Well, I’m still writing my book. I haven’t had much time this last week to work on it. Work (the 9-5) has kept me busy. I’m maybe 1/4 of the way through and it’s going well.

I found a good resource at Amazon that explains Kindle publishing pretty well. You have to read a little but it’s really all right there:

• Kindle Direct Publishing

I found some programs online where some guys were trying to sell a Microsoft Word Kindle eBook template but they wanted $95 for it. I guess I’m going to first try without buying it. I’m pretty good at Word and formatting – I even catch other people’s errors using Word… so maybe some of you out there would actually want to use it.

That’s all for today!

-Tony

I just spent the better part of a day, it feels like, updating lots of WordPress websites that I have.

One of them got hacked. I have a Hostgator account (I have many) and one of them had always been giving me trouble and getting my websites sort of banned from Google saying that they were spreading malware. What happened (and kept happening for a while) was that the “.htaccess” files kept getting hacked. This would cause things to go crazy. I’d keep on fixing the files and I thought that the problem was the server.

I had Hostgator look through it today. At first, I was asking if I could get moved to another server or something. They instead ran some scripts looking for hacks and found one. They they fixed all the .htaccess files and got things running smoothly. My job, then, was to make sure all instances of WordPress were up to date. So I did that on that account and now on all the others. I updated plugins, too. Whew!

That makes me think I need to sell some of these sites!

Also, I was thinking that Google ranked my sites lower because of the Penguin update but now I’m thinking that since I sort of have a network or little online empire of websites in a particular niche, that because a bunch of them were hacked, that is what was bringing my ranking down. I did see my rankings pop up after Penguin hit but then they went down again. This could very well be why. I have a lot of great sites with original content (like, a lot) – so when a number of them go down, that could have a big effect.

At least I know why rankings went down (time will tell). Also, I see that these other, supporting websites that I made do have an effect. I’m more of the mindset now that you want to keep the content that you create on your own websites instead of using blogging networks. So many of those articles are gone and don’t exist anymore. Only put content on websites that you control and I would say that includes some top sites like Squidoo, HubPages and a few others like that. They’re fine.

It feels good being updated. I’ll do a better job with that or maybe even try to outsource it. We’ll see if rankings come back up but I think they will!

Now to go watch a movie or something and chill out a bit.

-T

Here’s the big news of the year so far in the SEO world:

Another step to reward high-quality sites (insidesearch.blogspot.com)

Yeah, I’ve seen some things change. My good sites are down and not so good sites are up. What the heck?

I’m betting that within a few days or maybe a couple weeks, things will rebound a bit. Spinning is definitely out, which is good if you ask me. What I’d like to see gone next is comment posting actually affecting PageRank and search engine results pages (SERPs). Why didn’t they clobber those sites? I’ve been fighting them for years.

What’s kind of cool is that exact keyword domain names seem to be thriving. I have a few of those and they’re near the top all of a sudden.

DON’T PANIC!

I think Google will roll out some tweaks and get things fixed in the coming days. I have even some things change since earlier this morning.

-T

With outsourcing article writing, you get what you pay for. I’ve seen spam advertising article writing for $1 per article – but with a $1 article, that’s what you get… a 1 dollar article. Some of these services just “spin” other articles to make one for you, which is bad. They definitely have to be original.

To check this out, get an account on copyscape.com where you can paste in the article text and see if it’s original or not.

I like Textbroker.com. They use Copyscape and the writers are typically U.S. based. I pay about $5 for a 500 word article. I think their “2 star” writers are $0.12 a word but they’re good.

Another good one that I have used is The Content Authority  They have made a lot of improvements over the years.

If you do outsource article writing, you should make sure you’re really specific about what you want. Below is one of the sets of instructions I’ll use often:

Please write up some good information about this topic. This needs to be an informative article, clearly written with good English and grammar. Paragraphs should not be too large since this is for the Web. Put a space between each paragraph. It should be interesting, informative with good supporting facts. Provide facts and benefits.

You only need to mention the keyword 1-2 times. I’ve listed the keyword as the title, feel free to expand on and change the title but keep the keyword in it. Do not capitalize the keyword in the article unless it needs to be (use proper capitalization rules).

Please do not write this in a story format. I’d like to see at least 4 separate paragraphs, so don’t make them too large.

This will be put on my website. Please do NOT mention the names of websites or retailers in your article.

With the right set of instructions, you’ll get good articles. You have to be specific and list guidelines and standards and explain what you’re expecting. Help your writers deliver what you want.

I know others who have used people in the Philippines. They’re hard workers. It might take a while to interview people and find the good ones.

Related articles

• How to Hire a Web Content Writer (clixto7.com)
• Writing killer headlines: Part 2 (marketing.yell.com)
• Textbroker (michelemathews.com)

Learn to Create a Kindle Book

I just signed up for this program:

Outsourcing a Kindle Book

and I’m going to learn how to create a Kindle book using content that’s really cheap to get. You can actually outsource the whole process, put the books on Amazon and then have a residual income, essentially forever. It sounds like fun. Stay tuned for more updates or, if you want, sign up and join me going through this. It should be fun.

I also just think that it’s a good idea to learn how to create a Kindle book. The process sounds interesting to me and the Amazon Kindle is a really popular e-book reader. I’m seeing a lot of people use them lately.

-Tony

• Outsourcing A Kindle Book