So, I poked around a little bit looking for a Terms of Service/Privacy Policy creation generator of some sort, and I came upon the fabulous blog of Ben Nadal, and he has a very cool tool over there that enables you to whip up some generic TOS and Privacy Policies in a snap. So, if you are looking for a quick, easy, and free tool of this nature, visit Ben’s blog and be sure to thank him with a link back!

Terms of Service/Privacy Policy Tool

I’ve read that bear attacks are rare, and you are way more likely to be killed by a vicious dog than a bear, and I accept that, but still, there is no defending yourself against a bear if he or she gets the wrong idea about your intentions.

It’s a synchronicity for me, because I have genuinely been thinking about bears, and I saw this video the other say that has gone a long way toward assuaging my concerns.

I can’t help but think about how much good could be done if nations adopted a shared ethos of cooperation, synergy, and genuine empathy across the board. The global economic paradigm is in a shambles and practically all of the assets are in very few pockets, and if anything goes wrong for the global elite, they are immediately bailed out. Around the world, 80% of the people live on less than $10 a day–half live on less than $3 a day.

Unnecessary wars are heartbreaking when you consider all of the human suffering that is taking place around the globe. Afghanistan, this great threat, has a per capita income of around $800. Adding to the suffering of these poverty stricken people, at enormous cost, is the height of immorality and an epic example of man’s inhumanity to man. Hopefully the world can provide Haiti with the ongoing assistance that it needs in the wake of the disaster…but after that…then what?

I recognize the fact that the economy is tough and a lot of people are out of work or underemployed and looking for a way, any way, to make some money. Some of them find their way to this field, and there are also a lot of individuals from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines who are bidding on some of the same jobs that I bid on.

Due to the fact that the cost of living is much higher here, coupled with my education and experience and the level of quality I provide, I am awarded a very low percentage of the contracts I bid on, in spite of the fact that I have a 100% customer satisfaction rating.

My point is not to moan or decry globalization (though the second part may be worth doing). I want to contend that there is such a thing as the cheapest price, but there is another factor to consider as well: the best value. Let me provide you with a quick analogy. I bought a mop at the dollar store a couple of week ago. The head came off the first time I used it and I had to throw it away. It was definitely the cheapest mop around…but it didn’t provide the best value. If you bought ten of them they wouldn’t last a week. But if you bought an $8 mop in the first place, it would probably last you a year.

As we say around here, your content is your voice on the Internet. It is your identity, and prospective customers can’t see you and look into your eyes or evaluate your physical location. They may not know where you are located at all. The only measure of trust that they can draw from is the appearance of your site, and the content that you have conveying your message and/or describing your offerings.

If your content sounds like it was written by a non-native, or if it is lacking in creativity, professionalism, and clarity, you will not inspire confidence in your visitors. Yes, it’s true that I’m a content provider so it is in my interest to make this contention. But let me tell you a secret…I’m a lousy salesman because I’m a terrible liar. But, if I believe that what I’m saying is true, I have no problem making a recommendation. And I am genuinely certain that paying a little bit more for really solid content is well worth it.

When I see what people are willing to pay, and what I’m asking, the difference is not all that great, and there is no doubt in my mind that the better value lies in going with impeccable, well written content. People wind up with either bad or mediocre content that basically does more harm than good, when they could have paid a fair price to an experienced and seasoned professional and walked away with optimum value for their money.

I have my finger on the pulse of things, and I think that many people are beginning to recognize the fact that the Internet is plagued by horrible writing, and I think they’re coming around. Hopefully, lots and lots of them will find their way right here.

There are dozens of RSS directory sites, and I’ve seen a few sites and blogs out there that are offering large lists of directoroes where you can submit your feed. I clicked on a few from one of the posts that I saw that I am not currently using, and half of them were inactive, so I don’t want to recommend that list. The one I am going to provide below is far from complete, but, I do know for a fact that they are all active and usable as of today.

Contrary to what some snake oil salesmen will will tell you, effective SEO takes painstaking, sometimes repetitive, often tedious hard work just like anything else. You have to put in the time to get your site recognized, but the good news is that there is a clear cut path to follow, and RSS feed submission is a part of it. We recommend that you submit your feed to the sites listed below.

Feedage
Feedraider
Feedest
2RSS
FeedMill
RSSmotron
RSSmountain
Technorati
Icerocket
Feedagg
Yahoo Publisher Network

The best way to continually improve as a writer is to pay attention when you are reading. I am utterly amazed by the grammar and spelling errors that professional people make on a routine basis when I am going about my day-to-day correspondence. It’s not that I have zero tolerance for someone making an honest mistake…it’s the fact that I know for sure that they have seen these misspelled words in print thousands of times throughout their lives. I simply cannot understand how someone can spell the word “prefer” “prafer,” or the word “trust” “thrust,” and do so repeatedly so you know that the errors are not typos.

I’m not going to stand on a soapbox decrying our culture of texting and spellcheckers diluting respect for the written word in some broad context. What I’m laying out here is a suggestion for those who endeavor to compose content for websites, blogs, and articles: if you aren’t certain about something, look it up. Do so all the time, 100% of the time. It’s never okay to guess or assume something must be right. For instance, when I used a colon earlier in this paragraph, I started the phrase that followed it with a small letter. I didn’t know if this was correct or not at one time…but I looked it up. Many people capitalize after a colon, but that is simply incorrect in most cases.

