Sometimes it’s a struggle to figure out what’s the best thing to say.

You’re writing a heading, the first sentence of an email, the introduction to a newsletter, a short description on a homepage.

But what should you say? When you have just a few words, what’s the best message?

One of the ways I employ to help me with this task is to first weed out what I DON’T want to say.

I’ll write a number of different opening sentences for an email, for instance. Then I’ll start hacking away at the ones that don’t carry the right message, or that carry the right message badly.

Knowing you’re going to cut away the bad versions, it’s easy to start a flow of different lines. You’re not under pressure to make every line brilliant, because you know that most will be discarded.

This process also applies a very useful discipline; it makes you write down a large number of different lines, different options.

This, in itself, is a good thing.

Far too often, particularly when under the pressure of deadlines, we make do with the first opening that jumps to mind. Unless you are a full-time genius, that first thought is unlikely to be the best one.

Listing, and then eliminating copy lines makes you think. It makes you stop and really consider what it is you really should be saying.

Better still, it makes you self-critical and more determined to deliver the best line possible.

Even need to write something and the juices are just not flowing? Maybe you have a to honor and time is pressing, tighter and tighter. You are hoping to come up with some topic for your project but nothing seems to jump out at you…..

So what do you do?

Sure, if you have some cash you can get one of those pieces of software that will start you off, or you can use this handy technique to provide quick results.

1) Find a quiet place that you will not be disturbed.

2) Have a piece of paper and a pencil within easy reach.

3) Close your eyes for a minute of so and think about a keyword that is something you might want to write about.

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Well, I have been getting a lot of requests on this post, so decided to update with a new video.

For those of you that like to read the content or have the checklist handy for future reference, I have added a new PDF download link below.

Get the PDF Here. Just Right Click and select Save As.

Back in the late nineties, the phrase ‘Content is King’ was repeated and repeated and repeated by site owners and marketers alike. The belief was that the more content you had, the greater the number of visitors you would attract. Of course, the content had to be well written, relevant and easy to find. Many sites built very successful businesses as a result.

And then something happened.

Big money from venture capitalists burst onto the scene. Suddenly nobody was talking about content. (Where’s the big investment return on ‘content’?) Instead the attention went to businesses that came up with some kind of unique ‘technology solution’.

Then the dotcom bubble burst.

And here we are.

Is content still important? I think so. People don’t talk about it as earnestly as they once did, but I think that original thinking was very sound.

Here are three reasons why you should be creating more content on your site:

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