Write From Home: Lessons From The Editors
Writers talk about rejection all the time ? just part of the job. But getting rejected by a no-pay publication really scrapes the barrel. I know: it''s happened to me more than once and now that it''s been years [of therapy] later, I can admit lessons learned.
1. Competing Market
My first novice article submission was to an AboutCom site. The writing was good, and loaded with links to other helpful sites. It was the latter that got the piece booted. The website editor simply did not choose to publish articles that might lead readers to sites similar to her own.
This goes directly to the "study back issues" mandate offered by experienced writers. Even if you don''t agree with a specific editor''s approach, you need to write to those specifics or submit elsewhere.
2. Preaching to the Choir
Animal organizations are usually sorely in need of donations, whether financial, by way of goods or content for newsletters. However, an article on the care and feeding of feral cats, garnered from years of experience in rescue work, was rejected on the grounds that it was targeted to the wrong readership.
Acting on that advice, I searched out and submitted to "how-to" publications directed at readers not involved in stray cat rescue, and published the article multiple times. For example, a gardening ezine was interested in it from the point of view of "pest control" rather than any humane reasons per se. Semantics aside, people who might never have read the thing in some radical animal rights newsletter were potentially reached.
3. Regurgitating
There may be nothing new under the sun, but at least try to give your article a unique twist or perspective. To my knowledge, I''ve never been rejected on the grounds of simply rehashing; however, as an editor myself, I''ve turned down many submissions due to repetitive themes and outlooks.
It''s shocking how far some writers go to avoid writing: I obtained permission from a recent journalism grad to reprint a wonderful article of hers that I''d stumbled across. While doing research into the topic (for purposes of artwork), I found the exact same article. Verbatim. Written by someone else.
Use those No/Low-Pay Markets
I''m still using those free articles to get paying jobs: clips from a couple of humor parenting stories written nearly five years ago pulled in two assignments from national US print publications. Similarly, I base everything I write on rejection lessons learned over the years: study the publication (not just the guidelines); put yourself as a reader of that magazine; flip your angle, dig deep and work hard for originality.
Published freelance writer and copyeditor, Stephanie Olsen, is publisher of JustMarkets. For paying, telecommute writing jobs and markets (your only source on the web six mornings a week!), visit http://www.justmarkets.com. Get your Free Market of the Day, bi-weekly newsletter and Welcome Gift today.', 248, 'Write From Home: Lessons From The Editors, Writing-Articles, Writing-Articles articles, Writing-Articles information, about Writing-Articles, what is Writing-Articles, Article Writing Information', 'Write From Home: Lessons From The Editors plus articles and information on Writing-Articles
6:21 AM | | 0 Comments
How Your Online Business Can Generate Loads Of Free Traffic From Articles
The biggest challenge facing any online business today is how to generate enough traffic and leads for the business to succeed.
By the time the online business owner is through with paying to establish their new business, there is hardly any cash left for the most important task that has to be undertaken by every brand new enterprise, which is advertising to generate leads and ultimately badly needed customers and clients for the new online business to take off.
It gets worse because many people, who launch online businesses like joining lucrative affiliate programs, do so without spending any money and also expect to succeed without ever having to reach for their wallets.
And even if the online business entrepreneur were to have a generous advertising budget for their brand new online business, most of the initial efforts would mostly end up being a waste. This is because in most cases the entrepreneur will not know enough about the business at this stage.
The answer to both situations is posting free articles all over the net with a well written resource box that has all the information to help lead loads of traffic to your site.
Posting articles has taught me a lot about what works and what does not work. I must admit that it continues to be both an entertaining as well as a highly profitable experience for me. And it can be for any online business entrepreneur. All it requires is that you ensure that you install a meter on your web site or blog to carefully track the traffic that you are attracting with your articles.
Then you must really be prepared to test and test and test again. Even when you start to experience some minor successes with your articles, that is in fact the time you should increase the number of tests you are carrying out with your free articles marketing campaign.
Tests teach you a lot and with each new test you introduce, you learn something new and valuable that you can use to improve your business even more.
And what is more, when you have found a way to build up your opt-in email list as you go along (this can easily be done by offering some valuable information or e-course available only via email) you will actually be growing your client data base. Growing the list of your prospects and clients whom you can email regular updates to later is extremely important.
It is important to ensure that your articles are both interesting and useful to your target market. Avoid any sales letter-approach here. In fact the more you sound like an expert genuinely out to help, the more successful your articles marketing campaign will be.
