(My Original Blog Post: Web Design Muskegon MI)
Web Design Muskegon MI
Looking for a web design agency in Muskegon Michigan? The good news is that Area Web Solutions is located in Muskegon, MI right here in West Michigan. We have been in business since 2005 and have done work for various business types including Fruitport Township.
Just because we are located in West Michigan, this does not limit who we can work for. We have clients all over the US right now. Whether you are located in California, Boston or anywhere in between, we will work with you closely every step of the way as though you are local business, in order to get the results that you expect from a premium web design agency like ours.
We have prepackaged and custom design plans to fit your needs. Our rates are affordable and the work is unmatched. Many of our clients have come to us to have their website done right after bad experiences with other designers. Yes, there are people out there that will build a website for nickles, but the term, "you get what you pay for", really rings true with web design. If you want it done right the first time, call us. If you want to pay twice, call the other guy, then we'll be hearing from you soon anyways.
Contact us or call 231-747-9531 today!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Answering Advertisements on Craigslist
(My Original Blog Post: Answering Advertisements on Craigslist)
Craigslist is an online community which has a great deal to offer to both individuals and business owners. Some of the features on Craigslist include sections for community events, activities and news, personals advertisements, discussion forums, housing opportunities, for sale items, services offered, small business advertisements, jobs and resumes. While some of these sections such as the discussion forum and parts of the community section exist exclusively for the purpose of exchanging information or ideas, other sections such as the personals, housing, sale, services, job and resume sections provide the opportunity for users to respond to advertisements for more information or to make a purchase. In these cases uses should exercise caution. This article will focus on specific precautions which should be taken when answering advertisements in the personals, housing and jobs sections of Craigslist.
Answering Personals Advertisements
The personals section of Craigslist can be a great place for individuals to meet platonic friends or potential romantic partners. However, it can also be a location for predators to prey on unsuspecting victims who do not realize the threat of danger which may exist with meeting online partners in person.
One of the simplest ways to avoid potentially harmful situations is to never agreeing to meet someone in a desolate location. Initial meetings should take place in busy, public locations to minimize the potential for danger. Predators are much less likely to attempt to harm you in a public location. Additionally, it is wise to not travel to a secluded location with someone you don’t know until you are positive they do not intend to do you any harm.
Precautions should also be taken to avoid giving out personal information such as your address to those you meet online. The Internet affords a certain degree of anonymousness and some unscrupulous individuals can take advantage of this to mask their true identity.
Answering Housing Advertisements
The housing advertisements on Craigslist offer opportunities for those who are seeking housing situations such as rental of a housing location, roommate opportunities, sublets or house swaps. Care should be taken in all of these opportunities to ensure the person you are working with does not have any ill intentions towards you. This can be done by carefully screening all potential roommates or others who might be using your house or apartment.
When selecting a potential roommate it is important to verify the individual is trustworthy and able to pay the rent. It is also important to seek out an individual with living habits similar to your own to avoid the potential for conflict.
Answering Job Advertisements
Craigslist is an excellent location for finding exciting new career opportunities. There are many different job advertisements in a variety of different categories. These job opportunities include full time, part time, telecommute and contract positions. The downside to answering job advertisements on Craigslist is the advertisements are often placed anonymously. Those who place the advertisements are given the opportunity to either use their own email address for candidates to respond or to have candidates respond through an email address generated by Craigslist. Therefore, candidates do not always know who has placed the advertisements. For this reason care should be taken when responding to these advertisements to avoid supplying specific contact information. Candidates are instead urged to supply only an email address when responding to advertisements.
Craigslist is an online community which has a great deal to offer to both individuals and business owners. Some of the features on Craigslist include sections for community events, activities and news, personals advertisements, discussion forums, housing opportunities, for sale items, services offered, small business advertisements, jobs and resumes. While some of these sections such as the discussion forum and parts of the community section exist exclusively for the purpose of exchanging information or ideas, other sections such as the personals, housing, sale, services, job and resume sections provide the opportunity for users to respond to advertisements for more information or to make a purchase. In these cases uses should exercise caution. This article will focus on specific precautions which should be taken when answering advertisements in the personals, housing and jobs sections of Craigslist.
Answering Personals Advertisements
The personals section of Craigslist can be a great place for individuals to meet platonic friends or potential romantic partners. However, it can also be a location for predators to prey on unsuspecting victims who do not realize the threat of danger which may exist with meeting online partners in person.
One of the simplest ways to avoid potentially harmful situations is to never agreeing to meet someone in a desolate location. Initial meetings should take place in busy, public locations to minimize the potential for danger. Predators are much less likely to attempt to harm you in a public location. Additionally, it is wise to not travel to a secluded location with someone you don’t know until you are positive they do not intend to do you any harm.
Precautions should also be taken to avoid giving out personal information such as your address to those you meet online. The Internet affords a certain degree of anonymousness and some unscrupulous individuals can take advantage of this to mask their true identity.
Answering Housing Advertisements
The housing advertisements on Craigslist offer opportunities for those who are seeking housing situations such as rental of a housing location, roommate opportunities, sublets or house swaps. Care should be taken in all of these opportunities to ensure the person you are working with does not have any ill intentions towards you. This can be done by carefully screening all potential roommates or others who might be using your house or apartment.
When selecting a potential roommate it is important to verify the individual is trustworthy and able to pay the rent. It is also important to seek out an individual with living habits similar to your own to avoid the potential for conflict.
Answering Job Advertisements
Craigslist is an excellent location for finding exciting new career opportunities. There are many different job advertisements in a variety of different categories. These job opportunities include full time, part time, telecommute and contract positions. The downside to answering job advertisements on Craigslist is the advertisements are often placed anonymously. Those who place the advertisements are given the opportunity to either use their own email address for candidates to respond or to have candidates respond through an email address generated by Craigslist. Therefore, candidates do not always know who has placed the advertisements. For this reason care should be taken when responding to these advertisements to avoid supplying specific contact information. Candidates are instead urged to supply only an email address when responding to advertisements.
Affordable Advertising on Craigslist
(My Original Blog Post: Affordable Advertising on Craigslist)
The advertising on Craigslist is certainly affordable. In fact there is no fee for the majority of posts made on Craigslist. Craigslist began as a non-profit organization but in 1999 it was converted to a for profit organization. However, operating costs are supported by charging nominal fees for help wanted advertisements placed on the San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City Craigslist websites. Additionally, there is a fee for brokerage apartment listings in New York City.
The vast majority of those posting advertisements on any of the Craigslist over 300 websites are not paying a fee to do so. This definitely makes posting advertisements on Craigslist to be worthwhile from a financial standpoint. While the advertisements are free care should be taken to post these advertisements judiciously because although there is financial loss, poor posting can result in a loss of time and resources if it leads to poor profit potential.
Why Craigslist is Free
Although the founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark, was approached in 1997 about the possibility of running banner advertisements on Craigslist to generate a profit, he made the decision to keep Craigslist as a noncommercial website. Even after Craigslist was converted to a for profit organization commercialization did not infiltrate the website. The points listed in the Craigslist mission statement demonstrate why Craigslist has remained noncommercial:
* Giving each other a break, getting the word out about everyday, real-world stuff
* Restoring the human voice to the Internet, in a humane, non-commercial environment
* Keeping things simple, common-sense, down-to-earth, honest, very real
* Providing an alternative to impersonal, big-media sites
* Being inclusive, giving a voice to the disenfranchised, democratizing…
* Being a collection of communities with similar spirit, not a single monolithic entity
Advertising on Craigslist vs. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another type of marketing which many business owners find to be both worthwhile and affordable. For many the appeal of affiliate marketing is the affiliates are not compensated for their efforts unless the business owner sees some type of gain from the advertising. This gain may be in the form of website traffic in the case of pay per click marketing, in the form of sales in pay per sale marketing or in the form of potential leads when a website visitor performs a specific action such as registering with a website or signing up for an offer.
While affiliate marketing is very appealing there are others who prefer advertising on Craigslist. The advantages Craigslist offers to advertisers is, of course, that the advertisers never pay for their business advertisements and the community receives a great deal of website traffic already so driving traffic to the website is not a concern.
Why Free Is Not Always Better
However, there are some specific instances where free advertising is not the best type of advertising available. Consider a product or service for which Craigslist does not have an appropriate category. In this case advertising on Craigslist may not be worthwhile because although the advertisement is free, it is also not likely to receive a great deal of attention from members of the target audience. In this case, advertising on Craigslist may be a waste of resources.
Another example of an instance when Craigslist may not be a great advertising option is when the market is already saturated with competitors’ advertisements. In this case it can be difficult to sway customer loyalty so it might be more worthwhile to pay for advertising in a less crowded market.
The advertising on Craigslist is certainly affordable. In fact there is no fee for the majority of posts made on Craigslist. Craigslist began as a non-profit organization but in 1999 it was converted to a for profit organization. However, operating costs are supported by charging nominal fees for help wanted advertisements placed on the San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City Craigslist websites. Additionally, there is a fee for brokerage apartment listings in New York City.
The vast majority of those posting advertisements on any of the Craigslist over 300 websites are not paying a fee to do so. This definitely makes posting advertisements on Craigslist to be worthwhile from a financial standpoint. While the advertisements are free care should be taken to post these advertisements judiciously because although there is financial loss, poor posting can result in a loss of time and resources if it leads to poor profit potential.
Why Craigslist is Free
Although the founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark, was approached in 1997 about the possibility of running banner advertisements on Craigslist to generate a profit, he made the decision to keep Craigslist as a noncommercial website. Even after Craigslist was converted to a for profit organization commercialization did not infiltrate the website. The points listed in the Craigslist mission statement demonstrate why Craigslist has remained noncommercial:
* Giving each other a break, getting the word out about everyday, real-world stuff
* Restoring the human voice to the Internet, in a humane, non-commercial environment
* Keeping things simple, common-sense, down-to-earth, honest, very real
* Providing an alternative to impersonal, big-media sites
* Being inclusive, giving a voice to the disenfranchised, democratizing…
* Being a collection of communities with similar spirit, not a single monolithic entity
Advertising on Craigslist vs. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another type of marketing which many business owners find to be both worthwhile and affordable. For many the appeal of affiliate marketing is the affiliates are not compensated for their efforts unless the business owner sees some type of gain from the advertising. This gain may be in the form of website traffic in the case of pay per click marketing, in the form of sales in pay per sale marketing or in the form of potential leads when a website visitor performs a specific action such as registering with a website or signing up for an offer.
While affiliate marketing is very appealing there are others who prefer advertising on Craigslist. The advantages Craigslist offers to advertisers is, of course, that the advertisers never pay for their business advertisements and the community receives a great deal of website traffic already so driving traffic to the website is not a concern.
Why Free Is Not Always Better
However, there are some specific instances where free advertising is not the best type of advertising available. Consider a product or service for which Craigslist does not have an appropriate category. In this case advertising on Craigslist may not be worthwhile because although the advertisement is free, it is also not likely to receive a great deal of attention from members of the target audience. In this case, advertising on Craigslist may be a waste of resources.
Another example of an instance when Craigslist may not be a great advertising option is when the market is already saturated with competitors’ advertisements. In this case it can be difficult to sway customer loyalty so it might be more worthwhile to pay for advertising in a less crowded market.
Disadvantages Of Using Craigslist.org To Make Money
(My Original Blog Post: Disadvantages Of Using Craigslist.org To Make Money)
There are disadvantages to using craigslist.org to make money. Although it can be done, and the chance of actually losing money is limited, craigslist.org only reaches a small percentage of customers. This is fine if what you are doing is limited to your location, however if you are selling products, this is a very limited area to do so.
The first disadvantage of using craigslist.org to make money is reach. Although millions of people visit this website, all of those visitors are distributed among 450 locations. This is where craigslist.org is lacking. You are not supposed to post your ad in more than one location at a time. If you are selling widgets, and you want to sell a lot of widgets to everyone, everywhere, then craigslist.org will be very limiting to you.
