Content Magician, Freelance web content writers

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July 21st, 2008

Copyright Issues With Your Content

Even with Copyscape, we would have to admit that it’s hard to put a radar out for every one of the content that you put on your website or article directories. Even Google can only do so much to protect, detect and ban sites that copy your website content. We all know how much time and effort you’ve put into producing top-quality, up-to-date information and articles for your readers….we all know that but do people care?

That’s the thing…they don’t give two hoots how much effort you’ve put into your content. All they know is that they find it incredibly convenient to copy your content and place it into their websites.

The sad part of this is that not only do website owners copy others’ work, freelance content writers do that too. It’s something I call the easy way out because if you’re a writer, you can do the following and get away with most search engines.

July 18th, 2008

Facebook is soon face-ing out. Try MyBuzzle

I used to use Facebook a lot to network and connect with others…some are writers like me, some are mothers like me, some are total lunatics who are into vampire bites and throwing slamdunks at people for no apparent reason. But I think I’ve outgrown Facebook. Furthermore, in my personal opinion, facebook is all about helping the advertisers and Facebook itself promote itself. It’s using a spiral marketing tactic that, personally, I find rather offensive and annoying.

And it really does nothing for business folks like us unless we join one of the millions of communities on Facebook, jammed with people. The likelihood of our words read or voice heard is literally close to nil.

But unfortunately, that’s where everyone else is so, I’m still using my Facebook but I have face-ing it out. I’ve just discovered another one, though. We all know what Buzzle is, right? If you don’t, visit it now. I just found out that they have a sister-arm reached out recently called MyBuzzle. I testdrove it around today and found it rather interesting. I don’t know how effective it is for business people like you and me but honestly speaking, I am willing to try anything that could replace Facebook. Darn tired of all those emails and annoying alerts, adverts and reminders, people messaging me from all corners of the earth and friends asking me to feed their pets/furnish their apartments/bite their friends/give them beer/give them hug….etc.

Networking, for me, has taken a more serious tone, so…..

MyBuzzle appears to be still new so, I am not sure how effective it’s going to be for now. But if all the people who are bored of Facebook join MyBuzzle, it should work out handsomely when they migrate, don’t you think?

July 17th, 2008

The Flavor In Each Word & Each Musical Note

Piano

Amy is eighteen and she has been spending months, five to be precise, practicing this one song that she would be performing for her music school’s concert. She toils over each note, each dynamic, each tone meticulously and to everyone else, she plays the song PERFECTLY. And yet, Amy’s not satisfied with her song. She laments to her mother, “But it’s NOT perfect. There’s something missing about the song”.

 

Her mother nods her head understandingly, “I don’t know what it is but you’ll figure it out”.

 

Amy nods away sadly, wondering what to do with her less-than-perfect piece. One day, while she was mindfully playing the piece in her music school’s display unit, which is displayed publicly, an experienced pianist walked up to her.

 

“That’s a nice song”, she commented. “You played it well”

Amy says, “Thank you. But it’s missing something, don’t you think?”

The pianist nods but smiles kindly, “Yes, it is. It’s missing flavor”.

 

Then it hit her, Amy’s been playing the song without putting herself into the music. Instead, she’s been putting her whole heart into memorizing the notes and the beat that she’s forgotten about the flavor of the music.

July 13th, 2008

No writing on a weekend

Basically, what I usually do on a weekend is pig out. During the week day, this freelance writer is not to drink a single drop of alcoholic concoction, limited to only one cup of coffee per day and no more than 7 ciggs. During the weekends (beginning Friday), I’ll let everything AND I MEAN EVERYTHING hang loose…which includes my kids’ homework and their Nintendo play time. I know, yikes!

Here’s what I’m driving at, actually. I am thinking along the lines of not touching a single document of my clients’ work on Saturday and Sunday because I would like to spend that time with my kids and my family. If you’re a freelance writer starting out in the writing game, bear this in mind….it’ll save you a whole lot of problem later on…most of them related to your health and mental stability! :-)

You see, when you give yourself a rest and stop doing your freelance work even when you’re home and you have time available, you will be in a better position to recharge yourself. Recharging is crucial to your productivity, mind you, because if you’re not in the perfect frame of mind, what you’re going to produce is a bunch of crap which the client might hate. And you don’t want that…seriously don’t want that.

