Brand Messaging

Most people hate interviewing but all marketing campaigns start with talking to ideal clients. Here’s how to conduct winning interviews even when you know nothing about the niche and have never met the person before. I’m working on the launch of a new community. We’re slated to go live in a few weeks, so it’s…

I’m working on a competitor keyword research project for an SEO certification course I’m taking.  I’m actually taking two SEO courses simultaneously because I like to get a wide variety of perspectives.  The first course is a high-level “this is how to approach Google; everything will be fine” perspective. The second course is “here’s how…

This week’s a-ha moment came when two people from different areas of my life said similar things that had wildly different meanings. Marketing Person A: SEO is the foundation of everything. Marketing Person B: Search is everywhere. See what I mean? On the surface, these appear to be the same thing, but they’re not. Let’s…

When I started copywriting, I was introduced to the idea of the Power of One. It essentially says: Have a single good idea and follow it all the way through your piece. There’s a similar idea called the Golden Thread. Originally meant for sales letters, the Power of One and the Golden Thread became central…

I’ve been in online marketing since before Google existed. I wish I could say that was to my advantage.  The reality is I watched all the major updates and listened to people say the sky was falling, and I panicked more than I should have. That old “fight, flight, or flee” instinct kicked in and…

Marketing is a strange universe. On the one hand, we have technology that’s getting more complicated at a dizzying pace. On the other hand, we have people clambering for simplicity and direction, without sacrificing personal agency or the ability to make decisions at their own pace. At that level of complexity, the most valuable thing…

Most days, when I’m staring at my computer, I’m asking myself one of two questions about the content I’m writing, organizing, strategizing, etc. 1- Does the content help the reader? 2- Does the content help Google understand (and rank) my authority? Because for me, it’s all about strategy. The writing… The graphics… The branding… The…

As a writer, content clusters create a unique challenge. If I was writing an essay (or a white paper), all the pieces of my argument would be in one place so I could guide the reader’s experience as the unseen hand. But with content clusters, the reader chooses their own adventure. It’s the writer and…

There are some business truisms that support all online marketing strategies.  To state them aloud might seem silly. But if I don’t take a second to pull back the curtain on why we do what we do in marketing, then you’re left with a bunch of jumbled tactics. Can you build your business with a…

There are a virtually unlimited number of reasons people search topics online. If you take any 3 people searching for a topic, one of them could be doing research for a school paper, the second one could be comparing features for an upcoming purchase, and the third one could be thinking about starting a career…