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Website content hooks that seduce readers

Website content hooks that seduce readers

If you could learn to write interesting website content hooks that bring 100+ likes for all your posts, would you be interested in learning more about it? Unless you are The Most Interesting Man In The World, your website content is getting ignored if you’re not using the hooks of the trade.

Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, an interesting blogger and an old drunk are walking down the street together when they all spot a fifty dollar bill at the same time. Who gets it? The old drunk, of course. The other three are mythological creatures.

Maybe it’s debatable whether Google has developed an algorithm to penalize boring website content. What’s not debatable is the vulnerability most readers have to content that employs information gaps, bait and switch, leadership and paradigm shifts.

Readers need to be challenged with website content hooks that seduce them and keep them reading more.

Paradigm Shift - Blotter.comInformation Gap Website Content – (Dubious)
Examples: Upworthy.com, BuzzFeed.com, (First line of this post)
This woman found a dog. What happens next will blow your mind! If that clickbait piques your curiosity, then you’re not alone. Roughly 100% of human beings can’t resist their curiosity and will do most anything to fill the gap of missing information. Information Gap Theory of Curiosity, developed by George Loewenstein in the early 1990s, is simple: Readers feel an emotional “itch” on the brain that requires them to scratch it by reading the more. There’s a “gap between what we know and what we want to know,” says Loewenstein. Here’s what they’re doing when writing Information Gap content:

  • Teasing readers by omitting conclusions to a question
  • Displaying images that are purposefully ambiguous
  • Challenging readers to test their assumptions
  • Testing readers’ sexual, social, moral or morbid curiosity

Bait and Switch - Blotter.comBait and Switch Website Content (Shameless)
Examples: Slate.com, NewYorkTimes.com
Could a brain parasite found in cats help soccer teams win at the World Cup? If you didn’t click on that link, congratulations. There are any number of seemingly bizarre headlines and vulgar images that ultimately lead to nothing but an innocent place on the other side. These headlines and images are both intriguing and appalling, but they’re a sure-fire way to keep people’s interest – to keep them coming back to your website again and again. By varying the presentation and keeping the content unpredictable, Bait and Switch content deceives readers into clicking. It’s also quite possibly the very best way to alienate and to find yourself blacklisted by readers who won’t forget that your posts always end in disappointment. With that in mind, be sure to utilize the below website content hooks infrequently:

  • Promising an interesting innovation, but ending with disappointment
  • Adding mixtures of unpredictability and helpful facts
  • Showing a bang and ending with a shrug
  • Seducing with sexual innuendo without taking the reader to second base

LeanIn.orgThought Leadership Website Content (Highly Professional)
Examples: LeanIn.org, MarthaStewart.com
These are posts that provide expertise while communicating the credentials, experience and reputation in order to validate the message. These website content hooks typically come from an organization or brand leader that is well established because of a reputation boon, either earned or endured. The hooks can keep hooking – for as long as we love the leader purveying his or her wisdom upon us:

  • Persuading through demonstration
  • Divulging trade secretes and successful project strategy
  • Presenting as a rainmaker who attract customers or attention
  • Reflecting on how they overcame challenges

Paradigm Shift - Blotter.comParadigm Shifting Website Content (Professional)
Examples: Ted.com, BitCoin.org, Apple.com
This revolutionary content provides a voice for innovative ideas. Paradigm shift content is an advocacy for fundamental change in the way your reader should approach and assume their lives and business, allowing the reader to feel he or she is on the verge of something big, Big, BIG! While the reality may be rather small (e.g., a demonstration on how to tie a shoelace over instead of under for a tighter knot), the content is seductive and irresistible:

  • Empowering readers through inspiration
  • Demonstrating change using props or analogies
  • Inspiring a feeling of metamorphosis
  • Providing guidelines for reinvention

Headlines, articles and images utilizing website content hooks funnel readers through a website. Whichever methodology used to attract readers, website content should always satisfy with a quality that is original and useful to readers. And as with all great recipes, if the reader sees the seams or feels manipulated the website content hooks are acutely ineffective.

Why Use Maid Service Software?

Why Use Maid Service Software?

