To quote Van Halen, ‘everybody wants some.’ And what you want is traffic. Why write a blog if no-one visits, right? I have 17 technical writers’ blogs in my Google Reader & RSS feeds. Most are fine but… if they used some of the following tactics, they’d get more traffic, comments, money and Nobel prizes. Well, three out of four, anyway.

How To Get More Traffic To Your Technical Writing Blog

Apply five of these tactics and your traffic will double. No kidding, it will!

How To Get More Traffic #1: Add Your Photos

Look at your favorite technical writing blogs. How many faces do you see? Why are they all hiding? I dunno. Stick your mugshot on the page so we can see what you look like! Go on! None of us are Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton (OMG! Paris Hilton rebuilds career as technical writer shock!), so add a pic. Don’t be shy. People like to read about people they know. If they can’t see you…

How To Get More Traffic #2: Video

I’m no spring chicken, so if I can do it, you can. All of these video were taken on a Canon powershot.

Videos let people hear you, see your expression, feel what you’re trying to say in ways that words cannot. Making videos is easier that you think. I use Camtasia 6 for all its sins. (read my frustrated Camtasia 6 review here.)

How To Get More Traffic #3: Social Media Outposts

Use Social Media for maximum impact. With web content publishing tools like Posterous you can get the message out to all these channels with almost no effort. Posterous lets you post once, publish everywhere. Try it.

• Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ivanwalsh
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh
• Business Week http://bx.businessweek.com/profile/ivan-walsh/iwalsh905/
• And also on Disqus, Flickr, LinkedIn, Delicious and Google Reader

How To Get More Traffic #4: Quizzes

We all get tired of checking for split infinitives and looking for typos, so lighten things up. Add quizzes to get people involved… and try to be a little different.

• Did you ever download software illegally?
• What’s your manager’s most annoying habit?
• Would you let your boss friend you on Facebook?
• Do you know any technical writing who can reverse park? (I was going to say Women but then turned on my brain! That was so close!)
• Do you know any men who ask for directions when lost? One for the girls, no doubt.

How To Get More Traffic #5: Comics

May not work for all sites but comics are a nice break from technical documents and other heavy reading. Why do you think they are so popular? Every serious newspaper has them, why not you?

How To Get More Traffic #6: Reviews

If they come to your site, it’s your opinion they are after. So, why don’t you give it?

#1 cardinal sin of most blogs is that they have no opinion!

Don’t be scared! I’m with you! Give your honest opinion (try not to rant or swear) and you’ll see people will respond very quickly.

#2 cardinal sin of most blogs… bland!

If your blog echoes the rest of the crowd, well, why should I come back? Stick your neck out, even a little. Some people were upset that I dissed Camtasia but y’know I’d be lying if I said it worked!

How To Get More Traffic #7: Trends

Pssst! Did you know that… everyone wants to be in the know. Keep your readers up to date. Use graphs, charts and diagrams. See Brain Solis and Information in Beautiful for inspiration.

How To Get More Traffic #8: Lists

It doesn’t have to stop at 10. Here are a few list of get started:

• 21 Left Handed Technical Writers
• 7 Reasons Why Adobe FrameMaker Sucks But You Still Need to Buy It
• 12 Honest Ways to Get a Pay Rise
• 5 Ways To Give An Honest Appraisal
• 28 Ways to Proofred a Technical Documant
• 1 Good Reason to Join the STC
• 18 Mistakes Technical Writers Make Before Breakfast
• 9 Ways to Evaluate a Help Authoring Tool

How To Get More Traffic #9: How-to guides

Ok, the technical stuff comes last. If you’re going to offer technical advice (and you should!) identify the problem, explain how to fix it, and then ask for questions or comments.

#3 cardinal sin of blogging is… blogger doesn’t interact with readers. Ask for comments. If you have a Facebook page, give them the link and connect there. Use Twitter? Create lists for technical writers and add them. Like these lists I created for technical writers and creativity.

• Adobe FrameMaker list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/adobeframemaker
• Creativity list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/creativity
• Technical writing software http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/technicalwritingsoftware

Share, share, share!

What ya think! Fire away below.

Google’s Wonder Wheel is Search and Mind Mapping combined together. The Wonder Wheel was introduced in May 2009 and is one of Google’s best kept secrets. This search/mindmapper tool shows search results in a Wheel with different Spokes for each associated search result. Fantastic tool for brainstorming, studying trends, and idea generation.

