Why you shouldn’t read blogs?

The correct headline should be: why you should not read too many blogs. And the answer is because reading too many blogs takes time which else could have been devoted to taking action. Reading too many blogs would paralyze you. There are so many blogs out there, each one of them presenting different point of view, calls to different part of your mind. How can you respond to all?

How many should you read?

As many as you can in maximum two hours of time. I know I have been very liberal in allotting time to blog reading and I should have only asked for one hour. But we need to go slow when persuading people to change habit, or else our effort will not bear desirable result.

In the beginning, you should read and understand fully as many blogs as you can in 1-2 hours every day. Not a single minute extra should be wasted on this activity. But over time, you should reduce this time spent on blogging to 45-30 minutes.

What should you do in spare time then?

You should read books, industry journal, watch documentary, do research, or talk to people. In short, you should engage yourself in activities that give you more benefit. It is more about ROI on time invested. Some good blogs, like this one, do give you higher ROI on your time, but surfing through low-quality blogs take away from the overall benefit you get from reading a blog post.

Reading blog can be advantageous, and it often is, but indulging too much into it will reduce your productivity. So be judicious in your time allocation.

So what is the bottom line?

The bottom line is this: you must read various blogs, but your reading should not be limited to blog reading only. You should read from other sources as well. The varied your sources will be, the richer your experience will be.

We will take that discussion forward in this article, and we will talk here about 3 content-based contests that could help you skyrocket your blog’s readership.

2 content-heavy contests

Comment here contest

This is one of the best contests to host. The idea is quite simple. Ask your visitors to post a comment in the comment box to get a chance to win the prize. Also remind them that each comment will get one entry into a lucky draw, so they can enter more than one comment to get more than one entry. At this point, do not forget to tell them just one-line generic comments will either get filtered out by your spam filter, or will be weeded out by your staff. Remind them that the comment that will add to the discussion will only get accepted. Comment done just to get multiple entry and which does not take the discussion forward, even a bit, will automatically get disqualified.

Review me contest

This is another form of contest that you can run. Ask your readers to write a review for your website on their domain, in Facebook, or wherever they want, as long as it is written on the websites talking about topics like pornographic, abusive, racism, etc. make an e-mail ID, and ask them to send the URL to that mail ID. Promise the announcement of the result on your blog, and tell them that 3 best reviews will get the prize. To win the prize, it is important for them to include two links to your website in the review — one to the home page, and another to any other page. For deep lining, you can provide some options from your blog posts.

Guest post writing contest

The third form of content-heavy contest is guess post writing contest. Ask you readers to write guest posts for you. Announce that the best written guest post will get the prize, and the second and the third ranked guest post will also get prize. To motivate them to write a guest post, tell your visitors that each guest post will be published, and writer will get the byline for the guest post along with 2 links back to their website, Facebook page, twitter, etc.

Content-based contests are time consuming, so the prize should be good, otherwise people will not get motivated to spend time on your blog.

Whatever we may call this, but the fact remains the same. You cannot write, as you have no idea. And because of that you keep on staring at the plain white sheet of your word processor. Fortunately, there is bright source of light at the end of proverbial tunnel. There are ways to get ideas for not just one but 100s of future posts. In this article, I will show you some of the idea sources that you can use to generate blog posts, months after months.

Forums

A forum is a place where people interact in a real time. A place where people ask questions, discuss about issues that bother them, and people, on the other side, try to solve the problem. You can pick a topic from here for your next blog post. This has two benefits: (1) You find the topic that people are willing to read about, and (2) through your blog post you may solve the problem, which will place you as an authority in your niche.

Answer websites

Websites like yahoo Answer, Answer bag, etc. are nice place to get ideas for your blog post. Dig through the topics, and sub topics until you find the issue you know something about. Craft a blog post and suggest the solution to the problem.

Blog comments

This is another place to find ideas for your posts. People write many things in comments, and at times they ask questions even. Some of the questions asked there are important enough to warrant a blog post. Pick a question and write a blog post on the same. To promote the blog post, you can piggyback on the original blog post. Just post a reply on the blog post and paste the link of your blog post in the body. Do not forget to attract attention of the original commenter.

The blog post ideas that you generate from the above sources are potent ones, as each of the blog post solve a problem that some readers in your niche are jostling with. And an insightful post on the ideas drawn from the above sources will also give you the status of authority in your niche.

