Posts Tagged ‘internet’
Bloggin for a Reason
For some it’s just a fun thing to do, while some others feel they will soon be left out; they soon join the crowd. Everyone who uses the internet knows someone who has a blog. Now what do you find in a blog that you dont find anywhere else? Nothing? If you are a friend of the blogger you visit his blog probably because you want a sneak peek into whatz happenning in his life right? don’t deny that? been there done that! oh, and if you are a blogger yourself you visit other blogs thinking that the other guy reciprocates.
So why do you blog? Ask yourself this question. If you can’t answer this I can tell you why you blog -
1. You wanted to be famous like the friend of yours getting all the attention? You want people to give you more attention and listen to you more.
2. You are socially disabled and the only contact you have is with the computer. You obviously have not taken a bath in a week or more. And you believe that the only people in existance on the planet are living on the internet.
3. You do not really care what people think about you. You want to drown others in your personal agony. You come up with some thoughtless contradictions that you think others will like to argue with you about.
4. You want to have a say in all things that is happenning around you. You want to talk about what you ate this morning, which side of the bed you got up etc. You have an agitated head that wants to express all the million bits of thoughts that is entering your head.
5. You want to be a self-proclaimed town crier. You think of those eyeballs of people who know you who are constantly looking for important updates about another person they know. You want to be the first to announce a friend’s wedding date that the others know about already. You want to keep the rumour mills turning.
6. You think you are very important in the society. They want your opinions to be read and heard. You want to give profound insights and meaningless thoughts that you feel will affect the society at large.
7. You want to be a writer and you are only practising your skills.
8. You have a lot of time and maybe you are even jobless at the moment.
If you said YES to any one of these and that is the only reason you blog, you probably need to rethink about what you want to do with your blog to put it to better use today.
Now I will tell you the reasons why I blog.
a. A blog is a very important source of information online. We know we are constantly on the lookout for more data to process and blog is an all important source. No denying that. I want to be a source of such useful information.
b. I have a business and I need to promote my business online. If I own my own blog? I can self promote my services to you and because you know me you are probably going to recommend me and refer your friends.
c. I know that Search Engines like contents. Blogs are a great way to get my site noticed by the search engines. Because a blog is fresher than static sites, search engines love to visit blogs to index them. If I talk about my business in my blog and put a lot of keywords related to my business, people are more likely to find me when they search for something in google and they find the link to my business site and visit it. Believe me internet works that way and this alone is a very good reason why you need to have a blog.
d. I want to establish myself as an expert in my field. The more people are going to hear about me and my business, the more likely they are to put their confidence in me.
e. Blogs are a great way to position my company in the eyes of my existing clients. In other words, giving it a more human face.
Here is what Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer of server maker Sun Microsystems had to say about blogs after he started his blog himself and found that it was a gold mine. “It’ll be no more mandatory that they have blogs than that they have a phone and an e-mail account,” Schwartz says. “If they don’t, they’re going to look foolish.”
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is considering starting a blog, says a company spokesperson. Filmmaker Michael Moore began a blog on July 4 to promote his controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.
I blog for a reason, do you???
Joji M John is the CEO of 2edge Solutions http://www.2edge.com, a webdevelopment firm specializing in ecommerce & CMS development. He also owns a number of successful websites.
For more information visit http://www.jojisayz.com
Create Warm Memories with Holiday Traditions
I remember just a handful of the Christmas presents I received as a child: My first Barbie doll with her skinny black sequined gown. My soft, pink Pat-a-Burp doll. The microscope I got in second grade.
But I have many, many memories of our holiday traditions. The lovely aromas of holiday ethnic food. Riding the South Shore train into Chicago to visit the “real” Santa. Using a paintbrush to decorate sugar cookies with colored frosting. Setting up our manger scene.
Traditions add so much joy to the holidays. Traditions give a child a sense of belonging and identity. They strengthen bonds across generations and live long in memory.
A family rich in traditions has a powerful antidote to commercialism. The more focused you are on pleasures that cost little or nothing, the more all the gifts tend to stay in their appropriate place.
