Pulse of the Purple Note Pad

Sunday, March 27, 2011

A Weighty Subject: How to Write Content about Weight Loss

So, you’re ready to start an affiliate marketing site, complete with blog and informative articles. You’ve even decided on a general topic: weight loss. After all, everyone wants to lose weight, right? Your site should make it into the Google Top Ten in no time flat. But weight loss is so broad a topic, that it’s hard to narrow down. By thinking of your readers’ needs however, you can create succinct content that delivers value and encourages click through.

Bariatric Surgery

Weight loss surgery, whether traditional gastric bypass or the less invasive “lap band,” is becoming increasingly popular. Depending on the physician’s expertise and the patient’s willingness to undertake some difficult changes, it can also be quite successful. It’s also a goldmine for blog content. You can devote entries to types of procedures:  adjustable gastric banding, vertical banded gastroplasty, sleeve gastrectomy, Roux-en-Y bypass, and biliopancreatic diversion. Discuss the benefits (rapid weight loss, reversing or improving diabetes and heart disease); risks (clots, infections, surgical complications, death); and side effects (malnutrition, vomiting, gall bladder disease). Interview people who have had each type of surgery: what were their experiences? What has been difficult? How has it changed their lives? Interview physicians. Discussion cost and payment options. Help your readers make informed decisions, while at the same time adding original content and boosting your rankings.

Exercise

Everyone knows that successful weight loss involves eating less and exercising more. The trick is finding the time, the motivation, and a routine that’s affordable, maintainable, and halfway interesting. The eternal struggle between modern man and optional physical activity will provide you with endless blog fodder. Write about low-cost exercise options. Review various fitness chains. Discuss workout wear for the chic--and those for whom it’s less than flattering. Write your own exercise diary--and record others’ attempts. Do computer games really lead to weight loss?  Should you go with cardio, weights, pilates or yoga? How can a person add exercise when simply bending down to tie her shoes leaves her out of breath? Is it possible to create an exercise routine when you have four children under four? When you have a sixty hour work week? When you’re disabled? When you’re sixty-five? Your readers need to know, and will return to your site over and over again to find out.

Diet

Again, everyone “knows” the answer: make healthy changes. More fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fiber. Less refined carbohydrates, artificial additives, dehydrogenated oils, other fats and sugars. Fast food is the devil. Or is it? Even when we know our lives depend on it, making dietary changes is difficult. You can use your blog and article content to keep readers up to date on the latest studies on nutrition and weight loss, while at the same time encouraging them to make the small changes we know really do work. Chronicle your own attempts to give up sugared sodas, fries, or (horrors!) chocolate.  Experiment with popular (safe) diet fads; record your impressions and results. Discuss dangerous diets--and those which have proven to be beneficial. If you have the time or the funds, you can even try (and blog about) popular commercial weight loss programs. Do they work? Do they make weight loss easier? Harder? By mingling consumer information with nutrition science, you can keep your readers informed, inspired--and coming back.

Motivation

No matter whether a person chooses to lose weight through surgery, diet, exercise or a combination of all three, he’ll struggle with motivation. There comes a time when vegetables are not as satisfying as chips. Where one’s sorrows cry out for a tub of ice cream, or inhaling a package of cookies really does keep family harmony. The challenges of life make it hard to stay motivated. As a result, most people gain back the weight they make such great efforts to lose, and eventually they stop trying. In your site content, you can explore the reasons why people struggle to lose weight and keep it off.

Interview people who have successfully maintained their weight loss; share their stories and methods to inspire your readers. Write about ways people can more effectively handle the emotional challenges in their lives--without medicating themselves with food. As with each weight loss topic listed here, pay attention to the comments and discussions each piece gathers; these are the subjects your readers care--and want to learn more--about.

In the end, you’ll probably find that, while you initially put up your weight-loss site to add to your income, you’re also providing a valuable service: helping readers improve their health. A quality site with attention to accuracy, quality content, and reader service does both.


About the Author: Leah Guinn is a freelance writer and mom, and spends a lot of time researching and writing on topics that would make other people faint in frustration.

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Sunday, March 20, 2011

More Than Rubies

Though not everyone who is reading this is religiously affiliated, the following Bible verse is the key to the rest of this blog entry.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle…She makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple…She makes linen garments and sells them;
she delivers sashes to the merchant
.” Proverbs 31: 18-19, 22 & 24
To sum up these ancient, yet still valuable words, the woman is capable of being more than a homemaker, mommy, lover, and companion (although those are all incredible and honorable duties), the stay at home mom can also help provide an income for her family using natural talents.
If you are a stay at home mom, like me, you’ll find that you can be a great parent and housewife and still have this aching to do something more, be something more, and leave a legacy that doesn’t involve being a super diaper changer. You love your kids (I know I love mine) but you still feel the need to be involved in something outside of parenting like using your natural talents and learned skills to bring in an income while still raising your kids.
So what can a stay at home mom who is yearning to do more actually do to make money?
Creating Handmade Treasures
If you have a natural love for crafts, or get excited about creating beautiful things with your own two hands you may have what it takes to make and sell handmade crafts. Scrapbooking, card making, quilting, sculpting and painting figurines, jewelry making, and glass blowing are all crafts that stay at home moms have made money doing in the past.
Incredibly talented mom, Rachel Osborne, actually sculpts delicate and beautiful figurines, paints them, personalizes them to order, and successfully sells them on her Etsy store front. If you want to see what I’m talking about, feel free to visit her store front and take a gander at the wonderful things she creates and sells to help make money and put her talents to use.







