How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online
(And Make Money Doing It)

by Johnny B. Truant · 47 Comments

Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these.

Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money.

Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for 2000-word feature articles. That was the big money.

Magazine pay doesn’t go much higher until you get into the really big-name publications. I could often get two of those assignments at a time, but I needed to coordinate and interview around ten people for each article, so doing two in a month was a hell of a task.

Today, I’m doing much better in my writing career. Since I started blogging, I’ve written hundreds of posts, both for myself and for other blogs. I don’t have to interview people anymore, so it goes much faster and I can write much more. The combined total I’ve been paid for all of those posts (including what I’ve been paid for writing sales copy, promotional emails, and so on) is zero dollars. And really, it pays the bills better than my magazine writing ever did.

How to make “not getting paid” pay off

I just recorded a call with Copyblogger Associate Editor Jon Morrow entitled “How We Make $2000 per Guest Post,” and the funny thing about that call was that I’d had the idea to write the post you’re currently reading before Jon came up with the hook for the call. I guess great minds think alike.

See, newbie online entrepreneurs often want to “make money blogging,” and seasoned writers often come to the internet to expand their freelance businesses by doing online what they do offline: selling words for dollars. Both of those approaches assume a straight line between composing paragraphs and getting a check, but that straight line hasn’t reflected my experience in the blogosphere (and I’m in good company).

To put it succinctly, I don’t make money writing. I make money through a business, and that business does its marketing almost exclusively through writing.

Writing for me is a means to an end. It’s a way to gain exposure, gain popularity and authority, and build trust. Once you have enough exposure, trust, and authority with your audience, they’ll consider buying products and services from you if what you offer them is good. The cool part? It almost doesn’t matter which category or niche those products or services fall into.

It works like this:

Writing -> Readers -> Exposure, popularity, authority, and trust -> The ability to sell stuff.

Need a fancy term to make it legit? Call it content marketing.

Notice that I’ve used the very specific noun “stuff” to describe what you’re able to sell to a well-matched, receptive audience with enough of those preceding magic ingredients.

• Information products? Yep.
• Software and services of all kinds? Yep.
• Hats? Maybe.

Want to sell hats? Then write enough, in places where people who like hats congregate, to become a popular and trustworthy personality who happens to sell hats. Or makes hats. Or wears interesting hats. Or at least likes hats, and talks about hats a lot.

Your audience has to be willing to pay for hats, but if they are, they’re going to buy from someone. If your writing has put you in front of them, and made you popular and trustworthy, they’ll buy from you. It works for just about anything.

This is all about thinking outside of the nine dots. I came to the blogosphere as a humorist, but what I found was that people wouldn’t pay for humor. So what could I do with my funny writing? Why, sell consulting and website services, of course.

I remember asking my readers at the time, “Can I be the funny guy who writes about business, and also build websites somehow?”

Give what attracts, sell what people want to buy

And the answer was apparently that yes, I could write humorously about business — and tattoos, and unschooling, and The Matrix — and build a large readership who seemed to like and trust me. And at that point, I could offer websites. And consulting. And info products. And likely waffles. If those folks needed a site and/or were hungry, they’d work with me rather than finding their website guy or waffle house on Google.

When Jon and I did that call about making $2000 per guest post, what we meant was that guest posting is our primary (almost our exclusive) marketing strategy, and that on average, each post — each performance in front of a blog audience to build trust and exposure — resulted in around $2000 of income. That’s income that was created through writing, but wasn’t income we received for completing a writing assignment.

You want to be a writer? Well, don’t confine your thinking to the obvious example of putting words together for pay. There’s a whole world of ways out there to make money as a writer… and the interesting part is that most of them mean you’ll be writing for free.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is apparently a writer or something and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions. If you’d like personal help on getting paid to write for free, he’s got you covered.

7 Simple Ways To Say “No”

Saying “no” doesn’t have to be hard. Image source

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Celestine Chua of The Personal Excellence Blog.

Do you have difficulty saying “no”? Are you always trying to be nice to others at the expense of yourself?

Well, you’re not alone. In the past, I was not good at saying “no”, because I didn’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings.

For example, whenever I get requests for help, I would attend to them even though I had important work to do. Sometimes the requests would drag to 2-3 hours or even beyond. At the end of the day, I would forgo sleep to catch up on my work. This problem of not knowing how to say “no” also extended to my clients, business associates and even sales people.

After a while, I realized all these times of not saying “no” (when I should) were not helping me at all. I was spending a lot of time and energy for other people and not spending nearly as much time for myself. It was frustrating especially since I brought it upon myself. I slowly realized if I wanted personal time, I needed to learn to say “no”.

