Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

• Typography Know How

  Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

  Our web sites are nothing without content, and most content is comprised of simple text. Many web designers neglect to pay attention to their typography, and it shows. Proper typography varies based on where the text is and what purpose it serves. Although there are no rules etched in stone, there are a few general techniques that should be followed. Although some of these tips may seem elementary, many of them are not followed.

  Headings.
  
  Clearly, headings should be larger, by 1 or 2 font sizes, than your body text. You may consider bold, but be cognizant of the letter width. Arial Black, for example, may create letters too fat for your taste. When using colors, be sure the colors contrast well with the background color of your site. Black and dark gray do not contrast well, while black and white (or light gray) work quite well. Sometimes, even a simple color change can create useful headings.

  Also be sure to cascade your headings. A main heading, for example, would be larger than subheadings. This effect creates a sense of emphasis and flow to the information.

  Do not italicize your headings. Italics are meant to underscore particular content, but since the text is a heading and of larger size anyway, italics are redundant and often make the text difficult to read.

  Fonts.
  
  The default is Times New Roman, which works fine, but many think it is boring. I have experimented with Arial, Georgia and Verdana, and have found Verdana the most readable font face available. This is a personal preference, but fonts should be restricted to the above four to ensure compatibility between all users of your web site. If your user’s browser does not support your font choice, their browser will revert to its default. Since browsers have increased support for CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, whenever possible, use CSS to define your fonts, rather than HTML’s <font> tag. Also, be sure to keep your font sizes large enough for visitors of all ages and eyesight’s.

  Stress Styles.
  
  Avoid using all capital letters within your text, as it makes it difficult to read and implies you are shouting at the reader.

  To stress words within your body text, decide on a format and stick with it. Some choose bold, while others choose italics or underline. My personal favorite is italics, but any of these can work well. Be careful when using underline, however, as it can be mistaken for a link. In addition, do not overuse these stress styles.

  Entire body text should not be bold. Bold, like italics, is used to emphasis words, and usually an entire body of copy should speak for itself in regularly styled text. I like to use CSS to space my body text out a little to increase readability.

  Article written by Lee

• Obscenity – Put It To The Test

  Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

  Regardless of how long any of us have been an adult webmaster we all need to be
  aware of obscenity laws and, in particular how they affect our businesses
  whether we think a hardcore photoset is ‘obscene’ or not ultimately, if you get
  taken to court on obscenity charges the one thing you should be aware of is how
  the courts will decide whether the images you are using will be classified as
  obscene or not.

  Testing Obscenity – The Miller Test.
  
  The Miller test was developed in the 1973 court case of Miller vs. California
  and in comprises of three parts ALL of which MUST be satisfied on order for
  something to be deemed obscene by the courts. The Miller test is the ‘official’
  method used by the United States Supreme Court for determining whether an
  expression or a speech can be determined as obscene and, if deemed obscene, it
  is not protected under the First Amendment and is therefore prohibited by law.

  The Miller Test – Part One.
  
  Part one of The Miller Test states something may be obscene if ‘the average
  person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find that the
  work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest’ In essence, this
  means that if the ‘average’ person on a jury or on the bench finds the work to
  be deemed obscene then, it is. However for the court to rule something as
  obscene it also has to be deemed obscene by the standards set in part two and
  part three below.

  The Miller Test – Part Two.
  
  Part two of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene is
  ‘the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would
  find that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual
  conduct’. Basically this is saying that if the images or speech is something
  which is not practiced in a manner befitting your local community standards
  then again, it may be obscene. However, as with part one of The Miller Test for
  a court to find something obscene it needs to fall below the standards in part
  three below.

  The Miller Test – Part Three.
  
  Part three of The Miller Test states that something is potentially obscene if,
  ‘a reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious
  literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.’ This is pretty much where
  you could potentially come unstuck after all, everyone has different sexual
  tastes and because of this, just because something that may be widespread such
  as ‘bare backing’ (to use as an example) could potentially be considered as
  obscene if you happen to have a jury who are devout practicers of safe sex.

  The Miller Test – Overview.
  
