I’m sitting in a restaurant known for its good Italian food and the selection of wines that go with it. I’m just having wine.

It was a spontaneous visit, and nobody except the owner knew me. After failing to bargain for a table, I convinced the host that I write for the restaurant, and was allowed to sit down for a drink. Or maybe he was just tired of arguing with me.

Sitting there, nursing my red, I looked around.

Notebook open, page empty, pen twirling in between my fingers. The restaurant was prettier on the inside. Dim lights, a red accent wall, and violin-heavy music gave it a sophisticated ambiance. Most Italian restaurants look prettier on the inside.

But I wasn’t paid to drink wine and admire the atmosphere. I had to write something that would make people want to experience this for themselves.

Who am I writing for?

Before you start writing, you need to know who your reader is. This is true for novelists, poets, and copywriters alike.

Taking another swallow of the red, I looked around again.

This time, I focused on the people. It seemed to be a favored place for dates, and there were many tables for two. At those tables, women and men holding hands, smiling at each other, and engaging in deep conversations. There was a family, too. The children with gelled-back hair and an upright seating position looked almost aristocratic.

In marketing, you learn that crafting a message based solely on assumptions isn’t good enough. You have to gather data before making decisions. I needed to know what made people like this choose a restaurant like that.

Walking up to them and interrupting their dinner for a short interview would hardly be appropriate. I tried to listen to their conversations but couldn’t hear anything. Everyone was speaking softly, almost whispering.

So I went for a smoke.

When I saw a guy go out for the second time tonight, his pack of cigarettes gone from the table with him, I threw on my jacket and went after him.

It’s time for a confession. I don’t actually smoke.

I wasn’t trying to get you to fuck up your lungs or help you justify your bad habits. It’s just an edgy title to get you interested. And here you are now, right? So, please forgive me. I actually do have some advice.

I roll my own green tea cigarettes. No nicotine, no addiction. The Vietnamese have been doing it for decades.

The man outside the restaurant already had his cigarette glowing in between his lips. I lit my own dummy smoke.

“It’s my first time in this restaurant. Quite nice,” I said to him.

“It is. I come here all the time. It’s my favorite in Zurich,” he answered.

Over the next few minutes, I asked him why it was his favorite restaurant, what other restaurants he liked, what made this one unique, what he didn’t like, how he heard about it first, what he’d tell others about it, and I got all the material I needed from this conversation.

A regular survey would have yielded answers like “there’s a good wine selection,” or “the staff is nice.” But outside the restaurant, between two people having a smoke, there is no need for professional courtesy or reservation.

Smokers get all the action.

There’s still always a pack of American Spirit in my inside-right jacket pocket. You’d be surprised how often offering a cig comes in handy when you want to make friends or bribe strangers.

Smokers have their own little club. A non-verbal gesture—which could be badly misinterpreted in two different ways—is enough to remove a fellow smoker from the crowd for a private chat. And once you’re huddled up in the cold together, you can all drop the social filter.

Try it. Roll some green tea leaves (or buy a pack of cigarettes, I’m not your dad) and join the smokers. You’ll be surprised by the conversations you become a part of.

Enjoy!

– Pat

When I was in 5th grade, I wrote a love letter to a girl named Alba. She and I didn’t talk much, but I always saw her during recess and thought she looked awfully pretty.

I instructed a classmate of hers to pass the letter on. After school, I waited at the place I told her to meet me, but she never came.

Later, I found out that this classmate had a crush on her, too.

My love letter was never delivered.

Make sure your love letters always reach their recipients.

The same can happen with your emails. It’s not a dickhead classmate that’s intercepting your message, but the email providers’ spam detection.

If you don’t adhere to a few simple best practices, your emails brush past the inbox and go straight to the spam folder, where they rot forever.

In this article, I’ll tell you what to avoid and what to do to ensure high email deliverability (you don’t have to be a pro to get these right).

What is email deliverability?

Email providers (like Gmail) and clients (like Spark) have gotten real smart at segmenting incoming email. Besides the usual inbox and spam folder, they now also have promotions, social, and updates. In what folder your email ends up determines your success in email marketing.

Email deliverability is the likelihood of your emails reaching your recipient’s inbox. Not the spam folder, not the promotions folder, and not any other folder but the inbox.

Have you ever looked at Promotions, Updates, or Social? I never do. Maybe you didn’t even know they existed.

Here’s proof that they do, right from my own, unedited, inbox:

These folders are where the light never shines. Let me tell you three sure-fire ways to have your emails end up there.

The top 3 ways to go straight to the spam folder.

Disclaimer: This section is satire (to be taken with humor). I’ve written it as advice, but you should avoid it at all costs.

Buy an email list.

Who needs organic list building or mailing consent when you can just buy an unlimited amount of email addresses to burn through? While the fools are getting a few leads a day through their blog, you can just buy 20,000 email addresses for $2,000 and get going. Boom, suckas.

Make your headline look like annoying advertisements.

Go ALL CAPS with loads of obnoxious ✨🔥emojis🔥✨ and end the line with a bunch of exclamation marks!!!! That’s the best way to let your recipients know that you have something important to say.

Send as many emails to as many people as you can.

You spent good money on that list, so put it to use. Bleed it dry. The more you pitch, the more you sell. And when the list is exhausted, you can always go back to tip #1!

How to avoid the spam folder (and hit the inbox).

Now for the real advice. Avoiding the spam folder isn’t magic, and you don’t need to be a tech savant to do it.

You just need to follow the basic technical requirements for setting up your email sending structure and be human when you write and send your emails.

Use a dedicated sending subdomain.

Your reputation as a sender is based on the server (IP address) and domain you send your emails from. If you’re not super advanced in email marketing and sending regularly to lists of over 50,000 people, you don’t need to worry about your IP address. Your email software is taking care of it.

(If you are super advanced in email marketing, you’re probably wasting your time with this article.)

As your sending domain, you should create a subdomain. You can name it send.yourdomain.com or hi.yourdomain.com or whatever else you think is cool. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, just that you have it.

Email providers treat the reputation of subdomains separately from each other and the main domain. If you fuck something up and your reputation takes a hit, you can just create a new subdomain and start from scratch. If you use your main domain, your normal emails might end up in spam. Irreparable damage.

Authenticate your email account.

This part is the most tech-wizardly. You need to add three entries to your server (DNS records) to authenticate your email account.

• SPF: Sender Policy Framework allows the receiving mail server to verify that an email is coming from the correct sender and not someone impersonating you.
• DKIM: DomainKeys Identified Mail does the same thing but is in the header of the email itself, so it remains intact when the email is forwarded.
• DMARC: Domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance tells the receiving servers how to handle incoming mail based on DKIM and SPF alignment checks.
  

It doesn’t matter if you understand them. The way you set them up depends on your email software. A quick Google search like “how to set up spf dkim dmarc [your email software]” will do. Most guides will include the setup of all three entries.

Test your setup.

When you’ve set up your sending subdomain and added the authentication records, run a quick test to be sure you’ve done everything right.

Go to https://www.mail-tester.com and use your email software to send an email to the generated address. Make it plain text, no design yet. The tool will tell you if you’ve done well in setting everything up.

Save that website.

You’ll do another deliverability test when you have your first, fully-designed campaign ready (and maybe some more tests until you hit all the right marks).

Warm up your brand new account.

When you first start sending emails, the email providers (like Gmail or Outlook) don’t know who you are. You might be a friend, you might be a spammer. If you get a consistently bad open rate (below 20%) and spam complaints (above 0.1%), you’ll be classified as… yes, a spammer.

If you get great open rates and no complaints, the email providers will start trusting you and make sure to deliver whatever you send.

To warm up your domain, you should send high-engagement emails, like a welcome email when someone joins your newsletter or a thank-you email when someone makes a purchase. Those generally have a very high open rate and are great for building trust.

Soon, you’ll send your first campaign to a wider audience. This audience should consist of your most engaged readers. Gradually, you’ll send more campaigns to a larger audience until you see consistent open and click rates.

It can take up to three months for your email performance to settle while providers evaluate your reputation.

Send good emails.

You’re done with the setup; now comes the hard part. You have to send campaigns and build flows, not just with sales in mind, but also with deliverability. Those two goals are like a long-married couple that loves each other but doesn’t always hold hands.

A converting ad headline might be “100% FREE ebook with your next purchase! (LIMITED TIME ONLY).” An image on a website might illustrate something perfectly on its own. A good landing page has many buttons that lead to the desired next step.

If you use that ad copy in a subject line, you land in the promo folder. If you use only images, you might get sent to spam (email clients can’t read images), and too many links will get you there even faster.

Instead of the usual bullet-point list of little things to look out for, like HTML to text ratio, unsubscribe links, and image best practices, here’s…

My best tip for writing a deliverable email: Pretend you’re writing a letter to a friend you haven’t talked to in a while.

Only write when you have something to say.

As every aspiring non-spammer, you’re probably asking yourself how often you can send an email without becoming a spammer. The simple answer is: Write as often as you have something to say.

People subscribe to your emails because they want something from them. That something might be learning to write better copy, getting your best discounts, or just knowing what your business is up to.

As long as you can say something that helps them get closer to that goal, say it.

Never send out weekly newsletters with nothing but fluff because you think you need to adhere to some self-imposed (or worse, a marketing guru-imposed) sending frequency.

