When you view a set of search results, sometimes you’ll see some additional links for more pages on a site included within a single search result for a page. This often happens when a search engine considers the query that you used to be a “navigational” query, where the intent behind your search is [...]
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Have You Ever Seen Delicious Quick Links?
Regular readers of John Chow dot Com will know that there is more to the dot com lifestyle than making money online. That certainly plays a major role, but it’s also important to have a supportive significant other and a loving family. You should also pay a little more attention to your health.
Over the course of this review, we’ll learn a thing or two from a blog called Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free. You can probably guess the main focus of that site.
The blogger behind Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free is Amy Green. Almost six years ago, she decided to remove all refined sugars and glutens from her diet. The net result is a 60+ pound weight loss that she has managed to maintain to this day.
It is far too easy to indulge in fast food, oversized portions, and unhealthy ingredients. By reading along at Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free, you may find a way to prepare healthier food at home that is both nutritious and delicious.
With a new post going up just about every day, Amy Green has managed to maintain quite the healthy publishing schedule. There, you’ll find a wide range of healthy recipes that you can try at home. These are free of refined sugars and gluten.
One of the more recent recipes is perfect for these colder months. Roasted winter vegetables are both hearty and healthy. In the post, you get a picture of the final product, a brief discussion from Amy’s point of view, and the complete recipe itself.
The recipe is adapted from Everyday Food, but Amy has made it her own. She describes the ingredients you need, how to prepare them, and what you need to do if you want ot make them ahead of time. You’re also granted quick access to a print friendly version of the recipe.
At the end of each recipe, you are also offered three related recipes. In this instance, we look at how to peel a butternut squash, how to oven roast a squash, and how to make an apple and walnut stuffed acorn squash.
You could say that this is the same as the “related posts” plug-in that many bloggers use, but the LinkWithin feature adds in a thumbnail preview too. I am personally not a fan of its use within the main index; I’d prefer if the “related posts” were only shown within the individual articles.
It’s very unlikely that you’ll find a recipe for a foie gras burger on Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free, but there is no shortage of nice treats. Sip on some chocolate coffee martinis, munch on some fresh cookies, and even feed Fido with pumpkin dog biscuits. The variety is certainly impressive.
The soft pastel color scheme used by Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free is pleasing to the eye, but it clearly has a more feminine slant to it. This is understandable, given that the main blogger is female and the primary audience is likely female as well.
The three-column template seems to work quite well too. I like the placement of the icons in the top right, giving readers fast access to the Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and email subscription features offered by the blog.
It’s good to see the brief “About Amy” blurb near the top too, but there are at least two things that I would like to see changed. First, it may be useful to have a link to the main about page beneath the brief bio. Second, it is a little confusing to see a second about page for the site. Rewording the first “about” to be a “bio” instead may make more sense.
Third, Amy currently lists her Gmail account as her point of contact on the site. It is much better to use an email address that uses her own domain. Better still, she should institute a simple contact form so that her email address can be better protected.
Overall, I’d say that Amy had done a good job with Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. The domain is certainly longer than I would have liked, but the content is reasonably powerful and the range of recipes will certainly be useful to people who want to eat this kind of food. If you want some good eats while staying healthy, Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free is worth adding to your reading list.
CLICK HERE TO READ SIMPLY SUGAR & GLUTEN-FREE
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Cut Refined Sugar and Gluten from Your Diet
A guest post from Glen ViperChill.
I’ve read a lot of blogging success stories in my four-year blogging history. Sadly, they’ve always been about other people, rather than me. And, when I do see them, although they are real, I get a sense that the owner didn’t have to work as hard as I have. I see people getting big on Digg yet my domain is banned for no reason or linked to by Seth Godin and getting ‘famous’ overnight. I don’t want to sound bitter, but it just seemed like success was happening to everyone else.
Once I had this realisation, I decided that if I wasn’t going to get featured on Digg or Delicious for my new site, I would work on:
And what happened? In one year I managed to build my blog to just over 4,000 subscribers. Sure, it isn’t the success story that everyone else raves about, but it’s realistic and it is attainable. Or maybe I’m being hard on myself, because I don’t see that many blogs reaching these numbers either.
