Writing Archives - Page 62 of 64

Leaving a Guy a Place to Stand

November 25, 2005 by Liz

Whenever I give myself room to breathe, everyone around me gets nicer.

It’s an odd thing to write under the masthead Successful Blog. It’s such an opportunity, such an “Okay, Big Shot,” moment. It’s a chance to model best practices, not just write about them.

The writer’s credo is Don’t tell, show. How much closer to that could I get than this?

I can talk about building community by answering comments relentlessly, but it’s so much more powerful when I do it and my readers actually experience how it feels. I can explain how to correct your public mistakes, but again how much greater impact it has when I actually do what I say. If I do this job right, everything I do has the potential to have a tiny positive effect on the blogosphere.

So I share with you my learning curve at the end of one month. I’ve learned.

That people respond positively when you treat them like people who are worth talking to. They pitch in, share ideas, and form a community that’s fun to be part of.
That when someone takes a negative viewpoint, it works better to take the conversation offline.
That the blogosphere doesn’t need me to keep it working right.
That keeping focus on my readers takes care of almost every problem. (Except how I’m going to pay for my son’s college. 🙂 )

In 1972, a friend said to me “You always leave the other guy a place to stand.”

That advice has served me every day since. It works with everyone from 6 to 106. We all need a place to stand–no matter how scary we look. It can be the smallest thing. Here’s a fun read about Giving the Other Guy a Place to Stand that explains what I’m talking about.

If I could choose one best practice to pass on, that would be the one–that everyone in the blogosphere leaves lots more room for the other guy to stand.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO–Positioning Keywords for Readers and Search Engines

November 23, 2005 by Liz

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Keywords and Writing

You’ve picked a topic and 2-3 keywords that you want to focus on. Time for the writing to begin. To produce quality, relevant content, writers really need to focus on readers. There’s really no getting around that. So I recommend you write your post without a thought of SEO, and save the keyword positioning for the editing stage. Attempting to do both at once is like trying to serve two masters, you won’t do either well.

The Key to Keywords
Don’t pick a key that will open every door on the block, or a key that only you will be able to find. Translation: Avoid key words that are too broad and likely to be in every document. At the other extreme, don’t choose words that only you use. But then, you knew that.

Use keywords naturally. Overuse of keywords is to search engines as overuse of home office deductions is to tax forms–it raises a flag that you might be trying to beat the system. Avoid that. Using too many keywords is not only dangerous, it’s unfair to readers who come to you expecting a post that is well-written prose, worth reading.

Keywords and Formats
Posts come in many sizes and flavors. This section actually gives you two lists in one. It’s a main list of formats your posts might take. You might use it to spark your imagination before you start writing when you’re looking for some variety. Within that list is the information on where your keywords might best be positioned after each kind of post is written.

Post Formats and Keyword Information
Lists. In a list, keywords should be in the title, any list description, and only as necessary in the items.

Q & A or Interview. Use keywords in the questions, and enourage the interviewee to use them in his or her answers–if the interviewee finds they come naturally.

Informational Essay. The title should carry the keywords, if it can. Subheads–h1, h2, h3–should repeat the appropriate keywords for each section. The paragraphs that follow each subhead would naturally use the keywords the section content discusses.

Running text with multiple links. When you offer links with an explanation, it would seem important to the reader that you put the descriptive content before the link. Keywords could be part of that description. There also seems to be no reason that keywords couldn’t be part of the hot-linked text.

Multipage posts with or without the more –> feature. Remember that you need to repeat your keywords again at the beginning of each new page. The spiders see each page as a new article, so to speak.

Graphics, Tables, or Photos with text support. Position keywords in the image description as well as in the appropriatie parts of the text. For the image description, use this tip Gerald McGarry left for us as a comment yesterday.

As far as images go, the accepted way to assign text to them is to add an alt=”description of image” tag to the image. This gives the search engine something to chew on, but more importantly it provides valuable information for blind users who rely on screen reader software.

Five Simple Keyword Rules
Other formats, those intriguing things, that we come up with every day follow the same basic rules as described above. What are those rules?

1. Position keywords after the post is written.
2. Keep the number of keywords limited.
3. Avoid overusing keywords in the document.
4. Position keywords in titles, headers, early in text, and on new pages.
5. Position keywords in graphic descriptions as appropriate.

Some Fun Tools. Play with them. Then put them away. 🙂

Keyword Density Analyzer
Find out what the key words on your blog already are

Overture Keyword Selector Tool

Remember all of the keywords in the world have no relevance on their own. They need quality content. Write for your readers and the rankings will follow. So will the readers.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO–Five Traits of Relevant Content

November 23, 2005 by Liz

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Five Traits of Relevant Content

Relevant is the keyword. Content without “relevant” is less than content. Who would want to post something irrelevant? Here are five traits of relevant content.

