Six months ago today, I posted my first article on Copyblogger, which was about selling to people without making them feel “sold.” Coincidentally, the first thing I read this morning was Seth Godin’s post about the necessity and virtue of selling people on things they need and will benefit from, but due to fear of the unknown they are unwilling to explore without a little prodding.
I still feel that’s part of my job with this blog.
And of course “6 month anniversary” is an oxymoron, because an anniversary is an annual event.
I guess I really should have said my “one half” or “point five” anniversary, right?
No, of course not.
That’s a quick writing lesson for you, copy or otherwise. Often, the best way to say something is not grammatically correct, or linguistically correct, or even technically correct. It’s the way that best facilitates understanding by the reader, and that usually means writing the way you speak (or talk, if you prefer).
This really is all about conversational marketing. Copywriters have been doing it well for 100 years or more, but we needed the blogging pundits to tell everyone how important it is, I guess. 🙂
But I digress.
I want to thank each and every one of you for a great opening 6 months. I’m having a blast and frankly, it’s all due to the interaction, and the new people I’ve met, thanks to this blog. I’ve got more new friends and more new business partners than I can almost manage, but that’s a good thing!
But there’s a lot more to come.
I’ve got at least three upcoming series of posts that I think you’ll find useful:
- One on writing great headlines;
- Another on tutorial marketing;
- And a never-ending series on storytelling.
Plus I’ll be announcing a new start-up that will be launching soon, and I think you’ll find that to be quite interesting.
But I also need to listen to what you want from me. I’ll be soliciting reader feedback quite a bit going forward, so you can tell me what you want me to write about. And of course, I’ll go ahead and write about a few things you don’t ask for, because you may not know to ask for it (see paragraph one above).
One thing I could use immediately is feedback on how often I post. Time-wise, I don’t think I can crank out more that two “article” posts a week. But I can supplement that with shorter posts and links to cool stuff that I stumble across in my daily time-wasting research.
What do you think? And thanks again for hanging out with me. 🙂
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Reader Comments (25)
Greg Benedict says
Brian — Thank you so much for this site! You’ve been invaluable to helping my clients succeed!
Greg
David Krug says
More links to stuff you find around the net Brian. That way I don’t have to be the only one wasting time.
Congrats man. 🙂
Brandon says
Hey Brian,
I enjoy your site. Congrats, on your anniversary.
I’d be in favor of more frequent and shorter posts. My 2 cents.
Phil Gerbyshak says
Congrats on your 6 month anniversary. Lots of great information shared here. Thanks for that!
Here’s to 6 months more…and beyond! I agree that shorter and more frequent is great for postings.
Michelle says
Brian,
Congrats and thank you! I have only been reading you a few weeks and have went back and read most of your archives and downloaded so mnay of your pdfs. You are such a great resource! I have implemented many of your strategies into my Rufus and Lucy site and it is beginning to work and it has only been live for just over a week! Thank you for everything and I would love to see interesting links you find. That is how I found you!
Glenn (Customer Service Experience)Ross says
Congrats on a great blog, Brian. Now let me disagree with my fellow readers on frequency. I’d rather read two well written posts a week that contain relevant content, than posts that are more frequent, but less relevant.
I only post twice a week myself and my stats are very healthy.
sy says
Brian,
Your advice is 1st rate. I refer to you & Brad Shorr for relevent, timely and solid blogging sources. Thanks for sharing your ideas. Please keep me, informed whenever you post. And congrats on your six months!
Manuel Viloria says
Happy 6th Messiversary, Brian!
Thank you for posting all those useful and informative articles. Two article posts a week is perfect. If you write more often, I’d probably drown in too much info.
Or maybe you could try it (post shorter articles more often) and see how things go.
Again, congratulations!
Alexis Bellido says
Congratulations Brian.
Six months online is much more than a year in regular “human” years.
Two good articles a week, yours are always good, is ok for me too.
Although some mini-posts, always related to copyblogging, would be well received as well.
Best wishes!
Robert Bruce says
Well done baby.
All I can say is that I love this site.
Hope you go on another 6 months, a year, 10 years…
You ever think about that? I mean, what are we going to do, keep cranking this stuff out for 30 years?
Liz Strauss says
Hey Brian,
Your blog is A-List in my book all of the way. Congratulations on your first six months. I’ve learned a lot from reading what you have to say and hope to learn a lot more in the next six months.
Liz
Gary Speer says
Six months? Congrats. And — *big sigh* — I’m sure it’ll take me most of the next six months to read all the posts and comments. But it’ll be six months well invested.
Jason Brown says
Great run so far Brian..
Six months is a big haul for a online startups.. I know plenty that sunk after 1 month.
I only started reading your blog last month after finding you thru Pearsonified.com and it has been a great find.
I look forward to any else you may add to the site in the future.
Jason Brown
http://www.marketingop.us
Philip Hellyer says
Congrats on the anniversary. Yours is one of the few blogs in my ‘always read’ list.
The posting frequency is perfect for me. I tend to drop anyone who posts more than daily. Weekly or semi-weekly is ideal, especially for lengthy posts.
Greg Kiernan says
Happy six months !
As for what you want to post, go with what you want, its your blog and you got to enjoy what you do hey!
Ken King | King Marketing says
Brian,
I’d much rather continue to get your well thought out, longer posts than have this blog become yet another collection of “cool things I saw online today”.
There are plenty of the latter out there now, and I think part of the reason you have been successful in building up a readership so quickly is that you provide unique, valuable content.
When a new article shows up on your feed, I tend to look at it right away because I’m confident that it’ll be worth my while. On the other hand, that pavlovian response has been broken for some otherwise high-quality feeds who “supplement” their writing with link posts.
Mike says
Your posts are valuable for someone new to the copywriting world. I think your post frequency is just right. Keep up the excellent job you’re doing.
Brian says
Thanks everyone for the kind words! I’m not sure where we stand on posting frequency, but at least for the next series on headlines, the posts will be shorter and more frequent, just to see how breaking things up goes.
Easton Ellsworth says
Brian, great job so far. I’d say, yes, please do consider posting more frequently, even if a lot of your posts are simply “I found this great link” posts. You never know who else might find them useful.
Brad Shorr says
Great site. You make complicated issues easy to understand.
Alvin says
Congratulations! I love the interesting and useful insights your writing provides.
And on top of that, your blog looks great.
john t unger says
Hey Brian,
For me, your posting frequency so far has been perfect. I like the longer posts, which seem optimal for the kind of technical information you’re imparting. Some short posts might be okay too, or the occasional link, but what I value most about Copyblogger is that I can count on high quality every time. There are plenty of link blogs out there already, and I subscribe to a few of them.
Yours is one of very few blogs where I read every post as soon as it appears in my feed. There are a few others where I read everything, but only when I’m in the mood and there are many that I go through every few days and delete most posts without reading. Those that mostly consist of links and short posts are the ones I read the least.
Perhaps mixing it up a bit would be good as an experiment? Until you go with the short frequent posts, it’s hard to say how they’ll strike us on this end. I’m guessing you wouldn’t bring it up unless you had something in mind. If the quality remains the same, I certainly wouldn’t mind *a bit* more frequency.
Dennis says
copyblogger.com has been one of my anonymous teachers on the web, I hope you go another six months.
http://ca2ohio2florida2ca.blogspot.com
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