Some of you might be completely confused by that statement and to others it will make perfect sense; let me explain. When I look at my own stats, I can see that it took me 5 months to reach 500 subscribers (which isn’t a bad rate of growth at all). Can you guess how many it took to reach 1,000? Just two.
You see, when I first started out, I was a complete nobody in my niche. I was fairly known in the internet marketing industry but totally unheard of when it came to personal development. Because of that, I had to establish a brand. I went with a logo people would remember, a unique design, and a desire to focus on content that simply helped people be who they want to be. Everything I would write would have the focus of helping people get what they want out of life.
From there I started commenting on other blogs, being active in Twitter and writing the best articles I could. I worked hard, but within a few months I was at the 500 subscriber mark. Once you get to this stage, things start getting much, much easier because when you’re trying to promote content that has no audience, you have to find people who might want to read it and show up where they are. Once you have an audience and write great content, they’re going to start sharing it for you.
If you’re struggling to get your first few hundred subscribers then don’t worry, as they’re far harder to get than the next few hundred. With the 5 months left in the year I managed to grow my site by another 3,000 subscribers. How’s that for exponential growth.
I have been one of the most active guest posters on the internet in the last few months and for one simple reason: guest posting works. It gets you out there in front of a new audience and just as importantly, an audience that understands blogs and what they are all about. If someone subscribers to another blog in your niche, there’s a good chance they will subscribe to yours if you’re writing great content. One thing I have noticed some people do is “piggyback” off a certain blog and try to write there as often as possible.
This is usually for big blogs which can help you get a lot of traffic and subscribers quite quickly, but things will soon die down. If someone has seen you guest post on a site 5 times and still haven’t subscribed, they probably won’t when you write your 6th article. There are a few benefits to varying your guest posting which include:
As a blogger, I’m quite sad about the rise of Twitter in a way. Instead of the hundreds of backlinks a good blog post could get a few years ago, it will now get hundreds of tweets. Sure the tweets can bring you traffic, but they are not going to help your post move up the ranks in search engines. Even as a way for collaboration, people are focusing on twitter communication rather than working with people via their blogs. Usually these writers are coming from the scarcity mindset and if they link to other bloggers they’re going to lose readers and help their “competitor” grow.
First of all, if you think of other bloggers in your niche as competitors then you have a totally backwards mindset. Secondly, I’m here to tell you that collaborating with other bloggers in my niche has been one of the best things I have done. To begin with, I created a list of the top Personal Development Blogs. This ranks all of the blogs by their statistics and of course helps my site visitors find other amazing blogs to read. This page has been linked to by hundreds of websites and it has helped put me in touch with tons of other bloggers.
On top of that, I also ran a series called the Personal Development face-off. I had the idea thanks to Daniel Scocco doing this in the blogging niche and thought that the content generated here would be excellent. Even though I was featuring two other bloggers on my site every week, hundreds of people emailed me to say how much they loved the series. This positioned me as someone who was at the top of my industry because I had all of these top bloggers taking time out to work with me and because I was sharing the best content in the niche.
Don’t be afraid of promoting other bloggers. These days, I try to promote great content on other sites as much as possible. It will come back your way.
Glen is the author of ViperChill, a blog on Viral Marketing. He aims to help people create remarkable websites that others just naturally want to talk about.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
3 Lessons I Learned Building 4,000 Subscribers in 12 Months
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3 Lessons I Learned Building 4,000 Subscribers in 12 Months
Two days back I explored the myth that all you need to do is write great content on a blog for it to get readers and introduced the idea of ’seeding’ content rather than ‘forcing’ it upon readers.
Today I want to take the ’seeding’ idea a step further and give a few examples of ways that you can do it - and in the process hopefully grow your readership beyond your immediate family (not that there’s anything wrong with Mom reading your blog).
I should say that while this post contains 9 ways to promote a blog post - that I rarely use all of them at once. Keep in mind that the idea of ’seeding’ is not about forcing things but rather it is about getting things going and then letting something organic happen. You might need to put a little more effort into things somewhere along the way to keep momentum going (like ‘watering the garden’ helps a seed to grow) but the idea isn’t for force things.
So without further ado - let me share a few of the techniques that I use to ’seed’ content:
I find that one of the most effective ways to get a link to a new blog post ‘out there’ is simply to tweet it. Tweeting a link is quick and easy to do - and if you do it well it can be quite effective at both driving direct traffic to a blog post but also in starting other little viral events on other sites.
