Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

The phrase “duplicate content” strikes fear into bloggers and webmasters throughout the Internet, raising fears that their websites or blogs will be penalized or even outright rejected by the gods of Google and suffer the fate of being ignored worldwide.

So I thought it was worth some discussion here — what is “duplicate content,” is it penalized by Google and the other search engines, and really just what’s the big deal?

The “long answer” to this issue is found at Google’s own Webmaster Help Center. I encourage anyone who maintains a website or blog to read that carefully.

The “short answer” is: If you’ve got identical content “within or across domains” that is NOT something deceptive and is NOT something you are using to try to manipulate the search engines, you really have nothing to worry about.

It really isn’t possible or necessary to repeat all the tips for handling content and handling duplicate content which Google gives you in the location I’ve linked above. But you absolutely should go there, read it carefully, and apply the information to your websites.

The bottom line about duplicate content and all these other issues related to writing for the Internet is probably Google’s use of the phrase “user experience.” That is, websites and blogs should contain information for USERS, for people who go to the Internet for information, to find products and services, to interact with websites, blogs, and other people. And, really, isn’t that what we writers are all about?

What experiences have you had with duplicate content on your websites or blogs? What have you heard about duplicate content that most concerns you? Tell us, please.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, duplicate content, Internet search engines, Google’s Webmaster Help Center, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I was reading today about some changes to Google’s Adsense “rules and regs” that a friend tipped me to. It seems to me their latest requirement about Adsense placement in relation to page headings and other links pretty much deals a blow to anyone still making much money with Adsense. If those folks truly comply with the new placement rules.

Most of you that blog or maintain websites must know what Adsense is, don’t you? For the rest of you — Adsense is Google’s effort to give you some money when people go to your site and click on the Adsense ads you have allowed Google to place there. That’s the short answer.

Their latest “decree” is not to place headings over Adsense ads which make it unclear they are ads, AND not to place Adsense ads so that people mistake them for your own site links instead of being ads.

Which all leads to the point of this post: Any of you out there making any serious income via Adsense? There was a time a few years ago when some of the “Internet gurus” out there claimed six figure annual incomes of enormous size through the Adsense program. Personally, I’m luck if I make a buck or two a day from all the Adsense on all of my websites and blogs.

Just curious, and I really would not want anyone to divulge specifics — any of you earning good income from Adsense these days?

Technorati Tags: Adsense income, using Adsense, Adsense placement rules, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Anyone who writes content for a blog or website has at least heard the term “SEO.” That stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” and it’s sort of the “Holy Grail” for bloggers and webmasters. If you’ve effectively done “SEO” on your website, you can expect to see traffic as a result. If you’re “SEO” skills are poor or you’ve not really tried to implement good “SEO” ideas, chances are you aren’t getting much traffic.

The catch is this (and I think I touched on this a couple of weeks ago): You run the risk of being so concerned about optimizing for the search engines that you build a website no one really finds valuable or responds to once you get there.

There’s a fine line to walk when you do SEO on your blog or website. Of course you want search engines to index your site and you want to rank as high in the search engines (that mostly means on page one of Google for the keyword you’ve optimized around) as possible. Because you’ll rarely draw much free traffic if you aren’t indexed and ranking high. At the same time, you want to remember to write your content with real people in mind.

If you don’t optimize your site well for the search engines, another way to get traffic is to buy it, i.e., using Google Adwords to pay for clicks for example. But even if you are paying for traffic, you still must remember PEOPLE are your ultimate “targets,” not search engines.

Whichever route you take, PPC or SEO, you must always write website and/or blog content for real people. Real people are the ones who “get” your message, buy your products, or pay for your services, not search engines.

Technorati Tags: SEO, optimizing blogs and websites, optimizing content for people, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

For all you bloggers out there who use WordPress, have you switched to the new 2.5.x version yet? It’s been out now about a month — a few days ago they issued a security upgrade so the very latest version is 2.5.1 — and I’m still getting accustomed to the new look and functionality of the administrative “dashboard.”