You can of course find loads of valuable information on how to write articles (even if you are not a writer) and where to post them at my blog. See the resource box of this article for the address.
Christopher Kyalo is a writer/marketing expert who has made money online only by posting free articles. Visit his blog NOW which is loaded with valuable free information at; http://www.big-online-story.blogspot.com', 248, 'How Your Online Business Can Generate Loads Of Free Traffic From Articles, Writing-Articles, Writing-Articles articles, Writing-Articles information, about Writing-Articles, what is Writing-Articles, Article Writing Information', 'How Your Online Business Can Generate Loads Of Free Traffic From Articles plus articles and information on Writing-Articles
6:20 AM | | 1 Comments
How to Write Articles to Sell Your Book
Selling books online means that you need to get interested readers to your website or to your Amazon listing. One great way to get people to your website is writing articles for republication.
My author friends asked me to share what I''ve learned about writing articles for the Internet. I''ve spent thousands of dollars learning what I''m going to share with you. In return, please help me grow my ezine subscriber base.
There are six categories you need to understand about article writing:
1. Article Structure
This article follows a typical article structure for email delivery. Note that articles you submit directly on websites need a different format. Each website explains their individual requirements.
a. Article Title: (How to Write Articles to Sell Your Book) You need a title that gives a benefit to the reader. There are hundreds of articles telling you how to create a sizzling title. Learn how to use keywords (more about this soon). My first title for this article was "How to Write Articles to Promote Your Book." A stronger benefit to you, the reader, is "sell your book." Another title tip: change your titles when submitting to various websites so you know which title gets picked up more. Another title for this article could be "Sell More Books: How to Write Articles." After you submit your article, search for the title and you''ll see where it goes and which title works best. For instance, my article "Feng Shui, Design Psychology and Bed Placement" posted on EzineArticles didn''t do as well as "Feng Shui, Design Psychology and Sleeping" posted on thephantomwriters.com.
b. Article Author: (Jeanette Joy Fisher) A comment on names: if you haven''t started with a website or published yet, don''t use a name that can be spelled different ways. I wish I used another name because Jeanette can be spelled many ways. At least Fisher only has two spellings. I''m doomed to having ten websites for my book titles instead of just one for me. If I had used Joy Fisher, my life would have been easier.
c. Article Copyright: (2005, All Rights Reserved) Don''t forget to Copyright everything!
d. Article URL: This is the website link where your article is posted for either preview or copy for others to use.
e. Article Autoresponder: (mailto:Howtowritearti...@writertoauthor.com) This is an automatic email service which sends out the article if you send a blank email. Click on the link and get this article in your inbox. You may want to replace letters inside the email address with... so you don''t get a lot of junk email. The person asking for the article needs to fill in the blanks. This is because spiders search for email addresses on the Internet. Unscrupulous, mean people use them to send viruses. I lost two computers when I first created a website and listed my email address.
f. Author Contact Email: (mailto:jeanette...@gmail.com) Notice how the joy is left out. People who post your article are supposed to notify you, but many don''t. And they will post your article without the byline, without links to you. Just accept that some of your hard work will be stolen, but most of your republications will help you.
g. Word Count: Number of words in the body.
h. Formatted to (65 Characters per Line) You need TextPad or another way to keep your articles formatted to 65 spaces per line - -letters, commas, spaces, etc. I talked my author friend Pamela Armstrong (SurvivingHealthcare.com) through TextPad; this took a couple of hours. One easy way to shorten the lines is to sign up to gmail, yahoo, or hotmail, and email your article to yourself. When you do this, you may find that many of your words have strange marks in them -- this leads to the next article component problem.
2. Article Format
Most writers use a program like Word to create their masterpieces. Word has fancy "curly" quotes, apostrophes and other smart fonts that don''t transfer into email and onto some website reader''s screens. You can remove the smart quotes in Word; avoid using the emdash and other symbols such as three periods. If you copy your Word document into TextPad, you will see black bars in the problem areas and the spell check will catch the curly quotes. To remove the smart quotes in Word: go to Tools, Auto Correct Options, Autoformat, uncheck "straight quotes" with "smart quotes," and the same in Autoformat As You Type.
