Last night, my mom and I were craving a cheesy dinner. We had all kinds of ingredients to start out with, but really had a taste for some Mac and Cheese. However, we knew we needed to add a few things to make it truly a filling dish. We put our heads together and came up with the dish below. It was very filling and delicious.

Hello! I little while back I asked your opinion on what I should do with this site and what should move to a new domain. Several of you responded and I thank you so much for doing so. However, I decided on an option I had not even considered at the time.

I will be doing a welcome post tomorrow on my new site, Love’s Sugar and Spice. The new site incorporates buddypress and multisite for a complete user experience that I’ve not seen else where for romance sites. I will be sharing my tips, advice, and thoughts on relationships and romance on the main blog there. Monday posts (after tomorrow’s) will be an Ask Jenn Post where I answer questions emailed to me or questions from the forums area. There will also be posts on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The best thing about Loves Sugar and Spice is that you can become a member. Members have the ability to communicate privately with other members they have friended via PM. They will also be able to start their own blog within a few days of launch. There is also the ability to start groups and post to the groups or post on forums. The forums are linked to the groups for posting and replying.

I will still write here. I will pick my best posts of the week series back up starting sometime in September. Other than that, I will post as I feel compelled to. I will be writing more about my life in general. There may even be a blog about blogging here and there.

With that being said, I’ve set up separate twitter accounts for each blog. If you only want updates from one or the other, follow the one that applies. If you want to get them all, follow my personal one. I’d not follow any of the other two if you are following my personal account. You’ll get lots of the same tweets if you do

Gurl’s Asylum on Twitter

Loves Sugar and Spice on Twitter

Jennifer on Twitter

The site is open to be viewed now, if you’d like a “sneak peek”. There are no blogs and only myself and a friend as members. She was sweet enough to help me test out some things and give some advice.

I must thank Eleanor Edwards of Heaven and El and Give A Brick as well as Theresa of Picsiechick for all their help! From brainstorming the idea with me, to helping me with some color suggestions to simple encouragement, these women have been a great help to me while getting this all going. You ladies rock.

Every time I sit down to write an article for the web, I think of all the wonderfully written articles I read every day. Then I freeze for a bit. I start telling myself I could never write that well. That it will take years to get to that point. That my copywriting will always be sub par. It’s one of my biggest barriers to writing and to making an impact on the web.

Let’s face it, writing good copy is not easy, right? Blog copywriting becomes a ton easier if you use Problogger’s Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers. I bought a copy two nights ago and read it from cover to cover. Now I feel better as I sit here writing this because I have some blog copy writing secrets from Problogger’s Darren Rowse and Devine Writing’s Glenn Murray. Now you can have those secrets too!

Blogging Copywriting Secrets Revealed!

The Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers is packed full of “secrets” to great copywriting. You will find many surprising gems in this 59 page powerhouse of tips and tricks. Some of the things you will learn while reading include:

• How many keywords should you target at once
• Where should you put your keywords in titles and subheadings for the best results with skimmers and search engines
• How to correctly use common problem words such as
  • Its and It’s
  • Affect and Effect
  • Advice and Advise
• Why using contractions as you write is a good thing
• How important is keyword density
• And so much more

Things That Could Have Been Better

I was expecting more writing by Darren himself. The book seems to have been written entirely by Glenn Murray. Once I gave it a little thought, this arrangement made sense. Murray is the copywriting expert. I am sure Darren had a major role in the creation of this book or he wouldn’t have put his name on it. I just missed Darren’s writing style a bit.

There are also some points that are repeated a time or two in the book. This may annoy some, but to me it just reinforced the importance of those points. They weren’t repeated very close together in most cases, so I likely spotted it because I did read this in a single sitting.

Finally, some of this may be stuff you already know if you have read any of the million articles on how to write for the web. However, I am certain you will find some points that you aren’t familiar with. I also believe that using the scorecard itself will help you find areas that you can improve on.

Things I Liked

One of the major surprises for me was how readable this book actually is. Most of us think of copywriting as a boring subject. This book made the subject easy to understand and compelling to read. I found myself looking forward to using the scorecard on my next post.

