Heather Wallace, Freelance Writer


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Heather Wallace

Expert Guru

I have several years experience as a writer, blogger, and web developer. My content has appeared in national, regional, and online publications, including Archie Comics, Your Life! Magazine, Vallejo News, Frugal Village, College Central, Education Index, and Engineering Careers Online. I also possess experience as a newspaper correspondent for The Vindicator located in Youngstown, Ohio.

As a blogger, I have been solely responsible for creating content as well as maintaining several blogs on a variety of subjects. Responsibilities include installing and configuring plugins, writing posts, and moderating and replying to comments. Notable accomplishments include overseeing all aspects of a blog that presently has a daily readership of over 2,500 and growing.

Throughout my career I have developed over 100 web sites and blogs including The Big Freez, which was featured in several editions of Que's Internet Yellow Pages as well as the television program She-Commerce. While online The Big Freez held the number one position on MSN, Google, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo for several of its target keywords. I have a vast amount of experience with SEO content. In addition to The Big Freez, a considerable number of my other sites/blogs have achieved first page placement in the search engines with many reaching number one.

Interview

What books have most influenced your life?
HTML 4 for the World Wide Web by Elizabeth Castro is one of the books that has most influenced my life. It was this book that proved most beneficial when I was a new to web design. From this book my knowledge of Internet technologies progressed. Without this book as my stepping stone I wouldn't be where I am today.

Who are your favorite music artists?
Collective Soul is my favorite band. I own all of their CDs and wouldn't miss the opportunity to see them perform live.

What are your favorite websites and why?
Wordpress.org (http://www.wordpress.org) - For anyone trying to blog with Wordpress this site is invaluable. From the support forums to the documentation, you can find answers to many questions that are bound to arise.

Slang O' The Day (http://slang.otheday.com)- This is one of my own blogs, so of course it would be among my favorites.

Stuff on my Cat (http://www.stuffonmycat.com) - Because you have to add a little levity to each and every day.

Where else can people find you on the web?
There are two sites where I can be found online. The first is my blog Slang O' The Day (http://slang.otheday.com). It is there that you can get the 411 on American and English slang delivered everyday by the peeps at Slang O' The Day. In addition, you can read samples of my work in my portfolio at The Original Copy Shop (http://www.originalcopyshop.com).

What are your professional highlights?
My professional highlights include my web site, The Big Freez, which was featured in several editions of Que's Internet Yellow Pages as well as the television program She-Commerce. Slang O' The Day is also among my professional highlights. This blog had shown an incredible amount of growth since its launch and is now read by over 2,500 readers a day and growing.

What advice do you have for the journey of life?
Have as much fun as possible because you only get one chance at happiness.

What would people be surprised to know about you?
I became a published writer before my tenth birthday.

Philosophy

Choose something you like to do. I know it's a cliche, and you've heard it over and over. But the reason is, you're going to have to work long and hard to achieve any success. You better like it or life is going to be terrible. - Bill Kurtis

3 Tips from Heather Wallace


	A picture can be worth a thousand clicks When optimizing your content you probably know to employ all of the techniques pertaining to keyword density and the like in order to attract the search engines, but what you may not know is that there is another tactic that you can use as Google bait. Including images in your posts will cause the Google Image Search spider to crawl and index your site. If you plan to employ this technique, then be sure to name your images with keywords relevant to the post in which they will be appearing. Also, make sure to include relevant keywords within the ALT tag. If you can get an image indexed that proves to be popular, then you can draw a serious number of visitors to your site. Some would argue that traffic from Google Image Search isn't valuable in terms of building a loyal readership, but they aren't considering one very important fact. If a visitor is going to be interested in your content, then it doesn't matter what means they used to locate your blog just so long as they discovered it.


	Helping them helps you If you are trying to build backlinks, as well as your reputation, then you should considering doing a little networking. Specifically, you should contact site owners and bloggers within your niche and inquire as to whether they would be agreeable to your providing content as a guest blogger. While it may seem counterproductive to supply your competition with content when you could be using that time to grow the content on your own blog this technique can actually prove to be time well-spent. Your appearance as a guest blogger will serve two purposes. It will act as an endorsement by the site owner that says to readers that you are an authority that can be trusted. In addition, you will be able to grow your backlinks by including a link to your site either within your contribution, the byline, or in the author's bio box. Guest blogging is a win-win situation because it allows you to reap valuable benefits while benefiting your fellow blogger as well.


	Create a sense of community by commenting If you are like most bloggers after you publish a post you forget about it in favor of creating new content. Sure, you might read a comment here or there, but do you take the opportunity to interact with your readers? There is nothing worse than having a one-sided conversation and, if your blog visitors are submitting comments, but you aren't replying, then that is the sort scenario that they find themselves in. By replying to these comments you will be able to create an even more interactive experience and a sense of community for your visitors. You will provide them with another reason to return to your site in order to read your reply and, perhaps, add another comment of their own. This is also a great way to humanize yourself to your readers. Let them know that there is a person behind the post. It is in this way that you will be able to engender a sense of loyalty among your readers. It is when they begin to view you as a person that they will become even more invested in your success.

Heather Wallace

Interview

Philosophy

Channel Experience

3 Tips from Heather Wallace

A picture can be worth a thousand clicks

Helping them helps you

Create a sense of community by commenting