Brian Clark

Copywriting Articles by: Brian Clark

This special report is brought to you free courtesy of www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

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Brian Clark is the founder of the popular and highly respected blog www.copyblogger.com Over the years, we’ve been fortunate that people say a lot of nice things about Copyblogger and Brian: 

Advertising Age ranks Copyblogger as a top marketing blog in its Power150 list.

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The Guardian named Copyblogger one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs.

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Brian Clark was ranked #3 of the 100 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2009.

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Technorati says Copyblogger is one of the most popular blogs in the world.

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The editors of Performancing named Brian Clark the most influential blogger of 2007.

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BusinessWeek says entrepreneurs should follow Copyblogger on Twitter.

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Dunn and Bradstreet says Brian Clark is one of the most influential people in small business on Twitter

Brian has been featured in the following books: 

Linchpin by Seth Godin

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Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin

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Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

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Internet Marketing From the Real Experts (Contributor)

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The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

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Free Agent Nation by Daniel Pink

www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

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Problogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

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e-Riches 2.0 by Scott Fox

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Gravitational Marketing by Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller

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Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields

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The Referral Engine by John Jantsch

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Brian will be sharing his expertise with participants at the AWAI Fast Track to Success Bootcamp and Job Fair which will be taking place on October 26 – 29th 2011 in Delray Beach. At Bootcamp Brian will teach you proven content marketing strategies before showing you how to use them with your clients to further increase your value — and your fees! Click here to find out more.

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Storytelling for Entrepreneurs The key to truly connecting with anyone, online or off, is a good story. Stories are the foundation of good business, great romances, and inspirational living.

The essence of a compelling story is an unwavering focus on the reader. Forget what you want, what's in it for them?

It's an entrepreneur's job to tell people a story they want to hear.

Here's an interesting story, courtesy of Anecdotage.com: During eBay's rapid rise, the company nurtured a quaint rumor about its origins, claiming that founder Pierre Omidyar had created the site in 1995 so that his fiancee could trade Pez candy dispensers with other collectors.

Alas, the Pez myth, it was later revealed, had been fabricated by eBay's publicrelations director in 1997 to generate buzz about the site.

It's up to you whether your story is a complete fabrication. I tend to lean aggressively toward complete honesty, delivered in a creative fashion. Ethics aside, these days people will call you out at the first opportunity.

And it won't be pretty.

No matter what, you must have a story that people want to hear, and then you've got to live that story. In that regard, eBay CEO Meg Whitman was often www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

photographed with Pez collections and had more than 100 dispensers displayed in the lobby at eBay headquarters, despite the fact that the company origin was a fairy tale.

Are you ready to become a storyteller?

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Traffic Building With Blogs Takes Persistence There's no doubt that you can build big traffic with a blog.

It just takes a wee bit more work than it used to.

Not long ago, you could post a picture of your cat on a Friday and get attention.

Bloggers still love to link, but as any environment becomes more crowded, people become more discriminating. After all, a link is a form of personal recommendation, and it says something about both ends of the hypertext.

You may work hard on an article or resource that you're just positive will spread like wildfire, and yet hear nothing but lonely crickets chirping upon release. Not even a measly comment.

Bummer . . . back to the drawing board.

As she left the theater following the Forrest Gump premiere in 1994, Sharon Stone was dismayed to see that the paparazzi had failed to notice her. She returned to the theater and tried again.

Again they failed to notice her...

Finally, on her third attempt, she was noticed, and pestered, as planned.

Source: Anecdotage Just keep at it. Put your audience first with everything you write, and success will come.

Creating blog posts that go viral is actually a process, not a single event. You're building relationships that result from showing up, day after day, giving your readers the best you've got. Sometimes it just takes a while to get noticed, but the time invested is still likely a better value than advertising.

So stick with it and it will pay off.

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Link Building With Publicity Stunts Link baiting with web content can really just come down to the good old fashioned publicity stunt.

