Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

I haven’t posted as often as I would like in recent weeks. I’ve been preoccupied with a flurry of luxurious European cruises, when I haven’t been too busy enjoying my hobbies of snowboarding down Mt. Everest and skydiving over the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Yeah, this adventurous writing lifestyle is so wonderful I can barely keep up with myself.

In reality, I’ve been keyboarding my stubby fingers down to the first knuckle and acquiring permanent repetitive motion damage to the right side of my body trying to generate some ongoing Internet income through blogging, article writing, and affiliate marketing. (I’m serious about the damage to my right wrist, forearm, bicep, and shoulder. I’m not sure if the “permanent” part is accurate.)

If you want drama and excitement, try marriage and family rearing in today’s economy. Thankfully, the family part of that is behind me. The young’uns are well into their 30s and self-sustaining now. In fact, both are doing well. It won’t be too many years until their mother and I rely on them to find us a nice “home.”

Writing may be one of the most boring, humdrum parts of my life. Most of the writing I do involves cranking out large numbers of words in blog posts or articles focused on products I am trying to sell online via affiliate marketing.

If you are one of the fortunate few among my regular readers who have successfully written books, I congratulate you. I know, too, that the excitement of creating characters and telling stories is only a small part of the just-plain-dogged-determination-and-hard-work you put in to write, sell, and market those books. Good for you.

And good for any of you reading my words who make the job of writing your own. Even at it’s most mundane, it still beats W*RK, doesn’t it?

When you create a blog or website, try to use a name that people might search for in Google and it could pay off for you in free search engine traffic.

This is sort of related to the post I made last week regarding “long tail keywords” and their use to generate search engine traffic to your blog or website. The example I used there was creating keyword phrases of three or four words that are likely to be searched for in Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other Internet search engines. I used the example of picture frames. I won’t post that all over again, you can read it here.

Another useful way to draw search engine traffic to a blog or website is to use a name that people might readily search for if they are looking for a product to buy online, or if they are searching for specific information that you will provide. Here’s an example from my own online efforts:

I recently started a blog on something I am interested in, feel a passion for, and have some expertise with — the history of the American West. When I decided to start the blog, I thought about what someone might search for if they were looking for stories or information about the history of the “Old West,” that period running from around the time of the Civil War or a decade or two before to about 1900, when the “Old West” was more or less populated and becoming tame. I wanted to cover legends, real-life history, information about the daily life in the American West, and even throw in some links to relevant merchandise I might make some commissions on.

The next thing I did, before starting the blog itself, was think about a name for the blog that people might think of if they had similar interests. After kicking some ideas around with my wife, Shirley, we settled on “Life in the Old West.” Then I went to the company where I register domain names for my blogs and websites and did a search. I REALLY lucked out. The domain name “lifeintheoldwest.com” was available, so I grabbed it.

The results? I have had that blog going for about three months exactly. If you type “Life in the Old West” (without the quote marks) into Google, you’ll get a list of “1 - 10 of about 21,700,000,” according to the stats at the top of the Google results page. My blog front page is number six. As a result, I get several dozen visitors a day, and I’ve made just a few bucks selling affiliate merchandise for a company that sells supplies and books for gold prospecting and “rockhounding.” (Disclosure: My “earnings” have been less than $20, and it costs me money to host the blog and time to write the posts, so it isn’t a big deal — yet.)

How do you choose your blog names? How do you go about naming your websites? Don’t be too cute or try to be too clever. If your site name is something clever it may be fun for you, but will people ever search for it? Why not research some keywords related to your blog/website and try to get those words into the site/blog name and the domain name you register to host it?

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, keyword site names, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Sometimes I assume, since I write a lot of content for my affiliate marketing websites and I write several blogs, that most people reading my writing understand and use concepts like “long tail keywords,” and wouldn’t be interested in what I have to say.

Then I remember that we all start — started — somewhere and probably some reading this don’t have the slightest idea about how the concept works or how it might help their online writing efforts.

If you want to draw traffic to your website through the various big-time, free Internet search engines (yes, Google, I’m talking mostly about YOU), you need to have some understanding of long tail keywords. “Keywords” as used in relation to people coming to an Internet site means those words related to your blog or website for which people search — usually a phrase rather than a single word. For example, if you have a website selling handcrafted picture frames, a primary keyword for your site would be “picture frames.” Another would be “pictures” another “frames” and another probably “handcrafted.”

The problem with your keywords there is: There are probably MILLIONS of searches done every day on the Internet for such common keywords as “picture frames” and even “handcrafted picture frames,” so it’s unlikely writing articles or other web content crafted around those keywords will draw you any of that traffic.