But a freelance writer like me who is also a workaholic might find refraining or keeping away from work a big ALMIGHTY challenge! It’s like the computer’s there and it’s calling you, beckoning you to finish up just ‘one more article’ before playing with your kids or reading that book. But a freelance writer’s got to do what a freelance writer’s got to do….refrain and abstain from working.

So, my advice for you beginners today would be to know your own limit and toe the boundaries. If you don’t, the line between home and work will be blurred and frankly speaking, that’s when the trouble starts!

July 8th, 2008

Your WordPress Blog - To Follow Or Not to Follow - The WordPress Question of the Day

by Cathy Perkins 

<ed- We found this article to be extremely useful to Wordpress users. Many people, like us, use wordpress as their blogging platform. Yes, ContentMagician is run on wordpress and so far so good….>

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To Follow, or Not to Follow? That’s the question. What does that even mean? What am I even talking about, follow and no follow? That’s something that Google dreamed up in their wisdom, in 2005 as a matter of fact. It seems like ages ago, but it’s not that long ago. Google thought that people were getting too much comment spam on their blogs, which was probably true.

If you’ve looked at your Akismet queue, or if you’ve looked at your comments queue when Akismet was down a few weeks ago, you saw a lot of comment spam. It’s here, and it’s here to stay and it will probably only get worse as it has over the past few years. People are getting smarter about this comment spam, they now will do it individually and will say things like, “Oh, nice post, come and look at my site,” and of course their site is embedded behind their name. So there’s some comment spam. It adds no value to your site, but it gives them a link back.

What does nofollow mean? It means that while the search engines will still follow links in your websites (with a few exceptions); they give no weight to those links. Now let’s think about what that means. If someone is kind enough to come and comment on your blog, and they put their URL in the comment section as they’re urged to do, its right there, then Google will count that as zero.

July 3rd, 2008

Don’t write without an outline

A friend of mine recently wrote to me telling me that she’s having one of the worst cases of writer’s block….EVER! She can’t seem to get a word out on paper…nor on her computer. I told her to take a break. She did. And she still couldn’t write. This friend of mine is new to the writing business, she’s been at it for about a year and I would have to say that in terms of creative writing, she’s good! Pretty darn good.

But what happens is that I asked her to review her outline and see if she can try to twist things around a little, to give her writing a little bit more….erm, well, to suit her mood at the moment.

She asks, “What outline?”

June 27th, 2008

How To Have A Good Relationship With Your Freelance Web Content Writer

Have you ever hired a freelance web content writer only to find out that whatever he/she has been producing for you is not….in the style or format that you desire…much less want? This is a common problem. The reason is because all of us have different styles. Personally, my style is very ‘personal’. If you want me to write a ‘reporter’ style piece of content, I’m probably gonna suck at it really bad! But perhaps, if you’ve hired a web content writer who has been in the journalism scene a lot, then you’re going to get good results.

 

To be fair, I would like to say that most writers who do the freelance thing would do everything within their power to give you the content that you want the way you want it. it’s their bread and butter and they have no boss to answer to. If you don’t like the web content that they produce, then they have everything to lose.

 

To avoid the lose-lose situation, here are a couple of tips to enhance the relationship you have with your freelance writer.

 Sample the writing and see if it fits your taste

We usually have a whole list of ‘sample’ articles that we have written in the past placed in our websites to show the clients what we are capable of and your scope of experience. If the freelance web content writer you’ve hired is somewhat new, he/she might not have enough portfolio to show you – but this doesn’t mean that you can’t a chance on him/her.

June 22nd, 2008

No SEO without standard

One of the biggest movers and shakers in the SEO world is Ron Jones who is a resident blogger (perhaps more) on www.searchenginewatch.com. If you know what you’re worth in the world search engine optimization, then you should put a note down in your journal or diary to catch a bit of what’s inside this guru’s mind.

