Why I Use Google for Damn Near Everything

Google has really come a long way since its inception. Most people still think of Google as a search engine, but to me the G-Men have a lot more to offer. For starters you might have noticed their little acquisition of a website called YouTube, which made instant multi-billionaires out of two punks just like yourself.

This has little effect on users of YouTube and Google, but the guys at Google have a lot more to offer. For starters, I use Gmail. This is the starting point most people use to create their Google accounts, and it gives you access to the best online email system by far, and all of the other cool G-stuff.

Next up, I use the iGoogle homepage as my script aggregator. If you subscribe to any feeds or posts using bloglines, technorati, digg or anything like that you can do it all easier and better on iGoogle. On my front page is my email, a currency converter, a to-do list a Wikipedia search bar, the weather and a George Bush quote generator, because he makes me laugh.

This is not the end, because I have 2 other tabs of feeds - one for blogs I like and have subscribed to, and another for tools like my instant .doc to .pdf converter (which is something I've been hunting after for a long time) and a few other gadgets that I use less often. It makes an excellent home page, and I can see what's going on in my little universe all of the time.

This is all pretty run of the mill stuff, but just go and check out the Google Products to see what they have available at the moment. It's all free and there is a lot of useful stuff. I would recommend the Google Pack (You can see a link to this on the right) if you want to protect your computer and keep everything running smoothly for free.

The most exciting bit of it all, though, is Google Labs. This is where they work on all of the cool stuff. Google Earth (the full 3D interactive map of the earth up to resolutions of a few centimeters) was one of the first graduates of the labs, but a lot of cool things are coming up. There is even a rumor of a complete Google Operating System coming being dreamed up, but this is unconfirmed.

I just have to say, you gotta love a company that gives its employees free foot massages and allows them to work on their own personal projects once a week, with full pay. You might love their search engine or hate it, but the cool stuff they are turning out is really worth a look.

Google Stuff

Writing Jobs at WriteNonsense

I have received several requests recently about writing jobs that I might have to offer. If anyone has noticed, I have two or three features on my blog that allow you to find writing jobs easily -- without shelling out any money first.

I have writing jobs available for my South African readers at the moment. Hopefully I will be able to offer projects to international writers soon, but I cannot give any time frame for this. My reason for this is that the rates I could offer overseas writers are not really worth the trouble. (Unless you live in India, or another country whose currency is weak against the dollar) You can email me to find out what writing jobs I have available at the moment.

For my international readers who really want to get started writing for money, I would suggest looking at the writing jobs on GetAFreelancer. These are the most recent internet copywriting jobs that have been posted. For information on how to join GetAFreelancer, bid on projects and win them, see my post here about how to do it.

If you want to get work through GetAFreelancer, you will need either a Moneybookers or a PayPal account so you can get money out of GAF. There are a lot of other internet copywriting job posts, but this is the one that comes most highly recommended. I use it and I can tell you it is a really easy way to get jobs. You usually end up getting long term clients who supply you with a comfortable flow of work, and that's your ideal situation as a freelance writer.

So, if anyone is looking for online writing work, drop me a line. If I can't help you out I can point you in the right direction. The "Helium needs you to write" ad on the right isn't kidding - they want writers and they pay you in perpetuity! So check it out, write some articles for them and watch your writing earn money!

Writing Jobs

Free Link Writing Competition Coming Soon!

Very soon I will be hosting a free link writing competition on WriteNonsense! This will be open to anyone, and the prize is a free permalink back to your blog.

Actually, there will be three prizes, and they will be as follows:

1st Prize - Your banner on my blog for a week, which will then become a permalink in my "What I Use" bar.
2nd Prize - A free permalink in my "What I Use" bar
3rd Prize - A reciprocal link (I will link to you when I have verified that you have included a link to me)

The winner will also have their submission posted on my blog, and the 2nd and 3rd prize winners will have links to their stories in the same post. I will actively promote the winner's article.

