Developing a professional writing style is critical if you’re serious about making money from blogging. You can get so far by posting free flowing articles that discuss subjects in a conversational manner. Many such blogs are popular, but if you look at the really successful bloggers, they all use a distinct writing style.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to develop a professional writing style that can be used for blogging:

Introduce topic

In your first paragraph, introduce the subject. Tell the reader what you’re going to talk about and why they should continue to read the article. Give them a reason to read onwards. Emphasize your credentials, expertise, or research you’ve performed on the subject – you want to establish some rapport with the reader. Quickly!

Use headings

Avoid writing long blocks of text. Break your article into several chucks (i.e. units) of text. Give each chunk a heading. This helps the reader scan the article and zoom in on the sections they’re interested in. Web readers like to scan. So, write to be scanned!

Short sentences

Don’t write as you speak! Use short sentences that drive the reader forward. Talk to the reader as though you were explaining something to a good friend! Help the reader understand the subject better than before they visited your blog. Don’t show off. Remove affected or pretentious sounding words. No-one uses these in the real world. Use key words where necessary (if you want to attract search engines) but avoid writing in a ‘search-engine friendly’ style. Automated robots might like it but humans won’t!

List key points

Use lists to break up long paragraphs. If necessary, number the items in the list, especially if they signify levels of importance. Lists are another way to help readers scan text. Keep them short. One line max.

Add graphics

Balance the text to graphics ratio by using images, diagrams, screenshots to compliment the narrative. Don’t add images just for the sake of it. Use something that emphasizes the main points. If possible, keep the image colors in line with your blog’s color scheme. Remember that search engines index images. For this reason, use keywords when naming your images. Instead of 123.gif, name it google-gmail-screenshot.gif

Direct user to next article

When the reader gets to the end of your article, they should NEVER have this thought, “Where do I go next?”

Direct the reader to the next website that will interest them. This is a type of ‘customer service’ to the reader. You’re helping them enjoy their online web experience. Readers, being human, will appreciate this.

And No, don’t link only to your own blog. If your blog is good enough, they’ll bookmark it and return.

Golden rule

Always write with the reader’s interests in mind. Once you get this right, the rest falls into place.

About the Author: Read more from Gerry McGovern at  www.gerrymcgovern.com

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

Yesterday we looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength. What I’d like to cover today are the type of mistakes people make when creating passwords and how to avoid this. If you’re planning on opening a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this.

How to avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords:

1. Avoid sequences or word or repeated characters.

Examples of these are “12345678,” “778899″ “abcdefg,”

2. Letters on your keyboard that sit next to each other are also a mistake. For example, qwertqwert.  These are very weak passwords.

3. Avoid using look-alike substitutions of numbers and symbols.

This means that you don’t replace an ‘i’ with a ’1′ or an ‘a’ with ‘@’ as in “M1cr0$0ft” or “P@ssw0rd. These are too easy to guess.

However, these substitutions can be effective when combined with other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in upper and lowercase, to improve the strength of your password.

4. Avoid your login name.

5. Don’t use any part of your name, birthday, social security number.

6. Avoid words taken out of the dictionary.

7. Tools can guess passwords based on words in multiple dictionaries, including words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and substitutions.

8. Use multiple passwords

If any one of the computers or websites using your password is compromised, then all of your other information protected by that password will be compromised as well.

So, try to use different passwords for different systems.

9. Don’t store your password online.

I know this sounds obvious but, if others find your passwords stored online (or on a networked computer), they have access to all your information.

Takeaway tips:

• Long passwords are stronger than short ones.
• The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.
• Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.
• Strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.
• Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’ key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.
• Choose symbols unique to your language.
• Use the space bar in passwords.
• Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.
• The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Use Ping to send 1 post to flickr, Twitter, Blogs and Website instantly

Originally uploaded by Tech Writer Boy

Ping.fm is a free social networking and micro-blogging web service that lets your post to multiple social networks simultaneously.

Making an update on Ping.fm pushes the update to a number of different social websites at once.

This allows individuals using multiple social networks to update their status only once, without having to update it in all their social mediums individually.

Ping.fm groups services into three categories – status updates, blogs, and micro-blogs – and updates can be sent to each group separately.