Relevant content is text.
Search Engines love quality relevant content. They love quality content because readers do. Content here means text, not graphics or photos. That’s where search engines and readers see pages differently. Readers “read” photos and graphics; search engine spiders crawl right past them. So under that photo or graphic include a caption explaining what’s in it.

Relevant content is fresh and free-flowing.
Search engine spiders are demanding creatures. They want original, relevant content to list for their readers–and lots of it. Provide original content with accuracy and frequency about topics readers search for, and your posts will be born relevant.

Relevant content is formatted.
When your document follows a structured format, a search engine can follow how topics relate. Relationships between topics establish that keywords aren’t just mentioned–they are connected and relevant.

title
h1–subhead that relates
paragraph(s)
h2–subhead that relates
paragraph(s)

Relevant content is linked–Links in, links out, and links to yourself are relevant.
Spiders crawl the web by following links. Links draw spiders to related pages from blog to blog and within your blog. Connections in content are inherently relevant.

Relevant content is error free and accessible.
Open HTML tags, gross errors in spelling, and unnecessary plugins trip spiders. Enough said.

Relevant content is what readers are searching for, what spiders are crawling for, what bloggers are blogging for–right?

I’d rather not blog than be irrelevant.

I think there’s a t-shirt in that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Writing for a Diverse Readership

November 17, 2005 by Liz

I sit down to write about a complex topic. My first thought? Here I go again.

I’m about to battle with myself about the appropriate writing level for this topic. I say for the topic not for the reader because my readership is diverse–you have many levels of experience.

I’ve been writing for diverse skill groups for almost three decades. I’ve also been training editors to do the same thing. There are some mistakes that everyone makes, and some techniques that can make what you write more more useful and engaging for at least 80% of your readers.

80-20 spectrum

These are some tips on writing for a readership that includes beginners to experts. Let’s imagine I’m one of those readers. Here’s what I want you to do.

Write for someone who’s like you, but doesn’t know what you know about this topic. Choose a voice you’d be comfortable reading. Take an approach that makes sense to you. Use a structure that follows your logic. I’ll be grateful that you made clear decisions about presenting the information, because your article will be easy to follow.
Don’t worry about insulting me. Give me information. I’m smart, but that doesn’t mean I know. If you worry about insulting me, you unconsciously omit information. Often that detail you think is obvious is the one detail that I can’t see. You’re more likely to upset me by confusing me than by telling me too much.
I like a well-written review of the basics. Hey, we all forget little things, and we all like to feel smart. As long as you don’t beat me over the head with stuff, I don’t mind hearing good information again. I learned the value of review in school. Just don’t make me feel like I’ll be tested on it.

Two points are for bloggers who might be nervous.

Do all you can not to be self-conscious. Writers who are too aware of their readers, thinking too much of what their readers might think, write in a way that makes readers uncomfortable. If you think you are worried that readers might see you as unqualified, ask someone to read your work before you post it. It’s likely that you need to add some confidence.
Don’t end your post with a sentence that says, “I hope you really liked what I wrote.” You’ve given me advice as an expert. I want to believe you are one. If I’ve made it there, I’m convinced–to say that tells me I might have been wrong.

Keep in mind that some expert readers may want to help out a beginner, and you’ll have more confidence writing the basics, especially if you’re worried that they already know them. But before you convince yourself that all of your experts know all of the basics, think of how fast things change and how many self-taught people there are. If you are thorough in your writing, there is a good chance you’ll be teaching some of your experts something they didn’t know too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Responding to Your Mistakes

November 10, 2005 by Liz

Every blog is a work in progress–a public one. Every legitimate blogger I know is human. Humans make mistakes. I’m better at making mistakes than a lot of humans. Making mistakes in public is never fun, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world either.

What do you do when you make a mistake–a very public one? Big or little, public or private, mistakes have a way of stealing our balance, here are some ways of recovering that balance and moving on.

Realize that you aren’t a mistake just because you made one.
If it’s fixable, fix it. Otherwise it will nag you. It will always be there.
Step back, be dispassionate, and decide if you need to do more. How important is it? Is anyone else affected by your mistake? Learn to recognize what’s a little thing that no one cares about.
If it’s something that involves others, acknowledge it. Find the opportunity in the error and get things moving forward again.
Know that most people are generous, if you’re upfront with them.

Here’s an object lesson:

Yesterday I posted two articles that had errors in them. I had the wrong glasses on, and my proofreader friend didn’t get the chance to look at them. I am sorry that I let those get to you that way. They are fixed now.

I wrote an apology to Yaro, letting him know his blog has the “r” back in its name. He was most gracious in his reply. I think we’re going to be friends.

I take some comfort in the fact that the nature of this blog made this event something worth posting about.

–ME “Liz” Strauss, who is now cleaning her glasses every hour.