Welcome to edition #2 of the Carnival of Internet Pros (CoIP #2). In the last edition, absolutely no one actually joined the conversation (besides a thank you), so let's take a different approach to this one. The intention of this carnival is to share our knowledge of working online for a living. I'm going to apply my copyediting and editorial experience and constructively point out one flaw in each post, if any. Essentially, if you were to send these articles to me for publication, these would be my constructive comments. Anyone can feel free to join in and say whether they agree or not.

Critiqued Entries

Keep in mind that I've intentionally glanced at these posts superficially and not read thoroughly. This is in fact what editors do for print articles, no matter how unfair it may seem. Only the first 10 items have comments. Articles are listed approximately in order of receipt.

1. Strategic Internet Marketing & Web Site Optimization by Jason Koeppe of Strategic Internet Marketing. There's no explanation of where the data actually came from. What service? Or is this from a report? I'm not too inclined to trust this data without a bit more clarity about the source of data. If it's there, I didn't see it (no hyperlinks).

2. Writing with Inspiration by Marc Berry of Techne-eikon.com. A bit too many "I" occurrences. It's possible to talk about yourself while reducing the use of "I". Unless you have a large following, it's very hard to get away with using "I" excessively.
3. How to Write Posts That People Will Actually Read by Sterling Camden of Geeks are Sexy. Well done. Strong title, great intro, thoughtful scannable formatting.
4. Get More Traffic with the Right Image Tags by Taylor of Super Blogging. Short and to the point, with a reference if you want to learn more.
5. 3 Ways to Increase your Blog Stats by Ant of The Beef Jerky Blog. My only superficial complaint is that some "Technorati experiment" is mentioned, but there's no indication of whether this is or is not WTF (Where's the Fire). You have to click through to an older article to find it's a chain-letter type of meme.
6. How to Assemble a Feedburner Alternative Using Wordpress Plugins by Samir of Samir Bharadwaj. The site is attractive, as is the statue icon down the middle, but the fact that it moves while you scroll the page is infinitely irritating, distracting and ultimately unnecessary. I find it difficult to scan your page because of that.
7. The Truth About the Firefox “Pipelining” Trick by Egon of Egonitron. Being a geek, I like posts like this, though I'm not sure non-techies will know what Pipelining is. In fact, I hadn't heard that term used for speeding up Firefox. But with technical tutorials, it's never easy to choose a knowledge level to target. At some point, you just have to hope that interested readers will stick to it and read the entire post. At any rate, this is a well-formatted post, making it easy to scan, to determine whether I might read it later.
8. Ode To The Google PageRank Obsession by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog. Given that the Google PageRank is supposed to be updated this weekend (not last weekend like many of us thought), this is timely. Only two complaints. Firstly, the limerick's title should have been in bold, to set it off from the intro paragraphs. Else it looks as if there's a big weird gap of whitespace for no reason. Secondly, there's this massively unreadable blob of hyperlinks that follows the post. While it's topically relevant, the mass of blue links makes me want to run away.
9. The Ups and Downs of Amateur Blogging by ispf of Grad Money Matters. Almost the right balance of "I", but maybe a few too many. Otherwise easily formatted for scanning. Consider putting in two headings, one for the "ups" and one for the "downs". By heading, I mean use the HTML h2 or h3 tags.
10. Amazon Wish Lists with SimpleXML by Ramiro Gomez of SEO Expert Blog. This post is weakened by starting off with "I recently upgraded my server". You want to tell both the returning and new visitor why they want to read this post. Unless the reader is technically-inclined, they won't care about the first two paragraphs, and may not even bother reading further.

Remaining Entries

These are the remaining entries for this edition.

11. Blog Startup: Choosing a Domain by Ian Fernando of Ian Fernando.

12. The Key to Online Business: Do Something Small by Praveen of My Simple Trading System.
13. A Few Writing Tips For Your Internet Business Opportunity by Cade Krueger of Write To Right.
14. How to Drive Traffic to Your Website or Blog - Part 1 by Edith Yeung of EdithYeung.Com.
15. 10 Reasons Why I Love Google  by Jimson Lee of Speedendurance.com.
16. The Right Time To Show Your Blog's Stats by Ramkarthik of Blogging And Make Money Online.
17. How to Influence Others by Terry Dean of Integrity Business Blog.
18. Top 10 Link Building Sites by Jack Humphrey of Blog Marketing.
19. Free Speech Hosting: 11 Web Hosts That Won't Dump You at the First Sign of Controversy by Jimmy Atkinson of Dedicated Hosting Guide.
20. 26 Steps to Blogging Success by Vandelay Design of Vandelay Website Design.
21. Do You Know Who Your Visitors Are? by Leo Dimilo of Idiot Affilate.
22. Golden Mantras of Effective Email communication Part 2  by Rajesh Shakya of Rajesh Shakya.
23. Effectively Get Things Done, Set Business Hours  by James Mitchell of FocusMinded.com.
24. Blog Monetization: So You Want To Monetize Your Website? by Kevin of NicheSiteDomination.
25. The Story So Far by Yehuda Berlinger of Blogging Without a Wire.

That's it for this edition. If you're not here and you submitted before July 29th, then it's likely your article does not relate to the topics covered in this carnival, or you're trying to pimp your services/ products.

Pissed off at my comments? Agree? Disagree? Tell me so. Don't forget to link back. And if you've emailed me to be a future host, rest assured that I'll try to get back to you shortly. If you don't hear from me within another week, feel free to send another message.