As we’ve mentioned time and time again, tirelessly yet exhausted, that the standard for SEO must be set. There cannot ever be a pluck and stick method of writing because it corrupts of the article writing standards! Nobody ever wants to buy anything because of an article that doesn’t make sense. But as with anything else on the planet, they moment something works, the moment word gets out, everyone tries to fast-track everything and forgets about the quality of things.

It’s almost like when people figure out there are gems in an area, everyone flocks to it, people talk about it, everyone wants a piece of the pie and nobody slows down to see if the rocks are actually gems. Some would even fabricate tales and try to make top-quality gems out of complete rubbish!

That’s what’s happening to article marketing and the SEO marketing world.

Some of the articles that people are writing in the name of ‘traffic’ is completely rubbish! It makes us here, at www.contentmagician.com, ashamed to be associated with the activity that we used to be so proud of, article marketing.

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VALUABLE INSIGHT BY RON JONES from SEARCHENGINEWATCH

In our last two installments, I raised the question whether we should concern ourselves with, focus on, or even want SEO standards. I received many responses in the form of feedback, e-mails and thoughts posted on Sphinn. Here’s what I heard:

The Response

Overall, people were positive about standards. Most people agree that there should be some standards in place for various reasons. One important reason was brought out by Terry Van Horne, founder of SEOPros.org, when he stated, “Standards would be one way to get over the ‘credibility’ hump.”

Another reader echoed similar sentiments, effectively saying that without a standards, without a reference, it’s difficult to sell the service to skeptical people, and it’s nearly impossible to convince them that what they’ve heard from their buddy, who read some article, isn’t necessarily “best practices.”

Original blog entry here.

June 19th, 2008

Are You a Ghostwriter?

One of the best jobs on the Internet just has to be ghostwriting. There’s a lot to like about this invisible career…no commuting, setting your own schedule, developing your own client list, developing your own creativity and getting paid for it, not having to “Dress For Success everyday.”

To some of you, this might sound like the perfect job straight from Heaven. Sometimes it is. Along with the benefits listed above, there’s a few negatives you have to deal with from time to time, like disappointed customers, clients changing the subject matter when the job is almost finished, those who will contest the payment with PayPal after you’ve submitted the finished product.

While all those glowing benefits will make you feel good and add to your bank account, the negatives can bring you down faster than a rock tossed off a cliff. Part of being a successful Ghostwriter is developing a positive mindset and good business practices based on impeccable customer service.

In the best of cases, disagreements will happen and most can be solved with a calm manner and strong customer service. Offer to rewrite the product and get a new list of requirements or improvements from your client. If a solution is not possible, the best remedy is to return the payment and cross that client off your list. Do not badmouth that ex-client on forums. Just move on to your next project.

Developing a ghostwriting mindset, however, is an entirely different thing. Without one, you will not be happy or that productive with your ghostwriting career. Sure, it is a worldwide dream of writing for customers on the computer in your bedroom and telling your boss goodbye. I had the same dream for years.

June 17th, 2008

Registering Alternate Domain Extensions - A Good Move?

Note: Although this article rings of MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING and ADVERTISING, ADVERTISING, ADVERTISING….seriously, some of the stuff mentioned here are true. So, read it as it is. (-ed)

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In the early days of the Web, businesses and individuals wishing to register a domain had three options: .com, .net, and .org. As the Internet has expanded, many new domain extensions have become available.

You’ve probably seen some of them - .tv, .info, .ws, and .biz are good examples. In addition to these extensions, dozens more have become available. And with the explosive growth of the domain name industry, many useful domains have been registered by resellers who will often demand an unreasonable price.

Domain names are important, especially for a small business trying to create an online identity. Let’s assume that a small business, Rare Antiques, finds that rareantiques.com has already been registered. The business owner has two options - find an alternative .com name such as rareantiquesstore.com, or register an alternate extension such as rareantiques.net, or rareantiques.ws.

The best option depends on your long term goal for the site. If you choose to register the same name in a less popular extension, there are some things you should consider:

  • Alternate extensions are not as popular with users. Most people will only remember the name of your domain, and not the extension. If you register rareantiques.net, many potential customers will mistakenly visit rareantiques.com out of habit.