Writing Today

As we drove from Traverse City, Michigan to Tucson, Arizona, I wrote a series of letters, and photocopied them to send to family and friends. This was the first of the three. Travel Letter #1 Saturday, 12/13/03 - Good morning. Welcome to our vacation form letter. We’re in Arizona now. The sun is shining and it will be in the sixties today, which should melt the ice on the windows soon. Ana’s foot doesn’t seem to be broken, as we thought, so we took a long walk in the desert last night. We saw a coyote, probably the same one I chased the other day, and there were javelina tracks everywhere. The library in Safford has books in Spanish, so Ana is enjoying reading now that her eye-patch is off. The doctor promised that the “divet” left by his golf-club-like blade will heal soon. We learned that eyeballs have many nerve endings, and we think the object in her eye may have been a fiber from a yucca plant. Our uncontrollable coughs are under control now, and we aren’t among the ten people in Arizona that died from the flu this week. Oh, and the antibiotics from the Safford clinic seem to have helped with Ana’s abcessed tooth. I should start at the beginning. The first day, after dealing with the usual rudeness of the INS employees in Detroit, we made it to Kansas. We hit a traffic cone there at high speed, and heard a horrible sound coming from under the van. The cone, I discovered, had been dragging along underneath. Nothing was broken, but later the bright light switch stopped working. Fortunately, we drove during daylight after that. In the Colorado mountains we went from 16 to 20 miles-per-gallon, confusing the sensors and causing the “check engine” light to turn on. We successfully ignored it until it changed it’s mind. In Farmington, New Mexico, we spent a few days resting and coughing. We were about an hour away from buying a house when we discovered it needed new wiring, had a garden hose attached to the natural gas line, and other problems we missed on our first visit. The old man begged me to buy it, called our motel room to tell me he needed money for open-heart surgery in three days, and called again to lower the price, but we moved on. By the way, the house was to be a winter project, not a new home. Monument Valley was beautiful, the Christmas parade in Holbrook was cute, and despite various problems and illnesses, we’re having a great time. You see, I didn’t want to make you all jealous, so I left out a lot - the constant sun, the beautiful sculptures in Grand Junction, and the nine times we’ve been in hot springs in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Next week we’re going to Mexico for lunch. Hope all is well in Michigan. Adios, Steve and Ana Steve Gillman hit the road at sixteen, and traveled the United States and Mexico alone at 17. Now 40, he travels with his wife Ana, whom he met in Ecuador. To read letters #2 and #3, plus stories, tips and travel information, visit: .EverythingAboutTravel.com

Just recently I started to revise my online business opportunity website and hit the question, which one comes first, the content or the design? Can desing eat the content or is the content always much more important for my home business online? These are the questions, which most of the marketers of online business opportunities must go through again and again. In my case the answer was found from going back to my initial plan, to my online home business plan. 1. The Design Should Support The Content. Both have a communication job to do, to deliver your website promise to the visitor and to make him to do the desired action, i.e. to give his name and email address, for instance. So in this sense, the design is the tool with which your online business opportunity content can be communicated effectively. Very clearly your online income business website is a direct response tool, which has to make the influence right away, or the visitor is gone. The influence, or the call to action, is the key. Of course there is a chance that the visitor bookmarks your site and comes back later, but that is a small chance. 2. What Is The Nature Of Your Niche? For instance, if your online business opportunity website has only one job, to make the visitors to click your PPC ads, everything in the content, including the design, must support this job. It is very much direct response in that case. But if you are marketing online affiliate programs, including tools and guidance, like I do, the nature of the market is somewhat different. This target group seldom buys during the first sight, but they need repetition and multichannel influence. So I have to grab the visitor name and email address and put my autopilot into work to sell my online business ideas with repeated messages. This requires that my online business opportunity website is sticky rather than memorable. The optin form must be in a visible place with a nice give away gift. 3. Your Website Must Have Only One Clear Job To Do. Too often the online business opportunity owners try to cover too many jobs with their website contents or designs. They do not understand that the key is the clear, sharp promise, the benefit to the site visitor, which they have to tell. I can say that the narrower your message is, the better you will do. The copystyle and the style of the website design, they both depend on the business plan of your home based business opportunity. How visitors move on your site, which motivates them to act and where you have to call them into action? Which metaphors capture your message vividly, so that website visitors will get it? Do they respond best to a mood that is soothing, moving, inspirational or flamboyant? There is an answer to all these questions, when you go through your online business opportunity plan, the nature of your offer and the behaviour of the chosen target group. As you understand, this is not a job, which can be done rapidly in the early phase of the career but you have to finetune it all the time and when you have marketed your online business long enough, you get the touch through many tests and changes you do with your website. Juhani Tontti, B.Sc., Marketing. Juhani Has Done A Great Job To Finetune HisOnline Business Opportunity Website, Which Is The Key For His Home Business Online To Make Money Online. Visit: .Way2Miracle.com