There’s a common misconception that providing maid services is not a high-tech business. After all, you’re providing labor services. A lot of these businesses have been doing things the same way for decades. Sure, it worked in the past, but now, they’re encountering a lot of issues and competition from other providers who have implemented efficiencies using technology. A professional maid service software, similar to the one offered by Thoughtful Systems, can help take your small business to the next level.

Adding A Xero - View BookBut don’t take our word for it. Oxford Martin School’s recent study – a collaboration between Dr. Carl Bendikt Frey and Dr. Michael A. Osborne – found nearly 50% of small businesses are at “high risk” if the right software is not adopted quickly quickly. They’re not alone. The nation’s largest network of small business accounting software consultants, The Sleeter Group, says it’s especially the accountants at small businesses who are at risk. The Sleeter Group recommends Chunkification (compartmentalizing business needs); Zero Entry (elimination of data entry); Collaborative Accounting (Internet connectivity with clients); and Mobile (making it available everywhere). Their book, Adding A Xero To Your Practice, offers “Practical advice for accountants looking to be successful in The Cloud.”

What is Maid Service Software?
Basically, this software makes your business more efficient. Because efficiency is key to productivity, you need to be efficient in order to make sure that your employees are scheduled well. You need efficiency in order to make sure that you’re able to provide services for multiple locations. You need a cloud service and you need to minimize data entry for all parties involved.

Maid service software provides a small business with a single interface where you can automate the tasks involved with managing your maid servicing business:

  • Multiple Job Scheduling Calendars
  • Customer Relationship Management Features
  • Integrated Email Modules
  • Mapping Features
  • Integrated Caller ID
  • Marketing Features
  • Integrated Text Messaging
  • QuickBooks Integration

By automating day-to-day tasks you can focus on the things that really matter – like getting more clients.

Maid Service SoftwareHow Can Maid Service Software Features Benefit You?
You already know the general benefit is increased efficiency that leads to improved productivity. But let’s look at these efficiency plays in detail:

  • Easily set up a client database
    Import an existing database or create customer profiles on the fly. Afterward, there’s no need to spend time looking for a client’s information. Professional Maid Service Software allows you to easily add, edit and delete a customer.
  • Fast access to client information
    You can easily see their information with just a couple of clicks and you can even see all of the jobs that you’ve done for them. This software also has a powerful search function. You can easily find what you’re looking for in just a few seconds.
  • Maid Service SoftwarePrint invoices, labels and flyers for snail mail
    You can continue to send snail mails to prospective customers and bill them manually if you desire. This is where good label functionality can help. Print hundreds of labels and invoices in just a few minutes. Or market to new customers by handing out flyers. Professional maid service software has built-in templates for printing in no time, ready to be handed out to prospective customers.
  • See all jobs at a glance
    What happens when a client calls asking for a job that you’ve done for them? Don’t lose time by searching for paper files; instead, using a professional maid service software solution can easily launch a jobs tab so you can see all their past jobs at a glance. You can even see the future jobs scheduled.
  • Maid Service SoftwareSet reminders
    There’s no need to stick post-it notes everywhere. You can simply set up reminders that will remind you with a pop-up alarm so that you don’t have to miss an appointment or an important task.
  • Improve quality control
    Unfortunately, quality control hasn’t historically been tracked very well in this industry. However, with a professional maid service software package includes custom notes and checkboxes for both employees to audit their own work as well as having customers feedback if they wish.
  • Custom Features
    Feature requests in response to customer demand are an integral part of any professional solution. A tried and true solution has years of customer input.
Rita Gunther McGrath

Rita Gunther McGrath

Unfortunately, says Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath, those days for small business owners to maintain a “sustainable competitive advantage” are gone forever. She advocates for a “transient competitive advantage” by updating our procedures, business strategy and office practices so that we can maintain our existing customer base by learning to master the new rules. The new rules in business is good technology – good software is what runs it.
Maid Service Software

Handyman Business Software

Handyman Business Software

Independent businesses are constantly trying to find the time to streamline what they’re doing and reduce their bottom line expenses. By using handyman business software, a handymen can offer their services with efficiency so that he can manage his jobs more quickly and effectively.