When properly planned, targeted, and executed, publicity sought for publicity's sake can be an incredible force. It can turn an idea into a business and give a fading star a fresh chance to brave the media glare.

From Howard's Stern's Union Square give-away of 500 free satellite radios to commemorate his switch to Sirius, to the Britney and Madonna kiss at the MTV Music Awards, to the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction," publicity stunts create attention.

But stunts are hard to control, and sometimes the after-effects can be mixed or downright nasty. Here's an example of an engineered maneuver that had the exact opposite effect from what was intended.

Elvis Presley laid the groundwork for the modern celebrity publicity stunt by joining the U.S. Army on March 24, 1958. It wasn't his stunt, though. Despite the lack of a war, he was drafted for a two year tour of duty in Germany until he was honorably discharged in 1960.

Presley's peacetime draft was a conservative political move to protect the country from the corrupting influence of his music, and it had exactly the opposite effect.

Here's how Alan Levy's book Operation Elvis describes the move: By pretending he was just like anybody else, the Army had demonstrated to the world The Importance of Being Elvis.

Thanks to a political miscalculation, Elvis became more famous than ever, and publicists ever since have worked this angle to amplify the importance of being [insert celebrity client name here]. The irony is, before leaving for Germany, Elvis had already agreed to make nearly ten years of really bad movies, which would help send his career -- all decked out in bejeweled white jumpsuits -- on a oneway trip to Vegas.

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What can Elvis teach you about link building?

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Building Traffic With Free Resources Seems like everyone is coming up with outrageous stuff that acts as "link bait" these days. Building traffic depends on attracting links, but sometimes going too far can backfire.

A slow and steady (but much less risky) way to catch people's attention online is to provide good value at no charge, without necessarily trying to make it into a media circus.

When Howard Stern gave away 500 free satellite radios to commemorate his switch to Sirius, he did (naturally) create a lot of media attention. But he also gave away something of value (a satellite radio) that was extremely relevant to his ultimate goal (recipients could now hear Howard's new show, provided they subscribed to Sirius).

Online, graphic designers give away templates, programmers give away plug-ins, and writers give away compelling words. All in exchange for traffic and attention.

You'd think "free" would be an automatic lock. But online, nearly everything is free.

We're drowning in free.

In the early days of the web, a free e-book or other gratis resource would almost automatically garner you plenty of viral propagation via email forwards.

Now days, free still works, but it must be something very good, and very relevant. You'll also find you need to "sell" your free giveaway almost as if you were charging money!

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Remember, links are the gold of the web, but getting someone to pay attention carries a cost to both parties as well. Make your resource worthy of attention, but also make your case for why it's worthy.

Copywriting techniques can help you sell your "free" resource in a crowded online world of free stuff.

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Link Building With Blogs It's been said time and time again that links are the currency of the web. Without links, your odds of achieving significant online traffic (either from other websites or search engines) without big ad bucks are slim to none.

Without links, no one knows you exist online. The Technorati search engine ranks the popularity of blogs by the number of incoming links. And Google's search engine algorithm thinks you're more important when you have links aimed at you from important people.

It's not enough anymore to just get people talking... they need to be linking. It's more important these days that they spell your URL right, rather than your name.

It can be awfully lonely on the web when no one stops by.

If you're trying to do business online, lonely equals poor. Whether you're selling products, services or advertising, you need visitors who not only stop by, but return again and again.

First of all, you'd better be blogging. You've got to join the conversation and have something valuable to say before anyone will bother acknowledging you.

In the excellent business blogging book Naked Conversations, authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel envision a day when a business that doesn't blog will be viewed with suspicion by the public. Blog marketing has been dismissed as fad www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

and reviled as fanciful, but the denial stage is over, and everyone is getting in on the action.

Want to build links? Get yourself a blog and join the conversation.

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Building Traffic the Smart Way: Why Not All Traffic is Created Equally We all need traffic. And because smart blogging tends to attract links, a whole lot more people have started blogging and creating "link bait" content.

