Earth Hour: Are you voting for Earth today?

Mar 28, 2009 Comments

People all over the world will be participating in the Earth Hour today by switching off their lights and doing their bid in trying to stop global warming? Can this really stop global warming? The act in itself may not, but the awareness created in the process certainly will. Do show that you support earth, and you care for your children and their children.

Why it pays to have your own business

Mar 22, 2009 Comments

The more I read about the economy the more relieved I feel for having my own business. Hasn’t the economic downturn affected my online writing business? Sure it has, but I’m not worried about losing my job. I just need to market more, I just need to put more relevant content on my website, and I’m already doing this and it is already showing positive results. In fact, although I won’t say it’s good that it happened, the economic downturn has been a blessing in disguise. I realized it was not possible to survive within the current format of my work. I needed to expand.

A good thing about doing business online is that if your business is low, have more traffic to your website. Does more traffic mean more business? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t; it depends on the type of traffic you are able to generate. Even if you are getting one query per week (actually, this happened 4-5 months ago), it shows there’s some business out there you can get. For instance, if 30 unique visitors per day get you one query per week, 60 unique visitors surely must get more, and so should 90 or 100 visitors per day. What about 200 visitors per day? Am I building castles in the wind? I certainly am if I’m generating random traffic for my website. I have to increase targeted traffic, not just any traffic.

My website’s conversion rate is quite good, for me, as an individual freelance content writer. Even with 30 unique visitors per day I was managing (still do sometimes) 1 query per day. Agreed, not every query turns into business, but for me, even if 2 queries turn into business every week, I was quite happy and satisfied. Of course these days I’ve managed to generate more queries because I’m regularly outsourcing my work. I’m getting more queries because I’m increasing my traffic.

In order to survive in tough economic condition, I had to rethink the way I was promoting my business, turning in the assignments, and taking care of the generic infrastructure. I was already spending good 10-12 hours on my business, and just couldn’t afford to put in more hours given my singing practice and the needs of my family. Whatever I had to do, I had to do within these hours. In order to maximize my potential I had to do more of what I was good at and do less of what I was taking longer to finish.

Ironically, the biggest hurdle on my way to increasing my business was my work. What the heck are you talking about? you must be thinking, aren’t you here to do work? Sure I am and I definitely want more work. But the problem was, I was doing work almost all the time and there was no time left for promotion, marketing, brand building and networking: all these activities are needed to not only increase your business, but also to get more decent, high-paying projects.

Although I’m a good writer, I’m also good at getting work, at convincing people to give me work. As I mentioned above, I’ve been making a decent living by just getting 30 unique visitors to my website every day. But this is not a good way of working. I’ve been active on the Internet, first as a web designer and developer and then as a content writer and copywriter for almost 9 years now and people hardly know me. I haven’t able to create even one marginally successful blog, and I started blogging when people used to manually add pages to their manually-managed blogs and hardly 200 people knew what the strange-sounding word meant. In order to increase my workflow, and change my freelance work into a proper business, I decided to change all this.

These days I’m focusing more on getting work. I’m increasing my search engine traffic, I’m adding content to my website with greater speed and regularity, I’m trying to improve the quality of content on my website and I’m becoming more socially active on the Internet by interacting on social networking websites and blogs. And the work? Fortunately, I’ve found some really good writers; in fact, some of them write better than me. I’m not outsourcing 100% work yet, but if they continue to write high-quality stuff I might soon. Getting other writers has also given me an opportunity to take on assignments I wouldn’t touch previously: lesser paying assignments from Asia, especially from India.

All this happened because I owned my work, my business and I was free to make changes my business needed first, to survive the economic downturn, and second, to grow. I’ve achieved the first thing – surviving – and now I’m focusing on the second. What are you doing to survive and thrive?

Writing for traffic or for the right audience?

Mar 21, 2009 Comments

You many often come across blogs and articles telling you how to get spikes of traffic by writing content that pulls people towards your website or blog. They advise you to use “highly compelling” titles and submitting your link to social networking and social bookmarking websites such as FaceBook, Twitter, Digg and Delicious. I wonder how much this sort of traffic helps your business. Mind you I’m not questioning the process and I’m not even suggesting you not to indulge in such activities, I’m just thinking about it.