Another disadvantage of using craigslist.org to make money is that there is no protection for the seller. Many auction sites have procedures in place to make sure that both the buyer and seller are protected from unscrupulous individuals. Craigslist.org has no such protections. You make contact with a potential buyer or seller and hope that they will not rip you off. You do not know if they are legitimate or not and you have no idea if they are a dangerous criminal or not. Online auction sites remove the person interaction by means of shipping the item to a location. On craigslist.org you usually have to either have a buyer come to your home, go to a seller's location or meet in a public place somewhere. Meeting someone is fine if the item is small. However if you are selling a projection TV, it may be more difficult to get it to the local diner.
Craigslist.org does post a notice explaining how to keep safe from fraud. Their intentions are well meant and in this case you get what you pay for. Craigslist.org is free. Most auction sites have fees. In this case it seems that you are paying for an additional level of safety and security. On an auction website there is recourse if someone passes you a bad check or if someone offers to pay you via PayPal and then reverses the payment. With cragislist.org there is recourse only through law enforcement for a bad check or through PayPal. Your chances of recovering payment is not good. You will be out the money and the product.
Another problem with craigslist.org is if you are trying to promote your business. There are many businesses that will keep reporting your ad as being in violation of craigslists.org's rules and regulations or that it is spam or even that it infringes on some else's copyright. In certain categories it can be nearly impossible for a new business to post an ad. For example, posting an ad for carpet cleaning services in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area can be next to impossible. I know of one particular company that finally had to contact Craig Newmark directly in order to get a problem resolved.
Now that you know all about the disadvantages of using craigslist.org to make money you can decide for yourself if it is worth it. Although the ad is free it takes a lot of time to write, post and constantly delete and repost your ad so that it stays on the front page. Is it worth it? Only you can decide for yourself.
There are disadvantages to using craigslist.org to make money. Although it can be done, and the chance of actually losing money is limited, craigslist.org only reaches a small percentage of customers. This is fine if what you are doing is limited to your location, however if you are selling products, this is a very limited area to do so.
The first disadvantage of using craigslist.org to make money is reach. Although millions of people visit this website, all of those visitors are distributed among 450 locations. This is where craigslist.org is lacking. You are not supposed to post your ad in more than one location at a time. If you are selling widgets, and you want to sell a lot of widgets to everyone, everywhere, then craigslist.org will be very limiting to you.
Another disadvantage of using craigslist.org to make money is that there is no protection for the seller. Many auction sites have procedures in place to make sure that both the buyer and seller are protected from unscrupulous individuals. Craigslist.org has no such protections. You make contact with a potential buyer or seller and hope that they will not rip you off. You do not know if they are legitimate or not and you have no idea if they are a dangerous criminal or not. Online auction sites remove the person interaction by means of shipping the item to a location. On craigslist.org you usually have to either have a buyer come to your home, go to a seller's location or meet in a public place somewhere. Meeting someone is fine if the item is small. However if you are selling a projection TV, it may be more difficult to get it to the local diner.
Craigslist.org does post a notice explaining how to keep safe from fraud. Their intentions are well meant and in this case you get what you pay for. Craigslist.org is free. Most auction sites have fees. In this case it seems that you are paying for an additional level of safety and security. On an auction website there is recourse if someone passes you a bad check or if someone offers to pay you via PayPal and then reverses the payment. With cragislist.org there is recourse only through law enforcement for a bad check or through PayPal. Your chances of recovering payment is not good. You will be out the money and the product.
Another problem with craigslist.org is if you are trying to promote your business. There are many businesses that will keep reporting your ad as being in violation of craigslists.org's rules and regulations or that it is spam or even that it infringes on some else's copyright. In certain categories it can be nearly impossible for a new business to post an ad. For example, posting an ad for carpet cleaning services in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area can be next to impossible. I know of one particular company that finally had to contact Craig Newmark directly in order to get a problem resolved.
Now that you know all about the disadvantages of using craigslist.org to make money you can decide for yourself if it is worth it. Although the ad is free it takes a lot of time to write, post and constantly delete and repost your ad so that it stays on the front page. Is it worth it? Only you can decide for yourself.
Affiliate Marketing Through Craigslist
(My Original Blog Post: Affiliate Marketing Through Craigslist)
Craiglist is an extensive online community which has a great deal to offer to users of this community. With approximately four billion page views per month it should come as no surprise that Craigslist can offer a wealth of financial opportunities to savvy Internet marketers who know how to capitalize on the popularity of this website. Affiliate marketing is one of the ways knowledgeable Internet marketers can expand on the profitability of their websites. Craigslist provides wonderful opportunities for both ecommerce website owners seeking affiliates to market for them as well as those who are in the business of affiliate marketing who are looking for new opportunities to market for another business. This article will provide an explanation of affiliate marketing and will also provide information on how Craigslist can be used to either find affiliates or affiliate opportunities.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is essentially a marketing campaign in which the business owner only pays the affiliate based on performance. Unlike conventional marketing campaigns where the business owner pays for the advertising regardless of the results produced by the advertisements, in affiliate marketing the business owner only pays when a specific result is achieved. Affiliate marketing usually takes place in the following three forms:
* Pay Per Click
* Pay Per Sale
* Pay Per Lead
In a pay per click affiliate marketing campaign the affiliate places a coded link on their website and each time a visitor to their website clicks through the link to the sponsor’s website, the affiliate receives a sum of money. The amount of money they receive is based on an agreement between the sponsor and the affiliate. This amount can be cents, dollars or even a fraction of a cent. In a pay per sale campaign the affiliate is not compensated when the visitor clicks through to the sponsor’s website unless they also make a purchase when they click through this link. Again the amount of money the affiliate receives will depend on a pre-determined agreement and may be a specific amount or a percentage of the sale. In a pay per lead program the affiliate receives monetary compensation when a visitor clicks through the affiliate link and performs a specific action such as registering at the sponsor’s website or requesting additional information.
Using Craigslist to Find Potential Affiliates
Business owners who are interested in finding affiliates to promote their website may use Craigslist for the purpose of finding these affiliates. It may seem logical to post affiliate opportunities in the jobs section of Craigslist but it is important to note this is against Craigslist’s job posting policies. Review of the policy for posting jobs on Craigslist will verify these requirements. Therefore those who are interested in finding affiliates will have to take advantage of other areas of Craigslist to find affiliates.
Visiting discussion forums related to your business may be one way to find potential affiliates. However, when using the discussion forums, care should be taken to avoiding spamming the discussion forums with links to sign up for your affiliate program. Such spamming techniques are likely to not be taken seriously by potential affiliates and may incur more severe penalties by Craigslist moderators. The best way to find potential affiliates is to make logical contributions to discussions and get to know other participants offline or to include a link to more information on your affiliate marketing program whenever you post.
Using Craigslist to Find Opportunities for Affiliates
Those who generate a profit from acting as an affiliate for others can find new affiliate opportunities through Craigslist. Although posting these opportunities on the job boards are prohibited it is possible for advertisements of this nature to appear either because the original poster was not aware of the restrictions or because they deliberately ignored the restrictions. These types of advertisements are likely to be removed when discovered but they may exist for a short time without being noticed.
Those who act as affiliates can also find potential leads by placing advertisements in the services section or the resumes section. They may also find potential leads by networking with those in the discussion forums.
Craiglist is an extensive online community which has a great deal to offer to users of this community. With approximately four billion page views per month it should come as no surprise that Craigslist can offer a wealth of financial opportunities to savvy Internet marketers who know how to capitalize on the popularity of this website. Affiliate marketing is one of the ways knowledgeable Internet marketers can expand on the profitability of their websites. Craigslist provides wonderful opportunities for both ecommerce website owners seeking affiliates to market for them as well as those who are in the business of affiliate marketing who are looking for new opportunities to market for another business. This article will provide an explanation of affiliate marketing and will also provide information on how Craigslist can be used to either find affiliates or affiliate opportunities.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is essentially a marketing campaign in which the business owner only pays the affiliate based on performance. Unlike conventional marketing campaigns where the business owner pays for the advertising regardless of the results produced by the advertisements, in affiliate marketing the business owner only pays when a specific result is achieved. Affiliate marketing usually takes place in the following three forms:
* Pay Per Click
* Pay Per Sale
* Pay Per Lead
In a pay per click affiliate marketing campaign the affiliate places a coded link on their website and each time a visitor to their website clicks through the link to the sponsor’s website, the affiliate receives a sum of money. The amount of money they receive is based on an agreement between the sponsor and the affiliate. This amount can be cents, dollars or even a fraction of a cent. In a pay per sale campaign the affiliate is not compensated when the visitor clicks through to the sponsor’s website unless they also make a purchase when they click through this link. Again the amount of money the affiliate receives will depend on a pre-determined agreement and may be a specific amount or a percentage of the sale. In a pay per lead program the affiliate receives monetary compensation when a visitor clicks through the affiliate link and performs a specific action such as registering at the sponsor’s website or requesting additional information.
Using Craigslist to Find Potential Affiliates
Business owners who are interested in finding affiliates to promote their website may use Craigslist for the purpose of finding these affiliates. It may seem logical to post affiliate opportunities in the jobs section of Craigslist but it is important to note this is against Craigslist’s job posting policies. Review of the policy for posting jobs on Craigslist will verify these requirements. Therefore those who are interested in finding affiliates will have to take advantage of other areas of Craigslist to find affiliates.
Visiting discussion forums related to your business may be one way to find potential affiliates. However, when using the discussion forums, care should be taken to avoiding spamming the discussion forums with links to sign up for your affiliate program. Such spamming techniques are likely to not be taken seriously by potential affiliates and may incur more severe penalties by Craigslist moderators. The best way to find potential affiliates is to make logical contributions to discussions and get to know other participants offline or to include a link to more information on your affiliate marketing program whenever you post.
Using Craigslist to Find Opportunities for Affiliates
Those who generate a profit from acting as an affiliate for others can find new affiliate opportunities through Craigslist. Although posting these opportunities on the job boards are prohibited it is possible for advertisements of this nature to appear either because the original poster was not aware of the restrictions or because they deliberately ignored the restrictions. These types of advertisements are likely to be removed when discovered but they may exist for a short time without being noticed.
Those who act as affiliates can also find potential leads by placing advertisements in the services section or the resumes section. They may also find potential leads by networking with those in the discussion forums.
How To Make Money On Craigslist
(My Original Blog Post: How To Make Money On Craigslist)
There are many advantages of using craigslist.org to make money. The fact that this website reaches over 450 different communities and that almost every type of ad is free, there is very little reason not to post items and services for sale. Exactly what are the advantages of using craigslist.org to make money?
The answer is very simple, it is free and easy to do. That's all good and fine, but we really should elaborate. First of all, anyone who has a valid email address can post an ad. This makes joining very easy. All you have to do is upload a picture if necessary and write a good ad. You can post just about anything on craigslist.org. From services and items for sale, to real estate and cars, and even job postings (although there is a charge for this in 10 cities), you can find anything and sell just about anything that is legal for sale.
Selling items and services on craigslist.org is a great way to add extra income. It does not take a lot of effort and you can bring n a decent amount of money selling off your old and unwanted items. Some people also run their own business off of craigslist.org. Are you creative? Can you fix cars? Cars are bought, fixed up, and sold for a profit. Creative people sell quilts, crafts, and other items they have made. Yard sale junkies sell this weeks finds. It is all free, fun and profitable. This is the main advantage of using craigslist.org to make money.
Another advantage is that it sure beats having a yard sale. With a yard sale you are stuck there all day, the weather may or may not cooperate, and you might have undesirables shopping around in your front yard. With craigslist.org, you can be contacted via email. You choose who you wish to deal with. Your personal email address can be hidden and there is an option to have all inquiries go through a craigslist.org email address that gets forwarded to you. Protecting your privacy is important and selling through craigslist.org is more private than holding a yard sale.
Safety is another consideration, especially for single women, single moms, or women whose husbands may be out of town for extended lengths of time. Holding a yard sale can put you at risk if there are no other adults around. You do not want to broadcast the fact that you are there alone or alone with kids. Craigslist.org removes that situation. Only people that you invite come to your home. You can even agree to meet them at a local McDonalds or some other public place, thus keeping your actual residence private. This is a huge benefit over a yard sale. Personal safety should always be a primary concern. Safe and almost anonymous versus having droves of people come to your home. That is one of the many advantages of using craigslist.org to make money instead of a yard sale or classified ad.
