Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Blog Action Day – Breaking The Vicious Cycle of Poverty

Oct 15, 2008 69 Comments »

Whenever the thoughts of poverty come to my mind I’m hit by the images of emaciated, weak, and small bodies incapable of taking on the challenges of life. There are two fundamental things that keep people poor aside from lack of money and resources:

• Lack of food
• Lack of education

Proper nutrition keeps our minds and bodies healthy and these two physical aspects are required in order to live a meaningful and purposeful life. The same goes for education. Education is not just needed to gain employment it is also needed to understand life and the world around us. So if we want to break the vicious cycle of poverty we first have to break the vicious circle of lack of food and lack of education and this requires proactive measures from people who have the resources. I hope campaigns like BLOG ACTION DAY can motivate people and make them take proactive measures in their respective communities.

I think the governments, along with providing employment opportunities and maintaining a sense of equal justice, should also provide food to the poor because I am pretty sure once people start feeling healthy they can work harder and with greater focus. When most of the time they feel hungry and weak how can we expect them to feel motivated. What we eat certainly affects the way we think. If we get just one measly meal everyday than our outlook remains proportionate to that meal and the world doesn’t go beyond that meal.

In India there are many food-for-work schemes but rarely the right people get the right food. Even in schools for the poor the government provides free meals to the children and in fact these meals are one of the greatest attractions that draw them towards the school. More than money and employment people first of all need food and food should not depend on employment. Food should be available to every citizen of the world by default whether he or she works or not. It may sound unfair to many people but just think how much food is wasted in developed and developing countries where economically well-off people can easily afford good food. More than half the population of the world can perhaps be fed by the amount of food that is thrown away. So you can very well make out what’s more unfair.

Besides, if communities are helped to become self-sufficient in producing and consuming nutritious food locally then this problem can be solved forever. Since the poor are uneducated and unaware of their own environment most of the time they don’t know how to eat healthy food that can be easily produced or acquired without spending money.

Similarly access to quality education should be easily available to everybody. Now I am not talking about making every kind of education freely available but at least fundamental education – education that teaches you how to read, how to analyze the world around you, give a head start to your children during their primary school days and carry out day today mathematics. This can be achieved by individual effort and by state-level efforts. Whereas state-level efforts, half-heartedly, are always functioning it is the individual effort that can eventually make a difference.

Lack of nutrition and education are the root causes that keep the vicious circle of poverty rolling and unless these two issues are not tackled we will not be able to alleviate poverty.

How not to depend much on search engines

Sep 19, 2008 34 Comments »

95% of my writing business depends on search engine traffic. This is a dangerous situation. What if something happens – some change in the ranking algorithms, something that is not liked at my website – and my listings vanish from the search engine result pages? Does this mean I should pack my bags? Although I can start all over again and try to get back into the search engine results but this is a very shaky situation and I am sure many of you too are faced with the same dilemma. What is the best way to deal with such a situation?

Let us except that the search engines are very powerful promotional tools and they should never be excluded from your Internet marketing effort, but they should never be the sole suppliers of your traffic. With millions of websites scattered all over the Internet it is not too ambitious to try to get some traffic from these websites directly. I will again emphasize that you can get the best traffic from search engines because when people come from search engines they are already looking for a specific search term and this may not happen if they are coming directly from a website. But then the advantage of getting traffic from a website is that a person clicks on your link fully knowing where he or she is heading to. So how can you generate traffic outside of the search engines? Here are a few thoughts; you are welcome to add yours.

Publish a blog

Regularly publishing a blog is the best way of driving high-quality traffic to your website without having to depend on search engines. Although blogs get tons of traffic from search engines due to the way they are published, a lot of traffic also comes from other websites and blogs and this is an advantage not enjoyed by conventional websites. People are constantly linking to blog posts, commenting about them, commenting on them and recommending them to their readers and friends. There are even many social bookmarking websites just to promote blog content among various readers and blog publishers. In few instances some bloggers have been blocked by the search engines (that is, their links didn’t show up on the search result pages) for violating various rules but the blockage didn’t affect them much although they did notice it and wrote about it. The mere act of writing about the blockage got them hundreds of thousands of hits from other blogs and websites. They couldn’t have generated such massive traffic merely from search engines. Once your blog has crossed the popularity threshold you don’t have to worry much about search engine traffic.

Have quality content on your website or blog

Interesting content draws crowds to your blog or website. People not only read the content they also like to link to it whenever possible, and if they are really impressed they put a permanent link to your blog on their blog or website. Quality content also enhances your credibility and people begin to trust you for your opinion. You get tons of repeat traffic. Great content also encourages your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds and this also helps you increase and maintain your readership – this readership doesn’t have to depend on search engines to find your blog and consume your content and consequently, generate business for you.

