Organically Muddy? A Quick SEO Scrubbing Can Improve Your Brand Image

You take extra care to ensure your content on your marketing materials, business cards, and Web site are accurate, compelling, and drive your primary message. But what about your organic brand? A little SEO scrubbing and persuasive copy writing can get your organic brand shiny again.

I Need to Find a Way to Stand Out

I’m often asked to review wireframes or Beta versions of Web sites. Often, the conversation starts like this:

“Here’s what I’m thinking for web site content … [description here] … but I need to find a way to be different.”

I love that. That’s exactly what you should be thinking. It’s the billion dollar dilemma. Especially if content is a primary asset of your business.

It’s not enough to say you’ll provide advice, tools, tips, tricks, checklists, recipes, quizzes, whitepapers, e-books … those are delivery methods. It’s not enough to name your niche topic: health, lifestyle, food and drink, travel, kayaking, modern architecture, whatever. What’s inside that’s truly different?

Sometimes you have to take your concept to an extreme and back to find the core of what represents you and your brand. Take it there. Tell me about it. I’d like an extreme makeover myself.

Checkin’ Out the Competition

Let’s say you know a specific site — competitor or not — is really successful. It doesn’t matter how you know. You just know they’re bringing in the bucks. There’s something about their site that works. Here are five ways to leverage the competition’s successess — without copying.

Working Backward – Defining Content to Define Your Business

by Shelly Bowen

Is it possible that business strategy and content strategy are starting to overlap?

Many of my clients are start-ups. When creating all new or optimizing content for digital efforts, I first need to know a few things about the business and business goals.

Makes sense, right?

I have developed a process of discovery that’s worked very well in developing a content strategy. It helps me identify:

• what the product is,
• who it’s for,
• what the benefits and features are, and
• why someone should believe any of it.

Armed with this info, I can create some really powerful, effective content.

But when the business is a really fresh and chick-naked start-up, when the founders want to go-go-go but are still figuring out how it’s going to work and where the money will be coming from … my job is a little harder.

I totally believe in the launch, get feedback and iterate approach … but … I then find myself creating “placeholder” content. And not Lorem ipsum. I’m writing draft content that suggests how things could work for the business: for the customer process, for the business model.

Maybe this. Maybe that. An interesting position to be in for a content strategist.

Your Social Essence: Who Are YOU?

Are you social — gregarious and convivial? What’s your personality like?

Write one sentence to describe you and your essence. Then create a 1 minute video to captures your essence.

Be confident. Show flaws.

LOVE these calls to action from Susan Rice-Lincoln at Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco today. Imagine how much more lively and easy your content will be with a focus on your social essence?