Last week I showed you how to use Google’s Advanced search features. This lets you drill-down and laser focus your search. Today, we’ll look at Google’s Wonder Wheel. How does it work? It displays a visual wheel of results, with related search items on each spoke. It’s more than a fancy trick. Keep working with it and you’ll see how powerful it can be.

Tip – make Google’s advanced search page your default. It’s worth the small effort.

How to use Google’s Wonder Wheel

1. Enter your keyword into Google to start the search.

2. Click Show Options (top left of nav bar). This expands the nav bar down the left side of the screen.

3. Click Wonder Wheel under Standard View. This creates a starfish-shaped circle with spokes to the related searches.

4. Click on the spokes (i.e. associated searches) to find more relevant key words and phrases.

You can click on the spokes to research different topics or return to the wonder wheel.

How ProBlogger uses Google’s Wonder Wheel

Darren Rowse’s video, “How to Use Google’s Wonder Wheel to Find Topics to Write about” shows how he uses the Wonder Wheel for idea generation. For example, to see what queries people enter into Google that he may not have thought of or to catch up with new trends. This helps focus your writing so that your content is aligned with what people are searching for. Make sense? http://www.problogger.net

FYI – Darren Rowse’s blog is compulsive reading if you plan to make a living online.

Does Google’s Wonder Wheel Really Work?

Does this help you find the search item you were after or is the regular way better? I use it when I get writer’s block and want to look at things from a fresh perspective.

At first, I found it gimmicky. But, the more I use it, the more ideas it creates. The trick is see where it can help and avoid deviating into topics that are not on your radar.

How about you? What do you think?

PS – You can learn How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential here. An excellent introduction to mind mapping techniques.

What’s the difference between men and women when they go online? eMarketer highlight that when women go online entertainment takes a backseat to utility and socializing, usually with people they already know. Men’s surfing habits are different.

5 Ways UK Women Use Social Media Different Than Men

The report shows that in the UK, women are much less likely than men to seek out entertainment or pass the time on the Internet or mobile phone.

1. Women typically share content and experiences with selected friends.
2. UK women are less numerous than men online; 79% penetration compared with men’s 84%, according to Eurostat.
3. Daily usage is high; data from Nielsen indicates engagement is increasing.
4. Involvement in the social media world, where women’s adoption is outpacing men’s, is rising.
5. Women Internet users were 8% more likely than males to have a social networking site profile.

“Social networks are a primary channel for women online to strengthen existing bonds with friends and family,” said Ms. von Abrams.

According to data from Universal McCann, women’s top activities on social networks in 2009 included managing their own profile and visiting blogs maintained by people they knew.

Men, by contrast, were more interested in making new contacts.

Do Women Use Social Media Different Than Men?

Do these finding surprise you?

What do you see as the main difference in how men and women use the internet? If you’re a man, do you use it to make new contacts or strengthen your existing friendships?

I’ve started a small experiment. I use RSS to monitor blogs, gather data, and share information. What I’ve now started to do is share ‘the best of the web’ using Google Reader. This lets you track web feeds and share those you think other readers would be interested in.

My shared Google Reader is here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/ivanawalsh

I’ve also made an aim to share no more than 5 links, sites, blogs per day. This should help avoid info overload for those who subscribe and increase the quality of the material.

Why am I doing this?

Louis Gray explains it much better than I ever could.

When I hit “share” in Google Reader, a few things happen.

   1. The item is added to my shared link blog.

   2. The item is available for comments within Google Reader for approved contacts.

   3. The items are shared on my FriendFeed, Facebook and Social media.

Louis Gray: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LouisgraycomLive/~3/Sx0m6McdWY0/why-and-where-we-share-distributing.html

Reuters reports that teenagers have focused their spending cuts on clothes, games and food, according to a survey by social networking site Habbo Hotel. [ad#black]
The survey of 61,000 teenagers across 30 countries showed:

• 33% of teenager now gets less money from their parents
• 50% of youngsters getting less to spend in the United States, Spain and Latin America.
• 19 percent of youngsters globally say the recession has most hurt their spending on console and computer games — the industry for which teenagers are a key client group.

WPP estimate that Teens’ annual spending power in the United States is $176 billion and in Brazil its $43 billion.

