CW: CuteWriting

Web Writing and SEO – How to Combine the Two…

2012-01-21T02:04:00.001-08:00

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can seem like a mystery to some people. Whilst there are many guidelines out there that can teach you the basics of SEO, a balance will always need to be struck between writing engaging and authoritative content and following the rules of SEO in order to ensure that your texts are optimized for search engines. With the release of Google Panda last year, the lines between once holy SEO ground rules such as keyword density against the need to create high-quality, fluid text have become blurred. However, being aware of the biggest pitfalls of SEO with regards to web writing remains absolutely vital for your writing career.

Google Panda:

The codeword “Panda” was used to describe the wide-ranging update that Google rolled out across its entire search engine last February. Panda concentrated itself on delivering the best search results possible to web users and Google took great care to actively demote those websites from search results that featured poor-quality or duplicated content. Since Panda, Google has emphasized the aspects of quality, authoritativeness, user intention and freshness in its search results and thus the effect on web writing was clear; texts created for web pages would need to move away from traditional, quick and unoriginal copy.

The effect of Panda:

Websites that relied on freelance writers to create a large array of texts that lacked in originality and creativity were the big losers of the Google Panda update. Ecommerce websites in particular were hard hit by Panda because they would typically consist of hundreds of nearly identical product pages that differed minimally from each other in terms of content. These sites saw their keyword rankings drop dramatically and this should be a lesson to all web writers out there that the old tactic of creating quick and simple text that simply met the basic requirements of a keyword density check would do nothing to rankings.

The solution for your web writing:

To ensure that your web writing passes the Google Panda test there are a number of SEO writing factors that you have to abide to;

. Web user intention: The first rule of writing in a post-Panda world is to create texts online that would fit what the user had in mind when they searched for a particular keyword and landed on your particular webpage. Your text should aim to either answer the questions that the visitor may have, or should otherwise provide relevant, unique and helpful information to the reader that they would not find on other websites.

. Freshness: Whilst Google trusts content found on websites that have existed for years instead of days, this does not mean that your website should feature the same written texts that it featured three years ago. The Panda update now focuses on finding fresh content for the web user as it knows that the user is more likely to be interested in up-to-date information and news about a topic. Thus, keep your web writings topical and be sure to create content on a regular basis. For a blog a new and original article once or twice a week is ideal.

. Length: The length of the text on a webpage is a dead giveaway that your content is written for search engines and not for actual people. Writing at least 600 words in your texts will ensure that your web pages are not flagged up as spammy content by the Google search bots.

. Authority: The “authoritativeness” of a text may seem a little vague to judge at first; however Google judges the quality and authority of a web text on the number of links that are created to it – or more broadly the level of web user interaction with that text. If your goal is to rank with blog articles, then in order to increase the likelihood that people will link to your writings, you have to put a level of dedication and research into your texts. Bring something new to the scene and try to make your article original. If, over time, people are impressed by your writings and frequently interact with your content or create backlinks to your website, then Google will recognize this and consider your writings to have a certain level of quality and authoritativeness about them and will increase their ranking positions in search results.

For us web writers, Google Panda only increased the importance of bringing some originality, freshness and individuality to our writings. The large majority of web writers should have no problem bringing these aspects of writing to the forefront of their work, as these are the main reasons that we entered the industry in the first place!

Author: Robert from twago, a SEO web writer and blogger living in Berlin.

Four Keys to Quality Creative Writing

2011-11-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

This is a guest post from Brandy Olsen

Writing quality creative work is difficult. While there's no other form of writing that's freer from the confines of rules and research, the virtually bottomless bag of material that can be used to craft creative writing leaves many a writer unable to work past the inevitable analysis paralysis of having too much to choose from. The tenacity it takes to overcome this vehement objective standing between you and your fiction will define you as a creative writer. But before you set off down that road, stop and consider the following four keys to quality creative writing that can take years to realize if you choose to go about it by yourself:

UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS UNDERSTOOD

A good creative writer is able to read their own work through the mind of a reader who only has the writing itself to go off of. Otherwise, you can be writing what you think is a detailed yarn, which is in fact a befuddled mess of character actions. Readers don't have the luxury of free psychic readings to determine what your intent is as an author. It's imperative that you always be aware of what your reader is aware of. This helps you include all necessary information and cut out the fat.