Craigslist.org is free to use for buying and selling items and services. Online auctions sites cost you money. So does posting an ad in the local newspaper. Anytime you can promote a business or sale for free it is a good thing.
Now that you know about the advantages of using craigslist.org to make money, why not give it a try. Pad that bank account and start saving for a better car or perhaps just keep it for a rainy day. Whatever you use it for, you should consider giving craigslist.org a try.
There are many advantages of using craigslist.org to make money. The fact that this website reaches over 450 different communities and that almost every type of ad is free, there is very little reason not to post items and services for sale. Exactly what are the advantages of using craigslist.org to make money?
The answer is very simple, it is free and easy to do. That's all good and fine, but we really should elaborate. First of all, anyone who has a valid email address can post an ad. This makes joining very easy. All you have to do is upload a picture if necessary and write a good ad. You can post just about anything on craigslist.org. From services and items for sale, to real estate and cars, and even job postings (although there is a charge for this in 10 cities), you can find anything and sell just about anything that is legal for sale.
Selling items and services on craigslist.org is a great way to add extra income. It does not take a lot of effort and you can bring n a decent amount of money selling off your old and unwanted items. Some people also run their own business off of craigslist.org. Are you creative? Can you fix cars? Cars are bought, fixed up, and sold for a profit. Creative people sell quilts, crafts, and other items they have made. Yard sale junkies sell this weeks finds. It is all free, fun and profitable. This is the main advantage of using craigslist.org to make money.
Another advantage is that it sure beats having a yard sale. With a yard sale you are stuck there all day, the weather may or may not cooperate, and you might have undesirables shopping around in your front yard. With craigslist.org, you can be contacted via email. You choose who you wish to deal with. Your personal email address can be hidden and there is an option to have all inquiries go through a craigslist.org email address that gets forwarded to you. Protecting your privacy is important and selling through craigslist.org is more private than holding a yard sale.
Safety is another consideration, especially for single women, single moms, or women whose husbands may be out of town for extended lengths of time. Holding a yard sale can put you at risk if there are no other adults around. You do not want to broadcast the fact that you are there alone or alone with kids. Craigslist.org removes that situation. Only people that you invite come to your home. You can even agree to meet them at a local McDonalds or some other public place, thus keeping your actual residence private. This is a huge benefit over a yard sale. Personal safety should always be a primary concern. Safe and almost anonymous versus having droves of people come to your home. That is one of the many advantages of using craigslist.org to make money instead of a yard sale or classified ad.
Craigslist.org is free to use for buying and selling items and services. Online auctions sites cost you money. So does posting an ad in the local newspaper. Anytime you can promote a business or sale for free it is a good thing.
Now that you know about the advantages of using craigslist.org to make money, why not give it a try. Pad that bank account and start saving for a better car or perhaps just keep it for a rainy day. Whatever you use it for, you should consider giving craigslist.org a try.
Craigslist for Beginners
(My Original Blog Post: Craigslist for Beginners)
Although Craigslist has been around in one form or another since 1995, there are still some who have no idea how to use Craigslist. These individuals are missing out on a wonderful opportunity to be a part of a growing and continually evolving online community. This community is an excellent resource for finding information, finding jobs, finding friends or dates, making purchases, selling items or discussing important issues. This article will provide a brief introduction to each of the major sections on Craigslist.
Community Section
The community section of Craigslist is very useful for finding a great deal of local information. This may include activities, events, activities and lost and found just to name a few. This is definitely the section to check out if you are looking for things to do or see in a particular area.
Personals Section
The Personals section is where individuals can meet platonic friends or romantic partners. This section is set up with a number of different categories making it possible for both heterosexuals and homosexuals to find potential dates. The personals section is restricted to users over 18 years of age.
Discussion Forums
The discussion forums provide a location for individuals to voice their opinions, answer questions or otherwise exchange information. This section is divided into a number of different categories to make it easier for users to find others who share their interests. Certain categories allow users to post without logging in while other sections require users to log in before posting.
Housing Section
Craigslist’s housing section offers a variety of options related to lodging. Users of this section can find apartments or homes available for rent, sublet opportunities, potential roommate situations, house or apartment swaps, real estate sales, vacation rentals and even storage, parking and office space for rent or sale.
For Sale Section
The for sale section of Craigslist is largely self explanatory. Like most sections, it is divided into a number of different categories. Each of these categories describes the types of items which are offered for sale within the category. Additionally, there is a wanted section where users may post advertisements seeking to purchase particular items. Not all of the items listed in the for sale section require a fee to be paid to receive the item. Some of these items are available for free or in barter situation.
Services Sections
In the services section, service providers may place advertisements for the types of services they offer. Advertisements should be placed in appropriate categories but if there is no appropriate category the advertisement may be placed in the generic small business section.
Jobs Section
The job section is by far the most extensive section on Craigslist. This section is broken down into a number of different categories to make it easier for users to search for potential career matches. Users may find full time as well as part time opportunities in this section as well as telecommute positions and contract positions.
Gigs Section
The gigs section is similar to the jobs section but advertisements in the gigs section are supposed to refer to one time only opportunities as opposed to ongoing work. For example advertisements for volunteer staff needed for a one day event should be placed in the gigs section while advertisements for full time staff positions should be placed in jobs.
Resumes Section
The resumes section enables job seekers to post their resumes. The key to getting noticed in this section is to use a catchy headline for the resume. The resumes are not divided into different categories making it difficult for users to search through these resumes.
Although Craigslist has been around in one form or another since 1995, there are still some who have no idea how to use Craigslist. These individuals are missing out on a wonderful opportunity to be a part of a growing and continually evolving online community. This community is an excellent resource for finding information, finding jobs, finding friends or dates, making purchases, selling items or discussing important issues. This article will provide a brief introduction to each of the major sections on Craigslist.
Community Section
The community section of Craigslist is very useful for finding a great deal of local information. This may include activities, events, activities and lost and found just to name a few. This is definitely the section to check out if you are looking for things to do or see in a particular area.
Personals Section
The Personals section is where individuals can meet platonic friends or romantic partners. This section is set up with a number of different categories making it possible for both heterosexuals and homosexuals to find potential dates. The personals section is restricted to users over 18 years of age.
Discussion Forums
The discussion forums provide a location for individuals to voice their opinions, answer questions or otherwise exchange information. This section is divided into a number of different categories to make it easier for users to find others who share their interests. Certain categories allow users to post without logging in while other sections require users to log in before posting.
Housing Section
Craigslist’s housing section offers a variety of options related to lodging. Users of this section can find apartments or homes available for rent, sublet opportunities, potential roommate situations, house or apartment swaps, real estate sales, vacation rentals and even storage, parking and office space for rent or sale.
For Sale Section
The for sale section of Craigslist is largely self explanatory. Like most sections, it is divided into a number of different categories. Each of these categories describes the types of items which are offered for sale within the category. Additionally, there is a wanted section where users may post advertisements seeking to purchase particular items. Not all of the items listed in the for sale section require a fee to be paid to receive the item. Some of these items are available for free or in barter situation.
Services Sections
In the services section, service providers may place advertisements for the types of services they offer. Advertisements should be placed in appropriate categories but if there is no appropriate category the advertisement may be placed in the generic small business section.
Jobs Section
The job section is by far the most extensive section on Craigslist. This section is broken down into a number of different categories to make it easier for users to search for potential career matches. Users may find full time as well as part time opportunities in this section as well as telecommute positions and contract positions.
Gigs Section
The gigs section is similar to the jobs section but advertisements in the gigs section are supposed to refer to one time only opportunities as opposed to ongoing work. For example advertisements for volunteer staff needed for a one day event should be placed in the gigs section while advertisements for full time staff positions should be placed in jobs.
Resumes Section
The resumes section enables job seekers to post their resumes. The key to getting noticed in this section is to use a catchy headline for the resume. The resumes are not divided into different categories making it difficult for users to search through these resumes.
Advertising On Cragslist
(My Original Blog Post: Advertising On Cragslist)
Advertising on Craigslist is worthwhile for just about any business offering products or services. Whether these products are offered through ecommerce websites or physical stores, the business owners can see financial gains through advertising on Craigslist. Firstly unlike other advertising opportunities there is very little risk involved in posting on Craigslist. With the exception of job postings and housing postings in specific markets, advertising is free on Craigslist. Users are asked to agree to the terms of service of the community and are expected to follow specific guidelines when posting advertisements but there are no financial obligations to those placing advertisements on Craigslist. This means those who post advertisements do not have to be concerned with whether or not the advertisement they place will meet their expectations in terms of sales generated.
Reaching Potential Customers on Craigslist
Another reason why posting advertisements for products or services on Craigslist is so worthwhile is the likelihood of reaching a large audience of potential customers. A review of the Craigslist fact sheet reveals pertinent information regarding the amount of traffic the website receives. According to this information Craigslist receives approximately four billion page views each month with ten million people using Craigslist each month. From these statistics it is clear that advertisements placed on Craiglist are likely to receive at least some attention from potential clients.
With so many visitors using Craigslist each month the advertising possibilities are limitless, however, there are no guarantee any of these visitors will be interested in your products or services. Like any marketing campaign, your advertisements on Craigslist must be intriguing, informative and in a location where you will reach your target audience.
Finding Your Target Audience on Craigslist
We’ve already discussed the number of visitors using Craigslist each month but the key to taking advantage of these numbers is to target your advertising in a way aimed at reaching your target audience as opposed to a wide audience of individuals who have no specific interest in your products or services. It is much more worthwhile to reach a small audience of those with a keen interest in your products or services than to reach a much larger audience of those who are not interested. Those who have an interest in your products or services are your target audience.
The key to reaching your target audience on Craigslist is placing your advertisement in the most appropriate locations. Craigslist has a specific section for businesses to advertise their services. This section is broken down into a number of categories. Those who are in the business of computer repair would be wise to place their advertisement in the computer section as opposed to the automotive section because individuals looking for computer help will naturally migrate to the computer section. It may sometimes be appropriate to place an advertisement in more than one section. This is acceptable as long as it does not cross the line to spamming the section.
If there is not a specific section for the products or services offered by your business there are a couple of options. Business owners can place an advertisement in the section for small business advertisements where it might be found by those doing a search in this section. Alternately the business owner can contact Craigslist to suggest the addition of a new category. They might be willing to oblige if they believe this category warrants an addition.
The Difference between Advertising and Spamming
Advertising on Craigslist is one thing but spamming is quite another. Placing an advertisement in an appropriate section of Craigslist is acceptable; however, placing the same advertisement in nearly every section of Craigslist websites for a number of different geographical regions is considered spam. Spam is ineffective for a number of reasons. First of all potential customers who see a particular advertisement in a number of different locations are likely to recognize the spamming techniques and be less inclined to patronize this business. Also, if Craigslist detects the practice of spamming they may delete all of the postings and could potentially ban advertisements from the individual in the future.
Advertising on Craigslist is worthwhile for just about any business offering products or services. Whether these products are offered through ecommerce websites or physical stores, the business owners can see financial gains through advertising on Craigslist. Firstly unlike other advertising opportunities there is very little risk involved in posting on Craigslist. With the exception of job postings and housing postings in specific markets, advertising is free on Craigslist. Users are asked to agree to the terms of service of the community and are expected to follow specific guidelines when posting advertisements but there are no financial obligations to those placing advertisements on Craigslist. This means those who post advertisements do not have to be concerned with whether or not the advertisement they place will meet their expectations in terms of sales generated.
Reaching Potential Customers on Craigslist
Another reason why posting advertisements for products or services on Craigslist is so worthwhile is the likelihood of reaching a large audience of potential customers. A review of the Craigslist fact sheet reveals pertinent information regarding the amount of traffic the website receives. According to this information Craigslist receives approximately four billion page views each month with ten million people using Craigslist each month. From these statistics it is clear that advertisements placed on Craiglist are likely to receive at least some attention from potential clients.
