The expertise to authority continuum can be quantified by how conversations happen. TL;DR A level one expert has one conversation at a time at a one-to-one level (or one-to-a-few as with a …
Part 1: Why understanding “search” matters
This is part one of a series on demystifying Google for audience-first content experts Why understanding "search" mattersWhat PageRank actually isGoogle search engine (a brief history of …
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Content channel (and format) gut check
Whether and how much you focus energy on search or social or referral or email or affiliate should be a function of what you want to accomplish and whether or not you can win there. What is winning …
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Some content standards to consider
Clarity is key. Confusion is the enemy. In a world that's slowly moving towards web accessibility (defined in Wikipedia as "the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of …
The case for ethical framing (for profit)
It's inevitable. You must provide a frame in marketing. Take away framing, and maybe also scarcity and the ability to interrupt (ads), and we'd have a lot of trouble getting people to buy …
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On confirm-shaming
Seeing my last email in my own inbox, entitled "don't be basic with your content," felt a little... mean? weird? annoying? I don't know. It just didn't feel like the kind of subject lines I want to be …
Steps toward being more strategic with your content
When you go from writing content on instinct to planning content with a strategy, a bunch of questions will pop up to create resistance to the new approach. Inevitably you'll want to know: what …
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How much hygiene do you need?
I've resisted publishing about my struggles with becoming a regular flosser and will continue to resist talking about that type of hygiene for now. As discussed in a recent email, in the …
Solving problems
I think any problem (that can actually be solved) just requires these things: having an understanding of the problemgiving it undivided attentionat the right scope of focus for enough timeat a …
things that matter and things that last
I am "attention deficient." Left to my own devices, I could easily look up from my computer, be surprised it's dark outside and realize I've gotten nothing done that matters. When I think about …
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What determines the rate your content improves?
I'm (still) reading Ultralearning by Scott Young. In it, he uses Benjamin Franklin's approach to improving the quality of his writing (identify a weak area, isolate it, drill it with rapid feedback, …
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“What should I write about?”
But first! I mentioned in a previous email I'd write more about the decision to move to contentaudience.com. If you're at all curious about the process that led up to that (and the daily emails and …
“Here lies a guy who…
spent all their time doing things for clients they were pretty okay at. If job funerals were a thing, at this moment that would be on my headstone. "Guy" because I couldn't decide if "freelancer" …
Visualizing a website with a graph database
I spent the better part of the weekend getting to a point where I could load crawl data about pages on my site and links between those pages into a graph database. It started as more of a tut/way …
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A content strategy précis
For high school history class weekly assignments, we'd have to summarize beefy articles into one sentence summaries our teacher called precis (pré·cis). The neat part was the reprieve we'd get from …
Do people even use share buttons anymore?
I was bummed I didn't get an email out today, and then I remembered I had this draft just sitting there. What's interesting here isn't actually the question, but how we can answer questions like it …
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An update on the research project
As mentioned, I'm doing some research on what digital marketing efforts are working for audience-first businesses (built on expert content), what's not, and how is that changing? You can read the …
Super power or curse. You choose.
Habits aren't everything. The ability to cultivate, refine and revise them is, though. The fifth lever is a good content amplification habit. I think about this in my own work and it feels like …
The Five Content Challenges
This is my current analysis of the most significant changes in the landscape affecting audience-first businesses. The list is a work in progress and as I learn more through research and …
The 4th content lever
The fourth lever is extendability. I'm cheating on this one a bit. It's the ability for content to be repurposed or re-used for benefit or it can be how far that content goes on it's own merits …
The third lever
The third lever is rapid feedback. Have you ever been pulled into a Facebook Ad funnel because it did such a nice job of describing a problem you had? I have. Of course there is a ton of …
Watch content organization double organic traffic, twice
Today I was doing some research for the third content lever and got sidetracked by something pretty neat I wanted to share. 5min Screenshare video [Youtube] Still working on the third content …
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The affinity loop
The second content lever is affinity. I'm still working on this one and it could more aptly be called loyalty, but to me that's a bit of a dirty word. I think of all the loyalty programs intended …
De-mazing your content
What's the path of least resistance for getting your existing body of content to work for you? I've been working on this question for a few months now. It's a tough one but I think I have it. It's …