But you've also got to think about how that traffic will perceive you when it stops by, and whether those visitors will likely ever return.

Are you a professional looking for new clients? Are you selling novelty items, or expensive modern art? Do you cater to a sophisticated advertising demographic, or are you after more of a Blue Collar Comedy crowd?

You should also be thinking about the type of traffic that you attract, rather than just the quantity. Posting the latest goofy video making the rounds on You Tube on your law firm blog might bring in some traffic, but I'm not sure it would have translated into a spike in retainer agreements.

Here's another example: I recently posted an article that used the Spanish introduction to an alternative rock song as an illustration of the point I wanted to make. Making that point to my English-speaking audience required a translation.

Within days I began getting search engine traffic from people who wanted to know what that Spanish intro means in English, thanks to the fact that the article leads off with both versions.

Now, having one alternative rock fan find another--who also happens to blog about copywriting--isn't a bad thing. But it's likely they'll just leave after finding what they want, never to be seen again.

www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

Targeted traffic is more valuable than tons of traffic. Unless of course the tons of traffic is targeted.

Say that five times fast.

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Writing Blog Post Titles That Work Your blog post title (or headline) is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a post title that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your blog may as well not even exist.

At its essence, a compelling headline must promise some kind of benefit or reward for the reader, in trade for the valuable time it takes to read more. Your headline is the first critical step to getting a link to your post.

Why? Because it's got to be read before it can be linked!

According to some of the best copywriters of all time, you should spend half of the entire time it takes to write a piece of persuasive content on the headline. So if you have a blog post that is really important to you or your business, one that you really want people to read, you should downright obsess over your post title.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy knew the power of headlines, and how the headline literally determined whether the advertisement would get read. He rewrote this famous headline for an automobile advertisement 104 times: "At 60 miles an hour, the only thing you hear in the new Rolls Royce is the ticking of the dashboard clock ..."

Master copywriter Gene Schwartz often spent an entire week on the first 50 words of a sales piece -- the headline and the opening paragraph. Those 50 words are the most important part of any persuasive writing, and writing them well takes time.

Even for the masters.

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So, if you want to be an effective blogger, spend a little extra time on your post title.

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5 Simple Steps to Link Building With a Blog Adding a blog to your domain can be a great way to score inbound links. You'll want to write things that truly connect with people, and that also result in a direct, specific and quantifiable action -- like a link, a Delicious social bookmark, or a vote at news aggregation site Digg.

Each link, bookmark and vote you earn has a tendency to create others, depending on how well your copy offers something of real value to the reader.

Check later for how well you did, and keep at it.

So here's the 5 keys to writing blog posts that attract links: 1. Post Titles A really great headline hints at a reward for the reader so they are willing to read the rest. Your post title is the first crucial step to getting a link to your post, but only if you follow up with content that matches your headline promise.

2. Lists It's a blogosphere favorite for good reason -- "list" content works, in large part due to the attention-grabbing power of the headline. Any time you make a list that gives a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways to do something will work because people like quickly digestible content.

3. "How To" Articles It's no secret that "how to" articles and blog posts are some of the most sought after, linked to, and bookmarked content online. People want useful information, and they'll reward you by promoting it to others when you provide it.

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4. Link Out To get link love, you gotta give link love. So link out to other bloggers as much as possible. Don't worry about losing readers. The counter-intuitive rule of the Internet (to quote blogger Dave Winer) is the more you send them away the more they come back.

5. Persistence You may work hard on an article or resource that you're just positive will spread like wildfire, and yet hear nothing but lonely crickets chirping upon release. Just keep at it. Put your audience first with everything you write, and success will come.

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Viral Marketing With Blogs Blogging is gaining huge traction with entrepreneurs and small businesses. These folks have realized that the "blogosphere" presents a unique opportunity to reach a global audience with little to no cost.

