Episodes

What’s the best way to handle overwhelm, especially when it comes with a side of procrastination? Note: If you want to know more about the upcoming Creative Content Foundations class, you can drop your details here: Creative ...

It’s time for the latest round of “Content Marketing doesn’t work any more” stories. Can you tell these make me a little cranky? It’s official — content marketing has moved from the Gartner Hype Cycle “peak of inflated expect...

Tech and tactics come and go — but storytelling lasts forever. In this episode, Shane Snow and Joe Lazauskas of Contently share their favorite techniques for developing a storytelling edge. (Part 2 of a 2-part episode.) We al...

Tech and tactics come and go — but storytelling lasts forever. In this episode, Shane Snow and Joe Lazauskas of Contently share their favorite techniques for developing a storytelling edge. (Part 1 of a 2-part episode.) We al...

What do the search engines mean by a “high quality site”? While technical SEO still exists, a huge chunk of modern search engine optimization consists of “generating high-quality content.” So what does that mean? When a searc...

Here’s a simple way to make the best use of your time when you’re creating new content, improve your SEO, and create a great user experience on your website. Whether you’ve created a lot of content already, or you’re just …

I see and hear the horror stories on Facebook, on LinkedIn, at conferences. Folks who spend months or sometimes years on a big, bold business idea … only to see it die at launch with no sales. You don’t have …

The web needs talented writers. So why is it (sometimes) so hard for the best writers to get paid what they’re worth? There are so many really good writers out there who are thiiiis close to making a great living …

Content sharing is the great “free ride” of 2018. You get more people looking at your stuff, and you don’t have to pay a dime for it. But you do need to set your content up for sharing success. Optimizing …

I don’t believe in predictions. The future isn’t a mystery novel, with carefully selected clues left for us to decipher. But there’s something I do think is useful to watch. Rather than trying to make predictions, I’m a big f...

January is the traditional month to work on goals for the new year, but there’s a lot to be said for starting in December. Today, in the middle of a month that can often be hectic and chaotic, I thought …

Why do some of the most talented people see the least success? Sometimes they’re held back by misconceptions about marketing and sales. Some of the most talented people out there don’t get the recognition they deserve because...

It’s hard enough to come up with ideas — but when we do, how do we know they’re any good? How can we evaluate our ideas and make sure we’re choosing the ones that will create the best content? Shannon …

Do the usual “gratitude practices” ever feel formulaic or simplistic to you? Here are some that I’ve found can go a little deeper. This week as we head toward U.S. Thanksgiving, you’ll see a lot about gratitude around the web...

William Maynard of the Bates agency once wrote that “… most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end.” And David Ogilvy famously added,”If you …

Happy Halloween week! Today we’re talking with Rebecca Tracey about entrepreneurial fear — how it holds us back and what we can do about it. I’ve been talking this month about entrepreneurial fear — on the blog, in our privat...

Neuroscience tells us that making decisions for our content strategy or our websites is “cognitively expensive.” In simpler terms — it’s exhausting. Here are a few “back of the envelope” factors that can help you zero in on t...

5 painful mistakes I’ve seen writers, marketers, and business owners make … and how you can avoid them We all make mistakes — but it sucks a lot less to learn from someone else’s. In this 18-minute episode, I talk …

How one freelance copywriter found his groove, and how you can find yours, too. Lots of our listeners are freelance copywriters — and many more would like to do some writing as a “side hustle,” whether or not you ever …

Think marketing is evil? Only if you’re doing it right … Every once in awhile, I run across someone who hates me, my job, my website, and my company, because after all, marketing is intrinsically interesting. In this 9-minute...

A collection of great questions from our smart audience! I love audience questions! Thanks to four thoughtful folks this week for asking questions (or leaving their thoughts) to spark this week’s responses. In this 26-minute ...

A comment from one of our blog readers sparked some thoughts… A reader left a great question as a blog post comment, and the answer took us to some fundamentals about the role of content on our sites. In this …

Seems simple enough, right? Then how come so many people are terrible at it? In principle, leaving a comment on someone’s blog, podcast, or social media account doesn’t seem too tricky. Enter your name and other info, write d...

Which works better in content marketing — positive messages or negative ones? Well … it depends. On the one hand, as content marketers, we want to associate ourselves and our content with lots of great feelings — that’s what ...