-
Good search engine optimization costs less than secret strategies.
It’s cheaper to do good search engine optimization legitimately, than it is to use “black hat” SEO. That’s a paraphrase from a talk Google’s Matt Cutts delivered to attendees at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco. If a wave of dot-com millionaire philanthropists was the first sweeping effect of Silicon Valley’s growing…
-
Lead generation, thought leadership, and brand awareness named top content marketing goals.
Lead generation tops the list of goals for content marketing programs, according to IDG Enterprise. Researchers talked to over 700 professional marketers on LinkedIn, finding that two out of three want their investment in original content to pay off in the form of new prospects, requests for proposals, and closed deals. Even though IDG’s survey…
-
Focus on your business instead of on your business blog.
At two of my early journalism gigs, I encountered assignment desk editors who would crumble press releases and three-point them into the nearest trash bin if they didn’t follow accepted submission protocol. Leave out the “–30–” or the triple-hash at the end of the page? Binned. Miss the “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” at the head? Chucked.…
-
Cheap web content could cost you your search engine ranking.
A prospect recently asked me why she should spend so much money for original articles on her site, when she can just copy whatever she needs from the rest of the web. It’s easy to write off a business owner who thinks that way as being cheap or as someone who doesn’t understand how the…
-
Authorship and brand voice.
Ryan Smith has ignited a debate in newsrooms and marketing agencies across America, in the wake of exposing his (now former) employer, Journatic. Stressed-out newspapers have hired Journatic (and companies like it) to “mechanical turk” many of the articles that once formed the backbone of print dailies: real estate transaction summaries, obituaries, even local sports…
-
On paying by the word for web copy.
For all the posturing we make about being casual and transparent online, web copywriters don’t always make their pricing clear. We’ve had good reasons to keep our rates a trade secret. Post how much you charge per word, and you’re suddenly playing a commodity game. That’s bad for both writers and their clients. Focus too…
-
Surviving chaos.
Researching a freelance writing assignment for a client, I ended up on a website run by survivalists. I’m hesitant to even link to it, because there’s some crazy stuff going on over there. However, I did catch something interesting among all the fear and paranoia on that website. The authors wrote passionately about how the…
-
How Marty McFly’s sneakers help your credit card company prevent fraud
Maybe not those sneakers per se, but my latest column for Fox Business explores five of the most ridiculous credit card charges of all time, including Tinie Tempah’s recent purchase of a $37,500 pair of Nike Mags. (Don’t worry, it was for charity.) Your credit card company watches for purchases that fall outside your normal…
-
Happy Independence Day.
Happy Fourth of July! Before I head out to enjoy some red velvet pancakes, parades, and fireworks, I’m going to explain what’s happening here. For more than a decade, I’ve been ghost writing blogs, articles, and even books for clients all over the United States. I’ve done it under the cover of various “day jobs,”…
-
The Making of Barclaycard Ring
In an era of big bank consolidation, I’m excited that the folks from Barclaycard have chosen to leverage their “clean brand” to shake up the credit card business here in the United States. I interviewed Barclaycard’s Paul Wilmore for this credit card profile on the Fox Business website.
-
Five Weird Food Combos
I don’t always just write about personal finance and music. My first food blog post landed at The Daily Meal this week. I catalog five of the weirdest plates I saw or heard about during my recent trip to New York. Highlights include a pickle marinated in Kool-Aid and a specialty pizza that costs $1,000.…
-
Credit Cards of the Future
Fox Business, NASDAQ, and many other outlets in our CardRatings syndicate picked up my feature on four technology trends that could change the way we use credit cards over the next twenty years. I’m not sure if we’ll figure out how to eliminate cash in our lifetime. After all, there’s still something very primal and…