What’s All The Hype Over Keywords?
August 12, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as Keywords, Marketing for Authors, SEO MarketingWe’ve all heard these statements: Use keywords in your blog posts. Up your SEO game with the right keywords. Keywords are the key. Keywords matter. So what is all the hype over keywords?
Here’s a simple definition:
Keywords are used in digital marketing to describe a word or group of words someone types in a search engine/search bar to perform a search.
As writers we use that search bar all the time for our research.
And that’s how our readers use the search bar too.
So when we write a blog post – think what your reader would possibly type in their search bar to find what you are writing. And use your search bar to test the keywords you are selecting.
The hype over keywords is no joke
Have you ever searched for something and had to change the wording several times to finally get to what you were looking for? That’s the keyword organization going on. The search engines have specific formulas to organize and index everything on the internet. When someone performs a search, they want to find relevant content. And why businesses in the SEO and search engine business hype the use of keywords all the time. And teach what they can on the subject. The better everyone uses keywords, the more organized internet content will be.
How do you write keywords?
Keywords are tricky. You can’t use the same ones twice. If you do, they sort of cancel each other out when being indexed. So, when you use only one word, it limits using that word ever again. So using two words and varying one of them for different scenarios would be a good strategy.
Another strategy is to not use words too broad or too narrow. Again, think about the terms you use when searching for similar topics. You want to land on the first page of the search. The more you research, you’ll start to see how to tweak and tailor your keywords to better fit.
Other tips for writing strong keywords
- Make sure posts and pages are focused and related to only ONE main idea. When you figure out your keyword FIRST, you write your blog post differently.
- Include your keywords in your title, first paragraph, a subhead or two, and the body text
- Use other relatable words that support the main topic through the post/page
- Include pictures that represent your keywords and add your keywords into the alt text
- Keywords can be tied into your Category and Tag strategy as well, especially if it’s a topic you cover frequently
- You could use your keyword phrase as your slug to keep things simple
Interested in learning more about SEO? Check out my Using a Blog SEO Checklist to Streamline Your Blog Post and/or sign up for my Marketing for Authors newsletter on my website.
Celebrate The Act of Gratitude
July 12, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, WritingAs we celebrate the Declaration of Independence this month, I wanted to share parts of a magazine article I wrote a few years back about freedom and the act of gratitude. I love reminders to be grateful in amongst the chaos of life. Including all the pieces that go with a writing career. I hope that it can be a source of encouragement to you. This was originally printed in WestCoast Magazine in July 2019. I’ve made some adjustments to fit a blog post rather than an article.
Another form of freedom we can celebrate is the act of gratitude. Google defines gratitude as “the quality of being thankful; the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” Wikipedia’s page takes it one step further and states; “Gratitude has been said to have one of the strongest links with mental health of any character trait. Grateful people are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships.”
I don’t know about you, but I would like to live a happier, less stressed life.
We Can Show Gratitude With Words
Say ‘thank you’. It doesn’t matter how big or small the act is, saying these two words makes a difference. A quick email reply with the words thank you. If someone holds open the door, hands you something, pays you a compliment, or when the server delivers your food, just say thank you. It matters.
Write a note. Send a note to someone for whom you are grateful and tell them why. In my research I learned psychologists use this technique to help people with their overall mental health. Even just thinking or writing about someone you are grateful for can help.
Start a Gratitude Journal. I love to stop and think about what it is around me that I can be thankful for. It’s amazing the little things you will notice when you do this. Sometimes we are so caught up in our to-do list, we don’t stop to appreciate what is going on around us. Like the baby birds chirping, or the sun shining so that the flowers will open and bloom. If writing in a journal seems a bit overwhelming, another option is to write out three-five things you are thankful for at the end of the each day.
We Can Show Gratitude With Our Attitude
Change your perspective. Even in the mundane and ordinary parts of our life we can find ways to be grateful. I have to remind myself when the piles of mount clothesmore scream for attention, to say thanks for the clothes I have while I fold laundry. In the hurriedness of getting dinner on the table, I remind myself to say thanks for the options of what to put on the table, a table to sit at, and that it’s not the only meal for the day. When I get stopped at yet another red light, I stop and refocus my thoughts to be grateful for the vehicle I drive and the ability to be able to travel from one place to another. These small things are what life is all about. Being grateful for even the stressful stuff will help us deal with it better.
