Hi Ana,This is my first time I visited …

Hey Ana,

Love the idea of having a file of posts you might want to link to. It can get tricky to remember them all as the catalogue builds up…

I wonder if you have a trick for linking from older posts to new ones as you write them? Other than just plain old going back in and editing in new links?

It’s good to know a little more about how you work - everyone seems to do it a little differently but the common theme of getting better and better as you keep it going seems to run through the guidance of most successful bloggers…

Thanks for sharing this ‘behind the scenes’ insight =)

Jym

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Ana,
I love the idea of Instapaper! I always find articles and posts that I want to get to but may be in a hurry or just can’t read them at the time. Instapaper let’s you read it later! What an awesome idea!

Yet again your advice is invaluable to me. Thanks so much for this blog!
Allie´s last blog ..Monday Wrap Up- Is January Done Yet

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That plugin looks very useful indeed; wonder if it’ll play nice witht he new WP update for Internal Linking
Donace@Market Samurai Promo´s last blog ..My Everest

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Hi Ana,

To be frank I’m also not a good writer but after reading your inspirational post I kinda got a feeling that yes I can do it.

First step I have to do is to read a lot about the topic.

Thanks for another amazing post.;)
Shailender @ Romantic Getaways´s last blog ..Merry Christmas &amp Happy Holidays from India Darshan

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Thanks Ana. Best tip here for me, although there are a lot, was to keep my “add new post” open in another window. I come up with so many ideas while reading other blogs and comments, but I tend to forget them - or get overwhelmed mentally with repeating “I’ve got to remember x,y,z” all day long. So simple, but it will really help …

Question though … If you’re posting so often, how the heck do you have time to do all the post promotion for each one? I think I could post each weekday, but I’d never be able to promote them properly with off-site activity.

Best,
Scott
Scott@Work From Home Ideas´s last blog ..TrafficWave Review

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Really useful tips thank you. Will be looking up the insights plugin. I use the Windows Live Writer on windows 7, it formats like word and then just uploads to wordpress. I have found it easier than wordpress direct especially when adding images.
Katherine Salt´s last blog ..Twitter Tweeps- The Good- The Bad and The Ugly

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Every time I read your stuff I learn something! I scanned along (I’m a writer so most of the stuff I already use), scan scan scan scan, ‘Drop Cap’ DING DING DING!. Thank you Ana. Every time. That little morsel of wisdom and knowledge jumps off the page at me.

As always Ana, great stuff. And as always, thank you.

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Hey Ana,

Funny thing is that I too hate writing essays and everything that involves me creating writings with a lot of fluff (damn I hated doing prose/poems reviews) and I usually write concise and to the point without adding to much extra information that it doesn’t really help and it just makes the content harder to read.

Now for the part that I really know:

For the drop cap using the first letter you need to insert the

.drop_cap {
font-size:3.538em;
line-height:0.739em;
padding:0.043em 0.13em 0 0;
color:#888888;
float:left;
}
in your css style file (btw, this is the code of your drop cap, so those who wants to use it may have to adjust the settings for their blog)
also an other method (that doesn’t work in some older browsers like IE 6.0 and maybe Opera) is to use this code for the word that you want to have a drop caps
word here
and add this code in your style file
.drop_cap:first-letter {
font-size:3.538em;
line-height:0.739em;
padding:0.043em 0.13em 0 0;
color:#888888;
float:left;
}

I can also do it with javascript, but that’s more advanced and some might not know how to integrate it with wordpress.

For the first css code you need to use the following html code for their drop cap to work:

< span class="drop_cap">firstletterhere< / span>restofthelettershere

(if you only see restofthelettershere, I want you to know that there is actually a span tag containing the world firstletterhere with a class named drop_cap)

and for the second css code the html code necessary is :
< span class="drop_cap">Firstwordhere< / span> (this is a span tag with a class named drop_cap that contains the word Firstwordhere).

Alex@Jocuri´s last blog ..Fotbal World Cup

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You nailed it.

The biggest takeaway here for me is the cross-linking text file. I was just thinking to myself last night how to better cross-link, especially with so many guests and contributors that I have now.

For anyone looking for some ease, I have an old plugin that I don’t even know is available anymore that really helps with internal links called RB Internal Links or something like that. It may still be available from the original creator but I also know it doesn’t work with every PHP environment.

Cheers for this, Ana!
Tia´s last blog ..Women- Be More Careful With Your Blogs

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Ana, make no mistake, you are an accomplished writer. You get your point across. You’re not trying to get us to see dragons in the mist (though I know you could, if you wanted to.) You’re sharing valuable information about a vital piece of the Internet Marketing puzzle and I am glad your system helps you maintain your prolific pace.

My system intersect yours at points two, three and four. I actually am able to visualize the finished post just by looking at the raw HTML. I start with a blank page in Word. I make my outline by inserting a bunch of h2 tags. This, as you said, is a great way to stay on topic and side-step writer’s block. The links usually come in as I type because I use a nifty text-replacement utility called PhraseExpress.

Where we differ, as I already mentioned, is that I use Word. The pain of losing a draft due to a dropped Internet connection was enough to curb that habit once and for all . I know the copy/paste is a pain, but here’s what I do. I select everything and copy it. Then I paste it into Notepad! Voila! No more formatting gremlins. I repeat the copy/paste from Notepad to the dashboard.

Proof-reading is fun, since I’m getting the first peek at the actual post. I still get a thrill when that opening picture pops up with my words. It’s a good thing I enjoy it because, even after spell-checking in Word, I found all kinds of stupid typos. Also, I tend to rephrase things because I like to make people see dragons in the mist. That’s just my style.

I am going to experiment with the points that I don’t currently use: especially the final one about post slugs. I never really got the point of them beyond making the title look prettier in the url. I guess I’ll know more after I finish reading your linked post on SEO slugs.

Interesting aside: I have that post opened in another tab and I noticed that the slug is completely different from the browser title bar which, in turn, doesn’t match the blog post title. That’s really cool. Thanks!

Cheers,

Mitch
Mitchell Allen´s last blog ..Invest in the Best Make Money Blogs

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