* "Only connect. . ." E.M. Forster, Howard's End

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Creating a blog from scratch – 7 fast and easy steps to start blogging

Blog are online journals. They are used as short form of web logs which means a list of writings on the Internet. When all the writing is combined together to give it a look like a small website it is called a blog. A blog can be comprised of news, articles, personal diary. Below are the 7 steps to start creating a blog from scratch.


1) Choose your blog niches
First thing you should do is to search on the topic you interested or have experienced in such as blogging such as dog training, golf swing etc


2) Buy a domain name
Then go to domain marketplace such as go daddy or namecheap, choose the relevant domain name related to your blog example if you interested in blogging on drawing I suggest that you buy domain name such as "drawingapicture.com, drawingforfun.com, howtodrawing.com". The cost for buying a .com name is around $7-$10 depend on the domain marketplace.


3) Open a hosting account
Read more articles
Blogging Bootcamp: How to set up your blog from scratch
How Can I Start a Blog and Get Paid? (Beginner's Guide to Starting a Profitable Blog From Scratch)
Creating A Blog From Scratch For Newbies !!!
Planning a Website - Creating a Website from Scratch
Then you need to link the blog together with its hosting account. You can open a hosting account for just $8 monthly and it can be used for multiple domain names.


4) Choose blog platform
Creating a blog from scratch is easy, choose a blog platform or interface that you find easy and

Friday, May 27, 2011

Is It Time To Shake Up Your Marketing Strategy?

More and more people worldwide make use of the benefits of social media to speak highly about numerous products, services, businesses, and other issues to their colleagues, friends, and other connections. This is how the power of social media affects the lives of thousands of people all over the world. Getting the attention and trust of the vast audience using social media tools is a low-cost method to throw a brand onto the global arena.


Many business owners are integrating this medium to their marketing strategy. It allows them to create or strengthen their existing connections. This usually results in increased brand awareness, client-base expansion, and word-of-mouth marketing. It is known as one of the most powerful tools in building a product, services, or any other brands. That is why it should not be left out of the marketing plan.


On the other hand, some people may find it using social media tools as a daunting task. That is why it is very important to break the social media process into manageable steps. Below are the primary methods that will help you in building your brand and achieving your business success.


Raise brand awareness and loyalty.


Are you currently using social media tools for your business? If not, you may want to consider using free sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You may also test each of them to determine which service you like to use over the long period of time. Therefore, this will serve as your central destination wherein all your other online targets will eventually link back to it.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Who Is Your Audience

Thanks to www.chrisbrogan.com

Christopher S Penn wrote a great post about marketing and how it starts with audience. What’s great about it is that it’s exactly what was on my mind since yesterday. I’ve been thinking about who my audience is at [chrisbrogan.com] and furthermore, I’ve been looking around at other people’s blogs and wondering who they’re hoping to attract with their writing. Do you know the answer about your blog? My guess is it might be different than you think.




Who Are You Writing For?
This part, you should at least think you know. When I write, I’m writing for professionals who want to understand how social tools change business. Sometimes, I’m writing for larger companies to read and consider. Most times, I’m writing for smaller companies and solo business types. Heck, plenty of non-business types read and take things away from here. It’s fine by me. That’s who I’m writing for, in my mind. How about you?




But Who is Reading?
When I look at the comments, the people who are reading are a mix of people. Most of the comments come from people I believe who represent small or solo businesses. Lots of you are from smaller agencies. So many of you are lurkers that I have no idea who you are, where you’re from, or what matters or doesn’t to you.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Five Things to Do on LinkedIN

Thanks to www.chrisbrogan.com


Lots of people have a profile on LinkedIN, but they’re note exactly sure what to do after they put in all their past job information. Here are five things you can do to make your experience with LinkedIN better, once you’ve set up your profile.


Invite Others


LinkedIN has a strong tool to import your address books and then select people to invite to connect with you. You can import from Outlook, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, and several more. So do it. Connect to people, and invite a bunch of people that you know to connect with you and to try the service. More connections means more future opportunities.