The competition is open to anyone, but obviously if you have a blog it will be of more interest to you. Submissions may be anything at all, and I will post more guidelines and rules when I launch the competition. All prize links will be permanent.

This is the first of many writing competitions that I hope to hold. Keep checking back for updates, because once my traffic reaches a certain daily average I will begin the competition (I want to make it worthwhile for you).

free link

SEO - An Ethical Debate

SEO practices have come under a lot of scrutiny by those who strive to keep the internet a user-friendly and safe resource. There are methods of making your website more search-engine friendly, and there is almost no control over how you employ these. Some of them are considered ethical, and others are not. What are these distinctions, and why should webmasters not exploit every loophole they can to get more traffic?

Traffic means money, and many webmasters will do anything to secure more traffic. The Google Information for Webmasters lays down some criteria for the ethical optimization of pages, which I encourage everyone to read, even if you don't own a website. If you write SEO articles for a living, you might like to know exactly what your work is doing to the internet.

Recently I did some articles for certain multi-level marketing sites. These guys essentially sell software that sets up and maintains an affiliate network. When you give them money, they give you the software and tell you how to sucker in other saps and show them how to sucker in yet more saps. They used to call this a "pyramid scheme", but somehow this one has managed to slip through the cracks.

In my opinion these sites should not be drawing any traffic. One look at their keyword META tags tells you that these guys will do anything to get traffic. Just about any search for anything to do with money, business, marketing etc brings up one of this network's sites, all of which are almost identical.

But now, the honest people on the net face a problem. Either they can jump in and use 'bastard' SEO techniques to compete, or they can stick with being honest, keeping their keywords to a minimum and providing good, relevant content. So why should they do this?

Google's corporate motto is "Don't be evil", and evil is exactly what they strive to weed out. They continually update their algorithms to ensure that sites using underhand SEO techniques do not get traffic. Their stated goal is to create a search environment that rewards webmasters who devote their time to giving their users a valuable experience, rather than looking for loopholes. Eventually, this will happen.

As SEO writers, we generally do not have control over who our client websites are. However, I have refused projects for unethical websites in the past and I urge you to do the same. There is nothing wrong with trying to sell a product, and trying to get a competitive edge. On the other hand, if you have the best products, the best prices and the best value and you get your name out there, your business will succeed.

This is especially true on the internet. As I wrote in my eZine Article one person telling his friends about your site will bring in some traffic, but all of these people want to see your site. This is preferable to a thousand visitors who found your site when they were looking for something else that is more relevant. These users will simply see that your site does not have what they are looking for, and will leave.

This is basically one approach to SEO, and one that I hope will gain greater ground. You can check out my eZine article on the subject here. It's easy to read and it gets into some more interesting stuff, like John Nash's Game Theory (the guy from A Beautiful Mind). Go check it out!

Other SEO topics

Apology and Forthcoming Attractions

Hi and welcome to my Friday commentary.

First off an apology to my email subscribers who have been receiving duplicates of my posts all day. I have been republishing some posts and trying work out some kinks with the Digg application. Note that you can now Digg my blog on the last post - please do this if it rocks you.

I have been writing like a mad thing this week, and I haven't been able to post as much as I like. However, I would like to alert you to a few things that will be going on in the near future:

1. Weekend Special

This weekend I will be posting a special discussion on the ethics of search engine optimization (SEO) as I see it. I have recently been asked to do some work for sites that I believe should not be getting more traffic. I am speaking specifically of multi-level marketing scams, commonly known as pyramid schemes or Ponzi schemes. With these in mind I will be discussing ethical issues at stake when writing SEO articles.

2. My eBook

Although this is unrelated to my normal work, I will be publishing my 100 page introductory philosophy eBook shortly on LuLu. This book is an easy to understand guide to the major issues in metaphysics. It is written to explain these issues to people who have never read philosophy before, as well as for first year philosophy students who want a firm basic understanding of the topics. It will be available for download for around $4.95, and I encourage you all to have a look at it.

