I know, the title sounds dramatic. A bit like the teaser for your local six o’clock news during sweeps, but it’s absolutely true. Your home office could be killing you or at the least, your career. Right now. Wait, before you jump up and run for the front yard let me explain…
Archives for November 2010
Strategically Driving Your Traffic
Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to grow your blog beyond a measly 100 page views per day? The earliest days of blogging are without doubt the most difficult because you put in so much hard work without seeing much in way of results.
While some of you may find this strategy a bit too common sense, there is a a lot to be said for implementing a simple strategy that will increase your traffic and drive you to and above that 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could even be used even if your are already over 1,000 per day but would like to stretch beyond some sort of traffic plateau.
By taking the time to execute the 4 steps as laid out here, and spending the 2.5 hours every day you will begin to see marked improvements in no time.
Step One: Content Is King (1 hour per day)
Spend one hour per day brainstorming, researching and writing killer content. Some people swear by content sometimes called linkbait and pillar articles.
Make it your goal is to post one killer article every week. At the very least, aim for one every 15 days. Over the span of those 15 days, the one hour you spend daily on content will be entirely devoted to the same piece. Basically, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of your dedicated time.
Step Two: Networking (30 minutes per day)
Networking is absolutely essential, especially when you are just getting started. Spend 30 minutes each day and dedicate it every day working from the following list:
- leaving comments on other blogs within your niche,
- linking to posts of bloggers in your niche, and
- interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM, Facebook or Twitter.
Set out to build genuine relationships! Don’t be rude and approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Contact them because you respect their work and you’ll find they respect you in return.
Step Three: Promote, Promote, Promote (30 minutes per day)
Focus on promoting your killer content. Whenever you publish a killer piece, push it in any way you can. Here are some ideas:
- let your network know about it,
- let bloggers in appropriate niches know about it,
- getting friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,
- getting friends to tweet the article, and
- post about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.
If you have time left, spend it on search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole.
Step Four: Regular Posting (30 minutes per day)
A blog does not live or thrive on killer content alone. Normal posts are the ones that you publish more routinely, between the killer content articles. For example, you might publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts the rest of the week. Here are few ideas for normal posts to get your creative juices flowing:
- a post linking to an article on another blog and shares your opinion about it is a good choice
- a post that informs your readers of new or breaking news in your niche
- a post that asks a question of your readers with the goal of creating a discussion
- a post featuring resources or tips that you believe would be helpful to your readers
While killer content is without doubt an essential part of any successful blog, promoting your blog, inviting new readers, and keeping on top of normal postings are the tactics that will keep your readers engaged.
Do You Ask for the Gig?
You’ve been talking to a prospective client about his or her writing needs. So far, everything sounds good. You know you can do the work and give the client what they want, but they haven’t made you an offer. Now what?
In this situation, you do have some options. You can back off and focus on the work you have in front of you right now and give the client some space and hope that when the time comes to hire someone that you will get nod.
You have another option, though, and that is to assert yourself and get the client to make a decision. Even if the answer is No, you have an answer, and in that instance you are free to move on and consider other opportunities. Discussions with clients can get to the point where having an answer either way is less frustrating than waiting for someone to just get on with it.
Giving a client a nudge can be a simple matter of asking if they need anything else from you to make a decision about the project. This is a good tactic if your discussions have been going on for some time and you don’t seem to be getting closer to starting work or finding out that the client has decided to hire someone else.
If you are feeling a bit more bold (or just plain frustrated), you can say something like, “I have some time available to start on this on [X] date, would you like me to go ahead and schedule you in?” Then the client has three choices, Yes, No, or start on [X] date instead. At least you have an answer and you haven’t reduced the likelihood of getting hired at all by saying something like, “Would you make up your mind already?”
What strategies have you used to get a client to make a hiring decision?
And I Quote…
We all have our pet peeves when it comes to writing, and I think that some of you will agree that the prevalent habit of misusing – or overusing – quotations marks is of those things. To be honest, this does not bother me as much as interchanging your and you’re. However, the discovery of a blog focusing on the unnecessary use of quotation marks has led me to write about the issue. ((the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks))
Before I bombard you with some rules on the use of quotation marks, let me add a little bit of fun to your Monday by sharing how the real world makes use of these punctuation marks.
First up is a Halloween sign somewhere in Hollywood. ((Source: the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks))
I am not sure if the guys who made the sign are being sarcastic, or they just don’t know what they’re doing. In any case, it’s probably not a good idea to buy fireworks from them! ((Source: The Huffington Post))
When did this propensity for overusing quotation marks start? I have no idea, but it definitely is not a recent trend. Take a look at this photo published 50 years ago by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. ((Source: Motivated Grammar))
Maz stands for Bill Mazeroski, a popular baseball player during that time. His home run during the final game of the ’60s Series turned him into a legend, leading some overly enthusiastic fans to push for him as president.
Now that we’ve seen a few examples of how quotation marks can be used incorrectly, let’s take a look at two major rules for the use of quotation marks.
Rule #1: Direct quotations
When you are incorporating another person’s words into your writing, you have to use quotations marks.
He said, “You have to follow the rules.”
The judge said that he was not willing to “bend the rules” for that particular case.
In the first example, the first letter of the quoted statement is capitalized because it is a complete sentence. In the second example, the quoted material is a fragment, so no capitalization is required.
Rule #2: To indicate irony, double meaning, or a particular use of the word/phrase
I think this is the most common source of incorrect usage of quotation marks. Some correct examples of this particular usage are seen below.
His excuse was that he was too “busy” to attend the meeting.
I “love” waking up at 6 in the morning to go jogging.
In both examples, the quotation marks are used to indicate that the words inside mean something else. In the first sentence, it is implied that the person’s excuse – being busy – is a load of cr*p. In the second sentence, it is implied that the prospect of waking up early in the morning is not really pleasant for the person uttering the statement.
Obviously, there are more rules governing the use of quotation marks. However, I think that if you know these two by heart, you’ll be quite safe from making egregious mistakes.
Given those two rules, though, can you now pinpoint the reasons I posted those signs in the first part of this post? Why do you think people continue to misuse quotation marks this way?