How to gain writing experience before even getting a client

Do you really think you do not have any writing experience? You are wrong in thinking so; what about your term papers and assignments that you submitted in your school and college? Yes, those were writings as well – though not professional, may be not even grammatically correct, nevertheless they gave you some experience.

But, when starting as a freelance writer we are not concerned about just any writing. We are, in fact, concerned about proper experience, which one can get only when one writes professionally, which brings us to the original question of how to get writing experience as professional without having any client. The following points will help you answer that.

1. Start your own blog and post articles on it. Make sure each article is at least 500 words long.
2. Write articles for social communities and motivate your friends to read and give feedback to you. This will be a valuable asset which you can use to show your clients to get work.
3. Write articles for free. This will help you build portfolio — this may be an option, but I will not suggest putting this into effect unless you have exhausted all the available options.
4. Write for charity website. They like contributors.

There are many ways to build your portfolio and have some writing experience. The question is are you will to find an avenue and pursue it to the end?

4 Writing preparation tips

One idea per post

Do not cram too many things in one blog post. It will confuse the readers, which will push them to move away from your blog. The more ideas you will insert in the post, the more users will move away from the blog. Find a core theme and stick to it. Do not wander off, or else you will never be able to finish your blog post.

Find the purpose of your blog post

Knowing the purpose of a blog post will help you draft your article better. Why are you writing the article? Do you want your readers to purchase something, or you want them to know more about the subject, or you want them to subscribe to your newsletter after reading it? Once the purpose is defined, writing becomes easier, as you choose mode, tone, and words on that basis only.

Who is your target audience

This is another important consideration. You need to define an ideal reader of your blog post. Find out what he does, how much experienced he is, and what is his qualification? You also need to find their interest level and intension. Is your ideal customer in the market to buy the thing you are writing about? Is he just researching, or reading casually? Knowledge of the intention will help you customize your language.

Write a draft headline

Write a temporary headline. It will give you a target around which you will organize your ideas. This, in no way, is the final headline that will go with your post. This headline is just the first draft. Revisit the headline, once you are through with the article.

You are much better equipped to write a headline after you are done with the article, as you are much more knowledgeable about the subject matter.

Follow the tips shared above, and you will produce better articles.

First part of their supposition is wrong, but the second part holds some merit. Indeed, there is not any golden topic for a freelance writer to write about. And indeed, writing for “freelance writing” or related niche will not bring you more clients then what you get while writing for another niche.

Why?

Because seldom you will get an offer to write for this niche.

What niche to write in?

The answer is any, as long as you enjoy writing in it. When a client asks for your samples or blog links, he has two goals in mind:

1. He wants to see how well you write on the topic of your choosing.
2. He wants to see your thought process.

He is least interested in knowing if you have guru’s knowledge about freelance writing or not, and he is more interested in knowing how well you can write and how you think. Because it is upon your thought process that your writing depends.

As long as you are writing well, therefore, you should not be worried about what niche to start a blog in. As a winning strategy, I would suggest you to write your heart out on the blog that you would show to your future client. Such blog will have both depth of thought, and colorful flair of writing. This is what your clients are looking for.

As much as 58% Americans do not believe that the economy is going to improve in coming year — 33% thinks it will stay all the same, but 25% fears the worse has yet to come. 10% of the respondents said they are not sure of the state of the economic affair in the United States. And only 32% showed confidence in the recovery. (See picture)

If we alter the timeline a bit then the figure is even more disheartening. Almost 80% (combined) of Americans believe the economy will not improve in the next six months — 50% believe the economy will not change in the next 6 months, whereas, 29% fear the worse may happen.

It is on the administration and regulator to falsify the belief of more than 50% of Americans. They need to work hard to prove the skeptic wrong.

In which group I fall?

Well, I am an optimist.

This is what twitter has done to the giant, and it will also help you a great deal in searching for a job. In this part, I will tell you how you can brand yourself on twitter, and how it will help you.

Customize your profile

The best thing about twitter is it allows you to create a custom profile for your twitter account. You can choose whatever background you want for your twitter profile. Twitter background provides you a wonderful opportunity to brand yourself. Your profile page should speak volume about you.

Theme-based design

Do not choose just any background. This will not do any good. Always remember a good design begins with ideation. With finding a theme for the design. When I say theme I meant what is that one thing that you want to convey to the viewers of your twitter profile. Begin with writing down the points you want to convey until it boils down to one or two core points that you must convey. This will be the essence of your twitter profile.

