2010 March | I Heart Technical Writing, Tips, Tools and Templates for Technical Writers

Entries from March 28th, 2010

24 Ways to Increase Traffic to a Technical Blog

March 28th, 2010 · View Comments · Google

Making money from blogs in an inexact science. What works one blogs fails on another. I’ve launched over 200 websites since 1998 (mostly ecommerce) and about 30 blogs (mostly technical). If your blog has a technical slant, for example, it’s target audience is technical writers, analysts, architects, or others micro niche areas, then use some of these techniques to increase your traffic.

Google Webmaster Tools: How to Get Your Site Verified

March 28th, 2010 · Comments Off · Google

Google Webmaster Tools is one of the hidden secrets on Google. Use this to add your site directly to its index, verify that Google sees your site (and sub-domains), and also fix the errors it has identified. Split testing has shown me that sites indexed this way perform better than sites that rely on xml [...]

Are Online Degrees in Technical Writing as Good as Real World Universities?

March 24th, 2010 · View Comments · Career, Technical Writing

If you had a choice, would you hire someone with an Online Degree or someone who graduated from a real world ‘bricks and mortar’ University? I get emails most week asking if online degrees are worth the money, are they trustworthy, will people hire me, will I get ripped off… before we get into that, here are five universities that offer online degrees in technical writing. Are online degrees as good as real degrees?

Camtasia Studio: Using Captions & Subtitles To Make Videos More Sticky

March 23rd, 2010 · View Comments · Camtasia Studio

One way to make your video content more sticky, that is get more readers and keep them on your site, is to use captions. Why use captions? Because, they keep the reader focused, reinforce your key points and give the viewer a second way to digest your material. While watching your video, they can read along.

How To Make Friday Your Busiest Day And Reap The Rewards

March 20th, 2010 · Comments Off · Technical Writing

lance-armstong-getting-things-done Friday is my busiest day. Most folks power down and go into weekend mode. Not here! Ask yourself, ‘why do I go down a gear on Friday?’, ‘How does this benefit my career?’ Ok, let’s be honest. We do this because others do it. Right? This is a high-risk way to manage your career. You’re letting others determine how you behave. And it damages your career in many, many ways. Here’s an alternative approach.

How To Get More Traffic To Your Technical Writing Blog

March 17th, 2010 · View Comments · Technical Writing

To quote Van Halen, ‘everybody wants some.’ And what you want is traffic. Why write a blog if no-one visits, right? I have 17 technical writers’ blogs in my Google Reader & RSS feeds. Most are fine but… if they used some of the following tactics, they’d get more traffic, comments, money and Nobel prizes. [...]

How Stephen King Can Make You A Better Technical Writer

March 11th, 2010 · View Comments · Technical Writing

Scott says, “If you want to improve as a writer, you not only need to write. You need to read. Writing and reading are two sides of the same coin. You need to do both to achieve your potential.” I head downtown most weekends and buy 2 or 3 books, mostly business, history and some fiction. Every so often I run out of options (we’re in Beijing) and get something I usually wouldn’t buy, for example, Iain M Banks. Reading outside my comfort zone stretches me. I encounter writing styles, opinions, and information that I usually side-step.

How To Create Content For Your Blog Every Day

March 4th, 2010 · Comments Off · Social Media

In this short video I explain how to create content and to remove the barriers that stop most people from creating content on a daily basis. It’s not difficult but you do need to have a system that lets you maximize your opportunities to create content and reduces the barriers that stop you from doing [...]

Review Camtasia 6: The Good, Bad and The Ugly

March 2nd, 2010 · View Comments · Reviews

I upgraded to Camtasia 6 at the weekend (from v4) mostly to import and edit .MOV files. These are created by my faithful Canon Powershot when I shot videos. Sony makes AVIs. The other reason was to do more heavy lifting with Camtasia. I have tons on material on the hard-disk and want to get [...]