Who are today’s Handyman Businesses?
Mobile Phone for BusinessA person skilled at a wide range of repairs in office buildings, residences and retail spaces knows that odd jobs and fix-up tasks can include everything from light plumbing to electric jobs. What makes the handyman unique is their ability to get the job done fairly and effectively – without having to call in high-expense specialists. Their customers know that a skilled handyman might be called to remodel a room, help with installations, assemble projects or other work that is otherwise not something the customer wants to do him or herself. Available estimates put the market for home-maintenance and repair at more than $126 billion per year and increasing 4% annually. Because more than half of American homes are older than 25 years, the demand for efficient and effective handymen is growing hand over fist. The number of independent operators and franchise businesses are growing in the United States. That competition means it’s important to have effective technology for managing a handyman business.

What technology tools can help today’s growing Handyman Business?
Because quality of work, safety, liability, cost, efficiency and dependability are the major strengths of any good small business, handyman business software should cover 10 touchstones for this type of business:

  • Scheduling Functionality – Know when and where to dispatch services for customers. A good calendar solution should provide multiple options for viewing employee activity, weekly dispatch notes, availability and more. An ideal solution offers integrated mapping options for locating clients and tracking employees onsite.
  • Customer Relationship  Functionality – Manage all information regarding customers and sales prospects, including contact information, print and email mail campaigns, pop-up alarms and reminders for sales prospects, and thorough account transactions for customers.
  • Scheduling SoftwareEstimation Functionality – Create customer quotes that are based on parameters defined by custom settings such as per square foot or percentages. These estimates should be easily emailed, printed or faxed to customers.
  • Employee/Team Information Management – Manage employees so that you know where they are, what jobs they are assigned, payroll data including hourly and overtime rates, and employee skills and certifications. Group employees into teams and manage them on the fly with the right software.
  • Cloud Solution for Mobile Devices – The most powerful and vital tool of any successful service business should be available on-the-go as well as at your desk. Key to a good scheduling management software is the ability to use the platform on a mobile phone or tablet – because readiness is key. One innovative solution to consider is Web Express, an online version of traditional Scheduling Manager software that allows employees to manage scheduling while in the field.
  • Service Categorization and Pricing Functionality – Track and manage the different jobs provided while running analytics and reports to ensure that optimal pricing reflects the trends.
  • Payroll Functionality – A good solution needs to make payroll easy and dependable. Payroll should be automatically recorded when jobs are completed, and hourly pay, overtime, per-job and commission settings are needed. By integrating with popular programs such as QuickBooks or other platforms, the software allows for dynamic integrations.Handyman-Business-Software
  • Inventory Functionality – Tracking items that are in or out of stock is often done manually, but a good manager knows this aspect of business must be highly automated using software that allows for flexibility and thorough tracking. Set automatic threshold warnings and receive alerts when stock runs low.
  • Payment Processing Functionality – Once the job is complete, now comes the task of ensuring customers are invoiced and make payment in a timely manner. Be sure the software offers solutions for credit card transactions, checks and money orders.

Handyman business software responds to the needs of this unique business. One day a handyman might be asked to hang pictures or a flat-screen television while the next day he might have a technical wiring project. No matter what the job – woodwork, painting and decorating, plumbing, electrical work, doors and locks – handymen can accelerate revenues by adopting efficiencies through available technologies. Finding a handyman business software solution supports the core business of getting it done.

thoughtfulsystems.com

Why shoe cobblers are smarter than bankers

Why shoe cobblers are smarter than bankers

Along with chimney-sweeps and milkmen, cobblers are nearly extinct. They ply their trade in fewer and fewer places having been relegated to the hollows of New York City subways and discount storefronts in suburban rinky dink shopping centers. Nonetheless, a few shoehorns are steadfast in their trade, these indomitable and hearty cobblers demonstrating a resilience against the throwaway mentality our generation will be remembered for.

Cordwainers make shoes while cobblers resole, stretch, resurface, reshape and reheel them. Perhaps not surprisingly, some shoe repairmen are thriving with honed business models and steady revenue from mostly white collared businessmen. In New York City, for instance, financiers and bankers can’t seem to break ties with the healers.

Where have all the Cobblers Gone?

  • 30 Rockefeller Plaza – The F/D Subway has Eddie’s Shop where bankers sit reading newspapers while getting their shoes coddled and cobbled, the gawking tourists stopping at the window and snapping pictures.
  • Columbus Circle 59th Street – At Nivelo Shoe Repair you can get your pronated shoe heel replaced while getting a haircut, too.
  • Penn Station 34th Street – Soen Shoe Repair will fix the heel on your wife’s Christian Louboutins – while you get a straight-razor shave.
  • Chelsea 8th Avenue – Romano Cobbler is known for sole saving, specializing in Joh. Rendenbach leather soles.