WHISTLEPUNK ? WHAT’S A WHISTLEPUNK ??? It’s like the ‘Sidehill Gouger’. Gone. You never see and rarely hear about the Gouger or the Whistlepunk anymore. They were mostly found on the West Coast of North America in areas where logging took place, such as British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Stick with me and I’ll tell you about the Whistlepunk. My name is Les McMillan, and I was once a whistlepunk. That’s many years ago, but I remember well my experiences in the logging industry, or “the woods”" as we called it. When logging changed from dragging logs with teams of oxen or horses to yarding logs to the road using spar trees and powerful winches, which we called yarders or ‘donkeys’ , drastic changes occured. Often, the logs were 1,000 feet or more from the roadside and the crew were out of sight of the man running the ‘donkey’. He was usually called the ‘donkey puncher’. A method of signalling was devised. In the days when steam donkeys were used, a thin wire was stretched from the whistle on the donkey out to the back end of the setting (the area to be logged) and attached to a stump or sapling. It was kept fairly taut, so that when struck with the hand or a tree limb, it pulled on the whistle on the donkey and made it blow. This was the job of the ‘whistlepunk’!! When the ‘chokermen’ had wrapped the chokers around a log, the ‘rigging slinger’, boss of the chokermen, would holler out “yo,” as loud as he could. The whistlepunk hit the jerkwire once, the whistle blew once, and the donkey puncher knew this meant “pull on the main line”. The logs would be dragged in to the spar tree, where the ‘chaser’ would unhook the chokers and the donkey puncher would pull the chokers back out to the back end with the ‘haulback. The rigging slinger would holler “Yo” where he wanted the rigging to stop at the next logs to be hooked up, and the whistlepunk again hit the jerkwire once, the whistle blew once, and the puncher stopped the rigging. There were many signals, such as “Yo,Yo” or “Yo,Yo,Yo,” “Yo,Yo,pause Yo,Yo.”,each with a different meaning. To better understand this ‘high-lead’ system, let me explain. The donkey had three drums holding three sizes of steel cable, called ‘lines’. The biggest, the ‘main line’, went from the donkey through a block (pulley) at the top of a 130 foot spar tree, down to the ‘rigging’ where the chokers were attached. The second biggest line was called the ‘haulback’. It went from the machine through another block at the top of the tree out to the back end of the ’setting’, through a block hung on a stump, across the back end of the setting, and through another block and headed back towards the spar tree, where it was attached to the rigging and main line. The third line was a small line called the ’strawline’, about 1/2 inch in diameter. The main line and haulback were too big and heavy to string out to the back end, so the strawline was pulled, by hand, out to the back end and back again to the spar tree, and it pulled the other two lines out. A good whistlepunk was an asset to the crew, for if he gave a wrong signal and the donkey puncher started pulling logs when the crew were not in the clear, death and/or injury was often the result. When electricity was invented (I’m kidding!), the jerkwire was replaced with a two wire electric cable the size of a heavy extension cord. It was attached to a whistle on the donkey and the other end to the ;bug’. The bug was two pieces of wood about the size of your computer mouse, joined at one end with a spring. There was a small metal contact on each piece that when squeezed together would complete the circuit and make the whistle blow. This was easier and more dependable than the old jerkwire system. In the summertime, being a whistlepunk was a great job. Lots of sun and a chance to get a tan. Winter was not so nice. Cold rain, snow, freezing winds, frigid fingers. You see, the ‘punk’ wasn’t able to move around to keep warm. He had to sit on a stump for eight long hours and try to keep warm in winter and awake in summer. In more recent years, radios were used by the rigging slinger to send the signals, and later he could talk through the radio to the donkey puncher directly. That was the end for the whistlepunk !!! The glory days of logging are gone. Everything is mechanized now. I think back to those ‘good old days’ and wonder “would I do it again?” In a heartbeat, old friend, in a heartbeat. I hope you have found this story informative and interesting. I will try to submit a few more, especially the story of the Sidehill Gouger. Another interesting thing. I recently started an at-home business on the internet that is bringing in from $50 to $300 per day, every day. Not a huge sum, but I’m happy about it. Not hard to get started, and the best part is - it’s FREE. Click on this link and check it out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. .pittpapa.com Good Luck !!!