For the layman to make an error like that one is probably understandable and no big deal, but if you are a content provider, you need to set a standard for yourself and never compromise it. If you make the commitment to ongoing self education and welcome opportunities to look into things that you are unsure of, you will continually grow as a professional. But you will also evolve as a writer and as a person of integrity for integrity’s sake, and that is a something that is truly priceless.

Humility is key in every endeavor, and it is important to recognize that you don’t know it all when you are engaged in writing content for SEO, and even when you do for a fleeting moment, the situation will change before you know it. So, I like to work with the assumption that the people who are programming search engine algorithms are bright, they know what they’re doing, and they are always looking forward and trying to make improvements.

I was told back in the day that you need to identify keywords and phrases based on search volume and consciously stuff your content with these. There are many who still feel that this is true. Other say you should indeed use these pre-selected terms, but they toss out a metric, like “2% to 5%” is the “correct” keyword density. The fact is, they don’t know this for sure. But businesses always want to operate under a set of numerical absolutes, when in fact, none exist in many if not most instances.

There is a process called Latent Semantic Indexing that Google has been interested in for several years that I believe plays a big part in the future of search algorithms. LSI is basically a method of recognizing the subject matter of a body of text based on semantically related terms.

Smart people are going to be annoyed by an algorithm that encourages a lack of semantic elegance and rewards poorly written, keyword-stuffed content with positive SERPs. There has to be a better way, and I think that LSI is that better way.

So when I deliver content, I get a general idea of the relevant keywords and their search volume using SEO tools, but I keep them in the back of my mind and write naturally. I’ve done that throughout the writing of this post, and I bet that if you look back through it to see if there are relevant keywords winding through the text, you will find them. But none are overused because I am trying to write something that reads well that is intended to convey my thoughts on this topic clearly and concisely. So I am at once writing compelling and useful content while inadvertently, as it were, using a hefty number of key terms and phrases.

When you think about, content that is clearly written around keywords is not going to convert even if it helps a site place well in the SERPs. People will click, say “yuck, spam,” and move one. Content has a dual purpose–optimization coupled with genuinely useful and compelling information that leads to conversions. We learn and adjust day by day, but we feel as though we have an advanced understanding of quality content creation and endeavor to provide our clients with the best of both worlds.

There are various tools out there that can provide you with additional tiers of useful information about the pages that you are interested in, like Google Page Rank, Alexa ranking, backlinks, keywords and their density, Diggs, traffic, and other metrics. I use a couple of them and the one that I would like to highlight here is SEO for Firefox.

We believe in the ethos of giving props to those who have done the work before us and not simply doing the same thing that has already been done in our own way. So with that in mind Aaron Wall from SEO Book has put together a nice instructional video on how to download and use SEO for Firefox. When you do, if you have never used such a tool, you will feel like a kid in a candy store if you really have a passion for SEO. Check it out:

Arizona State University astrobiologist Paul Davies says that they may have already been here–but that’s not all; they may be here living among us (or in us) and we just don’t know how or where to look.

When you live in a world where virtually all of the wealth is controlled by a few and 80% of the people live on less than $10 a day while cash-strapped American taxpayers foot the bill for near-record Wall Street bonuses, it is not surprising that people are reaching out for some sort otherworldly intervention!

I’m a big believer in utilizing free and open source solutions, and the ethos of information sharing and synergy among designers and developers is very cool on every level and it is certainly something to tap into. Oddly, there are those who think that something that is free can’t be as good as something that you have to pay for. That may be true in most cases in regards to hard product, but when it comes software there are often very viable free or open source alternatives.

I’m personally not the biggest fan of Google in the same manner that I’m not the a fan of the Yankees–the powerful behemoths who can outspend anyone and subsequently dictate terms to all. But, Google, unlike the Yankees, actually shares some cool stuff for free, and one of them is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Now there other keyword tools out there, but you either have to pay for them, or they are “light” versions that are intended to tease you into buying the full version. I have toyed with these, and I prefer the free tool that Google offers. Though I don’t believe that their search numbers are entirely accurate, they are as good or better than the subscription tools like Wordtracker (imho).

When you access the Google Adwords Keyword Tool you have the choice to enter a site’s URL to see what keywords the Google bots associate with it, or enter keywords that you have targeted to see how many searches they get per month, and how much competition there is for the term. The first option is a good way to:

1.) Analyze the keywords that a site that is doing well in your niche is using.

2.) Evaluate how your site looks to the Google spiders in terms of keyword anatomy and consider their suggestions.

The other search will let you know how many people are searching for the terms you are considering, and how hard it will be to place for those by considering the level of competition that exists for the terms. The logical approach is to try to target keywords that get a good amount of searches that are not saturated with competition. Depending on the niche you’re in, it can be tough, but that’s the goal. Below you will see what the Google Adwords Keyword Tool interface looks like. Notice that the term I entered was “keyword tools.”

The tool is self explanatory, and if you have never used it you will be surprised by how few searches some terms get, and by how many others get. I once had a client who provided me with the keywords he wanted me to use for a large, ongoing blogging initiative. He didn’t use any keyword tools, and many of his terms got little to no searches, but he was not someone who wanted to be “schooled” by the help, so…I gave him what he requested. It’s interesting to note that he was out of business about six months later.

So there’s a little heads-up on Google’s keyword tool. I use it just about every day and I recommend becoming familiar with it and using your common sense to put it to good use.