Blog

  • Creating The Right Strategies For Your Blog

    If you have a blog it is a good idea to strategize a game plan. You need to think ahead about what issues you might face. If you are able to create content instantly, update often and properly market you blog then you have the right blogging strategies in place. Doing this will mean your blog has a chance to stand out from the pack.

    Here are some suggestions:

    1. Use Ideas Instantly – Whenever you have an idea use it instantly. This doesn’t seem like much of a strategy but it has helped me explode my blog traffic. There will be days when you can’t think of what to post at all. If you jump when you have an idea then you won’t have this worry. Be prepared to at least jot down any ideas that come to you. Carry a notepad, or an audio recorder to get your thoughts down as soon as you think of them. You don’t want to make a mental note, because those aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. You don’t have to post your ideas instantly, but keeping running notes about all your ideas will make content creation a snap.

    2. Update Often – Oh great strategy right? Well it is actually. This might not seem like it has to be said but if you are starting to blog make sure you are consistent. There is nothing worse than a blog that is never updated. Those blogs have no real chance of building a fan base. Besides your live visitors, Google likes to see updated content as well. Updating your content might seem obvious but if that is the case why do so many people ignore it? Once you decide on blogging, one of your first strategies better be how to update regularly.

    3. Spread The Word – This is a really important strategy that all good bloggers know. You have to actively market your blog online and offline. A lot of people start a blog and then post like a mad person, only to wonder why no one comes to their site. People have to know it exists. You have to combine online and offline marketing. First off, make sure your blog can be found and is optimized for search engines. Then make sure you share it everywhere you can online. This means social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. It also means social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. As for offline, you can add your blog to any of your pre-existing marketing material, in fact I suggest you do. You can also create cheap offline marketing tools. I had business cards made up with only the url of my blog on it. I gave it to people I met when they asked how they could contact me. It cost me $25 bucks and I still get traffic from those cards circulating.

    These above strategies have been used and proven to stimulate your blog traffic and overall exposure. If you act on your ideas right away, update often and market your blog offline AND online you will notice your traffic increase. You will also gain valuable backlinks and begin branding yourself as an expert. Who could ask for anything more?

  • How to create an autoresponder account and set it up to use on your WordPress blog

    Video: Creating an autoresponder account and setting it up to use on your WordPress blog.

  • Get Your Site Reviewed To Suck In More Prospects

    People love reviews. One of the reasons why Amazon.com became so popular (and there’s a list the length of the Nile regarding why that site became one of the biggest deals on the Internet since Al Gore) is due to its extensive review system. Customers like to read about those who have bought the product or visited the store before they have done so themselves. Most people these days are savvy enough to realize the point of advertising– they know that commercials are out there for a reason, namely, to make the place of business or the product look good. Reviews, on the other hand, are ostensibly written by those who are not being paid cash to promote the product in a positive light, making potential customers trust them more.

    We’re assuming here that you’re running a steady operation that customers like to visit and return to. If you have a business that you’re proud of and you feel as though people would review it positively, then it’s a good idea to put your business in a position where it can garner those positive reviews.

    Two great sites to start off with when it comes to getting your place of business reviewed by customers are Yelp and Google Maps. Once you put your site up on these sites, customers can submit reviews – both positive and negative – regarding your offline business and what they thought of it. Both of these sites see a lot of traffic per day, and if you are confident that the masses would review your small business positively, this is a great tool to convince others to stop by your place of business. After all, all businesses know that the best advertising available is the golden word of mouth recommendation – and if you can get positive reviews on a social review site, it’s essentially the same thing. Just virtual.

    It’s a good idea to advertise the fact that your business is up on Yelp or Google Maps at your place of business. This will encourage your visitors to write a review on your business, particularly if they’ve had an excellent time. Yelp in particular even allows the business owner to respond to comments left on their business by those who leave reviews. This is a great way to thank customers for their reviews if they’re positive, defend yourself if there is a bad review, or offer your condolences and suggest ways that both you and the customer can ensure a better visit next time if the review is less than glowing.

    Social review sites can literally be a way to strike gold when it comes to an offline business’ foray into social media advertising. Even better, assuming that you’re running a legit place of business that the customer is pleased with, you don’t even have to do that much work. Just sign up for a profile and let the positive reviews roll in!

  • Insert audio files into your WordPress site easily

    Video: How to insert audio files into your WordPress site

  • Advantages Of Using Mobile Video Advertisement

    What if you could combine the very best of television advertising with a smartphone? Many companies are looking into doing just this, by developing what can only be called a cell phone commercial. The basic tenants of this are exactly what they sound like – a video clip is sent to a customer’s cell phone, where they can watch your advertisements on the screen of the device. Consumers don’t even have to have smart phones to be reached via this method of advertising, as even the most basic phones these days have color screens and are capable of viewing video.

    This might leave you scratching your head a bit – how would you get the mobile commercials to your customers? And since mobile marketing is based so much on an opt-in system, how could you convince your customers to “opt in” to seeing advertisements? In general, people dislike commercials on television and radio, so why would using a mobile phone device make it different?