For instance I provide online writing services, so I would, ideally, like to draw traffic that can fetch me more business. This doesn’t mean I don’t want other people to visit my website. After all I share my thoughts on various subjects on this blog for instance, and I’d love it if people from all over the world access my blog and participate in various conversations. I feel good when all of a sudden 200 extra visitors come to my website and 5 among them subscribe to my RSS feeds or my e-mail updates. Even if they never do business with me, it is exhilarating to see the number rising day bay day. The good doesn’t always come from prospective clients.

When more people, let’s say 2000 in a day, visit your website and read your blog post or article, all of a sudden so many people are made aware of your existence and what you do. If you somehow keep on generating such spikes this number keeps on increasing. Get 4-5 traffic spikes every month and you can easily become a known person.

Does becoming known get you more business? It certainly does. As they say, success begets success. Similarly, traffic begets traffic, popularity begets popularity and trustworthiness begets trustworthiness, and all this is needed to generate more business.

When people know you, they eagerly link to you. I’ve seen even dumbest posts by popular bloggers getting popular. They bookmark you, they forward your links, they follow you on Twitter (want to follow me? It’s @amrithallan) and they add you as a friend in FaceBook. All of a sudden, heavy traffic becomes a regular affair because even the search engines begin sending you 1000s of visitors every day. All this helps you build your brand.

Having said that, slow and steady wins the race. You don’t have to prove anything as long as you meeting your business goals. Just be regular and share your experiences sincerely. The traffic will magically pick up.

Writing an effective press release

Mar 20, 2009 Comments

Effective Internet press release copywriting can generate lots of traffic and leads for your business. You can distribute your press release through websites or through e-mail. The formats for press releases for websites and for e-mails will be slightly different. You can have a longer press release on a webpage but when it comes to writing a press release for e-mail it needs to be quite catchy and succinct since these days anything related to promotion and business can easily be taken as spam and hence ignored.

The purpose of a press release

A press release is needed to disseminate information regarding a product, a service, an organization or a policy change. Suppose you have just launched a new product in the market. How do you let people know about your new product? In case your visitors have allowed you to send them e-mail notifications you can use their e-mail addresses to send the news. This can be either termed as a newsletter issue or an e-mail press release. You may also have an e-mail list of various journalists covering your area and you can send the press release to them too.

In case you don’t have a big database of e-mail addresses, or you have very few e-mail addresses, the best thing to do is utilize the services of a press release websites such as PRWeb.com. You can even use the various social networking and social bookmarking websites to distribute your press release but a formal agency that specifically handles this task is better suited for this.

Writing an effective press release

It matters a lot how you write your press release. Press release, as the name suggests is a piece of information that you release the news distribution websites and newspapers so that they can feature it under appropriate sections. Online press releases are distributed for raising awareness as well as improving search engine rankings because incoming links from reputed press release websites draw lots of relevance from search engines. Here are a few things that can help you write an effective press release.

• Beginning with an introduction. People immediately want to know what you’re talking about; what company is being represented and what product or service is being talked about. In a press release you don’t beat around the bush.
• Keep your language straight. When you’re writing a press release there is no scope for being “creative” in the sense that you have to straightaway mention what’s the big deal about the company, the website, the service or the product being covered in the press release. Don’t be vague because when people read a press release they are simply looking for factual information they can use. They don’t want to see your vocabulary and they don’t want to experience your literary depth. Say what needs to be said and be done with that, in as simple words as possible.
• Talk to the target audience. A press release is as targeted as it gets. If it is being published in a technology publication you have to keep in mind that people reading your press release will easily understand the jargons and the expressions used while writing literature on technology and technology related affairs. Even if your present unease is going to be published on a generic press release website than too your press release will be published under the most appropriate category. In fact there is a chance that people will be accessing your press release through the RSS reader if they have subscribed to a particular category feed.
• Quote an important person. People are reassured if somebody important from the organization about whom the press release is being written is quoted. For instance what does the product development manager have to say about the new features being introduced, and how they are at adhering to the quality standards why lowering their prices?
• Include proper contact information. Most probably people will be interested in the product or the service (well, that is the purpose of the press release), or at least they would like to know some more. Include your website address, the e-mail and if possible, the contact person’s name and phone number along with the timings.

Please remember that a press release is not a sales copy. Wear the hat of a journalist while preparing the press release. Even a small hint of hard selling or a tone of partiality can put your readers off. Simply report, and include all the relevant information that can help the readers decide on their own.

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In Gmail now you can undo a message you’ve just sent

Mar 20, 2009 Comments

Ever regretted sending that message?  Sometimes you send a message to a wrong person and sometimes in the heat of the moment you say something that you regret immediately after clicking “send”. There was a time when a message sent via Gmail (or rather any other web based email service) was like a bullet you’ve just fired; just like you cannot stop the bullet you’ve fired, you couldn’t stop the message you had sent.

