Should we obsess about earning shares and links with content in B2B online marketing? Buzzsumo does. They’ve been at it for a few years now, madly crunching data gathered from their own platform, to objectively report on blog post formats and content types that are well shared and earn links. Shares and links come with…
I must admit: I’m a latecomer to business blogging. I joined the party in 2011 and got off to a rocky start. Nearly all bloggers do. Five years later, I know what works. I’m working the strategies to great effect—on my website, for a long list of top marketing blogs, and for many clients….
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…
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…
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…
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…
Come. Sit. Stay. You’re going to enjoy this one. I’m a contributor to the blog at ClearVoice and among the features I write there is a series called “Branding Ovation,” where articles applaud some of the best content marketers and showcase their work. This post is about Earth Rated, their user generated content, and the many cool…
The “SEO is dead” parade marches on. Even some search professionals are now writing obits for their old friend. But search continues to thrive. It continues to drive traffic more than, well, anything. So what gives? For any given search, ten web pages are going to command page one rankings and earn waaaaaay more…
It’s back from the dead. Actually, it’s still dead. Huh? What I’m trying to say is I have a new infographic for you. I’ve taken the “Eulogy for a Blog” post I originally wrote for Copyblogger (and republished here) and teamed with my friends at ClearVoice to create this haunting infographic. Enjoy. [BTW, if blogging…
Writing leads is a bitch. But I just wrote a great one. How do I know? You read the second sentence. And now you’re on the fifth. I’m on a roll. You’re into sentence number seven and I love you for it. The objective of the first sentence (often called the lead, or…