Best of all, many traditions are perfectly suited to today’s busy families. Here are a few favorites:
SIMPLE PLEASURES
Light candles at dinnertime. If December mornings are dark where you live, light candles at breakfast, too.
Take an evening stroll or car ride to look at Christmas lights.
Serve warm chocolate with candy canes for stirring.
THE JOY OF GIVING
Let your kids in on the excitement of finding and wrapping gifts for those they love. Compliment them for being big enough to keep the surprise a secret.
As a family, decide on a charity and make a donation. Our favorite is Heifer International (www.heifer.org).
Take a plate of cookies or other holiday treats to a homeless shelter or to a police or fire station.
GRATITUDE
Give family members strips of paper in holiday colors. Let everyone write or draw something they’re thankful for on each strip. Link the strips into a chain and hang as a decoration.
Write thank-you cards to each other. Decide together when to open them.
CONNECTING GENERATIONS
Interview grandparents, aunts, and uncles about holiday traditions they remember from their childhood. Adopt any traditions that fit your family.
Ask relatives for holiday recipes that have been handed down in your family. Or, search the Internet for holiday recipes related to your ethnic origins.
NEW YEAR’S EVE
If your kids are little, it works fine to celebrate the new year at 9 PM instead of midnight!
Pull out photos and videos from the past year and share your memories.
Keep a box of inexpensive noisemakers and party hats that you can re-use each year. The kids will enjoy pulling out their old favorites.
NEW YEAR’S DAY
Decorate a box in which you’ll put photos, ticket stubs and other souveniers of the coming year. Talk about your hopes and wishes.
Let each family member put New Year’s resolutions into their own envelope. Author Mimi Doe (“Busy But Balanced”) has a tradition of sealing the envelopes with wax — a nice, magical touch.
(c) 2004 Norma Schmidt, Coach, LLC
Norma Schmidt, Coach, LLC, specializes in helping working mothers create balance. She offers workshops, teleclasses and individual and group coaching. Her free e-mail newsletter, “The Balance Point,” is published bi-weekly. Visit http://www.NormaSchmidt.com
Fishing Team Gear Helps Teams Market To Sponsors
Competition between offshore and inshore anglers has skyrocketed within the last few years. As the competition increases, so does the need for fishing teams to differentiate themselves and stand out from other teams. To do this, fishing teams are acting more like businesses and taking marketing and branding seriously. There are several reasons why increasing amounts of fishing teams are moving towards self-promotion.
First of all, it is a sheer numbers game. There are more and more well run fishing tournaments available to the average angler these days. Everything from the “mom and pop” type local tournament, to entire circuit series, like the H.O.T. Fishing Circuit, that has the likes of the NASCAR points system. With circuit and big money tournaments becoming the more common, more anglers are fishing them. And these tournaments are not cheap. That leads us to the second reason.
Secondly, since anglers fishing more tournaments, they are spending much more money to fish them. This costs a considerable amount of money. The costs and fees involved are registration fees, gas, bait, boat purchase and maintenance, insurance, a large vehicle or truck to pull your boat or dockage fee at a marina. Plus you must not forget food, beverages, lodging and any other associated travel costs. Fishing teams are looking to save money and seeking out corporate sponsorships from fishing and marine companies. This can become a very important goal to competitive fishing teams to help defray costs.
But actually getting a fishing, marine or boating company to fork over big bucks to help with expenses is not an easy task. They get inundated with sponsorship requests on a daily basis. Fishing teams wanting to catch the eye of a sponsor, promote their team and project a professional, winning image is something that fishing team gear can provide.
Fishing team gear is a very effective way for teams to brand and self-promote. Just as a company would do, a fishing team must first establish and promote a consistent identity and brand. This is where a great, eye-catching and professionally designed logo comes in. Selecting a logo and who designs it is very important. The logo needs to be unique, easy to recognize and accurately reflect the image of the team. There are a few design firms who specialize in marine and boating industries, so doing homework on this will pay off. Using the internet to search for these companies is a quick and easy way to determine who has experience and understanding of the competitive fishing arena. In addition, some companies offer exclusive marine artists who can design custom fishing team designs.
