So, I just entered the 4th Annual SEM Scholarship contest from Marketing Pilgrim and threw in a couple of twists…but you’ll have to go read the competition entry to learn more.

What I Can Say

In addition to their listed prizes, I’ve added a couple of my own.
1. I enlisted the help of Frank Sinton to donate some free advertising ($1000 worth to be precise) on his video megasite MeFeedia. (disclosure: Frank is a friend and a client).
2. I will be giving away $300 of copywriting (or consulting if you prefer).

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@invesp just released a list of 100 of the world’s most influential online marketers. Voted for by the online marketing community and put together by @khalidh & @ashukairy.

I noticed that the list is missing twitter id’s for everyone, so I took the liberty of collecting them into a list of my own.
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Paraphrasing what I discussed in part 1 (Information Based Natural Disasters), a lot of information phenomena can appear to act like natural disasters and it is getting stronger.

Buckle the hatches, we’re going to take a look at a few more

Information Hurricanes

Image from ZaNiaC
Some information can be so powerful that it feeds on itself forming a hurricane. This immense force can move across the web leaving a devestated landscape in its wake. Fired up with the mob mentality and connected to millions of others, the information hurricane can be a dream for some, and for others, their worst nightmare.
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Part of being a good writer is understanding the impact images have in your work. What you write should be supported and enhanced through your choice of imagery.

Image source Brian Auer

So Many Image Sites

The images you select and where you choose to find them will vary depending upon their application. There are enough different types of image sites out there to find exactly what you need.
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2008 has been a good year for Mixx, according to Compete.com they did something right in April and since then they have been experiencing rapid growth.

Yes, I know these results are not 100% accurate, they are still a good example of the growing amount of social media traffic Mixx is attracting.
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No matter how much great copy you write, how many cool images you add, how well you format or how much HTML you know, if you don’t proof read before you publish it is all wasted.

For most writers this is a no-brainer, checking your work should be part of the process (as should research).

Wordpress allows you to view your posts (as they will appear on your site) while you write and edit them.

This is a handy feature that should be used frequently as you write, format and edit your posts.
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A good image is worth a thousand words, use them to add impact, humor and personality to your writing.

Selecting images that get noticed is an art itself and a few things need to be kept in mind during the selection process:

1. The Internet audience is overwhelmingly male.
2. People are attracted to pictures of people, particularly faces.
3. Studies indicate that even women prefer to see women in advertisements.

I’m not saying add pictures of hot chicks to every post on your blog, I’m just saying for best results, know your audience and be clever in your selection.

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Knowing a little code is essential to creating the kind of post that will do well, it allows you to insert a little personality and to organize and format your information.

Wordpress does have a built in editor, but it can become cumbersome and confusing to use. I recommend turning the visual editor off and doing it the old fashioned way: actually learning the tags you’ll need most often.

HTML Code

Although it looks complicated, the basics of HTML are sensible and easy to grasp. Code is inserted on either side of the text you’d like to affect and there is always an opening tag and a closing tag.
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Think about how you read; when you are researching, when you are learning, when you are browsing social media. Do you read every word? No, you scan images, headers and bold text to determine if the post is worth reading, relevant and credible.

My point is: write that way too.

Formatting

Here are a few tricks to use which will help get your words noticed, and make your posts more readable.
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The competition gets tougher every day when it comes to writing online. There are so many bloggers out there now that the web is saturated with strong opinions and conflicting views about almost everything.

As professional writers it’s our duty to ensure that we provide the most relevant, well researched information in a format that makes it easy to use, understand and source. Writing a good post can earn you credibility, more traffic and a long-lasting authoritative voice.
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