As resume writers, you wouldn't think that we would have any issues coming up with content ... but some of my most popular blog posts recently have had to do with content! From planning your content to monetizing your content to writing better content to finding time to write content, readers of this blog like tips about content. I'm happy to oblige with today's blog post, which focuses on inspiration for your content.
Like with most writing, the hardest part is getting started. (In my special report on "Write Great Resumes Faster," I even had a special section to help tackle the "facing the blank page" obstacle to writing resumes. Getting started is sometimes the major obstacle -- once you know what you want to write about, you can create the structure of the document -- whether that's a resume, blog post, ezine article, or whatever -- and get going from there!)
So here you go -- seven ways to find content ideas.
1. Grab a magazine, any magazine you have in your home and look at the cover. Convert each of the teaser headlines into headlines for your blog or website. You'll likely have things like:
* The top ten ways to___
* Five secrets of__
* Easy ways to ____
And so on. It's a great way to come up with quick and easy content ideas (a headline for a blog post, for example).
2. Visit your favorite blog and expand on their latest blog post. Or better yet, comment on the latest blog post and then write or blog about your comment. You can use it to generate traffic to your site and provide new and valuable information to your audience.
3. Watch the national news for 10 minutes. Chances are youíll see something that relates to you. You can use this news story to generate ideas for your content. For example, a news story about the job market might lead you to write a tips-oriented article for job seekers. The news, while sometimes depressing, can also inspire great, and timely, content ideas.
4. Pirate. Use comments and feedback you've received from others to create content for your blog or website. For example, you might use a question comment from a reader to start a new blog post on the same topic. Your readers are actually great sources of inspiration. You can also use your response to the commenter to generate a new blog post or article. (That's what I did with this blog post; the positive feedback I've received on previous blog posts about content-related topics inspired this one!)
5. Celebrity Watch/Pop Culture. Celebrities provide an abundance of entertainment for society. We watch what they do, who they do it with, what they wear, what they eat and where they live. You can also find inspiration from pop culture -- music, movies, television.
6. Find a quote that you love and expand on it. Share why you love it and what it means to you. Tie it to resumes or the job search process and ask readers to provide their favorite quote on the subject. (Perseverance quotes are always popular for jobseekers!)
7. Review a book, product, or service. If you're stumped for content, reviews are always appreciated by readers. Review resume writing books (use your Amazon affiliate link); review resume distribution services (ResumeSpider has an affiliate program); review reference checking services (Allison Taylor has an affiliate program). Reviews provide valuable information and they give you an opportunity to earn an affiliate income.
Writer's block -- or content idea block -- will happen to you at some point. Don't let it derail you! Look around you for insight and inspiration. And to prevent it from happening, keep a notebook with you to jot down ideas as they come to you (or write yourself a note on your smartphone)!
Ideas, information, and resources for professional resume writers.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
Choosing a Professional Conference to Attend
A resume writer asked me yesterday about attending a professional conference. I believe that professional resume writers should be committed to their continuing education, and conference attendance is a part of that. I've attended a half-dozen conferences over the years, although it's been several years since my last one. I'm hoping to attend at least one in 2012.
With the cost to attend a professional conference now averaging $1300 ($400 registration fee; $350 hotel; $325 transportation, $125 food/beverage, $100 miscellaneous) -- not to mention income lost from being out of the office, you want to choose your conference wisely.
When evaluating conference attendance, consider these things:
Program: Is there a topic or program in particular that interests you? Review the conference program outline and decide which sessions you'd like to attend. Is there a particular area of your business or services that you want to learn more about? (i.e., LinkedIn profile development? Writing federal resumes?) See if there is a conference offering training on that subject area.
Organizer: Which organizations are you already a member of? As a member, you'll get a discount on their offerings. However, consider if you're going to get new ideas or information from this organization? If you’ve been participating in their other programs/offerings, you may find that the conference offers “more of the same” instead of new ideas and information.
Location: How easy/hard is it to get there from here? This can also be a factor in the cost. Can you drive? Flying? Airline travel can be unpredictable nowadays, so allow plenty of time to get to your destination in the event your flight is delayed or rescheduled.
