Why should people read your blog?

Why should people read your blog?

I have already written about how the way to get your business or your blog (and a blog is a business or an important part of one)   noticed, and that is to show that you are experienced in your field. No matter what you are blogging about, there are loads and loads of other blogs out there on the same subject as yours, what makes yours one that people should read?

What makes my blog for older and or disabled people looking for work, a good one to read is that I am an ordinary person in this position, who writes from personal experience. I am not an expert in recruitment and career guidance, nor am I a government official putting together the Job centres website, telling you how wonderful it will be for you to work, even though you are very unwell and have had your disability benefits removed by welfare reform, and how easy it will be for you to find a job. ..I am a person in this position myself, writing from experience and reality.

Remember that while you are job hunting or trying to begin a business, you and your blog or website, your CV /resume are a brand, so you have to market yourself the same way as you would market a product.

Many people are rather afraid of getting their head around SEO, and are not even too sure what it is. It is Search engine optimization, and to demystify this for a job seeker it means knowing the right key words to put in your resume / CV, website or blog. This is especially important now that many companies use automatic scanning systems to read submitted CVs that will pick out the required keywords that the company wants to see in a job application. If you do not have the required keywords then your CV/resume will not get past the scanning…and in the case of a blog or website, it has far less chance of making it to the top of the search engines.

http://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/content/seoandyourcv.htm

http://www.job-hunt.org/article_resumeSEO.shtml

http://www.job-hunt.org/resumekeywords.shtml

http://www.businessinsider.com/resume-seo-how-to-use-keywords-to-get-noticed-2014-9

http://www.quintcareers.com/SEO_for_job-seekers.html

http://www.quintcareers.com/job-seeker_SEO-dos-donts.html

If your blog is a blog about your business or your freelance work, then you will need to learn the useful SEO terms for the subject of your blog posts. For example, I am a writer, blogger and a job hunter, so it helps me to learn about and understand SEO for writers:

http://www.selloutyoursoul.com/landing/seo-course-for-writers/

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/a-freelance-writers-basic-guide-to-seo/

SEO for blogger is another term that brings up articles to help to write a blog with keywords that are SEO rich.

Once you have learned the principles of what makes a blog or indeed a CV or resume readable, then you have to put the stages in place and have it look good …with a CV /resume this starts with a good heading, so does a blog. If these do not appeal to the reader at first glance, then there is not much chance that the rest will be read.  If the contents are interesting, relevant, appeal to what the reader wants and are well presented, then you are likely to get readers and responses. Because it will be what people are looking for.  

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via photopin cc

 

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How to Promote and Drive Traffic to Your Blog

How to Promote and Drive Traffic to Your Blog

 You have put a lot of time and effort into creating and designing your blog, writing posts, and uploading content. However, your work is not done yet. To get the most out of your posts and to drive traffic to your blog, you must promote it as much as you can. We will cover several ways that you can promote your blog (the majority are free). Treat this as a check-list and with a little work, you will get the most leverage out of your blog posts.

 http://www.viglink.com/blog/2013/11/01/how-to-promote-and-drive-traffic-to-your-blog/

How to get your business noticed

So, you have decided to use those skills that you know you have, whether they be crafts, writing, consultancy, or any of the many other skills you can put to use to start a small business . However, there are lots of people out there doing just what you do …what makes you different? What makes you better? …and how do you get noticed?... Press coverage is not just about writing press releases , it is about working the media and knowing where you want to be seen, e.g., other peoples blogs and your social media sites ,  it is all about PR and how well you use it, whoever media you are targeting .

To get customers for your business, you need to be different to the competition …you need to be better than them too ...so what makes you different and better?

When writing my blog for older or disabled people looking for jobs or ways to make an income, no way am I a professional writer or blogger ..Yet. However, I believe that what gets me readers is that I write from personal experience.

I am not a politician or job centre adviser, advising seriously ill people that work is good for them so they will lose their disability benefit and be hounded to look for and apply for jobs that they cannot do, in order to qualify for job seekers allowance and not get sanctions for not applying for enough jobs. Nor am I when I write my blog, a graduate with years of working in employment. However, what I am is an older person with disabilities, unable to continue to do the job that I had done and struggling to be accepted for less physical work that I could have done , but was rejected for due to age and /or lack of experience .

I am someone who has experience of being unable to get disability benefits, in spite of having partial sight, high blood pressure, a heart condition and arthritis and a history of fractures that make mobility, especially in icy winter conditions difficult. I have experience of having  to claim Job seekers allowance , and being in the position of having to declare myself fit for work , which means that to get Job seekers allowance , you have to be prepared to apply for any job at all, the position being that claiming Job seekers allowance means you are fit to work .You can apply for limitations to be set on the type of work you do, when you apply , but this may limit your availability for work as seen by the Job centre, and you still will not get disability benefits .  

I do not have a degree in marketing , nor am I a bright young thing in recruitment, but what I want to do and where I am heading with my blog , is to have it evolve into an employment service for older and /or disabled people . ..And being an older person, with disabilities having to find ways to make an income, I write from experience and knowing what help and advice is out there. So much is available online to help you, from small business ideas if you need some inspiration and loads of advice about starting and running a business.

If you are not going to start your own business, there is a lot of help to write a CV/resume and search for and apply to suitable jobs, with so many jobs advertised online. Of course, so many will not be suitable, but there are many home based opportunities that do not involve starting a business of your own.

Everyone has skills and talents of some sort, even though you may well be feeling a lack of confidence if you have been unemployed for some time. If you need to make money, or get a job, the way to be noticed and beat the competition is to be an expert, or at least clearly knowledgeable in your field, choose something you are good at and no need to be too wacky . …use those skills and that experience, get yourself noticed.