Another great point about the book is the scorecard, of course. There are a full 63 areas for you to score your writing upon, then you total it up to get your score out a possible 100. It has references back to the page where the topic being scored is covered so you can refresh your memory or fix something you skipped. It also has recommendations based on your score that give you a good idea of which topics you need to focus on to improve.

This book could be used by any writer, not just bloggers. Using your knowledge of your field will be necessary in discarding any tips that won’t work  for your type of writing. However, I believe a lot of it would apply across the board.

Finally, I adore the price. It’s on sale for $9.95 until September 3, 2010. I’d have bought it at the undiscounted price of $14.95. Either price point is a steal. Even at a mere 59 pages, The Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers is packed full of easy to implement tips to improve your writing.

Conclusion

The Copywriting Score Card for Bloggers is a great product for all writers, especially those writing for the web. It shows many blog copywriting secrets in a way that is easily understood. The topics are actionable and often have a nice tip to help you use the topic better.

I would highly recommend getting this book no matter your experience level. Having the scorecard to help show you places you can improve your blog copywriting is more than worth the price.

Read more about the blog copywriting secrets the book explores. Happy copywriting!

PS: This blog article gets a 80 out of 100. Not too bad for a novice like me Now to take my score and see where to focus my efforts to improve!

I had a strange conversation with my mom while we were riding down the road the other day. It’s not unusual for us to have strange conversations but I never thought I would be explaining email  marketing to my mom.

It happened because I was checking my voice mail and to my surprise one was from the new auto-responder service I am switching to. It was a simple welcome call that gave some web addresses and phone numbers for when I needed help. I was impressed to say the least.

When my jaw dropped, mom gave me a bit of a funny look so I explained it was a call from the email provider I’d just subscribed to and start telling her why I was impressed. When I mentioned having to pay for it in a month, she looked aghast and asked why I had to pay for email.

So I gave a pretty simple explanation. I used the example of emails she gets from some crochet websites she likes. I explained that those mails go out automagically in a certain sequence. She seemed to get it, which was very cool.

It was cool to talk with her in a little more detail about what I am doing. I usually just use general terms when talking to most of my friends or family about this whole building a website and using it to make money journey I am on. It’s just easier and faster. I often just talk about the website building and posting part. I don’t have much patience for people telling me that I won’t make it and so forth, so I just don’t give them the opportunity.

I’ve got a lot more big changes coming up. I have been working hard on my new site, which I am going to have done before my next college term starts. That’s not far way, just so’s you know I will also be working on sharing more interesting blogging information with my email subscribers. Who knows what else will come my way?

Your Turn: Any thing you want to share with us? Big plans, a great day you had, or even a little something that made your day? Share in the comments below. I love sharing the happy moments

Hey! It has been a hectic and awesome few days lately. First, we got some financials taken care of which takes a HUGE weight off of my family. Bills are paid and we’ve even gotten us some goodies. So much nicer when one can buy some things simply because you want them and not have to worry about what bill will suffer!
The second thing is that my sister will probably be staying with us for awhile. Though I love having her and her son here with us, I hate the things that happened to make this change necessary for her. This has been taking up a bit of my mental energy. Its hard being the big sister when you know you can’t help out in any tangible way. I’ve just been trying to make sure she knows I am here to listen and support her in any way I can. Sometimes that is all we can do for those we love, but knowing it doesn’t make it any easier!
The third thing that’s been going on here is that I’ve been brainstorming with my good friend El Edwards for my newest endeavor (which will be talked about further in my next post). Her Amazing Ideas Machine is wicked awesome, and she’s been a big help as always. I am really looking forward to moving into this new project…it will have me doing something I love and am good at, which will be so much fun.
Other than that, its been same ol’, same ol’ around here. Hot weather, exams and shopping…having fun for a chance and LOVING IT!
Your Turn: Have something new and/or exciting going on in your life? I’d love to hear about it! Just leave me a comment below
Editor’s Note: I lost this in a huge website oopsie and had to republish on August 15. Good news is, no posts lost. Bad news is, two great comments lost. Sorry Steve and El, I feel bad but am just happy I got the site back without much hassel.

