SEO aims to boost sales by optimising web content so visitors get the best experience and search engines can find and understand it. Learn what SEO is, why you should care and whether you should do it.
Successful digital marketing requires a strategy. Find out what an Integrated Content Strategy is and why you definitely need one.
Get more blog traffic, engage with your ideal customers and boost your blog ROI — learn how to promote your blog on social media the right way in 2020
eCommerce mistakes hurt businesses all over the world, reducing search traffic and sales. Get ahead of your competition by avoiding these common mistakes
A customer acquisition strategy is vital for small businesses that want to generate sustainable growth. If that’s you, you’ll love these tips and ideas
Worried about Google’s BERT update or need to recover from it? Want to benefit from the biggest Google update in 5 years? Here’s what you need to know
SERP stands for ‘search engine results page’. The SERPs are the pages of search results that search engines display when someone does an internet search.
Want SEO-friendly, high-converting webpages? Your copy is only half the battle. Make your words pop with these 6 webpage design elements
Can’t decide if you should buy Essential Addons for Elementor? Discover its pros and cons and see a real-life webpage built almost entirely from Essential Addons elements
Learn how to convert blog traffic into sales by creating transition blog posts that effectively move readers to your sales pages
Want to boost the SEO of your Wordpress blog posts and webpages with SEO-friendly URLs? Here’s how to change default URL slugs using the Yoast SEO plugin
Want to boost the SEO of your Wordpress blog posts and webpages with meta descriptions? Here’s how to specify them using the Yoast SEO plugin
Learn how to promote your blog and drive more traffic to your website with these promotion basics.
Need to change the default SEO title of a page or post in Wordpress to improve its SERPs ranking? Here’s how to do it using the Yoast SEO plugin
How long is it going to take for your new webpages to rank in the top 10 positions in Google’s SERPs? It’s probably longer than you think and here’s why.
Learn how to set up a targeted content marketing series to attract new readers and sell more books.
Learn how to set up a targeted content marketing series to attract new readers and sell more books.
Maths combats terrorism: Meet the real-world scientist using mathematics to help counterterrorism units dismantle terror cells.
Do you want your blog to nurture your leads and get people ready to buy your product or service? This guide will show you how.
Learn how to set up a targeted content marketing series to attract new readers and sell more books.
Yarrow isn’t just a pretty flower. Learn how to grow it and about its medicinal, permaculture and companion planting benefits in this plant profile.
Learn the 6 steps required to write an SEO-friendly blog post that attracts potential customers to your website so you’ve got a bigger captive audience to sell to.
Learn how to set up a targeted content marketing series to attract new readers and sell more books.
New genomic research on dolphins has implications for human medical research and dolphin conservation efforts.
Content marketing is incredibly powerful but often poorly understood. Learn how to implement content marketing to achieve your business goals.
Hyssop is an aromatic and edible, herbaceous perennial that belongs to the mint family. It’s used in perfume and has medicinal properties.
X-Mat® is an environmentally-friendly material that combines the strength of metal, lightness of plastic and high operating temperatures of ceramic. See how science meets engineering to produce an innovative solution to a wide range of challenges.
Companion planting is a special type of polyculture where different species are interplanted for the benefit of all.
Permaculture is about productive and resilient systems inspired by natural ecosystems. The idea is to work with nature rather than trying to tame, control or subvert it.
A plant family is a collection of closely related plants that share a set of common characteristics. Learn why they’re important in this short article
Microproteins appear to play a vital role in some biological processes like DNA repair. Research into human microproteins may lead to novel therapeutic treatments for a variety of diseases such as cancer.
This post explores the current market freelance writing rates. Read it if you’re not sure how much you should pay a freelance writer or charge for a piece.
Quality improvement in the health care sector has been difficult to standardise. The EPIDEM model offers a unique framework that could remedy this.
Rocket science and quantum dynamics – these are two of the topics author Lloyd R R Martin has delved into in his latest book. Learn more in this fascinating interview.
There is no doubt that content marketing is popular with 91% of business-to-business marketers and 86% of business-to-consumer marketers use content marketing. Better yet, content marketing is highly effective. According to DemandMetric, content marketing generates 3X the leads created by traditional marketing strategies yet it costs 62% less. And approximately 78% of buyers relied on white papers to make a purchasing decision within the past year.
But getting it right is difficult and time-consuming, especially if you’re not sure how to get started. That’s why I produced this 6-step guiding to content marketing success. If you master these steps, you’ll find content marketing much easier.
