Creating an advertisement which will be memorable in the full sense of the word is an art. If it can also persuade people to buy a particular product then it is big business. For any writer, therefore, it is a very worthwhile exercise to consider why some advertisements are so appealing that they almost become part of our culture. We also want our words to be memorable and even make a little money for us into the bargain.

I still recall in great detail an advertisement that appeared on the television many years ago. It was a cartoon featuring someone tied to a stake and sucking a mint. Indians on the warpath encircled him and it appeared that an untimely and unpleasant death was imminent. Was the victim dismayed? Not at all, his priority was not escape but to finish his mint and he was taking his time. A humorous cartoon and a catchy tune with the never to be forgotten words "Murray mint, Murray mint, the too good to hurry mint." Everyone was singing it and no doubt a high percentage of them bought some mints as well.

It wasn't just the tune however, it was the message tucked away behind it - that the good things in life can still be enjoyed in spite of adverse circumstances. That man had the right attitude. So let us at least enjoy the same mints as he did.

A more recent advertisement was a dramatic enactment of a car outracing a wild fire. This drama was accompanied by music with just four words "takes your breath away."

It could have come out of a Bond movie. What a car! With a car like that one would feel like 007. Male fantasy in full flow. All achieved with a common little phrase that said it all.

In this day and age of Celebrity, using a well known person can sell anything from underpants to real estate. The appeal being that if we cannot become celebrities at least we can enjoy some of their luxuries. A certain brand of coffee perhaps? So we watch George Clooney choose a cup of coffee in preference to the adoration of a beautiful fan. In another advertisement he is turned away from a party because he is not accompanied by a certain alcoholic drink. Both items being easily available to the discerning viewer at a local supermarket.

Using a puppy to sell toilet paper may seem bizarre but it was inspirational. A Labrador puppy running around a house tangled up in a swathe of toilet paper said "soft, strong and long" which is about as good as toilet paper can get. Enough to make a housewife smile and remember this when she needs to buy some. A kitten would not have had the same effect, so the kittens appear on birthday cards conveying "sweet and cuddly" for a girlfriend. We can learn a lot about image from choices like these.

The producers of such advertisements are paid a fortune for their talents which include an awareness of consumer psychology, a knack for producing something succinct using words, pictures or music and sometimes a combination of all three. Faced with massive competition it is their business to add that extra something that will capture the imagination and make their product stand out above the others. Rather like a good article on Triond don't you think?

Well, that’s where advertising kicks into play. Chan Lee Peng put it best when he said that, “Back link is by far the best strategy which is used to attract readers/ visitors to your article/ website” in his article entitled “How to Get Non-stop Traffic and Page Views to Your Websites or Articles.”

Aside from submitting your article links to the major search engines, and like Chan said, using Yahoo! Answers and E-pinion, I have 5 additional tips to add. I have tried all of the strategies myself and they seem to be working, at least for the moment anyway.

Affiliations

If you have a website or a blog, it’s quite common to affiliate with other websites and blogs. Placing a small text or picture link on your site in exchange for placing your text or picture link on another site is relatively common practice these days. It’s not that someone who views your site or the other site will click on the affiliate link, but it’s more of the fact that the more sites the link to your article is on, the easier it is for search engines to find it, and the higher up in the search results your article will be.

Free Banners

If you’re good at using Adobe Photoshop, you can take a look at Free Banners, a banners-exchange site whereby placing a small banner code in your website will let you earn credits that are automatically used to advertise your banner on other websites. In addition, if you place the banner code at the top of your website pages, you’ll automatically obtain Gold Membership from Free Banners, allowing other Gold Members to view your banner, thus increasing the number of people checking out your articles.

Your banner can even be as simple as a plain white rectangle with the name of your article on it.

Invision Power Boards

There are many forum board hosting services on the World-Wide-Web, but the major ones are phpBB 3.0, Invision Power Boards, and V-Bulletin. Of these three services, Invision Power Boards has the best search engine crawling capabilities. It has a feature in the Administration Control Panel of its boards that lets forum administrators allow “Search Engine Spiders” to crawl your board’s pages and add them to the engine’s search results. For example, in the Administrator Control Panel on my forum board, my statistics show that Google crawls through my forum at least 5 times every day, adding new forum post links to their search engine.