Why We Find It Hard To Say “No”

To learn to say “No”, we have to first understand what’s resisting us about it. Below are common reasons why people find it hard to say no:

1. You want to help. You are a kind soul at heart. You don’t want to turn the person away and you want to help where possible, even if it may eat into your time.
2. Afraid of being rude. I was brought up under the notion that saying “No”, especially to people who are more senior, is rude. This thinking is common in Asia culture, where face-saving is important. Face-saving means not making others look bad (a.k.a losing face).
3. Wanting to be agreeable. You don’t want to alienate yourself from the group because you’re not in agreement. So you confirm to others’ requests.
4. Fear of conflict. You are afraid the person might be angry if you reject him/her. This might lead to an ugly confrontation. Even if there isn’t, there might be dissent created which might lead to negative consequences in the future.
5. Fear of lost opportunities. Perhaps you are worried saying no means closing doors. For example, one of my clients’ wife was asked to transfer to another department in her company. Since she liked her team, she didn’t want to shift. However, she didn’t want to say no as she felt it would affect her promotion opportunities in the future.
6. Not burning bridges. Some people take “no” as a sign of rejection. It might lead to bridges being burned and relationships severed.

If you nodded to any of the reasons, I’m with you. They applied to me at one point or another. However, in my experience dealing with people at work and in life, I realized these reasons are more misconceptions than anything. Saying “No” doesn’t mean you are being rude; neither does it mean you are being disagreeable. Saying “No” doesn’t mean there will be conflict nor that you’ll lose opportunities in the future. And saying no most definitely doesn’t mean you’re burning bridges. These are all false beliefs in our mind.

At the end of the day, it’s about how you say “no”, rather than the fact you’re saying no, that affects the outcome. After all, you have your own priorities and needs, just like everyone has his/her own needs. Saying no is about respecting and valuing your time and space. Say no is your prerogative.

7 Simple Ways To Say “No”

Rather than avoid it altogether, it’s all about learning the right way to say no. After I began to say no to others, I realized it’s really not as bad as I thought. The other people were very understanding and didn’t put up any resistance. Really, the fears of saying no are just in our mind.

If you are not sure how to do so, here are 7 simple ways for you to say no. Use the method that best meets your needs in the situation.

1. “I can’t commit to this as I have other priorities at the moment.”

If you are too busy to engage in the request/offer, this will be applicable. This lets the person know your plate is full at the moment, so he/she should hold off on this as well as future requests. If it makes it easier, you can also share what you’re working on so the person can understand better. I use this when I have too many commitments to attend to.

2. “Now’s not a good time as I’m in the middle of something. How about we reconnect at X time?”

It’s common to get sudden requests for help when you are in the middle of something. Sometimes I get phone calls from friends or associates when I’m in a meeting or doing important work. This method is a great way to (temporarily) hold off the request. First, you let the person know it’s not a good time as you are doing something. Secondly, you make known your desire to help by suggesting another time (at your convenience). This way, the person doesn’t feel blown off.

3. “I’d love to do this, but …”

I often use this as it’s a gentle way of breaking no to the other party. It’s encouraging as it lets the person know you like the idea (of course, only say this if you do like it) and there’s nothing wrong about it. I often get collaboration proposals from fellow bloggers and business associates which I can’t participate in and I use this method to gently say no. Their ideas are absolutely great, but I can’t take part due to other reasons such as prior commitments (#1) or different needs (#5).

4. “Let me think about it first and I’ll get back to you.”

This is more like a “Maybe” than a straight out “No”. If you are interested but you don’t want to say ‘yes’ just yet, use this. Sometimes I’m pitched a great idea which meets my needs, but I want to hold off on committing as I want some time to think first. There are times when new considerations pop in and I want to be certain of the decision before committing myself. If the person is sincere about the request, he/she will be more than happy to wait a short while. Specify a date / time-range (say, in 1-2 weeks) where the person can expect a reply.

If you’re not interested in what the person has to offer at all, don’t lead him/her on. Use methods #5, #6 or #7 which are definitive.

5. “This doesn’t meet my needs now but I’ll be sure to keep you in mind.”

If someone is pitching a deal/opportunity which isn’t what you are looking for, let him/her know straight-out that it doesn’t meet your needs. Otherwise, the discussion can drag on longer than it should. It helps as the person know it’s nothing wrong about what he/she is offering, but that you are looking for something else. At the same time, by saying you’ll keep him/her in mind, it signals you are open to future opportunities.

