Sure, there are still some iconic brands. Apple, Nike, Coke.

But those are giant companies. They go by different rules.

For the rest of us mortals, does the traditional idea of a brand — an iconic emotional shortcut that lets customers identify with a product — make any sense anymore?

Won’t smart, lean, agile little companies eat the big, lazy brands up?

After all, a village business doesn’t need a brand, right?

Well . . .

The direct marketing view

A lot of direct marketers like to mock branding and “awareness” advertising as a self-indulgent waste of time.

Brilliant direct response copywriters like Eugene Schwartz and Gary Bencivenga were master harpooners. They only had one shot at their prospect, and that’s all they needed to create millions of dollars in sales.

They didn’t need a “brand halo” to make their products look good. Their copywriting created a complete experience within a single brightly-colored envelope. To rely on a brand to do the selling for you was almost . . . cheating.

The blogger’s view

Bloggers, too, like to mock brands.

Artificial. Out of touch. Irrelevant. Fake emotions created by cynical corporations to manipulate the gullible.

Except the iPhone, obviously. That’s just, well, better.

The ad agency’s view

From the eyes of a good ad agency, the above views are held by sad, shabby people with bad haircuts. In other words, people who Just Don’t Get It.

If you do get it, you start by articulating the components of your brand identity. From there you build a brand platform, a brand vocabulary, a brand manifesto, and/or a brand bible. Then you’re ready to message a cohesive brand vision of your brand’s identity across a variety of channels until you can reliably generate some decent brand awareness and maybe even some day achieve a brand halo.

I actually love working with ad agencies, except when I want to shoot them.

Another view

I have long been a fan of Seth Godin’s definition of a brand: “a promise made over time.”

Those of us who are wordier than Seth would probably be tempted to elaborate, something like “a promise made, kept, and believed over time.”

Does it work for Apple? They promise breakthrough design and stylish, user-friendly products that will make you cooler just by owning them.

Does it work for Copyblogger? We promise practical advice on the smartest ways to build online business, make your blog more successful, and create competitive advantage by pairing social media with traditional direct response copywriting.

Does it work for a solo business? Let’s imagine a fictional Etsy vendor selling hand-woven organic baby blankets. They might promise soft, safe materials you’ll feel good about wrapping your baby in, colors that venture beyond boring pink and blue, and fantastic funky packaging that makes them a pleasure to give as gifts. They promise that you can be a mama (or papa) without turning into some tedious Stepford Parent. They promise handmade quality and a human connection.

Your brand is not your blog header

Quit thinking of brands in terms of logos or typefaces or what a particular shade of blue communicates to your customer.

You can make decisions about those things after you know what promise you’re going to make over time.

To work as a brand, a promise has to be exciting. It has to mean something to your potential customer. It has to turn everyone on — you and them.

So what promise do you make with your blog, site, or business? Let us know in the comments.

READ MORE - Is Branding Dead?

by Dave Navarro

Some days headlines are a breeze to write. The perfect words flow from brain to page in a flash of brilliance.

But copywriting isn’t always that way, and some days you’re staring at that blank space where a killer headline should be, with no idea how to move forward.

It can be intimidating, frustrating, and a little bit humbling . . . and worst of all it can grind your projects to a halt.

It doesn’t have to be that way — as long as you have a few sources of headline inspiration at your disposal.

Here are a few places you can go to kick-start the headline-generating part of your brain any time you need it.

The Digg front page

While most Digg traffic is geared toward content consumers, the front page is a goldmine for content producers. Every hour of every day, people are voting on the headlines that catch their attention. Not stories, but headlines (it’s well known that many Digg users vote based on article titles and descriptions without ever actually reading the stories).

When you’re feeling stuck — or just hungering for a little swipe copy — take a look at the Digg front page and browse the most popular entries, and you might get your creative juices flowing faster than you think.

