In 2011, SEO and writing is going to change big time as the rules of SEO game has changed and so has the readers’ mindset. People have stopped paying attention to copy that looks crappy, as lot of bad content has been littered on the Internet.

Not just the search engines, but users even are a lot more conscious of the value your content adds to his or her life, and after the introduction of snapshot feature in Google SERP, it has become more difficult for badly written content to make its way to the customers’ computer. Even when it gets a chance to get there, they are quickly thrown out.

So how to make a content interesting both for people and machine?

To make your content interesting for your readers you need to do the following:

• Use the language that your visitors converse in.
• Provide them the value they are looking for.
• Do not just write anything. Do a research before delving into the actual writing process.
• Read blog comments, forum posts, and watch YouTube videos to see what your customers are getting and what their requirements are.

Following the handful of tips given above will take your writing business to all new height, but how to make the same content accessible for machines (search engine bots).

If you are new to the field then the fact that you have to write content for machines as well may make you cringe, but this is what we all have been doing since always in the name of SEO content. We have been working to satisfy the needs of machine, so that it could display our websites when visitors come searching information on the topic we are writing.

To make your content standout with machines you need to do the following:

• Do not write for the machine. Even it does not want anything to be written exclusively for it.
• Place important keywords and other related terms at appropriate places.
• Do not go overboard with optimization.
• Write with audience in mind and SEO should be the secondary thought.

Content written for the two groups that we talked about above should not be mutually exclusive. You need to write content that meets the needs of both of them. This is not very difficult, all you need to do is practice.

These guidelines may help you.

Take help of a medium

When you are new on Internet and don’t know which recruiter is trustworthy approach recruiters through websites. Many freelance websites take responsibility and ask employees to file a complaint against recruiter when cheated or abused. When approached with the right set of proofs they also ban the recruiter from its website. Find such websites and look for work over there. Make sure you communicate only through the website and you have all communication history stored over there. Once you work with a client and think he is good enough you can work with him in future, while communicating directly.

Read testimonials or search by recruiter’s name

When you are working with a client for the first time, make sure you get the maximum information about him or her. Don’t fall for a new client easily, choose an experienced recruiter. Read all testimonials or reviews about the recruiter on the website. See what past employees had to say about the recruiter – how many thumbs up and how many down are there. It may be an eye opener for you. If there’s no testimonial or if you have some doubt and wish to know further search his name on search engines and find out more about him or her.

Ask for required detail

If you can’t become too personal with the recruiter for work sake you can definitely ask for some personal detail like – full name, contact number, city, mail address, communication mode etc.

Make things clear

Never take things for granted. Whatever terms were discussed make sure you have a proof either on Internet history or you both sign a mutually agreed upon contract paper. Discuss about nature of work, specific requirements, deadline, mode of communication for clarifications, mode and terms of payment etc in advance.

Ask for some advance payment

Don’t feel shy to ask for some advance money before you start working together. It will keep both of you feel assured, happy and motivated. You may take 25% of the total work in advance, 25% after submission of first draft and the rest of 50% after final submission of work.

Now, finding a trustworthy recruiter won’t be difficult anymore.

Focus on specific words or sentences

One effective way of speedy reading is not reading the whole of a paragraph, but in bits in pieces. Pick up the important words, phrases and sentences. You can skip conjunctions and elaborations. They don’t carry much significance. Rest will automatically bring the essence.

Know your capability

Figure out your capability and grasping power of words, how fast can you read and understand in a minute. It will help you to know your average standard which you can improvise. Timing yourself will help you to improve every time and motivate you to beat the old score. Check how long it takes for you to finish one page of book. Jot down the speed in a paper. Don’t forget you shouldn’t read it blindly, you need to understand the meaning too.

Take speed reader tests

To gain mastery participate in computer based online or offline speed reader tests. Don’t lie to yourself about the output. Cheating won’t improve your performance. Also measure your comprehension level, to re-assure that you are not merely competing with fast reading but also comprehending the message and retaining the same. It will give you a realistic idea and steady improvement. You can search for such tests on search engines.

Let fingers guide you

Let your fingers scan the text, it will increase your reading speed.

Remove distraction

Make sure you remove distractions like television noise, music, pet’s disturbance, too much of talking and noise in your surroundings. Such distractions won’t give you the picture of your actual speed. Make sure you are at peace and not pre-occupied by tension and thoughts which can hinder your learning.

