Web 'U' RSS Feeds
Posts Tagged ‘Podcasts’
More than Micro in Helping your Online Business
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Microblogging: More than Micro in Helping your Online Business
Microblogging; it may sound small due to the “micro” word; but I tell you; it’s one of the giants on the internet when it comes to traffic, promotion and sales for your blog. You must know which microblogs can give you the best benefit.
Without even visiting the web-page, a good Keyword Analyzer will have a module that will tell you whether or not links on the page use “NoFollow” tags. This lets you avoid you from wasting your time on building links from sources where you receive no search engine benefits. It’s otherwise known as Follow or No follow.
Let’s proceed to what makes microblogging so attractive, not only to marketers, but also to customers. The fact that the fewer words make them easier to read, understand, and digest. Another is that readers get to be curious about the microblogs, since its brevity only allows for teasers and promotions. If done right, microblogs can attract large traffic into your site.
Let’s look at the top 5 giants when it comes to microblogging:
1. Twitter
Tweeting is now the trend. And no, it doesn’t mean making bird-like sounds. Twitter is a microblog which allows people to post status messages, called Tweets. Twitter’s interface was made to be user-friendly.
2. Plurk
Plurk is a new player when it comes to microblogging but it’s faring well. It attracts many people, especially those that would like a visual representation of their microblog posts, which Plurk provides.
3. Jaiku
Obtained by internet storm, Google, Jaiku was first obtained in 2007, and has since been closed to users first to start with the beta testing.
4. Pownce
Another one that’s very similar to Twitter in the way it presents its microblogs, is Pownce. However, unlike Twitter it has a 140-character limit.
5. Spoink
Crazy name, lovely microblogging platform. Spoink allows microblogging from mobile phones. While this may not be considered an innovation since many microblogging sites are already ahead of that, but Spoink is one up above the rest because it allows podcasts to be featured from everywhere.
Now, affiliate marketers should seriously consider going into microblogging. Before you proceed with microblogging; first weigh your options whether it’s important for you and your business and whether you’ll target the right audience.
For affiliate marketers and the like, microblogging is one of the things you would want to get into. With the certain age groups that it targets, the customers might probably be into microblogging sites. So just from there, you can already see what a big prospect market, microblogging sites can be. Aside from that; it can help build up your site’s awareness and also add up to your credibility.
Also, if you are too busy to scout for updates about the other sites that are relevant to yours, you can also get generous updates from microblogging sites too. Given though, that you do take time to do the search required to do just so. Aside from that, microblogging sites help expand your business and gain some contacts or followers.
So now that you have seen and read the importance of microblogging; you ask yourself where you can get more information?
(3 Comments )
A Flaming on Your Blog
Flaming is something that every blogger will see from time to time. Basically flaming is when someone viciously attacks you or someone else that posts something on your blog. Typically a flaming is very personal and quite vicious.
It is important that you handle flaming, in fact you probably want to have a written policy about inappropriate behavior on your blog including flaming.
How to Handle a Flaming on Your Blog
First and foremost you want to make sure you address any flaming or other personal attacks that appear on your blog. This is especially true if someone is attacking another reader of your blog. Your failure to handle these types of postings will make it appear as if you condone them. You want your readers to know that you value them and will make sure they are not attacked for participating on your blog.
The first thing you should do is delete the flaming post. Once it is deleted you should contact the person who was flamed and apologize for the behavior or the person who flamed them and let them know the offensive posting was removed.
After contacting the person who was flamed you need to contact the person who posted the inflammatory posting. You should let them know the offensive posting was removed and that you do not tolerate that type of behavior on your blog.
If their post was extremely offensive you can immediately ban them from your blog. The alternative is to warn them that if they post anything in the future that violates your blog policies they will be banned.
How to Handle You Being Flamed
If the personal attacks are directed at you, it is important to take action. Just as you would protect any member of your blog you need to protect yourself as well. Though you should always invite feedback and commentary, including negative commentary, you should not accept flaming.
Remove any inappropriate comments and provide a warning to the person or persons who posted it. You can even invite them to post an edited version of their comments if appropriate. Most will probably not take you up on the offer but some may.
If you protect yourself and your readers from flaming you will be promoting a healthy environment where topics can be discussed and heated debates can ensue without rising to the level of inappropriate flaming on your valued blog.
YouTube DMCA Ruling is Good News for Blog Sites
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, April 3, 2011
YouTube DMCA Ruling is Good News for Blog Sites
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a “safe harbor” from strict liability for copyright infringement to online service providers that satisfy its requirements.
A June, 2010 ruling by a U.S. District Court in New York in favor of YouTube established an important precedent for blog sites for avoiding strict liability for copyright infringement by blog posters.
