8 Signs of Weak Writing that Turn Off Readers

By Rainmaker.FM

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What makes writing “weak,” and are you able to identify the specific aspects of your writing that are weak?

Writers can be hard on themselves. They may think everything they write is lousy. But “lousy” is a vague word — and that general self-judgment doesn’t help you move beyond “lousy” writing.

Check out these eight specific signs of weak writing and how to strengthen each one.

In this 23-minute episode of Editor-in-Chief, host Stefanie Flaxman discusses:

  • The true danger of weak writing (and why strong writing creates a completely different experience for a reader)
  • How to spot the weakest part of your content (and what …read more      
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6 Storytelling Lessons from a Famous Urban Legend

By Rainmaker.FM

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“Don’t panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested.”

That’s the punch line for one of the most successful urban legends of the last 15 years.

What makes it so successful? It’s hypnotic: understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought and behavior.

How do you create stories that are like that? Just follow these six principles.

In this 7-minute episode of Rough Draft with Demian Farnworth, you’ll discover:

  • How to think staggeringly simple
  • How to attract attention
  • How to help people understand and remember
  • How to help people believe
  • How to tell stories

Click Here to Listen to

Rough Draft on iTunes

Click Here to Listen …read more      

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28 Browser Extensions That Make an SEO’s Life Easier

By Neil Patel

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As an expert SEO, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades.

You need to understand link building, marketing, public relations, psychology, and technology.

At a certain point, there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything you’d like to do.

But you can save quite a bit of time and effort on small things by using browser extensions.

You can install them with one or two mouse clicks and access them with ease to the right of your address bar.

They will help you:

  • analyze website performance quickly
  • examine code behind websites
  • build links better
  • save time by improving your task efficiency

I’ve put together a list of 28 …read more      

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Don’t Panic, but This Article Was Written by an Algorithm

By Demian Farnworth

Shocking news! Computers can now write content

I don’t care how many times you read this opening paragraph. Study it word for word. Examine it frontwards and backwards. You won’t be able to conclusively tell whether it was written by a human or machine.

Don’t believe me? Read this sports story, and tell me if it was written by a human or machine:

Tuesday was a great day for W. Roberts, as the junior pitcher threw a perfect game to carry Virginia to a 2-0 victory over George Washington at Davenport Field.

Human or machine? Here’s the answer: It was written by a machine. (I wrote …read more      

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Don’t Get Left Behind: The 8 Most Effective Link Building Tactics For 2015

By Neil Patel

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Do you ever wonder if you’re wasting your time building links?

Google has aggressively looked for ways to devalue links in its algorithms for quite a while. At first, you could just hop on to the next link-building tactic, but now, Google has a pretty good handle on how to factor links into its algorithm.

That being said, backlinks are still a very important ranking factor… just look at the image above.

It’s always good to get more quality backlinks—the ones that are natural because you have content worth linking to. You can build these backlinks using a …read more      

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