AVOIDING OVERWRITING

“Jonathan's eyes began to dribble with shame, and the young lad did all he could to resist the urge to emit tears in front of the other boys.”
Overwriting might sound good, but when “An embarrassed Jonathan did his best not to cry in front of the other boys” works just fine in a fraction of the space, there's no reason to write more than you have to. Lovers of the written word will often pack their sentences, all the while forgetting that readability is key. Nobody likes to read long complicated sentences or an unnecessary number of words.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD OVER ALMOST THE RIGHT WORD

Mark Twain once said that “The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between a lightening bug and a bolt of lightening.” Never let a boring word make it into your writing if you can help it. “It was a dark night” and “It was a black night” say basically the same thing, but “black” sounds just a bit more vivid than “dark”.

MASTERING THE METAPHOR

“Love is a rose.” Creative writing almost invariably comes down to whether or not a writer is able to speak to a bigger truth than the flesh and blood of the story itself. Understanding metaphor, and the ability to create something fictional that represents the real world in some way, is essential in becoming a quality creative writer.
The number of aspiring writers versus professional writers in the world is an indicator of how difficult it is to commit quality creative writing to the world. The freedom of creative writing is incredibly alluring, yet the lack of rules can be the biggest obstacle in a young writer's way. The best strategy is to realize there are no rules, only keys, to writing creative works worth being noted and remembered.

Five Android Apps for Making Your Creative Writing More Creative

2011-08-26T01:54:00.000-07:00

Good writers always want to better their craft. When it comes to improving your creative writing skills nothing beats learning new things about the world. Except perhaps cutting down on distractions and procrastination. If you've recently bought a new HTC 4G Android phone or any mobile device running on Android, then you definitely want to give the following five apps a look if you're interested in easy ways to improve your creativity while you write:

1. CIA Factbook App

When inspired suddenly to tell a story, one of the first things that gets in the way are the facts, or lack thereof. Unless your story is set exactly where you live it doesn't take long to hit a wall in terms of describing the setting and the people. Luckily, the CIA Factbook app for Android grants you instant access to data on countless countries across the globe. You'll just be a click away from knowing that the largest city in Cameroon is Douala and that Swedish male life expectancy is 78, among many other interesting facts about the peoples of the world.

2. Fun Facts

For other times when you're in need of facts to inspire some creativity, Fun Facts provides you with innumerable tidbits of fascinating information. Knowing that 0.7 percent of the world is estimated to be intoxicated at any given moment sounds like the beginning of a great short story. I do suggest double-checking any facts you find that you want to incorporate into your writing, because while Fun Facts is free and entertaining, it isn't 100 percent accurate.

3. Urban Dictionary

Yet other times you simply just need to know what kids are saying these days. Getting genuine dialogue onto paper is incredibly hard, so use the Urban Dictionary app for Android to keep up with the latest slang words and buzz phrases. One day I'd like to see Urban Dictionary indexed in accordance to synonym which would make it a much better system for writers, but until then, you'll just have to browse and see what you can find, which will be plenty.

4. Spell Checker

Nothing can make a strong writing spurt come to a halt like being unable to spell a word correctly and spending way too much time trying to figure it out. Every writer should be a near-perfect speller but pobody is nerfect. With the Spell Checker app you can quickly reference the right spelling so you can stay focused. It works wonders when you're handwriting and are otherwise not near a computer.

5. My Writing Spot

Mobile devices are still too primitive for writers to get any quality work done on a phone word processor. But that doesn't mean you can't hammer out a few sentences or even a paragraph or two on your phone when the inspiration comes and there's no way to put pen to paper. My Writing Spot is a simple app that lets you keep up with a single ongoing writing project on-the-go without worrying about using up storage space or what happens in the event you lose your phone. That's because in coordination with the My Writing Spot web-app you can save your documents remotely.