Well, if the divine realization of “this shouldn’t have been sent” hits you within 5 seconds, in Gmail now you can undo a message that you have just sent. This may save you a lot of heartache (or broken bones for those who prefer to live on the edge) in the long as as well as short term.

If you activate a feature in Gmail, Gmail will hold your e-mail (this sounds like a rhyming poem) for 5 seconds so that you get enough chance to stop it. Just go to Settings and then the Labs tab. Scroll down until you come to this section:

 

 

 

Simply click Enable and save the setting. From now onwards, whenever the message “Your message has been sent” appears, you will also notice an Indo button.

How to write SEO text

Mar 19, 2009 Comments

You want to know how to write SEO text to improve your search engine rankings, most probably. When you are writing for the web, it’s not just the human readers who are going to read, evaluate and then act upon whatever you have published, even the various search engines are going to evaluate your text and rank it accordingly. Although the search engine companies like Google are constantly trying to mimic the human psyche as closely as possible there subtle differences in the ways that humans and the search engine algorithms make sense of your text. If you want to learn how to write SEO text you should also spend some time understanding how the search engine crawlers access your individual pages and how those pages are ranked according to keywords and other, longer expressions present on your webpage.

Although there are many SEO experts who say that words don’t matter but they really do. Ever since we started using language to communicate words have been an integral, inseparable part of language. So in order to convey something you have to be careful about your words. For instance if you want to tell somebody, I love you, you don’t say I have the extremely opposite feeling of hatred for you. The search engines are going to think that you’re talking about hatred and not love. So if you want to learn how to write SEO you must also learn to use the right words to say something. Aside from that here are a few pointers that can lead you towards writing effective SEO text.

Make a list of the keywords that you’re going to use in the SEO text of the current page

The keywords of course must be context specific. Before preparing the text you should prepare a list of keywords and expressions that you would like to highlight on the page. Try to use these keywords while forming your sentences. Writing SEO text doesn’t meaning filling up your webpage with nonsensical repetitions. Don’t overdo it and stick to relevance. Recently I read that you should use your keyword in the first sentence of the first paragraph, in the last sentence of the first paragraph, once in every paragraph, and then once in the last sentence of the last paragraph. I don’t think all this is necessary, just use your keywords whenever you think they should appear justifiably. Use them in your headings and subheadings, bulleted lists and in anchor text. The moot point is that you have to convince the search engine algorithms that you are seriously talking about the keyword on your page.

Put your keywords in the title of your page

The title of your page is very important because it tells the search engines what your page contains. Although there is no harm in creating esoteric titles it helps a lot if your title contains the expression for which you want to be ranked higher on the search engine results pages. Various studies have revealed that search engine users have a greater tendency to click on the hyperlinks that contain the expressions they have just used to conduct the search. The title of your webpage appears as a hyperlink on the search engine results page.

Talk about the topic in the very beginning

The search engine crawlers have millions of pages to crawl and they are constantly economizing the time they spend on individual pages. Talk about the main thing in the very beginning of your webpage so that even if they don’t go through the entire page they can make out the basic theme of the page and analyze it accordingly for the appropriate keywords.

Organize your text with headings, subheadings and bullets

Headings, subheadings and bullets often present the whole picture. Many visitors just go through the headings, subheadings and bulleted points and skip the finer print. You can use your headings to kindle their interest and encourage them to read the rest of the text also. Anyway, since headings, subheadings and bullets often contain the main highlights, if they are present on the page the search engine crawlers first go through them.

Basically, there is no set formula for writing SEO text because every keyword has its own peculiar way of performing, and you shouldn’t worry much about it. Just make sure the text is properly laid out, you use the keywords enough times, and you make the text reader-friendly. And don’t try to cram many keywords into one page, 2-3 keywords should be focused upon, and in fact, you should have separate dedicated pages for all your important keywords.

How Online writing services can increase your website’s conversion rate

Mar 18, 2009 Comments

Few weeks back I read an interesting article where Amrit, who is an  online writer explained how online seo content writing can prove to be beneficial to website owners and  webmasters. I have been into online writing services since past 3 years, but it’s been few articles that prompted me connote “Wow! I like it. Let me  save the url and bookmark the site.” I experienced two things out of this which I want to share with my readers;

1. I found an informative article to express my views.
2. The site found another DAILY reader (which is me) and eventually traffic because I will definitely share Amrit’s work with my readers, SEO Clients, my friends and contacts.

