Who else is thinking about starting a corporate blog? If you are anything like many of my high falutin friends in big business or professional services like law or medicine, the thought of starting a blog to attract clients, patients or customers seems a little bit silly, doesn't it? If you said YES to that, the chances are you are not too plugged in to the content creation (and distribution) revolution that's taking place online right now...and the bad news is that it will most likely leave you far behind, and fast!
Why do I say this? I think you probably already know, but many of the younger, more aggressive professionals are coming straight to the market with a firmer grip on technology as a driver for their business building efforts, and many of the "old boys club" are simply suffering as a consequence.
With this in mind, let's look at 2 simple ways that a corporate blog can build BACK your brand and even more importantly, allow you connect with your clients and customers in a dramatic fashion.
- The online marketplace is exceedingly transparent, and very vocal. What does this mean? People have opinions, and are NOT afraid to share them online. Many of the folks who may think twice about complaining to your front desk, or calling you directly, will have no trouble venting on a social networking site, a blog, web site or local search marketplace results. By starting and maintaining a blog, you are not only giving yourself a voice, you are also giving folks a chance to "connect" with you personally, and often, we've found our clients who do this, will get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to customer complaints.
Why? People will comment on YOUR blog first, or contact you before going public with their complaints. Of course a blog also allows you to share your ethos, your USP, your strengths and even your weaknesses if you're so inclined to share them. (which can actually help people connect with you even more!)
- Search Engine rankings: Plain and simple, blogs are incredible search engine magnets. They'll rank well for highly targeted, and highly coveted keywords that you NEED to own for your market, and if you keep them updated somewhat regularly, you'll get so much FREE traffic, that you'll probably find advertising is no longer necessary! (Don't laugh...many professionals do SO well with blog marketing, that they simply stop paying for advertising altogether)
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Blog vs. Website
I've been helping my son decide how to promote his new travel writing idea. He's a private pilot who flies his family on marvelous vacations and wants to share his experiences with others. We discussed a website but I finally remembered how easy it is to set up a blog here. Now that I am retired from social work, travel writing is my thing too!
Article Marketing: Source of Free Traffic with Juicy Returns!!!!
Guest Post by Collins Roy
Article Marketing is by far one of the best ways of making income online, getting ideas of what kind of topics to write on and then proceeding to writing the article shouldn’t take lots of time, there are lots of topics regarding making money online, whether it be SEO, blogging, affiliate marketing and a hundreds of other different topics, not preparing articles and submitting them to the appropriate directories makes you lose the huge advantage this medium offers.
I know lots of people who get articles prepared but at the end of the day, they don’t actually submit these articles, being an article writer myself, I have made lots of discoveries with people who write articles, I found out that people don’t actually know how to submit articles, it may seem a little confusing but it’s the truth.
There a whole of article directories out there and they all have guidelines that everyone has to follow. I’d advice that for every article directory you go to, read the rules that govern article submission before actually proceeding with submitting the article, that way you have a high chance of getting the article directory to accept the article.
By submitting to a whole lot of directories, you would finally get used to submission of articles, there are chances that your article might get rejected, in those kind of scenarios, go again and review the particular article directory’s guidelines, see if you missed out something, correct any discovered error and then re-submit. I always advice people, your articles should be between 400-600 words and the content should be one that captures the reader’s attention and contain valuable information, be it a product review or website review articles, make the article content be so intriguing, so as to make the reader look for more related articles on that subject, maybe from the writer of the article itself, I have had people emailing me about tips on certain articles topics I have written.
Also, article title and keywords, for the article title, don’t be so “boring”, there are lots of articles out there, the question is why should anyone click on yours? The article title is what differentiates you from the rest of the others, whatever you title you use for your article has to contain text that would make the user click on your article when given like 10 different article options.
Keywords are what individuals’ type when they looking for an article for a topic, your articles should have these keywords and also some article directories have a certain area where you could type in the keywords related to the article, make sure these keywords are relevant to the article.
An article summary is also necessary, it describes what the articles is about in just a few sentences and also the author’s resource box, information about you would be put in there, usually and also generally I always tell people not to over hype themselves in the resource box area, just put a simple summary about yourself and that is that!!!!. Your resource box should have your name and website link.
For internet and affiliate marketers, one of the best ways of promoting your products is through article marketing, it is a free source of traffic and it gives you backlinks to your site. Take advantage of article marketing now!!!!!