Don't walk around with a smartphone in your pocket and a pen in your hand without checking these apps out first. Taking advantage of the latest tech savvy ways to stay informed and get inspired is something everything writer ought to get good at.

How to Find Friends From Gmail Contact List Who are on Facebook and Vice Versa

2011-05-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

When a new user signs up for Facebook, he is prompted to use the friend finder that allows the user to find the friends who are on his email contact list. Facebook’s Friend Finder is integrated with the major email services like Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc and makes it easier to add your friends to your Facebook profile. But last December, Google made some slight changes in its Terms of Service saying that any service that accesses Google’s Contacts API (that supports OAuth) will need to offer reciprocity. As Facebook doesn’t allow that, you won’t be able to directly import the contacts to Facebook by direct communication with Gmail. But you can export your Gmail contacts and then import them to Facebook. You can also pull contacts from Facebook to Gmail with Yahoo as the intermediate between them.

Facebook had added a direct link to export all Gmail contacts but now that has been removed. So you’ll need to export the contacts using Gmail’s interface. To do this, click on “Contacts” on the left hand menu of Gmail. From the More Actions dropdown, select “Export Contacts”. Choose the Contact group that you want to export or just export your whole contact list in Outlook CSV format. Download it and headover to Facebook friend finder. Click on “Other Tools” and then on “Upload Contact File”. Now upload the contact file downloaded from Gmail and you’re done.

Now you can also add friends from Facebook to your Gmail contacts. Well Facebook doesn’t allow direct integration with Gmail services. So, you’ll have to take the help of Yahoo account. For this purpose, login to your Yahoo account and click on “Contacts” from the menu. Now you’ll see all your contacts in a list. Next go to Tools>Import or access it directly from the link below “Popular Tools”. Now select Facebook and provide your Facebook credentials. Don’t worry, the authorization process is safe and secured. Confirm for Importing email addresses and in a few moments, all your Facebook contacts can be found in your Yahoo contacts. Next step is to export this as a CSV file which you can do from Tools> Export. Download the CSV file to your hard disk. Now, head over to Gmail again and import this file from the same place where you exported your contacts. A few seconds later, all the contact information of your Facebook friends will land to your Gmail contacts.

With this little workaround, you can find friends from Gmail contact list who are on Facebook and vice versa.

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Guest post made by Bishal Adhikari from Tech Tips

xFruits: A Review

2010-09-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

[A guest post by Bishal Adhikari from Tech Tips and Tricks]

RSS Feeds are a great way to get regularly updated on the latest news on your favorite blogs. But there are people who don’t know much about RSS feeds or about subscribing to them but could be used to reading PDFs(ebooks). So, if you don’t want to lose such readers, xFruits is a great tool to get PDFs out of your feeds.

You can have readers directly read the PDF version of your feeds. xFruits has a handful of useful tools to get more out of your RSS feeds. Using the RSS-to-PDF tool, you can easily convert your RSS feed to PDF format. Or if you like, you can add a download PDF button to every post on your blog so that readers directly download the PDF from any post they come across. Isn’t that cool?

Most of the popular blogs have their content available for the mobile users and have a fully optimized mobile version of their sites. But everyone may not have the resources to run a mobile version of their websites. xFruits comes in handy for this purpose as well. xFruits lets you make a very simple HTML version of your blog with its RSS-to-Mobile tool. Add your feed URL to the RSS-to-Mobile tool, add relevant tags, click publish and you’re done. After this, the feed gets published via a URL on your xFruit profile which displays all of the latest post titles from your feed in the left navigation bar. The content on the other hand is displayed in the main panel.

The site generated by xFruits isn’t cool at looks and is extremely simple. But it opens and loads fast and is perfect for opening with mobile browsers like Opera or Firefox’s Fennec for mobile. Besides this it also sends your new data feed to other syndication services like Technorati and MyYahoo.

xFruits is a great tool to use your RSS feed in multiple ways. Go ahead and give it a try.