Posts Tagged ‘CopyBlogger’
Best Copy Writing Tips of 2009
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Now that content marketing has turned every marketer into a publisher, writing skills are more important than ever. Want to launch a successful blog? That takes great writing. Maximize the impact of Twitter for your business? It takes great writing to convey meaning and achieve impact in only 140 characters. Use article marketing to spread your fame and generate links for SEO? Optimize LinkedIn profiles? Write a script for a potentially viral YouTube video? All require great writing.
No one is born a great writer, but anyone with the proper cerebral architecture can learn the skills. Read on for some of the best tips on great copy writing in the past year, from recognized authorities such as Newt Barrett, Ardath Albee and Copyblogger.
Take 5 Minutes Now to Learn How to Write Great Headlines by Content Marketing Today
Newt Barrett reviews Tom Whitwell’s online presentation on writing great headlines, noting that a well-crafted headline can increase readership by a factor of 10 or 20. Tom sums up the task as “working out what the story is, what your reader will respond to, and how to squeeze all the goodness into 68 characters.”
Don’t Do These 12 Things When Writing Headlines by Copyblogger
While the post above focuses on how to write great headlines, Jonathan Morrow here explains a dozen headline writing mistakes to avoid, such as trying to be too clever, ignoring the needs of readers, and settling for less than your best.
The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words and Phrases by SpeedyWap
The misuse, and proper use, of common terms such as “alright” (it’s not a word), “unique” (a word so definative it needs no modifier) and “inflammable” (George Carlin had the greatest line about this: “why do we have flammable, inflammable, and non-inflammable? Seems to me two words should be able to take care of that; either it flams or it doesn’t”).
Darth Blogger’s Holiday Writing Rant by ToughSledding
Along the same lines as the post above, Bill Sledzik shares his list of tragically common writing gaffes from PR students, including using “due to” in place of “because” and starting a sentence with “there is.” My favorite: “Lifeless verbs strangle sentences.”
B2B Marketing Content Turn Offs by Marketing Interactions
Ardath Albee warns writers to avoid seven deadly sins in b2b content writing, such as the use of jargon/hype/fluff and ambiguous takeaways.
Marcom A to Z — J for Jargon by converge
Anna Baxter Kirk explains why jargon isn’t always bad, but advises writers to “beware overused, misunderstood jargon, and terms so obscure that, outside of a certain industry, profession or group, no one will understand.”
A B2B marketing message angle that could close sales by B2BMarketingSmarts
***** 5 stars
Susan Fantle lists the top 10 marketing motivators in the b2b world (e.g. make money, save money, save time), plus a very powerful bonus 11th motivator.
Get Maximum Exposure for Your Content through Syndication by Internet Marketing for Business Owners
Jarom Adair discusses various applications for spreading content automatically through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Best Business Blogging Tips of 2009, Part 1
Sunday, January 10th, 2010How can you keep generating fresh ideas for blog posts? Use email to extend the reach of your blog? Build links and traffic? And most importantly, use a company blog to drive real business results?
Find the answers to these questions and others here in more of the best articles and blog posts on business blogging last year.
7 Ways to Keep Fresh Content Flowing On Your Blog by ProBlogger
Darren Rowse offers seven tips for avoiding “blogger’s block” and keeping fresh ideas and content flowing on your blog, from mind mapping and answering reader questions to taking advantage of guest post opportunities.
How to Build Your Blog Using Good Old-Fashioned E-mail by Copyblogger
Dean Rieck details several methods for utilizing email to promote your blog posts, as well as helpful techniques for encouraging email subscriptions and properly managing your blog email list.
37 Tips for Optimizing Blogs and Feeds – SES New York by Online Marketing Blog
Lee Odden interviews Michael Gray of Atlas Web Services, Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus, Michel Leconte of SEO Samba and Rebecca Lieb, VP of U.S. operations for Econsultancy, about SEO, link building and RSS tactics for business websites and blogs. Among the tips they provide: keep keywords in mind for blog posts and titles, write timely blog posts, and have your own domain.