    The thing about mobile video commercials is that they are generally best paired up with other forms of mobile marketing so you can get the commercial to the consumer’s phone. It’s true that you just can’t start spamming the phones of customers with advertising, even if it’s the coolest mobile video ever. However, there are certain methods that you can take to get this information to the customer, and get the customer to undertake the consumption of mobile video readily.

    One way is through the aforementioned QR mobile codes. With this method, the consumer takes a picture of the mobile code and is then taken to the mobile advertisement. In this way, the customer “opts in” to receiving the mobile video ad. Another way to do it is through Bluetooth projection, wherein a Bluetooth hub contacts a users’ cell phone and asks permission to input information onto the device. Should the customer accept, then the hub transmits the mobile video to them.

    If this is a method of advertising that you’d like to undertake as a startup, it helps to pull in the advice of the professionals in order to do it appropriately. You don’t want your mobile commercial to be any longer than thirty seconds, or you risk annoying the consumer. There are also specialty editing processes that go into making a mobile video show up well on a phone and also project good audio.

    Mobile commercials can include anything from real-life footage to animation to a straight up audio track. It’s all about how you’d like to project an image of your company to the mobile consumer. With the advent of increasingly complex technologies it’s only right that the humble television commercial advance as well – and moving onto the mobile platform is the next step along in visual, multimedia advertising.

  • Outsourcing – Find The Right Person

    When you select your outsourcing professional from a freelance jobsite like GetAFreelancer or ScriptLance or oDesk, there are several ways in which you can make sure you are selecting the right person.

    Firstly, you have to ensure that you make all the project details quite clear. Write about everything you expect. These are the things your project post should cover.

    The nature of your work

    The amount of work in total

    Any milestones, like if you want the work to be completed in small chunks and within what frame of time

    The time you can give for the completion of the whole project

    The price you are willing to pay

    Any special qualifications you are looking for in your employees

    Any characteristics that you don’t want in your employees

    Special points that you will need to make your decision, such as samples.

    Most importantly, make sure that you post the project in the right category. People will get alerts only based on the categories they have applied for. So, if you put your project in the wrong category, the right people aren’t going to get it.

    When you take care to spell out as many details as you can, you can be almost sure that you will get the right people bidding on your work. You may get few bids, but they will be quality bids.

    Make sure to check out all the samples of their work, because this is your most important judging point. If you want an original sample, you can mention that in your project post itself and people who are willing to give you an original sample of their work will do so.

    In any case, it is a good idea to only post a short-term project initially till you build a trust factor with an employee. Once that is set up, you can go for longer term projects.

    Choose people for the following qualifications:-

    The quality of their work, which you can see through their samples.

    The ratings and reviews they have obtained on the site.

    Their responsiveness – It is very important they respond to your emails quickly and it is best if they have an instant messaging id that they can use.

    Their pricing – Price shouldn’t be an important factor unless you are working on a budget.

    Once you get a good professional, make sure you pay them promptly and give them a review according to their work. This ensures they will stay with you long and you won’t have to undergo the hassle of looking for employees repeatedly.

  • Easily Add and Manage Users in the WordPress User Database

    Video: How to add and manage users in the WordPress user database

  • Insert an aweber lead capture form in your WordPress sidebar with ease

    Video: How to insert an aweber lead capture form in your WordPress sidebar

  • Seek For Assistance, Experts Can Help You Grow Your Business!

    If you want the benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) but just don’t have the time, or inclination, to learn how to do it or to spend the time doing it yourself, you don’t have to miss out. You can hire search engine optimization experts to do it all for you.

    If you’re a small business just starting out you may think that you won’t be able to afford to hire anyone, and you may be right. I don’t know your budget, but I do know that there are many companies online who specialize in this type of work and work with small and mid sized companies. You may just be able to afford it after all.

    The truth is that to have a vibrant and effective seo campaign will take a lot of time and effort. You see, the search engines are always “improving” their algorithms and they don’t like to share. They don’t tell anyone just exactly how they figure out which sites will be ranked the highest.

    For this reason a lot of seo is intelligent guessing. It is pretty much a full time job to stay abreast of all the changes being made in regards to seo. That’s why you want to hire someone if at all possible.

    And don’t think that just because your niece Sally is online all the time and can put up a blog or send out a tweet that she is competent to do it for you, most of the time that won’t be the case.

    There are many elements that go into a successful seo strategy and a company will have their own way of doing things, but there are some things that you will want to look for.

    For one thing, any company you are looking at should provide you with an initial assessment of your website. They should be able to give you an idea based on where you are already, how much the whole thing will cost.

    After that, they should come up with an extensive keyword list that is loaded with highly targeted and highly relevant keywords. If chosen properly, this list can be like money in the bank for you and your online business.

    Once the keyword list is in place, the next step is to “clean up” your website. Make sure everything is set up in the optimum way to grab the search engines attention. This includes adding meta tags and header tags for instance.

    And the next step would be to manually submit your search engine optimized site to search engines. After that, it will be important to track your results so you can see how effective the changes you’ve made are.

    This final step is very important, and often overlooked. If you can’t track your results how will you know whether or not the money you’ve invested in your seo company is money well spent or just a waste?

    Hiring your own search engine optimization experts to oversee all your seo needs is a great idea for any online business. You can get the maximum benefit with a minimum of effort from you.