Now here’s where the concept of “long tail” comes into play. A “long tail keyword” is a phrase closely related to the website or web page or article you want people to find that is, ideally, THREE OR FOUR words long. Hence the label “long tail.” By writing web content for your blog or website that contains relevant long tail keywords, you can draw search traffic that others might overlook. For example, “handcrafted picture frames,” though it’s three words long, would not be a good long tail keywords because it’s not really very unique. But “find handcrafted wooden picture frames” would probably be a better — maybe even not too bad — long tail keyword.

Enough of the keywords for now. It’s an important concept you need to know at least a little about if you are writing for the Internet. I hope to do some follow-up posts in the next week or so suggesting other important things to know about using keywords and using long tail keywords, although it’s probably pretty basic stuff for many of you.

Technorati Tags: using keywords, long tail keywords, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I’m reminded of that Bible passage in Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season.” One of the basic facts of writing, whether online or offline, is that readers enjoy seasonal stories/articles — and so do editors. Those general seasons of the year, autumn, winter, spring, and summer, are a great background for anything you’re writing. And specific, widely observed seasonal holidays, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, etc., especially attract readers and often provide a good slant to use when approaching editors.

If you’re blogging or especially if you are creating affiliate marketing websites, you want to pay special attention to seasons and seasonal deadlines. For example, any affiliate marketing you do — whether you’re merchant partners sell shoes or pet food or popcorn machines — you need to put the Christmas shopping season at the top of your list of deadlines. In the case of online marketing, that means you’ll need to have your websites pretty well put ready and in product-update mode by as early as September 1, and certainly no later than October 1. Otherwise, you can’t hope to draw enough web traffic to take advantage of all the online holiday shoppers.

If you’re submitting seasonal articles or fiction to print publishers — magazines or books — you must remember that most editors and publishers work as far ahead as a year or more. It may not be easy to “think snow” in mid-April or late-May where you live. But if you want to offer a snowstorm story to a magazine or book editor, you probably won’t get the interest in November you would get in April.

Take advantage of editors’ and publishers’ seasonal needs. Take advantage of seasonal online shopping patterns. Enjoy writing for all seasons, no matter the season (or weather) where you live.

Now get busy and write something today to make us all proud.

Technorati Tags: advice for new writers, writing as a business, online writing, editing and publishing deadlines, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Today is one of those days that makes me think of things like treadmills: I’m putting forth a lot of effort but seeing little or no forward progress.

It actually started for me yesterday, when I put the finishing touches on an affiliate marketing website I had been revamping for the last week and a half. I really like the way it turned out, and the timing is almost right — it’s a site dealing with sports team clothing and collectibles — so I’m hoping for good things.

Then I ran some software I have to create a sitemap of the website which I can submit to Google. That’s supposed to help get the links/new links for the website indexed quickly into Google so all those eager sports fan shoppers out there can find it and make me incredibly wealthy. (Okay, maybe at least send me a couple of bucks in commissions.)

Either because the site is so big, or because the sports gods were frowning upon me, the sitemap software suddenly began draining memory resources on my webhost’s servers — and I got an “abuse” warning. That means I had to delete the sitemap software, and I’m holding my breath for a response from my webhost as to whether they’ll shut down my account.

If you’re reading this, it means my webhosting account is okay so far. But so far I’ve heard nothing from them.

While I await a “yea or nay” from my webhost, I’m trying hard to think of forward progress instead of those treadmills.

Technorati Tags: webhosting, websites, Internet writing, affiliate marketing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I NEVER plug “easy way to make money” offers on my websites, because, frankly, there are no “easy” ways to make money online, really, there’s only hard work and perhaps some “smarter” ways to work at it. The “Conduit Method” of building websites came my way recently via an online acquaintance, and I think there’s something worth looking at here, especially for writers.

When people shop online, they want to 1) find the product they need or want, 2) get legitimate information about it, 3) get the best price they can, and, 4) feel confident they’ll get the product and price if they buy. There’s much more to it than that, but I think that’s a pretty good summary.

The “Conduit Method,” as I’m using it in reference to a wonderful little CHEAP “report” written by longtime Internet marketer Chris Rempel, channels those steps and that shopping process into giving people what they want to make a buying decision.

Should you try it, as a writer you task is to simply create web page content that is summary “fact sheet” material about a product you’re marketing — NOT a sales pitch or sales page — and then put links on that “fact sheet” to allow people to buy from the merchant for whom you are marketing.

I’m not clear on why Chris chose the name “Conduit Method,” but I believe he wanted to focus on the way using this method to build websites “channels” or “funnels” the merchant’s sales efforts toward getting people to buy — not on your sales pitches or sales efforts.