Once the logo determined, fishing teams need to brand everything. Teams have matching t-shirts, visors, baseball caps, boat lettering, stickers and anything else they can put their name on. Many teams are even going beyond standard team t-shirts and are having professional embroidery sewn on to more high quality apparel and hats.
In addition to team gear, the most important piece of marketing machinery for soliciting sponsors is a fishing team website. Team websites can promote and profile a fishing team, it’s crew, accomplishments, tournaments wins and photo gallery. Websites are an effective tool for teams to showcase their commitment to promoting a professional, winning image. In addition, websites offer a way for sponsors to get in contact with teams they might not have even noticed before. It’s a pretty impressive sight for the sponsors to come upon a team that has a professionally built website with a professionally designed logo. In addition, they would notice the photographs featuring the crew winning tournaments in their team gear. Besides reinforcing the team’s name and identity, it also shows the team’s important understanding of brand promotion -and that is what sponsors want to see.
If you are one of the millions of Americans that participates in competitive fishing tournaments and want to further promote your team’s brand and identity, consider investing in some high quality team fishing gear. Not only will you create a presence on the water and on the World Wide Web, but you may also catch the eye of some well-needed sponsors.
Copyright Troy Denson, http://www.BoldWater.com
How to Provide Instant Customer Service
Customer service is an essential component of any business. Clearly, if you work alone your business thrives on good customer service. But what if you run much of your business online? How do you provide excellent customer service 24 hours a day seven days a week? Here’s an idea which is working for me.
One of the challenges of an online business is having constantly available support – especially if you are a small business or a self-employed, lone worker. People want instant answers. They expect replies to emails in the same working day. Many people seem to want even more rapid replies.
However, most technical support and customer support call centre staff will tell you that something like eight out of every ten calls are about the same concerns. If you run your own online business, you’ll probably discover too that many of the customer service requests you get are generally about the same difficulties people are having.
I looked at the calls and emails I was getting about my online information products and realised that there were eight common questions which I received from customers who had purchased an ebook from me. Naturally, in trying to provide good customer service I contacted each individual and dealt with their concerns. Each time I was able to ensure that I retained their custom. But the problem was it was taking me time.
So, here’s what I did. I set up an email which contains the answers to all eight questions. Then I created a new email address which is included in all my sales receipts. I ask people who have any questions or concerns about their purchase to send their question to that special email address. Of course, the special email address is an autoresponder. What happens is that as soon as someone has sent in their question, they get an immediate reply. Because the reply contains answers to almost all the support questions I get, it is usually instant customer satisfaction. Plus it means I don’t have to spend time on the query.
The autoresponder repeats the subject of the customer’s email within the text, making it look more personal. Also, because I get a copy of their incoming email I can see whether their question is answered within the autoresponder message. Usually it is. I can then send an email asking if they need more details or if their question has been answered. But I don’t have to do this straight away. That’s because the autoresponder has provided a good level of customer service.
So, using an autoresponder can provide high levels of customer service, helping you maintain customer loyalty.
If you want to see my autoresponder in action, just send an email to: support@grahamjones.biz
Graham Jones is a psychologist who has specialized in the way we use the Internet. He is an expert on information products and runs Infoselling.com where you can get a FREE report on how to sell your own infoproducts.
Benefits of Online Fitness Programs
There are many benefits of choosing an online fitness program over a live personal trainer. In this article, I will focus on the most important ones. I will also mention and recommend Global Health and Fitness’ online fitness program ( http://www.popularfitness.com/global-fitness.html ) because in my opinion they are the leaders in this field on the web. Not only have they been online since 1997, more importantly they have helped hundreds of people over the years achieve their fitness goals. They are associated with many well-known fitness-related professionals and have also been featured in numerous fitness articles.
Convenience.
