Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Business Articles that Frustrating Business Owners Thoughts


By reading business improving articles a business owner can get many useful tips for growing is business. Tips and suggestions from the articles will help the business owners to correct their old marketing processes and practice the new proven methods in the industry in order to stay higher from its competitors.

Following are select excerpts from 13 Thought-Provoking Business Articles, which Will Alter Your Thinking:

1). Procrastination


What is YOUR biggest wish, YOUR lifelong dream … and what’s keeping you from going after it? Are you waiting for “everything in your life to be right?” Waiting to have “all your ducks in a row?” It will never happen. You’re never going to “have it all together.” That’s like trying to eat once and for all.
Follow Robert J. Ringer’s advice; “Action today! Develop the habit of living in the present. The best day really is today, so get started now, no matter what your problems are and no matter how long you’ve already procrastinated.

2). Write Articles That Actually Succeed


The idea of submitting an article to as many publishers as possible is obviously contrary to what a publisher is looking for. At the same time, though, it is also contrary to what you should be looking for. The secret to writing successful articles starts with a simple concept that you want to control who publishes your article, and you want to help promote that article. If an editor chooses to publish an article and sees that it was well-received and brought in a lot of new traffic, they will be more inclined to publish future articles from you.

3). Truth about Multi-Level Marketing



The MLM business model, as it is practiced by most companies, is a marketplace hoax. In those cases, the business is primarily a scheme to continuously enroll distributors and little product is ever retailed to consumers who are not also enrolled as distributors.
In general, MLM industry claims of distributor income potential, its descriptions of the ‘network’ business model and its prophecies of a reigning destiny in product distribution have as much validity in business as UFO sightings do in the realm of science.
Financially, the odds for an individual to achieve financial success under those circumstances rival the odds of winning at the tables in Las Vegas.

4). What is Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?


USP increases per­ceived value, exper­tise, and cred­i­bil­ity – with­out need­ing to state it outright.
Just by being 10% dif­fer­ent, unique, orig­i­nal, or spe­cial is enough to make you stand out like a sore thumb in an over­crowded, hypercom­pet­i­tive marketplace.

5). Are You A Forum Addict?


Since the early 1990s, after participating in many different online forums, message boards, and newsgroups and have experienced many of these positive and negative effects at various times. On the positive side, have learned many great ideas, made valuable new business contacts and on the negative side, found excess participation to be a huge time drain and very addicting as well.

6). Your Unpaid Sales Force


People do business with those they know, like, trust and respect. In other words, they want to build a relationship with you before they invest their hard-earned money in your solutions and services.
Referrals are often the most powerful way to expand your business requiring little marketing spend and providing you with immediate credibility through the reputation of the person referring you.
But how often do you miss the opportunity to ask for a referral? Do you have a specific strategy and action plan to manage your referral process? Are you leveraging the support of your unpaid sales force – your clients who already know, like, trust and respect you?

7). Advertising Is Manipulative


Advertising Is Manipulative! We manipulate people’s thoughts. That’s what it’s all about. It is not evil; unless you are selling junk and your claims are misleading or downright false.
It is all about sales, George and there are degrees of selling. Hey, let us face it: you can call yourself a SELLER if you simply have something you will exchange for money. Or, you can be a SKILLED seller and incorporate those things that have been PROVEN to encourage people to buy. It’s your choice.

8). Sell Yourself


Sell yourself, not your products or services. The point we need to make is that your products and services will change over time as your business adapts to the realities of the marketplace.
If you spend your time promoting Product A and then you discontinue the sale of Product A, you will suddenly find yourself starting over from scratch with nothing to show for all of your previous work.
For as long as you remain on this planet, you will always be. No matter the course of your product or service line, selling yourself first and then your products will give you the leverage to remain flexible in your business journeys.

9). What Am I Selling?


What am I selling? This question sounds naïve, but it’s surprisingly deep. For instance, if your company develops and sells a tangible product such as software or fountain pens, it seems obvious that these things are your products – right? … Well, that’s partly right. Your true product or service goes far beyond software, fountain pens, loan processing services, or chocolate chip cookies. In fact, if such easily defined items were all you had to offer, you probably wouldn’t be in business very long.
Your true product or service is: How you solve customers’ problems or expand their opportunities.