Be active on social media websites, online forums and blogs

We live in a conversation economy; lots of business is generated by encouraging conversation between buyers and sellers. But this is just one small aspect of social media marketing. What you are actually doing is establishing long-lasting relationships with different individuals. You don’t necessarily have to do it for a selfish reason because being social means giving more than taking. Be useful to people and people will be useful to you. Be an interesting person, be a resourceful person and people won’t take you as a business bug. Try to interact with people through Twitter, FaceBook, Plurk, Digg, Pownce, etc. Often it is not possible to track conversations on all social media websites so just focus on a couple or even a single website but do it thoroughly and establish yourself there as an authority. Network with as many people as possible.

Similarly, constructively interact on various online forums because you can get lots of quality traffic from these forums. Don’t spam and don’t leave meaningless comments just to leave your links because this doesn’t work; people don’t click your link if they don’t like what you have written. You should also leave comments on other blogs to let people know about the existence of your blog or website. But make sure that you add value to the ongoing discussion and this means read the content present on the blog or website carefully, think about it, and only then add your opinion.

Distribute your content to blogs and websites

There are many blogs that would eagerly accept your guest posts provided you have written something really worth reading and captivating. When these bloggers publish your blog post, what is known as guest blog post, they often put a small profile of yours under the post or over it with the link connecting to your blog or website.

Similarly you can submit succinct, useful articles to various websites and article submission websites. These article submission websites draw lots of traffic from search engines; this way you can get indirect traffic from search engines in case your own website or blog vanishes from there.

Include your link in your e-mail signature

This might not look like much but you never know where your e-mail may end up and who might click on the link you have included in your signature. And anyway having a link is a lot better than not having it. This can be really effective if you send out lots of e-mails on a regular basis.

Publish a newsletter

In terms of the Internet this is one of the oldest surviving modes of communicating with your visitors. When they visit your website encourage investors to subscribe to your newsletter so that they can receive regular updates from you. Although this can be same as subscribing to your RSS feeds but your newsletter is a bit different – people don’t need an RSS reader first of all to read your updates, and second, it will be difficult for you to publish everything on your blog; sometimes you need to communicate only through e-mail. Publishing a newsletter is one of the greatest ways of getting tons of highly targeted traffic to your website without having to depend on search engines.

Do share on this blog if you are aware of more methods of generating targeted traffic to your website or blog without search engines.

Social Media Marketing Best Practices

Aug 28, 2008 5 Comments »

A few years ago I came across an Amway couple… those sorts who befriend you in order to encourage you to sign up under them or buy their merchandise. The sole purpose for them behind making new contacts and acquaintances was to generate leads. Even when they organized a social occasion it was mainly to showcase their products and again, to sign up new members under them. This was when I came across this expression “networking”. People network to further their careers and grow their businesses. There is nothing wrong in that as long as you don’t pester people with your never-ending ideas and product offers. For a long time the expression “networking” carried a negative connotation for me.

When I started reading about social media marketing I equated with networking. People were basically networking to get new friends and generate more leads. It took me some time to realize that social networking is not just mercantile; you establish many rewarding relationships with people from all over the world coming from different fields and professions. You make friends, sometimes great friends, and in the process there is nothing wrong if those friends want to work with you on professional assignments or if they want to recommend you to their friends and colleagues. I think one of the greatest benefits of actively participating in the process of social media marketing is that it is not blind marketing; you learn so much and you share so much.

Keeping this in mind, a few months ago I started using Twitter on a regular basis. Compared to other people there, my “regular” means quite an overstatement, but at least I have started visiting the website on a daily basis. I’m getting some great links and messages from highly experienced and socially active experts. So much good information is available provided you have access to it; otherwise it is all-encompassing wilderness.

Mitch Joel has started a thread on the best practices of social media marketing. Here is the post where he has as initiated the idea. Although I’m not experienced in social media marketing my personal experience has shown that it helps you a lot to carefully listen to the conversations going around. This way you get to assimilate lots of wisdom. Listening also helps you gauge the general trend in your field. For instance I am trying to follow conversations of people involved with social media marketing, online copywriting and content writing, search engine optimization, creative writing, blogging and Internet technology. So far I don’t feel like sharing my own thoughts because although I read a lot and I’m pretty much comfortable supplying content to my clients there is still a lot to learn before I can contribute. So I think listening and understanding the conversations going on in the social media marketing seen can be a worthy component of social media marketing best practices.

How do you become an expert?