10 ways to boost the value of your corporate blog by iMedia Connection
Chris Baggott offers tips for finding the “the successful formula for both high ROI and reader satisfaction” for corporate blogs that actually contribute to bottom line success, such as keeping search top of mind, producing an adequate volume of content, and writing with an appropriate tone (humble, humorous, honest) for a blog. Another noteworthy post from iMedia Connection is Top link-building strategies for your corporate blog, in which Justin Evans suggests tactics such as commenting on other industry blogs and linking to both your own and others’ blog posts on social bookmarking sites to build valuable links for blog SEO.
7 Tips for Making Your Blog Stand Out from the Rest by SEO Hosting
Eric Brantner presents helpful tips for making a blog unique and compelling, including building relationships with readers, promoting your blog “like crazy” through social media and guest blogging, and, my favorite: “if you aren’t first, be the best” when covering breaking-news type stories.
Why Your Blog Beats Your Website to Your Prospects by Content Marketing Today
Of course, blogs and websites serve different purposes for businesses. Website content is more static and focused on the company’s specific products and services, while blogs offer a steady stream of fresh content and thought-leadership type pieces. In this excellent post, Newt Barrett goes beyond these obvious observations, offering case studies of how business organizations have taken advantage of the unique strengths of each medium to drive business results and acquire new customers.
Content Marketing with Blogs: Fishing for Business, or Catch-and-Release? by Writing on the Web
The consistently brilliant Patsi Krakoff warns against “catch and release” blogging—attracting readers with great content, then failing to provide any call to action based on that content. To rectify this, she suggests what she terms the CODA system: Content, Outreach, Design, Action. The action isn’t always a sales pitch, but is a request to do something more than extends the relationship, such as following you on Twitter or Facebook, tweeting your blog post, subscribing, or downloading an e-book or white paper.
27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community by Community and Social Media
Chris Brogan shares more than two dozen tips for attracting more blog traffic, divided into three categories: Starter Moves (e.g. use an intriguing title, start with a question); Technical Stuff (e.g. clean layout, proper permalink structure); and The Bonus Round (e.g. share your posts using social media platforms, link to other blogs often).
10 ways to increase the number of blog comments by How to Make My Blog
Marko Saric offers tips for making your blog more interactive and conversational by generating more comments, such as asking questions, thanking your commenters, and commenting on other blogs.
Increase the Effectiveness of Your Next Guest Post with a Landing Page by ProBlogger
In this guest post, Jade Craven recommends using a landing page to draw traffic to your own blog through guest posts on other blogs. She identifies three types of landing pages, outlines three steps for creating a killer landing page, and shows two ways to get attention for the page. Another noteworthy post on ProBlogger is 11 Tips for Getting Your Comments Noticed on a Popular Blog, in which Darren Rowse offers tips for getting your comments noticed and driving traffic back to your blog such as being the early bird, disagreeing with the post, asking a question, or using humor.
How To Find The Best Free Image/Photo/Graphics Downloads For Your Blog Posts by Smackdown!
In this extensive post, Michael VanDeMar first explains why finding non-copyrighted images is important, then explains how to find free images through government websites or Creative Commons licenses.
Can Blogs Help Drive Purchasing Decisions? by Social Media Today
Crystal King reports that a Forrester survey from the second quarter of 2008 found that only 16% of readers of company blogs trusted them. She notes, however, that more recent research indicates that both readership of and trust in blogs is increasing. Another survey in late 2008 conducted by JupiterResearch/BuzzLogic stated that “50 percent of frequent blog readers say they have taken an action after reading a blog.” Crytal emphasizes the importance of building up trust with corporate blog readers, and concludes “Bottom line, if your company isn’t blogging, it probably needs to be.”
5 Ways Your Blog Can Make Money by Conversation Marketing
The inimitable Ian Lurie details five ways—well really four, since “steal & cheat” is, as he notes, not an advisable long-term strategy—to profit from blogging. The most promising? Using it to build your business, though as Ian notes, “It’s not easy. It takes a long time. But it works, beautifully. I have yet to see someone who writes insightful, thoughtful stuff 1-2 times a week fail at it.”
Ten Ways to Crank Out Killer Posts in Ten Minutes or Less by Remarkablogger
Michael Martine presents tactics for quickly knocking out quality blog posts, such as answering questions from readers, reporting the results of a reader poll, or writing about the coolest person you’ve met recently.