Collins Roy
Forex Analyst and Making Money Online Expert
http://www.myforextruths.com
Article Marketing is by far one of the best ways of making income online, getting ideas of what kind of topics to write on and then proceeding to writing the article shouldn’t take lots of time, there are lots of topics regarding making money online, whether it be SEO, blogging, affiliate marketing and a hundreds of other different topics, not preparing articles and submitting them to the appropriate directories makes you lose the huge advantage this medium offers.
I know lots of people who get articles prepared but at the end of the day, they don’t actually submit these articles, being an article writer myself, I have made lots of discoveries with people who write articles, I found out that people don’t actually know how to submit articles, it may seem a little confusing but it’s the truth.
There a whole of article directories out there and they all have guidelines that everyone has to follow. I’d advice that for every article directory you go to, read the rules that govern article submission before actually proceeding with submitting the article, that way you have a high chance of getting the article directory to accept the article.
By submitting to a whole lot of directories, you would finally get used to submission of articles, there are chances that your article might get rejected, in those kind of scenarios, go again and review the particular article directory’s guidelines, see if you missed out something, correct any discovered error and then re-submit. I always advice people, your articles should be between 400-600 words and the content should be one that captures the reader’s attention and contain valuable information, be it a product review or website review articles, make the article content be so intriguing, so as to make the reader look for more related articles on that subject, maybe from the writer of the article itself, I have had people emailing me about tips on certain articles topics I have written.
Also, article title and keywords, for the article title, don’t be so “boring”, there are lots of articles out there, the question is why should anyone click on yours? The article title is what differentiates you from the rest of the others, whatever you title you use for your article has to contain text that would make the user click on your article when given like 10 different article options.
Keywords are what individuals’ type when they looking for an article for a topic, your articles should have these keywords and also some article directories have a certain area where you could type in the keywords related to the article, make sure these keywords are relevant to the article.
An article summary is also necessary, it describes what the articles is about in just a few sentences and also the author’s resource box, information about you would be put in there, usually and also generally I always tell people not to over hype themselves in the resource box area, just put a simple summary about yourself and that is that!!!!. Your resource box should have your name and website link.
For internet and affiliate marketers, one of the best ways of promoting your products is through article marketing, it is a free source of traffic and it gives you backlinks to your site. Take advantage of article marketing now!!!!!
Collins Roy
Forex Analyst and Making Money Online Expert
http://www.myforextruths.com
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Big Mistakes Made in Affiliate Marketing
You have heard of all of the positive things that can happen when you start an affiliate marketing website but have you heard the negative effects of it? There are a few things that can stop a website dead in the water if you don’t know what you are doing. Here are a few tips so that you will aid you in your search to find that perfect business for you and how to make it thrive in today’s sluggish economy because there is still a lot of money to be made and everyone wants to get apart of the money to be made.
One thing you have to make sure you don’t do is to not to pick a dead product. If no one is interested in the product you’re selling then no one is going to buy it. You want to make sure the product you are going to be selling is something you know a lot about and has a good market base. If the market base is there you are going to have no problems in finding the clients that you want. You need to be sure the product you choose is going to be demand for many years because you don’t want have a short term product that sales start dropping off in a month or so.
Another problem that people face in affiliate marketing is that they are trying to promote so many products that they are trying to sell that they can not keep their own merchandise straight. If you have a lot of products that you are trying to sell you want to keep the descriptions of the products short and to the point. The simpler you keep the description the more products you can have but you need to keep them straight. You don’t want to end up putting the wrong description on the wrong product.
Many people who are starting up an affiliate marketing website make the mistake of not taking advantage of the free marketing tools that are offered on the internet. Take advantage of all of the free internet marketing tools you can because it can create a whole new avenue of income that you might not have discovered otherwise.
The other thing that you should not do is to give up. Think positive and keep your head above the clouds because you can make a lot of money working from home and with the affiliate marketing programs that are scattered all over the internet.
One thing you have to make sure you don’t do is to not to pick a dead product. If no one is interested in the product you’re selling then no one is going to buy it. You want to make sure the product you are going to be selling is something you know a lot about and has a good market base. If the market base is there you are going to have no problems in finding the clients that you want. You need to be sure the product you choose is going to be demand for many years because you don’t want have a short term product that sales start dropping off in a month or so.
Another problem that people face in affiliate marketing is that they are trying to promote so many products that they are trying to sell that they can not keep their own merchandise straight. If you have a lot of products that you are trying to sell you want to keep the descriptions of the products short and to the point. The simpler you keep the description the more products you can have but you need to keep them straight. You don’t want to end up putting the wrong description on the wrong product.
