Where Great Content Begins

This is really a common question. You will see this issue addressed in many different venues. You will also see a wide variety of answers. It can get really confusing, especially if you are new to blogging.

Let’s put it in a bit of perspective.

Blogging started out as a form of online journals. They soon caught on as a business tool. Small businesses saw them as a way to communicate and connect with their clients on a more personal basis.

Search engines saw blogs as something that changed websites. Search engines like seeing changes and updates. A site that had a blog that was updated was a seen as a website that was constantly evolving, and is one of the factors in a website ranking higher in search engine rankings.

So how does all of this effect when and how often you blog? Some people suggest the more you blog the better. The frequency is what they think catches the search engines and the rankings. This is a good theory, but in practice blogging a few times a day can be a daunting task. Blogging daily can be a task as well.

You are not blogging solely for the search engines. You are blogging for your readers. You are blogging to get the information for your clients.

The key is to blog on a regular basis. If you feel that you can blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then do it. They key is to keep up with it. WordPress has some great tools for postdated posts that I will share in a posting later this week.

This helps draw your reader in to your site. They know that you will be posting the tip of the week every Friday for example so they know they need to make your blog a stop every Friday. Weekly features are a great example of how to connect with your readers as well.

What ever you feel that you can do, just do it. Even if it is just once a week it shows that your site is not stagnate, but dynamic and changing. Readers that find your blog will see that you do update on a regular basis. These are all things that you want.

I hope this answered any questions that you have. Just remember the key is just to keep posting to your site. Remember if you need any help with what to write or would like someone to manage your blog for you, please free to contact me at judithldavis@gmail.com

For starters I started a great internship last night! I am so excited! It is with LaTara, over at Social Savvy VA. I know LaTara and her quality of work and her knowledge base is wonderful. I am very excited about the next 10 weeks!

One thing she said last night really stuck with me, and really made sense!

No matter what business you are doing online, you have to be doing internet marketing. You can be a writer, which I am, MLM, selling physical goods, or a service business, but if you aren’t doing internet marketing it is not going to be a business operating at full potential!

This is why I am doing this internship. I want to learn all that I can about marketing. Not only to help my own business, but so that I can help my clients.

Are you an internet marketer? Do you know how to market the products that you sell? Learning internet marketing is not a bad thing at all.

Lately I have been learning a lot about my writing skills. Along the way I have been learning much about myself as well.

I love to write. I started writing when I was young, just as poetry and a diary, but kept plugging away. A few years ago I started writing for Associated Content. I found that I really enjoyed it and could put a few pennies in my pocket. From there I branched out and wrote for a few other companies as well as getting a few by-lines at places like LiveStrong.com and Work.com.

I enjoyed writing for these and had a little bit of success and thought taking on Private Clients was the next step. Truth be known, I don’t charge as much as I should, that is what my Business Coach tells me. But in a market that is flooded with writers I honestly feel that charging more is not the answer. I need to expand my services.

So with that in mind I am taking a step back and re-evaluating what I am doing, what I need to be doing and where I want be.

With that in mind, what services would YOU want from a writer? Looking for ideas, so any and all input is appreciated!

Lately I have been soaking in as much information as I possibly can. I have come across some great roll models and mentors in the work at home community. I have to tell you my outlook and my goals have changed drastically in the past 3 weeks!

That means that this website and this blog are about to undergo a huge shift. Don’t worry you will be provided with seatbelts, because I am not promising it is going to be a smooth ride, but trust me it will be an exciting one!

First and foremost I really want you to sign up for my mailing list at the right (you all just saw me close my eyes and raise my right hand and think about the direction, didn’t you?)  Right now it will get you a brand new article. It is 7 great tips to marketing yourself online. In the future you will be one of the first to grab a copy of the e-book that I am working on, that will expand on that article. It is going to be exciting and full of great information that you can use to market your business and yourself!

The second great adventure that is in the works is that my team and I are finally working on a great PLR option. I have been putting this off, because quite frankly doing a PLR was just too overwhelming for me. I knew that the amount of content was too much for one person to handle. So what did I do? I went out and found some talented writers. At this very minute they are hard at work on topics such as health and fitness, weight loss, internet marketing, famous quotes and affirmations. By putting in your name and email in the form, you will ensure that you will get notification as soon as these are ready!

Also in the works, whew taking a minute to breathe here, is a great package for article marketing. I already offer this on a limited basis. Now that I have a team of writers I am going to open this up to more people. Article marketing can really expand your business and bring you in targeted traffic. Just imagine for one low price you can have a talented ghostwriter not only write your articles for you, but submit them to article directories. Talk about easy targeted traffic! So now I really want you to get your name on my list. You do not want to miss that opportunity. We are still only human so there will be a set amount of slots available October 1st. Putting your email over there ensure you that you will be the first to know when they are available. Probably before the blog readers do!

