I figure this is the result of close networks of people who are unwilling to branch out and include more of the community. These people are self-centered and want to keep all the profits within a close group of people. Nearly all new sales are generated from this group of people marketing to the same (generally large) group of people. While those inside of this group are able to constantly pump out new products based on their most successful products, there really isn’t much innovation going on within the circle.

Rather than spending so much time on increasing referrals, focus on these tasks and you’ll see a much higher return. Plus, it may come much sooner than you could have ever dreamed!

1. Learn about your visitors and connect with your greatest fans. You’ll be able to develop a closer relationship with your most valued readers.
2. Write as often as possible, as your content will sell itself. As you write more often, you’ll gain more natural links back to your content, especially through the social networking sites.
3. Spend more time developing a brand behind your content. Some people focus solely on creating the content, but you should also spend the time distributing the content, getting your brand name out as often as possible.
4. Be more generous. Sure, this might mean that you’ll initially lose some revenue, but if you get your good product into more people’s hands, then you’ll be able to sell more product down the road.
5. Change what you do. If your site is just a simple landing page, add a blog. Generally, you won’t have to spend much more than an hour or two each day writing on this blog portion, but you’ll see much more return.

Writing should be your top priority on your blog. If you instead focus on increasing sales, you’re likely to lose out on many sales in the future. These sales are likely to come as a result of visitors from search engines and through recommendations you normally wouldn’t have received if you had stuck to simply promoting links and the same old sales message.

You love writing. You love sharing your ideas with others, so you’ve become a blogger. Now that you have launched a blog, you want to create a community with others, delivering on the goals you have set.

One of the main problems with most bloggers today is that they constantly over-deliver. In many cases, the discussion contained in a post is much longer than it really needs to be. Even this post is longer than it needs to be. People live faster-paced lives than ever before but are still interested in content. Today, we’re absorbing more of it each day.

Starting a news site can be especially challenging – do you simply highlight the main news stories with a few short sentences about the main topic or write in-depth evaluations (more in the style of op-ed pieces than anything else). Obviously, it’s difficult to incorporate both of these post styles into your site unless you train your visitors to expect it.

Here’s a fact: a majority of the traffic coming to your site won’t read through one article, let alone all of them found on the main page. No matter how good of a writer you are, how “popular” you are, or whether millions of people have recommended one of your posts, this fact won’t change. You simply need to know how to deal with it.

1. Skip the Details

Details are great. Many people can ramble on and on about a topic for hours on end, and still have lots to talk about. Some of these same people begin a blog to write “novel” posts,which have thousands of words each (most posts are around five hundred words). While it is great to see the quantity, sometimes it is just better to get your point across in as little words as possible.

The most important aspect of this is that you don’t leave out any of the important details. Readers still want to be informed and they want to become knowledgeable. However, if you write a technology blog, you don’t need to explain all the details behind the acronyms with every post – there is a good chance your readers already know them if they are visiting the blog.

2. Clean up the Navigation

One of the main problems visitors have once arriving at your site is navigating through to read articles. For many bloggers, this isn’t too hard of a problem to solve, but more can usually be done to draw in visitors. Not only can you re-organize the navigation structure, but you can also optimize the site using A/B testing as well as heat maps, which show where users are clicking the most.

Integrating ads into your content can help increase revenue, but it won’t help with navigation – at all. Sometimes advertising that blends into your content inspires visitors to click away from your site – as they think it is links to other pages of your site – but then you lose a visitor that could have converted into a customer.

3. Provide a Reason for Visitors/Customers to Return

Announcing that you are writing a series of posts on a popular topic can drive more visitors to return to your site, but there are other ways that you can help draw visitors back to your site. Encourage users to subscribe to your site or follow your updates on the popular social networking sites.

What has separated some good online companies from the great ones? In most case, it comes down to support and the overall experience users have. If I have a bad experience at a site like Amazon, I am much less likely to shop there again, unless they can rectify the problem. I’m much more likely to visit a competing site or purchase the product directly from the product’s main site.

If you have killer content, you are essentially providing a service to your visitors. While you may give it away for free, there is a much higher chance you will convert them to customers/revenue if you can consistently deliver what they want.

4. Don’t Try Solving All Problems

Bloggers who want to “make it big” online will most likely fail. This isn’t the best way to begin your growth online – you’ll simply crash due to the amount of work. It’s more about time constraints than anything else. Obviously, if you are spending two hours each day writing new posts/content, then you’ll have a problem trying to expand this to ten blogs – you’ll spend less time focusing on some of the blogs.

