As I try hard to quench all my creative juices to come out with something really very interesting, I was struck by this weird idea of taking a dig on the art of writing. Calling it an art seems to be too obvious for most of us, but did we ever take the pains of regarding this act of creative carnival as a science too? No wonder most of you would now be frowning on the weird pint of view that I have just put forth in front of you, but it will be quite interesting to reveal the fact. Although it won’t be that easy for me to impress each pair of eyes reading this!

It’s really wonderful how a human mind works and cultures such a myriad number of ideas in a lifetime of a human being on this earth. Each and every human travels through a distinctive journey of life. The balance between the bitter ones and the sweet ones varies on a large scale. Don’t forget that the human civilization has been fortunately or unfortunately divided into the dual class of existence – male and female. Whether you take the physiological or the psychological aspects, both are similarly different. Not all cerebral entities are gifted with the sword of penning down the visible experiences that tend to shape themselves in disparate stories on a piece of paper. Our eyes and our mind always start wondering and pondering on just one thought – how did that writer bring all that experience in such a beautifully explained story? So, ladies and gentlemen, that’s writing as an art for you. Not everyone can match the depth of Arundhati Roy or the thought provoking ability of Salman Rushdie (I can remember these two names only, for the moment; please use a bit of your own knowledge also).

A small bunch of friends come to your house and you serve them with your first ever made ‘French omlette’ to them. A silent bedlam will definitely haunt you immediately, but some of your good friends may not admit that you have just broken the record of making the most horrible omlette in the world. When you are pouring out your refined creative lubricant in the form of words, it is very important to remember that someone else will dig in his/her eyes to read the write-up that you have just popped out of your mind. Many writers need the balls to write some irritating stuff for their readers. Well, I just can’t comment on how many people do have those balls and how many of them don’t! There are many ways of making a write-up readable. Multiculturalism is evidently found on this planet. Thus, the tastes for reading also vary to great degrees. Clamoring down all the ideas haphazardly never leads a writer to reach the heart of the reader. Knowing the audience is extremely important to ensure about the subject on which one should work upon. For some writers, region is as important as the tone of the write-up. Being abreast with the latest interest of the people all across the world is another factor which makes a writer travel through the tougher terrains of developing the pack of words where he/she leaves no space for a chance. At the end of the day, all are humans and most of us have the same old habit of craving for more!

There are numerous evidences in the history of the human civilization where art and science have merged to create magic. In the profession of writing too, this amalgamation is extremely necessary to pull out the curtains of true human experiences and tell the world about the fascinating story of human mind and its ability to create mansions of limitless imagination.

New age professional writers besides having to fight the uninterrupted melancholies of writing by the rules at work also have to confront an ever increasing urge to throttle the all knowing client whose creativity starts and ends with C for ‘convenience’. With microblogging becoming the mode of communication for the better part of the population online, professional writing is being relegated to the dusty corners of a yesteryear typist’s den.

The professional writer is realizing that his words are not just meant for reading and remembering anymore, they have to quickly enter through the reader’s eyes and sculpt a mini-second long nook in his mind while the second word is already shoving its way through after. Each word and the impact it creates lasts a nano-second in the brain before the reader unfailingly ‘moves on’. Like SMS breakups, the reader’s urge to move on is so strong, that you’re a self professed net-o-bard if you had the visitor on your page for more than a minute.

Writing is increasingly becoming like any other experience of today- good writing has to have an instant impact, great recall value and as direct as communication can be- the indulgences of reading, perceiving, analysing and then pondering are the luxuries of a few and chosen.

If authors can now write 140 character stories and create a dedicated network of readers following their work like gum on paper, your reader is obviously progressing to an experience of the ear. The aural delights of a piece of writing are clouding the visual (AND sensual) experience of holding a book and turning pages thanks to e-book readers/i-pads and other ‘they-that-I-don’t-want-to-name’. What stays is what you liked ‘hearing’- the sound of a word, the way the reader read it, or the manner in which the last syllable of the word wraps and snuggles into the word- case cited- try the word ‘mollified’- the ‘word experience’ is like you met a small kid in a polka dress that suddenly grew up into this clot of anger and lunged out at you. You’ll never forget this word if you remember how you heard it in your mind.