Keep in mind that Invision Power Boards is completely different to InvisionFree, an older version which does not have the same success when it comes to search engines crawling your pages.

Even if you have no interest in creating or maintaining a forum board, create one just to post links to your articles. Enable the “Search Engine Spiders” option in your Administrator Control Panel, and search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Live and HotBot will crawl through your forum board. Any links on your board to your articles will also be crawled through and added to the search engines as well.

Link Referral

Previously called Link Exchange until it was bought over by Microsoft and its original site transformed into a Microsoft Office advertising page (go figure, here we go again with greedy powerhouse Bill Gates), Link Referral is just what its name suggests - a site where you can refer a link to other people. The site has thousands of members, and hundreds of thousands of submitted links in their database. In short, it’s like submitting your site to a search engine. The difference is that YOU alone control how high your link appears in Link Referral’s Search Engine Database.

Every day, you have the option of viewing 30 other member-submitted links, posting 5 reviews on other links, selecting 1 link as your favorite for the day, and writing 1 post for the Link Referral forum board. If you do all of this on a daily basis (they say it takes 45 minutes per day, but in my experience it takes about 2 hours), your link’s position on the site’s Search Engine results will substantially increase. Also, the more detailed reviews you post on other people’s sites, the better grade you get as your review rating. A higher grade also affects your link’s position. I have an ‘A’ grade, and by completing the 30 visits, 5 reviews, 1 favorite and 1 forum post, I can get my site to within the top 3 positions in the Link Referral search engine. The top 5 spots in the search engine rack up 20 to 60 visits each day, so you can see the earnings potential when you add up the number of people viewing your Triond article.

Triond Community Forums

The official Triond Community Forums, where all Triond members are encouraged to communicate with other Triond members. Expand your reputation, and you’ll gain more exposure and thus earnings for any content you submit to Triond itself.

Because of this additional income I am receiving every month, I was able to pay all my bills (electric, cell phone, telephone, and internet) on time without delay unlike before. I was able to enroll my daughter at the best school in town. And in addition, I am now recognized by some of my colleagues who were doubtful at first if I can make it good in the internet.

Publishing articles is easy especially with Triond (the only publishing site in the internet where I am actively contributing). The real problem lies on marketing -on how to gain views or traffic to your site. Marketing is the bread and butter of every writer/contributor - more views will mean more money. I have seen scores of good writers that come and go, most of them disappearing due to failure to gain expected views on their submitted articles. It's the same problem I encountered during my first month. I was able to published 78 articles during my first month, most of which were poem that I have written in the past. Without any knowledge and background on internet marketing, guess what - I've earned $1.86 only. Isn't it silly and ridiculous?

But this didn't discourage me to go on. Through exploration and discovery, keen observation and careful analysis with the aid of will power, perseverance and hard work - slowly, one by one, I started to learn the process of promoting my works. I've been through a lot of trial and error but in the end after working long hours every night and having minimal hours of sleep, I started to see the fruit of thy labor - my articles started gaining more views/traffic.

At the same time while learning on how to advertise my works, I started making friends with Triond writers by reading their articles and posting comments on them until such time that I've already created my circle of friends without even noticing it. As a sort of unsolicited advice, I hope newcomers at Triond should do the same, instead of leaving messages on the inbox of fellow Trionders asking them to read and comment on their published articles.

As I was climbing the stairs of Triond, there were few people who tried to pull me down by leaving harsh and nasty comments on my articles but this didn't discourage me either. I would admit, it affected me emotionally and even psychologically (sometime) but on the other hand, it encouraged me and challenged me more to strive harder.

To sum it up, I would like to extend my warmest thanks and gratitude to my love ones, to all my friends, my on-line friends (including my detractors) for their moral and spiritual support, the hundred and thousand readers who diligently read my articles (hopefully they'll continue to do so for all the years yet to come), to all the Triond editors and support team for their helping hand and to God above for His continued blessings and graces. To all of you, I offer this humble and tiny success of mine and with hope that in my own little way; this achievement will serve as an inspiration to others.

Thank you all, good luck, good health and God Bless!

