Gravity Forms Vs Formidable: Some Points to Consider

In this article you can see a detailed review about gravity forms and formidable pro plugins for WordPress blogs. If you are about to make a purchase of any one of these plugin to satisfy the form management process of your blog then I suggest you to read this review.

Formidable pro is a dead simple form processing plugins to build any forms in minutes. It basically work with drag and drop features so no coding skills needed, just drag and drop the elements you need and your form is ready for use. It restricts edit features for logged in users and display the completed version for the users and at the backside you can make changes the forms.

Install plugins like NextGen gallery, Flash video player etc. to enhance the performance of the formidable pro plugin. Integration of the plugin is by applying short codes of the appropriate forms.

It allows users to create posts, pages, create custom pages with custom post types, display collected data with sleek graphical reports and also allows you to manage the complete front end of your blog. And the most exciting features of this plugin are it comes with 30 days money back guarantee with life time updates.

Now it's time to see review about gravity forms, the mostly used and trusted plugin for complete form management process of your blog. According to a recent survey, gravity form is used by 60% of bloggers and website owners to manage their blog.

It is available with variety of options like form builders, form fields, conditional logic, order forms, entry managements, notification features, customizations, styles and layouts. And also it supports multiple payment gateways like authorize.net, PayPal to process secure payments between users and company.

If you think the basic version is lagging in some aspects then you can install tiny addons that works well with this plugin which enhances the all over performance of the plugin.

They also have a separate support forms that will answer the queries of the users regarding installations and issue fix. The price is more affordable than formidable pro plugins, gravity forms is available in three licenses: Developer, business and personal.

Personal license is suitable for managing single blogs with limited number of features.

Business plan can be used for unlimited number of sites and can able to create unlimited forms and entries.

Developer plans has no limit they can get full advantage of the plugin and get priority support from gravity forms team.

Hope the given review will be helpful for you to choose the best fit for your business.

A freelance blogger and a passionate social media marketer, who is currently working on the site Gravity forms discount code 2012 where you can buy gravity forms at 40% off and get detail information about gravity forms tutorials.

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How to Start a Blog

If you have not noticed the internet is probably hotter compared to the hottest Hollywood "It Girl". Millions of people worldwide use the internet for a number of reasons; work, school, research, communication - name it, the internet does the job. A generation of "netizens" or citizens of the net have created a world of cyberspace where anyone and everyone can do anything at any given time. If there is one thing that the internet has made possible - it is for people to get themselves heard online. There's social networking to connect with friends, online videos to promote one's self and of course, blogging for people who love to write.

Blogging has redefined itself throughout the years and bloggers worldwide have also evolved into a different class online. In a nutshell blogging is basically writing about anything online likened to writing a journal or a diary. So, what are the steps to follow on how to start a blog? There are a million tips online that could teach you how to start a blog but there are simple ways of doing so.

Find your Blogger identity.

To put it simply, you have to find your niche. "What kind of blogger do you want to be?" is an important question that you need to ask before starting a blog. There are different kinds of bloggers online and they talk about almost any topic known to man; bloggers who talk about fashion, technology, sports, music, movies, food, traveling or just about their day-to-day lives. A variety of writers found their niche by writing what they love and what they are interested in and you can too.

If there is one thing that stops people from pushing through with starting a blog it is the fear of what if it won't be interesting enough for people to read. Do not over think and over analyze. Just write what you love and people will love it too.

Choose a Blog Platform

After deciding on what kind of blog you want to put up, choose your blog platform that will host your blog site. There are a number of sites that offer free hosting like Blogger, WordPress, or Tumblr these are only to name a few. These blog hosting sites allow you to have a blog for free and sometimes would even assist you on how to start a blog. These blog hosting sites even let you store the photographs that you want to include in your posts.

Choose the right blog hosting site that will suit your needs but if you have no idea, you can always read reviews online and see what people think about these sites.

The Name Game

In the blogging world, your name is your identity. Other bloggers will identify and associate you with that name. You have to think of your name as a brand, in the long run when your blog will have more loyal readers and followers they will promote you to other bloggers with that name. Make sure that name is unique and represents who you really are or what your blog is about. You can go the mysterious route, the cutesy names or be a no nonsense blogger using simply your name.

Get yourself out there

Depending on whether you write about a specific topic or you talk about personal stuff the main reason you blog is for sharing and being heard. Promote your blog to readers through social networking, post up links of your new posts. Eventually word will get out of about a new blog until you hit your target audience. And, in the long run the more your readership will expand you may even earn from it.

Blogging is open to anyone who wants to write, it doesn't matter if you are a professional writer or you simply write to express yourself, just take the step to begin your blogging journey.

Shantelle Golding is an Expert Internet Network Marketer."Learn How To Make $1,000 a day whilst Quickly And Easily EXPLODING Your Network Marketing Organization Without EVER Buying a Single Lead?"==> http://www.moneythenewway.com/

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Craigslist Strategy To Explode Your Online Business

I have embarked on an all out, massive effort, to market my online business over the next 90 days. For a lack of better terms, I call my plan the, "The 90 Day Free Marketing Challenge." One of the components of this plan is to promote my product with the use of free classified ads. Without question, the most well-known free classified site on the internet is: Craigslist. This article is to teach the reader about Craigslist and how to properly use this type of advertising platform.

Craigslist has a global Alexa Ranking of 39. Likewise, in the United States, Craigslist has a ranking of 9. The site's users are mostly Caucasian, and they tend to be childless women that earn over $30,000 per year. Why is this important? It's important because when you place advertisements on the site, you need to know your audience. In the case of Craigslist, you certainly don't want to place an image ad that is directed toward men. You would be much better off to design an advertisement that is directed toward the needs of the audience... in this case women.

Craigslist is a running list of advertisements. If you post your ad at 7:00am, as other advertisements get posted throughout the day, that 7:00am ad will drop to the bottom of the day's list. In order to be effective with your marketing campaign, you not only have to target the right audience, but you have to place your ads at the right time of the day. It won't do any good to place an ad, if no one looks at it. The first day you place your ad should give you the best number of leads. Day two leads will probably drop to half of day 1, and by the third day, your ad will all but completely disappear.

So, what is the strategy? I have found the best time of day to place my ads is around 6:00am to 7:00am. You want to have your ad up and running no later than 8:00am. I'm assuming that people get to work (or they're at home getting ready for work), turn on their computer, and look around on Craigslist before the day gets going. There is no question the 8:00am time is your rush hour. If you place an ad at 10:00am, it will be completely worthless. The next block of time that is meaningful is between the hours of 4:00pm to 7:00pm. People are ending their day and have a few minutes between activities to mess around on the internet. Once again, if you miss this block of time, you might as well wait until the next morning.

One ad per day on Craigslist will not get it done. In my opinion, you need to be placing 6-10 ads every single day to make a difference. It is important to note, that before you start placing ads, you will want to read up on the Craigslist Rules and Regulations. If you break the rules, they will most certainly shut down your account. Also, you want to make sure you place your ads in your local area. If you live in Chicago, don't try and place your ad in the Miami market. Craigslist does not like that!

Ghosting is a problem for many advertisers on Craigslist. What is ghosting? Ghosting happens when you place your ad, you get an email response from Craigslist that says everything looks wonderful and your ad is live. However, when you go to the Craigslist website and look for your ad... it's not listed. This means your ad is being ghosted. Ghosting can occur due to several reasons. To prevent this issue from happening, make sure you read up on all of the Craigslist rules. This will help with posting ads that actually go "live."

Renewing your ads with Craigslist is the most powerful strategy they offer. After three days of being posted, you have the option to "renew" your ad. With one click of the button, your ad will immediately jump to the top of the list. This is really powerful stuff. For example, if you have 10 ads that are live, and you forget to post for a few days, you can go back to the system and renew all 10 ads. All of a sudden, with a very limited amount of effort, you have multiple ads running (at the top of the list) in different cities. This procedure can generate a huge amount of leads for your business.

Craigslist can be an awesome way to promote your online business. I strongly encourage the reader to explore this strategy.

For more information on how to post on Craigslist, as well as to receive our in-depth Craigslist posting strategies, please visit our website at: http://www.newbiemarketing.us/

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Guest Blogging For Enhancement of Web Traffic

Guest blogging is a method adopted by bloggers for increasing visit of more audiences to their blogs. For this, they write posts for publishing on the blogs of other bloggers. As a blogger, you may write a post for appearing on the blog of another blogger. Alternatively, another blogger may write a post for appearing on your blog.

Guest Blogging is a strategic initiative for getting advantages by penetrating into the domain someone else. It therefore requires a lot of home work to be carried out. Your post must make a two-way effort of benefiting the host blog and at the same time, and reaping the benefit for your own business.