Now, how does this relate to your visitors’ attention? Well, if you start branching out too far from your original focus, your visitors will notice this. Running a blog with a focus on one topic but then consistently delivering blog posts about another topic is one of the best ways to get your visitors to unsubscribe and never return to your site.

5. Be Structured, Plan for the Future

When you write on your blog, plan on having your content exist forever. Many bloggers do not do this. Instead, they blog as they go, creating bigger problems in the future. For example, instead of writing posts without paragraphs, some bloggers insist on not using any formatting or structure. Obviously, in the current time, it is bad, but in the future it will be worse. Imagine if these pages become ranked well in search engines – you’ll have a brand that is associated with junk.

Another good idea to keep your readers focused on your content is to use headings or a “snapshot” of what the post is about. These can be integrated into your blog fairly easily as long as you know HTML and spend some time to ensure your readers stay focused.

Conclusion

The key to maintaining your visitors’ attention is to set yourself apart from other bloggers, raising the bar for yourself, and have a product (content) that can stand up for itself. Don’t be mediocre – be something more and ensure that you can meet all your goals.

Photo Source

The challenge of coming up with great posts has challenged bloggers for years, although there is a great way that you can nearly eliminate this problem with just a few visits to other websites.

The most popular content is ranked by users on sites like Digg, TweetMeme (for Twitter), and Like Button (for Facebook), giving you a glimpse into the most popular content on the Web. So much content is being shared at any time that even these sites can be difficult to use when you need new topics to write about.

For the most part, shared content revolves around two main types: original content, such as news stories, blog posts, and photographs, while the second group revolves around collections and remixes, ranging from list posts to edited photographs and remixed songs.

I’ll take a quick look at the front page of Digg and then we’ll look at how you can apply these trends to come up with interesting blog posts.

• There are two posts in the list format, “6 Bizarre Mysteries (That Are Still Totally Unanswered)” and “The 6 TV Badasses We’d Love to Have a Drink With”. These posts are popular across all types of sites, so it is no surprise to see them on Digg.
• Seven of the posts are news-specific. While news generally doesn’t revolve around the main television stations, it might depend on the time of the day, as many of the news posts currently on Digg are from sites like Telegraph, The NY TImes, CNN, Kiplinger, USA Today, and MSNBC.
• Four articles deal specifically or link directly to an image, while one links to a video. The other articles also include some type of images, but their main focus is on text.

How to Integrate Current Trends into Your Blog

Even if you don’t have a news blog, it can be a good idea to base your new posts on the current trends. Contrary to popular belief, some of the most trafficked posts deal with current events, rather than timeless content. Sure, the timeless content will still have rewards down the road, but that is only if it becomes popular today, is linked to frequently, and then is ranked well in search engines for a wide array of terms.

A popular post format working its way across the social networking sites right now is the “in-depth” post, with analysis of current trends, such as the Facebook debacle. Readers want to know how certain events will impact their life, rather then just the news, which can be found on the original site.

While there has certainly been debate about the format of list posts, these posts are popular and will remain so. They have always been popular, even in the days of newspapers and print. They grab a visitor’s attention and can become popular in a matter of minutes. Putting the time into researching the posts is ideal, and it’ll result in a post that will be linked to across social networking sites and relevant blogs.

The key is creating unique content. Until you have become as large as some of the most popular blogs, you’ll need to set yourself apart in some way or another. The key to doing this is to create content that few other sites have, and this may include breaking news. Scour the web for hot trends and then see if any new developments have taken place. Starting a really local blog can draw in the traffic levels that will let you earn an income – al inspired by sites like Topix.

Other Ideas to Keep in Mind:

1. Breaking a news story may not result in a lot of traffic unless it is an a popular niche, like technology.
2. If you simply re-post news topics found on other blogs, you’ll likely exhaust yourself, as you’ll generally need to post more than ten new posts per day.
3. Generating ideas based on the top news stories can be just as difficult as creating a post about something you have never researched before.

No matter what type of site you run, keeping tabs on the popular social networking sites and the directories connected to them will allow you to constantly see where markets are heading. Even if you have a blog about an extremely specific topic, you can still perform searches on these sites and see how well other posts have done.

Remember, the only thing that matters in all this si that your site stands out. Focus solely on what your visitors are looking for even before they tell you. Stay involved in your niche and create a community around your site to maximize the time you spend writing posts.