6. “I’m not the best person to help on this. Why don’t you try X?”

If you are being asked for help in something which you (i) can’t contribute much to (ii) don’t have resources to help, let it be known they are looking at the wrong person. If possible, refer them to a lead they can follow-up on – whether it’s someone you know, someone who might know someone else, or even a department. I always make it a point to offer an alternate contact so the person doesn’t end up in a dead end. This way you help steer the person in the right place.

7. “No, I can’t.”

The simplest and most direct way to say no. We build up too many barriers in our mind to saying no. As I shared earlier in this article, these barriers are self-created and they are not true at all. Don’t think so much about saying no and just say it outright. You’ll be surprised when the reception isn’t half as bad as what you imagined it to be.

Learn to say no to requests that don’t meet your needs, and once you do that you’ll find how easy it actually is. You’ll get more time for yourself, your work and things that are most important to you. I know I do and I’m happy I started doing that.

Celes writes at The Personal Excellence Blog on how to achieve our highest potential and live our best life. Get her free ebook “101 Things To Do Before You Die” by signing up for her free newsletter.

10 Free Keyword Density Analyzers for Better SEO Results

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Keyword Density is the percentage of occurrence of your important keywords in tyour webpage.It is important for your main keywords to have the correct keyword density to rank well in Search Engines. Here we are providing a list of top 10 online keyword density checking services. All these services are very much helpful in checking out which of the keyword echoes in any of your webpage how many times, and the most echoed word will be shown with the most influential font. Most of these will also help you in knowing the density of stop words in your page which are very common words and are mostly ignored by the search engines in order to save disk space. Let us have a look through all these fantastic tools…

1. Webconfs

This is our first listed and amazing keyword density checker service. You have to enter your webpage’s URL into the easily visible text box and just by submitting that you will get to know that which word leads in appearing again and again in your webpage and which one lags in this. You can also add their density checker tool to your webpage by copying a snippet of code provided by them on their webpage.

2. SeoChat

Another very amazing and very useful keyword density checker service. This service provides you more options rather than just entering your URL in which you can include the title, meta elements or or other ASCII codes included in the URL destination as per your desire. You can also make this service to work according to you just by amending the form interface of the service.Many other options provided by this service are page analyzer, Google typos, link popularity etc.

3. Key word Density

This service is listed 3rd in this list of Keyword Density Checkers. You can check the density of any particular keyword or a phrase, whether case sensitive or not using this service and not only this you can also check for any particular keyword/phrase to be appeared in two URL’s adjacently and this way you can compare them for the more occurrence of any particular word.

4. SeoBook

Another wonderful keyword density checking service. In this service, you can check out the number of occurrences of about all the words and you can check the required minimum repetitions of words according your desire. And if you want, you can ignore the analysis of any word having less than any particular number of characters.

5. iWebTool

This one is just like the first service Webconfs as in this one, similar to that, you just have to enter the URL of the webpage and complete analysis is in the front of you. Its simple operation and attractive interface makes it very easy for any visitor to check out his/her websites keyword or key phrase density.

6. Live Keyword Analysis

Live Keyword Analysis is an active keyword density checker. Using the live keyword analysis tool, you can simply type in your keywords and then paste them in your text and your keyword density analysis will be done in a glimpse. There is no need to submit it again and again, it updates automatically. This specifies that you will be able to do all your editing within the text box, and receive live responses about your keyword density.

7. LinkVendor

Link Vendor allows you to check about any particular keywords ‘ density by filling it in the second text box or simply you can be known to density of all the keywords just by filling the URL of your webpage’s link in first text box and pressing the submit button. But for this, first you have to pass a simple word verification step, which would not be much difficult for any human to pass.

8. Web Build Pages

This Keyword Analysis service is a very easy to use and effective service. The appropriate density of keywords included in your webpage can be known to you in a couple of seconds. And not just it is free to use, but also you don’t need to have any account on the website. This web service is very similar to another above said keyword density checking service SeoBook in terms of usage.

9. Go Rank

Go Rank is slightly more than a keyword density checking tool, not because it provides yousome other fantastic service rather than just keyword checking, but it gives you complete analysis of any webpage in very easily understandable terms. Like some other services, you can also check for any particular keyword’s density.

10. Submit Express

Last but not the least, Submit express, a very fine and very good US based keyword density checker. Shows you the results only in a few seconds and if you want, you can be subscriber so as to get their updates which will help you in get acknowledged about any new service or tool launched by them in future.

