Blog

  • PLR Essentials

    Video: Brad explains what PLR is and how you can use it in your online business.

  • Benefits of Blogging

    Blogs have been around for a while. And even though they have gone through some changes, they are still as popular as ever, if not more so. This may because it’s so simple to get started with blogging, because there are some good blogging platforms, or because people have figure out ways to make money with blogs. Whatever the reason for their continuing popularity, there is still a strong need for good blogging advice.

    The first bit of blogging advice is to just do it. Yep, that’s it! Okay, what that really means is that there is no reason not to get started. There are several ways you can test the blogging waters for free; namely Blogger and WordPress. Both of these platforms give you plenty of options for customizing the appearance of your blog, and they make it easy to get up and running. Blogger allows some commercial content (such as AdSense), while WordPress doesn’t allow it if you host your blog using a free website address through their hosting. Which leads to the next bit of advice…

    Get a domain name and paid hosting as soon as you can. If you already have them, then you don’t have to use the free address and hosting, and can set up your blog directly on your own domain name. Now, don’t freak out. You can get good hosting for around $10 a month, and a domain name usually costs around $10 per year. However, you can often find deals that bring the cost down by quite a bit. That being said, you also need to look at what you get for your money. For example, be sure your hosting package has everything you need.

    You will also need to think about the topic of your blog. If you just want it to be for friends and family, then you blog about the events of your day, without giving it much thought. However if you are interested in making money with your blog, then you need to have a more narrow focus.

    Whichever type of blog you decide to have, it will require you to update on a regular basis. The more often you post to it, the stronger your following will be; whether it’s family and friends, or potential customers. Posting every day or two is best, but once a week should be okay in most cases. Because you will have to update it often, it’s a good idea to select a topic that interests you. Otherwise it will become too much of a chore, and you will soon stop updating.

    So, how do you make money with a blog? The two main ways are through Google AdSense and selling affiliate products. The best bit of blogging advice for making money with a blog is to treat it like a business. This means you need to invest some time and a little money to get it to start producing serious income for you. The good news is that blogging is pretty low maintenance and the costs for running it are very low.

  • The Crux To Get Money Online

    Do you have enough online web traffic? Probably not. This is a big deal if you really want to make some decent money online. You need people coming to your site if you want to sell stuff. It is just that simple. Getting those people to your website may not be so simple though. There are many ways to try to increase traffic to your website that you may have success with.

    Write articles that are targeted to your niche and have unique content. Submit them to article directories and, if they are good, they will direct people to your website where they will hopefully buy what you are offering. Quality content can go a long way to increasing traffic to your website. Just be careful to follow the directions and rules of the article directories. If you don’t they will not publish your articles. This would be defeating the purpose of trying to get traffic to your site.

    Use techniques to make people want to come back to see your website. The more someone comes to your website the more likely they are to buy something at some point. Try some giveaways like an free report on something that has to do with your product or service. If they like what they see and get from you, who knows, they might even refer their family or friends to your site. Hey, how about that? Instant online web traffic.

    Make sure that you know and understand all about search engine optimization and using keywords to your advantage. Using keywords correctly is basically the backbone of getting good business to your website. Your search engine optimization will have to be tweaked every now and then so stay up to date on current changes so you can implement them immediately.

    Find yourself a good keyword tool to use and search for keywords that no one else is using. It may seem like you are searching for a needle in a haystack but when you do come across one of these little gems you will be laughing all the way to the bank. Especially if it what is called a long-tailed keyword. Long-tailed keywords are phrases searchers use to find specifically what they are looking for. They really spell it out so the keywords end up being more than one or two words.

    Just make sure your keywords have at least 1500 searches per month and no more than 20,000 competition in the search engine results pages. These numbers are not written in stone but they are a great jumping off point for starting your keyword research. The more you get into your keyword research then the better you will get at spotting a good one.

    Start a blog of your own and post regularly. The more you post the more traffic you can get to your site. A good parameter to go by is to post once a day to your blog. If this is not possible then post at least two or three times per week. Do not post more than once a day or you may be considered a spammer and the search engines would rank you very low on the results pages and you would not get any online web traffic.

  • Essentials of Installing and Using the All in One SEO plugin for WordPress

    Video: How to install and use the All In One SEO plugin for WordPress

  • Essentials of Installing themes manually in WordPress

    Video: How to install themes Manually in WordPress

  • What’s In a Good Domain Name?

