Are You Already Marketing On The Internet?

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Take a moment to think about how you would really answer this question. If given enough thought just about any business owner who utilizes the Internet for any purpose will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign, they may already be marketing their products and services on the Internet. This article will examine some subtle ways business owners may already be marketing their business on the Internet.

Do you have a website for your business? Business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their products or services online just by virtue of the fact that they have a website online. Having a live website means there is the potential for curious Internet users to access your website. You may not be actively promoting your website but you may still find that your website generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors; this is a form of passive marketing.

Do you participate in message boards and include a link to your website in your signature? Again business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their website online. Savvy business owners realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards to create an interest in their products and services, establish themselves as knowledgeable about the industry and offer a link to their own website even if it is in the signature line of their posts. However, even business owners who do not realize this may already be inadvertently enjoying the benefits of Internet marketing which result from message board participation just by doing something they enjoy and may be doing as a form of leisure activity.

Do you include keywords which are relevant to your business in the content of your website? Business owners who answer yes to this question are also already marketing on the Internet by optimizing their website for these keywords. These search engine optimization (SEO) affects the websites whether or not they were even aware of the concept of keyword density and how it can help to SEO a website. Business owners will likely use certain words often depending on the type of products and services they offer just because it is natural and logical to do so. This tendency, however, can result in search engines boosting your website rankings for these particular keywords. The concept of SEO is much more involved and complex than simply using keywords frequently but business owners can gain some benefit just by naturally applying relevant keywords to their website.

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online? This is yet another example of how business owners may be accidentally marketing their business on the Internet. Most business owners realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes and business owners who offer products online might solicit feedback in the form of online surveys. Although the business owners may be doing this simply for a business purpose the fact that it is done online makes it fall into the category of Internet marketing.

We have already discussed several ways in which business owners may already be marketing online but what about business owners who want to have an increased online presence? Business owners who may already be marketing online accidentally may wish to launch a full scale Internet marketing campaign. The best way to do this is to hire a consultant with experience in Internet marketing to assist you in creating a campaign which is effective for your target audience.

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Careers in Blogging

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Many freelance writers are beginning to find blogging is one of the newest career opportunities available to them. Blogging is essentially a series of postings on a particular subject which are listed in reverse chronological order. These blogs may be about a variety of different subjects and may be personal, political, informative, humorous or any other category desired by the blogger. However, the key to a successful blog is a blog which pertains to a subject which appeals to a wide audience. Additionally the blog should be updated regularly and should provide useful content to the readers of the blog. This article will provide some information on finding career opportunities in blogging, will discuss the benefits of this type of career and will provide information on how writers can manage a blog successfully.

Finding Blogging Career Opportunities

Although blogging career opportunities are becoming increasingly popular, many writers are not aware of how to find these wonderful opportunities. These career opportunities may be offered as ghost writing positions or as positions offering a byline to the writer and finding these blogging opportunities is often very similar to finding any other career opportunities for writers. Companies seeking a blogger may post the job opening in the same manner in which they would post other openings with the company such as accounting positions or administrative positions. Therefore, writers interested in a position as a blogger should utilize the same job search websites they rely on to find other career opportunities.

Bloggers may also wish to visit career websites and message boards which focus exclusively on careers in blogging. The ProBlogger.net website is just one example of a website dedicated exclusively to putting bloggers in connection with those who are interested in hiring a writer for a particular blog. Interested bloggers should also consider joining message boards for those who blog for a living. This can be beneficial because here bloggers are likely to share information regarding the companies for which they work as well as any information they have about companies who are currently looking to hire bloggers.

The Benefits of a Career in Blogging

There are many benefits to pursuing a career in blogging. Perhaps one of the most alluring benefits to a career in blogging is the work can typically be done as a telecommute position. This is because as long as the blogger has access to the software necessary to write and upload a blog, there is no need for the blogger to perform the work from a specific location. This means the blogger can reside virtually anywhere in the world and can likely perform the necessary work from his own home. However, not all blogging positions are telecommute positions. Some companies may require bloggers to perform the work onsite as a matter of personal preference.

Another benefit to a career in blogging is the ability to accomplish work at a pace which his convenient to the blogger. The blogger may be required to upload a new post to the blog according to a regular schedule but the actually writing of the posts can be accomplished when it is convenient for the blogger. Many blogging software packages enable the blogger to set a specific time for a specific post to be uploaded. This allows the blogger to write several posts at a time and have them publish according to a pre-determined schedule.

Finding Time to Blog

One of the problems which many bloggers face is finding the time to blog. This is especially difficult if the blogger maintains several blogs or if the blogger maintains a current events blog in which posts must be timely in order to be relevant and of interest to the readers. Writing blog posts in batches and scheduling them to publish as needed is one way to deal with managing several blogs. However, writers of blogs related to current events must take special care to budget their time wisely to ensure they are publishing topical blog posts. One way this can be accomplished is by setting aside time daily to reading current events to derive inspiration and then scheduling time after that to write and publish the blog. For example a blogger with a current events blog might choose to review the previous day’s news the first thing in the morning to ensure they are reviewing all of the relevant news from the previous day before writing the blog post.