The effectiveness of this does depend a little on the size of your follower group - but other factors you can have a little more control over include:
I find that when something does well on Twitter (and not every post will) that it can often trigger a secondary event on a site like Delicious. This in turn can trigger blogs to link to my posts or other social bookmarking sites to pick up links.
This is of course similar to Tweeting a link. I’ve not had as much success with Facebook as a promotional tool for my blogs but know of a few bloggers in different niches who find it to be more effective. Whether it sends loads of traffic or not it can be helpful in an overall strategy.
Similarly I sometimes also use other social media sites like LinkedIn’s status update if I feel that the content I’m promoting is better suited to other audiences. Again - it depends partly upon the size of your network on these sites but even a small but relevant network on these sites can trigger other bloggers to link up or secondary organic submissions on other social sites by those in your network. You never know what impact sharing a link in these sites can have until you do it.
Is the post you’re promoting relevant to the audience of another blog?
This is a question I’m always asking myself as I’m writing blog posts. As I write I jot down the names of other bloggers that have an audience that might find what I’m writing helpful. This means that when it comes time to promote the blog post I have a ready made list of people to shoot out an email to to let them know about my post.
I don’t send these emails out often, nor do I send them out to the same group of bloggers repeatedly - but if I genuinely think my post is of high quality and that the blogger will find it relevant I will.
Check out these suggestions on how to pitch other bloggers for some more tips on how to do this effectively.
This is similar to pitching another blogger but can have a great impact as well. In fact I recently had a link from a blogger who both posted on his blog and tweeted the link and the Tweet converted much better for me in terms of traffic.
The key once again is to make sure that the link is relevant to the Tweeter and the type of thing that you’ve seen them sharing on twitter with others.
Many bloggers have links to the front page of their blogs in both email signatures and forum signatures - but what about directing people to an individual post? There are a variety of tools out there that highlight latest posts (feedburner has one) and they make a lot of sense to me because you’re sending people to standalone articles that you’ve written rather than a sometimes confusing front page of a blog.
This is one that I don’t tend to do myself these days but I know many bloggers who do so I’ll include it. It entails submitting your post to a site like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious etc.
I don’t tend to do this any more as I find many of these sites have algorithms that penalize a site if it’s submitted by the same person over and over. What I do instead is occasionally shoot a link to another user of these sites in the hope that they’ll submit it for me. Having said this - I also find that as your traffic grows the submissions become more and more organic from regular readers so there’s less need for me personally to be involved in these types of ’seedings’ in social bookmarkting sites.
Another method that I’ve seen a number of bloggers using with real effect lately is to link to your important blog post in a guest post on someone else’s blog.
Most people who guest post on another blog tend to link back to the front page of their blog in the byline. This is a good general link to get but if you have an important post that you’ve written that relates to the guest post you’re writing you should find a way to incorporate a link to that post - either as the byline link or if the blogger allows it - within the blog post itself.
Hopefully with some of the above techniques you’ve got a few readers over to your blog - now you want them to share it with others.
There are many ways to make your blog post ’sharable’. I tend to use a combination of templated techniques as well as a few custom ones that I add to posts once on posts that I think will do well on social media sites.
This is a way that I often ‘tip’ posts that are doing OK over the edge into a viral traffic event. It usually works like this:
A - I write a post that I think MIGHT do well as a viral post
B - I time the publishing of that post for a Thursday morning - an update goes out via RSS to my subscribers
C - I use some of the above techniques to get the post seeded (Twitter, Facebook etc)
D - I wait until the post is submitted to Digg and then add a Digg button to the post (or some other social bookmarking site)
E - I then send out a newsletter to my list including a prominent link to the post
What I find is that without the last step (sending a newsletter) the post can do quite well - but when I send the newsletter I quite often see a ‘tipping point’ with the post and it’ll go viral on multiple social media sites at once on the back of the extra traffic that I’ve been able to send to the traffic via the newsletter.
Let me finish with two words that I think are key to much of the above - persistence and relationships.
1. Persistence - There’s a real need for persistence in seeding content. Much of what I’ve described above are things that I’ve been doing for years and they’ve only become more effective the longer that I’ve done them.