You can configure Ping.fm account to send your content to the following services:

Bebo
Blogger
Brightkite
Custom URL
Delicious
Facebook
FriendFeed
Friendster
hi5
Identi.ca
Kwippy
Koornk
Laconica
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Mashable
MySpace
Plaxo
Plurk
Pownce
Rejaw
Tumblr
Twitter
WordPress.com
Xanga
Yahoo 360
Diigo
Multiply
YouAre

See ping.fm

Yesterday we looked at different ways to protect your PayPal account. We looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength.

There are a few other things I wanted to add to the last article so I’m adding them here. If you’re going to open a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this. There is no point making a successful online business if others can highjack your account.

How to create a strong password:

1. Write down a sentence that will form the basis of strong password. For example, “My son Ivan was born on May 7 1998.”

2. Check if your computer supports pass phrases.

If you can use a pass phrase (i.e. spaces between characters) on your computer, then use this approach.

3. If the computer does not support pass phrases, convert it to a password.

For example, take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you’ve created to create a new password.

Using the example above, you’d get: “mstwbom71998″.

4. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers to add an extra level of complexity.

You can further strengthen this by adding letter swapping and misspellings.

For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Ivan’s name (e.g. Evan), or substituting the word “seven” for the number 7.

Remember: the longer the sentence, the more complex your password will be.

Your pass phrase might become “My sOn evan waS bORn on MAy 7 1998″

5. Add special characters.

Use symbols that look like letters, combine words, remove spaces between words to make the password more complex.

Using these tricks, we create a pass phrase of “MysOn ev@n waS b#Rn o% M*y 7 1998″ or a password (using the first letter of each word) “MsewaSbMAy71998”

6. Test your password with Microsoft’s Password Checker

This is a non-recording password checking site that helps determine your password’s strength.

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx

Test the strength of your passwords: Enter a password in the text box to have Password Checker help determine its strength as you type.

Note: Password Checker can help you to gauge the strength of your password. It is for personal reference only. Password Checker does not guarantee the security of the password itself.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com / Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Yesterday we looked at different ways to protect your PayPal account. We looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength.

There are a few other things I wanted to add to the last article so I’m adding them here. If you’re going to open a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this. There is no point making a successful online business if others can highjack your account.

How to create a strong password:

1. Write down a sentence that will form the basis of strong password. For example, “My son Ivan was born on May 7 1998.”

2. Check if your computer supports pass phrases.

If you can use a pass phrase (i.e. spaces between characters) on your computer, then use this approach.

3. If the computer does not support pass phrases, convert it to a password.

For example, take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you’ve created to create a new password.

Using the example above, you’d get: “mstwbom71998″.

4. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers to add an extra level of complexity.

You can further strengthen this by adding letter swapping and misspellings.

For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Ivan’s name (e.g. Evan), or substituting the word “seven” for the number 7.

Remember: the longer the sentence, the more complex your password will be.

Your pass phrase might become “My sOn evan waS bORn on MAy 7 1998″

5. Add special characters.

Use symbols that look like letters, combine words, remove spaces between words to make the password more complex.

Using these tricks, we create a pass phrase of “MysOn ev@n waS b#Rn o% M*y 7 1998″ or a password (using the first letter of each word) “MsewaSbMAy71998”

6. Test your password with Microsoft’s Password Checker

This is a non-recording password checking site that helps determine your password’s strength.

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx

Test the strength of your passwords: Enter a password in the text box to have Password Checker help determine its strength as you type.

Note: Password Checker can help you to gauge the strength of your password. It is for personal reference only. Password Checker does not guarantee the security of the password itself.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com / Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Personally, I don’t use PayPal Buy Now or Donations when sending out emails. There are a couple of reasons for this.
1) it’s too hard sell – selling directly through email rarely works.

2) spam filters will pick it out and send your lovely email to the spam filter, adding your email address to the ISPs blacklist in the process (which you can’t undo) and

3) many people (myself included) turn off images in their email.

In other words, I never see any images when I use Yahoo or Hotmail. This means that my emails download faster (less bandwidth required) without images and most are just eye candy with no value add.

To quote Ken Brockman – Just my 2 cents.

There is the easy way and the hard way to do things in life. This is one of the easy ways. You can use this trick to setup Blogger so that it automatically adds a snippet of Adsense code to your Blogger template. This saves you the hassle of cutting and pasting Adsense into each post or other workarounds that eat up your time.