3. Keywords and Article Titles
The keywords are the words people search for related to your topic. When I first wrote "Staging Homes for Top-Dollar Sales," I had the keywords mixed up. There are 3,160 results for Google''s keyword search for "staging homes" and 35,300 for "Home Staging." However my article, "Staging Homes" is listed at the top of the search and my article "Home Staging" is on page two. Your goal is to use the keywords in your title that people interested in your topic search for and to get your article listed on the search engines where it''s easily found.
4. Article Content
If you cut and paste information from your book, tone down the writing style; make it informal, and concise. Your content needs to relate to your book''s benefits without being a sales letter. Chose a major benefit that the reader will enjoy from reading your book. What is your answer to: "Why should I read your book?" "What will I get?"
a. Introduction or Hook: Just like home shoppers won''t get out of their car if curb appeal doesn''t attract them, you need your first sentence to grab the reader with a benefit for reading your article.
b. Body: Web readers need short paragraphs filled with BENEFITS. You must give a strong reason to motivate a stranger to want to read on. Keep giving reasons why your information gives answers to their problems. PAIN. Feel the reader''s pain and offer solutions. Your title should open the way for this with something like: "Change Your Credit and Buy Your First Home." STORIES. Use stories to illustrate the pain felt by your target audience. For instance, tell a story about a family who fixed their credit and bought a home.
c. Headlines and subheadings: Use other keywords to break up your article with subheadings. This makes your article easier to read online. Tip: before you start writing your article, check for keywords and make a list for reference to cover in your article.
d. Conclusion: Even when you write a list, such as "Top 10 Ways to Save Money," you should end with a summary inspiration. You want to leave the reader wanting more so they follow your link to your website.
5. About the Author, Author''s Resource box, Bio, Biography
I''ve seen so many articles on this one topic, there''s most likely a book on it. Examine the way experienced writers create motivating calls to action. Your purpose is to show that you''re the expert with the solution to the reader''s problems. Your goal is to get the reader to follow your link for help. Refuse to list your articles where you won''t receive a live link to your website or to your book page on Amazon.
6. Article Submit
You can submit your articles through article distribution services for a charge, by email to article announcement groups for free, or directly to hundreds of websites online. One way to find websites matching your niche market is to do a Google search, such as: "real estate investing" + "submit article." I use Bill Platt''s thephantomwriters.com service and EzineArticles.com. From these two services, my articles appeared on over 11,000 websites. I simply don''t have the time to submit to all the other places.
If you write a compelling article in the proper format, your message will be picked up by ezine publishers, web masters, and maybe newspapers. And, like me, you will sell your books.
(c) Copyright 2005 Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.
Jeanette Fisher, Design Psychology professor, is the author of interior design and real estate books. She is part of the Writers to Authors group whose mission is to help writers sell their books. For help writing and selling your books, go to http://www.writertoauthor.com/
Please sign up for Jeanette''s newsletters and help her increase her subscriber base in return for this article. For more about Jeanette, see http://www.jeanettefisher.com', 248, 'How to Write Articles to Sell Your Book, Writing-Articles, Writing-Articles articles, Writing-Articles information, about Writing-Articles, what is Writing-Articles, Article Writing Information', 'How to Write Articles to Sell Your Book plus articles and information on Writing-Articles
6:14 AM | | 0 Comments
Increase Your Website Sales Instantly
If there''s one thing that I''ve learnt so far, it''s that nothing beats good copy. You may have found a way to bring in 10,000 visitors a day to your site, but if your copy is lousy, you''re just wasting your effort. Web sites are only as good as their copy, so if you want to run a successful website, check and double-check your copy!
Listed below are thirteen tips to better your copy and increase your sales:
1. Use short benefit-focused headlines.
Grab your readers attention from the very first line by piquing their curiosity. Ask a question or make a statement that causes a question to be formed in the minds of your readers. This will get them to read on as they attempt to satisfy their curiosity. Be creative, or if that fails, be informative.
2. Make your copy short and to-the-point.
Your potential clients love easy-to-digest material, so keep your paragraphs short. Three or four sentences per paragraph are fine, anything more is not.
Check the format of the page too. Make sure the column width of the copy is around ten words across. Learn from the experts - newspapers publishers have known for years that narrow columns and short paragraphs keep people reading.
3. Make use of lists.
Bullet or numbered lists have to be the best things around for copy writers. The human eye naturally gravitates toward a list. A list is akin to an oasis in a desert. People who are inclined to skip over long, wordy sales copy will still look at bullet lists. So use this fact to your advantage by listing the killer benefits of your offer.