Many people who are starting up an affiliate marketing website make the mistake of not taking advantage of the free marketing tools that are offered on the internet. Take advantage of all of the free internet marketing tools you can because it can create a whole new avenue of income that you might not have discovered otherwise.
The other thing that you should not do is to give up. Think positive and keep your head above the clouds because you can make a lot of money working from home and with the affiliate marketing programs that are scattered all over the internet.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Generate Online Revenue With Google Adwords
Your favorite marketing guru will tell you that Google AdWords is a heaven-sent opportunity to make money on the internet, so amazing that it sometimes seems unreal. However, it is a two-way traffic like any other business, there are people who get very rich off Google AdWords and there are those who simply sweat themselves off and get frustrated because they haven’t made even a single sale using AdWords.The truth is you can generate profit from using Google AdWords advertising, but only if you apply the right strategy. Note that while quality score algorithms and click through rate are crucial technical issues that shouldn’t be undermined, they somehow tend to mask the basic promotion fact – product/niche. The sales letter of what you’re promoting is what is more crucial. The number of keywords you’ll add will be irrelevant if the product you wish to market is wrong choice. Well, getting started on the business you might not be in a position to know the products that are ideal and those that will not work and as such, you should be ready to do some homework and experiments.
Therefore, rather than put all your focus on your Adwords campaigns, just select various affiliate products on multiple niches. Each niche will only take you an hour to find it and an hour to set your AdWords campaigns up to promote the products you picked. As simple as that and you’ll know whether the product you wish to promote will swim or sink. Whatever the outcome, put that aside and repeat it, you’ll find that 4/5 attempts will be successful and it will be a lucrative niche worth focusing on.
Once you locate that lucrative niche, you can be seriously investing your time and money on the AdWords campaign now. This method will allow you to go through around 20 niches and 10-20 micro-niches each month. Along the way, you’re sure to land on a particular goldmine that has been overlooked by your competitors because they were so much focused on building up their keyword or key phrase lists.
Cast your net and keep experimenting and be guaranteed of making money from Google AdWords. Keep in mind that everything comes down to the sales letter, the product that you’re promoting. You’ll never know the kind of product that will work unless you’re ready for trials and errors.
Friday, 3 July 2009
Make Money With eBay
Guest Post by Justin Vanhove
There are several ways to make money with eBay even though most people only know of one way. That is of course selling their old junk on eBay. That was actually how it was when eBay and the internet were not as developed. Now you can earn money using eBay a variety of ways. You do not even need to have your own product or sell anything that you own for that matter. In fact you do not even need to sell something.
There are several ways to make money with eBay even though most people only know of one way. That is of course selling their old junk on eBay. That was actually how it was when eBay and the internet were not as developed. Now you can earn money using eBay a variety of ways. You do not even need to have your own product or sell anything that you own for that matter. In fact you do not even need to sell something.
eBay Affiliate Program
Using the eBay partner program or affiliate program you can earn money by referring customers to buy thing on eBay. If you own a website this is a really easy way to earn money online. eBay gives you a variety of tools that you can use to help you earn money by posting links to eBay products on your web pages.
This also does another thing to make you money. If a visitor clicks through to a eBay product that does not have an eBay account and signs up will give you lifetime commissions on every thing they buy for life. When people join eBay they usually get hooked on buying things from there. This is because of how cheap you can get new products on eBay. A lot of new users signing up through you will make you big money in the long run.
Selling Products
This is the obvious way to make money online with eBay. However, I am going to show you a method to get your own products at wholesale price that you can resale for a little under retail price on eBay. The difference between the two is your profit. This is made possible by eBay dropshippers. Thats right, you can sell products on eBay and ship them without ever physically touching them. Once you the customer buys the product you enter their shipping info and use they money you collected from them. The difference is your profit.
Making Money With An eBay Niche Store
This is one of the best ways to make money with eBay. Opening an eBay niche store is a great way to generate affiliate commissions and build residual income. When you open a niche store they place affiliate links to eBay products. However, it looks more professional than what it would look like if you placed them on your own website. First off the visitor does not know the product is being sold on eBay until they click through and try to buy it. By that time it does not matter because they are sold on the cheap price of the related product.
