A little while ago I posted about the free program for researching keywords- Web Ceo (read post here)

I totally feel in love with the program because a. it’s free, and b. it has a real user friendly feel to it. It takes a few minutes to figure out, yes, but it’s still very good, and, ahem, very free.

I had used wordtracker before plenty of times but recently they’ve changed the website a bit. Before you could get a free trial any time you wanted to, but it didn’t search the entire database. So, it was a good way of finding, roughly, which keywords could work for your website. Now, they’ve introduced a free trial which each person may use only once per year but it gives you access to the entire database for 7 days. It’s one of those deals where you have to enter your credit card details into the system and if, before the 7 days are up, you do not cancel, they charge your card the full fee.

I normally don’t like that kind of thing, you know, giving your credit card details for a free trial, but I definitely trust Wordtracker so gave it a go. This just in; it’s brilliant! I really do believe that wordtracker is the top program for searching for keywords.  I do also very much like Web Ceo but I just felt that it didn’t bring up as a broad a range of keywords as Wordtracker, and I prefer the interface of the latter.

So, if you are starting up a new website and want to brainstorm domain name ideas or article topics, the free Wordtracker trial is, in my opinion, the best option. And 7 days really is plenty of time to create a huge list of profitable keywords and keyphrases. BUT, Web Ceo is worth having on your computer for when you want to do some keyword research AFTER having used up your free trial. Granted, I’m sure many of you will go on to purchase the full version of Wordtracker, as it really is thorough.

Click here to get your free Wordtracker trial.

And then go on to click here to download Web Ceo for free.

So, a little while ago, I posted my review of The Secret DVD. Well, just recently I flew over to Norway (where I am now) to spend time with my family because it was my birthday yesterday (hurrah!). Turns out that my mother had been lent The Secret book and so I poured myself into it. It is more or less the same as the DVD, but with added details. I would advise both reading the book and seeing the DVD, as the book has more info, but the DVD is more inspirational.

Anyway, so the book really got me believing in The Power of Attraction but having ‘attracted’ no more than the purchase of the correct chocolate by my boyfriend and the payment by a client on a certain day, I couldn’t really REALLY believe in it. I do now though. Guess why? I’ve unblocked my paypal account! Yes, I blogged, not too long ago, about my hatred of paypal but meanwhile I’ve been really needing their services. I had tried lots of times to get the account unblocked but eventually thought I’d just forget about it because they were repeatedly asking for the same documents and for me to send them money for something which shouldn’t have existed.

So, I decided to use The Secret to unblock the account. I visualised it being unblocked and made myself believe it. Well, guess what; it’s unblocked! I swear! It’s crazy, and yeah, a cynic can put it down to X number of variables but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the Law of Attraction. Out of my excitement has spawned an idea to create another website about ‘Living the Secret’ which I’ll be promoting as soon as it’s up and ready to go.

Bottomline: It freakin’ works!

So, we all know how important it is to do a bit of keyword research before basically doing anything online. Ok, not anything, but you know, if you are writing an article, deciding on a domain name, putting up Google ads, etc…

No, it’s not necessary to research your keywords, in fact, many a wonderful site bases its articles on what is important at the time, or what the writer is thinking, as opposed to what they know their readers are searching for. Really, if you can combine that mind set with a few well researched keywords, you’ll be flying.

How do you search for your keywords though? Well, I’m starting a Google adwords campaign and need to research my keywords first, so, I thought I’d write an article about one of the best free keyword researching programs I have come across.

Here goes…

Web CEO

Web CEO is a program which you must download to use. There is a free option and a paid option, with the free one having more restrictions (obviously) but without a time limit (hurrah!). Upon downloading it, my first impression was that it was a cool and very useful program, even before I had explored it. After trying to do a keyword search, without reading any instructions, I realized that it is one of those programs which has so many options and helpful tools, that completing the one simple task which you needed the program for, is far more complicated than it should be. So, I resorted to downloading the Quick Start PDF guide.

After a few minutes playing around with the program, I realize that yes, it is cool. You have the option to ‘explore the niche’ where you enter a keyword for your site and Web CEO brings up a laaarge list of related words and phrases which it takes from the meta-tags of similar sites…or something like that. You can then click on any word or phrase in the list, and you will be whisked to the ‘get suggestions’ section where you can find out just how profitable or competitive a keyword is. You even get all the ‘better’ keywords highlighted in green. Naturally, you also get MANY a dud keyword, such as with my search for ‘website copywriter’ a keyword suggestion which would have been profitable for me was ‘Ferruccio Busoni Website’.  So, yeah, I’m not going to use that keyword. Another one that kept popping up was ‘website copywriter www.siglandenterprises.com’ …not quite sure how I can work that into an article…

My overall opinion of Web CEO? I think it’s a great program, and though it takes a few minutes to figure out, that’s all it takes. Plus, it’s free and there are plenty of other tools and options to play around with. I will do a thorough review of the program in these coming days. Thumbs up.