Image Credit: BEAUTIFUL DAY © Raycan | Dreamstime.com

Wow, another month has whooooooshed by! As you guys know, I had a rough month. There have been quite a few days that there were no new posts. I also wasn’t promoting as much as I usually do. Because of this, July’s report card shows decreases in some areas that make me a not so happy camper. There are some other interesting things that happened this month too. Check out the screen shot below.

So we can see that Page Views and Visits went down. Which I expected. However, Pages per Visit, Average Time on Site and Bounce rate all moved in the right direction to make me a happy camper.

The crazy thing is that I have no idea why this happened. I am glad it did. However, without knowing a possible reason, I am unsure I can duplicate this or even maintain in the coming month. Only time will tell.

The other bad thing this past month is I didn’t hit my guest posting goals of 2 to 4. I actually had 0 guest posts up.Bad blogger..no cookies! That probably also hurt my page views and visits

Now, what am I going to do to get the momentum back here on The Asylum? My plans look something like this:

• Start commenting on other blogs again.
• Utilize my list of subscribers, and start giving them the content I’ve promised.
• Get at least two guest posts into the blogosphere. Ones on Cantankerous Old Coots don’t count anymore, either
• Post at least three times a week here.
• Work on moving the blogging about blogging to a new domain, once the financials come in for that.

My Goals for the coming month include:

• Get or exceed 400 visitors
• Get or exceed 900 page views
• Keep other stats at current levels, at a minimum.
• Finish the move of the blogging about blogging stuff by end of the month.
• Inform email subscribers how to change to the blogging about blogging site’s list once that site is up.
• Have fun again.

Your Turn: Have your stats for last month been satisfactory? What will you be doing to improve your key stats?

With all the complaining, whining, and bitching I’ve done about blogging lately, I bet a lot of newer people to this site are wondering why do I blog if I hate it so much. I don’t hate blogging…In fact, I love to blog when I am in the zone. Lately, I’ve been in the blogging slump zone which makes it hard to see the things I enjoy about this adventure I am on.

Today we are going to go a different route…I want to tell you about the things that make blogging so awesome. Let’s see how many good things about blogging I can come up with! This should help turn my frown upside down

1. Helping someone
   This is the best thing of all. I love it when someone tells me I’ve helped them in some way. If I made them think, helped them see a new way to do something, or just made them smile…it makes all the not so great stuff seem silly and makes me feel good.
2. Meeting new people
   I have met so many awesome people through blogging and commenting and getting socially jiggy with it. I’ve gotten support, inspiration, and even a free resource or two from friends I’ve made in the blogosphere. I am even friendly with the Queen and King of Blogostan
3. Doing something creative
   I’ve always envied creative people. Blogging helps me be creative, even though it’s not necessarily the type of creative that I envy. It can be so much fun coming up with a title that just begs to have a post written. Oh when I get that idea that just rawks my world…oh yeah! That’s the good stuff!
4. Learning
   I learn a little something new every day. Sometimes I find something new when I am looking around for inspiration for a post. Sometimes the learning comes from a great article someone shared on Twitter. Sometimes it comes when I am talking to the people I’ve been blessed to meet through this blogging thing.
5. Interaction
   When I get a new comment or someone shares my stuff…It’s like Christmas and I am 5 years old again! I love to see what others think. I love to know when others see something I don’t. I love to just get to know the people who are reading what I put out here.

I could probably come up with more, but they would be variations of the five above. I really love sharing things with you all. It’s even more fun when you have something to say and share that with me

Your Turn: If you blog, what are your favorite things that blogging gives you? If you don’t blog, what do you enjoy about my place that keeps you coming back?

P.S. If you want to know more about me and why I started blogging, you can find that in my free e-book Budget Blogging. You just need to share your email with me and the book is yours There’s a form below, or click the name of the e-book, and go to the bottom of the page

Image Credit: © Madartists | Dreamstime.com

A bit over a week ago, a dear friend posted a comment that really got me thinking. I will be moving certain types of posts to another blog in the somewhat near future and had written a post asking people to let me know what split they’d like best. However, Eleanor’s questions were more basic and much-needed.