So what are you waiting for? I am so jazzed up about all the great changes in my life and all that is going to be going on!  I can’t believe your still just sitting there. I know that you want to be the first in line!

Have a wonderful WEEK!!!

No, before you zone out and I lose you, this is not going to be a whiney, “why not me?” post. Honest. I know this is a fact that a lot of us struggle with. I am thinking, and I could be wrong, that it is something many of us struggle with and just won’t admit too.

This morning I did a little experiment. I posted a real simple question to both my Twitter and my Facebook account. The grand dames of social media wouldnt’ you say?

The question was, “what are YOU looking forward to today?”

Pretty easy huh?

I have 714 followers on Twitter (feel free to add me to your twitter Judilynn) and on Facebook I have 1,459 friends (you can find me as Judith L. Davis on facebook)

Now that is quite a few people out there that should see my status right? I should of had lots of people commenting on what they were looking forward today shouldn’t I? Well unless it is a really gloomy Wednesday huh?

I got not a tweet on Twitter and 7 responses on Facebook. 1 of which was my own response and the majority of replies were relatives.

So I am left to wonder, what good are these friends and followers? Do I really get my message out? Is anyone paying any attention to a word I say?

And I am betting that there are many out there that are thinking the exact same thing. Come on fess up!

Now social media is a wonderful thing. It can lend to great connections, business possibilities, renewed friendships, brand new friendships and even business partners.

The qualifier here is, you have to use it! You have to be social. Imagine that, in social media you have to be social, what a concept. Blows my mind it does.

So my next question is this, and it’s pretty simple too.

What are YOU doing to make your social media work for you?

My brother, Bob, yes I really have a brother named Bob, keeps telling me the way to make a fortune on the internet is to write and sell information on ….  wait for it ….. are you waiting?

Making a fortune on the internet. Think about it. All those people you follow on Twitter, on Facebook, on linked In, they are all touting the same thing. Follow me, spend your money on my product and I will show you how to make a fortune. In the meantime, they themselves are making a fortune, hopefully.

And this is a good way to make money. There are people out there that will buy just about anything with the promise of making a fortune. Ok let’s face it there are people out there that buy for just the promise of making enough to pay the mortgage right now. The financial state of this country is in such turmoil that people will grasp anything to help them through.

Which brings through another point. There are a lot of geniune people out there that want to help people make money on the internet. They have a geniune concern to help people. Most are people who have made it and are now helping others up that hill.

But as many people out there that are great people to follow and learn from there are a bunch of scammers as well. To be quite frank, telling the genuine from the scammers can be a full time job.

So what are we left with? Really? Are we left floundering to the left and right trying to figure out the “real” way to make money on the internet? Do we jump on the bandwagon and the latest craze that everyone else is following? Do we blaze our own path to see what we can see out there?

Well I honestly think there is a few golden rules to follow when you are trying to make your fortune here on the interent.

1. Follow your heart. Do what you love. Let’s face it, if we do something that we are not the least bit interested in to make money, we will eventually fail. We have to find something that our hearts are in.
2. Give your customers/clients what they came to the internet looking for – Information. That is what anyone entering a search word in google is looking for. They want to know something about something. As long as you deliver on that promise, you will succeed.

You could sell information on how to make a fortune on the internet, if that is what you are good at and where your passion lies. You could offer information on how to change a burned out rear turn signal on a Ford Focus. While it may not make you an instant success sooner or later you will find your niche and with persistance you will be able to pay that mortgage or even make that fortune you are dreaming of.

And if that fails, consider the lottery. It’s always a back up plan!

It is said that we spend the majority of our day communicating with others. Communication can take many forms. We can talk, we can write or we can even communicate through body language.

On the internet, or the World Wide Web, communications is the way we share information or express our opinions. Those who make their livings online find that they are constantly communicating. It can be in the form of articles, ebooks, special reports, podcast, webinars or many other inventive ways. All of these are ways of communication. Expressing your thoughts and ideas to someone else.

As a writer I try to express my ideas as clearly as possible, but still there are times when I find that my writing is about as clear as mud. It also happens that what I write may have sounded crystal clear in my head did not come across that way. There was a fault in the line. I mis-communicated an idea.

When we write, especially online, we need to remember the audience. We are not writing for ourselves, we are writing for others. Either to inform them, to sell them or to sway them to our way of thinking.

So how does a writer avoid that troubled line? That mis-communication?

First by using language that is generally accepted. Avoid slang, big words and acronyms. While you may get it, there is a chance that your reader will not. Unless of course you are targetting a specific market that you know will understand it. Use the language of your reader! If you are unsure they will understand a word, don’t take a chance, find an alternative that you KNOW they will get.