In a nutshell, the Conduit Method calls for building content-rich websites with legitimate product and price comparison reviews, as well as user/buyer testimonials, on real products being sold online. And Chris offers some really simple ways for you to find and incorporate such content into your website.

So, if you’re looking for a way to use your writing skills, blogging efforts, and marketing ideas to make some money online as a writer, I recommend you take a look at Chris Rempel’s Conduit Method. I purchased a couple of domain names for some products I’m an affiliate marketer with and expect to start building sites with them this week.

Technorati Tags: Chris Rempel, Conduit Method of website building, Conduit Method marketing, affiliate marketingInternet writing, writing as a business, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I will confess that my wife and I have received those no-fun letters/warnings from commercial collection agencies. You may know what I mean. The letter sequence starts with something polite and gracious, but if you can’t pay up and they need to send you additional letters, or even make phone calls, the content and tone tend to turn toward the Dark Side, and really can be unpleasant.

But with the real world turning more toward the online world — are there actually any online collection agencies doing business? And if so, do they require copywriters to write something like, say, collection emails?

I really don’t know whether there is such a market out there, much less whether there is a profitable market there for freelance copywriters — other than the obvious possibility of writing website content, doing web design, etc., for collection agencies seeking an Internet presence.

If you know of such opportunities, I invite you to leave a comment and tell us about your experiences. No spam, please. I’m not looking for a collection agency, I’m seeking any information you might have about online copywriting opportunities related to collection agencies.

We try to be diverse.

Technorati Tags: online collection agencies, Internet writing, copywriting opportunities, writing tips at garyspeer.com

One of the ways you can make at least a bit of money through your Internet writing and blogging work is to use Google AdSense on your site.

If you haven’t yet heard of AdSense or signed up for an account, you need to go here to the AdSense site and find out all about the program.

If you’ve already got an AdSense account and use AdSense, you can spend literally hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours reading every “guru’s” eBook and special tips about how to make money with the program. In the process you can waste a ton of money and time — I know this to be true because I’ve been there and done that.

What’s the answer? Trial and error, and extensive reading on the Google AdSense site and blogs, as well as many free blogs and forums out there. Do NOT spend a ton of time or money on all the latest get-rich-quick-through-AdSense silliness.

Here’s a useful starting point to get some helpful hints about using AdSense to make money online. It’s a free video, and it’s done by the Google AdSense Australian team — not by the latest gurus-of-the-moment. If you get past the Australian accents (grin) there’s a world of helpful info that’s perfectly adaptable to any AdSense supported country/website. Hope you find something helpful here:

I’ve written here from time to time about how difficult it can be to really make any money writing for the Internet. I’ve touched on the outrageously poor pay many people offer those they hire to write articles for website content. I’ve also told you of my experiences writing blog posts for money.

My daughter has a friend who somehow found out about a site called “ChaCha,” which pays writers to research and answer specific questions from site users.

I applied for ChaCha, seeking to become one of their Guides. The Guides are the people who get paid to answer questions/queries from ChaCha visitors. I haven’t started doing this yet, but I’m giving it a serious look. After reading their requirements for Guides and their FAQ page about the service, I understand Guides are making anything from $3.00-$9.00 per hour.

I’m not absolutely clear on how it all works, but I believe I read that they pay about 15-20 cents for each question you research and answer — which means you would have to put in an incredible amount of time and work to earn even $3.00 per hour, to say nothing of $9.00.

Anyone out there doing this ChaCha Guide gig already? Have I misunderstood or misstated the process and payment plan? Please comment and clarify what I’ve said if you have first-hand experience with this.

Meanwhile, I offer ChaCha as a possibility for those of you with the time and interest to try it as an avenue for earning money writing online. Let us know how it works out for you.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, writing as a business, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Here’s a short video from the WordPress people about the newly released version 2.6. I’m always personally a little hesitant to upgrade too quickly to any version of any software I own. I’d rather let other folks try it out for awhile to help get any major bugs out of it.

But this newest WP version, if you blog a lot, certainly deserves your consideration. It contains some improved features over version 2.5.1.

Take a look:

I’ve had a modest amount of success online lately doing reviews of various products and websites on one of my marketing ventures. People love to read reviews of products and services, mostly because they want to get others’ opinions before making a purchase or using a service.

Whether we’re talking about a diet pill review, a review of some popular or useful software, or a book review, if you put it online someone from somewhere will look for it and perhaps find your review. If you can do that and draw traffic often enough in large quantities, you have the potential to make some money.

That’s a simple plan — well in keeping with my earlier words today about simplifying your writing and your lifestyle — and it’s been done a lot. But it still works. Try it. Then leave us a comment and tell us about your experience.

