Ranting in Writing Blogs

Those who read A Writer's Edge at the website will see some of the changes I've made in the home page -- and resulting construction problems. Yes, as much as I advocate using Blogger for your ordinary blogging needs, sometimes it sucks like Electrolux. Until I drag the page into DreamWeaver, I won't be able to fix the bottom that, I suspect, visitors seldom view anyway.

I've included a "recent visitors" box from Blog Catalog now, mainly because it's the only way I can see more than ten visitors from there to thank and entice to leave a shout on my Profile page or a Comment or Review or to join The Neighborhood on the blog's page. I may expand the features from MyBlogLog, too, currently in the left column.

This must be the Week of the Blog for email, because I've received several nutty messages, including a request to remove a link to a news article because someone is unhappy with what the article says. I don't even mention the person in my post! He writes to me, "Yes, I am the subject of the slander in the article." His logic goes like this: my link causes the newspaper article "to show up highly on the search engines...what is happening as a result of the hyperlink in your post that is objectionable to me." I"d much rather that my links cause my blog to show up highly in the search engines, but maybe there's a lesson here, somewhere.

Then a Google Alert alarmed me when I found one of my recent posts appearing in toto in someone else's blog, but WITHOUT links or attribution. Jeez! If you're going to steal my work, at least leave the link or use my name. I wasted an hour or more trying to track down an email address for the hacker jerk (he has several sites on Blogspot), found none, so settled for wading through Blogger's complaint system, only to receive a lengthy email from them, saying that I had to put a full DMCA complaint in writing. Sheesh! Shall I post his name, this Indian student? Let you visit his sites and leave nasty remarks? Would you? Or would he welcome the attention?

Blogging Changes

As I meticulously stepped through a link check of the home page for A Writer's Edge, I discovered a few boo-boos. Now both Blue Ribbon Blogger images are connected to the current Blue Ribbon Bloggers blog. Another link was scrambled (I swear gremlins live in the grid!), and that got me to thinking about all the reciprocal links that I displayed before the PageRank brouhaha.

According to the people who pay close attention to such matters, PageRank is no longer the behemoth image-maker for websites that it once was. Google typifies the Peter Principle in action. They've tweaked their algorithm out of pertinence. Thus, I'm considering an experiment: bring back the reciprocals and see if traffic picks up.

Or was it something I said that put people off the last few months? A writer must accept the fact that someone will always be offended by a piece of writing. I have difficulty believing that something I wrote was bad enough to drive away a significant number of visitors, and other blog/website owners have noticed a drop, too. If you were offended and left, well, you're not reading this, but if you can remember something I wrote that you found questionable, please let me know in a private email to writer [AT] writers-edge.info.

In the meantime, let the links begin!

Awesome Editing

A Writer's Edge, is one of "100 Awesome Webmaster Blogs by and for Women" listed by Web Hosting Database in the section for "Social Media, Organizations, and Writing Skills". According to the article, I'm a "strong, talented, innovative and resourceful" web woman.

"She’s a widely published writer who provides classes and coaching to beginners who want to write for magazines and journals, news mediums and more. Ms. Hancock’s blog reflects her coaching skills as she imparts information about every type of writing imaginable."

Here's the latest incarnation of my new avatar from BitStrips.com. Can't get the hair right. Mine's graying from what my mother called "dishwater blond". It's not salt and pepper, more like gold and silver, I like to think.

The eyelids are droopy from overuse. I debated a squint and bloodshot, but opted for this tired appearance. I'd love to stick a red pencil in my hair and a book or keyboard in those large hands.

Submit your Site for Success

As the image from Compete Blog shows, searches on the major engines are slowing down. It also explains why you need to submit your site to only the three that have nearly all of the U.S. search market. In April, Google had almost 70%, followed by Yahoo at 15% and MSN at about 8%. Many other search engines derive results from these three. Submitting your site is free and not too complicated.

If your target audience uses a particular specialty search engine and expects your site to be listed there, be sure to submit your website to that specialty engine.

Also submit your site to The Open Directory Project. This is a human-edited directory. Search engines index that content too and display results. DMOZ is a volunteer project, and it does not accept all sites that are submitted. When you sign up, it is up to you to first find the category that best fits your site. As with the top search engines, the Open Directory feeds many others.

However, Yahoo! has the best known directory, and it was the basis for their early success. It is not free, though. Don't confuse Yahoo’s directory with their search engine. You may submit your website to both.

Another step you can take to get your new website showing up in search results sooner is to prepare a sitemap and submit it to Google (especially) and to Yahoo. This special file is a bit tricky and complicated to create, but gives the search engines a heads up that your site exists and which pages to spider and how often. A good, free service for automatically generating a sitemap is SitemapsPal.