Dear readers, this was the list of our top 10 keyword density checkers which are elite in their work. You can use them all for free and there is no sign up needed for almost any of them. So, enjoy using them.

If you like this post and you are new here then you should follow us on Twitter @technomesh and if you are a Facebook lover, you can Join our Facebook Fan page too!

How to Start a Complete Online Business on Your WordPress Blog

15 June 2010

As the time goes by, WordPress is becoming very popular as a CMS (Content Management System). If you’ve already started blogging  in WordPress, may be you are thinking of setting up an online business. The first thing to solve any problem is to identify it. Once you identify it, it’s very simple to get the solution. In this case you have to think what exactly you need to start an online business on your WordPress site.

When it comes to set up an online business with WordPress, You need to have 3 things-

1. A WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin.

2. A WordPress Affiliate Plugin.

3. A WordPress Membership Plugin.

Why do you need to have those plugins?

• If you want to sell anything from your blog, you really need to have a reliable and easy to use WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin Which will automatically handle all your product sales.
• Once you start selling products from your own website, you will certainly want to increase the sales. To increase your sales you need more traffic. You can get more traffic if other people refer traffic to your website. But they won’t refer traffic until you offer them a specific commission for each conversion. That’s why you need to have an Affiliate program on your website.
• When you have both the shopping cart and affiliate program running, you can now set some of your blog contents (e.g- page,post) to premium so that only paid members can view those. A fully featured Membership plugin will be useful in that case.

Recommended Solutions

As we have figured out what we need to have to set up an online business, Let’s discuss about the possible solutions.

1. WP eStore

It is a user-friendly WordPress shopping cart plugin developed by tipsandtricks-hq.com. You can sell any kind of digital or non-digital product from your website with this plugin. In fact, I’m using this plugin to sell e-book from my site. They provide great support to the customer.

You can see the Official plugin demo videos to see how it works-

i) WP eStore Installation

ii) WP eStore Settings Configuration

iii) How to Configure a Product

iv) How to Display a Product on a Post or Page

2. WP Affiliate Platform

This is an easy to use WordPress affiliate plugin to manage your affiliates. With this plugin any one can sign up for an affiliate and promote your product on his/her website.

Here is the official demo videos to see how the plugin works-

i) WP Affiliate Platform Installation

ii) WP Affiliate Platform Settings Configuration

iii) WP Affiliate Platform Affiliate Banner/Link Creation

iv) WP Affiliate Platform Click and Sale Tracking Test

3. WP eMember

A fully featured membership plugin for WordPress. With this plugin you can easily create different membership levels and protect different contents of your blog for different members.

Here is the WP eMember official demo videos on plugin usage-

i) WP eMember Installation

ii) How to Create Membership Levels

iii) Configuring the Settings Options

iv) Managing Content Protection

v) Integration with WP eStore for membership payment

Another good thing about all these plugins is they are pre-integrated with one another so you can use them simultaneously.

If you want to set up your website for online business, get all the Plugins as a package here

How To Sell Digital Or Non-Digital Products Online With WordPress eStore Plugin

29 October 2009

Last week one of my friends asked me about selling digital or non-digital products online. He runs a wordpress blog and wants to sell products from his website but he does not know what wordpress plugin to use. He already knew from some other people that Instinct’s famous WordPress e-commerce plugin is not that user friendly. He needs something simple to use. Then I told him about WordPress eStore plugin, a very simple plugin which has various stunning features. Today he gave me thanks for telling him about such a good wordpress shopping cart plugin. Now he can sell products from his wordpress blog very easily and securely.

Just like my friend there are many people who want to sell products from their wordpress websites but do not know how to do this with a plugin. And even if they get a plugin, they are not sure about having trusts upon that. Some of the websites say many good things about their products and offer you to buy the products. But once you buy and have difficulties with their products, they do not give you supports. So, before buying any product you need to think if that product is going to be useful for you or if  you can get good customer support from them. Considering all the facts, I recommend every people to use WordPress eStore plugin, a product of tipsandtricks-hq.com. So far I have heard from other people, It will mostly fulfill your demands and they give the customers good support.

At first, I am giving you some basic ideas about how to use this plugin on your wordpress blog.

1.WP eStore Installation

This video tutorial shows you how to install this product on your websites easily. You need to upload and activate the plugin to use.

WP eStore Installation from tipsandtrickshq on Vimeo.

2. WP eStore Settings Configuration

This tutorial shows you how to configure different settings of this plugin.

WP eStore Basic Settings Configuration from tipsandtrickshq on Vimeo.

3. How to Configure a Product

This tutorial shows you how to add a product that you want to sell.