My experience of finding readers is that it is all about momentum. In the early days to find just a handful of readers can be a real challenge - the above methods may not bring thousands of people through the door - however the 10 than they do bring in on your first day could lead to 100 next month which could lead to the thousands in the coming year.
You may get lucky and your seed may grow into something big in the early days of your blog - but even small results can grow slowly into big things over time. Each reader that you bring into your loyal readership is important because they have a network of their own that they could help spread word of your blog to.
2. Relationships - The other key to much of the above is to be as relational as possible. Much of the above relies upon people sharing your posts with others once you alert them to the existence of your posts. So put aside regular time to grow your network, to build a presence on sites like Twitter, to build trust and influence on other sites outside of your blog - this networking can pay off in a big way over the long term. Just do keep these other social networking sites in perspective - they’re not the main game themselves but should be used to build up your home base.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
9 Things to Do To Make Sure Your Next Blog Post is Read by More than Your Mom
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9 Things to Do To Make Sure Your Next Blog Post is Read by More than Your Mom
Ever notice that your content tends to really resonate with some people, and others don’t have any interest at all?
You might shrug your shoulders and just decide “that’s the way things are,” but in fact, educational psychology shows that there are four distinct ways of taking in information. Each of us naturally tends to speak most effectively to one type, leaving the other three out in the cold.
By getting a basic understanding of those four types, you can actually shape your content to connect with a greater range of people. You’ll radically increase your fan base, and also make a more powerful connection with the readers you have today.
Let’s dig into the four styles and how you can create content that resonates with each of them.
The biggest question for your Cat readers is, “what’s in it for me?” Their driving question is Why? This learning style is the most common, so you want to make sure your content is satisfying their needs.
Just like in when you were in eighth grade math class and were desperate for someone (Anyone? Anyone?) to explain what algebra was ever going to do for you, your Cat readers want to know:
Cat readers want to know just exactly where you keep your delicious cheeseburgers, please. If they don’t see the payoff, they won’t come back.
These folks are the common-sense learners, who learn by doing and experimenting.
While you might not have exercises and worksheets in your blog content, you can have real-life stories and tangible examples that show how your topic works in the real world. Your Dog readers want you to show, not tell.
And by all means, if you have a “try this for yourself” exercise they can do, throw it into the mix. Dogs love cookies, and nothing makes better cookie content than practical, real-world tips. Taking your ideas from theory to practical application will make your Dog readers very happy.
Like clever lab rats running increasingly complex mazes, your Rat readers are analytical and smart. They’re interested in what the experts have to say, and if you can make yourself an authority in their eyes, they’re yours forever. Among all of your readers, they tend to be the ones who will read your whole post, instead of just skimming the headline and subheads.
Support your arguments with logic and facts, point to other smart discussions on your topic, and give them weighty material to think about. Rat readers want substantial content, not cheez-whiz fluff.
Monkey readers are the ones who make your content their own. They play with your ideas, riff on them, link and tweet back to you, and ask really interesting questions in the comments.
Your Monkey readers are some of the most supportive (and fun) readers in your audience, so take good care of them.
Don’t wrap every post idea up in a neat bow. Leave a few loose ends for readers to explore in comments or their own content. Express your point boldly, then invite other takes on the topic. Make your content a conversation, not a lecture.
And of course, get in touch with your own inner Monkey and riff on your fellow bloggers’ ideas. If there’s one thing Monkeys love, it’s other Monkeys.
No one’s all Cat, all Rat, or all Monkey. These are dominant ways of taking in information, but each of us has a bit of all four types.
You’ll want to create content that speaks to each style, because when you satisfy the complete range, you’ll be a much more effective teacher of information. A single post might have a benefit-rich headline that speaks to the Cat in your readers, offer a do-it-yourself tip that makes the Dog nod his head, provide some factual bullet points as evidence to keep the Rat happy, then launch into a lively comment thread that satisfies the Monkey.
I didn’t invent this model — it’s an adaptation of the work of renowned education designer Bernice McCarthy, who developed the 4MAT teaching system to better meet the needs of varied learning styles. (I’ve taken some pretty serious liberties with McCarthy’s theories, and beg her forgiveness.)
I have to thank Copyblogger’s own Brian Clark, who introduced me to the 4MAT concept as a lesson in Teaching Sells. The styles aren’t just useful for blog content, they can help you create truly superior online training programs, membership sites and information products that are head and shoulders above anything your competitors are creating.
