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Who Created Google?
Do you want to know a secret? The answer to the question in the title of this article is me. That’s right, I created Google. No, really, and so did you. You don’t believe me? Okay, maybe that is because you have already heard the story of how Google was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PhD’s of Stanford University, and how the concept for Google was born of Page’s dissertation idea to investigate the mathematical properties at work online. It is truly a great story and Page and Brin do get the credit for creating the company known as Google, but they are not solely responsible for the popularity of the company. This is where you and I come into the picture.
Well, before we come into the picture I have to admit the marketing team at Google also played a significant role in the success of Google. While Page and Brin put together the concept behind the page rank system, it is their marketing staff who really helped to promote Google as the superior choice in search engines. The fact that Google produces reliable results is important, but there are other search engines out there such as Yahoo! and Bing that are also doing this, but they are not nearly as popular as Google.
Think about when your friend asks you the name of a song and you can’t think of the answer. Do you tell him to just DogPile it? Do you tell them to Yahoo! it? No, you are much more likely to tell him to Google it. That is because the marketing team at Google has done such an excellent job of branding this company that their name has come to mean search engine in the minds of many internet users. It is the first place many of them turn for any information they want.
Which brings us to why I created Google! Right, it wasn’t just me, you helped too. Page and Brin created the concept their marketing team promoted, but it is the users of the internet who embraced it so wholeheartedly. It is also the users of the internet who have remained loyal to the brand. While other fads on the internet have come and gone, this search engine is showing no signs of losing popularity because the internet users are happy with the results they receive when they use Google.
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Cool Combination: Internet And TV
Households without internet and a television set are hard to find. How about the advantages of a combination of the two? Try internet and tv.
It sounds logical to combine internet and tv. Let’s face it, everyone has internet and very few people don’t own a tv. But it’s not so clear for many what exactly the combination of internet and tv really is. Let alone how you can get it and what it takes to install it. It really isn’t that complicated. Promised!
* What are the advantages?
Internet and tv is nothing more than a combination of the two in one package. With a lot of cool perks! For example, you’ll get to know the superb sensation that is digital tv. It’s possible to choose the channels you want to watch. Less costs. But you do need to make sure you’ve got a decent (or at least the one that suits you best) internet connection.
* Can I select the channels myself?
No and yes. With internet and tv you can dedide which channels you want to watch. But they come in packages (choose between two) so you won’t be able to pick out the channels one by one. There’s two packages to choose from; a standard package and a premium package. The standard package contains all the channels you’ve got on your tv right now. The premium package extends the channel offer. Pick for example Eredivisie Live (all the Dutch football games live on tv) a theme channel (travel, cooking) or HD TV. With HD TV you’ll watch tv in a whole new way. Thanks to a higher resolution the colors are brighter, the sounds are better (depends a bit on your stereo though) and everything is sharper.
* What do I need for internet and tv?
One of the most important ingredients has got to be a phone line. Not even a connection to that line (so you don’t need a phone at home) but just the line itself. It should be hidden in your house somewhere, just look for a little box. Then of course, you’ll need an internet connection. But you definitely don’t need to get the fastest, most expensive connection. That depends on what you do online.
* Which internet connection should I choose?
There are severel internet connections to choose from. Make sure you get the right one, in other words the one that isn’t overprized. For internet and tv you don’t necessarily need an expensive, rapid connection. Just think about how you use your internet. Are you online to look up stuff and to send emails? Then the standard connection will do. But are you one of those downloading freaks with several computers at home (several people using the same connection) you should opt for the connection with high download speed.
* What about the installation?
It’s possible to install internet and tv yourself. The user guide is clear and convenient and with a bit of knowledge you should be able to fix things yourself. However, there are always adjusters available if you do need any help. Try it yourself first though! You don’t want to pay a guy that fixes things you easily could’ve done yourself.
Ten Reasons Why Interactive TV Is A Must
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Ten Reasons Why Interactive TV Is A Must
* Not as complicated as it seems
Interactive tv? Sounds complicated but really it isn’t. Interactive tv is a form of digital tv and that means nothing more than razor sharp images with lots of details.
* Better quality and sound
Because interactive tv actually is digital tv, you’ll experience a unique way of watching tv. Brighter colors and a killer sound: everything is clear and it feels like you’re right into the middle of it all. With interactive tv you’ll have the same kick ass quality as digital tv.
* You get to choose
With digital tv you no longer depend on your tv guide. It doesn’t matter anymore if you miss a show or two. With interactive tv you can watch whatever you want, whenever you feel like it. Just the way you like it.
* Create the ideal tv evening
You can now create the perfect evening of television. Just select your favorite shows and/or movies and watch them in the order that suits you best. There’s always something on with interactive tv!
* Pause
You’re the one who’s in control with interactive tv. Walk the dog while your watching? Just pause it! Interrupting airings is possible when you feel like it and you can resume watching. when it suits you. You no longer need to miss parts of the programs you were watching. Just pause and continue, whenever you’re ready.
* Record
Does your partner want to watch the big game but you actually want to watch a movie? No problem, just tape it! You can watch it when the time’s ready. Your time. When you’re ready. That actually goes for that big game as well, but is might be more fun to watch is you don’t know the score.
* No more commercials
Because you can fast-forward through movies and programs, you no longer need to endure those endless annoying commercial breaks. Toilet paper, tampons, shampoo…from now on they’re only in your own bathroom, not on tv!
* Movies on demand
With interactive tv you’ll get the video store right into your living room. Just press the button and there’s a wide selection of new, cool movies. Apart from movies you can choose from the best and most popular tv series as well. No need to go outside on a rainy day. Sit back, relax and watch some movies!
* Missed airings
Although you create your own tv guide with interactive tv, it can still happen that for some reason you miss something on tv you actually want to watch. With interactive tv it’s possible to watch programs that have already aired and you forgot to tape. The main three stations offer their programs from today and yesterday. You can also watch aired programs from other channels, but you need to arrange this yourself. Just adjust your subscription details.
* Participate on tv
With interactive tv you can actually be part of what’s on the tube. Give the answers in a game show, guess the questions during a test; just use the remote control to vote or to select your answer.
ABC’s of RSS
Implementing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) can be aided by an understanding of the terms relating to RSS.
Learn the ABCs of RSS:
A – AutoDiscovery
Auto Discovery is code that is inserted into the header of an HTML web page, which then indicates to readers that an RSS feed is available for the content.
B – Blogs
Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. Blogs generally contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases, blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever the author wants them to be. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.
C – Cache
Cache is a temporary storage area for frequently-accessed or recently-accessed data. Having certain data stored in a cache area speeds up the operation of the computer. Using a cache with RSS feeds will help minimize bandwidth and display an RSS feed’s content quicker.
D – Display
RSS Many webmasters post the content of an RSS feed on their website. They use either PHP, ASP, or javascript for such purposes. If done properly, the feed’s content will dynamically update as the content of the feed changes.
E – Elements
Within an RSS feed, there are various feed elements. The elements of an RSS feed are defined by tags.
F – Filter
Many RSS feeds contain duplicate or similar content. Publishers can filter RSS feeds so that they only see content that they wish to see, by filtering out duplicate postings.
G – GUID
GUID stands for Globally Unique IDentifier. The RSS specification strongly suggests that each RSS feed item have a unique GUID. If you are creating feeds, a GUID is important because GUIDs are often used by feed readers and aggregators to determine if a feed item is new or simply an existing item that has been updated. Each item in the RSS feed should have a unique GUID.
H – HTML
HTML, which is the acronym for HyperText Markup Language, is frequently used to design websites.
I – iTunes Namespace
The iTunes Namespace allows the user to add the information necessary to have a podcast listed on the Apple iTunes Music Store (ITMS). J – JavaScript Javascript can be used to display the content of an RSS feed.
K – Keywords
Keywords should be integrated into the RSS feed to help search engines determine what the RSS feed is about.
L – Links
Links are used to direct RSS readers to the original webpage containing information that directly relates to the feed.
M – Mashup
A mashup is a combination of multiple RSS feeds that have been merged together to create a new, single feed.
N – Namespace Extensions
The RSS specification allows you to create and use your own custom elements (tags) in any RSS feed by declaring your own namespace. Doing this is 100% in line with the RSS specification and the feed will validate. However, you should have a specific and well-planned reason to do so. No RSS readers, or other RSS processing applications, will be able to use your custom info for any purpose. Adding elements (tags) would typically be used only in an in-house situation where both the writing application and the reading application have prior knowledge of the new tags.
O – OPML
OPML, or Outline Processor Markup Language, is a file format standard that can be used to exchange subscription lists between programs. OPML is used as a standard to import or export groups of RSS feed subscriptions. OPML was initially designed by Radio UserLand as a file format for outlines. The purpose of this format is to provide a way to exchange information between outliners and Internet services. OPML has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators. OPML is an open format, allowing other services to extend the format. While OPML was not initially designed as a vehicle to share RSS feeds, it has become the de facto standard. OPML, like RSS, is based on RSS, and because of the similarities, those familiar with RSS have embraced OPML as a way to share RSS feed collections
P – Podcasting
Podcasting is online audio content that is delivered via an RSS feed. Many people equate podcasting to “radio on demand”. However, in reality, podcasting gives the listener far more options than radio does, in terms of content and programming. In addition, podcast listeners can determine their own time and the place for listening, meaning they decide what programming they want to receive, and when they want to listen to it. Listeners can retain audio archives to listen to later, at their leisure. While blogs have turned many bloggers into journalists, podcasting has the potential to turn podcasters into radio personalities.
Q – Query
Webmasters can create RSS feeds based on search queries for their websites.
R – RSS
RSS is a standard format for syndicating content on the Internet. The content can be anything! Information contained in an RSS feed is often syndicated on other sites, which expands its reach. Website visitors love RSS because they choose which feeds they wish to subscribe to. If at any point they are unhappy with the content contained in the RSS feed, they simply unsubscribe and no longer receive notification of feed updates. RSS is really a win-win for both subscribers and publishers. In order to get a better understanding of how RSS works, download an RSS reader or use a web aggregator and subscribe to an RSS feed (they are usually indicated by a small orange icon).
S – Syndication
Syndication is the supply of material for reuse and integration with other material.
T – Template
Many webmasters use templates to layout the contents of their RSS feed and make it match there website.
U – URL
URLs can be embedded into the description of the RSS feed items, so that when the feed is syndicated, the content originator gains backlinks.
V- Validate
Feed validation is important. If a feed is not properly formed, it will not always be valid for reading.
W – Website
Updates RSS feeds can be set up to notify visitors when a website changes.
X – XML
RSS is a subset of XML, or eXtensible Markup Language.
Y – Yahoo Answers
Yahoo’s interactive system of questions and answers can be tracked using RSS feeds. You can create keyword or category feeds for anything in Yahoo Answers.
Z – Zero Feeds
Not having RSS feeds for your website puts you at a competitive disadvantage. RSS feeds bring traffic and help the stickiness of your website.
Choosing the Right Merchant Processor
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Choosing the Right Merchant Processor: What to Look For?
Almost all the businesses today accept credit cards. If your business doesn’t then its high time it began accepting debit and credit cards, as they are being increasingly used by customers to make purchases on account of the convenience factor.
The credit card industry has revolutionized the way people make their payments and are constantly coming out with new innovations like cash-back bonuses, mileage credits, and numerous others to make them more acceptable for customers. Small, online business owners are circumspect about processing sale on a credit card, because they are unsure about choosing the right merchant processor.
Given below are a few tips that would help you select the right merchant processor. So without further ado here they are:
* Your Business Bank can be a Good Option
Your search for a good merchant processor can end with the bank you are doing business with. However, not all banks offer merchant services to start-ups or new businesses. The standard practice of most banks is to avoid offering merchant processor services to a business that has been in operation for less than a year.
However, if you can convince the bank, you can’t choose a safer merchant processor than where you do your business banking.
* Peer Referrals
Choose a merchant processor that your peers might refer to you. A peer might have been using the services of particular merchant processor company for a significant period of time, and hence can give you his feedback and enable you to make the correct choice.
* The Transaction Fee and Percentage
You will find that there is not a single transaction fee and percentage across all banks. The transaction fee and percentage for credit card purchases as well as debit card purchases differ from bank to bank. Do extensive research on the specific rates offered by each bank pertinent to specific cards like MasterCard, Visa, Discover, American Express etc.
At times various businesses come together through a trade association to negotiate rates with a merchant processor. Herein, the processor might just charge less, as compared to the existing market rates. Explore this opportunity to see if you can get some benefits.
* The Independent Sales Organizations
Try not to choose those merchant processors who act as an agent for an independent sales organization (ISO). Pick an ISO who works with major banks. You won’t go wrong there. Your local chamber of commerce might be able to help you out in this regard or the local board of trade.
* The Primary Bank
Choose a merchant processor who is associated with a big-time primary bank. This ensures good services and timely payments to your checking account, which is an absolutely must for any business.
* Track-record and Clientele
Find out how long your merchant processor has been in business. This should not be your only parameter of selection, but it does give you a good indication of what you can expect from the merchant processor. Moreover, it will be infinitely easier to work with a well-established merchant processor.
You must also try to get some idea about the clients who have formed an association with a particular merchant processor. The more the clients the better it will be. More importantly if the processors have some big clients up their sleeves, then the better for you.
* Contract Length
Most banks would ask you to sign a 3 year contract. If this is the case, then select the services of a bank that gives you good rates with respect to the time frame. Always try and choose the bank that offers you advantageous rates if it asks for a long term contract.
* Manual Processing of Cards
Choose a merchant processor who gives you an option to manually process the cards. This makes for a great convenience if you have a power cut.
* Customer Support
Your merchant processor must be known for its superior brand of customer support. The hours of operation must be commensurate with the hours of functioning of your business. You also might want to get in touch with your merchant processor at odd hours at times, in case of problems. Choose somebody by taking into account all these aspects.
We hope these pointers would enable you to choose a merchant processor who you can have a successful working association with. Study all your options thoroughly before making your choice.
What Does This Mean For Google’s Future?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Google Acquires SocialDeck: What Does This Mean For Google’s Future?
It seems that in recent times, Google has made some mistakes when coming up with new programs. Google Accelerator, Google Answers, and Google Wave are all examples of programs that flopped. And with the recent merger of Yahoo and Bing, Google might be losing its grip on the search engine monopoly. However, it seems that Google may have something up its sleeve. Recent acquisitions reveal that the Internet giant has big plans for their social network platform that is currently under development. And it seems they are taking every measure to ensure that this next project of theirs won’t be a flop, and can even rival social media giant Facebook.
This is evident by the fact that Google recently purchased social gaming developer SocialDeck, which is one of five acquisitions made in August. The popular games created by SocialDeck, such as Pet Hero and Color Connect, are available across a variety of platforms, including Blackberry, iPhone, and Facebook. SocialDeck uses their own social gaming platform technology, which enables simultaneous game play across mobile devices and social networks.
With the acquisition of SocialDeck, Google will be able to integrate SocialDeck’s games into their future social network. In addition, Google is looking to either purchase or work out deals with other social gaming companies which work over multiple platforms, such as Zynga, Playdom, and Playfish, which all currently produce games popular on Facebook, such as Mafia Wars.
It seems Google may have some big plans in store. Chris Morrison of InsideSocialGames.com mentioned the possibility that Google is working on a viral platform for the web and its own mobile devices, like Android. Earlier this summer, Google purchased social application developer Slide, and also has purchased other companies involved in social gaming and other aspects of social networking. Just days before acquiring SocialDeck, Google purchased Angstro, which developed Knx.to, an address book that combines a user’s connections from social networks. Google also has acquired Jambool, which makes “virtual currency,” and visual shopping engine Like.com. Each acquisition is another piece to the puzzle of what Google is planning.
Google’s activity has been generating a lot of buzz over the Internet. Many speculate, “Will this social network,” rumored to be called Google Me, “be the ultimate social network? Will it dethrone Facebook as king of social media?” While the growing popularity of Facebook caused many people to flee from MySpace, there is no guarantee we’ll see people fleeing from Facebook to join Google Me in the same manner, but it’s certainly a possibility. With confusing and ever-changing privacy policies, some Facebook users might be eager to make the transition to a new social network. There are also rumors that the way Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was negatively portrayed in box-office smash The Social Network might turn away Facebook users if they have another option for social media.
While some are predicting success for Google, others are not so optimistic. Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, has taken note of Google’s unsuccessful attempts at social media, such as Google Buzz, and doesn’t foresee Google Me as an instant success. He states, “So far, Google’s failed to have a hit in the social-networking space, swinging and largely missing with both Orkut and Buzz. It’s unclear whether a third, new service (or a renamed Buzz) will do that much better.”
Negative press regarding Google Buzz alone has caused some to be doubtful that Google can gain a foothold in the realm of social media. Harry McCracken, the founder of tech site Technologizer.com, believes that the failure of Buzz shows that people may not want their relationship with Google to be a foundation for social networking.
When Google’s social platform emerges, possibly later this year, we’ll see how these applications integrate and whether or not Google will achieve the success it’s after. If Google has made wise choices and can provide a social site that provides users what they want, and has features not found on Facebook, including clear-cut privacy policies, Google Me just might prove to not be another Google Wave.