I don’t really like most of the changes they’ve made. I’m pretty “techie” about a lot of things, one of them being WordPress, and I really wanted to love the changes. But for the most part, I don’t.

One feature they got really “right” is the ability to quickly update WordPress plugins. You can do it pretty much with just a single click. Used to be you had to go to the plugin website, downloaded it to your computer. often unzip the file, then upload it to your server and reactivate it. That hassle’s been eliminated. The dashboard alerts you under “plugins” when one has been updated. You have the choice of going through the hassle on your own, or clicking for automatic updating. Works pretty well.

I do NOT like the way they’ve totally messed up Widget management and made it harder to add, move, and edit widgets in your WordPress theme. They’ve just done so much wrong regarding widgets that I won’t even go into it here.

So, those of you who blog with WordPress — and I know you’re out there reading this, aren’t you? — what do you think about version 2.5x? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Let us know.

Technorati Tags: WordPress 2.5 review, blogging software, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I don’t know how many of you build websites or write content for websites that are not blogs, but I’m sure some of you do such things. If so, you may already have a template or a method that works well for you, but I don’t know whether you’ve thought about this idea: WordPress, the software that powers this blog and about a zillion others, ALSO works for “non-blog” websites, and has some real advantages over a standard website template.

I mention this because I now use WordPress almost exclusively for building just about any website, and those I have made with some other templates I am converting over to WordPress. Here are some reasons how this works and why it has advantages:

1. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of free WP themes available to easily find and change just the appearance you want for your website. Do you want something with a wide column on the left and a narrow sidebar column on the right? How about putting that sidebar on the left? How about a sidebar on BOTH the right and left? Or perhaps you like a wide content column with two narrow sidebars on the right? Looking for something in a basic black and white? How about every possible combination of red, blue, green, yellow, orange, etc.?

You get the idea.

2. WordPress is so easy to install your trained monkey can do it. Okay, maybe not quite that easy — and my apologies for the lame humor if you DO have a trained money. Many webhosts, however, offer a service called “Fantastico” which makes WP almost a one-click install. Even if you do it on your own by downloading the software from WordPress.org, it’s really pretty doable if you build on maintain any sort of website.

3. WordPress is so versatile you can have easily editable pages set up and published in a flash. You can add content to your website as easily as writing a blog post. You can also have pretty much “static” unchanging pages, as many as you like, in the form of WP pages instead of posts.

4. You can use WP “as is” or you can pretty easily modify a WP theme/template so that no one will see “date,” “time,” and “author” information and other stuff that makes your website look “bloggy.”

5. WordPress is generally much easier to learn than the more popular Content Management System (CMS) software packages out there. And it can do most of the things such CMS heavyweights as Joomla and Drupal can do — only it does them in, I think, simpler fashion. If you’ve learned to use Joomla, Drupal, or any of the other CMS installs, good for you. I have tried repeatedly to learn those two in particular and had no luck. No matter what I do and how I do it, I can’t figure out how to add modules, modify modules, make them visible or hidden, and just generally get through all the other mayhem to make anything look good. With WordPress, there are only four things to learn and you can use it as a CMS: posts, pages, permissions, and themes.

Anyway, if you’ve only thought about WordPress as blogging software, think again. You can use WP to put an entire, complex website together with just about any content you wish to write.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, WordPress, CMS, using WordPress for websites, templates, writing tips at garyspeer.com

A few days ago, I mentioned in a post about eBay, that I would have more to say later about how writers might be able to make some money online through eBay. This is that post. Not really anything spectacular, and some of you may be doing much better at this than I, but here we go.

First, assuming you have a blog or website of your own AND assuming you’re a registered eBay user, you need to join the eBay Partner’s Network (EPN). That’s what they’re calling their self-administered affiliate program now.

Now we get to the fun part for writers. If you log in and look around the EPN website, you’ll find a ton of tools with excellent instructions to help you 1) publicize eBay on your blog/website, and, 2) attract people to click through your links to register as eBay users and to bid on live auctions on eBay via the links on your blog/website.

And how do you suppose you get people to find your blog/website, find interesting and helpful links to eBay, and click those links so you’ll make money? By writing blog/website content to draw people to your site, to help them find just what they’re looking for, and motivate them to click through your website to eBay.

