How To

The Idiot’s Guide to Write 1000 Words in 30 Minutes

There was a certain time that I had so many articles to write up for myself and for some freelance clients I had then. However, the problem at that time wasn’t that I couldn’t write fine, but simply because I had the inability to write fast – in short, I wrote articles slower than a snail during that period.

For those who still write very slowly, you already understand what I mean – Write 100 words now and stop to read/edit it for close to 1 hour – this was one of the things I was busy doing enthusiastically then. And because of that much wasting of time on one article, I sometimes ended up writing a single 600 words article for close to 8 hours (and yes, it was that bad).

What could an innocent me do?  ;)

My clients were angrily waiting for their articles which I seriously was behind schedule and hadn’t sent; while my numerous readers were shouting their lungs out in other to have me write another post that I hadn’t written in like 2 weeks.

That was when I knew this had to stop.

no way

So how did I stop writing like a snail and more like Usain Bolt?

You want to know? Well, I went out, researched and found a remedy for slow writing that I could single-handedly use to write up a 1000 words post within 30 minutes.

You want to know the tactics I used to write faster? Then, without wasting much of your time, these 4 nuggets below are exactly how you can also write faster than you present can.

1. Write First . . . Edit Later.

Believe me, I know it sounds insane to write and not cross check what you’re actually punching out to the screen. Yes, it’s weird, but it’s one of the fastest ways to write up any first draft.

And believe me, no first draft is ever pretty, if you doubt me try asking Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter – he’ll surely back me up.

However, you might ask yourself or even me, “How can I start this habit of not editing while I’m writing?” That’s a nice question. And to answer that – the best way to do this is to turn off your writing software’s spell checker.

Why on earth should I turn it off?” It’s simple. First of all, the job of a spell checker is to examine your write up and show you the typos and grammatical blunders readily available in the copy you’re writing.

So when you turn it off, you won’t have any desire to go back and start correcting little errors you find, since you won’t see any red signal i.e. like in Microsoft word, indicating that you’ve committed an error.

The next question will surely be, “How do I turn my writing software’s spell checker”?

This depends on the type of writing software you use for your writings. I use Microsoft word – and I know majority of you also do – so let’s show you how to turn MS WORD’s spell checker off.

To do exactly that –

Click on the Microsoft Logo – at the top let hand side of your computer screen (shown below)

ms logo

This will bring out the menu of MS WORD. Find and click on “Word Options”.

ddropddownn

That will bring the Grammar Setting Page. Locate and click on “Proofing”.
proofing

Once Proofing page has been shown to you; go ahead to untick those three check button I pointed to in the image below (And of course, when you’re through with your first draft, then you can enable them again for proper proofreading).
untickk

That is it. Once you’ve un-ticked those check buttons, you’re done. You can now go ahead to write ceaselessly without thinking of editing.

But if in case you’re not an MS WORD fan, then you can try out DarkRoom and WriteRoom (for Windows and Mac respectively) – and these writing softwares don’t come with spell checkers at default. So give them a try.

2. Time Yourself. . . To Write Faster.

A goal without a time constraint factor kind of sounds like a wish. If you want to see yourself writing faster than you do now, then you need to start restricting yourself to a set time. To do this, I normally make use of Pomodoro app for Windows to time my writing while I write.

For those who haven’t heard of it before, it’s a desktop app that can be used to time oneself to a 25 minutes work period and a 5 minutes break time.

How can you leverage it effectively in fast writing?

Yes, I know you might ask this question. To use this app effectively, once you’re done your research and have read up everything you need to know about the topic. The next thing to logically do is click on the timer and immediately start writing.

And the writing should be a continual thing until the timer rings for break period. Once you keep at it, you’ll notice that you’ll be writing faster than you’ve ever written.

3. Research And Kill Your Distractions . . . Before Writing.

Researching before writing any piece out can not be over emphasized. It’s very very important and can’t be casually overlooked. When we talk about fast writing, we’re simply talking about researching indepthly so that what’s left of the process would be to write the copy out to the end without going online to cross check facts and figures that we might have forgotten.