Besides strengthening your business relationship with an accomplished publisher, Guest Blogging may benefit you in any of the following ways-

Being in the content marketing, you may be well-versed with your topic but have no independent identity of your as such. You are a nondescript as far as content market is concerned but guest blogging may make you acquainted with your prospective clients along with some authority. You need to submit maximum contents within the shortest time.
Adding more traffic to your site does not necessarily draw more audience because traffic can be bought through pay-per-click or alternative means of advertisement. But traffic generated from a guest blog yield you a group of audience that is curious to know what you say. This creates an opportunity for you to convert them for a long-term business relationship.
Guest blogging builds up the network of your publisher by enlarging their connectivity with accomplished publishers. If you establish a good rapport with your parent blogger, you may succeed in getting a tweet or a link from him that would take you a long way towards getting an independent identity in the content market.
Guest Posting enables you to get a relevant, natural link by the use of anchor text of your choice.

The following are the tips that may interest you

Before submitting your post on another person's blog, get information about the contents and audiences of that blog and their comment about the blog.
Make a convincing approach to the other blogger with regard to your credibility and your strong points why the guest blogger's audience would like to read what you write.
Provide latest statistics about your blog with regard to unique visitors month wise supported by your rankings made by Google, Alexa and Technorati.
Instead of buttressing the other blogger with undue pampering, present yourself with facts and figures in an honest and straightforward manner. Value for the other person's time. Avoid furnishing flowering data about yourself.
Make the other blogger realize that you are well-versed with the blogging activities and that your contents will be unique and will not pose any copyright problem for him.
Convince the other blogger that your contents will be coherent and compelling, providing links to your blogs and samples of online writing.

Devjeet K Singh is a professional writers, Internet Marketer and lover of his family. He has written multiple articles on Blogging Tips and blog promotion methods on his SEO blog.

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Facts To Be Known About Blogging

The term 'Blog' is the shortened name of Web Log. It is thus a website and comprises text, hypertext, images and links to other web pages. The act of making addition of articles to the existing blog is termed 'Blogging'. Individual articles so posted are termed blog posts, posts or entries. One who posts these entries is called a 'blogger'. These postings are arranged in reverse chronological order; the latest being featured first. The concept of blog emerged in late 1990, coinciding with web publishing tools such as HTML and FTP. Blogs usually cover certain specific areas such as web design, home staging, sports, or mobile technology. Other blogs may present link to other types of links. There may be yet other blogs dealing with political activities, personal experiences of the author.

Most of the good quality blogs have provision for interaction, wherein visitors are allowed to make their own comments and exchange message through GUI widgets on the blogs. The objective of blogging is not only to make contents for posting onto their respective blogs, but they adopt it as a medium for establishing and maintaining social relationship. There are a number of ways in which blogging is utilized such as remarks and views on specific topics, personal diaries, and brand advertisement of a company. Blogs have certain common features such as a main content area, with articles arranged chronologically, an archive of earlier files, a way for visitors to leave their comments, a list of links connected to other sites, called blogroll and feeds such as RSS, Atom or RDF files.

Content is the principal constituent of a web site and needs to be up-dated with the latest information, on regular basis for making it worth visiting. The information may be a catalog of products presented in a retail site. It may be about campuses, curriculum and faculty presented in a university site. You may find a number of observations, reviews or comments if it is a personal blog. Content consist of articles written by authors, composed in a web-based interface that is built into the blogging system. Next to 'content' come the 'comments' that the visitors to the sites are allowed to leave on the blogs. Through pingbacks or trackbacks, one blogger can leave comments on another blog without visiting it and also can keep other blogger informed as and when they cite any article from other site into their own.

There are different platform for blogging like "Wordpress", "Blogger", "Joomla", "Drupal" etc. Other terminologies you need to know about are Archives, Feeds, Blogrolls, Syndication, Trackbacks and Pingbacks. Monthly or Yearly archives keeps track of articles on site. A software 'Feed readers' provides automatic access to a site looking for new content and thereafter, post updates about the new content to other site. Blogroll is list showing links to webpages that may be of interest, often coming in a side bar. A feed is a content publication readable by a machine, usually XML. Syndication feeds informs new posts in blogs. Trackback facilitates notification between websites and Pingbacks provides solutions to some problems found with trackbacks.

Devjeet K Singh is a professional writers, Internet Marketer and lover of his family. He has written multiple articles on Blogging Tips and blog promotion at his SEO blog.

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Why Search Engline Optimization is Important?

SEO or search engine optimization is the process of fine-tuning a website so that users and search engines can find it easily on the World Wide Web. Not only access it easily but also find it attractive, fast, and easy to navigate. Such an improvement results in a website with high ranking in search engine result pages or SERPs, which is something every website owner or online publisher wants to achieve. Many proven SEO techniques have been made available to general public and experts of this field. Although the basic steps are easy to implement, once the process is started you find that it is an ongoing system that requires regular commitment.

There is no use of an online business if the users are unable to find it. Potential customers can only approach your website if it is listed in online directories and indexed by popular search engines. This is one aspect of SEO, which makes it an integral part of any business that has its presence on the internet. Even if you launch an extensive advertising campaign, the traffic might still be very low. This is because those advertisements are geared towards your current customers but do nothing to attract new customers from around the globe.

People find it easy to search on the internet instead of rummaging around a newspaper or listening to a radio broadcast to get what they're looking for. Online search engines also give highly relevant results based on the keyword we type in the search box. This way you can locate a local business very easily, note down its address and telephone number and even find directions to reach its office. That is why optimizing your business website for search engines is important for the success of your business.

Google and other search engines have bots that crawl the web to find new websites every day and index them automatically. Before any search engine has a chance to discover your website, you should make sure it includes all the necessary information for the bots to understand, such as what the site is all about and what type of products it sells, etc.

Some websites are very professionally made, include impressive graphics and video tutorials, but they are still very difficult to find on the internet. People usually see the first ten results given by a search engine and if your website is not listed in these results it is likely to be ignored by your potential customers. And this is what you should spend your money on, instead of hiring graphics experts and complex coding specialists. This is because even if your site is not very attractive visually but it is easily accessible by the users, you have achieved 90% of your objective!

Saif Ullah Butt is SEO consultant and have been giving SEO services from many years, You can catch him at http://www.saifullahbutt.com/

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Is Your Blogging Useful To Others?

Does your blogging have a 'noble' purpose such as focusing on helping other people or are you intent on simply making sales! Now there is nothing wrong with operating an internet marketing blog but you'll find much more success if actually helping other people is part of your strategy! It all comes down to traffic and frankly if you all you focus on is making sales, your blog will not be much of an attraction!

Here are 3 simple strategies you can use when writing content for your internet marketing blog that should help boost traffic along with your income!

Teach

Although internet marketing blogs are operated with the intention of making money never forget it is your content that attracts people! The key to getting more traffic, which of course translates into making sales is to offer information readers find useful! By teaching or educating others about something they already have an interest in, you stand a much better chance of getting visitors to your site! Helping other people is ALWAYS the best way to get the attention and earn the trust and respect of visitors! Offering this information freely as is the case when posted on a blog is a very effective way to increase traffic!

Deliver A Message

Supporting a cause or purpose be it political, personal or even religious is another popular tact you can take when blogging! Once again you're helping other people by keeping them informed about an interest they have while even giving them a forum in which they can exchange thoughts with others!

Watchdog

Tracking and reporting new developments as they may occur within a particular niche or industry is very popular with readers! This strategy like the 2 previous ones mentioned are all aimed at getting interested readers to land on your site! Now when running an internet marketing blog, once you have built a respectable list of subscribers or list members, you simply make product or service offers! In every case you need to always be mindful that what you offer is relevant to the interest of these people and the niche you're active within!

Your blogging needs to focus more on helping other people than simply making sales if you want to attract a steady flow of visitors! Although the underlying intent of having an internet marketing blog is to earn an income, you must first establish yourself as some type of useful resource to do so! Quite simply if you compose content with the intent of helping other people, making sales will be much easier for you to do! The 3 strategies reviewed here today are simple approaches you can use when composing any new updates that will tend to attract more people to your platform! Once you have the traffic flowing and become better known as a resource for visitors, making sales will then become much easier!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
For more tips to make your blogging more purposeful thus bringing you more traffic and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://blogbrawn.com/

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Use Pingler to Maximize Your Blog's Exposure

Why Use Pingler?
Many of you out there have heard about Pingler, and the amazing benefits it can offer. But before investing any money into yet another add-on, let's look at what Pingler has to offer and why you might, as an internet marketer, would benefit from using the product. Pingler is a web based service that allows Internet marketers the ability to get their blog pinged. The goal of this service is to provide a dependable way for marketers to get their sites pinged.