3. My NEW eBook

I am starting a new project: an eBook entitled "Investing for the Non Salaried Person". It will be a general guide to starting small investments when you do not earn a regular salary. This is of course aimed at people like yourself who write for a living, and people in seasonal industries like tourism. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions or comments, please email them to me. If I use your contribution I will list you in the front of the book, as well as include the URL of your website in the chapter it deals with (if your site is relevant to the topic of course).

So that's all. Thank you all for visiting this week. Traffic has reached an average of 12 visitors a day, which is a lot more than most blogs can claim after their first two weeks!

Related Topics on Technorati

Write reviews like a Pro!

Review writing can be some of the most lucrative internet copywriting jobs you can find on GetAFreelancer, or anywhere else. Here are 5 tips on how to write reviews like a pro!

1. Know the required objectivity level

The client should specify this, but if not be sure to clarify how objective your review should be. If you are supposed to be plugging a site you obviously have to be nice about it and include the name of the site many times. If you can be totally objective, then it's time to have some fun...

2. Humour - the most powerful review writing tool

When you write reviews, try to make people laugh. Use funny comparisons like "The new iPhone's standard ringtones lack the charm of the elevator classics we all know and love..." If you don't know what a funny comparison sounds like, watch Top Gear.

3. Skip to the boring stuff

Don't waste time checking out all the cool features of whatever you are writing a review about. Scan through the FAQ and the terms and conditions. The FAQ will tell you about any problems users of that product, website etc experienced, and the T&C will tell you any hidden costs or snags that your readers should know about.

4. Bullet Points

According to my sources, bullet points are "back in". Use headings, numbered lists and bullet points to get important facts across, or to increase the impact of your jokes.

5. Be brief and give an opinion!

People read reviews to see what other people think about something they might buy or look at. State your case clearly in your review, and give a concise summary including your general opinion in the last paragraph.


So, if you use those five tips, your reviews should start earning you some good money. I currently make around $12 per 1000 review, but sometimes I get more. In terms of $/hour they are much more lucrative than SEO articles, but they require some actual constructive writing and thought.

If you think you are up to review writing, check out what review projects you can bid on at GetAFreelancer, or email me to see if I have any review work that you can get started on.


Read about review writing

Get paid for your writing

It sounds simple enough, but getting paid for your writing is not as easy as it sounds. Sending money by wire transfer internationally presents major headaches and significant costs, so most people make use of an online banking facility or "internet wallet". There are two free ones that stand out, and these are PayPal and Moneybookers.
Okay, so you've written your first SEO articles through GetAFreelancer, and your client wants to pay you. Chances are they will pay you straight into your GAF account, but they might offer to pay you via PayPal or Moneybookers. Either way, to withdraw money from your GAF account you must have one of these payment facilities.

I use Moneybookers for one main reason: they serve South Africa. Paypal is just as fast, and probably more widely supported, but they give you major hassles if you do not have a US bank account. You can check if your country is supported for withdrawals here. Moneybookers supports withdrawals wherever you are, and it is much easier to ad bank accounts, credit cards and debit cards than it is on PayPal. So to sum up the pros/cons of each:

Moneybookers - Withdraw wherever you are; easier to use/Used by fewer of your clients; slightly slower than PayPal.

PayPal - Used by almost everyone; instant/no withdrawals to many countries; more online merchant-oriented.

Both of these will take a few days, and charge a little bit (Moneybookers charges a flat rate of just over $2 per withdrawal) to send money to your local bank account, and both are more suited to spending money online than receiving it. Although, I find PayPal to be irritatingly consumer-driven while Moneybookers at least maintains the image of a professional financial service.

Things to remember:

1. Your first GAF transfer will take at least 15 days, and will go through on the Mon/Tues after this waiting period.
2. Withdrawals from Moneybookers/Paypal will take a few days, and cost some money. It's a financial service - learn to pay for these.
3. These facilities are entirely secure, and both of them are tighter than Fort Knox
4. You will need your bank's SWIFT code to add your account. Find your SWIFT code here.
5. GetAFreelancer will charge you $0.75 per withdrawal, and $5 per bid won - it's their cut and good for them for making money I say. Make sure you leave enough in your account to cover these fees or they will delay your payment until you have a positive balance!

