Monthly Archives: June 2009

Article Writing Tips: Never, Ever Run out of Ideas

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Most writers have found themselves staring at a blank piece of paper, or a blank screen and feeling a bit of panic in the pit of their stomach because they can’t think of a single thing to write. The goal of this article is to make sure that you never find yourself in that position ever again. Let’s take a look at a few ways to create a never-ending flow of article ideas.

This article is written on the premise that you will be writing keyword optimized articles for the purpose of article marketing, but the tips on idea generation can really be used for any kind of writing projects.

Plan Ahead
Keep a list of keywords that your web site is focused on, and update this list every week. When you are ready to begin writing, consult this list to get the ideas flowing.

Capture Ideas
Use a small notebook that you carry with you everywhere to jot down ideas that strike you throughout the day. Better yet, jot down these thoughts in your PDA or smart phone and then email them to yourself. If an idea strikes and you don’t have your notebook with you, call and leave yourself a voicemail message with as many details about the idea that you can come up with.

Create a Swipe File
Open a Notepad or word processing document and use this to capture snippets of copy, headlines, graphics–anything that inspires you or gives you an idea to write about. Keep this open while you are writing so that you can take down those quick things that occur to you as you are working on other writing projects.

Brainstorm Article Titles
Come up with a list of titles for articles that you want to write articles for. Copy good titles that you find into your swipe file to inspire you.

Use Mind Maps
Mind mapping is a fabulous way to prime your brain’s creative pump. You simply write a keyword in the center of a piece of paper. Draw a circle around it and jot down thoughts related to that word or idea and draw lines from the keyword out to the related words. Visit mind-mapping.org to find an endless supply of mind mapping and creativity resources.

Try any of these techniques that appeal to you and you will never again face the terror of a blank screen. Keep adding to your swipe file and use the mind mapping technique and you will exponentially expand your productivity.

Evelyn Bourne is a freelance writer who specializes in creating compelling Internet content from SEO articles to blog posts, eBooks and special reports. Guess what? She is available for hire. You are invited to visit http://contentcreation.wordpress.com to find out about how she can create content for you.

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Article Writing Tips to Increase Your Productivity

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With all of the other things that demand your attention, sometimes the task of writing falls by the wayside. But if you are relying on article marketing to bring targeted traffic to your web site, then your goal should be to write at least one article each day. That might sound like a daunting task, because if you do not have a high volume of articles published in article directories, then you have not seen the kind of traffic and exposure they can bring you. The return on your article writing and submitting efforts can be delayed by thirty days or more, but you must continue to crank out those articles and take it on faith that they will be working for you for months and years to come.

Develop an Article Writing System
Do not try to start from a blank screen or piece of paper. Develop your own article writing system that will help you to produce more writing in less time and with less anguish and effort. Create a list of the article topics and keywords that you need to write about and do your research in batches. Take notes on each topic and file it under a working title for each article.

Schedule Your Article Writing Time
Set aside time to write when you are feeling rested and alert. Why not start each day by writing an article or two? If you actually schedule in a time slot for writing each day, you can have your online calendar send you reminders throughout the day. After awhile you will establish your own writing routine.

Create Article Templates
If you have been writing for any length of time you have developed a unique writing style or approach to creating your articles. Create a few templates for the style of article that you write. For example: The Q and A article, or the ‘What Not to Do,” article, etc. You can also purchase ready made article templates if you are not feeling especially creative. Sometimes just looking through your templates file can spark an idea for an article.

Post Your Working Articles List in a Visible Location
If you have a bulletin board in your office, or a white board, write your running list of articles in progress on that board. Having your article titles posted in a place that you can see them every day will keep them top of mind so that you are less likely to procrastinate about getting them finished.

Build in a Reward for Your Hard Work
Sometimes the prospect of a reward is enough to motivate us to push on and accomplish a goal. Set up some way t reward yourself when you have met the writing goals that you have set for yourself. Encourage one of your colleagues to join you in trying to write and submit more articles and you can encourage each others progress and share ideas.

The true rewards of article marketing come with volume. Make it a daily practice to continue to add to your volume of articles and you will be encouraged as you see the traffic to your web site steadily increase over time.

Evelyn Bourne is a freelance writer who specializes in creating compelling Internet content from SEO articles to blog posts, eBooks and special reports. Guess what? She is available for hire. You are invited to visit http://contentcreation.wordpress.com to find out about how she can create content for you.

Developing the Social Skills for Self Empowerment

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Today we have a guest blog appearance by Mrs. Robin Tramble, ‘The Empowerment Diva.’ I am on Robin’s email list and she is just a fountain of good news, positive energy, wisdom and inspiration. I thought I’d re-publish this article so that you can get a taste of her style. Please enjoy.