And when we begin to continually check up on those figures and facts, the writing process starts to stall, to an extent that it’ll keep someone writing a little 500 words piece for over 2 long hours, instead of the usual 20 minutes.

Believe me, before; I used to waste that amount of time on such small writing just because I was always going on the internet to read more about the parts that I forgot to research on. And sometimes, when I land on Google for research purposes, I usually end up researching entirely different figures or even go on to chat on facebook, thereby derailing and delaying the writing for quite some time.

That said, to stop the derailing part of the writing process, I had to start researching more brilliantly and strategize ways not to forget what I’ve read up in other not to start going online to check up on more facts – and going off beat.

So what I did was simply using Evernote to store up long or short materials related to what I was to write about (believe me, you need to try it out – it’s FREE). And also, I leveraged Evernote’s Skitch to clip/snap screens I needed for tutorial write ups so that I won’t go about getting derailed again in the name of getting online to do it when I wanted to write that section of the tutorial.

Now, after all these have been taken cared of – I usually want to start writing at once, but even upon all these researches that I’ve done, I knew within me that I could still be tempted to go online and do other things amid writing (like facebooking and opening mails ). So I leveraged the use of the Chrome Pomodoro add-on to block me from using the internet (well, not entirely the internet per say; the add-on blocks selected time wasters’ websites you give it block), and yes, even though the app is a little bit annoying, but it helps me stay focused on writing only.

So after researching crazily using all this aforementioned research tools, and also blocking the time wasting websites, what’s left will be to write only. And when writing is the only thing on your mind to do – you kind of see yourself finishing it in less time more than it would have taken you without these aforementioned apps and tools above.

So give this strategy a try today and see a significant improvement in how long it’ll take for you to churn up a long piece of writing.

4. Keep Writing Non-stop.

This section is quite simple: Ignore the errors, grammatical blunders, typos, and any other things that have the power to stop you momentarily when you want to really start writing.

Once all of them have been ignored, what remains now is to start writing. Just write. Don’t mind anything. Don’t even think of what to write up next, because each word being thrown across the screen have already been embedded way long in your head while you’ were researching on the topic you’re currently writing on.

So leave thinking aside and just write. I know there will be enormous amounts of typos – especially mistyped words – but that’s the core beauty of writing fast. Just ignore them and keep on writing. I know that you will be overly tempted to clean up some typos using the backspace button; yes I know, because I’m always tempted to use it, too. However, even if you and I can’t stop using the backspace button, at least, we can limit how much we hit it whenever we type out grammatical typos.

The best ways to limit the hit of that button is to make a vow not to press that particular button no matter how bad the typo looks like.
When that has been taken cared of, you’ll notice that writing becomes a thing of joy since you’ll be writing so fast that you can literally be punching out 25- 30 words per minutes, and up to 1000 words in 15 -20 minutes

And YES! That’s you being insanely fast! ;)

If I have attempted it before and finished a write up of nearly 600 words in 15 minutes, then you can even finish yours in 10 -12 minutes if you keep on practicing this strategy of “writing nonstop” until you reach the end of the article.

In conclusion. . 

The world is going quite fast . . . And the internet is getting faster. If you want to meet up with those writing deadlines in no time and still be in the good books of your clients, then you’ve got to be a fast writer.

Therefore, leverage this wonderful craft now and write your way to stardom.

And finally, before I go I’ll like to ask, “How long does it take you to write up a 1000 word piece and what is that thing that’s presently stalling the writing process?”

Lets meet in the comment section to interact on this awesome question.

Thanks for reading . . . Don’t forget to share this awesome piece.

The Dirty Little Guide to Optimizing Your Blog for Google Hummingbird

Google has dropped its age old Core Search Algorithm and replaced it with a brand new version called “Google Hummingbird.”

But have you optimized your website or blog for this new algo? Have you changed your content marketing strategy for higher ranking of your blog posts in Google SERPs?