Speed reading learning is definitely not a child’s play. But consistent efforts do show results.

More than ever, the PPC ad writers now has to concentrate on making the ad tighter and crispier. He or she has to use 25 or so words given by search engines in such a way that a PPC ad makes only desirable searchers click the link. This is a challenge which can be surpassed, and this as well as the next article will help you do that.

How to write killing PPC Headline

Length of a headline

A headline is the most important part of an advertisement, as this is the part of a PPC ad that attracts viewers’ attention. For a Pay per Click advertisement, a rule of thumb should be to use a headline that is not more than 5 words.

My personal recommendation on this matter is 4 words.

Call to action

The goal of a headline is to attract attention, so let’s stick to that. Do not include call to action line or hot button in your headline. It will make you sound too needy. Keep this for the body where it will work better.

Keyword insertion

If you have 2 or more-words keyword phrase then you can alter the length of your headline to make it 5 words, but when doing so, always remember to keep the non-keyword words shorter. If you are going to use dynamic keyword insertion then make sure your headline reads well with the keyword options you are bidding for. It should not sound weird with any of the keywords.

Try to keep the keyword at the beginning of the headline.

Word selection

The non-keyword words that you will insert in the headline should be emotionally charged, as all the decisions are emotional. No one is ration out there.

Following these tips when writing a PPC ad could be challenging at first, but soon you will get hold of it. After which, writing a PPC headline will be all downhill.

This brings us to the end of this article on PPC headline writing tips, in the next article I will talk about the body part.

Well, the answer is that not all the copy writers are cut to be equal. Some of them are far, far better than the crazy wannabe-copy-writer jerks out there, and rest of the aspirants are just that — aspirants.

Like copywriters, not all the website copies are equal. Quite a many websites — more than anyone can overlook — have badly written copy. They openly seem to violate the basic rule of copy writing, and most of the elements of a good website copy seems missing from there.

What are the elements of good website copy?

A website copy has to have the following elements ingrained into it. Mess with one of them and you will ruin your chances of getting conversion.

1. Snappy, catchy headline to attract viewers’ attention.
2. High quality relevant image to give fodder to people who think visually, and content for image-search.
3. Explanatory body copy to build on the promise made by the headline. The body copy with the help of relevant images will build desire.
4. Powerful call to action button and words at appropriate places.
5. Keyword rich headings and sub heading.
6. Attributes and benefits listed at bullet points.
7. Different font styling — different font sizes, color, attributes (like bold, italic, and underline, etc.).
8. Trust seal, and other trust factors.

You should judiciously use each one of the element in the website copy that you write. You should also add testimonials in boxes on the home page and other relevant pages. Testimonials work wonder because it is third-party endorsement of the services you are promising to offer. Another thing that you should keep in mind while writing website copy is that you are writing it for human being not for search engines, so do not stuff the pages with keywords.

If you have not believed this so far then start believing in it, as nothing is truer then the above statement is. And it will become more evident when you will read the best-kept secret twitter tips for job search in this series.

Twitter, as we all know by now, is a 140-word marketing nuclear bomb. It is also referred as virtual water cooler where people talk about things that matters to them. Twitter is not just a micro-blogging tool, but it is a search engine in its own right that has the strength to overpower Google. Twitter can be used in many ways, but we will focus on using it as a job search tool. All the tips in this and subsequent posts are geared towards that only.

For a novice, twitter may look useless, but so did search engines in their initial days.

Easy-to-remember username

Username is your twitter name, and this is the first thing that a person finds about anyone on twitter. This is akin to the first part of your e-mail ID — everything before @, and you will not want your username to spoil the party. Hence, do not use your nickname or any other silly things in there. While saying that I did not mean to say that your nickname is silly, all I meant was that your username should look classy. Cheesy stuffs do not cut it. Your twitter name should also be easy to remember.

Real name for real people

Use your real first and last names in the designated space. Do not use any cool-but-idiotic-sounding words in place of the first and the last name. It will hurt your image, and create hindrance in getting a job. A person without real name does not sound like a person, at least not on the Internet.

Real picture

I know how badly you wanted to look like Brad Pitt, but the fact is you are not him then why to use his picture as your profile picture? Believe me it will not impress your employer, and most of all they will come to know it is not Brad Pitt who is applying for the job. Take my suggestion and pull that picture down, and instead use your own picture, preferably in business attire.

In the twitter profile, nothing but close-up of your own picture should be there.

