Call to Action

Hi All.
I'd like to fine tune the guidelines for writing here. Up until recently you've all written fine articles with information for the readers regarding one subject or another.
This was good for a while but we want to crank it up a bit and get people to buy the products we promote on the sites. I don't mean that you should take a certain product or a group of products and start talking about it, because any product may change or be removed from our site.
Ultimately, what I am asking you to do is this; use a call to action in your articles (if you're not sure what a call to action is, this sentence is a nice example).
Tell people to buy the e-books, get loan and insurance quotes, etc.
More examples for a call to action you can use:
Get one of the e-books on the right and see the magnificent tattoo designs...
Click the link at the bottom of the article to get FREE insurance quotes.
Get one of the books offered here to learn more about lock picking.
Order a gift online and get it straight to your door.

A call to action is actually ordering people to do something but being nice about it (don't start bossing the readers around but still tell them what to do).
Be creative and use 1 to 3 calls to action per article.

Two Times is Twice

Two times in English is twice. Instead of writing something like "your life insurance policy will probably cost two times more than the one of a non-smoker" you should use "twice" in this manner: "your life insurance policy will probably cost twice as much as the one of a non-smoker".

More Editorial Notes

• Some of our sites are serious sites meant for serious people. Therefore the articles should be of serious nature. Others are of a more personal nature. You should be able to tell by the main theme of a site which group it belongs to. "http://www.Gifts-and-Ideas-for-Mothers-Day.com" for example belongs to the "personal group" whereas "http://Insurance-Land.com" belongs to the "serious group". I think the difference is obvious. Please write the articles to match the nature of the site – we don't need the definition for auto insurance in the article on that subject; people who have come to that page should be well aware of the meaning, otherwise they would not have surfed there. A good approach on the subject would be to explain the finer points of auto insurance and the reasons why people are encouraged to purchase comprehensive insurance which is not obligatory. (Raghuram – "Auto Insurance")
• Do not make promises you can't (or don't intend to) keep. If you say the article is about something, keep your promise. If you say the next paragraph is about a certain topic, don't start the next paragraph with something like "But before that, let’s see…" and then write about something else. This makes you and thus the site unreliable.
• Do not make promises we can't keep! Don't promise things in our name before you KNOW we can deliver. Otherwise this makes our site very unreliable. If you're not sure if we can give the visitors of our site something – just ask.
• The word "than" is used in comparison, whereas "then" means "at that time". Pay close attention because Word knows both words and will not correct the mistake. An example of a misuse I've encountered: "If you are in need of a budget… than look to the assortment" - "if should be followed by "then" not "than"! (Anika - Mothers Day cards print)
• Don't use the phrase "if yes" – it's not proper English. There are some good substitutes for that meaning. For example instead of "Are you a mother? If yes…" (Anika - Mothers Day jokes) you can use "if so…", "if the answer is yes…", "if you are…" etc.
• Either, neither and any are singular. A sentence like "If either of these two insured things are damaged…" is incorrect. In this example it should be "is damaged" instead. (Laura)

Capitalization in Titles

We note this in many of the articles we receive - the title is not properly capitalized.

Here's an example: "Tuscany, Italy – Many Things To See And Do". Now, I'm not referring to the wording or phrasing of the title. Just note that proper English requires that the words "to" and "and" not be capitalized. It should be " Tuscany, Italy – Many Things to See and Do". You can read all the rules at http://www.writersblock.ca/tips/monthtip/tipmar98.htm

Page Description Clarification

After the last post it seems that I have not been all that clear regarding the page description. First of all, what I said earlier about the page description does not refer to the articles themselves. We don't want you to change the way you write articles.

Second, the page description's purpose is to lure the people who see our listing on a search engine and help them decide to click through and see what our site (any of them) can offer them.

You can think of it from their point of view like this: I'm searching Google for some term and get a million and a half results. Which one should I choose? Which one gives me the most relevant information? The answer to these questions should be in the page description in the form of "our website is the best place to find what you were searching for" and not something in the line of "there are many sites that give you this information." I know! I just got a million and a half results from Google!!

In a way you should call people to enter the site.
You know how – you just wrote it in the article. Invite them to read it too.
Use words like "this site offers" "you can find it here" "this website reviews" "take a look" "find" etc. and be creative about it. Don't repeat the same wording in all the articles.

