-tiny bird image to get lost in a big landscape. His comment made me think about how bloggers need to do something similar.

A photo in which a hawk is a tiny speck won’t draw the viewer’s eye. Similarly, a blog post that deals in generalities, and fails to get specific, will lose readers.

Hawks and financial bloggers

What might this mean for a financial blogger?

For example, you can’t cover all of international investing—the entire “sky”—in a single blog post. Instead, focus on one “hawk,” such as the role of non-US stocks in a portfolio or how developed-market stocks differ from emerging-market stocks.

Need help finding the hawk in your blog post?

If you have a hard time finding the focus of your blog posts, you’ll benefit from my blogging class for financial advisors, investment and wealth managers, and the professionals who support them. Check out “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Class for Financial Advisors.”

3 posts that can improve your blogging in 2013

January 2, 2013/2 Comments/in blog/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Looking over my 2012 posts about blogging, I see three tips that could change the way you blog in 2013.

1. Stay on the right side of the law!

The experts who write about compliance have overlooked a vulnerable spot for bloggers. That’s fair use of other people’s copyrighted words. You can do the right thing with the helpful resources I identify in “Legal danger for financial bloggers: Two misconceptions, three resources, one suggestion.”

2. Think creatively

Are you at a loss for topics to blog about? Pick a photo and use it to brainstorm ideas using the method I describe in “Photo + Mind Map = Blog Inspiration.”

3. Add personality

Your personality can be a powerful marketing tool. Use it to your advantage with the tips in “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing—Part one” and “Part two.”

What about YOU?

How do you plan to improve your blogging in 2013? Are there blog posts from other bloggers that inspire your 2013 plans? Please share. Also, if you’d like to boost the effectiveness of your writing, consider taking “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Class for Financial Advisors.”

Image courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How to succeed with your New Year’s resolution to blog more

December 31, 2012/6 Comments/in blog, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Blogging more frequently is high on my friends’ lists of writing-related New Year’s resolutions. This spurred me to wonder how you can use a great free class, “3 Tiny Habits,” to form new habits that will boost your blogging throughout the year. I am a recent fan of this class offered by BJ Fogg of Stanford University.

The thrust of Fogg’s week-long class is to get you to commit to three small behavior changes that are triggered by something you do everyday. For example, one of my recent changes is to put baking soda on my toothbrush the first time I go into the bathroom every morning. Having done that, I almost effortlessly flow into brushing and flossing my teeth. For more details on the class, you can sign up online. Fogg explains his class better than I can.

Daily habits that can help you blog

There should be a way to use Fogg’s class to help you blog more regularly. You’ll need to identify two things: 1) A tiny habit that will encourage writing and 2) a good trigger.

Where do you typically get stuck in your blogging? This is where you should look for your tiny habit.

If you’re short on ideas, your tiny habit could be to get out a piece of paper or open your mind-mapping software. Either quickly completed habit could lead to brainstorming ideas by creating a mind map.

If you have plenty of ideas that you’re not typing up, you could open a new post in WordPress, write a title down on a steno pad, or open dictation software.

If you have lots of incomplete drafts, then plan to type one word into one draft every day.

The triggers for these tiny habits could be something as simple as starting up your computer or opening your web browser.

What will YOU do?

How are you going to boost your blogging in the New Year? I’d like to hear from you, especially if you find Fogg’s techniques helpful or if you have suggestions that may help others succeed.

Different techniques work for different people. I rely heavily on the approach I describe in “No batteries required: My favorite blogging technique.” It has helped me to schedule at least one post per week from now through early April. If you’re a person who takes schoolwork seriously, you may find it helpful to sign up for my writing class, “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Class for Financial Advisors.” The class will show you you a step-by-step process for producing blog posts on a regular schedule.

Image courtesy of 89studio / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Get a break now, do the work in 2013

December 30, 2012/in blog, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

I have a solution if you

Face a “use it or lose it” dilemma with your 2011 training budget
Wish to boost your 2011 tax deductions for business or educational expenses
Would enjoy buying a present now to unwrap in 2012–a present that will jump-start progress on 2012 New Year’s resolutions

Sign up now for the next session of “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Class for Financial Advisors.” You’ll pay the discounted Early Bird Rate for the class starting on January 23, 2013.

You will learn how to

Generate and refine ideas for blog posts that will engage your readers
Organize your thoughts before you write, so you can write more quickly and effectively
Edit your writing, so it’s reader-friendly and appealing

When you participate fully in this class, you’ll end up with one polished blog post–and a process you can follow to generate many more. Click here to learn more!

Most popular blog posts of 2012

December 20, 2012/in blog/by Correna Wood

My readers have visited some of my posts more than others. Here are my top 10 blog posts based on reader traffic so far in 2012.

Guest post: “Using Internal Links for Search Engine Success”

December 13, 2012/in blog, marketing/by Correna Wood

Steve Tannuzzo’s guest post on “Easy SEO: How to Really Get Found on the Internet” was so popular that I asked him to write another post about SEO. By the way, the two “links” in his guest post are for the purpose of illustration only.

Using Internal Links for Search Engine Success

By Steve Tannuzzo

When it comes to no-brainer search engine optimization (SEO), there’s nothing better than strengthening your website with internal links. By “internal,” I mean links from your own blog to other pages of your own website. This practice, while easier to do than researching and linking to content from other sites, is often overlooked and may cost you in those all-important search engine rankings.