- The DMCA
Online service providers such as blog sites are vulnerable to claims for copyright infringement if visitors post infringing material on their websites, even if the service providers are unaware that the material is infringing. This unfortunate result – that’s often quite surprising to blog site webmasters who are unfamiliar with copyright law – is due to the strict liability principles of the U.S. Copyright Act.
Signed into law in 1998, the DMCA protects online service providers from strict liability for copyright infringement by their users if they:
* Post a specific DMCA notice prominently on their websites,
* Register with the US Copyright Office, and
* Promptly block access to, or take down, allegedly infringing materials if they receive a notice from a copyright owner claiming infringement, or if the service provider has “actual knowledge” that it is hosting infringing material or if the service provider is aware of facts or circumstances that should make it “readily apparent” that there is infringing activity.
This protection by DMCA is known as a “safe harbor”; it completely protects the service provider from vicarious liability for copyright infringement.
- The YouTube Case
YouTube’s online video sharing service permits users to post videos to the YouTube site which then can be accessed and viewed by anyone who visits the YouTube site.
Viacom International sued YouTube alleging that YouTube was liable for copyright infringement of numerous videos for which Viacom owned the copyrights. Viacom argued that YouTube was aware that some of its users posted infringing videos on the YouTube site and that this awareness disqualified YouTube from the safe harbor protection of DMCA.
The YouTube case involved the third bullet point above – whether YouTube’s general knowledge that some of its users post infringing content on the YouTube website can amount to either:
* “Actual knowledge” of infringement, or
* Qualify to make it “readily apparent” to YouTube that there was infringing material on the YouTube website.
The court rejected Viacom’s argument and ruled that YouTube was not disqualified from the DMCA safe harbor. Specifically, the court found that YouTube’s general awareness of infringing activity by some of its users did not rise to the level of “actual knowledge” or knowledge that would make it “readily apparent” which videos were infringing. The court noted that YouTube had removed allegedly infringing videos promptly after receipt of notice sufficient to identify specific infringing videos.
Finally, the court ruled that YouTube had no general obligation to police its website for infringing videos and to determine whether specific videos were infringing.
- Conclusion
In general terms, the key rulings of interest to blog sites were that:
* YouTube had no general obligation to police its site for infringing videos, and
* That YouTube’s general knowledge of infringement, but not of specific infringing videos, was insufficient to disqualify YouTube from the DMCA safe harbor.
Blog site webmasters should be aware, however, that there are specific requirements that must be satisfied in order to take advantage of the DMCA safe harbor. It’s essential that these specific requirements be satisfied in order to qualify for DMCA?s valuable protections.
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!
WordPress software was launched in 2003 and since then, it has piled up enough fame and recognition. It is a wonderful content management system which allows you to manage, edit and update the content of your site conveniently. It has a template system. It allows you to re-arrange widgets without editing PHP or HTML code. You can also install and switch between themes.
WordPress is an award winning CMS. It won Packt open source CMS award in 2007 and best open source CMS award in 2009. It is an open source project which means hundreds of people are working on it.
If offers thousands of widgets, plug-ins and themes. It is completely customizable and can be used for almost anything. It is an affordable software since most of the themes are free. When it comes to deployment, WordPress can be deployed using various methods on a hosting environment.
It provides users with the option to download the current version of WordPress from WordPress.org. WordPress can also be installed via Packet management system. You can also deploy a ready to use Turnkey WordPress appliance which does not require any manual set up.
Features of WordPress
- Local Install: WordPress is designed to be installed on your own web server, or shared hosting account, which gives you complete control over the web log. You can easily access and modify everything related to the web log. This is not possible in third party hosted services.
- Portable Core: It allows you to have the tree of WordPress related files. This forms the back-end of your publicly displayed web log.
- UTC friendly: It allows you to define your time as an offset from Universal Co-ordinate time (UTC). This allows all the time-related elements stored in the database to be stored as GMT values. It also helps you to display the correct time on your web log, even if your host server is located in a different time zone.
- User management: It uses user levels to control user-access to different features. This gives you the ability of allowing individual users to create or modify content in your web log, by changing their user-level.
- User profiles: Every user on your website can define a profile, with details such as their email address, instant messaging aliases etc, if they want to. Users can also select the way in which their details are displayed on the web log.
- Easy installation and upgrade: It hardly takes five minutes to install WordPress and it is extremely simple to do that. Also you can easily upgrade to the latest version of WordPress and it takes even less time to install.
- Dynamic page generation: With WordPress you do not need to rebuild all your pages every time you update your web log or any other feature. Whenever a viewer request a page from your web log, all pages are generated using the database and the templates. This makes updating your web log, or its design as fast as possible, and required server storage space usage is minimal.
