The most time consuming part of this is the content creation and frankly creating content for niche sites can get pretty boring. So most of us turn to outsourcing for a lot of our content. Unfortunately this is much more difficult than it sounds.

My adventures in outsourcing article, is long overdue and I’ll come out with it soon. But for now, I just need to explain a couple of things that many niche writers just don’t get.

A smart marketer will put a lot of thought into the main keyword of their article and supporting keywords to attract as much search engine traffic as possible.

A skilled and clever writer should be able to incorporate many of these words without repeating themselves over and over and saying nothing.

Keyword Density

You really don’t want to have a keyword density over 3% you just want your main keyword in the title and then used towards the beginning of the article and if the article is long enough it can be used at the end of the article and maybe once in the middle. 

To calculate keyword density just take the number of times your keyword is used in the post and divide it by the number of words in the post. Then multiply that number by 100 and you will have the keyword density expressed as a percent.

If the article isn’t very long then you don’t want to over do it. Then take the supporting keywords and work some of them into the article if possible.

I have dealt with so many outsourcers who just seem to keep repeating the main keyword over and over, even if this is unintentional don’t do it. Your a writer for goodness sake, you should have a vocabulary large enough to not repeat the same term over and over in a 300 word article.

Say Something Unique

The next important step is to not bore the readers to death even though it may be about a boring topic, say something unique, spice it up a bit. I have had people tell me that they have written this and that and are over educated and over experienced. Yet, they write  niche articles telling me what a candle is or what a Teddy bear is.

We all know what these things are, can’t you think of something else to say. After all you are a highly credentialed experienced writer. Heck you even asked for a raise before even creating one article for me.  Nobody wants to read a 400 word essay on what a candle is. Just because that is the keyword doesn’t mean the article can’t take a unique position.

If your keyword is candle use the word in the title and once at the beginning of the article, then sprinkle in some other words as you explain, why you like candles, or how they add ambiance to the room, or how Sting used a million white candles in his music video. It’s OK to have an opinion and write something human for humans. You are not a dictionary robot and no one wants to read your boring drivel.

Easy Research

An easy way to research a niche article is to go to Amazon or some other product site and look over the product and some of the reviews, then in your own words write some unique opinion or idea that the product has inspired.

Please don’t give me a rewritten version of the ezine articles I wrote last week. Or don’t create an ezine article for me that is a rehashed article of the posts on my blog. You may not know my sites or articles, but I sure know when you are giving me a rehashed version of something I have already written.

I’m not saying that you have to waste hours researching the topic or creating breakthrough articles. Just try to get a quick overview of the topic. Then take a moment to form an opinion and write something unique. No one wants a rehashed definition of what a candle is. Plus when we pay someone for an article we don’t want to have to rewrite it. We already created emails and keyword lists and instructions, these things take time and effort, then to get an article back and have to rewrite and pay for it, prompts people to write long angry posts like this one.

Keep It Positive

Another thing to keep in mind is the tone of the article. If it is going on a site or article to promote a certain product, that means we want the reader to get a positive feeling about the product. Please don’t decide that you are a Pulitzer quality writer and you are going to go negative about the product we are trying to promote. Your writing skills are not that good. Leave the Psychology to the real Internet Marketers, and just create an article that is either impartial or positive.

Don’t Suggest Going To The Mall

Another filler paragraph that I find in a lot of the content is something like this; “if you want to buy brown Teddy Bears the first thing you need to do is decide the style of Brown Teddy Bear you want. There are many different places you can buy Brown Teddy Bears such as the Mall or Target or many other specialty stores.”  WTF, I don’t want the reader buying their Teddy Bear at the Mall, they are supposed to buy it from the link on the site! What in the world do you think we do with this stuff we ask you to write?

Keyword And Other Words In Title

The next thing is the title. I have tried to give the writers leeway to create their own titles, that way the title will reflect the direction they choose to take the article. That doesn’t mean I want you to title the article Candle. That’s not a title that is the keyword!

I know there are some really fast and creative niche writers out there. The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter how educated or smart you think you are. All we really want is some decently written unique content, that can incorporate a few keywords, without repeating them excessively, and not sound like you are writing the new unabridged dictionary for Amazon. It’s OK to have an opinion and express it, you don’t have to be an expert to write something about a product that is interesting enough for someone to actually read.

Niche articles are great for creating content for specific targeted sites. They are also good for article marketing purposes to generate traffic and backlinks. Often times when people attempt article marketing they will create content and publish it on directories. This still goes hand in hand with my original premise that these should be interesting articles.

If you want to use WordPress for more of a static site that is updated infrequently removing the dates from your theme could come in handy. To remove the date you need to find where the date is referred to in index.PHP and remove that line. It will probably be a line between 2 div tags that refer to a date in some way.