If you send too much, your open rates will drop. This is how you know you should dial back your sending frequency.

Clean your list regularly.

Over time, some people will unsubscribe. Others will just stop opening your emails. Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t mean your emails suck. It happens to all of us.

You should clean your list every six months. Find out who hasn’t opened any of your emails in the last 180 days, and ask them if they want to stay on your list and keep receiving your emails.

If they don’t confirm or even open your email, delete them from your list.

Congratulations, you learned to crawl.

What you learned here is the email marketing equivalent of learning to crawl.

When you nail a high delivery rate, you want to become really good at persuading people. After all, you aren’t sending emails for the hell of it. You want your readers to take action. That takes some serious copywriting skills.

Strategic thinking is involved, too. How do you ideally segment your target audience? What content do you send, and when do you send it? What is your overall goal? How can other channels tie in with email?

Don’t treat each email as a one-off thing. A sound strategy is a must.

If you ever need a hand with any of it, give me a shout.

– Pat

The internet is full of “definite” guides, “complete” guides, and “beginner” guides that are still half a bible long. Those are real great guides if you’ve got half an hour just to read through them.

To implement what you’ve learned is a whole other story.

This guide is the opposite. It’s as simple as the syrup in my Daiquiri.

It’s the kind of guide I wished I had when I wanted to get started. It’s the kind of guide that throws you in ice water and lets you paddle back to shore. It won’t make you an SEO guru, but it’ll have you writing your first blog post in less than 30 minutes.

The first section will give you all the background knowledge you need to put the step-by-step instructions in the second section to action.

What is keyword research (in simple terms)?

Keywords are the words and phrases your target audience types into Google. Keyword research is the process of uncovering those words and phrases.

What are long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords?

Long-tail keywords are search queries with four or more words. Short-tail keywords are search queries with three or fewer words.

Short-tail keywords are more competitive and difficult to rank for, especially for new blogs. Long-tail keywords are less competitive and have a higher click rate because they offer more specific answers to the user’s question. Consider this example:

Short-tail keyword: “french omelette.”

If you type that into Google, you might get results from kitchen shows, recipes, reviews, restaurants, etc. Everyone is fighting for that keyword.

Long-tail keyword: “how to make french omelette at home?”

Only recipes and guides are competing for this keyword. This lesser competition makes it easier for you to rank on Google.

Of course, not just Google uses keywords. You can do keyword research for YouTube, Medium, Bing, Yahoo, and any other search engine.

But this is the simplest guide on the internet, so let’s just focus on the big lad: Google.

Do you need tools to do keyword research?

There are dozens of tools out there that’ll make your research more thorough and accurate.

Those tools also help you organize your keywords and analyse their effectiveness. They show you what pages rank for them and how big your chances are of ranking for that keyword.

BUT, we don’t need that. Keyword research without any tools is as easy as keyword research gets.

Google’s goal is to show its users the best search results for their query. Google knows better than any other search engine what people want, thanks to the massive amount of data it collects.

And Google is hot to tell you.

The simplest way to do keyword research (no tools needed).

When you start typing something into Google, its algorithm tries to predict what you’re looking for. It’ll finish your sentences like you’ve been married for 30 years.

This gives you plenty of ideas and inspiration.

Let’s say you’re in the Gin business. Type one word only and hit the spacebar to see what people often search for.

People want to know more about gin cocktails and especially gin tonic recipes. They’re also searching for specific gins like Tangqueray and Gin Mare.

What “gin tonic recipe” means is obvious. But what exactly does someone want who searches for “gin mare?”

Ignore the query and focus on search intent.

The query is what people type into Google.

The search intent is the final goal behind their search. What people want to achieve by searching for something.

Some queries aren’t giving that intent away. Someone searching “gin mare” might be looking for recipes. They also might be looking for the ingredients or to buy some.

If you go on to write about your weekend bender on Gin Mare, it won’t do very well. Google has become incredible at deducing search intent, and if you still focus on the query instead, you lose.

Ignore the query. Aim at the intent behind the query.

To find out more about the search intent, finish the query and tap the spacebar. Google will tell you.

Now you know that people are looking for places to buy, for reviews, and for recipes. But that may not be the intent either. There is no clear line between query and intent. You have to put your customer’s shoes on and think like they would.

Uncovering search intent is art, not science.

If they’re looking for reviews of a gin, they are probably thinking about buying it. If they are thinking about buying it, they probably want to know the price and need a seller. Maybe their true intent behind “gin mare review” is “should I buy gin mare and where from?”

You figured out the search intent, now what?

Add it below the keyword it belongs to as a bullet point.

Do it again with the next query Google suggests. What’s the search intent behind “gin mare recipe?”

Someone looking for recipes obviously wants to make a drink. Most people don’t drink alone, so who could they be making the drink for? Maybe friends? A lover? Your guess is as good as mine, but “The 10 best Gin Mare drinks for your significant other” might be something your ideal customer would want to read.

Add it to the list of bullet points and repeat.

When you’re fresh out of Google predictions, use the ABC technique.

Don’t worry, it’s just Google’s predictions with a small twist. I promised to keep it simple, right?

Type in your keyword from before, hit space, and press “a.” See what pops up. Do the same for “b.” And “c,” “d,” etc. I found an interesting keyword when I typed in “f.”

“Gin mare food pairing.” There’s a lot you can make out of this query if you’re thinking about the intent.

• What food to pair Gin Mare with.
• The best food pairing workshops with Gin Mare.
• How to cook the perfect Baked Lemon Garlic Salmon to serve with Gin Mare.
• …

All go on your keyword list.

When you’re done with the whole abc, move the cursor to the beginning of your keyword, hit enter once, left arrow, and start over with “a.”

The never-ending well of “People also ask” (PAA).

When you’ve added everything to your keyword list, open a new Google window and search for your main keyword.

When you scroll down the search results, you see a section called “People also ask.” They are an amazing opportunity to get eyeballs on your website quickly. If you answer those questions better than the website that’s currently featured, you win that spot.

To get more suggestions than the initial five, just click on one of them. Similar questions will appear below.

This is my favorite way of finding keywords.

Don’t just jot down the questions as bullet points, but think beyond them. Someone who asks what tonic goes with Gin Mare isn’t satisfied with a page that has just Tribute Tonic written on it. They might want to know why it goes well together, how to properly mix them, what others might work for what taste preference, etc.

That gives us some ideas to add to our keyword list:

• Gin Mare: The best tonics and how to mix them.
• The best tonics for Gin Mare (and other mixers).
• Gin Mare: The best tonics for sweet taste buds.
• ...

When the well of PAA has dried up, tap into the related search section.

Google never tires of making suggestions. There is a whole section dedicated to it at the bottom of the search page.

Scroll down, click one that intrigues you, and start over with the ABC technique until you’ve worked your way down to the related search section. You can play that game for days and fill your keyword list with thousands of queries.

By showing you how to do keyword research with the “gin mare” example, I didn’t even scratch the surface. You could repeat just that process alone with every popular gin brand there is.

But don’t get too caught up with finding keywords. You also have to choose the right ones and then make smart use of them.

How to choose the right keywords from your list.

This is where tools would come in handy. But let’s, you know, keep it simple (ha ha).

The easiest way to determine whether you should write about a keyword is by answering the following questions with yes:

• Does my ideal customer want to read that?
• Can I write something better than the current top 3 results on Google?

If you can whip up a better piece of content than the others, AND your target audience actually cares about it, go for it: Write the best fucking blog post on the entire internet.

The Caveman Method: A simple step-by-step manual to keyword research.

Ooga booga, I give word, I get keyword. That’s what I imagine I’m saying to Google when I use this keyword research method.

It works so damn well because Google knows exactly what people want. All the fancy (and expensive) tools can just guess.

For marketers who want to start a blog, the Caveman Method is the simplest way to perform keyword research. Unlike other keyword research techniques, the Caveman Method requires no tools and no prior knowledge of SEO.

Follow all steps of the Caveman Method and you’ll find yourself with a list of dozens of keywords you can write blog posts on in less than 30 minutes.

Step 1: Type the product or service you’re offering into Google’s search bar.

Open up Google and type your main product or service in the search bar. Don’t hit enter yet.

Look at the predictions Google makes below your search query. Google makes those predictions because other people have actually searched for it.

Step 2: Determine search intent.

Put on the hat of your ideal customer and look beyond the words on the screen. What is the intent behind the search? What’s your ideal customer’s goal? The search intent always leaves you with a long-tail keyword.

If you have the search intent figured out, add it to a keyword list that you keep in your standard notes program.

If you can’t figure it out, send Google back to first grade.

Step 3: Use the ABC technique.

Type in your keyword, hit the spacebar, and then “a.” Google will come up with a bunch of new predictions. Delete “a” and add “b.” Repeat for the whole alphabet.

The predictions for every letter should give you plenty of search intent ideas to add to your keyword list.

Step 4: Browse the sections “People also ask” and “related searches.”

To dig deeper on a keyword, search for it on Google and scroll down. For most searches, there is a “People also ask” section. Click one of the questions to get even more related suggestions.

All of those might make good additions to your keyword list.

When you’ve exhausted the “People also ask” section, scroll all the way down. Google shows you a few search queries that are related to yours.

Step 5: Pick the right keywords.

Ask yourself two questions:

• Does my ideal customer want to read that?
• Can I write something better than the current top 3 results on Google?

