How to Relax Your Writing

Q. My writing sounds stiff and stilted. Help!

A. Memories of high school and college papers are probably getting in the way. We’re often brought up to believe writing is a Big Deal. We can’t, of course, write the way we speak. That would be too easy!

Some corporate departments perpetuate this myth. Many years ago, one group that hired a couple of writing consultants — over zealous English majors with little business experience who enjoyed showing off their expertise. Experienced managers were thoroughly intimidated. They had bought into the myth, “Writing is for experts.”

To relax, try these tips:

(a) Read your work aloud, preferably into a tape recorder. Do you find yourself stumbling over certain phrases? Do you have one collection of words and phrases for speaking and another for writing? As you listen to yourself, you’ll become sensitized to your own voice.

(b) Show what you’ve written to a thirteen-year-old. If they can’t understand what you’re saying, start over! I often use this exercise when people try to describe their jobs, especially in a resume, to people who don’t know their industry.

(c) Get in shape. If you haven’t played basketball for a few years — or ever — you won’t expect to compete on the court. Write every day, even if you begin with your own private journal. Don’t edit. Go back after a few weeks to review what you write.

(d) Practice writing fast. Slow writing isn’t necessarily better — and may actually be worse.

(e) Add metaphors and stories to every article you write for your ezine or website. Here’s a fun exercise: What did you do yesterday? Did you have an interesting encounter or conversation? Find a way to bring one episode from yesterday into today’s article.

Just one caution. I once encouraged a client to “loosen up.” She added some words that would make Tony Soprano blush, let alone her corporate clients!

I recommend being conservative, in speech and well as words, during any business relationship. I enjoy the Sopranos but I must admit I grit my teeth when I hear even the most moderate cuss words during a teleclass, talk or meeting. I know I’m not alone.

About The Author

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First step to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com.

“Ten secrets of mastering a major life change” mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com

Contact: cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294

December 21st, 2008

Why search engine optimisation is doomed … and quality content is the best strategy for your websi

If you have a website, sooner or later you’ll get interested in search engine optimisation. It’s the art (or is it a science?) of tweaking your website copy and links, so your site ranks higher in the search engines.

There are many professional search engine optimisation firms (commonly known as SEOs) who will charge you substantial amounts of money to improve your website’s rankings for certain search terms.

It’s tempting to go down the SEO track, particularly when you find your precious site languishing far, far down the rankings on Google.

But one of the world’s top Web marketing experts, Ken Evoy, has written a new report predicting the imminent demise of the SEO industry – and recommending an alternative, more reliable method of achieving a top search engine ranking.

Evoy argues search engines are getting smarter and smarter at recognising sites that have been “SEO’d”.

The engines are constantly getting more sophisticated, to avoid some of the unethical SEO practices being used to trick them into giving a site a good ranking.

So SEO experts are on a continual treadmill to keep up.

Initially, SEO revolved mainly around keywords. Now, it seems to centre around building inbound links to the site, to get a higher ‘page rank’ on Google.

But Evoy believes website owners are wasting their time and money by becoming too focused on either of these SEO techniques.

They would be better off, he argues, simply adding more and more quality content to their websites, to provide visitors with what they really want on the Web – information.

To quote Evoy: “Make your content so good that others will want to link to you.”

He adds, a little honest push-start by a solid, simple inbound link programme is a good idea but this doesn’t have to become an all-consuming pre-occupation.

All you need are a few popular sites, in your market sector, linking to you. There are several ways to achieve this, including contacting the owners of sites you would like linking to you, and asking if they want to exchange links.

Evoy’s company, Sitesell.com, has an excellent, free link exchange service, which I have found very satisfactory for gaining links to my own sites.

Once you have a few quality links to your site, that’s enough, according to Evoy. From then on, concentrate on adding more and more content to your site.

There is an important place for keywords on these new content pages. It helps to focus each page on one or two keywords (actually, it’s better to use key phrases, because these are what Web searchers typically use) sprinkle these keywords and phrases throughout your page.

You can find the best keywords by using a service called Wordtracker. This is particularly useful because it saves you from simply guessing which words and phrases people are searching on, and gives you the actual search terms being used – and how much competition there is for these terms.

I won’t go too much into keyword analysis here. Suffice it to say, if you follow Evoy’s advice, you’ll focus mainly on writing content-filled pages that are of genuine value to your prospective customers or clients.

As the search engines see the content on your site continually changing, they’ll return more often. They’ll spider new content on your pages faster and faster. This is good news and helps your search engine rankings.

The only downside of Evoy’s approach is that it does take time and commitment to keep adding content to your website. It may seem easier to pay an SEO expert.

But consider this. Even if you do achieve a good ranking in the search engines through SEO, if a visitor arrives and finds mediocre content, what’s the use. They’ll simply click away. For most small businesses, with limited financial resources, the key to getting your website noticed in the search engines is a slow, steady approach of adding more and more pages with great, relevant content for your marketplace.

Then you can forget about SEO and every other trick.

Focus on building content and everything else will take care of itself.

December 21st, 2008

Get Camping Items Online

Camping outdoors has received huge reputation throughout years to be a complete alternative from your typical busy life. Taking some days away from hectic timetable provides much enjoyment and recreation choice than any other holiday idea. If you intend to have an outdoor camping sometime this year then it is important that you try and find the best of camping equipment to carry with for the greatest enjoyable camping experience. Find the latest offers on camping equipment, tents and beds at Sportswear-Equipment.com

Outdoor camping tools can come in the form of camping beds camping lights camping clothing and so on. As the camping places chosen are diverse so are the camping gear that are needed for certain tasks. Some people prefer to go camping in the plains, whilst some prefer to go in the mountain areas, some in fields & some in woods. This means that the camping gear used will depend on the place you have chosen to camp in.

To enjoy the fun and excitement totally, it is very important to carry camping tools that you will require during your camping vacation. There are loads of hikers and campers who enjoy to camp and find out the most extreme parts of the world. Thus the camping needs differ from person to person.

Therefore before going camping outdoors it is necessary that you acquire the gear that you will need. To get the best camping equipment it is better to locate a cheap camping equipment e-tailer and request the equipment you desire to carry along. The light weight tents, portable camping stoves, handy weightless chairs, disposable tools, sleeping bags, hiking shoes light fabric weightless clothes & additional camping accessories can be acquired online at the greatest discount rates. It is essential to carry camping gear that weighs as least as possible so as to give you as much liberty whilst trekking & hiking.

Numerous types of camping gear are not cheap to purchase and can be paid for only when you have a large budget. So you ought to make a list of items that you cannot do without while camping. Depending upon how commonly you go for camping, renting camping kit is a good choice. Or else if you are a camping fanatic then having a collection of your own camping accessories is worth. Have a magnificent camping experience this spring by keeping all your camping desires toned up.

Related topics of interest include: Formula 1 Merchandise & Discount Toys.

December 21st, 2008