Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Internet Explorer 8 has been launched

Mar 05, 2008 No Comments »

If you are interested you can download and install the Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. A few days ago I had read that the latest version of Internet Explorer will be standards compliant and the blogger who mentioned that was quite skeptically surprised. Does this mean designers who want to create CSS-based layouts will not be facing roadblocks in Internet Explorer 8?

Although I don’t design websites for a living — not any more — I have spent many nights trying to make my layouts look the same in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

A major feature being talked about is the integration of FaceBook in Internet Explorer. I have just started using FaceBook so I don’t have much idea how beneficial this feature is going to be. But one thing is of sure: social networking websites are fast becoming the part and parcel of the mainstream software applications. You will soon have a FaceBook icon in your operating system in a year or so.

Anyway, I installed Internet Explorer 7 many months ago but I’m so used to using Firefox by now that I rarely used it; I use it for websites that only open in Internet Explorer.

Create content for that single admirer

Mar 05, 2008 No Comments »

You should always generate content for a single person because it is simply not possible to create content that is liked by everybody who comes to your website or blog. It is better to have a single admirer than being read by a thousand indifferent readers to whom it doesn’t matter whether you write again or not.

That single admirer eagerly awaits your next blog post or your next article. He or she not only goes through your suggestions, he or she also implements them on his or her daily life and sees his or her life improving. So he or she comes back for more, and as you consistently provide value to that single admirer he or she keeps coming back and recommends you wherever possible.

This concept of gaining admirers or fans is comprehensibly discussed at this link.

That is why a niche subject is more preferable over a generic subject. When you try to publish on every topic under the sun on your blog or website in order to please a broad section of people it is very hard to succeed unless you are creating great amount of content in very little time. There are blogs that post just one post per week and they enjoy a great fan following and there are some blogs that produce tons of content and still very few people go and read those blogs. What do successful blogs and websites have in common?

• They produce and publish highly focused content
• They produce and publish highly focused content, consistently

These are the two ingredients that earn you hardcore fans and admirers. Strive to cater to selected few and excel in that; earn an authority in that vertical subject matter and give your readers a reason to trust you and have faith in your wisdom.

Quantity doesn’t matter if it doesn’t bring results. Recently I came across a blog that boasted of around 15,000 RSS subscribers and earned about $300 per month as advertising revenue and that was the sole earning of the blog.

I’m not saying that the quality and success of a blog or a website should be gauged by the amount of money it earns, but the thing is, if you’re making a big change in the lives of your readers and there is no tangible return for you aside from a moral satisfaction, then you are doing a social service and not a business. Then content publishing is not your business. Content publishing becomes a business when it earns money for you, directly or indirectly.

The example that I have used above could be a wrong one. Regular readers don’t pay any heed to the ads appearing on a blog or website. It isn’t necessary that every blog and website publishing content should depend on advertising revenue. There can be many other ways a highly-read blog or website can be exploited to make monetary gains. For instance you can sell products and your own services through your successful blog or website.

But I digress here. The main point is that instead of publishing content for a broad range of audience you should create and publish content for a selected few. The reach of the Internet is so amazing that even "a selected few" can turn out to be a few thousand or a few hundred thousand dedicated readers who would like to buy what you recommend, or who would buy your products and services.

Google is showing a search box within the search results

Mar 05, 2008 No Comments »

I just saw it at Search Engine Land.

It isn’t showing the second search box on my side. Maybe Google is testing it in certain areas. Anyway, I think search boxes will appear for the websites that themselves have search boxes on them. And perhaps, right now it will only appear for the bigger sites. But I think this is a good thing: you can search within the website without actually having to go to that website

Should you display your RSS feeds counter on your blog?

Mar 04, 2008 No Comments »

This is the question dosh dosh is pondering over on his blog (he has the feeds counter displayed on his blog by the way). Why do people put their RSS feeds counter on the blogs? Is it to show off how many RSS subscribers your blog has? I don’t see anything wrong in such kind of show off.

Maki (he publishes dosh dosh) argues that he doesn’t want people to subscribe to his RSS feeds just because he has high number of RSS subscribers. I think displaying your RSS feeds counter makes good sense because it shows your visitors, especially the new visitors, how many people trust the content on your blog. Even initially if they subscribe to your RSS feeds just because they’re impressed by the number they will end up reading your posts eventually and I think this is good, isn’t it? You’re not misleading them; you are just trying to make sure they don’t miss the updates on your blog.

Blogging, written, textual blogging, is all about readership. The more readers you have the more successful your blog becomes, and the more successful your blog becomes, the better content (ideally) you want to present on your blog, the better the content on your blog, the greater is your readership. So it all becomes a cycle, and displaying your RSS feeds counter is just a small part in this whole entire big affair. Whether we like it or not there are a few people who are driven by numbers. There is nothing wrong in prompting them to subscribe because if they don’t like your content they will simply unsubscribe. So there is no harm putting your RSS feeds counter on your blog. What do you think?

Side note: instead of leaving comments on other blogs I have decided to create short blog posts on my blog with links to the posts I intended to leave comment on. This way I will be able to generate more content for this blog as well as send trackbacks to other blogs. Also I feel freer expressing my thoughts on my own blog rather than posting one-liners on other blogs. I won’t be doing it all the time but most of the time I will. Some blogs don’t publish trackbacks but still personally this seems to be a better idea.

Yahoo has launched a Digg clone called Yahoo Buzz

Mar 04, 2008 No Comments »

Maybe it’s an old news but I just came across it. Yahoo too has jumped on the social bookmarking websites bandwagon and has launched Yahoo buzz, a website where feeds are ranked according to the votes they get. But the ranking of the feeds not just depends on the number of votes they get, it also depends on the number of times the feed is searched for or recommended by e-mail. According to the grapevine right now Yahoo buzz will feature feeds only from the members of the Yahoo publishing network but I’m not sure how much of this is correct. Anyway, we will keep on seeing such websites popping up with greater regularity whether they succeed or not.