Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

If you know people with red hair, chances are you or someone have referred to them as “redheads.” But if you know people who have dark or black hair, I’ll be no one has ever referred to them as “blackheads.”

A redhead is a person with red hair; a blackhead is a particular form of unhealthy skin condition. The difference in usage is a matter of definition and no one would mix up the two words in conversation or writing.

Likewise, when I was a kid, if you said someone was “really gay,” you meant they were very cheerful and happy. If you say someone today is “really gay,” you PROBABLY would be referring to someone who was very publicly, openly homosexual. Which is a different issue than “redhead” and “blackhead.” The definition of “gay” still includes the concept of cheerful and happy — but the connotation of “gay” has been almost entirely preempted to mean homosexual.

Hence the importance of knowing a word’s connotation as well as its definition. If you get the definition right but the connotation wrong, your risking misunderstanding at the least, and you could even create ill will or lose readers because you miss the mark on a word’s connotation.

Language is such a wonderful tool. Be careful to use it wisely.

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Today is one of those days that makes me think of things like treadmills: I’m putting forth a lot of effort but seeing little or no forward progress.

It actually started for me yesterday, when I put the finishing touches on an affiliate marketing website I had been revamping for the last week and a half. I really like the way it turned out, and the timing is almost right — it’s a site dealing with sports team clothing and collectibles — so I’m hoping for good things.

Then I ran some software I have to create a sitemap of the website which I can submit to Google. That’s supposed to help get the links/new links for the website indexed quickly into Google so all those eager sports fan shoppers out there can find it and make me incredibly wealthy. (Okay, maybe at least send me a couple of bucks in commissions.)

Either because the site is so big, or because the sports gods were frowning upon me, the sitemap software suddenly began draining memory resources on my webhost’s servers — and I got an “abuse” warning. That means I had to delete the sitemap software, and I’m holding my breath for a response from my webhost as to whether they’ll shut down my account.

If you’re reading this, it means my webhosting account is okay so far. But so far I’ve heard nothing from them.

While I await a “yea or nay” from my webhost, I’m trying hard to think of forward progress instead of those treadmills.

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I NEVER plug “easy way to make money” offers on my websites, because, frankly, there are no “easy” ways to make money online, really, there’s only hard work and perhaps some “smarter” ways to work at it. The “Conduit Method” of building websites came my way recently via an online acquaintance, and I think there’s something worth looking at here, especially for writers.

When people shop online, they want to 1) find the product they need or want, 2) get legitimate information about it, 3) get the best price they can, and, 4) feel confident they’ll get the product and price if they buy. There’s much more to it than that, but I think that’s a pretty good summary.

The “Conduit Method,” as I’m using it in reference to a wonderful little CHEAP “report” written by longtime Internet marketer Chris Rempel, channels those steps and that shopping process into giving people what they want to make a buying decision.

Should you try it, as a writer you task is to simply create web page content that is summary “fact sheet” material about a product you’re marketing — NOT a sales pitch or sales page — and then put links on that “fact sheet” to allow people to buy from the merchant for whom you are marketing.

I’m not clear on why Chris chose the name “Conduit Method,” but I believe he wanted to focus on the way using this method to build websites “channels” or “funnels” the merchant’s sales efforts toward getting people to buy — not on your sales pitches or sales efforts.

In a nutshell, the Conduit Method calls for building content-rich websites with legitimate product and price comparison reviews, as well as user/buyer testimonials, on real products being sold online. And Chris offers some really simple ways for you to find and incorporate such content into your website.

So, if you’re looking for a way to use your writing skills, blogging efforts, and marketing ideas to make some money online as a writer, I recommend you take a look at Chris Rempel’s Conduit Method. I purchased a couple of domain names for some products I’m an affiliate marketer with and expect to start building sites with them this week.

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