Content Writing and CopyWriting for Web

Give priority to diction

2009-03-21T15:55:00.003+05:30

Consciously or subconsciously, we search for suitable words to convey our thoughts. When we are quite sure about what we want to say, words come spontaneously; while, to express an idea that is not firmly fixed in our mind, makes us to cross out one choice after another until we settle for the exact word we want to use to communicate.

You can not mark this revision as a sign of indecision — even the world’s best writers worry about diction: the selection and use of words for effective communication. I believe they are great writers partly because they take pains in choosing the best word for the best place.

Words cannot be right or wrong — the effect created in context of a sentence measures value of the word. To add an edge in writing, we should learn to use words for their effect.

Annie Dillard, famous for her evocative descriptions of nature, confesses in an interview how she selects words — “I learn words by learning worlds…When I choose words, I think about their effect — of course I like to create a rich prose surface that pommels the reader with verbs and images. I think of them as jabs…That’s the vigor I want.”

Similarly, if we want to infuse freshness, strength and vigor in our writing, we must, like Dillard, learn the words that represent the “worlds”.

Eliminate jargons in websites

2009-03-08T18:06:00.000+05:30

Jargon, popularly known as meaningless chatter, is a kind of specialized or technical language representing a particular group or profession, as in habeas corpus (law) and cursor (computer technology).

It is pointless saying no-no, when jargon specifically addresses learned and technical terms for audience and situation in which they are appropriate, but using them unnecessarily while addressing a general reader is certainly a violation of the basic rule — it would be pretentious and frustrating to your audience.

Jargon has three chief characteristics:

• Highly abstract often too technical in choosing diction, rhythm and passion — it shows a fondness for learned rather than popular words… maximize productivity for increase production or utilization of mechanical equipment for use of machinery.

• Overdose of passive verbs… If a plan does not work, its objectives were not realized.

• Conspicuous wordiness… With respect to employee reactions, management seems to have been inadequately advised.

Jargon comes together with inappropriateness, vagueness and wordiness into a segregated unintelligible style. And the style cannot create good impression but ambiguity for the reader.

So, keep your audience clearly in mind and use specific but common words instead.

Guidelines for analyzing your audience

2009-03-04T07:41:00.000+05:30

While spending some time with Mr Joseph F. Trimmer’s great book Writing With a Purpose, I came across certain concepts on behavioral pattern of readers: I found it interesting and thus shamelessly sharing with you all…

Look! How he feels for readers while writing even a single sentence: do you have guts to follow his ideas?
The following is from his pen...

• Who are the readers who will be most interested in my writing?
What is the probable age, sex, education, economic status or social position?
What values, assumptions and prejudices characterize their general attitudes toward life?
What visual graphics will appeal to them?

• What do my readers know or think they know about my subject?
What is the probable source of their knowledge: direct experience, observation, reading or rumor?
Will my readers react positively or negatively toward my subject?
What sort of graphics are they used to seeing on this subject?

• Why will my readers read my writing?
If they know a great deal about my subject, what will they expect to learn from reading my essay?
If they know only a few things about my subject, what will they expect to be told about it?
Will they expect to be entertained, informed or persuaded?
Why will the overall design of my text appeal to my readers?

• How can I interest my readers in my subject?
If they are hostile toward it, how can I convince them to give my writing a fair reading?
If they are sympathetic, how can I fulfill and enhance their expectations?
If they are neutral, how can I catch and hold their attention?
What specific visual cues will interest my readers and enhance the subject?

• How can I help my readers read my writing?
What kind of organizational pattern will help them see its purpose?
What kind of guide-posts, transitional markets and graphics will they need to follow this pattern?
What (and how many) examples and visual illustrations will they need to understand my general statement?

Creative Writing Tips

2009-02-24T22:55:00.000+05:30

Description:
The best way a creative writer can improve is by reading the works of other writers and writing often. Improve your creative writing through practice and reading.

Why Use Article Submission Sites?

2009-02-14T21:26:00.000+05:30

Article submission is a part of online-website-marketing campaign which is utterly important to drive traffic to your website. Interestingly, if you have good quality informative article, you are sure to get one step ahead of your nearest competitor. On the other hand, poor quality articles can not ensure you success (read as quality back-links).

The more the merrier: more articles you have for people to read, the more traffic you can expect to receive. Basically, there are two ways of submitting articles to directories — write articles and submit them to hundreds of directories manually…though it is a time-tested job, is truly very effective. The other way to get your articles submitted to different sites is by using article submission sites. They can alter your article to send out hundreds of different sites. In this case, articles are developed by spinning keywords leaving you with semi unique choppy content — it is by no means a true unique content.