Now think of a design theme of the blog based on the core you have found.

Designing background

Start designing a background based on the theme you have found. To find the dimension of the background, you can search Google. I do not suggest reinventing the wheel. Just conduct a Google search and you will find a twitter background template.

This is it for now. Go ahead and customize your twitter profile to impress your prospects.

Content

What is being said is the most important factor in communication. This is the first thing you need to decide. You need to figure out what you want to convey to your audience. Is it the product benefit, or is it brand camaraderie? Before making any attempt to communicate, you should decide what you want to convey.

Concise

No one likes a 1000-page epic, not even you-particularly in the context of marketing message. The longer your message is the slimmer is its chance of making any impact on the receiver. You should not use even a single useless word in your marketing communication. It does not only push the audience away, but it also costs more—after all, every word takes more media space.

Clear

This is paramount. Clarity is very, very important. No matter how concise and clearly defined your content is, if it is not clear, it will not be understood. You need to do a test run of every communication campaign, before releasing it for the entire population. Nothing could be more harmful for your brand then misunderstood message.

Marketing communication is an attempt to inform the brand’s target audience about the feature, attributes, and benefits, etc., of the brand, and the more closer it will be to the 3Cs described above, the better it will be for the overall health of the brand.

Why List post?

1. 1. List post is scannable: People find it easy to scan through the list post. And ability to scan (or read) a post quickly is one of the major goal of your visitors. There are so many things on the Internet putting demand on their time that they do not afford to go through a heavy post, and that is where a list post steps is.
2. 2. It works as a great source for reference: An all-encompassing list post is often bookmarked by the reader for future reference. Readers often come back to the bookmarked list post to see the information they seek. This way a list post will build a possibility of repeat-visit in your blog.
3. It adds up to your resource list: If you have succeeded in creating a timeless list post then you can add the URL of that list post in the resource box so that new users can benefit from that. A good list will provide depth to your resource box, which in itself is a big reason why someone will come to your blog.

These are three core benefit of a list post. How else do you think a list post helps a blog? Tell everyone reading this blog, why you think a list post is necessary. I know everyone can come up with different exciting ideas. Waiting to hear from all of you.

The biggest part about being successful writing is pretty much just being diligent.  You have to work at any career, and writing on the internet is no different.  You can’t allow yourself to second guess your career choice, or give up when the assignments seem too few and far between.  Something has to break eventually, but if you give up, you’ll never get that opportunity.

Learn how to use keywords, and to write SEO.  Search Engine Optimization is the most important technique for any internet writer.  If you want your articles to garner attention, and be read by the mass public, you need them to get noticed on search engines.  Because sites like Google operate searches by using keyword recognition, you need to have your articles formatted properly, and with the correct sprinkling of keywords.

Make sure that you make friends within the industry as well.  Network, network, network so that you can connect to as many job providers and writers as possible.  These are the people that have and will know about the best jobs.  Getting connected to them will open up as many doors as possible, and really get your career moving.

As long as you work hard, and are diligent, you can succeed.  Just remember to keep at it, and don’t give up on writing.

Now internet advertising consists of making a social networking presence.  You need to have a blog, Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter account, to really make your company known.  So first things first, set up a company blog.  This will be a resource to write about the goings on with your corporation, and provide insightful social commentary on culturally relevant news.  So you want a decent writer who can write regular, engaging content.

Now you need Myspace and Facebook accounts.  Both are essentially the same, just with minor differences.  Keep the page professional, and a resource to sell products and ideas as well as provide news.  Myspace has been in decline, so that doesn’t have to be as big of a priority.  But at the moment Facebook has been holding strong, and could end up being a great interface with your customers.  Listen to them, and communicate with them.  This way you can learn what selling tactics will work, and what your customers expect from you.

Finally, the Twitter account.  This will probably be the most important, because here is where the most people are going to turn for news and information regarding your company.  Linking a blog with your Twitter and Facebook accounts will create a wealth of resources to contact your customer base, and do your own free research into what they expect.  You grow name recognition, and also get a great customer data tool, all rolled into a few easy to use websites.

So, what is affiliate marketing?
Let’s understand it with an example. Let’s say I am planning to sell a ball point pen on the Internet. How will I do it? I will start an e-commerce website and start promoting my product using several tools. I will use SEO, I may run a PPC campaign, rear-up a blog, participate in forum etc.

But,

Despite, what I do, I can only sell in proportion to the visitors that will come to my website. Isn’t it? And there can be only so many doors through which people will come to my website to buy the ball-point pen that I am selling.