We Can Show Gratitude With Our Actions
Be kind. Kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. Hold open the door, place flags on a cemetery grave, smile and say hi to a stranger. Celebrate someone else’s success, say a kind word, be encouraging in all your Facebook comments, offer to help, give compliments, and refuse to gossip. And don’t forget to be kind to yourself too.
Show grace. Grace means different things to people, but the dictionary’s definition is “goodwill” and synonyms include the terms tenderness, compassion, generosity, and kindness. None of us are perfect and we will make mistakes. Forgiveness, patience, understanding, or even just a hug to let someone know you care, can go a long way.
This year, as we celebrate our nations birthday, let us all show a little more gratitude toward others and ourselves.
Happy Birthday America!
As I write this, I want to show my own acts of gratitude with saying thank you to my fellow writers. The love and support from the writers in the writing groups I belong to is wonderful and something I appreciate. We don’t always get to interact live with one another, but sharing blog posts, emails, and everything in between has a huge impact in encouraging me to keep going. So thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you.
Preserving Journals for the Future
June 12, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise ColbyAs a writer, I love to write in any form including journals, blogs, and books. Something about putting words on a page is so satisfying. But I’ve asked myself recently if I’m writing the right things in my journals. Do I capture words that will be preserved for the future? Should I start a journal for the future that’s more about the day to day then about special days or my feelings?
Hear me out. There’s a reason why I’m thinking about this in a different way. It’s not really about my own personal life and wanting to document it. It’s more about making sure how we live today is being captured for those who need this data in the future.
Journals are a Great Research Tool
As a historical writer, journals are invaluable to capturing the essence of the era we are writing. Long ago journals include terminology, names, and phrases of the time. There are recipes from our ancestors because they wrote them down. Which now are preserved and shared from person to person.
Also, a contemporary writer might have a character that is a teacher or plumber or Starbucks barista. They may need to learn about these positions. These journals could include lingo, interactions, schedules, a specific point of view, and more. They might gather these from blogs, more than journals, but the idea of finding content that helps explain the day to day in these lives is what I’m talking about.
I’ve even created a journal for my character so I could find her voice and figure out her feelings and perspective. I talk about this in my blog post on my website titled Incorporating a Character Journal In My Story. I now include a journal entry to the beginning of each chapter in my book.
Olivia Carmichael had no idea how much she would eat her words.
How Will The Future Read Journals?
Think of terms and phrases used in the past versus now. Terms such as binge mean something different now than 50 years ago. What would be other words or terms that might be obsolete in the future? What are terms that we no longer use today but represent a bygone era?
I sometimes feel silly writing down some of these more basic topics. But then I think about someone possibly reading it 100 years from now and realize that how we go about our day may be completely different in another century.
In today’s definition, journals could be blogs, notes in our phone, or actual books we handwrite in. And it will be interesting to see how people who keep and access these in the future. Personally I love handwriting. But it gets harder and harder to read someone’s writing either from faded ink or pencil or just reading handwriting itself as an art form is going away. I wrote a blog post about that a while ago titled Give A Gift That Lasts a Lifetime: A Handwritten Note. In some cases writing is more personal because of a person’s handwriting. I love coming across something my mom or dad wrote. It evokes an emotion in me that’s difficult to describe.
Will Journals Be Around in 100 Years?
To have a journal last 100 years, first people have to create them. Then they have to save them. Not by just the writer, but by someone who obtains them after the writer has passed. How many of us toss older books out? Or toss our own books out because we don’t think anyone will care. They may not care at 25-35 years, but something older? This is the future of a journal. The old adage – one person’s junk is another person’s treasure. A family member might think there’s nothing of importance in the journal, but a writer looking for specific details? It could be pure gold inside.
But what about blogs? To stay active, the account has to stay active. Where will all this content go in the future? How will these blog posts be preserved? I know. I’m causing anxiety where it’s not necessary. But being a history lover, I tend to think about these things often. Am I the only one?
