Associate Content Tip of the Day 30 April 2007: 10 Things Not to Do

Today’s tip is from guest contributor Amy Brantley . Amy writes:

“You may love writing for AC, but did you know that certain things can get you banned from the site? It’s true…If you enjoy writing for AC, you should do your best to avoid these behaviors so that your experience with Associated Content will be the best that it can be…#1: Resubmit Without Making Changes…#2: Plagiarize”

>> read all the vital tips…

Associate Content Tip of the Day 28 April 2007: Adding/Deleting Photos

Adding photos to your article
Including a picture with with your article might not increase the original bid, but it does add visibility. Eyes are naturally drawn to pictures before words. Adding a relevant photo increases the chance that mice will click your article.

Sources: StockXchng and MorgueFile both have lots of free-use photos. They both have handy search features to help you find a topical picture quickly. Any site is a potential source if you read the terms and conditions and credit the photo properly. Government sites’ (.gov) photos are normally public domain.

Copyrights: Read the photo’s source site’s terms and conditions. If the photo requires permission be granted prior to use, you’d better get the permission or move on. Even when you do use free-use photos give the photographer credit. There is a spot in the publishing template for their name and URL where you found the photo.

Uploading: Page 5, the last page, of the Associated Content publishing template is where you can upload a picture. Once you locate a picture that you want to use.

1. Right click and choose “Save image…” in your browser. Some sites have a download feature, but the image may be too large for AC’s restrictions. Just use your right-click to save the smaller image.
2. Save the image (remember where you put it)
3. Click the upload button in the template
4. Browse to the save picture
5. Click OK
6. Fill out the copyright, credits and caption information
7. Click “Upload…”

You can upload up to five photos per article. When the article publishes, the pictures will display in order for every page turned. If your article has fewer pages than photos, your readers will have to use the navigation buttons under the photo area to view the extra photos.

Bugs: The Associate Content publishing template currently does not have a “delete photo” feature. Once you upload a picture, it’s permanently attached to your article. If you want to delete it you will need to delete the entire article and start anew.

Associated Content Tip of the Day: 27 April 2007 Fluff & Other Useless Stuff

All writing is not the same.  Fiction is not technical writing.  Most of the articles that Associated Content pays for are close to what is considered technical writing.  You want to cut the fluff.  Don’t pad your writing with useless words and phrases.

It detracts from the impact you want your words to carry. Good writing conveys authority. The examples that follow are shear padding. They burden your reader with unnecessary words, waste their time, and leave them feeling unfulfilled. Give your articles power by avoiding these useless phrases.  >>  read the rest

Associated Content Tip of the Day: 26 April 2007 The Forums

If you are an Associated Content member and haven’t found the forums yet, you’re missing some great information. The forums have tons of tips and plenty of people willing to help. They’ve got the obligatory gripes that any forum has, but are more helpful than not.

To find the forums simply click the “Community” tab. Before you start posting, it’s a very, very, very, good idea to scan the existing threads and read some of the posts. Before you start your journey into the AC forums, read this article. These are the basics for forum etiquette. Following these simple suggestions will ensure that you have a productive and enjoyable forum experience.

I’m still bewildered by people who have not learned the ins and outs of forum etiquette. People who join a group and immediately start asking questions, griping, or generally acting like they know what’s going on with their very first post don’t add value to the community.

Don’t wait until you have a gripe or problem to join the forum. Become a member and contribute something first. Yesterday, I had to call my Forum’s Anonymous sponsor so she could talk me down from bitch-slapping a newbie.

Nothing grabs my nads harder than seeing the first forum post from someone who has been an AC member for almost a year that asks a question that is floating around in 9 other threads. It normally goes like this:

Newbie — Hey, anyone one else having [insert gripe of the day] problem?

OldTimer — Welcome to the forum. I see this is your first post. Thank you for joining our community and jumping right in, starting a new thread that 13 other people have active right now, posting your question in the wrong folder, and making yourself look like a complete idiot. You’ve been here a year and waited until you had a problem before even looking for the forum. Don’t we feel special to be graced with your presence? We’ve just been sitting here, doing nothing waiting for you to stop by with your stupid question. But now that you’re here we can get busy addressing your petty concern.

Thankfully that response is rare in the AC forums, but by following the rules you can guarantee it will never happen.

Read first. I can’t stress it enough. Read the FAQ. Read the other posts. Take 10 minutes and scan the thread titles. 9 out of 10 questions that are asked are answered in the FAQ.

