Allan writes product descriptions and promotional/sales/biz dev content, press releases, blog articles, news, commentary, instruction manuals, video scripts, brochures and white papers. He writes both for publication on the web and for print media. He has published a novel and has a second in the works.
Business development, Electronics, Entrepreneurship, Food, Health, High Tech, Kids/Family, Legal, Manufacturing, Marketing, Medical, Nutrition, Office, Pets, Politics, Psychology, Publishing, Real Estate, Relationships, Science, Search Marketing, Self Help, Software, Spirituality, Travel.
He knew even during high school, as a contributor to various school publications, that he'd spend a lot of time writing. Thus, the degree in English just made sense. Further, it opened the door to Allan's first job in technical and advertising writing immediately upon graduation from college.
This curriculum covered a mix of experimental and clinical psych issues. Allan took the degree to attain a better understanding of human behavior.
This degree covered virtually every aspect of managing others, ranging from human resource issues to finance and general accounting.
Allan began his career as a technical writer, then was promoted to Technical Editor responsible for the quality, accuracy and adherence to standards of 10 other writers for over a decade. He has continued writing on technical topics for over 30 years.
Allan has developed content for medical electronics, GPS tracking systems, computer hardware and software, traffic signal controllers and a diverse range of consumer and industrial products.
During his tenure at WriterAccess he's written for the world's largest chip manufacturer on highly technical software topics; produced technical documentation for a cell phone repeater company; produced press releases for a prime contractor to the European and NASA space programs ... and many others.
Beginning as a General Class ham operator -- building receivers, transmitters, keyers, 'scopes and other gear at age 14 -- and coming from a family headed by an electrical engineer, Allan was drawn to electronics early on. After college he used his knowledge to begin work as a professional writer, producing more than 50 technical manuals for the medical electronics industry.
Allan has written for numerous interim and part-time CFO's who offer their services to small and medium businesses. Likewise, he's written for various financial sites, sometimes where the site owner wants a "punchy" article on a current financial issue. Here's the opening from one such article written in mid-2011.
Teen driving crashes are the number one cause of death for teenagers. Many initiatives, such as Graduated Driver Licensing laws, have helped rein in the 5,000 per year death rate and the 300,000 per year rate of injuries. The snippet below is from an e-book titled "911 for Parents: A Guide for Parents with Young and Novice Drivers." A free document, it has been downloaded countless times by parents since its publication in 2007.
Allan has written on content management systems, cloud computing, BYOD app development as well as accounting software and other segments of the software market. This snippet is from a web page outlining a mobile app development technology.
Allan has had several of his articles published at Education.com, a site ranked by Alexa as one of the top 2,500 sites in the U.S.
This snippet from this article is the result of a first-person interview with the Dean of Student Success at a major state university. The goal of the interview was to learn why 50 percent of students don't graduate college, and to provide advice that might help increase that number.
Allan worked with several clients early in the Bitcoin era. He developed training materials, articles, PowerPoint presentations and other material. Upon completion of several projects the client wrote, "I will be submitting your work to the BTC Foundation - Education Committee at the GitHub repository as an open-source presentation for others building the Bitcoin ecosystem. The presentation will also be submitted to the University of North Dakota College of Business for utilization in classrooms and special lectures."
As a student of "A Course in Miracles," Allan has evolved a unique point of view on human behavior and the influences we all experience in daily life. This article is titled "How My Doctor and A Course in Miracles Helped Me Beat Stress." It provides a technique anyone can learn to use to reduce stress and live a more fulfilling life.
News and commentary are always in demand. Allan has actively fed the frenzy with his unique point of view on current events. With dozens of articles published for major news portals, the call for a flow of newsworthy topics that need a fresh interpretation never ends.
The article below was published during the 2011 debt ceiling limit debates.
With a degree in Psychology, Allan has written on numerous topics in the self-help category. These include mindfulness, emotional intelligence, "mindful loving" and its impact on relationships -- and has provided numerous book reviews to clients including "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life," "Stumbling on Happiness,"Positivity" and others.
This article provides guidance on mindfulness meditation.
Cuenca, Ecuador is a city of 330,000 in southern Ecuador, South America. It has appeared on numerous lists as one of "The Best Places in the World to Retire." Allan wrote this article for Yahoo (see introduction excerpted below) to summarize a month long trip to Cuenca. The article provides an inside look at reasons, pro and con, one might choose to live in Cuenca as an expat.