What makes you unique? There are certainly characteristics that you alone possess, ideas as well as personal ideals. There is a good chance that you share them with those around you, even though you might not necessarily pay close attention.

These characteristics should come out in your writing. The key to running a great blog is to only write as yourself. You should never try to imitate the writing styles of others. While you should always try to maintain proper English standards, you should incorporate your experiences into your writing to better get your points across.

Using figurative language like metaphors, personification, and other methods can be included at certain points to better illustrate what you are trying to purvey.

How to Truly Be Yourself

1. Never doubt yourself. If you aren’t confident in what you are trying to say, take a break from writing and come back to it after you have had time to think about how you want to word the article.
2. Don’t sound smarter than you really are. Sure, we all want to be exerts in our particular niches, but it’s not possible, so you simply have to appear as knowledgeable. Read and understand your niche and what you are writing about.
3. Include personal thoughts and ideas into your blog. I don’t traditionally include too many references to my personal life through my posts, but this technique can be really useful for product review-type posts and to better make a point.
4. Don’t sell yourself to a company. Having partners and sponsors on your blog can help you pay the bills and generate some profit from your efforts, but your readers may distance themselves from your blog should you constantly try to promote their products.

Conclusion

Being yourself is key to growing a successful blog. If you are afraid to reveal personal thoughts on your blog, putting yourself in the spotlight could go on hold: simply write as a guest author on another blog or as a ghostwriter. You may have limited rights to your work, but you’ll get a good introduction into blogging without some of the risks that come with publishing your thoughts.

One of the main problems everyone faces when starting a new blog is that we all begin as mediocre. No one is perfect at something they’ve never done before, and this is also true for all bloggers. Starting a blog is like overcoming a tough obstacle in itself.

It’ll take time before you are able to churn out quality content on a regular basis, and your readers understand this. Even the most popular blogs you see today were started with much smaller ambitions, only reaching the mainstream level when you have broken a number of news stories.

Getting over the fears that you will never be a great blogger is the hurdle you need to overcome before you will truly realize some of your potential.

There have been hundreds of success stories by bloggers who have achieved the mainstream status, but perhaps this isn’t the position you want to be in three years from now. Perhaps you simply want to have a larger base of readers – we all want this, don’t we? Well, here are a few tips you can use to help break yourself away from the “mediocre” status as a blogger.

Raise the Bar

Even the bloggers who have set out to create a revolution have now resorted to the same promotion methods. You can change this through your blog.

The first step to raising the bar is to place your community and your readers first. Always involve your community in upcoming projects, providing them what they need to know to stay involved.

One thing many readers want to see is an evolution of you and your brand. Sometimes the littlest changes make the difference, such as re-arranging the design of your site or adding new social elements, such as Facebook and other social networking links. These changes can positively help enforce your brand.

Believe in Yourself

People don’t venture into new markets or don’t pursue making their hobbies into full-time income streams because they have low confidence in themselves. Although you may be great at a hobby or skill, you don’t feel you have the savvy business sense to actually profit.

Today, it is more easy than ever to create your own business and promote it through the Internet. There isn’t anything stopping you except the drive and motivation, which you should already have if you are passionate about your hobby.

Believing in yourself has some drawbacks, however. Even though you might feel great about what you are doing, your readers may not, and this fact may come crashing down on you. Don’t let the negativity get to you, or you will never be able to meet your goals.

Change Your Habits

How to do you evolve from a mediocre blogger into a blogger that is trusted, valued, as well as respected in the community? Well, you begin by changing the habits that have prevented you from reaching this plateau in the first place.

While I’ve covered some of these tips in the past, I’ll run-down some of them again to help you grow as a blogger.

• Don’t follow trends. Set your own trends. Evolve faster than other bloggers and point yourself in the right direction before someone else tells you where the market is going.
• Have a plan. Plan your plan. Set goals for yourself, in terms of how much traffic, readers, and income you want to see at certain periods in the future – six months, a year from now, and so on.
• Don’t forget your morals. Some bloggers feel that traffic and income should erase all their morals. Don’t resort to spamming the people who have helped you reach your goals or they’ll quickly drop their support.
• Stick to one topic or niche. Branching out can happen, but not initially. You won’t find the time to maintain multiple sites until you have built one site up to a decent level.
• Always provide value. If you are simply rehashing what others have heen saying for years, you aren’t making an impact, and your readers won’t find any value in what you are delivering.