What is "Pingler" Anyways?
A little background on Pinging: In blogging, a ping is a mechanism by which a blog notifies a server that its content has been updated. A signal is sent to one or more "ping servers" which can then generate a list of blogs that have new material. The technology was first October 2001 and has had such a profound and powerful impact on blog rankings that today, most blog authoring tools automatically ping one or more servers each time the blogger creates a new post or updates an old one.

So, for example, if you have a blog on the Empower Network, your Word press back office has already been pre-set for you to ping a list of servers automatically, each time you post a blog. The benefit of this is that you would get your whole site indexed faster, get new pages indexed, and start ranking for your search terms faster. Pingler is a service that helps you automate this process rather than go through a each aggregator site one by one and submit your RSS feed.

Pinging is a very useful tool and should be used to maximize a blog's exposure. Leveraging Pingler to ping your blog is an excellent source of building link popularity while gaining global exposure to your blog. This will help you get more traffic, more visitors, and listed in the search engines faster.

How do I Use Pingler?
It is not difficult to ping your blog. My two favorite sites, also known across the industry as the better ones are:Ping-o-Matic and Pingler. You can enter manually your blog URL and name, then, check all of the services that you want to know about your blog. I would recommend checking "all", more is better.

Can I Automate Pingler?
Absolutely! For a small membership fee, Pingler can get up to 25 of your sites pinged automatically.

In other words, for $2.99/month, You can set up this process in Pingler for up to 25 websites. You can then automate it so that Pingler automatically pings your site every 2-3 days. This will enable you to get your site indexed faster, start working on building links, and receive traffic faster.

Why Pay a monthly Fee if I can Ping with Ping-o-Matic or with Pingler for Free?

The huge benefit here is that for a minimal fee ($2.99/month), you would not have to manually go through this process every time you update contents on your blog, twitter account, Face book account, etc... Pingler would do that for you all at once. So serious time saving is associated with the upgraded account option.

Also, it is important to know that many pinging sites do not follow links. For that reason alone, it would be well worth it to the paid version of Pingler subscribe to this service. The paid version er allows you to gain back links for search engine benefits. Subscribing to the automated service is a good investment if your main goal is to get your pages indexed faster and your sites ranking as quickly as possible. As a subscriber, Pingler will list your site's live link on its pages. Although the links are listed as "no follow" and cannot be considered as back links, the Pingler community does add value for visibility purposes. Community users can see your site and will follow your links.

Anything to be on the Lookout for while Using Pingler?
As a whole, Pingler is an easy and effective tool in getting your blog or site indexed and getting increased traffic to your URL. The majority of reviews are positive and most subscribed users find significant added value to paying the additional $2.99/month premium (starting package). For greater needs, Pingler offers expanded packages for a high monthly fee (obviously... ). Of course, using the free version and pinging manually is always an option to end users. Just be aware that is not without faults. The success rate to get pinged is not 100% guaranteed.

However, the general consensus on Pingler is that most users find that most pings to sites go through and sometimes even generate backlinks from the pinging sites. Obviously, the biggest benefit from using the paid subscription to Pingler is the time you will save...

Yours in Success,

Karine

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Top 5 Tips to Increase Visitors on Your Blog

The world of blogs is very busy and it is also tremendously huge with more than one hundred million blogs and this figure is increasing every minute. So, how do you grab the interests of the visitors to your blog? Well that's a pretty decent question that could arise in every blogger's mind. Following are very useful tips that will surely help you in attracting the traffic to your blog.

1. Write Regularly & Write Well - The first and most important step to increase the visitors on your blog is persistently updating your blog with the top quality and useful content. The content of your blog is the key element that has the ability to tempt visitors coming back for more valuable information. It is essential to make sure that your blog posts are interesting and also try to make them reliable and loyal to the audience. If you want to increase the chances of getting caught by the search engines then post frequently.

2. Use the Power of Conversations - A very simple but essential and effective method to increase the visitors of your website is "commenting". First of all respond to the comments which are left on your blog in a positive way and then draw them into an unbiased two way conversation. This technique will easily increase the loyalty of the reader or visitor.

The second method regarding to commenting is, leave some comments on the posts of the other blogs in order to generate new traffic. It is important to make sure that you must post the working URL of your blog along with your comment. This way you can create a worthwhile back link to your own blog.

3. Use Various SEO Techniques - SEO is a very vast subject and thousands of books have been written on it but do not worry, you would not have to read all these books. All you have to do is understand and learn the basic search engine optimization techniques. These techniques are very helpful if you want to find your blog in the search engine results. Place keywords in the right places of your posts and also try to include appropriate keywords.

4. Build Quality Back links - The quality back links are vital for every blog but remember only the quality back links. They are very effective in attracting the audience to your blog instantly. But it's very important to be extremely cautious about them, because a cheap back link can badly hurt the rankings of your blog on the search engine instead of improving it. Always try to build some genuine and quality back links with a decent search engine rank and never ever purchase cheap packages like "10,000 back links just for $20".

5. Discuss Latest and Hot Trends - If you want to get the good favor of major search engines then talk about the hot topics because Google and all other major search engines would love to see the up-to-date and fresh content.

George is SEO consultant and have been giving SEO services from many years, You can catch him at http://www.saifullahbutt.com/

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6 Reasons to Start a Business Blog

There are all sorts of reasons you may have for not blogging.

- You are busy.
- You don't like to write.
- You don't know what to say.
- You tried that and no one ever read it.

When was the last time you considered all the reasons your business should have a blog? Here are the top 6 reasons to start and stick with blogging:

1. Forms the Core of Content Marketing - Are you interested in practically free marketing for your business? Of course you are! With just a little time and effort you can attract new leads to your business. Content marketing gives away valuable information to consumers. By doing this on your blog, you build your reputation as a thought leader in your industry. People come to trust your advice, and when they are ready to buy, they buy from the business and people they already trust.

2. Improves SEO - Search engine optimization may seem like a difficult or overwhelming task. But what it really comes down to is creating good, relevant, and up-to-date content that readers want to read. One of the best ways to do this is by consistently blogging. With all that fresh, optimized, information-focused (rather than product focused) content on your site - search engines are bound to love you.

3. Personalizes Your Business - Take this opportunity to put a face on your business. Rather than blogging from a stiff, corporate prospective, put your personality into it. Have your employees blog too, and give them freedom to be unique. As readers get to know each of you through the blog, they will form relationship. This relationship will generate higher quality leads for your business.

4. Taps into Various Expertise - With different people blogging for your business, you give potential customers access to a wider depth of knowledge. You and your staff have diverse interests and expertise, so give people access to that resource. You want it to relate back to your core business identity, but this variety will help engage various types of consumers.

5. Provides a Resource for Current Customers - It's said that it costs anywhere from 5 to 10 times more to get a new client than to keep an existing one. Furthermore, according to Bain & Company, "Increasing client retention by 5% can increase profit by 95%." To increase your customer retention, you have to offer excellent customer service. A blog provides an excellent venue for addressing frequently asked questions, providing service updates, spreading the news of any problems with product or service, starting a forum to connect customers, and offering another point of connection to keep customers happy.

6. Keeps You Sharp - Blogging involves an online connection with customers, leads, and others in your industry. By staying engaged in this way, you stay on the top of your game and ahead of your competition. When you are blogging about the latest industry news, answering the latest customer questions, and providing helpful information for online users, you are forced to do more research, read related news, and keep up to date on latest developments and trends. Plus when you teach something, it helps further cement that knowledge into your brain. This type of acumen building is exactly what you need to run a successful business.

It is time to lay aside all those excuses and start blogging. Remember, results take time, so stick with it and let the customers start coming to you rather than chasing them down.

Learn more about growing your business by visiting smbmarketingideas.com or downloading this free marketing ebook designed to help you maximize your business marketing efforts: http://smbmarketingideas.com/free-ebook/

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Blogging Your Business - Is It for Me?

These days everyone has a blog, from sports figures to celebrities to the guy down the hall in IT. Everyone is blogging, so that naturally begs the question -- should my business have a blog to be successful?

The answer to that question is fairly simple in my opinion. All businesses can benefit from blogging, but service-related businesses (Realtors, Photographers, etc) and smaller retail stores are going to see the most benefit from blogging. The reason for this is twofold -- one, both of these industries are serving a customer who may not realize precisely what they want or need. Weekly blog posts can help solidify such a need in the customer's mind. Two, many of these types of businesses rely heavily on referrals (word-of-mouth business) and blogging lends itself well to referral business because the customer has the opportunity to learn more about the business immediately upon being referred.Many business owners want to start a blog but they don't know where to begin. Tumblr of course is a great platform, as is WordPress and Blogger. I have used all three and found Tumblr to be the best simply because of the social media integration (think of it as a Facebook for bloggers) as well as the ability to upload pictures, video, text, and audio from virtually anywhere. Tumblr assigns you an email address that you can use to upload content on the fly, and Tumblr's servers are smart enough to know what the content is before posting. If you upload a video it shows up in a media player, as opposed to a link. Audio files get the same sort of treatment.

