Category: Blogging

How to Write a Short Blog Post With a Big Impact

how-to-write-a-short-blog-post-with-a-big-impactThere are a million reasons to keep up a company blog. One of the main reasons is to position your company as an expert in your field. Sounds hard doesn’t it? It’s a daunting task, learning how to use a blog to make yourself an expert. There is a trick I am going to share that makes it quite easy. It’s not something that can be used with every blog post, but once every week or two it is worth putting out there.

Become A Source of Information

One way to position yourself as an expert is to be a go-to source of information for your field.…

How to Make Business Blogging Worth Your Time

how-to-make-busines-blogging-worth-your-timeI’m trying an experiment this week. I am going to try to keep both posts under 200 words and still get my point across. I want to see if shorter blog posts can still be effective. I think shorter posts will get read more because they can hold people’s attention span. Let me know what you think of short vs. long in the comments. And now here we go (these words don’t count toward the 200☺):

Blogging takes time, effort, and money (if you pay a freelancer). They’re fantastic on a website because they show visitors you’re current, you follow through on commitments, and blog posts help position you as an expert if you write about topics you know inside and out.…

What Everybody Ought to Know About Web Design and Content

3-important-aspects-of-web-designDisclaimer: I am not a web designer. Not even close. But I do write a lot of content for the web, which has given me some insight on what aspects of web design draw in readers and let the content do its job.

1. Navigation

This is one of those aspects of web design that if it’s done right, you won’t even notice. Navigation is what allows visitors to move from one web page to another. It is essential to the functionality of the site and the ability to absorb information.

The most important part of navigation is that it feels intuitive.…

Why it’s Important to Keep Learning

why-its-important-to-keep-learningToday is a short post as I’m leaving for Breckenridge in a few hours for a family ski vacation.  I was thinking about what I was going to load onto my Kindle for the trip and at the same time trying to decide on my blog topic for the day.  They didn’t seem inter-related until I realized I was stocking my Kindle full of copywriting books.  Lame, right?  Not to me.  Here’s why:

I am an avid fiction reader.  I love reading a good novel and devote as much time as possible to finding books that will really knock my socks off. …

Why it’s Important to Step Outside Your Comfort Zone: Getting Personal

Today I’m breaking one of my own blogging rules and getting personal. Not overly personal, but I am going to share that I got a puppy this weekend. Her name is Harriet (after Harry Potter) and she is a Tibetan Terrier. Over the last two days I have very much fallen in love with this adorable ball of fur, and don’t even mind when she whines at 3am (I hope my neighbors feel the same).

Now here’s the shocking part of my story. I don’t like dogs. I wanted one as a child, yet as I made my way to adulthood, the idea of all the work that went into a dog did not appeal to me.…

Why Your SEO Campaign Isn’t Working

why-your-seo-campaign-isn't-workingI’ve had a lot of conversations lately with new bloggers who want their posts to resonate with the SEO gods, but aren’t quite sure what their keywords are. Unless you have prior SEO experience, you’re going to need to hire someone to determine those for you.

Here’s why: if you are a dry cleaners in Chicago, that does not automatically make your keyword Chicago dry cleaner. It seems like it should, but it doesn’t.

The reason is there might be 500 other dry cleaners trying to optimize that key word. Meaning, there is intense competition and no way you can dominate that key word without spending thousands of dollars a month on an SEO campaign.…