Here's my top 13 list of articles that gained (and still gaining) the highest number of views;

1. World's Most Impressive Rock Formations with 126,162 views
2. Spectacular Trees From Around The World with 90,624 views
3. 25 Amazing and Bizarre Deep Sea Creatures with 58,261 views
4. Top 10 Most Famous & Historically Significant Tombs in the World with 51,603 views
5. The Most Unique and Bizarre Lakes From Around the World with 45,403 views
6. 20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet with 45,511 views
7. 20 Most Bizarre Congenital Defects/Abnormalities with 26,450 views
8. 10 Deadliest Plants on the Planet with 24,442 views
9. 13 Killer Diseases Transmitted by Animals to Humans with 18,125 views
10. 11 More Spectacular Trees From Around the World with 12,587 views
11. Top Five Island Tourist Destinations in the Philippines with 11,072 views
12. 12 Vitamin-Rich Exotic Fruits From the Philippines (and Other Tropical Areas) with 10,239 views.
13. The Twenty Most Brilliantly Colored Birds in the World with 10,032 views

My two most read poems are;  I Don't Love You and Love Me Again. My recipe with the highest number of views is Pininyahang Manok.

For photos and more articles of this contributor, visit my Triond author page

Many times, people create profits by doing this. It is a crucial tactic in advertising, and it has been adopted by Triond.com as a method of creating profits and giving paychecks to its users.

Triond.com is a great website that allows people to utilize the idea of indirectism to turn a profit. By doing this, the website provides a great service to its users, in allowing them to not only share information, but also to get paid for it! If you are seeing this article by way of indirectism, you are experiencing the effects firsthand. I hope you have enjoyed this article and I hope you can expand your ideas relating to indirectism in many directions!

So far I have been using Triond for about a week and have two poems published on it.  My earnings so far are still pretty low, but I am hopeful that they will increase as I add more of my writings.  And low or not, they are still making some money and more that if I got them published in another online magazine just for the prestige and no pay. 

If you have upwards of one hundred published pieces on Triond, then it starts to pay off, earning you a fair monthly recurring income. Of course a lot depends on clicking the ads.  So sign up, get started publishing, and get clicking!   

cc: mom

Subject: Email Communication Made Simple (and Effective)

Reader -

In the era of the telephone, the glib talker reigned supreme.

That was then. Today, clear, succinct, readable email is the preferred way to correspond with clients too distant for face-to-face meetings, or too busy to take your telephone call.

Email can request information, make a recommendation, or serve as an inexpensive marketing tool. Written well, it can set you apart from your colleagues. And your competition.

Here are a few simple guidelines for communicating effectively via email.

Use the “Subject” Like a Headline

The “Subject” of your email should serve as a headline. Draw in your reader. Identify the benefit of reading your communiqué.

Research shows that five times as many people read the Subject line as read the entire email. Sixty percent delete the message without ever reading it! And those figures don't include spam.

Get to the Point

At Leo Burnett, we began all our memos with “This” as in “This recommends …” or “This requests information regarding…” or “This responds to your request…”. While this may be appropriate for more formal correspondence, the same principle applies to email.

Tell your recipient the purpose of your email up front. Don't put your examples first. Don't digress.

The best advice I ever received: when finished writing a memo or email, try putting the last sentence first and see if that doesn't vastly improve the flow.

It often does.

Make it Interesting

Convey your message in such a way as to make the reader want to read it. Your opening statement should compel the reader to read line two; line two should compel the reader to read line three, and so on.

Sometimes, when you need to have a long sentence to explain some complicated thing or another, follow it with a short sentence. Like this.

Write as if you are talking to the person next to you. And forget about complete sentences. Remember the way your high school English teacher taught you? With a subject and a predicate? People don't talk that way. You don't need to write that way either.

No More than One Page

John Smale, former president of Procter & Gamble and the brand manager who first put the American Dental Association endorsement on Crest toothpaste, once dictated: “Keep all memos to one page. If you can't say it in one page, you haven't clearly thought out your message.”

We live in a world of sound bites. We have become so busy (or perhaps so lazy), we prefer not to engage the down arrow on our keyboards.

So get to the point quickly. State your issue. Close. If you need more than one page to state your case, make it an attachment.