Once the blogging service has been chosen, the hard stuff begins. Many businesspeople will feel overwhelmed at the prospect of writing an online "article" every week or even every month. Some people just aren't born writers, and blogging is certainly a skill that requires development like everything else. There is hope, however, for those who would like a little help. Many business consultants can be hired-in for copy writing purposes, and some will even manage the blog entirely. The rates for such services are fairly inexpensive -- from $50 a post or $20 - $25 an hour. Some owners will opt to use this sort of service every once-and-awhile until they feel comfortable devoting the time needed to make the blog successful.

Once content is present on the blog, it's time to share! This can be done via the company's Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ page. Also some businesses that will rely heavily on blogging (Photographers are an example) can set-up their website address to redirect to their blog. This makes it very easy for customers to access their photos (or jewelry, or anything else creative) without having to jump through multiple sites.

Having a robust following to your blog is great but not essential. A business consultant specializing in social media can give you a few tips on how to increase your follower ship. Just realize that building an audience takes time and patience, and there is no magic bullet for gaining 1,000 followers in a day. The fact that your blog is present and being updated regularly is the first step towards having a large audience.

T. Andrew Bledsoe holds a Bachelors of Science in Digital Media Communications and a strategic marketing MBA from King College. Andrew is a marketing strategist at Summit Marketing specializing in online marketing & social media. During his free time Andrew enjoys running, reading about marketing strategies, and designing websites. Andrew's Online Marketing Blog.

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Information on Thesis 2.0 Theme

The new Thesis 2.0 theme for WordPress, released on 1st October, 2012 is the much awaited update to the popular Thesis theme. This new version offers much more freedom and many more features to its users. This new system will change the way users design their WordPress sites and includes features that allow for completely original pages.

Features of Thesis 2.0

The new Thesis theme is packed to the brim with features that users have been waiting for. They allow for a completely new level of customization so that users can create web pages exactly the way they conceptualize them.

· Thesis Boxes - Thesis boxes make your FTP client obsolete. These boxes allow users to integrate CSS styles and code into the Thesis flow without any hassle of going through the FTP client.

· Skins - The Thesis 2.0 skins are similar to child themes in terms of concept. Thesis 2.0 allows you to load more than one skin at any given time. You can load these skins on the same site and you can even switch between the skins.

· Site Verification - The Thesis HTML head window has a Site Verification link on the right side of the page so that users can easily verify their website on Bing and Google. Google authorship is also available on the site through this page.

· Custom 404 Page - Thesis 2.0 allows users to create their own custom 404 page. Many sites make themselves more interesting by using funky or funny 404 pages. Now, the Thesis 2.0 theme extends this privilege to its users as well.

Benefits of Thesis 2.0

The new features on Thesis 2.0 also constitute a whole list of benefits that make it one of the best WordPress themes available. The following benefits add more spice and flavor to Thesis 2.0.

· HTML over PHP - Thesis 2.0 is built in such a way that users will be using HTML to customize their web pages. Earlier, users used PHP for customization, as the HTML coding was already provided and fixed. However, Thesis 2.0 uses a different approach and reverses this trend. The new theme automatically inserts the PHP coding, leaving the HTML blank for the user to customize.

· Innumerable Menus - Thesis 2.0 allows users to add as many menus as they require and at any spot on the site.

· Various Templates - Thesis 2.0 allows the use of different templates for every single thing. The new theme offers users the ability to customize templates for any category, tab, post, custom taxonomy and so on. Most importantly, users do not need to know code for this.

· SEO - Thesis 2.0 is the best SEO platform out there. The various options for SEO make it very efficient. The coding on the pages is also clean so that Google bots can easily trace the keywords and show the website on the search results page.

Pros of Thesis 2.0:

Thesis 2.0 comes with a list of pros that make it easy to pick this product over all the other themes.

· No Code - The previous Thesis theme required users to know code in order to make a webpage. Thesis 2.0 can even be used by novices who do not know an iota of code. While it still enables users to use code in places where they need it, on the whole, there is no use for code as Thesis takes care of everything for the designer.

· No HTML Limitations - Thesis 2.0 takes the theme to new heights by removing all limitations on HTML. Users can now customize their webpage completely according to their imagination.

· Unlimited Widget Areas - Thesis 2.0 incorporates an unlimited amount of widget areas in any location on the page. It is the final goodbye to custom code and plugins. Most plugins will now be obsolete when using Thesis 2.0.

Cons of Thesis 2.0:

As with all products, Thesis 2.0 comes with its own list of cons as well, though not many.

· No Inbuilt Tutorials - Thesis 2.0 comes with no tutorials to explain how to use it. However, if the user has been using Thesis, it should not be a problem. There is one beginning page to get users started on the theme, and they can explore thenceforth.

· Is Drag and Drop a Real Drag? - Despite the overt ease of use that it conveys, the Drag and Drop facility will always find its detractors. It is not always as easy as it seems. However, over time, users can get habituated to it.

The Thesis 2.0 theme for WordPress allows users to really customize their websites in any manner they wish to. It provides complete freedom while eliminating the need to know any code. The various features offered by Thesis 2.0 makes it the ultimate WordPress theme for the realization of a site owner's design dreams.

Avneet Bhatia has been writing content for over 6 years now. Her knowledge of content writing includes SEO optimized articles, blogs, press releases and newsletters etc.

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How to Repurpose Your Blog Posts for Maximum Influence

Not long ago, I wrote a blog post titled Content Repurposing: Five Experts Share Their Favorite Secrets. In that article, several of my most trusted online marketing colleagues, including Denise Wakeman, Kathleen Gage, Nicole Dean and Marnie Pehrson, weighed in with their most effective and powerful repurposing strategies, along with my own.

In the article you are reading now, I want to expand on just one of those strategies, to give you a deeper understanding of exactly how you can use it to expand your reach, and your industry influence.

One of my favorite ways to repurpose content is to take a portion of another article or blog post, and expand it into a different article for the article directories.

For example, this article is a direct expansion of one of the points from the blog post, Content Repurposing, which I mentioned at the beginning of this article. I'm simply taking one idea from among the many ways to repurpose content that I revealed in the original blog post, and now I'm expanding on that one point to make a complete article that stands on its own.

This is easiest to do when you have written a blog post that contains a list, such as The Top Ten Ways to Get Traffic to Your Website, 21 Creative Ways to Get Your Toddler to Eat Vegetables or even 5 Quick and Easy Ways to Lose Your Belly Fat. Your niche is irrelevant here, as this tactic will work for any niche.

The best part about doing this is that after you explain and expand on your one point, you can then direct the reader to go over to your blog to get the rest of the content, which is directly related to what they have just read.

Now this does take a bit more work than simply copying and pasting your original blog content to the article directories, but it's well worth it, as it bypasses completely the issue of duplicate content and gives your readers a compelling reason for coming over to your blog to get the rest of your ideas.

I also don't worry about trying to plaster this content all over the web by submitting to hundreds of free article directories. That's an old tactic, and it doesn't work anymore. Instead, I stick with the two major content marketing sites on the web today, EzineArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com.

And because I'm using multiple ways of repurposing my original content (I discuss over a dozen more in my Content Repurposing article on my blog!), I'm not concerned about showing up on 'only' two article directories.

The 'trick' to this tactic is to write the article from your original blog post, just as soon as your post is completed. If you wait, thinking you'll do it later, chances are it will never get done.

You can get the rest of my content repurposing strategies mentioned in this article (plus learn how to expand your influence!) at the Marketing Qi blog

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BMR Writing at a Glance

In the world of freelance writing the term "BMR writing" stands for "Build My Rank." If you are a freelance writer chances are you have already done some of this kind of writing whether you are familiar with the term or not. This kind of writing has become extremely popular in the fast growing and important process of promoting new websites.

Most often BMR writing is used to help place a website within an internet search on a particular topic. Since each website owner wants their site to receive a favorable ranking and therefore generate more visitors there is an incredibly high demand for these kinds of articles. Since the placement of each article in a search is dependent on the use of keywords it is important to use the particular keywords provided to you by your employer so that your article will be placed in a favorable ranking at the beginning of a search. The amazing thing about this kind of writing is that there is such enormous demand for it these days.