El is a dear friend to me. In the relatively short time we’ve known each other, she’s become one of my greatest supporters and a shoulder to lean on when things are getting hard for me.

She’s a great friend, so it didn’t surprise me that her questions hit a core problem for me. I have no clue what I enjoy writing about most…what my passion is beyond a way to simple answer of “helping others”.

While helping others is always a great thing to do, it’s so vague and general as to be a non-answer to the questions of what I want to accomplish with my blogging. I could do an inventory of my strengths and work from that…but would it really help me? Even more important, would it lead me to a path for my blog(s) that will help you? I am not sure at this point, but my brain is leading towards an answer that isn’t yes.

Let’s take a quick look at a few things I am good at, shall we?

• Giving advice to others on various topics such as their relationship and computer things.
• Showing people how to use software that I am familiar with.
• Listening to others problems and helping them see that they have good things going on.
• Seeing the positive things about other people.
• Giving encouragement.
• Typing (sort of…60ish WPM is pretty spiffy I think!)
• Learning, if its something I am interested in
• Standing up for and by my friends

How much of that is marketable? Not a lot, but a few of them could be. Better yet, how much of that translates into blogging material? Not a lot, at least lately.

What is holding me back? Blogging used to excite and inspire me. It used to make me feel good. Now it’s becoming a source of frustration as often as it is a source of joy. I’ve yet to pin point why it’s changed.

Could it have changed because I am looking to turn blogging into a vehicle to make a living? Maybe.

Could it have changed because I’ve changed my topics to ones I am only marginally interested in? Somewhat, but not really true.

Could it be the changes in my life and relationships? That feels pretty true, but it’s not the whole problem.

See, what I mean. I am clueless. I hate being clueless…which is not helping at all! I could just answer El’s questions, but I have no concrete answers. Shall we try that anyway, just for shits and grins?

1. My dream post: The post that makes someone else have an “AHA!” moment.
2. The posts that excite me: Lately, none. At first, every post did. Ones that make me happy to put out are posts that I believe will be helpful to those reading it.
3. The posts that just “fall off my fingers”: Several types of these. The first are rambles like this one where I am just typing a formatted stream of consciousness.
   The second are posts that I’ve worked on because I need research, links, etc.
   The third are posts where I believe I will strike a chord with readers…give them the coveted “AHA!” moment, a smile, or something else of value.

So how does this help me write more often, write better, etc? I am not sure just yet. This has inspired an idea though..an Ask Gurl series of posts. Gonna think on that one a bit…set up a special e-mail account for it if/when I decide to put it into effect.

So..there we have a rambling post all about me and my trials and tribulations in the blogging world lately. If you’ve read this far, many thanks! I hope talking them out like this will be helpful…usually getting my thoughts out of my head is a good starting place.

Your Turn: What would your answers to El’s questions be? They were (paraphrased):

1. What is your Dream Post?
2. What posts excite you the most?
3. What posts just fall from your fingertips?

I’d love to hear your answers to these questions as I think they are a great spring-board to help each of us focus our writing.

Image Credit: © Grafoo | Dreamstime.com

Today I am to talk to you a bit about a product I use that is getting updated today. Its Blog Post Engineering by Dave Doolin, and it helps you to get the mechanics of publishing your awesome posts down to a science.

You already have that? I thought so too. But to paraphrase author’s own words, most of us have and do use our blogs like public word documents. That’s so not going to get your awesome posts out to the public as well as it would if you had the publishing art down as well as you do the writing! With BPE, you will find some of the secrets of publishing your post to its finest potential.

So, how does this product help you? Lets take a look at a couple of quick points!

• It will take the worry about SEO out of the writing process and put it in the publishing, which is where it belongs.
• unSEO-  The concept helps you deal with the most basic form of SEO, which actually improves your writing. Even if there were no search engines to optimize for, the tasks presented in this product would help your writing become it’s shiny best!
• You get a handy check list to help you be sure you’ve included everything!