The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business, Tom Antion, John Wiley and Sons, 2005, ISBN 047171870x Reviewed by Paul Lappen In these days of internet marketing, it is imperative for any small business, even a traditional bricks and mortar store, to have a website or some sort of electronic presence. This book goes through the process, step by step, of doing just that. Some parts of setting up a business website, especially with new software, can be done by the average individual, with a bit of training. The more technical parts need to be left to people who know what they are doing. A major sin is to have a vital part of your website not work at all, or look like it was done by someone who has never done this before, just to save money. What are you going to sell on this brand new website? If you don’t already have a product or service, consider selling e-books. There is nothing to keep in stock; after you receive a person’s money, all it takes is a few clicks on your computer, and the product is “shipped.” How do you get people to visit your website? The author talks about things like affiliate marketing, joint ventures with other websites, free electronic newsletters or magazines, among many other things. He also talks about how to make sure that when a person does a search for “widgets,” for instance, that your site is at, or near, the top of the list. The author includes the addresses for many, many websites that show the things mentioned in this book. He also includes many examples from his own internet marketing campaign, so that anyone can see how he did it. This book may seem overwhelming; take a deep breath, and go one step at a time. For anyone selling on the internet, this book is not just worth reading. It’s worth keeping on your reference shelf, and making notes in, and marking pages with Post-It Notes. It’s worth the money. Paul is a freelance book reviewer whose web site, .deadtreesreview.com has over 600 book reviews on all subjects, with a concentration on small press books.

The store strategy comprises both logistical and marketing aspects that must be taken into consideration. Stores must be designed for effective restocking and must be planned to attract consumers in order to make their shopping time enjoyable. Customer service is very important to retailers. Thus, stock-out is the problem number one that must be liquidated as it is the most frequently mentioned cause of frustration for dissatisfied customers. Still, retail out-of-stocks are not moved out for the last several years, and this despite new technologies and industry growth. Besides, another problem that is connected with the stock out problem - product availability - at the store level automatically is difficult too. Manual availability measurement takes much time and costs too much. That is why, despite the significance of product availability, only several retailers measure their out-of-stock levels. Understanding the customer reaction is a major strategy in calculating the price of a stock-out. Measuring the price of a stock-out is difficult first of all because it depends on the consumer’s reaction to the stock-out. When a store advertises an item at a certain price, than it is expected to have this very product in stock and available to consumers for all the advertisement time. If the product is not available, the hypermarket must put a notice that the products are not available and that a rain check may be got upon request. With the great growth of high-tech companies and dot-com start-ups, employers are using different methods for retaining scarce high-tech talent. In many situations, new employers are turning to stock options. This way is not new, stock options - which are reserved for corporate executives - are now proposed. At first sight, stock options can be answers to the problems emerging companies have recruiting employees. In fact, for many new economy employers, stock options are the ideal variant to lure employees from their current jobs. One can fully agree with the article written by Edmonton Watt about high-tech stocks. The innovations and new technologies promote the industry and the technology sector in general. Though you are to be careful and this is right. Companies are different and the degree of a risk is different too. The author of the article proposes companies to add some high-tech stocks to their investment. Watt points out that before implementing the high-tech stock into your company, first of all you are to decide what type of returns you are seeking for. Whether these are steady, long run or instant windfall returns. The second step, after the author, is to consider the company’s size and the market strategy. The first and foremost advice: risks are not high when the company exists and has got the reputation. In other words, risks are lower with a larger company. The article was produced by the writer of Essay-Paper.net. Olivia Hunt is a 4-years experienced freelance writer and a senior manager of Essay Writing Service. Contact her to get book report and custom term paper tips.

