ABC Article Directory Blog

By: Terry Stanfield

A lot of people are beginning to see the importance of mechanics of writing and publishing articles on the internet as part of their SEM marketing campaign. This is also a great way to improve the link popularity of your website as part of your SEO efforts, showcase your expertise and be seen as an expert in your field, not to mention drive traffic to your site. A lot of us know more about our field and how our product or service can help people than anybody else in the world. The challenge is where to start. I wrote this article to give us a starting point so that we can get some of our own ideas and solutions published.

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Search engine optimization techniques for Google and Yahoo are quite different.  Many websites rank well in one search engine but not the other.  This is the direct result of each search engine having its own unique ranking algorithm.  For example, the Google algorithm predominantly values the anchor text of in-bound links.  Yahoo places more emphasis on keyword density and meta tags.

The primary reason for the difference in ranking algorithms is that Google owns the patent on Page Rank (PR), named after Google’s founder Larry Page.  As a result of owning this patent, other search engines need to place more emphasis on different optimization factors including website URL, keyword density and so on.

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 By: Jim Driver

The best writing is ‘clean’ writing. Nothing to do with soap powders or detergents – or even sex. Clean writing is prose that is clear and understandable.

The best examples of the type include Elmore Leonard, George Orwell, Ross Macdonald, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Timlin, Eric Ambler, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. It would be unkind to give examples of ‘dirty’ writing, except to say that their ranks include almost all bad writers.

Most amateurs fall into the trap of trying to write too cleverly. They burden their prose with dirt: flowery adjectives, long similes, obese sentences and so on. In the process they obscure what they mean to say and bore their readers. Clean, clear writing is enjoyable to read. And when reading is a pleasure, then ideas are easier to put across.

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The “Submission Guidelines” for the ABC Article Directory have been updated. For any present and future members, these new guidelines now apply. Read these over carefully to ensure that your articles will have a better chance of being approved for inclusion in our directory.

This is in response to our overwhelming desire to provide only the best articles for our visitors and publishers. If you are an author wishing to become a member of our article directory, or an existing member, strict adherence to these guidelines is essential. 

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By: Andrew Morris

Is this a silly question? Not really, because while it is possible to learn how to craft a sentence and turn a phrase on your own, can you actually learn how to take that creative spark that dwells within and put it on paper (or on a screen)? Just as there are those who are born an artist, there are others who are born with the talent to write a novel, create a perfect sales letter, compel their readers to come along on a journey to another land, adventure or experience.

But even these authors have learned, studied and applied their talent over time to become better at what they do, the art and craft of writing. While there are certainly writing courses delving into the proper turning of phrase, how to evoke an emotional response from the reader; for me the best writing course of all is “just write”, then learn from you did.
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By: Andrew Morris

An old news pro once told me, “Kid, if it isn’t newsworthy, we’re not going to print it”.  I am dating myself with the above quote that reaches back into the dark ages of the manual typewriter. But I have remembered it over the years.  Another way of stating the same thought I learned from my dad, “When in doubt, play it silent”. My father was commenting on excess dialog in a scene, however, both men gave me a lesson of a lifetime.

If I do not have something to say that is feature worthy, then I do not say or write it.  What is it that you have to say that is lead news material?  That is not criticism since I do not know you, rather advice. But have you adequately researched what you want to write about.? And if you have, do you have an idea of the title, subject and flow of the article?

Are you writing simply because you are inspired, or have you done your homework and discovered if there is a market for your words?  That is not to say you should not have a blog: please do, and write what you will and as often as you like. But in this article we are discussing the business of writing.

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By: Tiva Kelly

Getting published is tricky. Sometimes getting a publishers approval seems like a lost cause. Why are publishers so picky? Simple. They have to be picky about the content they publish to be successful. The publisher’s job is to attract readers and keep them happy. Your job as a writer is to give publishers what they want to attract readers and keep them coming back.

What Are Publishers so Picky about?
You don’t have to get inside the head of the public to see what they are picky about. A lot of things publishers look for are common sense. Articles that require excess editing are likely to be kicked back to the writer.

Misspelled words, grammatical errors and poor sentence structure will not get you published. Likewise, an article that is over or under the recommended word count will not be accepted for publication.
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 By: Peter O’Flynn

Search engine optimisation has traditionally been the practice of increasing the ranking of an existing website by altering the content and promoting inbound referral links from other highly ranked pages. The first part (altering the content) can be a bit like trying to panel beat a rusty VW Beetle into a Ferrari. Often to be effective, the entire structure and content of a website needs renewing, including with the coding (especially websites built in tables or Flash), making it a very costly exercise.

A New Beginning

In truth, the best way forward is to completely rebuild the site with fresh search engine optimized text, structure, coding and often design. This way a company can also take advantage of new advances such as content management systems for greater control of content; database driven content to automate the process; RSS news feeds to keep the site current; and standards compliant coding for greater accessibility and usability.

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By: Ricardo Mephistopolis

This article was written in a simple language so you can learn on how Google is manipulating the pagerank. Pay attention.

Recently Google did a major PageRank update where a lot of sites were downgraded. Many experts believe this PageRank update was Google’s response to link selling - sites which sell links lost points in their PageRank.

Google measures all web pages on a scale of importance from 0 to 10, which is shown in a small green pixel bar on browsers carrying the Google Toolbar.

PageRank is “supposedly” measured by the number of backlinks to your site.

Online democracy in action, a link is a vote for your site. The more votes you have the higher your site is ranked. At least that’s how it was supposed to work until a lot of high PR sites started selling links and put a monkey wrench into the whole system.

The latest update may be a smart move on Google’s part to curtail this practice; who’s going to buy a link from a PR2 or even a PR4 site? Besides this could be more than a warning that your site will go down even further if you continue to sell links.

Now this is more of a cosmetic change in PageRank than a real change in your true rankings in Google. Just because your PR goes down doesn’t mean your keyword rankings or traffic from Google also goes down.

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