Entries from October 2007 ↓

Here are 3 common, but, easy mistakes to Avoid

Your – You’re

• Your refers to a person’s attributes e.g.
• You’re – short for You are

e.g.

You should try to improve your grammar.

You’re never going to believe this, but, you placed the apostrophe in the wrong place – again!

The simple step is to make sure you’re able to say you are.

For example, it is wrong to say:

You should try to improve you’re (you are) grammar

Continue reading →

From: James Thurber’s: Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Guide to Modern English Usage. – Hope this is of help…

“The indefinite “one” is another source of trouble and is frequently the cause of disagreeable scenes. Such a sentence as “One loves one’s friends” is considered by some persons to be stilted and over-formalized, and such persons insist that “One loves his friends” is permissible. It is not permissible, however, because “one” is indefinite and “his” is definite and the combination is rhetorically impossible. This is known as hendiadys and was a common thing in Latin. Rare examples of it still exist and are extremely valuable as antiques, although it is usually unsafe to sit or lie down on one.”

You can find more extended excerpts here:

• Who and Whom

This blog is over 5 months old, and like many others I still await a page rank update.

In one sense page rank doesn’t matter; but, in another sense it does – Page rank has been around a long time, it is used as a factor in determining the strength of a blog. It impacts on the monetary value of a blog.

However, google seem determined to make it as useless as possible.

• 5 months on the internet is a very long time. Can you imagine google updating there search results every 5 months?
• By updating it so slowly Google are kind of saying that they don’t value it anymore. But, people still look to pagerank, because it has been around for a long time. Google don’t like pagerank, but, they don’t want to stop it either. It’s kind of like pulling a lame donkey through the fields.
• Bizarre changes to page rank. Problogger notes it is going down to PR4. Copyblogger is also going down to PR4. Both these sites have tons of backlinks.
• Bloggingtips recently passed 1,000 subscribers, and has a page rank of 0

Why RSS feeds is the new Page Rank.

1. It’s hard to cheat. Anybody can find a way to get a few links from a few PR5 blogs. But, to get 1,000 RSS subscribers is no joke. True, you can swap a few RSS subscriptions, but, to get a big number your blog has to be basically very good and offer people a reason to subscribe.
2. RSS feeds is the best way of knowing which site to advertise. With Google promising to penalise the selling of text links. People will buy advertising for traffic rather than ‘link juice’ If you want traffic and exposure look at RSS subscribers not some page rank – which gives no indication to traffic.
3. A subscription is an explicit endorsement from a real person. If someone subscribes to your blog it means they find it very useful. It is unlike getting a link, which may not be deserving.
4. RSS feeds is independent of Google. If you have a high RSS readership, you can absorb a strange penalty google are giving out these days. John Chow is of course a good example. Google are giving strange penalties to good sites and promoting spam blogs to the top of search results. See this post at Daily Blog Tips about spam blogs at top of search results. This has also happened to me on several occasions.

Let us give the benefit of the doubt to Google they are trying hard to stop spam blogs. But, to be honest they are struggling. RSS feeds is independent of Google. If you can build up an RSS readership then you will be able to create a successful blog.

Of course, it’s one thing to say build up an RSS readership – it’s another matter to actually do it…

Emails are quick and easy to send. But, they

1. Always double check who you are sending it to.

For example, be careful about replying to all – when you want to just reply to one person.

2. Be careful about leaving old messages at the bottom of an email.

To send an email I often reply to an old email in my inbox. If you cc this message to someone else make sure that the old message is not inappropriate; it is potentially very embarrassing. It is of course best to delete any old messages and discussions, and, it can be easy to forget.

3. Save to drafts for a few hours.

The biggest cause of embarrassment is that we send emails in the heat of the moment, which we later regret. If we have any important or potentially awkward emails, it is always best to leave a gap between writing and sending. It is better to have a delay than send an inappropriate email. Often when we wait a few hours, or even sleep on it, we get a very different feeling for what is appropriate.

4. Could you say this message to the person?

Imagine the recipient of the email, is right in front of you. Then read out the email and decide whether you would be comfortable doing this. If you would feel awkward saying these things then don’t send the email.