On average a BMR article needs to be no more than 150 to 300 words with a high concentration of the specific keywords. They are simple to write but significant for placing a particular website in a favorable spot at the top of an internet search. For this reason website owners are all clamouring for hundreds and hundreds of these mini articles. However since they are short and simple website owners will seldom pay more than about a dollar (USD) for each one and sometimes as little as.50 to.75 cents. Therefore the key to making any money in the kind of writing is to do it in very high volume.

It is very easy to find work in BMR writing. Just go onto any freelance writing website and scan the "want ads" and you will literally find hundreds of postings. Then simply place your bids and wait for the offers to come to you. Once you have made a connection with an employer you will need to be prepared for the work to come at you fast and furious. Since the demand is so incredibly high for this kind of writing there is no shortage of articles that will need to be written.

It is very easy to write these articles. Simply stick closely to the given topic, use clear simple sentences, make sure to use the keywords to your employer's specifications and be sure your spelling and grammar are correct. In order to be successful in the field of BMR writing it is important to be creative and prolific as a writer. Often it will help to seek out employment from more than one employer so that you can receive a broader range of topics to write on. This will also help increase the volume that of work you will be given and ultimately lead to more pay. If you are both creative and prolific then you should have no problem finding work and making money in BMR writing.

ArticlesatWork is an organization of high caliber writers headed by Rochella Caguin. It was formed in July of 2010. To date, this organization served a wide array of clients worldwide.

ArticlesAtWork can deliver contents for your websites, can do ezine postings, ebooks, product description, article writing, language translation, medical writing, and blog posting. Occasionally, they work on formula templates, website building, virtual assisting, and voice over.

You may order articles at http://www.articlesatwork.com/ or get in touch with Chella at articles.at.work@gmail.com.

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Branding 101: The Expert Authority Benefits of a Personal Blog

Full disclosure; I'm bad at blogging. It's not that I struggle with the technical aspects of optimizing one, or placing opt-in forms in the proper place or even with writing content. I'm good at all of that. It's just that I'm a tinkerer and perfectionist by nature; any of my college professors can tell you that I am fully capable of finding fifty things wrong with a paper that they gave a perfect grade. However, that is quite enough about the trials of being me.

If you intend to gain any type of traction and be taken seriously as an Internet marketer, you need to start and maintain a blog. There's simply no getting around that fact. Blogs, you see, are the perfect venue for building a long-term following and driving traffic to your money sites. They are naturally built to engage in a torrid love affair with search engine bots, and if you take good care of your blog, it will take good care of you.

I cannot stress the following point enough: when trying to build a following, you must remember that people follow people, not products or companies. Everyone that you are promoting too is promoting something, and 97% of them are failing at it, and failing rather spectacularly. They will follow anyone that they believe will lead them where they want to go, and this is where you and your blog come in.

In The Land of the Blind...

Enter any keyword related to Internet marketing, and somewhere near the top of the rankings, you will find someone's blog. In fact, you are likely to find several of them (go ahead, try it now). Several factors explain this phenomenon, not least of which is the fact that blogs are SEO magnets. Search engines look for fresh content, and a well-maintained and structured blog has plenty of it. The content is only part of the equation.

Because blogs are, to a large degree, self-contained miniature social networks through their commenting feature, master bloggers' sites are likely to contain many backlinks, or websites pointing back to it. In the eyes of Google, Yahoo and Bing, this gives them an air of authority. However, this is not an article of blog SEO.

By posting relevant content on your blog on a regular basis, coupled with a working knowledge of the aforementioned SEO, you reap the benefit of being an authority in the eyes of the search engines. This means that your site will receive many visits. If your posts are well-written, informative and timely, you become an expert not only in the eyes of Google, but also in the eyes of your readers. As such, they will return to your site, comment (providing even more backlinks), post your articles on social networks, bookmark them (more backlinks and traffic), and even link them to their blogs, if they have them.

Most importantly, you have begun to develop a relationship and a feeling of trust with potential prospects. Opt-in boxes in your blog's sidebar and RSS subscriptions provide you with an avenue to have some form of personal communication with your blog's readers - with their permission! So long as you do not abuse this awesome privilege, you now have a steady and targeted flow of potential buyers to market to, and potential signups for your affiliate products (if you sell your own products) and/or network marketing programs.

You do not have to be an expert of everything Internet marketing related, or anything, for that matter. A little research, or a well-done rewrite of an article you have acquired the rights to will set you well on your way. A side benefit is the fact that as you begin to regularly maintain your blog and add content, you actually will start to become an expert. Until then, even the little bit more than your readers that you know makes you someone to follow. In the land of the blind, the 3% that have a clue are the kings.

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Blogging for Fun and Profit - So You Want to Be a Blogger?

Blogs differ from websites in a number of significant ways. It's definitely a different approach to getting your message out where billions of people can see it.Blogs offer more flexibility in creation and designBlogs are flexible in that it is very simple to make changesBlogs are interactive-your visitors can enter comments right on your pages

The term Blog is a shorter way to say WEBLOG.

I have been a part-time blogger for nearly 3 years. My goal right from the beginning was to supplement my income. I also worked part-time as a technical writer, but the U.S. economy put me in a precarious position. I'm paying twice as much now as I did 4 years ago for a gallon of gasoline. Our household grocery bill is up 25-30% and utility bills... well you know what I mean.

According to many reliable sources, hundreds of billions of dollars change hands over the Internet every year. For the longest time, consumers were reluctant to use their credit cards online, but new, super-secure "Shopping Carts" have minimized the risk.

I wondered back in 2009 if I could create a home-based business that would position me to tap into the Internet Marketing business. But I didn't dwell on the thought too long. Instead... I dove headlong into the idea with no real plan or even a clue as to how to go about it.

My approach was a hit or miss, trial and error, shotgun approach to setting up some method of getting traffic from the people flocking to the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. People search for answers to problems, to learn how to fix something, where to find the best price on appliances and other household and personal needs.

Think about this... when you need something, do you reach for the Yellow Pages? Not many people do anymore. An online search can find you the answer to almost any question you come up with in less time than it takes to let your fingers do the walking. We probably have a telephone directory in our home, but I'd be hard-pressed to find it.

So there's the challenge: draw on Internet search traffic and offer to fill the needs of these folks. To establish a presence on the Internet-you need a website. Since I was cash-poor at the time, I sought out as many FREE services and software that I could find. I started off building free websites, but in all truth-they looked like crap. I knew nothing about website design-and I still don't.

Time moved along and after a year, and countless hours of struggle, I had not made my first dollar from the Internet.

I signed up for every free bonus book I could find. But none of them gave me a clear picture of what I had to do. I gathered bits and pieces of this complex puzzle, and about 2 years ago I learned that blogs might be a better choice over websites.

Today I have a bunch of blogs, some free and some hosted (fee-based hosting).

I got kind of carried away here. My title on this article mentions Fun and Profit. Many of my readers aren't looking to create any extra cash, so if you hope to do some blogging just for fun, I can help you with that too.

Since beginning my home-business, I have been having fun. To me, creating an online presence has filled me with excitement and enthusiasm. Call it a renewal in life. I am 75 years old so I probably should be thinking about spending more time in my rocking chair on the front porch. But it's the challenge that excites me. If your goal is to set up a means for you to create a family log so that everyone can be kept up to date, or maybe you want to create a site devoted to activities and reviews of past club or organization's activities, I can give you more information on the options open to you.

Yes, I am definitely a blogger in order to change my financial situation. And as each day passes, I see more visible proof that I'm headed in the right direction. 3 years ago I could have made far more, faster progress if I had spent a few dollars on useful tutorials that lead me by the hand in language I could comprehend with my minimal computer knowledge. Just the other day I found such a program and it blew my mind. I bought it, and there were all the answers I missed over the past 3 years. This is an incredible teaching manual, but even more incredible is the price. If I told you that this source can get you up and running for under $10, you'd think I'm nuts. Check it out at Nearly Free Blogging. This is serious content for serious bloggers: http://www.donpenven.com/nearly-free-blogging-training/

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Your Website - Make The Best of Your Marketing Tool

Generally a website is budgeted for and created as a marketing tool (or in some cases as a customer tool, e.g. a membership site or a support site). So, on that basis - thinking about the marketing aspect - surely the idea is to create something that firstly attracts visitors and then through a process converts them into leads and customers? Why then do we get hung up about the style and type of website that you have, over a much bigger consideration?

Personally I'd like a website in a style and type that attracts visitors and converts them into customers. A website needs to be in line with what your customers want, not you as a business owner. On that basis the type and design of your website needs to be in line with your visitors', and potential, customers' needs and wants. Not what your web designer wants, not what you want... what your prospects want. I'm not saying design isn't important but that it is only one element of website effectiveness, not the main part as is so often thought to be the case.

