The Wax Blog

It's really hard to sell yourself and reaching out to bloggers to offer a guest post can seem really intimidating. I was going to write more about it today but instead thought I'd take the initiative (translate: feeling lazy) to find a few of the better posts on guest posting out there. These are some folks (some known, some not so known) that seem to write well on blogging topics - each has written about the topic from a different angle, so I hope it's helpful for you. Here you go:

Last week we took a look at some of the pros and cons of the Google Panda changes. This week, let’s consider some of the things that you’ve got to do differently on your blog to help your website thrive under the new regime:

In April I wrote about guest posting as a way to improve your online reputation and I think we all know why it's great for your traffic numbers.  (If you're not sure, here's a great post from sideincomeblogging.com that explains it in detail.) You may not be sure HOW or WHERE to guest post. And you may also be banging your head against the wall at yet another social media task that has no immediate ROI.  Just trust me, guest posting is an important part of your online marketing tasks. And it doesn't have to be a time drain. Here are some easy ways to find good blogs to write for, and tips on writing them:

by Beth Graddon-Hodgson [caption id="attachment_3217" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Most people could refrain from a cute panda picture when writing about this topic. I could not. B. "][/caption] The changes implemented earlier this year by Google Panda have caused widespread panic online with many businesses seeing a drop in their rankings.  Now that the dust has settled,  over the next couple of weeks we are going to be exploring some of the things that you can do to make your blog content a bit more in line with the new guidelines that Google has set out. But first, to give you a better understanding of what these changes mean, let’s look at the pros and cons as they pertain to your blog content:

If you ask me, consulting firms and services companies are missing the boat with social media. I worked in that industry for 16 years - the story of the "shoemaker's son" is never more relevant than in this one.  Most consulting firms simply don't put as much effort into things that don't have an instant ROI. I get it - margin is king in that business. I'm not talking about freelancers and solopreneurs here - I'm talking about firms with staff that are out there fighting the good fight every day - and missing a major weapon in their arsenal.  Let me tell you what that weapon is:

By Beth Graddon-Hodgson It doesn’t matter how you are or what you are writing about, at some point, you are going to fall under scrutiny for something that you did or didn’t say, or about the style of your writing. Sometimes  when you’re a writer, it may be your client that questions your choices. But, more often than not, the scrutiny comes from your readers. We’ve talked about dealing with criticism before on a larger scale; this time, we’ll focus on exactly what you should ask yourself before you decide how to deal with that criticism.

On Monday I talked about why agencies need to be better listeners. It seemed to spark some interest in readers and I found myself critiquing my own listening skills all week. Guess what? I think I'm pretty poor at it too and it's something I'm going to work on - I still interrupt people too much. (Especially after a bunch of coffee. ) We get so much inbound information from social media, email, regular media, etc that I think we've lost some of our ability to listen. (According to audiologists, we've also lost a lot of our hearing from MP3 players and concerts too) I found this great outline of "how to listen" from a rather obscure but well written blog by Michael Hanson. Michael, if you're reading this thanks!