Also remove the date instances in single.PHP and archive.PHP. If you are afraid of removing the wrong thing and ruining your theme. You can use comment tags instead. This will make the lines still readable but whatever is between the tags won’t run.

<?php /* These tags can be used to comment something out in PHP */ ?>

Now for the Good news. I just discovered a Date Exclusion WordPress Plugin over at Daily Blog Tips. This just might be the answer for those of us who don’t feel completely comfortable poking around in our themes code. I haven’t used it yet. But it might be the safer option I’ve been looking for.

One of the programs I love and hate is Photoshop. I love it because of all of the amazing things we can do with it. I hate it because I’m always struggling to figure out how to do those things. I took a couple of classes and I have a very in depth book that has taught me everything, except what I wanted to learn. Which is how to make a simple banner for web sites.

If we Google how to make a banner in Photoshop, we come up with 2,910,000 results. Here is the top ten:

• Designing a simple website banner with a logo using Photoshop

• A Quick and Dirty Step-by-Step Tutorial: Let’s build an ad banner with Photoshop

• Animated Ad Banner

• How to make a Halo banner in Photoshop

• Tutorial Guide

• How to create an awesome web 2.0 Banner (Photoshop CS2/CS3)

• make banner in photoshop – part 1

• Photoshop Banner

• Graphics Champ

Well that should be enough to keep me busy this morning. If anyone knows of any great Photoshop tutorials, let me know. I’m also interested in sites where I can find those cartoon like caricatures of people.

Learning to say no, can be one of the most powerful things we can do. Most of us are familiar with the feeling of having too many obligations and succumbing to the one that we are pressured to do by other people in our lives when we know it would benefit our lives more spending that time working on some other project.

Once we learn how to say no we can truly spend our time according to our plans. I think being able to say no is an acquired skill. But, you know you’ve made the right decision, when after that initial awkward guilt period, you feel a rush of relief and contentment with spending your time doing what you should really be doing.

I’ve noticed that lately I’ve been becoming a fan of Zen Habits, even reading the comments are beneficial. Today Leo interviewed Steven Covey and even asked him his opinion of GTD and The Secret, which Covey was able to tactfully answer without really answering. A skill reserved for a master of saying no.

When asked how Covey filters out noise in his life, he actually has a team to filter out the unwanted interruptions in his life. But he does offer this advice for the rest of us:

People who have no such team need to also make these larger decisions so that they can cheerfully say No to that which is urgent but not important. Learn to use technology in such a way as to filter out that which you really know is important to you personally and professionally.

Fall is my favorite time of year, the weather gets cooler, and the leaves fall and it is just a more relaxed stress free time.  Plus, it’s time for Halloween. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, it’s fun and low key, and yet we get to decorate and eat candy. I love going to pumpkin patches and carving pumpkins. The only thing that can make Halloween a little bit stressful is trying to put together a last minute Halloween costume.

So I have the perfect solution to make your Halloween low stress and high fun. Plan your costume early, and a great way to get exactly what you want or to just browse your options is the Internet. I have found 3 great Halloween websites that should meet all of your costume needs.

The first one is SpiritHalloween.com. They have a great website where you can order anything from adult Halloween costumes to Halloween masks. They also have a large selection of wigs, Halloween Jewelry and Halloween makeup.

If you want your husband to look like Johnny Depp in that pirate costume or you need to browse toddler costumes this site should have you covered. Also since people aren’t built like little twigs anymore and one size doesn’t fit all, they also have plus size costumes.

They also have a large selection of decorations, I know that seeing leaves on the lawn and an array of Halloween decorations outside a house always makes me feel nostalgic. They also have pet costumes and costumes for other holidays. Who knew your Johnny Depp could also be the Easter Bunny.

Another great site is ExtremeHalloween.com: 1000′s of Costumes to Choose From.they have all of the above mentioned costumes plus teeth and fangs, and capes and cloaks. I wonder if Vampires will be popular this year? They also have a large selection of boots and shoes, plus wigs and beards and mustaches. They even have costume wings, which are cool anytime of year.

Another great choice for all of your party needs is Celebrate Express they have tons of Halloween costumes and costumes for every occasion and a huge supply of party supplies. For 15 years this company has helped families create special events. Browse their huge selection of Halloween party supplies and supplies for any special occasion.

Another newcomer on the Halloween costume scene is Flirt. They specialize in sexy Halloween costumes for men and women. And yes they have plus size Halloween costumes too. In spite of them being a newer shop they have a large selection of specialty items and want to make your Halloween costume shopping experience as smooth as possible.

 ”Revenge Is Better Than Christmas, But Nothing Beats Halloween!”

