As we’ve written about in our recent blog posts, all writers are selling something. Whether that be a physical product or service, or selling their content and asking you to pay for it with your time and attention.

Whether you’ve been doing this for one day or ten years, you’ve probably noticed that selling online is an entirely different ball game. Today, online sales teams can track your buying patterns and tailor content or offers just for you. Likewise, consumers can investigate you and compare your content, products, or services to those of your competitors. With all this info at their fingertips, consumers now expect personalization.

The rise of content marketing has propelled blogging to new heights. And while blogging is an effective way to deliver content to your audience, there’s another method that doesn’t quite get the attention it deserves.

Enter the humble podcast.

Data released by Edison Research and Triton Digital states that 22% of Americans listen to podcasts on a weekly basis. That’s more than 72 million people! 

With the Grammys and the Super Bowl behind us, film fans around the world are gearing up for the 2020 Oscars. Nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor/Actress are filled with amazing movies and performances from the past year. 

In this post we’ll take a look at several Oscar nominated movies as well as highlight some of our favorite movie sites from the Disqus community of publishers. Movie geeks, this one’s for you! 🎬

All writers sell something. You might not always notice it, but a transaction takes place every time you read a piece of content.

Right now, you’re buying information and you’re paying for it with your time. People say that time is our most valuable resource. If that’s true, then right now you’re spending some of your most valuable currency learning how to write persuasive copy! That tells me a lot about you.

Content marketing changes at a rapid pace, but don’t let all the glittery headlines fool you! It has always been about the people and that’s just as true in 2020 as it’s ever been.

There’s nothing wrong with changing your strategy for the better, and the best way to jumpstart your content marketing for 2020 is to make sure you’re grounded in the fundamentals that have worked for so many others.

In this post, you’ll learn how to prepare your content strategy not just for 2020, but for many years to come.

Backlinks are vital to the success of your site, and if you’re unfamiliar with the word, you’ve at least heard it tossed around a couple of times. But despite their importance, there are distractions and misconceptions at every turn.

Today we hope to explain the importance of backlinks and how you can harness their power to take your SEO efforts to the next level.

Ever wondered what time people are posting the most comments? What about how many people read blogs or how many blogs are published every second? We do! ✋ With nearly half of the online population reading blogs, we can only expect that percentage to hold steady, if not increase in 2020!

2019 saw a lot of changes in the SEO world. Search engine marketing is growing at such a rapid pace that it can be incredibly difficult for small brands to stand out. In an effort to dominate the search engine space, Google has created a platform that is great for consumers but terrible for publishers.

But there’s still hope for aspiring brands!

2020 has arrived, and yet we still catch ourselves thinking twenty years ago was 1980! Not only has so much changed in the last 20 years, especially with all of the exciting new tech that has emerged, but a lot has changed in the last year alone too. From the rise of new social platforms to the widespread growth of podcasts, to better optimizing voice assistants for search, digital publishers everywhere have been busy in 2019. And while the digital landscape we live in is ever-changing, it’s also important to appreciate these advances as they create new opportunities to evolve and grow. 

Many of us remember the dreaded Snapchat update back in 2018 when they announced the redesign to the layout of the app, immensely confusing the majority of their users. The change was so disruptive that even Kylie Jenner took to Twitter to admit she no longer was using Snapchat, resulting in a loss of $1.3 billion from the company’s market value (6% decrease to their stock price). However, in the last year and a half since the drastic interface changes, Snapchat’s global user growth has actually exceeded expectations! Don’t believe me? TechCrunch reported that Snapchat has apparently added 7 million new daily active users in just the third quarter alone, bringing their daily active user base to 210 million (compared to the 166 million they IPO’d in 2014). It’s also estimated that Snapchat would reach 297.7 million monthly active users by the end of this year. On top of that, their share prices have actually tripled since the beginning of the year, according to TechCrunch. 📈