The flipside of creating content is generating traffic. The pyramid to the left works the same as the content pyramid. The three sides are the guiding principles that will inform your actual traffic generation efforts. In this case, I stole the “principles” from traditional SEO thinking. In that context, the search engines rank your site based on the relevance to what the reader is looking for, the popularity of your site (or even individual posts), and the frequency—or freshness—of the content. But these principles can be applied (if a little bit differently) to each stage of the traffic pyramid, too. CONVERSATIONS Get out there and talk to people. This can happen in a number of ways. Respond to comments on your own... [Read more]

This is the Content pyramid. The three sides (purpose, audience and theme) represent the guiding principles that will keep your content focused and fresh. Purposedefines the end goal of your blog. Audience is the specific group of people you are creating the content for. And the theme is the thread that ties all of your content together and gives your blog a unique voice, even on a well-traveled subject. If you remind your self of these three before you sit down to write, and check the content against them when you’re done, it will help ensure that your blog stays on message at all times. The five stages of the pyramid reflect the amount of attention you should be giving to various types of content. Incremental Posts These are the day-to-day... [Read more]

People really seemed to enjoy the Crush AdWords series, and it got me thinking over the weekend. The one thing that this blog is lacking, based on what I mentioned in past posts on the Blog Formula, is a sort of over-arching theme that ties everything together and allows for interesting illustrations of concepts and ideas. What’s the Big Deal? Why am I so big on this? Well, for several reasons. For one thing, it is an easy way to stand out and create a unique voice for your blog. Second, I’ve been a huge fan of mnemonics—or memory systems—for a long time. And one of the key aspects of mnemonics is associating the new thing to be learned with something that is already known. Now, since I’m just the writer and... [Read more]

I’d like to talk a few minutes about the true strong suit of AdWords (tracking & testing), and how most people misuse it. Many people write a few different ads, put them up and let Google rotate them out and decide which ones are the most effective. While that’s better than not doing anything, you’re still wasting a lot of time (and a good bit of money). A better approach is to use AdWords to test different Elements of a single Ad against each other, to optimize that ad, before trying to test a bunch of different ads together. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN Okay, let’s return one last time to our weightloss example. And let’s say we want to create ads that will take people to our “swimsuit season” landing... [Read more]

Okay, so we’ve laid a foundation (e.g. we know what we want). We’ve done our Keyword/market research. And we’ve built a few landing pages. So we know where our prospects are coming from, and we know where we want them to go. Now it’s time to help them get from one place to the other. Here’s what you’ve been waiting all week for: It’s time to write some ads. First things first, Get out a pen and paper. Write down the titles of your landing pages and the corresponding keyword phrases you’ve chosen. Now, sign out of AdWords. That’s right. Sign out. Shut down your computer, and take a deep breath. GET READY This is REALLY hard. I hope you’re paying attention. ‘Cause here we go. First,... [Read more]