Tips That Will Help You Easily Locate The Best Netbook Sleeve For You
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tips That Will Help You Easily Locate The Best Netbook Sleeve For You
Having a netbook sleeve to protect your computer is a smart idea, but locating the best one is not always easy. There are some tips that you can use to help you easily find the sleeve for your netbook that will make your search easier and less time consuming.
The following are the tips that you have to know, remember and use to find the best sleeve without wasting a lot of time:
1. Cost
This is one of the first things you need to consider. It is important to know how much you will be able to afford for a sleeve. Everyone these days is on a budget, so having an idea of what yours is before shopping is definitely smart.
This will prevent you from wasting your time on sleeves you can’t afford, which will cut down on your search time.
2. Your computer or the sleeve
There are many different styles of sleeves these days. This means that one of the first things you need to decide is if you want the design and style on the sleeve, or if you want to find one that is clear that will show of the style and design of your computer?
Sleeves come in many different colors, designs and styles that knowing what you are searching for will save you a lot of time. Many people like the sleeve that you can easily see through so that they can display their computer and also provide protection for it.
You have to decide what you are searching for because this will make it much easier to locate exactly what you want.
3. Take advantage of the internet
Going online to do your search to locate the best sleeve will save you a lot of time. Plus, you can shop from the comfort of your own home when you have time for it.
By using the internet, you will be able to look at your different options for sleeves. So that you can easily choose the type that you want the most, this will help you get a sense of what is available.
Just be sure you look at all your options so you are happy with your final choice. Also, be sure you find one that will protect your computer the best, since that is the main function of these sleeves.
Now that you have these tips in mind, you will not have a hard time locating the best netbook sleeve for you. Start your search now and before you know it, your computer will be protected and you will have a sleeve that fits your personality the best.
12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, December 16, 2010
12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert
If you’re like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But, chances are, unless you are a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing a few words in, and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, then I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way – and it’s not hard to learn. On the other hand, if you are a technology geek, and can use Google like the best of them already, then I suggest you bookmark this article of Google search tips. You’ll then have the tips on hand when you are ready to pull your hair out in frustration when watching a neophyte repeatedly type in basic queries in a desperate attempt to find something.
The following Google search tips are based on my own experience and things that I actually find useful. The list is by no means comprehensive. But, I assure you that by learning and using the 12 tips below, you’ll rank up there with the best of the Google experts out there. I’ve kept the descriptions of the search tips intentionally terse as you’re likely to grasp most of these simply by looking at the example from Google anyways.
* 12 Expert Google Search Tips
1. Explicit Phrase:
Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.
Example: “internet marketing”
2. Exclude Words:
Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the “-” sign in front of the word you want to exclude.
Example Search: internet marketing -advertising
3. Site Specific Search:
Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the “site:somesite.com” modifier.
Example: “internet marketing” site:www.smallbusinesshub.com
4. Similar Words and Synonyms:
Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the “~” in front of the word.
Example: “internet marketing” ~professional
5. Specific Document Types:
If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier “filetype:”. For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.
Example: “internet marketing” filetype:ppt
6. This OR That:
By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).
Example: internet marketing OR advertising
7. Phone Listing:
Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.
Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).
8. Area Code Lookup:
If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.
Example: 617
9. Numeric Ranges:
This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.
Example: president 1940..1950
10. Stock (Ticker Symbol):
Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.
Example: GOOG
11. Calculator:
The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.
Example: 48512 * 1.02
12. Word Definitions:
If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the “define:” command.
Example: define:plethora
Hope this list of Google search tips proves useful in your future Google searches. If there are any of your favorite Google expert power tips that I’ve missed, please feel free to share them in the comments.
Find Out What Makes A Good Backup Software
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Find Out What Makes A Good Backup Software
If you store valuable information on your computer, it is wise to use backup software. System backup software stores information you have on your computer. It is like having another copy of everything that you keep on your computer.
Performing data backup software is especially useful when your work is done on a laptop, whether at the office or at home. So, in case something bad happens to your hard disk, the information on that drive can be restored, once the drive is fixed or replaced, with your back up files.
The concept of retrieving the data you saved on your laptop is the primary benefit you can get from pc backup software. This is very important particularly in corporations and business enterprises that view information as revenues. Losing data can cost millions of dollars.
Having backup software enables you to save time. Imagine the amount of time you can save if you use software to backup all files, programs, and special applications on your computer and then the next day your hard drive crashes. There is even an automatic backup software that immediately performs backup whenever new data is saved on the hard drive or whenever you have set a backup schedule.
The backup software is compatible with different media and devices. However, if you choose a built-in software, the capability of doing backup is limited. External software allows you to conveniently do backup on your data to any device, optical media and storage systems. You can even initiate partitioning tasks with backup applications. Thus, you can zip your data into smaller bits and store them in many media.
Almost all backup software is capable of encryption. Many of the best backup software available in the market can automatically encrypt your data during transfer and backup operations. Hence, you can have the confidence to transfer files onto another disk drive without worrying about data leakage. Encryption is essential, if you are transferring data to a web server.
Backup software comes in many types to meet the varying needs of the persons and enterprises. For example, there is specifically designed enterprise backup software. Depending on the operating system you are using, there is software that is compatible for your computer.
So, if you are using windows, you can enjoy the benefits of backup using windows xp backup software, vista backup software, windows server backup software and Microsoft backup software. There is also linux backup software for linux operating systems.
For remote operations, choose the appropriate remote backup software or offsite backup software. If you are transferring files to a web, it is good to have the online backup software. Data recovery is a feature of backup software that is very convenient.
In case of disasters, your data is not lost. It can be retrieved and restored back into your systems as if nothing happened. The best software does not even require special hardware or complicated software to make things happen the way you should want them to be.
For more information about the backup software that best suits your need, check out the web for resources. You can also read reviews on products , forum discussions and articles.
Blogging: What Is It All About?
Blogging is hard even if you’re a natural or trained writer. It’s difficult to write and write well on a consistent basis, let alone every day. It is all about sharing knowledge and experience. Thus it is important, that you must have lots of knowledge relevant to your blog niche.
Blogging is an art form in its own and is a valuable resource in this day-and-age. Print media simply CAN NOT keep up with the digital world (or the public’s demand) and for a company that, as the author has pointed out, has tons of money invested in blogging, it’s pretty damn stupid to go and insult that which gives you money. It is still the center of the social media universe. Now you could easily argue I am a bit biased on that point but the facts support the argument. Blogging is much closer to the informal discussions you have in the hallway or via email than it is to peer-reviewed papers. We have to convince faculty members (and other people involved in science) that blogging is the new email.
Blogging is the perfect small business marketing tool. If you’re selling and gaining leads via the web, then the web is also your main marketing super-channel. It isn’t just a hobby, it’s a way of experiencing the world. Blogging isn’t dead in my eyes. I think a person’s first instinct is to give up if their blog isn’t popular, but all it means is that they have to get better.
Blogging is often taken as informal writing. While this may be true, it does not mean that it is okay for a blogger to disregard writing rules. It is about not following a form, but making your own form. To all those bloggers out there who say you “have to be a niche blogger” in order to be successfull I say . Blogging is not for the faint of heart!
Blogging is one of those things which has inserted itself into American culture whether we like it or not. According to the BlogWorld site, of the 147 million Americans who use the internet, almost 40% of them read blogs. Blogging is a GREAT way to achieve that level of communication. Blogging is a reflection in the mirror of what we want to show to the world. For the most part, blogging is about us.
Blogging is not a unique concept, its simply one of the oldest concepts applied to HTML rather than pen and paper. In this matter the buzz word blog and ever possible tense there of are nothing more than keeping a journal and using HTML rather than Pen and Paper to do it.
How To Eliminate The Lag In Your Computer?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, December 12, 2010
How To Eliminate The Lag In Your Computer?
Technology has definitely came a long way. With all of the advancements in technology, it seems really ridiculous to experience computer problems. But, that is the problem with technology, it is not perfect. Since technology is not perfect and we do experience troubles with it from time to time, we should look for ways to fix it rather than hope for perfect pieces of technology. Fortunately, this is a much more logical expectation. If you are experiencing a lag in your computer, do not get frustrated with technology. You do not need to shrug it off to the age of the computer. Purchasing a new computer is not the only solution. There are ways to fix the issues with technology.
A lag in your computer can be the result of multiple different things. However, you do not need to assume that you will need to get out a check list and spend hours going through the possibilities. The most common thing to do is assume that it is one of the common reasons and solve that first.
The most common reasons for a lag in a computer is due to the following things:
- The computer has little to no storage space left.
- The computer has a slow speed that is likely continuing to decrease over time.
- Or it could be a mixture of both options.
Regardless of which option it is, neither of them are good for your computer and if it is both possibilities, then that definitely is not good for the computer. However, they are both quite fixable. The easiest way and quickest way to deal with these two possibilities is to perform a clean up scan on the computer’s registry.
The clean up scan is a scan that will be conducted on the computer’s registry. Just like the name of the scan, it will “clean up” the computer’s registry. This means that any information located in the registry of the computer that is no longer used or needed will be removed in order to make more space in the registry. With more space being freed up in the registry, it also means that the speed of the computer will increase. If any information stored in the registry is found to be broken, the scan will also notify the user and allow repairs to be made to the broken files. The clean up scan should be done once a month.
How to Avoid Four Surefire Ways to Kill Your Brand
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, December 11, 2010
How to Avoid Four Surefire Ways to Kill Your Brand
There are no guarantees of success when developing a modern brand. There is no switch that will pour out money, there are no stunts that will automatically create attention, and there is no how-to manual that, if assiduously followed, will assure your brand’s place in the annals of the great Internet legends. Brands are driven as much by the customer as they are by the originator, and the customer doesn’t always want what’s being sold.
That said there are certain behaviors and practices that are guaranteed to kill a brand, virtually without fail. There are always exceptions to the rule, but by and large you can at least count on these ‘do nots’ as fairly ironclad rules. What follows are four ways you can miss the point, and some advice for avoiding them.
Misfire #1 – Number Chasing
This may feel like a complete turnaround from previous articles. After all, we’ve discussed metrics and their usefulness in measuring success, haven’t we? Surely the larger an audience the better a brand is doing.
The problem with this logic is that it confuses the goal with the measurement. Instead of focusing on satisfying customer demands for particular content or a certain product quality, the company focuses on making sure web traffic stays high. This kind of thinking disconnects you from the actual cause-and-effect of working on the product you’re pitching, and creates an artificial reality that will do your brand no good.
As a rule of thumb for avoiding this behavior, consider the way you set goals. If you find the goal focusing on increasing audience numbers or some abstract figure instead of refining your core product, it’s time to re-evaluate.
Misfire #2 – Going by Rote
Part of maintaining a modern brand is providing regular content. Updating frequently enough to maintain viewer interest is vital for any service, and making sure the physical product is advertised for the public’s awareness is equally important if sales are the goal.
That said, there is a problem inherent in a scheduled updating system that can sneak into the provider’s routine. Specifically we’re speaking of the tendency to update without purpose. You see it frequently on twitter or certain blogs, where the provider is strapped for ideas and just posts a bit of airy, fluffy filler because ‘it’s time to post.’ While this does meet the customer’s expectation, this can work against you, as it leaves a bit of the ‘what was the point?’ question in their minds.
Instead, consider missing out a day if you genuinely don’t have content to provide. It happens, there are slow days for everyone. Missing the routine for a day will give you time to pull up some new content, and when the audience chimes in and sees there isn’t an update, they’ll be curious and more likely to check back the next time.
Misfire #3 – Fadding Out
The difference between a movement and a fad is that a fad sits on the surface of things, changing very little; whereas a movement alters the very basics of how the world functions. ‘Virtual Reality’ was a fad. People hyped it up, but there was no way the majority of people were going to shell out thousands for VR systems and their ten-pound headsets. Twitter is a movement, having developed a broad appeal and fundamentally changed the way people think about spreading information.
We have spoken of the need for innovation and the ability to take risks in brand development, and these things are still true. However, how innovative is it to jump on board something someone else has created? Instead of following the trends, focus on what your brand needs and how it functions. If adding in an element makes sense, do so without hesitation. If you have to force it, forget it.
Misfire #4 – Losing Focus
At this point it’s virtually ancient history, but there is a lesson for modern brand development in the Video Game Crash of the 1980s. The short of it is that every single company worth mentioning decided video games were the future, and opened up a video game division. They launched these efforts without any serious dedication to the craft of game design, and some succeeded while others failed. The most bizarre entrant was Quaker Oats, the people that make oatmeal. The result was a complete disaster.
What business would an oatmeal company have making games? On the surface, any business they desired. Perhaps it was always their secret passion, who knows? However, they lacked any serious experience in the venture, and you probably can’t find ten people out of a thousand who remember what game or games they put out.
Focus on your message. This ties in with the idea of fads, but warrants its own point. If you have to stretch yourself or come up with a new department to accommodate a new idea, it’s time to sit down and decide just how essential this idea is to your core message.
How to Resolve a Corrupt File?
Have you ever went to open a file on your computer only to receive an error message instead of the folder and its contents? Corrupted files can happen to anyone, but that sure does not make them any less annoying. A lot of times, when an individual receives an error message regarding a corrupt file they give it up for lint. Instead of trying to solve the problem with the file, they just chalk it up as a lost cause. However, you no longer have to do that. It is possible to get passed the annoying error message regarding the file.
Fixing a corrupt file can be done by just about anyone thanks to registry clean up scans. A registry clean up scan is a scanning procedure of your computer’s entire registry.
- The scan will go through the entire registry until it locates the file that is corrupted.
- When the file is located, the registry clean up scan will prompt the computer user of the find.
- The prompt provided by the computer will provide crucial details regarding the file and the problem with the file.
- You can choose to resolve the problem with the corrupt file through various different ways. How you choose to fix the problem is entirely up to you.
- Most registry clean up programs will provide you with a brief understanding of what each choice means and how it will effect the computer. This will allow you to choose the choice that is best for you and your computer.
You do not need to worry about manually going through the registry since the scan of the registry is an automated scan. There is an option to manually scan the computer’s registry but that option is reserved for individuals who have an extensive knowledge of computers.
There is no need to panic about knowing whether or not you are making the right choice since the vast majority of registry clean up scanning programs will provide you with a brief bit of information regarding your solution options. You can read over your options and determine what each option will mean for your computer and that particular file and base your decision off of that. There is no need to be a computer expert with this program. It is easy enough that a person with a limited knowledge of computers can operate the program. All you have to do is take some action !
Dedicated Server Hosting in UK
Dedicated server hosting is a form of website hosting protocol that is specifically designed and implemented to run the services of only one particular client. This form of server hosting is essential for organizations that wish to keep their online activities robust and have them running smoothly 24×7.
One of the issues that arise with website hosting is caused not by the creation of the site itself, but by the actual implementation i.e. the web server. This is because there are several factors involved. For example: The type of server on which the server sits; the server installation & build, monitoring the operational status and carrying out regular maintenance work. Here, IT firms have the upper hand as their employees generally have the desired skill set for carrying out these jobs. But what can non IT organizations do? Hiring dedicated network administrators for this job might not always be in the interest of such businesses. This is why it may be a good idea for them to outsource such services to dedicated server maintenance firms.
* Shared versus Dedicated Server Hosting in the UK
The world of web hosting is divided into two categories, shared and dedicated. Here, shared server hosting means running several websites on a single server. This implies the sharing of vital hardware resources such as network connectivity, CPU speed, memory and disk access. To maintain equality, certain restrictions are placed on the extent to which such resources can be used by any particular website. Despite this, such websites are sometimes unable to perform effectively. Data loss, slow response rates and long load times are some of the common drawbacks.
Dedicated server hosting does away with all the shortcomings of the shared format. Here, the whole server is designed to support only one business client and their website. This means that the network port and processing power are focused on a single role. However, these servers can be a little bit more costly than the standard shared models.
So, which server hosting is best suited for your website? The budget is probably the first parameter that can help answer the question. You will also have to consider the expected net traffic the website will attract daily and the level of security that you need to provide to them. For organizations that wish to use the website for advertisement of the online sale of products and services, dedicated server hosting is a serious option.
* Factoring the Cost in Managed Dedicated Servers
Assuming you decide on dedicated server hosting for your website, you then need to choose how to look after your server’s needs – its configuration and maintenance. Without in-house technical resources to call on, managed dedicated servers could be the perfect solution.
With these servers, you decide on the server that meets your requirements (for the non-techies, a good hosting company will help you decide which server is best). A service contract is set up and then, the rest is handled by the server management team.
Here are some of the benefits of using an organisation providing dedicated server hosting in the UK:
• state of the art systems with redundancy features to provide 99.995% uptime.
• 24/7 support ticketing for server management issues.
• Secure and resilient hosting.
• Using economies of scale to provide high levels of equipment and services (such as high speed communication links) not normally available to small businesses
However, hiring all these services might mean paying a good amount of money each month. So, what can you do if you have a limited budget? Cheap dedicated servers are the best option for you. Here are a list of options you might want to look out for:
• Processing Power: Either a quad or dual core CPU
• Connectivity of 100Mbps – capable of supplying 300,000 typical Web pages each hour
• Protection against disk failure (uses RAID technology)
• Your chosen web platform may be limited to specific operating systems, so at least one of these should be supported by the dedicated server
• The option of monthly billing, which makes it easy to budget for and to spread the cost
As you can see, the word ‘cheap’ is relative in this case, as even these servers can come packed with power.