Best of 2008: Amusing, Creative and Just Plain Odd
Monday, January 4th, 2010Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang running an ad agency. How Internet marketing is like a ruptured disc. Bizarre yet real images on the web. Ads that never should have seen the light of an LCD screen.
What do all of these things have in common? They’re all here in the final best of funny, creative and just plain strange blog posts from the past year. So put on your headphones, make sure the boss isn’t nearby, and check these out.
The Peanuts gang strives dysfunctionally to design an agency holiday greeting card in this clever and outrageous spoof. Contains some off-color language and sexual references, so be careful watching this at work, but it’s very funny.
10 Ways Internet Marketing Is Like a Ruptured Disc by Conversation Marketing
Serial best-of contributor Ian Lurie explains, in his imitable fashion, the similarities between Internet marketing and his own unfortunate back injury, such as “if you ignore it, you’ll pee your pants in public, or something equally embarrassing” and “everyone thinks they have the solution, but very few do.” In another noteworthy post, Ian presciently warns readers about 11 Internet Marketing Trends To Ignore in 2009, such as “Vertical Search. I hate to kick that dead dog again, but it sucked in 2007, it sucked in 2008, and it’ll continue to suck wind in 2009.”
15 MORE Images You Won’t Believe Aren’t Photoshopped by Cracked.com
Joe Russo presents an amazing collection of unlikely but real images: giant bunnies, phallic icebergs, unfortunate translation errors, a trailer house skyscraper and more. Some of the images and language are a tad risqué, so be careful with this one at work.
Seven Things That Reality Could Borrow From The Internet by SEOmoz
Jane Copland lists several ways she’d like the offline world to be more like the online, such as automatic redirection of phone numbers, a mechanism to simplify street addresses, and “Unplugging and re-plugging-in anything that doesn’t work properly should immediately result in it working again.” In another notable post from SEOmoz, Rebecca Kelley catalogs 10 Different Types of Clients that may be recognizable to experienced SEO consultants, such as the Jessie Spano client (for Saved by the Bell fans): “A Jessie Spano Client is someone who initially is ‘so excited’ to work with you but ultimately gets overwhelmed by all the changes that you recommend and has a massive freakout from the stress of having to do a complete site overhaul.”
The Freakiest Ads of 2008, Final 4 by AdFreak
Exploding heads, zombie dads, shrinking heads, growing noses, pet slugs—you’ll find them all (if you really want to) in Tim Nudd’s collection of the most bizarre ads from last year.
Stupid marketing copy mistakes by iMedia Connection
Christopher Richards provides an amusing tour of common mistakes made when ad copy strays, under categories such as “sloppy copy” and “beyond cliché.” Example: “Another ad brags about a car that takes you ‘beyond your destination.’ Why would anyone want that? Surely it’s something of a problem. What do you have to do? Catch the bus back?”
The Steven Wright Guide to Content Marketing by Copyblogger
Brian Clark uses a series of one-liners from the inimitable comedian Steven Wright to illustrate his thesis that copy matters when writing blog posts, white papers, web copy or anything else you hope will be read and acted upon. Example: “’The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.’ Content marketing within the realm of social media is extremely powerful, but it does have a downside. Any time people are involved, there’s room for ugliness and stupidity.”
Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2008 version) by Small Business Search Marketing
The prolific Matt McGee offers his annual list of signs you may be spending too much time in the SEO world, such as “While telling your son about your favorite childhood books, you wax poetic about the ‘Wikipedia Brown’ series. You never correct yourself. He doesn’t, either.” Geek humor at its best.
Poking Fun at Web 2.0 Naming Conventions: Pot Calling Kettle Black by The Officially Official Blog of Searchles
The folks at social bookmarking site Searchles have some fun with web 2.0 naming style, such as dropped e’s (Socializr, Yappd) and “give me an X” (Blinkx, Fixya).
Don McMillan’s classic instructional how-not-to video. If you haven’t seen it&mash;extremely funny. If you have, watch it again anyway. It’s still funny.
Geeks + alcohol + rap = something you just have to see. It defies my powers of description.
True geek humor. This site is a collection of real help desk tickets compiled over time by a technician who had the misfortune to work with an IT minion identified here only as “George.” So who is George? “George is, quite simply, the worst helpdesk technician ever. His grasp on the written word is shakier than a canoe full of epileptics. His knowledge of computers is thinner than a Vegas dancer’s chiffon underpants. He is, by all standards of intelligence, a rock. While we worked together, George was responsible for turning out some of the most mangled, garbled, and just plain screwed up help desk tickets ever before seen by mortal man.”
Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding
Monday, January 4th, 2010Resources for starting a new business, ideas for naming that business, mistakes to avoid, lead generation strategies to embrace, how to apply some of Warren Buffet’s wisdom to online marketing efforts…find all of that and more here in this final collection of the best posts on strategy and branding from the past year.
What’s in A Name? by MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
Kory Kredit explores the inexact science of business naming, from descriptive (AdBuyer.com) to ont-quite-real words (Aquisio) to misspellings (Personifi) to WTF? (Jivox, xy3).
Top 12 Resources for Start-Ups by Duct Tape Marketing
The ever-industrious John Jantsch provides a short but bookmark-worthy “list of resources to help small business owners get started and growing,” such as the SBA’s Small Business Planner, business resources from StartupNation, and guides to starting a business from AllBusiness.com, Inc.com and Entrepreneur magazine.
7 Things Big Dumb Companies Do That You Can’t Afford (Especially Now) by Remarkable Communication
The brilliant Sonia Simone pulls no punches in warning small business owners away from some of the myopic and unproductive practices still sometime seen in their larger competitors, like printing up 10,000 brochures (then throwing away 9,500 of them) and “forgetting that `we’ includes the customer,” as well as recommending effective practices to use instead. Of course it isn’t only big businesses that make mistakes, so to be fair Sonia details in another excellent post dumb things small businesses do, advising entrepreneurs to avoid the number “one,” as in over-reliance on one customer, one vendor or one partner.
Lead generation playbook: 5 steps to a 375% conversion lift by Marketing Experiments Blog
Hunter Boyle and Brian Carroll provide a helpful, educational online clinic on “what happens after prospects hit the ‘submit’ button, and how marketing and sales teams can work together more effectively to expand their customer base and get the most revenue per lead.”
Warren Buffett, Search Marketing Guru? by MediaPost Search Insider
In this well-worth-bookmarking post, Steve Baldwin presents a list of “Buffetisms” he has taped up on the wall of his cubicle (Steve Baldwin sits in a cube?!) and how they relate to search engine marketing. One example: “‘Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.’ All of us run the risk of growing complacent, just because our ROI is somewhere in the black.” An even better one: “‘I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.’ Keep this one in mind when you decide whether to fight a pitched battle for #1 placement on a high-traffic SERP. You might be far better off looking for smaller gains on longer-tail keywords, 2nd-tier engines, or by using day-parting or other segmentation technologies.”
The 6 Untold Reasons Why Businesses Fail by Growthink
Dave Lavinsky elaborates on six common but often unrecognized causes of business failure, such as confusing ego with a business opportunity, trusting “white lie” feedback and failing to make a 100% commitment.
100 Tiny Tips to Create and Maintain Loyal Customers by Bootstrapper
This must-read post for every small business owner and marketing professional provides tips on everything from where to find new customers (not only in the obvious venues like on Facebook and at industry conventions, but at volunteer events and other places) to how to effectively network, communicate and build relationships (e.g., “Send a thank you gift when a customer renews a contract”), to easy-to-use tools and services (such as FreshBooks) to help your business run more smoothly.
The boobs have it, the biggest PR blunder since New Coke by Marketing Edge
The always brilliant Albert Maruggi explains how UPS bungled an unusually powerful branding opportunity with Kentucky Derby-winning horse Big Brown. Due to “short-sightedness combined with a lack decisive management” on the part of UPS, the company had to shell out big bucks to avoid sharing the spotlight with Hooters—not a brand one normally associates with either horse racing or parcel shipping.
SEO: best bang for your buck for generating online leads by E-consultancy
Aliya Zaidi summarizes research from E-consultancy showing that while “natural search, email marketing and paid search are still the most commonly used methods for generating online leads,” “SEO (is) seen as providing the best value for money.” PPC gets a higher percentage of budgets (not surprising, as it has a direct cost per click not applicable to natural search) but natural search clicks provide superior value.