WP eStore Product Customization from tipsandtrickshq on Vimeo.

4. How to Display a Product on a Post or Page

As you have added the products, this tutorial will show you how to display the products on a post or page and start selling easily.

WP eStore Product Display from tipsandtrickshq on Vimeo.

So, these are the basic tutorials on how to use this plugin. All you need to do now is get a WordPress eStore plugin and start selling digital or non-digital products from your wordpress blog instantly. The plugin can be found here.

Written on July 30th, 2010 at 01:07 am by Georgina Laidlaw

Source Quality Content … Continuously

Writing Content 14 comments

What does every blogger need more of? Quality content!

This is the first of a series of six posts that tackle key content questions. Today, we’re looking specifically at content sources: places where you can get ideas and information that, with a little work, you can turn into quality blog posts.

Your posts may be text, images or video; they could deal with any topic. But every blogger needs post ideas, and all of us hit uninspired patches through which we still need to produce compelling content to a regular schedule.

Thinking strategically about the content sources you use can deliver several benefits:

• It provides its own inspiration: can’t think of a personal story to share today? No problem — use one of the many other content sources at your disposal.
• It can make your life easier: instead of scrounging around one or two sources of ideas, you can find and track great sources through which you’ll gain access to a constant flow of post ideas.
• It helps ensure you don’t omit important information: if your blog covers a growing market space, there are probably news items and events that you’ll want to make sure you cover. Monitoring key content sources will help you deliver the essential stories to your readers at the right time.
• It can help you to think intelligently about how you pitch each post: a greater choice of content sources offers you more opportunities to creatively reach specific reader segments in ways that resonate specifically with them.
• It can give you a wider range of tools with which to achieve your blogging objectives: try different content sources, and over time you may well find that different types of information produce posts that serve particular objectives. We all know, for example, that a review post can provide affiliate opportunities that can translate directly into revenue. Work out which post types help achieve specific audience, promotion or revenue goals, and identify content sources for those posts, and you’ll be able to focus on making the content resonate with your audience, rather than spending your time searching for basic post ideas.

I usually see content sources as falling into two categories: internal and external sources.

Internal Content Sources

Internal content sources are those that exist within my operation, myself, and my audience. They include:

1. feedback and audience discussion around past posts
2. the audience itself
3. my experiences, perspective, and opinion
4. my network of colleagues and contacts

It’s essential that you stay abreast of what’s happening on your site. Existing discussions can help you identify topics that unite your audience in sharing, learning, or debate — all of which helps build community.

It’ll also provide one means for engaging with your audience (along with social media and other sources of direct audience contact). Sure, your site stats are helpful as a frame of reference, but nothing beats actual user engagement for getting ideas about what your blog’s readers want to know, what makes them laugh, and what motivates them.

Thinking objectively about your own experiences in the field, as well as those of your contacts, can unearth some intriguing ideas and information that can immediately help you to develop posts. But beyond that, your passion for your field should see you investigating ideas with colleagues, and forming your own opinions about industry developments. Those unique perspectives can provide a wealth of post ideas — from interviews and news-style reports to the kinds of opinion and analysis posts that stick in  readers’ minds, and keep them coming back to check the comments long after they’ve read your post.

External Content Sources

External content sources lie beyond my immediate sphere of operation. They include:

• other media focused on the same topic, including offline media, such as interest magazines and industry publications, forums, user groups, social network trends and discussions, and more.
• other people focused on the same topic, including thought leaders, commentators, reviewers, passionate hobbyists, and organisational heads.

I like to subscribe to media that focus on the same topic as my blog, so I’m constantly fed content ideas through story alerts, media releases, and news updates. The same goes for tracking people who lead opinion or have expertise in my area — by subscribing to their blogs, regularly visiting their sites, and following them on social networks, I can keep a grip not just on the news, but on the discussions and thinking that occur in the broader arena in which I operate.

The posts that arise from these sources might be as pragmatic as a product or service review, daily reports from an industry conference, or ongoing commentary on a major development in your area of interest. Or they can be as theoretical as an essay taking in various industry-leading opinions, advice, and responses on a particular topic. The posts may be yours, or those of a guest blogger you’ve sourced through your offsite research. In any case, your blog won’t be short of content.

Continuous Content

Sourcing regular, quality content is every blogger’s challenge. But with that challenge comes the hurdles of variety, insight, exclusivity and personality. At the heart of it all, you’ll need a continuous content sourcing approach.