Several Reasons to Buy Your Gifts Online
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, December 6, 2010
Several Reasons to Buy Your Gifts Online
These days, online shopping is increasingly becoming a preferred method for a lot of people, and for good reason. The internet has certainly provided an effective avenue for local as well as international consumerism to flourish and now, it is continuing to be an amazing tool for sellers as well as buyers.
If for instance you are looking to purchase a gift for someone special, you might want to buy your gifts online. Here are the top 4 reasons why you should:
* Wide Variety in Product Choices
The internet is a veritable marketplace for a lot of products and if there is one thing you can expect from it, it is that there is a plethora of choices from which you can choose. Regardless of the type of product you are looking for, you will get the chance to pursue as many of its kind as possible.
* Budget Friendly Prices
Just as online shoppers have the opportunity to choose from among a wide product selection, they can also choose affordable gift items that suit their budget. If you are looking to spend as little money as possible, online stores would be the perfect place for you to shop. You would also be pleased to know that there are several deals you can score if you know which websites to go to..
* Convenience in Shopping
While it can be fun to purchase gift items at the mall, not everyone has the time to do it, especially when you have a full time job and other responsibilities. With online shopping, all you need to do is enter the site and check out the available products they have available. When you are done choosing, a few clicks will finalize the transaction. In addition, you do not have to carry items home with you because everything will be shipped to you within a day or two.
* Tips
When purchasing items online, you have to take advantage of the choices. That is, it would be beneficial if you compare product quality as well as prices before making a decision. Shop around first and see what else is being offered so you can get the best deal there is.
Buy only from reputable online sites. Keep in mind that you run the risk of getting sub standard products if you are not careful in choosing which online stores to buy from.
In all, shopping for gifts online can be incredibly rewarding not only for you but also to those whom you will give the present.
The Ebook Revolution
Electronic books or ebooks as they are commonly known, are “books” published in digital format. Files that you can immediately download to your computer or just save on your desktop. Green publishing. Instant information. Now any author can publish! You can shop virtual book stores at any time of the day or night and have the information you need instantly.
You might be wondering “Why would I buy information when everything is available for free somewhere on the Internet?” Well why would anyone buy a paper book? Simply value! Your time is valuable. Yes, almost any information can be found somewhere on the Internet…but you have to do the hours of work. Searching, Sifting, then compiling all that information and that takes a lot of time and effort. After all that work you may not find exactly what you’re looking for anyway. You buy information, whether digital or on paper because of value. Exactly what you’re looking for when you need it. Someone else has done the research, the writing, and organizing of the information you need now. That’s value!
Another big plus for ebooks:
Ebooks can be multimedia! If you’re looking for lessons, like guitar, voice or even cooking, you will find ebooks that incorporate audio, video and pictures in addition to the written part of the book. Think of the possibilities! For example, if you’re a parent or a teacher…
A teaching program has been created, lets say math or reading lessons for young children using multimedia. You buy the ebook or eprogram and use it to teach your child or students. Now kids who don’t learn as well from audio lessons, have visual help too. If the student learns better through reading, there it is. All learning styles are supported. Yes, a teacher might have the ability to create their own ebook, but if they don’t have the time or inclination to make videos, create audio, and write the ebook, the one time purchase of an ebook or program already done will be a godsend and can be used year after year for one low cost! That’s value!
Music lessons are another perfect example. Audio, video, print. All combined to help you learn. Sure, if you want to learn the piano you will no doubt find free videos on YouTube, or posted somewhere on the Internet, but how good are they really? Or you can pay $40. (or more) for each private lesson. However, if you can get a beautifully put together, comprehensive, structured lesson plan that will take you through the process of learning with audio, videos and printed lessons that you can review again and again for under $50 bucks…well, that’s value!
There are ebooks written on every subject imaginable. From cooking to home remedies. Lessons, directions, information.The information you need when you need it. Another great thing about ebooks is, when purchased through a responsible third party such as Clickbank your purchase is always guaranteed and can be refunded if you find the information is not what you need, or you feel it’s not useful. It’s much harder to return a printed book to a major bricks and mortar bookstore if it can be returned at all.
Ebooks are an exciting new way to learn what you want and need to know. Epublishing is opening up amazing possibilities to writers looking to publish. A wave of creativity and knowledge is coming our way!
Increase Conversions by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Increase Conversions by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment
A Checkout process can be a number of steps, and each step is its own little mini-conversion. You really want to know where in the shopping cart process folks get frustrated enough to say goodbye, because that’s the point where the carts conversion process is failing. If you’ve got a tidy little cyber shop and still want to improve your shopping cart abandonment rates, then here are some ideas on how to fix your cart:
1. Check how many steps are in your checkout process
This is usually a prime knee-jerk target for results. But we have found that whether you have one step, or seven, it is not all that critical. We had one client whose checkout process we were able to bring down from six steps to one, but there was no correlation in reduction of the abandonment rate to the number of steps. Once people found what they came for, they found a way and the time to checkout no matter how many steps were involved. Should you change the number of steps? No. It may not be worth the time, effort, and expense of trying to reduce the steps in the checkout process. Try some of these other ideas first.
2. Include a progress indicator (e.g., step 2 of 5) on each checkout page
No matter how many steps you have in your checkout process, keep shoppers oriented by letting them know exactly where they are in the checkout process by step number. Be sure to clearly label the task to be completed at each step. Always give them an opportunity to review what they did in the previous steps and a way to return to their current step if they do go back.
3. Provide a link back to the product
When an item is placed in the shopping cart, include a link back to the product page, so shoppers can easily jump back to make sure they have selected the right item. Your own experience probably parallels ours. Recently, while shopping for a CD/DVD printer, we wanted to know how many and what color cartridges come with the printer. It wasn’t obvious where we should click to review what came with the printer, so we had to navigate using our “back” button until we were able to get our questions answered. Not all consumers are willing to take on this navigational challenge and choose, instead, to abandon their carts.
4. Add pictures inside the basket
Just as adding a link back to the product details page inside the checkout process reduces abandonment, placing a thumbnail image of the product inside the basket can increase conversions by as much as 10 percent.
5. Provide shipping costs as early in the process as possible
If possible, provide an estimated cost while they browse. Your visitors want to buy; they just want the answers to all their questions, when they want it, and total cost is one of those critical questions. Also, if the shipping information is the same as the billing information, include a box that shoppers can check to automatically fill in the same information. Don’t waste their time while testing their keyboard skills.
6. Show stock availability on the product page
Shoppers should not have to wait until checkout to find out that a product is out of stock. One thing that we also like to see is “Estimated Delivery Date” or this product usually ships in x days. Deal with the “I want it now” mentality, and let them know when they should expect to get their product.
7. Make it obvious what to click next
Include a prominent Next Step or Continue with Checkout button on each checkout page. If possible, give the shopper a visual cue as to where they are in the process. Make the button you want them to click next the most obvious. One Top 50 e-tailer mistakenly placed visually similar Remove from Cart and Checkout buttons right next to each other. As you can imagine, many people click before they read. At this site, they ended up clearing their cart. And when they want to checkout and found nothing in their shopping cart, they immediately abandoned the site in frustration.
8. Make it easy for the shopper to edit the shopping cart
If a product comes in multiple sizes or colors, make it easy to select or change values in the shopping cart. How many times have you bought a pair of trousers online, and wanted the same shirt in two different colors? Make it easy for your consumers to add to and edit the contents of their shopping carts. It should be simple to change quantities or options or to delete an item from the shopping cart.
9. Make it your fault
If information is missing or filled out incorrectly during checkout, give a meaningful error message that is distinctly visible. It should clearly tell your visitor what needs to be corrected. The tone should intimate that the system was unable to understand what they entered, not that they made a foolish mistake.
10. Make shoppers aware that you are a real entity
Checkout is the time when peoples concerns start to flare up. Let them know you are a real company by giving full contact info during the checkout process.
Look out for part 2 of Increase Conversions by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment, where we have another 10 top tips for you to increase your conversion rates.
How To Get Loads Of Twitter Traffic To Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
How To Get Loads Of Twitter Traffic To Your Website
Twitter is a brilliant way to drive targeted visitors to your Web site. You should not forget about other traffic sources but using Twitter is totally free and will definitely acquire a few more targeted visitors to your site. You got me right, I said free targeted visitors in the last sentence.
Nothing is better than a never endless stream of visitors. There are lots of ways for you getting free traffic to your Web site. But there is a huge difference between free traffic and targeted traffic. You could have heard about traffic generating websites sending out tons of people to your homepage. These offers are good to give your traffic stats a push but you will not actually generate a sale or find a prospect for your product. Visitors delivered to you by free traffic Websites will usually leave your Internet site within a few moments.
Targeted visitors instead are interested in the items or information you are offering on your Web site, prepared to break out their credit card! With my Twitter strategy I show you how to get targeted visitors ready to take action. It takes very little while and is simple to do.
What you will need in first place is a twitter account, naturally. I recommend avoid using your own twitter account. If you are having different niche sites create a single twitter account for each niche Web site you have. Please don’t leave the default twitter background and avatar, choose an avatar and background image that fits your product or info best, as it will show your followers that you care about your account.
The next step to do is to deliver content – business relevant good content. The majority of the content you will provide is created by others and will never include references to your own stuff. This may sound strange to you, but here I explain why we will do it.
Make sure to provide best content to your followers and unless you write loads of crappy content or outsource your article writing you just don’t have the cash and time to write all that quality content yourself in a short period of time. When you tweet your own stuff only on every occasion you will seem to be a spammer. Individuals will stop following you when you behave like a spammer. Incidentally, tweets are the short communications called that you send out with your Twitter account.
Second thing of the process is to build a landing page or helpful blog post about your business. This part will be the most significant and you really must ensure to supply good articles. But where will you find all the business relevant content ? Go and google for RSS feeds for your business content, copy the link of the feed and paste the link of the RSS feed to your landing page or blog post. Ensure to pick out high quality RSS feed content. That will make your followers trust you. When they trust whatever you tell them it will encourage them to click your links sooner or later. The links you place in your landing page or blog post is the origin to monetize the traffic you are receiving from Twitter. The Most Important idea behind is that you place links to your products or service you would like to share or sell. The writing in the displayed link should contain a strong anchor text that will call to action and make them click the link that will lead them to your cash site. Here you offer your product or information you want to sell or share.
So, the most important thing is to place a link to your money site at the end of your landing page or blog post. Ensure the link incorporates a strong call to action. The final section of this action will be to build up an email address from your visitors or to get in touch through a contact form or to even make the sale. Because now you are having a targeted visitor on your Web site seeking information. To catch their email address offer a free of charge business relevant ebook or report through an optin form. Once you have your visitors email address you can add it to your email list and feed them with any information or products of your choosing any time you like. Only imagination will make you stop. To automate your information or product emails simply employ an autoresponder of your choosing. Your email list will be growing and growing.
Every tweet you are posting will be of very high quality and will make your followers to believe in you. When people trust you enough they will make your tweets go viral and at this moment in time magic happens.
So, the most significant thing is to place a link to your income site at the end of your landing page or web log post. Make certain the link contains a powerful call to action.
That just about is it. The great thing about this is you will not have to spend tons of dollars to get rolling. As soon as you come to terms with the process this shouldn’t take more than about 20 minutes per day. Give it a try, it’s a superb way to drive targeted traffic to your Website.
Choosing the Right One for You: Video Conferencing or Telepresence
Sometime, there is a level of confusion between the terms – video conferencing and telepresence. The line of distinction gets blurred, as web conferencing technology continues to improve. It is easy for inexperienced persons to get confused with the various collaborative technologies. There are a number of factors that must be explored for a balanced assessment. For instance, image resolution, bandwidth requirements and connection stability.
* Which is Better?
Since being introduced in 2006, telepresence has gained momentum in the communications field. It seeks to create a more immersive experience than that offered by video conferencing or web conferencing solutions. Many business people are satisfied with the video conferencing hence they consider it as a highly evolved technology than telepresence. With the help of large screens, participants are presented life sized and it is the combination of both video and audio communications between two or more end users.
Ultimately selecting one over the other depends on the end user’s requirements. There is wisdom in using an online collaboration solution that grows as the company grows, hence the popularity of web or video conferencing. For smaller companies the cost of telepresence technology is prohibitive. There are efforts underway to develop reasonably priced options to capture all segments of the market.
Telepresence might be the best option for the people who consider “immersive” aspect vital to the success of a meeting. Users of video conferencing are generally happy with their choice, notwithstanding the possibility of connectivity and image quality issues.
The only real option that successfully combines the best of both worlds is web conferencing. These two options are seen as appealing to different sectors of the market often. Nonetheless, both online meeting options serve the same but bit differently. Web conferencing not only allows interactive web conferencing, it enhances it with a number of useful features such as:
- Whiteboards
- Application sharing
- Meeting recording
- Remote access and remote support
While companies like RHUB Communications have helped to define the communications landscape, some end users still have questions. This company and other providers have delivered quality web conference solutions that are easy to use, reliable and help to cut costs.
Learning How to Make Money Online
When you begin learning how to make money online you must first have goal. Without a clear goal in mind you will find it difficult to set targets, and without targets you will find it more difficult to make money. That is why all businesses have a gaol and set regular targets that are the subject of business plans.
It has often been said that a failure to plan is a plan to failure, and nothing could be truer. As a simple goal, decide how much money you want to make in your first year. You could be silly and decide on a million dollars, but you are unlikely to achieve that, so be realistic: say $75,000 in your first year.
You can then break that down into monthly amounts, starting small and increasing each month, which will give you the basis of your targets. You should then plan how to meet these monthly targets. That is a good sound basis of a strong business.
However, you now have the problem of how you are going to make that money. There is a large number of ways in which you can make money online, some of the most popular being|:
1. Creating your own product or service
Perhaps you have a skill or specialized knowledge that others will pay for. You might be a children’s entertainer or a hypnotherapist. Perhaps you can write en eBook about breeding dogs, or make a video series on maintaining your own car.
I know of one person that made a fortune by making series of short videos of how to carry out simple household maintenance tasks, such as changing an electrical plug, changing a tap or faucet washer, and even putting in a new sink and laying a carpet. A simple idea, yet something that had a massive customer base. Think of all those women living alone, or even guys that don’t know why a screwdriver has a flat end.
Think of what you are good at, or what you have knowledge of, and work out a way of packaging that knowledge or these skills in a way that would sell. I am a good writer, and make money online writing articles to help others to promote their websites.
2. Sell somebody else’s product
If you are unable to produce a product of your own, then sell somebody else’s. Everybody trying to learn how to make money online has heard of affiliate marketing, even if they don’t recognise the word. Affiliate marketing is selling a product for somebody else in return for a commission.
If that product can be delivered electronically – by email or downloaded – then that commission could be 50% or higher, since there is no replacement cost. Unlike a tub of vitamins, an eBook or software application doesn’t have to be produced again once it has been sold, so the vast majority of the selling price is profit. You can therefore be paid more for selling it. 50% is about minimum for such items, and some go as high as 75% or even 80%.
3. Others
Among other ways of making money online are multi-level marketing (MLM), where you recruit others to sell products for you, you receiving a commission on their sales, buying on eBay, and selling the same items for more than you paid for them, buying items in bulk when they are in high supply, and selling at a high price when they are scarce (e.g. certain toys at Christmas time), and many others.
Each of these ways of making money online has one thing in common: you have to learn how to go about it and how to promote whatever it is that you are doing. Even your eBay business has to be promoted by means of your ‘product description’.
Most businesses need a web presence, either as a traditional website or some other presence on the web such as a Squidoo lens or participation in social networking. They might also need software, and knowledge of how to use it, and knowledge of how to attract traffic – potential customers. Without customers, your business will fail.
This is where most people begin to fail. In fact 99 people out of every 100 that try to earn a living online fail. They fail for one of 4 reasons:
1. Lack of Planning
They did not have a clear objective in mind and did not plan properly. The started their business on shaky ground and looked on it as a hobby. They fell into one of the main traps of working at home: worked part-time, and took time off whenever they felt like it rather than set out the daily tasks needed to meet their targets and work until they were completed.
2. Lack of focus: Information Overload
They did not focus, and jumped from one program to another. They had too much information, and were unable to give any one method of making money online the time to work for them. They tried too much at one time and so failed in everything.
3. Lack of Perseverance
They gave up to soon. It takes time to build up a successful online business. Except for a very fortunate few, there is no ‘get rich quick scheme’. Making money online is hard work, and those that persevere tend to succeed. Most don’t!
4. Lack of Knowledge
This is the least reason for failure. There is no need for lack of knowledge in the internet age – everything you need to know is out there, yet many people try to do it themselves without getting the information they need. Learn from the work of others: do not reinvent the wheel. Trite, I know, but true nevertheless.
Use whatever training courses are available out there. It could be expensive, I know, but there are ways to learn all you need to know without spending a lot of money.
It is important that you do not fail for any one of the above reasons because they are all avoidable. It is a shame that so many dreams are shattered for a lack of planning, focus, commitment and perseverance, and a lack of knowledge. All are avoidable.