Start fixing your profile now and when you are done send me your twitter URL. That’s all for today, will meet tomorrow with some more tips.

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.

Well, you have to think up a great domain name.  Your domain name is important, so you don’t want to take this one lightly.  Your domain name helps to register your unique brand with your users, and search engines, and is the beginning of the description of your website.  You want to pick something short and relevant, that’s also easy to spell and remember.  This way you’re more likely to gain memory recognition from your users, and anyone searching a web page is less likely to misspell your domain on Google.

Now that you’ve got a good domain name, you need somewhere to host that domain.  There are a variety of website companies that offer such services, for a nominal fee.  You’ll have to pay for registration, as well as maintaining that domain name every year.  While you’re purchasing the name, you’ll also want to look into data storage, as you have to have storage in order to put anything on your website.

Most companies that offer domain registration also offer data storage plans.  All have varying levels of cost, and you’ll have to factor in your companies needs when deciding which service is for you.  Factor in how much data, including photos and media you want to store on the page.  You also need to think about what sort of traffic you will be expecting.  Exceeding your traffic bandwidth is usually penalized by extra fees being charged to your account, so think carefully.

Now that you’ve got the site, remember that your engaging content is what’s really going to drive traffic.  Making the page available isn’t even half the battle.  Building a page that people legitimately want to visit is the real war.

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.

Well, being as active as possible is a start.  Having no internet identity can be just as bad as having a negative one.  Employers want to see positive extra curricular activity, and work history.  These are cues to what sort of employee you are, so make sure an interviewer can easily find them.  Be active in professional forums, maintain a personal blog, and keep a professionally oriented social networking page.

Make sure that everything you put out there puts you into a positive light.  Anything you want an employer to see needs to be about creativity, positive, and showcasing commitment and hard work.  Don’t bash old employers and bosses, because that’s a big turn off to anybody interested in you.  In fact, don’t bash anybody, or have anything negative on a page that’s intended to be professional, because it will only show you in a bad light.

But don’t forget, what you put out there is only half the battle.  You need to search your name to see what other people are putting out in relation to your name.  Do a search, see if anything comes up from past employers, or if anything you wouldn’t want a potential employer to see pops up.  Takes steps to correct these, or have them removed from search engines if you’re uncomfortable with the material.  Most of the time places like Google are more than willing to work with you, so long as you’re polite and patient.

Building an audience isn’t so much about what you write yourself, but how you communicate.  Your Twitter account, if you’re using it to sell an idea, business, or product, needs to become a community forum.  Your tweets are only useful if you can guarantee people are reading them.  The way to do that is to build followers, and the best way to build followers is getting them involved.

Make use of Twitter’s search function.  See what people are saying involving your concepts or business, and reply to them through your page.  Ask questions, or comment on tweets that they’ve made regarding you.  Start a running dialog, so that they’ll gain more interest and also mention you on their page, which will also build interest with a new audience.

Consider how useful the ability to re-tweet really is.  By re-tweeting you draw attention to a comment someone else made, and put your own spin on the material.  This will be noticed by the original tweeter, and your audience.  Both can work to build the traffic on your page, and the more meaningful views you’ll garner.

Finally, everyone likes pictures, especially search engines.  The more pictures you use, the more people will be drawn to your page.  I’m not talking about pictures of anything.  But try to upload meaningful and visually insightful pictures that relate to your Twitter page as often as possible.  These will get more comments, and more chances for re-tweets.  Both of which are necessary to build your page.

What changed in the 1st decade?

• In the decade that is passing by, Blogging, video sharing, pod casting, and rich media content has come huge.
• Web which was nothing but a cheap imitation of broadcast media in the beginning of the decade has changed, and now it is more of a conversational media.
• Top-down approach of communication of web 1.0 (web in the beginning of 2000) gave way to two way communication.
• Comments and feedback become a huge force on the Internet.
• People became social.
• Friendster went out and got replaced by Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.
• People felt the power of 140 characters as twitter, plurk, identi.ca, and like flourished.
• Sharing has become a new nature
• People started voicing their concern with click of a mouse.
• Broadband become ubiquitous.
• Computer is not only medium for web access. More and more people started using handheld devices to access the net.
• Techcrunch, lifehacker, boingboing, and the likes become more popular on the net then AOL, Times and other biggies.
• Being on the first page of Digg has become cooler than being on the top 10 list of the New York Times.
• Social bookmarking became a huge force.
• Search engine became more intelligent.
• Cloud computing is a serious business now.