  In essence The Miller Test is a useful guideline for webmasters when it comes
  to operating our sites and specifically, when it comes to choosing the types of
  content we utilize on them however, for the most part The Miller Test itself is
  outdated. Since the early 70’s when this test was devised there have been many
  sexual practices that were once deemed obscene that have become more a part of
  everyday life and accepted in to society as whole thus, what once would (or
  could) have been deemed obscene would no longer be in the same sense as
  something that may be deemed obscene today could be found not to be in 5 years
  time.

  Article written by Lee

• Newsletter Know How – A Guide To Writing Newsletters

  Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: Promotion, Writing | Response: 0

  Email newsletters are a great way to make contact with existing clients and, prospective clients which makes them a great marketing tool. The biggest bonus however, over Email newsletters rather than print ones is that you have virtually no cost involved with writing and, ultimately, mailing them out.

  There is a wide variety of online newsletter on the internet. however, probably the simplest form for most webmasters is the email newsletter. Email provides you with a quick way to keep your name out there, build trust with you readers and, hopefully attract a few sales. If you archive your newsletter also this is a great way to get additional pages into the search engines and, as such, it then becomes a good traffic driver to your website regardless of the amount of subscribers you have. However one of the most important benefits of having an email newsletter sent on a regular basis is that it build brand recognition of your website or business.

  Your newsletter should provide information, not just of an advertising nature but that, should also be informative to your subscribers. In doing this you are offering information of value and, ultimately, ensuring that your subscribers remain. However, remember newsletters are for promoting your area of expertise not just a vehicle for revenue generation.

  One of the first things you should consider when deciding to do a newsletter is the amount of commitment you will have to put towards the project. Whether you start a monthly, weekly or, daily newsletter a great deal of commitment must be made to both the newsletter and, more importantly, your subscribers. For example, We generally spend a good 3 days researching the articles that have been submitted and trying to ensure that the details contained within them are relevant at the time of sending the email, this is not an easy task especially when the adult internet is constantly developing. If you don’t have the time to research and maintain consistency in your newsletter, then don’t even consider doing one, it isn’t for you at the present time.

  Now you have decided you can make the commitment required to run a successful email newsletter what do you do next? Collect email addresses. Probably one of the easiest ways to get email subscribers to join your list is to go through your current mail clients contact list and manually add those email addresses or, further still, you may even have an opt in collection program that you have been using for a while but have never really had the time to commit to writing a newsletter worthy of sending out. Remember though, an email list is only as good as the addresses contained within it. You want to run an OPT-IN email list, any other type of list will be considered Spam and, that will do you more damage than good. Of course, if you haven’t already got an email collection program you can find one online there are literally hundreds of them floating around that you can get for free from sites like http://www.hotscripts.com.

  So, you now have your emails, onto writing your newsletter. I think the greatest part of email is that it is somewhat less formal than writing for print copy. Email in fact tends to be very informal in comparison. The best way at approaching writing for an email newsletter is to write how you talk, it is more enjoyable for the reader and gives your newsletter a personality that no one else can emulate. Content wise, that depends on what you do, what would YOU like to see if you subscribed to an email list of the type you are going to be running and, more importantly, what would ensure you stay subscribed to the newsletter? Ask your friends, colleagues and, peers what they would like to see in an email newsletter, often they have been looking for information that is not readily available, this is an area where you then start to provide a service that no one else does.

  So you are at the point where you are starting to realize that running a newsletter is a lot of work correct? Well, it is. However, the effort, work and, time spent in putting your newsletter together will help you build a relationship with people whom, in all actuality, you may probably not ever meet in a face to face situation and, more importantly, it can become a great income generator over time.

  Article written by Lee

• Guaranteed Marketing – Power Words

  Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: Search Engine Optimization, Writing | Response: 0

  How many webmasters do you think actually pay attention to what they are writing so far as their sales copy go? Furthermore, if you actually think about it, how much time do you put into choosing the words in which you use on your websites? With the help of this brief article hopefully, you will start to choose the words in which you use a little more carefully, let me explain.

  Power Words – What Are They?
  
  Power words are a set of roughly 10 words that can invoke interest in a person, object or, in our case, a product which we would like to sell however, they are also much more than that. When used in the correct manner power words can become a webmasters greatest selling tool. However, everyone has their own unique set of power words that will appeal to them over everybody else, the good thing is, for the most part there are at least 25 words which almost everybody will look positively towards.