These were tricks that we played in school to remember new words- but the new age readers are following a very similar pattern in identifying content that they liked hearing or want to hear about, so the professional writer is combing through his vocabulary with the sharpest teeth to extract words that will have a sonorous experience for the reader. What will hold your reader back is not the macro picture of what you were writing about, but the micro of what you said, how you said it, and how did it ‘sound’. So now you’ll have opinions gushing galore- everybody has something to say- what matters is how you said it. A great opinion will lose to a ‘soundly’ put opinion- try posting a comment on a recent movie you watched and see what catches the maximum attention- your general opinion of the movie (the thought behind this opinion) or the words you used to describe it. While ‘cool’ will get 7 responses, ‘riveting’ will get you none- you must be kidding yourself if you thought that’s how one word movie reviews were described!

Play by the ear, to the ear and for the ear, because your audience which was once a reader, will switch channels right now!

Here comes one more product to write the review on. I don’t know the product, have never used it in my life, but I am getting paid to promote it. This reason is more than enough for me to dance around and say positive things about it, or wait, think there are so many people who prefer to read product reviews before they actually go and buy them. People who religiously practice reading reviews before landing in a store to buy it will easily tell whether the reviewer has actually experienced the product or is simply making castles in the air and fooling the readers globally.

It is critically important that as a reviewer, you should actually know the product or read thoroughly about the product before becoming the expert, which unfortunately we think we are, giving the review. Frankly speaking, many of us never bother to get the first hand information about the product that we are going to describe. What is important is that we have a product, the labelling looks great, it has a colourful appearance and here comes the review, beautifully explained with flowery language used. Excuse me! Where are the facts or the answer to the problem that a consumer may be looking for?

Product reviews should always focus on the solutions to the problems that a consumer looks for. If I am prone to hair fall, I would rather look for a shampoo that helps me keep my hair on my scalp and not the design of the bottle and fragrance that the shampoo has. Make sense out of product reviews; do not forget that the readers trust you for what you write. Give it a neutral (including good and not-so-good points) tone and come out of the fear that telling what you don’t like about the product will make sales go down. It won’t, readers will rather appreciate you for giving honest product reviews. The best way to deal with product description is to study the product well (if not use it) before saying anything about the product and leave the rest to the consumers.

Recently, in the middle of seeking reference material, I came across quite a punctilious-looking company profile for some construction company. The keywords were well-laid out, the content was systematically proportioned and the writer had done a fine job of tying baubles and ribbons to the text in the form of bullets, charts and the usual pretty suspects. But in the midst of skimming through the article, I noticed that the word ‘site’ had been tragically replaced by ‘cite’. This meant that every time the writer meant to point out an area, the reader would be keeping a weary eye out for an official declaration or two!

Looking back, I’ve noticed that word confusions (or tripped terms, if you please) are commonplace and, unlike grammar mistakes or sentence mis-formulations, we don’t even have Messrs. Word to mark them green or red, because, technically, they’re good to go. Either as a result of a garbled lexicon or, alternately, an eye untrained in matters of concerted après perusal of the copy, word confusions end up disfiguring the implication of the sentence. Sometimes this ends up as a subject of harmless hilarity. Otherwise, the endgame involves the brow-beaten writer at the receiving end of an oiled whiplash that is the boss’s verbal lambast. Mostly, it passes away, peaceably unnoticed.

Here are some word jumbles that I’ve come across in recent times:

Reign/Rein

A very common pothole, which still manages to trap its victims with alacrity. Reign means a period of royal rule whereas rein merely corresponds to a horse’s strap. I once read an article (on a reputed history website to make matters worse) where the ‘rein’ of Richard, the Lionhearted was described as bloody and violent. Either it was a case of word confusion or, to give the benefit of doubt, Sir Richard probably needed a change of steed.