Networking Opportunities. One of the strongest outcomes of conference attendance is the people you will be able to meet and connect with. Evaluate the speaker roster — are these folks within the industry who are sharing their expertise? How new is the information they are sharing (have you seen them presenting on this topic before at other conferences)? Then, consider the attendee roster. How many people typically attend the conference? What is the makeup of conference attendees? Are these the folks you want to connect with? For example, you might find that for one conference, attendees are 25% self-employed professionals, 20% military transition specialists, 40% career office staff (either government or educational institutions) and 15% “other.” Another might be 55% self-employed professionals, 30% career office staff, 10% military transition specialists, and 5% “other.” Consider who you want to connect with!
Consider attending a conference in 2012. Here are some of the upcoming offerings:
March 12-14, 2012 – Career Thought Leaders, Baltimore, MD
September 19-22, 2012 – National Resume Writers' Association, Charlotte, SC
October 11-13, 2012 – Career Directors International, San Diego, CA
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
How to Find Your Perfect Niche to Target for Resume Clients
One of the best strategies for success for your resume writing business is to be a specialist, not a generalist. I've written about targeting a niche numerous times on this blog, but it's a topic that can't be examined enough!
The question of who to target with your resume writing services is one that shouldn't be skimped on. It will affect everything else you do and can determine your success or failure with your resume writing business.
Finding the perfect niche involves weighing a lot of different factors to find the perfect one. Here's how to find the perfect niche.
==> The Niche Brainstorm Process
Start by brainstorming as many niches as you can think of. Get out a note pad and jot down ideas.
Once you run out of ideas to jot down from the top of your head, go to Amazon.com and browse some of the different magazine and book titles. If there's a magazine for it, chances are the market is big enough to support a website.
Jot down more ideas, then head over to eBay Pulse. Again, browse the categories and products that are selling and see if those spark any ideas.
Keep brainstorming for a few days to get all the ideas down on paper.
==> Evaluating Profitability
There's generally a trade-off between ease of ranking and profitability. In other words, if there's a lot of money to be made in a certain market, chances are it's going to be fairly competitive. One example is executive resume writing. While writing executive resumes can be lucrative (generally, these command fees from $400 up to $1500+), there is a lot of competition in this market. There is less competition if you segment this further -- for example, women executives, or manufacturing executives.
For most resume writers, the goal is to find a niche market that has profit potential but isn't too difficult to attract prospective clients. One way to determine your online market is to evaluate online traffic for the niche.
Start by using the Google Keyword Tool to evaluate how many searches your keyword(s) get. Then head over to Google, type in the keywords, and take a look at the top results.
Which resume writing sites are ranking for those keywords right now? Check their PageRank and backlinks using Bing Webmaster Tools. The lower the PageRank and the fewer the backlinks, the better your chances of ranking.
Once you've checked out the search engine competition, evaluate how much money there is to be earned in the niche.
Do this by estimating the average customer value. How much is the average sale worth? (For executive resumes, like I said, the average is probably close to $800). Can additional products be sold to the same customer, and if so how many products and at what price? (Many executives will be open to high level resume distribution services, like Bob Bronstein's ProFile Research.)
After this process, you should have a few potential markets with relatively low competition that have high profit potential that you can target.
==> Evaluating Personal Passion
Once you have a few potential markets to get into, it's time to look at your own resume writing passions. Which market(s) hold the most interest for you, personally? Remember that you're going to be working with these clients, so even if it's a lucrative market, if you don't want to work with these type of clients, do NOT choose that niche!
Be sure to choose a niche that has both profit potential and personal appeal.
The question of who to target with your resume writing services is one that shouldn't be skimped on. It will affect everything else you do and can determine your success or failure with your resume writing business.
Finding the perfect niche involves weighing a lot of different factors to find the perfect one. Here's how to find the perfect niche.
==> The Niche Brainstorm Process
Start by brainstorming as many niches as you can think of. Get out a note pad and jot down ideas.
Once you run out of ideas to jot down from the top of your head, go to Amazon.com and browse some of the different magazine and book titles. If there's a magazine for it, chances are the market is big enough to support a website.
Jot down more ideas, then head over to eBay Pulse. Again, browse the categories and products that are selling and see if those spark any ideas.
Keep brainstorming for a few days to get all the ideas down on paper.