With so many visitors using Craigslist each month the advertising possibilities are limitless, however, there are no guarantee any of these visitors will be interested in your products or services. Like any marketing campaign, your advertisements on Craigslist must be intriguing, informative and in a location where you will reach your target audience.
Finding Your Target Audience on Craigslist
We’ve already discussed the number of visitors using Craigslist each month but the key to taking advantage of these numbers is to target your advertising in a way aimed at reaching your target audience as opposed to a wide audience of individuals who have no specific interest in your products or services. It is much more worthwhile to reach a small audience of those with a keen interest in your products or services than to reach a much larger audience of those who are not interested. Those who have an interest in your products or services are your target audience.
The key to reaching your target audience on Craigslist is placing your advertisement in the most appropriate locations. Craigslist has a specific section for businesses to advertise their services. This section is broken down into a number of categories. Those who are in the business of computer repair would be wise to place their advertisement in the computer section as opposed to the automotive section because individuals looking for computer help will naturally migrate to the computer section. It may sometimes be appropriate to place an advertisement in more than one section. This is acceptable as long as it does not cross the line to spamming the section.
If there is not a specific section for the products or services offered by your business there are a couple of options. Business owners can place an advertisement in the section for small business advertisements where it might be found by those doing a search in this section. Alternately the business owner can contact Craigslist to suggest the addition of a new category. They might be willing to oblige if they believe this category warrants an addition.
The Difference between Advertising and Spamming
Advertising on Craigslist is one thing but spamming is quite another. Placing an advertisement in an appropriate section of Craigslist is acceptable; however, placing the same advertisement in nearly every section of Craigslist websites for a number of different geographical regions is considered spam. Spam is ineffective for a number of reasons. First of all potential customers who see a particular advertisement in a number of different locations are likely to recognize the spamming techniques and be less inclined to patronize this business. Also, if Craigslist detects the practice of spamming they may delete all of the postings and could potentially ban advertisements from the individual in the future.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
3 Reasons Why You Should Consider Buying Your Traffic
(My Original Blog Post: 3 Reasons Why You Should Consider Buying Your Traffic)
There are numerous success stories you will hear about businesses making it good on the internet . The troubling thing is, there are maybe a 10 times or even a 100 times the amount of stories inconsistent to theirs. Many have unsuccessfully launched a business venture that is internet based but only a handful shall succeed.
Is this because of luck? That is even more remote. It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the persistence to learn and the willingness to put in a lot of hard work and some money.
However, before shelling out your hard-earned money on advertising, here are three (3) smart reasons why you should consider paying for your traffic including common-sense methods of showing you how to prepare your website.
1. The quickest method for getting customers to your website is to pay for your traffic.
Like Neo, traffic is 'The One' . Without traffic, all your efforts would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them you wouldn't have anyone to sell your products to. In the Internet world traffic is the walk in customer. The more traffic you possess the more people you'd be able to sell your products to.
But similar to any business that's in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy. But for those who do come in to browse your merchandise, most of them will buy your products. It is a clear and known fact.
But, how do you get traffic, traffic great enough that could make a small portion of resulting buyers enough to make a fair profit. Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buys, but that small percentage is enough to supply them with adequate business.
Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Yes that's right; you have to spend money to make money. Advertising is the key. The more people who know that your site exists the more people would of course go to your site, that's common sense.
While there are numerous ways to get free advertising for your business, free advertising doesn't generate the same high volume of traffic as paid traffic does. Paid advertisements include such advertising schemes as those offered by Google and Yahoo.
2. In order to take full advantage of the search engines, make sure that your site is properly optimized to rank high before paying for your traffic.
Search engines are the fastest and easiest way for finding what you need on the internet . Search engines are extremely popular because they provide an indispensable service to many people. They are free and easy to use. Because of their popularity, search engines receive many visitors as well as click throughs . With these benefits in mind, it is easy to see why so many companies would pay to advertise with search engines.
Search engines provide information to the millions of users they receive each day. They provide relevant links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your site's link pops up as one of the top ranked sites on the search results page, you stand a great chance that the user will click your link and go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements will ensure that you will be on the top ranks.
When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for guaranteed traffic to your site. This may not seem like a good idea at first, but the benefits of doing so far outweigh the cost in the long run. When you pay for your traffic, you are guaranteed a consistent flow of traffic to your site. You will at no time go without making a sale on any given day.
3. Find and use tools that will aid you in researching relevant keywords for your chosen niche so that you don't waste money on advertising.
Normally, you will be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ad is clicked, this is known as pay per click. For some search engines, you will be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It is imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools on the Internet which can aid you in using the right keywords at the right moment in time.
All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for nothing. You will get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result in a great boost in your sales figures.
Keith Gloster has stumbled upon a proven system that solves four major problems 99.99% of marketers face everyday which are traffic generation, prospecting, lead generation and follow-up. For the exciting details, visit: http://www.free-mlm-leads-generator.com
There are numerous success stories you will hear about businesses making it good on the internet . The troubling thing is, there are maybe a 10 times or even a 100 times the amount of stories inconsistent to theirs. Many have unsuccessfully launched a business venture that is internet based but only a handful shall succeed.
Is this because of luck? That is even more remote. It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the persistence to learn and the willingness to put in a lot of hard work and some money.
However, before shelling out your hard-earned money on advertising, here are three (3) smart reasons why you should consider paying for your traffic including common-sense methods of showing you how to prepare your website.
1. The quickest method for getting customers to your website is to pay for your traffic.
Like Neo, traffic is 'The One' . Without traffic, all your efforts would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them you wouldn't have anyone to sell your products to. In the Internet world traffic is the walk in customer. The more traffic you possess the more people you'd be able to sell your products to.
But similar to any business that's in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy. But for those who do come in to browse your merchandise, most of them will buy your products. It is a clear and known fact.
But, how do you get traffic, traffic great enough that could make a small portion of resulting buyers enough to make a fair profit. Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buys, but that small percentage is enough to supply them with adequate business.
Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Yes that's right; you have to spend money to make money. Advertising is the key. The more people who know that your site exists the more people would of course go to your site, that's common sense.
While there are numerous ways to get free advertising for your business, free advertising doesn't generate the same high volume of traffic as paid traffic does. Paid advertisements include such advertising schemes as those offered by Google and Yahoo.
2. In order to take full advantage of the search engines, make sure that your site is properly optimized to rank high before paying for your traffic.
Search engines are the fastest and easiest way for finding what you need on the internet . Search engines are extremely popular because they provide an indispensable service to many people. They are free and easy to use. Because of their popularity, search engines receive many visitors as well as click throughs . With these benefits in mind, it is easy to see why so many companies would pay to advertise with search engines.
Search engines provide information to the millions of users they receive each day. They provide relevant links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your site's link pops up as one of the top ranked sites on the search results page, you stand a great chance that the user will click your link and go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements will ensure that you will be on the top ranks.
When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for guaranteed traffic to your site. This may not seem like a good idea at first, but the benefits of doing so far outweigh the cost in the long run. When you pay for your traffic, you are guaranteed a consistent flow of traffic to your site. You will at no time go without making a sale on any given day.
3. Find and use tools that will aid you in researching relevant keywords for your chosen niche so that you don't waste money on advertising.
Normally, you will be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ad is clicked, this is known as pay per click. For some search engines, you will be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It is imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools on the Internet which can aid you in using the right keywords at the right moment in time.
All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for nothing. You will get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result in a great boost in your sales figures.
Keith Gloster has stumbled upon a proven system that solves four major problems 99.99% of marketers face everyday which are traffic generation, prospecting, lead generation and follow-up. For the exciting details, visit: http://www.free-mlm-leads-generator.com
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wordpress Blog SEO Checklist
(My Original Blog Post: Wordpress Blog SEO Checklist)
WordPress and search engine optimization (SEO) are almost synonymous these days. WordPress software on your own server with a proper setup, theme, few specific plugins, and some off site collaboration, have become hands down the most powerful SEO tool one can use to push their site higher in the search engine results pages (serps). I
n this blog, I will show you the proper steps involved in setting up your own hosted WordPress software from wordpress.org so that you can rank really high in the search results with little effort.
First things first. I have to make it clear that I am going to discuss how to set up wordpress software properly while hosted on your own server with a fresh copy of WordPress 2.7.1 from wordpress.org. I will not be discussing anything that has to do with wordpress.com social network blogging. Same software, different solutions.
I am going to assume that you already know how to install the software too. So I won't be discussing how to install it either. However, if you are looking for hosting with wordpress for free, and one click installs, then see our hosting plans. All of our hosting plans include simple one click Installs and Upgrades.
So let's get started on that checklist.
Go to "Settings >> General" and name your website under "Blog Title", then put in a blurb about your site under "Tagline". Keep it short and simple. Save and move on.
Go to "Settings >> Privacy" and make sure that the radio button that says "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers is checked. This is the number one most common mistake people make when setting up WordPress. They forget to check this and if "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors is checked, then you are telling all the search engines to stay away. And believe me, they will.
Go to "Settings >> Permalinks" and select "Custom Structure" the enter this in the box
You will have to either be able to copy the .htaccess code provided that will look like this
If your .htaccess file has the right permissions set, the wordpress will create it for you. Never give full 777 permissions to your htaccess file. This is asking for trouble with hackers. 666 usually does the trick, and when complete, change the permissions back to 644. Save your changes and go to the next step.
Go to "Settings >> Writing" and put all the following ping addresses in your "Update Services" pinglist box.
This pinging function automatically notifies all on your list upon a new article post. Once pinged, the bots--like Google-- come to your website looking for the new page to crawl and index it. Within 10 minutes, your new page should be searchable in Google and all around the web, once you have been writing regularly and gained trust. What did I just say? I said this service is not going to be fantastic right from the start as the places you ping may sniff you out for a few weeks and several articles before you can gain their trust to put you in their serps faster than you can order a number 1 at McDonalds. Once I post this very article about this WordPress SEO checklist, it will no doubt be in the Google search results in 10 minutes and people will find it right away. It won't be number one, but it will be there and as time goes by, it will slowly climb up with other efforts to get it there.
Don't forget to save your changes before you move on.
Now on to the plugins. Download and install the plugin "All in one SEO Pack". After successful install, now go to "Settings >> All In One SEO" and set your "Home Titel", Home Description", and "Home Keywords". The title should be 70 characters or less. The Description should be no more than 150 characters in length and don't use more than 10 keywords in the keywords box. The rest of the defaults should be fine unless you know what you are doing. Press the 'Update Options" button and go to the nest step.
Now download the Worpress Plugin, "Google XML Sitemaps" and install. Don't be fooled by the name. It's actually a sitemap for most compatible search engines that conform to the xml sitemap technology. After installation, go to "Settings >> XML Sitemap" and leave most of the settings as-is. However, you will need an api code from yahoo to notify yahoo. They are free and take a little time to setup at Yahoo Site Explorer Once there, make sure that you add your sitemap to their list within Site Explorer. Your sitemap will be at youraddress.com/sitemap.xml
Another important third party communication that you will want to setup is at Google Webmaster Tools. You don't need an API with Google, but you do need to add your site to your account with them and also add your sitemap.xml file with them.
After setting up Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools, in the same "Settings >> XML Sitemap" area of your site, make sure you check the box to "Notify YAHOO about updates of your Blog" and insert your api code along with all the other search engines being checked. Make sure that the box "Modify or create robots.txt file in blog root which contains the sitemap location." is also checked and scroll down to "Sitemap Content" and check the following at a minimum:
Now would be a good time to mention finding a good theme. I won't suggest one over the other because there are so many good ones, but I will suggest one of these fine themes for your business if you can't find a free one to fit your needs. Find A Theme Once you find a theme you like, make sure that you have the following widgets installed under "Appearance >> Widgets". Turn on "Recent Posts" set to 5 and save. Then turn on "Tag Cloud" if you do not have a theme with tags under the individual articles that you write. I highly recommend that you find a theme with tags (not tag cloud) under each post on the article page itself. Not only that, but when you actually write new articles, make sure you utilize the tags feature by entering in keywords relevant to your post and separated by a comma or hit enter after each tag. Don't use more than 10 tags per post.