The key to selling with a blog is to give great value to your readers in the form of free information. Blogs build your authority as an expert in your industry and create a relationship with readers that creates a perfect buying environment. But with all the noise out there, you need to be strategic about ways to gain an audience in the first place.

The great thing about blogs is the links that you can get from other bloggers, which bring you traffic. Plus, these links help you rank better in search engines like Google. To get links from other bloggers, you need to say or create something that is worthy of attention.

In other words, you're looking for publicity, just like you might offline with the mainstream media. But online, a little bit of attention from bloggers often leads to even more attention from even more bloggers, which creates the possibility that something you write could spread virally all over the Internet.

www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

Here are five strategies for creating content that gets attention: 1. Hold a Contest. Come up with a competition relevant to your industry or business niche. Promote it to other relevant bloggers and get them involved. Or, you could create a form of sweepstakes, but make sure to consult an attorney in this case, as sweepstakes are highly regulated.

2. Create a Tutorial or Free Ebook. The Internet is built on information. Create a useful guide based on your expertise and people will take notice. You'll gain publicity, new prospects and hopefully sales from just one effort.

3. Give an Award or Hold an Event. Create an award for the best blogger or website in your niche, or try creating an industry awareness event that you orchestrate. The most valuable traffic you can get is from related, but perhaps non-competitive businesses in your own industry, and any industry loves to buzz about who's the best or what's going on.

4. Give to Charity. Combine a fundraising or paid online event with a pledge to donate all proceeds to charity. You'll be doing a good deed and be perceived as a good citizen, and you might also get loads of free publicity as well.

5. Be Controversial. A good controversy almost always gains attention. Do or say something that goes against the grain of your industry or niche. Be careful not to go too far, but it's much worse to simply play it safe and have no audience at all.

These are just a few ways to gain attention online with your blog. The key is to think about what has value to your desired audience (as opposed to just you), and then find a creative way to present it.

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Viral Copywriting Many professional copywriters don't think much of blogs as sales vehicles. Why? Because blogs are not a "direct-response" sales environment, and some of the very best copywriters are in the direct-response field.

Direct-response copywriting is a form of marketing designed to elicit an immediate action that is specific and quantifiable. Meaning, you've essentially got one shot at getting a certain percentage of readers to respond in the way you want them too. The response rate dictates your level of success.

Now, why any copywriter wouldn't want to sell in conjunction with the relationship environment that blogs provide, where you don't have to beat people over the head in an all-or-nothing gambit, is beyond me. If you want to use directresponse materials, just take your blog readers "off road" for more focused education and persuasion. Instead of one shot at the prize, you've got many (albeit softer-pitched) opportunities to turn a reading relationship into a customer or client relationship.

But there is one way that a blog is a direct-response environment: Gaining traffic.

Whether you call it viral blogging, creating link bait, or the old-fashioned getting press, the strategies that direct-response copywriters use are directly applicable to generating publicity in the blogosphere. Copywriting is an essential element to all great publicity efforts, but in the information-overload blogging realm, directresponse techniques will help you grab someone's valuable attention, and keep it.

One of the most effective direct-response techniques is storytelling, mixed in with various psychological triggers and all polished with basic copywriting techniques.

But the real magic happens well before a word is written - in the formulation of the story itself.

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Now, apply the direct-response methodology to blogging, and your quest for links. You want to write things that truly connect with people, and that also result in a direct, specific and quantifiable action -- a link.

Each link, tag and vote you earn has a tendency to create others, depending on how well your copy offers something of real value to the reader. Check Technorati.com for how well you did. Rinse, repeat.

You're now trading words for traffic.

These days, traffic from blogs is essential for acquiring new readers and prospects. Add to that the importance that Google and other ranking systems place on links, and creative copywriting is the new search engine optimization.

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Building Web Traffic With Words Viral Blogging. Link Bait. Tagged. Dugg.

If you don't know what those words mean, don't worry. They're simply new terms for a timeless concept you likely already understand.

Publicity.