Again, don’t wait until you have a problem or question before you join. You will find that you have something positive to offer in the forums. You are doing others a disservice by not participating and sharing your knowledge.

Now the fun part. Here is a video that explains the rules (flash required). Happy posting.

Associated Content Tip of the Day: 25 April 2007 Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks
Associated Content discourages the use of active hyperlinks in an article body. It is recommended that you limit active URL to the “resources” section of the article. According to the AC submission guidelines it is preferred that any URL in the body be simple text (e.g. www.google.com). To create an active link in the resource area use a standard HTML anchor tag like:

<a href=”http://www.accentuateservices.com”>A Writer’s Forum</a>
Only the words “A Writer’s Forum” would display, but clicking them would direct your browser to the site, like this: A Writer’s Forum.

This is the basic anchor and link tag for HTML. There are other attributes that can be applied to the code, but the resources area of the Associated Content template is limited to 120 characters. You’ll want to keep it simple.

It is possible to use anchor tags in the article body. There are two ways to do this.

1. With the editor ON: Type the text; select the text; click the “create hyperlink” icon on the editor’s toolbar; type or paste the target URL.

2. With the editor OFF: use the above example to create the correct HTML code.

It is not guaranteed to produce the desired results. If any part of the tag matches one of AC’s keywords the publisher will hack your URL and put its own hyperlink in its place. What are the keywords? No one knows the entire list. Most U.S. state names are AC keywords. This makes embedding an anchor/href to a state government agency almost impossible in the article body.

You may create a link to The Official Website of the State of Alabama by typing the HTML tag <a href=”http://www.alabama.gov/portal/index.jsp”>The Official Website of the State of Alabama</a> . When you hit the publish button, AC’s “interlinking” software will scan your article and replace “Alabama” with their own link to search results from the AC web site.

The resulting link code would look like: <a href=”http://www.alabama.gov/portal/index.jsp”>The Official Website of the State of</a><a href=”http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/123/Alabama.html”>Alabama</a> .

Notice that the anchor tag closes after “State of”. The result is two links, pointing to two destinations, but appearing as one continuous highlighted phrase in the article.

Some common words like “running” are AC keywords. Even celebrity names are keywords. You never know what will happen with a link embedded in the body of your article. Use them sparingly.

VA Tech Murder by Political Correctness

Virginia Tech: Murder by Political Correctness
I had to get serious for a bit.  These thoughts started brewing the day after the tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia.  As with most things in life, asking “why?” gets the brain stimulated.  My thoughts here are based partially on my own college experiences as well as my children’s.  This is not an excuse for Cho Seung-Hui’s actions.  It is a look behind what leads us to insanity and isolation. Read more »

Associate Content Tip of the Day 20 April 2007: SEO Density is not enough

Do you need help with your keyword/phrase density. Do you want to learn how to drive traffic to your articles. Associated Content’s very savvy Nannette Richford writes about how keyword density is not enough. Well written and well researched.

Two new articles just out. Writing Tips & REM. Learn & have fun.

Useless Phrases that Killed Your Writing’s Impact Even the best writer can fall prey to these killer phrases. Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you didn’t edit sufficiently. Maybe you don’t know better. These are the phrases that detract from your writing and give your article the impact of a wet noodle in lunar gravity. These are the phrases that qualify as padding in web/article writing. Learn what they are. Avoid them at all cost. Read more »

10 Essential REM Videos on Youtube Need a pocket collection of one of the world’s best bands? Check out the essential collection of REM videos available via the mysterious magic of Youtube. There are probably a few memories in here for you. This was and AC special content request, but I had fun doing it. I wanted to do it months ago. I’m glad I waited. When AC guaranteed a minimum rate, I jumped at it. Read more »

Associated Content Writing Contest: Deadline 13 May 2007

Publishing Deadline: 13 May 2007.

Submissions are now being accepted for the Best Kept Secret of My Town/City contest. The winner will be picked by the AC staff and awarded $125. Note that this is a publishing deadline.

New content producers at Associated Content must have 3 articles reviewed before they are allowed to publish instantly. If you are signing up as new you better get busy. It takes 1-2 weeks to get an article through the review process. That means that new CP should submit ASAP.

