 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
It turns out longer is better—at least when it comes to writing headlines for branded content. Branded content technology provider Polar analyzed a bunch of data provided by premium publishers, such as Oath and Gannett, to see how variation in headlines affected key performance indicators (KPIs). It found that branded content headlines between 90 and 99 characters achieved a clickthrough rate (CTR) of 0.43%, higher than headlines with fewer characters. The “more is better” theory also held true for the number of words included in a headline. Polar reported that headlines with 16 words garnered a CTR of 0.33%. By comparison, pithy headlines of just four words recorded an average CTR of less than half that, at just 0.14%. Some other tips Polar gleaned from its work? Numbers and special characters also resulted in a bump in CTRs. So feel free to figure out how to squeeze an ampersand in there....
You have greatness in you. Cultivating it often takes role models, mentors, and loads of hard work. This fun quiz will help you find out which famous world leader you most resemble in your writing and may help you find an inspiring role model.
Online, your product is unbundled. You get 10 words. Or 8. Or maybe 13, like I used above, to market your work. Digital success is like selling a newspaper story by story rather than day by day or week by week. And in selling that day’s paper, by subscription or newsstand, there’s just less urgency to make the headline awesome on that 150-word story buried at the bottom of page 11. Sections and geographic centers all are comfortable assumptions you can’t make in digital headlines. You must have a certain sense of desperation in writing web headlines, like those eight words are the difference between that column’s or blog’s life or death. Mostly, because it is. You aren’t owed readership. Your headline helps earn it — along with a handful of other factors like author and brand.
So any strategy involving growing and sustaining digital audience must incorporate excellence in headline writing. Must.
A few points to clarify here as we begin. I’ll be discussing writing for readers here, not for search engine optimization. That will be a consideration at times, but mostly we’re talking about people creating headlines for people....
If you've decided that you want to start an email newsletter, or you want to revamp one that's not performing well, keep on reading. We've compiled some of our absolute favorite email newsletters to inspire you to make the best email newsletter for your company possible.
Each newsletter on this list is fabulous for different reasons. Some have exceptional design, some have exceptional copy, some have exceptional calls-to-action ... but all are exceptional at solving for their subscribers' needs. Check 'em out....
Writing isn’t a talent—it’s a skill. A skill you can develop, refine, and improve.
Becoming a great copywriter isn’t easy, but if you consistently work on your writing, your writing will get better and better.
Here are 33 (count them!) writing tweaks that will propel you to copywriting mastery....
Not sure where to start? That’s okay. This article will teach you the fundamentals. You'll learn how to drive audiences to read every word you write. You’ll learn how digital copywriters -- you know, marketers who use words to convert people online -- get and keep the most valuable commodity on the internet: attention. However, in order to command an online reader’s attention, you have to first understand how they read. The answer, of course, is that they’re not reading at all. On the internet, the majority of people are actually skimming. In fact, according to research performed by Jakob Nielsen, of the Nielsen Norman Group, only 16% of people online read word-by-word. Just about everyone else is a scanner, picking text apart for the bits that are valuable to them. Knowing that, there are several ways you can write to make the process easier for people, ensuring that your message is entirely received. Ready to learn a valuable skill?...
As marketers, writers and crafters, we spend hours on bringing our content ideas to life and after all that effort, want our content to be seen. Writing powerful social media copy to grab people’s eyes and win their hearts is a challenge, though. And often, when our content isn’t breaking through the noise we can fix it with a few slight edits and tweaks. Editing content and copy is a key part of the creative process but is often overlooked. In this post, I’d love to share 11 editing tips and tricks to help you take your social media content to the next level....
After a while, you get sick and tired of writing. You just want to quit. Is it that notorious condition known as writer’s block? It could be, but in many cases it’s a little bit different. There are a few things going on:You’re bored with what you’re writing about. Boredom kills affection.You’ve exhausted your creative energy. Creativity, like a muscle, has its limits. Push it too hard, and it caves in.You need something more challenging. Lack of challenge -- goals, vision, perspective -- leads to disillusionment. You need some fresh experiences. Fresh experiences will give you a fresh perspective.It’s time to figure out how to get your brain back on task. How do you get past the drudgery and enjoy writing again? Let's talk through a few tips....