10). Link Baiting


With the rise of the blogosphere and social bookmarking sites, all it takes is one person to notice an interesting page and link to a site. Once a link is passed around once, it becomes easier for it to spread further.
Bloggers around the net constantly use link baiting to encourage other bloggers to mention them or to get their content passed around the blogosphere. However, many traditional web masters have not quite latched onto this powerful technique.
The benefits of creating quality, unique, or even controversial content go way beyond what one might first imagine. When a web site offers true value to the visitor, they can create hundreds and even thousands of backlinks without even asking.

11). The Hype Train


What exactly is the ‘hype train?’ It is a term coined to describe the ride taken by people getting pumped up (excited) about every great product they read about. They haven’t yet found that product that’s making them incredible riches. They jump from product to product searching frantically for that one product. They jump from car to car on a train that’s taking them nowhere.
You need to be aware of how the hype train works so that you do not get on for the most futile ride of your life.
The success of the hype train is fueled by a number of human faults. The biggest one that has noticed is what is termed the herd mentality.

12). The Home Business Trap


The success of your home business is entirely and completely reliant upon you and the decisions that you make.
You had your reasons for deciding to start your own home based business. You must always keep your reasons in the forefront of your mind. You must always be able to rely upon your own self and your dedication to the success of your business.
Your friends and family might be annoyed that they cannot come visit upon their own whim, but when success comes to you and your business, they will better appreciate you for putting your foot down when necessary.

13). The Big Tease


Publishing and broadcasting professionals know that teasers tap into a deep, primal emotion that exists deep inside all of us. A teaser bypasses the brain and speaks directly to your.
Whether you want to admit it or not, we’re all “cats” at heart when it comes to curiosity. Our whiskers start twitching and we have to start investigating whatever it is that has caught our interest. We want to know… we HAVE TO KNOW… more.

People read articles for a variety of reasons like, information, enjoyment, entertainment, enlightenment, practical advice, self-improvement, escapism, etc. But all of those reasons notwithstanding, articles also have the power to significantly alter our thought processes – the way we perceive and do things…and ultimately, the course of our lives.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Tips for Optimizing Your Blog Post for Google and People


Are you leveraging the profit potential of your blog posts? If you are simply writing content for your blog without any regard for optimization and readability, you are leaving potential right on the table.

With a few steps, you can give your readers and the search engines exactly what they want.

1). Find a Unique Topic

Think about a topic that will compel your blog readers to share your content. Make it creative and unique. Here are some quick tips to finding topics:

Ask! Ask your readers what they want to read.
   
Research forum sites and Q&A platforms like LinkedIn groups or Quora to see what people are asking in your industry.
   
What are your readers’ needs?

Research on Twitter, Facebook or any other social site to determine what problems need to be solved in your industry.

Spy on other related blogs and sift through the comments to discover trends.
News is always a welcomed topic because it is “hot off the presses”. The quicker you can report the story, the better. For example, an article a little while ago entitled: Will SEO be Dead in 6 Months? It discussed breaking, controversial news about Google and generated quite a buzz.

2). Keyword Research

Write your blog around specific keywords. Not just any keywords, but those for which people are looking. If your keyword is only searched by 12 people a month, it’s time to move on. You can use the Google Keyword Tool for your research. If the search value and competition is high, you will have found a good keyword that will interest people. Devise one main keyword and two or three variations for each post.

Tip: Don’t get hung up with this step. If you have an idea for a blog post and you are having a hard time fitting in an exact keyword, write the post anyways if you know your audience will love it. You can do more keyword research for your next post. Focus on value first.

Important: Make sure your keywords are aligned with your audience’s needs. Don’t write about selling to businesses if your audience sells goods to consumers.

3). Write the Blog Post

Write as an authority who is teaching your readers worthwhile information. Write in a conversational tone and avoid selling.

New marketers: If you are just starting, it can be hard to imagine yourself an expert. What you must understand is that everyone is an expert at something. Whether you are a parent, a spouse, a gardener or even a great cook, you have a story to tell. Infuse your expertise throughout your writing and over time you will feel more apt to teach others. If you feel like you are an authority inside, it will come across in your posts and you will be respected as such.

4). Easy to Read

Headlines make every blog post easier to read. They also enclose copy into well-organized sections.

If you remember anything from this article, remember this…internet users have short attention spans so your blog content must be extremely readable. Short paragraphs, headlines and sub-headlines will help to break up your content into sections.

If your paragraphs are more than 5-6 sentences long, you risk losing a reader.

Use bullet points, bold, italics and underlines throughout to add emphasis where needed. Add images, screenshots, info graphics or videos to attract the reader’s attention.

5). Optimize

Use your main keyword in the title and throughout your post. You can add emphasis to your keywords by using them for H1 and H2 tags, in your title, alt tags for images and as alt text for links.

