We have added a 100 character text box to communicate with our members when an editor believes that a link is an affiliate link or if they believe your content is suspect by allowing us to provide you with the URL that is suspect.

Hopefully this will save a round trip of communication and make our rejections easier to identify if they were right or if we’ve mis-understood something.

Thanks for the suggestion Gary!

RESOURCE BOX REVIEW BONUS #14: Sandy Shaw

If you don’t have a traffic motive and you don’t have a profit motive… then we look at whether or not your resource box builds credibility for you as a writer/expert. In your case, I think it does.

Like many of our members, you could flip your resource box to be more benefit oriented by changing the voice.

Example:

You have:

“He broadcasts regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans, and writes a weekly commentary at http://www.studylight.org entitled “Word from Scotland” on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper column.”

Here’s my rewrite:

“You can hear me regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans and read my free weekly commentary at: http://www.studylight.org -> entitled “Word from Scotland” on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper column.”

This last thing is just a style thing, but I’d put your last sentence that stands alone into the first paragraph as the last sentence in that paragraph. Some argue that who cares about the fact that you run or exercise regularly, but I know your purpose is to connect with your reader or find some common grounds for them to relate to you.

Best wishes to you and everyone else in this thread.

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children’s Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.

He broadcasts regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans, and writes a weekly commentary at http://www.studylight.org entitled “Word from Scotland” on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper column.

His M.A. and B.D. degrees are from The University of Edinburgh, and he continues to run and exercise regularly to maintain a level of physical fitness.

Sandy Shaw
sandyshaw63@yahoo.com

First, you didn’t tell me what your end-outcome is for what you want your RESOURCE BOX to do for you? I assume that you want people to spam you first and visit your website 2nd.

Second, putting your email in your resource box is a very risky thing to do… as you’ll be spammed to death to the point where you will shut down or change your email address in the future… only to disappoint your future readers who will think you went out of business when their email to you bounces.

Instead, put a CONTACT US page on your website and list that if being contacted is most important to you.

Next, what if you re-wrote your resource box to be benefit oriented to your ideal customer or web visitor?

Who cares if you have two masters degrees if I can’t understand what that means to me as a buyer of your products & services?

Another example:

Let’s take this:

“She specializes in boomer/midlife women in transition-separation/divorce, career change & more!”

Here’s my rewrite:

If you are a boomer/midlife woman in transition-separation, divorce or want to make a career change now, I can help you!

Lastly, giving a free bonus to encourage subscribers is a great idea. An even better idea is to make a very specific offer of a specific bonus that your ideal customer would want. :)

Cheers.

What a super education this has been.

Many thanks for generously sharing your time and talent with these comments. I’ll take care of the link problem asap.

Sure, split test if you’d like.

Necessary? Only if you’re already dealing in volume… 100s or 1000s of articles.

Gary,

Interesting recommendation… We’ll consider it at our next internal leadership meeting.

James,

Nice rewrite… Run with it.