Internet Network Terminology Explained
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Internet Network Terminology Explained
If networking terms puzzle you, this should hopefully explain some of the main ones:
a) ADSL – Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, is the most popular form of net connection in the UK
b) IPTransit – An internet connection provided by a transit provider.
c) Atom – Is like traditional RSS, but with more options. It is still being developed but is becoming more common place. The technology is based on RSS.
d) Bandwidth – Refers to data transfer from one location to another. Bandwidth is generally measured in megabits per second.
e) Blog – Similar to an online diary where a person or society may publish its thoughts or opinions, but can also publish facts. Most bloggers update once a week, where blogs are chronologically arranged.
f) A generic high speed internet connection – Faster than a standard modem.
g) Co-location – Where an ISP hosted an individual or companies server or hardware on their behalf.
h) DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol distributes IP addresses dynamically to clients on a network.
i) DNS – Domain Name System is used to translate domain names into IP address, with a DNS server providing the translation service.
j) Domain name – All websites have a unique domain name. Domain names have three sections to them- in the center a dot, separating the name, and at the end a tld or domain ending such as .com.
k) Ethernet – A standard networking method via a LAN, with varying speeds.
l) Firewall – Can be either hardware or software based to prevent access to another network for security reasons.
m) FTP or File Transfer Protocol – Is a method used to transfer files to and from the internet.
n) Host – A client on a network that provides services to other computers or clients on that network.
o) HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol is used for moving hypertext files around the internet. HTTP is best known for loading websites.
p) IMAP – Is gradually replacing POP as the main protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers. Using IMAP, an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate content stored on the server, without having to actually retrieve the messages. So messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can be managed, etc.
q) IPv4 – Internet Protocol version 4, this is the most widely used version of the internet protocol. IPv4 has a maximum of four billion IP Numbers (technically 232) but due to the way it was designed this is actually less than that due to some inefficiencies.
r) IPv6 – Is the next generation of IPv4 with over a sextillion addresses (theoretically 2128) deployment of IPv6 is slow currently but will get great when more and more devices cover it.
s) LAN – Local area network, which is normally defined as being inside the same building or floor of a building.
t) Network – When two or more computers are connected together to share resources.
Where would a company find these services? IP transit provider would be able to provided these hosting services for a company or individual.
Sell on eBay: How To Write Profitable Listings?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, November 19, 2010
Sell on eBay: How To Write Profitable Listings?
It is a simple fact that if you sell on eBay and receive only minimal views on your listings then the lower the bidding or amount of sales will be. It does not matter how detailed and professional your listings look, viewings are the key. And the key to increasing the number of viewings is research!
In order to research, you must first take a look at what other sellers, especially Powersellers of the same items, are doing. What keywords do they use? Which categories are they listing in? Do their listings trigger an emotional need so that the reader simply has to buy now? How many photographs do they have and what quality are these? Take a good hard look at how they sell on eBay to get ideas for your own listings.
When a potential buyer reads your listings, they are looking for good value. So, you must add value to your products. Adding value does not always mean giving something extra free or doing something to the actual product! You just need to achieve a perceived added value which will catch the reader’s attention when they look at your description. So added value could be something as simple as offering a no quibble 30 day money back guarantee. If your competitors who sell on eBay are not offering this then you have added value to your product. The same goes for your listing description – photographs add value, as do the benefits of the product.
Make sure that you write your description well and always include photographs – people like to see exactly what they are buying! It is important to remember when you to write your description in a friendly, informative manner, as though you are talking personally to the reader as this will encourage them to continue reading and arouse their interest.
If your product has lots of features and especially benefits, then make sure you include them in your listing. Do not drone on and on, but be clear and concise and tell the potential buyer exactly why they must buy your item right now.
To sell on eBay effectively, you need to invest some time into creating that added value as ultimately your listings will attract more views and sales. Bearing this in mind, there is nothing more off putting to a potential buyer than seeing a confusing listing before them! Not everyone is a technical whiz so where possible use simple layman’s terms in your description. Show all your Payment, Shipping and Dispatch Times so that they can be easily seen and understood so that buyers can work out total costs and approximate delivery dates at a glance.
If people feel at ease with your auction listing, then they are much more likely to bid or buy. So it is important when you sell on eBay that you are completely honest. If there happens to be a fault with a product, tell buyers what it is as this will show that you are not trying to mislead anyone. Really, the simple rule is to think about what you would like to know about the item if you were buying it, and then add all these thoughts to your description. Don’t miss bits out because if all the information is there in front of the potential bidder or buyer then they are more likely to bid or buy right now.
As your views and sales grow, you must encourage your bidders and buyers to look at your other listings because a big part of your eBay sales strategy is to get bidders to purchase more items from you. So, if you are selling a supplementary or complimentary item let your buyers know and highlight the fact that you offer combined postage if they purchase both items!
When you sell on eBay, your listings should be regarded as an opportunity to establish relationships with buyers. You then need to look after these buyers so that they come back to you time and again. Never think in one-off transactions, even if they do end up as a one-off, because your ebay income depends on customers to guarantee you success!
Email Overload? Gmail Priority Inbox Can Help!
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Email Overload? Gmail Priority Inbox Can Help!
I have been using Gmail for quite some time now and it’s been really a great help. I especially love Gmail Labs! As if that wasn’t excellent enough, Google’s creative ideas now has another innovation for a lot of us who are overwhelmed by too much email: Gmail Priority Inbox.
* What is Gmail Priority Inbox?
You know how our inboxes are often flooded with a lot of messages daily? There’s mail our colleagues, from our subscriptions, from family and friends, and spam. Some of these emails need to be answered right away, some can be ignored and deleted and some may need responding at some point later. It can be very difficult keeping track of it, right?
If you’re having trouble dealing with your mails daily, then this is the perfect solution. It can be really time-consuming to figure out which mails need to be read or deleted and what needs a reply ASAP.
What if your mail could predict what’s really important for you without you having to sort through everything one by one?
This is what Gmail’s Priority Inbox does. It’s a great new way to handle information overload in Gmail. It helps you focus on the messages that really matter, without any complicated rules.
* How it works
In the words of Google itself, “Priority Inbox splits your inbox into three different sections: “Starred,” “Important and unread,” and “Everything else.” When you activate Gmail Priority Inbox, as your messages come in, Gmail automatically flags some of them as important. Amazingly, Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict:
Which messages are important, including the people you sent an email the most (if you email Jack a lot, a message from Jack is probably important); and
* Which messages you open and reply to!
Your daily use of Gmail should “teach” it to categorize your messages for you! How cool is that?
Also, by clicking the plus or minus buttons at the top of the inbox to properly mark a conversation as important or not important, you help Gmail learn your email reading and replying pattern! What’s more, you can:
- Set up filters to always mark certain things important or unimportant; or change and customize the 3 inbox sections!
The Gmail Priority Inbox is undoubtedly a great system, and easy way to quickly see what needs immediate responding and what can wait – great for your time management techniques!
Try it now and let me know what you think!
Guide To Server Hosting And Colocation
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Guide To Server Hosting And Colocation
Hosting is a very important part of owning a website, because without it your site will not appear online. The first step is purchasing a domain name but the very next step is purchasing hosting so the site can become live. If you have just a single website or are a newbie into the world of websites then the chances are you won’t want to own your own server (the computer that makes the website “live”) and you certainly won’t want to equip your own data centre in which to place the server. That is where hosting companies come in. There are a range of services offered by hosting companies as described below.
* Shared Hosting
This is perfect for those with just one or two websites who don’t regularly update them and for whom the website is not a central part of their business. The biggest advantage of shard hosting is the price, because it is so competitive the rates are rock bottom. This system allows multiple users or webmasters access to the same server. The hosting company will ensure it is totally secure and free from bugs. They will carry out any necessary tasks or maintenance and fix any problems that crop up straight away.
If opting for this system of shared hosting, there one or two things to consider. The hosting company should offer 24 hour support, as well as provide a very simple to use control panel through which you can access all the information you may need. If either service is missing, you may want to look elsewhere. The competition is plentiful in the world of shared hosting so if one company is not quite right, there are plenty more to choose from.
If shared access to a single server is not appealing and you would prefer additionally server space and an extra layer of security then dedicated hosting may be more appropriate.
* Dedicated Hosting
This goes further than shared hosting and is often the preferred method for serious webmasters and those with multiple sites. Dedicated hosting enables users to rent their very own server with a unique IP address. This means no one apart from you has access to your server and this makes it more reliable and definitely more secure than shared hosting. It provides the user with far greater overall control of the server too and allows more than one website to be hosted at a time. It also results in faster loading times. This is particularly important for websites with many visitors as slow to load sites are very unpopular and discourage visitors from returning.
E-commerce sites should always be hosted by a dedicated server as the financial transactions taking place need the very best security and customer details must be kept as secure as possible. Shared hosting just doesn’t provide adequate levels of security for these type of sites.
Going yet further still however, colocation allows companies or businesses to own their own servers but rent the space within a data centre in which to place them. Owning the hardware itself guarantees the greatest control and security for a webmaster.
* Colocation
When a company has their own server physically stored in a rack belonging to a hosting company, this is known as colocation. It is a very beneficial way of managing your company’s IT infrastructure because it means that you don’t carry the costs involved with managing and storing the servers yourself. By renting space in a data centre in this way you can avoid associated costs such as bandwidth and network costs, power, air conditioning, maintenance costs and more. Owning the hardware however means you retain full control of it and can guarantee its continued security. Colocation also allows you to make regular checks of your server at the data centre because you have physically placed it there yourself.
Server hosting can seem daunting at first, but once you know the basics it is relatively straight forward. Whether it is colocation you are looking for or just access to a shared server, there is a solution for everyone. With intense competition amongst companies offering hosting, it is not too difficult to find affordable hosting and even cheap dedicated servers to rent.
Working Of An Email Security Solution
You are taking a big risk when you are connecting your system to internet nowadays because of the ever-increasing flow of viruses and spam mails. Even the personal information stored in the system and the passwords will be taken out of the network without authorization through the malware and spyware attacks.
You will have to keep in mind that internet is not a secure place any longer. The basic nature of internet is being insecure these days. Even browsing through the websites can prove to be fatal. You will not even realize that your system is infected until something turns out to be wrong. This is the main reason why more and more people are getting concerned about the internet security. One among the major problems related with using emails and internet is the constant flow of spam mails. Email spam protection is of great importance because of this phenomenon.
You must take immediate and drastic steps to get rid of these issues so that you will not have to regret later. Carefully selecting the passwords was one among the techniques to ensure the safety while using internet. However, things have changed and thus data backups and file permissions have gained a lot of importance in the recent times. Cyber crimes are increasing tremendously. This is the main reason why hiring a firm that offer secure email service is of utmost importance irrespective of the nature of internet usage. Even though some security tasks will be conducted by the operating system automatically, other tasks should be managed as well as monitored by the users so that the protection is effective. Firewall can be called as the primary level of defense. The firewalls will allow the computer to connect to secure and trusted sources. There are two main types of firewalls namely, software and hardware firewalls. Even though the techniques used by these firewalls differ from one another, the function remains the same. They check for the trustworthiness of the ports and even the IP addresses.
Getting a email security solution must help you to get ample protection against viruses, spyware, malware and all other programs that may harm the working of the network and the system. You should keep all the requirements in mind when you are selecting a solution so that you will not be disappointed with the results obtained. Normal anti-virus programs will scan the disc and check for the viruses. The program will either quarantine or delete the viruses if any.
Even if you are making use of a good and reliable email security solution, you should also pay attention to the security threats. If you are receiving an email from an unknown source, you should directly open the attachment. Clicking on the active links can also be a bad idea, as it will redirect the page to websites that are full of spyware and malware. You will have to make use of your common sense when you are using internet. The aforementioned information will explain the working of an email security solution.
Benefits Of Managed Dedicated Server Hosting
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Benefits Of Managed Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated server hosting may not be as cheap as shared hosting, but it is accompanied with a whole host of benefits that makes up for that. It is often well worth the additional cost of choosing a dedicated server, especially if you have multiple sites or need extra security levels. Shared hosting certainly has its place – it is perfect for those whose website is not central to their business and who rarely make any changes to it, but anyone who is more technical or who relies more on their site or sites needs something more. That is what a dedicated server can provide.
Renting a dedicated server is as flexible and controllable as it is possible to get for a webmaster without owning your own hardware. No one has access apart from you which greatly reduces the risk of security breaches and server hacking. The server is a physical piece of equipment, a computer that hosts your websites and makes them “live”. No one else uses the server or has access to it and it is yours to do as you please. You can host multiple sites on it too which makes it worthwhile if you do have more than one as it keeps them in the same place.
Sites that have high traffic benefit greatly from a dedicated server. Loading times are faster as you are using exclusive rather than shared bandwidth and processing power and have your own IP address. Nothing drives visitors away from a site quicker than a slow loading page. Those on shared servers also share an IP address which means that all web traffic has to be directed to host header reading software situated on the server before a web page can load. Although this is usually quick, occasionally it is not and can slow the loading times right down.
Dedicated servers are also much more reliable than shared servers which are more prone to problems and down time. Downtime will discourage visitors from returning to your site so it is important to minimise this risk. If you are sharing with a site that sees a sudden surge in traffic, then your own site could come down due to the congestion. If another site on the server is infected with a bug or a virus, then your site too could become infected. Although this is relatively rare, it nevertheless does happen and should be considered before taking out shared managed hosting.
Security is another area that sees dedicated servers come out on top. You and only you have access to the server. That means viruses cannot make their way there on the back of another site or application. Also it is possible to implement an external firewall which provides a further layer of protection against problems, bugs and viruses. When you choose a dedicated hosting plan, it is possible to quickly and easily upgrade the plan. That means additional bandwidth or memory can be obtained and it is also possible to increase your processor speed. This makes it a flexible solution to hosting that can grow as your website grows.
Although shared hosting is good value for money and works well for many people, it is not ideal for the serious webmasters and technical gurus out there. E-commerce sites in particular should not be hosted on shared servers due to the financial transactions that take place and the need for high security levels of customer details. Server hosting may seem a little bit confusing at first, but once you have assessed your needs it is simple to find a plan that suits you. Managed server hosting takes all the hassle and stress out of hosting websites as the hosting company take care of everything. It is possible to find a variety of affordable and perhaps even cheap dedicated server companies on the web who will provide a great service for a very reasonable monthly fee.
Internet Sources to Make Money Online with MySpace
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Internet Sources to Make Money Online with MySpace
There are numerous sources to make money online with MySpace. To diversify is one great option for Internet marketers. Here are some sources of products that you can market through MySpace:
* Affiliate marketing
You can link to from this popular profit sharing company. You could select products and promote then. You could choose from a plethora of products .They also provide widgets and product graphics to help you promote. One very good example of these is Google Adsense. Webhosting companies, blogging communities are also into affiliate marketing.
* Multi Level Marketing or MLM
This is similar to affiliate marketing but different in the commission scheme. In MLM, you can earn up to the third generation of buyers, depending on what the company offers. You can make money online with MySpace by enlisting other members to become MLM down lines.
* Direct advertisers
You can accept direct advertisers to display their product ads in your page. Companies also prefer it because it is cheaper and they can observe readily the performance of their product ads.
* Bloggers/website owners
A blogger may request you to post his site’s URL or product widget. He will compensate you in cash or kind. If the owner is your friend, you can have a reciprocal posting for both. This is called reciprocation.
* Sites providing services
Webhosting sites, Domain name, and PayPal offer handsome premiums or packages. You can simply copy their code and post them in your site or MySpace page.
* Provide your own product
This is the best scenario. If you have a previous offline business, you can now market it online. If you have your own product, you will be very motivated to promote and market it.
Having all of these as your sources, there is no longer a need to use more. You can now make money online with MySpace.
Why not take a look at how to use Facebook to you own advantage. Click the link below to see what else you can do.
How to Get Your Blog and List Building Working in Harmony to Build Your Internet Home Business?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, November 12, 2010
How to Get Your Blog and List Building Working in Harmony to Build Your Internet Home Business?
For anyone who gets involved in an internet home based business, one of the first things that they are taught to do in order to build a successful online business is to get a website, a blog and an auto-responder. In fact these three things are the most important tools when starting an internet business.
What we are going to discuss here is ways to get your list building and blogging activities to synchronize in such a way that your marketing efforts will support both these activities at the same time. In other words, your blog will support your list building and your list building will support your blog.
Let’s begin by looking at how you can use your blog as a way to build your list.
When setting up your blog make sure that you add an opt-in box to your auto-responder and place it in a prominent position where your visitors will see it on arrival at your blog. Near to the top and either on the left or right hand side is good. You could offer a free report or e-book as an inducement to sign up to your list.
Whenever you make a new post to your blog, sign off with your name and a link to your squeeze page. Encourage your visitors to sign up to your list so that they will be notified every time you make a new post on your blog.
Another way that you can promote your blog is by inviting people to comment on your blog posts. The advantage for them is that their comments can link back to their websites when they enter the URL field on the comment form.
If your business is internet marketing then make posts about this and teach your subscribers about the benefits and etiquette of commenting and linking back to their sites from the blog comments. Make sure that they understand that spamming is not an option.
