Blogger very Good

8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity
And Stifle Your Success

“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts the moment you get up and doesn’t stop until you get into the office.” ~ Robert Frost

It’s a myth that only highly intelligent people are creative.

In fact, research shows that once you get beyond an I.Q. of about 120, which is just a little above average, intelligence and creativity are not at all related.

That means that even if you’re no smarter than most people, you still have the potential to wield amazing creative powers.

So why are so few people highly creative?

Here are eight of the very worst bad habits that could be holding you back every day:

1. Creating and evaluating at the same time

You can’t drive a car in first gear and reverse at the same time. Likewise, you shouldn’t try to use different types of thinking simultaneously. You’ll strip your mental gears.

Creating means generating new ideas, visualizing, looking ahead, considering the possibilities. Evaluating means analyzing and judging, picking apart ideas and sorting them into piles of good and bad, useful and useless.

Most people evaluate too soon and too often, and therefore create less. In order to create more and better ideas, you must separate creation from evaluation, coming up with lots of ideas first, then judging their worth later.

2. The Expert Syndrome

This a big problem in any field where there are lots of gurus who tell you their secrets of success. It’s wise to listen, but unwise to follow without question.

Some of the most successful people in the world did what others told them would never work. They knew something about their own idea that even the gurus didn’t know.

Every path to success is different.

3. Fear of failure

Most people remember baseball legend Babe Ruth as one of the great hitters of all time, with a career record of 714 home runs.

However, he was also a master of the strike out. That’s because he always swung for home runs, not singles or doubles. Ruth either succeeded big or failed spectacularly.

No one wants to make mistakes or fail. But if you try too hard to avoid failure, you’ll also avoid success.

It has been said that to increase your success rate, you should aim to make more mistakes. In other words, take more chances and you’ll succeed more often. Those few really great ideas you come up with will more than compensate for all the dumb mistakes you make.

4. Fear of ambiguity

Most people like things to make sense.

Unfortunately, life is not neat and tidy. There are some things you’ll never understand and some problems you’ll never solve.

I once had a client who sold a product by direct mail. His order form broke every rule in the book. But it worked better than any other order form he had ever tried.

Why? I don’t know.

What I do know is that most great creative ideas emerge from a swirl of chaos. You must develop a part of yourself that is comfortable with mess and confusion. You should become comfortable with things that work even when you don’t understand why.

5. Lack of confidence

A certain level of uncertainty accompanies every creative act. A small measure of self-doubt is healthy.

Much of this comes from experience, but confidence also comes from familiarity with how creativity works.

When you understand that ideas often seem crazy at first, that failure is just a learning experience, and that nothing is impossible, you are on your way to becoming more confident and more creative.

Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, divide it into what you’ve tried and what you haven’t tried. There are a million pathways to success.

6. Discouragement from other people

Even if you have a wide-open mind and the ability to see what’s possible, most people around you will not. They will tell you in various and often subtle ways to conform, be sensible, and not rock the boat.

Ignore them. And once you have a big win under your belt, all the naysayers will shut their noise and see you for what you are — a creative force to be reckoned with.

7. Being overwhelmed by information

It’s called “analysis paralysis,” the condition of spending so much time thinking about a problem and cramming your brain with so much information that you lose the ability to act.

It’s been said that information is to the brain what food is to the body. True enough. But just as you can overeat, you can also overthink.

Every successful person I’ve ever met has the ability to know  Many subscribe to the “ready – fire – aim” philosophy of business success, knowing that acting on a good plan today is better than waiting for a perfect plan tomorrow.

8. Being trapped by false limits

Ask a writer for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves words. Ask a designer for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves visuals. Ask a blogger for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves a blog.

We’re all a product of our experience. But the limitations we have are self-imposed. They are false limits. Only when you force yourself to look past what you know and feel comfortable with can you come up with the you’re looking for.

Be open to anything. Step outside your comfort zone. Consider how those in unrelated areas do what they do. What seems impossible today may seem surprisingly doable tomorrow.

If you recognize some of these problems in yourself, don’t fret. In fact, rejoice! Knowing what’s holding you back is the first step toward breaking down the barriers of creativity.

How about you? What mental habit has been hardest on your creativity? Let us know in the comments how you’ve handled it.

SEO Copywriting: The Five Essential Elements to Focus On

When I first started Copyblogger in 2006, I was almost militantly against . Seems strange, since I’d been a successful student of SEO since 2000.

It was because I saw all these people fretting over keywords like it’s 1999, and yet they had no links. Their content was weak. Their sites weren’t trusted.

You can’t optimize something that’s dead in the water. So my initial goal was to get people to focus on content that attracted attention and links first. Only then do you have something you can make better (that’s what optimize means, naturally).