Clickbank’s analytic data is refreshed multiple times per day. You can view the last time your analytics data was updated by checking the Data Last Updated box. This contains the date and time your data was last refreshed.
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1. Daily information for your account is available for 120 days.

2. Hourly data is available for 40 days.

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The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to compare specified dates hour by hour.
You can setup marketing campaigns for specific times in a day.

All of the charts we discussed in the previous articles provide information for a whole day.

However, ClickBank can also let you view your information hour by hour.

The hourly charting control is located above the trend chart, as a button; toggle the trend chart between daily and hourly to update it.

The hourly trend chart lets you compare any selected day to another selected day hour by hour.

For example, you can configure it to see your sales for today versus yesterday, or compare different days of the week.

You can use this to determine how your web business is performing during a time period and examine which marketing or business tactics are performing the best.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to compare stages of the sale.
Clickbank offers a further degree of sophistication in its comparison charting. Comparison charting lets you chart two metrics over the same time period.

For example, say you were viewing Gross Sales by customers in India.

You can gain more insight into customer tends by overlaying the Hops received in that same time period and gain insight into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns targeted at customers in a different country.

To do this:

1. Select a different country.

2. You can have the same insight into any other campaign you are performing at the country level.

3. All of the metrics available in the data table are available in comparison charting. The control for comparison charting is located above the trend chart in a dropdown menu.

Anyone familiar with Google Analytics will understand the user interface very quickly.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to compare the different stages of a sale.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to explore by attributes of a sale.
When checking the performance of your Clickbank sales, there are many attributes for each sale or prospective sale.

To manage your business with ClickBank, you need to examine the performance (i.e. in terms of sales and click-thrus) of your products or marketing campaigns by many or all of these sale attributes.

The ClickBank analytics tool let’s you explore and view sales trend for these attributes.

These attributes are as follows:

Vendor: The nickname of the vendor whose product has been promoted (available for affiliates only)

Affiliate: The nickname of the affiliate who promoted the product (available for vendors only)

Product: The vendor nickname and product item number promoted

Billing Type: The type of product promoted – Single Sale or Recurring

Customer Country: The customer’s country based on IP Address or the country the customer selected on the Order Form

Customer Province: The name of the province the customer selected on the ClickBank Order Form

Currency: The currency the customer chose to pay in for their purchase

Language: The language assigned to the product sold

Tracking ID:  The tracking code used by affiliates to classify campaigns for HopLinks (affiliates only)

Category: The ClickBank category and sub-category assigned to the promoted vendor (affiliates only)

You can report on these attributes by selecting them from the left-hand navigation menu once you login to your Clickbank account.

You can drill-down into the trends of each item by clicking on the item in the data table.

For example, when viewing Gross Sales By Customer Country, click on the America item in the data table and the trend chart will show Gross Sales by customers located in America.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to compare the different stages of a sale.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll show you how to analyze sales by stages of a sale.
As an affiliate in the ClickBank Marketplace, you probably know that prospects work their way through several stages in the sales process.

For example: a prospect (potential customer) might start by clicking on a Hoplink from an affiliate.

This may result in the customer visiting the vendor’s web page, placing an order, and then moving on to the ClickBank Order Form.

Note: Clickbank refer to this first visit to the order form as an ‘Order Form Impression’.

Once on the Order Form, the customer fills in the required fields and clicks the Pay Now button.

This is the Order Form Submit.

If the submitted order form has no errors, passes fraud detection, and is accepted by the payment processor, it becomes a Sale. Technically, this is a Gross Sales as the customer can refund the product in which case you lose the sale.

After a Sale, the customer can return the product for various reasons. Depending on the action the customer takes, these returns can be processed as a Refund or Chargeback.

Refunds and chargebacks are removed from Gross Sales.

The new ClickBank Analytics tool lets report on and measure success through these stages of the order process.

The stages are as follows:

• Hop: prospective customer clicking on a HopLink
• Order Form Impression: prospective customer visiting the ClickBank Order Form
• Order Form Submit: prospective customer clicking the Pay Now button on the ClickBank Order Form (reporting counts up to one order form submit per customer visit to the order form)
• Gross Sale: A successful customer purchase of a ClickBank product
• Refund: A return of a customer purchase
• Chargeback: return of a customer purchase initiated by the customer contacting their payment processor or their bank
• Net Sale: A customer purchase (Gross Sale) that has not been returned

Additional metrics measure the success of converting a customer from one stage of the process to the next.

