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photo credit: joiseyshowaa

It happens to everyone. If not now, then later. Writer’s Block.

If you are writing the next great American novel, then only you have to know you have it. But if you’re writing a blog, people will notice the lack of posts. And they may stop visiting. Or worse, they may take you off of their blogroll.

For me, it’s been a couple of days since I last posted on Semi Pro Blogging. So I sat down at my computer wanting to write. I do have a few posts in mind, but they are more nuts and bolts instructional in nature. And at this particular time, I’m not feeling instructional.

So I went exploring for inspiration. Rather than get out to explore, I explored the vast world of Flickr. There you can find an infinite number of pictures in need of a story. Use your imagination. Engage in some free association. The next thing you know, you’ll have the makings of a post.

For example, for this post, I typed in the word “inspiration” in the WordPress Photo Dropper plugin and began browsing. I didn’t quite find the photo that I wanted. So I free associated “inspiration” with “Colorado”. I used to live in Colorado and found the place awe inspiring. Hence the association. So I typed in the word “Colorado”. And came upon the lead photo above. And then I began writing.

And so can you. Happy photo hunting. And happy blogging.

photo credit: Bobbie

Okay, disregard the tabloid, attention grabbing headline to the right.

And lets focus on some serious copywriting.

It’s been said that most good copywriters spend 50 to 80 percent of their time writing the headline. Wow, that seems to be an extraordinary amount of time for a few words. But those few words can make the difference between a mediocre ad and one that is a blockbuster seller.

Sometimes. One letter can make a huge difference. Which brings us back to the question of this post’s headline: Which Headline is Better?

Put Music in Your Life

or

Puts Music in Your Life

Watch the below video of Copywriter Trevor “Toe Cracker” Crook to find out.

So you have a blog and you pasted some Google AdSense ads on your blogs. When you did so, did you just accept Google’s default color scheme which don’t match your blog’s link color?

Well if so, you may be leaving money on the table.

Why?

Because, Google AdSense links that match the colors of your blog’s link tend to perform better than those that don’t match. While I don’t have scientific evidence to back this up, there tends to be a consensus out there regarding this advice.

Great you say. So what differentiates this particular post with those of the multitude of other similar posts. Here, I’ll show you how to match colors.

Let’s take my blog Instantly Iconic as an example. There, my blog links and AdSense links are orange.

As with my other blogs, I use WordPress as the platform to run the site. So this example will be WordPress centric. The directions for other platforms should be similar.

The first thing you should do is determine the color code for your blog’s links. To do so, goto your WordPress Dashboard and select the Presentation > Theme Editor tabs.

Next, look for a file called style.css. In your list, it may be displayed as something different such as “stylesheet”, but the actual name of the file should be style.css.

I usually search for the word “hover” or “visited” because these words are typically associated with hyperlinks. [Note: I am not a programmer by any means, I’m just a simple attorney. So please forgive the lack of precise technical jargon. But if you’re reading this, that might be a good thing.] Once you find one of those words, you should be close to the link color code section.

In my blog, I found it associated with the following code:

/*—:[ global elements ]:—*/

a { color: #e1771e; text-decoration: underline; }

a:visited { color: #e1771e; text-decoration: underline; }

a:hover { color: #0060ff; text-decoration: underline; }

a img { border: none; }

When you look at the code, look for the word “color” followed by a six character alphanumeric code. In this case, it is e1771e. The other code, 0060ff, is the color when your pointer hovers over the hyperlink.

Now that you have the code, go into your AdSense account. Type in the code in the “title” and “URL” fields.

As you type in the information, Google AdSense will display the color that you typed in. Hopefully, if you got the code right, the AdSense link color and your blog’s link color will match.

Sex Sells

photo credit: Sérgio Savaman Savarese

Let’s face it. Sexy people get attention. Like the photo to the left. The sexy girl certainly looks like she’s got the attention of the two museum patrons in the foreground. Just what is capturing her attention? Is it her body? Her face? Or her stunning eyes? Whatever it is. It is keeping their attention.

And that’s what you want to do with your blog. Is your blog sexy?

Not sexy in the sense that you have racy content. But sexy in the sense that your blog is visually appealing. Is it something that invites people to stop and look? To stop and appreciate?
I’ve tried to make Semi Pro Blogging sexy. To do so, I wanted to have a visually pleasing and professional looking theme. Further, with each post, I strive to have either a stunning photo (Creative Commons licensed of course) or some graphic to indicate what series the post topic fall under.

That way, I avoid having just text on a post.

Of course, if you don’t have great content to go along with the sexy, then your blog would be the equivalent to the “dumb blonde”.

So if you are blogging. Don’t just blog with intelligent words. Blog with sex appeal. Capture your reader’s attention visually first. Then keep them with awesome writing.

WordPress can be used for so many reasons. And while not “making money” in the direct sense of the word, you can use WordPress as your own personal knowledge base to organize your thoughts, ideas, and information.

Now why would you want to publish those thoughts to the world if you wish it to be your own personal knowledge base.

Well that’s just it. You don’t have to publish it. You can keep it private.

And I do such a thing with a free wordpress.com blog. Here’s the steps on how to create a private blog.

1. Sign in to your wordpress.com account, or create a new one
2. Follow the instructions to create or register a blog
3. Type in your desired name and make sure there there is no check mark in the box marked “Privacy” so your private blog won’t be indexed by Google
4. Once created, go into the blog’s dashboard and go to the Options > Privacy tabs
5. Select “I would like my blog to be visible only to users I choose”
6. When you’re writing a post, expand the “Post Status” tab in the right sidebar and select “Private”
7. After you have completed writing the post, click the “Save” icon, NOT the Publish icon.

You will know that you’ve done it correctly when you view the title of your post. It should start with “Private:” followed by the post title.

That’s three layers of privacy selections that I use to keep my private knowledge base private. The beauty of having a private knowledge base is that you can put any information you feel useful to you in there and categorize and tag as you see fit. Thus, you can look for information by browsing categories or tags. Plus, you can run a word search. I build to my private knowledge base every day. It is now so much easier for me to locate information that I’ve stored in my private blog. And it’s made my work so much more efficient.

One final note, to double check that outsiders can’t view your blog, log out of your wordpress.com account and type in the web address of your private blog. You should get the following message and log in screen.

Has this been helpful? Leave a comment below.