Magazine covers

Online and direct response marketers aren’t the only ones getting paid to write headlines. There are people getting paid good money every day to carefully craft headlines that jump off of the newsstand and evoke that “must-read” response from you in a flash.

When you’re in a bind, take a walk to the corner store and glance at the magazine rack. Better yet, grab a notebook and head to the library, where they’ll have bound copies of print magazines going back for years. A few tweaks and replaced words here and there and you’ll have all the headlines you’ll need for a long time.

In-magazine ads

Ignore the full-color glossy ads for cars, perfumes and television shows that most magazines are full of and search for the direct-response-style ads. While glossy ads are often designed to impress people or win awards, direct-response advertisements are carefully fine-tuned to make sales.

You may have developed the habit of tuning out ads for whimsical collector’s plates, limited edition gold coins or collectible scale models, but get the headlines for these products back on your radar.

Remember, good money is spent honing these headlines into effective sales tools — don’t pass up your chance to educate yourself on somebody else’s dime.

Your own inbox

It’s pretty likely that you’re subscribed to more than a few newsletters, most of which you’ve come to ignore as time passes. But every so often a promotion or newsletter hits your inbox and you’re intrigued enough to open it. That’s your signal to save that email in your own personal swipe file.

Think about it — if you were tempted to open that email, it’s a good chance that others are as well. Create a place in your inbox to store emails that compelled you to click, and you’ll have an ongoing source of material to draw from.

That link to the left

If you haven’t read through Copyblogger’s extensive guide to writing magnetic headlines, then you should. From 9 Proven Headline Formulas That Sell Like Crazy to The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines, you’ll find all the inspiration you need to hand-craft your own winning headlines, again and again and again.

Just scroll up and look for the Writing Headlines link on the left. And don’t forget to read through the other resource categories there. You’ll find blog posts with proven headlines that have been clicked on thousands of times.

Where do you go to find inspiration?

When you’re at a loss for words, how do you fill up your own headline-writing gas tank? Take 30 seconds right now and add your favorite place to get your muse on and learn from the comments of others.

About the Author: Dave Navarro is the product launch coach of choice for online marketers and has a special message for Copyblogger readers.

READ MORE - 5 Sure-Fire Sources for Headline Inspiration

by Johnny Truant

Writing can be really no-win. It’s not fair, but it’s true.

If you obsess over every grammatical and structural point, you can come across as stiff. But if you’re lax and make a bunch of simple errors, you’ll come across as stupid.

You make one mistake and a lot of people will let it go. Two and you’re making them suspicious. Keep that up, with your intelligence taking hits at each turn, and your reader will decide that you’re actually a chimpanzee — and not one of the smart ones, either.

Copyblogger has covered grammar nicely here and here and here. But I, as a newcomer to these parts, have a few more peeves to add to the pot. Ignore them at your peril, Bubbles.*

1. Improper use of “myself”

This is one that people make because they think that complicating the language needlessly will make them sound smart.

(It’s the same principle as a barely literate inner-city tenant telling me haughtily that her brother is “presently incarcerated in a corrections facility.”)

Unfortunately, misuse of “myself” isn’t just needlessly complicated. It’s also wrong.

Here’s a typical incorrect use:

“The committee will consist of Bob, Mr. Parsons, and myself.”

In this circumstance, “me” is the right choice. In general, “myself” is a word you shouldn’t find much use for, so if you’re using it a lot, you’re probably using it wrong. “Myself” should only be used reflexively, to refer back to the subject.

For example:

“I did the job myself.”

2. Subject/predicate disagreement

This is extremely common, and I can almost forgive it because the correct structure is cumbersome. Here’s an example of a disagreement:

“Clearly, this person didn’t know what they were doing.”

The problem is “this person” (singular) being used together with the pronoun “they” (plural). “These people didn’t know what they were doing” is correct, and so is “This person didn’t know what he or she was doing.” In each of those cases, the number (singular or plural) in the subject agrees with the number in the predicate.