Developing the Social Skills for Self Empowerment

I’m sure you have been influenced by an individual that was so naturally friendly that when put in a room of strangers, they’ll be friends with almost everyone in no time.

This person is referred to as a people-person, someone unbelievably nice and charismatic that he can charm anyone into doing anything.

A socially-empowered person achieves so much greatness, basically because of the people that catapult him to success. He earns the trust and all-out support of the people, whom he had helped before. He never runs out of help. He can do anything with the plethora of people behind him. All because he knows he maximizes his social potential!

Knowing your social skills and making use of them will allow you to reach self-empowerment.
Self-empowerment is making a general overhaul in your life and turning yourself into a happier and more successful person. The key is knowing where to start. Below you will find a few keys.

1. Be genuine.

Hypocrisy will just bring you all the way down. Be genuinely nice and interested to people. Once they perceive that you are Mr. Hypocrite with selfish intentions, you might as well say goodbye to self-empowerment.

2. Actively listen

To earn the love and trust of the people, listen to their problems and empathize with them. Do not just hear them out, listen to them with your heart. Make eye contact when the person talks to you. Listen as if every word matters, and it does. Brownie points when they find out that there is a confidante in you.

3. Have a sense of humor

Be authentic. Don’t force yourself to laugh for every joke cracked by someone, albeit you do not find it funny at all.This means finding humor in things and not being too serious. A person oozing with an awesome sense of humor attracts crowds and eventually, attracts success.

4. Don’t forget the importance of self care

In the process of fluttering around like a social butterfly, you might forget yourself, allowing everyone to push you over. Remember, love and value yourself before anyone else. If you deem yourself respectable and worthy of affection, people will flock to you and not trample on you.

5. Do random acts of kindness.

You don’t have to do a John Rockefeller and blow your savings to charity. Little acts of kindness matters the most, and this can be as simple as giving someone a surprise you-take-care card or helping an elderly cross the street. When we were kindergarten students, kindness was taught to us and greatly practiced. Now is the time to revive the good deeds and this time, let them stay for good.

6. Restore healthy old relationships

Sad how some friendships are destined to goodbye, but thanks to technology, you can do something about it. Relive the good old days by flipping your yearbook and look for the great people whom you want to communicate with again. Adding these old friends to your roster of support peers will surely make you feel good all over.

7. Develop your personality.

Are you grouchy, grumpy and generally morose? Whoa, you can’t go through life with those. Get rid of the bad traits and habits that perpetually hamper your growth. And really, who wants a grouchy friend anyway?

8. Be confident.

Be able to stride to the other corner of the room and introduce yourself to people with that winning smile of yours. Just remember: be confident, not arrogant.

9. Manage your temperament

When angry, don’t snap at anyone. Never throw a tantrum. Stay calm and collected. Be adult enough to take control of situation and transform your anger into something more productive and passive. As soon as people think your anger goes to volcanic proportions easily, they will find it hard to come to you.

10. Continue to nurture and cherish your relationships.

Your relationship with your family, friends and significant others is too precious that you must not neglect it whatever happens. Go out and have fun with them. Do things together. Happiness will never fly from your side as long as the people who matter the most are close to you.

In the end, using people for self-empowerment means becoming a better and more lovable person. It’s a win-win situation: the people know they can turn to you anytime and vice versa.

God in you = Empowerment!

Robin Tramble

Request your fre.e access to my ezine for savvy entrepreneurial women “Highlights of Empowerment and Total Wellness.”
http://budurl.com/qqwt. Robin Tramble a Life/Marriage Empowerment Mentor/Trainer/Coach is passionate about empowering women to live their best empowered life “Spirit, Soul and Body.”

Article Writing Tips for Those Who Think They Can’t Write

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Article marketing is really one of the best ways to create free quality, targeted traffic to your web site. There are plenty of people out there who would love to make use of article marketing, but they are not confident in their writing ability. The goal of this article is to encourage you to give article writing a try because if you can speak clearly enough to be understood, then you can write an article. Let’s get started.

The purpose of your article is to share a bit of useful information about your web site’s topic, product or service. You will write your article using the keywords that you want searchers to use to find your site. In order to accomplish this, the first thing that you want to do in preparation for writing your articles is to gather your list of keywords.

For each article you will need a primary keyword and a secondary keyword. For example, if your topic is weight loss, then you might use your ‘long tail’ keyword as your primary, such as “weight loss tips for diabetics” and the secondary might be “weight loss.”

An article should follow the basic structure of: 1. Introduction, 2. Body, 3. Conclusion. You want to tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them what you have to say and then tell them what you told them. You want your readers to come away from your article feeling as though they benefitted in some way from having read it. The article is your opportunity to share your expertise with your visitors in hopes that they like what they find and decide to click through to your site to find more good information.

