I just finished watching my friend Kelly McCausey’s video where she worked through some content brainstorming with a client. This is a great one to pull up on your laptop or iPad and chill out with. It’s a lengthier video, but there are some great gems throughout.

It’s very cool to see how Kelly uses a visual process to help her client plan her content piece. If you’re a visual person, it might be something to adopt yourself.

My favorite part was when Judy (her client) said she blogged 3 times per week and asked if it was too much. Kelly’s response was poignant:

“If they’re 3 boring blog posts, that sounds like too much.”

What’s important is HOW you’re presenting your material to your audience instead of just WHAT you’re saying. So pay close attention as Kelly touches on this a number of times in the video. Keep watching, it gets really good.

See the video here.

The post Content…it’s the HOW, not the WHAT appeared first on DIYplr.

Well, Melissa Ingold has just released a handy free 21-page report to help you:

• Understanding keywords
• Ensure you’re getting TARGETED traffic with your PLR
• How to customize your PLR, so that it stands out from other PLR publishers
• Adding visual impact to get your content noticed and shared

You can grab the whole thing for free below…no opt-in required.

Download your Traffic with PLR Report (PDF)

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She has been watching cooking and cake decorating videos on YouTube since she figured out how to use an iPad (half her life now). Now whenever we make food or she plays with her toy kitchen, she pretends she’s on video and narrating her own cooking show.

I envy her confidence and her enjoyment in the spoken word and being on camera. I’m the exact opposite. I am most comfortable at a keyboard. I am very camera shy and I soon forget what I planned to say. Not to mention the weird things I do weird things with my eyebrows. But with my fingers the words just keep flowing and flowing. So even though I recently started a food blog that I’m enjoying immensely, there are no videos there. Seriously, I’m waiting until she’s a bit older and can start doing videos for me. I absolutely can’t wait!

But isn’t this a problem? It’s 2013 and I’m not making videos? The horror!

I’ve heard…and you probably have too…advice that says you should be publishing video, you have to blog and you’d better well have a podcast on iTunes. In short, you must use every medium possible to get your message out there.

Well, if you’ve known me for any amount of time, you’ll know I think that’s just hogwash.

Here’s the thing. It’s your business and you get to do it on your terms. When you publish content online, you have much more freedom and you should use that freedom to shine with what you do best.

It’s not like you’re running a little store in your neighborhood and you’re at the mercy of the demands of the customers in that neighborhood only. No…you’re publishing content that can potentially reach the the WHOLE world (although you are only trying to please a small segment of that world) and that means you have a lot more leeway in determining what’s best for your online business.

Here are a few guidelines I like to provide to help customers and clients decide what kind of content they should publish…

Ask yourself:

• What type of communication are you most comfortable with? Do you excel at writing and get tongue-tied when you speak? Do you love taking photos instead? Or are you comfortable with just about everything? Do more of what you’re good at and don’t post so-so content because you think you should.

• What does your audience want? This is important, but the great thing is you can carve out your own audience. Just because another blogger in your niche, for example, publishes a lot of videos, does not mean you need too. There are billions of people on this great earth of ours, so work to attract those that appreciate your unique message.

• Can you hire guest contributors, use PLR or ghostwriters to fill in the blanks? Just because YOU don’t personally like creating a certain kind of content format, doesn’t mean you can’t provide it through another source. As I’ve said, I’ve already got plans in the works for a cooking show…it just won’t be me in it!

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed thinking you’ve got to create all different kinds of content…do yourself a favor and stop it. You’re interrupting your creative process. Stick with what you like and what works best for you. That doesn’t mean you can’t experiment and improve your skills as you grow – in fact, stretching your wings is a very good thing – but don’t fall to the mistaken belief that there are rules for the type of content every business should publish.

The post What Formats Should You Publish Content In? appeared first on DIYplr.

For some, persuasive writing techqniues come easier than to others. You can learn about copywriting (we cover this in lesson 4 and 5 in our free course at Contentrix), but you have to learn how persuasiveness works without sounding like a used car salesman or just a plain old bully. It takes practice, but your practice is much better if you are conscious of what you are trying to accomplish.

I read an interesting article on FastCompany called Leading Through the Power of Persuasion and even though the article was geared toward “real-life” leadership, the advice applies to your online writing as well. After all, our business world may virtual, but the leadership qualities we convey are still very real.

The article by Charlotte Beers, lays our some persuasion tools that leaders have:

• Threats and consequences
• Passion and pathos
• Humor and wit
• Imperfection
• Surprise
• Wonder

I encourage you to read the full article, but here are a few things that stood out for me (emphasis added):

And then, more importantly, she cautions people from beating people over the head with baseball bat and instead encourages this…

“You are not trying to sway people against their will but to offer them a chance to see things anew. To create change, to invent a new future, you have to be vulnerable, to show passion and belief in an unproven idea, and to risk failure by pursuing it. You, the initiator, have to find a delivery style that allows you to communicate your conviction in a compelling, inescapable way.”

No perfection is required when it comes to persausive writing techniques, but you’ve got to believe in what you say and let others discover new perspectives for themselves.

The post What Does Persuasive Writing Mean Anyway? appeared first on DIYplr.

And in all that stuff we do, we want to make sure that the content we have out there is the best possible and offers current information.

That means, if you’re like me, you may have hesitated putting anything that was time-sensitive into your blog posts. Because really, who wants to update their calendar for every little update and then have to run around fixing blog posts?

But when you think about it, it’s silly if we aren’t willing to do that. After all, if there is a special offer to give your customers, you’re doing a disservice by not telling them about it. But add to that, if you avoid putting any limited-time stuff on your posts, you are DECREASING your chances of getting a sale.

Think about it, what do you think people will take action on first?

A post where you talk about giving a Master Moves Mickey to your preschooler OR a post where you talk about the toy and mention that Toys R Us has it on sale for the next 3 days?

The answer is probably obvious. People are more likely to take action when there is a limited time to do so or to get the best deal.

Of course, by now, many of our readers know that at Contentrix, we have released a free plugin that can automate this process for you. You can add and insert promotions into posts automatically, according to the schedule you set out. If you aren’t a member of Contentrix yet, just register for free and add the Limited Time Offers plugin to your account.

Let’s Look at Some Practical Examples of Inserting Limited Time Offers

To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few instances when using the Limited Time Offers plugin could come in handy.

Example #1: You or a company you work with releases a coupon that eventually expires. If the coupon is good now, you just enter the information into your post and set that content to expire the same day that the coupon expires.

In the example below, this coupon will appear in the post until the end of November 16.

NOTE: All that weird “expcontent” code does not show in the post when you publish it.

Example #2: You have a post or a sales page for a limited time offer. Once it expires, you want to let your visitors know it’s expired, but you invite them to sign up for your mailing list, so they are notified of new offers.

That might look something like this (again, the code…your post will not show the extra coding):

Example #3: If you have an image for a limited time offer, you can also set it to expire.

Example #4: You can also replace old offers with new content.  In the example below, the first snippet expires after a certain date and the second snippet, will appear when that one expires.

How to Start Implementing These Ideas

If you download the plugin, here are a few ways to start using it:

• Use it on new posts. Add limited time offers for your own products or contact product sellers to see if they can offer your readers a special limited time offer.

• Use it on popular posts. Go through your analytics and look for pages that are currently getting a lot of traffic. Add limited time offers to those. Pages that are getting a steady stream of search engine traffic or from other sources, are perfect for trying out new offers.

Whatever you do, always remember that if you give your readers a reason to do something RIGHT NOW, they’re more likely to do it. If you leave it open-ended, they’re probably going to click away and never come back.

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