To source content continually, you’ll need to build content sourcing into your schedule, and into your brain. Yes, you’ll need to dedicate time to content-sourcing tasks, like flicking through RSS feeds, reading, researching, interviewing, networking, and so on. But all that becomes easy if you treat everything you do around your blog topic as a potential content sourcing opportunity.

Soon, you’ll no longer sit down to write a blog post and start by wracking your brains for ideas. Instead, you’ll find content ideas pop up everywhere. You’ll stop asking yourself, “What will I write about?” and find yourself picking and choosing from a plethora of ideas that “just come to you”.

What’s your favourite source of quality content ideas?

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

WordPress Ecommerce: 30+ Resources

Published August 3rd, 2010 in WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems for blogs, portfolios, and other types of sites, but with the right plugins and/or themes it can also be used for e-commerce. While WordPress is not specifically intended to be used for e-commerce sites, the quality of available plugins and themes has increased in recent years. In this post we’ll feature more than 30 resources and tutorials to help you get started with e-commerce for WordPress.

WordPress E-Commerce Plugins:

WP e-Commerce Pluign (free with premium upgrades available)

Shopp ($55)

Other free e-commerce plugins:

• eShop
• YAK for WordPress
• QuickShop
• ArtPal
• Simple PayPal Cart

Other premium e-commerce plugins:

• WP Affiliate Platform ($39.95)
• PHPurchase ($49)

WordPress E-Commerce Themes:

ShopperPress ($79)

Crafty Cart (free)

Viroshop ($37)

WPA Storefront ($32)

The Furniture Store ($47)

The Jewelry Shop ($47)

The Clothes Shop ($42)

AppCloud ($35)

Kelontong ($35)

Store ($65)

WP Store ($65)

e-Commerce ($65)

Kidz Store ($65)

eShop ($65)

wpShop ($37)

eGoods ($32)

Ecommerce Theme ($79.95)

10 Effective Ways To Become A Successful Writer

by Rajni on August 2nd, 2010

Writing is an art! Whether you’re writing for your blog or for your personal interest, creativity does the trick. Your writing is insignificant if nobody is reading it! Writing asks for true devotion and lots of practice. In fact at times it seems to be really nerve-wracking. Does that mean you have to be born gifted? No you don’t have to! Just do it!

When you go about writing you should know how to communicate your message effectively. Engaging the interest of the reader is of utmost importance. Creative writing can be really a challenging job, definitely not impossible! There are innumerable key elements that go into creating a successful writing. Much importance is laid to the content. Before you finally sit to write down, you should know well as to what can help make your readers enjoy your write up and stick around!

Shake off your need to write flawlessly, don’t compare yourself to other writers and follow the steps pinned below. Taste your writing! As a writer, you grow with every piece you write. Here are 10 effective ways to become a successful writer. No matter what level of writer you are, these suggestions will help you become a good writer.

1. Put your heart: One of the greatest skills you as a writer can develop is, write from the heart or I must say put your heart in! Write for yourself, write for your readers. Enjoy writing! If you write just for the heck of it, you’re sure to come up with a dull piece of write up. Write in a way that comes naturally.

2. Reading is the fuel: If you want to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. Learn from the great writers and there is no harm in emulating them. It’s the only way you can find your voice. You can’t be a good writer if you don’t read. Try to read as much as you can! Pick up books that you feel fascinated with, even those you don’t like! Why read what you don’t like. I suggest this, for you never know what you might get out of them. Just read as much you can!

3. Write daily: Write, write and write! Writing is just like everything else. The more you write, the better you turn out to be! If you’ve a blank screen in front of you why not write. Just give it a start! Let your fingers just go about typing. Write anything you want to! Choose any topic and flow with it.  You’ll keep wondering how your creative juices just let you move on and stuff keeps pouring out of you!

4. Simplicity is the key: Keep it simple. Pretend you’re having conversation with your friend and write just like that. Simple language, easy words, short crispy sentences do the trick. Write in any format but keep it simple!

5. Planning: Yes, I agree that you should just go about writing in a flow but when it comes to writing for your blog, you gotta go about with certain planning. You should choose your topic well in advance and plan you schedule. If you go about writing a blog post without planning, it might not turn out to be a good write up. While writing for your blog, you should know what your readers want. Planning or thinking before you finally sit down to write is actually helpful. Bit of brainstorming can help you come up with a great blog post.

6. Avoid distractions: If you’re writing with multi-tasking or in the place where there is a noise, you’re sure to be distracted. Some say, even music distracts but I love writing with some mellow music playing softly. When you start writing, turn off emails, IM notifications, cellphone, your phone or anything you think would distract you. Hey, don’t waste much time on removing these distractions for it’s your writing time and devote as much time you can just to writing!