The next step might depend on how your theme is setup, but it is also good to have an actual sitemap page that not only search engines can fine, but one that humans can read too. WordPress makes this easy. simply go to "Pages >> Add New" and creat a page called "Sitemap" Leave the text box empty and go to "Attributes" on the right side under the "Publish" button. Under "Templates" select "Sitemap" and then "Publish" your page. If you don't have a Sitemap option, then "Archives" may suffice.
My most interesting SEO technique that I use with WordPress is a neat little weapon, I mean plugin called PingPressFm. What is PingPressFM you ask? It is a wordpress plugin that utilizes the ping.fm service. Ping.fm is a service that manages over 30 different social networks all from one control panel. It gives you the power to update your status with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc, all from one neat little place. The really cool thing about this service is that ping.fm lets you choose that place. You don't need wordpress to use http://Ping.fm. However, you will find that together they make a powerful combination. And since you are already logging into your Wordpress Blog powered site, then you won't even need to log into your ping.fm account that broadcasts your new posts all over the internet for you. Simply install the PingPressFM plugin into your WorPress site and follow the instructions. Enjoy all your free time. This plugin allows you more time to actually write new stuff. Which is way better that logging into 30 different accounts to write that same stuff over every time.
Finally, start blogging. Blog about whatever it is you would like to blog about, but try to stay on topic with what your site was intended for in the first place. Jumping from topic-to-topic is going to hurt you in the long run because Google will not know what you are thinking and neither will your visitors.
Write unique articles no more than 5 times per day and no less than 3 times per week. Remember setting the "Recent Posts" widget to 5 posts? Well this is why. If you bump your 5th post off the list, the it will not have enough time to sit around for the search engines to hit it and give you relevance in the serps. The words used in your link act as the keywords people will type into a search engine. Search engines place a lot of weight on these and calculate the time they first find the link to the time that it disappears. So let it site there for no less than 24 hours and no more than every 3 days or so.
I hope you find these tips useful like I do. Many of them I have self discovered, tested and found that they work really well. After you have all this set up the way I described, and then actually blog new articles on a regular basis for about three to four weeks, then you will find your new articles will show up in the search results only moments after you publish your new posts. This will allow for people to find your website faster and more frequent, thus hopefully converting visiters into customers.
If you have something you would like to add to this list or have anything else to say, then post your comment below. If you need help with Internet Marketing, then contact us at (231) 747-9531 and ask how we can help your business. We just gave you one of our techniques for free. Imagine what we can do with the many more that we know and implement for businesses! Contact Us
WordPress and search engine optimization (SEO) are almost synonymous these days. WordPress software on your own server with a proper setup, theme, few specific plugins, and some off site collaboration, have become hands down the most powerful SEO tool one can use to push their site higher in the search engine results pages (serps). I
n this blog, I will show you the proper steps involved in setting up your own hosted WordPress software from wordpress.org so that you can rank really high in the search results with little effort.First things first. I have to make it clear that I am going to discuss how to set up wordpress software properly while hosted on your own server with a fresh copy of WordPress 2.7.1 from wordpress.org. I will not be discussing anything that has to do with wordpress.com social network blogging. Same software, different solutions.
I am going to assume that you already know how to install the software too. So I won't be discussing how to install it either. However, if you are looking for hosting with wordpress for free, and one click installs, then see our hosting plans. All of our hosting plans include simple one click Installs and Upgrades.
So let's get started on that checklist.
Go to "Settings >> General" and name your website under "Blog Title", then put in a blurb about your site under "Tagline". Keep it short and simple. Save and move on. Go to "Settings >> Privacy" and make sure that the radio button that says "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers is checked. This is the number one most common mistake people make when setting up WordPress. They forget to check this and if "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors is checked, then you are telling all the search engines to stay away. And believe me, they will.Go to "Settings >> Permalinks" and select "Custom Structure" the enter this in the box /%postname%.htmlYou will have to either be able to copy the .htaccess code provided that will look like this
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]If your .htaccess file has the right permissions set, the wordpress will create it for you. Never give full 777 permissions to your htaccess file. This is asking for trouble with hackers. 666 usually does the trick, and when complete, change the permissions back to 644. Save your changes and go to the next step.
Go to "Settings >> Writing" and put all the following ping addresses in your "Update Services" pinglist box.
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
This pinging function automatically notifies all on your list upon a new article post. Once pinged, the bots--like Google-- come to your website looking for the new page to crawl and index it. Within 10 minutes, your new page should be searchable in Google and all around the web, once you have been writing regularly and gained trust. What did I just say? I said this service is not going to be fantastic right from the start as the places you ping may sniff you out for a few weeks and several articles before you can gain their trust to put you in their serps faster than you can order a number 1 at McDonalds. Once I post this very article about this WordPress SEO checklist, it will no doubt be in the Google search results in 10 minutes and people will find it right away. It won't be number one, but it will be there and as time goes by, it will slowly climb up with other efforts to get it there.
Don't forget to save your changes before you move on.
Now on to the plugins. Download and install the plugin "All in one SEO Pack". After successful install, now go to "Settings >> All In One SEO" and set your "Home Titel", Home Description", and "Home Keywords". The title should be 70 characters or less. The Description should be no more than 150 characters in length and don't use more than 10 keywords in the keywords box. The rest of the defaults should be fine unless you know what you are doing. Press the 'Update Options" button and go to the nest step. Now download the Worpress Plugin, "Google XML Sitemaps" and install. Don't be fooled by the name. It's actually a sitemap for most compatible search engines that conform to the xml sitemap technology. After installation, go to "Settings >> XML Sitemap" and leave most of the settings as-is. However, you will need an api code from yahoo to notify yahoo. They are free and take a little time to setup at Yahoo Site Explorer Once there, make sure that you add your sitemap to their list within Site Explorer. Your sitemap will be at youraddress.com/sitemap.xmlAnother important third party communication that you will want to setup is at Google Webmaster Tools. You don't need an API with Google, but you do need to add your site to your account with them and also add your sitemap.xml file with them.
After setting up Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools, in the same "Settings >> XML Sitemap" area of your site, make sure you check the box to "Notify YAHOO about updates of your Blog" and insert your api code along with all the other search engines being checked. Make sure that the box "Modify or create robots.txt file in blog root which contains the sitemap location." is also checked and scroll down to "Sitemap Content" and check the following at a minimum:
Now would be a good time to mention finding a good theme. I won't suggest one over the other because there are so many good ones, but I will suggest one of these fine themes for your business if you can't find a free one to fit your needs. Find A Theme Once you find a theme you like, make sure that you have the following widgets installed under "Appearance >> Widgets". Turn on "Recent Posts" set to 5 and save. Then turn on "Tag Cloud" if you do not have a theme with tags under the individual articles that you write. I highly recommend that you find a theme with tags (not tag cloud) under each post on the article page itself. Not only that, but when you actually write new articles, make sure you utilize the tags feature by entering in keywords relevant to your post and separated by a comma or hit enter after each tag. Don't use more than 10 tags per post. The next step might depend on how your theme is setup, but it is also good to have an actual sitemap page that not only search engines can fine, but one that humans can read too. WordPress makes this easy. simply go to "Pages >> Add New" and creat a page called "Sitemap" Leave the text box empty and go to "Attributes" on the right side under the "Publish" button. Under "Templates" select "Sitemap" and then "Publish" your page. If you don't have a Sitemap option, then "Archives" may suffice. My most interesting SEO technique that I use with WordPress is a neat little weapon, I mean plugin called PingPressFm. What is PingPressFM you ask? It is a wordpress plugin that utilizes the ping.fm service. Ping.fm is a service that manages over 30 different social networks all from one control panel. It gives you the power to update your status with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc, all from one neat little place. The really cool thing about this service is that ping.fm lets you choose that place. You don't need wordpress to use http://Ping.fm. However, you will find that together they make a powerful combination. And since you are already logging into your Wordpress Blog powered site, then you won't even need to log into your ping.fm account that broadcasts your new posts all over the internet for you. Simply install the PingPressFM plugin into your WorPress site and follow the instructions. Enjoy all your free time. This plugin allows you more time to actually write new stuff. Which is way better that logging into 30 different accounts to write that same stuff over every time. Finally, start blogging. Blog about whatever it is you would like to blog about, but try to stay on topic with what your site was intended for in the first place. Jumping from topic-to-topic is going to hurt you in the long run because Google will not know what you are thinking and neither will your visitors.Write unique articles no more than 5 times per day and no less than 3 times per week. Remember setting the "Recent Posts" widget to 5 posts? Well this is why. If you bump your 5th post off the list, the it will not have enough time to sit around for the search engines to hit it and give you relevance in the serps. The words used in your link act as the keywords people will type into a search engine. Search engines place a lot of weight on these and calculate the time they first find the link to the time that it disappears. So let it site there for no less than 24 hours and no more than every 3 days or so.
I hope you find these tips useful like I do. Many of them I have self discovered, tested and found that they work really well. After you have all this set up the way I described, and then actually blog new articles on a regular basis for about three to four weeks, then you will find your new articles will show up in the search results only moments after you publish your new posts. This will allow for people to find your website faster and more frequent, thus hopefully converting visiters into customers.
If you have something you would like to add to this list or have anything else to say, then post your comment below. If you need help with Internet Marketing, then contact us at (231) 747-9531 and ask how we can help your business. We just gave you one of our techniques for free. Imagine what we can do with the many more that we know and implement for businesses! Contact Us
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Why is Search Engine Optimization Important For My Business?
(My Original Blog Post: Why is Search Engine Optimization Important For My Business?)
The World Wide Web has provided astonishing ways to revolutionize how we live our everyday lives. It has crawled into the different dimensions of human our lives like with, business, communication, information dissemination, and even personal relationships. People have made a paradigm shift towards using the Internet to aid them in their daily routines.
With this ideal in mind, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet. Websites are spreading like a wild fire everywhere, all the time. How can someone’s website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience?
Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get much higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make a web site appear within the first 10 results of the first page, and go from being at the end of the results to right in front of your potential customer's eyes.
There are two main ways to be able to get noticed by search engines these days. One is through pay-per-click-advertisements, commonly referred to as search engine marketing. A good example of a pay-per-click system that is employed by search engines is the Google Adwords system. It has created a revolution on the web and has given Google around 5 billion dollars in recurring revenue per year. Webmasters can place their bids to be shown when a keyword is searched by a web surfer. The highest bidders with the most relevence will get their web sites to appear first when the search in the search results in the dedicated sponsored section and on various websites all over the web.
The second way of getting high rankings from search engines is through organic, or free search results area. Search engines evaluate websites by using what they call “spiders.” or'"crawlers." These bot programs scan the websites to collect information about them. They then collate the information in an index much like a library does and pass it on to the search engine during a specific keyword search. This is commonly referred to as search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods and calculations to be able to get search engines to list the website on high ranks.
The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a website. Websites are built to be seen by Internet surfers and search engines can help it achieve this main goal.
The power of a search engine should not be underestimated. It is one of the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity.In fact, google will have more search requests in one day, than people voted for our last President here in the US.
Search engines behave a lot like people do. They like websites which contain substantive information about a certain topic. The best sites usually appear first in search engines because people like them as well as the search engines. According to Google's patent on how their technology works, Google wil rank websites sometimes based on user behaviour. Meaning that Google does in fact monitor where people go on the Internet if the person calls on their technology for the information. This information is stored on their side and calculated against all other competing websites when someone simply searches for something from google.com.
Search engine optimization does not only generate traffic, it helps maintain the quality traffic. The behavior of the search engine is indicative to the behavior of the people who visit the website as already mentioned. Search engine optimization leads to the optimization of a web page or a website. It will lead to a website which is more organized and a website which contains reletive information based on the search performed. There are on-site and off-site factors involved when a website is considered for a certain web search. Many of the off-site factors include how many quality links are on other websites linking back to yours. A good SEO company can help you get links to your website that are from good sources and relevant to your website. Search engines utilize a filtering technology to determine if the backlink is worth considering or not. A backlink is much like a vote for a President. spam filtering can tell wheter or not the vote has hanging chads on the punch card or if it is a clear and concise, reliable vote. lol, but true!