Number disagreements are irritating to solve, because if you have a bunch of them and are writing about a hypothetical or unknown person, your copy ends up being overrun with awkward “he or she’s.”

A good compromise is to pick a gender and run with it. The standard used to be to assume any unknown person was a man (e.g. “This person didn’t know what he was doing”), but it’s more common today to use “she” as the universal pronoun. Alternatively, you can alternate “she” and “he” in different instances throughout your copy.

(If you’re confused on this, try substituting a person’s name in the subject. This tends to make things more obvious. Using the initial example, you’d come up with, “Clearly, Bob didn’t know what they were doing.” Assuming you know that “they” is supposed to refer to Bob and not to another group, this becomes obviously wrong.)

3. “An historic”

I always get argument on this one, but I’m going to put my foot down anyway. Not only is putting “an” in front of a word with an audible H grammatically incorrect, it’s also uncommonly annoying.

Chalk this one up to trying to sound intelligent, like the “myself” rule above. Somehow, users feel that the use of “an” in this clunky way makes them sound distinguished, kind of like adding ye olde in front of tanning parlor, or saying indubitably with an English accent.

If you’re bristling at this one, ask yourself if you’d say, “an horse” or “an house.” What would people think if you went into the store and said, “I’ll have an half gallon of milk, please”?

You can and should use “an” if the H is silent and the word starts with a phonetic vowel, like “an hour.” Otherwise, go with “a” as the article.

4. Was vs. were

Everyone makes this mistake, so don’t beat yourself up if you do. But you should also fix it.

Here’s the incorrect use:

“If I was rich, I’d buy lots and lots of pants.”

However, the correct choice here would be were, not was.

Were here would be correctly used in the subjunctive mood — a case in which what you’re saying is hypothetical. If you’ve used “if,” that’s a pretty good indicator that were is appropriate:

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

(You’re not me, so it’s subjunctive)

or

“If I were at work right now, I’d be eating a waffle.”

Remember, you use “were” because you’re actually not at work right now. But if you were writing about an actual past event, you’d use “was” (e.g. “When I was at work”).

5. Incorrect use of “literally”

Please don’t do this with a straight face. Not only will you look uneducated, you’ll also look absolutely hilarious.

Example: Kristen Stewart from the Twilight movies recently told a reporter, “I get to do something that literally if I didn’t get to do it, I would implode.”

Now, think about that for a second. If Kristen couldn’t act, she would actually collapse in upon herself like a black hole. I’d like to see that.

I collect “literally” mentions. Britney Spears has been “literally on a roller coaster to hell.” Crowds have “literally turned the city upside down.” And in a particularly grisly turn of events, a mall Santa reported that needy, sad children “literally tear his heart out.”

Whenever you use “literally,” stop and think about whether or not what you’re saying is actually true, in those exact words. If it’s not, use “practically,” “essentially,” or (ideally) “metaphorically” instead.

If there’s one thing you don’t want to be, it’s accidentally hilarious. Seriously, trust me on this one.

* “Bubbles” was Michael Jackson’s chimp. What, have you forgotten already?

READ MORE - 5 Grammar Mistakes that Make You Sound Like a Chimp

If you’re like most bloggers, you’re making two huge mistakes with your content. You’re suffering from both qualification and respect when you write.

You’ll need to leave both of those behind if you want to be a successful writer with high conversion rates. The only way to write powerfully is to be bold, and to write boldly you must stop qualifying yourself and being overly respectful.

Don’t believe me? Here’s what you’d be reading right now if I had written the opening of this post in a qualified and respectful manner instead of boldly.

Writers often struggle to make their points effectively. It can be difficult to be precise and respectful while still being bold enough to persuade. Being precise and respectful has the advantage of not lowering any of your readers’ opinions of you. Being bold has the advantage of persuading more people and increasing your conversion rate. Either choice is valid; it’s up to you which one you choose.

Which opening is more likely to engage you and persuade you?