Well I think now you are able to understand how great and unique content can fetch good traffic. You don’t need to use exquisite vocabulary or ‘hard English’. It’s only simple words, explained in a very thoughtful manner. With SEO Copywriting, you should be able to make your potential clients visualize lots of traffic which will increase by time and Amrit’s site is a real good example of this.

How important is SEO Copywriting?

SEO Copywriting Analysis is very important for your site. Creating search engine friendly content is one of the priorities to pace for higher rankings. If you want your site to EXIST in this tough internet marketing world, you must go for professional online writing services. It is very important to build search engines friendly website that search engine robots/spiders will crawl and index. SEO Online Copywriter finds out the loopholes in your content and confirms that the content and keywords are evenly poised. SEO Copywriting helps your site to compatible in both ways i.e both from viewers and search engines point of view.

How experienced online writing services can tremendously help improve a site’s conversion rate?

We classify visitors as good or bad visitor. The trick is to drive the right kind of traffic in. Getting the right people on your websites are more important. Here are few points to be kept in mind:

1. SEO Online writing services is a compulsory for your site(s) because QUALITY matters.  SEO Copywriting provides high-profile quality search engine optimized content that improves the conversion rates of a site. SEO Content provides an edge over the other existing non-optimized sites.
2. How to build search engines friendly website that search engine robots/spiders will crawl and index it? Well SEO webpage writer shows you how to find the right keywords using keywords research to improve sales and traffic generation. Researching and Selecting Keywords, Keyword Density and Keyword Optimization are vital parts of the entire content. So without a knowledgeable SEO Writer, you will not be able to embed such things in your webpage content.
3. Links are also indispensable part when we speak about website, traffic, content etc.; SEO Copywriting facilitates to create inbound links to your website and guides on how to link your page both internally and externally to gain higher traffic and greater sales leads.
4. Experienced online SEO writer develops an understanding of your target audience and about what drives them to buy.  A good SEO Copywriter handles objections of your potential customers may have from their purchasing decisions. regarding your website like best and specific info on choosing best key phrases, creating great keyword rich marketing copy, ideas for best Titles and Meta tags suiting your domain’s content and keywords

An online writing service is essential for your dream project.SEO expert makes in-depth analysis regarding your website. Choosing best key phrases, creating great keyword rich marketing copy, ideas for best Titles and Meta tags suiting your domain’s content and keywords are the core working areas of the SEO Copywriter’s and that’s BANG ON target!

Higher Traffic + Higher Conversion rates = Excellent SEO Copywriting+ Strategic internet marketing+ Quality website design

That’s the key!

Why it doesn’t make sense to charge less

Mar 15, 2009 Comments

These days I’m constantly trying to draw strategies for better targeting for my website. I get all sorts of queries from my online writing services; some have no problem with what I quote, some expect more than what I’ve quoted, and some are looking for writers that will simply provide them $2 or $3 per article service. I’m trying to target clients that are looking for good content at decent rates, not very low rates.

Although I operate from India, I never try to attract clients who are looking for cheap writing services. It doesn’t mean I’m an expensive writer — I simply charge what I think I should get, according to the quality of writing I provide, and according to the prevalent rates in different countries. Some clients think that just because I am from India I’m going to provide my writing services dirt cheap. It is not their fault actually because that’s what they are looking for in the first place and they know that they can get good writers at extremely low rates in Third World countries. Even clients from India think that I have no business charging them the amount I quote.

I consider writing to be just like any other service that you can use to enhance your business prospects.  When I am writing for you I am helping you communicate effectively so that you can get more business.  Isn’t it a service worth paying for? Fine, you can say that you can find writers who charge a lot less then what I normally do, but then you can say this for every service.  You can hire a web design company that charges $50,000 for your website and you can hire a web design company that will charge $50 for the same website.  The difference will manifest in the way your business grows or doesn’t grow.

So why doesn’t it make sense to charge less than what you can charge just for the sake of getting work?

When you start charging less both you and your client get trapped in a vicious circle.  You never earn enough and your client never gets the quality that he or she needs to do decent business. Since you are working for pittance, you want to do more and more projects in the limited time you have; you can only work for so many hours. You are always in a hurry to finish your project because you simply cannot afford to spend 2-3 hours writing a document that’s going to get you $5.  Consequently, the quality suffers.  Some writers don’t even write, they simply plagiarize and their clients either never realize it or they simply ignore it because anyway they are not looking for high-quality content when they are paying $2 for an article. These types of clients rarely succeed in their ventures and they have a similar attitude towards your service.

