Cornwall SEO

Content Marketing Blog

Lyndon Antcliff

Have you tried asking for a link

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Just nicely ask for a link, using your own words in a real way and ask for a link to something good. It’s a controversial statement I know judging from my email inbox and what doesn’t get talked about on Twitter.

I think I have a pathological aversion to cut and paste emails and cookie cutter content.

I get emails stating, “we are quaility link builders”, good because I always have people looking for those and I am quite liberal in linking out from my own blogs.

But the emails are obviously not written by the sender, but by some dry, crunchy assed, baked in the sun so long it has bleached their soul, copywriter.

I can’t read those emails without feeling my brain trying to escape through my ear.

But I want to link.

I even want to buy links.

Why not talk to me like a Human Being?

I prefer to get links without asking, by crawling inside your head and working the levers mostly. But when I do ask, it is I who am asking, using my own words and sending each request out individually.

Even if it means bleeding into the keyboard, I send link requests out manually.

I will give you a link for free, from an authority blog, just give me something to link to, ask nice and make me think you will do something nice back in the future.

You don’t even have to do a nice thing for me, you only have to make me think you will do a nice thing.

Incongruous Juxtaposition of the Seemingly Unrelated

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seemingly unrelated

I’m writing a book, it’s nearly finished too.

Perhaps even this weekend.

But just a quick thought.

I’ve written about the phrase, “incongruous juxtaposition of the seemingly unrelated”, which I think is a wonderful sentence and makes you appear dead brainy at parties.

The first time I heard this was when John Carlton was talking with Michael Fortin about a the success of a headline that talked about the success of a one legged golfer. They talk about

how a good A good hook grabs your readers “by the eyeballs.”

It’s a great read, go read it.

I apply the same methodology to a lot of the headlines I create and when I mentor people to build content I teach them this method. Of course it’s not as simple as randomly picking the words that fit the parameters. They have to work, they have to tell a story, it has to seed the mind and move people forward.

The next step is of course to destroy trees, and I can’t remember who said that. It may have been Gary Halbert, apologies regarding my feeble research. But this phrase was about when we used to put pen to paper. Now you simply destroy a few keyboards, the point being you have to graft and lay the bricks when creating this stuff.

Only way it’s going to build is if you lay the brick.

The phrase of course speaks for itself, it’s what the great headlines have. That friction, that orbit of two or more bodies.

A great headline is a work of art.

Art born of sweat.

OK, back to the book. Hopefully it will be out soon.

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The Magnificence of Creating Content on the Web

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Cornwall sunset

From my twitter feed, earlier today.

Content creators take nothingness and fill the void.

How cool if you fill the void with a special kind of wonderful

Content creators taking nothingness and fill the void.
How cool if you fill the void with a special kind of wonderful

Especially in SEO, when grinding it out.
We forget the magnificence of human communication.

I am looking to start 2015 out differently.

With a different attitude to creating content.

We tend to allow the act of creating content to become too mechanical, feeding only the Google bot. Rather than seeing it for what it is, the magnificence of communication between one human being and another or between one human being and many.

I fully realise how “hippy dippy” and hopelessly idealistic that may sound. But think about that for a moment if you do not fear the path it will take you down.

The level of human communication we now have is staggering.

The quality of that communication is something that as a content creator, I take direct responsibility for.

Remember, if you Tweet, Facebook, blog, etc. you too are a content creator.

This year is my year of training others. I am making myself available to share what I know, teach what I have done, to coach, motivate, direct those who want to take their content creation to a higher level.

2015 is going to be about Total Availablity

I will come to your office
I will come to your conference
I will write for your audience
I will Skype, Hangout, Facebook, Connect to your crowd

 

I’m going in
100%

Let me know if you want some of that.

You can email me lyndon@cornwalseo.com
You can Tweet me lyndoman
You can Facebook me
You can Google+ me
You can Linkedin me

Lets make 2015 Magnificent

Don’t Build your House on the Land of the Social Media Barons

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Social media gate

Own as much of your digital real estate as you can, as talked about at startbloggingonline.com. Don’t build a Facebook page, get your own domain and build your own blog or website. It’s both easier and cheaper than you think. Create your own email list, rather than having your listen controlled by these social media, corporate entities.

Social media billionaire barons don’t do what they do because they like you. They do it because they can make money out of you. Don’t trade away the sweat of your labour for a few magic beans.

Don’t muck about on someone else’s platform, get your own and make that your base. Sure, join all the other platforms, but work them, don’t let them work you.

The message, your message should be under your control as much as possible.

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Using the News to help with Content Marketing and SEO

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Frustrated blogger

Knowing what to blog about, to create content about every day is a bit of a task. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Of course you need content that works rather than the filler that most other blogs and websites churn out. You need to create content for people rather than the Google bot.

One effective way to keep the content ideas fresh, is to create content around the news.

The news has a few things going for it from a content marketers perspective.

  • It changes every day
  • People talk about it on social media
  • People hunger for more detail about a specific news story
  • Not all news is bad, negative or depressing

There are many examples of succesful content marketers surfing this news wave every day. It’s not exactly newsjacking, that’s another thing, but it is using that jump off point of the news to further the narrative.

Examples of last week include fly tipping in Essex, the latest Kim Kardashian story (remember your content is competing with Kim Kardashian’s Ass), Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Halloween, and lets not forget Star Wars.

Black Friday was interesting, especially in the UK. There were a large number of people in the “megh” camp, who just couldn’t be bothered to get excited about saving money on a bargain. And even in Cornwall the excitement was in the barely bothered camp.

I talked to traders about this, Bakery 46 and Near and Far Nepalese Clothing and Bakery 46 both said it was pretty much like any other Friday and not much difference. You may argue that such small traders cannot climb onto the Black Friday wagon, but there there is news there is content marketing opportunities and small traders can absolutely benefit from a relatively cheap form of marketing.

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Feeding Content to the most Ravenous of Content Hungry Fans

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Star Wars 2015

I am sure you don’t need me to tell you that the new Star Wars movie is out next year.

But what are your plans to take advantage celebrate this event to benefit your website?

I shall be looking at how this can be done in the next few months. But let me be clear that this is not about dangling your brand message in front of a Stars Wars hungry mob, but to enable your marketing push to create content that satisfies that hunger. You may not be able to do this unless you are a fan or can model the mindset of the fan.

I fully expect a number of highly paid marketing execs to be ripped apart by the ravenous hordes when they get this wrong.

It’s going to be an interesting time.