Royalty Free Photos and Videos by Terry Dean
October 30, 2008 – 8:41 pmAnother great link for the archive file. What every webmaster needs: Royalty Free Photos and Videos.
How to Move A WordPress Blog by Pat Doyle
October 27, 2008 – 10:13 pmThis one definitely goes under the archive of things to remember. Great post, Pat.
How to Move A WordPress Blog by Pat Doyle.
Are Internet Marketers Ruining Web 2.0?
July 26, 2008 – 3:51 pmJohn Reese writes with a great deal of passion and convincing argument. Also, his report of the success of BlogRush was very interesting. Wake Up Call: Web 2.0 Wouldn’t Exist Without Internet Marketers
How To Write an Article in 10 Minutes
July 1, 2008 – 3:35 pmby Ivan Kelly
It’s very helpful to have a quick writing strategy so that website content can be rapidly produced and we are less likely to procrastinate about building our own websites; we can sell articles and produce a useful side income; we can make use of all those PLR articles sitting on our hard drive; and we can even promote our websites more readily by distributing posts and articles.
What I’m about to describe is one method I have found that works and can be easily learned. You’ll be able to create 400 word articles in 10-15 mins after about one week of following the techniques described.
If you offer writing as a service and your output averages 6 articles in an hour (10 minutes per article) even @ $4-$5 per 400 word article, you’re earning $24 per hour! That can be a handy supplementary income for someone who’s, say, housebound or a student. And it offers flexible hours!
It’s possible to simply rewrite a pre-written article, either sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph. However, you gain more flexibility and can produce articles that are more truly yours by understanding the structure of an article - having an article template that you can use to shape your thinking and stimulate the thought processes. This also reduces the writing time by allowing you to identify quickly what is relevant to the task at hand.
Some of the easiest articles to write are those where the topic can be expressed as a question or solution using terms such as “How”, “Who”, “When”, “Where”, “Why”, “What”, “Is”, “Are” and the like, to begin the title.
Most articles of about 400 words are going to require 3-5 main points. You can source these points from an article such as those available from your favorite research tool or from other sources, such as EzineArticles.com, from a Google search, Wikipedia.com, or Answers.com.
The availability of software tools such as Instant Article Wizard and GistWeb also makes research so much easier.
Each of the main points of the article is going to require 2-3 sub-points or key features of those main points. Once you have these sub-points, you are ready to start writing the article.
After a few attempts, you’ll be able to quickly pin down the key points and the sub-points. Within a week or two, it’ll be second nature.
Your article is starting to develop a structure: You’ll need a paragraph for an introduction, a paragraph for each of the main points, and one paragraph for the conclusion. That’s a minimum of 5 paragraphs averaging 70-85 words per paragraph.
1. The title. Try to make it exciting and use the keyword phrase that is the subject of the article.
2. If you have a catchy opening sentence that uses the keyword phrase then go with that. If not, consider a fall back stock opening using IF/THEN. For instance, “If you’re looking for three amazing health benefits of cooking with vinegar, then you’ll definitely want to see what I’ve described below.”
This is a quick and easy way to get an article started. Another opening I’ll often use is to introduce a problem and use the remainder of the article to outline possible solutions. “(Are you) Feeling bewitched, bothered and bewildered? (Then) These three techniques are sure to bring more clarity and harmony into your life.” As you can see, this is really a variation of the If/Then approach.
All that remains, then, is to describe each of your main points in a couple of sentences and then finally sum it up by mentioning what the reader’s position will be after learning the main points of this article. “With these amazing benefits in mind, you’ll never approach cooking again without a handy bottle of balsamic vinegar close at hand.”
Try to write without hesitation as much possible. It helps with the flow of ideas and gives a more conversational rhythm to what you have written. You can always return at the end to polish the material. It becomes much easier after practising for a week or two, especially if you time yourself. Then you’ll see how rapidly you improve and what areas require a bit more of your attention.
Keeping your article template - the outline of main points and sub-points - handy also helps you to keep the stream of ideas flowing, as you simply refer to the outline from time to time, “head down”, constantly moving forward. You’ll develop some mental short cuts as you do this - ways of doing things, stock phrases and the like, that you’ll find useful whenever you find an obstruction on the path and you’re unsure how to continue. The secret is to keep moving and tidy up afterwards.