Allude/Elude

Another very common mistake, which can have alarming consequences, given the right (or should I say wrong?) sentence. Allude is defined as a call to attention and elude means to escape from danger. So, either Johnny was ‘alluding to‘ Professor Rory, or he hadn’t done his homework and needed to hightail it, on the double.

Aisle/Isle

The spelling difference is much more noticeable in this one, but the pronunciation is exactly the same, which means that there’s still a high probability of the word ending up on your ‘never-to-repeat-again’ list. Aisle is the passage between rows, usually of a church, a plane or a theatre. Isle is an island. So, a ringing choir of ‘Here Comes The Bride’ might not be required if one is traipsing up the ‘isle’.

Stationary/Stationery

Yes, people do tend to goof up on this one as well. There was a well-known blogger’s gaffe when he embarrassingly referred to Jupiter’s orbit as ‘stationery’. Inevitably, a torrent of comments followed, mostly to the tune of, “Ooh, it better watch out for them sharpened pencils along the way.” Just for the record, stationary means unchanging or fixed, whereas stationery is a writer’s friend and a fifth grader’s worst nemesis.

So that’s that and if you’ve been paying attention, you would have already noticed the word confusions that have (deliberately) been placed. First person to spot both gets the special bumper prize of an inflated ego.

“The key to great SEO is high quality content.” This sentence has been repeated so many times that it should now be permanently etched onto your brain. But are you good enough to write quality content for your company on your own? If your answer to this question was ‘no’, don’t fret. There is a simple solution to your trouble. It’s called outsourcing.

There are some simple techniques that you can use to get the best content possible from the writer.

No such thing called too much information

There is a very good chance that the writer who is working on your project has absolutely no clue about your company. So it is an extremely good idea to give him as much information as possible, whether by links, or a quick phone call. There more information he has on the subject, the better content he will be able to create.

2. Don’t pester the content writer

The writer knows that the content that he is working on is important to you. Do not keep repeating that to him. While feedback is always welcome, try to be more specific about it. Telling him that the article is missing that ‘X-factor’ and he needs to add a little “spice” to it doesn’t make any sense at all. Remember that a writing a creative job, not a manufacturing one. A writer’s happiness will be reflected in his work.

3. Find good writers

There are a huge number of writers who can write high quality content for you, but the problem is finding the good ones, from a crop of bad ones. The first thing to do is not to choose the cheapest writer because there is a good chance that you will get what you pay. You can hire an expert to check up on the content that is provided to you. This way, you will get the best content at the lowest price.

If you follow these simple steps, you are guaranteed to get the best from your outsourced content.

When you see some of the most astonishing and interesting frames of human civilization, your mind wonders about the pinnacle of dynamism that the ‘Creator’ has bestowed to the blue planet. If you are infected with the ‘creative’ bug in your cerebral administration, you will definitely pen down the experiences in your notebook. However, if these experiences are a part of your journey and you are in one of the wildest regions of the world, you would definitely love to make it a part of your travelogue! There will be a few raised hands for a unanimous response to the question of “How many of you do not like travel writing?” No one would bet on this issue and I can bet on this, very surely.

Who will hate to soak in some fresh air just by reading a travel article on a particular hill station? No second thought can compete for it, but fiction has always been the most loved and the most demanding genre of writing, and this is not new to the human civilization. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but when both of them merge upon, you get to see hybridized form of human perception. Surprisingly, this particular outlook of looking at things has already brought a lot of kudos for people who have resorted to this particular style of travel writing.

When the spice of fiction is sprinkled all over a travel experience, the entire plot of the story takes a different turn altogether. Now, there is an obvious question which may linger around now in your mind and that will definitely be about the necessity of dragging in fiction in travel writing. There can be an end number of reasons behind it. Different people may have their own reasons. For some bunch of travel enthusiasts, fictional travel writing has come far away from the art of creating fictional cities, villages and civilizations in the universe. Today, fiction-fused travelogue is a nascent description about real life experiences.