Is that whole idea clear enough, or have I obscured it? I ask because I’ve been involved in affiliate marketing (which is what this is) long enough that I take the “mechanics” of it for granted and probably leave gaps in my description of the process if you aren’t acquainted with affiliate marketing.

You have an incredible range of creativity in this whole process. There is virtually anything and everything your readers might want somewhere on eBay on any given day. Just for fun, if you’ve not used eBay much, and want a glimpse of the incredible variety of merchandise people buy and sell on eBay, here’s a link to a complete listing of eBay auction categories.

The “catch” to making money with eBay is that there are probably hundreds of thousands of people building websites and posting to blogs who are also members of EPN. Yet, given your writing skills and passion for writing, and given the huge diversity of items and categories of items being auctioned at eBay — well, I personally am discovering it’s worth the effort. Admittedly, my earnings so far have been tiny, but I have high hopes.

Why not give it a try yourself? Sign up, learn about the links and link building tools EPN offers, get busy writing blog posts and web pages targeting some of the great stuff on eBay your readers would like — and who knows what might happen?

Technorati Tags: writing for eBay, targeting eBay auctions, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Copywriting, writing ad content for a website or an offline source, is something I’ve always wanted to be good at. I’ve always thought it looked easy. You take a product or service and write something about that product or service which would motivate people to buy. It sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Yet I personally have several hundreds of pages of copy on 30+ websites that has failed spectacularly to motivate anyone to buy the products and services I’m pushing.

So for those of you who are copywriters or wannabe copywriters, here’s a little assignment for you. I promise you this is not for a product or service I actually am trying to sell. I am not using this to get a “freebie” from you. I’m asking you to do this so that I and others here might learn from your expertise. Here’s the scenario and what I’d like you to do.

You’re working for a company which sells jewelry. The company has just introduced a high-ticket medical id bracelet. The bracelet itself simply contains the basic medical information you’d find in a plain, metal medical alert bracelet for $15-$20 — but it comes in a variety of precious metals with precious and semi-precious stone options.

You job is to write three paragraphs of ad copy for a web page which will both describe and “sell” the bracelets — which have a price range of $250-$600.

My “assignment” for you is NOT to write the ad copy but to answer this question:

What are the two most important factors you would consider in writing that ad copy?

In other words, don’t write ad copy, but tell me what you would do given the specifics of these high-end medical id bracelets that would guide you in writing the ad copy.

Is that clear enough? I invite you to leave comments and tell me your thinking and the process you would use. I hope we can get some discussion going here that will benefit all of us copywriters and copywriter wannabes.

Technorati Tags: writing ad copy, selling on the Internet, writing tips at garyspeer.com

If your primary writing interest is in blogging and running an Internet forum, just walk on past this post. Nothing for you to see here.

But if you’re interested in “non-blogging” and general offline/online writing, it’s important to identify whether this problem is your problem: Spending time online reading a lot of blogs and posting in forums can drain your energy and destroy time better spent writing.

I know this to be true — because (as some of you might easily guess) it has always been a problem for ME. As sure as an alcoholic might need to undergo alcohol rehab treatment, I need to through some sort of addition rehab program for “writers who can’t stop reading blogs and forums.” Perhaps I’ll create such a program and call it, oh, let’s say “WWCSRBAF.” Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Seriously, though, I do spend far too much time at a large affiliate marketing forum. On the plus side, I’ve met some helpful people there, find some interesting merchants to work with, and I’ve even made a small bit of money through contacts from the forum. (It’s the ABestWeb.com forum. Look for me there as “writerguy.”) On the down side, I spend far too much of my time goofing around there and not enough time actually writing and/or building websites.

So reign in your online obsessions. Don’t spend all that time and energy blogging and posting at forums at the expense of time doing actual writing. I’ll make the effort if you will.

Technorati Tags: ABestWeb forum, forums and blogs, time management for writers, writing tips at garyspeer.com

What if I told you that you could write two or three paragraph “briefs” for a website that is one of the biggest “retail stores” on the Internet? This site offers everything from banjo picks to bicycle tire pumps to chrome accessories to — well, just about anything you can think of that people are looking to buy.