Journals Preserved by Libraries
In rare cases, a library owns journals that are used by scholars who use them as reference materials. People of the past journaled for the future. My great great grandfather was one of them. He wrote detailed journals. A mountain man who faught in a war with Lincoln, was a trapper with Jedidiah Smith, and shared a campfire with the Donner party before they chose to ignore his warnings and take the short Sierra pass that ended in doom. We know all of this because of his journals. I have two printed versions of his journals in my possession, but I’ve also seen the real journals in person. These journals are owned by the Huntington Libary in Pasadena. And it’s been said they know what they know about that era, because of the details he captured.
He created journals used in his future, which is our present. What will our journals be used for?
Questions for the writer in all of us
I wanted to ask questions because I’m curious. And I think a dialogue would be advantageous for all of us. Do you read journals for your stories? Where do you go for your inspiration? Do you journal? If you do, do you write about your feelings? Describe the weather? Mention a list of daily activities? What type of content do you put in your journal?
Do you write daily? Are your journals organized by date or by topic? Ideas of specialized journals would be one for work related documentation and one for personal. Or a journal about movies, books, or other entertainment and another book for trips.
And last but not least, how do you think the world will use these journals in the future?
Curious minds want to know.
0 0 Read moreMental Reset for Writers After Receiving Contest Results
May 12, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as encouragement, writerslife, Writing contestsI always have to pause and reset after receiving contest results. Am I the only one who experiences this?
Contests are wonderful ways to get feedback, get in front of agents or publishers, and stretch yourself as a writer. I have entered many and have grown as a writer because of the them.
But every time when the contest results are out, I’m so afraid of opening up the email and reading the comments. And this year was no different.
Last week I received my contest results email from the 2022 ACFW Genesis Contest. I did not semi-final like I did back in 2019. For a brief moment, that right there makes it hard. Did I go backwards? Shouldn’t I have not made the changes that were in the suggestions?
But alas, I can’t do that to myself.
Contest Results Do Not Tell The Entire Story
I’ve had many pairs of eyes look over my entry and the overall feedback has been positive. And as I look at the scores from the three judges, two loved it and had very little comments (one even scored it a 99 out of 100, which is something to celebrate). But the third judge. It was obvious, my style of book is not their cup of tea. And even though two out of the three were positive, it’s still such a hard pill to swallow.
Is this what it feels like to read reviews of your work?
It probably is, and maybe you have to have a mental reset after reading those too.
But keep in mind some things. What’s being judged is such a small snippet (for me it was 15 pages). Not everyone will have the same opinion (which is why there are so many different authors and books available).
So What Do You Do To Move Forward?
I’m still figuring that out. For me, I needed to give myself a few days. Then dive right back into my manuscript. Keep editing, keep writing, and work toward the next opportunity when it presents itself. Pay attention to the things where multiple people gave similar feedback. And remember the positive comments (and the fact I earned a 99 from someone!).
I even wore this shirt to help me get back into a good frame of mind.
I think it’s also important to relook at the comments and feedback a few times over a period of time. Each time they sink in more. They are not as personal. And there’s something in there that you can use. After a little while, you are ready to figure out how to adapt the feedback you want to include into your manuscript.
If any of you are struggling, I encourage you. You are not the only one. And as a seasoned contest results receiver, it is never easy. But putting our work out there is never easy. Yet we trail on, because our stories are more than our feelings. They are our work (my word for the year!). And it takes work (lots and lots of work) to get them into the best shape possible before we release them.
Hang in there. Keep writing. Write On!
Denise
Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, & engage. Every year, she chooses a word to focus on. Her 2021 word was Wisdom and her 2022 word is Work. She talks about how one turned into the other in her blog at denisemcolby.com. If you’d like to see more of Denise’s posts on this blog, you can check out her archives.
4 0 Read moreWhen Our Confidence In Our Writing Wavers
April 12, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as confidence, Denise M. Colby, encouragement, writerslifeHave you ever had your confidence in your writing waver? Years ago I wrote something that really helped me in a very heavy doubt period. As I was discussing confidence in his artwork with my college-age son recently, I went and found this to encourage him to believe in himself. I needed the reminder as well. And I decided to share it with all of you too.
