The Word Constructions blog has now moved onto the Word Constructions domain. This has been a long term goal for the blog and I was finally able to make it happen today.
The blog can now be reached at www.wordconstructions.com.au/blog The existing content will remain here for now, but it has all been copied across to the new location for easy reference at any time.
If you wish to subscribe to the blog, you can do so by clicking here for the RSS feed.
I have just been reading part of the Small Business Diva blog where she wrote about networking, and her 6th point reminded me of a networking breakfast I attended a month or so ago.
Donna-Marie wrote ” When at networking events, don’t try to talk to everyone there and shove as many business cards as possible into everyone’s hands nor push your products/services on people. ” And I couldn’t agree more. Networking is about building relationships, not getting your name in front of the maximum number of people.
At the breakfast I attended, I happened to sit next to a man who didn’t tell me his name or show much interest in talking to me (his choice, and it doesn’t bother me!) However, as he stood up to leave he handed a business card to everyone within reach, said good-bye and left. He still didn’t say his name or use mine (I had introduced myself).
The end result? I left his card on the table and he gained nothing from handing it to me.
Compare that to others I have met at networking events where we have swapped cards and later exchanged emails and possibly helped each other in some way, even if we never used each others’ services.
So don’t go to networking events with the aim to hand out heaps of cards; reserve your cards for the people you click with or who specifically ask for a card or information about your services.
Walking out of a networking event with two or three, or even one, good contact is a great feeling - and a successful event.
Every website and blog owner knows, or soon learns, that links are a great way to build traffic and search engine rankings. And most realise that incoming and outgoing links are both important parts of the equation.
But what makes a good link? How do you want to be presented on other sites and blogs when they are linking to you?
Obviously, you can’t always control how people link to you - you often don’t know about links until after they are established - but if you are prepared, you can increase your chances of getting good links, and offer good ones in return.
Many people assume a banner link (that is, an image of your business is linked to you rather than text) is the best option. This is not really true. People looking at the site may notice a banner sooner than text, of course, but don’t always respond more to a picture than to a few well written sentences. And not every realises that a banner can be clicked on as a link - they look for underlined text as a link. What is more important though, is that search engines can’t read images so any text in the banner itself is not picked up by a search engine.
So a text link is often more effective. But even then, some text links are better than others. For instance, a descriptive link to my article on formatting letters is more effective than just a link to Word Constructions as it gives the search engines and readers more information.
As you read my blog and website, you will notice that I try to include a description in every link to add more value to you and those I link to. Is this something you will try now?
Happy writing!
Unlike a lot of business writing I do, media releases are not written for the end user.
What does that mean? Well, usually if I write some webcopy, an article or a flyer, I write it in a way that appeals to the consumer of that business. So I would write words to the effect of ‘this will solve your problem’.
With a media release, I am writing to a journalist or other media person who may or may not be part of the business’ target audience. Of course, I am writing to the journalist but in a way that will appeal to their readers/viewers/listeners. So it is usually written in the third person such as ‘this will solve the problem for your readers’
Aiming a media release at your target market won’t work; it needs to catch a journalist’s attention and then be used as the basis of their article. Think of it this way - if you read a company’s website or flyer, you expect them to use ‘you’, ‘your’, and so forth; when you read a newspaper article, it will be one step removed and will not refer to ‘you’ at all.
As of tomorrow, I will be away with approximately 3,000 cubs and 1,300 leaders at the Victorian Cuboree. A cuboree is effectively a mass camp for cubs (8 to 10 year olds) every 3 years.
I am looking forward to it - I remember how much fun I had as a kid going on a Venture (equivalent to a cuboree but for 14 - 18 year olds) so now I can give others that enjoyment whilst also seeing how much fun it is on the other side!
For those who are curious, leaders don’t get paid - we are there as volunteers and I’m sure our exhaustion levels when we get home will prove they get their money’s worth from us!
I have programmed ahead for some blog posts, but please be patient for replies to comments or emails as none of the gum trees have power or internet connections so I will be completely offline for the duration!
I recently read a post by Jeff Attwood in his Coding Horror blog. He wrote thirteen blog cliches that he doesn’t like seeing in blogs - it is like a list of what not to do for a good blog, and was quite an interesting read.
