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Progress Update : 2009 Week 2 January 12th-18th

Posted on 20. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Ok, So a couple of days late. . but I have legitate excuses (Difficultly uploading video to Youtube - for some reason, it wouldn’t accept my HD version, and attempted nearly 10 times - the file was huge - over 700MB :). .Anyways, here’s my progress report for 12th to 18th of January. (times are approximate, as there were a few times when I was in deep concentration on making the video, I forgot to start the timer

My Achievements:

1. Brainstormed Ideas for Video Contest & Produced and Uploaded first Video (~16 hours+)
2. Researched Wordpress themes and revamped my blog ~ 15 hours
3. Initiated my first Joint Venture Project - I’ll reveal more of this later ~ 4 hours
4. Writing 2 Key articles - one on article writing, the other on directory submission ~ 9 hours
5. Spending a very small amount of time on Traffic Generation ~ 2 hours  (I think this is a little inaccurate - probably more closer to 4-5 hours and this was mostly oil rig hopping - visiting and commenting on other peoples blogs)

Below is a nice coloured graph showing you the breakdown:

Now that I have showed you what I have done - Lets check what the RESULTS are

My Key Performance Indicators from the goals I set in January were based on the following : Income, Visitors, and my list building.  As I have been focusing on producing content and updating my site (and subsequently very little on traffic generation) my results this week, have not suprisingly been bad :)  Firstly here are my google Analytics stats:

As you can see I nearly dipped to ZERO on the 16th, but I was luckily able to resurrect my traffic after I finally uploaded my Video to YouTube.  I have to say its very discouraging when you aren’t getting traffic, but its an adrenalin ride when you do:)

Ok. big question : have I made any money?  And the answer is NO. . in fact I’ve spent some money (spent $70 buying the WooTheme to update the look and feel of my site).  But I know I will very soon. . How about my list?  No subscribers yet either, but again I do have a plan. . so this will change very soon

One other bit of good news is that I have climbed in the Alexa Rankings - I’m now proud to say I’m at 580,385 Check it out below:

Oh, and one other thing. . I just passed 1000 friends on twitter :). . so all in all despite not being good to my bank account, it has been a good week :). . .

Well that’s it for week 2.

My plan this week is to continue working on my blog usability and functionality, adding lots of quality content, and spend more time in traffic generation activities

Would love to hear any questions you may have or your thoughts on how I could be more productive, or where you feel I need to focus my energies for the coming weeks - post your comments in the box below

Derrick

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Writing Articles - 5 Key Principles To Write A Kickass Article And Maximise Qualified Traffic To Your Website

Posted on 12. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

• Not sure where to start to write your own article?
• Don’t know what to write about?
• Have no idea how to write a good article?
• Or maybe you’re just looking for some extra article writing tips to confirm you’re on the right track?

Wherever you are, I’m glad you’ve come to this article, because the goal of this article is to simplify and demystify the art and science of article writing for the web. However, before we look at the “How to write an article” its important to know the “Why Of Writing Articles“.

Here are my three reasons:

• You want to share valuable information.
• You want to increase your exposure, build your credibility and your brand
• And you want to drive qualified traffic to your website

Article writing has long been recognized as a great way to drive not only traffic to your website - but qualified traffic.  This means rather than your visitor clicking to your website from reading a short advertisement, or some other less meaningful link, they click through, from your article. This means they have had to read through your whole article to get to your link at the bottom - so they must be interested in who you are, and what you have to say.  Because they are more qualified, they are more likely to surf around on your site, give you their email address or even buy from you.   And of course the big kicker for articles is that it costs you nothing! The downside is - you do need to spend time and effort in writing your articles - though you do get better and more efficient as you practice more

But where do people find your articles?  There are hundreds of article directories on the Internet like www.ezinearticles.com, which gather and organize millions of articles written by millions of authors.  By submitting your articles to these sites you get your articles out there, plus you also give the right for others to reprint / republish your work on their sites, so effectively increase your reach!

Ok, now we’re ready for the How -

My 5 Key Principles for Article Writing:

1. Choose Your Area Of Specialty

- Ideally you want to pick an area you are passionate about, as your passion and enthusiasm for the subject will shine through otherwise just pick an area that you know, or at the very least are prepared to research well.  You need to sound like you know what you are talking about, and your information needs to be true, otherwise, you will shoot your credibility and destroy the brand you’re trying to create.

