Most valuable writing lesson ever. Or so says Steven Pressfield in this blog post on how his first professional job as an advertising copywriter indelibly carved this truth on his psyche:

“Nobody wants to read your shit.

Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and…

...continue to read "Nobody wants to read your sh**!"

Sorry about the headline – the 80s flashbacks are getting to me.  Still, I really do “play stupid” as a Website optimizer and online copywriter.  Or at least I play ignorant.

Why?  Because all those terms and concepts you think everyone understands about your business and what you’re selling – well, you’re wrong about them!  Wrong about both the terms themselves and your potential audience.  If you think I’m mistaken, go back and watch the video…

...continue to read "I’m not an idiot, but I play one online – and so should you!"

So your friend shows you this book he can’t stop raving about. After giving it the old dust-cover/random-flip-through examination, you pretty much decide to buy it. Now, when you arrive at amazon.com, my question is: are you at all interested in the book recommendations that Amazon has for you?

Absolutely not, right?  Or at least not yet.

You came to buy a specific book.  You’ve already got a task in mind and browsing random books aint it.  You’ll likely…

...continue to read "Does Online Browsing Bend the Laws of Scent and Relevance?"

After the first dot-com bust, “content is king” was the rallying cry of any competent Web worker. Back then this revelation was novel online. Soon after, this mantra became a cliché. As it often goes with clichés, they start out as something true and meaningful. Eventually, the words become common, outlive their value, and are so overused that they’re easily ignored.

Saying content is king is the equivalent of saying money is valuable; it’s true but obvious. Tell that to the…

...continue to read "The Value of Content Marketing"

Thanks to our friends at Contentwidgets, we developed this little quiz to see how persuasive your copywriting is. Please note, when there is more than one response possible you will see checkboxes in the quiz not radio buttons in front of the answers. Please take a try at the quiz and leave your score in the comments below.

jQuery(function() { new WIDGET('AF8372B8-5CDC-48CD-BA70-6EE262A6A698').render('bb'); });

...continue to read "How Persuasive is Your Online Copywriting? Quiz"

Are you selling your white papers short with poor merchandising?

Many sites offering “free” white papers, case studies, or resources in exchange for some visitor information utterly fail to merchandise their downloads. Yet if your website doesn’t treat your white paper as containing valuable information, your visitors won’t either.

The problem starts by thinking of these downloads as free. You’re asking for something extremely valuable to both you and the visitor, their contact information. To get this valuable information, you need to…

...continue to read "12 Techniques to Increase White Paper Leads"

Thank you dear readers. We are so grateful to you, the readers who give us your most valuable gift, your time. Below you’ll find a list of posts that were the most popular, most commented and most linked too posts on this blog in 2008.

We have diverse readership, which includes B2B marketers, retailers, publishers, non-profits, Fortune 500 managers, small business owners, lots of consultants and all sorts of surprising people. We love all of your comments, additional advice and dedication…

...continue to read "The Best of GrokDotCom 2008"

There’s a really interesting discussion going on in the comment section of Bryan’s post – The More You Post, The Better You Rank.  Technorati released a report that found the top blogs post multiple times a day.   Bryan asked if readers prefer blogs with multiple posts or a single daily posts   The reaction has been mixed.   Some prefer multiple posts, some prefer one meaty post.

There’s an important parallel here…

...continue to read "How to Write Newsletters That People Actually Read"

Earlier this week it came to our attention that a significant part of our readership never received their email newsletters (for some people this has been several months worth) due to an internal operational glitch. Can you say ooooops! So we’ve put together a list of the top 10 posts you may have missed:

Tapping the Power of Social Media to Advertise to Women

3 Things Viral Videos Must Do to Make Money 

Free Whitepaper: “Marketing in a Recession” (Don’t…

...continue to read "The Best of GrokDotCom 2008, So Far…"

Through a meandering trail of links which I cannot begin to recall, I stumbled across the Chicago Manual of Style Online. Browsing their Q & A section is not only educational, but downright entertaining. Here’s a good example:

Q. Is it correct to use parenthesis to indicate the possibility of a noun as singular or plural? Example: Child(ren). A. I wouldn’t. It’s not so much an issue of correctness as of ickiness.

I love Jeff Sexton like a brother. But sometimes I feel like a mildly…

...continue to read "Free Tool for Writing Gooder"