Greetings and Salutations -

The Mused team has just finished all voting on the Mused entries for Summer, and we're doing our first round of proofing the results. We had *amazing* entries this quarter, and we have to turn away a number of fantastic pieces because we reached our length limit. That's a powerful testament to how popular Mused is, and how many people want to be a part of it. Kudos to everyone for helping our literary magazine reach such heights!

If you have a moment, please let me know if you spot any typos. We hand this over to Diane in a few days so even a quick scan will be helpful. The more eyeballs the better!

http://www.bellaonline.com/review/issues/summer2013/tableofcontents.html


SOCIAL NETWORKING

I've been investing a diligent effort this past month to do a range of posts for us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and our forum network. It used to be, when we began 10+ years ago, that weekly updates were fine. That kept us ahead of the game. But in our modern 2013 world, most top sites update multiple times a day. So in comparison if we update weekly we are seen as a dinosaur, and our pages get ignored by Google. It's amazing how quickly things change in our lifetime :).

So the key to success is not necessarily that you have to write multiple articles a day :). I think that would be challenging for most of us. The key is to make sure you get at least one article posted a week, and more if possible. Then make sure you do a daily post of ANY kind in the various promo feeds. If you look at the main BellaOnline Facebook page, or my low carb facebook page, you can see some ideas. It doesn't have to be earth-shattering. Ask what they're eating. Ask their favorite bird or fragrance. Post about someone's birthday. Post about something in the news.

Google (and Bing and others) see that and know you're an active site. So they keep your links active. If instead what you do is post just one article every week, and nothing else, in modern terms that is seen as barely-active. They then penalize everything you do. Which is a shame! You want your visitors to find and use your articles. It's why you write them! So we need to make sure Google (and others) keep your content as highly rated as possible.

The first step is to post in the forums. Those get a high ranking because of their activity. So each day post there, with any random little thing. It doesn't have to be earth-shattering. Just bookmark your forum page, make a post, check to see if anybody has asked a question. Then, as you have time, set up accounts for Twitter and Facebook. Those are the other two keys.

If you have any questions at all, email me! I'm happy to help out. It can be confusing to get started, but once you get into the rhythm it is EXTREMELY easy, and the results it brings are simply staggering. It's an investment of 2 minutes, for a return of enormous traffic.

Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

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