Creating Content: Freelance Writing        
If you aren’t as crafty with your hands as you are with your words, you should consider taking on the mantle of the freelance writer. Freelance writing allows stay at home moms to do something their passionate about, and it provides them an outlet where they can use their intelligence and wit.
Personally, I love freelance writing. I love that I can do something I’m passionate about, and actually make money at the same time. With our mortgage, 3 kids, and pre-marital debt, any extra income I make is put to use, and though I am worn out and dragging myself to bed at the end of the day, I feel accomplished and successful.

One of my good friends, Sara K. Haley, is also a stay at home mom, but instead of making figurines, she makes SEO articles as a freelance writer. She is talented, hardworking, and making enough money to support herself and her young daughter. Visit Sara’s site to see some of the great things she’s working on, and maybe you’ll find the inspiration you need to get started in the freelance writing industry.
Creating and selling handmade items, and writing freelance aren't the only jobs out there for stay at home moms, but I will touch on the other opportunities in another blog entry.
Just because you’re a stay at home mom doesn’t mean that you can’t be more, that you can’t want something more. You aren’t the only one, and you won’t be the last. I’ve been there, and I did something about it (this blog is proof).

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Saturday, March 19, 2011

You Aren't A Slave!

Freelancing is about being FREE to work from home, take on only the work you want, work WHEN you want, and choose how much you want to be paid. With the influx of online business, more and more freelancers are popping up. What does that mean for the professional freelancer that has been in the game for years? It means that the jobs that used to pay you $50 an hour are now looking to shrink their budgets by hiring writers who're willing to take less money for the same amount of work.

Now, now, now...don't be scared. For every 10 businesses looking for $1 an hour freelancers, there are 2 businesses out there who aren't willing to skimp on quality to just save a few bucks. Those are the clients you need to find, entice, and keep.

How?

5 Tips to Keeping Your Clients

1. Only Give Your Best: Just because you've been in the game longer doesnt mean you can slack off and get away with it. Because of the amount of cheaper labor showing up on the fertile fields of freelance, you must up your game and prove to your clients that they money they're paying you is worth it. Proofread, edit, revise, and the proof and edit and revise again. Make sure its pristine before it leaves your outbox.

2. Be Open to Critizism: The worst kinds of people to work with are the ones who aren't willing to take critizism, especially when they are wrong. If your work isn't up to your client's standards, listen to what they want, give them what they want, and continue to work to make them happy.

3. Be Available: Keeping a client happy involves keeping them in the loop. That means that you have an open means of communication with your clients that is dedicated to them. If you work from 9 am to 4 pm everyday, and you need to run errands one day, forward your chat service to your phone so that you can answer your client's questions on the fly. Also, having a smartphone that allows you to recieve and send emails is super handy.

4. Meet Deadlines: This one is easy. If you say that you'll have something done in 2 days, have it in their inbox in 1 1/2. Don't just meet deadlines, beat them. This shows your clients that they can count on you to get them their content before they actually need it. If you absolutely have to break a deadline due to an actual family emergancy (too many people slack off on the job and miss deadlines because of "sick kids"), let them know as soon as you can, and give them a new deadline that is as close to the old one as possible. Also, I know that life cannot be planned in advance, but try not to have too many family emergancies if you can help it.

5. Have Fun: If you love what you do and you're passionate about it, clients will want to give you work! It's as simple as that.

With these simple tips you can keep your high paying clients happy and not worry about losing your job to slave labor.

If you really want to know what its like having to fight your way up from the bottom of the freelance food chain, check out my guest blog.

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Greetings From the Purple Notepad

So, you've clicked a link that brought you here, and now you're wondering if reading this blog is worth the effort it took to move your index finger...well, you're in luck! This blog is totally worth it.

Since this is the very FIRST entry for this blog, you can be one of the many (one can only hope) readers to follow this blog and subscribe to the blog's RSS feed. Why? Well, if you want to read a blog that will entertain, encourage, and enlighten you on the ins and outs of the freelance writing industry, this is the blog to read. Honest.

I'm a writer with over 7 years of freelance writing under her well worn belt, and I can tell you some things that will have you laughing, crying, rolling your eyes, and clicking links to learn more. I promise a lot, but I will always come through for my readers. Always.

Well, let this inaugrual blog entry come to an end, and let the future be wide open and bright!