At their essence, these fancy digital terms are simply the new nomenclature for gaining attention. Getting press, as it was labeled in days now past, when intermediaries known collectively as "the media" decided who the public became aware of.

Online, the public now decides who gets publicity. What a concept, huh?

It's been said time and time again that links are the currency of the web. Without links, your odds of achieving significant online traffic (either from other websites or search engines) without big ad bucks are slim to none.

www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

It's not enough anymore to just get people talking... they need to be linking. It's more important these days that they spell your URL right, rather than your name.

It can be awfully lonely on the web when no one stops by.

If you're trying to do business online, lonely equals poor. Whether you're selling products, services or advertising, you need visitors who not only stop by, but return again and again. So it's not enough anymore to just get people talking... they need to be linking.

Here's four crucial elements to gaining web traffic today: First of all, you need to be blogging. Search engines and other bloggers love the format, and it's the key to attracting traffic. You've got to join the conversation and have something valuable to say before anyone will bother acknowledging you.

Secondly, you'll need to learn some good old-fashioned publicity strategies. The timeless things that have worked offline can also work great online.

Third, you'll need to examine how publicity strategies have been specifically applied online. Be careful about violating the often complex rules of "netiquette" that govern what is acceptable online.

Finally, you've got to make sure your focus is on your readers, and not yourself.

Publicity just for the sake of your own self-interest has a way of backfiring, and online it can get really ugly.

Click here to find out just how easy it is to create your own money making websites.

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What the Heck is RSS? And why should I care?

Good questions. First, here's why you should care.

Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation.

You don't have to reveal your email address. If you want to stop receiving content, you don't have to request to be "taken off the list."

One click, and poof... the subscription is gone.

Plus, since there's no email address involved, there's no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you.

That's right... no more spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. And best of all, no reason to put yourself at the mercy of the publisher's intentions.

You won't need to suffer through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one) looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell. No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts "just in case."

Again, if you don't like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel. With just one click.

Pretty cool, huh?

That is cool! Umm... What the heck is RSS?

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Alright! Now we're ready to get to that part.

RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest.

You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that's the essence of an RSS feed - you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

What the heck is a feed reader?

You may already be using a form of feed reader, and not even realize it. If you use personalized home page services like My Yahoo or My MSN, you've got RSS capabilities built in. That's how syndicated content like news, weather and stock quotes appears on your personal page. You can also add content from any blog or other site that uses RSS to provide updates.

Other web-based tools are primarily dedicated to feed reading only. One of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point is Bloglines, and it's also free and easy to get started with.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can also receive RSS feeds from your tool bar by using the Live Bookmarks function. The next version of Internet Explorer will add this feature as well.

Finally, there are desktop-based feed readers. These function somewhat like an email program for feeds. Examples include Newsgator and Feed Demon.

If it sounds complicated, it's really not. And things will get even easier when the next version of Outlook integrates feed-reading capabilities. So, you'll have the same convenience that email subscriptions offered in the old days, without any of the terrible consequences of giving out your email address to potentially unscrupulous characters.

Sounds good. So how do I subscribe to a Feed?

First of all, look for the subscription or feed options (some bloggers make this difficult for some odd reason). You might see a variety of buttons (amusingly called chicklets).

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If the site you want to subscribe to uses FeedBurner to aid in the subscription process (like many popular sites do), you'll likely see the standard RSS icon, which takes you to a page that will give you an array of the most popular feed readers so you can select yours, and you'll go from there. Just look around for an orange button and click on it.

Sometimes there will be a chicklet for your particular reader right on the blog that will take you to the appropriate subscription page. You may see buttons for My Yahoo, Google, Feedburner and Bloglines (among others).

Finally, you may also see little orange buttons that say XML or RSS. Often these chicklets will take you to a page that looks like code gibberish. In this case, you simply cut and paste the page URL from your browser window and manually paste it into your feed reader subscription box.

Hopefully this last method will soon disappear, never to be seen again.

In summary: RSS solves BIG problems.

