Viewing entries tagged with 'copywriting'
Here's a bullet-proof tip for business writers
When researching a blog post on terrible business writing, I kept running across the work of Ron Denholm from Essay Audit. He had great examples of terrible writing and a lot to say about how to fix it. Knowing it's better to learn from the master, I asked him to guest post for me and he graciously agreed.* Ron has a BA and MA both in Classics. He headed Learning and Development for the Australian Federal Police in Sydney where he developed effective e-learning writing courses, and received a Commissioner's Commendation for improving Ministerial writing. (I say give the guy a medal!) Ron has trained over 2,500 people in efficient writing. Over to Ron.
BRIEF: The Wordle Is...
Have you seen the Wordle utility? I’ve noticed it before on websites and thought it provided a cool graphic. Wordle takes a body of text, or a link to a blog or RSS feed, and creates a graphical picture of all the words in your content. The resulting image gives you an idea about word density. Cool, for sure, but I couldn’t figure out a practical use for it. I have now.
6 Ways Your Content is Letting You Down
Have you heard about the content revolution? Content is becoming the ‘must have’ for business to gain competitive advantage. If you have doubts, an article titled, Matt Cutt says quality content is key to Google rankings (emphasis on quality) gives fair warning that Google is marching on the front lines.
My Favourite Blogs
While it’s not exactly brown paper packages tied up in string, I do want to share some of my favourite blogs. I’ll forgo the “Best of 2010” and “Predictions for 2011” posts in lieu of what I consider to be the best content around. Some of them are well known, some only have small followings. In all cases, these are my “go to” places for inspiration, information and advice.
Content Marketing Confessions: Round Two
Those people that form the collective ‘they’, as in the ‘they say’, would have us believe confession is a cleansing process and leaves you in a state of relief and satisfaction. After writing my last post, Confessions of a Content Marketer, I find I’m still bubbling over with little secrets and haven’t found much release. Maybe I didn’t do it right. Or maybe I just haven’t finished the job. Either way, I’m going to continue with the confessional theme and let you in on a few more truths from a content marketing professional. Here goes.
Confessions of a Content Marketer
I was speaking to a prospective client today about web copy he wanted refined for a new website. As I reeled off my recommendations, I hoped he hadn’t looked at my own website too closely. Why? Because my website is in dire need of a good content scrubbing. It’s scheduled in for a quiet day which, so far, hasn’t arrived. Now that I’m in a confessional spirit, why not spill it all?
Asset Based Marketing: Design Improves Traffic by 66%
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll be familiar with asset based marketing and the importance of content and design in any content marketing project. Both budget and time need to be apportioned to each element to produce a product that will become an asset to your company. I recently came across a great example proving this philosophy and I want to share it with you.
How “Old School” Habits Can Beat Writer’s Block
Do you ever struggle to find a topic for a blog post? I battled to find inspiration today. It’s Thanksgiving in the USA, the country from which I originally hail, so maybe I’m having some sort of long buried resistance to working on a holiday. As I watched the clock tick away valuable writing hours, I knew exactly how to solve my problem. I’ll let you in on a sure-fire way to find inspiration.
Are your business communications working against you?
A couple weeks ago I received a very odd email from a sender I didn’t recognise. It was a humorous little note about a missing brain, an international search party and a remote beach in Mexico. I’m a big fan of creative writing so even though my anti-virus program flagged it as probable spam, I considered it a gift. It was written in the form of a press release making me think it might be the first part of a marketing campaign.
Why Design Matters in Asset Based Marketing
Last week I wrote a blog post for the Content Marketing Institute titled, How to Make the Case for Design in Content Marketing. The purpose of the post was to help content marketers understand that working with a designer can improve even the best content. It’s a tough argument to make to people focused on words and writing. I should know, I’m one of them.