Even though you think your answer is “Yes,” most probably, you are “Not.” The reasons – you are not clear:

1. What is Google Hummingbird?

2. Why Google introduced it?

3. How to optimize your blog or blog posts with this new Google Hummingbird algorithm?

Continue reading… to know in-depth about Google Hummingbird, and a simple yet effective SEO strategy to optimize your blog for this algorithm.

Google Hummingbird

Understanding Google Hummingbird

Google uses a set of search engine algorithms to index, analyze and rank web-content semantically to provide the best possible results to web-searchers.

Using these computer driven algorithms they index billions of web-pages and store them in large servers located in different parts of the world. Then analyze searcher’s query using semantic search technology. Finally, ranks different web-pages using various ranking signals. Google uses more than 200 search engine ranking signals to return the best possible results to searchers. So, indexing, analyzing and ranking are the three basic jobs of Google Search Engine.

Google Hummingbird is Google’s new Core Search Engine Algorithm to meet the search behavior of modern people, and to be the best answering engine in the world.

Query Rewriting: Back in year 2003, Google had filed a patent for query rewriting which was passed in 2011. Query rewriting is the technique to incorporate conversational search in Google.

It means – rephrasing searcher’s query implementing semantically available data to understand the actual meaning or intent. The data may be like place, device used, search history, synonyms of keywords used, and various information shared with Google by the searcher. And Google Hummingbird is better positioned to handle the query rewriting than its older counterpart.

Why Google is thinking about “Query Rewriting” now?

The change needed to be done, because people have become so reliant on Google that they now routinely enter lengthy questions into the search box instead of just a few words related to specific topics.

Amit Singhal, the head of Google’s core ranking team.

The statement speaks lot of things. It means – searchers are using long-tail queries instead of few head-terms. They usually enter their search keywords in the form of questions. That means conversational search is on rise. And most of the conversational or voice search comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. To better understand the conversational search Google implemented query rewriting, and to better handle query rewriting Google Hummingbird is the right set of algorithm.

Entity Search: To return the best possible results to searchers Google has been constantly shifting its focus from few ranking signals like keywords, links and link anchor-texts. And focusing more and more on entity search or meaning search.

The reason- You can manipulate keywords, you can manipulate links and link anchor-texts, but you can’t manipulate the meaning or the theme of the web-page or article. So, Google uses query rewriting to understand the actual intent or meaning behind the search query and try to find and rank relevant web-content which actually fulfills the searcher’s needs.

In the context of search, entity means – people, places or things. Google has stored millions of structured data which are verified and validated in its knowledge graph. These data act as entity, or people, places or things. Semantic search technique uses various data like place of the searcher, device used for the search purpose, search history and behavior of the searcher and various other information shared with Google by the searcher.

By leveraging its vast knowledge graph along with semantically available data about the searcher, Google perform entity search or meaning search with the help of query rewriting. Entity search doesn’t mean Google only looks for a specific entity in their knowledge graph or in the web. It actually tries to establish a relation between the entities in the search query and find the searcher’s intent or actual needs.

For example: Suppose you do a Google search for “I want to buy an iPhone.”

“I” is an entity. “An iPhone” is an entity. And “want to buy” combines or links the other two entities to establish a meaning or intent.

Data shows – number of searches from mobile devices will surpass search performed from desktops by the end of 2014. Voice search or conversational search is gaining pace rapidly. And Google Hummingbird is the best search engine algorithm to understand meaning or intent of the searchers.

Authorship Rank: There has been lot of chatter about Google Authorship Rank since last one year or so. When you implement your authorship mark-up to a piece of content in the web, Google attributes you as the creator of the content or author of the content.

Authorship Rank acts like a double edged sword. When you create some really great content which people like to bookmark, share with their friends (via social media) and revisit again and again, then you become an authoritative publisher in the eyes of Google. That means your Authorship Rank goes up and Google ranks your content higher in search results. The opposite thing happens when you create low quality web-content or articles which don’t fulfill searchers needs.