Don’t qualify. Be bold.

Here are some concrete examples of rephrasing things from qualification (”There are several things”) to bold (”There is only one thing and this is it”).

Example 1

Qualified version

I’m going to talk about two very important words and explain why those words are so crucial. I hope that this will help you be a more effective blogger.

Bold version

By the end of this post, you will be a more effective blogger, all because you learned two very important words, and the specific reasons why those words are so crucial.

“Can I really know that the reader will be a more effective blogger? Maybe they won’t put it into practice. I’d better qualify that statement, because it’s not 100% true when I think about it.”

No, you can’t know for certain. But if you strive for 100% qualified accuracy, your writing will end up reading like a dry academic paper or a technical instruction manual. Few will read it and zero will be moved by it.

Example 2

Qualified version

There are many factors that can affect buying decisions. But in my experience, I’ve found that prospect fear is the most important factor that can cause potential customers to choose not to buy.

Bold version

There’s a hideous troll hiding under the bridge. Every time you get close to making a sale, the troll springs out and scares your prospect away. Get rid of the troll and your copy will start converting better than it ever has before.

The ugly, smelly, dirty, bad-mannered troll is prospect fear. And it’s sitting there right now, stinking up your landing page and scaring good customers away.

This example uses both imagery and boldness, but again sacrifices academic precision. Which opening makes you want to read more?

Don’t be respectful. Be bold.

It’s difficult enough to stop qualifying everything we say, now we’re about to make an even dearer sacrifice: respect.

Example 3

Respectful version

Five Grammatical Errors that May Detract From Your Credibility

Bold version

Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb

Will they really make you look dumb to everyone? No. But if you add a “may”, a “sometimes”, or a “to some people” every time you want to avoid offending someone, you’ll end up with a very respectful wet dishrag that is so wishy-washy it will flop to the floor the instant you wave it in anyone’s direction.

Wet dishrag version

Five Grammatical Errors that May Sometimes Make You Look Dumb to Some People

Example 4

Respectful version

There are lots of ways to make money, and many of them might work for you. One way that I’m going to talk about today is solving real problems.

Bold version

If you want to make money in the real world, solve real problems.

In these examples, the author risks pissing off the readers.

“I make those errors. Are you saying I’m dumb?”

“I want to make money from advertising instead of solving real problems, are you saying I’m wrong? Are you disrespecting my choice?”

Write for the fence-sitters.

When writing to persuade or advise, there will always be three groups of people:

• those who agree with you
• those who disagree with you
• those on the fence

Write for those on the fence. Ignore the other two groups.

If your goal is to get people to stop making grammatical errors, the people who already agree will say “Yup, good post,” and move on. The radical descriptivists who call you a fascist for attempting to dictate how others use language are going to disagree with you no matter how well-written your copy is.

But those on the fence can be convinced. Those on the fence can be sold. (And as a bonus, you’ll automatically appeal to those who agree with you.)

Study these examples. Practice rephrasing things boldly. Find or write an example of something wishy-washy and rewrite it boldly. Find an example of something bold and rewrite it wishy-washily more precisely or more respectfully. Let’s practice together — you can improve your writing skills right now in the comments section.

Be bold. It’s the only way to make a difference.

About the Author: Pace Smith, generally a qualified and respectful person, is the co-author of The Usual Error, a book about communication and relationships, and the co-leader of the Freak Revolution, where she and her wife Kyeli are boldly changing the world.

READ MORE - Why You’re Too Qualified and Respectful to Produce Great Content

by Regina

My life rocks

Hunky Eric Dane, his wife Rebecca Gayheart and former beauty queen Kari Ann Penich did NOT have sex, just tons of fun, the third wheel told TMZ.com.

The two-year-old video, taken in Penich’s apartment, is actually the trio pretending to “make a movie,” and how does one play like that? Get the two women in a bathtub where they soak each other up, that’s how! McSteamy — the nickname of Dane’s character on “Grey’s Anatomy — meanwhile pretended to be Steven Spielberg and called “action,” Kari Ann told TMZ.com.

