ramblingsbyamy

Making your articles more searchable requires a few things, a good title, and of course SEO. Either one of these alone will get you nothing. They both must work together hand and hand to achieve the task. 

First, let us discuss what a good title is important. It is of course what will bring in the visitors. When you create a title on most content sites this is also the URL of the article. It plays a big role in determining your placement along with of course the key words or key phrases. 

Let us say you are creating an article on how to clean a lawn mower for example. There are a great many ways you can create your title, but a few will be better then most of those ways. The best way of course is to have lawn mowing as close to the start of the title rather than the end. Lawn Mower Clean it right is better then how to clean your lawn mower.

 Just like Homemade Chocolate Cake recipe is a better title than how to make a chocolate cake at home. Notice the words lawn mower and chocolate cake in the proceeding sentences. Try to keep your keywords towards the front of the title. 

If you are writing a chocolate cake article then your keywords should be the chocolate cake. Those words should appear at least once for every fifty words. Most content articles require four hundred words so to have this article searchable you need to type the words chocolate and cake each eight times.

Time management is essential for any type of career but it is extremely important when you work from home as a freelance writer. If you do not keep a close watch on the different areas of time, you will run into trouble by running out of time. 

If it is a day when I am writing articles for one of the many content sites I work on, I must carefully watch my time. Do I use a set schedule? Nope that is too easy to mess up. Instead, I write an article or two off the top of my head and then get up and do some type of physical activity. This allows me to get both my articles done and the housework as well.

Just as you have lunchtime in a regular job, you must take time away from work to eat your lunch. Use this time to check your emails, play a game, eat, or call a friend. Usually I am eating as I type an article, and use my breaks to do something physical. Trust me with others living in my house, there is always plenty of housework to do right along with my paid work. 

No schedule is going to work for everyone, so it is important to figure out what works for you. Make the time you have work for you, and you will accomplish more within your limited writing time.

Some people ask how I find the time or motivation to be a power writer, and let me assure you I do not feel as if I am a power writer in the true sense of the word. Yes, I may look like it with so much work, but I assure you it is just a shuffling for the most part. I will state they are all new to the particular site they are being shifted to.

I lack the drive to begin today’s workload, but I know once I am done I can began the fun stuff. Some days I feel as if I cannot copy and paste one more word, yes it is that bad. I keep reminding myself that there is another twelve days in this month to go. The only day I am planning to take off from writing anything new would be Thanksgiving. 

I need to find some motivation and quick so I can be done for the day.

Alzheimer’s or Dementia is an awful disease which involves a variety of changes within those afflicted with the disease. No cure exists and depending on the stage, the Alzheimer’s or Dementia patient’s thinking and reasoning skills are severely affected.

Learn all you can about Alzheimer’s or Dementia once a solid diagnosis is made. Try to secure a power of attorney. A trusted family member should have access to all bank accounts, and legal information. When we begin to see signs of Alzheimer’s or Dementia things can progress rapidly, so get a power of attorney as soon after a diagnosis.

Allow dementia patients to live on their own if they can care for their own needs. However, this is a rapid progressing disease and these patients should not be alone for extended periods as no one can predict that rate of cognitive impairment.

Check in on the dementia patient daily if he or she does not live with you or have a family member or a neighbor check this person. If there is, a spouse or close neighbor to help watch over the patient it should be okay, but if that person lives alone, make an excuse to visit everyday to check on the progress of the Alzheimer’s or Dementia.

Watch for those dangerous points, which are red flags that this person who has Alzheimer’s or Dementia has regressed to the point when they are no longer able to stay alone. These include not eating properly, over mediating themselves, not remembering simple stuff, like the day, as well as any odd behaviors, which are not usual to that person.

At the point when they are unable to make simple decisions, then a family member needs to step in. Move the Alzheimer’s or Dementia patient in your home or a nursing home when they can no longer live on his or her own. Prepare the Alzheimer’s or Dementia patient to have a say in where they live if possible. Allow them to help make their own choices, as they are able.

Perhaps they will resist but if you feel they are unable to care for themselves, you need to step in. Talk with their doctor. Most elderly people have had the same trusted doctor for years. That doctor can help you in determining their mental state. If the doctor recommends it, go to court to gain custody if needed.

Safety is very important and if their cognitive thinking and reason skills become damaged by the progress of the disease to the extent that they have become unable to care for them it is up to us as family members to step in and help. It truly is as simple of that.

