When people ask you what you do for a living, do you answer in terms of the products or services you deliver or the activities you perform to deliver them? That’s fairly common and, of course, not actually wrong. But it’s also not particularly helpful or inspiring. Here’s an exercise that could dramatically improve the success potential of your business.
General
Most articles in this category address general Web and Internet issues. Some of them are rants and ramblings that may have less to do with the Web and the Internet and more to do with life lessons and business lessons.
Don’t blindly do what your customers ask you to do just because they asked you to do it
Yesterday I had the audacity to say that customers are not always right. I suggested that we, as professionals (and this is true in any field, I think), have a responsibility to first ask why before doing what our customers ask us to do just because they asked us to do it. (Both yesterday’s blog […]
First ask why
Yesterday I wrote about fellow WordPress designers/developers discussing the best way to automatically delete old posts from a blog. My point yesterday was don’t. Don’t delete old posts from a blog. With very few exceptions, old posts have value, both for human readers and search engines.
Don’t delete old content.
A fellow WordPress designer/developer recently asked (in one of my LinkedIn WordPress groups) how to automatically remove “old” blog posts. Her client wants certain blog posts to run for specific lengths of time and doesn’t want to have to keep track and remove them manually. Why? My fist reaction was Why? Why would a content […]
Please stop endorsing me on LinkedIn.
(Occasionally I rant. This is one such occasion.) First, a thank you. Thanks to all who have endorsed me on LinkedIn. Despite all I’m about to say, I do believe you endorsed me in good faith, and I sincerely appreciate that. So why haven’t I returned the favor? And why am I asking you to […]
HTML5 Outliner
If you run your HTML5 Web page through the w3.org validator, there’s a good chance your document’s outline will not show up. I wish I could offer a good explanation of why that is. But I can’t. However, if you want to see your HTML5 document’s outline, paste your URL in the URL box of […]
Everything you could ever want to know about the role and importance of HTML headings in Web documents, including blogs
Many of the best marketing minds of our time agree that regularly and frequently publishing online content that establishes you as an authority in your field is today’s cold-calling. It’s a no-brainer that blogging is potentially your best tool for executing a content marketing strategy that earns you the attention, trust, and engagement you seek. But not all blogs are created equal. Blogs that aren’t readable aren’t read. And there are a whole lot of unreadable blogs out there. In this article, I focus on one aspect of blog writing that can make a huge difference in how readable your blogs are: subheadings.
13 Timeless Lessons from the Father of Advertising
No matter what you’re about to write — copy for your Web site’s “About” page, your next blog article, tomorrow’s email marketing campaign letter — these chunks of wisdom from David Ogilvy (via Copyblogger) should help. My faves: “On why we write”, “Ogilvy on headlines”.
Spreading your ideas
If your idea isn’t spreading, one reason might be that it’s for too many people. Or it might be because the cohort that appreciates it isn’t tightly connected. When you focus on a smaller, more connected group, it’s far easier to make an impact.
Repetition
If you’re using frequency as a tactic to make up for the fact that you’re being ignored, you can certainly do better.