    Some people tell me that all the good domain names are taken, but that is not true. Follow these tips for when you search for a domain name and hopefully this will help you grab a good one.

    Remember domain names are a couple of cheeseburgers and a coke a year to own, and you can really never own enough of them.

    Tips for Avoiding Poor Domain Names

    *Avoid using domains that are deliberately misspelled.

    Ex: SellURHome2Us vs. SellYourHomeToUs

    * Avoid using domains with hyphens.

    Ex: WeBuyPrettyHouses vs. We-Buy-Pretty-Houses

    *Avoid using domains that are way too long.

    Ex: WeSaveHomesFromForeclosure.com

    *Avoid using domains that are meaningful only to you.

    Ex: ABCFinancialGroup.com (investor or bank?)

    *Avoid using .org unless you want people to think you’re a non-profit organization.

    Ex: HomeSolutions.org (non-profit?)

    *Avoid using unpopular domain extensions such as

    .info, .tv, .cc, .ws, .name, etc. for your Primary Domain.

    Tips for Choosing Good Domain Names

    *Choose a domain that is short as possible.

    *Choose a domain that is easy to spell and remember.

    *Choose a value laden domain that says what you do.

    *Try to purchase a .com or a .net if possible. If you are really set on a certain domain name, settle for a .biz or .us if necessary.

    *Purchase YourCompanyName.com so that no one else will.

    *Purchase the .net, .biz, .us and all others too if you can.

    *If your company name is taken, try adding an ìIncî or ìLLCî to the end of the name and see if that is available.

    *Anytime you get a good .com domain, tie up the .net, .biz, .us and any other variations of the name so others can’t.

    *If you find a really good domain name, purchase it for more than one year. Tie it up for as long as you can.

    *When purchasing domain names, be sure to set them to automatically renew so you don’t forget to renew.

    *Don’t use YourCompanyName.com on your marketing material if your company name is vague or ambiguous.

    *Make your domains private or unlisted for anonymity.

    *Private domains also keep your email and fax off the public WHOIS database and help prevent SPAM and junk faxes.

    *Make a list of all the words you would like to use in your domain name.

    Ex: We + Buy + Houses + Fast

    *If your name is taken, rearrange the words or insert new words in between them.

    Ex: We + Buy + Atlanta + Houses or Homes

    *Make a complete list of all the domains you want to purchase.

    Tips and Tricks

    *Domains that are mapped to your websites are ìattachedî to your sites.

    *Domains that are forwarded, are not attached to your site, but are simply redirected to your site.

    *Mapped domains get picked up by the search engines. Forwarded domains don’t.

  • How Popular Is Your Business On Facebook And Twitter

    One of the biggest things that business owners of both online and offline enterprises struggle with is the issue of getting followers for their Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts. It’s easy enough to sign up for these sites and get your profile set up – it’s even easy to get somebody to design a profile for you so that it looks as sharp as can be.

    But once it’s set up and once it’s ready to go, even once you have all your content planned out… then what?

    This is where many people get stonewalled. They either end up trying to friend too many people or not enough, or can’t seem to get their social media profiles off the ground and get those customers into the business.

    Don’t despair. There is a way to work social media platforms in order to ensure that you will get traffic to your website should you have it, or if nothing else be sure that your social media site gets the attention it deserves. The key? Moderation.

    One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make when they are starting a social media profile is to friend four hundred people at once. If thousands of people end up getting the same invite, they may assume that you are fishing for friends and delete your profile off the bat without giving it any heed. The better solution is to friend no more than twenty people at one time. Once you’ve cultivated a “friendship” with those twenty people – or however many of the twenty deign to respond to your invitation – you can move on to the next batch.

    Another great way to get interest to your profile is to friend other businesses as well. It helps if you can network with fellow businesses or groups that have the same interests and products as you do, as not only will it give you more information, it also makes your profile look more “well-rounded.”

    Don’t forget to advertise the fact that you’re on social media sites at your physical store, too. A sign asking customers to follow you on Twitter might be better received than you originally think. It’s also good to start with your local base, because the more followers you have, the easier it gets to recruit other people to friend your profile or follow your feed.