Writing Website Maintenance

After almost four years of preaching about writers needing websites, it's time to move on to the next logical step to success: maintaining websites. It is debatable if a static site is worse than none at all. Visitors who return a few times and find nothing new, seldom come back. More importantly, fresh new content keeps search engines spidering your site and sending people who search on your keywords to your little corner in the vast web.

A professional also keeps up with developments. If you're going to use new media, be thinking about podcasts and video. Do as I say, not as I do, too. Interactive sites are also "stickier" (keep visitors longer and returning more often). You can achieve the interactivity by participating in at least one social networking service (LinkedIn and Facebook are examples) and integrating it with your website through appearances and links. Much better, however is to develop similar features for your own site.

A third aspect of website maintenance is to analyze your site's statistics. Every host gathers information about website visitors and "logs" them into files that can usually be downloaded and analyzed. Some provide a simple service as part of the hosting package. For the free Cadillac of analysis, sign up for Google Analytics. If you include a blog with your site, many of the blogging services also offer data analysis. Some are initially free, with more data considered for a fee. I use several of these because each tweaks the information a bit differently. Do not depend on Alexa figures, however. Those reports are so bogus, based entirely on data Alexa retrieves only from users of the Alexa tool bar.

Yes, websites are complex to construct and complicated to keep going. If you'd rather spend your time mostly writing and submitting, hire a professional for website maintenance. Accept that it's an ongoing expense, just like your hosting fees and domain registration fees. This is part of what I mean when I urge you to invest in your writing career. No free lunches, remember?

Keywords for Writing Websites

Did you ever wonder how many search engines scan the Internet? The search engine optimization (SEO) company Trellian claims to gather data on 36 billion searches performed on 200 search engines worldwide. Scroll down the referenced web page to see a list. Impressive, huh? Only three really matter, though, when it comes to fiddling with keywords.

If you have a website to promote yourself and/or market your writing (and every writer and book needs one), you should be concerned about keywords. They are are the text that search engine users type into the little rectangle next to the Search button. Part of the secret to raising your site's rank in search engine returns is knowing what keywords are most pertinent to your site's content.

Most new visitors to websites arrive via keyword searches. Once your site is up and running, don't take much of a break from optimizing. Frequently test your old and new keywords with the three top search engines. In July 2007, these were Google, Yahoo and MSN, according to Search Engine Watch, comprising 87% of all searches performed.

Google Rank Returns, Other Rises

The Google Gods restoreth PageRank to A Writer's Edge! Apparently 3 is the new 5. That's the site's ranking in Google's new scheme to weed out Pay-Per-Post/Click bloggers and websites. I have never participated in those marginally unethical practices, however, to the Google Search system my page looked suspicious enough for them to pull MY rank last fall. (No one knows what formula was used to de-rank and re-rank sites.)

When Google dropped the rank, I cast about furiously for another ranking system and found a good one at SEOmoz.com. In that service's view, the page was a 4.5 to Google's 0. I'd hoped for the covet 6. Well, I have it now with SEOmoz! So, a Google 3 = SEOmoz 6? What does it really mean? A return of advertisers, I hope -- unless that's what Google was punishing me for, not using AdSense on the front page, but displaying ads from others. Call me cynical, but do call.

The Editing Process

Several requests for information about editing services are flowing through my email lately. Often people ask about the process or, as one gentleman put it, "Can you tell me a little more about your mode of operation?" I'm always stumped as to what they are really asking. Do they want to know that I need to see a sample of the material, to know exactly what they want done with it, or that I ask for a down payment before starting work and use PayPal and accept local checks?

Or do they want to know that a document with more than ten pages must be on paper as well as in an electronic file, and that I use my brain and eyeballs as well as certain MS Word features (with or without comments and changes tracking as required); and that I make "notes to self" which become incorporated into a report at the end?

Maybe they are actually asking literally how to perform editing, especially a complex one with several aspects. In my style of work that means multiple passes through the text sometimes concentrating on the mechanics, other times for grammar and syntax, perhaps once searching out repetitions and another for the flow of the writing or concept and again for continuity.

I could design an entire website devoted to all the nuances of editing. In fact, the Bay Area Editors' Forum has done just that. Especially useful are the pages connected with What Do Editors Do? Incidentally, it is a very well-designed website, too, clean in appearance, logical in structure, and with excellent navigation.

When you ask an editor to tell you about how they work, what exactly do you mean? If you're an editor, let me know how you interpret such general questions or what information you think people are usually requesting.

