Blog
The Simplest Way to Start Marketing Yourself as a Freelancer
You've made the leap. You've decided that freelancing or consulting is your next chapter, and you're ready to hang out your digital shingle. But then you sit down to write your first LinkedIn post or update your website, and suddenly you're staring at a blank screen,...
The overlooked advantages of being average
Can you remember a time when you scrolled through social media and saw someone your age who'd already started a successful company, done a viral TED Talk, or published a bestselling novel? Do you recall a sinking feeling in your stomach - the weight of...
Seeing really is believing – why investing in headshots is money well spent
The article that follows was written as a 5-7 minute prepared Toastmasters speech. A necessary evil When you run your own business or work in certain types of jobs, having your photo taken can be a necessary evil. This isn't a problem for people who love have their...
How I explain what digital marketing is
One of the first things that many of my new clients have said to me, is that they don’t really understand what digital marketing is or how it works. They know that marketing is about finding clients for their business, but beyond that, they’re not really sure what...
7 ways to use a WordPress & WooCommerce website in your business
A match made in heaven WooCommerce goes with WordPress like gin goes with tonic. A match made in heaven, these two applications are free to use and easy to combine with a seemingly endless number of plugins and extensions to help small business owners and bigger ones...
Could a global community of mothers be our best hope against climate change?
DISCLAIMER: This article is in no way intended to demean women who have chosen not to have children, women who don’t yet have children or men, whether they are fathers or not. With every new climate change statistic that I see in my news feed, an uneasy feeling...
Does my business need a website?
The question I get asked most often by people who are new to digital marketing, is whether their business or in fact any business, needs a website. The answer isn’t a simple yes or no, it’s more like a probably yes or probably no based on the answers to some other...
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation: What it is and how it works Most of my clients are new to digital marketing. If you’re like them, search engine optimisation (SEO for short) can seem like a complicated subject. In the first few conversations with clients about how we’re...
How to run a conference that doesn’t make people want to hide in the toilet and cry
Having just come back from #CopyCon18, Australia’s only conference for copywriters, two days later and I’m still floating on a cloud of warm and fuzziness. Although the conference was held in Sydney, attendees came from all over Australia. Many are part of The Clever...
Copywriting vs Copyright, do you know which is which?
Do you know which is an occupation and which is a legal concept? When I tell someone what I do for a living, I sometimes say that I’m a web designer and other times that I’m a copywriter. I can reasonably say either, because I do both and probably in equal measure. If...
Walking my new dog might just be good for my small business
Just before Christmas we got a new dog called Pete. Pete came to us from SAFE animal rescue in Karratha (who do amazing work by the way), where he’d ended up after the ranger decided that Pete’s mum and dad had more dogs than they could possibly cope with. Pete’s only...
Common-sense tips for small business success
Success means different things to different people. For some of us, it means being able to contribute to the household budget while for others it’s about financial security or the freedom to work with people that we don’t want to throttle the life out of. Regardless...
Five marketing tips for the bashful business owner
Effective marketing has the capacity to take your business from obscurity to unimaginable heights. The Oxford dictionary describes marketing as “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services”. Shy, small business owners might describe marketing...
What I learned about problem solving from a six year old girl and a small pony
If you’ve never owned a small pony, catching one probably sounds like a fairly straightforward thing to do. It’s not. Ponies are sneaky, wily and cunning, particularly where food is concerned. The rule of thumb is that the smaller and hairier the pony is, the more...
How to write copy for your website without breaking a sweat
Most of my web design clients tell me that they have no idea what they should say when they start writing web copy for their new website. Many feel uncomfortable talking about themselves and are worried they will sound stupid or boastful. If you are worried about the...
Make Mine a Builders
I’m not a fan of plastic marketing. Plastic marketing is bland, boring and gets on my nerves. I'm not sure whether the creators imagine that anyone will identify with it, but I know that I sure as hell don't. I think of plastic marketing as the kind of thing...
Do you feel lonely sometimes ?
I'm not sure whether humans were designed live in the isolated way we do now. It makes more sense to me that we should be squatting around cooking fires together, shoulder to shoulder with our sisters and aunties and mothers. We were meant to have a village to help us...