Grant Draper

Urg. Annoying.

A great read Carson. Thanks for sharing!

Not disagreeing there :) I'm a long-form fan, but when I get time I'll be shifting some focus to short-form.

Thanks for the share! Was going to submit this tomorrow :) Back to the pen and paper (seriously).

It's something I've also been mulling for a content topic. Shall we predict this as being the next "bandwagon"? I suspect those stats will change dramatically. The majority of sites producing longer content, have quality as a constant - like Kiss Metrics mentioned above. As the bandwagon becomes popular, the quality will drop and so the same results will be at the top. 

My writing style is better suited to longer pieces. However, that's not always what the user wants. There is an obvious way to combat this. 

I'd like to see stats on desktop vs tablet/phone engagement time and then desktop vs tablet/phone increase in online usage - I'm sure I already have at some point...

My assumption would be. 

1. Phone/tablet is constantly rising, dramatically.

2. The engagement times on those devices are a lot lower.

So then we all get into another hole and the circle starts all over again. Long-formers: "Why are you not ranking my 3,000 word posts" Google: "People prefer the 250 word version that guy wrote, even if it has a lot less value".

I'd not seen the Buffer hack before. That's pretty impressive. These things do happen and it's how problems are dealt with that define a brand. 

Wow, didn't realise Ahrefs editing guidelines were so loose.

Looking at events on offer in the UK. Anyone off to http://www.inbounduk.org/? Looks like it's the new site for inboundmarketing.co.uk, given their footer links now promote Pilates in Warwickshire :) Any other events worth a look? Thanks!

I found this quite interesting, given my agency word count + keyword briefs (yes, some agencies still have those) have taken my soul & I'm striving to do something better.

Nice post. But the content section may be a little off. For starters, the number is .016 if you combine blogs, magazines and newspapers. Secondly, it's not always about time spent. I watch BBC iPlayer and there are not ads. My time spent per £1 spent is therefore, much higher when I'm reading blogs.

Written well. But automation = spam eventually? Seems like constant A/B to me.

Nice post. This got me today though "The Power of Storytelling: How We Got 300% More People To Read Our Content".

What's more worrying is the way some 7 figure (£) agencies operate. Something I only became aware of after managing projects/expectations late last year. Needless to say I've gone from simply writing to a brief, to trying to figure out all the pieces of the puzzle on my own. Quite a difficult challenge I must say! All good fun...

Nice thought Jeremy. However, as long as people get involved they have the opportunity to spread the word about their own piece here and there anyway? I see this place more of a hub of varied educated perspective. So when an article is shared and gets comments (assuming you own it), it's some pretty logically feedback (hopefully) you'll be getting. If I could get that when I share my articles in future - that would be more than enough :)

An interesting read. Although PR/press related it still gives a nice overview of how outreach is received the other side of the fence.

Particularly liked this "95% of blog posts analyzed did not include a question mark in the title, but those that did had nearly twice as many social shares."

I've done the same. Definitely a great way to add a bit of elevation to an otherwise bland landscape.

I know most guys here track goals, but I wonder what % of people that consider themselves to be "investing in content marketing" are actually doing so, or are just hoping for the best.