Launch a Recommendation Campaign


Reach out to connections on LinkedIN that you know reasonably well and offer to write them a recommendation. Ask if they’re willing to recommend you in return. **Note: it really is important that you ask for recommendations from people you know fairly well. Though LinkedIN and I differ on how to add connections, I believe FIRMLY that you have to know the details of someone’s job and a strong understanding of how that individual performed in it before you can write or ask for a recommendation.


Reread Your Profile


Does your profile state what you’ve done, or what you CAN DO for someone else? If it’s A, rewrite. If it’s B, pat yourself on the back. Make sure you blend your job description with your future value to an organization.


Answer some Questions


I’m finding that by answering questions of either my colleagues or people in the twice-removed

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Power Up Your LinkedIN Profile

Thanks to http://www.chrisbrogan.com/


If you want to power up your LinkedIN profile, there’s a one-two punch that matters in getting the most out of the software. If you want to make that platform work for you, do these two things once a week:


Edit your profile.
Write 5 recommendations.


Edit Your Profile
I promise that you haven’t probably written your LinkedIn profile for your future. I bet you haven’t made LinkedIn work for you. Those two things matter. Is your profile concise? Does it tell people what you want to do with them? Mine doesn’t right now. I just looked in and it’s crappy. I have to update it. Do the same with yours.




Write 5 Recommendations
First off, only write recommendations if you can honestly vouch for the person you’re writing it for, and only if you want your endorsement to reflect on who YOU are, too. Want some more LinkedIn recommendation tips?


Second, write recommendations that are punchy, powerful, dynamic, and sell the person you’re hoping to recommend. If it’s a tepid recommendation, don’t bother.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Local Marketing Matters

Why should you market locally? Here are some good reasons:

Online business directories

• Several people go to local online business directories especially when they\'re seeking local solutions.

• It\'s crucial to submit your website to as many local directories as possible, not just the major ones. The reason for this can be explained with an analogy. Imagine your website is a marble, and a local business directory is a stack of marbles. Someone who\'s looking for a solution gets to select a couple of marbles from the stack and then choose their favorite one.

With a hundred different local directories out there, not everyone will be picking out of the same stack. Some directories are more specific while others are broader. Therefore you really want to make sure you\'re putting yourself in a position to be found, regardless of where people are searching for your products and services.

Facebook

• Facebook Places is targeted, social, and local. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. If somebody uses Places to check in to your business and you\'re offering a deal, their friends

Saturday, May 21, 2011

How to write an engaging 'about me' story

Your ‘About Me' page is probably most important in building rapport with your reader. More often than not, after they have a quick scan of your home page, this is the first page that they will want to read because it will validate you as an expert and justify you as someone to listen to. This is the opportunity for your followers to get to know all about you and it doesn't matter if you are new to this industry; every one has knowledge and life experience that they can share with others.


You need a compelling story that will build trust and credibility and something that fully connects with your readers. If not done properly, I guarantee you, it will cost you money because you will lose the prospects interest and they won't return to your blog.


So how do you do this?


Here's my advice. Now you don't want to exactly copy someone else's format because you need this to be genuine and authentic so let you story evolve as naturally as possible but I do recommend you cover the below points.


1. Brand yourself. Who are you? You generally have 20 seconds to make an impression so make sure at the start of your post you are engaging and show your self in a positive light.


2. The benefit of following you. What will they get from your site? This is vital in narrowing down your target audience. If someone hates dogs, you cant' sell them dog food can you? So make sure you are clear in what you are about so that you also don't lose anyone who may love your content but doesn't know what it is you are sharing.

Friday, May 20, 2011

3 Viral Ways to Advertise Online

There are many ways to advertise a business on the internet but the most efficient strategy is to use a viral campaign to deliver your marketing message! Viral marketing has a long history of acceptance and success and these methods have translated over well onto the internet! Combining both the technology and global audience found online has served to only increase the potency of any viral campaign.

Here are 3 tactics anyone can use that offer the potential for any marketing message to go viral online.