- Internationalization and Localization: WordPress allows you to create a web log which is localized in a way you want with a language of your choice. To localize the WordPress, get text method is used.
- RSS feeds: WordPress fully supports RSS1.0 and RSS 2.0. It provides feeds for the latest posts, for categories, comments, well, like we said earlier, for anything you want. If you have more options for your readers to keep track of different sections of your web log, the easier it is for you to spread the word around the world.
Comments Off
How To Automatically Install WordPress Plugins?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
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!
How to Get the Maximum Number of Links to Your Blog?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, March 28, 2011
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Comments Off
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.
Have your Traffic to Old Blog Posts and Overlooked Pages Still Draw Traffic
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Have your Traffic to Old Blog Posts and Overlooked Pages Still Draw Traffic
There is little doubt that if you have had a blog for a long time, you have hundreds and perhaps even thousands of blog posts. Over time, your blog readers change. You get new readers, you lose readers. You are most likely writing about similar topics, but your style of writing has changed and/or your opinions about a topic have changed. However, instead of deleting your old blog posts, use them to draw new traffic to your blog. Here are some ideas about how to use old blog posts to draw new traffic:
A) You’ve learned more
Blogging is a learning process. The time when you wrote about a topic does not really matter, for the fact that once and for all, you really have learned more about a topic than when writing about it the first time. Haul up your old posts from the archive instead of removing them and make it serve as a foundation to create a new post. An example of this would be if you did a software review for a new package you just started using then after using it for a few months you found some features that were additional bonuses (or on the other side features you just hate). Take advantage of that old post and start your post off by saying “on (xdate) we talked about (xproduct) and we said (direct quote and link to the old post). One of the features we discussed as you can see by reading the post….” etc.
This does two things:
1. It gives you the chance to write about the same topic with no pressure at all and
2. It allows you to share those older posts with a new set of readers.
B) Nothing stays the same
The rules for blogging change from time to time. Just think over of what the FTC ruling about bloggers on some blogs can do. You can refer back to prior blog posts where you may have endorsed a product or service and point out why it is in compliance with new rules, regulations or where information has changed.
C) Great ego check
It’s really a plus if your readers know that you are keen to accept the fact that you don’t know everything. It isn’t really wrong to admit that you are learning something new even if many readers really look up to someone who is an expert on their chosen topic. Actually, this should have the opposite effect of letting your readers know that you are also learning like them and this can additionally boost the credibility of your blog.
* Summary
Bloggers like any other committed business person continue lifelong growth and learning. A blogger need not be embarrassed of old blog posts and let alone, leave them hiding in the archives of your blog. Instead, drag them out, dust them off and make your new knowledge a shining example of your growth.
Two Free WordPress Themes That Can Quicken Your Blog Setup
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, March 25, 2011
Two 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.
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.
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.
3 Ways Small Business Owners Confuse Their Prospects
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, March 21, 2011
3 Ways Small Business Owners Confuse Their Prospects
Small business owners are smart, savvy and creative. This is, oftentimes, what causes more confusion with prospects. Let’s use an example to make it clearer.
Imagine you’re at a networking event and you’re talking to someone who could be an ideal client. You’re really focused in on them. You’re listening carefully to their every word. You begin to realize they’re not talking about their business, but about their life. You may think to yourself, “Yeah, yeah, we’re all really challenged economically right now in our personal lives, but how’s your business doing?”
And before you know it, you’ve let that slip out and their eyes kind of glaze over. You wonder, what just happened here? This, after all, is a business event, so why are you talking about your personal life.
Well in case you missed it, for a lot of small business owners, their business is their life. That’s how they support themselves financially and spiritually! And this points to the first reason you can confuse a prospect!
#1 You don’t understand their problem
If you’re not “hearing” the problem and the pain it’s causing them, you may address the symptoms and not the underlying cause. Here’s an example. Let’s say you are an expert in providing health and nutritional products. A prospect complains they’re not feeling well and is in need more energy because they’re balancing work, family, etc. You “hear” the possibility for “supplements” could be helpful to boost their energy. What you may miss is their lifestyle may require an “overhaul” meaning diet, exercise, valuing who they are, etc. So the “supplements” will only give them the energy to stay out of balance!
#2 You don’t understand your comprehensive solution
So you focus on the supplements, however your “comprehensive” solution might include an overall plan for this person. An approach that includes “wellness” of which supplementation is only a small part (even though it’s you’re core business). But you have to know your full repertoire, i.e. all of your available solutions in order to be effective in solving the prospect’s problem. And if you don’t offer it directly, who could you partner with to address the prospect’s problem?