Kari Ann claims the video, stored in her computer, was snatched by her Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab roomie singer Mindy McCready. But media reports say it was the other way around: Peniche stole from McCready, prompting the show to kick her off.

But in Kari Ann’s version of events, she went to the LAPD and filed a police report. Again, that conflicts with previous published reports claiming the tape surfaced during an official investigation of Peniche’s sex-for-hire business.

Like we said last night, this story’s got legs. Stay tuned.

READ MORE - Did Country Singer Mindy McCready Leak the McSteamy Threesome Tape?

According to Patric Wiggins NASA Solar System Ambassador page, Meteors and Meteorite falls are often spellbinding, producing spectacular visual and audible effects when they occur.

Good news for the residents of Utah , the best show of the Perseid Meteor Shower will be in Utah right above your head tonight. It will be clearly visible tonight precisely tomorrow in the pre-dawn hours after the moon set.

According to experts, the Perseid Meteor Shower have already started from July 17th and will be active until August 24th. You will be able to see meteors on any given night or morning, but the best show will be occur on Wednesday morning around 4 AM. So don’t miss the spectacular event and try to keep yours and kids head up at the sky.

Meteorites, even when they are not seen to fall, are tantalizing specimens because they represent extraterrestrial material which traveled hundreds of millions of billions of kilometers, over a period of 4.5 billion years, in orbit around the sun before colliding with the Earth.

Because these stones are fragments of other planetary bodies (mostly asteroids), some more primitive than the Earth, they have helped guide our search for the origin and evolution of our solar system.

READ MORE - Meteor shower August 2009 time: at a glance

Karen Cunagin Sypher accused Rick Pitino of assault, rape and offering her money to have an abortion, while the University of Louisville basketball coach claims the sex was consensual and accuses Karen of extortion.

The classy lady asked for money in exchange for her silence (read Rick Pitino Extortion Case Details). Coach Rick Pitino’s wife Joanne Pitino has kept quiet about this case and Rick will not be giving interviews and will try to solve the case privately, according to his lawyer Steve Pence.

U of L Athletic Director Tom Jurich said in a statement Tuesday that “Coach Pitino has been truthful with us about this matter all along and we stand by him and his family during this process.”

University President James Ramsey released a statement Tuesday night saying: “Several months ago Coach Pitino informed me about the alleged extortion attempt. I’ve now been informed that there may be other details which, if true, I find surprising. My thoughts are with Coach Pitino and his family.”

READ MORE - Karen Sypher Photos

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Carl Reiner Is a US Writer, Actor, film director, producer and comedian. He born 20th March 1922. He won 12 Emmy Awards During his career. He recently penned 2 books.

READ MORE - Carl Reiner Is a US Writer - write 2 books

When I wrote a few weeks ago about making your email so good it can’t be stopped, a few readers wrote to ask for more specifics.

It’s an understandable request, given the percentage of permission-based messages that are being thrown away by email service providers.

So beyond providing killer content, what can we do to give our messages the best shot of getting through?

Build trust before you pitch.

Remember, the success of any email marketing program depends on genuinely compelling content. You want your readers to dig through spam filters, complain to their email providers, and do anything they can to make sure they’re getting your content.

Most email newsletters are pitchfests, which makes them no fun to read. Make sure yours is nicely loaded with cookie content, so readers begin to be trained to open everything you send.

If you don’t build this trust and credibility with great content, the rest of the techniques won’t work very well. But there are a few practical things you can do to give your messages the best possible fighting chance.

1. Start every newsletter with a great autoresponder

The autoresponder feature of your email provider lets you create defined sequences to send to your readers. The millionth subscriber has the same experience that the first did.

This means that no matter how busy you get or what disasters you might be coping with this week, your new email subscribers are always well taken care of.