The use of the search engine to be able to target one’s target audience is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies. It's not like other on-line marketing techniques (such as email marketing and affiliate marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.
Search engines segment the market and connect the right people together. People search for topics which they are interested in and this is the main strength of search engines in connecting markets together.
An individual can do search engine optimization under the assumption that they know what they are doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. Plus, one has to keep up with ever changing technologies as an Internet year only lasts about 4 weeks of real time. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One should be cautious, however, in hiring a search engine optimization company or consultant. Factors such as pricing and service should carefully be assessed before signing a deal. If done properly, search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about a businesse's product or service or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating. The cost for SEO can range from one company to the next form anywhere to $30,000 per month all the way down to $10.00 every month. There is no set industry standard as none of this SEO is learned in colleges because the technology is patented and changes all the time, kept as a trade secret until people figure it out; and then the process starts all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat as it would be reffered to.
SEO is very important for websites since it determines the position of the website in comparison with its competitors. It does not only generate quality traffic from the targeted audience but is also a cost-effective way of optimizing the website and can ultimately lead to conversions; making your ROI woth every penny.
Check out Area Web Solutions seo plans >>
The World Wide Web has provided astonishing ways to revolutionize how we live our everyday lives. It has crawled into the different dimensions of human our lives like with, business, communication, information dissemination, and even personal relationships. People have made a paradigm shift towards using the Internet to aid them in their daily routines.
With this ideal in mind, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet. Websites are spreading like a wild fire everywhere, all the time. How can someone’s website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience?
Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get much higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make a web site appear within the first 10 results of the first page, and go from being at the end of the results to right in front of your potential customer's eyes.
There are two main ways to be able to get noticed by search engines these days. One is through pay-per-click-advertisements, commonly referred to as search engine marketing. A good example of a pay-per-click system that is employed by search engines is the Google Adwords system. It has created a revolution on the web and has given Google around 5 billion dollars in recurring revenue per year. Webmasters can place their bids to be shown when a keyword is searched by a web surfer. The highest bidders with the most relevence will get their web sites to appear first when the search in the search results in the dedicated sponsored section and on various websites all over the web.
The second way of getting high rankings from search engines is through organic, or free search results area. Search engines evaluate websites by using what they call “spiders.” or'"crawlers." These bot programs scan the websites to collect information about them. They then collate the information in an index much like a library does and pass it on to the search engine during a specific keyword search. This is commonly referred to as search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods and calculations to be able to get search engines to list the website on high ranks.
Web Traffic
The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a website. Websites are built to be seen by Internet surfers and search engines can help it achieve this main goal.
The power of a search engine should not be underestimated. It is one of the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity.In fact, google will have more search requests in one day, than people voted for our last President here in the US.
People and Search Engines are much alike
Search engines behave a lot like people do. They like websites which contain substantive information about a certain topic. The best sites usually appear first in search engines because people like them as well as the search engines. According to Google's patent on how their technology works, Google wil rank websites sometimes based on user behaviour. Meaning that Google does in fact monitor where people go on the Internet if the person calls on their technology for the information. This information is stored on their side and calculated against all other competing websites when someone simply searches for something from google.com.
Search engine optimization does not only generate traffic, it helps maintain the quality traffic. The behavior of the search engine is indicative to the behavior of the people who visit the website as already mentioned. Search engine optimization leads to the optimization of a web page or a website. It will lead to a website which is more organized and a website which contains reletive information based on the search performed. There are on-site and off-site factors involved when a website is considered for a certain web search. Many of the off-site factors include how many quality links are on other websites linking back to yours. A good SEO company can help you get links to your website that are from good sources and relevant to your website. Search engines utilize a filtering technology to determine if the backlink is worth considering or not. A backlink is much like a vote for a President. spam filtering can tell wheter or not the vote has hanging chads on the punch card or if it is a clear and concise, reliable vote. lol, but true!
Targeted Audience
The use of the search engine to be able to target one’s target audience is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies. It's not like other on-line marketing techniques (such as email marketing and affiliate marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.
Search engines segment the market and connect the right people together. People search for topics which they are interested in and this is the main strength of search engines in connecting markets together.
Cost Effectiveness
An individual can do search engine optimization under the assumption that they know what they are doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. Plus, one has to keep up with ever changing technologies as an Internet year only lasts about 4 weeks of real time. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One should be cautious, however, in hiring a search engine optimization company or consultant. Factors such as pricing and service should carefully be assessed before signing a deal. If done properly, search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about a businesse's product or service or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating. The cost for SEO can range from one company to the next form anywhere to $30,000 per month all the way down to $10.00 every month. There is no set industry standard as none of this SEO is learned in colleges because the technology is patented and changes all the time, kept as a trade secret until people figure it out; and then the process starts all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat as it would be reffered to.
SEO is very important for websites since it determines the position of the website in comparison with its competitors. It does not only generate quality traffic from the targeted audience but is also a cost-effective way of optimizing the website and can ultimately lead to conversions; making your ROI woth every penny.
Need an SEO Company?
Check out Area Web Solutions seo plans >>
Monday, February 16, 2009
Why You Should Register At YouTube
(My Original Blog Post: Why You Should Register At YouTube)
Do you enjoy watching videos on YouTube? Even if you have never visited YouTube before, we urge you to do so, as you will likely find it fun, exciting, and very entertaining. YouTube is a video sharing website which allows internet users, just like you, to upload and share videos that they have made and socialize with each other. Perhaps, the greatest thing about YouTube is that it is free. Plus currently, it ranks as the number 2 most popular website out of the 20 million that Alexa keeps track of-behind only Google themselves. Oh, did we also mention that YouTube is owned by Google, which may have something to do with their success?
While at YouTube watching some of the greatest video clips on earth, and some of the most retarded, you will find that you can browse around for free. However, there are a few benefits to having an account at YouTube--besides it being free--such as the following.
Besides being an easy process to do, signing up for a free YouTube membership account can be done in just a few minutes. You'll only be asked the simple questions like, name, age, gender, how much you weigh--just kidding about that last one, lol--, and your location along with your desired username and password. Some of this information is to feed you video suggestions and sponsored ads based on your criteria. Additionally, if you end up uploading your own videos for free after you sign up, YouTube will show you detailed statistics for what type of people watched your video. Neat huh?
Right after signing up for the free YouTube account for yourself, you can immediately begin to enjoy the many other benefits of having a YouTube membership. One of those benefits is the ability to rate videos that you watch, as well as leave comments. As it was previously mentioned, you can watch videos on YouTube without having a YouTube account, but you cannot rate videos or leave comments for the video owner. This is ideal if a video is of interest or offensive to you. Rating YouTube videos also gives other YouTube members an idea as to which videos are high in demand, and in turn, can lead to more of your favorite videos being found on the YouTube site. That is just one of the many reasons why you should not only sign up for a free YouTube account, but also rate YouTube videos that you watch or leave comments.
Another great feature along with commenting and rating other videos on YouYube, is that you will have the ability to also share your own with others. Non-registered YouTube users are unable to upload and share any videos that they would like to. If you have never shared videos online, you may want to think about doing so, if you have the desire to be famous for a moment to the rest of the world. Many of the videos currently found on YouTube are comedy related shorts, video blogs aka vlogs, and prank videos. All you really need to have is a video recording device, such as a cell phone, webcam, or camcorder, and a movie editing software program if you with to fancy it up, which now comes standard on most computers, and you will be online showing off your skills in no time.
If you are looking for ways to promote yourself, your music, your business or orginization, then you better believe that YouTube is a marketing tool that you need in your toolbox. YouTube has perhaps more people visit the site in just a few days, than we have in America voting for our Presidents. Crazy, but true! So why not get your message out in front of this large audience? Simply point a video camera at yourself, press record, and don't forget to take the lens cap off to begin capturing your commercial in a video. A little tip though, don't be uptight and boring. YouTube members are there to be entertained, so be entertaining and have a little fun.
Perhaps the most rewarding benefit to owning a YouTube account, is the money you could be making. What? Did I just say you can make money at this free service? Yep, I certainly did. You have to have a few other ingredients to make this work though. First you should own or have access to a website that you have rights to so that you can put videos on the site. And secondly, you need an AdSense account. I won't explain what an AdSense account is in this article, but click on the link in the previous sentence to learn more. You can monetize your website by not only have basic AdSense ads on your site, but with YouTube and AdSense, you can also provide fancy video ads of your own or ones that other people have dedicated to the ads. You can access the YouTube ads through your AdSense account.
So there you have it. Creating a membership account with YouTube is free and it should only take a few minutes of your valuable time. If you enjoy using the Internet as a source of entertainment or marketing, you will not only want to visit YouTube, but you will also want to take the few minutes needed to register for a free account. In the end, you will likely be pleased with your decision to do so as millions of other people have been.
For custom Internet Marketing Web Solutions, contact us for free information.
Do you enjoy watching videos on YouTube? Even if you have never visited YouTube before, we urge you to do so, as you will likely find it fun, exciting, and very entertaining. YouTube is a video sharing website which allows internet users, just like you, to upload and share videos that they have made and socialize with each other. Perhaps, the greatest thing about YouTube is that it is free. Plus currently, it ranks as the number 2 most popular website out of the 20 million that Alexa keeps track of-behind only Google themselves. Oh, did we also mention that YouTube is owned by Google, which may have something to do with their success?
While at YouTube watching some of the greatest video clips on earth, and some of the most retarded, you will find that you can browse around for free. However, there are a few benefits to having an account at YouTube--besides it being free--such as the following.
Besides being an easy process to do, signing up for a free YouTube membership account can be done in just a few minutes. You'll only be asked the simple questions like, name, age, gender, how much you weigh--just kidding about that last one, lol--, and your location along with your desired username and password. Some of this information is to feed you video suggestions and sponsored ads based on your criteria. Additionally, if you end up uploading your own videos for free after you sign up, YouTube will show you detailed statistics for what type of people watched your video. Neat huh?
Right after signing up for the free YouTube account for yourself, you can immediately begin to enjoy the many other benefits of having a YouTube membership. One of those benefits is the ability to rate videos that you watch, as well as leave comments. As it was previously mentioned, you can watch videos on YouTube without having a YouTube account, but you cannot rate videos or leave comments for the video owner. This is ideal if a video is of interest or offensive to you. Rating YouTube videos also gives other YouTube members an idea as to which videos are high in demand, and in turn, can lead to more of your favorite videos being found on the YouTube site. That is just one of the many reasons why you should not only sign up for a free YouTube account, but also rate YouTube videos that you watch or leave comments.
Another great feature along with commenting and rating other videos on YouYube, is that you will have the ability to also share your own with others. Non-registered YouTube users are unable to upload and share any videos that they would like to. If you have never shared videos online, you may want to think about doing so, if you have the desire to be famous for a moment to the rest of the world. Many of the videos currently found on YouTube are comedy related shorts, video blogs aka vlogs, and prank videos. All you really need to have is a video recording device, such as a cell phone, webcam, or camcorder, and a movie editing software program if you with to fancy it up, which now comes standard on most computers, and you will be online showing off your skills in no time.
If you are looking for ways to promote yourself, your music, your business or orginization, then you better believe that YouTube is a marketing tool that you need in your toolbox. YouTube has perhaps more people visit the site in just a few days, than we have in America voting for our Presidents. Crazy, but true! So why not get your message out in front of this large audience? Simply point a video camera at yourself, press record, and don't forget to take the lens cap off to begin capturing your commercial in a video. A little tip though, don't be uptight and boring. YouTube members are there to be entertained, so be entertaining and have a little fun.
Perhaps the most rewarding benefit to owning a YouTube account, is the money you could be making. What? Did I just say you can make money at this free service? Yep, I certainly did. You have to have a few other ingredients to make this work though. First you should own or have access to a website that you have rights to so that you can put videos on the site. And secondly, you need an AdSense account. I won't explain what an AdSense account is in this article, but click on the link in the previous sentence to learn more. You can monetize your website by not only have basic AdSense ads on your site, but with YouTube and AdSense, you can also provide fancy video ads of your own or ones that other people have dedicated to the ads. You can access the YouTube ads through your AdSense account.