Whenever you make a new post about something controversial or a review on a product or service, email your list and ask them to give you their opinions on whatever you have blogged about and include a link to your blog post.
You should see a significant increase in traffic to your site from your email list if your post is well targeted and also a big increase in the number of comments that you get to each article.
Offer your readers the opportunity of using your posts on their own blogs provided they include a link back to your site and acknowledge you as the author of that post. Also submit your articles or posts to other peoples’ blogs for possible inclusion on their sites. Invite your email list to submit articles for possible inclusion on your blog with a link back to their sites and inform them of how guest blogging will help to increase their own profiles on the internet. This will help to keep your blog loaded with fresh content at all times.
By adding these tactics to your list building and blogging efforts you will be creating a well synchronized and effective marketing strategy for your internet home based business.
Directory Assistance: How Can I Help
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Directory Assistance: How Can I Help
Blogging can be a deeply satisfying, intensely personal experience. Generally simple to use, blogs allow the household mom, the serial author, the political activist and the high school poet to publish and archive their best efforts and satisfy the creative muse in all of them. Whereas, in the past, publishing was a privilege for the elite few, it is now open to anyone with the time and the means to access a computer.
But if no one is reading the blogs, they can become a disheartening and frustrating experience. A lack of audience can even cost a blogger money – there are numerous blogs on the web that are intended to be significant sources of personal income, between advertising programs and personal product sales. A key step in getting a blog read, therefore, is the use of a specialized web directory known as the blog directory.
* 3 Superb SEO Plugins for Your WordPress Blog
Search engine helps you to generate traffic, but consequently Search Engine Optimization is very complicated, which beginners and expert bloggers dismay in joining such a strategy for achieving traffic. Starting a wordpress by default is pretty suitable at letting search engines see what’s happening. Fortunately, there are wide varieties of plugins accessible to keep you attain a good ranking for your blog, lessen that the stress of typing the code of your blog to obtain results of the search engines.
Here are some very beneficial SEO plugins to help you build a better wordpress blog:
a) Redirection
In improving our wordpress blogs, we cannot avoid our permalinks to be broken. This happens when you make changes to an old post, or maybe in upgrading or improving your wordpress blog also when you make changes on your permalinks. These changes can break up your entire wordpress blog.
Ill explain what really happens behind these changes, each post has its own URL this is what we call permalinks. When it is broken, those visitors won’t find your blog post. The redirection plugin helps you to redirect the visitors to follow the new permalink. So that your traffic will work efficiently.
features include by John Godley:
- 404 error monitoring – captures a log of 404 errors and allows you to easily map these to 301 redirects
- Custom ‘pass-through’ redirections allowing you to pass a URL through to another page, file, or website.
- Full logs for all redirected URLs
- All URLs can be redirected, not just ones that don’t exist
- Redirection methods – redirect based upon login status, redirect to random pages, redirect based upon the referrer!
Existing features include:
- Automatically add a 301 redirection when a post’s URL changes
- Manually add 301, 302, and 307 redirections for a WordPress post, or for any other file
- Full regular expression support Apache .htaccess is not required – works entirely inside WordPress
- Strip or add www to all your WordPress pages * Redirect index.php, index.html, and index.htm access
- Redirection statistics telling you how many times a redirection has occurred, when it last happened, who tried to do it, and where they found your URL
- Fully localized
b) Robots Meta
Robots Meta plugin allows you to point specifically to the search engines which sections of your blog to crawl. This means that you’ll gain more respect from search engines, and likewise more traffic.
This plugin by Joost De Valk makes it possible to:
- Prevent indexing of your search result pages, while still allowing the search engines to follow the links on them, by adding noindex, follow robots meta tags.
- Disallow indexing of subpages to your homepage, category pages, author pages and tag pages, to prevent duplicate content.
- Prevent indexing of your login, register and admin pages by adding noindex robots meta tags.
- Add noodp an noydir meta robots tags, allowing you to opt out of DMOZ and Yahoo! Directory descriptions.
- Prevent Yahoo! and Google from indexing your feeds by adding a meta tag to their head-section.
- Prevent indexing of just your comment feeds.
- Disable author and date-based archives.
- Prevent attachment pages from ranking in the search results over your articles.
- Enforce a trailing slash on archives.
- Edit your .htaccess and your robots.txt from within WordPress.
- Assign robots meta tags to individual posts & pages.
- Verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Add noarchive tags to your blog.
c) SEO Smart Links
Internal linking structure is the prime subject of SEO. If you have more links it just convey how well your website structure is. The problem with this is that if you had to manually go and create links to relevant and important posts you’ll spend hours and hours doing it.
Here are some advantages by Vladimir Prelovac:
- SEO Smart links allows you to specify a word, like ‘SEO’ and then link it to a post on your site. Then each time the word SEO appears on your site, it’s automatically turned into a link you specified.
- SEO Smart Links provides automatic SEO benefits for your site in addition to custom keyword lists, nofollow and much more.
- SEO Smart Links can automatically link keywords and phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding posts, pages, categories and tags on your blog.
- Further SEO Smart links allows you to set up your own keywords and set of matching URLs. Finally SEO Smart links allows you to set nofollow attribute and open links in new window.
- It is a perfect solution to get your blog posts interlinked or add affiliate links to other sites.Everything happens completely transparent, and you can edit the options from the administration settings panel.
Why You Need Static Blog Pages
WordPress offers bloggers two choices in publishing their material. They can choose to publish it immediately as a blog post, in which case it will appear as the first post on your homepage with others following suit.
Or, another choice is to publish it as a ’static page’…a page that stands on its own…meaning it is literally a separate page with a separate address from your homepage. Your readers access these pages by clicking on a link that you have provided on your blog.
Most often you will find these navigation links listed in the sidebar, on the top near the header and sometimes even at the bottom of the blog page. (Make sure these pages open in a ‘new window’ so that your customer can easily navigate back to the home page…you don’t want to loose them.)
An example of some ’static’ pages that should or can be included on your blog are:
1) About Page
This is probably the most common page used among bloggers and the first place I head to after I’ve read a post I like on a particular blog. Use your ‘About Me’ page to allow your reader get a more personal view of you. This page gives your new readers a glimpse or snapshot of the person behind the posts. You can and should include a picture of yourself. Additionally, you can explain a bit of why they should subscribe to your blog on this page.
2) Contact Page
Many times your readers will have questions after reading through one of your posts…or maybe something captured their interest and they would like to partner with you on a project. Whatever the reason, you should have a page dedicated to contacting you. Without this page, you will never know how many opportunities you may have missed with your readers and potential partners. Someone may even have been impressed enough to want to advertise with you. Make it easy for them to locate this important page…don’t test their patience by making it difficult to locate…they may walk.
3) Disclaimer Page
With the new FTC rulings about bloggers that came out late 2009, it is imperative that you inform your readers what you ‘get out of your blog.’ If you make money from your blog through affiliate associations or ads, you must inform your readers of this fact or risk big trouble from the FTC. You can balance this revelation by explaining to them some of the costs associated with your blog.
4) Service Related Pages
Any kind of services that you may offer your blog readers such as coaching or consultation services should be given their own page. Your readers will be more likely to buy your services from a dedicated page that you have set up than a flash in the pan mention in one of your posts.
5) Best of Page
Also referred to as a ’sneeze page’…not squeeze page! All your most favorite or most popular blog posts can be included on this page. Use this page to highlight anything about your blog that you want front and center or you know your readers will enjoy because of its previous popularity.
6) 404 Page
Most bloggers are aware of their 404 Error page. This error page is what someone sees when they navigate to a broken or deleted link or a link that is not working for some reason. What most bloggers are not aware of is the fact that they can customize this page to their advantage so that readers are directed to what they are looking for. Additionally, it provides the reader with something else to keep their interest. A blank 404 Page is a wasted opportunity.
7) Unique Projects
Should you participate in any kind of event…charity or otherwise, it is always a good idea to create page dedicated to this particular event. This gives the event much more importance and allows those with interest a place to follow up on any dates or updates that they need be aware of.
Testimonial Page
Selling an item or even selling yourself can be much more impressive if you include testimonials from others that have used the product or service and can provide their details. Once again, there are new strict rules concerning using testimonials so make sure you understand the new FTC rulings before placing any on your blog.
Although there are many more choices for pages in your blog, the choices listed above should be included in most blogs. Beyond those, there are no hard core rules on what pages to set up as each individual blog offers something different. You are only limited by your imagination.
Once you have settled on a blogging subject, visit other blogs with similar interests/topics as yours and check out their pages and how they have set up their blog. Great way to get ideas for your own.
Blogging is a platform that is growing by leaps and bounds. It is here to stay. The more you understand what elements are important to your blog the quicker and easier it will be to be successful at blogging.
5 Things Bloggers Shouldn’t Do
There are a lot of articles and blog posts on the web that will present a list of things you should do in order to run a successful blog, this is not one of those articles. I want to discuss some of the things you shouldn’t do, opinions may differ but most of these you will likely agree with.
1. Don’t call yourself, “An Authority” or, “Expert” on your blog’s subject
If you run a great blog and seem to have a great answer for everything, then yes, you are likely an expert or authority; but the minute that you announce to your readers that you are, you become a jerk instead. Think about it, the people who we admire the most are those that are modest and in denial about their own talents, whether they fake the denial or not, it is the cool thing to do. Same thing goes for heroes right? When was the last time some guy pulled a kid from a burning building, and when the reporter calls him a hero he says, “Yup, absolutely, I am incredible, aren’t I?” Never, that’s when. Anyone in that position knows that they have to say, “Hero? Nah, I was just doing what anyone else would do, I ain’t no hero.” Otherwise, he would be a jerk.
2. Don’t argue with your readers
It doesn’t matter if he is the biggest idiot in the world, and you are right as rain; you are the only one with something to lose: your readers. If you think that your content is so good that you can say whatever you want to whoever you want, then people will go out of their way to ignore your blog and tell all of their friends to do so also. Treat everyone with the same respect that you would want, even if they are wrong, it will make you look like the better of the two.
3. Don’t fail to remember your theme
This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are so many blogs that ramble on and never recover. Please do not get the wrong idea here. If you write a blog about playing baseball, then each and every one of your posts do not have to be about baseball, but if the last twelve posts are about your mother-in-law’s divorce struggle, then you seem to have lost direction. Yes, people want to understand that you are a real person, with real problems, but unless your blog is specifically about those problems, then stick to the subject.
4. Don’t alienate the “majority.”
Now this is a big one I see continually. Please don’t think that just because two or four people want your blog to go a particular route, that All of your readers want it to go that way. Keep in mind, a successful blog is about pleasing the majority of your readers. Just because you have a few people who Love a particular type of content, it doesn’t mean that all of them do. Remember, you likely have many readers whom you will never hear from on your comments, but are extremely in to your blog. So how are you supposed to know which direction they want you to follow? Well, try using the poll feature in Blogger or WordPress, and ask your readership what they like best; you may be surprised. Also, keep a mailing list that is up to date, and ask your members for their view; most people jump at the chance to offer their voice in a matter that concerns them. Plus, it will make you look great that you are asking for their input.
5. Please do not be a rolling billboard
Look, everybody understands that advertising is what pays the bills for a full-time blogger, but when you jam ad copy down their throat at every single turn, it gets annoying. Take care of the most vital thing, the content, and the rest will take care of itself. Yes, ads are significant, and you should optimize your ads and put a ton of work into it; just don’t be overbearing with them. They are there, people see them, and if they are interested, they will click.
How to Get More Blog Traffic
How to get more blog traffic is the question of the hour. The number of websites in cyberspace has increased exponentially since the advent of the blog. Blogging itself is so easy, even many children host their own mini-sites! We’re talking more than a billions sites pushing and shoving for space. So how do you stand out in the crowd and actually attract a crowd?
First, determine the purpose for your blog and stick with it 100%. If you’re writing about homeschooling, then don’t deviate from the program and throw in your opinion about the economy or the latest Hollywood or political scandal. Keep your posts targeted to your niche, and you’ll attract folks who want to search your site for tips, tricks, ideas, and to see what you’re up to.
Secondly, write with all the personality you can muster. Don’t be boring. If you absolutely go brain dead one day and can’t think of one thing to post, find an inspirational YouTube video to share. Give folks a reason to come to your blog. Think of your visitors as real folks who might come to your home. Shine for them. Don’t allow them to snooze on your site!
Thirdly, post regularly. Put it on your calendar. Every Monday and Thursday, or once a week – whatever is best for you. But post consistently. It’s that discipline and consistency that will draw folks in over the long haul and keep them coming back.
Fourthly, consider how to get more blog traffic with sites like Twitter. Sign up for an account that’s only for your niche. Start off following others and you will gradually amass a following of people. The following isn’t good for anything though, unless you’re actually posting some good info. If you’re serious about getting traffic from Twitter, then log in to your account daily and make at least one helpful post. Never post wasteful information like “going beddy-bye”. Think in terms of giving, serving, being of assistance. That’s what will attract a crowd from the get-go.
Finally, link up your posts with your social networking sites like Facebook. You can set up your blog so that when you post, a notice goes out to your Facebook friends. I will often visit blogs of my friends, just to see what they’re up to. Many people, in an effort to gain more traffic, think of amassing thousands of visitors right off the bat and overlook the eager folks right in their own backyards!
Everyone wants to know how to get more blog traffic, but few actually take the time to put forth the effort to make it happen. You don’t need to invest a penny for quality traffic, but you do need to keep your blog hospitable and targeted. Reach out to the folks you already know and encourage them to share your posts on Facebook. You’ll find your traffic stats increasing within a few weeks!
7 Ways to Encourage More Blog Commenting
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, November 6, 2010
7 Ways to Encourage More Blog Commenting
Interactive blogs are the most successful and plenty of quality comments is a good indication that your blog is healthy and that it will be successful. There are many reasons why people may not make comments on your blog posts and we will cover a number of ways to make it easier or more attractive for people to leave comments on your blog. Of course this is assuming that you do have a steady flow of traffic to your blog and perhaps even a following of people that appreciate the valuable content that you share.
Let’s get started on the 7 ways to get people to leave comments on your blog:
1. Ask for blog comments
Sounds too easy but a lot of bloggers don’t ask for comments and people are not sure they should comment, no one wants to be the first to comment or there is no value in commenting. We will talk more about making commenting valuable for people more in the following points. The end of your post include text or a blog comment icon to stimulate blog commenting or something else that will indicate the desire for leaving comments.
2. Attract numerous people with request
The way you request people to leave a comment will encourage or discourage people from leaving a comment. For example, people love to be a pro and let people know they have something to share because of their ego. Give them the opportunity, ask them to share and let them know when they do share that you appreciate their comments. You can try to leave text like, “What do you think?”, “Do you agree?” or “Are you for or against?” can encourage people to leave comments.
3. Dofollow blog comments
Not all links on the Internet are equal. There are “nofollow” and “dofollow” links. Dofollow links have more value to webmasters because dofollow links are backlinks that search engines will count as popularity to your site and will increase your page rank. On your blog you can change the code so that the links in the comments box are set to “dofollow”. This will attract people to leave comments to get the backlink. This will also attract spammers but if you have something like Askimet or other spam blocker you should not have any problems. The blog software will also allow you to set the criteria on comments so they will only be approved by keywords or other criteria.
4. Get the ball rolling
If you have a friend that follows your posts you can ask them to “get the ball rolling” by making the first comment on your blog post. Once people see the blog post comments they are more likely to leave more comments. Many people don’t want to be the first to leave comments on blogs.
5. Incomplete post
If you are so thorough to cover everything with your post then there really is nothing to share except to say, “Good job” or “Thanks for the post”. Leave something for someone to fill in. Develop the desire to share information and experience. Consider your post subjects as well. Some topics are not the kind that people have opinions about. Choose some hot potatoes in your niche to write about to get people commenting.
6. Blog comments hidden
Is your comments box obvious or do you have to hunt to find it. The layout of some blogs is counter-productive in this aspect and should be corrected.
7. Register to leave comments
If you force registration in order for people to leave a comment you may not get comments. People like to be free to comment and not comment to a registration. With so much spamming online people are hesitant to comment if they have to register.
Implement some or all of these ideas to increase commenting on your blog. Visitors really like to socialize and interact with each other and this will help. I wish you success.
Hitting Your Stride: Four Keys to Timing Your Blog
There are a number of important factors that go into the production of a first-class blog. Quality of content, the layout of the page, how best to integrate video, formal versus informal tone, each of these is a decision that must be made during the creation of the project. That all comes before more esoteric concerns, which include the integration of meta tags, link building, traffic generation, and keyword/SEO implementation.
Yet underlying these important issues is one that many people wrestle with: How often should the thing be updated? Innocuous as it sounds, post frequency is actually vital to the success of any content project, and especially to blogs. Equally, it is a surprisingly complex decision that can involve numerous factors. Time, place, and availability of content all have parts to play in determining just how often you need to update your blog.
* Finding the Right Frequency
Blogging is an extension of the principles of marketing. You want to get your content the exposure you feel it deserves, so you market it as best you can to cultivate an audience. This involves doing the legwork and research necessary to act on good information, and testing your ideas while allowing room for adjustment as you work and grow. Chances are you will not hit the right rate of posting immediately, and that is all right as long as you’re prepared to adjust when it’s required.