  Power Words – The List.
  
  The following list is compiled from research at Yale University consisting of the most popular power words amongst a demographic of 1000 individuals of mixed sex. The words are, Discover, Easy, Guaranteed, Health, Love, Money, New, Proven, Results, Safety, Save and, You. By using these words in a variety of ways when writing our sales text we can almost be certain that we will keep the surfers attention and enable us to put the power of our marketing to good use.

  Power Words – Uses.
  
  As already mentioned, the best use for the most common power words on our sites is to use them within our text links either at the start of the sentence or, the absolute end. Take a look at the following example to see what i mean.

  1) High Converting Affiliate Program.
  2) Guaranteed To Convert Your Traffic.
  3) Turn Your Traffic In To Cash – Guaranteed.

  You can see from the three examples above the the first example doesn’t really catch your attention whilst examples number 2 and 3 somehow seem to pull you into the ‘spirit’ of the site itself without even knowing what affiliate program it is.

  By using this power word marketing technique as often as possible on your text links you can not only give your site visitor information but, compel them to click on your link.

  Power Words – An Overview.
  
  Hopefully you have seen from this brief article the ways in which power words can improve not only your text links pulling power but also how with the right marketing combination you can also use them to increase your sales.

  Article written by Lee

• Writing A Business Plan – The First Step To Success

  Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Forms & Contracts, Writing | Response: 0

  Regardless of what type of business you want to run be it a bakery, a funeral home or an online marketing empire the one thing that you will require is a business plan however, having never taken any business basics 101 classes what do you need to have and, what is required in your business plan?

  That is what we will touch on in this brief article from the basics to the not-so-basics by using a few simple steps you can be sure your business plan will contain all the information you need to make it up the ladder of success.

  Information Summary.
  
  As the name suggest this is a simple summary of what you are hoping to achieve from the name of your business, the goals, the concept and your plans. This should actually be no longer than two pages so that you can fill the needed information out clearly and concisely.

  Business Details.
  
  This will be the founding information of your business again you need to mention your business name, what type of business you will be running (Sole Trader, Partnership, Corporation, etc) in addition you will also need to include details of who the company owners are, whether it be yourself alone or a list of your business partners, this information will be invaluable to you at a later date you also need to include a brief history of the business whether you have been running it already for a number of days, weeks, month or, years.

  Products And Services.
  
  Basically, you need to write what exactly it is you will be selling. Are you going to be selling baked goods, marketing services or custom solutions. Keep this section simple, if you need to go into depth then do so at the end of your business plan by way of an appendices. Once you have listed several of the products or services you will be selling you should also list the features and benefits (Marketing points) of the products and services in addition, why do you think your business idea will succeed, what do you offer your clients that no-one else currently does? In addition you also need to have a basic pricing structure planned out, this will assist you in the future as, from your initial plans you can see what, if anything needs to be changed.

  Marketing.
  
  A business is more than just an idea. You need to have good pricing, affordable suppliers and a great marketing plan. This is what is also needed in your overall business plan. You should include details of your competitors products and how they compare to your own or, if applicable why your product will be a benefit to the market place should it not already be readily available. In addition the marketing section of your business plan should include a list of advantages as well as some of the pitfalls you are likely to see. You also need to include a section detailing your specific marketing strategies regarding your overall and individual products and services.

  Industry Economics.
  
  This area should detail some of the more specific areas of the industry you are going to be working in for example, what type of industry are you entering, how does the future for this industry look and, more importantly, how many existing companies work this industry as well as how do you successfully launch yourself into the industry. Parts of this area you may have covered in the marketing and previous section non the less, go over them again here in more detail.

  Target Market.
  
  We have detailed the business ideas and products and services but, what about your potential clients? What does your product offer then that they need which no other company does? What is your target client base? How will you reach your customers? All of this and more needs to be addressed in this area of your business plan.

  Competing Companies.
  
  What do your competitors do and, more importantly, who are they? Make a list of your potential competitors and address their weaknesses and strengths ensure that you leave no stone unturned when getting this information together often, you will realize that there are things your competition is doing that you can do much better then they.

  Don’t forget to address their marketing, what are they doing right and, more importantly to you, what are they doing wrong? How can you capitalize on this and make their errors benefit your long term business plans.