Can your website be found online as a solution to customers' problems? When you want information about something, you Google a phrase relating to what you want to know in the hope that you will find a website that will give you the answer, or at least the beginnings of the answer.

What implications does that have for your website as a business owner? Your content needs to be based on your keyword research. So your website needs to include content that will be likely to appear in search results for the phrases that your prospects are searching for. That's where keyword research and optimising your website for those keywords comes in. You also need to be providing useful content that will engage your prospects when they find your website. If they select your website following searching for 'help' then you need to be providing them with that help or at least a route to getting it.

The easiest way to do that for all businesses nowadays is to set up a website based around a blog, which is how you can easily publish relevant content. Websites with an integrated blog are becoming more and more popular and are very search engine friendly as well as flexible for you to update yourself. It is easy to integrate this type of website-blog with your social media activity and, in fact, can enhance that activity by providing you with an on-line hub where you can send your connections who want to find out more about what you have to offer and who are looking for answers to their questions.

One of the strongest marketing technique is to position yourself and your business as 'expert' in your niche, field, local area (however you are describing where your target market will be looking for you). And with a blog-website integration you have a much better opportunity to do that with all the content that you can publish to help your visitors and prospects.

New website-blog collaborations are now easily customised to provide a very appealing design. When you know what you want from your website, a little research into which blog-website combination to use and a very business-like website can be built. So be open to the possibilities that a blog and website could generate - like visitors and customers!

Don't be put off looking at what's on offer, thinking that it doesn't have the right 'look' for your business or because it doesn't fit your existing idea of what a website should look like or what it should do. If you genuinely want an online presence that will bring you more leads, more prospects and more customers you need to embrace the new content-rich, dynamic websites that can be built. They do take more ongoing focus and work to keep them effective, but in exchange you will get more business.

My name is Tamara Baranova. I run TJConsulting and I help small business owners grow their business by delivering effective online marketing mentoring, support and training.

It allows my clients to stop wasting valuable time and start seeing real results. Business owners I work with are serious about raising their business profile and attracting more opportunities. They want their business to succeed, to grow fast, and to generate healthy profits through online marketing strategy that works.

Want to know more? Go to my website http://www.tjconsulting.co.uk/ to grab my free eCourse 7 Steps to Online Marketing Mastery and learn how to plan your unique social media strategy. Use our step-by-step jargon-free guides to master all popular online marketing tools: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, blogging, and more! Sign up today to get immediate access!

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Blog Writing Service: The Way to Catch a Reader's Attention

Is your business having problems due to the overflow of various websites appearing on the Internet? Do you want your website to be visible to clients? Are you too busy to write a blog for your site? Then, this will surely be the answer to all your issues.

If you are looking for ways to improve your website, web logging or blogging is an effective way to reach targeted clients directly. It increases your chances in search engine rankings, improves your marketability, and helps you to be popular to potential clients. Thus, it is a powerful medium. It is the key element in social media.

Hiring a blog writing service is another way you can use to earn more links to your website. The more backlinks you have, the more chances will your site rank high in search engines. Writing blogs that are relevant to your service, product, or industry is a big help in putting your website on the top ranking of most search engines.

Touchstones before Hiring a Writing Service

Usually, a web log or blog, as it is now commonly known, contains between 250-1,000 words. But there is no clear cut rule on the number words or length of an entry. Everything still depends on the client or the writer. The duration in making one usually depends on the quantity that the client has ordered and on the length of its content. Some that are created and proofread by a blog writing service are done by professional writers who have been working on articles and web logs for years. Writers also think of unique, flexible, and focused keywords for your climb towards the top of the search engine.

These writing services do all the posting on your website by generating them properly. They also provide a means of promotion for your website in social media platforms. They also provide a monthly report of an editorial calendar for any improvement needed in SEO.

As with any type of business, SEO services must be updated with the latest trends and techniques in website optimization that can attract potential clients and also produce great results and better yields. A blog writing service must have a team of SEO experts that will be in charge of formulating effective and successful tactics and a pool of workers that are efficient enough to put them into great use.

Topics

Sometimes, these writing services do not meet your demands or satisfaction. It will be good if you have your own ideas. There are stacks of topics that will surely catch your readers' attention. Of course, your own concept is important in making it more interesting to your target audience.

1. Readers usually browse the Internet for ideas and tips. Show the expertise of a service, a product, or a company using topics that commonly includes the "How to Become... ", "How to Create... ", "How to Improve... ", "How to Avoid... " at the beginning of the title or web entry.

2. Instructions are helpful to readers. These also include guidelines and tutorials in using certain products or in following particular procedures or techniques.

3. Topics that talk about the latest and trending news about a service, product, or any related theme are also interesting to read. Examples are best of the best, survey results, breaking news, etc.

Phoebe Martines is an expert SEO specialist, earning a broad experience on the intricate search engine optimization processes. She enjoys sharing what she knows and believes that the industry will continue to grow over the years.

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Online Marketing System: Earn While You Learn How to Promote Your Own Stuff

Why look for an online marketing system?

You're wise to be looking to learn online marketing in today's world. Because these days people have been slapped so many times with advertisements from every direction that they are like to let their "B.S. filter" take precedent over their better judgment and simply not even listen to what you have to say (all the while nodding and seemingly agreeing).

Oh, but if they actually go to Google and type in something that they want to know about and happen to land on your online marketing system page - ah- a totally different attitude about taking in knowledge!

What does a good online marketing system consist of?

A good system that will draw leads and convert to sales consists of three parts: the capture page, the sales page, and the auto-responding system.

Function of the "online marketing system" capture page...

It does just that.. "capture" your lead. It will have great "ad copy" which is the compelling text on the page that is designed to intrigue your visitor.

The ad copy on a good capture page should include a relevant phrase they're searching for in the first few words, and a phrase to connect emotionally in the last part of the phrase.

For example, "Your Easy Online Marketing System for a Complex Cyber World" will relate to the readers' curiosity because they know how hard they have struggled to make sense of what they can never find "easy" in internet marketing.

In addition, the capture page should promise something. It may be best in this case to simply go to your brain and ask, "would I be willing to give my email address here for what I'm offering?" An example could be "I'll show you three things that anyone can do to get people to buy stuff from you".

The second portion of the online marketing system is the sales page..

This is a little trickier. Some people think as long as they lead people to land on their network marketing website (i.e. "mlmcompany.com/username"), then people will want to poke around and try to find stuff to buy. Wrong.

People are like sheep and need to be led. Actually, they're even more difficult than sheep! They need to be entertained a little to keep them interested before they flat out want to buy something.

Of course, if you're using your blog platform as a sales page then your long time loyal followers who feel they know and trust you from all your posts may want to buy from you.

But the best type of sales page is an extended video to capture and hold attention, giving value and entertainment while building passion and excitement. Most people will buy out of sheer emotion than common sense.

And the last but not least portion of the online marketing system is your auto-responding system...

I say "not least" because the average person needs to be approached seven times before making that final decision to buy. Since most of us are not likely to be calling our leads up to seven times each, it's the email auto-responding system that will do the work for you.

These three elements, when played right, can create your online marketing system on autopilot!

Even when you're new to online marketing, you can get started easily and earn while you learn with the Empower Network Blog that pays 100% commissions so you can earn while you learn with your new online marketing system.

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5 Ways to Make Sure Your Website Offers Great Content

Content is one of the most important parts of your website. There's a reason why many people say "content is king." There are other important factors, and your website won't thrive without things like traffic, but what your everyday website visitor will notice most is your content. It has to be good. How do you make sure you're offering great content to your visitors?

1. Know What Your Visitors Need From Your Content

Great content isn't always paragraphs of information. Graphics are content. Lists are content. The information on your page in general, however it's presented, is your content.

It will never be great unless it's what your website visitors need. If you're selling a physical product, for example, words on the page are rarely enough. Pictures of the product, possibly including the ability to look closely at the item and at multiple angles, may make the difference. Videos can also be useful.

Don't, however, rely excessively on pictures or videos. Not every visitor will be in a situation where they can watch a video, and you can only learn so much from pictures. As much as possible, make sure information in your pictures and videos are available in print. Transcripts are a good idea for many videos. Link to a transcript on another page if it's too much to put on the same page for any reason.

If it's information you're providing, make sure it answers your website visitors' needs as best you can. You can't predict all needs, but you should have the information your site claims to offer. If it's an information product, include information to help your visitor decide that it's the right purchase. Your content should reflect the needs of your audience, not your own needs.

2. Include References When Appropriate

You don't know everything, even when you're an expert in your niche. Linking out to appropriate references makes you look better. It reinforces that you know what you're talking about. It's one thing to quote a statistic, for example, and quite another to show where it came from. When you're using information from elsewhere, don't just quote it, link to your source for it if at all possible.