On the other hand, writing articles from different perspective and submitting them to search engines manually would be beneficial for your site. When you have good content in your armory, you can expect getting quality back links with a better position in the search engines.

Behind the curtain: Web Directory Submission

2009-01-21T00:20:00.000+05:30

Web directory or link directory specializes in listing, categorizing and linking different types of web sites. There is a basic difference between search engine and web directories though they both categorize websites — search engines generally show lists of web pages based on a specific key word or key phrase while the web directories display clusters of web sites according to their category and sub category.

There are web directories where a wide range of categories are found; on the other hand a large number of niche directories are also available, which aim only to focus any particular area of interest, single region or any special sector, e.g. shopping directory, e-commerce sites.

The process of listing any website into a directory is very interesting and it is often dependent upon the price paid. However, there are a lot of web directories, where you can submit link of your website and ask for reciprocal link to your web page at free of cost. When you want to fix link of your website to any paid web directory, you will be asked for a one-time or recurring fee for reviewing and listing the submitted link.

If you intend to set link of your web site to a premium position of the web directory, you may be asked for more payment. Sometimes, bidding is called for setting your website-link to any special position. In case the directory owners refer any customer to link your website (either one way or both ways) you may be asked for paying commission.

Search Engine Optimizers often target to popularize their customizable web directory through linking reputable websites; this is how they improve ranking in the major search engines. At present, it is considered that by submitting websites to web directories will help to get valuable back-links for the submitted website.

Here, it is to be mentioned that directory submission can not be fully automated just like the search engine submission. This is why, submitting a web link to a web directory is done manually by specialized persons or web masters.

How to get Indexed in Google

2009-01-10T23:04:00.003+05:30

by Justin Briggs

Getting your site indexed is the first step of successful SEO. Search engines, like Google, can provide hundreds or thousands of visitors from searchers across the world. Since Google is the most popular search engine in the world, getting listed there should be a high priority.

Getting listed in Google is actually really simple. Although many may suggest that you submit your site through their submit form, this is not the quickest method of getting indexed. Some even say it increases the amount of time it takes for your site to get crawled.

The most effective way of getting your site listed in Google is by obtaining backlinks to your site. As Google crawls other indexed sites, they will come across a link to your site and follow it over and proceed to crawl your site. One low quality link will not instantly get your site crawled though, so you should make effort to gain multiple links or a really solid link from a high PR website. Since links are a fundamental part of SEO, and help you get ranked, you should be building links any way.

There are several ways to get quick links to your site in a matter of a day or two. You can always comment on dofollow blogs, which works really well if it is a high PR site that gets crawled regularly. Next, you can submit to social sites or directories, which can provide quick and simple one way links. Lastly, you can submit articles, which will distribute your content across the web in exchange for a few links.

Writing articles is a really effective way of building links and driving traffic. Not only does it build links, but these articles can rank well in serps and provide click through traffic. At the end of the day though, doing well in Google is a popularity contest. To win, you must be connected to as many people (or sites) as possible. Once Google sees you everywhere, they will no longer hesitate to index your site.

So do not waste your time on submission forms or paid services. Getting listed is a simple as going out and getting a few links. If you run a blog, I would suggest using a pinging service, which will notify multiple sites each time you post. This is a quick way of notifying Google that you have new content on your site that needs to be crawled and indexed. As your site grows, you may see new pages get index in a matter of minutes. It really does pay to build links.

Writing is an art…don’t spoil it!

2009-01-07T21:57:00.000+05:30

People write to express…and everyone has unique style of writing. One cannot write in the same tone that others have already done. It is the law of nature. Still, we try to imitate and ultimately make a mess — we copy words, expressions, sentences or even long paragraphs. It is nothing but to show idiotic color of our character.

Think for a while: what is the purpose of writing? It is to communicate with others. Well! If it is so, I believe, there is no point of becoming a copy cat. When the receiver understands what is written, sender’s purpose is served. No need to follow how other people have expressed the same idea in their writing. So, whenever you write, try to be honest — it will surely give you credibility.

HowToUseVideoMarketingToPromoteYourBusiness

2008-12-13T23:20:00.019+05:30

by Angela Jameson

Video marketing is becoming the way to market websites. This is because video is simply different and it is entertaining. It was only a matter of time until marketing a website went beyond the banner ad and even pay per click marketing campaigns. It seems as if the Internet is evolving all of the time, and thats because it is.