Custom essay writing service ProfEssays carries on familiarizing its possible customers with particularities of writing different types of essays. At present it plans to analyse the techniques and approaches employed while writing deductive essays. ProfEssays will add the related content to its site soon. Deductive essays haven’t been chosen accidentally. They are an integrated factor in assessing the knowledge level of students in many courses. Therefore they directly influence personal academic performance. Deductive reasoning is a familiar strategy we use in our everyday lives and is a potentially effective persuasive technique. Deductive reasoning is based on the concept that given as set of circumstances or clues (premises); one can draw a reasonable assumption as to the state of the situation. More simply, a person can solve a puzzle or identify a person if possessed sufficient data. Deductive essay writing presupposes taking into account different factors separately then juxtaposes them with the current knowledge about such things and then adding up them together to bring forward a conclusion. Basically, there are three parts to deductive reasoning. The first is the premise. A premise is a basic fact or belief that is used as the basis for drawing conclusions. There may be several premises in an argument. The second part is usually called evidence. The evidence stands for the information you possess, whether it is a story you are analyzing or something you have observed. The last part is the conclusion. The conclusion is your final analysis of the situation, constructed on balancing premises with evidence. A good deductive essay is explicit and focused. Each point in a paragraph is stressed upon giving attention to each minute detail leading to specific conclusions that is proving one’s point so as not to weaken the conclusion. If a person feels uncertain about writing deductive essays it is possible to resort to custom essay writing service ProfEssays. ProfEssays have been thoroughly selecting its team among talented and experienced writers and editors. All members of our writing team are university graduates; many of them hold a Master’s or PhD degree in their field. Vast experience and the professional attitude of our writers and editors are the crucial factors contributing to our success in the custom writing market. Each writer employed by our company does his job honestly, no matter how challenging the assignment may be. Professional writers and researchers, who understand the subject matter better than most students, can easily handle specific written assignments that require far more time and effort for virtually any student. The range of written assignments in which its experts specialise include: custom essays, term papers, academic papers, research papers, admission essays, compositions, course-works, book reports, case studies, thesis, dissertations, editing, resume services, creation of sites content and others. ProfEssays guarantees high quality and originality of all the ordered custom essays and papers. It is possible to order custom essays and papers at any time and day filling the appropriate form at ProfEssays’ site .professays.com or contact our team via e-mail: supportprofessays.com

When a user enters a search term, or keyword phrase, at a search engine, regardless of whether it is Google, MSN, Yahoo! or AltaVista, the engine runs through the billions of pages in its database and awards each page a “relevancy score”. The higher the score, the higher the listing will appear on the results page. If your site doesn’t contain the keyword used by the searcher, the only score it’s going to get is a zero. Your first task then is to make sure you know which keywords are most relevant for each of your sites. There are three ways to figure out which keywords work the best for your particular site: 1. Check Your Competitors 2. Check the pay-per-clicks 3. Use specialized tools Checking your competitors is the easy way to find out what ranks them higher than you for your particular niche. Simply do a search on one of the search engines for your best keyword, and go to the top five sites on the results page. When visiting, check the page source by going to View-> Page Source. This will open up the HTML file of the site you are visiting. In the head portion of the page (it’ll be the first thing you’ll see) look for the phrase “meta=keywords content=”their keywords here” (It will be enclosed in ) and this will give you a list of their top keywords. Keywords should be listed in this meta tag with the highest ranking keyword first. One very big advantage of doing this research is that it gives you an idea of how your