3. Pay Attention to Popular Content in Your Niche

You should know what's happening in your niche so that you can take advantage of it. You need to do this not only on your own website, but on the sites of major competitors. This information has become fairly easy to gather as many websites clearly display the number of Facebook likes, tweets and other social media shares a particular page has received. That's highly useful information.

4. Set High Standards For Your Writing

Writing isn't as easy as some people think it is. Coming up with the right words takes time and tweaking. Not every writer can sit down and crank out the perfect article or marketing material in a single shot. Many find it far better to write, put it aside, and edit later from a fresh perspective.

If you hire others to write for you, set a high standard for them as well. Whatever appears on your website, reflects on your website as a whole. Allow a lot of low quality content to appear and your website won't impress visitors as a great resource.

5. Keep Trying

You may not learn the tricks to providing great content to your niche right away, no matter how well you know it. It takes time to develop your writing style and to get accustomed to what works online. The less you work at it, however, the longer it will take to master.

Writing every day is a good place to start. You may not feel that all of it is worth publishing to your website, but no one says you have to. Put the stuff that just isn't quite working aside - somewhere down the line you might find a use for it, even if it takes a complete rewrite to make it happen. Take the good stuff and polish it until it's good enough for your website.

Stephanie Foster blogs about running an online business. Learn about social media mistakes that can affect your business at her site.

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Learning How to Make a Blog

Learning how to start a blog has become a common interest among tons of people all around the world, especially after these individuals learn about the possibility of being able to earn an actual income from the comfort and privacy of their own home. If you are interested in starting a blog, whether it's for your own personal use and something fun to do or if you want to blog as a way to earn money from home, all you have to do is follow a few simple instructions. And you can end up having a successful and interesting blog that other people can relate to and enjoy.

Getting Started with Blogging

If you want to learn how to make a blog, the first thing is to choose a niche for your blog. Of course, your blog could be about your daily rants or raves or anything you really like to talk about. However, picking a specific niche will help you to keep your blog as organized as you possibly can. There are all types of niches that you can choose from. Some of the more popular niches include blogs on cooking, baking, beauty, pregnancy etc to name a few. When you choose to write about something, it should be something that you are truly passionate about. When you are really interested in a topic, you will never run out of things to talk about and say on your blog and, you will also be able to provide your blog readers with plenty of useful information and advice. This by far is the best way for you to build a fan base for your blog as well.

Creating and Developing Your Blog

Once you have chosen a niche for your blog, it's time to get started with the actual aspect of creating your blog. You can create your blog on a free website or you can purchase your own website, the latter is a better route to take. With your own website, you will have a clear and precise web address and will be able to do what you want with your blog. You can get your own website by purchasing a domain from one of the many domain registrar websites. Once you purchase a domain, you will need to purchase hosting and of course the good news is that there are a plenty of affordable hosting plans available.

Now that you have a website, it's time to install WordPress. WordPress will allow you to write your blogs and keep them organized. The good thing about this application is that you can even write blog posts ahead of time and set them to be made live on a specific date. WordPress is definitely ideal for all bloggers and it has been found to be quite convenient by people who use it.

Once everything is set up and installed, you can start writing about what you are passionate about. Make sure that you also spend time marketing for your blog and doing guest posts on other well-established blogs to get more notice and attention for your new blog. Always offer valuable content in your blog to keep visitors interested and to get them to continue to come back. If visitors enjoy your blog, they will more than likely tell their friends about your blog as well. In reality, starting a blog is not nearly as difficult as it may seem, it's just a matter of getting the right guidance.

For the benefit of the readers, our website has more useful and related information for how to start a blog and also good stuff about how to make a blog.

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Learn How to Do Blogging and Blog Commenting for Backlinks Properly

Establishing Your Niche

Are you planning to create your own blog? The first thing you should consider before starting a blog is by selecting a particular niche. So, what is "niche" really means? Niche is a specific topic which should be the main focus of the blog. When you choose one, it should be about a specific field that you know you are good at - it might be about a specific sport, technology, might be about fashion, or politics, etc. If you want to gain a good reputation and sustain your readers, you need to supply great, valuable and sensible articles on your blog that will give a reason for your readers to stay longer and visit the blog regularly. Niche defines as your backbone that provides structure, balance and functioning for your blogs.

How to Increase your PR and SERP Through Blog Comments

After you have defined your niche, the next step will be, how to increase your Page Rank (PR) and Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is not a job you can do overnight. It requires good tools, analysis and of course, compelling articles. If you're a new blogger and search over the web in ways to increase your PR and SERP, you would probably come across about how to get backlinks from blog commenting. Somehow, it's sort of true and in other ways it isn't helpful at all.

Very often, bloggers believe that through blog comments you can gain yourself some organic and quality backlinks. If that would be the case, bloggers would've probably flooded other blogs with comments just to receive lots of backlinks. Imagining that, readers would probably see blogs more of an eyesore with many links attached to it than being readable. However, commenting can really be a great source of good links if properly done. To make backlinks from blog commenting useful, here are some tips to remember:

Come up with a good strategy in making blog comments

Most common mistakes with blog commenting is the belief that the more you comment, the more you receive backlinks. An effective commenting strategy for you to get backlinks is to comment on the same niche as with your blog and do it effectively. Make and work out a plan on how many blogs you will be commenting; which blogs it should be; and how much time you will put in.

Build a reputation

When you comment, do not think that you are only doing it because you wanted to receive backlinks.Aside from the receiving backlinks from commenting, you will also be able to benefit through comments by gaining recognitions from fellow bloggers and readers. Earn a reputation by getting new readers and receive new comments from the blog owners themselves through your comment with the niche related backlinks.

Engage in the discussion naturally

When you comment, do not simply put something that would just depict that you just dropped by and didn't actually read the entire post. Make your blog comments as though how you want others to comment on your blog.

Know which blogs to comment

Comment on blogs in your same niche. Choose those blogs that allow using of keywords, represent high Page Rank (PR) and blogs with good contents so you'd be able to receive quality niche related backlinks.

Evaluate the results

Determine the return of your investments when you do blog commenting for backlinks. By that, it means that you should be able to know your priorities and you will be able to conclude where to comment most, to achieve more traffic from your niche related backlinks for every comment that you do.

Commenting is one of the best ways used to increase your PR and SERP. Make a smart and efficient blog comments, not only to receive niche related backlinks but as well as to establish your reputation and credibility. As soon as you establish your niche definition, plan your SEO strategies and gain more traffic.

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Inside The Mind of a Good Blogger

In order to be considered a good blogger it is important to adopt the mindset of serving others first and foremost! This means when you write blog posts your motivation needs to be how you can best serve the interest of your readers! In addition you must also be realistic about how quickly you will begin to see your efforts reap the results you no doubt hope for and expect! Building a successful blogging platform is NOT a one time overnight event but rather the culmination of your time and a consistent effort!

Here are 3 very important aspects of the type of mindset you'll need to posses if your motivation is to develop a large and loyal following as a blogger!

Readers Come First

Consideration must always be given to what readers need or want since by serving others in the way is the best strategy to attract visitors! Remember that when you write blog posts to always ask yourself if those who view what you wrote will benefit in any way! You need to be mindful of NOT only your own mindset, but the mindset of your readers as well! We live in an age of 'what's in it for me' therefore this is something to ALWAYS be thinking of in terms of any visitors to your site!

Patience Is a Virtue

Since blogging successfully requires building loyalty with readers, time will be needed to do so! The first step in doing so is to always try to write blog posts that contain good quality information of relevance to your blogging topic! It will take time to gain the attention of others so be patient and do NOT take a lack of traffic as a sign of failure, especially in the early stages! This is perfectly normal and to be expected!

There Is No Quit

And speaking of patience, your perseverance is an absolute MUST since even though you may not be seeing results you MUST continue writing! There will be good days and bad! Whether it's your dissatisfaction with the traffic you're getting or difficulty you may experience when you sit down to write blog posts! The single most important thing you can do is to maintain your motivation to continue researching and writing! In the end it is the content you post that attracts your readers therefore without it you stand no chance of being successful!

The mindset needed to be a good blogger is comprised of the 3 aspects discussed above here today and starts with serving others! Your site is not something you can expect to 'jam' down the throat of others with the expectation that your readers will love what you offer and return for more! The fact is your motivation anytime you write blog posts is to try to offer value and benefit to those who view the content you offer! Having said that it is therefore important you start out with the proper mindset, as has been discussed, and in doing so you'll find your readers will grow in numbers as will their loyalty!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. To learn more about how to be considered a good blogger and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://blogbrawn.com/

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3 Components Of A Great Blog Post

Composing a great blog post starts with keeping your focus on satisfying your readers! It is vitally important to remember there is a seemingly infinite amount of other blogs to read online so your priority is to keep visitors happy! In fact failure to maintain your focus on what people what to see when composing new updates can very well result in wasting both your time and effort! I doubt you'd want to waste either!