How to increase the number of doors?

Affiliate marketing is the answer. Increasing the number of doors to your website is one way to ensure that you are selling a lot. And this increasing the number of doors is called affiliate marketing.

You contact (or help other affiliate find you out) different businessmen on the Internet who are interested in selling other’s product. You pitch them your idea, and if they like it they will pick it, and will start promoting your product. They will also do all sort of thing to make people buy your product. This way the marketing effort to sell your product increase, and the more affiliate you hire the more set of door and windows you make to pull customers. Affiliate marketers do this for a hefty commission.

Article writing

If you can write a well-researched article on the given topic then this is the job you have been waiting for. Many people needs 500+ words articles on various subjects, and if you think you can provide a well-crafted article then tell them about your desire to help. And also provide some samples of your previous work.

Blogging

Blogging is another thing that a freelance writer can do. You can either write your own blog or work as a staff blogger for big and established blogs. As a staff blogger, you are supposed to write a predetermined number of posts per day, and for that you may get paid on per blog post basis, or on per month basis. You can have more than one blogging job at one time.

Résumé writing

If you know how to create a well-crafted CV then the world of jobseekers is waiting for you. Seeing the competition for each vacant seat, everyone wants his CV to stand out from the crowd and for this one seeks professional help. You need to know what kind of CV works for what industry to succeed as a professional Résumé writer.

Press release writing

A press release is as important for a web-based company as it is for any brick and mortar company. Press release writing is a specialized task, and if you know how to write one then the world is waiting for you. Well, not exactly, but still there are plenty of press release works available both online and offline.

Web content writing

Whoever needs a website, needs content for the website. You can also choose this niche, if you know how to express everything a company needs to say using the given number of words than this is the right kind of writing job for you. You may also need to write about terms & conditions, FAQS, and help pages for the company along with home pages, services, and about us page.

5 Ws and 1 H of Press Release Writing

• W – What: What is subject matter of the press release? What the press release is about? This should be the first thing to go in the press release.
• W – When: When did it happen? What time, from when will it come in effect, etc., will be covered in this.
• W – Where: Where means what place and in which company?
• W– Why: Why does the event you want to be reported matter for the community?
• H– How: How will it affect the life of a common man in the community?
• W – Who: Who made this happen? Who of the press release will be covered by the company information that will go at the end of the press release.

Follow this pattern to write a press release, and you will increase your chances of getting press release picked by the news agencies or PR wires will increase significantly.

One good way to develop a little bit of money easily is through writing articles online.  There are a variety of websites that pay decently for articles.  You can find them fairly easily through any search engine, or job search engine.  They don’t usually pay enough for you to make a living from the articles alone, but they are quick to complete and pay a decent rate.  As these pile up over the years you’ll find your savings growing, and writing is a lot of fun.

Try blogging on for size.  A blog is a great way to build up a little money through advertising.  As long as you write quality content that keeps people reading, you’ll be successful.  Just network yourself, and use a program like Google’s Adsense to make the most out of your money.  They pay fairly well, and a successful blog could end up making you more money than your day job.

Finally, if you put in the work in article writing or blog writing, another great way to make extra money through those is through affiliate marketing.  This is where a company actually pays you to talk about their product.  You have to have a fairly popular blog, or be renown for your articles, but it’s a fast way to earn a lot of cash quickly.  Plus usually you get free products so that you can try them out before you write about them.  That’s a win-win scenario, and it puts more money in your savings account.

Work on Headlines

A headline of any write-up is as important as the write-up itself. Always remember, 70-80 percent of your readers will go away without even reading a single line, if your headline is not attractive. This is even more important for the copy or content that you write for web. I will suggest you to keep a notebook of headlines. Maintain a repertoire of effective headlines.

Comment on your favorite blog

Commenting on your favorite blog will keep you in touch with the blogger whom you like, and it will also make you write on new topics. Make a habit of commenting on 2-3 blogs daily.

Write even when you do not feel like

At times, writing seems like a drag, you just cannot squeeze a word our two out of your damn head. You just want to go away. Do not do that, rather keep on writing. The best way to keep such feelings in check is to write only. Keep squeezing words even when you do not feel like writing.

Make a note to revisit later

A brilliant idea just flashed in your mind but you cannot use it now in your writing, what should you do? Well, do not move on without writing it down. Make a note of the idea before you move on.

