No Contact Form Is A Big Frustration For Your Visitors

For the last couple of hours, I have been so frustrated to see some reputable web entrepreneur or whatever the “pro-x” they call themselves, they do not have a point of contact. So I have to scan their whole website(s) and blog(s); wasting my time. How can such people don’t have a contact form? That’s so un-pro and lame if you ask me. These guys are at several places and they don’t even provide an easy way to contact them, common what the hell are you doing?

Don’t Make Yourself Sound Like A Moron

I think people who do not provide a contact point are either:
1) too shy or worried when people contact them
2) does not care if people want to say something to them
3) too lazy to provide one
4) considers themselves too much important and hence cannot bother what others need to say - If you fall in this one, I will have to say you are a moron and bias person. The holygrail of an online success is ‘proper networking’ and to network people need to contact you; it is as simple as that.

If you don’t want to sound like any of these type of unhealthy categories, you know what to do.

Sensible Webmasters Will Always Provide A Point Of Contact

And this is also common with several webmasters. If you want to have an online presence, be sure to provide a comfortable and straight-forward way for people to contact you, an example is my contact form. It is visible, easy, simple, direct and fast.

I hope if I have conveyed the message to people reading this - be easily accesible, provide a contact form on your website!

Problogger, Darren Rowse, is conveying an experiment to ‘make bloggers pitch him about why readers should hand around their (the blogggers) blog‘. And all this should be done in a pitiful 140 characters. Bear in mind that we are talking about characters here and not words!

I find this very interesting mainly because:
1) It’s a big challenge - 140 charactors to sell your blog, is very very tight. If you are able to make it, you are demonstrating good competence and motivation!
2) It’s a big opportunity to help convey your blog’s current mission statement to a wide audience - Problogger is a famous platform on the blogosphere and you should undoubtedly get noticed.

The Catching Point And The Most Crucial Point

I have been reading the responses of other bloggers and many of them have either:
1) written less than 140 charactors, some even at 94 charactors
2) Or others have simply gone slightly beyond the expected 140 characters

Now, if you want to appeal to your readers or customers and want to gain credibility, I think you should at any cost respect the requirement of that ’round’. It clearly says ‘in 140 characters’. So you should do it exactly like it’s said. Else, you simply show that you are not competent and not convincing with your blog/services.

The Entry Of Wakish Wonderz

Here’s the entry that I made on Problogger. It is at exactly 140 characters (spaces included), nothing more, nothing less!

Starting with the basic building blocks of the english language, I’m here to help you write clearly, concisely, effectively and pertinently!

What About You?

The delay to submit an entry on Problogger is 48hrs, so try your luck fast!
If you are reading this article late, you can nevertheless submit an entry on my blog here by using the comment form below. Let’s continue it..

Just now I was reading my email and I have someone asking me how to write a good english article. She is Nadia from France (Salut Nadia, Je suis très heureux de vous aider). And this is the third email I’m receiving this month concerning that topic. This time instead of replying to the email, I decided to make a post about it.

Making An Analogy

Before I give some steps, I want to make an analogy to help you better understand the idea first.
Let’s say that Sadiya from Mauritius is going to stay forever abroad since her mum says she needs to wed a foreigner. What should be her responses? One of the first reactions, as a future wife, would be how would she dress up. Then she is worried about what she should be cooking, how she should talk..etc, etc. (Urm, I’m a male so obviously I might not get those female points right, but this is for the sake of Nadia)

Conclusions:
1) Before actually getting worried, she should decide where, in which country, she would be going - Decide about the ‘type‘ or ‘nature‘ of the place
2) Once selected, go and observe the lifestyle - ‘Observe the present styles‘

Ok, I just wanted to stress on 2 main points: ‘type‘ and ‘present styles‘

Steps To Write Good English Articles

1) Before actually writing good articles, you should first understand what type of article you are planning to write; is it a journalism article, a professional article, a review article or an article for a blog?
Because each of these types of articles have their own required writing styles, just as different countries have different lifestyles. That is, you cannot write blog articles the same way as you would write an article for a journal and vice versa..etc.

2) Once you know what kind of article you will be writing, search for related articles (google is your friend) and see how they are being written. Try to come up with a general style and try adapting your own. Make sure you respect any requirements/guidelines, if there are any.

3) Now, you need to confirm on what ‘title’ or ‘topic’ you will write

4) Brainstorm your own ideas + research on the net or any other sources

5) Finalise all main points on paper

6) Sit down and write your article in good english.

Here there’s another step of great concern. Do you actually know how to write good english? Do you possess good writing skills? It’s up to you to judge yourself. If you are confident enough, it’s great since you just need to sit down and write.

In case you are not really fluent in writing good english. You need to read some good english articles/tutorials and practice a bit. Then after your level of condidence rises, go back to writing your english article.

I have a series of articles which you can serve as referrence to write good english and writing in general:

• How To Write Good English
• Effective Writing Is A Key Ingredient To Success
• Method For Presentation Of Topics
• Writing the GP Essay - Write to convince!
• Writing A Pillar Article - Know What Is A Pillar Article And What It Takes!
• Good Writing Skills - The English Language basics

One Important thing: => You absolutely need to keep a good english dictionary handy and/or a translation dictionary.

7) Make sure you respect the number of words generally desirable for writing the article, proofread your work several times + make sure what you have written is indeed convincing and on track.

Voila! It appears simple, but the work and effort behind writing good articles, is enormous to be honest. Since writing good is not a simple task; it needs patience, passion, practice, practice and practice.

What are your approach to write a good english article? Do you share the same point of view as mine? Use the comment form below to add your part, I’ll be eager to hear from you..

