How to make blogging regularly easy

I recently made a new goal to write more, at least writing one blog post a once in week. More and more brands are now trying to catch on to how important blogging is. I thought I'd share some of the hurdles my clients and I sometimes face when it comes to blogging on a regular basis, as well as tips and tools to make it easier. If you are running short of ideas, make use of the tools that will highlight here and your post will seem to flow. The title, the headers, and everything else will just come out easily. I am listing some of the most useful tools to use for brainstorming:

Quora
Answer The Public
My Google Analytics data
My Google Webmaster Tools
Portent Idea Generator
UberSuggest
Hubspot Blog Topic Generator
BuzzSumo
MuckRack

Blogging

Sometimes by simply just recapping industry news, sharing infographics, or doing roundups of industry blogs or books can help you get amazing ideas.

Grasp of grammar

There are some good tools such as Microsoft Word or autocorrect in Skype and Chrome that make it super easy to minimize spelling mistakes or grammar errors. However, just because someone has these tools available, it doesn't mean that they are necessarily good in writing. Not everyone is a blessed skilled writer, and to be able to write for several different industries, business verticals or in-depth for specific sectors is something that takes a lot of time to pick up.

Whether you are hiring out or assigning blog post creation to someone in your team, it is mandatory to know the basic rules of grammar and spelling. Riddling your content with typos or malformed sentences regularly is a direct reflection of your company and your brand, no matter who is writing it. It usually takes time to write coherent, mostly error-free content.

A writer can try running their content through three places:

HemingwayApp: A free tool, this is a brutal app and can rip you apart. But it does point out things you might not have noticed, for instance, passive sentences.

Grammarly: Free chrome that corrects grammar in emails and other text fields (such as WordPress text editor and so on). One can buy the membership to check your content in-browser, like Hemingway.

CopyScape: I run my employees' content and other content writer's work) through CopyScape to check for plagiarism and it is a paid tool.

Knowledge of best Web practices
Sometimes many good companies don't think about one important skill when shaping their strategy for writing blog posts is cross-training in aspects of the written word unique to the internet. Basic knowledge of HTML can help writers learn things like how to write while aligning images, writing effective alt text, and making sure there aren't unnecessary tags.

One must attribute proper image sourcing because the absence of proper attribution, websites that post content (no matter who has written) with badly sourced images can get you fined thousands of dollars. You can avoid by using some of these free image sources (or a stock photo membership):
Pixabay
Canva
Unsplash
Photopin (ensure use the code they give for proper attribution)

If all else seems to be failing, I sometimes also insert tweets, Facebook posts, in lieu of additional images for posts. As a result, my post gets more interactive and engaging.

Learn more about my content strategy plan and completely transform your business. PioneerMarketers is a global service provider of top selling B2C and B2B email lists fulfilling all your data needs.

Content Marketing Trends in the year 2017

As we all know, content marketing is crucially important in many niches and for many business models. Most of the writers know what kind of content they need. In this post we offer an overview of what to expect for 2017 and beyond. Let’s look at the top trends in content marketing to watch out for. The trends we discuss are for both B2C and B2B marketing:

Content marketing 

1) Live streaming will gain popularity: Recorded video will continue gain momentum. Facebook Live, SnapChat and YouTube Live will offer easy-to-use platforms for hosting live product briefings, tutorials, tours, product launch events, and more content.

2) Surge of more email newsletters: Most B2B marketers make use of email newsletters to connect and engage with prospects and share information with clients. 2017 is expected to see more of it. This is because email open rates are going up in certain cases

3) Storytelling, a key part of content marketing: A good story teller can always be good marketer. Audience are now tired of heavy content just for the sake of content. Just blogging or being active on social media will not help. The idea is to effectively engage with your customers and tell them a story.

4) Push advertising will definitely fade away: Push advertising will soon give way to native advertising. Ad blockers and general distaste for unnecessary pop-ups will continue to increase. Customers are finally taking matters into their own hands. On the other hand, advertising and ads aren’t going away, they’ll just evolve with time.

5) Mobile content: This is very vey important aspect to grow your business and drive sales. Make your blog and website easy to read on all mobile platforms. This is because more and more consumers are consuming content on tablets and mobile devices. Everything must be mobile first – design and create content for mobile consumption.

6) The social bug: Organic reach is becoming more and more difficult to achieve. Social channels typically Facebook, has changed its rules, making it difficult to get your content seen naturally. Of you want high visibility, reaching a large section on social media is going to take more advertising budget, or better online marketing.

7) More and more demand for interactive content: White papers and case studies will continue to be ‘hot stuff’ in many markets globally, but most content marketers must come up with ways to create interactive quizzes or presentations that grab their web visitor’s attention.