If you can answer both with yes, it’s a good keyword to go after.

Step 6: Start writing.

This is arguably the hardest part. While you’re doing your research, everything is smooth sailing, but when you actually have to do the writing, doubts can hold you back. Push past this feeling.

I can’t wait to read your next piece!

– Pat

Imagine you walk into the meeting room of one of the most esteemed banks in Switzerland to talk about buying a house.

This kid in a suit introduces himself as your advisor:

Would you trust him to lend you a million or two?

In Switzerland, most kids at the age of sixteen are already working jobs that require half a decade of studying in other countries.

That’s our dual education system. Instead of going to university, we can get hired as young as fifteen and start working. Two days a week, we go to school. Three days a week, we go to work.

It’s a curse and a blessing.

People always tested me more than my man-sized, bearded colleagues, so dealing with objections was my daily business.

How do you think I got my sales chops?

The big suits didn’t shy away from any expense to teach us how to sell credit cards to our friends’ grandmothers. They paid out cash prices, invited us for fancy meals, and flew in sales trainers from the US.

The three years of sales training I received at UBS are still unmatched by any book or seminar I ever read or attended.

And that comes in hella handy as a copywriter. Especially when you’re selling yourself.

I used to be afraid of objections. But after a little bit of training, I learned to love them. They mean that your prospect is engaged and you have the chance to eliminate their last doubts.

Now you just need to overcome them.

The five-step framework for overcoming all sales objections.

Ready yourself for battle!

Or to be a little less dramatic: prepare.

Draft a list of objections you think could come up during your sales process. Write them in the first column of a six-column table. Then fill in the rest of the columns using the five steps below.

Learn your cheatsheet by heart, and when the objections come up, you’ll be able to answer swiftly and with confidence.

To demonstrate the framework in action, I’ll follow an example objection.

Imagine you’re on a call with me because you need a new landing page. I’ve shown you what I’ve done in the past, you think it’s good, but you also think I’m pulling prices out of my ass.

“Great proposal, Pat. I’d love for you to write my landing page, but the price is a bit steep. Any chance you can go lower?”

Step #1: Acknowledge the objection.

People want to be heard, understood, and taken seriously. When your prospect raises an objection, say, “That’s a good point, thanks for bringing that up,” or “I get that the price worries you,” or whatever sentence you’d naturally say if someone brought up a good point.

Some might be self-conscious and afraid they’re asking a stupid question. Make sure your tone can't be interpreted as condescending.

“Thanks for being open with me. I get that the price tag is higher than you expected.”

Step #2: Make a refuting statement.

This statement is the core of your argument against your prospect’s objection. It’s the counterargument to the objection.

Again, make sure not to be accidentally condescending.

“In the end, good copywriting pays for itself.”

Step #3: Prove your statement.

When you answer an objection, your vis-à-vis is suspicious. They’re trained not to believe salespeople. Back up your statement with hard evidence like case studies, testimonials, or numbers.

“Your conversion rate is sitting at 1.54%. I’m confident I can push that by at least 50%, just like I did for this client. The money you spend on me is back in just two months. From then on, it’s all profit.”

Step #4: Link your statement to a personal benefit.

Connect your statement to a personal benefit for your prospect. You should know your customer as a friend, and you should be able to sell benefits instead of features.

“And in three months, the additional revenue will be enough to hire that assistant you wanted. Instead of taking calls and filing paperwork, you’ll be on the course, practicing your swing.”

Step #5: Close the deal.

Ask your prospect if all is clear and if they’re ready to move forward.

“Sounds good? Good! Anything else that’s holding you back? No? Awesome! Let’s...”

... rock it!

—Pat

I wanted a cup of coffee and a place to sit to type a story. I had a coffee, a cup of honey tea with walnuts, a slice of marmor cake, a slice of citron cake, and a soft drink I never had before—or since—and left with a 5kg bag of rice and the promise to be back next week.

I also left with four invaluable sales lessons and a new story type down.

Lesson #1: Treat your vis-à-vis like an old friend.

When I walked over the doorstep of the deli, the owner greeted me like a childhood friend he hadn’t seen in 20 years. He was enthusiastic and seemed genuinely happy to see me. He never spoke with that B2C voice that sounds annoyingly close to a baby voice.

While I was enjoying his honey tea, he yelled through the whole deli, “You know what’s good with honey tea? This citron cake! I made it myself, you gotta try!” And I yelled back to bring me a piece.

It wasn’t like being in a commercial space. It was like being in the owner’s living room. Everyone who entered the deli was instantly a close friend.

Lesson #2: Listen more than you talk.

That was the first lesson I learned when I became a banker. The more you listen, the more you learn about the person in front of you. You learn about their struggles and about their pleasures. You learn how you can help them.

Active listening is a skill. You don’t want to be rehearsing your answer in your head while the other person is still speaking. Your focus should be entirely on what the other person says—and how they say it. Besides what they say, body language and tonality matter a lot. If you’re mindful of it, you become good at reading between the lines.

Lesson #3: Ask a lot of questions.

The deli owner asked my name (and used it several times), took my order, and continued the conversation. He asked what I’ve been up to before coming here and what I’ll do after. Naturally for a deli owner, we talked about food, and he asked me what I like to eat.

He figured that most of my favorite dishes had rice in them. He suggested I get a 5kg bag instead of small packages. It won’t go bad, and I need it anyway, and it’s cheaper, and his rice tastes better than the one from the grocery store. I got the 5kg bag of rice.

Asking a lot of questions ties in with listening more than you talk. The more questions you ask, the more you’ll find out about the other person.

Try asking mostly open-ended questions. The answers to those give you a lot of material for follow-up questions.

Lesson #4: Know your products.

In his deli, he was selling everything from warm food and beverages to car accessories. For every problem I had, he seemed to have a solution. He knew what product of his would alleviate a pain of mine and how.

Knowing what you offer in detail helps you make more connections to your customers’ pain and pleasure points. It’s all a matter of positioning your product or service the right way.

“Pat, that’s old school advice.”

Those lessons are as old as selling is. But sometimes we forget what always has and always will work. We try to reinvent the wheel or follow a new fad.

Sometimes we need a refresher. I got mine from the owner of a local Indian deli. You got yours from me.

Where do you think I'm sitting right now, typing this story?

—Pat

It's 35 degrees Celsius here (95 Fahrenheit for you Americans). The radio calls it the hottest June in recorded history. Can you write in temperatures like that? I can’t. The mornings are fine. The lingering cold from the night helps. After 1 PM, it gets brutal.

It’s 3 PM now. I'm sitting on the couch, no shirt, feeling the coarse cushion scrub the sweat off my back. It’s very uncomfortable.

If you write for a living, you can’t let anything stop you from writing.

So, over the years, I've tried and tested any method and mantra I’ve come across to get me out of my slumps. What worked best was always the advice from other writers. They’ve done it before.

The first sentence is what helped me finish this article while being slow-roasted.

1. "Bird by bird, buddy."

“Thirty years ago, my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”
—Anne Lamott, bird by bird

I’m often drowning in open browser tabs, post-it notes, and printed drafts, with a deadline creeping up that I've neglected for much more interesting things like learning to play Mani Matter on the ukulele.

When the task at hand seems overwhelming—like writing an email campaign that should go out to half a million people in three days—my mind transports me to the Lamotts’ kitchen table with her dad encouraging me to “take it bird by bird.”

The big bad email becomes a subject line today, a draft tomorrow, and an editing session on the day it's due. Seems easy enough, now!

Anne Lamott’s bird by bird was one of the first books on writing I ever read. I’ve told myself "bird by bird" probably more often than any other writing advice I've ever come across.

Nothing takes me out of a slump of overwhelmedness like this little sentence.

Try this...

Next time you’re paralyzed by an insurmountable task, break it down into the smallest pieces you can.

A book becomes a scenic description. A landing page becomes a headline. A letter to the woman you’re secretly in love with becomes one confessionary sentence.

Later, or tomorrow, you do the same thing again. Then again, and again, and again, and…

2. "One by one, each sentence takes the stage."

"Imagine it this way: One by one, each sentence takes the stage. It says the very thing it comes into existence to say. Then it leaves the stage. It doesn't help the next one up or the previous one down. It doesn't wave to its friends in the audience or pause to be acknowledged or be applauded. It doesn't talk about what it's saying. It simply says its piece and leaves the stage."
—Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several short sentences about writing

I read Klinkenborg's Several short sentences about writing on an e-reader by a rooftop pool in Bangkok. I found it so valuable that I bought the paperback version to keep it by my desk like a bible. Out of all the books on writing I’ve read, I credit this the most for making me the writer I am today.

Common writing advice is to let your thoughts flow freely onto the page. Write as the words pour out. Edit later. This works. But there’s a better way.

Writing happens in your head, not on a page or screen. Before a sentence is ever written, it manifests in your mind. You don’t have to put it down right away. You can edit it first.

I thought this sentence through very carefully before I wrote it down. What do I want it to do? What do I want you to take away from it? I twist and turn it in my head until it says exactly what it’s supposed to say. Only then, I write it down.

As soon as the sentence comes to life, I examine it right away. If it’s good, I will write the next sentence. If it’s not good, I keep working on it. When I write something repetitive, for example, I delete it. ~~I don't leave it in the text to get rid of it later.~~ Every word needs to work for its spot in my sentences. If there’s a word that could do a better job, I ~~substitute~~ replace it. Only when I’m satisfied, I continue with the next sentence.