Remember, be patient. It takes time to get started as a writer, and the money can be the most frustrating part in the beginning. My advice: don't start freelance writing with an empty bank account. It can take up to a month after completing your first project before you actually see the cash in your hand. Good luck and enjoy getting paid!

Read About Getting Paid

Review - Slyvisions

What's this? A review? That's right, I found a site out there that has some useful information about SEO writing, and just about everything else, so I thought I'd tell you about it.

Slyvisions is more than just a blog about SEO copywriting. It's basically an all-in-one information center that tells you how to do just about anything online. It's full of useful online tips to help you get started with a career in writing, run a successful blog or launch your own website.

Slyvisions also has a lot of useful tools that make running a blog or a website, or writing articles, a lot easier. It is updated daily with a new post that usually contains something beginners do not know, but definitely should. The focus is slightly more on webmasters and blogging, but if you poke around you can find a lot of useful stuff on how to make money writing.

What's more is that if you have a blog or a website, and you hurry up and go there, you can get a free backlink to your site if you review Slyvisions.

This is one really helpful site - check it out!

5 SEO writing tips

I've been doing this for a while, and I've come up with a few things that makes SEO writing go a little smoother.

1. Do your research

What ever you're writing about, the best thing to do is go to the client's site and see what they are about. Read the "About Us" section, as well as anything on the products and services they offer. If no site is available, look up the relevant topics. Even if you think you know a lot about them, seeing what other people have to say can give you ideas.

2. 500 words, 5 ideas

There is no hard and fast rule in SEO writing, but I find the easiest way to start is to count off 5 distinct points about the topic, and write five 100 word paragraphs. Think how many times you need to use the keyword, and figure out a few ways to use it. Try to use none of them more than twice.

3. When in doubt, repeat yourself.

There is only so much you can say about "New Mexico Plumbing Service". The thing to remember on the web is that content is king. In SEO writing, we are usually dealing with quantity, rather than quality. While the text must all read well and be informative, nobody is going to mind if you make the same point twice from two different angles.

4. Talk about the products

SEO writing is all about selling, so tell people what they are buying! Mention an example, pretend you are a catalog, and be specific. Details can fill up word count, and still be informative.

5. Keywords at beginning and end

As far as possible, try to begin and end your article with the keyword. This is generally the preferred style, and it will show your client that you know what you are doing. Keep the keyword as close to the beginning of sentences, paragraphs and headings as you can to improve the article's keyword proximity score.

SEO writing

Transparency Update

Hi guys.

Since this is a project blog, I thought I would give a quick (non keyword-optimized) update on how the first week has gone.

Subscriptions

According to FeedBurner, my feed now has 4 subscribers! So thanks Mom, and the other 3 people who have subscribed!

Adsense

In case you didn't notice, I have 9 Google ads on my page. Blogger is the worst place to make money blogging, because you can't put keyword META tags on your page, which are the most important things search engines look for. Nevertheless my advertising campaign as brought in a princely sum of $2.69 in advertising and referral revenue (the Firefox link). - Thanks Dave, Scott, Greg and my tens of loyal readers for your support!

New additions

I have done a lot of work on WriteNonsense, most of it behind the scenes. My feed is not brought to you by feedburner, and you will see lots of cool Feedburner gadgets coming soon. You can subscribe to my blog via email now, and you can search my site using Technorati. My recent post drew in over 120 visitors thanks to my association with Technorati. Soon you will be able to view my posts through half a dozen such forums.

Plans for the future

As my knowledge of blogging grows, it becomes apparent how much of a newbie I am. To address this, my web developer friend is going to help to re-design and fully optimize this blog. This might include a move, but I hope to avoid this.

Thank you to everyone who has read this page so far!

Much love
blog update