If you haven’t heard about Plurk yet or don’t know how to use it, well, go read up on my buddy Zak Nicola’s blog (it’s the content writing one) to learn all about it. Zak wrote an awesome post about creating cliques on Plurk and I thought I would take his lead and give you a little bit of information about how to use those cliques to your advantage!

On Plurk, there is such a thing called a “Private Message” which is a Plurk that you send to specific people and ONLY those people. No one other than the listed recipients (which you specify) will have access to seeing the Plurk. When a clique is setup (See Zak’s Making Cliques on Plurk Post here), and a message is sent to the members of that clique, only they can see it. This makes talking to certain groups of people about particular subjects a breeze and also helps to keep the occasional riff-raff out of commenting on subjects you don’t want their opinion on.

Personally, I have cliques setup for all kinds of things. I have a clique of coworkers. A clique of friends I know IRL (”in real life,” for you internet N00bs). I have cliques for SEM contacts, Link Monkeys, Social Media gurus, etc. Communicating with these specific groups in regards to subject matters that are geared towards them is simple, easy and highly beneficial.

So why have cliques, isn’t it just high school rearing its ugly head on Plurk?

NO! I’m sure some people could try to use it in this way, but the smarter-than-the-average-bear Plurker could be using these to funnel posts and responses so that they are not getting a hodge podge of responders which may or may not know JACK about what they’re talking about. Also, if you are a member of a clique someone else has setup and you like the people you end up speaking with when responding to that particular cliques posts, you can then setup your OWN clique of that nature using those people you found as well as adding in some of your own known contacts to create SUPER Cliques. (Think of a Super Clique as a powerhouse group of individuals who are directly targeted for one common reason.)

Creating cliques on Plurk is a simple process, so once you have done that, you should be well familiar with the anatomy of cliques. You can see that when you are in a private or clique post (they’re pretty much the same thing) the bottom of the post window has a list of all of the recipients specified for that particular Plurk. It would be a good idea to keep an eye on these lists of people, especially when you are a member of someone else’s clique, as they can be great resources for creating those SUPER Cliques I mentioned earlier.

If you’re going to be participating in cliques or “Plurkvates” (as I like to call them) then you’re going to need to be good about checking your Private Plurks. You can find those by using the little drop down in the bottom right corner of your timeline and selecting “Only Private Plurks.” This will only display Private Plurks that have been sent to you either individually or as a part of a Clique. Remember, the best loved Plurkers are the observant ones.

Speaking of Cliques, we’re setting one up for the “First Annual Plurker IRL Water Gun Fight Weekend” which is in the works of being planned. If you want to participate, send me a Plurkvate.

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I’m trying something a little new. As some of you know, I have dreams of being a writer and there is nothing I love more than stringing together a line or two. I decided I wanted to try something new and test out writing small (140 characters or less) poems, statements, thoughts etc., to see if and how people react.

Here’s my first attempt:

“ Our meetings are fleeting, And letters constricted, But Characters are not lacking, For the Twitter addicted.”

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I use two different RSS Readers. Bloglines for my professional interests (mostly SEO and SEM related) and Google Reader for my personal stuff (friends blogs, Overheard in sites, etc.) Today I decided to dig through some of the posts that I have saved for whatever random reason and noticed an interesting trend.

There are a few blogs that I have saved articles from WAY more often than others. Is this an indication that these “top saved” blogs are better at providing info than others or just another example of my preference for certain authors writing styles? Looking at the saved articles themselves, I would say its more about the quality of the information, but who knows?

Anyway, here is a look at the top saved blogs I have going right now out of the 69 feeds I have in Bloglines:

Search Engine Watch - By far the most saved articles out of the bunch. Everything from linking ideas to interesting takes on search trends.

SeoMoz - A fairly close second. Looks like Jane Copeland is the real winner here as her posts made up about 30% of the articles I have saved for this particular blog.

Search Engine Guide - I don’t think I could help this, I mean, Stoney has the most beautiful smartassed approach to his posts, you can’t help but love them.

There were many other blogs that I have saved an article or two from, but those were the top 3. Do you have any that you are marking to be saved more often than others? I’d love to hear that I’m not the only one.

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Need Content Writing Advice?  

I have had a few people ask me recently for “content writing advice” and I have begun to realize that although people know how to speak intelligently about the given subject matter of their website, they feel uncomfortable expressing it in written form.

Writing Content for Visitors

When it comes to content writing the most important thing for you to remember is that you should be writing for your visitors, not the search engines. I can’t tell you how many times I have read a page on a website and thought “Well that sentence doesn’t make any sense at all.” I like to write my content very conversationally. If someone can come visit my website and imagine my voice saying whatever they are reading, I have done my job well.

Content Writing Should Sound Natural 

So how do you give your website a voice without leaving out everything that makes content optimized? Say what you mean, not what you think sounds more professional. Now don’t get me wrong here, I don’t think it would be beneficial to you to have something like “Yo wassup. I think you’ll like my website because it’s mad fresh.” (Although to be honest, I would get a kick out of seeing something like that!) I also don’t like going to websites that say things like “Auderbean sales are through the roof because people like Auderbeans. When you own an Auderbean you have the best that there is to offer, in regards to Auderbeans.” Shoving in a bunch of instances of your main keyterm so that the search engines will love your content is only really going to accomplish one thing; You’re going to turn off your reader. To me, it is much more important to say something of substance to the person who matters (The person who will be buying the Auderbean) than to the search engines.

If your website is good and legit, you will get good rankings eventually without having to piss off your visitors. Try to remember that writing content should be a natural progression. You know the product, you know why you believe in it, so just tell it like it is. “Auderbeans are a modern convenience that I just came upon recently but can’t understand how I ever lived without them. One of my favorite Auderbean features is the fact that they provide you with adequate warmth without being smothering.” Etc. You can still work in your main keywords and make your sales pitch, all while being natural.

Content Writing Advice - Who do you trust? 

I’d also like to point out that advice on writing content is something that you should take with a grain of salt. What works for me may not work for you. Just because I have found success in being simple and natural does not mean that you will pop up into the top ten doing that as well. The important thing to remember is that there is no such thing as too much content. If you don’t feel like you have adequately gotten your point across, just add another page to your site and continue providing information! There is no right or wrong answer as far as how much content you should have on your website. Just say what you want/need to say and provide as many details as possible so that your visitors can make an informed decision.

Everything else regarding content writing advice is just opinion… and you know what they say about those….

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