    Also, don’t forget to keep your content interesting and fresh. Don’t update every day if you don’t have something to say. While updating Twitter feeds constantly might be the thing among the preteen sect, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best idea for your business. Only update when you have something to say – and if that “something” is an offer or a sale, that’s all the better!

  • Social Blog Promotion

    Promote your blog? Why would you want to do that? Honestly, if you have to ask yourself that question you probably shouldn’t even have one. The whole purpose of a blog is to document your thoughts, views, and opinions on a particular topic, issue, or subject.

    In addition to sharing your thoughts with the rest of the world, did you know that you could also make money from your blog?

    You can signup for affiliate programs or other programs like Google Adsense. If you are using your blog to make money then you will defiantly want to promote it.

    When it comes to promoting blogs, there are many blog owners who decide to let the search engine do the work for them. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN use special techniques that reads the content on your website. That content is then used to rank your website with particular keywords. This means that you run a blog on graduating from high school in New York, there is a good chance that your blog will appear in searches done on New York high schools. Although many blogs are successfully ranked in search engines, not all are. That is why you are advised against relying solely on search engines, when it comes to promoting your blog.

    As previously mentioned, if you love meeting with or talking to people online, there is a good chance that you belong to a social networking website or community. The individuals that you talk to and that are in your community are likely the individuals that you wish to target. Since most social networking websites work to connect Internet users who have the same goals and common interests, there is a good chance that your online friends will enjoy reading your blog. But, before they can read your blog, you have to let them know that it exists.

    When it comes to promoting your blog on social networking websites, you have a number of different options. Your first option is to include a link to your blog in your community profile or profile page. This will allow other community members to checkout your blog, only if they wish to do so. The other way is to inform your online friends of your blog through private messages. Once you join a social networking website and create or join a network of friends, you should easily be able to communicate with those friends. Sending each of your friends a private message with information and a link to your blog tends to be more effective than just placing a link in your profile or on your profile page.

    Although there is a good chance that you are already a member of a popular social networking website, you may not be. If you are not already a member, but would like to become one, you will need to find a social networking website to join. This can easily be done with a standard Internet search. In your search, you will likely find a number of popular network sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, and Orkut. Before becoming a community member at one of these networking sites, you may want to first examine the website to ensure that it is everything that you want it to be.

    As you can easily see, there are a number of different ways that you can go about promoting your blog on online social networking websites. You never known, but, in addition to promoting your blog, you may also make new friends along the way.

  • Resizing Images with WordPress Media

    Video: How to insert and format images in WordPress

  • Benefits That You Can Get In Free Autoresponder

    If you’ve looked at the prices of autoresponders that are available online, you may have decided to search for and use a free autoresponder for your marketing needs. Using free autoresponders is acceptable in certain situations, and in the world of Internet marketing, any autoresponder is better than not using an autoresponder at all!

    Your first option for a free autoresponder should be the one that comes with your webhosting account – if you have a webhosting account. These autoresponders can easily be set up through the control panel of your website, and they do not contain advertisements from the autoresponder company or webhosting service. If you do not have a hosting account, or your hosting account does not include autoresponders, there are other options that you can pursue.

    There are many free autoresponder services to choose from. These services are free, because the company makes their money by placing a small advertisement in each message that your autoresponder sends out. These advertisements may appear at the top of your auto responses, or at the bottom, depending on which company you use.

    Many paid autoresponder services offer a free version as well. These free versions may or may not include advertisements in the outgoing messages. These lighter versions of the paid autoresponders typically do not include many of the powerful features of the paid versions. But if you don’t need the more advanced features, this is a great choice.

    Most free autoresponders have a limit on the number of subscribers you can have. Many people start out with the limited free versions, and then upgrade to the paid versions once their lists are large enough to exceed those limits. Many marketers don’t feel that the expense of the autoresponder is warranted until the list that they are building is turning a profit. From a business standpoint, this makes sense.

    As the owner of a business, you are the only one who can decide whether you need a paid autoresponder service, or if a free one will do the job. If your list is small, a free autoresponder should do everything that you need it to do, but as your list grows, you should definitely consider upgrading. However, having the small advertisements that the free services place in the outgoing messages may present a problem if the ads compete with what you are trying to sell. They may even pose a problem if they do not directly compete with your product or business. Again, this depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your autoresponder.