To get Adsense to appear between the Blogger post title and Blogger post body:

1. Log into Blogger.

2. Open the Template page.

3. Click the Edit HTML tab and select Expand Widget Templates.

4. Search for these lines in the HTML code.

Search for the line <p><data:post.body/></p>

5. Add these lines of code (depending on how you want your ads to appear)

<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == “item”‘>
Place Your Google Adsense Code here
<p><data:post.body/></p>
Place Your Google Adsense Code here
<b:else/>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
</b:if>

6. Click Save.

Your Google Ads will now appear above every post you make.

Take a look at http://ivanwalsh.blogspot.com/ to see how it works.

Can I use Wordles for...

May I make money off of Wordle images?

You must first display your Wordle at the desired size, then take a “screen shot” or “screen capture”. Here’s a link to a web site that gives instructions for creating screen shots on various kinds of computer. By linking to this external site, I do not endorse it: take-a-screenshot.org.

How is Wordle licensed? May I embed your applet?

Creating a strong password helps in protecting your account information and, if you run an online business, access to your financial data. For example, if you decide to open a PayPal account and want to buy and sell stuff online, then you need to think carefully about the type of password you’ll need to use. So, here are some tips and guidelines on setting up a super strong password. We’ll also show you how to test the strength of your password.

What makes a strong password?

A strong password must use a random string of characters.

In other words, using the following string – LiVerP8%%L- is better than Liverpool. You can see straightaway how complex the password is
and the effort it would take to open.

Use the following as when creating your passwords:

1. Long passwords are stronger than short ones.

2. The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.

3. Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.

4. A 15-character password – made up of random letters and numbers – is 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard.

5. If you cannot create a password that contains symbols, make it very long to get the same degree of protection.

Symbols are characters such as @,#,$,%,^,&,*,),_,+, and |.

6. The strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.

7. Use the top keys on your keyboard (@,#,$,%,^), not just letters.

8. Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’
key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.

9. Choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row (top) of the keyboard,

10. Choose symbols unique to your language.

11. Many IT systems now support use of the space bar in passwords. This means you can create a phrase made of many words (a ”pass phrase”).

12. Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.

The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Creating a strong password helps in protecting your account information and, if you run an online business, access to your financial data. For example, if you decide to open a PayPal account and want to buy and sell stuff online, then you need to think carefully about the type of password you’ll need to use. So, here are some tips and guidelines on setting up a super strong password. We’ll also show you how to test the strength of your password.

What makes a strong password?

A strong password must use a random string of characters.

In other words, using the following string – LiVerP8%%L- is better than Liverpool. You can see straightaway how complex the password is
and the effort it would take to open.

Use the following as when creating your passwords:

1. Long passwords are stronger than short ones.

2. The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.

3. Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.

4. A 15-character password – made up of random letters and numbers – is 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard.

5. If you cannot create a password that contains symbols, make it very long to get the same degree of protection.

Symbols are characters such as @,#,$,%,^,&,*,),_,+, and |.

6. The strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.

7. Use the top keys on your keyboard (@,#,$,%,^), not just letters.

8. Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’
key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.

9. Choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row (top) of the keyboard,

10. Choose symbols unique to your language.

11. Many IT systems now support use of the space bar in passwords. This means you can create a phrase made of many words (a ”pass phrase”).

12. Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.

The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

If you’ve decided to leave Blogger, or just want to consolidate all your blog activity, then the simplest approach is to import all the posts, including comments and images into your WordPress blog. I have to admit I put this off as I expected it to be painful and bound to collapse half way through. Well, it didn’t.

FYI: you can also import from RSS, Typepad, Moveable Type, Live Journal and Grey Matter.

I’ve put together some screenshots that show you the WordPress user interface – if this is new to you. I add my Blogger accounts and the operation was fairly seamless.

1. Here is the Import screen. Choose the system you want to import. I choose Blogger

2. Click Authorize to start the Import process.

3. Click Grant Access.

You then have to follow a few steps to import all the posts and comments.

It worked well here and even better on www.wordtipsandtricks.com which had over 300 posts to import, not including images and other media files.

FYI: log into your blogger account in advance or at least have the passwords ready, so the process doesn’t time out.