Always keep in mind – You’ve implemented your Authorship Markup means you’re sending all possible data to Google as an author or creator of your content. Web-content with authorship markup not only get higher CTR, but also ranks high in search results. Google+ and Google Hummingbird combinedly helps Google to use Authorship Rank as a ranking signal.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web-spam team hopes Authorship Rank will be explored by Google in near future. Check out the video here.

Social Signal: Before the release of Google Hummingbird, time and again, Google has said that they are not using social signals like Facebook likes, Tweets and G+ in their ranking algorithms. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web-spam team has personally cleared this fact at various meetings and conferences.

One argument is “Correlation doesn’t mean causation.” If a web-page is ranking high and has 100s of Facebook shares, re-tweets and Google +s; this doesn’t always mean the page is ranking because of high number of social sharing (or social sharing by influencers). It might be that more number of people found the page helpful and shared in the social media. The page may have other strong search engine ranking signals for which it ranked higher.

For example: This year there was heavy rain and maximum people were wearing Yellow rain coats. You can’t simply correlate Yellow rain coats with heavy rain. You can’t tell – there was heavy rain because maximum people were wearing Yellow rain coats.

Why Google is not using social signal for content ranking? Not because Google doesn’t like social signal; because it had technical limitations to use social signals as a ranking factor.

With Google Hummingbird Google can process social signals in a more efficient way. And in near future you will start seeing Google Plus impacting search results. So also the likes, tweets and stumbles.

  • Google Hummingbird is a platform for Google to incorporate existing algorithms like Panda, Penguin etc. and also the advanced algos to be developed in the future.

Google Hummingbird Takeaways (Act Now)

1. Keywords: Craft your content or web-pages around a theme or concept, instead of keywords. By encrypting all searches (https://) or making “keyword not provided” 100%, Google has cleared its intention. Google has gone beyond keywords.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put keywords in your content which your target audience are actively searching for. But your content should answer some specific queries of your visitors or searchers.

2. Long-tail Keywords: Did Google Hummingbird kill long-tail keywords?

No. Google Hummingbird acts at query level and makes long search keywords used by searchers in to short by query rewriting. It doesn’t affect the long-tail keywords in your content while ranking. You should construct quality and meaningful content keeping long-tail keywords in mind.

3. Links: Did Google Hummingbird kill links and link anchor-texts?

No. Although the value of links and anchor-texts as a ranking signal has reduced a bit, but it will be here for long time. Page Rank (PR) still flows via links, and Google doesn’t want you solely depend on links for better ranking of your content.

4. Mobile Optimization: Your website or blog theme should be optimized for all types of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Basically, it should be responsive and fast loading.

If your website doesn’t offer a better mobile user experience, your rankings will drop in desktop search also, along with mobile devices.

5. Panda & Penguin: Where are Google Panda and Penguin?

Algorithms like Panda, Penguin, Top-heavy, EMD etc. which are filters or algorithmic penalties are parts of Google Hummingbird. Algorithms which will be developed in future to catch spammers or to rank web-content higher will also be parts of Google Hummingbird.

6. Author Rank: As of now Google has not declared about it officially. But be prepared for it. By introducing Google+, Google Hummingbird and Authorship Mark-up Google has made its intention clear.

Everything you create on the web, whether on your own blog or on others blog will be attributable by Google towards Authorship Rank. Spammy authors will be equally punished by reducing their AR.

7. Data Validation: Google thinks its Knowledge Graph and Wikipedia (to some extent) always provide correct facts and figures. If your article doesn’t resemble their data then it will be ranked lower. On the other hand, if you contribute Google’s Knowledge Graph by providing high quality and authentic data on your web-page, then Google will rank your content higher.

8. Social Signal: Google Plus will play a major role in coming days by providing social signals to Google for ranking content. Your brand or website should have its own Google+ page. And if you perform better, may be in future, your brand will be a part of Knowledge Graph.

Decreasing authority (sequence) of social signals will be like Google+, Twitter, Facebook etc.

9. Advanced Link Analysis: Google Hummingbird is going to fulfill Google’s long cherished wish of analyzing different kinds of links for assigning different values. Now also Google is doing it. But it will be more sophisticated in coming days.