So there you have it... RSS is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, because it's a good thing for everyone.

The benefit to readers is obvious. And it's good for publishers too, because we want to make sure that people feel comfortable subscribing, and that our message is not nuked by an overzealous spam filter.

Spend just a little bit of time getting familiar with feeds, and your online experience will get a lot better.

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SEO Copywriting is a Waste of Time for Blogs Good copywriting skills can help you sell with your blog. But if you think by "copywriting" I mean "SEO copywriting," you'd be wrong.

In fact, you're probably wasting your time even worrying about traditional SEO techniques when it comes to blogs. Here's why.

Writing for Search Engines Search engine optimization ("SEO") copywriting means writing web page copy that is optimized to rank well in the search engines. This includes inserting targeted key words in certain places (like titles), and in frequencies and densities designed to satisfy a particular search engine algorithm.

Why isn't this as important anymore? Essentially, SEO experts think traditional SEO for blogs is a big waste of time.

Humans Matter More The gist of the argument is that when it comes to search rankings, what'swritten ona web page isless importantthan whatother people sayabout that web page, and how many times.

It all comes down to links.

First of all, referral traffic (links from other bloggers) is of higher quality for the things that matter most - subscriptions and sales.

It's like the difference between a prospect who is sent your way from a happy former client, measured against someone who finds you in the Yellow Pages.

But this also impacts your search engine rankings. The algorithms favor sites and pages with incoming, non-reciprocal links from body text - in other words, express recommendations fromother people. And much more weight is placed on the words used in those links (anchor text) than the words on the page linked to.

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Just ask George W. Bush.

You won't find the words "miserable failure" anywhere on the biography page of the current U.S. President, and yet that page ranks number one for the search term in Google. That's because a whole bunch of other people (mostly bloggers) decided to link to W's bio with the anchor text "miserable failure," and obtained top ranking.

The trend of search engine's favoring what others say is intensifying. Just like offline, word of mouth matters most.

As mentioned above, search engines like Google already incorporate user feedback (links + anchor text) in their algorithms. When people link to and tag the posts of other bloggers on social book marking sites, and tagging is more fully integrated into the current version of search, rankings will rely on recommendations even more.

The end result will be better search, and the end of traditional SEO techniques.

Content Matters Most This is why traditional (not SEO) copywriting skills that catch and hold reader attention are important for bloggers. I would argue that great copywriting is the new SEO for bloggers, if it gets you positive links from others. And since blogging is a new form of public relations, and PR depends on great copywriting...

Well, you get my point.

So, maybe you should quit worrying about SEO and start producing incredible content and networking in your niche. Copywriting techniques will help you excel in both.

Don't be Search Engine Ugly Now, for that grain of salt. There's no reason to completely ignore things like keywords in your writing. For one thing, it can influence the anchor text that is used to link to you, which is a good thing.

For example, take this article. It's got the keyword phrase "seo copywriting" right up front in the post title, and yet the headline still manages to be provocative.

There's no reason why you shouldn't strive for human titillation and keyword relevancy.

But... if you have to choose between the two, go for the human factor first and foremost. www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

So, optimize your post URLs and include your keywords, but beyond that, let it go.

Search engine algorithms come and go, but human nature remains the same.

Tread the fine line between writing to please your human visitors and the search engine spiders with AWAI’s SEO Copywriting Success Course.

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How to Make Something Happen With Your Blog So... you're a blogger trying to gain new clients for your services, or new customers for your products. I'm guessing you want:  more visitors to your blog.  more subscribers and repeat traffic.  links from other bloggers.  to sell something!  What if I told you that you're already on the right track? That you can accomplish all of the above by doing something that you're already doing as a blogger?

You guessed it - writing. You only need to write, as long as you do it in a strategic, persuasive way.

Tell Your Story Copywriting skills are essential for effective Internet marketing, public relations, and yes... blogging.

You need to develop and tell the big story about you, your company, and your product or service. You should also strive to make each post, every networking email, press release and direct marketing piece as compelling as possible along the way to the sale.

