This week on The Lede ' How A Copywriter Evaluates A Great Website The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination The Daily Rituals of the World's Most Creative People 4 Things That Lead to Success )or Failure( with Email Signup Forms How to Do More By Planning Less: The Power of the Anti-Plan Want to grab even more useful links )beyond those that make The Lede (? Follow @copyblogger on Twitter .

Writing is scary. Sometimes when we publish something, it makes us feel like our insides are hanging out, for all the world to see. We feel vulnerable. We feel naked. We feel ' terrified. But here's the thing " we have to keep writing , in spite of the fear. If we let fear stop us, our content will have no spark, no life. And everything we write will be completely unremarkable. Right now,

It's been a big week here at Copyblogger, with lots of changes )more on that next week(. But the coolest thing that's happened has been the response to our new content marketing training and networking community. The forums are already hopping with people getting questions answered. The first Authority webinar recording on Content Marketing Goals is waiting for you, plus three other new seminars just released.

You're smart. You know you need to be helpful on your blog in order to grow your audience . You share useful tips. You give away free tutorials. But somehow you're not connecting with your readers. Your blog seems a little quiet. Sure, you're getting some traffic. But a certain spark is missing. It's not the enjoyable party you'd imagined it to be. Is it getting you down? Today I'm sharing five tips to engage with your readers, make them feel at home,

Allow your jaw to become unhinged at this statistic: There are over 1 million more mobile devices activated every day across the world than there are babies born. Yeah, mind = blown. Indeed, designing with a mobile-first mindset becomes more important " quite literally " by the day. As does answering burning questions related to mobile design best practices. For example: Is mobile responsive web design good for SEO or not? This has become a hotly debated topic,

Even as a seasoned writer, I'm not immune to making simple but stupid mistakes. Take the word "jive" for instance ' Ever since I was kicking the slats out of my crib, I thought it meant "to agree with, to be in harmony." But nnnnnnnnoooooo. Jive is a language immortalized by the movie Airplane . The word that I should have been using was "jibe." Here's the thing, the English language is full of pitfalls " simple errors that can alienate readers,

You hear everyone talking about online content marketing, because with today's Internet-empowered prospect, content marketing is what works . And yet, you may be struggling with creating content that works for your business or your clients. Or maybe you're just trying to take your game to the next level. There's a lot to learn, and even then you're left asking potentially expensive and time-consuming questions: How do I apply this particular strategy for my business?

Bill was a struggling copywriter with a big idea. He'd spend hours and days laboring over headlines, landing pages, ads, and emails for his few clients, but the results of his work were often not worthy of comment. He'd had enough. One warm Friday night, he decided he would build a machine " a copywriting machine " that could be fed raw data on one end, and would spit out highly converting copy on the other. If he got it right,

In 1962, Time magazine called David Ogilvy "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry." In his years as an advertising executive and copywriter, Ogilvy created some of the world's most successful and iconic marketing campaigns, including the legendary Man in the Hathaway Shirt, plus notable efforts for Schwepps, Rolls Royce, and the island of Puerto Rico among many others. As content marketers , we can learn a lot from the legendary Mr.

At the 1961 Masters Tournament, Arnold Palmer held a one stroke lead over Gary Player as he walked off the 18th tee. On the trip up the fairway he allowed himself to talk to a friend who congratulated Palmer on his win. Even though Palmer knew he needed to concentrate on finishing the hole, he couldn't help but think about the green jacket that would soon be on his shoulders. Palmer bogeyed the hole and lost the Masters by one stroke to Player.

You want to become a better writer. I know this because you're reading Copyblogger. I also know that you fear becoming a better writer. This I know because you must change to become better, and to fear change is to be human. But what if I told you that you only need to change one thing " one small thing " to achieve your goal of becoming a better writer ? Would you believe me? You should. It's not just theory; it's science. One small step really can change you.

You don't usually envision a poet engaging in a pistol duel " let alone twenty-nine " but that's exactly what Alexander Pushkin did. His last duel proved fatal. Sadly, as long as there are two people on earth, there will be conflict. But it doesn't always have to end in death. I've been in several duels myself. Not of the pistol-slinging variety " but the copywriting kind . You'll probably recognize the scenario ' I trot out my idea.

At this hope, we hope you're seeing how content marketing can transform an online business into a runaway success story. It's probably less obvious how you might go about doing that with a more traditional brick-and-mortar business. But those under-explored territories can be particularly fertile ground for a solid content strategy. Today we'll talk about just one example. Marcus Sheridan's pool company was hit hard by the recession in 2008.

This week on The Lede ' Why Are You Waiting to Get Picked? How to Accomplish More by Doing Less Why "Digital First" is Better Why Weirdos Get Ahead at Work Louis C.K. on Patience in Building Your Platform Want to grab even more useful links )beyond those that make The Lede (? Follow @copyblogger on Twitter . // Why Are You Waiting to Get Picked? I'm not sure if Mr. Godin was the first to put these words to work in this context )I think he was(,

If you want a simple way to make your emails more profitable , without any hard pitching or looking even remotely "salesy", then give me a few minutes here, and let me show you how to do it in this article. Here's the story ' One problem a lot of people have with writing effective emails is they think they're writing a sales letter . And because they think their emails are like sales letters,

I think everyone who has ever wanted to write a book has dreams about what publication day will be like. So far, mine has involved exactly zero groupies and parades, but it's still been nice. I've been watching this day creep towards me for a long time, and now that it's here, I'm feeling more emotions than I can describe. Excitement and an agreeable sort of fear are vying for the top spot right now.

You've seen us talking a lot about authority " authority with your audience, with the search engines , with colleagues, with other web publishers. Why do you want it? Because given the noisy, cluttered state of the web right now, it's the authoritative site that earns the business. It's the site that delivers credible, effective solutions to customer problems. It's the site that attracts links from other authoritative publishers.

Have you written an ebook yet? Some of the most-respected content marketers have embraced ebooks for marketing their businesses and as a source of income. Their goals vary, and so do the formats they prefer. Some use PDF-style ebooks they create and sell from their own websites , and some publish EPUB-style ebooks they upload and offer on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the iBookstore. Let's briefly review the two prominent ebook styles,

Matt Frazier has worked hard to build a loyal community of vegetarian and vegan athletes . His blog, No Meat Athlete , gives his readers fun and accessible information on their favorite topics " training and food! These days, Matt's site gets about 600,000 page views a month, and he has more than 20,000 people on his email mailing list. Matt has now created a successful business around his community, which includes digital training programs, a membership site,

This week on The Lede ' Why You Should Write Daily Why Originality is Overrated The Few Sentences You Need to Dominate Your Market David Ogilvy's Obituary 10 Ways to Write Clearly. No, Make that 1. Want to grab even more useful links )beyond those that make The Lede (? Follow @copyblogger on Twitter . // Why You Should Write Daily Mr. Babauta's article gives very good advice.