These are:

1. Earnings per Hop: Dollars earned for each Hop that a customer clicks. Calculated by dividing Gross Sales Amount by the Hop Count for a specified time period.

2. Hops per Order: The number of Hops it takes to generate a sale. Calculated by dividing the Hop Count by the Gross Sale Count.

3. Hops per Order Form Impression: The number of Hops it takes to get through the vendor pitch page and generate a visit to the ClickBank Order Form.

Calculated by dividing the Hop Count by the Order Form Impression Count for a specified time period.

4. Order Form Sale Conversion: The rate at which a visit to the ClickBank Order Form generates a sale.

Calculated by dividing Gross Sale Count by Order Form Impression Count for a specified time period.

5. Refund Rate: The rate by which customer sales are returned in the form of a refund. The metric is calculated by dividing Refund Count by Gross Sale Count for a specified time period.

Note: Each refund is assigned to the date of the original sale, so the refund rate is an accurate indicator of performance of sales on a given day.

6. Chargeback Rate: The rate by which customer sales are returned in the form of a chargeback.

Calculated by dividing Chargeback Count by Gross Sale Count for a specified time period.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to analyse by attributes of a sale, for example, emerging trends.

The ClickBank Analytics tool helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. In this article, I’ll look at FAQs regarding this tool.
Q:  Why does the number of Order Form Submits not match my Gross Sale Count?

A: There are several reasons: (1) the customer didn’t enter all fields correctly (2) the customer’s method of payment was declined.
Q:  Where is the Trend Chart? Has it been hidden?

A: If it disappears, you can always find the trend chart on the Hide Chart link in the upper-right of the page.

Q:  Why is the Gross Sale Count higher than the Order Form Submit Count?

A: Subscription sales have a recurring billing element that initiates a sale without the customer visiting the ClickBank order form at each recurring time-period.
Q:  Why are improper Customer Countries in my reports?

A: In certain instances, a Customer Country is determined by the IP address the customer is using. Each IP address belongs to a country, Satellite Provider, or generic region like Europe or Anonymous. However, most IP addresses are assigned to a country.

Q:  Why does the automated Internet robot impact Hop and Order Form Impression data?

A: ClickBank filters automated visits from its reporting so you get a better picture of real human traffic.

Q:  Why are sales not showing in the Analytics tool?

A: Check the Last Updated Data box on the left-hand side of the reporting page. This shows when information was last loaded into the Analytics tool. The sale may be too recent to be available at this time.

Q:  Why will the trend chart not display the selected time period?

A: Select a time period and then click the Go button in order to change the time period.

Q:  Why do the Original Analytics metrics not match the new Analytics tool?

A: Original Analytics and New Analytics do not collect data on the same schedule and will likely not be in sync with each other as they calculate Hop traffic differently.

Q: Why did Net Sales data change since the last time I ran the report?

A: Net Sales may change because of refunds or chargebacks that were not included in the first report.

Q: Why are sales totals by Category greater than by Product?

A: A site listed in two Marketplace categories will include sales totals for each category, which causes your sales metrics to double.

ClickBank has just released a new tool (ClickBank Analytics) that helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. This series of articles explains how ClickBank’s new and improved analytics reporting works, how it differs from its original reporting system, and answers questions related to this reporting. Also includes FAQs on analytics, metrics, reporting, trends, digital goods, affiliates, online payments, and credit cards.

ClickBank Analytics:

1. Lets you produce trend charts by different topics over custom time ranges.

2. It gives you charts and data tables so you can see sales trends.

3. You can manipulate the charts in different ways, so you can see emerging trends.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to explore sales by stages of a sale.

ClickBank has just released a new tool (ClickBank Analytics) that helps affiliates and customers track the success of their sales and the performance of their digital products. This series of articles explains how ClickBank’s new and improved analytics reporting works, how it differs from its original reporting system, and answers questions related to this reporting. Also includes FAQs on analytics, metrics, reporting, trends, digital goods, affiliates, online payments, and credit cards.

ClickBank Analytics:

1. Lets you produce trend charts by different topics over custom time ranges.

2. It gives you charts and data tables so you can see sales trends.

3. You can manipulate the charts in different ways, so you can see emerging trends.

In the next article, I’ll show you how to explore sales by stages of a sale.

