Musings and things that amuse us

 Photography: Margo Love

Turns out, writing is cool again. Those who would have laughed at touching a keyboard ten years ago, are now are busy typing away, rushing to get their next post out. 

If you have a business, and you don’t have a blog, you’re missing out.  There is no better way to get your name, brand, and product out to the world, and into search engine results – just make sure you blog well.

So, what does writing well have to do with search engines?  Plenty.  If you write well, others will link to your article.  When others link to your article, search engines take notice and point to you too.

But – don’t think for one moment that you need a degree in journalism to have a blog – you don’t.  Some of the best bloggers have no formal training in writing, yet they are successful because they have taken the time to brush up on basics – you can too.

So, how do you write well?

Use plain English. Of the nearly 700 words in Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, 505 are of one syllable, and 122 are words of two syllables

Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb – “The Googlebot saw him” is strong; “he was seen by the Googlebot” is weak

Get rid of small qualifiers. They dilute your style and persuasiveness. You are not sort of tired, or a bit confused, or somewhat annoyed. Be confused! Be tired! Be annoyed!

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual; it catches your eye before it catches your brain

Get comfortable using a dictionary and a thesaurus; it expands your mind, and shows you care about your readers – you didn’t just throw it all together

Use fewer words but make them count 

Get to know the most common errors in English

Edit, Edit, Edit. Once you have written your article, go away, have a coffee, come back, print it up, and read it out loud. When you stumble over a sentence, rewrite it, because if you stumble, others will too

And a final point from Brian Clark about headlines:

I absolutely love clever word play.  Puns, turns of phrases, neologisms, Spoonerisms, etc… I love them all.  I just don’t use them in headlines.

The benefits of writing well are many: more readers, increased links, higher rank on search engines, the power to influence, and revenue.

Pretty decent return for your investment, dontcha think?

For more information on writing well, familiarize yourself with On Writing Well, by William Zinnser and the writers’ bible, The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White.

An invitation

Much like Brian Clark did with his remixing headlines experiment, I thought I’d try an editing experiment.  If you have written a post that you think could have been written better, leave a link in the comments section below.  I’ll edit it for you and write up the reasons for the edits next week.

Dear Automattic,

Thank you for, quite simply, the best blogging platform around.  WordPress.com is a great way to befriend you.

However…

My back’s killing me, my brain hurts, and my eyes are rolling on the floor somewhere…

Here’s the thing:

I want to move from WordPress.com to GoDaddy using WordPress.

• Setting up WordPress on GoDaddy – painless
• Exporting – no sweat
• Importing – still not sweating
• Hacking together our own theme – done
• Automattically redirecting to our new domain – no way Jose!

Not only that, I have spent 90 minutes reading countless forum comments to come to the realisation that the “Domains” offering only goes one way; the opposite direction of where I need to go

Yes, I can put up a “I have moved” post, but this is so Web 1.0, and code is poetry – don’t you know?

Other like minds are in need of it too – see?

So Automattic, when you have some spare time, please please please fix it.  If not, then please have a big red ”no we do not provide this” on the “Domains” page  :-)

</rant>

PS: The X-hacker comment is very cute

So you’re a small company with little or no marketing budget.  What do you do?  Guest posting on well known blogs is one way to get your name, your product, or your service out there.

Recently, Patrick Bisaillon of Piggy Bank Pie wrote a guest post for John Chow; a major coup.  Originally, I had intended to interview Patrick for a follow up post here on how to contact bloggers, but his answers were too good to incorporate into a larger post.

As a result, I have chosen to publish his thoughts about his blog, his ideas for the future, and how he managed to get a guest spot on one of the biggest blogs around with his article: The Guest Bloggers Guide to the Blogosphere.

Please enjoy!

Lid: When did you start Piggy Bank Pie?

PB: I officially launched PiggyBankPie on Oct 1st 2007.

I’ve started working on the project around mid August, when I dropped out of the 30 Day Challenge.  Now I guess I need to explain why I quit the challenge. Well, for those who have been active in the 30DC forums last August, I was the leader of The Teamless Team, until I couldn’t connect to the Internet for 3 days because I moved out to a new house.