If you are a blogger or a writer, you have surely stumbled upon the word ‘pillar article‘. Have you ever wondered or thought about how you can define it? I bet most of the time you’ve taken the word for granted and passing over to the next lines. This is an opportunity to have a discussion, so let’s talk about pillar articles..

What Is A Pillar Article?

I define a pillar article as an article depicting all of the following:
1) Is a lengthy article which clearly, concisely and deeply explains the subject matter
2) Makes you feel that the writer has expertise in what he/she is saying and hence demonstrate an authority. The author knows exactly what he is writing about and will often share his experience or elaborate on different facets.
3) The article comprises:
- a clear, simple definition,
- a full-fledged body,
- with examples and analogies
- and/or a conclusion. (This pattern seems analogous to writing a GP Essay)
4) The content itself is very unique, wonderfully structured, well researched coupled with the author’s own writing styles. (Very much like a balanced diet with an exquisite dessert)
5) The article is evergreen - it will still be valuable for the next incoming years

Why Write A Pillar Article?

1) Writing pillar articles very attractive and appealing to bloggers and hence they are willing to linkback or talk about your article with a happy heart.
2) You are not just writing an article for the sake of writing it or for search engines, but you are writing for humans, providing your readers with good, valuable content. Hence you are showing that:
- you value your readership
- you are not wasting the time of your readers
- you are serious with what you are writing
- your article rocks!
3) On the whole, a pillar article lures and increases traffic

What Does It Take To Write A Pillar Article?

1) Time and energy demanding.
Writing pillar articles is NOT like writing about ‘What John Chow is eating everyday‘ or what ‘Shoemoney is doing at PubCons‘. Obviously, in addition to your own expertise, you will need to make some research. Then you will need to refine and proofread your article to make sure it is of a high standard.

For some it might take hours and hours, for others it takes days and still for some it might even take weeks. But it all depends on your personal skills, passion, experience and maturity. Assuming you have the habit of writing, I think 2hrs is just enough, else I think you need to stop blogging and start writing for Readers Digest!

2) Passion and true desire to write
If you don’t have a free will to write a pillar article, just forget about it. Better not write, than spoiling the article and your credibility.

How To Write A Pillar Article?

I think if you have a passion to write a pillar article, I don’t need to tell you how to do it. It’s like football, if you have passion to play it, you will play your own tunes - like Ronaldinho or Cristiano Ronaldo. But still, keeping in mind that not everyone is an artist, I will briefly give you some hints as follows, but these are not by any means the only aproach.

=> Choose a topic or subject which you are confident about or which you have had enough experience with.
=> Brainstorm ideas without any reading or research
=> Now go make some research if you feel the need (but whatever your skills, research is important to keep you on track)
=> Link your ideas + the one you’ve acquired through reasearch
=> Sit down with an inspirational mind, write your article.
=> Proofread your article and come back later to make sure everything that you wrote is still making sense and is ready to be ‘published’.

Writing a pillar article is very much like writing a poem or painting. Just feel the inspiration and let the spirit guide you to write some wonderful masterpieces.

What’s Your Opinion On Pillar Articles?

Do you agree with what I’ve said? What is your approach to write a pillar article? I’m sure you might be having some more brilliant ideas on pillar articles, so please do share it..

Since my inception as a blogger, I have tried and experiment a lot of things, either consciously or simply blindly. But recently, I’m deriving a lot of pleasure in putting what I have read and learned into actual mind-conscious experiments. I observe those experiments, compare it with what others says and finally I make my conclusions. (And I’m kind enough to share it with you? )

Sensing Something In The Tunnel

One of the most craziest experiment I recently done, was to put the ranking of my site at stake which saw my site’s alexa rank dropping from 270,000 (approximately) to 1,040,000; you can read more here: Revealing My Experience With How Inactivity Affects My Blog’s Growth. But I did it with my trusted spirit to achieve the best, constantly reminding me that I can eventually come back with style. My spirit is revealing positive; I made a follow-up of my previous experiment saying my alexa rank is getting back; at that time it came from 1,040,000 to 1,013,000. Right now, if you check my alexa rank, it’s at a surprising 847,223 mark. Surprising because of the short laps of time (like 2 to 3 weeks) with which my alexa rank is getting back into the ranking game. You see, I’m not bluffing whatsoever!
And all that, without writing any pillar articles - as you can see for yourself in my Archives.
So, how the heck am I getting back? (That’s the question you should be asking yourself right now if you haven’t)

The Answer And My New Experiment

=> I’m not using any kind of paying adverts, nothing like this. I have just simply stopped writing articles (about what I’m supposed to be writing on) and I’m investing that energy in optimizing my blog’s full potential in order to get more traffic from different sources, among which search engines being my favorite. But mind you, that does not mean I will be dumb, I will at times say ’some crappy hellos’..

My blog has, till now, a mediocre amount of articles, 130 exactly, excluding this one. I believe that ‘writing and writing‘ does no good if I’m not being able to make the most out of my present ones. I want to exhilarate my site’s full potential and hence titillating Traffic. In simple terms, I will spend time in putting into practice what I have learned so far (and also in figuring how I can use my current contents) to drive traffic to them without spending money on campaigns like adwords..etc

The Big Question

How will I do this experiment. As you have rightly guessed, I won’t reveal it yet until this experiment is over. But once done, I’ll once more share it with you as I did for my previous ones. Fair enough?

I aslo believe that this experiment will eventually be at its peak at a certain point, hence indicating the end of the experiment. So keep abreast with Wakish Wonderz if you don’t want to miss out the results of my new exciting experiment!