7. Research as much as you can: Excellent writing is rooted deeply in good research. Surf as much net you can before you start to prepare the final draft. You gotta have good knowledge of the topic you’re writing on. If you don’t research well, or you’re not well versed with the topic, your writing is waste. Your readers won’t get the clear ideas as to what you want to convey through your writing. Use net effectively and efficiently. Well researched write-up is sure to be loved by the readers.

8. Play with words: Lemme be clear with what I mean to say. You will end up with a great piece of writing if you know how to use the words effectively. Good vocabulary is always welcome, in case you come up with words that you don’t know; don’t feel shy of looking it up in the dictionary. Use the thesaurus! Right click on a word to use the thesaurus. Do it time and again on the new word and make the best use of your vocabulary.

Seeking out vocabulary building exercises and doing whatever else you can think of can help you increase the number of words you have at your disposal. Rest is your skill of playing with them! This doesn’t mean your article should be full of unnecessary words. Avoid wordiness and use just the words that you think would be apt for leaving an impact on the readers.

9. Proof read & Edit: Laurell K. Hamilton, the author of the wildly popular Anita Blake series once rightly said that “70% of a first draft is garbage and 30% is gold’” So, so true! Editing is the part of writing. You’ll just end up fooling yourself if you think that you can write a piece once and you’re done! Proof read your article, edit it and then compare it with the first draft; you’ll notice the difference yourself.

We tend to make careless mistakes and this definitely can cost you a job by ruining a good piece of writing. Many people hate revising but a good writer should develop the habit of revising. Go back over everything! Look or grammar and spelling mistakes, remove unnecessary words check if your write up is in flow. In short, publishing a post without rechecking is not ideally correct.

10. Readability : Talk to your readers! They enjoy writing that’s contervosial, not wordy, simple, original and easily scannable.  If you use tricky words in quest to make your write up extraordinary, it will be a total failure. Write in simple, readable and a manner that makes the readers feel as if you’re talking to them. Write naturally, write creatively!

To conclude, there are no hard and fast rules to successful writing, but applying the helpful hints listed above will ensure you develop the art of writing!

12 Free Keyword Research Tools For Webmasters

by Yogesh Mankani on July 17th, 2010     5 Comments »

We all know that before writing any article or writing content for a website, selecting the right keywords is the most important aspect for a good visibility in search engine. And if I talk about myself, keyword research is a road to get higher traffic from search engines if you are using the right keywords for your article or website.

For finding best keywords for your blog, there are several keyword tools available online. Some of them are completely free to use while some are paid tools that also offers free version for a limited time. But there are so many keywords tools popping up online, you sometimes think which one is worth using. So, in this article, I am gathering the best free keyword research tools on the web that will help you to research the most appropriate keywords for your blog or website.

Most of these free keywords research tools will give you the analysis of amount of search for a particular given keyword phrase. This will help you to find the best keyword with higher search amount in the search engines.

So, here are the 12 Free Keyword Research Tools For Webmasters that will help you find the best keywords for your site. I believe these keyword research tools will give you great stats to work with. And if you are SEO professional, you might also like to check some SEO related articles here .

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1) Google Adwords Research Tools : Some time before, this tool is used mostly by Adwords bidders, but now many of the SEO professionals and webmasters check keywords according to the amount of Google search volume.

2) Google Search-based Keyword Tool : The Search-based Keyword Tool generates keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website. In doing so, the tool helps you identify additional advertising opportunities that aren’t currently being used in your AdWords ad campaigns. The tool goes one step further by tailoring the keywords and other data (such as the amount of competition for the keyword, the suggested bid, and more) based on your language or country/territory settings.

3) Keyword List Generator : This free keyword phrase generator tool is web based software which allows you to generate a large number of keyword phrases based on permutations of keywords you enter.

4) Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tools : Enter a starting keyword to generate up to 100 related keywords. And if you use Internet Explorer 7, or Firefox 2 or 3, you can add the Wordtracker Keywords search to these browsers.

5) Good Keywords : The main component of Good Keywords v3 is the Keyword Database Manager for the Google Keyword Tool. The Keyword Database tool in Good Keywords v3 is meant to help you get more out of your Google Keyword research. Its a small software of nearly 500 KB which you can download for free on your computer.

6) Google Insights For Search : With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. There are several approximations that are used to compute the results.