When I came back 3 days later, all members had vanished and I ended up being team less. So after that I continued listening to the 30DC podcasts, but I decided I would not go for the gold and I’d simply try to get the most out of the learning material.

I started reading blogs about 2 years ago. Then, I discovered JohnChow.com via an interview on a TV show in Canada called The Lab with Leo Laporte (also broadcast in Australia.) I learned 3 things from this interview:

1. The Make Money Online niche
2. The existence of something called the blogosphere
3. The power of blogging.

For me blogs were great sites where I was reading tech reviews, I had no idea bloggers were blogging about… blogging!

So while I was dealing with the idea of starting my own blog, I was also trying to find a niche. I came really close to start a blog on HDTV and Home Theater.  But then came the 30 Day Challenge.

Lid: What are the original goals of Piggy Bank Pie and are you reaching them?

PB: My ultimate goal is to make enough money to pay guest bloggers publishing articles on PiggyBankPie. Am I reaching my goal? Slowly, yes.

In October there was not enough revenue to do such a thing.  But November was different, and I was able to purchase 1 article per writer who contributed since the beginning. How’s December going? Can’t wait to see, but you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed for latest details on the story

Lid: Where would you like Piggy Bank Pie to be in one year?

PB: By being active as a guest blogger and expanding collaboration with other bloggers, I am hoping to enlarge my RSS subscribers and get better visibility. This should lead to increase in revenues for PiggyBankPie Writing Services and therefore money to pay authors contributing to my blog.  If I have enough revenue in 1 year to purchase 2 articles per week, then I will be very happy.

Lid: Is this the first time you have guest posted at John Chow? 

The Guest Blogger’s Guide To The Blogosphere was my first guest post on John Chow dot Com, and there will be a next time

It was the second post I sent him and John refused my first one because it was about Making Money Online. I guess he wants to protect his site’s credibility and I agree with that. We all know he’s making lots of money online, so he’s the best person to blog about this topic.

Lid: What type of relationship did you have with him prior to this post?   E.g. commenting periodically for two months, subscriber for two years, uncle…

PB: He’s my father!

Just kidding.

I became a daily around May 2007. Then when I started the PiggyBankPie project, I thought it would be a good idea to launch an advertising campaign at the same time that I would officially launch the blog.  So I contacted John by email and booked an RSS spot for $200. Basically, you get a note in the RSS feed saying  “This post was sponsored by PiggyBankPie…”  You may say it’s a lot of money, true, but it really helped me to get respectable traffic rapidly.

When you become an advertiser on a blogger’s site, I think you naturally open a channel that other bloggers don’t have access to.  Since then I emailed John a few times and always got a reply.

Lid: Can we include a portion of his reply?

PB: You know, John is quite a busy man (John Chow dot Com, The Tech Zone, TTZ Media), so his replies are often straight to the point:

Hi Patrick,

Thank you.  I will post this tomorrow.

John

Lid: Would you consider John Chow to be your mentor?

PB: I could say that, but my journey in the blogosphere came to a turning point when I met Maki from Dosh Dosh. Not long after I discovered John Chow dot Com I stumbled on Dosh Dosh and became a frequent reader.

Today I would say that both John Chow and Maki are great sources of inspiration for me.

Photo credit: Moaan

Stroke Executive Ego: Do not try to work out what your users want, it’s secondary, and too difficult to determine. Instead, make the boss happy first – after all, he signs the checks. He likes pumpkins? A pumpkin theme it is!

Do Not Create a Web Site Plan: It’s unnecessary; a waste of time and money for something no one refers to anyway. Honestly, Web sites aren’t meant to have a point – and – since when could Web sites make money anyway?

Disregard Landing Pages: “Landing page” is just another buzz term. Clearly, the most important thing is to drive people to your site, it doesn’t matter where they land; you just want them to land somewhere. If they can’t find what they want when they get there, it is not your problem – after all, you went to all that trouble creating the site for them in the first place.

Consistency Is Overrated: Be creative. Use different fonts and colors on every page – and while you’re at it – why not create a different logo for each page too; make it more interesting!

