Blind Ape Seo

With just over the half of the moht gone, I am going to take a few moments to reflect on what I have learned from the WebWriMo challenge so far.

Content is hard work
Generating content - lots of it - is hard work. From thinking up new topics to actually typing the stuff to linking and formatting it nicely - Content providers have new earned repect from me.

A little content can go a long way
While I did not always *ahem* manage to write my 2K words a day, it is incredible how little content is actually needed to keep some sites running. If you look, for example at a typical “fun” blog - for the sake of example, take a look at the funcaptain - you will notice that most post seem to be around 50 words long.

This means that with just 500 words, the site could be kept alive for 10 days. If you have a site like that, write 2000 words one day, pace your posts and be done for over a month of 5 post weeks.

Other sites that would benefit from this are sites that are normally lacking in the content area. Wallpaper sites that benefit from a short description of the pics (20 words each), value that can be added to funny picture or video sites with a caption or description (10-50 words). A lot of times, you only need a bit of content per item.

New workflow
This challenge also meant that I revised my content creation workflow.

Before, I would use the online editor in WordPress. With mass content creation, I use a desktop editor (Notepad++), prepare the images locally and then put the content together in the online editor.

It is much faster for me.

Seperation of Writing and Editing
Although not as beautiful as the separation of church and state, it helps to speed things up if you manage to banish your inner editor and just write write write.

Now I have several articles sitting in draft mode that I can (and will) use at a later date.

Growing a moustache
While this is not an option for me, I have learned that there is a guy who is growing a moustache to promote prostrate cancer awareness. Go Greg!

What about you?
What are your experiences so far? Let me know in the comments.

So, here are the newest numbers and new members in the WebWriMo challenge.

do3boy - 1286 words
argh - 8348 words
Greg, still collecting donations for prostrate cancer at momofosho! - 10000 words (estimate, I need to go and beat the real number out of him)
David Bowley from davidbowley.com - 10072 words
blind ape seo, yours truly - 10287 words
Paul Gannon from the paul gannon blog - 14646 words
DBWebDev - 19561 words
glowleaf from glowleaf.net - 20849 words

and we have a new leader!

InternetAuthor appearing out of nowhere on Wickedfire - 30540 words

regards,

your senile simian sensei

So here is the word count in the WebWriMo challenge so far:

glowleaf - 17665 words - Insane, I say, INSANE!

argh - 8348 words

Paul Gannon - 5682 words

Greg from momofosho has hit 8500 words for movember - donate to cure prostate cancer!

And a new writer, davidbowley has joined the fray with 2545 words so far!

Welcome David, way to go!

the blind ape himself - 5804 words, seems as if I really have to start getting on with this!

A nice welcome to Paul, who is joining us from his SEO BLog at paulgannon.com

Paul is already above 5K words, and looking forward to the rest of the month.

He is also a writer for hire, so if you want to buy a few words from him, that will make his WebWriMo even sweeter.

Thanks for joining us, Paul.

PS: Full update tomorrow.

Ok, time for another update.

glowleaf from glowleaf.net is leaving us all in the dust - 16,307 words!

Greg Harrison feeds his mustache a total of 5,584 words for Movember!

argh is at 3644 words

and the old ape wrote another 755 words for a total of 4578 words, leaving him behind the pack!

This will not stand!

Argh, young grasshopper, get your gear in order, we have to take the lead again!

And to the bystander, come on, join us at WebWriMo for fun and profit!

::senile simian sensei::

WebWriMo - See what the fuzz is all about and take part in the content challenge!

As of this post, here is the count:

Glowleaf from glowleaf.net -there is a category for his WebWrimo posts now, and he is putting his tally on top of his blog - way to take up the challenge!

Glowleaf is at 4128 words now, taking the lead.

argh from abuckanight.com has joined us! Welcome!

Argh is at 470 words now.

WebWriMo has also been mentioned at SEO iStyle - thanks for the heads up!

The blind ape is also still at the old count (lazy sunday) with 3801 words.

Some of you might have heard of the National Novel Writing month or NaNoWriMo for short. You can see their stuff over at www.nanowrimo.org
However, as webmasters, none of us is really interested in writing a novel. Thinking about it, though the old simian has probably written the amount ofthree novels during his life as a coder and weblogger.

So, why not harness the power of the writing month for your web endeavours?

A huge, insane goal and no mention of quality - What makes the NanoWriMo so great
In the senile simian’s opinion, most of the power of the nanowrimo comes from its absolutely insane goalsetting.

Fifty thousand words are more than most of the participants manage to finish.
Combine this with the complete lack of quality standards - the goal is to write a novel with 50K words, not get it published or critically acclaimed leads to a setting where the only goal as well as the only option is to write, write, write.

With this thought, the senile sightless simian sensei would like to introduce the WebWriMo, the

Web Writing Month
The goal is the same as for the nanowrimo, only that the webwrimo is spent typing away on pages instead of a novel.
Another difference is the cohesion. While the nanowrimo is spent trying to write one novel, the webwrimo is spent writing many, many content pieces for - probably - many, many web pages.

This is Madness!
How to do this? In any way, this project will be pure madness.
To keep it under control, one can take the hint of the nanowrimo experts and set a daily goal of two thousand words. This will provide a buffer for slacker days.
One tool I recommend is one of the new distraction free text editors, such as darkroom or Q10, which allow one to write and only write.
(The simian is particularly fond of the Q10 editor, as it is portable as well.)

Scripts, content and HTML - the problem of weight
Having thought of many, many different ways to weigh pure text content versus writing scripts or databases, etc and how to count them against the 50K, the blind ape has finally given up on it.

So here is the challenge:

• A graphic will track the progress on the side bar.
• 50,000 words.
• Starting on the 1st.

PS: (This article is just over 400 words long… and won’t count against the final tally, damn!

So the old simian reads a certain small business blog quite regularly.

The guy is quite openly describing his experiences regarding his drop-shipping site and other ventures and has recently begun a series of posts explaining changes and improvements he is making to his shop in order to improve sales.

Some of the commenters pipe up and want to hear about SEO.

- cue cheap eastern kung fu movie music -

The blind ape enters the scene.

Writing the guy an email asking if he would like a guest post by yours truly about various SEO improvements that could be done.

He denies the offer politely.

OK. No bad feelings here, just a short WTF?

He denies a complete SEO Analysis, directions for improvement AND content for his blog at no cost other than a backlink in the article?

Can anyone explain this? Because this sight impaired old ape sure can’t.

And share this document wherever you can

Scientology OT levels

We are Legion.

The old simian is not in any way affiliated with them, but this is of concern for affiliate marketers in general. People reporting on the issue are being hit with Cease and Desist letters by clickbooth.

Well, it sure seems like clickbooth is stepping on quite a few toes.

Here we have some coverage of the whole drama:

http://skewism.com/companies-that-cant-take-bad-press-part-one-clickboothcom/

http://www.blogosis.com/2008/03/18/looks-like-i-might-be-in-trouble/

http://www.blogosis.com/2008/03/09/wickedfirecom-is-getting-sued/

http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com/?p=240 

::emp::