The best thing about the Internet is that information is available when and where you want it – it is interactive and dynamic. These are the reasons why the Internet is ideal for a fitness program and trainers. A true personal trainer that has come of age and that is accessible from your home or office almost any time of the day. Most people cannot afford to have a trainer to offer them guidance and support whenever they need it. With online fitness programs you can receive advice almost any time of the day. Got a question that pops in your head while your at work? You can email the fitness program and receive a prompt reply. Something live personal trainers just cannot do.
Inexpensive and extensive area of expertise.
Most live trainers specialize in general fitness only whereas Global’s fitness program includes 30 highly qualified professionals from every fitness-related field. Not only do you receive help with your workouts, but you will receive nutrition advice, injury and rehabilitation training help for a specific sporting event or competition, your medical questions answered, motivational help and more. This is all available at a fraction of the cost that a personal trainer would charge who is limited in knowledge to only his or her field of expertise.
Fitness must be enjoyable.
For any fitness program to be a success, we all know that it needs to be enjoyable. If you are new to fitness or want to start on an exercise program, it is difficult to know where to begin and very time consuming to read and figure out your own fitness program. In the end, it could be very frustrating and boring for you resulting in you giving up. Global’s online personal trainer program cuts through all the confusion and teaches you exactly how to achieve the results you want. By eliminating the guesswork, your very own online personal trainer will help you avoid the common mistakes that can waste your time and effort. Their mission is to have you seeing great results as soon as possible. You will soon discover that you can truly enjoy healthy eating and physical activity for the rest of your life.
If you have been exercising for a while and are trying to reach new plateaus, Global can help you by creating an exercise and nutrition program that produces the best results that you are aiming for. By teaching you techniques for making your routine much more effective and personally guiding you step-by-step to achieving new results again and again!
Up-to-date
A fitness program that is frequently updated, thus offering you all the latest reliable research and discoveries in the fitness industry.
Customized and personalized for you.
Global’s online personal trainers will customize your very own program based on your fitness level, goals, personal preferences, time and equipment availability, and special limitations and requests.
Tools and Live Chat.
Various tools are also available that outside of a live personal trainer would end up costing you a lot such as video demonstrations, exercise instructions, Protrack software, healthy recipes and shopping lists, online books of the 5 components of optimal health, live chats with online personal trainers and much more. All of which will enhance your learning and assure your success.
About the author:
Peter Kudlacz is the owner of http://www.popularfitness.com where you can find online fitness and golf programs, exercise instruction guides, articles, resources, tips and newsletters.
10 Ways Entrepreneurs Shoot Themselves In The Foot
Entrepreneurs and their businesses have a tendency to ambush themselves when they aren’t looking. This affects how much revenue they can generate, how fast their business rises, and even if they survive after the first few years. If you feel there is a possibility you are getting in your way to success, review these elements to see if any of these items might apply.
1. Imagine investing time and money into a product or services, only to find that it isn’t selling. Or at least it doesn’t have the results that you expected. Now, I’m talking realistic here, and not some grandiose vision. It’s hard to give up something when you have invested your resources into something, more importantly, you have spout off to the world (okay, friends and family) that you were doing it.
Gluing yourself to an idea, product, or service that isn’t making any money or enough money to support the business isn’t smart. Ego and pride don’t make money. Getting hitched to any one idea, or even two, that isn’t profitable isn’t smart. Every product climbs and falls — even McDonalds drops a product when it doesn’t test strong. Ideas are the currency of entrepreneurs, make money with them or let them go.
2. Be proud of being an entrepreneur. DFor some reason, the title entrepreneur seems to have caught a disease, but that shouldn’t be the case. Be proud of being an entrepreneur. when someone asks you, don’t mumble, and don’t call it by another name, as if being an entrepreneur was somehow unprofessional. The same applies to the title of independent professional — which is another name for entrepreneur. Stand tall and proud.
When I ask people at networking events if they’re an entrepreneur, they often respond with strange body language. Some shift their stance uncomfortably, sometimes their hand goes over their mouth and they let out a barely audible, “yes,” and sometimes they even correct me, using some other title.
