If you're a blog writer, you are probably trying to find ways to get more people reading. That's the point, right? To get people looking at what you've taken the time to put down.

But how to do it?

Short of spamming all your (soon to be ex-) friends on Facebook and Twitter every ten minutes with reminders of how you posted up a blog this morning have you read it? it's really interesting this time no really it is please just have a look go on PLEASE! it's difficult to know how to get people interested.

Here's a great way to publicise your blog. It's quick to set up, requires zero maintenance and will actually make your emails look better and more interesting than ever before! (Cripes... hope I can deliver on all this hyperbole.)

This is what you do:

Feed your blog posts into your emails.

Got it? Excellent. Right, so see you next time, then?

Heh. Come back, I'm not finished yet.

Here's an example of what my email signature looks like:

Don't worry about the content of the email. Just my little, erm, joke. Yes, a joke, right? See the blog headline to the right of the orange RSS logo in the screengrab picture above? When you actually have the email on your desktop, the signature rotates through recent blog headlines. It moves! All by itself! And every headline is clickable, making your email readers into blog readers. If you got an email that did that, you’d think "Wooooo….. niiiiiiice". Wouldn’t you?

So just what makes this dark sorcery possible? It's all done using Google Feedburner.

Got a Google account? Then you're most of the way there already. Here’s how you do it:

• Go to http://feedburner.google.com and put the blog or feed address you want to use in the box under where it says "Burn a feed right this instant". 
• "Blog or feed address? Wha?" As an example, the address I've given Feedburner for my blog feed is http://www.daniboy.com/blog.html. Which is -- I can see that you're way ahead of me -- the address of my blog.
  
• Click "Next".
• Check that the Feed Title is correct and click "Activate Feed".
• Click on the "Publicize" tab, then on "Headline Animator".
• Feedburner then gives you a few options to choose from -- they're all very easy to follow. It'll ask you which Theme you want to use (like "468x60 White" or "Seasonal (dynamic background)" or just "Email Signature"). Don't worry if that sounds complicated; Feedburner shows you a graphic image of what you're choosing at every stage.
  
• "Activate" the animator when you’re happy with the colour, date and size settings.
• The next screen you'll see is where you get the code you need to be able to use the signature. Feedburner gives you a drop-down list next to where it says "Add to MySpace, TypePad, etc." Choose "Email signature", then "Next".
• A new window pops up with the code you need and instructions on where to put it. The instructions are slightly different depending on which email programme you use (you might be using Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail or whatever). Read the easy-to-follow instructions and you're set.
  

Alohomora! The keys to great-looking emails, well-read blogs, perfect health, straighter teeth and a much more successful love life are now yours. You're welcome.

Writing, despite what you might think, is not easy.

But don't worry; it's a skill anyone can learn. Look at me -- I write and I'm an idiot!

It’s straightforward enough to blather on and kind of get your point across -- throw enough words at it and your reader will somehow, inevitably, get the point -- but expressing yourself concisely and efficiently takes time. This is how MIT neuroscientist Susan Hockfield describes writing:

It’s the painful process of transforming three-dimensional, parallel-processed experience into two-dimensional, linear narrative… It’s worse than squaring a circle, it’s squaring a sphere.

Sounds tricky!

And because it's so tricky, it can be easy to get paralysed thinking about it. You know what message you have to get across, you sort of know how you're going to say it, but when it comes to putting your fingers to the keyboard you hesitate, worrying that it'll turn out to be rubbish.

But what you should realise is that rubbish is okay. In fact, rubbish is good!

That’s why we call them first drafts. It’s much easier to edit something than it is to compose from scratch.

I'm a real procrastinator and sometimes feel that I'd rather check my two beagles for anal warts rather than start to write something. And it's not even as if my ignoring that thing I'm writing will go away if I leave it long enough; I'm going to have to do it anyway, so why not just get started on the damn thing? Sigh. If only my procrastinating mind would agree.

There's a bit of software I use which really helps to kick things off. It's called "Write or Die" and was created by a developer named -- gulp -- Dr Wicked. It's a very simple application that gives you a writing window, lets you choose how long you want your writing session to be (why not start with just 10 little minutes?) and also how many words you'll be attempting to write in that time.

So far, so blah. But listen, here's the good bit: it won't let you drift off into space and lose concentration. Once you exceed the time permitted to write a new word, the software begins its chastisement of you. The "Consequences" it makes you suffer, and which you pre-decide yourself, range from "Gentle" (the screen gradually turns red and a pop-up box tells you to start typing again) though "Normal" (a shrieking sound plays over your speakers until you begin to type again) and eventually to "Kamikaze". Kamikaze's Consequences are sadistic and wonderful: pause in your writing for more than the permitted time and the software actually starts to erase what you've already written! It's a wonderful incentive to keep going and is the setting I always choose.