Internal linking – By linking to this old post on Site-Reference, How to Write Blog Posts that Keep Your Readers Coming Back for More, I am not only referring the reader to more valuable information, but I am also creating a keyword specific internal link. These links (1-2 per post) will help your content in the search engines.

6). Share

You don’t need anyone to tell you to share your content. Let your valuable work be known. Offer it on your social medial profiles and post it on relevant blogs without spamming. Make sure your blog post includes sharing buttons so your readers can easily share it with others. Your posts should also be available via RSS feed.

7). Track

Monitor your readership over time. You will find certain trends, like which posts do better than others and to what type of content your readers respond. Blog optimization is a work in progress and a dynamic that occurs over a period of time. Pay attention to how your blog moves, optimize your posts, and stay on top of what your audience wants. This is a recipe for blog posting success.

Friday, February 17, 2012

SEO Tips for E-commerce WebSites

Doing Search engine optimization (SEO) for any website is not an easy task, and e-commerce sites have huge competition which creates many exceptional SEO challenges to overcome.


Following SEO tips will help you tackle your e-commerce websites SEO campaign so that you can rank higher in search engine results and get more visitors, customers and sales for your online store. 

1). Create unique content on each of your product and product category pages.

Interesting, unique content tells Google a page is valuable, and helps it rank higher. Well-written content can also persuade more of your visitors to actually pull out their credit cards.

Don't just copy the manufacturer's description of the product. Write your own description so that Google sees it as valuable, unique content. Google's Farmer/Panda Update of early 2011 favors sites with more original content.

2). Discover what shoppers are actually searching for.

Keyword research is an invaluable way to discover the words you should be using to describe what you sell. You can find out how many people search for a particular keyword per month, and even check more specifically for your own region, with Google's free keyword tool.

For more info on choosing the right keywords, read Keyword Research Is Key to Online Success.

3). Create pages for categories people are searching for.

Some people may be searching for specific product names like "Nikon D90," but odds are, more people are searching for broad keyword phrases like "Nikon digital camera" and "digital SLR cameras."

Creating category pages for these broad keyword phrases - as well as product-specific pages within each category - boosts your SEO and helps you capture a bigger group of people searching for what you sell. Added bonus: Category pages based on broad keywords can help browsers and researchers find what they want more quickly, and turn them into buyers.

4). Interlink your pages using good anchor text.

Link to other products or categories within the text on your site. Be sure to use anchor text with relevant keywords. This will help search engines find and index other pages on your site, so they can be found by searchers. The links and anchor text will also boost the linked pages' SEO and help them rank higher for words you use in your anchor text.

Added bonus: People reading your text can easily click on links you provide and find other products that might interest them. You'll be keeping people on your site, and helping them find what they want.

5). Allow people to share your products on social media sites.

Social media mentions help your SEO. Plus, social sharing gets your product seen by more people.

Install social sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Google+ on every product and product category page. Make sure they're easy to find. One online retailer places them right below the price of each product, because people always look for the price.

6). Get valuable backlinks.

Backlinks (links from another site to yours) have always been one of the most important factors search engines consider when deciding how high to rank a web page in search results. Getting backlinks isn't easy, however.

Adding interesting content to your website beyond product and category pages is the first step, because few website owners want to link to a boring page, or a page where you're just selling something. A blog is a great avenue for adding link-worthy content to your website.

For much more info on getting backlinks, check out our articles about link building.

7). Avoid duplicate content issues.

E-commerce sites tend to give visitors the option to sort a list of products by various parameters like price, popularity or product ratings. While sorting is useful for people, it can be a nightmare for your SEO, because it usually means you are essentially creating multiple pages with the same content, just in a different order. Search engines can see these pages as duplicate content, and therefore less valuable. This in turn can dilute the SEO of these pages.

This isn't a simple thing to fix, but the easiest thing you can do is tell Google about the sorting through Webmaster Tools. For more info on solving this problem, read item No. 3 in this article.

 8). Use descriptive URLs.

The URLs on your site are another opportunity for you to boost your e-commerce site's SEO. If your page about blue widgets has a URL like http://www.example.com/blue-widgets, the URL is telling Google that the page is about "blue widgets" and should show up in search results for that keyword phrase. However, if the URL is http://www.example.com/page?id=59274974, Google doesn't get that extra piece of information telling it what the page is about. People also look at URLs, and it's much better if the URL informs them, too.

For more information about SEO your URLs, read Improve your URLs for Better SEO.