Marketing of any kind is all about maintaining or increasing revenue (if you’re a business). When you’re using a marketing strategy like content marketing, where you’re aiming to do this indirectly, it can be tough to measure how effective your marketing efforts are. But you need to measure this so that you know what’s working and how you can optimise your content marketing strategy to get the best results from your content marketing efforts. So today I’m going to give you a primer on how to measure content marketing success.
Content marketing is very popular at the moment and with good reason. Whether you write fantasy novels or run a multi-million dollar financial services corporation, it’s an effective means of marketing products and services to a wide range of audiences. But that’s not the only reason you might choose to use content marketing. There are lots of advantages of and benefits associated with content marketing – here are 26 of them.
Content marketing can seem like a baffling strategy especially if you’re familiar with traditional marketing approaches. But its an incredibly popular approach to marketing and audience building. In fact, 90% of North American business-to-business (B2B) content marketers prioritise their audience’s informational needs over their businesses sales and promotional messages. And 85% of Australian businesses are focussed on building their audience. Content marketing really is an effective way to market any business, so let’s take a look at how content marketing works.
The terms content strategy, content marketing and even content marketing strategy tend to be used interchangeably by a range of professionals and amateurs alike. Yet these are different terms and if you’re planning on delving into the realm of content marketing, either by yourself or with the help of an expert, you’ll make much better headway if you understand the differences between these terms.
Conceived as Facebook’s answer to Snapchat and launched in 2016, Instagram Stories was an instant hit. As at June 2018, it has a daily user base of 400 million. That’s an incredible number for a platform that’s so young. And that large user base coupled with impressive growth is why businesses are increasingly using Instagram Stories to market their products and services, especially to younger audiences. Read on to learn all you need to know to decide whether Instagram Stories should become your newest marketing tool in your social media marketing strategy.
With so many marketing strategies and marketing approaches to choose from, it can be difficult to decide which ones to try. What you need is a list of 13 proven approaches so you can pick a few effective techniques to try. Luckily I produced this blog post then right? 🙂 Read on to learn the basics of 13 top marketing strategies and marketing approaches so you can choose the ones that are most likely to work for your business.
Content marketing is an inbound marketing approach that relies on strategically creating, distributing and promoting content that is engaging, valuable and relevant to a well-defined target audience. As with all marketing, the ultimate goal of content marketing is to increase the number of desired customer actions, whether that be purchases (for businesses), donations (for charities) or another kind of action.
If you’re investing in freelancer writing services, you want to get the most out of your fee. Learn how to do just that with these 13 tips.
So you’ve decided to outsource your content creation to one or more freelance writers. Congratulations! That can be a hard decision to make. Now, of course, you need to figure out how to choose the right freelance writer for your brand. This is a fairly detailed look at just how you can do that.
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve realised you need content and/or copy for your business or brand. What you’re not sure about, is whether you should write it yourself and if not, whether you should hire a writer on a freelance or permanent basis. By the time you’ve finished this blog post, you’ll know the answer to the question ‘do you need a freelance writer?’ – or you’ll have the tools you need to answer the question.
Reading out loud to your child is one of the best things you can do in preparation for school and to help him or her develop a love of learning and strong language skills. If your baby is 6 months old or younger, you can boost the benefits of reading out loud to Bub by choosing black and white baby books as young babies and newborns respond best to high-contrast black and white images.
How to write a great blog post: Discover 8 steps that will help you learn how to write a great blog post every time you sit down at your computer to blog.
What is a blog? A blog is a log of information published on the web. Blog posts are often used in content marketing to boost sales.
Freelance rates can seem exorbitant at first but many freelancers are undercharging without realising it and many businesses are getting a really bargain.
Drive traffic to your website with these tips for overcoming the top 12 issues that may be causing you to suffer from low web traffic
Causes of low web traffic: Learn about the top 12 causes of low web traffic that might be harming your business or brand.
Low web traffic: Are you disappointed by your website’s performance? Low web traffic may be one of your issues and it could be affecting your bottom line.
What is copy? The line between content and copy is quite blurry making it difficult to learn the difference between copy and content. Wonder no longer.
The Australian Writer’s Centre runs a short story competition on the first weekend of every month. Contestants need to write a 500 words-or-fewer story in 55h for the chance to win $500. This is my entry for September.
Buying your first pram or stroller can be daunting because you just don’t know what features you might want or need. In this post, I’ll help you learn the key things to look out for when shopping for your first pram and help you make that all-important buying decision even when you haven’t got much, or any, experience to rely on.