Author Bio
There are so many more great ways to like this to Make Money Online. To learn about all these ways to Make Money Online click on one of the links in this author bio.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
What You Should Know About Web Hosting For Setting Up Your First Blog? By: Puripong Koomsin
Being a newbie or an experienced blogger, choosing the right web hosting solution is vital to the success of your blog. With so many offers out there, it’s easy to get lots and/or make the wrong choice. While there are many companies that offer compelling products, other merchants try to sell overpriced BS – so how do you choose the right web hosting?
First of all you have to determine what you actually need. What’s your blog going to be about? File sharing? Pictures of naked celebrities? Videos? Your niches defines what you need.
For file/video related stuff you would definitely need a lot of disc space, forget 5GB – you would need at least 250GB and a lot of bandwidth.
With frequently uploaded pictures, you might also consider more space, probably not 250GB, but something around 50GB. Although if you’re in it for the long run, be ready to upgrade your accounts fast.
Disc space is one issue, bandwidth is another. While there is a handful of quality unlimited bandwidth hosting solutions, most of them have lots and lots of downtimes. So if you’re just starting, consider purchasing a smaller deal for several months. Pretty much every hosting company wants to seduce you with “hot” deals, like “buy 6 months and get XX% off” – don’t buy that. They just want to enslave you for the long run so you wouldn’t want to change your hosting company when something goes wrong.
Just buy yourself a 3 month mini package with the minimal bandwidth and disc space you feel you could use up during that period, and then make your decision – either stay with that company and upgrade your plan, or seek for other solutions.
Aside from bandwidth and disc space, the absolutely most important thing your hosting company should have is MySQL databases. If your company allows less than 10 of them, or doesn’t allow them at all, screw them immediately. You need to know that you can’t setup a blog without databases, it’s just physically impossible – unless you don’t want to use wordpress and are willing to edit every single thing manually via html – good luck with that.
Other things you might consider while choosing the right hosting is whether or not it has a web-based FTP solution. Some companies have Flash web FTP clients that easily let you upload 100mb+ files without ever having to install any software. This means that you will be able to access/upload/download to your site anywhere and from any device supporting web browsing.
The main aspect, of course, is pricing. If you’re spending more than $4 per month on hosting for 5GB/250GB disc/transfer, you might as well go handing out money to the poor, it (your money) will be put to better use. Remember that spending more than $30 per year on hosting your average blog is a rip-off. Of course, if you use only large companies, then yeah, it’s the standard price, whilst you can easily find family-owned businesses with 100% uptime and get special deals with them. Communication is the key.
First of all you have to determine what you actually need. What’s your blog going to be about? File sharing? Pictures of naked celebrities? Videos? Your niches defines what you need.
For file/video related stuff you would definitely need a lot of disc space, forget 5GB – you would need at least 250GB and a lot of bandwidth.
With frequently uploaded pictures, you might also consider more space, probably not 250GB, but something around 50GB. Although if you’re in it for the long run, be ready to upgrade your accounts fast.
Disc space is one issue, bandwidth is another. While there is a handful of quality unlimited bandwidth hosting solutions, most of them have lots and lots of downtimes. So if you’re just starting, consider purchasing a smaller deal for several months. Pretty much every hosting company wants to seduce you with “hot” deals, like “buy 6 months and get XX% off” – don’t buy that. They just want to enslave you for the long run so you wouldn’t want to change your hosting company when something goes wrong.
Just buy yourself a 3 month mini package with the minimal bandwidth and disc space you feel you could use up during that period, and then make your decision – either stay with that company and upgrade your plan, or seek for other solutions.
Aside from bandwidth and disc space, the absolutely most important thing your hosting company should have is MySQL databases. If your company allows less than 10 of them, or doesn’t allow them at all, screw them immediately. You need to know that you can’t setup a blog without databases, it’s just physically impossible – unless you don’t want to use wordpress and are willing to edit every single thing manually via html – good luck with that.
Other things you might consider while choosing the right hosting is whether or not it has a web-based FTP solution. Some companies have Flash web FTP clients that easily let you upload 100mb+ files without ever having to install any software. This means that you will be able to access/upload/download to your site anywhere and from any device supporting web browsing.
The main aspect, of course, is pricing. If you’re spending more than $4 per month on hosting for 5GB/250GB disc/transfer, you might as well go handing out money to the poor, it (your money) will be put to better use. Remember that spending more than $30 per year on hosting your average blog is a rip-off. Of course, if you use only large companies, then yeah, it’s the standard price, whilst you can easily find family-owned businesses with 100% uptime and get special deals with them. Communication is the key.
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