No single article can cover every eventuality of course, but we can break down a few core principles to get you thinking in the right direction. The key is to consider these ideas and extrapolate from them, using the other lessons you’ve learned, to build a solid, whole-picture approach:
1 – Make content king.
More than almost any other community, web users are keenly attuned to fluff pieces that don’t really say much. This isn’t true for 100% of the community of course, but those who can pick out an airy, pointless piece will almost invariably be sure to point it out, leading to some word of mouth you probably didn’t want. Don’t pick an update schedule that can’t live up to the content you have available. Stick to a schedule that you know you can provide a quality post for, every single time you sign on.
This has a twofold effect. One, it keeps the ‘pressure to post’ at a minimum. Content drives the posting, and you aren’t struggling every third day to come up with more information, or worse to rehash the information you’ve already posted. Secondly, it shows you have respect for the community, and keeps them interested and coming back.
2 – Set the time and day.
Even though the web never sleeps, a great part of the world still functions on a Monday to Friday, 9-5 schedule of sorts. Taking these rhythms into account can help you build the ideal web traffic for your project. For example, a blog focusing on home and family concerns and selling books related to it might not find as much of an audience during traditional business hours as during the time when people are at-home with their families. Granted this is only a rule of thumb, as many people surf the web for their favorite blogs during lunch breaks.
Another part of this element is the Monday-Wednesday-Friday cycle. Many business blogs and publications settle on a three-a-week update schedule, and the MWF routine works out very well for this. They’re all business days, and the schedule covers the start, middle, and end stretches of a workweek.
Of course since this ends up being something of the default, it means that Tuesdays and Thursdays end up with comparatively little content for people to peruse. Sundays suffer a lack of content as well, for the obvious related reasons. If you find yourself preferring less frequent, longer posts, consider a T-Th routine to take advantage of the ‘gap’ between other updates.
3 – Have a conversation.
One of the most interesting contributions to modern marketing is the blog comments section. Every blogging software out there has some feature for allowing or disallowing comments. As we’ve discussed before, consumer input can have an incredible effect on any brand, and blogs are no exception.
Taking advantage of this resource requires a certain amount of patience. Conversations develop in the comments section as people discuss, dispute, and debate the merits of what you’ve posted. In short, you need to not just let this happen, but cultivate the effect. Allow reasonable discussions to grow, and comment yourself on the more relevant points. Let the consumer know their input is being seen, and that you care enough to respond to it. Posting new blog posts too frequently overruns this tendency, and could rob you of vital feedback.
4 – Be nimble.
As we’ve mentioned, you are not likely to get it right just out of the gate. You may bite off too much to chew, or update too infrequently for people to care. Evaluate the data, ask your consumers questions, and be prepared to change as needed. Flexibility is the ultimate survival tool on the web, and your blog will benefit if you approach the affair with an open mind and a willingness to try several approaches. Pick an update schedule, observe it, and then experiment with others until you have the one that best fits your needs.
Blogging Tips for Your Business
Want to be seen as an expert in your field? Starting a blog will help you do just that. Use your blog to build a reputation and reach customers at the same time.
As you begin to blog, start simple since you do not want to announce that all of this is new to you. By simply beginning your blog and adding to it daily, you are creating the foundation for a great, online marketing tool. As you are writing for your blog, remember to keep your content interesting, professional and on point.
If you become frustrated building your blog, keep it to yourself. You do not want to get in the habit of ranting on your blog, nor do you want to be talking sales on your blog. Instead, you want to talk about important developments in your field or niche. So even if you only have one follower, write like the whole world is reading your blog.
Look at other blogs in your field to gain ideas. Then take a look at your site, and see where you need to make improvements. Look at things like your graphics, layout, presentation, content and the actual writing. Is your site interesting, or is it just taking up space? Good content is the key to gaining a blog readership.
* Get Creative with your Business Blogging Tips
You can find ready-made templates and hire a writer to give to give your blog a professional polish. So take the time to develop your own look and feel. If you find a blog that you like, do not simply clone it. Look at what other blogs offer, and take the best parts of the design to use on your own blog. Always be on the lookout for things that you can use to improve your blog, and then you will create a blog that is better than any of the ones that you used for inspiration.
If you simply cannot come up with your own idea, then you can start with someone else’s idea and customize the heck out of it. Try to find a customizable theme so you can give your blog its own identity. Change the colors, the proportions and even the font to get it to be as unique as possible. You want your blog to look professional and individual, so you can save time starting with a free theme template, but then make it unique.
Whenever you start a blog, no one will be looking. You can start letting people know about your blog, and in time you will build a readership. It is probably not a good idea to post stats on your site until you actually have at least a few hundred followers. Keep adding content. There more content you have, the bigger your readership will be. There will come a day when you have created a huge body of work, and you will probably also notice that you have developed quite a readership as well.
Changing your stats on your own will hurt your reputation. Let them develop naturally. If you want to build up your numbers and comments more quickly, simply join a couple of forums on your topic, and invite readers to review your blog and leave comments. Offer to do the same for them. This way you may even get some good feedback on ways that you can improve your blog as well. As you begin to get comments, make sure to respond to them where applicable, because you will frequently start a conversation that will keep that reader coming back to check in on you.
Another great way to increase the comments left for your blog is for you to leave various comments on other people’s blogs. Using links will get people to visit your blog. More often than not the owner of the blog will be curious enough to check out your blog, for many of the same reasons that you are visiting their blog. This is a process rather than a one-click solution, however it is very effective. As you are leaving comments, just know that once they are posted they are permanent, so always be professional with your comments
Once your audience is established, you can cut back on your comments, but you should still continue to interact with your blogging community, because it is a synergistic system.
A few simple rules can help you with blogging:
- Never alter stats. It is dishonest.
- Showcase your achievements.
- Always be positive and professional with your posts and comments.
- Always respond to reader feedback and thank them for it. Then invite further comment by asking a question.
- Building a blog is a slow process so keep going even when it seems like nothing is happening.
- Keep making regular posts. Even if you do not get comments, eventually you will build an impressive body of work, and visitors will find you.
Blogging is a great way to connect with your customers and readers. It starts out pretty slowly, but if you follow these business blogging tips, in time you will have a full community of followers who look forward to your regular posts.
Things to Consider when Choosing Dedicated Servers
posted by Web_University @ 8:07 AM
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Things to Consider when Choosing Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers are computer systems leased entirely by one organisation rather than shared between many. Typically dedicated servers are rented from specialised service providers and are located at the premises of the hosting company. Technically one such server is just a single computer that is connected to the Internet and this computer caters solely to the needs of this one specific client. This is in sharp contrast to shared servers, where the machine is divided among several clients and their websites, each demanding its own share of the server’s resources.
By not sharing your web server resources with other clients the server benefits gained (such as security) are quite varied. For example, one UK based firm decided to host its website on a shared server managed by a local service provider. However, they were not aware that they were sharing their server space with a file transfer site. Within a year, the firm found itself in a legal tussle for violating copyright laws. On a shared server all the clients have the same IP address, so further investigation was requested. It was discovered that the sharing site was the actual culprit. However, the firm never recovered from the shame of the incident due to all the negative publicity the event had garnered.
* Choosing One or More Dedicated Servers for Website Hosting
The type of server required will depend on the business budget and the server’s workload.
• Economy Servers: You may have a website that gets low to moderate hits each day and/or a smaller budget, in which case a heavy duty server is not appropriate. An economy level dedicated server may be perfect for you, as it is both robust and cost effective for your limited bandwidth needs.
• Enterprise Servers: For a website under heavy load and with a larger budget available, a high performance enterprise-level server may fit the bill. (A slow and unresponsive website under load will severely hamper your business and, in time, your reputation, so it doesn’t pay to skimp in this area). With a high performance enterprise server you can expect fast processing and fast delivery of data.
If you need even more server power, then you may need multiple core CPUs in operation, with increased redundancy in terms of disks, power and networking.
* Providing Your Own Dedicated Servers
Colocation is another method of gaining some of the benefits normally provided by a dedicated server service. Here, the client places its own servers at a server hosting site, rather than locally at the office. The data centers, having been built specifically for the purpose of server hosting, have a long list of benefits that a small business just could not afford. For example: air conditioning & security systems, redundant power, multiple and large communications links and qualified engineers.
Outsourcing systems to a hosting organisation allows the client to focus on core competencies while the IT is well taken care of. With a server management service bolted on, the client doesn’t even have to worry about upgrades or repairs. This reduces IT headaches considerably for a small organisation with minimal resources.
So regardless of whether the client purchases dedicated server hosting or simply colocation rack space, they can still gain from at least some of the benefits provided by a large data centre.
Economy servers are also known as cheap dedicated servers. The name is misleading, as the performance of the servers is in no way weak. Some of the options available include:
• Dual or quad core processors
• Internet connectivity from 100Mbps
• Large data transfer allowances
• RAID option, to ensure protection against hard drive failure
• A choice of operating system
• Monthly billing
These services are adequate to effectively serve any small-medium sized websites, and can be combined by managed hosting providers to support much larger websites.
5 Blog Post Styles to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
5 Blog Post Styles to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
Keeping your blog interesting and fresh isn’t just a case of posting regularly, you also need to mix things up and use different styles of posts to keep your readers engaged. Here are five different styles you can try out to make your blog more interesting.
1. The inspection post
One of the easiest ways to make money with your blog is to review products that then pay you a commission for any sales that you make. The inspection post is one where you take a closer look at a product and review it for your readers.
An effective inspection post will cover the positives as well as the negatives. People want to know what’s good and bad about a product before they buy it and the more honest you are the more likely they are to buy the product through your affiliate link.
2. The insights post
Offering insights to your readers is a great way to write an engaging and interesting post. Sometimes you might have a great tip to share that doesn’t warrant a whole article but would make a great short post. Say you blog about cake baking, a useful insights post could be as simple as instructions on how to grease a muffin pan so that the muffins turn out easily. You can add even more interest by making a short video to show your readers how it’s done.
3. The index post
Readers love lists. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 15 Great Ways to Build Traffic to Your Website or the Top 10 Kitchen Utensils Every Baker Needs. Whatever niche you are in you will be able to compile a useful index post. These resource lists are popular because they are easy to scan and can help people find the information they need quickly and easily.
The other great thing about index posts is that they have the potential to go viral. People love to share index posts with their friends via Facebook, Twitter or the other social networking sites, compile a useful list and before you know it you will have a whole new set of visitors.
4. The interview post
Interviews are a great source of interesting and engaging content for your blog. You could offer to interview an expert in your niche, or the author of a useful book. It will take some work to set up the interview as you will need to contact prospective interviewees to ask them to take part. Once they’re on board you simply need to compile an interesting list of questions and ask them to complete the answers by email for publication on your blog.
5. The instruction post
People turn to the Internet when they want to know how to do something. So instruction posts can be really useful. Spend some time in the forums and see what problems people have and then create a blog post walking them through the solution step-by-step. Including screenshots or images can help to get your message across, and videos are even better.
Most Common Blogging Mistakes You Need to Avoid
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, November 1, 2010
Most Common Blogging Mistakes You Need to Avoid
Promoting an online business can be easy if you know the tools and techniques to use. One effective way used by internet marketers is blogging. How can you make your online marketing through blogs more effective? Below are ten blogging mistakes you should know to help you avoid committing them:
1) Not being committed
If blogging is just your past time, then you can get away with blogging whenever you feel like it. But if you’re blogging is part of your online marketing technique, commitment is important. See to it that you give time to blogging on a regular basis.
2) Not getting any help
If you’re maintaining a blog for marketing online, consider getting some assistance. Trying to update and optimize your blog alone can a difficult job especially if you have other tasks to attend to. Have another person, or better yet, a team to help you attend to your blogging tasks.
3) Not targeting an audience
Niche blogging is surely the way to go. If your blog is not targeted to a particular niche or audience, it would be too difficult to get the traffic you want.
4) The lack of passion
In reality, if your main purpose for blogging is just to sell your ads, then this won’t take you very far. People will instantly see right through you if your blogs are all about commercials. An Adsense ads on your blog without quality content cannot give you a more positive result.
5) Not being original
Some bloggers rely solely on news feeds from other sources. However, if people can read the same content in your blog that they can find from other places, they will not be convinced to subscribe to your blog. They may not even bother to re-visit you.
6) Not analyzing your website traffic statistics
Your web stats can tell you a lot of information. It can tell you which page of your site most readers like, it can tell you which days you receive more visits, where you hits are coming from, what type of readers go to your site and other important details.
7) Not making the needed changes
Don’t be contented with just the same layout, the same content, and the same structure on your blog. If something’s not working, then have the initiative to make some changes. The adage “there’s always room for improvement” also applies to blogging.
Not editing your posts
If you don’t have time to do the editing or you don’t have the editing skills, it is best to hire an editor to do it for you. The role of an editor is to make sure that your posts are free from grammatical errors, typos and punctuation mistakes. It will make your blog more credible and professional.
9) Not using RSS feeds
RSS feeds allow people to get updates from your blog. There are many free feeds on the web that you can use. Make sure that your blog has RSS feeds buttons that your readers can simply click on.
10) Not using keywords on your title tags
Without keywords on your titles, it would be more difficult for search engines to find you. On the other hand, keywords on your title tags allow search engine spiders to crawl on your page and categorize your content easily.
WordPress Features
The online world is constantly shifting and changing, from the introduction to blogging software like WordPress to the advent of social media marketing. Our entire way of interacting with each other as people is changing as a result of the Internet and its ever changing software platforms.
* The Evolution of WordPress
As blogging has become more and more popular, new, web-based, free software like WordPress has appeared on the scene. The WordPress code is accessible by any developer who wants to build a product that works with WordPress. The original platform b2\cafelog has evolved well past the simple blogging functions that it originally encompassed. Since all of the code is open source it has evolved even more quickly than it would otherwise have.
WordPress has turned into a content management, CMS, system, which is software that makes, manages and edits content for a website. The website can be a blog, or it can be any type of website, and WordPress can power the site. One of the great things about using WordPress to update your site content is that you do not need any special programming skills like HTML or PHP. It is the ultimate system of templates, and it is highly customizable.
The website owner can rearrange the site at will, and can easily add pages, logos, shopping carts and most importantly content. It is easy to build entire, functional websites using WordPress at the core. The website owner can easily update copy and add function to their page without redoing the entire site.
* WordPress Highlights and Features
The underlying base of WordPress is a system of themes that makes it incredibly easy to build a site whether it is a blog or a retail site. The site creator can update the look and feel of the website as frequently as the wish quickly and easily. It also offers link management, article indexing, blogging, text formatting filters and multiple author support for blogs. It works with services from other blog sites, and it supports Pingback and Trackback. You can also import your content from another blog.
It also offers security like spam checkers and blacklist for user registration and visitor comments, and it also offers password protection for some of the posts. Not only does it offer a wide variety of basic functions, but you can add on literally hundreds of plug-ins that are compatible with the software.
* WordPress Goes Professional
Even though WordPress began as an individual communication tool, it has demonstrated that it also has a lot to offer the business world. Because it is simple to use, and it makes content management so easy, a business has lower overhead with less time being spent on the maintenance and creation of a company website. WordPress’ roots are in blogging and this feature gives businesses a way to engage their customers.
Blogging also lets companies hear from their customers, and feedback can be worth its weight in gold. By being able to keep content fresh with easy blogging capability, WordPress lets companies keep their search engine rankings high because the website is always being updated with fresh content.
So if you have an idea of a website that you would like to launch on the internet, but you do not have any technical skills, you may want to consider starting your own WordPress blog. It is easy to use, easy to install, and easy to customize for anything that you want to publish on the web.
How To Automatically Install WordPress Plugins
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, October 30, 2010
How To Automatically Install WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins give you an amazing ability to extend the power of WordPress. You can easily install and start using any of the thousands of plugins to bring a wide assortment of functionality to your website. There are plugins for e-commerce, SEO, banner ads, Analytics, managing your users, integrating with email lists, showing galleries of images, embedding audio or video, and on and on and on.
Check out the repository of free WordPress Plugins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/. There are also a number of premium (paid-for) plugins that you can by searching Google for “WordPress plugin” plus a keyword describing what you are looking for.
But they don’t do you any good if you aren’t using them! The good news is that finding and installing WordPress Plugins couldn’t be easier. In this How-To article, we’re going to take a step-by-step look at how you can find and automatically install plugins directly from within WordPress. Let’s get started:
Step 1: Log Into WordPress
Go to your WordPress Admin Center just like you would if you were going to add a new page or post and login as an administrator.
Step 2: Go To the Plugins Tab
This will bring up a list of all the plugins that are already installed. You may find a couple in there called ‘Hello Dolly’ and ‘Askimet’ even if you never downloaded a plugin before, those come pre-installed with WordPress. At the top of this page you will find a “Add New” button that you can click to start searching for the plugin you want to include.
Step 3: Find Your Plugin
If you are looking for a specific plugin, then you can just search for the name of the plugin. You can also search more general terms to try to find a plugin for a particular need you have on your site. For example, let’s look at the Exclude Pages plugin. This simple, but endless useful, plugin lets you create pages that do not appear in your typical navigation. This is great for creating pages such as a Thank You page (for after someone submits a contact form for instance) where it doesn’t make sense to have visitors navigating directly to. To find this plugin, just search for “Exlude Pages” and you it should be at the top of the list.
