Kreative Ramblings
Righting Your Writing: The Sound of Your Voice
Author: Karen McGreevey
There are numerous ways you can “edit” your writing by yourself, although you’ll find that in the end the editing support of an “outsider” will by far be the best solution.
When you have your “work” ready for edit, one solution you can try on your own to check for misplaced words and awkward sentences is to listen to what you’ve written.
In short, read your content out loud.
And take the time to really listen to what you’re saying.
Sometimes, even reading the work backwards helps errant strings of words and sentences to stand out.
For more information on testing your work, take a look at Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing, by Clair Kehrwalk Cook. It includes over 700 examples of editing techniques, grammar, and usage to help you with your writing efforts.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Righting Your Writing, Tips and Tricks, Writing, Working with a VA
read comments (0)Monkey See
Author: Karen McGreeveyWant to write an 
article but you find you’re stuck–with no ideas in sight or mind? Then take a bit of time to “follow the dots” of those in your niche or to gather ideas from comments at membership sites, or the blogs of others.
And try one or two of these tips on for size:
1. Make an appointment with your doctor or dentist! Then arrive early. Really! When I go to the doctor I have a chance to read many magazines that I wouldn’t otherwise get my hands on. So I take my “early arrival time” to check out the Table of Contents, articles and even graphics in numerous publications to gather ideas for my articles and blog posts.
2. Subscribe to RSS feeds on a variety of subjects along the line of your niche or your products, as well as things that interest you. Then take some time to search through the feeds each day to select a few articles to read. Take notes on the material as you do so, and use them to come up with articles and blog posts.
3. Scan through the comments posted by others at online articles directories, membership forums, and blog posts at sites where you read regularly. Write down the interesting ideas, the pros and cons of an issue, and opinions of others. In fact, controversial comments make for a good pro or con article or blog post.
4 Use some of the online tools like Technorati, Digg, Delicious, etc. to help trigger writing inspiration. Also, check Yahoo’s buzz log to find out what people are talking about and searching for. Use all these resources to come up with new ideas.
Once you start looking, you’ll find there are lots of online and off resources you can use to crank up your writing gears.
Check out Douglas Roberts’ ebook, Quick and Easy Content Writing Tips for 99 ideas to help you with your writing projects.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA
Does Your Title Say What You Think You Said?
Author: Karen McGreeveyWhen it comes 
to readying articles and blog posts for the Internet, you know there’s more to it than throwing some words together.
Especially, when you want to attract readers and potential customers; it’s not just about cranking out a bunch of words into a text or Word document. Besides making sense, what you come up with ought to “speak” to your audience.
So, here are some tips to help you rev up your thinking gear before you begin to write:
Just as you’d do (usually) if you were going to go out–for an evening, to a wedding, to a game or perhaps to the store, you’d “do something to get ready”. (Of course, what you’d “do” depends–upon your needs, your desires, what you hoped to accomplish, etc.
Likewise, enter a correlation for your book (article or blog post) title. Because your “title” is crucially important to your body of work and because you want to grab the attention of your reader prospect so he’ll quickly scoop up your book, it’s important that you take a bit of time writing and deciding upon a title.
Note: If you’ve already written a title for a book that’s in print, you can rewrite it in a reissue–or just keep these tips handy for another time altogether.
Now You See Me
Author: Karen McGreeveyWant to have a quick and easy way to stay in touch 
with your readers, prospects and customers?
Use video!
Say your piece (for instance, read an article you’ve written) as you “capture your visage” on screen, then post it to YouTube and link it back to your blog site. Granted, creating a video may be a bit intimidating but once you get the hang of it, it will get easier. And a whole lotta fun!
Or, you might recycle some of your old posts by editing and consolidating and “copying and pasting” them into PowerPoint. Then take those PPT slides and incorporate them into a video–add a bit of music and an opening comment or two, and you’re done.
It sure beats sitting in front of a computer, staring at a blank screen or blinking cursor, hoping upon hope you’ll get an idea for a blog post or an article.
For more ideas on how to get traffic to your blog, take a look at this ebook How To Promote Your Blog – 101 Free Ways To Increase Your Website Traffic Today. by Richard Adams.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA
“Killer Webinar” Tips 3-5
Author: Karen McGreeveyThe other day, I began a rather lengthy post 
with “Tips for Putting on a ‘Killer’ Webinar.
Because of its length, I decided to break the post into several parts and to encourage you to come back often to get the rest of the tips.
Thus, this post reflects “tips 3, 4 and 5″ you can use to enhance your viewer’s webinar experience:
1. You talk too much.
Let it not be said that trying to cram too much information into one Webinar is a detriment to your audience. But it can happen. As a result, you Webinar may go too long or there will be too much news for your target viewers to assimilate. Thus, they’re apt to lose focus, or you’ll find they click away before your time is up. So try to narrow your subject.
2. Your Webinar is not a sale.
Opposite to having too much information is not having enough to talk about. Which then puts you into the “selling” mode. While it’s true, you are conducting the Webinar to eventually generate sales, you don’t want to spend your entire session selling. It’s a major turnoff as your audience really would like to know a bit about your product, your service that they can use.
3. A wing and a prayer!
If you’re taking the time to put on a Webinar, you’ll want to go into it wholeheartedly by planning what you’re going to say. Of course, you don’t want to come across stilted but you do want to have some cohesiveness to your presentation. Notes are good and if you’re giving facts about your topic, include sources for them.
