Content marketing tools and training.
The last time you got into your car, did you notice if your wheels were properly aligned?
My guess is that 99.99% of you didn’t even consider it. And if you did, would you really know how to check anyway?
But it’s an important question. Wheels being out of alignment can decrease gas mileage, reduce the longevity of tires through uneven wear, and make handling the car more difficult.
You might even say that it can cost you in traffic.
The same is true for your website.
It’s time for another installment in our series of free content marketing ebooks.
Last time, we talked about content marketing strategy. Specifically, a 7-step framework that mapped out who you want to reach and what business objectives you want to meet.
That strategy is centered around authority. In this sense, authority means becoming the likeable subject matter expert and thought leader who people listen to, and Google loves.
This post is for anyone who knows they’ve got what it takes to be a content superstar — but just can’t find that tipping point.
You are relentless. Thorough. Creative. Curious. You can write most people under the table. You read like mad and aren’t afraid to catch hell.
You are a self-starter, and you work hard. In fact, that hard work has paid off.
You’ve built up a nice little audience for your blog. You get a steady stream of visitors to your site every day, some meaningful comments with each post you publish, and occasionally someone emails to tell you how much they love your writing.
For a mere blog, Copyblogger has been around for quite awhile now. And we’ve developed a few traditions.
One of them is that every year, just around the time when you wondered if your relatives were ever going home, we slip in a “Best of Copyblogger” post right before New Year’s.
It’s a chance for you to catch up on something you might have missed.
And it lets us revisit content we are particularly proud of.
These are some of our votes for the best Copyblogger articles from 2012, based both on your enthusiasm and our own.
Allow me to tell you two stories.
One is about a person who — through tragic accident — had part of his brain destroyed, leading to revelatory advances in psychology and brain research.
The other, about a stout, whiskered man who thinks sound decisions can come only from a cool head.
Do emotions affect our decisions? Do cool heads truly prevail when faced with choices?
And who cares? What does all this have to do the art and craft of copywriting and content creation?
How’s that for a headline?
If you saw the news out of the Obama camp yesterday, “Hey” was the most successful email subject line of a very data-driven and oddly personal email campaign for fundraising. By all accounts (especially election results), Obama’s digital strategy was a wild success.
So, I decided to try that headline with this post. I’ll be able to easily see how it does based on email open rates and traffic levels, plus other metrics like social sharing and commenting.
And, despite violating every bit of headline and subject line advice we’ve ever given you, it just might work. The reason why may surprise you, though.