How you can enter

1. Write a 400 word on longer account of the Best Kept Secret of Your Town/City.
2. Put ___ city/town’s Best Kept Secret in the sub headline field. (Example: Headline: Anderson Park Subheadline: Denver’s Best Kept Secret)
3. Submit your story to AC using the Local template.
4. Select either the non-exclusive or exclusive option.
5. Select non-pay for quicker processing. While entries submitted for payment are acceptable, please note that your submission must be published on Associated Content by May 13^th. Submitting content for payment review takes longer for your content to get published.

If it were me, I’d use non-exclusive and non-pay as the submission options, but that’s a personal preference.

Analysis of Selected Titles for Associated Content Articles

These are the results of some experimentation that I’ve been doing with my article titles at Associated Content. The goal was to see how key, search words affect the page view count (PV) of an article. I hope you find it helpful in constructing your own titles. Keep in mind most of these articles were submitted to AC without up-front payment. Most are satire and comedy. I might be mixing apples and oranges from a content perspective, but this is only about the titles.

I’m not the most prolific writer at AC. I hold no illusions that these are huge page view numbers though they might be typical. You can start laughing now if you’r one of those CP that gets 10k per article. If you are one of those rare animals, you don’t need this analysis so bugger off.

My blog has a “What terms were used to find your blog” report. Since I have the titles of all of my articles on this blog, this is the source of my comments about how the article was searched. The following table outlines the hit count, title and my analysis of why it worked or didn’t.

PV	Title	Analysis
717	Amazing New Nonlethal Self Defense Product Just Out	A farce product promotion. Non-paid. The keywords “nonlethal” “self defense” appear to keep this one afloat.
375	Hollywood Elects Al Gore King of the World	Rattled off in an hour during the Oscars. Non-paid. Seems either no one thought this was funny or no one is interested in Al Gore or Hollywood. Probably the former.
1,164	Annoying and Dangerous Driving Habits	Decent traffic. Non-paid. “Annoying” “Driving Habits” and a few times “Annoying Driving Habits” were used to find this article.
1,266	Netflix is Scaring Me	Decent traffic. Non-paid. Obviously, anything with “Netflix” in it is a gem. Add “Scaring Me” to pique the human curiosity.
457	Chinese Missile Destroys Satellite	This is a send-up of a fairly big news story. Non-paid. Probably dated. I thought this would have done better. Maybe it was too late after the event to get hits. Lesson learned about news? Maybe.
1,010	Cheap Overlooked Vacation Packages	Non-paid. This is my favorite as far as titles go. I did this intentionally to scoop up page views from people looking for travel destinations. I love imagining the shock and anger at finding this spoof. Seems to be working, too.
965	Cell Phone Use in Polite Society	Non-paid. “Cell Phone” is probably the reason this did fairly well. That and it’s an excellent treaties on our modern world.
278	Holiday Shopping Hints or How to Serve Your Country	Something that had been brewing in my head for a long time. Non-paid. Maybe the low traffic is the result of the non-season currently. More likely, I over did this title by adding the “or.” It may have done better with a different title.
1,252	Relationships What Women Want	You got to love this one. Non-paid. This one is still getting hit. I named it after the movie title on purpose. Beyond a very good title, it’s a wildly amusing article.
230	Confessions of an AC Content Producer 3	Done on a bet, sort of. Non-paid. Obviously no one cares about the internal workings of the AC CP community or the ranting of one of it’s more maniacal content producers.
846	Debunking Astrology Myth in the Modern Era	Done on a bet, actually. Paid. I was presently surprised that AC paid $8 for this. It was a slow start, but it is racking up the hits monthly. This is as close to “evergreen” as I may every come.
410	When Veterans Day is Personal	Very personal. Non-paid. Maybe it will do better in November. This is why AC doesn’t pay for memoirs. I think this is my best article to date, but the personal aspect of it is a PV-killer.
428	AntiPsychic for Hire	A farce; a jab. Non-paid. I should have separated the word “Psychic” from the rest. That may have helped.
4,349	My Top Eight Reasons for Hating MySpace.com	Yep. Non-paid. Who knew? 4k and growing. This gets hit at least every other day. “top eight” “MySpace” are the keys here. I was getting so much crap from the Spacers that I had to change the link to this article on my blog to apologize to their search engine.

Quite frankly, I don’t know what this tells us. Keywords in your title are crucial to the success of your article. What you put in and what you leave out can make all the difference. I’m sure there are those who are going to laugh at my paltry page views, but from a statistical point of view, I think this is a valid, if non-scientific, analysis.

I invite your comments and would love to see your experience. Take a minute to look at your PV-to-title ratio and let us know if what I see is what you see.