That’s it for today, folks! I’ll have the “final two” tips in a few days. See you then!
And in case you missed it, here’s that link to the “Ultimate Webinar Marketing Guide written by Lewis Howes.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA
Tips for Putting On A “Killer” Webinar
Author: Karen McGreeveyEverybody’s doing it; you know they are. 
And you know you ought to, too! Yet you’ve been holding off joining in on the fray. You know, however, you can only hold “them” at bay for so long.
So you might as well “get your feet wet”–and then do it handily with some of the following tips. Actually, I have seven tips that I’ll “spread” over several days–to give you a chance to “dig in to” the meat of them and to perhaps implement them as you go.
For starters, here are Tips 1 and 2:
1. Can you hear me now? What about “see” me?
How many webinars or online meetings have you sat in on that used the first 20, even 30, minutes or so trying to get everyone logged in, the “sound checked” and the visuals “pulled up”? Perhaps you’ve felt your precious time slipping away; time waiting you could have used to finish up that one report on the edge of your desk.
Instead of performing the many preliminary checks during the “live session”, consider using a checklist and preparing your sound and camera BEFORE the event starts.
Initiate the help of a friend or colleague and ask him or her to log in to the room with you beforehand.
* Do a trial run with him or her to see what glitches might materialize during your “trial”.
* Check microphones especially, and if you plan to record the event, test your recording equipment, too
* Lighting and background noise should also be considered.
2. Is it time yet?
If you’re scheduling a webinar do a bit of research before you set a date, then decide upon a date and time when your target audience is most apt to be available to show up. You’ll want to consider different time zones and countries as well. U.S. Eastern, mid-afternoon, midweek is a good time to attract viewers.
Be sure to stop back here this week for our additional tips.
And take a look at the Ultimate Webinar Marketing Guide written by Lewis Howes.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA
No “I” Nor “Me”
Author: Karen McGreeveyAn oft-touted “rule” when writing for the web is to leave out the 
“we”, the “I” and the “me” when referring to your readers. “You” makes what you write more personal and speaks more to your audience.
Instead, you might try referring to the “subject” in your blog posts or articles as “it”, “this” or “here”. Your reader will be more inclined to take notice of what you’re saying.
Here’s this theory in “action”:
In place of: “The Boys” Found the Treats On Sunday Morning and Made Short Work of Them
Use, This is Why There Were No Treats for “The Boys” Easter Sunday
Notice the subtlety?
When you don’t “lead” your reader in to the piece de resistance with your title by practically telling them the whole story, you’re creating enough of a mystery that they’ll actually want to know what you’re talking about.
So they’ll stay at your site long enough to read you whole post or article. And maybe they’ll even come back again.
Looking for more tips on sprucing up your writing for the web? Check out Lynda Felder’s book, Writing for the Web: Creating Compelling Web Content Using Words, Pictures, and Sound
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA
Say Good-bye to “One-Trick Pony” Writing
Author: Karen McGreevey
Got you intrigued?
You’ve often heard that a good way to market your business is to an write article and to publish it at some of the article directories. Or, you can write blog posts and post them on your blog. And when you’ve done that, you “rinse and repeat” with another article or blog post.
That’s all fine and dandy, and might get a bit boring after a while but in essence by JUST doing that, you’re “leaving money on the table”; you’re not making the best use of your time and your finished work.
So instead, look for ways to reach a different audience, ways that might be a bit out of the norm, off the beaten path. Here are a few things you might try to help you set a new course:
1. Checking In. Try “repurposing” one of your older articles or blog posts–instead of re-writing it, divide it into bullet points and make it a checklist. Step by step, you then point out to your reader various methods they can take to get to a specific goal or idea they may have in mind.
2. Questions Are Good. Using a “worksheet” you’ve devised from your article, figure out the main idea of one of your article. And then write your worksheet and pose your questions so your readers can get involved and can add their answers in the spaces on the worksheet. Read the rest of this entry »
Write and Go
Author: Karen McGreevey
Believe it or not, email marketing can be a bit like the EverReady Bunny!
All you need to do is to “write and go”; write your message, set it, forget it, go. And your staying in touch keeps on going.
If done right, your email will reach your subscribers directly–no round-abouts. You just address your email to your subscribers specifically.
If you were to use social media like Facebook and Twitter instead, your message would get out there, but you’d not have the “direct” approach where you can address your reader from a personal standpoint–as in key in their first name, for instance.
Further, after collecting your visitor’s email address and name, you have an opportunity to continue to stay in touch with them and to have them come back to you via your email or other mailings. Otherwise, chances of a visitor returning are pretty much nil and none. So send them other offers or an ezine so you can keep in touch on a regular basis.
Whether your email is an ezine or special offer or some other type of follow-up, it will help you to build a relationship with your readers. In turn, they will be able to develop a like and trust with you.
All this helps your subscribers to know you offer sound advice and sell products or services they want. And they’ll come back again and again.
Check out Jonathan Brook’s ebook, Make Money with Email Marketing for a few more tips that might be of interest to you in your quest for getting new customers.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA0
OIVAC Early Bird Special
Author: Karen McGreeveyCheck out the Early Bird
Special presented by the Online International Virtual Assistants Convention (OIVAC) that’s srunning now until March 31.
The Convention itself takes place May 16-18.
The lineup of scheduled events and the latest in technology are sure to knock your socks off!
To get all the details and to register, click here.
Jewels of Life: Believe, Dream, Internet Marketing, Tips and Tricks, Working with a VA