Instead of laboring in vain to do more with less, you’re better off doing fewer things well. Consolidate your energy on your core business and core strengths. Instead of half-assing thirty things, be the best at three. Continue reading
Every once in awhile we’ll make several sites—or a lot of sites—for one client. The general subject or purpose is different for each site—justifying the existence of multiple sites. But obviously, there’s crossover in interest. So when we write a blog that pertains to more than one of those sites, it seems logical to share that content in more than one place. Since the client owns the content and both of the sites, it’s not a copyright infringement, so there’s no reason not to share, right? Well, yes and no. If you’re keeping up on the latest SEO best practices, … Continue reading
In 2012, content isn’t just king. It’s the supreme ruler of our wired universe. It should be valued, respected and treated with the dignity it deserves. Otherwise, it might kill you. Or your website, anyway. Big brands know this. Red Bull has embraced content marketing big time. Coca-Cola is betting its future on it. Ignoring the critical importance of content is a deadly mistake. But you already knew that. What you might not know is that publishing online content that’s “good enough” (or, in the parlance of my dad, “half-assing it”) is lethal, too. Before I count the ways mediocre … Continue reading
Not long ago, I interviewed a young woman who was about to graduate from design school with a degree in Visual Communications. She’d spent the last four years of her life learning about the intersections of business and art, technology and marketing. She was looking for her first job. She showed me her portfolio. Some nice posters and handbills. A couple of ads. Some classwork. A lot of it was thoughtful. She had a couple of really nice pieces. She wasn’t a bad writer. She needed to work on her typography, but most kids coming out of design school do. … Continue reading
Ask a web copywriter about keywords, and there’s a chance you’ll be met with rolling eyes. As common as keyword strategies have become, there are still a lot of writers out there who are put off by the idea of an SEO specialist micro-managing their word choices. Admittedly, I used to be one of them. It’s not that I’ve ever doubted the potential of an effective keyword strategy, and I’ve never minded the extra work. It’s that I sometimes get stuck with keywords that are less than flattering to the tone of my copy. Some keywords are dry. Robotic. Downright … Continue reading
Since the middle of last August, we’ve been running Punchnel’s: a daily literary magazine on the web. We’ve learned a lot of things about marketing content for content’s sake. Here are a few lessons from seven months of publishing: 1. Audience grows meaningfully over time. Since we began publishing, we’ve had more than 21,000 unique visitors. That’s a lot of people who’ve been exposed to messages on Punchnel’s. It didn’t happen all at once, but tens, hundreds, at a time. About 48 percent came more than once. Nearly 10 percent visited 50 times or more–an average of more than twice a … Continue reading
Instead of laboring in vain to do more with less, you’re better off doing fewer things well. Consolidate your energy on your core business and core strengths. Instead of half-assing thirty things, be the best at three. Continue reading