New Features at AWE

Allow me to direct your attention to the right column on this blog's web page. First you find a gold box asking you to vote for A Writer's Edge in the 2008 Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers competition (just click on it to open an outgoing email message to WD). Many thanks.

Below that is a nifty feature by which you can subscribe via FeedBlitz to receive posts automatically by email. I must admit, I'm seeing how many people might be interested in receiving writing help this way. I'm still contemplating starting a newsletter. Signing up for the email feed won't, however, automatically put you on any mailing list.

The third box in the right column is something new. I finally wrestled Yahoo!'s intricate code into a search box that barely fits in the column. Click on the Yahoo! logo and enter a keyword or phrase, then click on the grey Search button. Yahoo! wanted it to take up 300 pixels. I wanted no more than 175. I win, for now! Better yet, it works much better on this website than the leading search engine. I discovered Yahoo!'s more thorough indexing as I searched for all my posts on Writer's Block and Creativity. Soon I hope to have them gathered into an eBook to add to the others. It just seems to me to be a natural companion volume to Be a Successful Writer.

Defeat Content Thieves

Sigh! I'd hoped the "plagiarism"/copy stealing might be over for a while, but when I happened into the Technorati listings for this blog, I found my post on searching yourself partially scraped (probably from the RSS feed) and posted at an ambiguous site aptly named "spiderspro.com". A spider is an automated computer program that crawls around web pages, seeking whom it can devour.

This blog-style website is new and maybe thrown together by an amateur. Its illogical blogroll leads to an endless train of identical blogs that lead to the same. Maybe the whole thing is automated. Anyhoo, it reminded me of this super article sent in from the folks at Virtual Hosting: Take it Back! 100 Tips to Defeat Content Thieves. Especially important is the section on what to do once you've found the jerks stealing your stuff "Going in for the kill".

I'll also be perusing the white paper for leads on preventing Google and Yahoo's image searchers from accessing the graphics on my website. I'm tired of seeing all the top hits being people looking to swipe others' art. I'd rather know what writing topics people are searching for when they come to A Writer's Edge. That way, I can better serve readers' needs.

Web 2.0 Unravels for Writers

Somewhat amusing to me was the Business Week article Generation MySpace Is Getting Fed Up because the local chapter of American Pen Women just asked me to talk with them about using such social nets, as well as websites, to promote members' work.

The average amount of time each user spends on social networking sites has fallen by 14% over the last four months ... MySpace, the largest social network, has slipped from a peak of 72 million users in October to 68.9 million in December.... The total number of people on such sites is still increasing at an 11.5% rate, but that's down sharply from past growth rates. "What you have with social networks is the most overhyped scenario in online advertising," says Tim Vanderhook, CEO of Specific Media, which places ads for customers on a variety of Web sites.

I had always had the impression that the Web 2.0 is a phenomenon for people in their teens to about 35. While many of my clients fit into that demographic, an equal number are seniors, too. The youth factor is what I found participating in Google's version of social networking, Orkut. I think I'll explain to the ladies of the pen that unless they write for the YA (Young Adult) category, they may be wasting their time and efforts with social networks. Better to focus on a website and real networking.

More Widgets for Writers

About a month has passed since Liz Cohen wrote to tell me about the Answers.com Widget Gallery. Although I almost immediately adopted the Word of the Day widget for this remodeled site, time to blog about the new gizzies escaped me. I love that they are customizable for a wide variety of platforms. That saves tinkering time and is mandatory for people who don't know how to modify HTML or XML code. The widgets available include two feeds from WikiAnswersTM, Answer Boxes and Tips, and four "of the day" services: word, birthdays, quote and history. Beaucoup info is available describing and illustrating each device and its installation.


As long as we're on widgets today--Amazon Widgets now have more features such as the option to shuffle products each time they're displayed, forcing a default term in the Search widget, and the ability to designate custom identification numbers for each widget. Amazon has also made it easier to get rid of unused widgets on your My Widgets page. You can learn more about them at Amazon. I'd love to be able to use these inside posts. Maybe I'll widgetize my Wishlist.

Vote for AWE for WD 101

Please help us join Writer's Digest's "101 Best Sites for Writers". Vote by sending an email to writersdig@fwpubs.com with "www.writers-edge.info" in the body of the email. You could also add "A Writer's Edge" if you want, but that's not necessary. Make sure the subject line reads "101 Sites". The management thanks you deeply!