Some people give me a hard time about how long my blog posts are (you know who you are). They tell me I should break my posts into smaller posts, or suggest I consider a 500-word post for a change. I deserve the razzing, particularly when I publish a couple of 3,000-word posts back-to-back.
In the absence of column inch or word limit restrictions, I’ll use as many words as I need to get my point across. It’s not that I don’t know how to write short posts, it’s just not my preferred style. If I’m limited to 140 characters (for now at least), I’ll use 140 characters. If I decide to write a 500-word post about how to write shorter blog posts, I can do it.
To prove my point, you’re actually reading that 500-word post I mentioned. Here are six of the most-helpful tips I’ve come across for writing shorter blog posts...
The recent poll on the Now Novel blog reminded us of one of writers’ greatest challenges: finding time to write. Not knowing how to find time to write often simply means not prioritizing your writing.
Here is how 12 writers have made time in their own busy lives to prioritize their creative work and write...
Whether you're a published author or just getting started with blogging, it's not always easy to string words together in a way that makes sense, sounds good, and makes the reader feel something.
But every marketer should be able to write -- and, more importantly, every marketer can write. It's just a matter of finding the writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback (and listening to it), and practicing.
Luckily, there are a slew of great tools you can use to help improve your writing. Check out the list below, and feel free to add the most helpful ones you use in the comment section....
I have studied a wide variety of top notch writers (who are also great marketers) over the years and noticed that they all have certain skills in common.
In this article, I’ll break down these skills, showing you examples of them in action and ways to develop them.
By the end of this post, you should have a concrete game plan of how to become a better writer for the benefit of your business....
We’ve pulled together every single copywriting formula we’ve ever seen to create the ultimate guide – the most complete handbook – to copywriting formulas.
This one post will help you write all your copy faster and with greater likelihood of success.
You should be using copywriting formulas whenever you write anything.
They eliminate the guesswork that makes a lot of bad copy bad copy. They will help you face the Blank White Page without cowering. They’ll help you generate A/B test ideas faster. They’ll help you pinpoint what’s going wrong in a button… in a headline… or even in a video script....
|
When writers apply visual thinking to their writing magic happens. This tutorial teaches you how to make your content clearer, vivid, and more persuasive.
Via Penelope
You’re busy, so I’ll keep this quick. Following are the simplest tips I can give you to easily — and forever — improve the quality of your writing.
Words are hard. Whether you're a published author or just getting started with blogging, it's not always easy to string words together in a way that makes sense, sounds good, and makes the reader feel something. But every marketer should be able to write -- and, more importantly, every marketer can write. It's just a matter of finding the writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback (and listening to it), and practicing. Luckily, there are a slew of great tools you can use to help improve your writing. Check out the list below, and feel free to add the most helpful ones you use in the comment section....
People often assume that trade blogs are dry and uninteresting by their very nature. That isn’t—and shouldn’t be—the case.
After all, who will keep coming back to your blog if they’re bored to tears whenever they visit?
Luckily, there are plenty of easy ways to spice things up.
Here are 25 useful tips to turn your B2B blog into something that delivers the returns you deserve. It’s never too late to make your B2B blog an effective part of your online marketing strategy.
In fact, I’m bursting with ideas for making industry blogs more dynamic and engaging. Here are my 25 best tips....
The change you are seeking in business writing varies depending on what you’re writing. For example: - A white paper seeks to change your opinion about a company. - A marketing email seeks to create loyalty or purchases. - Advertising creates a favorable impression toward a brand. - A web page educates you about products and pricing. - Instructions seek to educate you about how to use a product. - A research report gives you insights on how a market is changing. - An email to your boss explains a problem and proposes solutions, changing her priorities. - An email to your staff explains a change in strategy and seeks to modify their behavior. In all these cases, the reader is different — smarter, better informed — as a result of reading. This is the desired change in the reader. As a reader, you might take action (call the company, buy the product, use the product, change your approach to a market, run the company differently, change what you do at work that day). You might not; you might just save the information for later, or use it to support what you were going to do anyway. But if there is no change in the reader, you’ve wasted the reader’s time, violating the Iron Imperative....