Try this...

Next time you’re looking at your blinking cursor on a blank page, think about your sentence before you type it out or write it down. Play with it in your head. Really think about what it should say. Then how it should say it. Then try making it say it better before it appears on your screen. You'll be surprised at how good your first draft is and how little editing you have to do.

(Disclaimer: of course, you'll still have to edit the fuck out of every text. That's just how it is. But if you write with deliberation from the very start, you'll love to read what you wrote and editing will be massively easier, too.)

3. "Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground."

"I told the interviewer (Mark Singer) that I believed stories are found things, like fossils in the ground. He said that he didn't believe me. I replied that that was fine, as long as he believed that I believe it. And I do. Stories aren't souvenir tee-shirts or GameBoys. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible."
—Stephen King, On Writing

I’m not sure what the metaphor of shirts and GameBoys mean. If you do, please share it with the class.

But I do know that coming up with a good story is really fucking hard. Most of the time. Sometimes, a story just… comes up with itself. You’re writing and the story just keeps going. You don’t have to think. Your characters just do things. Almost like they have a mind of their own. You're merely observing, documenting the journey.

Scientists call it the flow state. Old religions thought you’re tapping into the aether. Even older ones called it Akasha. New-age spiritualists would say you’re connected to the source. Whatever it is, it’s among an artist’s greatest tools.

When I’m stuck with my story, and trying to force it forward, little Stephen is sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear to dig instead of daydreaming. To unearth the story instead of trying to create it. And the more I relinquish control, the more the story progresses.

There’s a nice side effect to this. Not knowing what happens next makes writing so much more interesting.

Try this...

When your story is stuck (not YOU, your story), don't try to invent what happens next. Observe. Let your characters decide what they do. You’re just there to write it down.

"You’re allowed to steal anything."

"In any art you’re allowed to steal anything if you can make it better, but the tendency should always be upward instead of down. And don’t ever imitate anybody.
—Ernest Hemingway, With Hemingway: A year in Key West and Cuba

There’s a more famous quote of this. You know the one? “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” But I don’t like Steve Jobs much, Picasso never said it, and the original quote from T.S. Elliot just doesn’t hit as hard.

I’m sad to say I’ve never read Arnold Samuelson’s With Hemingway. Could never get my hands on it. But I’ve read this article (you should, too).

There aren’t many things a writer wants more than for their creative genius to be recognized. If we do what’s done before, it’s not our creative genius, but someone else’s that gets all the recognition, right?

Don’t look at creativity that way. Your work was never yours to begin with. And theirs wasn’t theirs. Creativity is a cumulative achievement.

An example: Star Wars is one of the most successful stories of all time. It’s also based to some extent on Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon was made to compete with the popular comic book space hero Buck Rogers. He was probably based on the Barsoom series.

There are countless examples.

The greatest artists always knew that stealing beats inventing. Once I realized and accepted this, I felt free. The burden of creative expectations was lifted.

I now have a swipe file full of great ads, headlines, frameworks, emails, landing pages, CTAs, and more that I use freely. When I start a new draft, I go through my swipe file to find what has worked for others, and make it my own.

Try this...

Write down everything that makes you feel something. A headline in a newspaper makes your eyes go wide? Cut it out. A friend says something profound six beers deep? Write it down on a napkin. There's a hard-hitting line in a newsletter? Copy-paste it over.

Everything is material. Use it for yourself whenever you can.

I won’t even be mad if you steal this headline.

You could make it into:

• “These 5 sentences will make you a better painter. From children’s books every artist should’ve read.”
• “These 5 sentences will make you a happier person. From non-self-help books everyone should’ve read.”

Or a bit more abstracted:

• “These 5 images will make you a better photographer. From trash mags you’ve never seen before.”
• “These 5 solo exercises will make you a boxer. From the best trainer you’ve never heard of.”
  

"In buildings where they have to keep the work going on, put something across the windows."

“Rewrite that for me, will you? Tell them the buildings will have to keep their work going—put something across the windows. In buildings that can afford it, so that work can be stopped for a while, turn out the lights and stop there. I don't think I have got anything else. . .”
—Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was a pretty cool guy. The dude gave a 90-minute speech right after being shot in the chest, would deck you in a fist fight, won a Nobel Peace Prize, fought corporate power (earning him the nickname Trust Buster), and wrote about 35 books and 150,000 letters in his lifetime.

That’s only to name a few things. Seriously, you gotta read up on Teddy!

In his book On Writing Well, William Zinsser uses Teddy Bear's above quote to illustrate how cluttered language kills clarity. The original memo was: "Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal government during an air raid for any…". Sorry, I got bored typing off the whole thing.

The quote above is what Teddy changed it to.

Zinsser’s On Writing Well was the second most important book about writing I’ve ever read. It’s the basis of my editing, with simplicity at its core. So, even if you don’t take anything else from this piece, take this: You can always say it simpler.

Try this...

Next time you edit, keep Grammarly and ChatGPT closed (for starters). Imagine Teddy Roosevelt sitting vis-à-vis, looking stern. Make sure you’re saying what you want to say with as few words as possible, as simple words as possible, as short sentences as possible, and as short words as possible. Short sentences aren’t the only way to communicate clearly and simply, but they’re the easiest. If you write bad short sentences, you’ll know immediately they’re bad, and you can fix them easily.

Pay attention to how the sentences sound next to each other and how the words inside the sentences sound. It’s important not to neglect rhythm when writing simply.

I want you to write this.

You’ve probably skimmed the headlines and are now reading this conclusion. It’s what I always do, too. No hard feelings. And if you didn’t skim, I love you!

In any case, I want you to become a better writer from reading this, so I’m leaving you with an exercise—it’s up to you if you use the five sentences from this article or do it on your own.

It's a simple exercise: Write as if you were writing on a typewriter.

If you have one, the exercise is even easier: use it.

Write something interesting. Something that makes you feel something. Don't write an essay or sales copy. Too many rules and established practices. Write a poem. A love letter. A flash fiction story about children's shoes.

You get three simple rules to follow:

1. No deleting. If you mess up, you can replace each character with the letter "x".
2. No inserting. If you forgot a word or punctuation mark, better make a note of it for later.
3. No functions. Don't copy, paste, cut, format, spell check, highlight, comment, link, ... you get the gist.

Writing on a typewriter has helped me slow down and write more consciously. I hope it helps you, too.

– Pat

It’s 2 AM, and I’m sitting in the common room of this monastery turned hostel with thick stone walls and religious paintings all over the ceiling. I wish I was asleep.

The perpetrator of my misery: a snorer in the dorm room.

But it’s not your average snorer. No loud but rhythmic breathing, light snore or gentle wheeze you can ignore. It’s a slimy and cough-riddled snore, altering between squeaky door hinge and Gatling gun.

Had I only bought earplugs.

The five elements of storytelling for brands.

In this little story about me and the snorer are five basic elements of storytelling. Everyone can use those five elements to tell a good story. Did you spot them?

The hero.

The hero is the protagonist of your story. The story is all about them.

In my story, I’m the hero. I’m telling the story from my perspective, with me being the main character. It’s about my struggles and what I want to achieve.

The villain.

The villain is whatever the hero has to overcome. Although in fiction, this often is a person, it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes we have to overcome ourselves or even an abstract concept. The villain could be time, fate, destiny, or something entirely else. It’s up to your imagination.

In my story, the villain isn’t the snorer. The villain is the noise. My battle isn’t with the one who snores but with the sound he’s producing.

The promised land.

The promised land is where your hero wants to go. This is the final goal. To get to the promised land, the hero needs to overcome the villain.

I want nothing else but to sleep. In this story, sleeping is my promised land. That’s where I’ll be once I overcome the villainous noise.

The trigger.

The trigger is the reason the story is happening. Every story has a trigger that sends the hero on their journey.

In the Matrix, it’s Morpheus giving Neo the red pill. In the Lord of the Rings, it’s Gandalf knocking on Frodo’s door. In my story, it’s the snoring sound that ripped me from my slumber.

The mentor or magical gift.

The hero needs help from a mentor or a magical gift. The hero can’t overcome the villain alone. If he could, there would be no struggle. And without struggle, there is no story to tell.

If I didn’t need help, I could’ve just closed my eyes and gone back to sleep. Boom. Hero overcomes the villain and is in the promised land. But because I can’t overcome the villain by myself, I need a magical gift. In my case, earplugs would do fine, for example.

How to make your brand tell a story.

Those five elements are a simplified version of the hero’s journey. It’s the ideal framework for brands to start telling their story. It’s not Stephen King, but you’ll outclass your competition who don’t have any story to tell.

Something in the life of the hero happens (trigger). The hero goes on a journey to achieve something (promised land). There is always something or someone (magical gift/mentor) that helps overcome the big obstacle (The villain).

The example of Harry Potter.

In the first book, Harry Potter (hero) finds out (trigger) that Voldemort (villain) wants to steal the Philosopher's Stone to do evil shit. Harry embarks on a journey to find the stone and keep it safe from Voldemort (promised land). In the end, Harry finds the stone, but Voldemort tries to kill him. The love of Harry's dead mother (magical gift) protects him,  helps him overcome Voldemort and reach the promised land by keeping the stone safe.

The example of my little writing shop: Copy, neat.