5. Be careful with language.

A good email should use good English, and avoid getting emotional or unnecessarily personal. Never write an email in anger, or frustration. You can still express your displeasure, but, try to maintain a diplomatic tone.

6. The World still Existed Before Email

10 years ago, nobody used email, but, the world still existed. The point is that it is often better to communicate through traditional means, especially for sensitive messages. Think carefully about the message, and if appropriate speak to the person directly.

7. Ask a friend to check the Email.

If you have an important email to send, it is worth asking a reliable friend to check it first. Sometimes a second opinion can prevent an awkward situation. One email I was going to send, a friend was able to insert just one word. But, it made a big difference to the message of the email.
More Tips for writing Emails 

This post caught by eye over at Problogger – “Your first 10,000 blog posts are always the worst”

Recently I was looking through an old SEO blog I had on another domain. The posts were written over a year ago, but, there was nothing that I particularly wanted to use here. The writing wasn’t particularly high quality and there were quite a few mistakes.

In the past year, I have been writing regularly every day. I can’t say writing has got much easier, but, I think the constant practise has enabled, at least, a small improvement.

If you were playing the piano, you wouldn’t expect to play your best straight off. You would expect it to take several years. Writing is not quite the same, but, there still is that element of progress.

Tips for New Writers 

• Be Patient
• Keep practising.
• Don’t be in a rush to submit your early articles to Digg. Make sure they are your best efforts until you try to promote them.
• Don’t spend too long going back to improve old posts. It is better just to leave them and go on to creating new posts.
• Don’t expect to write superb articles at your first attempts.
• You may find 6 months later, you can have another go at an article. This time it will be more polished because you have more experience and have developed your writing style.

Getting on the front page of Digg is potentially very rewarding, but, it is also quite difficult – unless you are well prepared. These are some tips for getting on Digg home Page. These points are also useful for writing good articles in general. In fact a good strategy is to just write good articles, rather than trying to work out what the best digg bait is.

• Put Your best Points First

Many people may digg an article without necessarily reading it all. Make sure your first point captivates the reader. See Importance of first sentence

• Powerful Headline

The importance of a good headline cannot be underestimated. It is of crucial importance in determining success on social bookmarking sites. See: Eyecatching Titles

• The Article has to be good and innovative.

No matter how many friends you have, unless it is actually worth digging it will fail.

• List Type Posts do Better.

A long essay is less scanable. List type posts tend to do better. This doesn’t mean you have to write lists, but, I think it is fair to say that lists have a better chance than non list. Choose good numbers like a Top 7 top 10. or Top 50. Don’t choose top 6 or top 9.

• It helps to have traffic to Your Blog

If your blog gets very little traffic, it will be very hard to get on Digg home page. Many blogs with a high readership frequently get on digg home page. This is because the regular readers help to vote for the article.

• The First 24 hours are the most important
  

After being submitted to Digg, the next 24 hours are the most important time. If you get enough votes you will get promoted to front page. But, after this 24 hours, extra diggs don’t help that much

• Combine Digg with Stumbleupon.

If you have a really good post, submit it to Digg and try get it on stumbleupon at the same time. This means the stumble traffic may help vote for your story. Then if you fail on Digg, (which you probably will) at least you may get some decent traffic from stumbleupon.

• Don’t Digg your own story

Digg don’t like people digging their own story. I wouldn’t recommend it. Find a friend to do it for you. If you can’t find anybody to digg a story for you, chances are you will have no one to vote for it.

• Don’t Submit everything.

Digg is not the be all and end all. Only try with your really best articles

• New Bloggers be Patient.

It is difficult to get on the digg homepage. It is very difficult for new bloggers. I would even suggest to new bloggers don’t bother with digg for a while. You will probably find that the quality of your articles improves over time. Later when you have some regular readers then try digg.

• Friends at Digg are Important.

The best thing is to cultivate friends at Digg who will help you vote for your stories. Some people are into this. However, I have to say I find this time consuming so don’t do it. – Don’t spend all your time at Digg so you have no time to write. (There are great blogs which never get on Digg)

• Be Selective in Your Friends 

Bear in mind you shouldn’t add friends just for the sake of it. If you have a lot of friends, your stories need more diggs to get promoted to home pages. If friends do nothing for you, then it is best not to keep them

• Keep Trying.