Technorati Tags: writing for the Internet, online writing, writing reviews, creating website traffic, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Let’s suppose you’ve invented something that you’re sure will change the world, and now you want to put your miracle product/service online and watch the world change — and your fortune grow. Perhaps it’s a marvelous electronic gizmo or gadget you know every household needs at a price you know they can afford. Perhaps it’s a diet pill that works. Whatever.

Within three months your website has gotten such notice that you’re seeing 10,000 visitors a day. You have great ad copy written and in place, you see people coming to the site and your site stats show you they’re hanging around, and even going to the “buy now” page you’ve tried to get them to. They’re even leaving favorable comments and feedback telling you they appreciate your revolutionary pill/gadget/gizmo.

But few to none are actually pulling out their credit cards and buying. What are you doing wrong?

If I could give you an easy, definitive answer to THAT question, I’d be writing these words while sitting in the breeze on a balmy beach somewhere with a happy smile on my face.

I can make a good guess, though, if you find yourself in a situation similar to the one I’ve outlined above: You are drawing traffic to your website, BUT YOU ARE NOT DRAWING TARGETED TRAFFIC. Heavy traffic to a marketing/sales site which produces little or no sales means “browsers” or “visitors” — but not “buyers.”

So now I’ll ask you to share with us. What do you write and how do you write it to “sell,” rather than just “inform”? Have you had success writing web content that converts visitors into customers? What tips would YOU suggest. Frankly, my Internet marketing efforts have produced only sporadic success. Share your insights and “bless” us all with your expertise in a comment, please.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, writing sales copy, website content, website sales, writing tips at garyspeer.com

If your efforts at online writing include affiliate marketing — you know from many previous posts here that mine do — you may be a member of the Ebay Partners Network, i.e., you do affiliate marketing for eBay.

If that’s you, I’ve discovered one of the absolutely most useful software tools you can own. It’s called phpBay Pro, and it was written by a guy named Wade Wells. Wade is a bona fide first-class guy, and he gives the sort of customer support for his product that Microsoft, Apple, HP, and all the others could only dream about.

The software itself comes in two forms, one works as a plugin for WordPress the other as a stand-alone option on non-blog web pages. What phpBay Pro does is allow you to create targeted displays of live, up-to-the-minute eBay auction links on your website, so you (assuming you are an eBay affiliate) can send buyers and sellers to eBay and make an incredible fortune online.

Okay, the “incredible fortune online” is my fervent wish for us all, but you get the idea with the software. If you’d like to see it in action, take a look at the Fun for Collectors website I’m linking to here (and that I’ve linked to in the sidebar of this site under “Useful Links.”

Technorati Tags: phpBay Pro, eBay affiliates, Ebay Partners Network, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I cannot tell you how useful and worthwhile this software will be for you if you are an eBay affiliate. Go look for yourself and decide.

I know that many of you blog or host your own websites to which you add regular content. Many of you, I’m sure, have various scripts or software on your site that allows you to poll your customers about an issue.

Forum software, I’m sure, allows this pretty easily. But I don’t run a forum here, I run WordPress blogging software. I’ve searched around the Internet several times and not found anything really easy and practical to use to put up a poll that you, my visitors, can respond to.

Consider this my cry for help — any of you have a website script, WordPress plugin, or something very easy to use and very free that will do what I’m looking for?

Drop me a comment to this post or send me a message through the “Contact Us” page, will you please? I thank you in advance for your help.

Technorati Tags: polling software, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I’ve only had one “professional” copy writing job in my writing career, and that was many years ago. But I do copy writing almost daily for much of the content on my various affiliate marketing websites. I’m sure many of you reading this are professional copy writers and/or find yourself also writing website copy that involves advertising.

So my question here would be this: What sort of copy writing job(s) do you find hardest to do well? Or do you find anything hard to do well? I mean, seriously, I’ve known some copy writers who just have such a knack for the task that they can write good ad copy just about faster than I can sign my name.

Here’s an example of the toughest copy writing I ever face — finding a new or unique way to “spin” an old or well-known type of product. What would I write, for instance, if I were trying to make someone click a link on one of my affiliate marketing websites for an acne treatment product? Even if the product itself is something new, even if it’s genuinely “revolutionary,” what can I write to persuade people? I mean, I’m 60 years old and I know I’ve seen an endless stream of new and “revolutionary” acne treatment products since my pre-teen years.

Overcoming ad saturation would be the biggest challenge, I think, for professional copy writers. But what do you professional copy writers out there think about it? Tell us, please.

Technorati Tags: copy writing, acne treatment, writing challenges, writing tips at garyspeer.com