Living on the digital edge where typing is almost an everyday necessity, learning the ways of proper keyboard usage are crucial. Not only are you able to be more productive and get things done quicker with a keyboard, typing faster can enable you to keep up with your brain; that little voice in your head that has great ideas might only last for a few seconds before it’s forgotten.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

In this article, we’ll give you 5 tips to get you started typing faster and proper. Some of the tips are quite obvious ones, but we’ll provide you with a few apps to help you practice and learn faster.

Recommended Reading: 50 Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts You Should Know

1. Get Rid Of Bad Habits

Getting rid of your bad typing habits is probably the hardest thing to do. You’ve probably been using the same typing method since you started using a keyboard, right down to where you place your palms. If you’re an FPS (First Person Shooter) gamer you’re probably used to placing your left hand on the WASD keys, and may have stronger fingers on your left hand than your right (speaking from experience here).

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Others may type only with two fingers, hovering over ten (or more) keys each, always having to keep their eyes on the keyboard to get the right keys. Although you might be typing fast with only half of the needed fingers, you have to put down your foot (or your hands) and break that habit immediately.

2. Use All 10 Fingers

The next step is to relearn the correct finger placement on the keyboard. If you take a closer look at your keyboard, you’ll notice raised bumps on each of the F key and J key. This is to help you find the correct finger placement without having to look at the keyboard.

Ideally, your index fingers should rest on the F and J keys and the other fingers will fall into place naturally.

In the picture below, you’ll notice color-coded areas showing the keys covered by each finger. You’ll notice that the middle fingers and ring fingers are used for only a few keys on the keyboard, while your index fingers cover the middle section of the keyboard. Navigational, punctuation and function keys are controlled mostly by the little finger.

(Image Source: Keybr)

If this confuses you, head over to websites like the TypingClub or Typing Web where they take you through each step to familiarize yourself with the keyboard. Some of their exercises only involve 2 fingers and as you go through their program, you’ll slowly master the way of faster and proper keyboard typing.

3. Learn To Touch Type

Next up: Touch typing. It’s when you type without having to look at the keyboard. In fact, for seasoned typists, looking at the keyboard actually slows them down.

To get there takes practice, and we’re not talking about hours here. It could be weeks before you condition your fingers to take control of the keys ‘they’ are responsible for. Even if it slows you down, do not revert to how you used to type.

Now, try typing sentences without looking at the keyboard, and try to remember the position of each letter. If you have to sneak a peek at the keyboard, you can, but give the same word or sentence another run, this time without looking at the keyboard. It takes a while but if you are determined, it gets easier every day.

Eventually, you will know where each key is and from then on, it’s just a matter of picking up in terms of speed.

4. Navigate With Basic Keyboard Shortcuts

It’s no surprise why Windows and Mac OS have many keyboard shortcuts. Since both your hands are already on the keyboard, why spend time using a mouse to navigate? You don’t have to remember every shortcut, just the more common ones.

Common shortcuts below are mostly used in word processing programs:

Shortcuts	Descriptions
Ctrl + C	Copy
Ctrl + X	Cut
Ctrl + V	Paste
Ctrl + Z	Undo
Ctrl + S	Save
Ctrl + F	Search for word
Ctrl + A	Highlight everything
Shift + Left Arrow or Right Arrow	Hightlight next letter
Ctrl + Shift + Left Arrow or Right Arrow	Highlight next word
Ctrl + Left Arrow or Right Arrow	Navigate text cursor to next word without highlight
Home	Go to beginning of line
End	Go to end of line
Page up	Scroll up
Page Down	Scroll down

You can also use shortcut keys while browsing the web. Here are some shortcuts you could use to navigate in web browsers.

Shortcuts	Descriptions
Ctrl + Tab	Switch to next tab
Ctrl + Shift + Tab	Switch to previous tab
Ctrl + T	Open new tab
Ctrl + W	Close current tab
Ctrl + Shift + T	Open previously closed tab
Ctrl + R	refresh current webpage
Ctrl + N	Open new web browser window
Backspace	Go back one page
Shift + Backspace	Go forward one page

Finally, here are some common keyboard shortcuts for more general (Windows) navigation.

Shortcuts	Descriptions
Alt + Tab	Switch to next opened window
Alt + Shift + Tab	Switch to previous opened window
Alt + F4	Close current window

Using these shortcut keys will require the little finger a lot as many of the modifier keys like Ctrl, Alt and Shift are closest to your little finger.

5. Practice With Apps

Practicing typing on a keyboard need not be stressful (although it may feel like it at times). You can practice with a lot of typing games. Here are a few websites where you can learn how to conquer the keyboard and have fun at the same time.

TypeRacer

TypeRacer is a simple and fun game where each player is represented by a car. You’ll be given a passage of text from a book or lyrics to a song, you then type it out to move your car in a ‘race’ with other players. Whoever finishes typing the passage first wins.

Typing Maniac

Typing Maniac is a Facebook game that will get you addicted as you can compete with friends to see who can earn the most points. As words appear on your screen, type them out to make them go away before too many land on the ground and cause you to lose the game! Earn points and get a better score if you achieve each level without missing or misspelling a word.

Keybr.com

Keybr generates readable random words where some words are spelt incorrectly to help you remember common letter combinations better rather than typing random letters. It’ll give you statistics to tell you which area of the keyboard you are weaker in. It also offers words in different languages as well as different keyboard layouts.

Touch Typing Study

The exercises in this site get you comfortable with the finger placement by repeatedly asking you to type those letters with the correct finger. It is also offered in different languages.

Learn Typing

Learn typing is a basic looking website that has a ton of explanation good for beginners learning to touch type. Once you’ve gone through the basics, there are also more advanced exercises which you can do.

