Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Top Misc Content on Internet

Top Misc Content on Internet

Is keyword density important for an SEO content writer?

Posted: 26 Dec 2011 05:00 AM PST

Pub density in England

Are you mapping your keyword density as carefully as these pubs in England?

Keyword density is a term that gets bandied about a lot in SEO circles.  Some say it’s the key, others that it’s bunk.  So, what’s the truth?  Is it important for an SEO content writer?

Wait… what’s keyword density, and why should an SEO content writer care?

First, let’s be clear about what it means.  Keyword density refers to the ratio of a given keyword to the total amount of text in its article.  For example, if the keyword phrase “Victorian architecture” appeared four times in a one-hundred word article, the ratio would be 4:100, or 4%.  That’s its density.

There was a time when putting the same keyword a zillion times on a page would send the page straight to the top of the search engines.  But that hasn’t been the case since the dinosaur days.  Search engines have gotten smart, and nowadays they are sure to penalize you for doing that.  It’s called “keyword stuffing”, and you should absolutely avoid it.

Those who say keyword density is important generally recommend a density of around 4-8%.  Some say as much as 20%.  You can find tools online that will analyze your density for you and make recommendations.

However…

Many veteran SEO professionals ignore keyword density completely.  Check out the enlightening discussion here.

Why do they disavow density?  Well, they either believe it’s not a very important metric used by search engines anymore, or that it was a myth from the start.  The only thing it has going for it is that it’s a pretty straightforward concept, which means your non-expert clients can easily wrap their heads around it.

So if keyword density isn’t important, than what is?

In place of density, think in terms of the following three concepts: keyword presence, keyword placement, and term weight.

Keyword presence

First, does the keyword actually appear somewhere in the article?  That’s all keyword presence means.  It may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how easily you can write your masterpiece and completely miss your keyword.  It does have to be in there somewhere.

Keyword placement

Second, where does the keyword show up?  Keyword placement refers to the locations of the keyword.  Search engines scan your article starting at the top of its structure: the title.  It also looks at section headers, and body text starting from the beginning.  The earlier the keyword appears in that process, the better.  So definitely, definitely, definitely put the keyword in the title.  Put it in your section headers too, and put it in your body text – the earlier the better.

Term weight

Finally, is the keyword common or uncommon?  Term weight indicates how common the term is.  The less common it is, the heavier the weight, and the easier your article will rise to the top of the search engine results.  Why?  Because there’s less competition for an uncommon term.

As an SEO content writer, you probably won’t be choosing your keywords; rather, your client will give them to you.  So there’s not much you can do in your article to affect term weight.  However, it will dictate how strategic you’ll have to be in order to get the same results.  The lower the term weight, the more clever you’ll have to be.

So… important or not?

So, is keyword density important?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  You’d do best to concentrate instead on keyword presence, keyword placement, and term weight.  With these three, your writing will get the upper hand.

Make Your Writing Stand Out: Do it Differently

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 06:26 PM PST

"Make Your Writing Stand Out"

Steve Hopson, stevehopson.com

Did you know that primates in the wild open up their bananas from the bottom, not from the stem like most humans (that I know, anyway)? It turns out that opening the bananas from the bottom is so much easier than opening from the stem. When I was first told about the bananas from the bottom technique, I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself. That got me thinking about doing things differently.  As a freelancer, it's imperative to make your writing stand out.

But when you're talking about writing for clients, that's not always an easy thing to do. I was recently talking to an attorney about his web site. He said he didn't have anything special he wanted, but he had heard that he needed some kind of flash animation at the top of his page. The rest of it he just wanted to be "similar" to another top attorney in his area. “Blarg,” as Liz Lemon would say. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that sometimes, content writing can be a bit of a drudge. It's not always easy to make your writing stand out. That's when you need to shake it up, if not for the client, then for yourself.

Make Your Writing Stand Out by Taking a Challenge

One of my favorite things to do is comb the Craigslist ads for writing jobs, even though a lot of prominent writing bloggers say  "Noooooo! Don't do it!"  But the fact of the matter is that I've gotten a few really great gigs from Craigslist ads.  One contract that I gained through Craigslist is with a large national corporation. I've written hundreds of articles and blogs for them, and they consistently give me steady work that pays well.

Last week, I answered a Craigslist ad for a freelance writer at Stunt and Gimmick's, a content marketing firm in New York City.  Their ad was quirky, funny, and off the wall. They sounded just a little crazy, if you know what I mean.  Of course I knew I had to answer it. I pulled out my resume and made sure there were no typos (they mentioned public humiliation for typos or grammatical errors.  Yikes.)  Their ad was so different that I  wanted to do something to make myself look different. Near the bottom of the ad was what looked like a throwaway line: "Bonus points go to anyone who writes their cover letter in the style of an epic poem."