I went to shoe cobblers to get my shoes fixed while working on Wall Street in the 1990s, but what I learned from them changed how I view business forever. Sound business strategies and shoe maintenance have a lot in common. Long before I became a website manager, I built electronic trade order management systems for money managers, writing their specifications, designing their UIs and writing their user guides. Bankers and traders are a fickle bunch, their rapid-fireness and volatile natures mirroring the shark tank that is Finance. These investors are known for their unbreakable discipline and independent thinking – I got to know this regal class of businessmen during my formative years in New York City. Shoe Cobblers versus BankersBut there was one man smarter than the lot of them – someone I met when I was too broke to buy new shoes, so I frequented his shop called Minas Shoe Repair. Minas worked a lower concourse storefront at 2 World Trade Center. He was something of a sage when it came to doling out business advice, and the financiers trusted him. He was keen to splint Auden wingtips or buttress the foxing on Gucci toe caps. He advised that Italian wedges crack if you don’t fortify the welt, and he insisted on buttressing new soles with rubber so the tread keeps the ground away from the leather. He told me a few important rules for maintaining shoes, encouraging me to nurture them the way an entrepreneur nurtures a business. Here’s a few more nuggets of business advice I gleaned:

  • Anticipate problems before they happen – A new pair of leather-soled shoes, for instance, requires the installation of thin rubber soles to keep them pristine. Evaluating shoes and understanding their strengths and weaknesses allows you to compensate and promote in advance.
  • Repair often – Similar to a good business model, shoes require a tweak here and a fix there to keep them going.
  • Polish with spit to dispel the grit – Nothing beats a professional shoe shine to properly calibrate a pair of cowboy boots, but don’t be afraid to use your own resources to bridge the gap between professional consulting services.
  • Outsource the maintenance – Be good at what you do and delegate tasks to someone who specializes in them. You’ll never polish the way a professional shoe shiner can.
  • Source quality polish – When it’s raining or snowing, the best water repellent is the natural lipids of mink oil or a premium shoe polish. The synthetic oils derived from petroleum are cheaper in the short term but will not keep the leather in the long term. Find the best resources available and pay up for them.
  • Be patient when breaking in – Jumping in too deep with a new pair of shoes is bad for your feet and bad for the shoes. Business models have kinks that need working out, too.
  • Know your limitations – Shoes with a dash of class and panache aren’t made for a rainy day, so be sure to fortify them accordingly or not wear them at all. Sometimes you need to wear rubber boots despite the folly of their style. People respect utility over good looks.

Minas knew that maintaining a smart business starts with fundamental analyses to identify strengths and weaknesses that lead to the achievement of objectives. For shoes, we want comfort, performance and good looks. Business is not much different, and looking good while making money remains clutch for our generation. Profits come by striking a balance between maximum returns and minimal sacrifice while looking graceful along the way. Likewise, nurturing a long life for a good pair of shoes follows the same model.

Minas had nurtured his business since 1969 when he began the long journey from his native Greece to America, arriving in New York with no money and little language skills. He first worked in a kitchen before he was able to save enough money to open a shop on 18th Street. But he aspired to bigger heights and by 1977 Minas Shoe Repair opened in the World Trade Center. He doubled the size of his business and sourced help to keep up with the growing clientele. He was thriving.

But then it happened.

Minas Shoe Repair was destroyed in the September 11th attacks. Hundreds of businesses were obliterated and thousands of workers were forced away from downtown Manhattan. The migration of the major investment houses Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bear Stearns occurred long before the attacks on September 11th forced the other big houses to follow suit. Over the years Minas had come to rely on the suits to keep his business humming, but he suddenly found himself – at the age of 60 – having to employ that advice he doled out regularly to his customers.