==> Evaluating Profitability
There's generally a trade-off between ease of ranking and profitability. In other words, if there's a lot of money to be made in a certain market, chances are it's going to be fairly competitive. One example is executive resume writing. While writing executive resumes can be lucrative (generally, these command fees from $400 up to $1500+), there is a lot of competition in this market. There is less competition if you segment this further -- for example, women executives, or manufacturing executives.
For most resume writers, the goal is to find a niche market that has profit potential but isn't too difficult to attract prospective clients. One way to determine your online market is to evaluate online traffic for the niche.
Start by using the Google Keyword Tool to evaluate how many searches your keyword(s) get. Then head over to Google, type in the keywords, and take a look at the top results.
Which resume writing sites are ranking for those keywords right now? Check their PageRank and backlinks using Bing Webmaster Tools. The lower the PageRank and the fewer the backlinks, the better your chances of ranking.
Once you've checked out the search engine competition, evaluate how much money there is to be earned in the niche.
Do this by estimating the average customer value. How much is the average sale worth? (For executive resumes, like I said, the average is probably close to $800). Can additional products be sold to the same customer, and if so how many products and at what price? (Many executives will be open to high level resume distribution services, like Bob Bronstein's ProFile Research.)
After this process, you should have a few potential markets with relatively low competition that have high profit potential that you can target.
==> Evaluating Personal Passion
Once you have a few potential markets to get into, it's time to look at your own resume writing passions. Which market(s) hold the most interest for you, personally? Remember that you're going to be working with these clients, so even if it's a lucrative market, if you don't want to work with these type of clients, do NOT choose that niche!
Be sure to choose a niche that has both profit potential and personal appeal.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Get More Traffic to Your Resume Website with Links
After publishing an article about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies in the Fall 2011 issue of Resume Writers' Digest, I've been getting more questions from resume writers about how to get traffic to their resume website.
First, a caveat. You're not Amazon.com. You don't need 10,000 visitors to your website each week. If you need 3-5 new clients a week, you probably only need 100-200 qualified visitors to your site weekly. If you can get 10-20% of them contacting you (10-20 calls or emails a week), you can convert a quarter of those into clients.
So keep in mind that those "traffic fuel" or "traffic explosion" courses aren't necessarily a good investment of your time or money. They're geared at driving tens of thousands of visitors ... and can be costly, or contain potentially questionable tactics.
However, a link-building strategy can be a good way to generate visitors to your site ... and, depending on the links, they can be highly qualified prospects. (Even better!)
Getting other websites to link to yours is perhaps the best way to increase the amount of traffic you receive over time. Not only will you gain more traffic when people click on those links and come to your site, but as more websites link to yours the ranking of your website will improve on Google and other search engines (which will lead to additional traffic).
First off, see what sites are already linking to yours. You can check this with Bing Webmaster Tools.
You can also do a quick search on Google for link:www.yourdomain.com.
Keep in mind that Google syndicates its search results, so you'll also see links for sites that use Google results (i.e., AOL, Alexa, etc.)
It's important to recognize that proper link building takes time -- but this shouldn't scare you away from the process. In fact, it should probably be viewed as a positive. Rather than disrupt your other business tasks by requiring you to focus exclusively on building links for a day or week or more, proper link building will require you to dedicate a small amount of time to the process on a regular basis. Ten minutes a week is sufficient.
The first step is to identify where you want to build your links to. Do you want to build traffic to the home page of a your resume business website, to different articles (or a blog) within your website, or to some other online presence -- might be your Facebook page, your Google+ profile, or even your LinkedIn profile.
One of the best ways to build links is organically. To do this you need to become active on other websites that relate to your business. Identify the blogs and community websites that have active discussions and to which you can substantively contribute. When you're commenting or making other contributions, avoid the temptation to promote your resume business or resume writing services directly -- a "soft sell" approach is usually more effective in the long run. Just being available to answer job seeker questions is a good idea.
Whatever your strategy, make sure your links go to a page that exists (and will exist into the future) on your website. This is important because if you change the way that you structure your website, the URLs or web addresses for your existing pages might change. The last thing you want to happen is for someone to click on a link to an article on your site, and instead get a "File Not Found" error. Chances are they won't make the effort to try to find that article by searching your site -- they'll simply leave your website.
If you do restructure any of your websites, or switch to a new blogging platform, then make sure that you have redirects in place so that old links will be forwarded to the new location automatically.