Write for publications

Writing for publications is different than writing for web, but I suggest you to try your luck in publication. Pick a magazine and send your writing idea along with a sample of your style of writing to the editor, and see if the editor approves it. Repeat this process until you get an assignment. At this point, do not concern yourself too much about the size of the publication, and circulation of the magazine.

Once you’ve got your niche idea, you need a place to make a blog.  You can start your own by hosting the blog on your own server with your own web address, but this could be extremely costly.  The best idea is to go to a place like Blogspot, or WordPress to start out in building your audience.  Membership is free, and make the process of designing your blog as quick and painless as possible.

Now you just need to pick a good theme that invites people into your world.  This way your blog is visually appealing.  By being pleasing to the eye, people will be more likely to actually read what you have written.  Which is the other key to a good blog, good writing.  The writing is what people come to see, so make sure yours is worth their time.  Be informative and interesting, with a healthy dose of entertainment.  That’s the recipe for blog writing success.

Now you need to find a good program for putting ads on your site.  Most people go through Google’s Adsense, as it’s the easiest and fastest to use.  Adsense works by giving you money anytime someone clicks on an ad on your site.  You can earn anywhere from $.01 to $15 per click.  Ad placement is a fine art as well, so choose ads that relate to your site, so that people will be more likely to click on them.

From there it’s just about networking yourself.  Try and make friends with other people in the industry, as part of the success of established bloggers is through other blogs.  By making a network you benefit off of everyone’s traffic.  Through exchanging links with a blog similar to yours, you allow yourself to be noticed by the more successful blogs readership, affording you the opportunity to get yourself noticed.  The more traffic you can generate, the more chances you have for ad clicks.  So choose your ads wisely, and build that blog traffic!

On numerous occasions, we have inklings about the thing we want to write about, but we cannot convert it into a good article because we do not know from where to start and what to write first to convert the idea into an article. In the situation like this, a pre-written powerful headline comes to our rescue. It works as a guiding post for us, which shows us the end of the article. The pre-written headline will tell what you should write to fulfill the promise it made to the readers of your blog or website.

Let’s say, you have to write on a topic related to health and you have some idea about what all should be covered, but you are not sure from where to begin writing. Should you start saying why health is wealth; or should you start by saying the things to do to have a healthy life; or is talking about the detrimental effect of stress on our life what you want to write about?

In the above example, you can see that each topic is different and will require different treatment. Is this why you are confused? Now, look back at the above written topic again, but from a different point of view. From the point of view of a headline. Let’s write the headline first, and see how we fare.

“10 Stress-relieving Tips for a Healthy Life”

Or

“How to lead Stress-free, and Happy Life”

Or

“Health, Wealth and Stress”

You may have noticed, although, each of them deals with the same subject, each of the three headlines needs different treatment. Each of the headlines suggested above tells us what we have to write about. They help us organize our thought in a particular way.  A headline set course for us, and it also tells the reader what kind of article is coming. It is a promise made by you and fulfilled by the article.

A headline sets a goal for us that we must reach by shaping words and sculpting sentences to give it a form of an article.

1. Know your audience
2. Avoid common grammatical errors
3. Focus on your readers
4. Chop off useless sentences
5. Don’t preach

Know your intended audience, as you will be writing for them.  So if you’re writing a piece of information about cycling for example, you would want to include some insider knowledge involving the latest bicycle tech or other equipment.  Showing that you are in the know regarding your topics validates your opinions to your readers, and keeps them coming back for more info.

Avoid commonly made grammatical mistakes.  Nothing frustrates a reader like their inability to quickly skim through your writing because of grammatical errors that should have been caught before the final draft.

Put your focus to your audience.  If you are trying to demonstrate a point, or act as a guide for any topic stay away from using the word “I” in favor of “you”.  For example, you wouldn’t want to write “I do this, so you should too.”.  You want to gravitate towards more of a “you should do this, and here’s why” to create a dialogue with the reader, and show them why what you’re writing is important to them.

Never rephrase the same sentence a few times in one of your works just to act as filler.  That’s repetitive and will put your reader to sleep.  You want a short concise, well edited, grammatically correct piece of work.  Get to the point, but make sure the road to that point is engaging.

Never preach that your method is the best because it’s your method.  That will turn off a reader faster than you would think.  Nobody wants to read a self inflating brag fest that does little more than bloat your own ego.  People want to read how what you have to say applies to them, not that they should follow your example because you’re so awesome.