You’ve probably figured me out already, haven’t you? I’m talking about eBay, the world’s largest online auction site and arguably the world’s largest auction AND largest website. I don’t have specific stats to back that up, but I found an interesting site that give “current” counts on eBay auctions — the number of auctions on eBay as of mid-morning today was 10,973,278.

That’s a lot of auctions, which brings me to the basic point of this post: You can write clear, clean, short copy for an eBay auction — either for yourself or someone you know — and sell just about anything you can find for at least a small profit.

And, by the way, if you have a blog or website you update frequently and have ever thought of writing about eBay, you can become a member of their Ebay Partners Network and actually earn money for bringing eBay more customers and/or guiding buyers to current eBay auctions. (I’ll have more, specific information about the eBay affiliate program in a coming post.)

If you’re one of those few people who don’t go to eBay, or don’t go there often, take a look around the site. You might find some great, creative ideas for making money with your writing — and you might even find that vase you’ve been wanting as a gift for your great-aunt Tilly.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, writing as a business, eBay, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Whether you’re building a website or adding posts and pages to a blog, there are two important tips you must keep in mind.

1. Your content must focus on words people are searching for in Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, and the other major search engines. That means you cannot ignore that old idea you’ve heard of, I’m sure — keywords.

For example, if you want people to reach a blog post or website page you’ve built to offer “term life insurance quotes,” you cannot focus your writing on something as general as “term life insurance” or “how to find insurance quotes online.” Those might be important material to include in your writing. But you will fail if you focus the article/website/blog/whatever on them. The primary keywords you need to have in the title of the page/post, and in your first paragraph, is “term life insurance quotes.”

2. Your content must focus on the fact that PEOPLE are doing the search — ultimately, the search engines are just the tools.

That may sound contradictory, but there really is good sense involved here. You cannot simply string together the words “term life insurance” in some nonsensical fashion, or pepper them repeatedly in every sentence or paragraph on your website. That might get you a “high ranking” in the search engines (though Google and the others are learning to filter out such word stuffing). But even if you’re highly ranked because of such a technique, people who come to a page or blog post that’s nothing but gibberish or has no real content, will simply hit the “Back” button on their browser and try another search.

Optimize your blog posts and pages for specific, practical keywords that you, as a real person, might search for. Then add legitimate content to them so that people who come there will want to buy your product, or click your links, or — especially this one — bookmark your site and come back again and again.

Technorati Tags: keywords, search engines, internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I had a private response to my post of a few days ago, with one of our readers asked me how to get a blog into the Yahoo “modules” that you set up on a Yahoo home page. Getting into that system is relatively easy, and it can be a nice source of readership.

You can always simply wait for Yahoo to index your blog, which could be like waiting around for anti wrinkle cream to take effect. Or you can use your Yahoo home page to get your blog into the system quickly and relatively easily.

So for what it’s worth to some of you, here’s my step-by-step “walk through” for anyone else wondering about how to do this:

1. Make sure you have the URL for your blog’s RSS feed. I only know how to do this with WordPress blogs and/or blogs which use the FeedBurner service. In WordPress, your RSS feed URL is usually just “http://example.com/feed.” It’s that simple to find your feed in WordPress. In other blogging software, I’m afraid I don’t know. But you can probably find some “help” or “support” links to identify your blog’s feed.

EASIER WAY FOR THIS: The easiest way to find your RSS feed and set up the URL you need is to go to http://www.feedburner.com and walk through their step-by-step guide to let FeedBurner.com handle your blog feeds. It’s a free service and I highly recommend it for all blogs. Take a look around their and you’ll see they offer you a wealth of services.

2. Once you have either your “raw” URL for your blog’s RSS feed or your FeedBurner feed URL, go to your Yahoo home page, and log in using your Yahoo ID. Then click on the drop-down menu bar near the top called “Personalize This Page.”