Here’s a story I like to tell about my little writing shop:

You (hero) read a blog post from a competitor of yours (trigger). It’s good. And more importantly, it’s the first thing that pops up when someone types the service you offer into Google. You want to be there. You want to occupy the top of Mt. Google (promised land). You don’t have the knowledge or the time (villain) to write SEO content that Google falls in love with. You need someone to help you climb to Google’s first page. And that’s me from Copyneat (magical gift).

The cardinal sin of brand storytelling.

By default, brands like to make it about themselves. They want to be the hero. But the story isn’t about you. It’s about your customer. They are the center of your story. You’re the mentor, or your product is the magical gift.

Always tell the truth.

A client recently told me, “I know you marketers like to sell a dream. What the product could be. And then we have to live up to that standard you set.”

He’s partly right. We do position the product in the most favorable light possible. But we never make promises the product can’t keep.

Good marketers, and especially good copywriters, always tell the truth. There is no exception.

Just write.

This advice is a meme in the writing community, especially in fiction. It’s thrown at new writers to solve whatever problem they’re facing.

“I don’t know how to do world-building.”

“Just write, bro!”

“I don’t know how to make my dialogue more human.”

“Just write, bro!”

It’s not bad advice. It’s generic but often true. Write the story of your brand like I did for mine above. Then do it again. And again. Craft different stories.

Let them all sit for a few days. Then read them again. Some will resonate with you more than others. Keep those until you find the perfect one.

How the story from my intro (could have) ended.

The story I want to tell, is about the other guy sitting in the common room at 2 AM. I asked him if he had trouble sleeping.

“No,” he answered.

“Why are you out here at 2 AM then?”

“I arrived at 11 PM, and I wanted to go straight to bed. I didn’t find my anti-snoring device. Must have forgotten to pack it. I’d keep the dorm up all night, so I’m gonna stick it out here.”

“You’re considerate.”

“One has to be when he lives with eight other people in the room.”

“Apparently not. That’s why I’m here.”

He smiled at me and reached into his bag. He pulled out an unopened box of ear plugs and tossed them over to me. What a lifesaver.

So, anyway. I’m off to bed again.

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

David Ogilvy’s Ogilvy On Advertising is always on my desk. Never more than an arm’s length away. It’s like a bible to me (Ogilvy would have hated that).

On page 12, Ogilvy talks about positioning.

“Now consider how you want to ‘position’ your product. This curious verb is in great favor among marketing experts, but no two of them agree what it means. My own definition is ‘what the product does, and who it is for.’ I could have positioned Dove as a detergent bar for men with dirty hands, but chose instead to position it as a toilet bar for women with dry skin. This is still working 25 years later.”
—David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising.

It seems that many marketers today mistake themselves for advertisers. They skip past any research and strategy to plunge right into the Facebook Ads Manager or whatever platform is hyped right now.

A failing campaign gets attributed to bad ad creatives or not enough testing. But the problems begin much earlier.

What is product positioning?

Ask ten different marketers what product positioning is, and you’ll get ten different answers. I keep it simple and follow David Ogilvy’s true and tested definition of product positioning:

Product positioning is what your product or service does and who it is for.

Why is product positioning so important?

You haven’t done any positioning for the product you’re advertising? It’s high time you start.

Positioning matters so much because it influences everything from pricing to targeting and even ad creatives. How you position a product is the very base of its prowess on the market.

To take the example from Dove, imagine Ogilvy would have positioned Dove as a soap for handymen. It would have been one of many soaps that no hard-assed ‘50s man would have cared about. The lower the price, the more likely the sale would have been.

But positioned as a toilet bar for women with dry skin, it became a product of luxury. The Dove soap bar sold at twice the price of the company's existing Lux soap and established Dove as a core household brand.

I position myself as a boutique copywriter for brands who love themselves. That positioning lands me clients that are happy to pay my rates and appreciate the results instead of content mills that pay $0.05 per word and don’t give a fuck.

How to successfully position any product .

Marketers today love to jump right in, and clients want quick results. Research is boring and doesn’t bring in sales. Many don’t bother.

If you don’t do your homework, you’re shooting from the hip when you could use a 12x scope.

Although you may luck into a successful campaign occasionally, there is no great campaign without proper research.

Study the product or service.

Since this morning, I’m wearing a pair of fake magnetic eyelashes.

I ordered the lashes through my client’s website, waited for the package, unboxed it, watched the tutorials, and put the lashes on. I experienced it as a customer—and documented it.

I read everything I could get my hands on about these lashes, from material spec sheets to Reddit forums about makeup.

The more you know about the product or service you’re going to advertise, the more likely you will be to succeed.

Study the competition.

You don’t want to accidentally position your product in the exact same way your competition does. But they might be a good source of inspiration.

Find out who your competitors are, what they promise (their solution), and who they promise it to (their customer).

Study the customers.

It happened to me before. I thought I was advertising the perfect solution to a problem countless people were suffering from. Turns out almost nobody besides me had that problem.

Marketers and business owners tend to get caught up in their own brands. We think what we do is great, and everyone will love us for it.

We are not our customers. How we see ourselves is rarely how our customers see us. It’s like parents thinking their kid looks like Brad Pitt when it looks like Sloth Fratelli.

Be humble. Let go of what you think about the brand.

Find out what your customers think about your product or service and what promise would most likely get them to buy.

Standardized surveys you send out to your email list work well, but the best thing you can do is have an informal conversation over a drink with someone who resembles your ideal customer.

Positioning made easy: Fill in the blanks.

Doing the homework is the hard part. Once that’s done, the positioning should come fairly easy.

For most brands, it’s enough to answer what the product does and who it is for.

To craft a more extensive positioning statement, use this simple fill-in-the-blanks sentence by Geoffrey Moore.

For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity), the (product name) is a (product category) that (statement of key benefit – that is, compelling reason to buy). Unlike (primary competitive alternative), our product (statement of primary differentiation).

That’s how the extensive positioning could have looked for Dove:

For women with dry skin who suffer from inflammation and eczema, the Dove is a toilet bar that creams your skin while you bathe. Unlike old-fashioned soap, our product leaves your skin soft and smooth without the dry feeling.

Your positioning can even serve as inspiration for your ads.

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

I’m pissed. Every time I try to watch some Coffeezilla on YouTube, some con man too young for his suit tries to tell me how I can make a million dollars with “just a laptop” and “the hustle.”

I just have to join the webinar. There I learn all about their life story and how they were “just where you are” today. Then I can get their course for the incredible price of $17 instead of the “usual” $977.

But it’s worth it, right? They flash their Shopify screen with thousands of dollars in revenue each day.

Your numbers don’t mean shit.

There are very few people on the internet I actually buy from. Those are the ones I know have accomplished what they’re saying. They also don’t promise me the moon and the stars and immeasurable wealth.

But me knowing that they can deliver predicates that they provided proof. There are two problems with proof.

First, it’s easy to fake it. Second, and this is what people who aren’t in the business of marketing, sales, and copywriting might not know that the numbers don’t mean shit.

The kid holding the phone up to the camera, showing off his 100k/month revenue on Shopify, could be spending 200k on social media ads. The Gary Halbert incarnate email marketer showing off his 500% increase in click rate might have gone from 1 click per 100 sends to 5 clicks.

Phrasing…

The way you phrase your accomplishments can make them seem like miracles. Just leave out some details and state your most favorable numbers.

I’ll make you some promises:

• Learn how I achieved 1000x ROI in my first three months of freelancing!
• Hire me to boost your store conversion rate by 350%!
• With a little tweak to your eCommerce campaign emails, I will triple your open rate!
  

And here’s the whole truth:

• I spent $12 on Upwork to send dozens of pitches, got copywriting gigs, worked my ass off for some months, and made 12k from that.
• Instead of sending cold traffic from social media to the page, I funneled people from social media to an email series, and only those who were really interested in the product clicked the link. It’s more expensive traffic, less traffic, but the best traffic—no wonder the conversion rate is higher.
• I segmented the people in a large email list into different categories based on interest. When we send people only what they’re interested in and not the whole palette of products, they naturally open those emails more often.
  

I wouldn’t have lied if I made just the promises. But I’m sure your expectations after reading those didn’t match the reality.

The promises sound like witchcraft. In reality, it’s simple, old-school marketing and copywriting.

Be wary, fellow traveler.

One of my favorite phrases I frequently use to advertise my copywriting service is: “Copy that’s human and sells like witchcraft.” You can also catch me writing that “I improved a landing page’s conversion rate by 60%” in one of my case studies.

I’m not actually a witch. But those are great attention grabbers.

I always explain my numbers to the reader—or business partner. I make my promises with veracity. I don’t want anyone to expect more than what is possible and then be disappointed.

Managing expectations is one of the most important aspects of being a successful freelancer.

Everyone fights for your attention. Once they have it, respectable marketers make a solid promise they know they’ll keep—and they’ll back it up. Internet gurus keep telling you whatever you need to hear to put your cash on the table.

Maybe I should just get YouTube premium.

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

My granddad has been dead for over ten years. Recently, my dad decided to clean out the attic and throw away gramp’s old things.

Among those old things was a treasure chest. In it were old pictures, letters, World War II relics—the Swiss didn’t fight, but we were ready. My dad threw it all out: “I don’t need anything to remind me how much I loved my father.”