This is in no way a complete list of what has changed in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

What to expect in 2010

• Authority will rule.
• People with real knowledge about their field will become more important.
• Web will go semantic
• Search engines will become more intolerant of shoddy SEO practices
• Web will become personal and portable
• Big content sites like ehow, about.com will become prominent.
• Broadband will become more popular.
• You will be more important as an individual than as member of tribe.
• Technology will go open source.
• Chrome OS will see the light of the day.
• Wolfram Alpha will become a default search engine for hard data.
• Bing will put a big dent in Google search.
• More and more SEO will happen for Bing.
• Search result will become more personal and local

These and several other changes will happen in 2010. Let’s wait and see how it unfolds, but for now let’s bid adieu to 2009. Bye, Bye 2009!

Of course the main key here is writing quality content, because in the end your use of keywords doesn’t matter to the reader if there isn’t real quality behind the keywords.  Start off by writing relevant content.  Write about what’s in the news right now, as most people are searching for current events when using a search engine.  Try to offer quality content, featuring your unique viewpoint and writing voice.

The best attack from there for search engine attention, is to write a variety of content about that same subject, usually articles or entries from multiple viewpoints.  Creating a wealth of content is always a good thing, just make sure all of it happens to be quality content.  Use link backs also, to the original articles that gave you the idea to write about a certain topic.  This way you benefit from traffic flowing between your site and another person’s site.  This can also serve to help you network yourself and get more attention that way as well.

From there you want to focus on the way that you’re writing.  Make sure to use keywords appropriately, the words that are directly associated to your piece are vitally important.  If you have a topic but don’t know what keywords would be best, try using a service like Google Trends to find out the most searched keywords.  This will give you a good start on what people type to find out about topics related to what you are writing.  By using those same keywords you increase the likelihood that someone will come across your site.

The clean, no-nonsense homepage of Google brought storm; it was not just the homepage that created a furor, but it was all the under-the-carpet innovations by Google that amazed all of us. Unlike many start-ups, Google did not go on the roof and shouted about its better algorithm or Page Rank system. It was left for us to find out and get excited over the things, and thus we all fell in love with Google.

Google’s penchant for under-the-carpet innovations is what has always excited me. I feel the ownership of the information when I find something exciting about a topic on my own, and Google gave me a lot of space to feel like an owner of the search engine.

Google has this uncanny ability to control the excitement over its products or its feature. Contrary to going over the top and telling us what to do and how to do it with its products, Google maintains silence, and let us explore. The company lets its products take life of their own.

Let me give you an example: have you tried the time zone feature of Gmail? Or have you used Google’s wonder wheel for keyword research or relative search?

Or,

Have you noticed the super-size search box?

Yes, Google has increase the size of search box that you see on Google.com. Well, you may say, so what, and brush this innovation aside. You might not feel any real difference, but I am sure you will agree about the symbolic value of this change.

The new, big search box suggests, no matter what, Google is still all about search. Happy Goggling!

The number one tactic is picking appropriate keywords for any articles found on your site.  When somebody is looking to Google to find a product or service, they type a few words into Google’s search bar, and sift through the results that pop up.  Which is why you want to appropriately keyword all the content on your site by using terms most likely to be used when somebody is using a search engine.  For example, you want to use the same key phrase relatively often on a page, but not so often that the quality of your written content suffers.  Which means you want your title to involve the key phrase, as well as your Meta Tags, and any photographs on your site should be titled incorporating that same key phrase.

That way anybody who is looking for that specific thing, and types something similar to what your website offers into a search engine, your site is more likely to pop up.  And you want to title your images as such, because that way you can also swipe some traffic from anybody doing an image search, like Google’s or Yahoo!’s image search options.

Search engines also rank you on overall popularity, meaning if your website is found referenced on other websites, you’re more likely to feature well in their search results.  Which is why you want to network and exchange links with as many similar products and companies as you can.  While this sounds like a conflict on interest in most ways, it’s also a fantastic method to get your website out there, and the more people you attract, the more customers/interested parties you will have.

And finally don’t forget to make sure you’ve submitted your website’s main address as well as the address of every page therein to any search engine’s archives.  Google allows you to do this for free, which is what makes them one of your best low cost resources, whereas Yahoo! requires a fee to enter your website into their search result considerations.