Five mistakes newbie bloggers make

I’ve been blogging for about 10 years now. Along the way I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also made a lot of mistakes. A lot. So, if you’re new to blogging and determined to be successful at it, here are five mistakes to avoid. Mistake #1: Not sticking with it. Some bloggers see a lot of [...]

What's your purpose?

I recently listened to an interview with author Daniel Pink (via Elizabeth Marshall’s free Author Teleseminars) about his new book Drive. (Confession: I haven’t read it, so I’m basing this blog post on the author interview, which ran about an hour. If you want to learn more about this, you should read the book, which [...]

Dear email marketers – why don't you love me anymore?

Dear Email Marketers, I have to admit, in the beginning I was really infatuated with you. You had a cool web site with lots of great content. You had obviously spent a lot of time developing it, and it seemed like you were going to be pumping out more great content in the future. All [...]

How to blog frequently

One of the biggest challenges for most part-time bloggers is finding the time and energy to blog consistently. Since Jan. 18, I’ve been engaged in a little challenge here for myself — 30 posts in 30 days. As it turns out, I probably couldn’t have picked a worse time to try to average a post [...]

How to overcome blogger's block (aka writer's block)

It happened to me this week. I was cruising along, had a good list of blog post ideas and had written four of seven posts for the week. But I knew I had some very busy days coming up, and I needed to get three more written to meet my self-imposed quota of posts for [...]

10 ways to generate ideas for blog posts

Here’s the problem most bloggers, and anyone doing content marketing, faces: how to come up with ideas for posts. I’ve got a list of about 30 potential blog post topics for this blog, right now, and I add to that list each day. There’s lots of ways to come up with ideas. In fact, I [...]

Don't let a good idea slip away

Where do you keep your ideas? You know, the ideas that pop into your head while showering, the notions that wake you up in the middle of the night, the inspiration that comes out of nowhere when you’re stuck in a traffic jam or a dull meeting. You do keep those ideas someplace, right? No? [...]

Nine exercises to stretch and strengthen your writing muscles

In the quest to become a better writer, practice is important. Have you already written your first million words? Start on the second million — keep practicing. There’s lots of value in trying different writing styles, techniques and forms. While you may not stick with some of those experiments, just spending some time struggling with [...]