Content marketing tools and training.
This week on The Lede …
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You hear everyone talking about online content marketing, because with today’s Internet-empowered prospect, content marketing is what works.
And yet, you may be struggling with creating content that works for your business or your clients. Or maybe you’re just trying to take your game to the next level.
There’s a lot to learn, and even then you’re left asking potentially expensive and time-consuming questions:
Writing is scary.
Sometimes when we publish something, it makes us feel like our insides are hanging out, for all the world to see. We feel vulnerable. We feel naked. We feel … terrified.
But here’s the thing — we have to keep writing, in spite of the fear. If we let fear stop us, our content will have no spark, no life. And everything we write will be completely unremarkable.
Right now, I’m working on a blog post (on a different topic) that scares the living heck out of me. I am afraid of the strong opinions and passion that are rising from some long-buried place inside me. I’m worried that I won’t write well enough to clearly communicate what I need to say. I’m worried about what people will say when I publish this piece.
Bottom line — I’m scared.
You’re smart.
You know you need to be helpful on your blog in order to grow your audience. You share useful tips. You give away free tutorials.
But somehow you’re not connecting with your readers. Your blog seems a little quiet.
Sure, you’re getting some traffic. But a certain spark is missing. It’s not the enjoyable party you’d imagined it to be.
Is it getting you down?
Today I’m sharing five tips to engage with your readers, make them feel at home, and to turn your blog into a nice and warm get-together.
Allow your jaw to become unhinged at this statistic:
There are over 1 million more mobile devices activated every day across the world than there are babies born.
Yeah, mind = blown.
Indeed, designing with a mobile-first mindset becomes more important — quite literally — by the day. As does answering burning questions related to mobile design best practices.
For example: Is mobile responsive web design good for SEO or not?
This has become a hotly debated topic, even right here in the Copyblogger comment sections, with reasonable minds making reasonable arguments on both sides.
Depending on where you look and what you read, you might come away thinking that Responsive Web Design is in perfectly fine shape regarding SEO … or that it creates a mess that’s going to destroy your search results.
Even as a seasoned writer, I’m not immune to making simple but stupid mistakes. Take the word “jive” for instance …
Ever since I was kicking the slats out of my crib, I thought it meant “to agree with, to be in harmony.” But nnnnnnnnoooooo.
Jive is a language immortalized by the movie Airplane. The word that I should have been using was “jibe.”
Here’s the thing, the English language is full of pitfalls — simple errors that can alienate readers, turn off subscribers, and annoy buyers.
Bill was a struggling copywriter with a big idea.
He’d spend hours and days laboring over headlines, landing pages, ads, and emails for his few clients, but the results of his work were often not worthy of comment.
He’d had enough.
One warm Friday night, he decided he would build a machine — a copywriting machine — that could be fed raw data on one end, and would spit out highly converting copy on the other.
If he got it right, the business world would beat a path to his desk.
In 1962, Time magazine called David Ogilvy “the most sought-after wizard in today’s advertising industry.”
In his years as an advertising executive and copywriter, Ogilvy created some of the world’s most successful and iconic marketing campaigns, including the legendary Man in the Hathaway Shirt, plus notable efforts for Schwepps, Rolls Royce, and the island of Puerto Rico among many others.
At the 1961 Masters Tournament, Arnold Palmer held a one stroke lead over Gary Player as he walked off the 18th tee. On the trip up the fairway he allowed himself to talk to a friend who congratulated Palmer on his win.
Even though Palmer knew he needed to concentrate on finishing the hole, he couldn’t help but think about the green jacket that would soon be on his shoulders.
Palmer bogeyed the hole and lost the Masters by one stroke to Player.
You want to become a better writer.
I know this because you’re reading Copyblogger.
I also know that you fear becoming a better writer.
This I know because you must change to become better, and to fear change is to be human.
But what if I told you that you only need to change one thing — one small thing — to achieve your goal of becoming a better writer?
Would you believe me?