3. No bologna (or b.s.). Entrepreneurs can be naturally excited and optimistic about what they are doing. Don’t let the excitement sound like hype. Because of this people don’t trust you. Don’t just tell the pros, add the cons. Let people know, who is the best person for this service ? not everyone, or what circumstances are best for the product. People aren’t stupid but if they have to figure the cons of the product or service, you will most likely lose the sale.
4. Being in denial of your cash position. Not balancing the checkbook, not knowing what your accounts receivables, payables, or what the break even cost is for a product or service, isn’t smart business. If you don’t know what it is, get a book on the topic or talk to an accountant. Denial creates fear, and fear creates denial. It’s a vicious circle that creates stress and ulcers. Short term projects turn around short term dollars. Long term projects never turn around short term dollars. Be realistic with all your resources.
5. Accepting weak any bodies. Whether its weak staff, weak clients, weak strategic alliances, or anyone else in your support realm. If you are attracting weak people, you are giving weak signals. Change your signals and you will change what you attract. To attract strong people, you need strong signals.
6. Confusing possibility with reality. One of the main characteristics of an entrepreneur, and this could be one of the reasons people may not like using the name, is their gift to see everything in possibilities, yet spend money in the world of reality. Money is always reality.
7. Selling or trying too hard to explain what you sell. If you find yourself pushing what you’re product or service does, it is time to change your “success formula.” Common causes are: (1) You are trying to sell to someone who isn’t your target, or (2) If you have the right target and you don’t know what you are selling. You can only handle this in two ways, know what the customers are buying, or know the benefits of what you are selling. Benefits in the terms customers need to hear and understand, not what you choose to say.
8. Lack of any or adequate support structures. If it takes a village to raise a child, what do you think it takes to raise a business. Surely, not a lone ranger. Work with others to help handle your many business and personal needs. Entrepreneurs need support, even if it’s only a feeling. Arrange to have a support structure for every part of your business. Keep in mind tip number five above for this as well.
9. Over or under delegating. It is so hard for entrepreneurs to begin to delegate. Yet once they do they seem to swing the pendulum completely to the opposite side and over delegate. Over delegating is “dumping” on people. Even paid people, don’t like being dumped on. Feeling in control is a need of most people, entrepreneurs aren’t any different. They look at it as a money or trust issue, when in actuality it’s usually a control issue. Delegate appropriately and with people that think you can trust. Let the trust build over time.
10. Stop giving up so easily. Successful entrepreneurs don’t see failure. They see learning lessons. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, change and adjust, and keep moving. Being an entrepreneur, during the early years of a business — that is under five years for most professionals, takes more work than being an employee. Even if you are a graduate with an MBA in business. Don’t include your learning curve time in with the rest of your time. Everyone has a learning curve of some kind.
Catherine Franz, a Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com
Utilize The Power Of Blogs To Market Your Business On A Budget
Budget marketing with blogs is one of today’s top methods for cost-effective advertising to the consumers you want to reach, whether they’re in your neighborhood or across the global community.
‘Blogging’ is a fairly recent addition to our vocabulary, and it’s exactly what you’ll be doing if you pursue budget marketing via blogs. In the exact same way that email, chat rooms, instant messaging, and Internet personals have revolutionized human relationships, web logs or ‘blogs’ are widely used journal-type sites for people online, giving anyone with web access the ability to view or post ‘entries’ in a diary format to share their personal experiences.
Budget marketing using blogs, forums and message boards is also being utilized increasingly ? and very effectively ? in businesses like the stock market, as well as the technology sector and science industries offering Internet marketing for products, business services and B2B information.
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves have expanded their weblog services and marketing capabilities so practically any savvy businessperson, large or small, can capitalize on the benefits of budget marketing via blogs. The best way to discover the advantages of web logs is to subscribe to a free service like ‘Bloglines’ which launched recently. Whether you’re interested in news, business, travel, entertainment or cars, this site delivers you the best blogs on your favorite topics via ‘RSS feeds’, which are computer files specially formatted to bring you just the content you’re looking for, without the excess bother that spam blockers were designed for!
