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Bridget Willard

Shallow – The Unfinished Song

The song Shallow in the recent remake of A Star is Born is simply an unfinished song. As a former songwriter and musician, here’s my analysis.

Why am I writing about songwriting?

I’m normally more vocal about marketing and copywriting. It’s true. But Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper is really just two unfinished songs (at worst) and one (at best).

I realize you all love this song and you love it because of the emotion of the movie and Lady Gaga’s voice and how handsome Bradly Cooper is. Heck, I’ve been swooning over him since he was in Alias. But the song is what it is, a narrative vehicle for a musical. But it’s not finished.

The character in the movie drags her on stage after hearing part of the song in a parking lot. Barbara Streisand’s song from the previous movie was finished. This one is not. Here’s why. (more…)

July 22, 2019
Are One-Word Comments Really That Bad? TL;DR No

So many people rant and rave about comments that aren’t “valuable.” Are one-word comments really that bad?

TL;DR: No. It’s called small talk.

All comments on your blog and social media posts are valuable including one-word comments. Comments are reactions to posts.

Have you read this? Why a single word comment is next to useless https://t.co/xXaXBinI0G
— Alice Elliott (@alice_elliott) July 12, 2019

Are one-word comments useless?

One-word comments are not useless. They are input from your community. I’ve come across the attitude (which, frankly, seems a bit entitled) that one-word comments are not useful more often than not. I’d argue that any comment is feedback.

“No single word comment is helpful. It doesn’t contribute to the conversation, or add value to the post. Writing ‘Nice’ may seem to him to be friendly and forthcoming, and certainly it isn’t a horrible word, but it doesn’t stimulate me into wanting to reply to him.” Allice Elliot

I completely disagree with this post from the Commenting Club. Generally, I appreciate them as I also do social media for Postmatic – the best commenting plugin for WordPress.

I love all comments (save spam) because it tells me they read the article. It reminds me of who they are and who is reading. When 90% of our audience just consumes, you have no idea who is affected.

Of course, a longer comment allows for the conversation to continue, but a moderator can also extract more information.

“Thanks for the comment, Daniel. I’m glad you read the article. What part of it strikes you most after thinking about it a while?”

Remember that introverts need time to process. They may be commenting to be polite. I’d rather have a comment than none at all.

Comment Entitlement

Do you really believe your content deserves prose in response? Should people just stop reading your blog because their feedback isn’t good enough for you?

Seriously. If your article answered the question they had, then there is no reason to contribute to the conversation. If you want a conversation, ask a question.

I’m so done on this subject.

By the way, I tried to leave a lengthy comment on that post and, ironically, it was marked as spam.

“I completely disagree. I love all comments (save spam) because it tells me they read the article. It reminds me of who they are and who is reading. When 90% of our audience just consumes, you have no idea who is affected. Of course, a longer comment allows for the conversation to continue, but a moderator can also extract more information. “Thanks for the comment, Daniel. I’m glad you read the article. What part of it strikes you most after thinking about it a while?” Remember that introverts need time to process. They may be commenting to be polite. I’d rather have a comment than none at all. “

July 12, 2019
What do I Need to Build My Small Business Website?
Updated 2/4/2025

It’s 2025. Your small business definitely needs a website. Yes, your brick-and-mortar shop needs a website. Yes, your online store should be your website. Now that we agree, what happens?

To build your own small business website, you need to get all of your figurative ducks in a row first. This means branding and content. You need a marketing strategy, content layout, and, oh yeah, branding.

Even if you hire a company to build your small business website, they will ask you tons of questions. To be a better client and speed up the launch of your site, you should gather the following.

Developers I recommend:
Quick Overview
1. Write your marketing strategy.
2. Establish and/or confirm logo and color scheme.
3. Write Copy for Website in Google Docs including 3 blog posts for site launch.
4. Purchase a Managed Hosting for WordPress Plan.
5. Choose and install theme, plugins.
6. Get a Google Analytics UA (Universal Code).
7. Launch your website.
8. Set up Google Alerts for your name and/or business name.
9. Publish once a month on your new blog.
Marketing Strategy

Engage with current and potential clients while allowing the website to serve as a primary place for discovery and validation from word of mouth and search-based referrals.

Establish Branding

Before you build your small business website, you need to confirm or establish color and font pairings in a digital format. Colors need to be in hex codes and you need the names of the fonts you are using. The fonts should be accessible.

Also, ensure your logo is digitized at the proper resolution. Ensure there is a square version of your logo for a profile photo on current and future social networks as well as your website.

At the very least you need:
- Primary Color Hex Code
- Secondary Color Hex Code
- Tertiary Color Hex Code
- Heading 1 Font
- Heading 2 Font
- Paragraph Font
Some tools that you may like are Google Fonts and Coolors.co.

You have other things to do as a small business owner. You may want to hire someone. Your time is more valuable than trying to learn design. If you build the site yourself, at the very least I urge you to hire a designer to help with this section. It will be a better use of your marketing budget.

I recommend the following people that I have worked with and actually seen their work. Seriously, it makes a huge difference.
Website Content: Words

Design is nice but people like words. Google likes words (around 300 at least). Siri and Alexa want words. Did I mention you need words?

You need to write about your business. Write this content in Google Docs so it’s ready when you start building your site (or hire a developer to do it for you).

Start with the basic pages that should be in the main navigation:
- Home
- About
- Contact
- Services
- Blog
People get stuck with content for their blog posts. We all have trouble there. But sit down and think about the questions you’re always answering or things you wish your clients knew. I have a free WordPress Plugin to help you.

Website Content: Photos

Now, words are awesome. You still need photos. Each blog post should have a photo. Your about page should have photos of you. If it’s a family business, have a photo of you with your family. You need photos of your products. You need photos of your process, your office, things that interest people.

A post just on photos (like Kinsta did here), is probably warranted but not by me. My basic advice is to rename your image files based on something that makes sense. If, God forbid, you just email a bunch of photos to your web developer, then at least make the subject line of the email make sense. It shouldn’t be IMG8675309.jpg with a blank subject line.

These days, most of the photos you want for your site are probably on your phone. Work with your web developer and ask her how she wants them sent.

There is no perfect time: just start.

Even if you hire a WordPress Developer, you will still need to write content, provide photos, logos, and/or make decisions on branding. So get that done first.

If you start with the basic page content and it takes you 30 minutes, that is 2 hours and 30 minutes. If you spend 30 minutes each day completing one at a time, you’ll be done by Friday. You can always edit the text later. Or hire an editor like me.

Just do it.
July 10, 2019