So there you have it. Creating a membership account with YouTube is free and it should only take a few minutes of your valuable time. If you enjoy using the Internet as a source of entertainment or marketing, you will not only want to visit YouTube, but you will also want to take the few minutes needed to register for a free account. In the end, you will likely be pleased with your decision to do so as millions of other people have been.
For custom Internet Marketing Web Solutions, contact us for free information.
Contact Us
(My Original Blog Post: Contact Us)
Corporate
Area Web Solutions, LLC
1181 Peck St.
Suite 200
Muskegon, MI. 49441
Telephone Support & Sales
[contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"]
Corporate
Area Web Solutions, LLC
1181 Peck St.
Suite 200
Muskegon, MI. 49441
Telephone Support & Sales
- Domains & Hosting
- 9-5pm EST Sales
(231) 747-9531 - 24x7 Technical Support
(480) 624-2500 - 24x7 Billing Support
(480) 624-2515 - 9-5pm EST Sales
(231) 747-9531 - 9-5pm EST Technical Support
(231) 457-4894 - 9-5pm EST Billing Support
(231) 457-4894 - Fax
(231)747-9532
SEM, SEO Marketing & Design
[contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"]
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Quick Shopping Cart
(My Original Blog Post: Quick Shopping Cart)
With Quick Shopping Cart, you will be able to have the online store you always dreamed of in just a matter of minutes. Our E-commerce online store program if fully hosted and ready for you to accept credit cards and PayPal, offer multiple shopping options, issue coupons -all through your new online secure site. Plus, you make all the profit. We do not charge you percentage fees of sales as other turnkey shopping carts do.
Three plans to choose from all includes built-in hosting!
1 mo: $19.98/mo | 20-Product Catalog
Plan Features
• 20-Product Catalog
• 50 MB Disk Space
• 1 GB Bandwidth
• FREE! $25 Google® AdWords® Credit*
• FREE! $50 Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
• FREE! 6 mo subscription to Practical eCommerce Magazine
1 mo: $19.98/mo | Buy Now >>
1 mo: $59.98/mo | 100-Product Catalog
Plan Features
• 100-Product Catalog
• 1 GB Disk Space
• 50 GB Bandwidth
• QuickBooks® Integration
• FREE! $50 Google® AdWords® Credit*
• FREE! $100 Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
• FREE! 6 mo subscription to Practical eCommerce Magazing
1 mo: $59.98/mo | Buy Now >>
1 mo: $99.98/mo | Unlimited Product Catalog
Plan Features
• Unlimited-Product Catalog1
• 2 GB Disk Space
• 100 GB Bandwidth
• QuickBooks® Integration
• FREE! $50 Google® AdWords® Credit*
• FREE! $200 Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
• FREE! 6 mo subscription to Practical eCommerce Magazine
1 mo: $99.98/mo | Buy Now >>
Quick Shopping Cart features
Buy Now >>
Customize your store
Buy Now >>
Increase sales
"U.S. e-commerce sales to have brisk growth through 2010," www.networkworld.com, 02/07/06; "Online sales to double by 2010," www.computing.co.uk, 30 April 2007
Buy Now >>
Buy Now >>
General Features List
Buy Now >>
Design
Buy Now >>
Security
Buy Now >>
Product Catalog
Buy Now >>
Pricing & Promotion
Buy Now >>
Orders
Buy Now >>
Shipping
Buy Now >>
Tax Options
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Payments
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Customer Management
Buy Now >>
Reporting
Free Extras
Buy Now >>
See sample Web site
Quick Shopping Cart Tour
See the Wizard Builder
See the online credit card payment process
Buy Now >>
With Quick Shopping Cart, you will be able to have the online store you always dreamed of in just a matter of minutes. Our E-commerce online store program if fully hosted and ready for you to accept credit cards and PayPal, offer multiple shopping options, issue coupons -all through your new online secure site. Plus, you make all the profit. We do not charge you percentage fees of sales as other turnkey shopping carts do.
Three plans to choose from all includes built-in hosting!
Economy Edition
1 mo: $19.98/mo | 20-Product Catalog
Plan Features
• 20-Product Catalog
• 50 MB Disk Space
• 1 GB Bandwidth
• FREE! $25 Google® AdWords® Credit*
• FREE! $50 Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
• FREE! 6 mo subscription to Practical eCommerce Magazine
1 mo: $19.98/mo | Buy Now >>
Deluxe Edition
1 mo: $59.98/mo | 100-Product Catalog
Plan Features
• 100-Product Catalog
• 1 GB Disk Space
• 50 GB Bandwidth
• QuickBooks® Integration
• FREE! $50 Google® AdWords® Credit*
• FREE! $100 Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
• FREE! 6 mo subscription to Practical eCommerce Magazing
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Premium Edition
1 mo: $99.98/mo | Unlimited Product Catalog
Plan Features
• Unlimited-Product Catalog1
• 2 GB Disk Space
• 100 GB Bandwidth
• QuickBooks® Integration
• FREE! $50 Google® AdWords® Credit*
• FREE! $200 Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
• FREE! 6 mo subscription to Practical eCommerce Magazine
1 mo: $99.98/mo | Buy Now >>
Overview
Quick Shopping Cart features
- FREE Web site builder & hosting, with 99% uptime guarantee & PCI compliance
- Sales & Conversion Reports to help you figure ROI & more!
- Shipping tools integrated with UPS Online® Tools & UPS® shipping
- Quickbooks® integration†
- Certified eBay® listing & Google™ Product Search
- No percentage of sales fee2
- 24/7/365 support based in the USA!
- Updated layout puts features and functionality at your fingertips.
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Customize your store
- Media Gallery feature lets you display up to 5 images for each product (Deluxe and Premium plans only).
- Upload photos of your products with our easy-to-use wizard. Choose from 105 templates, all with multiple color combinations. No technical skills required!
- Personalize your store further with a customized theme or by changing your colors, fonts, headers, footers and navigation menu… even by adding your own graphics. You can even customize your invoices!
- All templates are CSS-based, which makes it much easier to freshen the look of your store when you like. You can create a custom CSS file or even switch templates without having to re-enter all of your product information!
- Integrate your Web site using your choice of 105 WebSite Tonight® templates. Then customize your storefront menu by integrating your WebSite Tonight® site.
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Increase sales
- Display featured items prominently in your store
- Offer and redeem coupons
- Assign promotion codes to track offer response
- Increase average order size by cross-selling "Best Values" and "Related Items"
- Set special pricing for sales of "Free Shipping" promotions
- Use Express Email Marketing® (sold separately) to send opt-in offers to site visitors
"U.S. e-commerce sales to have brisk growth through 2010," www.networkworld.com, 02/07/06; "Online sales to double by 2010," www.computing.co.uk, 30 April 2007
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Full Features & Tools
- Seamless synchronization of data between your online store & QuickBooks*
- Full reconciliation of online sales (with a QuickBooks Merchant Services account)
- Easy-to-use Wizard to build your store
- Instant site preview
- Certified eBay® listing & Google™ Product Search
- Accept credit cards, PayPal® and more
- Multiple shipping options including real-time processing with UPS® and USPS®
- Order & Inventory management
- Shipping & Tax calculators
- Shopper registration & login
- Product promotion options
- Advanced product search
- Customer and Merchant order notification email
- Comprehensive Sales, Order & Tax reports
- 24/7 Phone Support
- Bill and Ship to customers in U.S. Territories and Canadian Provinces
- Does not support shipping/billing to other International Countries
- Pricing structure is free from 'monthly fee + percentage of transaction fee.' You simply pay the fee listed next to the plan you select... that's it.
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General Features List
- Built-in Web site hosting
- Excel® import/export
- QuickBooks Integration†
- Certified eBay® listing tool
- Basic and advanced product searches
- Support for physical products, digital downloads and product bundles
- Auto-link generation with source code tracking
- Privacy and return policies
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Design
- Invoice Customization
- Menu Customization
- NEW! Customization of colors, fonts, headers, and footers. Customized themes, custom CSS file
- Step-by-step Wizard setup
- Integrate with WebSite Tonight® for a complete site that shares the same themes - 105 professionally designed templates to choose from
- Multiple font and color choices
- HTML-based formatting on selected content fields
- Image and photo uploads
- Preview and publish site
- Create a Favicon (a browser bar icon)
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Security
- SSL enabled
- Site administrator password protection
- Data encryption
- Fraud Module
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Product Catalog
- Import product information database
- Unlimited product categories
- Product sub-categories
- Search by product, category or SKU
- Upload multiple images
- Interactive Image Viewer
- Permit discontinued & backordered items
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Pricing & Promotion
- NEW! Let shoppers opt-in to Express Email Marketing® campaigns during checkout
- Coupon Manager
- Free Shipping Promotions
- Product Option Pricing
- Establish product prices
- Determine discounts and sales periods
- Identify upsell/cross-sell products
- Feature products or specials
- Bundle products or services
- Automatic submission to Google™ Product Search
- Site Promotion Manager-Custom Meta Tags
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Orders
- Get order notices via email
- Send confirmation emails
- View/search/sort/print orders
- Print customer invoices/receipts
- Accept phone/mail/fax orders
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Shipping
- Track order status
- Offer Shipping
- Online calculator & rate table
- To U.S. addresses
- Improved! UPS OnLine® Tools
- Improved! USPS® shipping
- Weight-based shipping
- Flat-fee shipping
- Special handling charges
- Free shipping option
- Unique "Bill to" and "Ship to" addresses
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Tax Options
- Online tax calculator for orders
- Collect state tax
- Collect value added tax (VAT)
- Set a flat tax
- Disable order taxation
- Enhanced tax table that supports multiple tax rates by zip code
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Payments
- Real-time processing
- Card verification & validation
- MasterCard and Visa certified payment processes
- Innovative Merchant Services (IMS), PayPal®, VeloCT and Authorize.net-certified payment gateways
- PayPal® Instant Payment Notification (IPN)
- PayPal Express Checkout
- Offline processing and POS terminal
- eCheck & COD orders
- Phone/fax/email orders
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Customer Management
- Registration/profile
- Accounts/orders
- Password recovery
- Inventory Management
- In-Stock/Backordered
- Discontinued items
- Set inventory thresholds
- Low inventory email alerts
- Inventory status search
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Reporting
- Custom Conversion Tracking
- Orders/sales reports
- Shipping/tax reports
- View/sort/print/export
- Integrated with Google® Webmaster Tools
- Integrated with Yahoo!® Search Marketing
Free Extras
- Google® AdWords® Credit*
- Microsoft® adCenter Credit**
- Practical eCommerce Magazine Subscription
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Take a Test Drive
See sample Web site
Quick Shopping Cart Tour
See the Wizard Builder
See the online credit card payment process
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†QuickBooks® works with Deluxe and Premium plans only. Compatible with QuickBooks 2005 Pro and Premium or later.
** One promotional credit per customer for a new Microsoft® adCenter account. Promotional credit good only to residents in the 50 United States and Washington D.C.
1 Performance may begin to slow at varying numbers of products depending on potential physical and practical constraints, including (but not limited to): system architecture, system capacity, system load, end-user Internet connectivity and end-user computer configurations.
2 Transaction fees may be collected by third parties that you contract with such as payment gateways and merchant account providers that process credit card transactions.
NOTE: If you would like to accept credit cards with a merchant account, you'll need to secure your site with an SSL certificate.
How To Get Started With Blog Marketing
(My Original Blog Post: How To Get Started With Blog Marketing)
Blog marketing is fairly easy to get up and running. If you already have been blogging, then you will more than likely pick it up really easily and naturally just as if you have been doing it from the beginning. Plus, if you already blog, you might find out that you have been already marketing without knowing it anyways.
For the one that has never blogged before, you will want to start a test blog just to get the feel of how it is. See Blogging for Money if you do not know where to start. You will need to become familiar with the blogging platforms that you will be using and know how to make a simple post. While many blogs are free, you may realize that many of them are quite different and one may not work the same way for you as it will for another person. Knowing the kind that you are using is essential. Otherwise, you just may get very confused along the way. So simply starting a blog and just blogging for a little while will help you out with this beginner step. You can write about anything you desire, you just need a blog to do so. Maybe journal articles for a few weeks, or talk about your favorite music, etc. There is virtually no limit.
