Get Some New SEO Transition Words!

I'm no SEO expert, but I've done my fair share of SEO writing over the past few years. As a writer, I'm more concerned with the readability of a site than some of the other technical aspects.

For some of my clients, I work directly in Wordpress. Specifically with the Yoast plugin. One of Yoast's main gauges of readability is transitions words.

On their website, Yoast offers a sample list to help writers. However, their list is very limited.

Recently, I've been working with a client to fill out and optimize their new site. I've spent many hours sifting through other people's writing, adding transition words as I go to meet Yoast's criteria for readability.

After many pages of this site, I quickly got tired of using the same transition words over and over. A simple search brought me to this post on Bloggerspedia. This is an excellent and extensive list of transition words and phrases. If you do any SEO writing, I highly recommend this list for keeping variety in your writing while also hitting Yoast goals for transition words.

Even More Recommended Reads

Since my last Recommended Reads post, I have read some SERIOUSLY GOOD books. Good like 'you can't sleep because you need to know what happens next' good.

Especially notable are the 3 by Ezekiel Boone. I read all three in a row and each one was a real pageturner. My favorites from the past few months are in bold:

Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black
This Census-taker by China Miéville
Prophet of Bones by Ted Kosmatka
Dark Matter by Crouch, Blake
Archetype & Prototype (2 books), both by M. D. Waters
Lake Silence by Anne Bishop
Wool, Shift, and Dust (3 separate books), by Hugh Howey
The Hatching, Skitter, and Zero Day (3 separate books), by Ezekiel Boone
The Veil of Gold by Kim Wilkins
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
Midnight Crossroad, Day Shift, Night Shift (3 separate books), by Charlaine Harris

Are You a Serious Writer? How Can You Know for Sure?

Ever wondered what sets serious writers apart from all the others? Kelton Reid offers five fundamental things.

Are These Really Grammar Rules?

Ever been told not to end a sentence with a preposition? Who told you that? Why did they tell you that?

In her article, GRAMMAR PURITY IS ONE BIG PONZI SCHEME, June Casagrande (author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies and Mortal Syntax) explains that despite what the grammar 'experts' say, some things are merely stylistic choices.

Getting Stuff Sold Through Real Estate Writing

I've done a fair amount of real estate writing over the past few years for both residential and commercial clients. For almost 2 1/2 years, I was the content manager for a local real estate agency. I wrote loads of real estate stuff for them. I've also written a good bit for freelance clients like BCZ Homes, Green Efficient, and Nest Home Solutions. 

Here's an article I wrote last fall for Mindflash, a training company which lists tips for training real estate agents. 

More Recommended Reads

Reading is a huge part of my life. Here are some of my recent recommended reads. The first three are 'kids' books: The last one is hysterical.

The Doubt Factory by Paulo Bacigalupi
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
La Belle Sauvage by Phillip Pullman
Shroud of Eternity: by Terry Goodkind
Paradox Bound by Peter Clines
How to Live Safely in A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Alteration by Kingsley Amis
Skios by Michael Frayn

Happy reading!

Learning From My Writing

As a professional writer, I don't know everything about every subject my clients want me to cover. So when I write an article for a client, I spend time researching so that I can write intelligently about the topic. For example, I'm not a finance guy, but if I'm writing about money and finance, I do research.

This brings me to one of my favorite things about writing for a living. I am always learning new things. And I'm not just learning, I'm learning things that I probably never would have even dreamed of learning if I wasn't being asked to write on the subject. 

My newest client, Brad at Progressive Health, has tasked me write articles on health issues, specifically regarding health, medications and dietary supplements. And already, I've learned a lot. Below is the first article I wrote on ADHD and Acupuncture. 

As I learned from my research, acupuncture is as effective as powerful meds like Ritalin for treating ADHD. And without side effects to boot! Give it a read!

Latest Recommended Reads

Here are the books I've read since my last Recommended Reading post. While all these books were good, the ones in bold were the most enjoyable reads.

Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos
The Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard
Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
Time Travel by James Gleick
The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill
The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time by Steven Sherrill
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
Universal Harvester by by John Darnielle
House. Tree. Person by Catriona McPherson
Down Among the Sticks and Bones Seanan McGuire
The Clockwork Dynasty by Daniel H. Wilson
Celine by Peter Heller

Also, I didn't list the books that I started, but didn't finish because I didn't enjoy them. Happy reading!

Check out my new featured articles on TWM!

My family and I took a Disney Cruise last month. I was privileged enough to be able to write about it and be featured again on TravelingWithMonkeys.com. Check out the first part of this 3-part article here.

And while you're there, check out another of my featured articles, How I Became the Daddy-Daughter Road Trip Master!

My path to becoming a better writer

Reading this article by Duncan Riach entitled How to Become World-Class at Anything made me think about my journey to becoming a paid, professional writer.

My path to writing for a living took twists and turns. In the article he talks about regular practice without focusing on the result (in my case I don't focus on the result until it's time to share the work with my clients).

Years of this type of practice freed me up to write better.

I've been writing professionally for 5 years. At the beginning, I was a solid writer who could do research, assimilate ideas and construct sentences without errors. I created coherent articles. Yay for me!

Yet if I compare my writing from 5 years ago to my writing now, there's a significant difference. I've refined my process, found a style and discovered a voice all while improving my mechanics.

One of the best resources, which I've featured here a few times, is Elements if Style. The book contains immensely helpful advice like Omit Unneccesary Words and Focus on the Unit.

More than any advice, method or how-to, my improvement as a writer largely came the old-fashioned way - through practice, repetition and hard work. I've spent many many hours stringing together words. I've spent many more hours reading books with a critical eye towards things like sentence structure, phrasing, word choice, punctuation and many more things.

I love writing, but love isn't enough. Like any relationship, I want my partner, in this case my writing, to be as great as it can possibly be. That's why I continue to practice and consider my writing skills a work in progress.