Your Thoughts

What other ways could a new blogger set himself or herself apart from the millions of other blogs while still being able to represent a brand? Please leave your comments in the area below.

Perhaps it’s less about misspelling, rather than just not thinking about the proper form of the word to use. I covered thirty of these words in a past article.

The comic was done by Matthew Inman and can be found on The Oatmeal.

The main idea behind blogs is to connect yourself with others. If you are simply re-posting ideas from other blogs, covering news, as well as topics others have covered plenty of times in the past, readers will quickly leave, only returning when they see that you have ideas of your own, rather than shared ideas from others.

Photo by rachel_thecat

This post is less about where to find fresh content, but rather than how you can really improve on others’ ideas when you may not have as much content to write about. In other words, you’re going through “writer’s” or “blogger’s block.”

News Posts

There are plenty of topics I could write about each day that reference blogging, but it would really drain the blog in quality. It would be somewhat difficult to provide my own insight into many of these topics, as they have been written about countless times on other blogs.

If you run a news blog, it is great to share the most popular stories, but you also must have some fresh ideas to bring to the table.

However, if you run a more general blog, which also includes original, more in-depth posts, you must invite your own insight into the news stories. Follow some of these useful tips for providing more quality.

• Provide some background on the topics.
• Add your own experience and insight into what may arrive in the future.
• If you are covering a new service, create a tutorial that shows how the service works/operates, and how it can really help others.

Older Posts

Let’s say you discover some posts others have written about. Nearly everything that could have been written about has been written about. This often makes it challenging to create your own content, but you can still “borrow” content from others for use on your own blog. Now, there is no “copying and pasting,” but you are providing your take on the story/post.

The reason this works is as follows:

• Readers like seeing your own take on posts.
• You can challenge your readers to think differently, think like you, and you will persuade them to think along the same lines as you.
• These posts can inspire you to create something that rivals them in terms of quality, and you will still be able to get ahead.
• Each blog is unique – at some point or another, you may need to cover these topics.

Be Completely Unique

Innovation can also help inspire you to change your posts. If new technologies are released, they may lead to more posts, especially if you cover computer or Internet-related fields (as many of us do).

Being yourself is also included within this overall topic. When you focus on creating new content, you also have to include points that you wouldn’t normally include within, say, a news post.

Often, the return for unique content takes a long time to really see, but in the long-term, having unique content can really drive traffic higher, and when traffic drives sales, you’ll be able to really benefit.

Conclusion

What other ways can you think of to stop regurgitating content? Please share them with the community by leaving a comment below.

Readable content is key when writing online, but there are a few other ways that you can use to draw in new readers and visitors that have stumbled upon your blog.

“Alone” by Fe Ilya

Provide Plenty of Space Between Text

Readers hate seeing large paragraphs of text. It’s the reason many of us have moved away from newspapers – the content is just “there”, and the only reason you may want to read the content is if the headline draws you in. It’s the same online. Visitors want some structure to your content. Separate large blocks of text using headlines and other methods.

Use Images to Accent Your Content

Images (most likely not quite the size of that above) make it easier for your readers to follow the natural flow of your content. For a second, the images will draw the focus of your readers, but then they’ll quickly return to your content.

Have a Great Title

Because most people will only click on your headline if it draws them in, create one that really makes them want to read on. Using misleading headlines works once or twice, but not for all of your posts.

Highlight Key Points

Using ordered and unordered (bullet) lists are great for highlighting the main points or illustrating the focus of your article. This technique can also be used in creating links – use them in a manner that allows visitors to jump through an article.

Link Heavily

Linking to other posts (also with great text) will keep visitors on your site, rather than having them visit other pages without reading on. As a writer, you want as many eyes to visit your blog, while you also retain a good percentage of people who will read through the entire article.

Other Ideas

I’ve covered some of the main ideas that you can use to get readers to really read (or at the very least, scan through your posts), but I’d like your ideas as to how to grow your readership rate, rather than your visitor rate. What has worked for you personally?

Weblogs, inc., a network of 90+ blogs, which was purchased by AOL four years ago, and employees roughly 150 people worldwide, is one of the most popular blog networks by traffic. Some of their more popular blogs like Engadget, TV Squad, and Autoblog alone generate 5.3+ million unique visitors monthly, and this traffic is stunning, no matter what site you are looking at. The sites are popular due to the update rate (most publish multiple articles per hour) and for becoming the leaders in their particular niches.

