I help small companies and freelancers grow their business online.

My Newsletter, Books & Programs About Writing For The Web

  • Get this 35-page Web-Writing Guide FREE when you sign up for Nick Usborne’s Excess Voice Newsletter.

    Get your copy of Writing For The Web #1 -- Plus, in each issue of my weekly newsletter, you’ll receive my latest post and news of my products and services. Sign up NOW and I'll send you the link where you can download this 35-page guide. (You'll be free to unsubscribe at any time.)

  • Affirmations for Freelancers - and anyone else who works alone.

    positive affirmations for freelancers

    39 Affirmations to help build your confidence, dissolve self-doubt, and grow your business.

    As freelancers we spend much of our time alone. This means we are alone with our thoughts – for better or for worse. The trouble is, we often get overwhelmed by negative thoughts and feelings. We don’t feel good enough, or ready enough, or valuable enough. My book, Affirmations for Freelancers, helps you change that balance, and tip your life towards confidence, optimism and positivity.

    Learn more about Affirmations for Freelancers...

  • Popcorn Content – The craft of writing short-form content for social media.

    popcorn content how to write social media content

    Now available both as a Kindle Single AND a PDF Download.

    Writing for social media is a whole new craft. Social media streams move quickly, so you have to hook your readers fast. But you also need to listen attentively…all of the time. And you have to engage with people. This, my latest book, teaches you how to write this critically important type of content. Popcorn Content is available as a Kindle Single or as a regular PDF Download.

    Learn more about Popcorn Content...

  • How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites.

    write money making websites

    If you have a hobby or interest, and would like to write a website about it, now you can do just that -- and make a healthy second income at the same time.

    This is the complete "how-to" package.

    You get complete instructions, including lists of the tools and services you might want to use to make sure your website attracts plenty of visitors and generates a healthy income.

    Learn How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites...

  • Copywriting 2.0 - Your Complete Guide to Writing Web Copy that Converts.

    online copywriting course This course is about 300 pages in length - plus videos and a Workbook - and is designed to teach you the best practices in every major aspect of writing for the web.

    After taking the course you'll have the expertise required to write any kind of web page – whether it be a homepage, sales page, landing page, information page, subscription page, catalog page...and so on.

    Learn more about Copywriting 2.0...

  • New e-Book - 101 Web Content Ideas, Tips and Resources

    This 152-page downloadable book is focused on writing quality web content.These ideas, tips and resources will help inspire you to create a wider variety of quality pages...all them designed to rank well with the search engines, delight your readers, and get shared enthusiastically through social media.

    In the post-Panda world of web content, new rules apply. And this book will give you a head start on learning those new rules.

    101 Web Content Ideas, Tips and Resources

  • Writing Kick-Ass Website Sales Copy


    		 This is a 45-page downloadable guide and is focused just on writing web pages that are intended to sell.

    In other words, if you want to focus on sales pages and landing pages, this guide will take you through every step in the process.

    Writing a sales page online is not the same as writing a print ad or a sales letter. Some of the skills are similar, while others are very different.

    Writing Kick-Ass Sales Copy...

Take the stress out of SEO by focusing on the long tail.

Published on January 24, 2013 by

long tail seoLike many people, I have spent the last couple of years furiously trying to figure out what Google is up to.

Over that period, some of my websites have seen an increase in search engine traffic while others have seen a decline. And no, I haven’t always been able to figure out exactly why each increase or decrease has taken place.

It used to be relatively easy to figure out what Google was looking for. Not any more.

The Panda and Penguin updates in particular had a huge impact on people who thought they knew what Google wanted.

Yes, many sites that deserved to be impacted saw their listings drop off page one.

But there were many false-positives too. People who had worked hard to play by Google’s rules suddenly saw their traffic drop significantly. It was toughest of all on those people who really couldn’t see where they might have gone wrong.

Continue reading...

Monday Spark: It’s OK not to be the best at what you do.