SmartLinks Amazing Technology for Writers

A new-to-me company, Adaptive Blue, is offering "smart links" and SmartLink Widgets to enhance blogs and websites. They come in a variety of flavors (stocks, music, wine, movies), but we'll focus on the one for books. SmartLinks for Books shows an example (image to the right) of the results of clicking on a blue arrow (like this one ) embedded in your text, using the widget to:

* Get a preview of the cover and description
* Choose from book sites like Amazon, B&N, etc.
* Find it in the local library via WorldCat
* Bookmark using a favorite service
* Post book link to Facebook or Twitter
* Access the best reviews from around the web
* Find similar books by subject and customer picks
* Find more books by the same author
* Lookup author's bio and web links

If you scroll down to the lower part of the page, you'll see a visual of a different type of book widget and a link to the widget page itself. Prepare yourself to be amazed, confused, and perhaps overwhelmed at first. The versatility of this technology blows me away! Two other resources on using this tool are the BlueBlog and the Book Widget Gallery.

To Fraser, whomever you are, thanks for the email introducing me to this amazing service.

If any of you readers are already using a SmartLinks widget to enhance your online writing, please let us know about your experiences and implementation.

Writers Falling Behind

The life of a freelancer strongly resembles the cliche about feast or famine. Jobs seems to come in packs of three and similarly problems arrive in duplicates. When both coincide, a kind of madness ensues. I know I'm behind in harvesting the goodies from my email box. Please be patient Fraser from Adaptive Blue, Alexander at Freelance Writing Career, Liz at Answers.com's new Widget Factory (see one down in the right column, delivering a word of the day ... see the new right column!) I'll write about all of your services soon.

Today I wanted to direct readers' attentions to a new but hidden feature at A Writer's Edge. In the Profile at the page top is a much reduced navigation menu for the site. One selection says "Subscribe". Clicking on the link takes you to a sign-up page at FeedBurner, a service that delivers an RSS feed modified to your particular feed reader. (You can also just sign up at your reader service for "http://feeds.feedburner.com/writers-edge/EElx".

Even more exciting, and I blush to reveal I was unaware of this, FeedBlitz also makes this blog available by email. I discovered this when I scoured a sample of the FeedBurner version of a post and found a link that says "Subscribe by email", which took me to this page where you can also sign up to receive posts by Skype, AOL and Twitter! I think I am supposed to put a sign-up on the main page ... something else I'm behind in doing.

Silly Billing

Sorry if you came for a laugh on Silly Saturday. Nothing struck me funny this week, especially the payment demand received by snailmail from a company which shall remain nameless (because I don't want to inadvertently send them any business by mistake). This NAMELESS.NET company purports to be a "domain listing service". The bill uncannily resembles the monthly statement from my water company. It purports to cover:

"DOMAIN NAME SUBMISSION TO 25 MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES
EIGHT KEYWORD/PHRASE LISTINGS
QUARTERLY SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSIONS"

We were neither amused nor impressed at the audacity of these people to bill a website design firm for such simple SEO activities that would actually harm a website's search engine placement.

The kicker is this phrase from the payment instructions: "Submission instructions will be sent to you when payment is processed." I can tell you how to submit a website to Google, MSN and Yahoo, which is all you need to know! And only do it once or risk your website being delisted for the nuisance factor.

Writing on the Bloggy Knol

Last month Udi Manber, VP Engineering for Google, revealed in the company's official blog a new project aimed at authors. Still in beta, and apparently nonpaying, the megatech is Encouraging people to contribute knowledge in the form of articles on their specialties. Clicking on the image below takes viewers to an example of a "knol". It's only an image, however, so don't bother clicking on anything that looks like a link. The very hush-hush beta testing is also by invitation only.

At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest.

Exactly which sector of the Internet this new project threatens is unclear and a matter of great speculation among industry watchers. One theory is that the company's "Pages" project is flagging, and "Knol" will simply prop it up with more tools a la Blogger. After all, a web page is just a web page. Or perhaps Blogger is losing out to Word Press, which offers more plug ins and flexibility in blog design as well as easier integration into complete websites.

New Year, New Look

Obvious to those who visit the website, we have a new layout. Finally! It looks a bit vacant, compared to the previous one jam-packed with ornamentation and excessive linkage. Speaking of links, the reciprocal ones are still around and the link to them will reappear soon. The list will be updated as before with the oldest friends at the top. However, newer ones will first appear on the main page before being added. I've still a lot of tinkering to do, adding in necessary material (hang on WebRing, the code is coming!)

Another change illustrated in the previous graf is more linkage within posts instead of in the sidebars where viewers' eyes tend to just slide across, and readers by feed and email never see. Have no fear, page readers, I refuse to insert those annoying pop ups for keywords, really more ads than advice.

Tell me how you like the new look: more space, less clutter. Better? Miss the mess?

