Websites & Business

Where to Get Your Information

There are people who can find just about anything on the internet just short of hacking into top government websites. Then, there are those people who can’t find anything at all. Google can only get you so far. Then, you have to learn a few tricks to get you the rest of the way.

Speaking of Google, it really is a good way to search for just about anything. When you type in a few keywords, rather relevant sites come up in the search. Some search engines will only show you the sites that pay the most money. But, Google does a good job at creating analytics and sending out digital spiders to crawl all over websites. With all of their science put together, you can’t help but get some really relevant websites in a search.

I have a few favorite sites that I know off the top of my head, and for writing they come in handy all the time. Merriam-Webster has an online dictionary where you can verify your definitions. But, it also has a pretty good thesaurus. EBSCOhost is a research database that has literally millions of articles from newspapers, magazines and encyclopedias all over the globe. But, you need to be a subscriber. The backdoor for many of us comes from having a library card and accessing a public information network like Sailor, Maryland’s Public Information Network.

5 Reasons to Take a Break from the Keyboard

On a windy Sunday morning, I’m sitting at the PC for the second time of the day. I woke up at 6 buzzing with a slight hangover from the excesses of a boozy Saturday night with my cronies. Several coffees later I sat down to start writing at 8 full of good intentions.

The result was absolutely nothing. I just sat there and fiddled, checking email, checking google, and playing around instead of working.

As an example of gaining ideas to post about, this one is pretty lame – knowing when to leave the keyboard because you can’t write due to a hangover! Nevertheless, sometimes you do need to take a break from keybashing and there are warning signs to look for that should sound an alarm. When writing you need to be mentally and physically on your toes.

#1 Procrastination

At #1, procrastination is a sure sign you need to take a breather. If you’re surfing the internet and getting hooked on topics at a tangent which have no direct bearing on your assignment in hand, this is a sure sign you need to take a break. This is my number one sin as I’m forever getting sidetracked but procrastination takes many more forms than just idle surfing the internet to no effect. Sales people call this “soldiering”; making up chores and tasks in order to give yourself the feeling that you are being productive when in fact you are not.

#2 Not Knowing Where to Start

The Internet: Biggest Resource on the Planet?

Today, the Internet stands as the single most useful place for resources. If you are in front of the computer and logged onto the Internet, then you have access to the biggest library, providing you with information about everything. This is the reason why online dictionaries have marched ahead of traditional paper-based ones. Online libraries are predominantly taking the place of libraries in town and city centers, simply because they are easily accessible.

Online books and articles are at par with books and printed texts; in a few years time, these will be more accessible than any paper-based material. Daily newspapers and articles are being produced and published online every day. You can pick up grammar and editing techniques, and can even read your favorite books online – everything is just one click away.

Creating a Good Business Blog

screenshot of blogger website Blogs are a great tool for building communities, interacting through them and even marketing the services you provide – they often produce both good and bad results. If you want to gain readership from your blog, you’ll have to be a bit more adventurous in the content you produce, have an easy design and market your blog.

What will kill readership?

What kills a good blog writer is their inability to address their target audience, this means that you have to be clear about the content. If you are not focused, you’ll confuse and lose readers. Grammar is the key in making your blog look professional and typos are another concern for bloggers. Even the most cautious writers have a slip here and there, and this really murders the entire blog.

Professional or Amateur?

What separates the professional from the amateur is the length of blog post, which should be ideally not too long, but just right. The attention span of most people won’t be for long, so keeping the posts short gets you a greater reader base. You also have to keep in mind that you are not just writing for a search engine, so emphasize those keywords, but keep the writing interesting as well. The mantra of getting results from your blog is to keep posting new content. Where most people fail is that they lose interest because it takes time and energy to keep a good blog going. So, keep posting and you will eventually get readers commenting the information you post.

The Design of the Blog

Another important feature of posting is to keep in mind the design of the blog. It is a crime not to have the name of the author in the tag line or somewhere in the blog, especially if it’s a business blog. Blogs without photographs are less visual because they do not enhance your credibility and a very important feature of blogging is the post title. Readers must be able to grasp the gist of an article by reading its headline. In fact, they should be allured by it. Avoid humorous headlines that make no sense and are non descriptive in nature. When you write you should also keep in mind that blog updates through RSS or email is very essential, so a subscription is important especially if it is a business blog. There should be a certain structure in the approach.

Use your full name

Using first names often confuses new readers, so it’s important for bloggers to keep in mind that there are new readers reading your blog, as well as people who have been reading your blog since you started writing it. A very essential feature of the web blog is to introduce a timeline – a calendar that reviews your posts in chronological order, this provides references to earlier blogs that readers have a choice to go and read. Remember, you can refer to a post you made two years ago, if you think it is relevant.

How to market your business blog

The marketing of a blog is a must for business bloggers, otherwise your blog may suffer the fate of hundreds of other blogs that are abandoned after several months, due to the lack of communication between the blogger and readers. What you’ll need to do is to submit the blog to blog directories and ping each time a new post is published.

This helps in maintaining communication with readers on a regular basis. Web blogs should also have a list of their favorite blogs or websites because this helps the readers in identifying with the blogger and the types of material he or she is interested in reading. This establishes in creating a one-to-one relationship between bloggers and each of its readers. So get started….and… blog….blog….blog… till you drop.

Copyright – A Must For Internet Safety

It is a common trend, today, that online content is often found to be republished on other websites without permission being asked from, or credit given to, the original author of the writing. As more professionals make their work available online, protecting it is of primary importance. It is imperative that writers and publishers take steps in protecting their work from people who use it for personal gain. Copyrighting all their online material, gives writers and producers the safety that is needed to protect their work.

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, architectural and certain other intellectual works.

Article Templates – How To Write An Article

Learn How to Write an Article

Now this may seem like teaching granny to suck eggs; however, I assure you it is not. Assignments frequently arrive for articles to be delivered in batches usually following a related or common theme. They may need to be twisted slightly to accommodate different keywords and phrases for SEO purposes or indeed to generate interest for the sake of pure marketing and promotion.

Ask yourself how you would handle twenty 500 word articles on male pattern baldness and your deadline is 24 hours from now?

Using a template will help you focus on delivering the content in a structured fashion that keeps you on topic without meandering through hours of fruitless research or preparation. You do not need to be a slave to a template but I use them frequently and alter them as seems fit depending on the project I’m working on. Below is a template I use and have saved as a Word document and reach for it whenever I am starting a new batch of articles.

There may be cries of “foul” from some of you, but my time is my money and the same applies to anyone seriously looking to earn a living writing.