Blogs have never been more important in marketing and sales as they are today. It is critical that we brand ourselves as though leaders and subject matter experts, and there is no better way to do that than through sharing your ideas, tips, education and strategies in quick easy to implement steps. Here are 10 steps to writing powerful blog posts:

1. Articulate the value you bring to your clients. If you can’t talk about it, you won’t ever get it across. We offered up an exercise earlier in the book about your value proposition. If you wish to take this further, ask your co-workers, clients and vendors their perspective of the impact that you make.
2. Identify what your clients care about. Determine information you can share that would make an impact on them and write about that. If you don’t have time to do it, there are many market researchers that can really uncover what matters to your clients and prospects, and this is critical to know for a lot more reasons than blogging.
3. Do your research, look at your clients’, vendors’ and competitions’ blogs and choose a layout that works for you.
4. Create a template that works with your content. I typically like a paragraph or two and then a list of tips, but you will need to come up with your own.
5. Create Engaging Post Titles – it is critical that your title tells your reader know what they will get when they read your content. It also helps search engines pick up your blog based on keywords in the title.
6. Use a picture that tells the story – it is engaging and draws the reader in.
7. Start with a WOW Statement – Once you have engaged a reader through your title, iti s important to keep them drawn in. Let them know quickly that there is valuable content and get them to want to continue reading!
8. Embed video – with the HTML plug in, it couldn’t be easier.
9. Make a Point – Make it matter to the reader, if the content has no value, you will not either. Don’t bait and switch either – meaning, don’t bring them to a blog thinking they will gain knowledge and then talk about you and your products and services.
10. Have a Call to Action – Be sure to capture them when they are loving you. The best time to ask them to do something is right after you have provided value. So be sure to offer a lead capture opportunity here such as a white paper to download, video with lead capture, or a consultation.

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