Not all experiences are pleasant for a human on this planet. Each and every travel enthusiast must have gone through some untold terrain of fantasies which he/she might have kept enclosed in their minds. All they want is the right time and the needful platform to brush away the rust and give it a shot, bring in some interesting account of their weird and interesting experiences. Fictional travelogues these days are just like entertainment capsules which are considered to be necessary to strengthen a refined taste of creativity. So, it is not necessary that you vomit your real life experiences while travelling to place ha been highly embarrassing. Put in someone else as the travel protagonist and let it take all your pains, though you may not completely get out of bitter experience!

It doesn’t matter if your company sells vehicles or vegetables, you need a company blog. Blogs are a great way of improving your company’s SEO and internet marketing in general. Don’t believe it? check out the websites of all the major companies across industries, they all have it.

Now you may be quite tempted to write a blog for your company, but hold on for a second. There is a big difference between a good company blog, and a page of gibberish. A company blog is a double edged sword. While it is an awesome tool to improve SEO, a bad blog can drive away your prospective customers. There are a few simple steps that you can take to ensure that your blog is a success.

First thing you need to do is stop thinking that the blog is the answer to your problems. A company blog is not a magical genie that will grant you hits at a snap of his fingers. So don’t set your hopes too high. It will take a lot of time and effort to get your blog out there. Also take efforts to promote your blog, without it your company blog will be like a car without wheels, no matter how good it is, it is not going anywhere.

The second step is to actually have someone who can write good content. If you are too busy or unable to write good content, then find someone who can. There are loads of writers out there whom you can hire, or you could just outsource it to some foreign company. You will have to post at least 2-3 blogs each week otherwise your blog will become stale faster than you can say ‘boring’.

Don’t do it just for SEO. The content in blogs is meant for the readers, not search engines. While I do agree that the blog is meant to improve your SEO, blindly stuffing keywords and phrases will make your blog seem like it was written by monkeys slapping on a keyboard. Also, try and broaden your focus, SEO cannot be the only reason for a blog. There are thousands of ways a blog can help your business excluding SEO.

Finally, don’t start a blog just because you have to. If you are not interested in writing the blog, it will show up in the way you write, and your readers will notice that. While you should have a business blog, there needs to be some form of personal motivation to continually update it with great content. Treat the blog like your pet, if you don’t take care of it, who will?

You might have implemented every technique mentioned in the ‘Best SEO guide ever’ [that was a from-top-of-my-head name for a book], but something is lacking to make your site well and truly user friendly and appealing till the very last link. You wonder what is missing after strenuously executing content optimization, search engine friendly keywords, unique URLs, designing an internal linking structure and the links.

No matter how much time and effort you put in, it is natural to forget a couple of things when your site is made up of hundreds of pages. This short reminder of online SEO techniques will help you to remember the 3 essentials that can really enhance a website’s features.

Incorporating Image tags

Images when optimized properly can boost your rank on search engines and increase traffic on your website. Image tags are considered a significant aspect of branding, thus ensure that your company logo and other images on the website have been tagged.

Friendly footer

Footer provides strong internal linking as it allows visitors to click through different website pages without scrolling back to the top of the page. Not an obligatory but a rewarding feature, adding footers to your website can make it more user-friendly. Links are important but need not be present in the high level navigation can go here. To save out on space, integrate links to social profiles in the footer as well.

Reiterate call-to-actions

If you are selling something on your website or asking for a donation, a website would be ineffective if you use call-to-actions like ‘Call Now’, ‘Click Here’, etc. like a miser. This does not mean you have to act pushy and pester visitors, but a gentle reminder or an encouragement never hurts, does it? Try to create an optimum balance between the content and call-to-actions.

