Austin McCraw says, “Ah … the ambience of a blank white computer screen. I am staring at one right now. There are the days when this glow speaks freedom and fresh opportunity and I take it. But then, there are those days, like right now, where the glow feels more like an impenetrable force field. So what do I do when I know I have something to say, but I just can’t get it into words? Should I start scouring the Web to find something interesting to comment on? Or should I just rehash something that I have thought about or written about before? Or, the most tempting, do I just give up... [...]

Michele Linn says, “My recent revelation: When I write, my audience is always top of mind. However, when I look across all of CMI’s websites and channels, I worry that we’re not providing an exceptional experience for our community at all points. For instance, we may have answers to people’s questions, but can people find what they need? Is every point in their experience a good one? While I continue to refine my content marketing skills, I also am turning more of my attention to content strategy“. 3 Content Strategy Practices That Will Make You a Better Content Marketer Content... [...]

Benjamin Spiegel says, “Content is king. That is as true for e-commerce as it is for search or even social. In order to not only capture but also retain the attention of today’s consumers, brands must build meaningful experiences that provide a unique value to their audiences. This is most effectively achieved with great content. Over the past years, I have seen brands everywhere staring to master the art of content creation and distribution. They are creating impactful stories that truly make their brands matter and become part of the consumer’s life. And while I am excited to see... [...]

Michele Linn says, “My recent revelation: When I write, my audience is always top of mind. However, when I look across all of CMI’s websites and channels, I worry that we’re not providing an exceptional experience for our community at all points. For instance, we may have answers to people’s questions, but can people find what they need? Is every point in their experience a good one? While I continue to refine my content marketing skills, I also am turning more of my attention to content strategy“. 3 Content Strategy Practices That Will Make You a Better Content Marketer Content... [...]

Zac Johnson says, “When someone searches for your personal name in Google, what will they find? Of course, content will rank for your name, but the better question is whether the content is about you, if you have control over it and how it might be giving others a first impression of you in the process. If you aren’t currently ranking at the top of Google for your personal name, brand or business, your reputation could be in harms way. By actually “owning” the main page of the search results for your name, you can build a protective wall and barrier around your name, while... [...]

Rebecca Joyner says, “I tried to explain public relations to my grandmother once … This was many years ago, back when PR pros cut press coverage from publications we could actually hold in our hands, and few marketers talked about SEO in everyday conversation. “So, it’s advertising,” she’d say, and I’d try again to explain that, no, it’s not. “Advertising is about paying for attention; PR is about earning it.” I don’t think she ever got it, and she’s not alone. Most people still think PR is some kind of black magic flacks work on the press — you sprinkle a... [...]

Thomas Stern says, “The concept of link building and content creation being separate entities is archaic. Isolating the power of well-developed content to drive a link-building strategy is crucial to success. Any marketing program that fails to cohesively build these programs is stifling its search rankings by underutilizing its off-page SEO. It’s important to note that the key term here is “well-developed content.” And that’s what trips some marketers up. What is truly good content, and how do you use it to build a brand in a natural way?“. Storytelling 101: What Defines Good... [...]

Ryan Skinner says, “That’s as succinct a summary as you’ll get for the pains of contemporary content marketing. Even as marketers flock to it, experienced practitioners know of content marketing’s side effect:  An unmitigated mess, with lots of people producing piles of content all at the same time, all over the world. Cue the Content Marketing Platform, or CMP. CMPs emerged to bring order to this cross-channel, cross-organizational, cross-brand, cross-geography, cross-everything content mess, by putting all the people working on content in to a common and shared space. It’s against... [...]

Joe Pulizzi says, “Through keynote talks, workshops, and webinars, I’ve had the opportunity to present on the topic of content marketing more than 200 times in the past four years. In almost every one of those presentations, I relayed the following information: “Content marketing doesn’t usually fail because of content quality. The main reason is because it’s inconsistent or it stops.” Most marketers simply don’t want to hear this. With all the exuberance around content marketing, they want to hear that if they execute against a reasonable strategy, success will come in six months... [...]

Sonia Simone says, “There are a million techniques that make your content better and more popular. (Probably a half-million just here on Copyblogger.) Strong headlines, smart copywriting techniques, storytelling, humor, etc. But there’s one insider trick that makes the rest of it easy. It starts from the very beginning, when you’re figuring out what type of content you want to produce. Start by picking a crowded topic Copywriter Gary Halbert famously advised copywriters to look for a “starving crowd.” In other words, if you want to open a restaurant, put it where there are already... [...]