If you are excited about your company or new business, be it a large, medium or home-based and you want to let the world know, then the great news is that the World Wide Web is at your fingertips. Even better news, it won’t cost you a bundle to get on board! The Internet has opened up incredible possibilities to market yourself and your business in ways that were unheard of just a decade or two ago, specifically budget marketing via blogs.
Other avenues that you should be researching in addition to budget marketing with blogs are, using message boards for your press releases, and using reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is cross linking for promotion between websites. Ezines (electronic newsletters) and direct email (not to be confused with spam) can also be used in conjunction with budget marketing via blogs to really get your business out in to the world!
Written for – internet marketing news
Small / Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing as a Website Traffic Building Service
You are a small or a medium business owner. You have a well designed business website. It is a Search Engine Optimized (SEO) website for a limited set of keywords. However, with changing rules of SEO and new competitors entering the market, your select keywords stand a slim chance of surviving the onslaught. What are the chances that your website will remain on the top when a potential customer searches those special keywords on a search engine? To make matters worse, Search engines change their algorithms without any notice and suddenly your site is no longer in top 10 results. So what is the solution?
How about hiring a Blog Outsourcing company to add a Business Blog to your website? (If you are not familiar with Business Blogs, read my earlier article here: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=50041 ).
A business blog can do the SEO magic when it is embedded to your business website. Business blogging needs discipline to write every other day to bring potential customers to your business website. If you have the time and inclination, you may write the business blog yourself. However, if you feel, you should concentrate on your business; you can outsource this task to a Blog Outsourcing Company. Here is a link to first such company: http://www.ideologicllc.com.
What are the benefits of a Business Blog?
1. Improves searchability of your business website, thus increasing the chances of prospective clients visiting your business website.
2. A Business Blog provides instantaneous Customer feedback with comments.
3. A Business Blog has a potential to become centralized knowledgebase with articles containing tips and tutorials about correct usage of the products or services.
4. You can use a Business Blog to share product development status, thus passively achieving pre-launch marketing of the product.
5. The Business Blogs can help in branding a product online.
6. Your Business blog can help in building your business reputation.
7. Believe it or not, a business blog can project you as an expert in your niche business area.
8. Business blog lets you do your own “press release” on the website.
What happens when a business blog is outsourced?
A blogger from the Business Blog Outsourcing Company meets with the business owner or representative once every month and strategically selects few topics which are of interest to the company’s current and prospective clients and prepares keyword rich articles to be published on the company’s blog either every other day or once in a week, depending on the plan selected by the company. Results can be phenomenal. Instead of select keywords for the website, each blog posting has separate keywords which are used by the potential customers searching the internet for specific products or services.
What is the justification for outsourcing a Business Blog?
It is said a business person must concentrate on expanding and improving the business. If he/she tries to do everything, then nothing gets done. So, if a task can be done by secretary, it must be done by a secretary and if a task is difficult or there is lack of time, hiring outside help maybe the best way to get that task done. Business blogging is same way. Writing is a time consuming task, so it is better left to a professional blogger or writer who can better construct the article, intersperse it with business-specific keywords keeping search engine criteria in mind.
Can a professional writer or a blogger do justice to the task of writing about a business, product or service, where he/she has no expertise? The answer is yes. This is no different from a situation where a professional writer writes articles in a magazine about various businesses, products and services. Knowledge can always be gained and then combined with the skills of a professional writer. End result is an article that captivates reader’s attention till very end and has a potential of converting a prospect to a loyal customer.
Harish Keshwani is a Strategic Blogging Consultant, Software Developer, Blogger and an Entrepreneur. He is focused on consulting and guiding small and medium businesses in setting up their blogs and managing it for them as an outsourced process.
He guides corporations of small and medium size to realize the potential of blogging for their business. With appropriate content, he helps companies to keep their customers satisfied and in close touch. He promotes blogging as a marketing and customer response tool to the companies.
His contact information is: Email: businessorati-at-gmail-dot-com Company: Ideologic L.L.C.-A Small/Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing Company. Website: http://www.ideologicllc.com Blog: http://www.ideologicllc.com/wp