  Location, Location, Location.
  
  Location is everything and, this is particularly true in business for example, will you be working from an office, from your home or even your garage, do you require any special permits to operate your business? Can your customers reach you easily? All of these items and more need to be considered when writing this area of your business plan. By addressing any and all of these items you will find yourself with a much clearer picture of what is needed of you and your business.

  Stock + Supplies.
  
  Often overlooked in business plans the one thing you NEED to have is a list of potential suppliers and sub-contractors who can provide you with your products and services. What materials (if any) do you need? How much will these cost you? Where will you find your stock and supplies? By getting this information available now you will have a better idea once your business plan is laid out as to what you are able to offer easily and also it will enable you to lay your pricing structure out more concisely.

  Labor.
  
  So you have this great business idea all laid out but, who will be running this for you? Do you need additional staff or are you going it alone? Do you need to setup accountants, lawyers, insurance companies, consultants, bank accounts etc etc? All of these aspects of your business need to be laid out here.

  Capital.
  
  Money, as they say, makes the world go round. Your business is no different, how much financial outlay do you require to get your business off the ground? Do you need to ask for a loan from your banking facility to help you out? How much income are you planning on making within the next 6 to 12 months? How much of this income needs to be invested back into the business? All of these ‘financial’ question need to be answered in this area of your business plan only then will you begin to see the bigger picture of your business idea.

  Hopefully this article has given you some solid advice and information regarding planning for your new business and, once you have all of the above laid out you should be able to see whether you will succeed or fail in your new idea.

  Also, by planning now for the future of your business you should hopefully be able to avoid any hidden costs which can often push a company to the edge.

  Article written by Lee

• Writing Your Sales Text – Some Facts

  Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

  Do you know the difference between writing sales text for print advertising i.e. magazines and, writing sales talk for websites?

  Well some of these differences will go against your intuition however, these differences are based on how people read specific items.

  Where Do Eyes Go First When Your Page Loads?
  
  Contrary to what most webmasters think it may not always be towards the thumbnails and banners on your page instead, surfers eyes will more than likely go to the first few lines of text on the page therefore, your first chance at making a sale before the surfer starts to burn your bandwidth is to have some enticing text on any site or page you build. Another reason why learning to write good text links can benefit you long term.

  Also, as most surfers will only look at a page for between three and fifteen seconds before they decide whether they want to stay on the site they are at or close it this now starts to question webmasters use of heavy graphics on their sites, if a graphic takes three to four seconds to load you have just lost valuable sales time on your site.

  How Much Of Your Copy Do Users Actually Read?
  
  On average surfers will read about 75% of the length of any given page. Again, this is good news because it now means we can draw our surfers attention tot he ‘important’ sections of our sites by using headlines and bullet points to make them stand out. Also, this means that, given surfers will read only the first 75% of any page that the bottom half of your pages may not be as important as what was first believed.

  Why Do Most Banner Ads Produce Poor Click-Through Rates?
  
  Again as with any advertising media there is only a specific time frame that anyone will look at something, in this case it has been found that the vast majority of surfer will spend a mere 1.25 seconds looking at a banner which, is about enough time to read say 5 words based on the average college students reading time of 350 words a minute.

  Therefore, banners which are animated and can take up to 5 seconds to get all the information across may in effect be completely worthless on our sites. More bad news for webmasters who have fancy animations and the likes on our pages.

  Why Is Reading Online More Frustrating Than Reading Print?
  
  Did you know that reading text on a computer screen can cause your reading ability to slow by up to 25% in some cases? This means that over inflating pages with text heavy content may actually aggravate the surfer instead of draw there attention! But, how can we stop this from potentially losing us a sale? Simple here are a few suggestions.

  Rather than having one long continuous stream of text have several smaller one or two line paragraphs of text.

  Use headlines to summarize what you are telling the surfer for example, if you sponsor has free trials tell them in bold lettering ‘Free Trials’ you get the point across and, you may draw their attention to click on the text.

  Are Your Web Page Users Not Getting The Whole Picture?
  
  Can surfers ‘scan’ your website? Lets look back at the above figures, 75% of the page gets read, banners have an attention span of only 1.25 seconds on average, that’s not much time for a surfer to look at your pages.