People email me all the time asking questions about technical writing and other documentation related questions. I was recently asked how to start ‘documentating for a banking solution which is been developed in Java on Open-Source platform. What kind to documents should i write for this project?’ Now, there isn’t much to go on here, so…

It depends on what the client actually wants.

Here’s what I’d do:

1. Ask the person in charge which activities are most important, for example, installing the servers, updating the databases, teaching users and so on.

2. Once you have a list of the most essential activities, discuss with him/her what you believe are most necessary…

3. then you can write books that support these tasks,

Without knowing too much else about the project, I’d say that you need to produce:

•Admin Guides
•User Guides
•Release Notes
•Training Documents
•Installation Guides

If you let me know more about the project, I can give you more concrete answers.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Kevin Manderfield, one of my tech writer friends in Brisbane, just sent me this. PGP are looking for a Server Products Senior Writer to create and maintain documentation for its Universal product line.
Here’s the job description:

Documentation may take the form of guides, online help, short “How do I.?” videos created using screen video capture software, or technical notes.

As a senior level writer, this person is expert in the technical writing process and many industry-standard technologies and understands industry initiatives such as content management, single sourcing, and XML.

The Server Products Senior Writer will report to the Sr. Manager of Technical Documentation and Globalization. If seeking remote position, the candidate must have proven success working independently from a remote or home office.

* 5+ years experience as a technical writer developing end user and system administrator documentation for a technical audience
* Experience with the AuthorIT content management system
* Experience with the process of localizing documentation
* Experience with PGP and other security products
* Understanding of networking and network protocols; messaging and mail protocols
* B.A./M.A. or Certificate in Technical Writing, Professional Writing, Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent experience

You can find more over here www.pgp.com

Regards,
Ivan

Twitter @ivanwalsh
Web: www.ivanwalsh.com

There are many ways to do this but this is how I create that nice mirror effect you see at the end of product images and screenshots.

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1. In Snagit, open the image you want to use

2. Copy the image.

3. Hold the handles at the bottom of the canvas and drag down. Increase the size of the canvas (not the image) to 200%. So, you’ve doubled the space available.

4. Paste the image.

5. Drag it down the canvas so it’s just under the top image.

6. Flip it.

7. Align the flipped (i.e. the upside down image) with the one on top.

8. Use Zoom to align.

9. Crop the lower image. Leave only a small edge i.e. what you’re going to make into the nice mirror effect.

9. Select the lower image.

10. Select Effect, Image Processing, Average Blur

11. Select 3.

This should give you a nice mirror effect as you can see in this example.

Let me know how you’d have done it!

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter @ivanwalsh
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh/
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/
Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com

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Interesting article over on IBM DeveloperWorks where Elliotte Rusty Harold prognosticates what he thinks is in store for XML. For those of us in technical communications, the section on XML and structured authoring made me re-think my assessment of XML.

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Here’s an extract:

“Before a document can be published, it has to be authored, and here the fight is over. XML has won. All major office suites now save their documents in zipped XML by default.

These include Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, StarOffice, WordPerfect Office, and Lotus® Notes®. Even graphic applications like Adobe® Illustrator® can now save documents as XML. The most notable hold-out is Apple’s iWork, but look for it to join the parade in the new year.”

He adds that “For Microsoft, the nightmare of a younger, nimbler competitor overtaking them is also coming true.

The company was so distracted by Sun and Netscape that it failed to notice Google sneaking up on Office and Windows. GMail, Google Docs, and similar applications from a variety of sources are rapidly rendering the underlying operating system irrelevant.”

Read about The future of XML 

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You can see the number of times people have searched Wikipedia for something, for example, technical writing or Camtasia.

Select the language, date, and enter the keyword you want to search for.
[ad#adc-2]
The most viewed articles are listed here: http://stats.grok.se/en/top

Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate possible flu activity at a state level in near real-time. It’s found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.

In response to inquiries from public health officials regarding the current swine flu outbreak, Google.org built an experimental model for Mexico. You’ll see its unverified estimates on the Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico page.

Unlike Google Flu Trends for U.S., Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico was not built using historical data on flu symptoms.

This means the models have not been checked against actual historic flu data from Mexico and thus the estimates you see for Mexico are unverified. The models for Mexico are based on aggregated search queries likely to be associated with influenza-like illness (ILI).

Google Flu Trends