For extra evilness, there's even a button you can click which disables the backspace button on your keyboard, so you're not allowed to over-obsess about what you've written and try to edit on the fly, as it were.

It's not free -- costs US$10 -- but the gains you'll make in productivity through using it will make it pay for itself pretty much the first time you use it. Write or Die by Dr Wicked. I'm not connected to them and don't get a commission; I just think it's fab software for the price of a couple of cups of coffee.

So, my 愛しい友達, the next time you find yourself staring into space, hoping for inspiration and dreaming of more pleasant things (Halle Berry, Bird’s Trifle, Dennis Bergkamp’s goal against Argentina in 1998… ), get something written down. You’ll be amazed at how much easier the job will be once you have text to look at and edit.

And remember: it really, really doesn’t have to be perfect first time. It can be gibberish. A different language. No one ever has to know except you. And me, of course, but I’m not telling.

Ever heard of the “long tail”?

It’s something Amazon.com and all big retailers are aware of and work to use effectively. To give a quick definition, it’s where the collective demand for less-popular items (say, “Fly Fishing” by J.R. Hartley) can be greater than the demand for the most popular items (the Harry Potters and Dan Browns) added together.

How can this be?

It’s because there aren’t that many really popular items, but there are loads of less popular (but still profit-making) items.

So whereas the big-name items get all the publicity and marketing efforts directed towards them, a lot of the real money gets made in lesser-known, less-competitive markets.

This can apply equally well to your website and the phrases you’re hoping to be found for on the search engines. You’ll have your big-hitter keywords and keyphrases, sure, but there will also be a much greater number of word combinations people will use to reach you that you weren’t even aware of.

Until now.

If you're responsible for your site's optimisation, I’m about to recommend that you try using a bit of paid-for online software called “HitTail”. I’m not associated with them in any way and can’t guarantee that your particular site will be a perfect match for what they offer, but give 'em a try.

HitTail lets you know in real time how people are finding you and gives suggestions on promising keywords and keyphrases that you might think harder about working to optimise. Some of the suggestions might be slightly off base -- it’s an algorithmic bit of software, after all, not put together by humans -- but a lot will make you think “Aha! Hhhmm, hadn’t thought of that one before. I’ll try it!”

It all helps your website to be found on the search engines, which can’t be bad. Give it a go! They offer a 21-day trial, so at the very least you’ll have three weeks of free suggestions.

Here’s the URL:

http://www.hittail.com/

It’s pretty easy to set up on your site -- all you need to do is add a tiny bit of code to the site's background HTML -- so g’wan!

Is it Mr. or Mr? Ms. or Ms? Mrs. or Mrs?

Which should I use? In other words, "to dot or not to dot"?

You know what? Both ways are acceptable. In American English (in other words, the wrong way*) they keep the dot — in other words, they write "Mr.", "Ms." and "Mrs." — and in British English we mostly just write "Mr", "Ms" and "Mrs".

As you no doubt know, "Mr" is an abbreviation of the word "Mister". The word is an alteration of the original "Master". Nowadays you would use "Master" to refer to a young boy: "Young Master Daniel looks so handsome with his curly hair". (I used to get that a lot, believe it or not.)

The plural of "Mr" is "Messrs", pronounced "messers" (as in, people who mess things up), which comes from the French "messieurs" (meaning "gentlemen").

"Miss", "Mrs" and "Ms" are all abbreviations of the word "Mistress". With the modern meaning of the word "Mistress" giving connotations of illicit, extramarital affairs, you don’t tend to hear it that much these days. Except if you’re an over-officious protocol droid, of course, in which case you’d probably use it a lot.

The plural of "Miss" is "Misses", although I can’t ever remember hearing it; the plural of "Mrs" is "Mmes", an abbreviated form of "Mesdames", from the French, er, "mesdames" (meaning "ladies"); and the plural of "Ms" is "Mses", although "Mesdames" can also be used.

The default way to refer to a man would be to use "Mr & Surname", unless you know he prefers to use a different honorific, such as "Dr". More and more these days, the default way to refer to a woman would be to use "Ms & Surname" (unless, as above, you know she prefers to use a different honorific, such as "Dr"), and that sounds right and proper to me. It’s bizarre that men’s marital status doesn’t ever come into the equation, while up until relatively recently you’ve been obliged to use "Miss" for unmarried women and "Mrs" for married women. Who cares whether or not they’re married?