  I think that would probably explain the reason why surfers tend to ‘scan’ our sites and only concentrate on the free images, how many of us actually take the time to read word for word EVERYTHING on a page?

  I know I hardly do I just sit there and scan the page for things that draw me into the text or site. This is true again for surfers in fact, estimated figures show that roughly 21% of surfers actually spend the time to read every single word on any site meaning the other 79% only scan through our sites this again, cuts down our marketing capabilities dramatically making it more important to have headlines and well laid out pages highlighting the part we want our surfer to look at, namely, our sponsor links.

  If we do not do this we are in effect only making 21% of our marketing efforts count again, taking away from our profits. That’s a huge chunk of our surfers we are losing out on gleaming a sale from.

  What do all of the above figures tell us? Simple, we need to keep our pages quick loading, concise and more importantly unique, we need to draw our surfers to the specific areas that we want them to go to first and, in the process we should start to make more money from each of our sites.

  Article written by Lee

• Article Writing For Publicity And Credibility

  Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Writing | Response: 0

  If you’re looking for a powerful way to get free publicity and build your credibility at the same time, then writing articles may be your answer.

  If you’ve been on the Internet for a while, you’ve probably subscribed to a few ezines including this one, hopefully. Many ezine publishers will include an article written by a guest author. At the end of the article are a few lines of text about the author referred to as bylines or resource box. These lines of text are basically just an advertisement for the writer. They usually contain a couple of lines about the author and a web address.

  The writer gives the publisher permission to publish their article, free of charge, in exchange for the publisher including the author’s bylines.

  By writing articles and allowing them to be published, your articles will have the potential to be viewed by millions of Internet users. They may be published by several ezines with subscriber bases of a few hundred to several thousand. In addition, they may be displayed in ezine archives or on high traffic websites.

  Most ezine publishers prefer short articles between 500 and 750 words. Short “tip” articles of just a couple of paragraphs are also very popular. Articles should be formatted to 65 characters per line or less, including spaces, and written in short paragraph sections.

  When you begin writing your article, avoid using your standard word processing programs, as they do not allow for proper formatting. Instead, use a text editor such as Notepad. It should already be installed on your desktop.

  When you begin typing your article, use a hard carriage return (hit enter) when your text reaches 65 characters, including spaces, and leave a space between your paragraphs. This will enable publishers to easily copy and paste your article into their publication. By taking the time to properly format your article, you will increase your chance of being published significantly.

  Most publishers receive many article submissions each week and only select a few to be published. Here are some basic guidelines to assist you in getting published:

  (1) Make sure you follow the publishers’ submission guidelines. Articles submitted to publishers that don’t follow the submission guidelines will most likely be deleted.

  (2) Make sure your article is properly formatted.
  Publishers won’t take the time to format your article.
  They’ll simply delete it and move on to the next article submission.

  (3) Keep your bylines down to 6 lines or less.
  Publishers will not publish articles that contain excessively long bylines.

  (4) Select a descriptive title to intrigue your readers.
  Use a powerful headline that demands attention and try to keep it all on one line.

  (5) Use proper grammar and spelling.
  Publishers will not take the time to edit your article. Make sure you read your article several times and use spell check.

  (6) Avoid articles that are nothing more than a sales letter.
  Publishers want quality content and will simply delete an article that is written like a sales letter.

  (7) Avoid referring readers to an affiliate URL.
  Articles containing affiliate links may make your article appear to be biased and untrustworthy.

  (8) Write your articles with a sincere desire to teach and inform. Talk to your readers and share your expertise.

  Once you’ve written your article, you’ll need to develop a list of publishers that may be interested in publishing it. The best way to accomplish this is to display your articles on your website. Place a subscription box on each of your article pages to enable your visitors to subscribe. This list should be used to send your new articles to your list of publishers.

  Of course, you are already in one of the right places to start, we are always looking for industry related articles so, if you been given the motivation by reading this article to give it a try why not submit one to us for publication?

  Writing and distributing free articles on the Internet will be one of the best promotional decisions you’ll ever make. Not only will it provide you with free publicity, but if your articles are good, you’ll become a trusted professional in your area of expertise.

  Article written by Lee