Tips for New Bloggers

[Groan!] I think I broke my new blog layout. However, in the process, I've discovered a great new resource, Tips for New Bloggers. As usual, I don't recall how I arrived on Kumar's blogstep, begging for direction, but there it was, step by step, slowly I turn into a more competent writer of xhtml. I should add that the term "New Bloggers" refers to Blogger.com's "new" templates which are long out of beta and now de rigueur there.

Another Writer's Block Repair

I see I've managed to lose the background to this page. What a challenge! I'm trying to switch from a two-column to a three-column template, HTML to xhtml markup language, and Old Blogger to New Blogger--all in One Swell Foop! Unfortunately, I avoided learning xhtml, seeking to hone my CSS skills, then resting on my fat assets. Wrong! A writer, even those who write the behind-the-scene coding for web pages, must keep learning. So, here I grow. And although little shows on this page yet, like the duck floating serenely on a pond, I'm paddling madly below the surface!

Google Crap Continues

According to the SmartPage ranking and evaluation service, as of a few minutes ago:

Website Value

The estimated value of www.writers-edge.info is: $20,043

This value is represents the approximate value of the website entered. Of course, this value does NOT include the worth of the company behind the website but rather is an estimated value of the website itself. Some of these valuation factors include: PageRank, traffic, backlinks, age of the domain, directory listings, and other items not shown in the summary above.

I've watched this value rise steadily since I began using the service a few weeks ago. It rises along with the number of viewers. Still Google doesn't restore the PageRank on any page in this website! I suspect that people who use Google to search for writing help or an editor don't find A Writer's Edge listed toward the top of the returns, either, as it used to be.What a slap in the face of someone who has promoted Google and it's various features for several years.

What's really telling is the dramatic drop in the number of backlinks Google lists compared to Yahoo's figures:

The total number of pages that contain links to:
writers-edge.info www.writers-edge.info
449 Google: 449
35,800 Yahoo: 35,700
85 AltaVista: 33,000
84 AllTheWeb: 32,200

There's not much I can do except encourage readers to boycott Google and all its products and perhaps complain, if you can find a place to do so. Here's their address:

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone: +1 650-253-0000
Fax: +1 650-253-0001

I know A Writer's Edge is not alone in being unfairly demoted and punished by Google. How about deluging them with complaints by phone and especially fax.

Is Your Writing Published or Not?

Frequently people ask if they can submit a piece of writing to a contest or a magazine, publisher, agent if it had already appeared on a web page, in a blog, at a critique site. I advocate playing it safe, because appearance on any web page fulfills the definition of being published. A web page is anything that will appear on your computer monitor's screen. As quickly as it appears, a search engine robot may be "spidering" that website and capturing an image of the page for the search engine's index. There the page becomes part of an archive.

The definition of "published and first rights used" depends on the potential buying publisher, contest holder, agent. Some dismiss appearances on critique sites, some don't count blogs, some will even waive self-publishing (with minimal distribution). Jordan E. Rosenfeld explores the vague and shifting boundaries in a Writer's Digest article, Shades of Gray:

Here's his quick list to determine if your piece counts as "previously published."

It was published if...

• you gave up your first North American serial rights

• it went through an editorial process

• it appeared in an online journal, even a defunct one

• it appeared in a print publication with a small print run

• it appeared in a literary anthology

It's unpublished if...

• it won a prize but was not printed

• it was workshopped in an online writing workshop

• it appeared on your blog or someone else's (though this is changing, so tread carefully)

Why Writers Need to Have Websites

Some writers just want to see their works available to the world. Others want to be able to say they are published (although publishing yourself does not count for much, believe me). Smart working writers have other goals for their websites:

• Saving Time
• Promotion
• Marketing
• Employment
• Convenience
  

Wouldn't the time it takes to find, photocopy and send clips be better used finding jobs and creating masterpieces of prose? A website has become critical for promoting yourself as a writer. It is a potent tool for marketing your work and services. People expect you to have a website and hope to see examples of your work. Listing the site with job boards, directories and on your resume, business cards and all marketing instruments makes you more available to be contacted for assignments. When you contact potential clients or editors, pointing them to your website makes it easier for them to see more of your work and read more about you.

Build a Successful Writer's Website

When writers discover they need websites to be in competition with their contemporaries, they often try to DIY the job. For those thinking about this move, here are some characteristics of good sites for a head start:

* sensible domain name (your own, business, book title)
* rented server space to host your site
* clear ID on the first page
* simple, consistent design
* quick-loading pages
* current information
* accurate spelling, grammar, etc.
* plainly-named internal links
* compatible with most browsers

For more tips, explanations, examples and references, see the second volume of my eBook, Effective Websites for Writers. You can find it on the Writing Help page, along with other useful resources, including free articles.