Prolific Search Marketing Blogger Reveals The Quick Method To Beat Creative Block

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

Kurt Vonnegut

There are plenty of blog posts out there that give out tips on how to get past creative block.

But not that many of them are actually that actionable.

Take this post that appeared on lifehacker a year and a half ago. In it they suggest that you break creative block by embracing your bad ideas. Its not a new concept nor is it one that is particularly exciting. Anyone that has ever sat in on a brainstorming session will tell you that you just have to keep going and all bad ideas should be readily accepted and then challenged.

There are other posts like this one that appeared on FastCoDesign just over a year ago. There are some interesting points raised in the posts and some ideas that may indeed keep the internal cogs ticking over nicely. There are also some tips in there that aren't really going to help you that much: "realise that great work can result from intense struggle" – anyone who does anything creative for a living could tell you that one.

Some other posts on the topic are more enlightening – like this one from Gregory Ciotti. In it Gregory looks at real life studies and actually offers up solid advice that anyone can follow.

As someone who studied creatively at college and university (art and sculpture) and then followed a zigzagging path before ending up in SEO I find creativity (and where it comes from) fascinating. There are always posts on the buffer blog that cover this very thoroughly.

For a few years now SEO has been slowly moving towards the more creative end of marketing and it has not been easy for some in the industry to make that jump, or indeed those that are marketing their own sites.

The Tool That Really Helps

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams

Although I often use tools to help me get through the creative roadblocks that I have (http://bottlenose.com/ jumps to mind) I have recently started to use a quick technique invented by a musician to keep my mind fresh and the cogs-a-whirring.

Back in 1975 the musician Brain Eno and Peter Schmidt combined two similar projects they were working on to create and publish a deck of cards that they called Oblique Strategies.

Although they have not really seen too much light in public (they have been in and out of production since they were first released) you can find them and use them on this site:

http://oblicard.com/

Click the little button in the bottom left to get another random prompt!

Essentially they are a collection of phrases that are meant to encourage your brain to think more laterally.

Is it a bit pretentious? Probably, but I have found them to be quite helpful when I am heading nowhere fast.

Because they were designed with art and music in mind you will sometimes find that they don't always make complete sense, but for me that is half the fun.

Some of the best oblique strategies you may come across:

• What mistakes did you make last time?


• Turn it upside down


• Don't be frightened of cliches


• Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them


• Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics


• Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do

Get a full list here: http://www.whatspace.nl/organisatie/120-oblique-strategies.html

If they appear for sale again, it is likely to be here: http://www.enoshop.co.uk/product/oblique_strategies_limited_numbered_edition?filter=Oblique%20Strategies

Get the full history of Oblique Strategies here: http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/OSintro.html

What do you do to beat creative block?

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Prolific Search Marketing Blogger Reveals The Quick Method To Beat Creative Block

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Written by Wayne Barker, Boom Online

Search Engine People Blog

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Major Reasons Why You Should not Publish Guest Posts on Your Blog

Guest post by Brianne, a writer and blogger who loves writing, travelling and reading books. She contributes to Hydroxycut

For those who love blogging, guest blogging is a perfect opportunity to establis themselves as credible sources. But is it OK to publish guest articles on your site? (Illustration © Yury Zap – Fotolia.com)

Guest blogs deals with writing a number of articles for other sites or blogs. It helps in getting backlinks to your blog, which can allow you in boosting the traffic to your site to a great extent. However, if you allow guest posts to blogger and authors, who fail to give high quality article relevant to your niche area, then make sure that these are simply written to get backlinks to their sites or blogs. Such guest posts could hamper your blogs reputation to a great extent. Also, with such poor quality, the search engines especially Google is seen penalizing such blogs by barring the blog over the search results. Due to this, a number bloggers have now started denying the request to publish blog posts over their blogs. If you are a blogger, who really care about quality and good search engine results, you are justified to stop publishing guest posts over your blog for the following reasons as discussed in the below paragraphs. Let’s check them out:

Poor quality of guest posts

There is no two thoughts about the fact that most of the bloggers write high quality guest posts, however, a few simply write to obtain back links. Hence checking their quality of article is a must before you actually publish it over your blog. You can easily understand the quality of content by simply reading out once provided you are a good writer; have better command over the language and your chosen subject. Besides, you could find a number of tips and tricks to identify low quality content, which you could explore over the web.

Guest posts simply written to get back links

One of the basic reasons, why bloggers simply stop accepting guest posts is that they are simply written to obtain the back links. Even though if you find the guest posts well written, yet they may fail to give any value to your readers, hence accepting such articles will not benefit you or your readers. Plus if you see such value-less articles over your blog the risk of being penalized by Google dofollow rule in more. Once your blog is trapped in this punishment it becomes very difficult to get the lost rankings over search engines. Hence make sure you identify such posts, which are requested to publish over the guest blog section just for the heck of getting backlinks as these would be considered as spam by Google. And Google simply hates the spam links or the do-follow links, which can put you on risk.

You see a decline in traffic

If you see your blog losing traffic despite you have posted quality articles, it’s time to check the guest posts. This decline in traffic could be due to the mismatch in quality, which your readers could sense over your blog posts and the guest posts. If the guest posts lacks the required benchmark, which you have maintained out of sheer hard work and pain then you shouldn’t be ruining it by allowing some low quality guest posts over your blog. Allowing guest posts can also give an impression to your readers that you are not paying much attention to your blog, which can compel to find better content option for them. Guest posts are often free and these as these may not be beneficial to your readers hence if you have adopted this idea to generate more traffic but still cannot see any boost, it’s time to get rid of the same.

Publishing a number of guest posts

If you allow too many guest posts over your blog to see a boost of traffic at your blog, then it’s high time you stop doing so. Publishing a number of guest posts over your blog could hamper the quality, which you have maintained or even fail to provide value to your readers. At such junctures limit the guest blogs and try coming out with well researched and quality articles through your own efforts.

When you get too boring content

The content in your blog posts could be well written in terms of language and grammar; however, they may still be too monotonous and dry for your readers. Such articles are often written by bloggers or writers for their blog content/ratio boost or for the back links. Such content has no meaning or value and your readers would be bogged down seeing them again. At such junctures, you have all reasons to deny publishing guest posts over your blog.

Final word

The above reasons are more than enough to reject the idea of publishing guest posts over your blog. The only way you have is to put the best efforts to develop high quality content with some value in it backed by good research rather than allowing low quality guest post articles. With such efforts, you could end up getting traffic over your blog along with staying away from being penalized by the search engines.

Post from: eWritings – Online Public Relations

Major Reasons Why You Should not Publish Guest Posts on Your Blog

Related Posts:

• Ten Tips for Successful Guest Posting


• 3 Ways to Get Started With Guest Blogging


• 5 Most Important Characteristics of a Successful Blog [Guest


• Guest Blogging: Following Up After Publication


• Five Things to Do with Old Blog Posts

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