The wizard in The Wizard of Oz and the guy behind the curtain pretending to be him have different personalities. Which one would you rather listen to? The wizard who comes across as larger than life and unreachable, or the guy hiding behind the giant green face, a person like us? Companies that publish newsletters … Read more
It’s easy to overwhelm yourself with so many things and ideas that nothing materializes. For example, a writer might think about article ideas for different magazines, project ideas, and Web site / networking pages content ideas. Thinking about all of these will likely produce nothing except one overwhelmed freelancer. This became a problem when I … Read more
When you read a book or article, do you “hear yourself” reading the words in your head or move your lips without making a sound (sub-vocalizating)? Doing this helps you have conversations while you write — without making a sound. I don’t know if it’s because I’m deaf or not, but I’ve always “heard” people’s … Read more
The Success Effect takes a different tack to many books with interviews by printing them in question and answer format. Such an approach doesn’t always succeed. However, Eckberg successfully culled great material from past interviews and put them together to create a conversational and educational resource. A chapter consists of an interview and interviews range … Read more
The previous post looks at companies that help those that already have stuff on the Internet they want to go away, be deleted, be erased from the memories of man and machine. Being proactive is always better than being reactive, so keep your name free of mud with these tips in mind whenever posting anything … Read more
The following books that I read this year are my favorites — they didn’t necessarily come out this year. Fiction: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Cliche’, but it was a great book and I was happy with the way Rowling finished the series. It was nervewracking because we didn’t want her to be too … Read more
How often does this scenario happen to you? When you land on a Web site, it doesn’t instantly answer the most important question: What is the Web site about? The second question depends on the site. For business sites: “What does the business do?” For blogs: “What is the topic of the blog?” My blog … Read more
If you’re subscribed to meryl.net articles RSS feed — thank you — beware that no new articles will appear here. We’re moving articles back over to the blog — to keep it simple. The site will receive minor design updates to reflect the change. Thank you for reading and sticking with me.
Smart marketers and bloggers watch for articles and blog entries that use their keywords so they can read the content and leave comments. It’s a great way to connect and network in the blogosphere/Internetsphere. But they also make a mistake. No question — participating the blogosphere helps people and their businesses… when done right. If … Read more
Nielsen addresses whether a site’s content strategy should use longer or shorter content. The best answer: As long as it needs to be. Even Nielsen’s own article is long and I jumped around to get its main points. Many experience success with both long and short articles. I wrote two versions of a landing page … Read more