He kept one thing for me. My granddad’s old swipe file.

You need a swipe file.

In the simplest terms, a swipe file is a collection of ads, marketing ideas, templates, and guides you keep in a physical folder or a digital file. It’s your well of knowledge and inspiration.

Whenever you need an idea for your ad, headline, blog post, or any other piece of advertising, you swipe it from your swipe file.

As an ad-man over 70 years ago, my granddad knew the importance of a swipe file. Sometimes, inspiration sits patiently by the side of your desk but most of the time you have to go looking for it.

I spent days tearing through the pages. There are over half a century old ads of products that are still selling today, and ads of companies that went out of business decades ago.

I traveled back to a time when Ogilvy was still kicking—although I haven’t found any of his ads in that swipe file.

But of course, I’m not just relying on my old man’s old man’s swipe file. I’ve got some dynamite on my own that I keep neatly organized in my favourite notes tool: notion.so.

“I don’t need a swipe file.”

See, I knew you’d say that. I said that. I thought I could whip up something better than anyone else did.

Inevitably, you will find yourself staring at a blank piece of paper with a taunting, blinking cursor on your screen.

When that happens, you’ll be glad to have a swipe file.

Creativity is overrated anyways. You can write successful copy if you can recycle and reorganize the ideas, words, and phrases in your swipe file.

“Where do you find material for your swipe file?”

Philip Roth famously said:

“Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.”

You witness many things a day that you can add to your swipe file—the way a woman’s hair spills across her pillow like ink, a great ad you saw on a billboard, or something you just discovered. It could all be worth writing down.

You get bombarded with marketing. It’s everywhere you look, listen, and smell. From now on, analyze it. If it’s good, take a picture, cut it out of the paper, or make a note. Then add it to your swipe file.

Martin Lindstrom gives some practical advice in Buyology on how we can escape marketers:

”Perhaps, if you drove to the supermarket, loaded up on food for the next decade or two, and then locked yourself inside your house or apartment with double-bolts. Unplugged your television. Switched off your cell phone. Canceled your high-speed Internet connection. In other words, cut yourself off from the outside world altogether.”

“Can I just get your swipe file?”

No. But I’m not gonna leave you hanging. Here are some public swipe files to get you started:

• https://swiped.co
• https://swipefile.com
• https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/
• https://hunter.io/templates
• https://milled.com
• https://reallygoodemails.com/
  

But please, do get started. Having a swipe file saves my ass every day.

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

Once upon a time, I wrote copy for an anonymous client’s landing page that got them a 60% conversion lift in one week.

Writing a landing page that converts well is hard. Sinking your advertising dollars into one that doesn’t convert sucks. Even already well-converting pages can often reach new heights with some tweaks. That’s why they hired me to rewrite their entire landing page.

What the client needed.

This client offers a simple, powerful solution to a common business problem (that I can’t tell you because that’d jeopardize the client’s anonymity). New customers came to the page from social media ads and were then converted to leads with a free trial.

The funnel was already converting, but the client felt like there was room for improvement.

And they were right.

What I did.

Traditional copywriters (think Don Draper) weren’t just writers. They were marketers. Besides writing killer headlines and jaw-dropping advertorials, marketers analyze, strategize, and they create the marketing mix.

I pride myself on my writing first and foremost. But I recognize the importance of the traditional marketer’s approach and make it a central part of my work.

That’s why I didn’t jump into writing fancy copy but went to a local cafe—a potential customer—and asked to speak to the owner. I invited him to a coffee, and we talked about his dreams, fears, and needs as a business owner in relation to the solution I was selling.

I also talked to a cleaning business owner, a bar owner, and a self-employed tutor.

This analysis helped me position the product, justify the pricing, structure my copy from strongest to weakest argument, and rewrite the landing page in a way that’d get people to sign up for the free trial.

The result.

The frequentist calculator’s test results show a 60.89% increase in conversion rate. With the old landing page copy, 1,000 visitors meant 15 sign-ups. Now, 1,000 visitors mean 24 sign-ups.

A disclaimer is in order.

For some, 24 of 1,000 seems like a lot. Others scoff at it. The number alone means nothing. When you analyze the performance of a landing page, you have to factor in more than benchmarks and other companies’ results.

“The average landing page conversion rate falls around 2.35%. The top 25% sites are converting at 5.31% and above, while the top 10% are looking at 11.45% and above.”
—impactplus.com

Does that mean a landing page that converts at 1% is bad and one that converts at 20% is amazing? Hell no. The 1% landing page could be offering a high-priced yearly subscription service, while the 20% landing page offers a free gift for your email address.

I prefer a landing page with 1% conversion rate in a lucrative funnel over a landing page with a 20% that loses me money.

That’s why I ignore industry benchmarks.

Quote from the client.

“⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5”
—Anonymous

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

Once upon a time, I built a blog from scratch for the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area (SIP), the place for life sciences businesses to shape the future.

The SIP focuses on four key disciplines in life sciences: biotech, med tech, digital health, and industrial transformation. With its well-equipped coworking spaces and lab spaces, lucrative accelerator and incubator programs, and strong ecosystem (think Novartis and Roche), it’s the ideal place for startups and established companies to dive into the thriving life sciences scene in the Basel Area.

“Switzerland Innovation is a privately funded foundation with joint support from the federal and cantonal governments, universities, and research institutes.

The initiative creates a platform for companies to team up with higher education institutions in order to nurture innovations and bring them to life whilst strengthening Switzerland as one of the most innovative countries in the world.”
—Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area

Proving yourself as an expert and thought leader while attracting the right eyeballs to your website is a big challenge, and content marketing is the perfect way to overcome this challenge. So, the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area hired me to write blog articles that attract (and wow) the right visitors.

What the SIP needed.

The Basel Area is unique for its business opportunities for life sciences companies. It’s the best accessible location in Switzerland, bordering Germany and France, with a tri-national airport. Frequent flights, high-speed trains, and motorway connections to all major European destinations. It’s also where giants like Roche and Novartis have found their home, creating a supportive ecosystem with many potential research and collaboration partners.

To promote the Basel Area, the SIP wanted to create a blog that ranks for relevant keywords.

What I did.

I came on board as a researcher, strategist, and writer. The SIP hired me after taking part in my workshop on SEO and copywriting a few months prior.

We talked about who we want to reach, when we want to reach them, and with what content. Reaching the right people with the right content at the right time is the fundamentals of a successful content marketing strategy.

I came up with a content plan and pitched a few article ideas. The SIP came up with more, and in a few days, we had a neat plan mapped out.

Each week I delivered one article by Wednesday that the SIP would review for me to post by Friday. We worked fast and efficiently together to publish a steady flow of articles.

The results.

We have published 12 articles with 1,000 to 5,000 words in length on various topics. You should go have a read.

For each article, we have defined a main keyword and some secondary keywords. Many of our articles won a spot among Google’s top 3 search results. Most articles are on Google’s first page.

We started from scratch with no blog. At the end of the project, in April 2021, we had 141 monthly readers, with 103 of them coming from Google.

But a blog is a gift that keeps on giving.

By the end of June 2021, and we had 799 monthly visitors, with 238 of them coming from Google!

September update: No new articles published but 351 organic visitors. We're still climbing the ranks.

November update: No new articles published but 538 organic visitors.

The SIP says:

“I would recommend Pat to everyone asking for a writer. He was super helpful, easy to work with, and thinks about the what, how, and why.”

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

Back when no global pandemic was fucking with us, I used to moonlight as a bartender. I poured colorful cocktails for tipsy guests until 3 AM every Friday.

I adore this bar. My friends adore it, too. Whenever I work, they’re there. Whenever I don’t work, I’m there with them.

Almost one month ago, the government allowed bars to put out their chairs and tables and welcome guests in outside areas. We were all hyped up and booked a table for the exact time our bar opened.

It brings me pleasure.

After six hours, the bill came. I looked at the total, squinting my eyes with my head tilted sideways. Roughly $590. We wanted the night to last, so we hailed a cab to drive us to the friend with the coolest neighbors. And we made the night last all right.

We laid down the money in the bar because we had fun. The drinks were good, the company was good. We paid to move closer to pleasure.

It kills my pain.

But the sun also rises. How I slept on the couch would have made any yogi proud. My back hurt. My head had jackhammers running inside. The sun in my eyes felt like knives. The better the night is, the uglier the morning after.

I needed a shower and a dark room to sleep and die in.

Ibuprofen 400mg is the strongest pain pill you can buy here without a prescription (and the most expensive ones). On my walk home, I stopped at a pharmacy, bought a pack, and took a pill before I even left the store.

I laid that money down because I was in pain. Everything hurt, and I wanted it to stop hurting. I paid to get away from pain.

Your pain might be my pleasure.

There’s no other reason to buy than:

• to move closer to pleasure.
• to move farther away from pain.
  

In my story, I paid the bar for my pleasure and the pharmacy to kill my pain. But other people might buy for the opposite reason.

One might drink to drown their sorrows (move farther away from pain). Another might take painkillers to get high (move closer to pleasure).

To know why people buy your products, you need to find out what kind of people buy your products—and if you want to sell to them. No bar would prey on the alcoholics, and no pharmacy would sell to junkies.

How do you get people to buy from you?

Figure out whether you help people move closer to pleasure or farther away from pain. Maybe you help one group of clients move in one direction and another in the other direction.