How to run marketing like a profit center by iMedia Connection
Is your marketing department more focused on “firefighting” than executing productive strategies? Is it difficult to measure the ROI of marketing activities and prove the value to the CEO? Having trouble coordinating activities with other functions? David Hutchinson provides a roadmap to success in this excellent article, using marketing operations—process-based management well-established in other disciplines that “enables informed decision making, accountability, sustainability, visibility, teamwork, strategic thinking and best practices execution.” For a longer treatment of this topic, pick up a copy of Value Acceleration: The Secrets to Building an Unbeatable Competitive Advantage
How to Profit From Testimonials…Even With No Testimonials! by Copyblogger
Dean Rieck (is that real hair?) delivers 17 clever ways to get the effect of testimonials for your product or service without actually using testimonials, such as showing pictures of people using your product or service, noting how long you’ve been in business and/or how many products you’ve sold, displaying a seal or approval, or citing favorable reviews.
5 Things Salespeople Really Need From Marketing by Sales and Sales Management Blog
Sales guru-ess Jill Konrath concisely explains what a sales team needs from the marketing department in order to launch a new product successfully, including sales tools, competitive research, and above all a compelling value proposition.
Best of 2008: Web & SEO Copywriting
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010Any type of marketing copywriting is a blend of art and science. Writing for the web involves requires as much art as any other form, plus another level of science.
Here are some tools, tips and guidance for crafting more effective and compelling web copy, from among the best articles and blog posts on web and SEO copywriting from last year.
12 Tips for Writing Effective Internet Marketing Copy (Keywords are King) by Internet Marketing Post
Jennifer Norene provides an excellent set of tips for newbies and reminders for experienced copywriters for writing effective web copy, such as focusing on 2-3 keywords per page, using your customers’ language, breaking up long blocks of copy with subheads, and aiming for about 500 words per page.
Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Keyword Balance by WebProNews
Doug Caverly provides some brief but helpful reminders about effective web copywriting from Heather Lloyd-Martin at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference, like don’t overdo keyword stuffing; write with the buying cycle in mind (awareness, research, purchase); and using FAQ pages, how-to articles, blog posts and archived newsletters to extend your SEO potential.
Ten Copywriting Tips for B2B SEO by Search Engine Land
Galen DeYoung offers tips for meeting the unique challenges faced by B2B copywriters, such as watch the lingo, don’t be afraid of long copy, and use image “captions as another opportunity to sell to the prospect and another opportunity to influence search results.”
SEO Copywriting Tools and Resources by Internet Marketing Blog
Following up on his earlier post about 10 favorite free keyword tools, Frank Levert presents eight “free online SEO copywriting tools and resources that can help you write content with more style and vocabulary,” including Readability Test (a tool to help determine if you’ve written at the right level for your intended audience), Synonym.com (free online thesaurus) and Rhymer (a rhyming dictionary).
Discover The Top 3 Crucial Tips You Must Know To Create Powerful Headlines and Stop Losing Sales by SiteProNews
Noting that “With only a few seconds to grab the attention of your site visitor and pull them into your site, your headline is the most important element of your website,” Jennifer Horowitz lays out a three-step process to produce headlines that grab readers’ attention and compel them to read your body copy.
Master the 4 Cs of Quality Content to Create Sparkling Results by Copyblogger
Sonia Simone has written a beautifully crafted piece correlating the 4Cs “that differentiate a fabulously expensive, brilliant diamond from an industrial-grade one” with great writing: clarity (content must be clear in order to be persuasive), cut (judicious editing is critical), color (use stories and details to add life to writing) and carat (real value, not lightweigth fluff).
Seven Building Blocks of a Destination Website: #6 Voice by Search Engine Guide
The prolofic Stoney deGeyter explains how voice gives your website a unique personality, the different types of voice and examples of each: humorous, thoughtful, down-to-earth and others.
25 Random Points about Copywriting by Conversation Marketing
And finally, in possibly one of the most useful and certainly one of the most entertaining posts written about writing last year, Ian Lurie supplies both guidance and inspiration with tips and observations such as:
- Great internet marketing starts with copy that’s concise.
- You can make great stuff happen with great writing and a lousy web site. Try the opposite, though. I dare ya.
- The best way to cultivate that skill, next to writing for 3 hours a day, is to read. Watching TV with subtitles does not count.
There you have it, the best writing on writing from 2008.