3. Select the drop-down choice which says “Add RSS Feed.”

4. Type or paste your RSS feed which you found and/or created in Step 1 into the box and hit the “Add” button.

5. The RSS for your blog should show up on the page. When you first try to go to it or use it, you may get a message that a new RSS feed has been added and asking whether you wish to keep it or not. Tell it yes.

This process has published your blog’s RSS feed and identity into Yahoo’s system.

Another method, which can become frustrating because of the overload of information offered, is to go to the Yahoo Publisher’s Guide at http://publisher.yahoo.com/rssguide. This is an excellent reference source and will help you learn about RSS. But by far the quickest and simplest way to add your blog’s RSS to Yahoo is to do it as I’ve suggested through your Yahoo home page.

And, let me emphasize, I highly recommend that you set your blog’s feed up at FeedBurner.com. They offer a wealth of free features to help you understand and use your RSS feed to build your blog.

Hope that’s all helpful. Feel free to ask questions and seek clarification through the “Contact Us” form and/or by leaving a comment. Happy blogging.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, adding your blog to Yahoo, Yahoo and RSS feeds, Internet writing, blogging, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I established a category here some months ago which I’ve labeled “Internet Writing,” and one of the most common forms of Internet writing that often makes at least a little money for writers is — blogging, of course.

I love blogging. I’m sure many of you reading this have blogs and love doing it just as much as I. You probably spend a lot of time reading blogs, as well as the time you spend blogging on ‘em.

My question for you today is this: Will you share some of your tips with the rest of us about how you make money writing your blog(s)? I’m not asking for any big “top secret” stuff, because I respect your professionalism. Bloggers who make money with their blogging are a bit like traditional magicians — they never give away their trade secrets.

So, please, don’t feel like I’m asking you to give away your best stuff here. Just share with us how you pull a couple of your rabbits out of the hat. I can give you at least three reasons to write such a comment here:

1. It’ll be fun. You’ll get to show off a bit if you wish and probably gain a, “Hey, I never thought of that” reply or two to your writing tip.

2. It’ll help all of us as writers and we’ll appreciate your efforts at community sharing.

3. I’ll most likely let you link back to your blog in your comment and/or signature. Admittedly, this blog won’t make your fortune as a backlink source (you bloggers know what I mean), but it’ll be a legitimate link that might add to your blogging success.

So tell us — what are a couple of your best tips for making money with your blog? I’ll post in a day or two and share a couple of mine.

Technorati Tags: best tips for making money with a blog, how to make money blogging, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

I don’t know whether any of you writers that come here do Hub Pages or not. Anyone? Anyone making money, or making much money, at it?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then obviously you don’t make money building “Hubs.” But I’ll explain what the place seems to be all about and maybe it’ll work for you.

Hub Pages (at http://hubpages.com) is similar to Squidoo, and similar to Helium. Squidoo, perhaps because the odd name gets attention, is the most popular such site, but Hub Pages claims to have a better “click through” or “conversion” rate. Hub Pages allows you to sign up for free and write articles on just about literally anything you care to write on. Assuming it isn’t pornography, plagiarism, hateful, racist, or otherwise illegal, the subject matter is pretty much wide open.

Once you write an article — and they really aren’t very clear on any minimum word length or other guidelines — and publish it, your writing is online for anyone to read. Based on an intricate system of “rating” by the Hub Pages people and the popularity of the article (they actually call each individual article or “Hub Page” a “Hub”), your completed article/page/Hub is given a numerical rating and your standing in the community is given a similar rating.

Here’s the way you make money writing at Hub Pages: Each page/Hub you write displays Google Adsense ads. If someone goes to your Hub and clicks on an Adsense ad, Google pays X-cents per click. The Hub Pages site splits Adsense “clicks” with you, 60 percent to you and 40 percent to them.

Anyone out there doing Hub Pages and making any money at it? I welcome your comments and reactions to it. It seems to be a very legitimate way to make income online. According to various testimonials at the hubpages.com website, people are making hundreds and even thousands of dollars monthly. It seems to me that it would involve a serious, long-term time investment. But since they let you write about just about ANYTHING from home food canning to car insurance to everything around and in between — hey, it’s a fascinating idea.