Let's have a look at 3 important components you'll want to be mindful of when posting updates to keep your readers happy and coming back!

Avoid 'Personal' Interests

Following your own passion works well for the sake of helping you keep your focus however if your readers aren't interested you're wasting time! Choose a topic that holds interest for others and avoid trying to get these people interested in personal passions of yours since this won't work! Remember there are plenty of blogs to read on the internet so if what you offer is NOT what people are looking for, kiss them goodbye!

Know of What You Speak

Research is vitally important and something a good blogger does daily! Whether you're looking for material to write about or are checking facts and figures, research plays a very important role in your success! Credibility is where it's at when it comes to being considered a good blogger and delivering accurate information is the best start!

Add a Dose of You

Whether you inject humor, perspectives or opinions allow your personal 'reactions' to flow as you compose any new updates! Everybody has a unique view as well as their own unique way of delivering both the subject matter and their personal views! Do not fight but rather embrace the urge to be simply YOU when composing updates! Many people are especially attracted to HOW the content is delivered and even use this 'criteria' when choosing what blogs to read so go ahead and unleash a little personality! This will always help you stand out from the rest!

The best place to start when composing any great blog post is to be especially mindful of what it is your readers want! One of the best ways to determine this is by visiting forums and finding other blogs to read that concentrate on the same topic as yours! Listen to what people are saying and/or asking to give you the best idea of what your focus needs to be on when writing content! The 3 components discussed above need to be included or at least considered every time you author any new updates! Remember if you want to attract and retain visitors, what you offer needs to appeal to them and not simply reflect a personal interest of yours! And for heavens sake always check to be sure what you are ready to publish contains fact and as already mentioned, a little bit of 'personality' when appropriate!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For more tips about how to compose a great blog post and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://affiliatequickstart.com/

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Be Part of the Blogging Tribe

More and more individuals and companies are venturing onto the web 2.0 worlds. This is the current revolution, and they all have the same goal: as people share and create a personal brand they want to be recognized. The competition is moving onto a new dimension, climb to the top in an honest way. You can do so through quality, creative blogging and article writing. Get going and learn the hidden tricks linked to white hat SEO.

Everyone wants to have name and presence, as we all have a clear idea: if we do not exist in Google then you are out of the game. Are you currently writing blog posts for a small niche? Are you focused on article writing for a global audience? As a good starting point, you should write for a globalized society. Note that if you aim high, your blog will be most likely read by people around the world. Thus, people with different dialects, words and language proficiency levels will be reading your posts.

If you had to write a post about insurance in UK, for example, what terminology would you use? In many places, they use different words for the same thing depending on the latitude of your location. Therefore, do not forget about slangs, variations and so on.

Internet access and 2015 statistics

Blogging and article writing are taking over. Well, this does not stop right here! It is anticipated that by 2015 there will be around 2 billion individuals with internet access. Much of this amount will come from developing countries. The more experienced bloggers are familiar with this scenario. If this is not your case, do not forget to focus on details.

What about blog traffic?

White hat SEO techniques are linked to quality content. Blog traffic can increase and should not just come from the country in which it was created. If you focus on rich content and quality blogging, search engines will begin "liking" the content of your blog, the relevance of other geographical areas is becoming higher.

In terms of slangs, there is no need to be well versed in a specific language to learn the basics of using it. Unless there is a good purpose behind the use of slangs, t is always better to stay away from those words or grammatical forms.

Think SEO

Are you writing a post about cheap car insurance? If this is your case, you should make an extensive keywords research.  You can opt for general keywords and a main one like "car insurance" somewhere. Remember to keep it simple! Use basic and clear language. Do not take anything for granted. Do not assume that your readers have the same local knowledge you have. Note that it is always convenient to express costs in local currency and convert to American dollars.

Yes, freelancers, SEOs, and top of the line editors of article writing companies can be spectacularly talented and they deserve a monument. Yet, you need to ensure plagiarism free content.

Rochella is into freelance writing job since July 2010. She already served a number of clients across the globe. Though she can write topics in different niches, she enjoys writing women's interest the most.

Being exposed to freelancing, she's able to build a team of writers in her country. She is now maintaining a team with 20 members. Her family of writers is getting bigger as more are getting interested to join her team.

You may get in touch with her through articles.at.work@gmail.com

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Why Search Engine Optimization Is Necessary for Business

Search Engine Optimization or (SEO) can be extremely crucial for the success of any kind of online business, since more than 90% of all online visitors will get access to the websites via different search engines. So, the only way to virtually establish your business on the enormously expanding internet is by knowing the right optimization techniques.

Actually the search engines are just like our phone books, but they work on the much larger scale as compare to our phone books. You can find thousands, in fact millions of businesses and companies that are offering various services you need.

Hence, this is quite clear that it's very difficult to find the website of your company when there are thousands of local, national or international companies are doing business in the same niche as yours. Following are some other benefits of the various optimization techniques that will certainly help you in knowing "Why SEO is Necessary for Business."

- The key tool for every online business owner is search engine optimization which helps them to get more customers to their business's website. It is extremely crucial to get the potential traffic to the website and also maintain a good level at the search engines. Basically the main and primary aim of the various SEO techniques is to get the repetitive and potential customers to the website.

- There are so many convenient ways that work under the banner of search engine optimization like RSS Feeds and link building that has the ability to create a great positive impact on an online business.

- The search engine optimization which is based on the specific keywords which are used in the website's content can generate some potential traffic that will ultimately help in the revenue generation and success of an E-commerce site or online business.

- When it comes to the customer finding your website, then the ranking of your site matters a lot. When a customer or visitor search a keyword which is related to your online business through a search engine then it will pass through the SERP's. Your website will get the specific ranking which depends on the quality and relevancy of the content which is published on your website. Therefore, this ranking can be easily increased with the help of different SEO techniques.

- Remember, it is extremely important to practice the optimization of the website with ethics. There are many webmasters who are using the negative part of SEO in order to get better results in a short time period. But the fact is that all these techniques will eventually trap them under the crawler and they would not get any kind of benefit from these techniques.

- SEO is the best way to promote the business on the World Wide Web. All the competent and experienced SEO marketing companies will always make sure that the business of their client gets an all-round promotion and maximum exposure.

George is SEO consultant and have been giving SEO services from many years, You can catch him at http://www.saifullahbutt.com/

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Things to Look For in an SEO Expert

Search engine optimization encompasses simple on-page optimization techniques as well as complicated link building procedure and promotion via online social networks. SEO expert therefore needs to be equipped with specialized knowledge and should know how to implement all the latest tips and tricks. Nowadays companies hire outside SEO consultants or assign the job to an in-house employee who has a basic understanding of web development and knows how to write great keyword-oriented content. A competent SEO specialist needs to have certain abilities or qualifications, which are listed below.

1. Experience
SEO is something that can improve a website's ranking in search engines in a few days if done correctly. Because of this reason, some people consider it a very simple job and overlook the importance of experience. When hiring an SEO consultant, find out about their experience in this particular field and if possible ask them to produce a portfolio.

2. SEO Know-How
A good SEO expert would know all the steps of search engine optimization. These include on-page techniques as well as off-page optimization steps like article marketing, link building tactics, social bookmarking, RSS and press release submission, and comment posting, etc. Your SEO specialist should be equipped with sufficient knowledge regarding all these areas.

3. No Spam
If you are hiring an SEO consultant firm, make sure they don't use any spamming methods to attract customers. There should be a proper interface explaining their services in detail and professional communication style and friendly customer services staff. You can judge their SEO efforts by looking at their website and how they promote their services online.

4. Testimonials
Customer reviews and testimonials are important that represent an individual's reliability and quality of work. An SEO expert should be able to produce a couple of good testimonials from previous clients who have tried their services and are happy with them.

5. Out-of-the-Box Thinking Perspective
Any SEO individual or firm should be able to provide customized SEO services. This means they are able to think out of the box and discard age-old practices that do not work in the current competitive world. Moreover, your SEO expert should be able to introduce practices that are particularly useful for your website and are likely to bring positive results in a short span of time.

These are some of the points you should keep in mind when hiring an SEO consultant. Remember that simple SEO techniques can be implemented by anyone, but you need someone who is equipped with specialized knowledge on the subject, a proven track record of SEO success, and years of experience in the field.

Saif Ullah Butt is SEO consultant and have been giving SEO services from many years, You can catch him at http://www.saifullahbutt.com/

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