Teaching Sells will be opening briefly to new students in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll be providing a wealth of free content starting this coming Monday, which in itself can be enough to build a powerful business around. Be sure to sign up here to receive all of the valuable material we’ll be handing out over the next week or so.
About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.
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How to Win Over New Kinds of Readers
Sure, we talk a lot about the rules for writing great headlines here at Copyblogger, but what if you’re still doing it wrong? Are there a collection of common mistakes that bloggers and content marketers make with their headlines — mistakes that we can help you overcome?
Yep.
Fact is, you can get all of the fundamentals right and still end up with a lousy headline. Sometimes, the only way to improve isn’t being told what to do… it’s being told what not to do.
With that in mind, here are a dozen don’ts to help keep you on track:
I know, I know. It’s hard to get excited about writing another “How to _______” or “21 Ways to _______.” Not because the templates don’t work, but because it just feels… tired. How are you supposed to keep your writing fresh if you’re using the same old shtick?
Simple: you broaden your source material.
When Brian published those headline templates, he never intended for anyone to believe they were the only templates that work. The best bloggers are always on the lookout for a new template to use in their headlines. You can get them anywhere, from the cover of Cosmo, to the front page of Digg, and from other popular bloggers.
The only time to experiment with new headlines is when you know you’ve truly mastered the fundamentals, and almost every headline you write is a hit. Until then, keep stealing the best ideas of others (just do it from a wider range of sources).
You also need to consider what your audience is used to.
For a while, longish magazine-style headlines stood out within the blogging niche because no one had used them before. Nowadays though, they’re common, and we’re starting to see the effectiveness decline. That’s why you see me experimenting with shorter versions of the same templates (examples here, here, and here).
Will the same be true for your niche? No, not necessarily. The point isn’t that long or short headlines are better. It’s that you need to zig when others zag. You still use the same principles and templates. Just modify them so that they stand out to your audience.
Brian has talked about this before, but it deserves bringing up again. Compared to clear, direct headlines, clever ones lose almost every time. Whenever you find yourself coming up with a pun, joke, or allusion, stop. You’re killing your blog post.
Again, sounds like less fun, but that’s the price of wanting a large audience. If you try to be clever, too many people are not going to get it. Sorry.
All of us have seen desperate headlines. It’s like the writer knows you don’t care what they are talking about, so they write the most off-the-wall headline that they can possibly think of, hoping that it will shock you into clicking. It’s sad… and ineffective.
But don’t look down your nose at it, thinking it’ll never happen to you. It will. Every time you write a post, ask yourself, “Is this headline begging for attention? Or does it demand it?” One day, it’ll be the former, and if you’re smart, you will stomp your newborn headline to death before anyone reads it but you.
You can write the best post in the universe, but if it’s about a topic your audience doesn’t care about, then it’s going to flop. The first step in writing any headline is considering what topics your audience is interested in, and then crafting the headline around that interest, not the other way around. There are no exceptions to this rule.
The tough part about growing a blog is that you have more than one master. Impressing your readers with a perfectly crafted headline isn’t enough. If you want any links, you also have to impress the other bloggers in your niche.
My advice: after you consider what your readers are interested in, take some time to think about what other bloggers in your niche will link to. Then craft your headline with them in mind.
The same advice is true for social media. If you want traffic from Twitter, StumbleUpon, or Delicious, you need to think about that audience when you’re writing your headline.
With Delicious, for instance, you’ll see a lot of list posts like 20 New Best WordPress Themes and 77 Ways to Cultivate Your Garden. That’s because Delicious is a bookmarking site, and list posts are inherently bookmarkable. If you’re targeting a post at Delicious then, using a list-style headline is probably a good idea. It’s what that audience is looking for.
What most beginning bloggers do though is the opposite. They write a post, and then they try to figure out where to promote it. Big mistake. You need to target social media from the very beginning, and the beginning is your headline.
We’ve all heard that you have to tailor your headlines to your audience, but what about also fitting that headline into your own personal voice?
In my experience, this is often the difference between a mediocre headline and a great one. I can spot a Naomi Dunford or Brian Clark headline without even clicking on the post — because it’s uniquely them.