Take it for a test drive.

Having a sitemap is either very important, in your view, or completely unimportant. Or perhaps somewhere in between. In forums you’ll find a whole range of opinions on the importance of sitemaps. My opinion is that, firstly, having one won’t hurt you, and also, if you plan on frequently adding more pages, as I do, you probably will benefit from having a sitemap.  (FYI, a sitemap is basically a page that you put on your site which lists all the pages you have, including blog pages if you want it to.)

Until now I have been using a program I downloaded, the name of which I can’t even remember, but anyway, it annoyed me. Far too many options, settings and basically, things that I didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. I wanted something simple. And I found it in Sitemapdoc.com . It had and has all of the features which I wanted.

Firstly, it’s free. Hurrah. Secondly, you don’t need to download anything. Thirdly, it finds ALL of your pages and then gives you the option to untick any pages which you don’t want in your sitemap.

AND, it had a feature which I didn’t even want but was really pleased to have; it tells you if there are any issues with the pages on your website. It showed me a whole load of broken links which I didn’t know I had, and also, it told me of one or two pages which didn’t have information such as meta descriptions or titles. Very cool.

So, I thought I’d share this gem with all of my readers because sometimes, searching for something on the web can mean a labyrinth of Google hell when you find anything but what you want. I found what I wanted eventually, and hopefully will save all of you the hassle of the search.

Till next time,

Ciara

I purchased the world famous and highly successful “The Secret ” after reading many an article on the Law of Attraction and Steve Pavlina’s review of The Secret .

I find the whole topic very interesting and quite believable, as truly the human mind is such an enigma; so much is unknown about it, the one solid truth being that it has immense powers which our conscious minds cannot grasp. For those who are not familiar with the law of attraction, I would direct you right to Steve Pavlina’s site, as he has an abundance of info there for free on the subject and related subjects (in fact, on most subjects). The law basically states that that which you think about becomes reality. And even if you are thinking about NOT wanting something, you will nonetheless attract that very thing, as you continue to think about it. The trick, which is hard, is to think, or try to think, only about what you want, and not about what you don’t want. Not only must you think about what you want, but you must put yourself in the emotional state you would be in when you get what you want. Your imagination and your emotions are the keys to making this work. And avoiding thinking about what you don’t want is of utmost importance, so as not to sabotage your efforts.

This is very difficult to put into action. Say, for example, you are flat broke but want prosperity. Thinking,”I hate being broke” or “I am going to get out of this debt”, will only draw more debt and more being broke. That’s if you subscribe to the Law of Attraction, that is. And I personally do. I have numerous times gotten myself into situations which I hated being in and thought, “Never again will I put myself in situation X”. By naming situation X and thinking about it, I brought into continued existence. I think this is something a lot of people can relate to.

So, if you find the above situation to be true for you, you might try CHOOSING to believe in the Secret (i.e. the Law of Attraction). It’s not something you can use in a half-assed way. You have to either choose to believe it and use it, or not use it at all. If you try to use it on a ‘trial basis’, you will have thoughts in your mind saying such things as, “I wonder if this will work”, which only makes you think about the possibility of it NOT working, and therefore it doesn’t.

Bottom line, I definitely recommend The Secret (also available in book form here). Yes, it’s rather hyped up, but then, it is a really big deal for those that can put it into action. By thinking big, believing you have what you want, you will get it. And by thinking of what you don’t want, which is what most of us do, you only get what you don’t want, which again, most of us do. If you don’t want to go out and buy the DVD or book yet, here’s some further reading on the Law of Attraction:

The Law of Attraction

The Strangest Secret in the World

Antonio Thornton’s rundown on the Law of Attraction

Until the next post, happy attracting…

…and I’ve added some new articles to the Free Reprint Article of Website Copywriter, so go ahead and take a read, it’s all free!

Back to the blog-o-sphere after a short break in Morocco, this time to draw attention to the wonderfully free and professionally written content on Website Copywriter.