competitors have optimized their pages, and if not done properly, you have the advantage in doing your own pages in the proper fashion. Checking the pay-per-click sites such as Overture or FindWhat will also let you see what keywords people are bidding on. The downside is that they require you to open an account, and it may cost a few dollars, but it is worth the extra expense to be able to check bids on PPC. Googlefight is also a good resource to find which of two keywords are more relevant. Although limited in use, it is rather fun to play with, and gives relevant reports. Specialized tools are the best way to check keywords for popularity and competition. Wordtracker, a paid subscription site, is an invaluable resource for researching top keywords. At $250 USD a year, it is not cheap, but the time saved and excellent returns are worth the investment. Wordtracker has a free trial search that can be used, although it is somewhat limited in return of relevant keyword phrases. You can also purchase a subscription for monthly, weekly, and daily. Daily fees are about $8 USD, and is a worthwhile investment. A lot of research can be done in 1 day, and if you are prepared with basic keyword brainstorming, you can get a lot done in a day’s time. As you build your keyword list from your root keyword, be mindful that when people search for product to buy, they generally use two to three phrase search terms. If they are doing research, they will search with the root word. For example if I wish to research “flowers” then that is the term I will input into the search engines. If, however, I am looking to purchase, I would use the term “buy red roses” or “buy cheap bouquets”. With careful planning and taking the proper amount of time to research root keywords, you can be successful with the proper optimization of your web pages. On my website, .for-the-record.biz, there are more articles for the beginning marketer - everything from beginning to learn CSS to search engine tactics. About The Author: Alden Smith is an award winning author who has been marketing on the internet for over 7 years. His site, .for-the-record.biz, is loaded with articles and information for the beginning blogger and internet marketer.

You finally did it. You made the decision to leave a career that makes you dread every Monday morning and pursue one that you feel is your true calling. Congratulations! Making the decision was the hard part, right? Unfortunately, no. You’ve convinced yourself that this is the right move…how do you convince everyone else? It’s time to work on your resume. Resume writing for this situation can be challenging, to say the least. Why? Think about it for a moment

We Need Madmen, Sam Smith, 2007, ISBN 9781904646457 This story takes place in a near-future Europe that has recently gotten over a new war, caused by a man named Soper. It came about because of the newest attempt to purge Europe of “undesirables,” like welfare spongers, slackers and social benefit scroungers. The generally accepted myth in Europe is that minority migrant workers are the culprits. In France, the problem is with the Algerians; in Britain, it’s the Blacks and Asians; in Denmark, it’s the Cypriots. All of them went to the Camps. They no longer try to hide them with names like Internment Camps or Re-education Camps; they’re just Camps. Henry is your average petty thief who spent time in the Camps. Now that he’s out, he goes back to his old ways, and hides the Camp tattoo on the back of his hand as much as possible. One day, Henry decides to become a serial killer, targeting members of the Soper regime. There is no blinding flash of inspiration, or sudden righteous anger to go along with it. Henry patiently and methodically cross-references phone book addresses with newspaper articles and tax records. His target is not the high-level members of the regime, but the low-level clerks and prison guards, those who were simply “doing their job.” In a last-ditch effort, Soper launched Europe’s nuclear missiles to all parts of the globe. The world had gotten together to oppose him, so space-based lasers took care of the missiles. After Soper was gone for good, the rest of the world, led by America and Russia, decided that building weapons against each other was no longer necessary. It took six months for the world to disarm, and not much longer for a World Constitution to be established. This is a short book that says a lot. I would have preferred a bit more background into Soper and the Camps, but this is still a gem of a story. Paul Lappen is a freelance book reviewer whose website, Dead Trees Review has over 600 reviews on all subjects, with an emphasis on small press books.