Similarly, since you are always working for less money you never have time to grow and evolve. You are always busy doing the patchwork and trying to get new, low-paying assignments.  You never become an expert people won’t mind paying a higher fee.  You will always be writing low quality stuff.  You will never be taken seriously for your service.  Okay, there will be a few people who will admire your rates and the amount of work you can churn out but it won’t fetch you a stable livelihood. You will soon burnout and you quit as a failure.

Again, I am not saying you charge more than you are worth for. Just don’t under charge.  Charge a justified amount and keep improving yourself so that you can deliver value and then charge for that value. There is a reason why some companies bill so much. Using their services clients can make a lot more than what they are investing and this is how the true worth of a professional service is gauged.  So instead of providing a cheap service, provide a better service and then charge what you truly deserve.

Maximizing Your Web Presence in a Tough Economy

Mar 13, 2009 Comments

As we all watch the economy go from terribly bad to even worse, many are left wondering how to make the most of their existing company resources. For many companies, the idea of investing in marketing services of any kind is offensive as so many face major cutbacks and even layoffs.

However, the show must go on and every company must examine the marketing materials they already have developed and how they can breathe new life into them without taxing scaled-down budgets. One of the best marketing vehicles to leverage in new ways is the company Web site. This highly-versatile medium allows huge flexibility and scalability, cost-effective updates, and worldwide reach.

The idea of a fluid, regularly-updated Web site is foreign to many businesses where Web copy remains static, with only the most vital information provided. The reason for the bland copy on most sites is a lack of internal resources to dedicate to writing new content.

Web content is time consuming to develop and requires a skill set and understanding of how the Web and Internet searches work. If the writer does not understand the complexities involved, the Web site’s content will be ineffective and it will not be found quickly through Internet searches.

While it may seem counter-intuitive to outsource Web writing, it can be a very cost-effective option for Web copy development and one with a significant return on investment. But, all Web copy writers are not created equal. If you choose to work with a freelance Web writer, be sure they possess the following skills.

• SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves embedding industry-specific keywords into Web copy to help prioritize it in Web searches. If this is not done, the Web site will be buried several pages into a Web search.
• Editing. While good writing skills may seem like a no-brainer as you choose a freelancer, it is also important that they be strong editors. You do not want to edit your own Web copy and a typo is inexcusable on the World Wide Web.
• Selling. Web sites should spur sales (or at least inquiries about your company). Spinning a great company story that drives home its unique differentiators will garner more interest than “Contact Us.”
• Blogging. Talking about your company and industry is a great way to build thought leadership. Good freelance writers know how to leverage news and industry trends to develop effective blog content.
• Communication. Freelance writers work offsite and the client has less control over the time they spend on projects or how they are billed. Demand good communication and frequent updates from your freelance writers.

Creating a page not found 404 error page if you are managing your website with WordPress

Mar 12, 2009 Comments

About a couple of months ago I put my entire website into WordPress…now every page on this website is actually a WordPress blog post. This makes it very easy to add new content and modify existing content, and it is also good for SEO (it is already manifest in my stats). Besides, whenever I want to change the layout/design, I simply have to create a new WordPress theme, and then activate it using the WordPress control panel/admin area.

After a few days I noticed that my 404 page was not working. Wondering what’s a 404 page? 404 is the error number that is generated when a visitor comes to your website using a link that does not exist on your website. For instance, on my website, if you click on a link http://amrithallan.com/doesntexist/ you will be redirected to http://amrithallan.com/404-page/ because "doesntexist" doesn’t exist on my website.

On normal websites you can add the following line in your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 404 http://amrithallan.com/404-page/

You need to store your .htaccess file in the root folder I guess. But this doesn’t work if you are managing your website with WordPress; somehow it doesn’t redirect the page using .htaccess file.   After some research I found that WordPress uses its own 404.php file to display the "page not found" page and you have to store this file in the folder where you’ve stored all your theme files, like /blog-url/wp-content/themes/your-theme-folder/404.php.

But what if you want to display a page or blog post that you’ve already created, if someone comes on a non-existent page? It’s very simple. Delete whatever you have in your 404.php file and instead, have this php line inserted:

<?php header("Location: /404-page/"); ?>

Please remember that /404-page/ is something what I’ve created for my website; you may have something else.

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