When I was a kid I used to love watching scary movies hosted by Elvira on Saturday afternoons. So I thought this was an appropriate quote for my Halloween post. I also found a great website for carving pumpkins. Those little plastic kits found at the grocery store may work for kids, but the real pros will be Carving Pumpkins With Power Tools.

Another activity I enjoyed as a kid was telling  Ghost Stories, having a repertoire of scary stories on hand can come in handy, especially while babysitting or camping.

 Happy Halloween!

I’ve noticed, when I’m writing, that sometimes I suspect, I’ve been using To or Too, incorrectly.

Nothing in English is simple. But I’ll try to give the simplest explanation, so I won’t question my usage of To or Too, anymore. And hopefully some of you will pick up some pointers as well.

“To” is a preposition. It can be used when going towards something. “To the store” or “To bed.” Or, when your doing something in the direction of something or someone. “Speaking to your friend“, or “looking to the right“.

“To” is also used when you’re using a verb in the infinitive. “To go home“, or “to open the door.“

Here, is the tricky part! To can be used at the end of a sentence if a verb is dropped. For example, you could have a conversation like this…… “do you need to stop?”, “no, not right now”, “OK, let me know if you need to”….

The verb stop was dropped at the end, so the sentence ends in to.

On the other hand, too means the same as also, so if you can substitute also at the end of a sentence then use too.

Too, can also mean excessively or more than enough, as in; “too hot” or “too big“.

I hope, this will help me know, how many o’s follow my t at the end of a sentence. And hopefully some of you as well.

When I was in High School, my active social life, caused me to have a shortage of credits. An enterprising High School counselor, suggested that I take a College course during my Senior year.

One College unit was worth about four High School units. So one College course, would give me credits to spare.

I went to the local Community College and browsed their schedule. They offered tons of classes and I could choose whatever I wanted.

Naturally, I chose English 1A. I had no idea, this was a required course, or that some people dreaded it. I just thought it sounded fun.

The teacher was a woman named Diane Prime. I will never forget Ms. Prime. She was smart and well traveled. It seemed like she knew something about everything. Plus she told the most interesting stories.

One day, she wanted to explain to us, the importance of taking English Class. She passionately explained, the importance of being able to communicate.

She said, we could accomplish anything, if we developed effective communication skills. I can’t remember her exact words, but at the end of her monologue, she was in tears.

I’ve never forgotten her passion. Plus her lessons on the importance of communication have served me well.

At this time, most of us were still using typewriters, to create our homework. I would turn in messy, smudged essays, covered in white out.

She would always give me a good grade. But my paper would be covered in red ink, saying comma splice, over and over again. Apparently she loved English, but hated comma splices.

What is a comma splice? A comma splice is two complete sentences joined together by a comma. Creating a run on sentence. Here are five methods for fixing a comma splice.

5 Methods of Fixing Comma Splices

1. Replace the comma with a period, making the two independent clauses two sentences.

2. Replace the comma with a semi-colon.

3. Replace the comma with a co-ordinating conjunction (and, but, or, for, yet, nor, or so).

4. Replace the comma with a subordinating conjunction (after, although, before, unless, as, because, if, since, until, while).

5. Replace the comma with a semi-colon and a transitional word (however, instead, also, therefore, otherwise).

After this, I assumed all College teachers were as smart and talented as she was. Later on, I discovered this wasn’t so. Ms Prime taught me passion for communication and what a comma splice is. I’ll always be grateful.

In Chinese Philosophy Yin and Yang are viewed as complimentary opposites, symbolized, by two opposing, but complementary principles, such as, water and earth for Yin, and fire and wind for Yang. Forces in nature can have Yin/Yang states in movement against each other.

My blogging experience consists of many Yin and Yang states as well. Here are my Eleven Yin and Yang states of blogging:

1. I love my blog, everything I write is brilliant, and I can’t wait to work on it. / I hate my blog, I dread working on that thing, knowing it is always there waiting for me.

2. I get excited when I check my stats and I notice my viewers are increasing each day / I get nervous and I feel pressure when I think people are actually reading what I write.

3. My blog is in America / Many of the blogs I read come from Australia

4. I need to stay on track and follow my niche / I need to be free to write about anything that pops into my mind, my blog is about me after all.

5. I should follow a regular blogging schedule, every morning spend the first two hours of my day updating my blog. / I should only write when I am inspired (if ever).

6. I should become a successful blogger on two hours a day (after all I do have a day job). / I need to spend every waking moment on this thing, when blogging, two hours can easily turn into six hours.

7. I need to work on Content Creation. / I need to work on Marketing.

8. I need to know everything there is about WordPress, PHP, and XHTML. / I just need to get started the knowledge will come in time.

9. Yay, Cristina Mendonsa read my blog. / Oh No, Cristina Mendonsa read my blog.

10. I have nothing to write about. / I should just start writing about nothing.

11. I love writing! / I hate writing!