2013 is, suddenly, over and done with. What did you learn? Do you have a plan for your business’ blog in 2014? You should. This article will give you the 5 biggest lessons you can take into 2014 to optimize the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. I’ll discuss: How much and how often you should write Balancing your content format Changes to SEO Creating a blog persona The new ways to promote   1. How much and how often you should write Yes we’re still arguing about this, but I’ll throw in my two cents and you can agree or disagree in the comments below (in fact, I encourage it). My answer is ‘Less to both, as long as you don’t stink.’ Great content is better than a great amount of content. And it’s easier to write great content if ...

Brainstorming is one of the most powerful creative techniques ever made. When it is properly used, it can result in more and better ideas than any other process. It’s based on the concept that two heads (or more) are better than one. Brainstorming is not about executing ideas. It’s simply about coming up with ideas. And it is almost always more productive as a group activity. The result of a brainstorming session should be a long list of potential ideas which one can evaluate later and act on the best. Whenever you first start a blog, it’s usually pretty easy to think up topics to write about. You can start out with the basics in your industry, how to do this, why you should do that, but after sometime you will have to struggle just to come up with blog topics....