I’ve broken this post down into subsections so you can easily find what you’re looking for but I recommend you start at the beginning and then just skip sections that aren’t relevant to you. I say this because I’ve structured the article with the really key decision points up front. If you don’t make those decisions first, you may end up choosing a pram or narrowing down your choices to models that actually don’t meet your needs.
The terms pram and stroller are so often misunderstood that choosing between the two can become really difficult. And when you just want to get the right mode of transport for your family, this is a difficulty you just don’t need. So, today I’m sharing everything you need to know in order to decide whether you’re going to get a pram, stroller or both for your family.
Advertising can be an effective means of increasing sales but what if you could cut advertising costs simply by sourcing fantastic content? Check out these ideas for content you can use in every stage of your sales funnel.
After talking to some other mothers on Facebook one day, I became interested in learning about the shared reading practices of Australian families. I wanted to know who reads out loud to Aussie kids, how long our children are being read out loud to, whether shared reading is decreasing and what would encourage families to do more shared reading. I found some data but not a great deal and there were some issues with some of what I did find so I decided to do my own little study and publish the results on my blog so that others could learn from it.
In a survey I recently conducted, one of the most common reasons why parents and carers didn’t read out loud to their children more was because either they or their children didn’t have enough time. Given how important it is to read out loud to children, I thought I’d share some tips on how to build more shared reading into your daily routine.
If you know a newborn, give Bub a great start to visual development – choose black and white for sight!
A survey by Scholastic (Australian Kids and Family Reading Report) found that 20% of parents stopped reading to their children before they turned nine. Yet 36% of children aged 6-11 whose parents had stopped reading to them wished their parents hadn’t stopped.
Reading out loud is incredibly important for kids so ceasing the practice isn’t just a disappointment. It can also have ramifications for their literacy.
In a recent post, I talked about the many benefits of reading out loud to your child (or a child you care for). Many parents and carers wonder though when they should start reading to their young charges. The short answer is as soon as possible after birth, if not before. Read on to learn enough to decide when you will start reading to the little one in your life.
Reading out loud is one of the best things you can do for your child (or any child you care for). Regularly sharing stories with your child is critical for helping him/her to develop strong literacy skills, a good vocabulary and a lively imagination (Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services). I think you’ll agree that most of us expect these sorts of benefits from reading but there are a wide variety of other benefits that are more unexpected, such as social-emotional skills. If you need some motivation to make reading out loud to your child a regular event, check out the benefits below.
There is a lot of conflicting information about whether or not pesticides are dangerous so it is no surprise that I get asked this question fairly frequently. I’d love to give a yes or no answer but the truth is, it varies depending on the pesticide in question and how you define ‘dangerous’. If you’ve ever wondered whether pesticides are dangerous, the following information should give you the information you need to answer the question for the specific pesticides you’re interested in.
Digital marketing can be a minefield. If you don’t have tools to help you, it can also be incredibly time-consuming. If you don’t know how to use metrics to determine how successful your efforts are, you’re in a whole mountain full of trouble.
Don’t believe me? Let me explain.
Today’s post explains what metrics are and why you need them. It’s the first in a series of posts about digital marketing tools and metrics for beginners. Each post explains a different metric or tool. Each post also includes examples – I’ve chosen two completely different business types (authors and landscape gardening businesses) to illustrate how all businesses, no matter the focus, can benefit from these tools and metrics. If you want to read the other posts in this series, just click this link or search my blog for ‘digital marketing tools and metrics for beginners’. If you want to know as soon as another post comes out, you can subscribe to receive updates on this series here.
All gardeners want to ensure their plants get the water they need but many of us worry about whether we have the optimal irrigation schedule. The best frequency at which you should water your garden is fairly uncontroversial, though it does depend on the plants you are growing and what stage they are at so it can be quite complicated to figure out. The time of day at which you should water your garden however, is a hotly contested topic and experienced gardeners often wonder this almost as frequently as beginner gardeners. I advocate for watering in the morning and I think you’ll agree that my reasoning and advice is sound.
Every social media user eventually wonders when they should be posting on their chosen platforms. Are there better days or times to post? Is it really necessary to post 10 times a day on Twitter? Take a look at this post and you’ll find out as I’ve reviewed at the best available research so you don’t have to.
Many business worry that posting to Facebook through third-party apps will reduce the organic reach of their posts. While this practice can reduce post engagement, it does not directly reduce organic reach.