#3 You can’t help the prospect bridge the gap
Continuing with this example. If you were focused on listening for the “business challenge” and not asking the questions that help you see the connection between their lack of business clients and the lack of life balance, you will overlook how the two are, in fact, affecting each other. Your role is to help the prospect clearly see the connection; you have to help them bridge the gap. Otherwise, your prospect will not see how your solution will help both in their personal and business life and the opportunity is lost! And they walk away confused as to what you do or offer.
The moral of the story is? Truly listen to all aspects of your prospects “being” because it will serve as a rich source of information. It will also help you determine if your solution will solve their problem. And after all, isn’t that the business we’re in? And remember, a confused mind never buys.
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!
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.
Article Marketing Vs Guest Blog Posting
Since economic resources are scarce and not limitless, one has to make choices according to one’s scale of preference in order to allocate scarce economic resources amongst competing alternative uses.This is the genesis of the comparison between Article Marketing and Guest Blog Posting.
From basic economics, opportunity cost is the real cost of anything in the sense of the alternative forgone.
In the light of the above, since resources, in this case time and money to be spent is not limitless and has so many competing uses, the internet marketer has to schedule these resources between Guest Blog Posting and Article Marketing amongst all other internet marketing strategies.
The comparison becomes more relevant since both aim to achieve almost the same objectives of building backlinks and generating traffic and so are effectively substitutes.
The question often arises as to which of these two strategies is a better option.
My answer to this question is very simple. Start by identifying which objectives each of these options aim to achieve and identify which of the two achieves these objectives better.
Guest Blog Posting usually require very original but shorter articles.
Secondly, the guest blogger quite often gets one or may be two links for each article he gets published on the host website. In most cases, guest posts reside majorly on the hosting website and are not usually syndicated widely.
Some guest blog posting is done free but ironically? some sites require you to pay before you can guest post.
I say ironically, because as you will see in my analysis and final conclusion to this article, I would even consider greatly whether it is worth my while to guest post not to talk of being asked to come and make payment to do this.
They call them by different names to cover up the true intent of such schemes e.g. link building mechanisms.
Such schemes only end up being of greater benefit to the hosting website since content is being supplied to them and being paid for at the same time.
Now to a comparison with Article Marketing
In Article Marketing, the major snag is that you have to write a longer article of about a minimum of 400 words.
Ordinarily, the article should be original. Note that I use the words “ordinarily should be original” contrary to when i was referring to Guest Posting when I used the words “very original.”
This is because article spinners and article leverage tools are now the “in-thing” in article syndication such that it is questionable to refer to such articles as “very original.”
However, once written and syndicated, each article can be distributed to the entire network of article directories of an article syndication service or an article submitting software and with each article entitled to have about two backlinks each pointing to the author’s website, then you can multiply out the number of backlinks each article will produce in comparison to the just one or two, of the Guest posting.
These backlinks and accompanying traffic generated through article marketing now even goes viral when the articles begin to be republished from the original article directories the article syndication service or article submitting software syndicates the articles to.
Do you now see why I made the earlier statement that I will even think greatly before accepting to guest post for free not to talk of being asked to make payment to guest post.
To me, except the hosting website is a very high traffic website and/or high authority website (with very high PR), I do not think it is worth the while, depleting scarce resources of time and sometimes money on such strategies (Guest Blog Posting) given their opportunity cost in terms of the alternative foregone (article marketing) since one will definitely impact the other in terms of the volume you are able to churn out.
Five Reasons Your Blog Needs a Ghostwriter
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Five Reasons Your Blog Needs a Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is any writer who creates content for a project that will be presented under another name. As you are traveling in a bookstore, you might marvel at the sheer volume of works certain names such as Tom Clancy put out. In many cases, these books weren’t written by a single writer but rather many and then published under the big name. This arrangement is a good one for many writers, as it allows them to get work and valuable writing experience, while also benefiting the larger name by allowing more work under their aegis to get out.
Your blog might just benefit from hiring a ghostwriter for the same reasons. Every blog needs a writer to direct it, and blogs do best when guided by one or two voices in a consistent direction. Sometimes, however, the originator of a business or idea isn’t the one who can best capture that direction, and that’s when you should turn to a ghostwriter.
In no particular order, here are five reasons that many blogs choose to hire a ghostwriter for their content.
Reason #1 – They Can’t Write Appropriately
This isn’t referring to whether their content is polite or not, it simply refers to whether the “idea man” behind a project can generate content that fits the aim of the blog. Suppose, for example, you have someone who knows all about the world of competitive cooking as seen in Iron Chef. He knows the competitors’ ranks and accomplishments and wants to use the blog to promote interest in competitive cooking – even, perhaps, in his own cooking school.
The problem is, he can’t write in a way that catches the eye. His writing might be too technical, or rely on obscure factoids that don’t really do much to inspire the reader’s imagination. A ghostwriter, on the other hand, is all about the writing, and one of the best talents a writer can have is the ability to take someone else’s ideas and rephrase them in exciting, evocative language.