Blogging may be new, but selling with words is not. To be a successful blogger simply means applying time-tested copywriting techniques in a brand new medium.

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The Art and Science of Persuasion Copywriting is the process of writing words that promote a person, business, opinion, or idea, with the ultimate intention of having the reader take some form of action.

Or another way of saying it... copywriting is the art and science of getting people to do what you want.

If you think that sounds a bit shady, relax. We all use persuasion techniques each and every day, whether we are conscious of it or not. With our spouses, kids, parents, bosses, vendors, employees and customers, we try to do and say things that move them in the direction we desire.

When it comes to persuading in a business context, some are better at it than others. But it's definitely more of a learned skill than a natural talent.

Blogging and Copywriting: A Perfect Match Good blogging and good copywriting share many of the same attributes - plain spoken words designed to focus on the needs of the reader, using complete honesty and a demonstration of excellent value.

It's not about fancy writing and big words.

It's also not about being contrived or cheesy.

And it's absolutely not about inappropriate high pressure sales techniques that simply don't work.

People hate being sold, but they love to buy. Present a solution to a want or need in a context-appropriate manner, and you're well on your way.

Good copywriting delivered via blogging, RSS feeds and email is all about creating the perfect buying environment. With a bit of knowledge and practice, you can achieve that environment with your marketing efforts.

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Viral Marketing With Blogs Blogging is gaining huge traction with entrepreneurs and small businesses. These folks have realized that the "blogosphere" presents a unique opportunity to reach a global audience with little to no cost.

The key to selling with a blog is to give great value to your readers in the form of free information. Blogs build your authority as an expert in your industry and create a relationship with readers that creates a perfect buying environment. But with all the noise out there, you need to be strategic about ways to gain an audience in the first place.

The great thing about blogs is the links that you can get from other bloggers, which bring you traffic. Plus, these links help you rank better in search engines like Google. To get links from other bloggers, you need to say or create something that is worthy of attention.

In other words, you're looking for publicity, just like you might offline with the mainstream media. But online, a little bit of attention from bloggers often leads to even more attention from even more bloggers, which creates the possibility that something you write could spread virally all over the Internet.

Here are five strategies for creating content that gets attention: 1. Hold a Contest. Come up with a competition relevant to your industry or business niche. Promote it to other relevant bloggers and get them involved. Or, you could create a form of sweepstakes, but make sure to consult an attorney in this case, as sweepstakes are highly regulated.

2. Create a Tutorial or Free Ebook. The Internet is built on information. Create a useful guide based on your expertise and people will take notice. You'll gain publicity, new prospects and hopefully sales from just one effort.

3. Give an Award or Hold an Event. Create an award for the best blogger or website in your niche, or try creating an industry awareness event that you orchestrate. The most valuable traffic you can get is from related, but perhaps non-competitive businesses in your own industry, and any industry loves to buzz about who's the best or what's going on.

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4. Give to Charity. Combine a fundraising or paid online event with a pledge to donate all proceeds to charity. You'll be doing a good deed and be perceived as a good citizen, and you might also get loads of free publicity as well.

5. Be Controversial. A good controversy almost always gains attention. Do or say something that goes against the grain of your industry or niche. Be careful not to go too far, but it's much worse to simply play it safe and have no audience at all.

These are just a few ways to gain attention online with your blog. The key is to think about what has value to your desired audience (as opposed to just you), and then find a creative way to present it.

PS: Don’t forget that Brian will be sharing his expertise with participants at the AWAI Fast Track to Success Bootcamp and Job Fair which will be taking place on October 26 – 29th 2011 in Delray Beach. At Bootcamp Brian will teach you proven content marketing strategies before showing you how to use them with your clients to further increase your value — and your fees! Click here to find out more.

For more great free information on how to take your copywriting career to the next level please visit www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com This compilation of articles comes to you courtesy of www.ProCopyWritingTactics.com

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