Keyword Ratio and Page Descriptions

As you all well know, the articles you write for us are going online as part of one of our websites. The rules we gave you are meant to give these pages a boost in the search engines.

For this reason we ask that you use a certain ratio of the keywords and variations, and I'd like to explain this ratio here.

The primary keyword (it's usually a keyphrase but we're still calling it a keyword) should appear once in the title, once in the page description (the closer to the beginning the better) and once in the 1^st paragraph.

Tier1 keyword should appear once in the 1^st or 2^nd paragraph. The tier1 does not have to be the singular form of a plural primary (and vice versa). The idea is to use a variation of one of the words in the primary and leave the rest of it the same as the primary (e.g. -ing, a noun instead of a verb etc.).

The variations (pay attention not to use primary or tier1 here) should appear according to the following ratio:

For a 300 word article – min 26 and max 36.

Accordingly, for a 350 word article – min 26*350/300 = 30

and max 36*350/300 = 42.

We've also asked you to write a page description for every article. Now, this description is what people see on the search engines when they see our pages listed. So, try to write something that would appeal to them and tempt them to click the link to the page. You may want to see what others are using as their description; just search Google for the primary you are writing on and take a look at the descriptions Google lists. Give the searchers a wiifm (What's In It For Me) idea.

The limit for the page description is 127 characters (including spaces hyphens and period). You should max this limit as much as you can while keeping the sentence readable. If you need a couple more characters, use abbreviations such as "&" for "and" etc.

On Comments and a Thank You

Hi everybody.
After posting my last two posts I got two comments from Mihaela (worth reading).
So first of all I'd like to thank her. Her comments were enlightening and to the point.
I especially found the article in WorldWideWords interesting - so if any of you is interested in the history (as well as modern use of course) of English - that is the place.
Have a great week.
Tommy

Originality and Editorial Notes 2

Hi all.
I hope everyone is doing well.
I have a few more points on the articles I'm proofing, but prior to that I'd like to say something about originality. A couple of days ago I was proof reading a few articles and discovered that certain parts of them were taken from existing sites on the net. Of course the articles were not accepted (to say the least) but I feel it is highly important to stress a point on the matter. If we did put content that was taken from another website it might damage us and our sites. We would be liable for copyright lawsuits and that's just the beginning.
So, I strongly urge you all to refrain from this completely.

Now that that's out of the way, I have some more comments on the articles:

• The plural form of person is people. Do not use "persons" unless in formal or derogatory use. (Better to avoid this word altogether) (Mihaela)
• Don't use an inverted Tier-1 keyword (e.g.: "tattooed joker" in "Joker Tattoos") – one of our aims is to appease the search engines, and we don't know how this is regarded so we would prefer to avoid the risk. (You can of course use the words of a certain primary keyword in any order you wish, so long as it does NOT become an inverted Primary or Tier-1).
• Please pay attention to grammatically correct sentence structure in English. E.g. "A reasonable worry it is" is not English. The correct way is "It is a reasonable worry". (Raghuram – "Auto Insurance")
• Pay very close attention to your English and don't invent new words. For example, although it may be very logical that a word like insuree should exist (to mean the person insured) it does not. Microsoft Word has many language tools for you to use including a thesaurus, a dictionary etc. use them wisely. Also see the link on the right for a dictionary website.

Editorial Notes 1

• "Tattooings" is not a word in English. (Mihaela)
• "Tattooing" is a verb, not a noun, please use it as such. (Mihaela)
• Margaritas don't come in bouquets ("the beauty of a butterfly fluttering near a bouquet of margaritas" in Butterfly Tattoo Art). (Mihaela)
• Don't use ":" when "–" is required the "–" should be used when separating two parts of a sentence (you may like to read the article on punctuation rules in English – see link on the recommended list on the right).
• Pay close attention to keyword combination that might represent a Tier-1 keyword – don't use these combinations as variations. e.g.: in the article on "Joker Tattoos" (primary) "joker tattoo" was used correctly as Tier-1. However, "joker tattooing" (also Tier-1) was also used and mistakenly marked as 2 variations. Remember, it's not the color of the highlight that makes it a variation or a Tier-1.

A short reminder regarding posts

The blog is here for all of us to exchange comments on the writing process and the articles.
Please don't use the blog to ask for new keywords or to let us know that you've completed the articles and sent them to Shlomit.