To begin, type your keywords at the top of the page and then begin to do a bit of a brain dump. Write down everything you know about your topic as it comes to your mind. Get a friend to ask you questions about your topic and write down their questions and your answers. We are not concerned right now with structure, but simply with getting what’s in your head on the page. When you have a few notes written down, type your keywords into your favorite search engine and take a look at what comes up. Peruse a few web pages with articles written around your keywords to get some fresh ideas. Jot down some more notes. Keep searching until you have found enough information for your article.

Choose three main points and then fill in those points with the information you came up with. Finally, write an introduction for the main points, and a conclusion that summarizes your article and wraps everything up.

Next, you want to create a title for your article. The title should contain your primary keyword, and it serves as the headline for your article. Make sure that your article delivers on the promise made in your headline. Clarity trumps cleverness when it comes to titles because it will be read both by human eyes and search engine spiders.

The last thing you will write is your article’s resource box. This is where you share a link to your web site where your visitor can find more great content like what they see in your article. If you do a search on “article resource box examples” you will find some good inspiration for creating a good resource box for your articles.

See? That wasn’t so bad was it? If you followed these steps you now have a completed first draft of your article. Now go through and do a spell-check and grammar check. If you have MS Word, you can find these items under the ‘Tools” menu.

Don’t stop there. Go ahead and write some more articles and jot down some ideas for additional articles so that the next time you sit down to write you will not be facing a blank screen.

Evelyn Bourne is a freelance writer who specializes in creating compelling Internet content from SEO articles to blog posts, eBooks and special reports. Guess what? She is available for hire. You are invited to visit http://www.productivepen.com/seowriter to find out about how she can create content for you.

 

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Facebook Usernames: The Impending Free-For-All Land Grab

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If you’re active on Facebook for business or personal reasons you’ll want to listen up. Starting at 12:01 am on Saturday, June 13th you’ll be able to sign up for your own custom username on Facebook. Whereas now you get a randomly generated number as your URL, now you’ll be able to get something like: http://www.facebook.com/jane.doe.

This is one of those times when I am thankful to my parents for not giving me a common name. Amongst the 200 million plus members on Facebook, there are only 4 members with the name Evelyn Bourne, so I think there’s a fair enough chance that I can snag my own name–unless the other Evelyn’s are quicker on the mouse than I.

The new usernames are being given out on a first come, first served basis so get ready to pounce at midnight. Also, you can’t change or transfer your username, so think it through before you select it.

Ghostwriting: Defending a Great Way to Make Money Writing Online

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For those who are looking for a way to use their writing talents to make money writing online, ghostwriting articles and ebooks and short reports is a great way to get started. I have been ghostwriting online for about three years now, and I have found it to be a good way to put my writing skills to work and earn some cash.

By way of explanation, ghostwriting is simply the practice of writing content along with the publication rights to it. Although the ghostwriter writes the article, ebook, report, etc., the client who hires them puts their name on the piece and can claim authorship of that work.

Writing is something that I enjoy, and whether I am writing for myself for one of my own sites or for a client I always put forth my very best effort. I have been doing some article marketing for myself, and I write a metric ton of articles for clients each week, so I try to keep up on what’s happening in the world of article marketing. I was listening to Dan Ho’s interview with Christ Knight of ezinearticles.com last evening and I could feel my hackles being raised by the way they were talking about ghostwriters. I guess I should not let it bother me so much because I know that my work is always original, but I sort of felt like they were not presenting ghostwriters in a very favorable light by saying that you should never trust them, etc.

Articles are no magnum opus. They are pretty simple and straightforward to write. I like writing articles because they are quick to write, and I enjoy learning about new topics and finding creative ways to get the client’s message across using their keywords and creating value for the reader. With my education, training and years of practice I know that I am always improving the level of my writing. I agree with Dan and Chris that PLR should be used on your web site and not submitted to ezinearticles as if it were your own original content.

Here are some things that I took away from that interview:

The need to create a ‘work for hire’ agreement to give to new clients when I begin working with them. I have only been asked once to sign a notarized NDA for a client who was paranoid beyond belief about their keywords. For the most part I have not used work for hire agreements, but I will going forward.

It became clear that I need to write and submit far more articles than I have been writing. Although I joined the 100 Articles in 100 Days marathon, I had to drop out because almost as soon as I joined I got a flood of new client writing assignments and I was not able to keep up with my personal articles along with my client work. I am working daily to keep up a healthy volume of writing.

Re-purposing existing content into new articles is a great way to come up with more articles without needing to write them from scratch.

In closing I will just say that ghostwriters provide a valuable service, and there are plenty of honest ghostwriters out there who have integrity and operate in an ethical manner. (Dare I ask if you have hugged your ghostwriter today? ;-)

If you are a writer looking to make money writing online, be sure to write lots and lots of articles and submit them to the main article directories with links back to your blog. You’ll get a nice stream of targeted traffic and all the work you can handle.