Published on January 21, 2013 by

don't have to be the winnerIn our culture we are under a lot of pressure to be the best. When we sit exams, go to job interviews, have job reviews, come up for promotion…and so on.

We also live in a culture that is obsessed with competition, and seeing who comes out on top.

Who is going to win the Superbowl? Who is the best golfer in the world? Who is the best supermodel? Who has the best garden on your street? Whose kid did best in the school play?

In other words, we are under pressure to be winners. If we are not winners, well, we are losers. And in North American culture, nothing is worse than being a loser.

As a freelancer, you need to distance yourself from this cultural narrative.

If you stress about not being the best, or not being a winner, then you’ll undermine your self-confidence.

Continue reading...

Your home page is the shop window to your website.

Published on January 17, 2013 by

home page as shop windowWhether you are a freelancer, consultant, coach or any other kind of service provider, you’ll never close the sale on your website’s home page.

The purpose of your home page is not to make the sale. Its purpose is to hook and engage your first-time visitor.

You need to write and design a home page that makes your visitor feel…

“Yes, I’m in the right place, and the 20 words I have read so far make me feel confident enough to check out some other pages on this site.”

If you can’t quite see that in your mind’s eye, let’s look at the shop window analogy.

As you are hurrying down the sidewalk, on the way somewhere else, you find yourself in front of the shop window of a clothing store.

Something about the display hooks you and makes you stop, even if you are in a hurry to be elsewhere.

Continue reading...

Monday Spark: Are you paying attention to the wrong fears?

Published on January 14, 2013 by

fear of failureThis could be a huge aha moment for you…so keep reading, and then watch the video at the end.

During the video author Karen Thompson Walker talks about fear, and how our fears are often expressed in the form of stories in our minds. If you are scared of earthquakes, you see a short story, or movie clip of that fear in your mind – the shaking, things falling off shelves, buildings falling, people being trapped and crushed.

She then talks about the decisions made by a group of sailors back in 1820. Their ship, the Essex, was sunk by a whale and the crew ended up in the lifeboats, over a thousand miles from the nearest land.

They didn’t aim for the nearest island, because they had heard there were cannibals there. They took a route that was almost twice as long, during which they knew they would probably run out of water and food.

Continue reading...

Monday Spark: Make yourself accountable to someone you would hate to disappoint.

Published on January 7, 2013 by

sign of accountabilityWe have dreams. We make ourselves promises. We make resolutions.

And…all too often, absolutely nothing happens or changes.

When nothing changes, we are quick to find excuses. We find a way to make other people or circumstances the cause of our failure to take action and move forward. If all else fails, we can simply say something wooly like, “The time wasn’t right. Maybe next year.”

It’s easy to get away with this kind of non-action, because we keep our plans and promises to ourselves. In fact, if we hard work on it, we can even persuade ourselves that we didn’t really promise ourselves to do anything at all. (As humans we’ll go to almost any lengths to protect our self-esteem.)

One step forward is to make yourself accountable by letting other people know what you plan to change or achieve. In fact, there are whole websites devoted to sharing your goals with other people. At this time of year, people also share their resolutions on social media sites like Facebook.

Continue reading...

Monday Spark: Don’t have time to network in person? I bet you do.

Published on December 31, 2012 by

hand grinder networkingOne of my Christmas gifts this year was a hand coffee grinder. This is a great little device for grinding coffee beans by hand.

Why bother when I have an electric grinder? Because from time to time I like to actually pay attention when I make coffee. Instead of being a process that is automated and rushed, making coffee becomes something I focus on, pay attention to, and enjoy. I can feel the beans being crushed as I turn the handle. The experience becomes real and physical…something I am doing, rather than something I get done by a machine.

Anyway, I posted a photo of my coffee grinder on my coffee site, and within minutes someone left a comment.

Here is what he wrote:

“Very nice article but I must say manual coffee grinding is a thing of the past. With all these improvements in technology everything is going automated. Burr coffee grinders are in and manual coffee grinders are out!”

Someone else wrote:

“Nice idea, but I don’t have time for that.”

Continue reading...

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