*Hee! Kidding.

Postscript revision! My good friend Claire (who's a wonderful copywriter and is about to launch her own website) reminded me of the "Pride and Prejudice"-era form of using "Miss + Surname" for the eldest unmarried daughter of a family; every other unmarried daughter would be know as "Miss + First Name + Surname". So you'd have, for example, "Miss Jackson" and her younger sisters "Miss Claire Jackson" and "Miss Marguerite Jackson".

Now that I've switched hosting company I've got image rotation on tap (thanks, Weebly!), but if you are trying to figure out how to make your website do its very own slideshow using just the code you give it, here's the way.

First thing, though: why do a slideshow?

• Maybe you're a designer and want to show off your portfolio without making people click to a load of different pages.
• Maybe you think your site looks a bit too static and you'd like some movement.
• Or perhaps it's a site you're creating for your extended family and you'd like to be able to share family pictures.

I think there’s some truth in the old cliché about a picture being worth a thousand words. What about if I could show ten pictures, then, eh? How good would that be?

Here’s how you do it. I’m assuming that if you’ve read this far you’ll know what I mean by things like "<head>" and "<body>", yeah? It’s to do with the HTML code that makes up your website. All the code I've suggested below is stuff that needs to go into the background HTML that makes up your website.

1. First thing: DON’T PANIC. My coding skills are pathetic on a good day. Everything I’ve written here is stuff I’ve blindly copied from somewhere else. But it works. That’s the only thing that matters to me. If you copy the code below, it’ll work for you, too.

2. Paste the following code into the <head> section of your page. Change the names and paths of your images, but otherwise copy exactly as it is:

<script language="JavaScript" >

// <![CDATA[
function RE_OnLoadHandler()
{

}
// ]]>

var Pic = new Array()

Pic[0] = ‘YourImage/pic1.jpg’
Pic[1] = ‘YourImage/pic2.jpg’
Pic[2] = ‘YourImage/pic3.jpg’
Pic[3] = ‘YourImage/pic4.jpg’

<!--  I’ve assumed four pictures there, but of course if you wanted more you’d simply add Pic[4] = ‘YourImage/pic5.jpg’ and so on.  -->

<!--  Set slideShowSpeed (milliseconds) – make it quicker or slower by adjusting this figure: -->

var slideShowSpeed = 5000

<!-- Duration of crossfade (seconds) – make the fade from one image to another quicker or slower by adjusting this figure:-->

var crossFadeDuration = 3

<!--  No need to edit this bit; just leave it as it is-->

var t
var j = 0
var p = Pic.length

var preLoad = new Array()
for (i = 0; i < p; i++){
preLoad[i] = new Image()
preLoad[i].src = Pic[i]
}

function runSlideShow(){

if (document.all){
document.images.SlideShow.style.filter= "blendTrans(duration=2)"
document.images.SlideShow.style.filter= "blendTrans(duration=crossFadeDuration)"
document.images.SlideShow.filters.blendTrans.Apply() 
}
document.images.SlideShow.src = preLoad[j].src
if (document.all){
document.images.SlideShow.filters.blendTrans.Play()
}
j = j + 1
if (j > (p-1)) j=0
t = setTimeout(‘runSlideShow()’, slideShowSpeed)
}

</script>

3. Still with me? Okay, next.

4. Make sure the following is put inside your "<body> tag:

onload="runSlideShow()"

5. Decide where you want the rotating images to go on your web page. Put in your starting image and name it "Slideshow". Here’s an example of what you might do:

<img src="YourImage/pic1.jpg" name="SlideShow" width="500" height="350" />

So where I've written the path and name "YourImage/pic1.jpg", you’d substitute that for your own. The other images will rotate automatically; you don’t have to specify them here, as they’re already specified above.

6. Finally, put the following code snippet at the very end of the page, just above the </body> tag:

<script language="JavaScript" >
<!–//
   
init();
//–>
</script>

And that, my friend, is that. The rotation works in all browsers.

I switched to a new web hosting company recently so that I could update my site more easily. It all went very smoothly (and the site looks a bajillion times better), but it meant that my old blog stopped working. Gah!

So here's the new one.

I'll be writing about Internet tips, some SEO now and then, how to write English what is wrote good and correct and everything, and maybe from time to time there'll be something about some of the obsessions you can see on the banner picture at the top. I promise not to make it too Halle Berry-centric.

Mm. I promise to try not to make it too Halle Berry-centric. No guarantees.

Stick with me, peeps!