One quick note before we proceed: Internal links should never be confused with inbound links. Inbound links are links to your website from other websites. They can propel your site in the rankings, depending on which site is linking to you, as I describe in “How Inbound Links Build Your Site’s Search Engine Reputation.”

3 Tips for Powerful Internal Linking

1. Always Use Anchor Text. Your anchor text (the text that readers click on) must be specific to the content you’re linking to. This helps the search engine bots pair up anchor text and related web pages. Let’s say you’ve written an informative, insightful blog post on the potential dangers of variable annuities, and let’s say it’s a topic that comes up frequently in your discussions with your clients.

“To learn more about the dangers of variable annuities, click here.” This link will toss your beautiful content in the gaping maw of search engine oblivion, where, quite literally, millions of pages are tagged with “Click here,” and never see the light of day on the first page of Google, Yahoo! or Bing.

However, rewriting the sentence as, “Learn the hidden dangers of variable annuities,” has a much greater chance of finding its way to an impressive ranking. Be specific and accurate with your anchor text!

2. Identify Your Greatest Hits. Review your site map and previous blog posts. Which are the most popular pages? Which blog posts have the most comments? Which articles represent the most important aspects of your business model? What are your services that need the most attention or expanded information? These are the pages you should continue to link to on a regular basis. They contain content that your readers crave and they’re usually the pages that convert prospects into clients.

3. Link to Landing Pages. If you find there’s one particular topic you write about far more than any other, you should consider an internal link to a landing page you’ve built on your own website. A landing page discusses your topic in detail and always includes a very strong “call to action” which allows people to sign up for newsletters, buy certain products (books, courses, etc.), or simply pick up the phone and call you. Using internal links throughout your website will bring your readers to this landing page, but they will also bolster the page’s position in search engine rankings.

Internal linking is like casting a vote for your own site as a legitimate source for compelling content. A blog or website without internal links will appear to tell search engines that you have little or no faith in your own content. Use the tips above to put the search engines on notice that your content is strong, relevant and provides value to your clients and readers.

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Steve Tannuzzo is the owner of Tannuzzo Copywriting. He helps people grow their businesses by providing clear, goal-specific copy that gets them noticed and increases their profits. His specialties include advertising copy and social media marketing content. Visit his website at www.tannuzzo.com and follow him on Twitter @BostonProWriter.

Guest post: Don’t make it hard for people to comment on your blog

December 6, 2012/8 Comments/in blog/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Comment spam isn’t all bad. That’s the message I took away from a fellow writer’s passionate remarks against erecting barriers to comments. She also made me think about my anti-spam strategy, which consists of using Akismet and Spam Free WordPress. A complete absence of comment spam may mean that some legitimate commenters are being discouraged from leaving comments.

Guest blogger Mridu Khullar Relph made her remarks in response to a private forum question asking about newbie bloggers’ mistakes. I’m delighted she gave me her permission to share her comments.

Newbie blogger mistake:

Making it hard for people to comment

By Mridu Khullar Relph

Oh, I just thought of a HUGE mistake that people overlook and that I’m coming across a lot lately: Making it difficult for people to comment. There are a few blogs that I really like and that I’d actively comment on if they didn’t make it so damn difficult for me to do so. (Unsurprisingly, these bloggers often have 0 comments on their posts.) Don’t make me sign in to WordPress or Blogger or whatever fancy software you’re using. All I need to be able to do is fill out my name, e-mail address, URL and comment and if you make it more complicated than that, you’re losing readers.

Oh, and those prove-you’re-a-human screen thingmajigs that make life easy for you but difficult for your readers because these things are timesucks and almost always barely visible? I’ll do it once because I’ll have written out a comment by the time I get to one of these, but never ever again will I comment on your blog. Perhaps even visit. Because you’re making your life spamfree and easy AT MY EXPENSE.

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Mridu Khullar Relph is an award-winning journalist and has written for The New York Times, Time magazine, The International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, Parade.com, Marie Claire, Ms. magazine, Elle, and many more. Visit her blog and comment painlessly at www.mridukhullar.com/journal.

DEC. 6 update: If you’re looking for a solution that will cut spam without scaring away readers, Roger Wohlner tells me he has had good luck with Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin, which uses a simple checkbox. My solution, which I mentioned in my introduction to this piece, also seems to be working.

Blog like a Sasanian

December 4, 2012/2 Comments/in blog/by Susan Weiner, CFA

You want to distinguish yourself from other advisors. One way you can achieve this in your blog posts is to learn a

Sasanian coin 1

Sasanian coin 2–if my photos were better, you could contrast this crown with the other

lesson from the Sasanian kings of ancient Iran, as I did when I visited “Feast Your Eyes: A Taste for Luxury in Ancient Iran” at the Sackler Museum in Washington, D.C.

Sasanian kings put their images on coins. To ensure that one coin didn’t look like another, each king adopted a distinctly shaped crown.

You can put on a metaphorical crown by showing some personality in your blog posts. This will ensure that no one confuses your blog posts – your metaphorical coins – with anyone else.

If you don’t know how to inject personality into your posts, check out my two posts on the topic, “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing: Part one” and “How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing: Part two.”