9). Let visitors leave reviews.

Reviews are another piece of unique content, and search engines love unique content. Plus, reviews can help visitors decide to pull out their credit cards and buy the product.

10). Include a sitemap to help Google find all your pages.

If Google finds a page and thinks it has valuable content, it will index the page. That means it can show up in search results.

For instructions, read Creating an XML Sitemap or HTML Sitemap.

11). Update your website content regularly.

The Google Freshness Update of November 2011 favors websites with the freshest content on a given topic.

Tweak your website's content and add new content from time to time so your website doesn't look stale. Adding a blog to your website, and writing a blog post every so often about your industry, can make this task easier. For example, if you sell pet supplies, you can add a post in mid-summer about de-flexing your pets and your house.

Allowing visitors to post reviews is another way to get fresh content for your site, and it doesn't take much work on your part.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

10 Best Social Networks for your Business


Social networks for business are now essential for companies to stay competitive. As the use of the mobile Internet grows, people are online more than ever as they can connect from any location with Wi-Fi, or 3G/4G access.

Business social networks can help companies reach out to new customers and to keep in contact with existing ones. Many companies use social media for customer support and for gauging reaction to newly introduced products.

Here is our list of the 10 best social business networks.

1). Facebook

Although not specifically focused on business users, Facebook is the world’s largest social website. Almost all large corporations have a presence on Facebook and many companies have multiple pages on this platform. The idea on Facebook is to interact regularly with your community of friends to include existing customers and people interested in your company.

2). Twitter

Twitter is also not specific for business use, but it is too big for companies to ignore. Twitter differs from Facebook in that the format only allows short status updates similar to those used for texting. For this reason, Twitter is popular with young people that grew up with texting. Many celebrities use Twitter to reach out to fans and companies are increasingly turning to the site for customer and technical support.

3). LinkedIn

This site is specifically for business people and professionals. LinkedIn is a perfect platform for companies looking to hire new employees and contractors or to find partners and investors. The platform is less appropriate for outreach to customers or potential customers unless you have a business-to-business organization.

4). YouTube

The video hosting website offers companies a great vehicle for offering multimedia productions in video format. For example, you could produce videos that highlight products or those demonstrate how to use products. YouTube provides businesses with a free platform for publishing TV-like advertisements. However, for your videos to get watched, you will need to expand your social network so people can find your links.

5). Flickr

Flickr is a photo hosting website that allows you to upload pictures of your products, business property, employees, events, etc. You can best employ this website together with other platforms on your business social network list like Twitter. 

6). Startup Nation

Startups can use this website to connect with other entrepreneurs that are launching new businesses. The site offers many services including seminars, podcasts, blogs, forums and articles focused on the subject of starting up a business. The site also offers competitions that act as incubators for new business ideas.

7). PartnerUp

As the name implies, this platform is for the business social network list of those looking for new partners. Whether you are seeking new investors or contractors to help with specific jobs, this network allows you to specifically ask others for the services or resources that you need. Users can also offer advice on how to find new partners and investors. PartnerUp is more for small and medium-sized businesses and they have a Resource Directory for placing ads and RFPs.

8). Klout

The Klout website is more about measuring your social influence online, but it also has direct social networking functions. As a Klout member, you can discover the reach of your social marketing campaigns along with the influence of your social community. This is a great way to see whether your efforts are working although it does not offer any method for measuring ROI in dollar terms. You can increase your social clout by interacting with other Klout users including providing recommendations for others based on their fields of expertise. The idea is to get friends in your network to reciprocate and recommend you as well.

9). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

Mechanical Turk is a crowd-sourcing social platform. Many business social networks cater specifically to other businesses and professionals looking for services. At Mechanical Turk, you can find people offering to perform a wide range of tasks for a fee. Amazon takes a 10 percent commission on all transactions.

10). Google+

In the future, Google+ may rank higher on the list of the best social business networks, but for now, people are still watching the new platform. Google has tried many times before to break into social media in a big way, but with limited success. The new site is very much like Facebook, but it offers ways to group friends into different “Circles” for easier management and interaction.

With this list of social networks for business, you will be well on your way to establishing a strong social presence on the Internet. Remember that effective social networking requires that you interact with your online community on a regular basis. Stale social media pages become practically useless. By providing your friends, fans and other community members with regular updates and content they will come to look for news from you consistently.

Learn how to post information on your products or services, or just any news that pertains to your business. For example, a sporting goods store could post interesting news articles from the sports world so that friends come to expect such stories.