A professional writer needs to have grammar issues resolved before they send articles or any type of writing to the public. This is something I struggle with on a daily basis to achieve. While I learn, I think I will go much slower than I began, because it greatly enhances my chances of success. Success is what I seek and success is what I shall have.

Recently I entered a short story in a writing contest. While my writing has drastically improved over my last entry, it was still not free of the errors that plague me. Once I fix those errors, I have two choices send out that story to a publisher or continue onward with the life of the main character.

I can see myself carrying onward with it, as the main character really touched a cord within my soul. I wonder if other writers experience such a pull from a character they create. Yes there is a part of my within this character, I am in many ways like her. I wish to help others with my special skill but like my character, I realize most people do not wish my kind of help.

Friends far and near can be your salvation on a hard day, when nothing seems to be going the right way. Friends seem to make the loneliness disappear in any job, but when you work from home as a freelance writer, those friends are as close as your computer. I belong to a group of friends on a forum, as we are just that, friends.

One of the women in the group has been having trouble lately when she emailed me her phone number I had to call her. I needed to make sure she was okay. I know her situation very closely as I have been in a marriage like she had but I got out of it. I did not feel funny when I began talking to her, it seemed as if we were best friends and I so enjoyed the conversation. I feel as if I helped a friend today.

The women and men on that forum are not only my friends and coworkers but at times, they seem like family for which I am grateful. It’s a very special place that forum and I am so glad to be part of it.

Sometimes I ask my children what topic I should write about because near the end of a heavy day of writing my brain goes numb. Tonight when I asked my sixteen year old this question, his answer was ‘Twilight’. He loves that book but I have not read it myself so I cannot offer a review, but I like the other type of twilight as that means my favorite hours are coming.

 I am a night owl, and have been since the aforementioned child was a baby. His health and round the clock breathing treatments for his first 18 months of life, and sometimes it was just better to stay up and make sure he was safe. Sometimes when I see him celebrate another birthday, I cry. No, it is not just, because my baby is growing up, I cry because he almost never even celebrated his second birthday. While some of us take life for granted, his was almost cut short four times in his first two years of life.  Asthma is a bear to live with and at times, it was very hard to get this little one stabilized.

I am looking for a special home for a short story I wrote, those who have read it said its a good tale. I love to write about that stuff, and I guess it that is why it got such a warm reception. Of course, it had grammar mistakes, but at least there are no typos. I was known as the typo queen locally, and those people cannot believe that I am actually making a living writing these days.

I just smile and say it is the magic of word. Actually, the spell checker is my Godsend. When I was learning the MS office suite back in 1998, I loved it and excelled at it, but I didn’t use it for paid writing. There are lots of the grammar and spelling setting you must use when you are being paid to write. However I so wish I had paid attention way back in 7th or 8th grade when grammar was being taught, because I would be two steps ahead of things now.

Last night we had flurries here in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and I so wish it had stuck around for a little bit. It seems to be that when Mother Nature decides to share snow with us, my muse comes out to play a bit often.  Creative writing just seems to flow better when I am inside under my favorite blanket and lose hours writing.

Mother Nature and my muse work well together for the most part. Inside writing is better done in the winter when it is snowing, while summer writing is done outdoors in the shade surrounded by nature. Does Mother Nature inspire you?

It’s taken me years to realize the upsurge in writing with the falling snow or awesome sounds of a forest on a warm summer day, both of which Mother Nature plays a big role on the weather. Perhaps I need to make the inside of my house woodsier and I would be able to get that flow more easily.

With Christmas fast approaching, I am so in the mood for a good old-fashioned love story just in time for the season. Christmas is such a romantic time to me, even more so the Valentines Day.  Perhaps it is because when I was a child Santa and his Mrs. would visit our home, and they seemed so happy. We children would sit on his lap and get out photo taken with the small gifts they brought us just before Christmas.  

As I grew older and realized whom the helpers were, I knew they were one of the happiest couples I had ever seen in my life. I am surprised we girls did not catch on sooner, but that was all part of the magic.  Now as an adult, I miss Mrs. Claus as my dear aunt went to heaven 15 years ago, but Santa is still residing in a room at the local nursing home and not forgotten. I saw him a few weeks ago. On a wall in his room, hangs a photograph taken long ago of Santa and Mrs. Claus with five smiling children. I am the one in front with my lower lips hanging out.