Photo by Shahrokh Dabiri

AOL became famous in the 90s for their Internet service, which was distributed for free through a CD (or floppy disk), and required anyone to purchase the service after the 90-day (or so) trial period had ended. The more copies they could distribute, the more sign-ups they were able to garner. Nearly everyone who received these just threw them out, discarding them because they were regarded as “junk,” especially as the 90s ended.

Look ahead another ten years, and the company has seen some major changes. It is better known as a media company today, rather than an Internet service provider. While it still makes a significant portion of its revenue from this portion of its business, the new CEO wants to create what some call “crap” content. In other words, they will open up publishing to nearly anyone, with relatively few restrictions in terms of who can write and what content is published.

Several sites, such as Associated Content, Examiner, and About.com pay users or use an attribution system to reward users for publishing content. The more popular/”better” the writer, the more they will be paid. Some users on About.com are averaging over $100,000 per year, and this is due to the fact that they are “experts” at their specified topics.

The Opportunities

Not everyone has the opportunity to create their own blog and publish regularly. It might not be a financial situation, but more about your background knowledge and the risks you have to take. These people would rather join a network that is already well-rooted and will still be around, even if they stop publishing. It isn’t as professional, at least for some of the networks, but it allows these people to create content freely on topics they enjoy writing about.

• Many of these sites have few requirements to join other than being able to produce content that will drive “clicks” to the site.
• Some reward content creators with compensation, especially if they can drive more traffic to the site.
• These sties are already well-established.

As bloggers, we would all love if everyone was able to do this. Those in the search engine optimization business absolutely hate this.

Problems with Content on Just About Everything

The main goal behind AOL’s new strategy is to increase traffic to its properties any way possible. That will increase revenue for them, as most sites are relatively inexpensive for large companies to run, especially when pay rates are low. I’d assume that it will be extremely similar to Associated Content, as Tim Armstrong, the current CEO of AOL, used to be on the board of AC.

Methods will be used to judge what is growing in popularity on the web, and then AOL (or whoever is in charge of the writers) will tell them to write about it. It is a tactic that is similar to those “automatic” scripts that re-write content from news sites.

According to Google, roughly 1.6 million pages on Associated Content are currently indexed. While some scrutiny over the ranking methods used by AC have come up in the past, for a site this size, there is generally positive feedback from users due to the opportunities it presents.

However, we have to move on from that, and view some of the negatives about a network that specializes in producing thousands of new articles daily.

• Duplicate content. What is going to prevent users from submitting content that hasn’t already been covered, but that just adds a few new details?
• Writing doesn’t have to be “good.” As long as the article is 400+ words (for example) and has a decent level of grammar/spelling used, then it will pass the editors, if there are any.
• These shorter articles often rank better in search engines than the source article or more thought-out posts.
• No background knowledge is required. Writers can research a topic for an hour, then write about it.

An End to the Discussion

Like I said earlier, there are two types of bloggers/writers on the web. Those who are serious about their work and are generating a full-time income and those who are doing it “for fun” and sharing knowledge.

The growth of real-time news and knowledge is increasingly important. AOL may be tapping this market with these changes, as people would rather read an article that’s shorter than one that provides an entire background on a topic.

If individuals aren’t able to get their thoughts out to the world, we should revert to a time where you had to get on TV to be noticed. All the large blogs who have ten or so full-time writers and are complaining about “crap” content should think about what their sites would be like if all those “crappy” writers never visited their site. They wouldn’t be anywhere, as just ten people would be visiting their sites each day.

There will always be content on the web that isn’t at a “high-quality” level like the NYTimes or other companies, but that is only natural. We all have the right to publish what we want, and whether or not people read or absorb it is up to them. If a site publishes ten million articles, you may never even see one of them on Google, simply because there are tens of billions of web pages.

What do you think about “quickly produced” content and how large companies like Associated Content and AOL are promoting it? Should everyone be able to publish content in a manner like this?

Below you’ll find some great examples of words commonly confused and how to properly use them.

Please consider adding any additional words you’ve seen misused by leaving a comment.

Accept – Consent to receive. He accepted a pen as a present.
Except – Not including. They blog every day except Monday.

Ad – Short for advertisement. They placed an advertisement for their services.
Add – To join. She was told to add the two items together.

Adapt – To adjust.
Adept – Proficient.
Adopt – To choose.