Reason #2 – Lack of Time
Many of the big blogs seen on the web weren’t start-up ventures, but rather grew out of a company that already existed. Many companies have seen the success of blogs in other ventures, and have chosen to add one to their own site, much the same way they chose to add a website to their business when the web first got popular. This is a natural evolution and response to a changing market, and is not a bad idea. On the other hand, the owner is usually concerned with other issues and does not have time to devote to writing a blog.
In such cases, the natural step is to hire a ghostwriter. You want the articles to continue to go out in your company’s name, since the idea of the blog is to promote the company, but don’t have time to do it yourself because you are justifiably busy. A ghostwriter can build a solid blog post in about an hour of work, and then move on to their other projects.
Reason #3 – Intermediate Perspective
There is a great deal to be said for being familiar with your product and your brand. You get to know subtleties and rhythms of the business that no outsider could appreciate. The problem is, your perspective is entirely different from that of your customers. They can’t get into the nitty gritty of your brand in a way you can.
In cases like these, the value of a ghostwriter lies in linking the outside views of your audience with the inside views of the company. You can communicate your passions directly to this writer, who can marry them to a perspective of those on the other side of the glass. Their intermediate presence crucially bridges the gap between brand and audience.
Reason #4 – Brand Protection
Writers are a notoriously prideful lot. Some of the fiercest legal battles are over intellectual property rights, and justly so. Creating a written body of work is a tremendous effort, and having it stolen or infringed upon is a terrible offense. On the other hand, a branded blog is not about the individual writer, it’s about the brand and what the brand represents.
By definition, a ghostwriter doesn’t take credit for their work. The work is put out in the name of the brand, or the site’s owner, as a means of projecting the brand forward. The ghostwriter is willing to take their pay without putting their own creative name on the work, which will benefit your brand because there isn’t an intermediate step. If you let one ghostwriter go, either because they move on to new things or you decide you need a new creative direction, there isn’t necessarily an indication of this to the outside world, and the brand’s voice continues.
Reason #5 – Flexibility and Freshness
Ghostwriters in the plural sense can do a blog good, too. If you maintain more than one at a time, you can ease the wear and tear that is associated with writing on the same general subject. Writers are like horses; you don’t want to ride them to death on the way there if you expect to get home. And since writing can be done anywhere, by anyone, anytime, you can cast your net far and wide in search of the two or three writers you need to best communicate your message.
How Wikipedia Defines Branding Success?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Building Brand Identity: How Wikipedia Defines Branding Success?
It is instructive and inspiring to take a look at the people who have succeeded in your field. Whether it’s an attempt to learn from their mistakes and victories or just a pause to reflect on the admirable accomplishments of another, studying the work of those who’ve set the benchmark can inspire reflection and spur us on to greater heights.
The world of branding success stories is one of the most fickle, given the rise of the web. Every day, there is more new information generated and discarded than has existed for most of human history. Trends and fads come and go with ever-increasing speed, and things considered hilarious and exciting baffle people just a few months later. Then there are successes that fundamentally change the way the world sees things. They become so ingrained that everyone wonders where they’d been the whole time.
* Wikipedia
There is not enough good in the world to say about the Wiki project. Those who would criticize it for lacking accuracy and scholarly rigor have totally missed the point. Wikipedia is the spirit of what the web is meant to be. It is cooperative, self-correcting, open to interpretation, controversial and dynamic. Ever changing and yet extremely distinct, it represents the purest expression of what the web can and is meant to do. People are talking about Web 2.0, but it’s honestly already here in the form of the Wiki.
Wikipedia is a simple idea, one so straightforward that it could be imagined it shouldn’t work – an encyclopedia free of charge, open for anyone in the world to edit. It shouldn’t continue to exist, by all logic. The internet is full of trolls who will eagerly fax sheets of black paper to people they’re displeased with, over and over until the receiving machine runs out of ink and seizes up. What in the world is to stop them from vandalizing the heck out of every Wiki page they come across, a fate that many other Wikis indeed have succumbed to?
The answer is that Wiki has taken its audience seriously, appealing to its sense of pride and self-interest.
For every troll who hops onto a Wikipedia or Wikiquote article and scrawls quotes calling the moral and social behaviors of the editors into question, there is someone else who is incredibly well-informed about that page, backed up by both a number of authoritative sources and a deep pride in their work. Vandalism is steadily defeated through pride and reversion, and the sheer scale of people who want a good, quality resource.
In allowing anyone to edit, and treating those edits as matters worth discussing on cooperative terms, the Wiki project has ignited a sense of pride in people. Now they want the articles to succeed; they want to see their hard work displayed on the front page as a featured article.