Holy. Flying. Cheese balls.

I've read more epic poems than I care to remember, but write one? I knew was pretty sure they were just kidding, but then I thought, "Why the Hell not?"  After all, if we don't challenge ourselves, how will we ever grow? (That's what I'm always telling my kids anyway.) If you're going to make your writing stand out, you might as well do it with an epic poem, right? Once I sat down to write the epic cover letter, it wasn't long before I realized I didn't have as much of a clue about epic poetry as I thought I did.

Do You Know What a Spondee is?  Because I sure as Heck Don't.

Since it's been a while since I took that poetry class, I couldn't remember what makes an epic poem "epic." I had to conduct some research.  But the research wasn't making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like I should this time of year. I could only find technical terms like dactylic hexameters and spondee.  Gadz.  Eventually, I (very) basically figured out that epic poetry follows a certain narrative form, and is constructed of verses that follow a specific rhythmic scheme.  So I decided to write my epic cover letter using a time honored tradition: counting the syllables on my fingers.  Which isn't as easy as it sounds.

After about an hour, I finally had a version of an epic cover letter that I was satisfied with.  Before I could second-guess myself, I triple checked it for errors (I hate being publicly humiliated) and sent it off.  I know how these cattle call Craigslist ads go: hundreds of people reply, and unless they want to hire you, you can forget about getting any kind of a response.

But that isn't what happened.  I heard back from them within an hour of sending the package off.  They were amazed that I had actually written an epic cover letter. If I hadn't mentioned it in the subject line (which is like a page's meta tag), they wouldn't have bothered to open it right then. It got their attention, and they opened it right away instead of letting it die in the slush pile.

While I haven't been offered the job (yet) (they're deciding after the New Year), the fact that I got a shout out and recognition for doing something different feels great.  Even if I don't get the job, there are a few important lessons here:

  • Don't write Craigslist Completely Off as a Source for Freelance Gigs. All kinds of legitimate companies use Craigslist to find freelance writers (and other employees).  Automatically rejecting it as a source just because there are a few bad eggs out there doesn't make sense.  Learn to spot the scammers, and don't ever take a job that pays a pittance, or worse, nothing.  Legitimate companies are willing to pay for quality content writers.
  • Sometimes, requests that seem off the wall are serious.  The reason Stunt and Gimmick's asked for an epic poem cover letter is because they want to hire someone with writing chops.  What better way than with an epic poem?  Their request was a way for them to let applicants know they expect only the best submissions.  In other words, as a writer, when you are communicating with potential clients or employers, you'd better learn to read the subtext.
  • Don't be afraid of a challenge; but if you take one on, do your research.  You know it's true: challenge really does build character.  It can also be a great learning experience.  As freelancers, we might sometimes shy away from a job or a client because it seems too hard.  I'm not saying you should take on jobs you know nothing about; I took on the epic challenge because after all, I am an English major, and I do have some background in the classics.  But it's been a while.  In this day and age, you've really got to leverage what you know.  Research is easier than it's ever been; make yourself a research expert.
  • Use your keywords, every single time.  In this case, the keyword tag was the subject line of my e-mail.  Because I alerted them to the fact that I had written an epic cover letter, they immediately opened it.  Search engines act the same way – they are looking for relevant and great content that's optimized, but if you over do it, you'll look like a spammer.  If you haven't learned what keyword strategy is, it's time to get started educating yourself. Hubspot is a great resource; they offer tons of free material for people who want to learn more about Internet marketing.

I think perhaps the best lesson learned when you’re trying to make your writing stand out, is to keep looking forward.  There’s no telling what’s on the road in front of you.  But keep an eye on that rear view mirror, because you’ve got to learn from what came before.

Asians writing for American audience

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:34 AM PST

Having born and brought up learning UK English, many Asian content writers struggle to write content for the American audience. They find it difficult to address them. Here I present some tips which will help write for the American readers.

1) Change the settings to English(US) in the tool you are using to write the document. It can be any open source software like open office or a commercial processor like MSWord.

2) Use online content available to learn the differences between US and UK spellings

3) Watch American news channels and programs on television that provide sub titles to learn the language from the natives

Here I provide you some tips which will help native UK speakers to write US English:

1) Certain words that end with “OUR” in UK English are changed to “OR” in US English

Examples: Labor, Honor, Color, Flavor, Humor, etc.

