What is Google Panda?

Yes, this new Google update has been around for a little while, but there is still many that wonder exactly what it is.

Google panda is updated algorithm of Google.  Google Panda should not be considered an overall change to Google SEO algorithm.  It is a principle or rules of Google.  It is a separate computer program/algorithm that is run every few weeks by Google.  Google panda is a great thing but negatively affected a lot of people.

Google Panda is one of the effective update of Google which created a big buzz in internet marketing industry.  It is more a human centric update.  It is an entirely new way for Google to evaluate websites.  It has affected the whole websites system.  Google panda is a page-ranking system that searches content and places website pages in the highest ranking order.

Google panda is focused on the satisfaction of website visitors. Affiliate Marketer’s now need to add value to their website by creating better content for their website visitors.  It is searching for spam fest sites that offer no value to the reader.  It is program to target all low quality link building sites.  Google panda is looking for honest, genuine, original and expert writers to post quality articles on websites.

What does Google Panda do?

Google panda was created to filter our low quality page to yield better search results for users.  It is set to identify websites providing spammy invalid contents.  It was put in place to weed out and identify low quality pages and make note of them.  Quality content should be the center point for every webmasters.  Google panda is mostly interested in the natural flow of information.

The SEO industry now needs to think about ways to overcome these pitfalls from the newly created ripples created by Google Panda.  It has again changed the landscape of how websites are ranked in many ways. The change has affected the income of many website owners, multitude of blogger’s, many freelance online writers involved with Adsense.  Google panda has penalized duplicate content even more.

You may have heard that “Content is King!”, well with Google Panda it truly is.  Creating good quality content is now the utmost importance if you want to make sure your site is listed in the top SERP of Google. Creating SEO article content is also necessary.  For those who use PLR articles without changing them an making them unique. Google Panda will snift these types of websites, same goes to sites that just copy and paste articles from article directories.

For many websites Google Panda created a panic.  For those that constantly put out unique quality search engine optimized article content, this didn’t affect them much.  Google Panda is still a work in progress, there will be many more changes that will make internet marketers scramble and work harder, but it will make the average search engine user applaud.  Searching for information online will be easier and faster and the search results will soon provide the type of information the end user is searching for.

Google Panda in the eyes of this online entrepreneur is not a bad thing. It makes a lot of sense and although it does make one work harder to write better quality search engine optimized content, I look forward to the upcoming changes of Google Panda.

Understanding SEO for small business is a very important aspect for a Small business web presence.  Promoting a small home business is now tougher than ever.  Changes in Google algorithm has made this a daunting task.   There are many new websites and small business companies creating their web presence by the hundreds on a daily basis. What’s a home-based organization or chance seeker to do?

A lot of the old promotion strategies merely don’t function at the same as they use to anymore. Fortunately you can find a couple of new automated SEO techniques which are working particularly well for even the smallest organizations. These techniques are not well identified and getting access to this type of automation may require insider information and require funds for purchase.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are constantly changing the way they program their web crawlers or search engine spiders when it comes to ranking sites.  This constant changes makes keeping up with Search Engine Optimization is a full time and very daunting task.

Getting very good organic search engine traffic is becoming the number one way to obtaining consumers, generating leads and getting traffic. But how can you achieve this? Here are some simple and easy strategies for getting a web page pulling in plenty of visitors.

You write an article.  Google sees your release, article, or blog article, calls it helpful data, and ranks your web page. The more people you get to visit the article the higher your ranking will eventually become.  However, you can’t just write an article, it MUST uitlize search engine optimization techniques.

A lot of the old promotion strategies merely don’t function at the same as they use to anymore. Fortunately you can find a couple of new automated SEO techniques which are working particularly well for even the smallest organizations. These techniques are not well identified and getting access to this type of automation may require insider information and require funds for purchase.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are constantly changing the way they program their web crawlers or search engine spiders when it comes to ranking sites.  This constant changes makes keeping up with Search Engine Optimization is a full time and very daunting task.

Getting very good organic search engine traffic is becoming the number one way to obtaining consumers, generating leads and getting traffic. But how can you achieve this? Here are some simple and easy strategies for getting a web page pulling in plenty of visitors.

You write an article.  Google sees your release, article, or blog article, calls it helpful data, and ranks your web page. The more people you get to visit the article the higher your ranking will eventually become.  However, you can’t just write an article, it MUST uitlize search engine optimization techniques.

How do you go about learning SEO?  Reading SEO manuals might be confusing and a great deal of the information on the market is wrong or just outdated.  Filtering out what is good SEO and what is not could become a time consuming activity.  But, there’s help.  You can do a search online for SEO Tutorials or join Facebook Groups dealing with SEO.  Within these SEO Groups where you can ask questions and get help, you’ll find some great information where to get more information on Search Engine Optimization products.  If you search long enough and find the right type of SEO information, you are well on your way to creating article content that will be loved by Google.

