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

Guest article by Shannon Suetos from Resource Nation

Having a blog on your company’s website can help bring a personal tone to your company as well as bring in people who may not have originally gone to your site. Because of this it is important to have a blog that people enjoy reading, but still gets your message out.

5 Tips on Writing a Great Blog Post

1. Be Consistent

You don’t have to write in your blog every day for it to be effective.  The main goal should be to write it in a consistent manner.  Once you get people reading your blog, they will want you to be someone they can count on.  If you start writing every week and then stop, you could lose readership and make your company look inconsistent as well.

2. Relevant Topics

It doesn’t really matter what your company does, you need to have something relevant and interesting to say.  People read blogs to get information, so tell them something they need to know.  Try and tie in current events with what you do, it could be easier than you think.

Get creative and add a twist to a news story, doing this will make your blog unique and hopefully give it a tone that is engaging to your readers.  If everyone is writing about a newsworthy event, why should they read your post?  Put your own spin on things and make the post yours.

3. Skimability

Most people have the attention span of a fly, so it is up to you to make your post easy to read and help people skim your post.  Take a step back and think about how you read blogs and news articles? Do you skim the post first and then decide if you should read it word for word? Make the information available and easy to read at a glance.

Making your paragraphs shorter and using bullet points and bold text can really help.  Format your article so people don’t feel like they are reading an essay paper.

4. It’s not all about you

Don’t make all your blog posts about your company. You want people to come back and read again and again–writing just about your company can be repetitive and boring.  If you talk about industry news and even mention other companies, you will look more relevant and set yourself apart from being boring and mundane.

5. Link to other sites

This tactic is good for two reasons—one, it helps for SEO purposes, and two, it shows you read other people’s content.  Search engines like text that has links to different domains, and it can lead to higher rankings, which is always a good thing.  Also it lets your readers know you are conscious of other people’s thoughts and ideas.  Get in touch with people you link from, they may return the favor and link to your blog.

In the end, remember blogs help companies get information out to their clients as well as bring in information for their industry.  Being engaging is key, and having quality content that people will want to read can ensure successful readership.

Shannon Suetos is a writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for Resource Nation, an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing decisions and a comparison service for everything from credit card processing to VoIP phone systems.

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

PayPal Donations is a very nice way to let people donate a small amount of your site, usually as a thank you for providing quality information, tips or advice.

You can use this to collect donations from a PayPal Donation button on your website, or even using it as a link in your email. PayPal won’t automatically place the button code on your website, but it’s very easy to copy and paste the code into your blog or website’s code. The PayPal Create Button designer screen also lets you customize the look and field of the button, set-up  donation amounts, currency types, and other options. You can also create a library of buttons and re-use these rather than starting from scratch every time.

Benefits

• Easy to implement – no programming experience necessary. Jus copy and paste the code.
• No up-front costs – same low fee schedule as other PayPal payments
• No hidden charges – PayPal don’t charge for this service. There are no
  hidden costs
• Reports – PayPal maintains detailed transaction records so you can track your donations
• Flexibility – your donors can choose to give an amount of their choice
  (recommended) or you can set a fixed amount

To add PayPal Donations to your website, follow these steps:

The webpage you use to design the buttons has three sections. You only need
to use the first one: the others are optional.

1. Choose the button type and enter the payment details

2. Save your button (an optional step)

3. Customize the advanced features (also optional)

Let’s get started.

1. Log in to PayPal or setup a new account.

2. Click the Profile tab.

The Profile Summary page opens.

3. Under Selling Preferences, click the My Saved Buttons link.

The My Saved Buttons page opens.

4. Click Create New Button.

The Create Payment Button page opens. This is where you will create the
actual button.

How to Choose the button type and enter payment details

Let’s get started and choose the button type we want to use.

1. In the Accept payments for dropdown menu, select Donations.

2. In Organization name/service, enter the name of your organization

3. In Donation ID (optional), enter a unique number if you want to track the donation.

The next step is to customize the button. In other words, do you want a
simple image with only the word ’Donation’ or do you want to add credit cards to it?

You can also upload your own image, which can be useful if you want to blend
it into your site’s color scheme.

4. Click the blue triangle next to Customize appearance.

5. Click the PayPal button box.

You now have two options:

• Customize the PayPal button or
• Upload your own.

6. If you want to customize the PayPal button:

6.1 Click Use smaller button – if you want a Donate button without any
branding or credit card logos.

6.2 Click Display credit card logos – if you want display credit card logos
such as Visa and MasterCard.

6.3 Select the Country and language for button.

FYI: I recommend United States – US – English.

When you change the settings, a preview of your image appears in the Buyer’s
View pane.

7 If you want use your own image.

7.1 Click Use your own button image.

7.2 Enter the URL of where your image is located on the web. At the moment, you can’t upload an image to PayPal directly.

Note: PayPal will not show your image onscreen when you use this option. But, when you create the code later on, it works fine. You can always go back and change it, by the way.

Next you’re going to select the currency.

8. Choose a Currency from one of these:

USD AUD GBP CAD CZK DKK EUR HKD HUF ILS JPY MXN NZD NOK PLN SGD SEK CHF.

Again, most of you will select USD (US Dollars but you can choose what you
want).

Tip: If you choose a currency other than USD you run the risk of people not
making a donation. People don’t want to get tricked into paying with a currency they don’t understand. If you make them go check the currency rate, they might have second thoughts on paying.

Keep it simple. Use the USD option.

Next up is the contribution amount.

9. In Contribution amount, select one of the options:

9.1. Click Donors enter their own contribution amount.

Let people choose to donate 1 dollar of 1 million. It’s their choice. Never under-estimate how generous people can be if you provide really
useful content (like this!)

9.2. Click Donors contribute a fixed amount.

I’d avoid this. It’s a bit ham-fisted and forces people to pay when you think
they should, under-mining the principle of making a donation. To me, this looks more like a pseudo-payment. I’d suggest you avoid it. But, hey, it’s your site. Don’t let me stop you.

10. Next, enter the email address where the donations are sent to. Usually you’re PayPal account email address.

Step 2 and 3 are optional, so you can ignore these for now. Take a peek if
you want or you can skip ahead and create the button.

The final step is to get the code for the button.

11. Click Create Button at the end of the screen.

This opens the Button Code page.

12. Click Select Code to select the HTML code.

13 Copy the code (CTRL+C for Windows and CMD+C for Mac)

14. Paste the code into your blog or webpage (Ctrl + V)

We’re not finished yet!

15. PayPal also gives you the option to add the button to emails. Fantastic
if you’re selling things via email or are big into good ol’ web marketing.

Just copy and paste the link into your email. Send a few tests to yourself to
check that it works. Also try the link in Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail to check that everything works fine with these.

Now you’re finished!

Other things you can do on this page

• Click Create Similar button if you want to use the button you just
  create as a template for your next button. Nice time-saver as you can use the same configuration settings.
• Click Create a new button to create a new button from scratch.
• Click Create Similar button if you want to create another button, withall the same/similar configuration settings as this button

I hope you enjoyed this article and that is made the whole process of
creating PayPal buttons a little easier.

Next week, I’ll show you how to use more advanced features in PayPal, like
setting up a Thank You page or sending customers to a download page
automatically.

To setup a new PayPal account, please go here.

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?