While his post stands as is, some of his points particularly stood out to me so I will discuss them in my blog 
One that I very much agree with is his point 5 - the big blogroll. He writes about the waste of listing many blogs in your blog roll, and wrote “It feels artificial and insincere.” Personally, a selective blogroll is a value-add; a long blogroll is ignored.
So what is wrong with listing so many blogs? For starters, a long list doesn’t give any sense of referral or recommendation to the listed blogs, compared to a select listing is likely to be meaningful. It is also hard to find anything from a long list - so at least break the list in to sub-lists to make it more user friendly.
A particularly long list can also distort the look of a page, especially for short posts.
Having said that, what are the advantages of including some blogs in your blogroll? For starters, it builds the blogging community to link and refer to each other. A crafted blogroll can also help your readers find more information on relevant topics, which they will appreciate.
Links to and from your blog can help with your traffic and search engine rankings, so that in itself makes a blogroll and reciprocal links worth considering. But remember that links within your posts are also effective for rankings and readers, so a minimalist blogroll doesn’t mean you can’t link to additional blogs.
What do you think? Are you impressed by a long blogroll when you visit a blog?
Happy writing!
With one exception*, my writing articles and blog entries assume some basic knowledge - if you are writing for business purposes, I assume you know the obvious rules of capital letters to start sentences, common spelling rules and the idea of paragraphs.
So I have never written about there/their/they’re - until now!
I have seen these words misused a number of times recently, and getting an email today from someone who calls herself a writer with the sentence “Their are some great news items ” was the last straw for me! (How can they own ‘are some great news’?)
If this is obvious to you, I apologise! If it isn’t, I hope this helps and I apologise for not helping you sooner!
There, they’re or their?
All 3 words sound exactly the same, but have totally different meanings and uses. Using the wrong word can make a sentence very confusing or just make the writer look silly - neither is what you want in your business (or other!) writing.
They’re is short for they are - so it is used as “They’re running late today”
There is not here - so it is used as “We will go there tomorrow”
Their shows they own something - it is used as “John and Betty will bring their car, too”
Imagine the following sentence with the wrong there/they’re/their spellings…
“They’re bringing their own car so we will meet them there.”
Use your words wisely!
* the exception is this article on basic grammar rules which I wrote to help a trainer with a communications module he was teaching.
You might think surfing the web, playing games online or deleting spam are some of the biggest time wasters in your business, but I suggest that fear may actually be the biggest waste of all.
Think about it - if you fear making cold calls, you will suddenly find time to tidy your desk, sort emails and check links on your website! Or fear of a big project may make you procrastinate submitting your application, so much so that you do a rushed job and miss out.
Fear means we don’t get tasks done, and they stay in our minds so we can’t focus 100% on other tasks either. Although I don’t always do it myself, lol, I believe that the things we fear in business are the things we need to do NOW so we can get passed them. That doesn’t mean we won’t be scared of them next time they come around, but maybe we’ll know we can survive them!
As Michelle says in her ShelDesign blog,“if we let fear control our actions, it WILL steal our dreams.” And losing our dreams is a huge waste of our time.
How do you manage fear in your business? Do you find fear of failure or fear of success to be a bigger issue for you?
Looking through some blogs recently, I have discovered some unusual interpretations of what a review is…
The online Oxford Dictionarydefines it as a formal assessment of something; a critical appraisal of a work; or a report after the event.
It seems simple - a review is a report about a book, course, website, blog or whatever to help others decide if the work is of potential use/interest/value to them. A review is not an ad (”this product has these features and is available only from us”) or a list of facts (”this website has 10 pages about getting fit”).
If you are writing a review, the following points may help:
Reviews are a great way to give value to others, but only if people can trust you to give honest, genuine reviews.
Happy writing!
Can you believe I just received an email about Christmas? And it’s only mid March!
Ok, it was a request to fill in a survey about Christmas in your business - a survey where the answers will be used to provide information to magazine readers preparing for Christmas. So it is reasonable to mention Christmas this early, but it still shocked me!
But it does raise the question - how soon do you plan for major events in your business? Not just Christmas, but Easter, change of seasons, new financial year, awareness weeks and so on that are relevant to your business in some way.