Listen to a few reasons why you should use video promotion for your website: Google now shows videos in their search engine results, producing a video is very cost-effective, video sharing services contain valuable tools that help spread the word, the competition is not so aggressive, and video communities are perhaps the most active media sites on the web. All of these reasons give you a reason why you should use video marketing to market your website.

As for how you can make your video, it is actually a lot of fun. First, you have to decide what kind of video you will me making. You have such options as making your video from your own video camera, filming from your web cam, doing a PowerPoint presentation, or taking photographs and making a slideshow out of them. All of these methods have proven to be successful for businesses.

When it is time to submit your video, you dont have to resort to manual submission. Manual submission takes time away from other business functions that are important to keep it going. What you need to do is look into video submission software. Traffic Geyser is a great source for this software. This includes certain tools that allow you to make your video and the ability to submit your video to all of the websites you wish to be present on. Remember that there are hundreds or thousands of websites you can submit to. These sires are social bookmarking sites, social networking sites, blogs, and even podcasts.

But in order for this to work, the right keywords have to be chosen. This means the keywords must be relevant to your niche and your website. This is what allows you to market to the audience that will be interested in what youre offering. If you do not use targeted marketing, you will find that your traffic will be empty. This means youll have 1,000 visitors with maybe one purchase, when you could have one purchase for every 10 visitors.

It is also important to understand that you can also submit to RSS engines. It is important to do this with your video submission software. From there, you can ping all of your web pages and watch your traffic grow with your money.

All-in-all, you are able to accomplish in a few hours what would normally take a week when using video submission software. Submitting videos manually can take longer than the actual video creation, but using the software means you will be spending more time with video creation than the actual blasting of it all over the Internet. In just a few hours, you can be present in thousands of places.

Now, if you need an effective marketing solution, this is it. Video marketing is becoming very popular, but for some reason people are not quite catching onto it yet. What this means for you is less competition in your niche when it comes to video marketing. And because Google indexes videos well, youll find that video promotion can take your business to new heights with what I’ve outlined and by implementing Traffic Geyser submission software.

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Simplicity is the heart’s ‘Content’

2008-04-30T13:12:00.002+05:30

Many people believe that using complicated sentences, age-old expression, literary jargon, Johnsonese enrich quality of writing and people like it…it is actually not so. Modern writing reflects different genre of ideas. We write for a purpose not for showing our literary skills. Keeping this idea in mind we should structure every sentence that can straightway say what we think.

It is really disappointing that many professional writers, who are engaged in print media and web rarely think of this matter. They keep on writing pages one after another without giving a second thought to their target audience. It should be remembered that your writing is meant for all age groups – from children to crack-jawed old people. Write to feed them all…

Besides age difference, location also plays an important role in such cases. Suppose you have used an expression, which carries significant meaning in your country while the same expression bears different connotation in another part of the world. Your effort will be in vain if such incident happens.

It is a crime when you write a simple thing in a round about way…reader will be least interested in your writing. The main reason is they won’t spend too long to decipher meaning of your sentence. If they face difficulty at the first read they would form a ‘first impression’ in their mind. And I am sure they would hesitate to read your write up in the next time.

When you are writing for a purpose, try to highlight that idea at the beginning instead of giving it in the middle or at the end unless otherwise reader will not be interested to read your article. Shed off unnecessary words for driving your point to the reader at the shortest time. Use of bombastic words, phrases and expressions is not a good sign of writing. These make copy unnecessary heavier.

There is no use of giving pain to others by using complicated sentences when you can express your ideas through simple ones. So, forget using complicated sentences. It will pay for you…

Good content is next to none

2008-04-18T18:13:00.000+05:30

I can bet… what a good content can do for your website; no SEO tricks can help you so much!!! I can say this from my personal experience in content writing and SEO. Even a layman can tell you the importance of getting higher search engine page rankings for a website. I also play the harp in the same tune…but with a difference of opinion in mind.

I do firmly believe when you have achieved higher page rank, your moment-next duty should be to convert potential customers to buyers. You can only do that when you have strong arms like well-netted content. Persuasive content can ensure the amount of ROI that your company may not have ever thought of. On the other hand, if you don’t have impressive content, you are sure to lose the battle!

Hence, while planning to make a new website or to enliven the older one, you should be aware of putting good quality content. After all it can assure you business…