35 replies to this topic

[MCP]

Hey guys, I am stepping up and "branding myself as a professional" and instead of looking for others to write articles for me, I have decided to sharpen a few pencils and hopefully sharpen my writing skills.

Here is my first article:
Why Use XHTML?

Any advice / criticism / ideas on how to get it out in the world would be greatly appreciated. I am excited and also nervous about this, since I never did anything of the like before. I have a few more that I am working on and plan on putting out about a half dozen of them to start. From there I will try to write one every week.

Wish me luck, guide me to the right spot, and hopefully I'll see you at the top!

Edited by MCP, 11 June 2004 - 06:49 PM.

[SearchRank]

Congratulations on your first write, Chris! Welcome to the world of writers.

The best advice I can give you for getting your articles published is to look for leading sites in the web development industry that allow authors to publish articles. I could tell you who those are in the SEO world but not web design.

Many of those industry authority sites are constantly looking for good content to add to their already vast set of resources.

My first publishing break came when I met Robert Clough of Search Engine Guide (online, not in person yet) and discovered we have a lot in common. He published my first article (other than my own site) and from there I have found a variety of places to distribute articles. The one I am most proud of to date is A Web Directory that Helps You Do, Not Find which was published on SearchDay, one of the leading resources on the SEO/SEM industry. I have to give most of the credit of that fine interview to Mordechai himself (owner of Gimpsy) who did an excellent job answering and adding to my simple list of questions.

Good luck!

BTW - I can see that you are showing up more of yourself all the time in your avatar (if that is really you)!

[MCP]

Congratulations on your first write, Chris! Welcome to the world of writers.



BTW - I can see that you are showing up more of yourself all the time in your avatar (if that is really you)!

Thanks David!

Yeah, that's me. I am trying to jump out of my shell a bit and try to brand myself as an authority, and I think people like to know you before they trust you with their business.

I feel awkward posting pics of myself online, but hopefully I'll get used to it.

[rohgan03]

Use an article distribution service. I used karons article distribution service available from marketingwords.com and was very satisfied.

[Scottie]

I can vouch for Karon's Article distribution service; it has a very wide reach. I definitely recommend it!

[Deverill]

Hey Chris,
Congrats on the first article! Consider the source here (me) but there's only 4 things I can say about it:

• Do you want to ignite a WYSIWYG war?
• Great topic and good coverage.
• Maybe your bottom info should use Phoenix Web Design as the anchor text?
• Can you say "crap" in an article?

I fully understand your comments about WYSIWYG but it may be best to avoid that and just say "lazy developers".

Unless it's for branding, make the anchor text in your followup count as much as possible since it's assumably for posting on web sites.

Again, I'm nobody in this topic but these came to mind. Thanks for making me look harder at XHTML! Best wishes!

[MCP]

Excellent feedback Deverill. I certainly don't want to start a WYSIWYG war, especially considering I use DreamWeaver all day long. I *do* want to make sure it's known that people who code loosely are probably being a little lazy. HTML allows you to be very loose and still look good in IE. I have altered the article.


I wrestled over the link text a bit when I wrote it, and I really do want those keywords, but I don't want to look spammy. I kinda used articles by established authors to get an idea of how I should format my link text, and very few of them creatively stuffed a keyword or two. Most just used their company's name.

I also used Jill bio as a frame to do my own. -not copied mind you, just used it as inspiration ;-)

Edited by MCP, 11 June 2004 - 10:22 PM.

[Jill]

I feel awkward posting pics of myself online, but hopefully I'll get used to it.

No need to feel awkward...of course, you just might make the other men here a little jealous...

[MCP]

No need to feel awkward...of course, you just might make the other men here a little jealous...

awwe shucks Jill You flatter me so

[anthonyparsons.com]

I'm a good lookin cat....rrrrrrrr

Nice going MCP.

[MCP]

hmmm, I thought people let you publish articles for free. I didn't know it costs money! Oh well, I'll do some hunting around for spots to publish and eventually will probably pay to get them distributed.

[delridge]

Chris,

I like the article. It got me thinking, "hey, maybe I should finally look into this xhtml stuff!"

Check your article's second sentence. The letter/word "a" is repeated.

Best of luck,

Matt

[MCP]

CRAP! Thanks for catching that.

[anthonyparsons.com]

Go and get ezine announcer.....that will sort you out quick smart and in a hurry getting your article worldwide in the right places. The small cost is worth it IMO. Learn it first, real simple and quick, then get into it.

No secret, just that program. It allows you to add other sites in as you find them, teaches you how to let it fill out the forms and so forth.....ditch all the other sales pitched crap that comes with it and just keep the program. You won't be sorry about this investment.

If you also do a search on this board, you will find plenty of other topics that discuss where to submit your articles. Add them into the program and once all set up, you will just open the page within the program, it fills the current article details into the submission and you push the submit button. Doesn't get much easier than that. Has some manual and some email submissions.

[MIDA]

No need to feel awkward...of course, you just might make the other men here a little jealous...