10 Common Spelling Mistakes That Haunt Bloggers
Whether you like it or not, people will judge your blog by the quality of your writing. The first thing you should do is to avoid the most common spelling mistakes, as they can turn off first-time visitors to your site. Below you’ll find 10 such mistakes to get you started.
1. accept / except
INCORRECT: Please except this gift.
CORRECT: Please accept this gift.
Except, as a verb, means to exclude or leave out. As a preposition it means “with the exception of.” Accept means “to receive willingly.” For example: We visited every landmark except the Eiffel Tower. The school is accepting only those students who have had their shots; all others are excepted.
2. advice / advise
INCORRECT: He refused to take my advise.
CORRECT: He refused to take my advice.
Advise is a verb. The s has the sound of “z.” Advice is a noun. The c has the sound of “s.”
3. all right / alright
INCORRECT: He’s alright after his fall.
CORRECT: He’s all right after his fall.
Although arguments are advanced for the acceptance of the spelling, alright is still widely regarded as nonstandard. Careful writers avoid it.
4. effect / affect
INCORRECT: His death really effected me.
CORRECT: His death really affected me.
The most common use of effect is as a noun meaning “something produced by a cause.” The most common use of affect is as a transitive verb meaning “to act upon.” For example: The disease had a lasting effect on the child. The family’s lack of money affected his plans.
5. every day / everyday
INCORRECT: Dan walks […] Read more »
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The Unmissable Secret of Long Term Blogging Success.
In The Myth Of Great Content Marketing Itself, Darren said that:
The reality is that many blogs produce quality content that doesn’t get read. The reason isn’t that the blog’s not worth reading – but in many cases it’s because nobody knows to go read it.
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10 Things I’ve Learned From Posting on Problogger
a guest post by Larry Brooks of Storyfix.com
10. This is a huge community. As in, ginormous. Literally four corners of the world, anyplace with digital cable and a Fed Ex partner.
Which means my frequently sarcastic American humor doesn’t always play places like Klagenfurt and rural Kirgizstan.
9. Online sarcasm is itself risky business. One writer’s sarcasm is another’s snarky… a word which probably doesn’t play in Kirgizstan, either.
8. Never write a post about the need to double and triple check for typos that has a typo in it.
One word: crucified. Still smarting from that one.
7. “Know Thy Audience” isn’t a cliché. It’s the natural law – the physics – of marketing.
I’m a blogger who posts about fiction writing and sells a few writing ebooks while I’m at it. The majority of readers here are online entrepreneurs who’d rather hear about blog-related marketing than how to write the next Salzburg Times bestseller.
Many of whom, by the way, have a story in them.
6. Darren Rowse really is the nicest guy on the internet. A total pro, too. I’ve tested this theory with a wide breadth of technical cluelessless and naiveté, and you can add patience to those first two.
He doesn’t just let anybody onto this site, which means you not only earn your admission ticket (lest you wonder, I was invited to post here twice a month), you earn your keep, too. And it’s all fair.
5. The company you keep defines you. Choose wisely.
In this case, being on Problogger has upped my online […] Read more »
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Using the Blogosphere’s Trends for Your Niche
This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren
Hello, fellow bloggers! Hope you’re having a fabulous week. Since I started this weekly column on April 7, we’ve discussed strong headlines and opening lines, use of video and images, list posts, effective quotes, and more—all through the lens of the week’s most-blogged-about topics. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversations we’ve had together in the comments and the knowledge you’ve all shared with each other and with me.
In the spirit of those open conversations, I wanted to answer the most common question I’ve received: How can I use these general trends if I don’t blog about current affairs? Well, you can find trends on your specific niche on Regator, but the true answer is that no matter what your niche, there is often a way—with enough creativity and research into the details of the story—to make it work for your readers. And tying posts to the week’s hottest topics can be a great way to get new readers and attract attention. This week, along with trends from Regator, we’ll take a look at how these topics were covered by bloggers in unexpected niches…
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How To Turn Your Blog Into A Profitable Business
Recently I went to the Connect Now conference and had the chance to hug Darren Rowse, meet Gary Vaynerchuk and hang out with my social media friends. One year ago, I didn’t think I’d be able to accomplish something so awesome.
Skellie was one of the people that made this possible. She wrote this killer book, The Blog Business Funnel (aff), which presented a new model of making an income from your blog.
The Blog Business Funnel
Skellie argues that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to monetize a blog via traditional methods such as direct advertising, affiliate sales and adsense. She highlights a system which shows bloggers how they can make plenty of money doing what they’re best at.
She recommends “using word-of-mouth worthy content to generate targeted traffic, then using your knowledge and insight to generate trust.”
How it helped me.
I’ve struggled with the idea of launching a business from my blog for years. I’ve had lots of issues and was flailing around, trying to find a model that aligned with my business goals and my promotional ethic.
I had read a lot of business products about how to build a profitable business but they were separated into different niches: sales, blogging and freelancing. I was getting the information I needed but I had no way to fit it all together.
Skellie took us through key launch strategies and details how we could apply them to our own business. I’m heavily into product launches yet it never occurred to me that it could apply for services. We […] Read more »
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Rock Hard Thighs and Cold Hard Cash: Robb Sutton Spills His Tawdry Review Site Secrets
guest post by Kelly Diels
When I was wondering how to create an effective, money-making review site, I thought of Robb Sutton.
Robb Sutton’s review site, Mountain Biking by 198 “pulls in thousands in review product every month” and in the last 15 months has received over $100,000 dollars worth of review product. He’s also got several other sites, including a coffee review blog, and oh yes, makes a pretty decent living as a ProBlogger.
That is, when he’s not hanging out with the likes of me and telling me all his secrets.
Kelly Diels: Robb, tell me all the dirty details about review sites.
[looooooooooooong pause. Isn’t it a little early in the conversation to have offended him?]
Kelly Diels: Robb?
Robb Sutton: I’m here. Sorry…was just closing up a few things. Now you have my 100% attention.
Kelly Diels: You know a girl likes that.
Robb Sutton: Yes, they do!
Kelly Diels: I mean, so I’ve heard. Tell me, dahlink, how you got started with review sites.
Robb Sutton: Well, it all started with an idea that had nothing to do with reviewing product, ironically.
Kelly Diels: Go on…
Robb Sutton: I had this idea that I was going to have a trail review site for mountain biking that was all user submitted content. About 5 minutes into the process, I realized that you can’t have user submitted content without traffic. So I started a blog where I reviewed parts, bikes and other related products and that took over what was the user submitted part. Basically, I used it as […] Read more »
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How ProBlogger Changed My Life and I’m Not Saying That Just To Suck Up.
guest post by Kelly Diels
I have been blogging for almost ten months. I quit my job – a really, really good job – last week. Today, I made $10,600.
In one day.
(Okay, not really in one day, but today I collected two cheques for writing projects that I secured because the clients saw my pieces at ProBlogger and hired me. True story.)
How did I use my blog to launch a business?
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