One of the most difficult and perhaps the thorniest task for a freelancer is to get clients. You may be blessed with a great writing talent or web designing skills that sparkle interests and blow off minds, but if you can’t manage to get a single client, you won’t be able to seize upon your expertise – and obviously there is no point of labeling yourself as a freelancer.

Chances are, in your search to find tips on how to get freelance clients, you will find that experts expect you to build a blog as your portfolio. Which I’m sure you did. Nevertheless, getting clients still is a ‘glitch’ that you couldn’t ride out until now. Ever wondered what’s wrong with your blog that keeps repelling clients?

Recommended Reading: Freelancers: 10 Things Clients Don’t Like Hearing

Here are some of the reasons:

1. Cluttered design

Here is a question: Can you attract a butterfly with a ghoulish and an unattractive garden? A place where they wouldn’t be comfortable hanging out and reaping the benefits of the nature? I’m sure it would be a little hard and most likely impossible.

(Image Source: James VanDyke)

For a clientele, the process is almost the same. In order to get clients and gain a client’s trust to contact you seeking for your freelance services you need to have a clean and ‘tidy’ design.

A blog with clutter, sidebars dreadfully structured, and widgets popping out can repel clients making them cast doubt on your potentials before even contacting you. Ensure that your blog is clean and clutter-free.

Recommended Reading: 11 Popular Blog Design Styles (With Examples)

2. Buried contact forms

Your objective as a freelancer after generating a good impression is to make a client get in touch with you asking for your services. What if the client can’t find a form to fill-in and contact you? Is he going to waste his precious time foraging for one in your blog, when he could be working on finding another freelancer among the millions out there?

If he leaves the site without contacting you, you’ve just lost out on a potential income-earning project. Make sure your contact form is easily viewable to grab potential clients (who are already interested).

Hiding contact forms on pages, and camouflaging contact pages on fuzzy menus certainly repels clients.

3. Flabby first impression

Your website is a place to showcase your talents and what services you are offering to clients. It plays a major, yet essential role on a client’s first impression of your services.

If you are a freelance web designer, then your website shouldn’t be of the average standard. You should spruce up your web design to demonstrate your designing aptitude before your clients get in touch with you.

On the other hand, if you are a freelance writer the masterpiece of your copy and content should reflect your abilities as a writer. Failing to do so, grammar mistakes and inappropriate word use can result in a bad impression and obliviously push away freelancing writing gigs.

4. Presenting exorbitant fees

This is one of the most common mistakes a freelancer can make. Presenting the rates of your services can divert the client’s notion if applied wrongly. When a client stumbles upon your website, before he decides to reach out for your services, your rates will determine a further action.

If your rates are exorbitant and not even close to the client’s budget, he will feel undermined due to insufficient budget. You will lose out the opportunity of negotiating terms and prices because he’s already gone.

That is the reason why most freelancing experts advise to hide the prices as a way of getting contacted for further negotiations.

Recommended Reading: Why Don’t People Want To Pay For Good Design?

5. Fake testimonials

To increase your work reliability and credibility towards prospects you should attach in your website real testimonials from people who previously hired you. It woud be great if they could endorse your valuable services and recommend you to entrepreneurs who want to leverage their businesses.

The sad thing is that many freelancers drop the ball showing fake testimonials in the form of text only. To remove all doubts, you could attach a link to their websites and the images of the clients who endorse your work.

According to a research conducted by Eryn Jane Newman from the Victoria University of Wellington, images make claims and statements more believable than a simple text. With that said, you can implement that principle to increase the credibility of your testimonials.

6. No ‘About me’ page

You need an About Me page for clients to form a strong bond and build trust with you. You should make sure you include on your website, your personal picture and relevant information about yourself, your services, as well as your background (or portfolios).

With more and more scams turning up on the internet every day, if you don’t attach any photo of yourself on your website, clients will not be more likely to invest in you.

For Your Reference: Create “About Me” Sidebar Widget With Post Editor [WordPress Tutorial]

Further Reading:

Here are more articles about blogging including:

• Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know
• Improving Blog Traffic: 5 Must-Have Qualities
• 6 Practices That Make Your Blog Look Less Professional
• Popular (But Bad) Blogging Advice You Should Ignore

Here are a couple of posts that showcase blogging tools that you may be interested in:

• 20+ Essential Tools And Applications For Bloggers
• Desktop Blogging Software – The Ultimate List

Conclusion

You might be thinking you are doing exactly what it takes to hook freelance clients but if your blog/portfolio doesn’t entice clients at first glance, you’ll end up losing out and repelling more high-paying and prospective clients over and over again.

Have a look at the strengths and weaknesses of your blog or website, tweak it to the best of your abilities with sources of inspiration you can find on this site to increase the likelihood of closing freelancing deals and contracts.

Editor’s note: This article is contributed by Kelvon Yeezy .Kelvon is a freelance content writer, social psychology enthusiast and the mind behind blogthisout.com. When he isn’t writing or reading books, you can find him hanging out on Twitter. Check out his portfolio here.

The use of tools in education isn’t an old idea, teachers have been using whiteboards, projectors and visual aids like posters to relay concepts in their lessons. But we have come to that fork on the road where we choose either to inject technology into the learning process or not. If you are for technology, here are some of the major trends that will be overwhelming classrooms in 2013.

In this infographic from OnlineColleges.net, you’ll see among others that universities are releasing webcasts to run non-profit courses, 3D printing can help students get an inside look into blood veins and bodily organs, and classrooms are welcoming educational games, e-books and SMS reminders for project deadlines and schedule changes. This is an exciting time to be a student.

Recommended Reading: 5 Top Augmented Reality Apps For Education

Spot an infographic you think will be a perfect fit here? Send the link to us with relevant detais and will credit you with the find.