Those are just a very few of the things you will learn to help you take your blog to a higher level of SEO ranking while making writing fun again! No more worrying so much about if you have used your keywords enough with in the post…wouldn’t that be a relief?

I also have it on very good authority this will be the last release at its current price! So you should get in now before it goes up in price. Dave is awesome in that he grandfathers us all in, so we get the updates for free, for life. My good authority also tells me the next release will include multi-media, which will take this ultra-valuable resource to new heights I can only imagine.

Get Blog Post Engineering at its awesomely low price for $19.99. You are getting WAY more value than I can even begin to describe! Oh and the bonuses are to die for!

P.S. He also has a great affiliate plan which I am a part of. Yup..all the links are affiliate links. You still get the awesome low price, and I make a few bucks as well. That is a total win/win! Be sure to join the plan once you see how helpful this book is!

A couple of days ago, my family and I stopped at the local airstrip. My nephew wanted to see if there were any planes out. There were, and one was just about ready to take off. I’d never seen a plane take off right in front of me and I have to say that it is a pretty amazing sight.

That got me to thinking about the steps a pilot must go through before take off and how they apply to the things I do, especially blogging. Surprisingly enough, they parallel pretty well with each other. Let’s take a look at the things bloggers can learn from pilots!

1. Preflight Checklist

   Every pilot has to go through and check out the plane before take off. They have to be sure the landing gear works, the engines are in good shape, there is enough gas to get to a fuel stop or their destination and much more.

   We bloggers should have a pre-blog launch checklist and a pre-publish check list I think. Check lists help you be sure you hit the important things, and are better than relying on memory (mine is horrible!). Each person’s check lists would probably be a bit different depending on their goals, but having one would make life easier, don’t you think?

2. Starting the engines

   Before he can go anywhere, the pilot much start the engines on his plane. For us bloggers, our engines are our brains. Getting those going may sometimes be way harder than starting an engine, but one thing that can help is keeping a list of ideas for later.

3. Taxi down the Runway

   The next step for our adventurous pilot is to start his voyage down the runway. He will need to get started so he can get to the next step. For the adventuring blogger, she will need to get those ideas flowing. She might put on some music that gets her in the writing mood, go for a walk or to get some exercise, pet the dog…anything that gets her relaxed so her mental magic can begin!

4. Gain momentum

   As the plan taxis down the runway, our pilot needs to make sure he is speeding up at a rate that will get him to take off speed before he reaches the end of the runway. Now, as bloggers, we don’t have the end of the runway looming at us. But we may have our self-imposed deadlines towering over us. We need to be sure we are writing at a pace that will help us meet our deadlines without stressing us out. This is a difficult task at times, but breaking it down into bite sized pieces can help. You could pre-write on the weekend, polish a day or two later and then schedule when you are done polishing up those awesome posts. The key here is to keep your momentum going by doing something to help your reach your blogging goals every day!

5. Take Off!

   Once he gains his momentum, the pilot finally gets to leave the ground and get going towards his destination. The blogger does the same when she either puts up her site OR publishes her newest post. Each is a point of take off for her goals. And just like the adventuresome pilot, we get to take off again and again, enjoying the rush of leaving the ground we were on and moving towards the new.

6. Refueling
   
   

   This step is the most important for both the brave pilot and the brave blogger. If the pilot doesn’t know how to gauge when he will need to refuel, he will crash his plane and get hurt. If the blogger doesn’t know when she needs to refuel her mind and soul, she too will crash…just not as spectacularly and with less chance of loosing her life. As a blogger, we need to be sure to take time out to do the things we love that have nothing to do with blogging or our business goals. We need to take time to smell the proverbial roses. If we don’t, we run the risk of burning out and loosing that precious momentum and fire that makes us great.

Your Turn: Can you think of ways to help bloggers with any of the six things mentioned above? Share them in the comments!
Bonus kudos for anyone who takes this idea and changes it up to how these steps apply to running your business or something similar

Image Credit: © Patrick Allen | Dreamstime.com