Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Windows Live Writer Beta 2

Jun 14, 2007 No Comments »

Update [June 17, 2007]: Today while working on a post Windows Live Writer started crashing. It crashes on that particular post. I don’t know what happened. I completed it, and then closed the Writer without posting to the blog. When I tried opening the post to publish it, the Writer started crashing. It only crashes on that post and I don’t know if there is some problem with the source code. I cannot even check it because I cannot open it. I’ll keep using it though because there is nothing better but I’ll keep saving the source code in a separate text file from now onwards.

You can now download Windows Live Writer Beta 2 now. I’ve been using Windows Live Writer for months now and it is a great offline blog editing/posting tool. The only thing I haven’t been able to figure out till now is, how to add trackback URLs to my posts.

More links on Windows Live Writer Beta 2:

• Windows Live Writer Beta 2

Technorati Tags: windows live writer, beta 2

Target less competitive long tail keywords and get more traffic

Jun 14, 2007 4 Comments »

Apart from targeting your niche keywords that might be highly competitive, you should also optimize your web page content and blog posts for less competitive keywords, especially if you have just started your search engine optimization drive. Your niche keywords are important and you should always continue optimizing your content for them, but along with that, it doesn’t harm if you also target partially related, or very specific keywords. For instance, if your business is “rental cars” you shouldn’t only focus on the phrase “rental cars”; you can also target “ac rental cars” or “finding rental cars in new delhi” (if you operate in New Delhi) or even “how much does it cost to rent a car in new delhi”. These are also called long tail keywords, as they get you lots of traffic, but in smaller quantities.

Focusing on long tail keywords will help you  at three fronts:

• Your website will start getting relevant traffic sooner for long tail keywords
• You’ll have to pay less if you opt for pay-per-click search engine advertising for long tail
• Conversion rate will be higher

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Free Design Templates for Your Blog

Jun 10, 2007 1 Comment »

This link has lots of them. Although I prefer creating my own templates, sometimes it’s better to start working on an already existing template.

Technorati Tags: free templates, blog designs

MovableType 4 Beta released

Jun 07, 2007 No Comments »

Remember MovableType? OK, OK, I’m joking. I know there are hundreds, or may be thousands of blogs being run on MovableType. I used to manage a few of my blogs with MovableType when it was freely available. I switched to WordPress when MovableType started coming at a price. It’s not that I didn’t want to pay for it. It was just a coincident that I discovered WordPress exactly when I was about to purchase a licensed version of MovableType. There were two things I never liked about MovableType: it was CGI-based; it was very heavy.

WordPress, on the other hand, to my pleasant surprise, turned out to be a PHP-based program, a language I’m comfortable with, and it was not as heavy as MovableType. So why would I pay for a software I didn’t like, especially when a better, free alternative was easily available? Hence the switch.

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How to promote your website on a low budget?

Jun 05, 2007 2 Comments »

This link titled How to promote your website with $100 tells you how to promote your website on a low budget. Although the suggestions listed there go way beyond the $100 budget, you CAN promote your website, almost free-of-cost, by methodically spending your time on generating quality content; networking with other bloggers and participating on different forums. This takes lots of time and effort, of course, but if you have time and talent, but not money, this is the best way to go.

My recent observation has been that if you only write great content, then too you get quality traffic provided you have the initial push; I mean, there has to be at least some traffic for the initial buzz. If you keep on adding great content to your website or blog, eventually the traffic will build up, but it’ll take more time. So the best thing to do is, maintain a balance between generating great content, networking with other bloggers and webmasters, and leaving comments on other blogs and online forums.

Generating quality content does two things:

• Brings readers to your website/blog again and again
• Encourages people to link to you

The second bullet is also called as linkbaiting these days. Linkbait content can get you lots of traffic from social bookmarking websites like Digg, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.

Technorati Tags: low budget website promotion, linkbait