Second, write in a style that is easier to read. Studies have shown that when people read on the internet they like short words, short sentences and short paragraphs. Get to the point. Don’t beat around the bush.

Third, encourage your audience to ask questions if you have muddied up the water by accident. It’s going to happen, don’t worry, beleive me. No matter how hard you try, some day you will write something that will leave them scratching their heads. Make sure your readers know that they can ask you to clear the waters. Ensure they can leave comments and answer them!

And don’t bore your audience. Get your point across with out a bunch of fluff. Honestly people don’t like fluff. It’s a face paced world. People want their information. They want it now. They don’t want to wade through a bunch of “fluff” to get it.

I hope that cleared the water. I hope this makes sense. Let me know if I am clear as mud!

A writer is an important part of your online business. You have other things to do. Things that are a better use of your time. Writing for many online professionals is a chore. The solution is to hire a writer.

Now that you have a writer what can that writer do for you?

A writer can do many things.

They can write articles for your website. You pick a topic, tell them the direction you want it to go in and when they are done you post it on your website. Your website will benefit from articles that provide information on your topics and your traffic will increase.

You can also take these articles and submit them to article directories. Some writers will even submit them for you. This gets your name and website out there. It gives you backlinks and establishes you as an expert.

Your writer can also write other things for you. Blog post are a way to use your writer. Blogs must be updated frequently to get the attention of search engines. Have a writer deliver articles to you or post them directly to your blog on a scheduled basis.

Newsletters and Special reports are also in a writers realm of possibilities. Just think of all the topics that you can delegate to a writer. Topics that you have wanted to cover and just haven’t had the time to sit down and write about.

These are just a few of the possibilites to work with. Have a conference with your writer and discover more. Delegating your writing to someone else, frees you up to do what you enjoy.

Many people take the plunge and decide to hire a writer. There may be many different reasons.

- they don’t have the time to write the amount of articles that they need.

- they don’t feel comfortable with the writing processes.

- they enjoy spending their time doing other business task.

Whatever the reason, it is time to look for a writer to write great content for them.

The next hurdle is how to find a good writer.

To be perfectly honest, there are some awesome writers out there on the web. Ones that will work hard for you and churn out quality articles.

Then there are the not so good ones. They copy and paste. They recycle old articles time and again. They have bad grammar and there are frequent misspellings in their writing.

So how does one find a quality writer?

Word of mouth is a great recommendation. Ask your friends and business associates if they use a writer and if they are willing to share the name of who they use. Good freelance writers are an asset. If they aren’t willing to share the name of whom they use, maybe they are willing to recommend someone.

Another great place to find writers is your social media contacts. Put a buzz out there on your Twitter, your Facebook or your LinkedIn that you are looking for a writer. You will be surprised at what answers you get. You may get the writers themselves of contacts may volunteer suggestions.

Try places such as Shelancers as well. This is a place where female freelance workers register so people can find them and see what services they offer.

There are also sites where you can register and writers will come and bid on your projects. Elance, Rentacoder, and Guru are three of these sites. Many freelance writers that are just starting out use these venues to find clients.

Writers are out there. Good writers are out there. More than likely the writer you are looking for is out there, just looking for a client like you.

The next question is, once you find a writer, how do you know that they are the writer for you?

Stay tuned for the next blog post.

This is the step that stops many in their path.

Go ahead google article directories and just watch your screen fill up time and again with 100s if not 1000s of different directories.

There are general directories, Ezine Ariticles for example, and then directories like Lady Pens that are directed at specific markets. There are also article directories aimed at a specific niche. For example after a quick search I found an article directory on Health and Fitness at Article Health and Fitness.

So now that you know there are a ton of directories out there. This is a very intimidating thing to some people. Where to submit? How to submit? What do I submit?

Well there are a few theories behind these questions, but for someone just starting out I have a few words of advice.

The first is really simple, just do it. The first one will always be the hardest. Pick one of the larger article directories such as Ezine Ariticle, and register to be a contributor. You can work on your resource box (your name and your website and short bio). For some article directories you can even upload your picture. Then find an article, either one you have written yourself or had someone written and submit it. That’s it.

Once you get the hang of getting one done and submitted the others will be much easier. Make sure that you read each directory’s guidelines. While many of the rules are the same each directory has its own guidelines and how they want articles submitted.

After you have an article submitted you will want to submit articles to other directories. Some people submit the same article to different directories. While some directories are ok with this, it only takes a moment to change up a few things in the article to make it different.

If this all just doesn’t sound like your cup of tea there is a solution for you as well. Outsource this task for your online business. Many writers offer writing services for article directories. They will write the articles and submit them to the directories for you.

Whatever way you decide to market your articles, it is a key component to your online success. Don’t pass this relatively simple method of marketing up.