His regression toward the mean eventually took Minas to his current location on 67 Wall Street, but those tumultuous years following New York City’s biggest disaster nearly broke him. Stacy Curtin interviewed Minas in 2011 and wrote how he clawed his way out of near bankruptsy to return to his place of prominence as Wall Street’s Cobbler Sage:

And his customers come from all over the city and the outer boroughs. “I used to live at the Crest [apartment building] right next door. Now I actually live and work up in midtown,” says customer Noah Bogan. “I don’t really trust any other shoe repair shops, so I still come back here.”
– Minas Polychronakis

Our aptitude for grasping various methodologies in business comes from many places. There’s a lot to learn about strategy from the guys responsible for shoeing those who deal in quotes, spreads and margins in the ETF, IRS and FX markets. Traders and bankers know a lot about business strategy – sure, but how many of them have actually run their own business while plying their trade?

So when the going gets tough, the surefooted are the ones who understands the utility of a good pair of shoes – and the confidence to take them where successful business resides.

Shoe Cobbler

Beyond Content Farms: Better Content Management

Beyond Content Farms: Better Content Management

There are four basic steps for managing content on a website – focus it, source it, create it and disseminate it. Clearly, the hardest part about implementing these steps is the repetition that must accompany them. Search engine optimization (SEO) benefits result in the ability for a website manager to repeat these steps on a regular schedule. Whether it’s every day, every week or every month, these steps for managing content should be repeated like clockwork. Consistency will win the race.

Focus it
Google looks for consistency and keyword expertise when indexing websites. In addition to demonstrating a clear objective and purpose, Google offers a number of other tips to avoid creating bad content. A lack of focus on a particular topic damages SEO more than most website managers know. For that reason, website managers should be focusing content around consistent keywords to demonstrate their niche. Yoast is the de facto tool for choosing keywords to focus content, providing suggestions for long tail keywords (containing multiple words) that suggests which keywords are best. (Blotter uses Yoast and you should, too.) Not being disciplined and consistent in administering a website could be your biggest mistake.

Yoast

Using Yoast will help improve your long tail keyword strategy – reflecting what users see when they type a search term into a Google search box.

Source it
Content farms (also called content mills) employ large numbers of writers to produce text. Google hates them because the content is soulless and pedantic. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with the practice of a room full of scribes producing content for a website, the results too often have bad grammar, disparate information and (at its worst) plagiarism.

A better strategy is for website managers to nurture relationships with individuals who understand the mission of the website and have expertise in it. Quality sourcing is why most companies with a successful SEO strategy delegate the responsibility of content creation to internal employees. Sourcing it within is the trend for most start-ups, for instance. Each employee must write on a regular basis.

Create it
Managing content on a website is all about demonstrating expertise on a particular subject. Creating informative content that demonstrates thought leadership or demonstrates a unique or compelling argument is what all good viral posts and videos have in common. Blotter follows and recommends the Ann Handley model for publishing dynamic content, but Blotter has simplified it to focus on the good of the good writing style:


The Good of the Good Writing Style

  • Good anticipation
  • Good data
  • Good teaching
  • Good writing
  • Good rewriting
  • Good logic
  • Good simplicity
  • Good reiteration
  • Good natured
  • Good editing

Disseminate it
We’ve mentioned many times how having a website is not enough for successful SEO. Most people use networking through LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter to get personal references from friends, or they look on review sites such as Yelp! or Google Maps to answer questions about perspective businesses. The dissemination of media should be a carefully choreographed affair touching on every kind of outlet, sending content to as many social networking services as possible – in tandem.

Blotter uses social media aggregators to help organize the parallel publishing of media. Hootsuite is one of the more popular tools used by website managers to aggregate and disseminate media, but Blotters prefers BufferApp, a service which not only pulls in the major social media services to one place, but lets you schedule when to send out the messages over the course of the weeks to come:

Content Dissemination

For most website managers, content originates on a website and trickles out to social media outlets. For this reason, these websites should be top-level domains (i.e., dot-coms). Consistency in publication schedules and consistency with internally linking nomenclature is also necessary. That means that you must ensure a consistent naming convention for long talk keywords as well as permalinks. To create a good permalink, create a title that encompasses the long tail keyword,” that literal phrase someone might search. Make sure your “Permalink” matches the title exactly, using dashes to separate spaces:

Good nomenclature

(Use dashes to spell out article names literally.)

Finally, a website manager should remember to keep a calendar and enforce the publishing schedule like a drill sergeant. Whether you only publish once per month or once per day, make sure it’s at the exact same time. Following these four basic steps for managing content on a website should result in better content and better SEO.

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