3. For a 400 word article, and with about five major paragraphs to consider, 4-5 sentences per main point will provide the content needed. That’s about 85 words per paragraph. For the internet, its better to keep paragraphs brief, no more than five sentences each. I often have shorter paragraphs to sustain interest, breaking up longer paragraphs into smaller, more easily digested chunks.
Five sentences per paragraph can easily be achieved by making a general statement about your main point. Then say something specific about it, linking it to each of your sub points. Finish the paragraph by summing up or making a transition or comment that links to the next paragraph.
Restating that: Introduce the main point, then say something specific about it and raise two or three instances that illustrate and support the main point.
4. For the last paragraph, make a general conclusion about what has already been presented and refer to some or all of the main points that were raised. End with a smug comment about how much more informed, uplifted, inspired or capable the reader now is for having read the article.
If you have an outline for your article that differs from the above and which you think suits the material better, then go with it. But having a template you can fall back on as needed is very comforting and on many occasions makes it so much easier to get started.
Don’t be disappointed if you spend an hour writing your first article. You’ll find your earlier efforts dominated with a desire for a quality product. Keeping the outline in mind that I’ve described here will enable you to reduce the time spent constructing the article without a serious loss of quality.
After a few attempts you should have it down to 30 minutes - a big increase in productivity. Set 15 minutes as your goal and see how long it takes to reach this target - it’ll be a lot sooner than you expect. Once you’ve reached 15 minutes - go for ten.
If you’re writing the article for your own website, it’s worthwhile doing some preliminary keyword research to find the major 10-15 “theme” words commonly associated with the main keyword so they can be included in the article. This helps the search engine bot to assess the relevance of the article and clearly identify the topic. For instance, if you are writing about the Island of Curacao you’d mention terms like Caribbean, island, cruise ships, sandy beaches, holiday resorts, clear water, drums, dancing, lizards, etc. On the other hand, an article about Curacao Liqueur would refer to orange taste, alcohol, Cointreau, Triple Sec, and the like.
Once you’ve got a dozen or so articles under your belt, you’ll be ready to assemble them into a PDF report if they’re on a related subject - but that’s a topic for another day.
AUTHOR’S DETAILS:
For more fascinating tips on attracting leads and building traffic for profit, visit Ivan Kelly’s website at http://www.LeadGenerationToday.com or at Profitable Leads .
WordPress Blogs: Verifying the Backup
June 16, 2008 – 11:09 amRecently troubles with one of my blogs caused me to seek out the support forum at WordPress.org.
To make a long story short, I got a quick and effective answer to a problem I was having when I tried to upgrade a theme. (To undo a new problem with a new upgrade of a theme, you can get rid of it, for starters, by deleting the files for that particular theme in its folder.)
I was so encouraged by the success of that experience that I thought I would post another question I had… how to verify the backup of your blog.
One of the members gave me an idea to set up a test blog and try a restore of my backup. I did that, and I was not a happy camper when I discovered that file after file of my backups were causing a SQL bug error.
I did some more digging and I came up with the following that I posted on the forum:
Ok, back to the drawing board. I thought maybe the problem had to do with incompatible versions of Wordpress. So I upgraded the old blog (even though I was maybe risking the data since I did not have a proper backup) and the test blog to see if I could do a restore. Same SQL bug message.
Then I started thinking that the plug-in I was using for creating my backups may be the problem. I went back to WordPress.org for instructions on how to do a direct backup of the mySQL database without using a plug-in. This time I did a restore and I got about a third of my data back. (I got back only three of the ten tables… not good.)
Feeling I was getting closer, I went to the documentation from my webhost and found that their directions on how to to make a backup copy of a mySQL database differed a bit from those given here on Wordpress.org. (The phpMyAdmin looks a bit different, too. Maybe an older version?)
Bingo! This time when I did a restore all the tables came back. I checked the table called wp-posts by clicking “browse.” I could see a row for every blog post. When I clicked “edit” on one of the rows I could see the full html for the entire post in one of the fields, although it was quite a small field and I had to do a bit of scrolling. I can do the same thing for wp-comments.