It's Not Who You Send it To, It's Who You Copy

Imagine your colleague just sent you an email complimenting you upon your creativity and hard work on a particular project. And he copied your boss and your boss's boss.

Or you just outlined a new service training program designed to streamline your shipping and save two days on delivery. And you copied your key customers.

Use the cc: judiciously. No one wants to receive uninteresting or irrelevant email.

But copying others can be an effective marketing tool. As your email opinions and recommendations are circulated throughout your company and your industry, with your name attached to them, your visibility grows.

Use a Standard Format

Email need not follow formal letter writing format. The date and return address are automatic anyway. You can even skip the salutation, though opening with the recipient's name is always a good idea.

Then, state your case, the reason for the correspondence and close. Most email software includes an option for a signature. This may be anything from a simple name to a complete corporate address, phone, fax, and web site address.

Even so, it's not a bad idea to personalize your close with your name. I use my initials.

I've been with Triond now for about 1 year, and I've made over $120.00. Some may look at this figure and be amazed that so many can be earned online on one site. Others will look at it and think it is a waste of time. But I have a word of warning for everyone. It is neither amazing nor a waste of time. I have only written 35 articles to date on Triond, and I've earned that much from them. 35 articles take very little time to write, and yet I've earned $120.00 from them. Not only that, but I will continue to earn from those articles, and any new articles I may choose to write, forever. For the time it takes to write one article, I will continue to earn cash for the rest of Triond's existence. That's no waste of time in my opinion. There are users on Triond who earn far more than me, and you or I could match them if we so choose. All you have to do is dedicate some time to Triond, believe that it can help you earn extra cash, and in no time at all you will be earning that extra cash. Triond has done wonders for me. It has improved my writing skills, it has given me extra cash to spend on things that I want to buy, and it has given me more confidence in my journalism skills. It can do this, and much, much more for you too. If you're interested, why not check it out now. It's just a click away. This may be your present, but Triond could be your future.

A lot of places promise that you will get rich quick. You fill out all this information about yourself just to get to the end of the registration and find out that you either have to sign up for some kind of magazine subscription or you have to pay for a list. Just a little heads up-- after you pay, you will get a list, but it is usually outdated so it does you no good. Then there is the mystery shopper job. I still haven’t found a site for this where you don’t have to pay for a list. I think the safest thing to do is probably to call the company you want to work for and ask them if they hire mystery shoppers. I really don't know how to get a job doing this, but I have looked hard to find one! If I do, I will let everyone out there know and I won't charge! I think it's so unfair how people do that!

Anyway, those are things I have found that don’t work. Then, I was looking on craigslist one day and saw for my state where you can look up writing jobs. They directed me to a site called print and post. There I found out that you can write blogs, stories, poems or just upload pictures--anything you want as long as it is your own work. I’m sure they probably don’t want really offensive things either, but you can check (not that I expect anyone wants to be offensive). From there I was directed to Triond where I opened an account. I have uploaded pictures and researched some things then I wrote a little research story about it. If you have a computer, you can research anything! And you can upload pictures as long as there is no copyright on it. And please, don't write things word for word when you find information. That is stealing someone else's work! After you write your piece and fix it just the way you want, you upload it to Triond. From there, they will publish it on the web for you. They made it so easy to do!

After your blog, picture, etc is published, companies will put their advertisements on it for people to see when they click on it. Make your piece interesting so more people will go to it. The more people who click on your site, the more you will make. Now you won’t get rich from it, but like I said you will make a little extra spending money. And the more you get published, the more you will make. You get paid once a month and it's fun to keep track of how much you are making and how many people visit your site.

Another free way to make money online without any upfront costs is to view paid emails. There is a site that I have found called Hits4Pay. They will pay you ten dollars to sign on and then for every email you read, you get paid two cents. Now you won't get rich quick, but those two cents begin adding up and you can earn a little extra spending money in time. If you have lots of friends, you can refer them to this site and earn when they view emails too. This can really add up fast! To get to that site, simply click on this link: http://hits4pay.com/members/index.cgi?SueB

As I find other sites to help you earn money while you are at home with your kids, during your free time, or even as an easy part time job, I will let you know. I update this site often to keep it fresh, so check back! I will never put a site on here that costs money or that I haven't joined and know is safe. It takes a while because there are so many "tricks" out there, but they are out there to be found--and they are FREE!