Also make it easy for your readers to share links to your website by ensuring that each page of your website has appropriate "Share," "+1" "Like" and/or "Retweet" buttons for Facebook, Google+, and Twitter (and any other sharing buttons for other social networks).
Finally, you can also generate links by writing articles for sites like ezinearticles.com and including a link to your website or blog in the "resource box" at the end of the article.
Note: Do NOT even consider services that offer to sell you dozens, or even hundreds or thousands, of new links to your website. Many times these links will come from spam websites or spam blogs that will generate very little (if any) quality traffic. Plus, it won't take long for Google and the other search engines to recognize the "spammy" nature of these link farms, so there is a distinct possibility that your web site ranking will actually be punished if you are listed on too many sites. Buying links is a no-no.
But by taking just a few minutes each week to post on websites, commenting on blogs, and writing and posting unique article content, you'll be able to grow a nice stable of links to point to your website.
First, a caveat. You're not Amazon.com. You don't need 10,000 visitors to your website each week. If you need 3-5 new clients a week, you probably only need 100-200 qualified visitors to your site weekly. If you can get 10-20% of them contacting you (10-20 calls or emails a week), you can convert a quarter of those into clients.
So keep in mind that those "traffic fuel" or "traffic explosion" courses aren't necessarily a good investment of your time or money. They're geared at driving tens of thousands of visitors ... and can be costly, or contain potentially questionable tactics.
However, a link-building strategy can be a good way to generate visitors to your site ... and, depending on the links, they can be highly qualified prospects. (Even better!)
Getting other websites to link to yours is perhaps the best way to increase the amount of traffic you receive over time. Not only will you gain more traffic when people click on those links and come to your site, but as more websites link to yours the ranking of your website will improve on Google and other search engines (which will lead to additional traffic).
First off, see what sites are already linking to yours. You can check this with Bing Webmaster Tools.
You can also do a quick search on Google for link:www.yourdomain.com.
Keep in mind that Google syndicates its search results, so you'll also see links for sites that use Google results (i.e., AOL, Alexa, etc.)
It's important to recognize that proper link building takes time -- but this shouldn't scare you away from the process. In fact, it should probably be viewed as a positive. Rather than disrupt your other business tasks by requiring you to focus exclusively on building links for a day or week or more, proper link building will require you to dedicate a small amount of time to the process on a regular basis. Ten minutes a week is sufficient.
The first step is to identify where you want to build your links to. Do you want to build traffic to the home page of a your resume business website, to different articles (or a blog) within your website, or to some other online presence -- might be your Facebook page, your Google+ profile, or even your LinkedIn profile.
One of the best ways to build links is organically. To do this you need to become active on other websites that relate to your business. Identify the blogs and community websites that have active discussions and to which you can substantively contribute. When you're commenting or making other contributions, avoid the temptation to promote your resume business or resume writing services directly -- a "soft sell" approach is usually more effective in the long run. Just being available to answer job seeker questions is a good idea.
Whatever your strategy, make sure your links go to a page that exists (and will exist into the future) on your website. This is important because if you change the way that you structure your website, the URLs or web addresses for your existing pages might change. The last thing you want to happen is for someone to click on a link to an article on your site, and instead get a "File Not Found" error. Chances are they won't make the effort to try to find that article by searching your site -- they'll simply leave your website.
If you do restructure any of your websites, or switch to a new blogging platform, then make sure that you have redirects in place so that old links will be forwarded to the new location automatically.
Also make it easy for your readers to share links to your website by ensuring that each page of your website has appropriate "Share," "+1" "Like" and/or "Retweet" buttons for Facebook, Google+, and Twitter (and any other sharing buttons for other social networks).
Finally, you can also generate links by writing articles for sites like ezinearticles.com and including a link to your website or blog in the "resource box" at the end of the article.
Note: Do NOT even consider services that offer to sell you dozens, or even hundreds or thousands, of new links to your website. Many times these links will come from spam websites or spam blogs that will generate very little (if any) quality traffic. Plus, it won't take long for Google and the other search engines to recognize the "spammy" nature of these link farms, so there is a distinct possibility that your web site ranking will actually be punished if you are listed on too many sites. Buying links is a no-no.
But by taking just a few minutes each week to post on websites, commenting on blogs, and writing and posting unique article content, you'll be able to grow a nice stable of links to point to your website.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)