Fours years later, it seems things have swung in the opposite direction for some. Social media “experts” maintain that SEO doesn’t matter because search traffic just “happens.”

Yes, search traffic “happens” if you produce unique content and don’t make it impossible to find. But the “right” search traffic doesn’t just happen, not unless you’re lucky (which simply means you don’t know what you’re doing).

This article is designed to help you know how to tell search engines what you’re talking about is the same as what people are looking for. That’s all SEO really is.

And yet . . .

I feel compelled to quickly discuss the things you need to focus on first. Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz gives us a quick list of the stuff that , so I’ll repeat those here with my own commentary:

Accessibility – If search engines can’t see your content within the code, your page can’t be indexed and ranked. This is why Chris Pearson created the , and why he obsesses over making it better. Code matters.

Content – Now that the code structure is right, we come to what people actually want. Create great content and the people, sharing, and links will follow. And then you hit the bonus round: Google gives you even more goodness.

User Experience – The easier your site makes it to consume and share your content, the better you’ll end up doing SEO-wise. People don’t consume or share content that creates barriers, sometimes even if only a little.

Marketing – To paraphrase Rand on this one, spreading the word is often more important than being right, being honest, or being valuable. I like to say promoting your content is a Whatever works for you, but do get the word out.

Okay, now let’s move on to the five areas to focus on with your web page, blog post, online press release, whatever . . . they’re all the same in the eyes of Google.

Five SEO copywriting elements that matter

Before we get into this, let me share a few strategic considerations.

When I’m building an , I don’t care about optimizing everything I write. I use a lot of metaphors and pop culture references instead of keywords to get people reading and linking to build the overall trust of the domain. Then when I want to rank well for something, like, my job is much easier.

If you’re a news blogger (or newspaper), things are different. You want to optimize everything as best as possible up front, then move on. Different strokes for different folks.

That said, here we go.

1. Title

Whether you optimize up-front or later, you at minimum need to know what keywords you’re targeting and include them in the title of your content. It’s generally accepted that the closer to the front of the title your keywords are, the better. But the key is that they appear in the title somewhere.

The original title of this post contained the keyword phrase “SEO copywriting,” but it was positioned at the end of the title. That’s because I went with the more compelling headline first and foremost. But I can serve an alternate title in the title tag (which is the snippet of code Google actually pulls the title from) thanks to a post feature in (also available with the for WordPress).

So, I can always enter a more search-optimized alternate title later, such as:

SEO Copywriting: The 5 Essential Elements

The emphasis on keywords in the title makes practical sense from a search engine standpoint. When people search for something, they’re going to want to see the language they used reflected back at them in the results. Nothing mysterious about that.

Having keywords in your title is also important when people link to you. When your keywords are there, people are more likely to link to you with the keywords in the anchor text. This is an important factor for Google to determine that a particular page is in fact about a particular subject.

You should try to keep the length of your title under 72 characters for search purposes. This will ensure the full title is visible in a search result, increasing the likelihood of a click-through.

2. Meta Description

SEO copywriting is not just about ranking. It’s also about the presentation of your content in a search engine. The meta description of your content will generally be the “snippet” copy for the search result below the title, which influences whether or not you get the click.

It’s debatable whether keywords in your meta description influence rank, but it doesn’t matter if they do or don’t. You want to lead off your meta description with the keyword phrase and succinctly summarize the page as a reassurance to the searcher that your content will satisfy what they’re looking for.

Try to keep the meta description under 165 characters so the full description is visible in the search result. Again, you can create a meta description in WordPress right in the posting area with Thesis or All in One SEO.

3. Content

Unique and frequently updated content makes search engines happy. But you know that part. For search optimization purposes (and just general reader-friendliness) your content should be tightly on-topic and centered on the subject matter of the desired keyword phrases.

It’s generally accepted that very brief content may have a harder time ranking over a page with more substantial content. So you’ll want to have a content body length of at least 300 words.

It might also help to bold the first occurrence of a keyword phrase, or include it in a bulleted list, but I usually don’t get hung up on that. It’s also debatable whether including keywords in subheads helps with ranking, but again, it doesn’t matter – subheads are simply a smart and natural place to include your keyword phrase, since that’s what the page is about.

Which brings us to . . .

4. Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is the number of times your targeted keywords appear on the page. Keyworddensity is the ratio of those keywords to the rest of the words on the page.

It’s generally accepted that keyword frequency impacts ranking (and that makes logical sense). Keyword density, as some sort of “golden” ratio, likely does not. But the only way to make sense of an appropriate frequency is via the ratio of those keywords to the rest of the content, so density is still a metric you need.