4. Put yourself in your targeted visitors'' shoes.
Ask yourself, "why are they at my site?" People only want two things:
5. Aim your copy at your targeted market.
Focus, focus, focus. I dare say that in any venture, be it online or offline, the most important factor that determines its success or failure is the amount of focus. If you spread yourself out too thin, then you''re heading towards failure. The biggest mistake that can be made is not to define the target audience before writing the copy. When spread-shot promotion tactics are used, the focus is lost on too many groups. In the end, the website loses the visitors'' attention and loyalty.
Choose one defined audience first and aim your copy at them. Don''t worry about the other audiences, you can add special links for them later when you become successful.
6. Give your Web visitors a lot of free information.
Everyone is attracted by free stuff, and that will be one of the reasons why visitors come to your site. After visiting you five to ten times, they are more likely to buy from you. Include on your website your updating schedule, or put up a email group, so that people can be notified by email whenever there are updates on the website.
7. Create useful links.
Instead of the highly cliched "Please click here" link, experiment with other more useful-sounding links. Examples can be phrases that describe the link''s destination, such as "free ebook download on cooking", or "list of top ten products".
8. Keep your language simple.
Utilise the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle when you are preparing your copy. Also, write your copy as if you are speaking with a friend. Nothing kills the sale faster than a dry and run-of-the-mill sales pitch.
Use "you" and "your" words liberally and "I", "me" and "us" words infrequently. Everyone likes to hear, or read about themselves. They like to feel like they are the centre of attention.
Using "you" and "your" will help them feel that the product may address their needs. Always remember, the focus of the copy should be the prospective customer, and not the person selling the product.
9. Write a list of five to ten benefits of your service.
Forget about lengthy descriptions of you and your mission. Nobody reads them, so shift your focus to the more important aspects of your website.
Concentrate more on the benefits you can give your visitors. They came to learn about how they can benefit from your service, so make sure they will be convinced enough to say, "This is amazing. I want this!"
Tell the reader how the product or service will benefit them. Throw the technical details aside. They don''t belong in your sales copy, they belong in an appendix on a linked page for those who are interested.
Sales are made by appealing to the reader''s basic needs of comfort, security and acceptance. Your copy should explain how your product can address one or more of these needs.
So try using benefit-focused statements such as "Reduce your monthly bills by $200 with our product" or "Be able to function in the dark" to market your product or service, and you should start to see an immediate increase in interest!
10. Get rid of the hype.
Your visitors are intelligent people and they are not going to believe in hype. On the contrary, hyped up copy will just turn them away. Don''t make ridiculous claims and while your offer may be really too good to true, don''t state it that way.
11. Publish customer testimonials.
If you don''t have any, you should solicit some immediately. Your current customers will be more than happy to support you if you provide good service and a solid product. Ask them for their opinions and comments regarding your product. Get permission to use their words and publish them on your web site. Testimonials are a very powerful selling tool that you can not afford to ignore.
12. Offer a solid, no questions asked, money back guarantee.
Go on, offer such a money back guarantee, and stick by it. Why? Because what better way to get someone to buy your product than knowing that they can do so risk-free?
Besides, you will be surprised at how few people will be unsatisfied enough to make use of your guarantee. Sure, some customers may take advantage of it, but I think the increase in your sales should be more than enough to offset the few unscrupulous characters you may meet.
12. Ask for the sale!
You''ve got the killer benefits stated down, and you''ve got a solid money back guarantee. Now don''t stop there. Many web sites neglect to ask the customer to buy. So lead your customer through the purchase process. Be sure to thank customers for their purchase and inform them how and when they will be receiving the product that they have just purchased.
Alvin Poh has been specialising in web development, content distribution, advertising and marketing strategies since 1995. His goal is to provide practical information based upon his years of experience to help webmasters, website designers, and self-employed people achieve their goals in today''s competitive Internet. At his site, you can learn how to make money online.', 242, 'Increase Your Website Sales Instantly, Web-Design, Web-Design articles, Web-Design information, about Web-Design, what is Web-Design, Web Design Information', 'Increase Your Website Sales Instantly plus articles and information on Web-Design
6:34 AM | | 0 Comments
Build A Successful Website For Dummies
So you want to build a website here I will explain some simple but also key aspects that are commonly taken in to consideration when a website developer creates a website.
1) Website Design - The website design must be neat meaning that everything looks like where it is meant to be (nothing out of place or out of proportion). Also your sites design is related to the topic of your website e.g. your site is about flowers then your design must have flowers.
