The relentlessly helpful blog

A quick and free way to help you spot errors in your writing

Here’s a quick tip to help you check written content on your Mac, using the text-to-speech feature.

Instead of reading the text out loud yourself, you can get your Mac to do it via a simple keyboard shortcut.

This is useful if you want to check the flow of your own writing or if you simply want to listen to content rather than read it. You can use this on web pages, emails, documents and pretty much anywhere that you can select text.

The feature is built in to all modern Macs – you just need to turn it on. Here’s how.

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How to add Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents to your LinkedIn posts

LinkedIn now lets you add documents to your posts. If you have the feature, you’ll see a document icon in the posting panel at the top of your home feed. It’s highlighted below.

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Why creating content is the best long-term way to promote your business

It’s natural to assume that when you want to promote your business online, you should place an ad.

Do ads work online? When should you use them? And is there a better ongoing method for attracting new clients?

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Log your LinkedIn post analytics in a spreadsheet so you can do more of what works

It’s important to know what works on LinkedIn so that you can post content that’s effective for your audience. Do text posts work best for you? Do you get more comments from video posts? What are your most popular posts?

This post shows how I record this information.

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Quick tips to multiply your profile and post views on LinkedIn

The actionable advice here has helped my LinkedIn profile views and engagement to increase massively since the start of 2017.

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A copywriter can help you increase the size of your content footprint

A lot of people think that copywriters write website sales copy and nothing else. In fact, most copywriters offer much more than this.

Stop trying to do it all yourself. A good copywriter can lift the burden of writing effective content to support your business. Here are some ideas to get you thinking.

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My notation for writing website copy for clients

I write almost all my B2B client website copy in Word. This post shows how I denote my headlines, subheadings and meta descriptions – and what those things mean.

My clients find this clear and it’s easy for their web designers to turn my copy into web content.

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Create your own terms to support your personal brand

Do you have your own branded hashtag? It could help your business stand out and provides an easy way for followers to spread the word about you.

I use branded hashtags to give labels to some of my content on social media. You can do the same, and here’s how.

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Before you can blog, you need an online space you control

The best place to blog for your business is on your own website – so before you dig in to my business blogging guide, you need to set up that online space. This post covers some options for getting started.

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Yes, probably – even though they’re a bit rubbish

Should you create a LinkedIn company page? If you do, should you post from your LinkedIn company page or from your own personal feed?

These are common questions from my LinkedIn connections and Espresso ☕️ subscribers.

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