Tips

If there were such a thing as the Ten Commandments of Marketing, “You are not your audience” would likely make the top five. And for good reason: Generally, it’s solid advice. “You are not your audience” reminds us to question assumptions and never stop learning about the people we aim ...

Traditionally, proofreading is a separate task from editing. And I still treat the two as different activities. However, the creative benefits of a consistent proofreading process surpass the classic definition of proofreading. Modern content marketers can take advantage of proofreading to avoid the all-too-common extremes of caring too little or ...

We all have checklists on the mind lately, gearing up for the release of the small but mighty Content Confidence Checklist (look for it in the next week or so). It’s got us thinking about processes and lists to improve our creative output. On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman gave us the ...

Good old Google. They do like to keep life interesting for web publishers. You may have heard rumblings about a recent update that wreaked havoc on a lot of “your money or your life” sites — the ones that talk about health, fitness, finances, or happiness. That update appeared to ...

There is something both tragicomic and cathartic about trying to assume the dispositions of incredibly successful and prolific authors when you’re staring at a blank page. But what better way to procrastinate than to live vicariously through the habits and productivity secrets of renowned writers of yore. A brief tour ...

After I deglamorized good ideas, I started thinking about other topics to dissect. Content quality quickly came to mind. So, for a change, this post is not about creating content. It’s about all the care behind the scenes that makes great content possible. Let’s look at 12 important steps meticulous ...

There are a lot of reasons why I dislike the term content marketing, but the most important one is that it’s vague. Are we talking about a YouTube “let’s play” gaming video? A clever tweet from a big brand? Or maybe a blog post or podcast episode? Because that word ...

OK, I’m just going to say it. In today’s world, publishing second-rate content is a total waste of time. There’s no point in contributing to the growing pile of mediocrity. It wastes your time, and, worse, it wastes your audience’s time. Sometimes I’ll see a marketer complaining that: “I spent ...

I never realized just how important it was to connect content with business goals until I had a particular conversation with a client. The client, excited to get started on blog content together, had a running list of topics for me to cover. But then something strange happened. When I ...

When you run a content marketing platform, you’ll get other types of messages from your audience in addition to blog comments. You’ll get emails. Many people have a love/hate relationship with email. When it’s good, it’s really good — but when it’s bad, managing your inbox feels like a huge ...