Drop me a line if I can help. Not an expert but know a tad.

Ivan

Web: www.ivanwalsh.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/ivanwalsh

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

If you use Amazon to sell digital products, such as ebooks or MP3s, you should take advantage of this new slideshow widget. We performed split testing with this widget versus the standard text links and found the pages with the slideshow widget generated more click-throughs than the plain text links.

You can make slideshow widgets out of images chosen from products across the entire Amazon catalog, including your own products if they are listed in Amazon.

The Slideshow widget lets you make very slick slideshow from the images of products in the Amazon catalog. On the Klariti FrameMaker page,we have used this widget very successfully, generating several 100 dollars per month in referral fees.

To create a slideshow:

1.   Enter your search terms in the search box. You can search the entire Amazon catalog, or choose to search only within a selected Amazon store.

2. When you find the products you are interested in, click ‘add product’ to have then shown in your widget.

3. Add comments to your selected products (remember to click the ‘Save Comments’ button), and you can drag and drop the products to rearrange their order in the list.
4. Click “Next step” button to customize the look and feel of your widget.
5. Choose the format of your Slideshow – simple, gallery or scrolling – as well as the size of the widget. You can also choose which style of slide transition you think looks best.
6. When you like how it looks, click “Add to my Webpage”
7. Copy and paste the code into your page.

Slideshow Example: See how it works on Klariti.com’s Information Architecture page. 

How many products can I add to the slideshow?
As many as you want. Viewers of your widget will be able to scroll through your list to view all your chosen items. Don’t add too many of add products that dilute the message. ‘ target=_blank>’ target=_blank>Stay focused and select only products that match your site.

Tip: Amazon recommends that you don’t choose more than 20 products as viewers are unlikely to scroll much further than this.

Add comments to personalize your slideshow

You can add comments to help customers choose products. When adding a product to the slideshow, you can add comments into the widget.

BUT I have mixed feelings about the usefulness of this feature. On paper it might sound good but I found that it gets in the way of the slideshow and distracts me from enjoying the slideshow. We’ve removed comments from the slideshow and seem to have had a better response from customers.

Also, I’m not sure if customers place much trust in these ‘endorsements’ anyway.

Limitations with widget
The only limitation we found with the widget is that you cannot change the widget size or orientation once you have saved it or added it to your webpage.

This is because the widget size options are a part of the widget code on your web page. As Amazon doesn’t have access to your web page, it can’t update the widget code dynamically.

Key features

• Add comments to the Slideshow widget to make recommendations.
• Customize the transitions speed to suit your page
• Offer alternatives to plain text links
• Customize the color scheme to match your site/blog
• Interface is very easy to use
• Generated code works with most blogging sites such as Blogger, WordPress and Typepad. Free to use. No restrictions.

Tips

• Keep the number of products under 20
• Stay focused on one product area, e.g. educations books or country and western.
• Avoid using a catch-all approach. 
• Put yourself in your customer’s user’s shoes. Only choose products that you believe in and that YOU would also want to buy.
• Remove high-end and expensive products
• Choose products between 20-33 USD. This is most people’s average price range when buying on Amazon.
• Choose a small slideshow that doesn’t take too long to download.
• Test different slideshows until you’re happy with the results.
• Test different slideshows and examine the click-thru’s to the Amazon site. That’s the only way to really see what customers like and don’t like.
• Don’t fall in love with your slideshow. If it doesn’t work, change it until you get the best results,
• Test, test, test.

PS: we’d love to see what you’ve done with your Amazon widget. Send it your link and we’ll give it a plug on the site.
Ivan

More: Amazon

This video shows how to link your Flickr account directly to your WordPress or Blogger account. This lets you post directly from Flickr into your blogs without having to install any third party widgets or plug-ins.

Video Tutorial: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/3504011106/

Some Blogger users had trouble publishing posts on their FTP-hosted blogs. Google are looking into this now and will post an update once they have more info.
[ad#5links]
Update:

Google identified the root cause and expect a fix to be implemented asap.

As of Saturday morning, some users are reporting ongoing FTP-related issues.

“We are aware of these reports and are actively trying to isolate and correct them. We will post an update as soon as we have more information.”

Latest updates at: http://knownissues.blogspot.com/