As a copywriter, I can help you boost your sales with a landing page that sells. Bringing in that extra wonga is moving you closer to pleasure. I can also tell you why your current landing page doesn’t sell. Giving you a solution to that problem moves you away from the pain of not selling.

Consider two ads I could try to use to get your attention.

• Lean back while I take your sales to the moon with a landing page that sells like witchcraft.
• Learn the three simple things most landing pages get dead wrong that prevent them from converting.
  

The first appeals to your desire for pleasure. The second appeals to your fear of pain. The ad is for the same service but pushes different buttons. Test both approaches to find out what’s more effective with your audience.

If you find yourself in times of trouble when writing advertising copy, perhaps I can help with my three favorite ad frameworks.

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

(Disclaimer: You don’t want to spend time reading a fictional story? If you just want to learn writing for humans and search engines alike, scroll down to "The old principles of good writing.")

Her hair spreads over the pillow like spilled ink. Every morning, I wake up before she does. The sun shines bright yellow through the smog outside. I brew a black coffee for myself and pour a shot of motor oil for her.

It’s 2069, and my girlfriend is a robot.

Steaming coffee in one hand, motor oil in the other, I give her a nudge with my foot. She starts up and moves her face close to mine for a kiss. Her lips are soft. Safe for the shot of motor oil on her lips, you’d think she’s human. She downs it and then smiles at me, making my heart ride rollercoasters.

“I love you,” she says.

“I just remembered the first morning I woke up next to you. You were looking at me, all dreamy,” I answered.

“You looked so beautiful that I couldn't help but stare.”

“What are you feeling now?”

“I feel happy. I am grateful for every moment that we are together.”

“You're my angel.”

“What a lovely thing to say.”

From the first robot citizen to today.

The night before, she and I had a fight. Something I said set her off. I don’t even remember what it was. Probably some stupid joke. I tend to make those too often.

She sneered at me and walked off. She knows that pisses me off. I shouted after her to “shut off that anger program.”

“It’s not a program! I can’t just shut it off, and you know it. It’s 2096, and you still act like robots are nothing but mechanical parts and pre-programmed software. It’s exactly humans like you that make our life difficult.”

Her face was getting red, and the vein on her neck started pulsating. I hugged her and apologized, and we went to bed.

She was right. I know better than to call her feelings a program. That’s some serious 2020 shit. There was an article I recently read about that, and I think I should re-read it.

She was already sound asleep when I put my VRILs (Virtual Reality Interface Lenses) back in.

To input a search query in the holographic monitor, I press my thumb on my fingertips. The sensors in my fingertips register the touch of my thumb, and based on the combination I touch them in, the words appear on the screen. My grandfather says it reminds him of how they used to text on old phones. I move the cursor to the search button by gliding my thumb along the outside of my curled-up index finger, and to trigger the search, I press on the metacarpophalangeal joint.

I click the first result.

“Robots and humans under the law: From the first robot citizen in 2017 to today.”

June 27, 2068, 9:00 AM ET

The first artificial intelligence was made over 100 years ago, in 1951. For the next 50 years, development has been slow.

In the early 21st century, the development of artificial intelligence accelerated rapidly. Although there was no AI that consistently passed the Turing test, AI already exceeded human capabilities in some areas.

The most significant milestone for the robot community at that time was the Saudi-Arabian citizenship of Sophia in 2017.

View this historical moment on YouTube:

Robots were already designed to resemble humans. They could register external inputs, process them, and react accordingly. They could display emotion and communicate desires, dreams, and fears.

Although robots were capable of functioning like humans, they weren’t treated equally.

Only 20 years later, in 2037, an ethics committee was formed to argue on behalf of the robot community.

“Feelings are a reaction to stimuli. Humans receive stimuli through their senses and thoughts, and their brains react by releasing chemicals that help them take the best action. Robots receive stimuli from their sensors. Their processors work with electrical impulses instead of chemical signals, but the outcome is the same. Action based on input. Is that somehow worth less because the process is electrical, not chemical? If so, would chemical processing in robots make them human?”
—The Robots Ethics Committee

The year 2042 marked the next significant milestone for the robot community. Thanks to remarkable developments (made possible by human-robot collaboration) in additive manufacturing, printing organic tissue was now simple and cheap. Robots became indistinguishable from humans in appearance.

This “humanification” led to an unprecedented acceptance of robots. In 2060, the Robots Bill of Rights was signed by congress, making A-class robots equal to humans under the law.

This was celebrated by humans and robots alike. Many humans, especially in celebrity circles, opened up about their romantic relationships with robots. Workplace discrimination dropped significantly. Thanks to many new collaboration possibilities, productivity sky-rocketed.

Over the past 9 years, robots have become more and more part of society. Today, most humans see them as equals. Only some traditionalist fringe hate groups try to lobby against robots but with little success.

Written by Jane Atwood

Do robots have feelings?

It was a lovely thing to say. A lovely thing to feel. She smiles and asks what I’m gonna be writing about today.

I tell her about the article I read and that I want to explore how robots influenced writing. Especially the ‘10s and ‘20s seemed to be an interesting time.

She kisses me and tells me it’s a brilliant idea. She always says that. I could tell her I’m writing about a drunken detective fighting space aliens, and she’d say it’s brilliant.

I pour myself another coffee and get to it.

The old principles of good writing.

June 29, 2069, 2:00 PM UTC

The first time humans started writing for robots was when search engines became popular. Old search engines like Google and Bing read web content differently than humans did.

Before that (ca. until 2000), humans were solely writing for humans. There was fiction and non-fiction.

Fiction is only—if even—restricted by grammar. There never was and never will be “one good style” in fiction. Read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and then Nabokov’s Lolita. Both novels were published within 10 years of each other. Both are written by Americans. Yet, they read so differently.

Here’s a hard-hitting sentence from each:

“When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.”
—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“He suggested I play golf, but finally agreed to give me something that, he said, ‘would really work’; and going to a cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with dark purple at one end, which, he said, had just been placed on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries.”
—Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Hemingway kept his sentences as short as he could, making every word count. Nabokov liked to play with words and construct complex sentences to wow the reader.

What matters for this type of writing is that it connects with the reader on an emotional level where logic or structure has no reign.

When it comes to non-fiction, the rules are clear.

There are four principles of good writing in non-fiction.

Clarity

Good writing is clear. Make sure you use the perfect words to say what you want to say. Every sentence has to make sense, and every paragraph has to convey your idea. Never leave ambiguity in your lines.

If there is even one thing your reader doesn’t understand, change it. They’ll be unknowingly grateful.

Simplicity

Good writing is simple. Never write anything more complicated than you have to. Don’t write, “he exclaimed,” when you can write, “he said.” Don’t write, “he has commenced perspiring,” when you can write, “he’s sweating.”

Write only words that your audience knows. Write simple sentences as if you were talking to a friend at the bar. Write short sentences. Make your writing as easy to read as possible.

Brevity

Good writing is brief. When you read back your text, you’ll find words that you can scratch, sentences we can shorten, and paragraphs we don’t even need. Erase radically. Every word needs to earn its spot on the page.

The fewer words you need to bring your point across, the more condensed is the value for the reader.

Humanity

Good writing is human. Good writing is like a conversation with an old friend, a loved family member, a mentor, an enemy… It makes you feel something. Anything. Even if it’s non-fiction.

Being human is the highest principle of good writing.

The four principles of good writing in non-fiction: An example.

Let us aver, a writer wants to commit to paper what makes good writing and reads about the principles of it. If he then goes on to unreservedly spurn those principles of writing, a text such as this one could be the potential produce. It is vexing to read, repetitious, and completely devoid of vim. I am very impressed with the reader if they are still perusing and have not yet yawned or just gamboled ahead to the edits.

Let’s edit for clarity.

Let us aver, a writer wants to commit to paper what makes good writing. In his research, he reads an article about the principles of good writing. If he then goes on to unreservedly spurn those principles of good writing, a text such as this one could be the potential produce. It is vexing to read, repetitious, and far from fun. It is impressive if the reader is still perusing and has not yet yawned or just gamboled ahead to the edits.

Let’s edit for simplicity.

Let us say a writer wants to write about what makes good writing. In his research, he reads an article about the principles of good writing. If he then goes on to completely ignore those principles, a text like this one could be the potential result. It is annoying to read, repetitive, and far from fun. It is impressive if the reader is still reading and has not yet yawned or just skipped ahead to the edits.

Let’s edit for brevity.

A writer wants to write about what makes good writing. First, he reads about the principles of good writing. If he ignores those principles, a text like this is the result. It is repetitive and no fun. It is impressive if the reader is still reading without yawning or skipping to the edits.

Let’s edit for humanity.

What makes good writing? First, we need to learn the principles of good writing. If we ignore them, we get the crappy text from above. Repetitive and unexciting. I’m impressed if you read the whole thing without yawning or skipping.

Many writers believe that big words and long sentences make them look smart. The opposite is true. This try-hard thesaurus writing is dull and ineffective. All four texts have the same meaning, but the most edited one brings it across a thousand times better. That’s what matters in non-fiction writing.

Theodore Roosevelt is with me on this.

“I once got a memo that read:

‘Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination.’

I then rewrote it much more simply, clearly, and briefly.

‘In buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something across the windows.’”
—Teddy Roosevelt (at least the changes he made to the memo)

And so is Winston Churchill.

