Issue: 5 October 2021
The eZu newsletter connects with our CrewMachine crowd. The CrewMachine network includes thousands of people around the globe, working in 12 languages. Every issue will be part education and hopefully a whole lot of fun!
What is eZu
eZu is your crowd connection, a resource for all CrewMachine freelancers. It will include a monthly newsletter filled with tips, articles, freelancer testimonials and fun. Future plans for eZu include a blog where you will be able to read articles related to content creation, page review, research and more. It will also include CrewMachine tips, work from home tips, and eventually, short quizzes.
In this issue, we talk about keywords and why they are important, explain how to find and review submitted or approved work (and what all those statuses mean) – talk a little about category pages and a lot more.
In this month’s newsletter we’ve added a new section – Useful tools. This document contains a list of tools and resources such as general writing tools, grammar checkers, passive voice checkers and more.
Have an idea for eZu or the newsletter? Send us an email and tell us what you think.
eZu Director
eZu@CrewMachine.com
In This Issue
Education
- Almost everything you do with CrewMachine involves keywords. But have you ever wondered why we use keywords? Found a keyword that doesn’t really fit? Or wondered if you can change a keyword? Read this article to find out all about keywords and get some answers to keyword related questions that PMs are often asked.
- CrewMachine Tip – Have you ever wanted to go back and look at submitted or approved work? Check out this short tutorial to find out how to find, and look at your past work – and what all those statuses actually mean.
- NEW!! Useful Tools – No matter how skilled of a researcher, writer or editor you are, using tools like a grammar checker, passive voice checker, thesaurus and dictionary is always a good idea. So, we’ve put together a list of useful tools that will help you improve your skills. This list is a living document and will grow as we find more resources, so bookmark it and check it often. If you have a favorite tool that you use, send us an email and let us know so we can add it to the list.
Process of the Month
- Category pages: Along with product pages, category pages are probably one of the content types we write most. In fact, we’ve probably written thousands of category pages over the years. Check out this article to find out a bit more about category pages, what they are and why they are important in the content creation world and for website owners.
We want to say a BIG thank you to:
We appreciate every one of you, but we want to say a big thank you to:
- Sandeep D – Thank you so much for writing the fantastic article about keyword research.
- Angie K and Kalaine F – You have both gone above and beyond to help maintain content quality and deserve every bit of appreciation.
- Matic S – Thank you for your commitment and desire to keep improving quality and adding value while maintaining quantity.
Fun
- Word of the Month -.Focus
- Meaning:
- A center or activity, attraction or attention
- A main purpose or interest or concentration
- The point of which an image is formed by a mirror or lens etc
- In a sentence: If we focus on our work, we can get more done.
| Synonyms | Antonyms |
| Give | Avoid |
| Try | Cut |
| Direct | Disregard |
| Concentrate on | Ignore |
| Apply oneself to | Overlook |
- Did you know
Because the newsletter doesn’t go out until the last half of the month. We’re going to include fun facts for the following month. So this month, November’s fun facts are:
- The first Thursday in November is National Men Make Dinner Day – sit back, relax and let the guys do the cooking
- The Suez canal officially opened on November 17, 1869
- The first Monopoly game came out November 5, 1935 – I wonder if the creators ever thought it would become so popular, or there would be so many different types of Monopoly available today
- The first – and so far only – female Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi was born on November 19, 1917
- The first spacecraft carrying a live passenger was launched on November 3, 1957. The passenger was a stray dog named Leika who was found on the streets of Moscow
eZdia Freelancer Testimonial – Meg S
Hi everyone, my name is Meg, and I live in South Africa. I’ve worked on CrewMachine since February 2014. I started off as a writer, then gradually moved onto editing and now also do QA. I’ve made many online friends along the way and learned a little about the countries (including Europe, Africa, Australia, India, and Central America) and U.S. states or Canadian provinces they live in. I’m now pretty fluent in U.S. and Canadian spellings, and when I email or message my family I have to consciously spell words the UK way! Forums have come and gone (I think Slack is the best one so far), and with the advent of Zoom, I’ve listened in fascination (and some confusion) to all the different accents and pronunciations of words.
About 18 months ago, my husband Geoff and I started living full-time in a caravan and with our (not always reliable) Landrover Defender are traveling around South Africa. Working for CrewMachine is ideal as I can do tasks in most campsites with our mobile internet connection.
As TrishPM puts this newsletter together, she won’t say thanks to herself, so I’d like to thank her on behalf of all the writers, editors, and QAers for her patience, unceasing good humor, and guidance!
- Tell us about U! We would like to know more about you and how eZdia/CrewMachine has made a difference in your life. Tell us a bit about yourself, simply fill out this short form, add a picture (if you choose to) and find yourself featured in the Freelancer Spotlight section of a future edition of eZu. Don’t want to fill out a form? Simply send an email to eZu@CrewMachine.com with your testimonial. A picture would be great too.
Do you have anything you’d like to see in our newsletter? A specific grammar or spelling problem you’re struggling with, something with CrewMachine you’re not quite sure of, a new fun game or section you’d like to see? Let us know and we’ll do our best to get it added. Just send an email off to eZu@CrewMachine.com