In other words, the only way to tell if your repetition of keywords is super or spammy is to measure that frequency against the overall length of the content. A keyword density greater than 5.5% could find you guilty of keyword stuffing, and your page could be penalized by Google.

You don’t need to mindlessly repeat keywords to optimize. In fact, if you do, you’re likely to achieve the opposite result.

5. Page Links

Linking is the fundamental basis of the web. Search engines want to know you’re sufficiently “connected” with other pages and content, so linking out to other pages matters when it comes to search engine optimization.

Here are some “rules of thumb” for linking based on generally accepted best practices:

• Link to relevant content fairly early in the body copy
• Link to relevant pages approximately every 120 words of content
• Link to relevant interior pages of your site or other sites
• Link with naturally relevant anchor text

Again, these are guidelines related to current best practices. Don’t get hung up on rules; focus on the intent behind what search engines are looking for – quality search results for people.

How to Get 6,312 Subscribers to Your Business Blog in One Day

Remember the ecommerce commercial that showed a small group hovering around a computer as they launched their new website? They cheered when the first order notification came through, and again with the second… and then freaked out as the order blips became a relentless torrent.

That’s what Adam Schwartz, CEO , said it felt like last Wednesday when we launched their new Rapid . The blog attracted 6,312 subscribers in the 24-hour period following the launch promotion, and now has over 8,500 and counting less than a week later.

Existing businesses have incredibly valuable assets that others do not—customer and prospect lists. That being said, telling your existing customers about your new blog full of press release content and expecting them to come running is a recipe for mediocrity. If you don’t have an existing list, you can create an offer that is attractive to social media news site users and your results will be similar.

Articulate is one of the few companies I’ve continued to work with outside of my own projects in the last year, and Adam gave the green light to share the strategy we implemented. Here’s what we did, step-by-step.

1. Positioning: Articulate sells software that allows users to develop flash-based e-learning and training courses based on PowerPoint, which has become known as rapid e-learning due to the ease of use of the tools. The goal for the blog is to provide valuable content related to rapid e-learning development (outside of the software) and to establish 15-year e-learning veteran and Articulate VP of Community Tom Kuhlmann as an authority in the field.
   
   In other words, the blog is designed not to sell software directly, but to offer value to existing and prospective customers of Articulate. The halo effect of Tom’s tips over time can do nothing but enhance the Articulate brand as the definitive leader in the rapid e-learning space.
2. Myths About Rapid E-Learning. A first-time visitor to the blog has plenty of well-organized and targeted content to dive into, which also acts as a motivator to get on board as a subscriber.
3. Incentive: The next step was a free ebook that became the focus of the launch promotion. Tom put together the Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro, which focused on the business end of e-learning, and I added a bit of editorial input. This content is unique and valuable to corporate instructional designers because it helps them see what the true role of e-learning and training is within the larger business context. The strategies in the book allow training staff to create courses that provide a true return on investment, and are also perceived as valuable to upper management and the learners themselves.
4. Launch Email: I wrote a brief email formatted in HTML with a nice graphical representation of the ebook. This 72-word email was not designed to sell the subscription, but to sell the click through to the landing page, and was sent to a house list of both customers and people who had downloaded a free trial of Articulate software. The initial response briefly crashed the dedicated server that houses only the new blog.
5. Landing Page: The landing page consists of an ebook graphic positioned just as in the email, a brief intro, 8 bullet points related to the content of the ebook, a statement that lets the reader know they are subscribing to the blog, a call to action, an email form, and a “no spam” statement.
6. Delivery: The email subscription is powered by Feedburner’s email service, so new blog posts are automatically sent to subscribers. The ebook is delivered via the  thatChris Garrett also uses. This means that people who subscribe via feed reader will also receive the free ebook.
7. Start Blogging: The launch went very well, and Tom is now perfectly positioned to become the preeminent voice in the growing rapid e-learning space. Mission accomplished, but now the real work begins. Once you’re perceived as an authority, you have a responsibility to continue to deliver, and I have no doubts that Tom is up for it.

No Customer or Prospect List?

The above is an excellent game plan for any existing business to enhance their market position with valuable content delivered via blog. But if you don’t have an existing customer or prospect email list, substitute in a social media site like Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, Netscape or some of the other small niche sites as your launch pad. The key is to offer something that people really want, surround it with other valuable, targeted content, and then continue to deliver over time to maintain and grow your subscriber base.

P.S. For those scoring at home, the promotional email drew a 10% click through ratio, which was fairly strong given that the prospect portion of the opt-in list did not require email validation to download the free software trial (in other words, there was likely a lot of junk on the list). The conversion rate on the landing page opt-in was right at 54%.