Some exceptions to this rule are velour, contour, paramour

2) Words that end with “SE” in UK English are changed to “ZE” in US English

Examples: Analyze, apologize, organize, recognize, etc.

US word UK word
Gas Petrol/Diesel
Fall Autumn
Inquiry Enquiry
Learned Learnt
Apartment Flat
Tire Tyre
Zip code Postal code
Pharmacist Chemist
Can Tin
Candy Sweet
Cafeteria Canteen
Last name Surname
Elevator Lift
Cart Trolley
Mail Post

Hope this post is of some help to all the Asian writers struggling to understand US spellings.

Content Writing Is Making It Big

Posted: 21 Dec 2011 09:27 PM PST

Few years back, people were not even familiar with the need of content on web. As web development and internet was becoming a major hype, companies kept realizing that there is a keen requirement of lots of content and written materials for their websites and internet marketing process that cannot be kept on a second-hand basis. They started understanding that the content required for internet has to be of fine quality if it has to bind the attention of large number of web users. This was when the field of content writing finally came into existence.

The field of content writing, which is still not an option in most of the job portals, has emerged out as a promising profession in the last few years. As internet is used by billions of people as effective and useful source of information, it is very essential that any content or information present on it is completely authentic as well as updated. This burden of making the web content more and more useful is on the shoulders of content writers.

These professional web content writers are those brilliant minds that can not only think from the advertising point of view but are also capable of conveying information to the audience in a simple and easy to understand manner. With the growing demand for such writers, various universities are also launching specified courses to improve their writing quality. Nowadays, a wide variety of web development, SEO as well as e-learning companies are hiring professional content writers at high salaries due to which this field is emerging out as a strong profession.

Onpage Optimization

Posted: 21 Dec 2011 05:10 AM PST

What Is On Page Optimization?

Getting a good search engine rank is not at all an easy task. As time is passing by, the search engines
are becoming more and more intelligent and smarter. So, now it needs more than just having a good
content to get a good rank in the search engines.
On page optimization is an essential as well as the first step of Search Engine Optimization process,
which every webmaster need to look into. This on page optimization process would not take more than
one hour to learn and to implement some techniques of this process. But it can be asked that why this
process is so important to the SEO business? The answer is that this process is very much essential to
get a good rank in the search engines along with to increase the complete readability of any website for
the readers.
Here are some most important techniques of the on-page optimization which would offer the websites a
better exposure and also would increase the overall ratio of the Click-Through-Rate.

Title Optimization

The title tag of any website is the most important element of the website optimization. The tittle tag
needs to be short as well as enough descriptive, so that the visitors can identify you and the business.
Title tag is the first and foremost thing indexed and shown by any search engine. So, it is offered a high
importance. The title of any site needs to be enough appealing, so that the users go through the website
to get more information. Besides, the title needs to be appealing to the search engine to get a good rank
among thousands of similar websites.

Meta Tags Optimization

The meta tags of any website is such a thing which can not be ignored while talking about the search
engine optimization process. The meta tags or the meta description includes, a brief description of
any website focusing on every services or areas in which a business is specialized. The part meta tag
optimization is often considered as the selling snippet. If a searcher finds it relevant, he/she can go
inside the web page to get more information. But if the meta description is not generic enough and not
written in a good manner, then the site may not get a good result.

Essential HTML Tags

Another necessary technique of SEO is to highlight various parts of the website on which you want to
grab your reader’s attention. There are various html tags which helps you to do that. As an example, the
header tags like [h1] [h2] [h3], italic[em], bold[strong] etc. The texts which are inside the header tags
is offered very high importance by the search engines. Usually meta tags are used to define the post or
page titles or the important parts of any website.

Synonyms and keyword optimization

The content of any website is required to be optimized such a way that it can suit both the search
engines and the readers. Stuffing the website with so many keywords can make an website unreadable.
So, one need to have a little balance between the keywords and the content.

Keyword Optimization & Synonyms

Your site's content needs to be optimized in such a way that it can suit both search engines & your
readers. Stuffing your site with too many keywords can make your site unreadable. So you will need to

have some sort of balance between your keywords & your content.

Link Building Company India

Link building is a process to assure web presence in search engine. Links are important for search engine to evaluate its ranking as well as indexing in search engine. So, link building is very essential process of any seo campaign. We at, seo services company India performs this jobs very effectively and our professional link builder are dedicated to look after your project.

 One Way Link Building Service

Link building service plans are planned to keep your interests and target in mind. Through our experience in the link building platform, we have appeared clients with various requirements, ranging from links quality, Google Page Rank (GPR or PR) requirements and reciprocal or one way link building. In this section we have planned our One Way Link Building Plan so one may choose the right plan as per their link building requirements.