Once you have selected an area, you need to hone in on a specific problem or issue, so you can address it with your solution.  For example, let say your area is Televisions. There are so many different types of LCD and plasma TVs these days, an obvious initial choice for topic would be how to choose the right TV for you.

2. Know Your Audience -

Your ability to develop rapport and connect with your reader is directly related to how well you know your audience.  By knowing who your target audience is, you can connect with them based on their problems, their desires, their likes, dislikes and their language level.

In this example I could write the article for mums and dads - i.e. not a teenager or a geek.  So therefore I write the article with very simple terms, and if I were to use any jargon, I would make sure I explain it.  Also I need to consider what issues they may have - such as having legacy hardware like old school VCR’s and so one of the areas I could cover is how they could check for compatibility with their older equipment

3. Come Up With A Title -

The title is considered one of the most important aspects of an article (besides the article itself:) Often it is the power of the title that will draw the reader into the article, so you must have an attention grabbing title.  There are 3 Aspects you need to consider when creating your title:

1. Ensure title is Keyword rich - for people to find your article it needs to contain the keywords people would be searching for.   So you need to do a little research on keywords (you can use Google’s Keyword tool which is free).

In this example I would do a search for LCD and Plasma TV - and look at what keywords show up, and target the more common ones - after doing a quick search I discovered that LCD HDTV scored over 4 million searches, as compared to LCD HD TV which only got 135,000 and PLASMA HDTV just over 1 Million - so Now I know what I should definitely use and not use in my title.  Note also that keywords in the body of your article are also important and will help keep your article highly ranked within articles for the topic.

2. Get Creative and Make Your Title Attention Grabbing - you need to stand out from all the articles that cover the same kind of information, so you need a title that has the x-factor - Think about all those gossip magazines, that try and grab your attention at the supermarket

It would be easy just to write: How to Choose your next widescreen LCD or Plasma TV which is ok, but not the best - after doing the keyword research above, I would probably go with something more like: PLASMA or LCD HDTV? 5 Questions You MUST Ask before Buying your Next Widescreen TV. Ask yourself if you were given the choice of these two titles, which would you more likely click through to read?

3. Check your title is unique - the main reason for this is so you can keep a track of your article - by doing a search for the complete title of your article in a search engine, you can see how many copies of it are being distributed around the web.  If other people have the same title, you won’t know at a glance which are yours or theirs, making it more difficult to assess the distribution and reach of your written article.

(You can check this by typing the complete article title in the search engine with quotation marks at the beginning and the end - that way the search engine searches for those words in that exact order and sequence.  Typing my title above, I confirmed it was unique (at the time of writing:)

4. Write the Article -

If you’ve never written before, don’t worry. These days most people write as they speak, so don’t be too concerned that you need to write something at a scholarly level, you don’t.  In fact most people prefer to read articles that are more conversational, informal and light hearted.  The key point is that you are providing value in your article.  Here are few tips to writing your article

1. Know what you want to share with your audience - what is the point of your article and what are the key ideas? - Scribble these down on paper

2. Brainstorm - What questions do you have yourself about the topic - do some research if needed

3. Organize the key ideas into some logical structure

4. Fill out the ideas with examples, stories, analogies, metaphors and quotations to help illustrate the points you are making

5. Write the article - remember people are time poor these days, so the more concise and succinct your article the better - (It is recommended to keep under 750 words) Make it easy to ready by clearly breaking up the paragraphs and using bullet points and numbering.

6. Read and Revise - I recommend printing your article out to read out aloud - I find it gives you a better overall view of your piece, and I think its easier and faster to make notes, revisions and formatting changes.  Also by reading out aloud, you will be able to judge the sense and flow of your article much better.   Once you are happy, just spend a few minutes making adjustments to the final typed draft.

7. Proof & Publish - Finally reprint the final draft and do a final proof read for spelling, grammatical and logical sense. (Also, it’s always good to get the feedback from people whose opinions you value:).

Once you are satisfied - Publish your article to an article directory! - You can also use programs like article submitter which will simultaneously publish your article to hundreds of article directory sites saving you hours of time and effort.

5. Call To Action -

Don’t forget one of the key reasons you are publishing is to get people to visit your site.  So insert your link at the end of your article!

Thats it, What do you think? Are there any other points you feel I left out?

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