Relevant, well-written blog content keeps the search engines returning to re-index your site. Following the best practices in search engine optimization is the key to achieving good position on search engine results pages (SERP's). But unless you keep that content fresh and up to date, your site gets stale. Your position in the SERP's can suffer.
In addition to the sample provided, many sites have published blogs Allan wrote.
+ BuyerZone.com provided a "Marketing Insights" page that links to several of his articles.
+ Wordpress holds blog articles he wrote a few years ago
+ Kudzu.com offers several more samples for your review:
+ Keyword Phantasmagoria - see http://www.writeraccess.com/blog/don-t-let-keyword-phantasmagoria-demote-your-website/
Allan's research skills allow him to write on a wide array of topics ranging from bitcoins to tech topics to spirituality. Here's one of many short articles he wrote that explain how a girl going off to college helped her empty-nest parents cope with tech support issues in her absence.
Working with WriterAccess clients, Allan has written scripts for videos and PowerPoint presentations including drug rehabilitation, financial services, relocation services and others. Some of these have been informational and educational, others contained a dramatic element while still others were promotional in nature.
The following snippet is from video script that was used in an Indiegogo.com crowd funding campaign.
It appears the Federal CAN SPAM Act along with email filtering is working reasonably well to reduce the amount of spam we all experience. If you are considering an email campaign using Constant Contact, MailChimp or any of the many services available, you'll want to take special steps with the copy you deliver to your customer and prospect inboxes to assure compliance with CAN SPAM.
Your list needs to be a clean, opted-in list. Your subject line and copy need to be crafted carefully. Your email layout needs to be "mobile device friendly," especially because a growing number of people access the web from a mobile device.
Allan has been writing newsletters since founding a retail company in 1996, and continues writing for an e-commerce company he co-founded in 2005. Newsletters are effective in retaining customers, promoting products and increasing sales.
The sample below is an excerpt from a newsletter sent to a national audience of parents with teenage drivers.
Medical electronics, insulating materials used on satellites and space craft, traffic signal controllers, GPS tracking devices, real estate, programmable relays, Kanthal resistance wire, Roku's video streaming device -- Allan has written product descriptions for all these and many others for more than 30 years. He's up to date on technology, has strong research skills and deep experience across many industries. Whether you want a "straight-up" product description ... or one with a bit of sales-y flare, Allan will delight you with a professionally written product description.
Allan has written brochures and sales sheets for products and services for more than 30 years. They have included promotional material for laser printers, diagnostic x-ray machines, traffic signal controllers, vacation homes in Jamaica and others.
This snippet is the opening copy for a full color, bi-fold brochure delivering basic information on the products offered by a company promoting driving safety.
This press release was written for a web hosting company that sought a new way to generate revenue. They offered a service, which Allan named "AboutMe." For a nominal one year fee job seekers and others could obtain greater exposure via a profile page, resume and related information of interest to hiring managers.
Allan has also written press releases for companies serving aerospace, Internet security, political polling, software and other industries, .
Allan has produced slide decks for numerous WriterAccess clients.
With a career in sales, marketing and biz dev, he wrote copy for diverse subjects including HR services, business networking and lead generation, CRM software, the Bitcoin economy, PC hardware and various software packages.
The snippet below is excerpted from a slide deck on teen driving safety.
As an entrepreneur he visited high schools in the Atlanta area in connection with his company. The visits presented safety tools and services to parents of novice teenage drivers. While it's not possible to provide the entire PowerPoint presentation here, a few snippets illustrate the approach used.
This data sheet provides instructions for use of a vehicle GPS tracking device. It was written for parents of teen drivers to give parents a way to monitor the driving behavior of their children. The document was provided as a free PDF download for customers who bought the tracking system.
As Executive Director of a business networking and referral organization, it was Allan's job to handle business development along with related issues. This direct mail piece went out to almost 1,000 sales managers in the Atlanta area to seed the referral networking organization with new members.
Since then he has helped a multitude of business owners grow their business through direct mail.
Typesetters and graphic artists scoffed at laser printers as an alternative to conventional typesetting when laser printers first hit the market. Allan wrote this advertisement, published on the back cover of the monthly Society for Technical Communications magazine.
See http://www.writeraccess.com/upload/af8602f61adac20b1db999519beb004d.jpg