Additionally, the Wiki project chose an iconic visual aesthetic for itself: White background, clean lines, plain text and simple images. Yes, anyone can edit a page as they like, but the project rewards pages that comply with its style guides and presentational standards. So whenever someone says “Wiki,” people imagine that little puzzle-globe logo, the way a page is set up and the little blue edit tabs in the corner.
Of course, one of the best ways to judge the success of a project is to judge that of its emulators. So for comparison’s sake, let us consider a relative newcomer even to the open-source editing style: TV Tropes.
* TV Tropes
A trope is a rhetorical device. The damsel in distress is a trope, as is the idea of having just one bullet left in the final sequence of an action film. They aren’t exactly clichés, though they can become so. Rather, they are patterns that people have learned to recognize in conversation, argument and entertainment that form the basis of all communication.
TV Tropes is a website based on two ideas: First, tropes are awesome things that deserve discussion, admiration and study, and second, everyone has something to contribute. The site does not use the Wiki format, but does have an open policy on allowing people to comment and post about the tropes they find interesting.
Pages on the TV Tropes site range from those discussing a specific trope to those showing a film or book and listing the tropes present in it. All are freely editable.
The success of the TV Tropes project may not be measurable monetarily like Wikipedia’s or other more commercial ventures. However, the project has become intensely popular all the same. It has the same “well, I’ll click one more link” popularity that Wikipedia had cornered for itself, and the same “I can talk about what I like here and be taken seriously” appeal as all open source projects. People reference tropes in casual conversation on message boards, and it’s creating a communal language.
That really is the key behind these two projects – brain extension. They’ve taken a good idea and brought it into the common discourse, allowing people to communicate with each other. People can discuss differing myths from literature, and realize they’re talking about the same trope, even if it’s not the same story. People automatically click to Wiki for information if they need some quick discussion material. For those who want to take a lesson from the Wiki style of success, remember that it emphasizes not the product, but the way the audience is using and sharing words, language and information.
Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy: 5 Reasons You Should Be Commenting
* You become known within your niche
When you are out in the community interacting and commenting on people’s blogs it is going to quickly build a reputation for yourself and who you are. It is a good thing to have a reputation online because then people will start to think that they know you and are comfortable with you. Participating in discussions on blogs also makes you better known throughout the online community. When people see that you are in the community on a consistent basis, it will show them that you are serious about your business and what you are doing.
When you are out commenting and building your reputation, it is important to be yourself and also be positive. If you have a negative attitude towards others, then it will push people away from you. Another thing to remember as well, is to always be yourself because people can sense if you are being fake.
* It is great for networking
Interacting on people’s blogs within your industry is a great way to network and build relationships. If you are commenting on someone’s blog, they are going to get to know you if you comment on a consistent basis. People who blog will love your comments because it will encourage them to keep putting out good content. Commenting also lets bloggers know that someone is actually reading the content they are putting out, and liking it.
Just like anything else that you want to excel at, it is important that you are consistent. If you go out an comment on someone’s blog one time, chances are they will not remember you or get to know you. If you comment on their blog consistently for a month, then they will usually recognize that and look to find out who you are.
* It is good Karma
Commenting on blogs is also very good for you karma. Meaning, if you comment on other people’s blogs you will most likely get people commenting on yours. When you leave positive comments on blogs throughout your industry you will begin to notice that people will return the favor. When someone does something nice for us, it is in our nature to want to return the favor.
You will get exactly what you put out, so remember to stay positive and encourage other bloggers if you want the same treatment.
* It gives you backlinks to your site
Not only is it good karma to comment on blogs in your niche, but it is also an awesome way to build backlinks to your own website. Every time that you leave a comment on someone’s blog it is going to give you a link back to your site. This is huge if you are trying to rank your content in the search engines, because backlinks are key to a getting your content ranked.
When you are commenting to get quality backlinks there are a few things to look for. Look at how Google ranked the blog. Any blog or website with a Google Page Rank of 3 or better is going to give you a high quality backlink. If you comment on blogs with a high PR then your backlink will be of higher quality.
Another thing to look for is if they have a Top Commentators widget on the side of their blog. You want to check this out because if they do then you could potentially get 2 quality backlinks every time you comment, if you are a top commentator.
* It builds your knowledge
On top of all of these other benefits, commenting also gives you an opportunity to be educated about what is going on in your niche. When you comment you are going to have to actually read the content that the blogger puts out, so you will be gaining knowledge at the same time you are getting backlinks. Plus when you are out in the community it will give you a better idea of where you stand in the marketplace. You will see all different skill levels of bloggers out there and it will help you to become a better blogger as well.
Overall, I hope that I have convinced you that it is definitely worth your time to be out there commenting and adding value to your community. Remember to stay positive and create win win situations for everyone involved.