So once you have become familiar with the blogging process and what it takes to post and make simple changes, you are ready to go to the next step. The next thing that you are going to want to do is choose a niche market. Not a nice market silly, a niche market. A niche market is something that is unique or less hammered by others in the world of marketing. An example might be like, "green strawberries". Thus, you will want to choose something that is low in competition, but yet is something that people are searching for. If you happen to have a hobby or something that you love to do, then there is your niche. Write about it. Otherwise, you may have problems coming up with topics because the possibilities are endless and you could easily lose interest in a topic you think will make money, but you have no real interest in yourself.
Now that you have your topic chosen, it is time to start blogging. When you are blogging for the purpose of Internet marketing, you may want to give your readers something that they have to keep coming back for. If you have a high churn rate of visitors, then it will be like starting over every single day hoping new visitors come. You want to spike their interest and make them want more of your expert information or media. This will keep your "subscriber base" up and will allow you to have readers that will follow you anywhere to see what you will write about your common interests next.
Now that you have a good topic to write about, you will want to figure out just how much time you are going to spend with updating and posting in this blog. If you tell your readers that you are going to post on a daily schedule, then you better do so because they are depending on you. If you let them know that you will be blogging on a weekly time frame, then you should also stick with that too. Whatever you tell them, be sure that you do not disappoint them. Otherwise they will find another blog to read in the place of yours. It's just too easy to find other information online. So be the most interesting and reliable source.
Learning SEO and applying it to your blogs is something else that you will want to either do yourself or have a professional do for you. This will help you in search engine rankings and will allow you to go further up the search results page, making your articles easier to find over the competition. Besides, that is the point to all of this, right? If you do not have time to learn SEO--also known as search engine optimization--, the consider hiring someone to apply it to your blog for the best results. You will find that some SEO gurus are quite affordable as our plans are here at Area Web Solutions. The great thing about blogs and SEO is that they work really well together and make things happen quicker than simply owning a static based website. We actually spend about 40 hours to setup a new client's website that covers 140 checkpoints that is important in SEO. Yes, you could learn much about SEO on your own if you have a good couple of years to sort through all the outdated and flase information out there and determine what actually works without getting you in trouble with the Search Engines, or you can have an expert do it for you such as us. Contact us for more info.
Blog marketing is fairly easy to get up and running. If you already have been blogging, then you will more than likely pick it up really easily and naturally just as if you have been doing it from the beginning. Plus, if you already blog, you might find out that you have been already marketing without knowing it anyways.
For the one that has never blogged before, you will want to start a test blog just to get the feel of how it is. See Blogging for Money if you do not know where to start. You will need to become familiar with the blogging platforms that you will be using and know how to make a simple post. While many blogs are free, you may realize that many of them are quite different and one may not work the same way for you as it will for another person. Knowing the kind that you are using is essential. Otherwise, you just may get very confused along the way. So simply starting a blog and just blogging for a little while will help you out with this beginner step. You can write about anything you desire, you just need a blog to do so. Maybe journal articles for a few weeks, or talk about your favorite music, etc. There is virtually no limit.
So once you have become familiar with the blogging process and what it takes to post and make simple changes, you are ready to go to the next step. The next thing that you are going to want to do is choose a niche market. Not a nice market silly, a niche market. A niche market is something that is unique or less hammered by others in the world of marketing. An example might be like, "green strawberries". Thus, you will want to choose something that is low in competition, but yet is something that people are searching for. If you happen to have a hobby or something that you love to do, then there is your niche. Write about it. Otherwise, you may have problems coming up with topics because the possibilities are endless and you could easily lose interest in a topic you think will make money, but you have no real interest in yourself.
Now that you have your topic chosen, it is time to start blogging. When you are blogging for the purpose of Internet marketing, you may want to give your readers something that they have to keep coming back for. If you have a high churn rate of visitors, then it will be like starting over every single day hoping new visitors come. You want to spike their interest and make them want more of your expert information or media. This will keep your "subscriber base" up and will allow you to have readers that will follow you anywhere to see what you will write about your common interests next.
Now that you have a good topic to write about, you will want to figure out just how much time you are going to spend with updating and posting in this blog. If you tell your readers that you are going to post on a daily schedule, then you better do so because they are depending on you. If you let them know that you will be blogging on a weekly time frame, then you should also stick with that too. Whatever you tell them, be sure that you do not disappoint them. Otherwise they will find another blog to read in the place of yours. It's just too easy to find other information online. So be the most interesting and reliable source.
Learning SEO and applying it to your blogs is something else that you will want to either do yourself or have a professional do for you. This will help you in search engine rankings and will allow you to go further up the search results page, making your articles easier to find over the competition. Besides, that is the point to all of this, right? If you do not have time to learn SEO--also known as search engine optimization--, the consider hiring someone to apply it to your blog for the best results. You will find that some SEO gurus are quite affordable as our plans are here at Area Web Solutions. The great thing about blogs and SEO is that they work really well together and make things happen quicker than simply owning a static based website. We actually spend about 40 hours to setup a new client's website that covers 140 checkpoints that is important in SEO. Yes, you could learn much about SEO on your own if you have a good couple of years to sort through all the outdated and flase information out there and determine what actually works without getting you in trouble with the Search Engines, or you can have an expert do it for you such as us. Contact us for more info.
Blooging For Money - Introduction
(My Original Blog Post: Blooging For Money - Introduction)
Web logs, or better known as Blogs, are a popular thing on the Internet these days. They are pretty much the platform that one can use that will allow you to post your thoughts or ideas on almost any subject that you desire. They can be used for journals, promoting a business or organization, writing, and publishing; just about anything that your heart desires. However, if you are a beginner and new to blogging as well as Internet marketing, there are some very important things that you will need to know.
Blog marketing is fairly easy if you have a marketing way of thinking. You are going to discover that several people use blogs as a diary or journal, and often times these blogs that are used for these purposes are not intended to make them money, but simply a way to put there thoughts online and find others that are going through the same scenario. If you have never owned a blog before, the easiest way to start one is signup for one for free at wordpress.com and just journal in it for a while. We also offer hosted solutions for blogging if you are serious about blogging and making money. The wordpress.com option will allow you to learn just the beginner steps and what it is all about to keep up a blog. Our hosted solution will actually draw traffic inbound when you are ready. When you are just journal writing your thoughts and ideas about what is on your mind, you have nothing to lose and in return nothing to gain. You don’t even have to make your blog public for the search engines or prying eyes if you don’t want others to read what you have to say. That is a personal preference. However, doing this will let you see how it works. Then you can move on to trying to market a product or a service online.
Using a blog to market something online is cheaper and easier than using a website. This is because there are so many free ones out there that you can use to get the word out, and they are really just as good as having a website that you pay for in some cases. adding Internet Marketing to your blogging efforts can also really pay off if you choose the right company to help you. There are of course some advantages to having your own URL, but for a beginner, a free one will work until you get the hang of it and want to move it all over onto your own server for a hosted solution. The free blogs are just not that customizable. And once you get used to how they work, you may find that the free ones just don't suit your needs anymore. If you are not familiar with HTML and web design, you may find that your blog will look like everyone else’s on the web. But, that is OK in the beginning. You can later make changes once you are become a little successful.
When you run your own blog, you are in charge of the content that is posted to it. You can decide information is going on your blog. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. If you are not good with writing skills, we offer custom content management solutions to assist you. Whether you want a blog that can do website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make from home, the choice is really up to you. Using a blog to get the word out for whatever you want too is a great method to market and promote something online.
Blog marketing can, in some cases, get complicated if you let it. It is really only as hard as you end up making it. While there are some bloggers out there that are making a a very good living with the use of blog marketing, we all know that it can be done successfully. We just want to know how we can do it for ourselves. Well, for any beginner, we suggest to start small, and be very consistent. The six figure bloggers all did and so can you. They started with one blog, built it up, and then added another blog or two, built it up and continued like this all the way to the top. Then, keeping up all blogs while not letting them fall backwards, they continued to add more and more within the capabilities of their skills. Of course they often times got help, and they outsourced a lot of their work to copywriters when needed to keep up with the steady schedule of fresh content daily. If you are looking to make a massive income with blogging, then you will need some help too. That is where Area Web Solutions comes in. We are really good at what we do, and what we do is help others become successful through Internet Marketing too.
Blog marketing is a great thing to learn and you can learn most of what you need to know right here at our blog and a few other places online. If you can sell things from a blog like an online store without the cliche storefront, then you can sell them anywhere. Making money online by using a blog is one of the most satisfying things that you will ever learn how to do. Just do not expect to make money overnight, and know that you have to work at it consistently everyday, then remember to put into it what you want to get out of it. Happy blogging and don't forget to browse other articles here or contact us to help you in your venture.
Web logs, or better known as Blogs, are a popular thing on the Internet these days. They are pretty much the platform that one can use that will allow you to post your thoughts or ideas on almost any subject that you desire. They can be used for journals, promoting a business or organization, writing, and publishing; just about anything that your heart desires. However, if you are a beginner and new to blogging as well as Internet marketing, there are some very important things that you will need to know.
Blog marketing is fairly easy if you have a marketing way of thinking. You are going to discover that several people use blogs as a diary or journal, and often times these blogs that are used for these purposes are not intended to make them money, but simply a way to put there thoughts online and find others that are going through the same scenario. If you have never owned a blog before, the easiest way to start one is signup for one for free at wordpress.com and just journal in it for a while. We also offer hosted solutions for blogging if you are serious about blogging and making money. The wordpress.com option will allow you to learn just the beginner steps and what it is all about to keep up a blog. Our hosted solution will actually draw traffic inbound when you are ready. When you are just journal writing your thoughts and ideas about what is on your mind, you have nothing to lose and in return nothing to gain. You don’t even have to make your blog public for the search engines or prying eyes if you don’t want others to read what you have to say. That is a personal preference. However, doing this will let you see how it works. Then you can move on to trying to market a product or a service online.
Using a blog to market something online is cheaper and easier than using a website. This is because there are so many free ones out there that you can use to get the word out, and they are really just as good as having a website that you pay for in some cases. adding Internet Marketing to your blogging efforts can also really pay off if you choose the right company to help you. There are of course some advantages to having your own URL, but for a beginner, a free one will work until you get the hang of it and want to move it all over onto your own server for a hosted solution. The free blogs are just not that customizable. And once you get used to how they work, you may find that the free ones just don't suit your needs anymore. If you are not familiar with HTML and web design, you may find that your blog will look like everyone else’s on the web. But, that is OK in the beginning. You can later make changes once you are become a little successful.
When you run your own blog, you are in charge of the content that is posted to it. You can decide information is going on your blog. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. If you are not good with writing skills, we offer custom content management solutions to assist you. Whether you want a blog that can do website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make from home, the choice is really up to you. Using a blog to get the word out for whatever you want too is a great method to market and promote something online.
Blog marketing can, in some cases, get complicated if you let it. It is really only as hard as you end up making it. While there are some bloggers out there that are making a a very good living with the use of blog marketing, we all know that it can be done successfully. We just want to know how we can do it for ourselves. Well, for any beginner, we suggest to start small, and be very consistent. The six figure bloggers all did and so can you. They started with one blog, built it up, and then added another blog or two, built it up and continued like this all the way to the top. Then, keeping up all blogs while not letting them fall backwards, they continued to add more and more within the capabilities of their skills. Of course they often times got help, and they outsourced a lot of their work to copywriters when needed to keep up with the steady schedule of fresh content daily. If you are looking to make a massive income with blogging, then you will need some help too. That is where Area Web Solutions comes in. We are really good at what we do, and what we do is help others become successful through Internet Marketing too.
Blog marketing is a great thing to learn and you can learn most of what you need to know right here at our blog and a few other places online. If you can sell things from a blog like an online store without the cliche storefront, then you can sell them anywhere. Making money online by using a blog is one of the most satisfying things that you will ever learn how to do. Just do not expect to make money overnight, and know that you have to work at it consistently everyday, then remember to put into it what you want to get out of it. Happy blogging and don't forget to browse other articles here or contact us to help you in your venture.
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