Video

In the age of high technology many have gravitated towards visual imaging as their preferred means to be entertained or get informed. YouTube called attention to the popularity video has with internet users and now web-cams have placed this medium more directly into the hands of the individual. This now allows for greater participation along with more creativity making the use of video a very effective way to launch a viral campaign!

Social Networking

This platform is the very essence of what viral marketing is all about. Be it an interesting

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Facebook Privacy Settings For Internet Use

Facebook privacy settings is so popular that employers simply do not consider a single appropriate place for socializing and games. In fact, in September 2010, face book privacy settings have overtaken Google in relation to the amount of time visitors spent on your site. Face privacy settings says users spend more than 700 billion minutes per month on privacy settings!


With 500 million active users, privacy settings are the new giant of the Web. With his popularity among all age groups, each with integrated e-mail application and integration of new research-Bing, a Face privacy face book privacy settings user simply no longer need to visit web search Google or close the session to use an e-mail application. You can fully experience the Web, all from face book privacy face book privacy settings. With more than 50% of active users of face book privacy face book privacy settings use every day, according to Face book privacy face book privacy settings, face book privacy face book privacy settings has become so important in the life of your potential customers that make sense, it is based as a business owner, a presence in the outlook on a daily basis suspended.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Facebook Marketing and your Fan Page

Creating a Facebook fan page as a Facebook Marketing tool is something that more and more businesses are cottoning on to. Here are a few pointers on what to do to get your fan page to work hard for you.


Information and Content


One of the most common mistakes businesses make is thinking that their potential customers are visual creatures who are just looking at pictures or videos and can be enticed with glitzy landing pages. But what people are actually looking for is relevance and credibility. Visitors to your page are likely to interact with you and your product or service and stay longer on the page when there's plenty of great information about the business and lots of really good and relevant content for clients to consume.


Depending on what type of industry you're in, the information in your Fan Page can be as formal or informal as you like. This can be corporate or creative, concise or playful, long or short. Just make sure that everything placed there is not only factual but likely to be really interesting to your customer. As an added step, you can also make your Fan Page as keyword rich as possible so Google and other search engine can easily find your page.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Business Page

You already know Facebook is more than just a place to share pictures of your children's latest exploits or your last fabulous shoe purchase. With nearly 700 million users, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool!


But, if you use it to hit your prospects over the head with promotions, it's not going to work for you.


Here are 5 Ways You can Use Facebook to Create Raving Fans (who do your promoting for you!)


1-Create a Business Page (formerly Fan pages) separate from your profile. Recent changes at Facebook have made this a far more robust marketing tool. One major change you may recognize is you can now "like" other pages from your business page. This means you can build your presence on Facebook through your business persona.


2-Invite others to join. You can promote your new page through Twitter/Linked In or other social media sites. Be sure to put the Facebook logo on your blog or website. Individually invite people by sending them messages with your url and invite them to like it. One graphic designer I know created his Facebook Business page and got 306 "likes" in 12 hours because he asked all his friends to "like" it.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Marketing Versus Connecting

Thanks to http://www.chrisbrogan.com/marketing-versus-connecting/


There are two ways that social media can help your business: one is by helping you market using nontraditional channels. The other is by allowing you connection touchpoints in between marketing and other business outputs. Both are valuable. Like with all things, it’s the mix that makes it work out.

THE MARKETING PART OF SOCIAL MEDIA


Marketing is helping someone find a product or service that might be of value to them and it entails helping a prospect closer to a potential sale and further relationship. There are plenty of ways that we do this in social media. We might ask you to join a free email newsletter, where there’s more relationship building, but eventually there is a sales attempt or two. We might point you via social networks towards our offer, our call to action. We might create content that further educates you towards a purchase, and then guides you to appropriate next steps. These are all easily understandable methods of using social media to build sales. Measurement wise, these are also the best way to understand your direct efforts to sell via the social web. But then, there’s connecting.