Go ahead and try it--it’s absolutely free and it’s really fun! Good luck and God bless!

A lot of Triond newbies complain that they never feel compensated fairly. They get their first 100 views and they get paid something like 5 cents, so they give up. While your first few articles may not make you big money, it will help you "test the waters' and define what viewers love. This leads us to our first tip:

• Use your first few articles to know viewership trends - Ok, that's not as fancy as it sounds. It simply means that you use your first few articles to find out which topics are hot and which kinds of content get much attention from readers. For example, your first article is about wild animals. Within 24 hours of being approved and posted, it garnered 50 views and 2 cents (just an example). The next day, you test a different topic. You write a movie review, and it gets 120 views and 11 cents in just a few hours. So under the circumstances mentioned above, you discovered that writing movie related stuff will result in more revenue for you. It is important to test different topics, then seize the opportunity by submitting content that appeals to a much broader audience..
• Be Creative With Keywords - one of the most common mistakes that Triond publishers make is using the same keywords in their articles. Sometimes this is good, but mostly this is bad. What you need to do is experiment with new keywords in each article. Of course, having some common keywords is unavoidable, especially if you're writing on a series of relevant topics. But the thing is, you need to experiment with new tags. One tip is to look at the Triond "hot tags" and "hot content" section. Then base your future articles on those popular keywords! Remember, keywords are the lifeblood of your article viewrship.
• Don't wait for Triond to promote your articles, do your own promotion - Of course, Triond will promote and showcase your articles in such a way that it will get as many views as possible. But sometimes, your articles and submitted content just takes time to develop popularity. While waiting for that popularity boost, do your own article promotion! Promote your Triond articles and content - in social networking sites, bookmarking services, in blogs, in bulletin posts, in personal emails! It will also be helpful for you to master the use of the following websites: Digg, Myspace, StumbleUpon, Multiply, Facebook..and other Web 2.0 sites that helps you promote your content. Triond success is all about getting more views, and making people feel good after they view your content.

More tips will be discussed in future articles. Meanwhile, you can also read my relevant article, " Four Success Tips for All Triond Writers " .

What does any of this have to do with Improving my Earnings? Everything.

If you are one of those writers that charges full steam ahead despite what obstacles stand in your way. Without stopping. Without worries, then you are the type of writer that will go far and nowhere fast.

If you are one of those writers that slow to examine the obstacle in your path, but do not take the extra time to formulate a solution to move it out of your way, then you will be consistently stumbling over the obstacle the longer that you leave it in your way.

If you are one of the few writers that stops fully to examine the obstacle that is blocking the path, and then develops an understanding of what caused that obstacle to originally come to block your path, and then formulates a carefully thought out plan to remove the obstacle, then you are the type of writer that will become a successful content writer.

Becoming successful at writing or anything for that matter doesn't usually come by pure chance. It requires a lot of hardwork and patience, but most importantly, it requires an understanding of marketing, branding, and tweaking this and adjusting that, so that you can achieve any goal that you put your mind to accomplishing.

Now, let's get started with the lesson.

The following are 10 Important Things That Every Triond Writer Should Do To Improve Your Earnings:

1. Write your Triond Author Bio that is located in your account tab that is found in your Triond dashboard. Do not rush through these process, because if your Bio looks sloppy and poorly written, then your potential readers may be left with the impression that the rest of your writings will be much of the same, and then decide to leave without reading any further. Let your readers know a little about yourself, but do not reveal too much about yourself, leave that mystery to be revealed within the pages of that which you choose to write about within the pages of your writings. This way it gives those potential readers something to look forward to and they will be likely to read some of your published work.
   
2. Published a couple of articles, poems or stories before you start making any friends. Start sharing your writings with the rest of the world and Triond community, so to show the type of writer that you are.
   
3. Understand the difference between being a friend and being a fan, while at the same time trying to earn an income and building a solid reputation for your writings is extremely important. If you are a new writer to the Triond family and you start trying to make friends right away before publishing any of your own work, then this is what I consider to be a fan and usually I will not add you as a mutual friend. If you on the other hand have published some of your own writings or photos for that matter to Triond, and then you add me as your friend I will make you my mutual friend, because then I will also have a reason to be your fan, too.
   