A Review of the PopUp Domination WordPress Plugin
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, March 12, 2011
A Review of the PopUp Domination WordPress Plugin
The PopUp Domination WordPress Plugin is the newest, and first, plugin released by Michael Dunlop, a young online entrepreneur who blogs about making money online and generating your own wealth.
- What the plugin is for
It’s for WordPress bloggers who have an email newsletter and wants to increase their subscription rate.
- What it does
Once the plugin is installed and activated, it’ll pop up a subscription box whenever a person visits your site, however, you can configure how often it’s shown to the same person. Some people like to pop up the box every time someone visits your site, returning or not.
Personally I don’t like to do that, mainly because as a blogger, I have many returning visitors who like to comment on my blog and they don’t need to keep getting hit with my pop up. My preferred settings are to show the box to everyone at first and then show it to them again after 7 days.
I also prefer to wait to show the popup until after they’ve been on my site for at least 20 seconds. I do this because a really successful niche marketer told me once that’s what they’ve found works best for them. The reasoning behind it was that the people who stay longer than 5 seconds are probably interested in what you have to offer.
So why does the popup domination plugin work so well?
I’ve definitely seen an increase in subscriber rate to my newsletter since using this plugin. The plugin seems to work so well because the popup templates which you are supplied with are high quality and are visually pleasing to your visitor.
- PopUp Domination Options
As of the writing of this article, the plugin has the following settings available:
* 4 different pop up templates to choose from
* Multiple options for the template and button colors
* Easy embedding of many of the popular mailing list services (MailChimp, AWeber, etc.)
* Customization of text shown on the popup
* Allows you to add quick bullet points
* Schedule how often it appears to visitors
* Advanced settings where pros can edit the template and CSS files
How to Get More Web Traffic by Adding Free Tools to Your Blog
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, March 11, 2011
How to Get More Web Traffic by Adding Free Tools to Your Blog
What’s the one thing that any blog just can’t survive without? Traffic. Whether you blog is a hobby blog or that’s designed to make you money, they all need traffic. However, if your blog is of the money making variety it’s probably much more important that you get as much traffic as you can.
Personal blogs also need a steady regular flow of traffic.
But that is purely optional. On the other hand, if you are running a blog with a business mindset, then it’s nothing without a non-stop stream of traffic.
Just typing the phrase “how to get more web traffic” into any of the popular search engines will reveal a host of links to all sorts of traffic driving schemes, from the free and legal to the paid for and sometimes of questionable legality. But before jumping to any of them, you first need to understand the working methodology and benefits of using such free tools in your blog.
RSS reader: This can be one of the best tools to make it easy to keep your readers updated and visiting your blog. When you use this tool in your blog, you give the readers a chance to get latest updates from your blog 24/7. With this in place it is one of the real proven tools for traffic creation.
Technorati: Technorati is a must for any blog owner. It’s one of the topmost social bookmarking sites. Once you insert the required code, a button with the name of Technorati appears in your blog. Moreover, when you submit your blog to Technorati, it’s pretty much guaranteed that a lot of fresh visitors will be automatically arriving at your blog through the Technorati platform.
Digg, Facebook etc: When you add these free buttons to your blog, then you can you can feel pretty confident that you’ll get a slow but steady stream of web traffic. If someone likes the content of your blog and Diggs it, and it spreads, then you should get a nice little unexpected boost to your traffic.
Twitter: The growth of Twitter as promotional tool for blogs has been nothing short of sensational. To say that the user base of twitter is on the rise would be quite an understatement. By the simple act of adding a Twitter button you can unleash an avalanche of traffic. Moreover, promote your blog posts on a regular basis via twitter to ensure maximum web traffic.
Use a ping service: In the simplest terms, pinging means informing the search engines like Google that you have added new content to your blog. There are several free ping services available over the internet, which can be used free of cost. By signing up for any of the ping services your site will get more traffic as a result of the more frequent indexing of you blog pages.
So, rather than wondering how to get web traffic for your blog, you first need to understand the basics of getting web traffic. This will allow you to make effective use of various online tools and promote your blog the way you want.
The Do Follow Blogs Movement
Don’t you just love blog commenting? I definitely do. And it’s not simply because I want to get backlinks from Do Follow blogs. It’s really good to learn from other bloggers, and get valuable information from other blog commenters too. It is always beneficial to participate in an interactive community. Eventually, the internet today is all about building relationships, and the sharing of valuable content.
Notice how I place emphasis on “do follow”. This is because if you’re commenting to attract backlinks to your own blog, if you’re doing it on No Follow blogs, you are not getting any backlinks.
* Do follow vs. No follow blogs
Do Follow and No Follow attributes comes into play whenever you leave a comment on a blog that has your link.