Could your readers say the same about your own headlines? Or are you just rehashing the same old templates without adapting them to your personal style?
When struggling to choose a headline, you might be tempted to ask a friend for their opinion on which one would be best. But don’t. In my experience, friends usually pick whichever headline is the most clever or funny, not the one that’s best suited for your audience.
The only exception to this rule is if your friends are copywriters who know something about your audience. They might be able to give you some direction. Even then though, it’s still iffy. For the most part, writing headlines is something you have to learn how to do on your own. Get used to it.
Remember the first Harry Potter book, where Harry gets his wand?
Ollivander hands him wand after wand, allowing him to hold it only for a moment before snatching it back because the connection isn’t quite right. It’s only when Harry picks up the perfect wand that it bursts into magic, proving that he’s chosen the right one.
Writing headlines works the same way. Call me romantic, but I believe there is a special relationship between an idea and its headline. You’ll come up with lots of headlines that might work, but the difference between the perfect headline and a workable one is the difference between holding magic in your hand or just another stick of dead wood.
My advice: go for the magic.
The worst part about writing headlines is your failures are public. You’ll publish a post and there will be… nothing. No comments, no links, no adoring emails from your readers; just a fat, ugly headline sitting on your home page, proving to the world that you screwed up.
It’s embarrassing, but the good news is no will care as much as you. You need only remember one word to keep yourself moving: Next.
What I’m about to say is going to sound like hypocrisy, so give me a moment to explain.
Headlines aren’t everything.
Yes, I know we just finished a whole post about the importance of great headlines. Yes, I know we pitch them as the closest thing you’ll ever find to a magic bullet in copywriting. Yes, I believe you should study them with all the fervor of a Southern Baptist Bible scholar.
But will they make you famous all by their lonesome?
Well… no.
Because you see, writing a great blog post is like running a relay race. Your headline starts the race, but then it passes the baton to your opening paragraph, and its job is done. Sure, it’s important to start the race well, but if the next guy falls on his face, then how well the first guy did doesn’t much matter, does it? Every piece has to do its part.
So don’t expect too much from your headlines. They’re just the beginning.
Fortunately, we talk about everything else here at Copyblogger too. If you haven’t yet, you really should sign up for free updates for all of the crazy copywriting goodness we send out on a daily basis.
Oh, and follow me on Twitter too. You never know when I might get uppity and decide to remix some headlines for Copyblogger subscribers… (hint, hint).
Bookmark this post on Delicious for future reference.
About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits.
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Don’t Do These 12 Things When Writing Headlines
Do you want a wider audience, more subscribers, better conversion to paying customers, fanatically loyal readers, and enviable word of mouth?
You can have all of them by keeping one simple piece of advice in mind:
Treat your readers like dogs.
If you want to teach your dog to sit, how do you go about it?
Any good trainer will tell you that the smart way is to give him lots of rewards and love every time he sits when you say, “Sit!”
It doesn’t take long before he’s waiting eagerly to see what other kinds of instruction you might have. Would you like him to shake hands? Fetch your pipe and slippers? Take out the trash and wash the dishes?
Positive reinforcement makes an ally of your dog. You’re in the same pack. He wants to do things for you. He’s happy and you’re happy.
Every time a reader does something you like (read a post, subscribe to your blog, open a message in an email newsletter, etc.), you want to give that reader a reward — a cookie.
(When I say “reader,” I also include podcast listeners, video watchers, etc.)
That’s what I call “cookie content,” and it has three characteristics.
Cookie content makes the reader’s life better somehow. It might be a funny image, a useful tutorial, or just a really good low-carb dessert recipe.
But in some way, large or small, cookie content makes the reader glad she took a few minutes to consume it.
Reference and how-to content make great cookie content. Inspiring, funny, or heartwarming content can work too, if you’re good at it.
If your readers print out your content so they can refer back to it, or bookmark it on Delicious, you’ve got it right.
The 60-Year Plan for Getting Moderately Well-Off doesn’t tend to make for good cookie content. 10 Things You Can Do This Weekend to Repair Your Credit does.
No, you don’t want to overpromise quick “magic bullet” schemes. But cookie content isn’t about the long term and it’s not about hard work. It’s about fast, simple solutions that people can use right away.