Adverse – Preventing success or development. The weather conditions are adverse.
Averse – Having a strong dislike or opposition to something. As a former CIA director, he is not averse to secrecy.

Affect – A verb meaning to change, assume, or influence. The dampness began to affect my health.
Effect – A noun meaning impression or result. Politicians really do have some effect on the lives of ordinary people.

Altogether – Entirely. Altogether, we believed he had the story correct.
All together – All in one place or in a group. They arrived all together.

Desert – A dry, sandy place. They went to the desert on vacation.
Dessert – The sweet stuff you eat after a meal. She ate the desert.

Device – A gadget. They created a device to get out of the situation.
Devise – To plan. They devised a plan to build a better blog.

Apart- To be separated. Their plan fell apart before they were able to carry it out.
A part – To be joined with. A part of their plan didn’t work out due to someone not being present.

Breath – Air inhaled or exhaled. He could see his breath in the cold air.
Breathe – To inhale or exhale. If you don’t breathe, you will die.
Breadth – Width. A breadth of cloth.

Both – Two things considered together. Both owners must fill out the form in order to confirm the purchase.
Each – Individual members of a group considered separately. Each person must fill out a separate form.

Capital – A seat of government or financial resources. The company had enough capital to purchase a competing company.
Capitol – The actual building in which the legislative body meets. The people marched on Georgia’s state capitol.

Cite – To quote or document. Doctors have been cited as a key example of a modern breed of technical expert.
Sight – The faculty or power of seeing. She lost her sight as a baby.
Site – Position or place. The materials are always on site.

Complement – Something that completes, to complete. At the moment we have a full complement of staff.
Compliment – To praise. She left me several compliments for my time and work.

Elicit – To draw or bring out. They invariably elicit exclamations of approval from guests.
Illicit – Illegal. They were found using illicit drugs.

Good – An adjective meaning to be desired or approved of. We live at peace with each other, which is good.
Well – An adverb meaning in a good or satisfactory way. The whole team played well.

i.e. – Short for the Latin “id est,” meaning “it is” or “that is.” Use it when you say “that is.”
e.g. – Short for the Latin “exempli gratia,” meaning “free example.” Use it when you would say “for example.”

Its – Of or belonging to it. He chose the house for its neighborhood.
It’s – Contraction for it is. It’s all my fault.

Lie – To lie down. I had to lie down for two hours because I felt sick.
Lay – To lay an object down. She laid the baby in his crib.

Lose – To misplace or not win. If you lose your new toy, I will not be replacing it.
Loose – To not be tight or to release. He was never set loose from jail because no one posted his bail.

Passed – To pass, to have moved. The cars quickly passed us.
Past -  Belonging to a former time or place. They made a study of the reasons why past attempts had failed.

Piece – A portion or fragment of something. The dog ate a piece of the food.
Peace – Freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility. You can while away an hour or two in peace and seclusion.
Peas – Small, green vegetables. She ate her peas.

Stationary – Standing still. A car collided with a stationary vehicle.
Stationery – Writing paper. She told me to pick up some stationery for her crafts.

Than – Use with comparisons. He doesn’t know any more than I do.
Then – At that time, or next. I was living in Cairo then.

Their – Possessive adjective, belonging to or associated with the people or things previously mentioned. She heard someone blow their nose loudly.
There – At, in, or to that place or position. We went on to Paris and stayed there eleven days.
They’re – Contraction of they are. They’re parking the car.

Through – Moving in one side and out of the other side. He stepped boldly through the doorway.
Thorough – Complete with regard to every detail. He wanted to thoroughly understand the topics.
Though – However, nevertheless. Though they were speaking in undertones, he could still hear them.
Thru – Informal spelling for through.

Titled – The title of a name of a book, play, etc. Please read page two in the section titled “How to Use WordPress.”
Entitled – The right or a claim to something. She felt entitled to the entire estate.

To – Toward. I went to the park on Sunday.
Too – Also, or excessively. He drove too fast and was unable to maintain control.
Two – The number. Only two people attended the party on Saturday.

Shear – Cut the wool off a sheep or animal. I’ll shear off all that fleece.
Sheer – Nothing other than, unmitigated. She giggled with sheer delight.

Whose – The possessive form of who. Whose blog is that?
Who’s – The contraction of who and is. Who’s on first base?

Your – Possessive meaning “belonging to you.” What was your name?
You’re – A contraction of “you are.” You’re an angel!