by Karon Thackston © 2004 .copywritingcourse.com/keyword From the early days of search engine optimization, keywords and content have always been vital to achieving your goals. Starting back in the days when we used to shove every slightly relevant keyword into our Meta tags, it has been obvious that search engines love text. The more advanced the engines have gotten over the years, the more complex and sophisticated many writers have gotten with their search engine copywriting. Supposed formulas, saturation levels, and other mysterious concoctions have been developed to help us outsmart the engines. However, what we should have been doing all along was writing for the visitor first and the engines second. Why? Because creating a site that’s loved by visitors is a prime factor in linking, ranking, and marketing as a whole. As the engines make great strides with more personalized and efficient searches (such as semantic search) natural search engine optimization writing is even more important. Rather than just indexing the copy on your site, engines are learning to “understand” what a page is about. The ironic thing is, as the search engines get more complex the “formula” for SEO copywriting is actually getting more simple. Write Naturally In the future, search engines will be looking for Web pages that reflect a natural tone with the copy. Is it obvious that keyphrases are being shoved in wherever possible? Does every headline/sub-head, image tag, and comment tag have a keyphrase included? Does the copy sound fake, unnatural, and stiff? If so, then spiders and bots will recognize it and possibly flag it as something to be wary of. Take a look at this lovely piece of copy I found while surfing just the other day. (I’ve replaced the keyphrases used in the original copy with the word “wherever” so as not to embarrass the site owner.) Wherever Holiday Rentals Holiday rentals in Wherever for holidays in Wherever Wherever holiday rentals directly from the owners. Rent a holiday villa in Wherever or perhaps a 2-6 bedroom apartment in Wherever. Wherever vacation rentals for holidays in Wherever are easily located by searching the Wherever Holiday website. Wherever Holiday Rentals offer holiday apartments in Wherever and holiday villas. Find accommodation in Wherever by clicking on the Wherever map or the active links. You will then see holiday rental apartments, villas and townhouses in stunning Wherever accommodation. Let’s suppose someone walked into your travel agency and asked for help. You would most likely ask what they were looking for. They would reply, “Holiday rentals in Wherever. What can you show me?” Would you honestly take off on the spiel above? Can you see yourself talking to a real client face-to-face and saying, “We offer Wherever holiday rentals in Wherever and can find you many apartments, villas, and houses in Wherever”? I don’t think so. Tips for Writing In Natural Language 1) Vary your keywords/phrases. For example, if a keyphrase you particularly want to target is “14k gold jewelry” consider also using keyphrases like “14k gold watches” or “gold wedding bands” or others along those lines. This will give you a variety of phrases within your copy. 2) Read it out loud. When you read your copy out loud you’ll get a better sense of whether it sounds unnatural. If you wouldn’t say, “We make 14k gold jewelry and have made 14k gold jewelry for 10 years. If you need 14k gold jewelry just view our catalog” out loud, then don’t put it in your copy, either. 3) Break up keyphrases. As searchers get more knowledgeable about finding what they want in the engines, they use longer and longer search queries some of which just don’t make any sense. For instance, I recently had to use the phrase “real estate Pittsburg downtown” when writing a page of SEO copy. Since this search string was not easily worked in as that exact phrase, I broke it up. One sentence I used it in said: “When looking for commercial real estate in Pittsburg check the downtown listings first for exceptional locations and prices.” The words are still in the same order with minor breaks in between. When you can’t use a phrase “as is” this is a very viable alternative. Keep in mind the direction search engine optimization is taking. The closer you can get to writing in natural language, the better off you’ll be. It only makes sense to create a site now that will last through the long haul. Especially when that site will have a better chance of favorably appealing to the engines and your visitors. Karon is author of “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy).” Discover the secrets to creating SEO copy with a perfect balance between keywords and natural language. .copywritingcourse.com/keyword IF PUBLISHING ON A WEBSITE, USE THIS RESOURCE BOX: Karon is author of “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy).” Discover the secrets to creating SEO copy with a perfect balance between keywords and natural language with this insightful e-report.