The value of a link on the sidebar, on the footer, within the article and inside the author-box will be calculated with more accuracy.

10. User Experience: Time spent, CTR and user interaction with the web-page will be more important for ranking content with Google Hummingbird. Along with quality content, focus on your website or blog theme like navigation, readability, contrast etc. for better user experience.

Dear friends. Greetings from Google Hummingbird! ;)

Because you love to create content and always adopt White Hat SEO Techniques. With the introduction of Google Hummingbird there will be no place for spammers in the future. Bloggers and content marketers with good intention will be rewarded highly for their hard work.

This is Akash KB, signing-out from AllBloggingTips.com, till next post Happy Blogging :)

Don’t forget to shoot your comments (questions), I’ll be right here to answer them ;)

How Using Google’s Disavow Link Tool May Help Rid of Bad Backlinks

Bad backlinks and the impact they will have on SEO has become a concerning factor among different webmasters and site owners.  With the introduction of the Penguin update which was set to penalize low value backlinks, the situation will worsen with the upcoming Penguin 2.0. Site owners may be justified for crying foul as they often don’t have control over links from external websites. A competitor could deliberately point thousands of spam links to your site to encourage penalties on your side, a practice known as bad SEO.

Even sites that are not targeted by such spam links may still be penalized for past link building practices as long as they don’t confirm to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, and if they fail to have such links removed.

Google-Disavow-Links-Tool-Graphic

Fortunately there is a way in which webmaster can resolve the matter, and that’s by using Google’s Disavow Link tool. Basically the Disavow link tool lets site owners submit files through the Google Webmaster Tool listing those links that should be valued and those to be devalued.

Say you have 5 good links pointing back and one bad one. With Disavow link tool you can let Google know of the 5 links you would like considered when your site’s links are valued.

This has actually come as a great solution to webmasters and site owners struggling to remove low value backlinks, and with Google’s Penguin 2.0 set to roll into motion it will be gravely important for site owners to remove poor quality links. However there are some things to bear in mind when using this feature.

Disavow Links May Harm You

Note that if you submit links incorrectly and choose to remove non malicious links your site could drop in search engine rankings. For example, if you choose eliminating links by domain name instead of by individual backlinks you risk removing links from good sites which may have actually contributed to your site being where it is.

Use Disavow Only In the Event of An Attack

With the potential of harming your search engine rankings, site owners should only use Disavow links once sure that they’ve fallen prey to negative SEO, or in the event that certain backlink issues are not resolved with other site owners.

Separate Negative Backlinks from Beneficial Links

Note that the process of separating negative backlinks from beneficial ones can be a hectic process and one that will devour your time and effort. Sites such as Majestic SEO charge $49.99 to retrieve your entire link profile. From then it will be up to you to determine which links are worth removing and which are not. Bear in mind that certain malicious looking links may actually be rated by search engines, and it will depend on how they are placed on the referring site.

How Disavow Links May Harm Your Website Rankings

Google hasn’t really given a solid explanation on how it uses data obtained from the Disavow Link Tool. Although it may remove reported links from your site’s profile, it also reserves the right to thoroughly and independently review your submission and decide on which links to value or dis-value.

Given that the links submitted may come useful as supporting evidence in the event that you want your business reconsidered by Google after penalization in search rankings. With the potential harm associated with using the tool incorrectly it will best to use the services of a qualified SEO professional instead of attempting to troubleshoot and repair damage from SEO attacks on your own.

If you want to know more about using Google Disavow tool in details read this.

Did I missed any point? Are you using this Google Disavow tool? Does it really work?

The Ultimate Guide: 5 Ways to Promote Your Blog Effectively

Strategy to market your blogNow, let’s get serious here about reason and why to promote your blog.

You’ve written that wonderful and informative post which everybody has been dying to get their hand on; and you edit, proofread and lastly end up posting it on your blog. And months later, there’s no buzz about the blog post, no comment whatsoever.

But the fact still remains that no matter how good and informative a blog post is; if it isn’t seen by readers, then it’s almost useless all the same.