2) Site Navigation - Visitors must be able to get where they want to go without going through a maze a good way of putting it if you can get there in 3 clicks it should be fine. Also it helps when search engine spiders go through your site since it makes it easy for the spiders to index the site.
3) Domain Name - Domain name is important since it is one of the first thing that your visitors will see. Your domain should relate to your site topic or business name. Length of the domain usually 6-8 characters is a good length and easy for visitors to type.
4) Scroll Bars - don''t make your website pages too long so your visitors have to scroll for hours it is also a good option to just create another page and don''t make people scroll side to side.
5) Returning Visitors - make your visitors return to your site by adding one or all to your site:- Email Newsletter (Ezine)
- Community Forums
- Online Tools
- Online Games
- Useful Content
- Competitions and Prizes
- and so on
5) Website Logo - Make your logo unique and brandable so that people will remember your logo and then will remember your site and products.
These are some simple points that you may take into consideration when you build your website if you need some further assistance have a look at your competitors website and see what they have done. Remember what you put in is what you get out of your website and on that note GOOD LUCK and enjoy the whole process of building your very own virtual property.
Martin has been making a living with affiliate revenue for the past couple of years you can by joining Martin''s Webmasters Newsletter for free.
Add your website links for free to Sorve.com Directory and also Search Engine Directory
', 242, 'Build A Successful Website For Dummies, Web-Design, Web-Design articles, Web-Design information, about Web-Design, what is Web-Design, Web Design Information', 'Build A Successful Website For Dummies plus articles and information on Web-Design
6:33 AM | | 0 Comments
Colorblind People, Can They Really Read Your Web Site?
I once created a notepad-like editor. It is possible with this editor to write Russian text on a western Windows without using a Cyrillic keyboard in front of your computer.
This software is equipped with an on screen Russian keyboard which is situated under the text field of the notepad like editor. The keys on the screen based keyboard is displayed with both Latin and Cyrillic characters. The Cyrillic characters are displayed in red and the Latin are displayed in Black.
One day, I got an angry e-mail from one users of the product.
He wrote
Don''t you know that "so and so" many people have one form or another of colorblindness. I can''t read the Russian character in the keyboard. Could you change the color of the letters?
At that time I used a bright red color for the Russian characters and the keys were in gray.
I have since of course changed the color. Now I use a more darker red color to represent the Russian letters.
I myself don''t suffer from this problem, but I while ago I surfed around on the Internet and found a cool website that is all about colorblindness and remembered the e-mail and the adjustment I had to made to the Russian editor.
On that site is a tool which you can use to see how your website would look if you were a colorblind person. The URL is http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php
You just type on your URL and you can then see how your web page will look for a person with different forms of colorblindness.
I learned there that there are different forms of colorblindness.
In fact the term colorblindness is a little misleading, because most people with color blindness don''t see the world in black and white. They can see colors, but not all colors. Total colorblindness is very rare. Color deficiency is a much better term to use.
Different form of color deficiency affects large number of people.
Colorblindness is in a large extent a gender problem, because it is affecting males much more often than females.
Here are some facts, I''ve learned!
About 8 % of males have some sorts of color deficiency.
For females this figure is under 0.5%.
On the http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php you can check for 3 forms of colorblindness:
Deuteranope (a form of red/green color deficit)
Protanope (another form of red/green color deficit)
Tritanope (a blue/yellow deficit- very rare)
There are more types of colorblindness, but these tests will cover the most common types.
They also offer the same color blindness function with a plug-in software for Photoshop.
Colorblindness is not a problem if the text on your web site is in blank on a white background.
But, if you mix text with color on a colored background, this can create a problem with your web site for many viewers.
It is more common to make mistakes if you mix the wrong colors on external images and banners that have text in one color and the background in another, than to mix the wrong color with raw text.
Copyright 2004 Per Strandberg
About The Author
Per Strandberg is a web marketer and software designer!
Explore Web Niches with The Niche Market Database!
at ==> http://www.niche-exploration.com
He has a site on data storage and backup information at http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com
He also has a site on Russian language learning at http://www.homeworklang.com', 242, 'Colorblind People, Can They Really Read Your Web Site?, Web-Design, Web-Design articles, Web-Design information, about Web-Design, what is Web-Design, Web Design Information', 'Colorblind People, Can They Really Read Your Web Site? plus articles and information on Web-Design
6:33 AM | | 0 Comments