Weigh in on the matter, will you? Tell us what you think about the site, and whether or not you’re a “Hubber.” (I just registered yesterday and haven’t had time, yet, to put together a Hub.)

Technorati Tags: Hub Pages, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Do you frequent many forums? You remember those Web-less-than-2.0 relics, don’t you? I say that because all the buzz about writing and community on the Internet these days is about “Web 2.0,” though I’ve never really been able to pin down just what that MEANS??

Anyway, you know forums. You undoubtedly visit a few. What you probably don’t know is the best way — at least my best way — to do forum writing. There are actually “how to make money online” type ebooks you can pay embarrassing amounts of money for that teach you, supposedly, how to get visitors to your website, your sales page, whatever and make tons of money through posting on forums.

Forget those ebooks. They are, like most “how to make money online” ebooks, a waste of your money and offensive to most forum regulars and forum owners. That’s because they work on the same premise as blog comment sp*m (the “S” word which will never be spoken on this blog) — they tell you to join forums, put up a signature file with your marketing links, website links or whatever, then post repeatedly just to get links and get your signature out there for people to click on. But they never point out the importance of posting helpful posts, posting on topic instead of just posting to get links.

I guarantee you that any forum worth posting on will ultimately ban you if you’re just doing forum sp*m.

So here are my quickie tips for posting on forums. Use them or reject them. There’s nothing profound here, it’s all pretty common sense stuff. And I won’t charge you a dime for them:

1. Find and join relevant forums. If your passion is writing about antique sea chests, don’t wear out your welcome posting on forums devoted to kite flying. Try to find forums on topics of expertise, or topics you want to learn about.

2. Religiously abide by the forum rules. Don’t try to game the system to post about your website, ebook, affiliate program, or whatever if the rules forbid that. If the forum rules don’t allow signature files with links to your website, or even any links at all, abide by that rule.

3. Work hard to learn from other forum members. Do a lot of reading and searching and generally pay attention before you post much. The old adages about having two eyes and ears but only one mouth sort of applies to good internet forum etiquette. (I mean, you DO have two hands for keyboarding, probably, but the principle’s the same.)

4. Focus your posts on offering legitimate information, helpful information, teaching and sharing your expertise with members — NOT on posting just to get your links/websites/whatever on the forum.

That’s probably the most important stuff I know about writing on/for forums. You’ll notice something conspicuously missing from this huge epistle: I said nothing about forums and posting on forums as a direct way of making money online. That’s because I believe most of that stuff about using forum posts to make money is, uh, pure bunk.

The way you “make money” posting on forums is through the connections you make with the community. That’s pretty “Web 2.0,” I guess. Like most things on the Internet, the practical, useful, “value-added” approach is the one which wins in the end. If you join relevant forums and make helpful, useful, relevant posts — which, really, is all I’ve said to do — you’ll make invaluable connections with dozens, maybe hundreds of people.

That’s how I write for forums. What works for you? Tell us, please.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, forum posts, forum writing, how to make money writing online, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Well, it’s hard to see how such things work in the Mind of Google, but may Google’s will be done.

Just two days ago I mentioned the frustrations related to Internet writing and discussed the “Google slap” given to one of my blogs which knocked it down in page rank (PR) first from PR 2 to PR 1, then PR 0.

I just discovered a few minutes ago that Google has knocked this blog down in PR, and not as gently as the other. I went from a PR 3 to an instant PR 0.

I have taken paid blogging on both blogs in question. Yet I have tried to maintain consistent, worthwhile content on both blogs in addition to the paid posts. And I have never taken a paid post for which I had any ethical, moral, or legal qualms. So I thought I was consistently adding legitimate content to the Internet at this website, and I have no real appreciation for why Google would whack the PR out of the blog.

Guess I’ll just have to cry a bit, then get back to business. As far as I know, there’s really not any legitimate way to ask Google to reconsider — and at this point, there’s no way to get potential advertisers to see great value in low- to no-rank blogs.

The expression here, I believe, is “Catch 22.”

Technorati Tags: Google, Internet writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com