The problem is some people submit 2 or 3 articles and then get disappointed when it doesn’t make home page. Even the best writers will only succeed with a small % of their articles.

• Write Guest Posts

If you are fed up with your own blog getting ignored. Try writing a guest post at a blog with a high readership like lifehack.org If it is really good, other websites will be happy to take it on. This gives you a good chance to get on Digg home page and build up your RSS readership. If you get on Digg homepage on another blog, then it gives a better chance for your own blog in the future.

• Make Sure You know when You are on Digg.

Simple Tip – You can get an RSS feed for your blog. This means you will know when it is on Digg. It basically means searching for blog on Digg and then subscribing to RSS feed (thanks Amit)

• Add Digg Counter

See: Digg Tools

• Ask Friends to Vote

When a story has been dugg ask friends to vote for a story. If you do it once in a while they will probably not mind.

• Vote From Digg, not from Email

Bear in mind that it is probably better if they go to the category in Digg and vote, rather than just clicking on an email link. i.e I would guess Digg would discriminate against email campaigns. Therefore it is best to vote by going to the page with a digg counter or going directly to digg

• Submit Newest Articles

Your best chance is always with your most recent article as this will be getting most traffic.

• My Digg Profile

1. Good Content. Create a good quality website, with useful content and simple design. A basic idea but sometimes companies think about SEO before having anything good to link about. Writing articles will help. Generally these will benefit from being clear and easy to read rather than dense and complex. – Writing Tips
2. Be patient. In the first 6-12 months you shouldn’t expect too much traffic. Your site will be sandboxed. This means it takes at least 6 months to start getting good results from Google. It also takes time to build up RSS subscribers, the first 100 is always the most difficult.
3. Offer Something Unique. The internet is highly competitive. Try to offer something unique and interesting.
4. Identify Best Keywords to Use For example if your website is about Mortgages it is virtually impossible to compete on this keyword because there is too much competition. If you choose much more targeted keywords you have a much better chance for forcing your way into the search engine results. (SERPs) Examples for mortgages could be

• “Guide to self Certification mortgages”
• ”Free guide to UK mortgages” (people are always searching for free things)

5. Use Local Searches If your website has a geographical basis this is a good way to get niche results. If your site is based in the UK then remember to make the UK prominent in the title of some keypages. This narrows down the search results. Even better is to focus on a certain city. E.g. A guide to mortgages in London.
6. Choose Good Titles. Think carefully about the titles of pages generally speaking 3 or 4 words are better than just 1. Giving a page a title “mortgages” will not give you any traffic from SERPS. “A Guide to mortgages UK” may. Programs like Wordtracker and Overture can be helpful for suggesting keywords. It is worth learning how to use these programs. It is also important to choose interesting titles that grab people’s attention
7. Building Links. It is important to be able to get a steady stream of inbound links. Ideally your website will be so good people will link without being asked, but to get the site going you need to give it a bit of self promotion.
8. Good Quality Links. The majority of these links should be from related sites. A website about mortgages will derive little if any benefits from getting links from a site about funny videos. Look for sites which are well respected. Consider writing guest posts. This is an excellent way of getting good quality links and traffic.
9. Ezine Articles If you write articles you can submit them to ezines like. Ezine Articles.com iSnare. These enable you to get links back to your site by adding your link in the resource box at the bottom. If the articles are informative they may get copied by other sites giving you even more links.
10. Contact Other Webmasters It may be appropriate to write to some webmasters to let them know about your site. If you feel you have something good to offer and they would actually derive benefit from your site then it is worth asking. Don’t offer spam or average content.
11. Make Contacts at Social bookmarking sites Stumbleupon is particularly easy for beginners to use.
    

Over at Lifehack I wrote a post:  simple tips for using email

nothing revolutionary, but, I’m always seeking to find a more productive way to use email and save time. At the moment, I am using Thunderbird from Mozilla.

Thunderbird enables you to download emails to your own computer. The only disadvantage is that if you check emails on different computers you may not have access to your archives.

Previously I wrote an article about tips for writing emails  at Net Writing

Articles on Blogging

• Why I removed adsense from Problogger 
• Why I removed adsense from netwriting

Other Articles of Interest 

• How to Help friends in financial difficulties