RELATIONSHIPS AND THE SOCIAL WEB

I’ve got many colleagues and community members who read and participate at [chrisbrogan.com] without being my core buyer. I love these relationships every bit as much (sometimes more) than I do the relationships with my potential clients and customers. I use the tools of the social web to build relationships that I hope extend out far beyond my buying cycles. Why? Because more comes from these relationships than what comes from a typical single sale.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Little Known Ways to Boost Your Online Visibility


A business website plays an important role in enhancing business profile. It also plays a key role in attracting new and potential clients and keeping existing customers. With the increasing number of websites vying for online visibility, it is vital for an online entrepreneur to practice offline and online advertising for him to generate traffic and promote the products and services he is offering on his website. In this article, we will be pointing out several ways on how to boost your online visibility through offline and online advertising.

Branding
It is essential for your website to reflect the brand of your business. For you to attract online visitors at first glance, you should clothe your business website professionally. One tip to make your website more professional is to obtain a domain name of your own business. Your domain name should highlight the name of your company including the products and services you are offering.

Online Advertising
Online advertising is helpful in driving traffic to your business website. A good example of this is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising through several search engines which include Yahoo, Bing and Google. PPC advertising can be cost-effective because you only pay the hosting service when the ad is clicked to arrive at your site. In many cases, the clients who reached your site through PPC advertising were individuals who searched the web to purchase services or products like yours. 

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

How to Add the Official Google Buzz Button to your Website

When Google Buzz launched a few months ago, Google did not immediately follow up with a Tweetmeme-style Buzz share button. So developers created workaround code and plugins to create a Google Buzz button and share counter.
Thanks to DIANA FREEDMAN on APRIL 19, 2010 http://ustandout.com/social-media/official-google-buzz-button

Sunday, May 8, 2011

How To Build A Facebook Fan Page and 5 Ways To Grow Your Reach

FACEBOOK


Why


For a small business, there are few excuses not to have a Facebook Page. Over 500 million people have Facebook and 250,000 more join each day. It helps small business build brand awareness. Facebook can provide your business with real time feedback. It's the fastest way to communicate with many customers at once. You can track the effectiveness of your Facebook efforts. And it's free to set up a Fan Page






Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/how-to-build-a-facebook-fan-page-and-5-tips-to-grow-your-reach-3883329.html#ixzz1KpVBeIHS
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Your LinkedIn Connections Strrategy - Do You Have One?

You have to come up with your own definition of trust each and every day and not just for LinkedIn purposes. LinkedIn was designed for you to connect with people you trust. I know this because if you go to your Network Statistics (go to the top toolbar under Contacts, then select Network Statistics), you will see in big green letters "Your Network of Trusted Professionals"




Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/networking-articles/your-linkedin-connections-strategy-do-you-have-one-4569305.html#ixzz1KpT9XldMhttp://www.articlesbase.com/networking-articles/your-linkedin-connections-strategy-do-you-have-one-4569305.html#ixzz1KpT9XldM
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Friday, May 6, 2011

Facebook Send Button: What is the New Facebook Send Button and How Does it Work?

What is the New Facebook Send Button and How does it work? Emily Stoik shares vital Information about the New Facebook Send Button and How to use it to share information! http://www.make1kaday.com

Whenever we surf online and find information we "like" these days there is often a tab towards the top of the website or blog post that allows us to share what we have "liked" and have it automatically posted onto our Facebook profile for all of our friends to see.  But sometimes, even though we may genuinely like the information, we don't always want everyone of our Facebook friends to see the links, either because the information may be private or personal, or because we just don't want to have our personal profile walls cluttered with all of the links we "liked

Read more:
http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/facebook-send-button-what-is-the-new-facebook-send-button-and-how-does-it-work-4680062.html#ixzz1KpRj2lZo
Under Creative Commons License:
Attribution

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Social Media: Yes, You Too Can Be a Sensational, Successful Social Media Butterfly

Social media networking is not only a great way to grow your business, but it can be incredibly fun. So, yes, you too - come, break away, spread your wings, and become a sensational, successful social media butterfly!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Make Your Website an Asset and Not a Liability

Having a website is not the end of establishing your presence online. It is just but a step towards maximizing the numerous opportunities to increase sell in your business. World Wide Web is a huge platform to achieve whatever goal your business has, but it require more just being there.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