Do Follow blogs tell the search engines to follow the link left together with the comment. NoFollow blogs, on the other hand, tell the search engines NOT to follow the link that is left with that comment. That is to say with the former, you can get link juice in the form of backlinks; in no follow blogs, you don’t.
By default, a WordPress platform is a No Follow blog. But in order to increase visitor involvement, a lot of bloggers (like me) have turned their blogs into Do Follow blogs. If you’re new to blogging or if your blog is still set to the default No Follow, you may want to consider turning yours into an interesting interactive community.
Here’s what you should do: identify what plugins you will need, and let your visitors know you have joined the DoFollow movement.
* How to Do Follow your blog
Simply do a search for Do Follow plugin. Select one, install it and activate it! This will remove the NoFollow feature in your comment section. You can install plugins to prevent spam comments when you do this as well. Always keep in mind to let people know that you are a Do Follow Blog.
Some visitors may have no idea what that means, but those who do know will often times leave a comment on your blog!
* One last thing
When you are on a DoFollow blog, make sure you leave quality comments. Well, one liners are okay, but if you can ask some questions or add valuable content, then that’s really great! Search for Do Follow blogs that are in the same niche as yours and have good traffic flow to make blog commenting really work for you. This will allow you not only to leave a great comment and get more traffic, but gain a backlink as well.
Fatal Webinar Mistakes That Cost You Money
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Fatal Webinar Mistakes That Cost You Money
Webinars have become a low-cost way for people and companies to promote their products and services. I have certainly used them and attended many webinars on a variety of topics. However, I have noticed that many webinar organizers, hosts and panelists, create a variety of mistakes that reduce the effectiveness of their program.
1. Requiring too much information. I don’t mind giving my name, email address, and company name when registering for a webinar. However, I don’t like giving my address, telephone number, and five other details. I know that you want to collect data but the more information you ask for, the less likely I will register for your program.
2. Ask mandatory questions. Most technology allows the person hosting the webinar to ask registrants several questions when they register. However, making these questions mandatory can work against you, especially if the question is irrelevant. Many people will refuse to answer these questions and will chose NOT to register for the webinar. Carefully consider which questions should be mandatory.
3. Unfamiliar with the technology. A fatal mistake many people is to familiarize themselves with the webinar technology shortly before the program begins. I admit to include myself in this category. A few years ago I agreed to deliver a series of webinars for a client and unfortunately, my contact person was unfamiliar with the technology. As a result, we had several glitches and problems that reduced the overall effectiveness of the program.
4. Using a speaker phone. I recently attended a webinar and it appeared that one of the panelists spoke from a speaker phone or computer microphone. This created a vacant echo which became distracting whenever she spoke. It is critical that you have a good connection to the call and many companies suggest that you use a landline to ensure that you have a good connection with minimal interference.
5. Poor PowerPoint slides. Death by PowerPoint! My belief is that webinar slides should reinforce your key point, not make them. Too many people use too many bullet points or try to cram too much information on a single slide. Improve your effectiveness by creating a better PowerPoint show. Check out Slide Share for some great examples on how to create an effective presentation.
6. Taking too long to get into the program. I have attended countless webinars where the first five to seven minutes is absorbed by self-promotion, introduction of the presenter or guest expert, or information that was irrelevant to participants. Although sponsoring companies want adequate airtime, it is essential that you manage their expectations and keep the introduction brief and concise.
7. Too much promotion. Many of the webinars I have attended have been a thinly-disguised attempt at selling a product or service. I certainly understand the importance of generating sales but if your webinar is promoted or sold as an “educational” session and you spend most of your time talking about your product or company, I am going to quickly disengage.
8. Failure to deliver high-quality content. A webinar should deliver value for attendees. Unfortunately, too many programs give “here’s what you need to do” information without explaining how to actually apply the concepts. It is better to delve deep into a topic than offer three dozen ways to improve without providing substance.
9. Failure to deliver value. This ties in with the previous point. A successful webinar provides high value to the participants, regardless of the price point. Enough said.
10. The webinar is too long/short. The length of webinar is irrelevant. What’s important is the value that is delivered
during the program. You can’t stretch a short program into a long one and an intense, lengthy session cannot be condensed into a short webinar. Whether you are the host, organizer, or guest expert, make sure that you allot the appropriate amount of time for your particular program.
11. Not allowing questions. Many people who attend webinars have questions and they want to have the opportunity to ask them. Increase the value of your webinar by giving participants time to ask questions and allot time for these questions so that you don’t have to race through the last five of six minutes of your presentation.
Webinars can be an effective marketing vehicle and a great way to generate sales leads. Improve your results by avoiding these common webinar mistakes.
Recent Comments