4. Read everything that Triond has provided for its writers to learn from. Triond provides all new and current writers tools, so that they can learn the basics of self-promoting or otherwise known as marketing in layman's terms. Furthermore, there is a Triond School available for free to all Triond members, so that they will learn how the different social bookmarking networks work and other valuable information that is designed to get new and current writer started on the right foot.
   
5. Take time and make realistic writing goals and income goals that you can achieve within your own ability to learn what you need to learn and do what you need to do to see your goal through to completion. Making too lofty writing goals and income goals will only set you up for future disappointment, especially if something that you could not foresee happens where you cannot carryout your plans to achieve your goals that you set.
   
6. Decide what type of writer that you want to be and what type of writer that you already know that you are, and then choose to be just one of them and no, you cannot be both.

   If you are choosing to be the type of writer that writes poetry, stories from the heart or personal stories, then you should also be aware that this choice is much harder to earn a decent income from. The reason why, is because usually these types of writings contain fewer high paying keywords that are used by advertisers to determine the rate of payout that they are willing to pay to the publisher, which the publisher shares with their writers according to the number of views that an article receives in any given timeframe that the publisher sets.

   If you are choosing to write for an income, then writing about just anything is out the window. To be successful and begin building a steady income that will continue to grow over time, then you will need to start writing for the market. Writing about subjects that everyone is talking about or about subjects that will be talked about in the days, weeks or months to come. Yes, not every article will be successful even if you are a popular writer. It is the nature of the business and is something that you must get use to or quit writing, because obviously Internet content writing isn't your area of expertise.

   Just as important as earning an income is to a serious Internet content writer, it is equally important to build a solid reputation for yourself and your writings. If you are a writer that enjoys writing about the things that you like and enjoy or if you are a writer that writes for the market, so to earn a living income, then it becomes important to write and publish something new every few days. This way you will potentially have readers who choose to subscribe to your RSS Feed and when these readers choose to do this, then they want to be informed when you publish something new. This is what businesses would call repeat business and that is good.

7. When submitting your writings to Triond to be published, then you must know that using MS Word and saving your writings in the word document format is what I use and is an acceptable format for publishing. Triond does accept other document formats, but you will need to take the time and read through all the information that Triond provides to its members, so to learn exactly what these other document formats are for yourself.
   
8. Learn a little bit about SEO and Keywords, so that you are able to write an article that will return a better income (per view) in the longrun. Both of these subjects are very important areas to study, especially if you want to make your living writing. There is a lot of information about these subjects on the Internet and there are several Triond writers who have written excellent articles about SEO techniques and understanding the importance of keywording your articles. Take you time and learn this at your own pace.
   
9. Avoid becoming one of those writers that believe that you are in competition with every other writer out there on the Internet, because you are not. Even if you believe that you were the first to write about a particular subject chances are someone else have already published something about the subject before you even had the opportunity to record your thoughts on paper. It's OK, to have more than one or several other writers writing about the same thing, because every writer will uniquely write an original piece of work, thus giving the readers more choice to read possibly challenging points of view.
   
10. Triond writers it's up to you to market and promote your own writings on and off of the Internet. There are many different marketing techniques that work, but some require much patience and time to start paying off and other marketing techniques will payoff very quickly, however it usually will only last a matter of a few hours to a few days, and then the view will begin to slow down to a trickle.

    Joining social bookmarking networks such as: StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Faves and others like these, will give your articles the chance to be quickly noticed by potentially millions of other members belonging to the same social bookmarking networks that your articles were submitted to. However, you will still need to make friends at these networks to be able to build an effective marketing network, so to achieve your projected writing and income goals that you have planned for in advance.

    If you are a student in a college or school, then use this opportunity to tell your friends and other students about your published writing, and then give them the website address where your articles and/or writings are located. Be sure that you take the time to write down the address yourself, and then give it to your friends, because this way you are sure that the address was written down correctly and this extra little effort may have convinced that person to drop by and read some of your writings, you never know.