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Dealing with Comments on Your Blog

Friday, May 7, 2010

Most blogs allow visitors to the blog to post comments on any of the blog posts. These comments may pertain to the blog posting or may be completely unrelated. The comments may also be positive or negative in nature. Regardless of the type of comment left by a visitor the blogger may choose to deal with these comments in a number of different ways. The blogger may answer these comments, block individual visitors from leaving comments in the future or use administrative features to delete comments or set the blog to require approval of the comments before they are posted on the blog. This article will discuss each of these options for dealing with comments on a blog in greater detail.

Answering Comments on Your Blog

Bloggers who receive comments on their blog may wish to answer these comments. Most blogging programs allow the blogger to post comments on his own blog which enables the blogger to answer comments directly. With this feature a blogger can deal with a number of different situations including negative comments, positive comments and questions. Bloggers who receive negative comments on their blog may opt to answer these comments directly with a rebuttal to the negative comments. This allows the blogger to recognize the criticism and defend his original post. Bloggers who receive positive comments may also wish to answer these comments to thank the visitors for the praise. Still other bloggers may receive comments which ask a question about the blog post or the blogger himself. Bloggers may opt to answer these questions to develop a better relationship with the blog visitors.

Blocking Comments from Individual Visitors

Another option for dealing with blog comments which are negative in nature is to block comments from individual blog visitors. In most cases bloggers will have the ability to blog a particular user from leaving comments on the blog. The blogger may wish to use this option in situations where the comments from the blog visitor are extremely mean spirited. The blogger may also wish to ban individual blog visitors from making comments if he has previously attempted to explain his point to the visitor but the visitor continues to post negative comments. A blogger may also wish to ban an individual blog visitor from making comments if he believes the comments are being left as spam.

Using Administrative Features

Still another option for dealing with comments on a blog includes using administrative features to delete comments or modify the settings to not allow comments to be displayed until the blogger approves them. Blog owners typically have the ability to delete a comment left by a blog visitor. Deleting these comments is usually a quite simple process. However, it is not a completely effective method because other blog visitors may have the opportunity to read these comments before they are deleted. Therefore, deleting the comment may prevent some visitors from reading the comment but will not ensure the comment is not seen by any blog visitors. However, there is a way for bloggers to make sure visitors do not read negative comments. Most types of blogging software have options which require the blogger to approve all comments before they become available to the public. This gives the blogger the ability to delete a comment before it is read by any of the blog visitors. The blogger can simply delete any comments they do not wish others to read before the comments are published.

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The Pros and Cons of Video Blogging

Monday, May 3, 2010

Video blogging has a lot of advantages over text-based
blogging, and it is little wonder that this new
technology is catching on all over the globe. Video
blogs very effectively grab the attention of web surfers,
and people are much more likely to become excited
about the dynamic content of a video blog than they are
likely to find a written posting very thrilling. The more
enthusiastic viewers are about a site, the quicker the
word of mouth spreads, and the more traffic the site will
get.

Of course, there are plenty of disadvantages to video
blogging as well. Hosting a v-blog requires quite a bit
of server space, which can make it difficult to get
started. It takes more time to process and upload a video
file than it does to dash off a quick bit of text, which
means that running and updating a video blog can be
quite a bit of work. In addition, web surfers sometimes
grow frustrated with the slow loading times of the files
on many video blogs. Whether you opt for a video blog
or not depends on what kind of subject matter you want
to cover, and how much time you can devote to video
blogging. Before you decide to pursue a video blog,
consider if there is an easier way for you to get your message across.

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Learn to Write in English? Just Start Blogging Today

Monday, April 20, 2009

English, as a global language of the world, is becoming the need of everyone who wants to be able to communicate globally. To achieve that objective, there are many literatures written and published to help you easily mastering this language effectively. Some of them are designed for self study. Some are formal books that need a lot of time and effort to take you to the advance level.

For those who have enough time and patient, learning some rules, guides and those complex theories of English writing (for me) are lucky persons. Contrary, for those who always get tired reading theories, most of the times get confused memorizing basic rules of writing, and easily get bored with all that stuff, books and publication do not help. And petty of me, as I am being part on that group.

But I believe, we’re all born unique with each of our own specialties. Just like the old proverb: there are many ways to reach Rome; so there are many ways to reach your goals, as long you have enough faith and tireless effort.

This fact makes me realize that there are many ways for people like me to improve writing English ability. People who are easier learning language by trial and error method; having mistakes before finding out the best possible approach that suit best.

And for that reason, for me, blogging is one way out. I can freely make any mistakes as this is my personal room. Mistakes will improve and take me to the next level naturally. Mistakes make me realize that I am human. And mistakes do have some miracles on getting new friends.

Beside, writing (in a blog) is a fun activity though. It does not only improve your language skill, but also the way of skill of thinking structurally. So, if you are tired of learning some theories, why don’t just start blogging today.

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