Do Not Worry About Your Copy: Writing well should be a minor concern – dno’t yuo nkow thta het odrre fo orwds si uinmprtoatn? If your visitors want to know about you and what you do, they will make the effort.

Do Not Include Testimonials: You don’t want someone else’s logo on your site – give me a break – a link to someone else? Ridiculous! So what if Forbes said your company is the best thing next to sliced bread? It’s old news.

Use Many Graphics: The more the merrier, in fact, the larger the better. If it takes longer for the page to load, that’s just bad luck – the pictures are worth it.

Use Industry Jargon: It shows you know what’s going on in your field; that you care about staying up-to-date with the terminology. Your visitors will respect that and learn.

Include Abstract Language In Your Tagline/Motto: If your visitor needs to spend some time considering what you do, and who you are, there is a greater chance that they’ll remember you for a longer period of time – it’s directly proportional.

Turn It Into A Game: Change the navigation scheme on each page to spice things up. Visitors like to have fun; it breaks up the dreariness of Web surfing.

Don’t Waste Money On Professional Images: Take or make your own. So, they’re not as great as the professionals; you never claimed to be professional in that area – do it. Better yet, if you come across a great image online – grab it quick. The odds that the person who owns it will turn up at your site are practically zero.

Link Thumbnail Images: One way to be super useful – if you sell products – is to open up a new window for your visitor. It’s expected. However, rather than create a different or larger image (and confuse everyone), use the same thumbnail image – voila!

Demand Registration: It is imperative you have visitor information on hand. Of course they have to fill out the same information when they buy your product – they know this – it’s not a problem. Make them register, login, and provide details when purchasing your product/service – it’s a verification process – completely acceptable.

Use Forms To Get Visitor Information: Put every question you can think of in your forms. No, 150 questions are not unreasonable. In fact, a useful one that is often overlooked is “Are you left or right handed?”

Spend Your Entire Budget On SEO: It’s about getting thousands of visitor’s right? It doesn’t really matter what they see when they get to your site – they’re there!

Count Hits: Seriously, it’s the most important thing. Knowing you had 500 visitors is more important than knowing why they came, and why they left. And hey, you can’t please everyone anyway.

Once you’ve created your site – LEAVE IT ALONE: Do not do anything else. There is really no need to waste your precious time monitoring to see what visitors are doing. You’ve done your bit, created the perfect online space for them, they should be grateful.

This post is inspired by a great giggle I got from visiting ScriptingSite and reading “How to Design a Terrible Website” and the new book: Web Design for ROI: Turning browsers into buyers & Prospects into Leads.

Read the book if you want to increase ROI (free chapter on forms available online), check out How to Design a Terrible Website for a smile.

(Photo Credit: Karagos)

Guy Kawasaki talks lessons learned, and numbers involved in creating Truemors last night at PARC.

The Numbers 

0 - Number of business plan drafts

0 – Number of pitches made to venture capitalists

7.5 – Number of weeks from registering truemors.com to launching it

4,500 – Cost of software development by Electric Pulp

4,824.13 – Cost of legal fees to set up new company

399 – Cost of logo from LogoWorks

1115.05 – Cost of domain registration

55 – Total number of domains registered to “surround” truemors.com at Network Solutions

1.5 – number of full time employees

3 – Number of times Tech Crunch wrote about Truemors

261,214 – Number of page views first day

14,052 – Number of visitors on first day

0 – marketing budget

24 – Number of years spent to make $0 marketing budget possible

405 – Number of truemors posted on first day

218 – Number of truemors deleted as junk, spam, or inappropriate on first day

3 – Number of hours before the site was hacked

36 – Number of hours before Yahoo recommended that we do not use their hosting service

29.95 – Monthly Yahoo fee

150 – Monthly break even after switching from Yahoo

2 – Number of days before Truemors was labeled the “Worst Website Ever”

246,210 – Number of page views on the day Truemors was labeled the “Worst Website Ever”

150 – Number of Google hits the week before launch

350,000 – Number of Google hits after 11 days

The Lessons:

• The blogosphere is full of angry people
• $12K goes a long way these days
• You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away
• Life is good for entrepreneurs these days

Questions?  Ask in the comments