Ray Manley, top freelance writer, content creator and marketer

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4 fantastic ways to use keywords to create an engaging first paragraph

The first paragraph or sentence of a blog: If it doesn’t stress you

This Idiot’s Guide to Clickbait

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Not long ago I installed the Downworthy plugin in my browser. It “translates”

How to Use Your Content Marketing Strategy to Write a Book

Joe Pulizzi said it best when he wrote, “a book is perhaps the ultimate piece of content marketing that can position you or your company as a leading expert in your industry.” Writing and publishing a book can provide substantial value to your company. By authoring and publishing a book,

How to Establish the Best Social Media KPIs for Your Content Marketing Goals

For many content marketers, social media strategy never gets beyond the spray-and-pray process of sharing a new piece of content with the widest audience possible, and then measuring if anybody engaged with it. It’s based on an idea that if you just keep creating new content and pushing it

How to Integrate Guest Blogging Into Your Content Marketing Strategy

Too many content marketing strategies are missing a huge piece of the puzzle and it’s holding them back. That piece? Guest-contributed content from your brand – content authored by experts within your company published by third-party media already consumed by your target audience. In 2016, we found that guest

8 Big Questions From Content Marketing World to Ask Year Round

Let’s think more like George Lucas. In 1973, he wanted to make a sci-fi movie, but Hollywood studios weren’t big fans of science fiction. So George negotiated a deal with 20th Century Fox to forgo up-front payment for his services on Star Wars. In exchange, he retained the sequel

7 Witty Ways to Respond to Negative Feedback on Your Content

Seven years ago, as a naive content marketer with more enthusiasm on my resume than actual experience, something transpired that bugged me for years. I was working as a freelance blogger, paying my way through college. A typical morning involved writing, publishing, and scheduling social media content and blog posts

Ads are Killing the Web: Are You Part of the Problem?

For nearly a quarter century, the digital ad business has been acting like a depraved, sociopathic child – growing like wildfire while recklessly betraying, undermining, and pissing off virtually everyone in its global orbit. Digital advertising’s many deadly sins now have generated an unprecedented plague of problems for everybody. Singly,

22 Examples From Brands (and Marketers) That are Winning at Content Marketing

At CMI, we’ve always taken our mission of advancing the practice of content marketing seriously. And one of the best methods we know of when it comes to sharpening our skills and expanding our vision of what’s possible is to follow the examples set by some of the industry’s best

3 Components to Running a Smooth Content Operation

When it comes to talking strategy and tactics, sometimes we still talk about this industry like we’re a bunch of solo content marketers who happen to work together. To create a functioning content marketing team, you need to thoughtfully put together the key elements – talent, tools, and operations

US Tax 101: What Is a W9 Form?

When a business requests a W9 form, they use it to ensure they have the correct information to prepare a 1099-MISC form. Are you an independent contractor or freelancer who just landed your first client? No doubt you’re excited to get paid, but your new client might just ask you to

Conference Is Over: 19 Experts Share a Back-to-Work Action Plan

You know a thing or two about content overload. You think of it in terms of how to get your content to stand out and be consumed by your target audience. But when you’re a conference attendee, the script is flipped. You’re the one bombarded with content – trends,

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