This satisfies me that I have a proper backup of my data.
My recommendation is that when you use a plug-in for your backups you check (at least once!) that you are getting a usable backup by restoring it to a test blog like I did.
I do not know if I will hunt down another plug-in to do backups or if I shall stick with the direct method that I used for creating a backup of the mySQL database. It doesn’t seem so hard now that I have done it once.
The directions from my webhost (Netfirms) is here:
To make a backup copy of your mySQL database, please follow these steps:
Option A
1. Login to the Members Control Panel at https://controlpanel.netfirms.com
2. Click Site Tools
3. Click Database
4. For the database you wish to backup, click Admin
5. Click phpMyadmin
6. Click the database that you wish to backup (eg. d01234567)
7. Click Export
8. Click the appropriate option:
-Structure only
-Structure and data (recommended) {This is what I used. “Select All” is not necessary.}
-Data only
9. Click the “Save as File” option
10. Click the “Go” button
I also discovered that using Mozilla Firefox when backing up and restoring the databases is better because it appears less prone to error. When I went to use my newfound knowledge to backup all my blogs I found upon restoring them in my test blog, that I was getting only three out of ten tables again. (I was using Internet Explorer 7.0.)Firefox seems to do the trick each time. So far at least. Knock on wood. With all the trouble I have had, I am feeling rather inclined to test my backups each time with a restore to my test blog.
Free Microsoft Front Page Tutorials on Video
May 16, 2008 – 10:15 pmMy husband asked for his first ever domain as a birthday present. I obliged and now he has asked me to make some video tutorials to get him started on Microsoft FrontPage so he can publish something on it.
FrontPage is one of those monstrous pieces of software that does everything except what you want it to, especially when you are first learning how to use it. I have used it a great deal, but I probably only use about ten-percent of the features it offers.
One of the best things about FrontPage is that it has helped me to learn HTML as an accidental side-effect. Sometimes I can’t get FrontPage to do what I want, like keeping a table a certain height or width. That’s when I go to the HTML and edit it directly. I also remember struggling for a long time to find a way to make links open as new pages in the web browser. It was not until I learned the HTML word for this action is “target” that I was able to figure out how to make FrontPage do it for me.
So, I made these for my husband, but you are welcome to view them also.
Microsoft FrontPage Video Tutorials
~~Matia
Free Software for Internet Businesses
May 5, 2008 – 3:09 pmHere’s a great post by Terry Dean: 21 Free Software Resources.
I have tried, still use, and am a satisfied customer of Google Analytics, Gmail and Skype.
As a technically-challenged person, I will have to say that Wordpress still leaves me cold. I have been overdue making the latest update for Wordpress on my three blogs for a few weeks now. I just don’t want to take my whole evening and risk the content I have built up with a failure of some sort. And no, this or that plug-in is not the answer. I would go back to Blogger if I did not fear the loss of my content.
GistWeb, a Great Research Tool
April 25, 2008 – 7:30 amThis website will become one of my favorite research destinations, especially when researching for articles. GistWeb creates summaries of information from the internet and displays it in an article-like format. You can choose short, medium or long versions of the information. Each paragraph is referenced with a footnote… a feature I like since it does not get in the way of readability. As a web entrepreneur I admire the the way Jonathan Leger has designed a way to create content on the fly and deliver it to the user along with contextual advertising. The article format makes it a nice research alternative to traditional search engines.
Thou Shalt Prosper
March 1, 2008 – 12:29 pmNow here is a book I want to read. I heard the author, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, being interviewed on Dave Ramsey’s radio program. Dave called this book one of his top ten must-read books. A few nuggets that the rabbi shared:
- Being in business is morally good.
- No matter what you do never consider yourself a wage slave. If you work for a company you are in business… and your customer is the company you work for.
- Dave asked, “Does God want us to be rich?” Lapin answered, “The answer to that question resembles the answer to the question ‘does God want us to have good sex.’ God wants us to obsessively preoccupied with the needs and wants of his other children, and we should not be surprised when he blesses us when we are.”
LifeHacker’s Top 10 Google Search Tricks
January 10, 2008 – 8:27 amI want to remember these.
http://lifehacker.com/339474/top-10-obscure-google-search-tricks