It’s fine to talk about the longer term too. But be sure you have enough quick cookies in your content to keep things palatable. Your readers have enough complexity to contend with. They’re not looking for more in your content.
Cookie content is highly readable. It brings the reader pleasure. It’s often entertaining. It’s well organized, which makes it digestible.
Cookie content uses your best writing skills. Not to show off how smart and talented you are, but to make the content more delicious for your reader.
Easy reading is damn hard writing
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
In a crowded email inbox or RSS reader, cookie content will tend to attract your reader’s attention first. You’re literally training that reader to consume your content, because the content is beneficial and appealing.
Each time she reads your work, she feels better. It doesn’t take long for you to become a pleasurable habit with that reader. (Even better, you’re 100% fat free.)
Does this mean you never get to promote yourself? Not at all. You can make high-quality offers regularly (and should, if you want to make a living). Just be sure you’re including enough cookies to keep your reader’s attention and interest.
You probably don’t want to create content that consists of nothing but cookies. That can give even the most self-indulgent reader indigestion.
But include enough that you’re always training your audience to open your email, read your blog posts, and pass along your special reports. You’ll find that the more you reward them, the more they reward you.
About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.
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How to Create Better Content: Treat Your Readers Like Dogs
I haven’t posted anything about our Thesis Theme for Wordpress lately, which is criminally negligent on my part given that it’s one of the main ways that pays the bills around here.
But this time I wanted to do something a bit more than a product update.
So I was thinking… one of the big selling points of Thesis is its search optimized code and the built-in content optimization features that make SEO easy… right from the WordPress posting interface.
And yet, so many bloggers and content marketers are in the dark about the basics of search engine optimization. Some people actually seem to be scared of it, while others think it doesn’t matter.
Here’s a hint: it’s not scary and it does matter. So I want to do something to help.
That’s where SEO School comes in.
If you want to get your free copy of SEO School, here’s what you do:
She’ll send you your free copy of SEO School, you keep the $39 in your pocket, and you’re on your way to getting more traffic from search engines. This is a limited time offer, so…
Get your traffic rolling with Thesis and SEO School today.
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Buy the Thesis Theme for WordPress Today, Get SEO School for Free
En esta parte podrás poder cualquier cosa sobre ti ó sobre tu sitio, una pequeña introducción ó algo que desees hacerle saber a tus lectores. elsonar.es
Three patents granted today to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all describe how each of the search engines might take a close look at page addresses, or URLs on dynamic web sites. I wrote about the patent from Microsoft back when it had just been published as a pending patent application, in Microsoft Creating Rules for Canonical
SEM Synergy this week will be live, and Bruce Clay will be talking to callers and answering questions on the show! People that hang out in the WebmasterRadio.FM chat room during SEM Synergy each week (and really, why aren’t you there?) know that I’m asked “Is this live?” about once per episode. How excited am I to be able to say “YES!” this time around?! SEM Synergy , our weekly radio show and podcast here at BCI, is actually going live for a very special reason: our 100th episode! (Pay no attention to the episode count on iTunes. It’s a little thrown off because the episode from SES San Jose 2008 was eaten alive by technical issues…) In the 99 episodes that have happened since the first show came together in April 2008, we’ve been privileged to interview some of the SEM industry’s most respected authorities — privileged not only because our industry’s experts are fun, witty and beyond bright, but they’re also exceedingly generous with their time and knowledge! (And if you needed more proof of the SEO community’sgenerosity …) I mean, I’m always amazed when I consider the SEM Synergy library is chock full of brain nuggets from the likes of Avinash Kaushik, Matt Cutts, Vanessa Fox, Danny Sullivan, Bryan Eisenberg, Tamar Weinberg, Michael Gray, Marshall Simmonds, Dr.
Look out, Big Apple. Search Engine Strategies is coming to town
Moderator: Matt Van Wagner , President, Find Me Faster Speakers: Meagan Rochelle , Search Solutions Specialist, Microsoft Nicholas Ward , Product Manager, Range Online Media How many people are using Bing Cashback, Matt asks? About a quarter of the audience raises their hand. The rest are interested to find out how it might work for them.
The first big search conference of the new year, Search Marketing Expo West , is just around the bend. SMX West takes place March 2-5 in Santa Clara, California. Bruce Clay, Inc.