I confess that I never have read an Elmore Leonard book or story. That’s not a judgment. There are thousands of authors I haven’t read who deserve my time. But I can’t get to them. And something tells me I need to pick up a Leonard book. One of the reasons is that he is […]
writing
I understand the value of SEO. You need to use language that matches what your audience is entering into search engine queries. But sometimes you can go too far. Consider this paragraph from a post that pays more attention to keywords than readability: When you are looking for a merchant account to grow your business, […]
Why do you need to create a guide to the words describing what you do? When I worked in newspapers, we had style guides to help us decide which words to use. The entries contained grammar tips, spelling examples and definitions of terms. The guides answered a lot of questions about how to refer to […]
I’m guilty of killing trees. Despite all the searchability and coolness of digital documents, I insist on taking notes with paper and pen. And I’m not alone. Check the Twitter conversation generated by Social Media Breakfast and you will see a few references to the dead tree notebooks. I can’t speak for them but here […]
Focus on your ideal reader (customer) when writing. Keep your connection to him or her. That connection stands a better chance of transferring around the world than if you go generic.
Content curation is the act of monitoring many sources of content and sharing only the best sources.
When it comes time to publish a blog post, it’s easier to finish something you started on a previous day if you write every day.
You’re not being honest if you say you hate jargon. You love it. You use it all the time. You love it because: It’s efficient: Jargon is code for commonly-discussed concepts. Using jargon saves time in communications. It identifies us: Using jargon shows we belong to a sub-culture. Using jargon says “I’m one of you.” […]
This is going to be a quick post since blogging is dead. At least that’s what Brian Clark over at CopyBlogger.com says. Or is he? He’s got a point about content marketing that I’m not sure I get. And I don’t think he wants me to get it – yet. This seems to be the […]