Aug 22, 2008 12 Comments »

Being an expert helps you in a big way whether you seek a job opportunity, aspire to climb up the corporate ladder or simply want to be a successful solo entrepreneur. When you become an expert people refer to you, listen to you intently and take your word seriously. Even if they haven’t personally consumed your services they are prone to recommending you to their friends and colleagues if they are convinced that you are an expert in your field.

But how do you become an “expert”? There is no short way; being an expert actually means becoming an expert and you can only become an expert by gleaning valuable knowledge and experience and then using that experience and knowledge for the benefit of the others; it is not necessary whether you charge for your expertise or not. Take for instance writing professional content for the websites and blogs.

There must be hundreds of thousands of “writers” offering their excellent content writing and online copywriting services; and I am sure many of them do provide excellent services. But why do some writers get plenty of work and some just survive on the fringes? There are two factors, in fact three factors if you count the ability to write well too: your ability to portray yourself as an expert and the effort you put in promoting yourself.

The act of promotion requires a separate discussion but here we will focus on the process of becoming an expert. Personally I believe you are always on your way to becoming an expert – nobody can claim to be a through and through expert, but I am being rhetorical here. Here are a few points that can help you become an expert in a field like content writing and online copywriting:

Learn constantly

Well, this is a given; in order to become an expert you need to carry on learning no matter how much you think you know. There are always new things happening; perceptions are always changing; technologies are perpetually evolving and social and demographic transformations are always in the process of taking place. You need to learn how different people react to different types of writings. There are different words that elicit different responses under different contexts.

Recently I had to refund an advance because the writer to whom I had outsourced the writing gig kept extending the deadline and eventually the client, understandably, got fed up. After sending the refund I sent an SMS to the writer informing her to stop all further work on the project. Her SMS response was, “Wow! Do what you think is the best.” I’m not going to talk about the way she didn’t deem it fit to apologize even once, but just notice how she has used the expression “Wow!”. Do you say wow! when something bad happens? So you need to be very careful how to use appropriate expressions when writing.

Be socially active on the Internet

You will notice that most experts are also expert in the art of networking and communicating. They don’t shrug away from discussions, debates and even controversies; they are always more than ready to talk, even to total strangers. The more you interact with people the more you highlight your expertise and knowledge. Use various social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook to keep in touch with people. Interact on blogs and online forums and leave useful and productive comments there so that people are encouraged to reach out to you for further exchange of ideas and information. Without being a bug network with the existing experts and reputed people.

Give your best

When you’re taking up projects and working on them give your best to them because giving your best forces you to stretch your limits and go beyond the usual. Think how you can deliver more than what is expected. Give your special touch to the project. Don’t hold back your knowledge; use it if it can benefit your client. In fact delivering more than what is expected of you shows that you have great knowledge and you are not scared of using it for the benefit of your clients even if you’re not directly being paid for it. Most experts have this tendency to share their knowledge without expecting immediate returns.

Maintain a blog

Share your ideas and wisdom through your blog; your blog is a great platform to express yourself and establish yourself as an expert. Sharing knowledge does not mean you are losing money; if there are thousand people who will use your advice for free to further their business gains there will be 50 or 100 people who would like to hire you as an expert, that otherwise wouldn’t have known about you or your ability. The biggest advantage of maintaining a blog is that you can showcase your expertise openly and at the same time build highly targeted traffic for your business website. In fact there are many people who don’t have a business website and solely run their businesses and consulting services through their blogs.

Being an expert surely takes an extra effort. Projecting yourself as an expert is a lot different from actually being an expert. There might be short-term gains in projecting yourself as an expert but a long-term job security can only be ensured when you truly become an expert of your field.

Does social networking media help you gain an identity or lose it?

Mar 04, 2008 1 Comment »

While going through this blog post at read/write web this particular portion:

1. Search based on what my friends find relevant
2. Elevate stories tagged by my friends — anywhere (maybe multiple social graphs web 2.0 & shopping)
3. Compare daily portfolio performance to friends
4. In terms of advertising, which of my friends owns a Focus & what do they think of it?

made me wonder, "will my every decision depend on the actions of my friends if I am extremely active on social networking websites?"

Isn’t it too much "trending"? Why do I need to know what my friends are reading in order to purchase a book? This way I am propagating a herd mentality. Maybe my friends on the social networking websites read something totally different than what I would like to read. They might be watching different movies than what I would like to watch. Where is your individuality if your identity depends on the sort of friends and acquaintances you have on the social networking websites?

Does too much interaction on social networking websites stifle your spirit? You are always trying to do what the others are doing and never get the chance to think about what you want to do as a person. I don’t have much experience in social media so it might be the case that my thinking is a bit misdirected. Please do she your thoughts on this.