A great autoresponder builds a strong foundation for your relationship with your new subscriber. The old cliché is true: you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The warm, friendly feelings you’ll establish with your first 10 or 15 messages will carry over throughout your relationship.

2. Use a single warm, personal message early on

This is a trick I learned from Product Launch Formula founder Jeff Walker, and it creates a really nice rapport with your list.

Early in your autoresponder sequence (I usually put it at message two), include a cheerful, warm, individual-sounding message. Something informal, like, “Hey, really good to see you here, hope you enjoy the content.”

You’re not trying to fool anyone that this was an individually typed message for that recipient, but you are trying to create the same feeling of personal relationship. Invite questions, comments, and feedback at this point, and let them know that you’d love to hear from them.

I typically create this message as text only, rather than HTML. This is also a good spot to use technique #3.

3. Ask them to white list you

No matter how good your email provider is, some messages end up in spam filters. The best defense against that is to convince your readers to add you to their list of “safe senders” or their “white list.” And the best way to do that is simply to ask them.

I send a text message in one of my sequences right before a message with a few red flags in the content. (The message has the audacity to talk about making money. Shocking, I know.)

The message explains that the next email in the sequence is a little more likely to get trapped in a spam filter, so this would be a great time to add me to their safe senders list.

Some readers immediately white list me, which is great. Others don’t, then the message is caught in a filter the next day and they see that adding me to their approved senders list would be a good idea.

Obviously, it’s smart to get yourself onto the white list as soon as you can, so you’ll want to bring the subject up early on.

But if you do have a message you can’t reasonably lower the spam score on, this technique can give you a good reason to ask a second time.

4. Conversations have two sides

Make sure you’ve got a real human being monitoring any replies to your email marketing, and that that person is giving thoughtful, personal replies to each message they get.

It’s also smart to use an individual person’s name in the “From” field, rather than the name of a company. Anything you can do to capitalize on the intimate nature of email just makes sense.

When I started adding the words, “Just click reply to ask me a question, your message will come directly to my personal in-box,” I noticed that more people felt comfortable doing just that. And not only do questions and feedback build nice rapport, they’re also a fantastic window into what your customers want and need.

5. Pay attention to spam triggers, but don’t obsess

Most good email providers will let you know if your content has certain hot buttons that are likely to be flagged as spam. Some of them are obvious, like pharmaceutical brand names.

Others are annoying, because they tend to be the words and phrases that have the most selling power. For example, links that say click here can make your content look a little spammier to the filters, precisely because savvy marketers know that explicit calls to click here get better results.

This is one good reason to put a long sales message onto a landing page, rather than an individual email message. The last thing you want to do is to use less persuasive language just to keep a spam filter happy.

Always remember that you’re writing for people, not filters. When you make your readers happy and deliver the content they need and want, no spam filter can stop you.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

READ MORE - Five Ways to Make Your Email Marketing Work Better

In this MSNBC interview the Snr. V.P. of Network Solutions covers what any business needs for page one search rankings.

Content is definitely king. Stephanie suggests writing articles about your product or service as one of the best ways to add good content. SEO copy writing will not only produce content that is written for the search engines, but also information that gets responses from your visitors. She points out that articles online give you the opportunity to educate your public about your products and services.

The next thing you need is links. One strategy Stephanie did not cover was using RSS feeds to syndicate your content If you have someone who does SEO writing you can add links on the keywords in the articles. When your article get picked up and republished in blogs or other websites those links lead traffic back to you..

She mentions meta tags - another important part of SEO copywriting services. Meta tags are the technical text using the right keywords that get progammed into the page, making it possible for a search engine to find your site when a search is done.

SEO is vital for any business. Good content based on keyword research, built-in links on those keywords in the text and syndicated articles should be the stock-in-trade of a good SEO copywriter. It's a proven strategy that produces high search ranking every time..

READ MORE - The Importance of SEO Copy Writing to High Rankings