Midnight Musings

The early bird can keep the worm!

Why does it seem that I get the most inspiration for my blog posts at midnight? I am a night person and maybe it is because I spend most of the day writing for other people. It is a proven fact that people are on cycles. It seems that I'm dead tired around 7:30 pm and then the closet it gets to midnight the more lively I feel. It used to be when I had a "regular" job that I had to be in bed by 10:30 pm or I'd be up all night. Now if I stay up all night I just sleep a bit later. This is great for the convenience factor, but since many of my clients are 10 to11 hours ahead of me that can be a bit tricky for communicating with them.

My family can't understand my hours. They still think I should be in bed at this time and be up bright and early in the morning. For example I stayed up until about 3 am reading last night so I slept in until around 10 am. When I woke up it was raining and dreary outside and I was all nice and warm in my bed so I closed my eyes to sleep just a bit longer. My mom woke me up at 1 pm with "are you STILL in bed??" They're convinced I'm depressed because I sleep so late and don't venture out of the house much. No I stay up late and don't want to go out in the holiday shopping crowds. It's a choice not a need.

When is your most productive time? Are you a morning person or do you get started later in the day? Does your family give you grief for the hours you keep and shake their heads when you mention how late you slept?

Why Your Business Needs a YouTube Account

Do you have a business? Do you have a YouTube account? If you don't - you should! Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine after Google? It's owned by Google so YouTube videos get preferential treatment over other video sites. Advertising on YouTube can be a bit pricey, but the revenue it generates will pay for your ads. You can also use Google AdWords to advertise on YouTube stretching your marketing dollars even further.

Use videos to promote your business and park your videos. They can be about anything to do with your business from product demonstrations, introduce yourself and your staff, interviews with industry experts or a weekly video newsletter. Be brief, be interactive and engaging, and be professional yet personable and your videos will become popular. People can subscribe to your channel and get updates as you post new videos and you can link your account with Facebook and Twitter.

With everything that YouTube can do for your business, you really need to check it out. If you need videos produced or a YouTube account set up and maintained, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. They know what it takes to get your business noticed and be successful. 

eBay Entering Mobile Arena

In a follow up to yesterday's post. Today it was announced the eBay has acquired Critical Path Software. This will enable eBay to develop mobile apps for their site.Mark Carges of eBay says that the company is "very serious" about developing its mobile market and the acquisition of Critical Path Software is hoped to speed this along. Last year mobile sales netted more than $600 million for eBay and it expects to increase this to $1.5 billion in the coming year. That's some big money!

valleywag.gawker.com

So what are you doing to bring your website to the mobile market? Tell us what you think of this development and how it will affect eBay. What do you plan to do to enter into the mobile arena or what have you already done?

The professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros can bring your website up to speed and help you with your mobile site development. Contact them today for a free consultation.

Why You Should Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

Some interesting figure passed across my computer screen the other day when I was doing research for a client's article. Did you know that over 70% of web users in Asia accessed the internet exclusively through their mobile devices? In North America the number of users that access the web through their mobile devices is over 50%. Today's smart phones are more like mini-PC's than cell phones. Even cell phones that have internet availability have come a long way toward user ease and quality of service. More people have cell phones than do not today and for this reason it is wise for website owners and designers to make their sites mobile friendly.

So what does this actually mean? It means that users can see your website easily on their phones and that the loading time does not take forever. One way to make your website mobile friendly is to take advantage of some of the programs and plug-ins available. WP Touch is an excellent plug-in that automatically converts your WP Blog into a mobile version that is easy to read on all mobile devices. You can even blog from your mobile device with the use of the Word Press Mobile Pack. This plug-in lets you update your blog, post new entries and answer comments right from your mobile device. The mobile admin pane gives you most of the tools and features of the WP website on your phone. WP Tap offers a complete selection of WP themes for your smart phone. Its admin panel offers the full range of WP features.

With the popularity of cell phones, smart phones and other mobile devices it is just bad business not to include mobile usability into your website design. Contact The Cutting Edge Pros to bring your website into the 21st century and get your website mobile friendly.

Google Insights for Search: One Powerful Tool

While dinking around on the internet I found a tool from Google that is perhaps one of the most powerful and useful tools anyone involved in internet marketing or online business can use. It's Google Insights for Search and I can't believe I didn't know about this sooner. With this tool you can pull up information that Google has collected from the millions of searches. You choose the search parameters and dates that you want to cover and Google provides you with graphs and information that you can use to track marketing trends and hot topics.

According to the Google website the results include:

• a graph with the search volume, indicating interest over time (GMT) for your terms, plotted on a scale from 0 to 100; the totals are indicated next to bars by the search terms (read more about how we scale and normalize the data)
• a breakdown of how the categories are classified
• lists of the top searches and top rising searches
• a world heat map graphically displaying the search volume index with defined regions, cities, and metros

Google reminds you that the results are based on searches that have received a large amount of traffic so keep this in mind when you use the tool. Google can do this because they keep a record of each and every search ever done. After a specified amount of time the searches become anonymous, but until then Google keeps a record of each search you do on their search engine.

This has sparked some concern about privacy issues, but like I always say, if they've got nothing better to do than keep track of my mundane life, have at it. You may feel differently, but face it – are you that important that someone would care about your searches? But I digress on the subject of this post. That issue could fill an entire page of content...

