When you write something on the internet – on your blog, blog comments, your website, articles that you publish – do you ever stop and wonder where your words may end up?
Personally, it never ceases to amaze me where my articles end up. I often see articles I’ve submitted to article directories on other people’s blog and websites, and I’ve even seen a couple in business newsletters that I subscribe to (all used appropriately and acknowledging the author, of course).
This week, I discovered that a post by Paul B. Brown on the New York Times Business Blog has quoted the Small Business Diva. Who would ever have thought? (NB: This is a great blog by the way – definitely worth visiting).
Now, would you like to know how I discovered this? No, I don’t have time to spend all day reading through millions of websites/blogs. I subscribe to Google Alerts. All you do is go to Google Alerts and enter the search terms you want to be alerted to, such as your name, your business name or even just an industry or topic that you’re interested in. Enter how often you want to receive email alerts, whether you want websites, blogs or everything, and your email address. That’s it. Simple.
When someone publishes something that includes your nominated search terms, you’ll be sent an email with the details.
Here’s to your success in business,
Donna-Marie
Three people this week have asked my opinion on what font is best for a particular project so I thought I would share some of the basics of fonts with you – which type to use when.
Very generally, for documents that will be read from a printed medium – flyer, magazine, newspaper – a serif font such as Times New Roman, Courier or Georgia is best. Serif fonts are the ones where each letter has little ‘feet’.
For documents that are more likely to be read on a computer – websites, ebooks, blogs, emails – sans serif (without feet) fonts such as Arial, Verdana and Tahoma are the best. Serif fonts on a computer screen can tend to look a little blurry and people with less than perfect eyesight may have trouble reading them.
Of course, sometimes you will want a specific font that matches your style, brand and image. Generally, cursive fonts such as Monotype Corsiva will be considered elegant; handwriting fonts such as Kristen or Lucida Handwriting give a fun, child-like feel; fonts that lean to the right imply something that is fast or energetic; Comic Sans is something more relaxed or fun; strong bold fonts such as Impact or Broadway imply… well, bold or impacting.
There are no hard and fast rules but these are more general guidelines that seem to be universally accepted.
Here’s to your success in business…
Donna-Marie
There is a great post on the Write Powerful Resumes blog about using powerful words to bring your resume to life.
The example given is excellent:
“There is nothing worse than saying:
- Achieved strong results due to strong ability to assess situations and utilise strong relationship skills.
Even though only two words have been changed, look at how much more powerful and interesting this next sentence is.
- Achieved outstanding results due to innate ability to assess situations and utilise strong relationship skills.”
These tips are not only useful when writing resumes but are also valuable across all types of writing. Within my business I use my thesaurus often. I also have a ‘swipe file’ of suggestions for alternate words and phrases.
It’s amazing how simply changing a few words here and there can make such a huge improvement to the quality of the text.
Here’s to your success in business…
Donna-Marie
Anyone who knows the benefits of article banks - either as a place to submit your articles, somewhere to find good quality content or both – knows that there are literally 1000s to choose from.
But what if you’re specifically after articles relating to Australia? Until recently your only option was to go through seemingly endless articles to try to find something Australian based. Well, now there’s a simple solution… The RepOZitory.
The RepOZitory specialises in Australian articles. People in other countries can still use these articles, so long as they’re aware that they will have Aussie spelling and grammar.
There are plenty of great articles there on topics such as business, marketing, finance, families, health, time management… including a few written by yours truly. :)
