This “SEO blog post checklist” gives you: 21 tips, organized in three lists, to cover: 5 ways to optimize a blog post for SEO 10 tactics to help engage readers and realize greater success with social media 6 elements that will embellish your blog posts and inspire readers to spend more time on your site By applying…
I’ve been sharpening my copywriting skills as a pro for nearly 30 years. How’s it done? Much like any art, or any craft, perpetual improvement calls for: Studying how the best do what they do Practicing Developing your own style and work habits I’m going to share with you many of the lessons…
Are bloggers spending more time writing? Do they write longer or shorter posts? Has publishing frequency changed for the typical blogger? In an effort to identify the business blog trends of 2015, my friends at Orbit Media asked 1074 bloggers 11 questions. They concluded the business of blogging is changing. Some things are consistent from the prior year, but…
Content reach… Grr. Ugh. Sh*t. It’s become a bit of a problem, hasn’t it? Your recent masterpiece is the most helpful content you’ve ever published. You know it. But no one else does. Why? It’s found no audience—or no audience has found it. This is the dirge of millions of content marketers around the…
We’re going to talk about post website depression (PWD). If you’re a sufferer, I urge you not to be embarrassed. You’re hardly alone. Generally, PWD is preceded with wild mood swings. For months you’re knee-deep in the grind. Meetings and conference calls. Site maps and wireframes. Copy and code. Layouts and links. Flurries of…
Feeling like toast? Content marketing burns you out. You see it every day. Thousands of companies join the content marketing parade while thousands more bail. Why? They don’t have the resources to stay the course. Like most, they understood if they consistently published the valuable content readers actually want to read, watch, listen to and look…
I recently published What Social Media Tactics Are Most Effective? The article lists 59 social media tactics I dug up from top ranking posts on the subject. It was no picnic chopping the list in half when I decided to create an infographic, 30 Effective Social Media Tactics. Shortly after I created the post and infographic,…
When you battle for attention in the noise fest that is the Internet, the most important skill you could possibly possess is headline writing. Your headline is going to be the make-or-break element that determines whether or not your content is read. I want to help make you a better headline writer. I’ve created a cheat…
Marketing works differently now. Push is out. Pull is in. You have to think inbound. Traditional “outbound” marketing tactics that dominated the pre-Google world are now alarmingly ineffective. We all have the power to filter out advertising and we’re not afraid to use it. The customer is in control. The communications process begins if and…
Two words: how to. Simple. Effective. Foolproof. Timeless. “How to” are the two most important words on the web. Experienced writers know it. Now you do too. Should every headline begin with “how to?” No. That’d be boring as the Celine Dion catalog. Should every business blog include how-to articles? Yes. Some blogs use…