How to Improve Your Website’s SEO Using LinkedIn

Thanks to DIANA FREEDMAN Ustandout.com LinkedIn Logo
If you’re planning to use LinkedIn to find job opportunities, optimizing your profile will help you stand out. But did you know that you can also use LinkedIn to improve the SEO of your website or blog?
Here’s how it works: if high ranking websites link to your website, it will improve your website’s page rank, so you’ll appear higher in organic Google searches. LinkedIn profiles have a fairly high Google Page Rank, so if have good profile SEO and link your website to it, your website’s SEO will also improve. I’m not claiming that your page rank will shoot through the roof (you need many, many backlinks for that to happen), but it will help a bit, and if more people click on your LinkedIn profile, they may also click on your website.
These are four simple ways to optimize your profile and your website at once.

1. Create your own permalink

View your profile, and change the custom URL. Change it to your full name, your company name, or targeted keywords if they are still available. You might only want to use the company name if you own the company or know you’re there for the long-haul.
You can gear your LinkedIn permalink toward your website or blog. For example, if dianafreedman had already been taken, I might have chosen dianasocialmedia, dianafreedmanweb20, or dianaustandout. Something that incorporates name + keywords or name + company.

2. Link to your websites using anchor text

Linking to your websites will not only give Linkedin users more insight about you, but you’ll also be improving your websites’ SEO. Anchor text links that contains relevant keywords is something Google looks for when ranking your website. So by using your name, site title, and/or relevant keywords will actually improve your site’s SEO since LinkedIn is already ranked so high.
Instead of listing websites as “My Company” or “My Blog,” choose “Other” so you can choose the name of the link. Make sure that your website links appear on your public profile.
Before:

Before changing LinkedIn website anchor text
After:

After changing anchor text on LinkedIn

Monday, May 2, 2011

Top 3 Free Blogs

http://bit.ly/g3Er5u




A blog can have many purposes. People use them as a source of outlet, recording their daily thoughts and activities for anyone to see. Businesses can make perfect use of blogs to help boost the strength of their online presence. Blogs can be used as part of a SEO online marketing strategy and they can be extremely beneficial to companies of all sizes. As a professional blogger I have had the opportunity to work on multiple free blogging platforms and I have discovered that I have my favourites. These are excellent for both promotional purposes and personal use.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Brand Your Site With a FavIcon

Branding can make or break your website, whether it’s a business or a blog. Your readers should connect with the theme of your site with they see your logo elsewhere. One way to increase your brand’s visibility is by creating a FavIcon. FavIcon is short for “favorite icon,” and is the small icon that appears in the URL browser bar. They’ve been around for a long time now, and it surprises me how many popular blogs and sites out there still don’t have a favicon.
FavIcons also appear on certain browser’s navigation tabs and on a reader’s bookmark list if he has bookmarked your site, so having a unique FavIcon can help readers easily remember your site. Try to use your site’s logo, initials of your website, or some prominent image that appears on your homepage. Having a FavIcon will also make your site look more professional; all the big sites are doing it.
Favicon: Google, Yahoo, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia
Creating a FavIcon for your site is really easy. But since so many sites still haven’t taken advantage of this neat little feature, here’s are instructions on how to do it:

1. Decide on an image

A FaviIon is only 16 x 16 pixels, so you’re not going to have much room to work with. That’s why you should stick with something small, like a logo, initials of your site, or a small but prominent image on your site. The color of your favicon should reflect the main color of your site so that readers will more easily associate it with your site.

2. Create the favicon.ico file

There are many tools out there you can use to create a favicon, but here’s a simple way to do it.
  • Use any photo editing software, like Photoshop or Gimp (which is free) and create a new 64 x 64 pixel canvas (so you can see what you’re doing without the image being too pixilated)
  • Open your logo or image file and drag it onto the 64 x 64 canvas
  • Scale the image and move it around until it fits in the 64 x 64 space
  • Resize the image to 16 x 16 (if you’re using Photoshop, select Image Size > Resample Image so the small image doesn’t blur)
  • Save the file as favicon.ico.