Step 4: Install the Plugin – Automatically!
Under the “Actions” column you will find a link called “Install”. Click that link to see more information about that plugin and to install it. You’ll want to make sure that the plugin is compatible with your version of WordPress, though plugins will generally work fine for later versions as well. You’ll also want to check that the Average Rating is pretty decent, that the plugin has been downloaded a significant amount of times, and that they plugin author updates the plugin somewhat regularly. These are all good signs that the plugin is still actively maintained and should work without any problems.
When you are ready to install the plugin simply click the Install Update Now button. This will automatically start the process of downloading and installing the plugin into your WordPress. You just need to click the “Activate Plugin” link to start using the plugin.
Step 5: Use the Plugin
Different plugins are controlled in different ways. Most of them will create a new option under Tools or Settings to control the plugin options, others will create their own tab in the Admin Center, and some just add a new option somewhere within the Admin Center. In our example using the Exclude Pages plugin, we can navigate to a page via Posts > Edit (or Add New) and see the new Panel called ‘Exclude Pages’ where you can click the checkbox to either include or exclude that page from the general navigation. Simple!
It’s that easy. You can now search through the thousands of available plugins to add all kinds of functionality to your WordPress site. Did in and have fun!
SES Accelerator – San Diego February 2011 – Speaking Submissions Now Being Accepted.
posted by SES Conference & Expo @ 10:58 AM
Friday, October 29, 2010
Submissions accepted will be for speakers who can cover
advanced topics only.
The SES Program Team is now accepting speaking proposals
for a new show in San Diego. SES Accelerator is a one day, three track event
linked to the annual Online Marketing Summit. Please remember to fill the form
out completely. In particular we are looking for solo presentations with
in-depth information and actionable advice.
Priority will be given to active practitioners on the
client side and those providing hands-on consultancy and implementation.
Timelines:
Event: February 10,
2011
Deadline for proposing to speak: Jan 7, 2011
Further info: speaking guidelines are here.
The speaker submission form is here.
Thanks in advance for your interest, and see you in San
Diego!
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Relationship Marketing 101: Blogging and Inbound Marketing
One of the most effective inbound marketing strategies available for businesses, online and offline, both in terms of cost of implementation and in overall return on investment (ROI), is blogging. Why has business blogging become so important as an inbound marketing strategy? There are a variety of reasons. Blogging is conversation, it’s personable, and it’s informative. Blogging is attractive for both online and offline (i.e., brick and mortar) businesses because consumers (i.e., customers, clients, and patients) feel they are being told a story rather than sold a product or service; and, no one wants to be “sold!”
Significantly, clients and prospective clients become part of the conversation by reading the blog posts and leaving their thoughts and feelings in the form of comments.
* Who doesn’t like being asked their opinion?
And, what business owner wouldn’t pay big money to know what his target audience is thinking, as well as what they react to and why?
A blog is a great way to show the world your expertise, thus establishing authority and demonstrating your competence in the marketplace and to your target market. People like to do business with business people they know, like, and trust. Prospective clients are drawn to businesses and business people who are experts in their field. Demonstrating competence enhances your image and makes the prospective client feel confident about their decision to purchase from you…you, as the expert in your field.
When properly constructed and implemented, an effective business blogging strategy is an incredibly valuable asset. Blogging for business is crucial, whether the business is entirely online or a combination of both, as is the case with most brick and mortar businesses today.
When organized and well written, a blog conveys the ultimate Internet image, an image that announces:
“This business is well run, this is a business I can do business with!”
A well thought out, well constructed blog, combined with an effective overall inbound marketing strategy, conveys a message, an image if you will, that this business owner is knowledgeable and cares enough to seek feedback about products and/or services offered from his or her clients and prospective clients.
A wise business owner values feedback, realizing there is always room for improvement, both in sales and service. Why not ask for feedback from the very people who use the product or service day in and day out? A blog can accomplish this for a business, creating a link both valuable and, ultimately, profitable. The feedback a blog offers is an often over-looked advantage; and yet, it is an incredibly powerful resource.
Significantly, the proper blogging strategy will provide a window into the thinking of your client-base and create a vehicle you may then use to improve your products and/or service.
The feedback from your business blog will also provide ideas and strategies for new products and services. Interestingly, you may even be able to gain a competitive advantage by learning what your clients and prospective clients like and dislike about your competitors, their products and services. Perhaps it’s a product or service you don’t provide but should? Perhaps it’s something to do with price? The blog provides the vehicle, the opportunities are there; and, it is up to the individual business owner to take advantage of them. A well constructed inbound marketing strategy, one that has at its center a well-thought-out and appropriately implemented blogging strategy, will put your business on track to accomplish all of the above and more.
One last word about inbound marketing, blogs, and blogging for business: photographs, audio recordings, and short videos are worth their weight in gold. If you aren’t the greatest writer, and don’t have the money in the budget to hire a good copywriter, also worth their weight in gold, a photograph or short video can help you tell your business’ story. With today’s technology, a photograph, audio, and/or video is easy to create and it’s often the first item to catch the attention of a visitor to your blog.
It’s worth taking some time each day to blog. Think of it as going out to talk to the man on the street. Think of it as time well spent. You will find it to be a great investment in time and effort, the ultimate in ROI.
How to Get the Maximum Number of Links to Your Blog
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, October 28, 2010
How to Get the Maximum Number of Links to Your Blog
It is every blogger’s dream: to be read by as many people as possible. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Several things have to fall into place to capture that wide audience.
First is to get the word out that your blog exists, second is to hold visitors’ interest in what they are reading, third is to make them return for more, and fourth is for them to start referring you to others.
That is why when SEO marketers sit down with blog owners to talk about increasing audience viewership, one of the strategies they instantly recommend is to build as many links to the site as possible.
Just how does link building equate to a wide captive audience?
The equation goes something like this: links to your blog from other sites generate referral traffic and increase your blogs’s Google page ranking.
The former is possible when users go to another site and click on the link from that site to your blog. The second is when Google’s search algorithms consider the links to your site as a vote of referral from the other sites, taking that to mean that you are a site of substance, thereby elevating your page rank. The higher the page rank of your blog means that when users search via Google, your blog will be one of the first ten sites listed on the first page.
* Sources of Blog Links
When you commit to link building, there are many sources where you can get these links. Below are a few of them:
1) Common-niche blogs, websites, forums, and communities
Visit these sites and drop a comment or two in forum messages and posts. Be helpful by answering questions or offering information. Sign your posts on these sites with a link to your blog site. As your presence in these sites is established, so will your blog site generate more traffic.
2) Social networking sites
StumbleUpon and Digg have proven track records in generating traffic to sites, so take advantage of this. Consider other sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well.
3) Directory submissions
This technique is still good for link building, but you have to be careful to submit your site to quality directory sites only, because there are many directories out there that turn out to be mere link farms.
* More Tools and Tips for Link Building
Link sources may be there for the taking, but the key to success is in actually keeping in mind the following rule-of-thumb:
1) Link building takes time
Many sites require webmaster’s approval for links to be established. And with Google suspicious of a sudden increase in links, a slow but sure approach gets the links in the long run.
2) Link building means never having to give up
Not all link-building efforts strike gold – moderators and webmasters may disapprove of your posts, or remove your link signatures, or worse, consider you spam. Continue your link-building and don’t get discouraged.
3) Link to quality sites
Although they are more discriminating in whom to give their links, links from quality sites are worth more than low-ranked sites.
4) Create quality content
Interesting and useful content gives your link requests a higher chance of being accepted and your blog linked to by other sites.
Successful link-building for your blog generates referral traffic and increases your blogs’s Google page ranking. The result? A bigger blog readership than ever before.
12 Reasons Your Website Is Failing
1) The Site Has No Focus
A website should be designed with its primary purpose in mind. You should have ONE thing that you’d really like most visitors to your page to do. Almost everything on that page should lead the visitors toward deciding to take that primary action. Nothing on the page should distract them and “lead them off down other trails.”
Common primary actions that you’ll want your visitor to take are to join your list, buy your product, download a free trial version, or join an online community. Make sure that you know what you want your visitors to focus on, and get rid of the other distractions. It’s been proven that if you give your visitors too many choices, or confuse them, they will simply choose to leave!
2) The Site Has No Email Capture Mechanism
Most honest copywriters will tell you that in most Internet marketing type niches, a 1-2% response rate to a sales letter is VERY respectable. You’ve worked very hard to get visitors to your site, and if you completely ignore the 98% who don’t buy you’re not going to be in business very long.
Incorporate a form into your website that gets them into an autoresponder so that you can follow-up with them. Offer them a free report, access to an MP3 on the topic, or access to an exclusive community. Get them to opt-in, and then you can follow up with them on their topic of interest.
Your opt-in form can be set up “in-line” as a part of the webpage, and even take them back to the point on the webpage where they were reading before they stopped to opt-in. You can also have an exit popup, or pop- under, that offers them a freebie as they’re leaving your site. Once they’ve decided to leave, you’ll probably NEVER see them again unless you have a way to invite them back. An autoresponder is the perfect way to do this automatically.
3) The Owner is “Hiding Behind the Website”
Web surfers are skeptical and distrusting. You need to let them know that there is a real person behind the site. Give them contact information, show them your photo, and even let them hear you. You can easily add audio or video to your website, and allow it to “touch” your visitor on such a deeper level. When people hear your voice or see you talking, and get to watch your body language, you communicate so much more effectively than just the written word.
To add audio to your website, all you need is a microphone plugged into your computer. To add video to your website, all you really need is a webcam plugged into your computer. There are services that will take this audio or video, allow you to edit it with a few clicks of your mouse, and then stream it from their servers or upload it to your server.
A totally amazing service that I use is called Audio Acrobat. I use it to have customers, subscribers, etc., call in and leave testimonials. I use it to record some teleseminars, interviews, product recommendations, and for dozens of other purpose. I do record video from my webcam to this service too. You can also upload video recorded on a regular video camera to this service, and then stream it from their website.
As I said, I Love Audio Acrobat. If you want to check it out, you can get a free 30-day trial from here: http://williec.audioacrobat.com/ It’s where I have dozens of testimonial lines, dozens of audios, and a few videos. It’s also how I save on my web hosting bandwidth 
4) The Owner of the Site Offers No Credentials
The very first question I ask when reading a magazine article, watching a television show, or reading a web page, is “What makes this person qualified to teach ME this topic.” Most web surfers don’t trust you, and believe that most Internet sites are out to rip them off. You need to show them that your experience and training makes you qualified to teach them the topic. In addition to formal credentials a professional looking website also shows that you are a serious business person. Don’t skimp on your website’s design!
5) Not Offering Proof of Statements
It’s natural for you to say how great you and your product are. That means nothing to potential customers. Get others to share how your product improved their lives. Use media interviews, and statements by officials in professional organizations, to provide third-party validation.
Testimonials with photos, audio, or video, are very powerful. Testimonials with just a set of initials, or with just a first name, have NO credibility.
6) Offering the Wrong Payment Options
The majority of Internet users prefer to pay via credit card. If your product allows you to do it, and still make a satisfactory profit, consider taking orders through an answering service or call center, via fax, via snail mail, and through third party processors such as Paypal as well. Evaluate each of these options and decide which of these make sense for you. As an aside, I once considered even offering my customers the option to order C.O.D (cash on delivery). My local postmaster strongly suggested that I NOT do that and also pointed out that it’s almost never done these days. He convinced me that it was more trouble than it was worth.
7) Using the Wrong or Too Many Fonts
When you use different sizes and colors of letters on your webpage you need to have a real reason. When you highlight or underline text on your webpage you need to have a logical reason.
As your site visitor reads your webpage, he will subconsciously ask himself why you emphasized a certain word or sentence on the page. If you had no logical reason, you pull him out of your message as his mind “wrestles with the why.”
Your page should be structured such that a “skimmer” could just read the headlines and sub headlines and get the message. He should be able to read just the highlighted text and get the gist of your webpage. He should be able to just go to the bottom of the page, read the “P.S.” where you’ve restated your offer, and order without being forced to read the rest of the page… if he’s in a hurry.
Using Header Graphics that Distract from the Message
Your header graphic should spell out or emphasize the main benefit of your product. It should be simple enough that the visitor is not forced to waste time trying to decipher its meaning.
Sometimes, it’s better not to even have a header graphic. This is something you should test. You want to get your visitor reading the text on your page and discovering how your product can help him, as soon as practical. This is what will sell him… not cute or fancy graphics.
9) Not Focusing on Benefits Rather than Features
Don’t tell your visitor how great the product is, tell him how it will improve his life. Your testimonials should also provide concrete, and very specific, examples of how it improved someone else’s life.
10) Focusing on “I” Rather than “You!”
Look at your webpage and make sure that it talks about the customer and his problem more than it talks about you, your company, and your products. Your customers don’t really care about you. They care about how you can help them! Read through your copy and make sure that it answers that question. Make sure that you’re not talking about yourself too much, and that when you do talk about yourself, it’s answering the question of how you can help the reader.
11) Not Emphasizing the Guarantee
When a customer purchases with a credit card, or through certain third-party processors, the guarantee is implied anyway. So, why not make your guarantee a selling point? If a customer goes to Visa or MasterCard and states that they are unhappy with their purchase from you, they will get their money back in most cases… and you’ll pay an extra fee for the “chargeback.” If a customer goes to Clickbank or Paypal with a complaint, they will end up issuing a refund in many cases.
Make it easy on yourself by offering and honoring a guarantee. It will increase your conversion rate, and unless your product is total JUNK, it won’t increase your refund rate.
12) Not Using a P.S.
Many busy surfers will jump right to the end of your webpage and read the P.S.(s). If they were somewhat pre-sold before they arrived at your page, many will go ahead and purchase at that time. Use the P.S.(s) to restate your offer, emphasize the guarantee, showcase your bonuses, and to emphasize any scarcity factor in the offer.
2 Free WordPress Themes That Can Quicken Your Blog Setup
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
2 Free WordPress Themes That Can Quicken Your Blog Setup
WordPress themes are also known as layouts or templates. These are files that create the look and feel of your blog content. WordPress themes can be very simple, like the one that comes standard with every install, to the complex. Bloggers can choose from free and paid versions of templates. When choosing a template, you should choose one that will give you a lot of ability to easily customize the template to fit your branding needs. This article discusses 2 templates (or themes) that have a lot of customization features which are relatively easy to a create unique brand.
All WordPress templates allow you to customize them by going into the Edit page of the Appearance tab. If you are not comfortable with PHP and HTML code, then you may have some trouble in customizing your appearance. One benefit of the themes mentioned in this article is they are customizable through a special theme options page, which means you can get your WordPress site up and running much more quickly:
1) Atahualpa Theme
This theme is a free theme that was created by ‘Bytes for All’ and can be found at http://bytesforall.com/ where you can ask questions and get community support for this theme. Once this theme is installed, you can customize the theme in the Appearance >> Atahualpa Theme Options page. Once here, you will find a host of options to highly customize your theme. Webmasters can configure special CSS styles for things such as the header, the layout, and page features such as headings, links and menu bars. Users can easily upload header graphics that can rotate through the header graphic. Other options that can be customized include the number of columns you want on your blog (technically you can have from 1 to 5 columns), which side you want you sidebars to be on, or what you want your widget boxes to look like. The look and feel is highly customizable and is a great start to quickly getting a professional look to your blog.
2) News Magazine Theme
The free News Magazine theme was created by http://antisocialmediallc.com. This theme gives you several easily customizable options that can be set in the Appearance >> News Magazine Theme 640 Options page. The News Magazine theme doesn’t have quite as many options to set up as the Atahualpa theme, but you can add code for site tracking (can be done through the use of plugins), ad rotating and just adding text or java script code to parts of your template.
One nice feature of this template is that you can easily take featured categories and spotlight them on your blog through simple drop-down selections. One very nice feature is that you can control the excerpt length of your blog postings on the index page. On 99.9% of the WordPress blogs out there, the home (or index) page prints the entire text of the blog post. A better format for visitors is to have a post excerpt and they can click a link to read the entire blog. Currently there is no function in WordPress that allows you to display excerpts of your blog postings. This blog theme allows you to display excerpts with their ‘Blog Mode Excerpt Length’ setting.
These two WordPress themes are varied enough to get you started and well on your way with your first (or second) WordPress blog. The ease of these customizable settings should greatly reduce your setup time while creating a fairly well customized blog. To make the most advantage of setting up your blog for more traffic and more automation, taking a WordPress training class will speed up creating a decent blog following.
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Top 10 WordPress Terms You Should Know
My new WordPress clients are often confused about some of the terminology of WordPress. This makes it more difficult to communicate effectively with them about what they want from their WordPress sites and blog. So, I’ve decided to list the top 10 WordPress related terms everyone who uses WordPress should know:
Term 1: Themes
A Theme is a collection of files that create the visual look of your WordPress website or blog. Themes are kinda like ’skins’ that you can easily download, install and start using on your site. Themes also can include some custom features to give you greater control over the presentation and functionality of your site. In general, only one Theme can be used at a time.