These techniques are not very difficult to implement when you have already mastered meta keywords, keyword density, URL creation, etc. The above three practices help you in SEO’ing your website to its optimum level.

“Let’s go social.” Most strategy meetings for marketing campaigns usually start or end with this declaration as a punchline, as if social integration is the latest magic lamp and all marketers are Alladin’s descendants. And it’s hard to argue against it: with the promise of doubled traffic, dynamic innovation and drawing more attention through widgets and social buttons, Socialand is the new Jerusalem for marketing Crusaders. However, in the race to enhance webpages with a bevy of sharing features (Like, Tweet, Digg, +1), could it be possible that we’re focussing on the peripherals more than the basics?

An internet user surfing through content is generally looking for three things: visual appeal, relevance and compatibility. Let’s talk about the third point. A simple content page should take 1-2 seconds to load, tops. Add a truckload of social widgets and the load time can stretch up to anywhere between 5 seconds to even minutes, if you don’t have a broadband connection. The functioning behind a social widget works somewhat like this: each social button is connected to hundreds of lines of Javascript, not to mention APIs, which can take their own sweet time to answer.

History does repeat itself. Remember those days when Flash animations were the new heights of cool? Website owners everywhere were scrambling to jazz up their pages with Flash content. Over enthusiasm and unending load times later, someone had the good sense to come up with the ‘Skip Intro’ button. Clicking on that button has become a Pavlovian conditioning for netizens by now.

It’s really a case of ‘Too much of good thing is bad.’ Social is cool, I get it. But uber-socialising your websites can lead to social pollution. And don’t think that getting a greater bandwidth is the cure-all: load time for content pages with social features are not dependent on your bandwidth, but on the API-social platform connection. An overload on the social platform’s IT structures means that, bandwidth or not, you can consider making some tea while you wait.

So, even if you haven’t yet experienced the problem of slow load times for yourself, let’s just play devil’s advocate and put ourselves in the shoes of a user who’s surfing through content pages with around 15 more tabs open (multitasking is but organic) and probably doesn’t have a bandwidth to boast of (which won’t help as aforementioned). Odds are, either he is reduced to swatting flies while content gets loaded or he gets to the point of no return and has to end up ‘killing pages’.

Call it overreaction, but social integration, although essential for attracting eyeballs, needs to be judiciously implemented while keeping an eye on both sides of the street. It’s great to have sharing features, widgets and the like on content pages to help spread the word; not so great when you ‘pollute’ the pages with social features to an extent that you drive visitors away and end up relying on third-party reading applications.

Don’t overdo it.

There are two different ways writers can improve the visibility of their website so that it comes up higher on search engine results. One is SEO and the other is ISO. Unless we get Google Taste or Bing Smell, these will be the two best ways to optimise your website.

The traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization, if you haven’t got it yet), utilizes keywords, which are imbedded into articles. These keywords are what search engine trackers look for when they are scurrying about the internet. They more of these you have, the more relevant your website should be…blah…blah…blah… I’m sure you already know how this works, let’s move on to what I really want to talk about.

Image Search Optimization (ISO, everyone loves abbreviations), is when you tune your website specifically for image search, cleverly naming the image, the surrounding text, and many other things. This means that when someone does an image search for the article, there will be a higher priority an image from your website to come up higher in the rankings.

When someone is searching for something using conventional means, they are most probably looking for information. When they click on your website, they want to read about what you want to say/sell. But when someone does an image search, he isn’t looking for information or anything; he’s just looking for an image to steal copy. Honestly, have you ever used the image search function to gain info? No sir, we just needed the image as wallpaper for our computer, or for PowerPoint presentations or just to see what in the world an Escopetarra is. Even Google has resorted to showing you just the image; you need to click another link to see the complete website.

Its understandable that artists, painters and designers sometimes rely on the image search to sell their wares. But other than that, I personally don’t see anything good about enhancing the images in your website with alt attributes, long desc attributes, image naming, etc. It’s a waste of time and money.