I’ve heard it said that nappy changing time is a ‘special time of bonding’ with your baby ‘full of happy songs and cherished routines like pretend toe eating’ (am I the only one who had never previously considered pretending to eat my baby’s toes?). And sure, you do get some one-on-one time with Bub. However, given the difficulties many parents face with feelings of inadequacy when all they see on social media is photo after photos of 100% together parents with their perfect little angels, I thought today I’d do a fun post about one of the not so fun moments in the life of a parent. So if you’ve ever had a disaster nappy change (and seriously, we all have, regardless of what people show on social media) hopefully you’ll find this at least a little amusing – and maybe comforting on those days where it feels like everything is going wrong. And for those expectant parents, here’s a sneak peak of what you’re in for!
Plastic waste is everywhere. It is clogging our landfills and poisoning our marine environments. In fact, the United Nations has deemed ocean plastic to be a “planetary crisis”. Thankfully Full Cycle Bioplastics has developed an innovative solution that is a real game changer.
Let me start by saying I love Terry Goodkind’s writing – well some of it anyway. I love his Sword of Truth series to bits and have read many of the books more than 10 times each. In fact, those books have been a key inspiration for my first fantasy novel (in progress). I believe I have read every book he’s written, including Nest (a thriller) and The Law of Nines (set in ‘our world’), indeed I own all but Death’s Mistress which I borrowed from the library, but unfortunately I’ve been really disappointed with his last few novels and Death’s Mistress is sadly no different. I’m even glad I didn’t take the leap and buy it (though I do actually feel guilty for not supporting one of my favourite authors in that way).
On 3 October 2017, scientists published an interesting article in the journal Ecology titled ‘molecular constraints on resistance-tolerance trade-offs’. This is a bit of a mouthful but basically, the study looks at the mechanisms some plants use to cope with the negative effects of being pruned or munched on by wildlife, namely resistance and tolerance, and they found something rather surprising that could, in the future, increase agricultural yields and reduce reliance on pesticides.
For those of you who don’t know, Floriade is a peak spring flower show in Australia. Unfortunately, because it’s focussed almost exclusively on bulbs, it tends to be pretty much the same every year. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be gleaned from a visit; or a review from someone who has checked it out. So, whether or not you’ve had the opportunity to visit Floriade, here are five things you can learn from the event:
Sign up for my email newsletter now and receive free, downloadable black and white pictures that you can use to boost your baby’s eye development. (If you’re viewing this on a small screen the link will take you to the form. If you’re viewing this on a large screen, the signup form will be in the sidebar on the right of the screen.) Or you can read on to learn why black and white pictures are so good for babies up to 6 months of age.
We all want to give our babies the best start in life and supporting eye development is probably one of the top things parents want to contribute to. So, how do you kickstart your baby’s eye development? The answer is fairly simple: choose black and white for sight – show your little one lots of black and white pictures and show them to him or her often.
Kickstart your baby’s eye development – choose black and white for sight
A contest, unknown lands and a reluctant traveller make ‘Race to the End of the World’ an engaging adventure story for children aged 9 and over. And while I thought the premise was a little weak, I loved that A. L. Tait has used sophisticated language that will challenge young readers.
Want to give the baby in your life the best start? One of the best things you can do as a parent is to read to your child from birth.
Most children’s books contain lots of brightly coloured pictures though. This is great for older children but for the best brain development, research shows that babies up to 6 months of age need high contrast, black and white images.
The personalised ‘Where’s My Teddy?’, K. M. Wade’s first book for newborns, is specifically designed to stimulate babies’ vision and hearing. The bold black and white pictures will capture the attention of even the youngest children while the rhythm and repetition of the story build their literacy skills. Each book is customised to your child so older children will also be thrilled when they discover that the person who has lost their teddy shares the same name as them.
This is truly a book your child will enjoy from birth.
Create yours now
If you find yourself near Benalla (in Victoria, Australia), perhaps driving down the Hume Highway on your way to another engagement, I’d highly recommend a short detour to visit Benalla. The bustling country town has a street art exhibition on that’s drawing visitors but for a weary traveller, it’s the botanical gardens that I’d recommend – read on to find out why. If you’re not likely to be able to visit Benalla any time soon, have a scroll through this post anyway and enjoy the pictures – you might just find the inspiration you need for your next garden project.
They say ‘kids do the darnedest things’ and my now 6-month old daughter (Miss0.5) is no exception. There have been lots of funny moments but here are the top three so far.
My nephew asked my how the water can burn in Cars 2 (see this clip, about a minute in) and I thought I’d share my answer here for any other children that have the same question.
Patricia Cornwell’s ‘Book of the Dead’ has an interesting premise and plenty of intrigue but for me, the execution let it down.