Remember to submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Internet Pros using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

This is the first edition of the Carnival of Internet Pros (aka CoIP). The idea is to promote articles that help us improve our skills for any sort of professional online career. Please see below the list of entries if you are not in this one.

To turn this carnival into the beginnings of a content workshop, in each edition of CoIP, I'll pick out 2-3 entries and offer some constructive criticism. What I'd like is for anyone here at Perf to also offer constructive criticism - at least about the 2-3 articles singled out. The articles selected in the order they were submitted - no favoritism, and as mentioned before, very few articles will be turned down (see exceptions list at bottom). For this first edition, however, I've added brief comments about each post. I am not expecting everyone to agree with me, and whether you do or not, hopefully you'll add some comments. The objective is to improve our content.

1. Outsource Your E-Mail Lists Please! by Cade Kreuger of Write To Right.

   Comments: Cade gives an example of good anchor text and deep-linking in this article touting the value of outsourcing your email lists.

2. 3 Ways to Increase Your Blog Stats by Ant of The Beef Jerky Blog.

   Comments: Short and sweet, easy to follow, and a bit of "meat" (explanation) for each item. However, maybe it's a fluke, but your page takes a long time to stop loading. My guess is that you have a widget or some other web service that's hogging time.

3. 12 Common Mistakes of an Online Business by Kevin of Niche Site Domain.

   Comments: A good example of over-delivering. Kevin said "12" but offers a bonus 5 mistakes. However, I think this woul have had more impact had the extra 5 been in a second "bonus" list. They'd have to have some distinguishing reason to be kept separate, though.

4. 5 Great Reasons to Create Your Own Products by Craig Andrews of Internet Business Blog.

   Comments: Affiliate marketing is said to be heating up. But instead of joining a program, maybe you have something to sell through your own affiliate program. Craig offers five reasons to do so.

5. Make Ends Meet, and Then Some by Shawn Edwards of Desty Online.

   Comments: Yes, this post has an Amazon affiliate link (twice), but in this case, it's worth it. Regardless of your faith, The Richest Man in Bablyon is an excellent book about success, and Shawn gives his interpretation of each of the Five Laws of Gold. In my estimation, this is an example of good affiliate marketing writing.

6. 10 Reasons Why You Should Invest in Content Creation by Derek Beauchemin of DerekBeau.com.

   Comments: Derek gives a nice example of a mini-bait, with good formatting for easy scanning and information absorption.

7. How I Became a Professional Blogger by Yehuda of Yehuda.

   Comments: I love this one. Yehuda has given a perfect example of part of what this carnival is about: sharing our pro blogging experiences and knowledge.

8. Howto: Use Web 2.0 to Get Viral Traffic Your Blog by Andy Boyd of BoydCreative.

   Comment: Andy gives another good example of what this carnival is for - sharing techniques to improve our online professions.

9. Serving Two Writing Masters by Sharon Hurley Hall of Get Paid to Write Online.

   Comments: Who are you writing for? Do you know? Sharon discusses the two "masters" of your writing, and explains what some of her experiences as a writer have been.

10. 20 Ways to Add Value to Your Products and Services by Terry Dean of Integrity Business Blog.

    Comments: This carnival isn't just about blogging. If you sell products or services from your website, read Terry's tips on adding value.

11. Do You Stand Out From the Crowd? by Richard Pettinger of Net Writing.

    Comments: Richard offers some wise advice about how to stand out on the Internet, to develop your brand as a blogger. I'd suggest, though, that the article title should have some relevant keyword. Don't change the URL at this point, but consider tweaking the title.

12. Google Analytics Tutorial - How to Track Conversion Rates by Adam Taylor of Conversion Matters.

    Comments: Adam deciphers some of the mysteries of Google Analytics, separating logical sections of the article with great descriptive headings.

13. Before You Begin Blogging: A Few Things You Should Know by Deb Ng at Performancing.

    Comments: Normally, I'd want to go outside of Performancing for carnival entries, but this is a very important article for new bloggers to read (and some of us veterans, too).

14. The Value of Search in a Product Oriented World by David Krug of College Startup.

    Comments: I've been reading College Startup since Ben Bleikamp created it and I've always enjoyed the concrete examples presented there. David doesn't disappoint with an example of how he's costed out the value of each sale of a door at his door affiliate marketing site, based on search traffic.

15. Warning! Make Your Graphic Designer Read This Before Creating Your Mini-site! by Stephen Dean of Stephen Dean's Blog.

    Comments: A short yet informative tip about conversion rates based on whether or not you use a header graphic on your sales pages.

That's it for this edition of the Carnival of Internet Pros. If your submitted article did not appear in this edition, it's likely to appear in the next one - unless:

1. Your entry is not relevant to the carnival.
2. Your URL produced a 404 error.
3. Your site has popups/ popunders.
4. Your article is promoting affiliate programs or other ads.
5. You're one of the persons who submitted 4 or even 9 entries all at once. (If you entered two on separate days, I'll accept that this time.)

Everyone else that submitted an article by Jul 20th and who is not here should appear in the next edition. (After that date, you will also likely appear in the next edition, on Wed Aug 1st.) If you are not in because of one of the above five reasons, you are welcome to submit something else that follows the rules and criteria for the Carnival of Internet Pros.

Please remember: one entry per week (running Saturday to Sunday). Don't force me to read through all your entries - pick out your best on your own and submit one, maximum, each week. The submission form is at Blog Carnival.