Yes, it’s free, but of course, there are terms and conditions, you just need to include the author byline. Aside from that, and if you don’t change the content without our permission, it’s all yours. Take a look at some of the articles available (more coming soon) on the Free Reprint Article page. The articles are great for somebody who has a similar website, i.e. one that focuses on the value of content and ways to build traffic, etc…

For examples of the articles you can use, there is “Why Add Website Content“, “Viral Marketing Guide“, and “Forum Traffic Building“. If you don’t have the right type of website for these articles, or otherwise don’t want to use them (but…but…why?), have a quick read of them as there is some valuable information on there.

Until next blog, all the best,

Ciara

A new website has been recently set up by a renowned and well respected copywriter by the name of Glenn Murray. The website, www.freecopywriting.com is really very cool and covers a market which I think has not yet been covered.

What is so cool about the site? Well, we’ve all stumbled across at least a handful of the thousand of article directory sites, right? They’re everywhere, most are mediocre, some are great and some are awful. But FreeCopyWriting does not fall into the category of article directory. The site offers free copy, yes, but not articles. It is COPY copy, like, to give a few examples; real estate property descriptions, health food packaging copy, web copy for a non-profit organization, and the list goes on. And all the copy is written by professional writers. That’s the important part. It is free, very well written content.

At present, it is still in its pre-teething stage, and will probably take a while before there is truly an abundance of content there, but I believe it will get big. Copywriters benefit by increased exposure, and website owners benefit by getting free professionally written content.

The reason I am promoting FreeCopyWriting by writing this blog entry is because Glenn Murray is one of the nicest guys I’ve met on the net. He helped me out with his kind advice and so I’m trying to repay the favor.

Help me (and yourself) out by heading over to www.freecopywriting.com and browsing through some of the rich content on the site.

It’s been a tough few days, but the new look website is finally up.

I feel that it is far more professional and less flawed (the code is written better) than the previous version, so I’m very, very happy with it.

I just hope it goes down well with everybody else too…

Let me know what you think by contacting me!

When I started this website, in a bid to increase my traffic, I wrote a ton of articles which I then put on article submission sites. (The list of my favourite article submission sites is here.) What really bugged the hell out of me was when I then did a search on Google for one of my article’s title and about 50% of the sites which I found my article on didn’t have a link back to either my site nor the article submission site. Some of said websites credited my work to me, i.e. “written by Ciara Carruthers” but nonetheless, they (surely knowingly) stole my work. That’s what it is: stealing. The content on article submission sites is only free IF webmasters abide by the rule and regulations, which always state that the ‘About the Author’ section must remain intact, along with any live links.

On the side of webmasters, some of you surely have employed the aid of a website copywriter. There are SO many website content writers out there on the net, some offering ridiculously low prices which may deliver a good product, but probably won’t. If you are paying a writer $10 per hour, you can bet he or she is not putting a lot of time into your articles. Plagiarism also abounds on this side of the coin. Writers who work for pennies (and probably also writers who charge more) often copy and paste excerpts from various sources, combining it all into one article which, on the surface, is original, but is definitely plagiarised.

So, the point is, all of us can use and should use the following two free services:

Article Checker - with Article Checker you can copy and paste an entire article into the ‘checker’ and it will bring up different excerpts which seem like they have come from another source on the net. So, if somebody is just copying and pasting various sentences or paragraphs, you’ll know. When you start out with any copywriter, I suggest you use this website to check each article for the first week or so, then sporadically after that.

Copy Scape - allows you to type in the url of your site and find out if anyone is using your copy without your permission. You can also get a html warning to put on your site which goes a little something like this: “Protected by CopyScape” which hopefully will ward off potential content thieves.

I have found that if you do find someone using your content, a simple email saying either “please take my content off your site” or “please add a live link back to my site”, along with a smiling threat such as “or I will take further actions”, does the trick.

Often, people that steal other’s content are so unprofessional that they don’t even have contact details on their site. For this instance, you can go to www.who.is, type in the domain name and find out who owns the site.

Finally, if you are somebody who would even consider using somebody’s content, even by changing it slightly, don’t even go there. In the long run, original and fresh content, even though it takes longer to write, will bring much more traffic and clients. If you feel you can’t write, then you have two choices; firstly, learn to write effective web content or hire a professional website content writer to do it for you (preferably me…)

Top Sites for finding online writing jobs
For any of you out there who strive to become copywriters, here is a list of my favorite sites for finding work.
Sun Oasis is my favourite site but the rest are not listed in any particular order:

Sun Oasis

Online Writing Jobs

Journalism Jobs

Freelance BBS

Go Freelance

About.com (Seem to be always looking for writers but only from set topics which you can see on the website)

Suite 101

If you are looking to join a team of writers, and you have experience, talent or qualifications to bring to the table, I am always looking for writers to join my team. Drop me a line and we can discuss it.