The blank white screaming screen – it’s a dreadful entity for professionals belonging to any field. Because it’s always hard to start from scratch and take the first step.
As bloggers, meeting your editorial calendar deadlines is of utmost importance. But, once you’ve written blog posts in particular formats, you might find yourself in deep water. You fear that you no longer have a unique and compelling blog post idea to serve your audience.
For keeping your audience engaged, you’ll need to keep an editorial balance. But, lingering on the stressful feeling will only suck up a good amount of your time and energy.
In most cases of this kind of block, you’ll find that the inertia of motion will sail you through. You haven’t lost your ability to produce high-quality and value-adding content. You only need inspiration to come up with new engaging angles.
To help you in the writing cause, I want to share 6 tools and strategies with you....
We still write as if people will read our work in print, but they don’t — they read on glass screens. As a result, you should include links in everything you write, from emails to reports. It will make your writing shorter and more powerful.
The versatility of links
As a blogger, I use links all the time. Once you realize how versatile they are, you become addicted. How many of these types of links do you use?
- Footnote-type links. A link to an article lets people check what you’re writing or go deeper — and they let you deliver traffic to somebody worth supporting.
- Calls to action. If you’re doing content marketing, you’ll want it to pay off in commerce, subscriptions, or some similar value.
- Internal links to showcase your value. My blog is a network of related content. My links reveal the value I’m trying to deliver.
- Easter eggs. Reward your readers with something fun if they click.
- Intranet links. In internal documents and emails, link to content on your intranet so you don’t have to include it.
- Opposing viewpoints. Links allow you to refer to an argument without getting into it.
- Canned searches. People forget that if you can type it in a browser window, you can put it in a link — including a link to a search.
I know links improve SEO. But I’m about meaning. Include links because they make your writing better — any SEO benefit just a nice plus....
Do you know what the average attention span of a reader is today? It’s 8.2 seconds. You read that right. The average attention span of someone visiting your page is less than it takes you to drink a glass of water. You have less than 10 seconds to convince your readers that your content is more than good; you have to convince them that it’s remarkable.
Luckily, you can make your headlines way better if you pay attention to a couple of simple rules....
One of the reasons writing a great novel is so challenging is that there is no obvious starting place. Is it a character? A premise? A theme? A single sentence that won’t get out of your head?
While that argument continues to rage, what remains in less dispute is this: there are a set of principles and essential elements that, before the story works, you need to get right. With that in mind, this series introduces – reintroduces, actually, since these are the foundation of this body of work, and my three writing books – ten of those essential elements.
Today’s post defines and explores the one that is in the running for that Square One focus….
Coming up with exciting content is a bit tricky though, not just because everything has already been done to death, so it’s hard to come up with anything original, but also because once you set out to create it, it seems as if everything is turning against you and wants to prevent you from creating it. You name it: procrastination (although that one is on you), writer’s block (a little bit on you), distractions, the agony of having to edit your work, the list is seemingly endless.
We've mentioned tools to help with content marketing several times at Smart Insights. We thought it worth mentioning these tools because whilst you may already be using the likes of Trello and Hootsuite, these less well-known tools may also help you be that extra bit more effective when it comes to writing content....
When you’re planning to write, but before you’re actually writing, you create an outline. Unfortunately, most outlines are worthless. You need a better outline: a fat outline.
Outlines are helpful for mapping out the structure of a long piece of writing — anything more than 1,000 words (a couple of pages). An outline ought to help the people you’re working with — your boss, your clients, your editor — to understand what you’re going to write. It should also force you, the writer, to think clearly about content.
The problem is, traditional outlines don’t do this very well.
I’ve had the privilege of my writing being published on Forbes, Mashable, TechCrunch, Time, Fast Company, VentureBeat, Entrepreneur, and several other publications, and if you aspire to see your writing in mainstream publications like these, perhaps there is something in my story that will help you get there.
The writing I’ve had published has brought me speaking opportunities, a book deal, and more than 1000% growth for my business. I’ve been able to interview and network with my marketing and business heroes, all in the last two and a half years. Prior to that, my writing had never appeared in a mainstream publication. I was just a guy nobody had heard of, posting here and there on my blog, with a small handful of readers. This is the story of how everything changed. ...
|
A paradox? More characters and more words mean more clicks.