Term 2: Templates
In WordPress, templates are one of several specific files that control how a particular page on your site is displayed. For instance, your theme may have multiple page layouts, perhaps one with a sidebar and one without. There are also templates that control the top of all your pages including navigation, called a “header”, the bottom of all your pages, called a “footer”, and “sidebars” (see below). Templates can also be created for a specific page or post, category, and much more.
Term 3: Plugins
Plugins are a collection of files that you can download and install to add some certain functionality to your site. For instance, there are plugins for e-commerce, Search Engine Optimization, to create specific features like a calendar, or to modify how you control and operate your website. There are 1,000’s of plugins, most of which are free.
Term 4: Sidebar
A sidebar is a section of your website that generally displays the along the left or right side of your pages, but can also appear in other places, such as the footer. You can also have multiple sidebars in your site based on the templates you have.
Term 5: Widgets
Widgets are the individual blocks of content that go into a sidebar. You can easily add, delete or rearrange Widgets in your sidebars by dragging and dropping in the WordPress admin center. Many Widgets can also be edited to give you extra control over how the Widgets appear on your site. Some common examples of Widgets are simple text, recent posts, advertising such as AdSense, etc.
Term 6: Pages & Posts
Pages vs. Posts are a bit confusing and could have its own article. In general though, you want to use Pages for any single pages of content that remain in the same place on your site. Pages generally have their own navigation in WordPress and are good for pages like ‘About Us’, ‘Contact Us’, etc. You can easily select different templates for pages and they are not categorized.
Posts on the other hand are used when you will be creating multiple entries about a particular topic. You can put Posts into various Categories. WordPress will then automatically handle creating various Category pages, which will list all of the Posts in that Category, generally showing only an Excerpt of the Post and putting the Posts in chronological order. For instance, if you had a blog on Hollywood happenings, you would use Posts each time you write a new entry about some celebrity doing something stupid.
Term 7: Admin Center
The Admin Center is where you control everything about your WordPress site. To access the Admin Center you will go to a specific URL on the internet and enter your username and password. From there, you will be able to add/edit/delete Pages and Posts, control Plugins and Widgets, manage your users, and much more.
Term 8: Permalinks
How your URL’s are formed is very important to Search Engine Optimization and making your pages more memorable and understandable to your visitors. In WordPress, you can easily create Permalinks, which are a particular structure to your site. Instead of using meaningless URL’s like yourdomain.com/?p=8, you could have yourdomain.com/my-page/. You can control the permalinks for each Page and Post in WordPress.
Term 9: Tags
Tags are similar to Categories, only they are less structured. For instance, you may have a Post about your favorite Football team, which perhaps you are putting in a “Sports” category. You could also use some tags like ‘Football’, ‘Cincinnati Bengals’, and ‘Carson Palmer’. Using the tags makes it possible to have a list of Tags in your sidebar where people can click the different Tags to bring up all the Pages and Posts that have those particular tags. If you have a Search box, then the Tags are also used to retrieve results for the users specific search.
Term 10: Custom Fields
WordPress includes a way to create custom values that you assign to a particular Page or Post. Your Theme, or WordPress developer can then use those fields and values to create custom functionality on your site. For instance, you may want to be able to have a rating system for whatever you are writing about. A developer could set-up a custom field where you just enter your rating and then the system takes that information and makes a pretty display feature based on the rating you assigned. The possibilities are endless with Custom Fields and are a powerful feature of WordPress.
I hope these terms help you to better understand WordPress and how it operates. Even if you have a professional helping you with your WordPress site, you’ll be better off understanding some of the basic principles so you can be on the same page when communicating with your developer.
Best of luck!
Blogging – Understanding The BIG Picture!
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Blogging – Understanding The BIG Picture!
So, is your blog generating any traffic yet?
Probably not… at least not yet!
Your primary objective should be to generate leads on a daily basis and to convert those leads into customers and distributors. So, I’m going to share with you what you need to do to achieve this.
1) Create Valuable Content
If you don’t create content, people will not find you and you will not be able to build a successful business online.
Many people ask me this question, “How often should I write on my blog”? And my answer is, 2-3 times a week or daily if you can. Having a consistent schedule is the key here. When you write “killer” posts, your readers will keep coming back to your blog for more! Write about boring stuff, then you’ll lose your audience!
Your goal should be to write the best content so that your blog can stand out among the rest and have more readers. You also want people to share your posts with their friends and followers because they are great.
You can also outsource your blog content inexpensively to fill the gaps, if you are busy with the other things. A word of caution: you should always check the content before publishing, because your blog is about YOU and the content represents YOU!
2) Generate Social Traffic
You need to integrate your blog with the social media sites so that you can drive massive, free traffic to your blog and ultimately into your business.
a) Twitter
* Make your blog your primary website link on Twitter. Top tip: Use a link to a capture page on your blog. * Use a greet box plug-in to greet and welcome visitors from Twitter. It makes it more personal. * Use tools to automatically tweet about your new blog posts when they get published. * Use a comment system to get more viral traffic as the commentors’ followers get exposed to your content – very powerful!
b) Facebook
* Link to your blog from your Facebook profile. Top tip: Use your blog as the only link on your profile. * Use a greetbox plug-in to greet and welcome visitors from Facebook. It adds a personal touch. * Use tools to update your status each time you publish new content. * Import your blog RSS feed into Facebook as “Notes”. Top tip: Use “excerpts” in order to send your readers to your original posts. If you don’t do that, people will read the full content on Facebook and leave comments there. Remember that your goal is to drive traffic to your blog! * If you have a Facebook group, send your members a message about your new posts, in order to get more visitors and readers. * Use a comment system to get more viral traffic as the commentors’ friends get exposed to your content.
c) YouTube
* Link to your blog from your YouTube profile. * Create short videos to promote your new posts. Send your viewers to the relevant blog link for full content, from the video description.
3) Generate Search Traffic
You also need to take advantage of the traffic from the search engines such as Google. The most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to search results is keywords.
It’s important that you do a keyword research before writing your posts so that people can find your content as well as ranking high in the search engines.
Once you have decided on your keywords, there are factors contributing to where your blog could show up in the search engines.
a) On-Site Factors refer to things that you do on your blog that can affect your search engine rankings:
* Domain name – having the keywords that you want to rank for in your domain name is very powerful. Also, the age of the domain has some impact on Google, believe it or not – old domain will rank better than the new one. * Title and meta description – having your keywords in the blog title and meta description helps with your blog ranking. * Keyword density – pay attention to how often your keywords are used in your posts. Don’t overuse them! * Blog structure – having your content organized and linked together internally helps your blog to get ranked on each of the categories or sections. * Outbound links – every link from your page to another site, causes it to lose a little rank. Don’t use a lot of outbound links.
b) Off-Site Factors refer to things that do not happen on your site but make a big difference:
* Inbound links are a very important part of your blog linking strategy in order to attract more traffic to your blog. Quality and quantity of these links are important. * Anchor text – use the relevant keyword that you want to rank for instead of words such as “click here”.
4) Share Your Offer
The above process is intended to get people to opt-in your list. So, it’s very important that you pay attention to your opt-in box. It will allow you to capture your readers’ information so that you can follow up with them and share what you have to offer with them. Then that will mean more money in your pocket!
If you ever wanted to have a good blog in place for your business, the time is now. Implement these strategies and take your blog and business to the next level!
How To Pick The Right Business Theme
If you want a blog for your business then you need a professional looking theme. The right theme can make your blog look professional. The wrong theme can make it look like a kid put it together.
The right theme can get people reading through your site. If you get your theme wrong you may not be found in the search engines. To start with just look at the overall appearance of the theme.
This should give you an overall feeling of whether a theme may work for you or not. You need to decide how many columns you want, what colors you want, and any features that you might want.
A customizable theme can provide you with even more options. Start with the free themes available at WordPress. If you can’t find one you like you can look for premium WordPress themes. It’s generally not advisable to go with free themes away from the WordPress site.
These may have no support, or even worse, viruses embedded in them. Make sure anything you choose comes with support. The support forum is usually sufficient. Check to make sure that it is active and the moderator responds in a timely fashion. Additionally, positive reviews are a good sign.
Once you have a few good-looking business WordPress themes, you want to check the specs. It’s important that they’re compatible with all the different browsers online. Also, they should be quick to load. They should also be widget friendly and search engine optimized
The easiest way to go to install a theme is to go to appearance on the sidebar of your WordPress control panel. The first link under there is themes. Click on it, then click add new at the top of your screen. This will take you to an area where you can browse all sorts of free WordPress themes.
You can choose any of them you want to use on your site.
Look for one with good reviews. Also, choose one that is widget friendly, search engine optimized, compatible with all browsers, and fast loading. Some of them will list these features bright in the description.
If you can’t find a theme you like then you may want to consider buying one. There are a number of these available all over the Internet. Again, you want to look at the reviews make sure you are getting a good product. The theme should come with support. Most of the time, this is the support forum.
Make sure that it is active and the administrator responds quickly to any problems. Also, look for one that is easy to adapt. As you become more experienced you’ll want a more unique blog.
How To Set Up a Blogger Blog
Setting up a blog on Blogger is quite easy. The first thing you want to do is to set up a Google account for the blog. You can do this by going to Blogger.com and then following the link in the resources section.
It takes about 2 or 3 minutes to set up a Google account. If you already have a Google account you can use it if you wish.
After you have set up your Google account you should go back to Blogger.com and sign-in using your Google account username and password. Your username is typically the e-mail address you used when creating the account.
You can set up your account so it remembers your username and password. Only do this if you are on a non-shared computer.
Look for the “Create a blog” option on the dashboard of Blogger. The dashboard is the page you go to every time you log onto your Blogger account. You can manage several blogs from the same dashboard if they were all created with the same Google account.
You will be asked to name your blog. You want to create an easy to remember, easy to find name that makes it clear what your blog is about. Try not to have a blog name that is too long. It will be the first part of the web address of your blog. For example if you name your blog “Teds Tidbits” your URL will be: tedstidbits@blogspot.com.
The next thing you need to do is to choose your template. Blogger has a number of templates to choose from. You do not have to agonize over which template to use because you can change the template at any time.
Write your first official blog post using the template Blogger provided. Feel free to add a picture, etc. Once you submit that first blog posting you will be able to view your new blog, edit the posting, etc.
At this point you can personalize your blog so it stands out. Many different aspects of the blog can be changed, moved around, etc. Click on the “Layout” option and start to make your blog stand out from the other blogs out there. You can undo virtually anything that you do so do not be shy to experiment with different layouts for your blog.
Once you finish your layout you are done. I wish you Happy blogging!
FIRST Business Social networking your way
Search Engine Watch–Jeffrey Hayzlett, Celebrity CMO: A Story of Kodak’s Marketing Catalyst at #SESChi
WebProNews–Keeping Your Brand Relevant
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: SEO 101
Search Marketing Sage–Live From SES Chicago: “SEO 101″
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Local 2.0: The Evolution of Local Search
BIA/Kelsey–SES Chicago: New Rules for Local Search
aimClear Blog–Rockstar Tips on How to Optimize Videos For Search
WebProNews–Using Social Media As A PR Tool For Your Business
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Conversion Ninja Toolbox
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Crowd Sourcing For SEO & Social
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Killer Facebook Marketing Tactics
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: How to Become a Link Magnet
WebProNews–YouTube Can Help Promote Your Business
aimClear Blog–B2B Marketing: Red-Headed Step-Child of SEM World?
Search Marketing Sage–Live from SES Chicago: “B2B Marketing Tips”
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Twitternation & Automation
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Content Marketing Optimization
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Paid Search 101
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The Art of Podcasting
A common 21st century phrase is ‘podcast’ an odd combination of the words iPod and Broadcast; the iPod being, Apples market dominatingly popular portable MP3 player. This expression is used to define a technology that lets users routinely download available audio files for listening to later, and is no longer exclusive to the iPod as many other software and hardware combinations now be used for the very same thing.
The roots of podcasting most likely lie in the blogging world as it is the natural progression to broadcasting information via the written word. I’m sorry for chucking another buzzword in the form of ‘blogging’, but with technology suddenly becoming cool there are dozens of new ones making their way in to our vocabularies. A blog, for those of you that don’t know, is an online journal that is frequently updated and intended for the general public. I should also just mention a technology known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which provides a continuous feed detailing updates that have been made to a particular data source; a podcast site for example.
The conventional media sources like TV, radio or streaming Internet media offer minimum control with regards to when the recordings are heard. Podcasting lets users get their hands on the downloaded content automatically carted over to their compatible player so they can listen to it later. In my opinion this is key to the technologies success and why it became so popular, so quickly similar to the way most technology is going success relies upon on demand content, tailored the users lifestyle, not vice versa.
For arguments sake let’s say, that I get the bus to the office and I want fresh and exciting content to listen to on a daily basis. If I head over to one of the many online resources available (for example www.podcast.com), I can subscribe to as many podcasts as I want from the thousands available. From this point on when I plug my iPod (other MP3 players are available) in for it to synchronize with my PC the latest available from my podcast list will be downloaded for my listening pleasure. The topics covered by podcasting in general are incredible and include everything from the music to technology, gaming, religion and world news.
Assuming you don’t want to individually move podcasts onto your MP3 player upon release, you will require specialist software such as the excellent free download Juice to make the rather tedious job automated. When the software is all setup you can go about adding as many podcasts as you like (and will have the time to listen to) and Juice will make sure it keeps you up to date. Fortunately there are versions of Juice to run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS ‘ it is very much a cross platform compatible application fits nicely with the podcasting ethos of access for all.
A subject as diverse and with as much content as Podcasting cannot really be convincingly covered in one article so the best tip I can give you is that if you are at all interested then download the software, visit the directories and take some time to see what’s out there.
Yes, there is a load of absolute rubbish but all you ever have to do is hit the unsubscribe button; as with many things in life you have to sift through the chaff to get at the wheat.
I do have one last tip I feel I should share – Subscribe to the Chris Moyles podcast; it’s fantastic!
Blogging – How Often do I Post?
Many bloggers, especially new bloggers wonder how often they should post on their blog. Do they post at a furious pace until their fingers bleed? Do they post only when the spirit moves them? The answer is somewhere in between.
Bloggers need to have a general idea of how often they plan to post. Consistency is more important than volume when it comes to posting. If you start off with great passion and post 5 or 10 postings every day for a month then suddenly lose steam your followers will recognize this and wonder if you are losing interest in your own blog. If you lose interest so will they.
How Often to Post – Gain Momentum
You are always better off gaining momentum rather than losing steam. Start off your blog by adding postings at a pace you know you can keep up with. On days that you are feeling particularly prolific you should create extra posts and save them in your admin panel without actually publishing them.
You can build a stockpile of posts that can be used on days you have nothing to say or are unable to sit down and focus on your blog at all. This is a good way to make sure that you are prepared for any unplanned writing absences.
How many posts you start off with per day will depend on your blog’s focus. If you are a corporate blog you can likely start with one very good post per day. If you have an entertainment blog you probably want at least four or five short postings per day.
What is my Starting off Point?
The best way to determine your starting off point is to look at the competition. See how often they post and how long their postings are. You do not have to duplicate their effort but you do not want to be too far below it.
You must also consider quality. Quality should not suffer for the sake of quantity. If you find that some of your posts are not good enough for your blog because you were focused on getting out extra posts you should consider scaling back a bit and sustain a volume that is comfortable for you.
The bottom line is you need to keep your blog updated and current with content but you do not want to become a slave to it. Try to find a realistic pace that can grow over time.
SES Chicago Blog Coverage: Day 1
posted by SES Conference & Expo @ 4:48 PM
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
360 Fresh Influence–The Future of Search
SEOptimise–What is the Future of Search Marketing?
Chicago Now–Geek Becomes Geek-Chic
Search Engine Watch–Three Key Reasons To Go To SES Chicago
TopRank Blog–SES Chicago: 4 Great Reasons to Attend
Promedia Corp–SES Chicago 2010 Next Week
aimClear Blog–Avinash, Analytics & Making Love To Keywords That Matter
WebPro News–Avinash Kaushik Delivers SEM Advice
Search Marketing Sage–Live from SES Chicago: Keynote Speaker & Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik
AdCenter Blog–Avinash Kaushik Kicks Off SES Chicago with 5 Components of Search Marketing
WebProNews–The Future of Search Looks a Lot Like the Present (on Steroids)
Search Marketing Sage–Live from SES Chicago: “Search: Where to Next?”
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Remaining Agile Amidst Seismic Shifts in the Social Media Landscape
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Update on Real Time Search: I Want it Now!
WebProNews–The Intersection Of Marketing And Real-Time Search
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Social Integration: Creating Interactive Conversations Across Channels
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Brand, Trademark & Reputation Management
Search Engine Roundtable–SES Chicago: Beyond Listening-Establishing & Hitting Metrics with Social Media
aimClear Blog–Why Content Creation 3-Ways Are 1 Smart, Sexy Strategy
aimClear–Boosting Response, CTR & Conversion: Bryan Eisenberg’s Secret Formula
Search Marketing Sage–Live from SES Chicago: The Secret Formula to Boost Response
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YouTube DMCA Ruling is Good News for Blog Sites
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
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