 Link building service India

Links are considered as the pillars of a website. But not all the links are treated in the same way; search engines give a higher weight to those links, which are relevant to your website's theme. Even a single high quality link treated heavily in terms of value for a web site. By building links for your website we make sure that your site´s visibility and crawl ability increases in search engines, and also it gives a solid reason to rank your website high in search engine result placement when searched for some specific keywords.

Link Optimization

It is important to optimize your internal & external outbound links for search engines as well as to give
your visitors a better navigation.

Image Optimization

If your site has lot of images, you need to optimize them too as they can't be read by the search
engines. It's very easy for a human reader to interpret the image into its meaning. However for a Web
crawler the whole interpreting process is completely different. Search Engine spiders can only read
text but not images. So you need to use some special tags for your images in order to give them some
meaning.

 

Catalog Copywriting Tips to Build Customer Value

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 10:24 PM PST

Commission Killer - I really Picked up This system!

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 10:09 PM PST

Make Your Content Make a Difference - Smashing Magazine

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 09:37 PM PST

Reading: Switching Gears -- Reading Across the Curriculum Content Areas

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 07:50 PM PST

How to hire a great freelance writer for content marketing | Reputation Capital: Content Marketing Strategy, Copywriting, Social Media Consulting

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 05:29 PM PST

21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue | Copyblogger

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 05:25 PM PST

Commission Killer - I Just Invested in This supplement!

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 05:12 PM PST

Buy Website Content, Order Articles - Constant Content

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 04:35 PM PST

Content management solutions: Customer Carewords: Gerry McGovern

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 03:23 PM PST

Writing Style for Print vs. Web (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 03:22 PM PST

The One Skill that Makes an Online Entrepreneur Unstoppable

Posted: 29 Feb 2012 03:00 AM PST

image of woodworking tools

Pop quiz, hotshot: What’s the most important skill you must have in order to be successful as an entrepreneur, especially in an online business? 

Is it salesmanship? Is it social media savvy, or SEO knowledge? 

Is it writing and content marketing? (Because I know a great blog about that.) 

Or is it tech stuff, like the ability to set up and manage a functional website, capture leads, manage an email list, and so on? 

If you answered any of these, important as they might be, sorry, you’re wrong. 

You don’t need to possess any of those skills, because you can outsource them, or you can go out and learn them anytime you want.

You can learn anything nowadays, usually for free. Want to learn how to field-strip an obscure Russian firearm that hasn’t been manufactured since 1927? I’ll bet someone has made a YouTube video showing you how. 

All the knowledge in the world is literally at our fingertips. Yet only a handful of people break through from wanna-be-successes to true successes. So what’s missing? 

What entrepreneurs need most isn’t knowledge. What they need is the ability to evolve.

You must analyze and adapt

There’s a lot of talk in branding circles about how if you don’t keep doing what people have come to expect from you, you’re just confusing your audience. You’ve got to have a niche, and that niche has high, unclimbable walls around it. If you do something odd and out of character, or not in your currently accepted area of expertise, people won’t know what you stand for and hence won’t buy anything from you. 

What terrible advice. 

Even big companies that become dogmatic get slaughtered nowadays. Look at the music and film industries, and the crap they tried to hand us to protect themselves while their inflexible bulks drowned. 

Now, look at the success stories.

  • While Borders bookstores were dying, Amazon led the e-book revolution with Kindle. They also went from selling books to selling everything under the sun, and started providing tech services like Amazon S3 media hosting.
  • Google entered a market that already had dominant search engines, like Yahoo and Lycos, but then branched from search into apps, smartphone operating systems, voice communications, mapping and navigation, commerce services, and just about everything else. And now who’s the household name?
  • Copyblogger started as a blog about copywriting. Then it became more about internet marketing and small business. Then it began creating products and merging with partners, now selling premium WordPress themes, content optimization, and landing page software.

At no point did Brian Clark say, “Woah, wait a minute… a blog that sells WordPress themes? That’ll confuse everyone” and ditch the whole thing to go back to only publishing posts about writing. 

Mindlessly sticking to what used to work is overrated.

The evolution of a lovable jackass

If you’re thinking that you’re no Amazon, Google, or Copyblogger, then let me tell you my story as a one-person business that’s doing pretty well these days. 

Nobody knows how to describe me. This includes myself. People ask me what I do, and I never know what to tell them.

Sonia Simone called me (in public, in a Blogworld keynote, thanks Sonia) a “lovable jackass.” It was amusing to me at the time, but now I realize that it’s flat-out apt. It should be my tagline, because it’s just about all you can pin on me. 