7) Keyword Playground : The basis of ALL search engine rankings is keywords. Users enter keyphrases in Search Engines to get information they need, It is VERYimportant that you optimize for such keyphrases. This tool provides you keyword suggestions and reports on their monthly search estimates. This tools has been build using the WordTracker Database.

8 ) Free Search Term Suggestion Tool : This keyword suggestion tool is an alternative to Overture keyword Suggestion. There keyword data is compiled and collected from a number of search engines to provide a far more accurate cross section of searches performed world wide. Simply type a seed keyword in the blank field and have Keyword Discovery generate the top 100 keywords for you.

9) Google Trends : This tool is a offering from Google which allows you to compare multiple keywords to find the best keyword. Just place comma between every keyword phrase and it will compile a data which is mostly used and in trend.

10) SEOmoz : This tool is an aggregation of popular search queries gathered from various sources across the web like google trends, delicious, yahoo buzz, aol, glickr hot tags of a particular day. It also show top 10 search keywords for a particular date.

11) KGen : KGen is a Firefox extension that allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web pages for search engines. KGen retrieves every words of a page and lets you know how many time they appears and their weight in the page and their average position in the web page. It give you some stats on the content of the page to allows you to improve your content quality. KGen’s also a good tool to view your competitors keyword strategy.

12) Niche Bot : Type a keyword or keyword phrase and get up to the 100 most popular keyword listings.

How to Avoid Loneliness When Working From Home

I think web workers (or anyone that works at home) would agree that the biggest problem they face, after a few months of working from home, is a strange feeling of loneliness.

Agreed, not all of us feel like that. Some people prefer solitude than company (it’s actually a trait that’s good for web working). But if you are someone who used to have a job that involved interacting with colleagues everyday, or someone who considers himself as an extrovert, then sitting at home, working alone, isn’t easy.

This article suggests some ways to avoid this “web working” loneliness, and be more energetic and productive while working alone.

Step out and interact
I think this is the most common, most simple, and yet most ignored energy boosting solution for web workers. How many times it has happened that you’re stuck inside your house working on one project after another and losing track of time..sometimes days? Not that unusual for people working full-time from home. And this is one of the reasons why the feeling of loneliness creeps in eventually. You suddenly realize you haven’t seen any outsider for days and you’ve got no one to talk to.

Stepping out everyday and interacting with people shouldn’t be that difficult. Even if you don’t get a chance to talk, just going outside and watching people could be refreshing.

Call up friends & relatives often
Working from home shouldn’t mean you lose touch with old colleagues. Make it a point to talk to someone everyday. And I mean talk, not chat or tweet. You could call up an old friend, colleague or a kin. That’d open up more opportunities for going out with old buddies and have fun on the weekends.

Network with like-minded people
One of the best things about sites like Twitter and Facebook is that it allows you to network with like-minded people. You could use such sites to connect with fellow web workers in your city and then meet with them when possible.

Use Skype Often
You’d agree Skype is one of the most useful tools for people working from home. You could talk with people around the world and make international calls for peanuts. So make use of this tool as often as possible.

Take a break from typing long sentences in the chat window, and talk on Skype instead. Listening to a human voice has its own soothing effects.

Music is useful
It is a scientifically proven fact that listening to music frequently, or taking short music breaks in a day, could energize you and make you more productive. When you are feeling low, just start playing that favorite song of yours and see how it helps fade away those depressing thoughts.

Visit coffee shops or bookstores often
Eminent blogger Chris Brogan wrote an excellent article on why he works in bookstores and coffee shops most often. I think reading that article would immediately persuade to pay frequent visits to the neighborhood bookstores and coffee shops with your laptop.

Eat out when possible
In another nice article, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg discusses how he works (who’s a web worker too by the way). Matt tells readers that he enjoys lunches and eats out as often as he can.

He says, “There’s something very personal about sharing food with someone. It’s a chance to develop personal connections with folks.” And that’s exactly why I’d recommend web workers to eat out when possible.

Participate in an outdoor activity
Being stuck inside home is the primary reason for that sinking feeling of loneliness. Hence regular participation in an outdoor activity like running, trekking, hiking, sports, etc., could keep you fit physically as well as mentally.

Those were my suggestions to get rid of that feeling of being lonely if you are working from home. I’d love to know if you ever had those feelings too, and what steps you took to tackle it. Tell us your experiences in the comments.

Cheers,

Abhijeet

Written on 7/09/2010 by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is a blogger and web publisher from India. He loves all things tech as long as it aids in productivity. He edits Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes useful guides, tutorials and tools. Check it out and subscribe to its feed if you like the site. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit: ajleon