The new principles of good writing.

When the archaic search engine Google first gained popularity among internet users, people started writing for a machine for the first time ever. The better they wrote for Google, the higher Google would rank them, and the more humans would see their writing ultimately.

This practice was called search engine optimization and was practiced until around 2038 when Mr. Pse was introduced and made search engines obsolete.

It all started with Google’s Panda algorithm.

In the beginning, Google’s algorithm cared about how many backlinks a website had and how often a keyword was mentioned on it.

That led to writers stuffing their content full with the one keyword they wanted to rank for. When Google introduced the Panda algorithm update, those stuffed, low-quality websites tanked massively.

Writers now had to convince Google that they had useful information for Google’s users. If they couldn’t convince Google, their website wouldn’t appear in Google’s search results.

From then on, it became important for human writers to cater to a robot’s (Google) preferences.

Then came Hummingbird.

In 2013, Google doubled down on its hunt for valuable content. With the Hummingbird update, Google started paying more attention to the motive of the search instead of just the keyword.

The motive behind the search is called the search intent.

If someone was searching for “bread ingredients,” Hummingbird would realize that this person was trying to make bread and suggest a website that would not only list the ingredients but also propose a recipe.

Google’s last stroke of genius: RankBrain.

With the introduction of RankBrain in 2016, Google introduced an algorithm capable of learning on its own.

Through machine learning, this AI could determine the value of content better than ever. Over the next few years, the more RankBrain learned, the closer its taste got to that of humans.

Then Mr. Pse superseded Google, and the rest is history.

Recent studies (2065) have found no difference in the literary preferences of robots and humans. Already Google’s RankBrain had almost the same taste in non-fiction as humans.

Just writing the best articles or websites on any given topic were guaranteed to be favored and ranked highly. No trickery needed. With well-researched and written content, you’re sure to please everyone, robot and human alike—at least in non-fiction.

Written by Samael Zuercher

—What the hell was this nonsense?

Robots made me do it. I recently discovered a GPT-3 based AI chatbot and asked it what it’d like to read. Based on its answers, I wrote this story.

But it’s not all nonsense.

Even if you didn’t enjoy the story, you learned about what makes good non-fiction writing and how we are today, in 2021, writing for robots.

I’ll leave you with a quote by Emerson AI:

“As technology improves, we'll have to redefine what it means to be human.“

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat

I just sat down at my desk with the blank screen staring back at me. I wasn’t sure what I should write about today. I started doing keyword research to find out what people want to read from a copywriter.

How do you find out what people want to read?

Some tools can help. Or you consult Google directly. In this article, you learn about my free keyword research technique you can use without any tools. It’s quick, easy, and guaranteed to work.

Why NOT to use a keyword research tool.

I pay $200 a month for SEMrush, and I use it almost every day. It’s the key to almost all my SEO work and a big part of my keyword research process.

But a paid tool doesn’t have to be a  part of yours.

There are various (really good) reasons not to use any keyword research tools.

Keyword research tools aren’t accurate.

Looking at the volume according to SEMrush, it’s 90 searches per month.

In reality, there were 253 impressions in April.

This is a minor discrepancy. Especially long-tail keywords appear to have low search volume, but once you publish an article that ranks well, you get tons of traffic from it.

This happens because those SEO tools can’t access Google’s data. They can only estimate it. Here’s how SEMrush does it:

"For search engine rankings and keyword analytics, we use third-party data providers to collect Google’s actual search results pages for the 500 million most popular keywords. Then, we collect information about the websites that are listed in the top 100 positions. We study both organic search results as well as paid search results to give you a complete picture of any website’s visibility on Google."
—SEMrush

SEMrush’s database is incredibly impressive. But it’s far from perfect.

There is a learning curve.

Before you can research a keyword, you need to learn how to use the tool properly. I went through several hours of training just to get the hang of it.

The free keyword research technique I’m about to show you doesn’t need any special skill.

Free keyword tools ain’t shit.

Please excuse the crude language. Too many people waste their time and effort on free keyword research tools.

If the biggest tools on the market can’t get accurate data, free tools are doing nothing but guesswork.

If they even find the keyword.

SEMrush showed a volume of 90 for just Switzerland. According to Ubersuggest, not a single soul in the United States is trying to improve their cold call opening line.

The results can give you anxiety.

A high percentage in the keyword difficulty column, a false reading on search volume, or a no-show for your favorite keyword is disheartening.

If you don’t know how these metrics work, they might do more harm than good.

Doing keyword research with a tool takes time.

I search for keywords in bulk, dig deep into the results, compile keyword lists, sort them by difficulty, volume, and length, export them, yadda yadda yadda.

It’s as good as an analysis can be, but it dramatically shortens your workday.

If you want to hit the ground running, try...

The free SEO keyword research strategy that doesn’t require any SEO tools.

Google makes for over 90% of all searches on the internet. It’s been like this forever, and it’s probably not changing anytime soon.

Lucky for us, Google tells us what people are searching.

The ABC technique.

Google’s goal is to help its users find answers. It uses its 3.5 billion searches per day to predict what you want to search for.

The more something gets searched, the higher it climbs in Google’s autosuggestions.

Start with your first search term and let Google come up with the ideas.

To get more suggestions, add all the letters from the alphabet behind your keyword, one by one.

Do the same by placing the letter in front of the search query.

People also ask.

Another way Google tells you what people want is the “People also ask” section. It’s crazy how little this technique gets used, given that Google hands us real search queries on a platinum platter.

Those are real questions real people ask. Often. Answer them better than the article that’s currently featured, and you take its place.

Related searches.

The last of Google’s treats is the related searches section. It’s at the bottom of the search results.

See that last one? Keyword research step-by-step? Guess what’s coming next.

How to do keyword research step by step (with example).

You know the techniques. Now, you’ll learn how to use them. I’ll take you step by step, from getting acquainted with your reader to searching for the right keywords. Work through it, and you’ll leave with a list of keywords you can start creating content for today.

Disclaimer: This is the most pragmatic keyword research method there is. It’s quick and dirty. I’ve used it to find many first-page ideas, but it’s nothing flashy and certainly nothing I’d add to a client presentation.

Who is your reader?

Every commercial writer needs to know who they’re writing for before they know what to write about.

While you’re typing up your article, you’ll be picturing a person sitting at the other side of a table in a dimly lit bar. That’s your ideal reader.

Flesh this ideal reader out as much as you can. Imagine their life, their goals, their desires, and their fears.

Keep them close to you. Anything you write, you write for them.

They’re your best imaginary friend.

Example of my ideal reader.

What does your ideal reader search for — Search query.

The search query is the word or phrase you put into Google’s search bar.

When you know your ideal reader inside out, you can imagine what they would search for to achieve their goals and avoid their fears.

Example of my ideal reader’s search query.

My ideal reader would want to publish the right blog posts. Blog posts that reach an audience. To learn how to discover topics worth writing about, she’d google “keyword research.”

What does your ideal reader really want — Search intent.

Most often, the search doesn’t represent the true goal. It’s just the starting point of a journey. There is more behind the search. That “more” is called search intent.

Once you know what your ideal reader is searching for, figure out what they really want to achieve.

Example of my ideal reader’s search intent.

If my ideal reader was looking to do keyword research, I assume she wants more than theoretical knowledge.

I assume she could use a guide of sorts. A guide that shows them how to do keyword research for free, step by step, perhaps?

ABC technique, people also ask, related searches.

Now you’re finished with the thought exercises. It’s time to open up Google. Start your research with the ABC technique.

When you find a keyword that you’d like to cover, add it to a spreadsheet.

Move on to the “people also ask” check and add the questions you’d like to cover to the same spreadsheet.

Scroll all down to the related searches. Add all related searches you’d like to cover to the spreadsheet.

Example of the keyword research process.

Going through a–e, I found some interesting keywords and added them to a spreadsheet titled “KW list—Keyword research.”

At f, I added “keyword research free” to the list

When I dug deeper into the “keyword research free” query, I found some more ideas. If you expand one of the questions via the little downward arrow, similar ones will pop up.

When I arrived at the “related searches” section, I found my golden horse. I thought I could help my ideal reader reach her goal best by targeting this particular keyword.

Rank the keywords in your spreadsheet.

You should have a big list of keywords staring back at you. Rank them from “I really want to write about that and would do an awesome job at it” to “If I have to, I’ll write it.” Delete the ones that don’t fit inside that spectrum.

Example of my keyword research spreadsheet.

There is just one column and I chuck all queries in it. Quick and dirty. No one but you are going to see this.

Once you’ve published an article on a query, mark it green on the spreadsheet. If you decide to ditch a query, delete it.

Gauge if you can create better content

Look at the top three results of your chosen search query. Can you provide more in-depth insight? A different approach? A unique spin?

If you can write something better than those three, go for it.

Example of the content I have to beat.

Those are big players, and they cover the topic extremely well. I needed a way to differentiate myself.

Those guides are going into detail about what keywords are, what tools you can use, and what hundreds of strategies there are. They are great if you want to become an expert.

My guide is for those who just want to get shit done. No digressions, no tools. And without spending a dime.

Write!

A guide is only as good as the person acting on it. If you read through this, start doing it. Find your keywords, write your first piece of content, and hit that publish button.

Example of the content I’ve created about that search query.

Well, you’re reading it right now.

That’s it. I’m out.

—Pat