Here’s a brief outline of my journey so far:

  • Three years ago, I wrote a humor blog.
  • Two and a half years ago, I did a ton of technology services, like blog setups.
  • Two years ago, I did even more and expanded tech services, but also had begun coaching. I wrote about business a lot.
  • A year ago, I still did some tech work, but was teaching and coaching more. I’d co-created Question the Rules (which is re-launching in a 2.0 version right now, by the way) and a few other courses. I’d tell you that what I blogged about was “personal development for entrepreneurs.”
  • Six months ago, after having been goaded into “leveling up” my blogging, I wrote more “epic” posts, coached, and sold information products. I was also in charge of the Virtual Ticket program for Blogworld, including acting as its host and MC.
  • Now, as of two weeks ago, I’m a novelist. I’d describe my blog as being about human potential and personal development. I do almost no technology work and not a lot of coaching.
  • In the next few months, I’m going to start a podcast, work on a new novel, write more of those epic blog posts, talk a bit about DIY digital publishing, and host Blogworld’s event again.

That’s a lot of change in three years, but I can tell you one thing for certain: if at any point in that chain I’d stuck to my guns and said, “I’m a humor blogger,” or “I’m a tech guy” or “I’m a marketer” and refused to evolve, I’d be out of business today.

Change your mind. Right now.

Sometimes people ask me why I talk so much about stuff that’s intangible, stuff that you might describe as “upping your mental game.” The reason is because it’s the only thing that makes a difference. 

Meaning: You don’t need more knowledge, because you have access to more knowledge than you can handle.

What you need is the mindset to actually go out and use what you know.

You don’t need skills. You need meta-skills.

  • You’ve got to learn to be uncertain and take risks. If you stay within what’s known and safe, you will never be truly successful. Doing what’s uncertain and risky isn’t easy, and that’s why the people who dare to do it are rewarded.
  • You’ve got to learn to lead, which simply means going out and doing things. If you do things instead of always thinking and talking about doing things, then congratulations, you’re a leader. Others will follow.
  • You’ve got to learn to solve problems. I unschool my kids because I believe that children don’t need to memorize facts — especially in a world that changes this rapidly. They need to learn how to look at a situation, determine which resources they need, and then go find those resources in order to solve the problem. We must all learn to fish instead of relying on others giving us fish.
  • You’ve got to start believing you can do it. That sounds rah-rah, but it’s very important. We train ourselves into believing that we can do some things and can’t do others. Think you can’t do calculus? Wrong. You can’t levitate on Earth without assistance or superpowers. There’s a huge difference between those “can’ts.” (Other manifestations of this: “I’m not that kind of person,” “I wasn’t raised that way,” and “What will my parents/friends/neighbors/Twilight fan club think?”)

You’ve been a little bit brainwashed by the circumstances you’ve lived through. It’s okay, because we all have. But what you need to understand is that that cultural brainwashing puts you at a disadvantage as an entrepreneur. 

It may sound trite to talk about upping your mental game … but if you don’t do exactly that, you’ll be stuck forever.

How to up your mental game

I wrote a post here last week about how damaging “blind obedience to rules” can be to an entrepreneurial business.

This post is pretty much saying the same thing, except that it’s about how damaging it can be to blindly obey the bogus rules you’ve established inside your own mind. 

My solution to addressing both kinds of rules is the same. 

I’m hosting a webinar this Friday that’s all about developing the mind-changing attributes that are necessary for success (and survival) as an entrepreneur. It’s called, Breaking Rules for Fun and Profit: 21 Lies About Business, Money, and Life That You Don’t Even Realize Are Holding You Back, and What To Do About Them. 

Can’t make yourself do what needs to be done in your business? Are you afraid? Are you uncertain? Do you get stuck? Do you know everything you need to know — and know exactly what you need to do — but just … can’t … seem to … do it? 

That happens because you’re believing lies that you’ve been told or have learned, and have internalized those lies as rules and limitations. But they’re not true.

They are not true. 

This webinar is free. If you want to up your mental game and learn how to get over the hump, signing up for it would be a great start. 

You can sign up for Friday’s webinar here. I hope you can join us. 

In the meantime, how are you struggling in your mental game? Let me know in the comments …

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant just released his novel The Bialy Pimps despite the fact that it’s totally ridiculous for a business and human potential blogger to write a novel about fame and bagels. He is also attributing the testimonial “This book takes ‘lovable jackass’ to a whole new level” to Sonia Simone, even though she didn’t technically say it.

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