Personally I love the Google website. Everything you need to get the most of their products is right there on their website. The transparency of the company amazes me. More large companies should be so free with their knowledge. Perhaps we all could take a page from Google's book and give away your knowledge top help our customers and site users. But there I go again, getting off topic...

Give Google's Insights for Search a test drive and see what you think. If you want someone else to do the leg work for you and perform your trend and marketing research, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. If you use or have tried the Google Insights for Search, let us know how you like it and if it has helped your business.

How to Write Really Bad Content

Yes you read the title correctly. This is a post about how to write really awful content that will not only alienate your readers but strip them of the desire to ever want to go to your blog or website again. Prose so horrible that your glasses fog up and your eyes roll back into your head. Well...okay...maybe not THAT bad, but close.
Great content stands on its own and if you know what NOT to do you can avoid common mistakes that are made. These practices should be avoided at all costs because they not only drive traffic away from your website, they kill your SEO juice. You might as well stand outside in a driving rainstorm and yell into the wind if you practice any of these methods since you'd have a better chance of being heard. Okay on to the don'ts of content and blog writing...

1. Plagiarism. It's illegal, it's bad form and it's just plain wrong. Don't do it...ever! Copy and pasting other writer's work as your original work is not only bad form but it can be deathly to your SEO. The search engines know what is going on and so will any of your readers who have done research on the subject you are stealing content about. I have found duplicate content on websites from doing research for articles and it amazes me that people can't take the time to paraphrase an article and put it into their own words. It's not hard, not rocket science and don't even get me started on spinning articles. To me that is in line with copy and pasting. They never make sense and they're written for search engines.
   
2. Write for search engines. Never mind that human beings will be reading your content. Go ahead and stuff keywords and get them in there even if your content makes no sense at all. I've come across websites like this too that were nothing more than vehicles for backlinks and keywords. Today as I write this Google reads your websites like a human being and recognizes well written and original content and rewards it. It also recognizes content that is written with no regard to real readers. If you only want to use your pages for backlinks to get a higher page rank, by all means write for search engines. But if you want a long lasting website and a blog that become popular with REAL humans, don't do it.
   
3. Don't do your research. Use Wikipedia exclusively for your facts and figures. Take facts from other people's blogs and assume they are right. Wikipedia is a good jumping off point, but do some real research from reputable websites to get the right facts. Use .gov, .edu and .org websites.
   
4. Never update your website. Just let it sit and become stale. Also never post new blogs. Just let the old ones rot. Never check your links to be sure they still work and lead somewhere. Update your website as needed, usually once a month is good to be timely. Post new blog posts at least three times a week. This keeps you current and people interested in what you have to say. It also lets them know there's someone at the switch.
   
5. Be academic. Write in a stiff impersonal way to really alienate your readers. The internet is all about connecting with each other. Write like you're talking to a friend and write with confidence. Be in the active voice as much as possible.
   

Hopefully this will help you to avoid some common and not so common mistakes people make when writing content and blog posts. Read your writing out loud. Yeah I know, you'll feel silly, but you'll also hear how your words have the right rhythm and if not you can fix them.
One other word of advice. Write. Put words on paper or on your monitor and start writing. You can always edit and silence your inner critic. All good writers know that the first draft is just that, the first draft. So get on with it and get some content up and out there. If you need help, the professional writers at The Cutting Edge Pros can provide you with original and dynamic content for your website or blogs.

5 Ways to Be a Better Blogger

A  blog can serve many purposes for you. It can be an SEO tool, a platform to state your opinions and it can also help to set up up as an expert in your field. Blogs are powerful tools to drive traffic to your website, build community and connect with your readers. If you want to be an effective blogger there are some things you can do to improve your blogging skills.

1. Read. Read other people's blogs, read the papers, read books, read anything you can get your hands on. This not only makes you more intelligent, but helps you to be exposed to different writing styles. Keep track in a notebook of any words or phrases you find interesting. I like to collect words and their meanings. This expands my vocabulary and for me is just plain fun. I know, kind of weird, but I've found some great words in my collection.
2. Make use of Google Alerts. Go to Google and set up email alerts an any subject or keyword and receive a daily email of the top searches for these words. This is a great way to stay current and know what is being said about your topics.
3. Be personable. Don't be stiff in your writing for your blog. Save that for your technical articles. Write like you are speaking to a friend. After all you want your readers to feel part of your community so write in a relaxed personal style, you know like you're having coffee and discussing the news. 
4. Do your homework and make sure your facts are correct. Take time to do research if you are unsure of the facts of your story. You want to sound like you know what you're talking about so don't guess and use reliable sources not just other blogs. 
5. Write. Practice writing. Join a writing group and write. Post a new blog everyday if you can, a paragraph or two is enough, or at least three times a week. Not only does this increase readership but your blog will be picked up by the search engines if it is active. 

 These are 5 easy ways to become a better blogger. The main thing is to start. Jump on in there and you will get better as you post more entries. Like the Nike commercials say, "just do it". If you don't have time or don't feel you have the talent to write your own blogs, the professional writers at The Cutting Edge Pros can help you out.