Originally published on denisemcolby.com on June 6, 2017
This morning I was reading in 2 Corinthians and the following verse made me stop and pause, so I wrote it down on my handy 3×5 index card for future reference:
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 2 Corinthians 3:5
I want to be a writer. Notice I said I want to, not I am.
I’ve only been writing things for over twenty years – either marketing copy or fiction stories. No matter which, the reality is I struggle with believing in myself. Having confidence in my writing. My takeaway from this verse is God’s telling me if I believe in him, I need to believe in myself.
After getting the kids off to school, I took a walk and the verse rattled around in my head. But for some reason the key word competence turned into the word confidence (I wonder who put that there?). As I mulled around thoughts about confidence, I knew I needed to come home and look up the word in the dictionary.
I love words. Definitions, synonyms – all of it. I also love seeing connections words have with other words. So here’s what the website http://www.dictionary.com says about
CONFIDENCE: full trust; belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance:
And I love the example they gave in a sentence: His lack of confidence defeated him.
Is my lack of confidence in my abilities as a writer defeating me?
I think about my writing and the nudges I have had over the past five years and I know without a doubt God wants me to do this, otherwise doors would’ve closed on me long ago. However I’m not fully doing what he wants me to do because I have not had the confidence to just do it.
I’ve been saying for a while now, I would like to write devotionals. I have this strong innate desire to share hope, encouragement and God’s Word with others. What I haven’t been sure about is the how and what. So I haven’t done it, period.
When I took my walk this am something clicked and I couldn’t wait to get back home because I needed to do this right now. God has confidence in me. He has given me the desire. He’s nudging me to do this. Why have I not done this? Why?
I’m afraid – that’s why. What am I so afraid of? Putting myself out there? Looking like an idiot? Is that confidence then? I know I’m not looking for accolades, not looking for stardom. I just want to write and share my heart. But I’ve been too scared to do that. I have lacked confidence to go for it.
Then I saw the Synonyms for confidence – 1. faith, reliance, dependence.
And the Antonym – 1. mistrust.
Wow!
My lack of confidence is holding me back in my writing
I’m not really trusting God then, am I? If I have faith, I should have confidence in what he’s asking me to do. And I need to depend on Him when I do it.
So here I am today. Writing a devotional and setting up a specific devotional page on my website. Only God knows what will happen. I just need to have the confidence to do it (already the nagging doubts are creeping in). I must rely on God with the rest.
But wait, there’s more. When I grabbed my Bible to write in the verse, I realized I made a mistake (was it really?) and the word was competence not confidence. Oh no! Do I scrap what I just wrote? Does it even relate? See maybe I shouldn’t be doing this after all. I paused for a moment then decided to look it up:
COMPETENCE: having suitable or sufficient skill, knowledge, experience, etc., for some purpose; properly qualified:
And the Synonym: 1. fit, capable, proficient.
No antonym. Interesting. There is no negative/opposite of being competent. You either are or you are not. I may not be the best writer, but I know I am proficient. So what am I waiting for?
Then I looked at 2 Corinthians 3:4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.
If God has given you skills – you are capable to use them for his glory. You just need to have the confidence through Him to do it.
What abilities (competence) has God given you? Where do you put your confidence? In your own efforts, schedule, skills, voices in your head? Or do you trust God? Do you have the confidence to put yourself out there with whatever it is?
God has given us all skills. We are all competent in something. Being competent does not need to mean you are the best at something.
Being competent means you are proficient. You can get the job done.
We should have confidence in our writing if we are proficient enough
We let our own voices tell us we are not competent because we think we need to be the best or someone does it better than us and we let it affect our confidence which in turn affects what we do.
Everyone’s path is different and God has one he wants you to follow. He has given you these skills for a reason. You just have to have confidence in Him that He is with you every step of the way.
God believes in you and I believe in you too!
Denise M. Colby loves to write encouraging words. You can read other posts by Denise in her archives here on A Slice of Orange
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