Pay close attention towards the SEO approaches top ranking web-sites are utilizing. Locate and find websites providing free SEO tutorials and videos. There are many great sites that discuss SEO and exclusively update their articles on what the search engines are requiring to get websites listed in the top positions of Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).

Figure out who your Target Market it and cater to their need for that specific information.  Those individuals buy greater than any other prospect you’ll be able to discover. What kind of individuals are most likely to buy what you sell. Once you’ve figured out your target market, figure out specifically what you need to have to sell to them.

Create a website that is easy to manuever with a well developed design structure.  The easiest method to do this is by using WordPress. The WordPress developers earnestly create free and affordable plugins to help you create a website with all the functionalities that you need.  This includes the ease of integrating SEO into your site structure as well as the contents you add to it.  WordPress might possibly be the easiest tool to produce your site and push up your ranking when it is installed with the right plugins.

Study and follow SEO experts and professionals.  Mimic their methods of link building and their use of social media.  Use their keywords, page naming strategies, and distribution channels. Create a website after a nicely defined niche. This is the hidden secret of most of the SEO professionals. They do not try to dominate “fashion,” they dominate “women’s designer fashion apparels”.

Even with all the numerous recent changes in the Google Search Engine algorithm, Content is still King.  Provide your site with fresh content as often as you can.  Utilize social media to help make your articles go viral.  Other site owners may link back to your articles.

Don’t let the poor economy and the overly crowded world wide web dissuade you from your goal of making money online with your small homebased business.  Learn to utilize and understand SEO for small business and it will help make your business a success.

Every so often, no matter what field of interest you subsist on, we all get hit by great ideas— supercharged bolts of brilliance that can tirelessly consume us until we actually put them into motion. More often than not, pushing these amazing ideas at the top of the priority heap can be brilliant, and the resultant can be greatly beneficial to everyone involved.

Generally if the supposedly epic ideas are not well thought of and poorly executed, there’s a big chance that the resulting failure can be just as epic. And in today’s social Web where both the trolls and the highly critical will not hesitate to pass judgment, you can’t just backpedal.

Is Anyone Else Doing It? Regrettably, just because your idea feels original, that doesn’t mean no one else is doing it. Or has done it. Always keeps your eyes peeled for other companies doling out campaign ideas that are similar to ours, this includes your competitions, and other brands outside your field. Should you end up rolling out a campaign that’s already been done, it will not only reflect negatively on you and your marketing team, your brand can actually get a possibly horrible beating from mass media for being unoriginal.

Will It Be Worth the Investment? Of course, one of your clients’ and your bosses’ biggest concerns would be the overhead. How much energy and monetary resources will you be putting out to carry out your ideas? Will all that investment be worth your intended outcome? Create a study to make sure you’re not jumping into a campaign you won’t be able to sustain and will probably be wasting resources on.

This shouldn’t be a dilemma though, with all the note-taking apps for mobile phones your able to use, or if you prefer the traditional pen and paper feel (like many people, this writer included), you can carry a small spring notebook wherever you go. Keep it in your bag during your daily commutes, and on your table at work and on your bed-side table where they’re easily attainable for when that big idea strikes you.

What Will You Get Out of It? What is your intended outcome? What do you intend to accomplish should your ideas be put into motion? This can range from bettering brand recognition and improving your customer engagements, to completely re-invigorating your client relations, fully repackaging your brand, or even retooling your market focus. It’s best to establish your goals, put it in writing and map your next steps around it. This will make sure you’re concentrated on your objectives and not be preoccupied by other distractions.

Whether it’s for your content distribution plans, demographic engagement proceedings, or as an actual marketing campaign, getting that metaphorical bulb light up above your head will surely need some filtering before you decide to head for the drawing board. When doing so, here are a few of the recommendations to consider to help you single out a big idea that’s truly logical to pursue:

For starters, make sure to capture your ideas as they come. And they come without notice too. So always make sure that you write them down ASAP because like every other kind of thoughts, they can be fleeting and you’ll forget about them a minute or two later.

To prevent epic failures from blemishing your brand, it is best filter your ideas to make sure you explore the, logically sound ones, and leave behind the bad ones pre-implementation—before they come back and bite your moderately idealistic behind.

How is going toFit In Your Brand’s Ecosystem? Even though your idea seems awesome and “feels right,” it doesn’t mean it should automatically be rolled out.  You first need to consider its place in your brand’s marketing pedigree; if it at all fits in your brand’s ideals, overall image, and if it sits well with the past and future intended promotions. It’s a no-go if it seems out-of-place, may possibly sidetrack your marketing trajectory, or if it goes against what you may have been working towards.

However, not all web browsers are created equal.  Bear in mind that you may not get any error codes on Firefox or Opera but when viewing your site on IE it may.

Make your navigation simple.
If your navigation is too complicated and people don’t understand how to get around your site this is a huge web design fault. If a visitor doesn’t know how to navigate around your site they will get frustrated and end up leaving. Keep your navigation simple and try to avoid using scripts or complicated flash based menus, not all browsers support scripts, so some of your visitors might be missing out on important.

Don’t use Splash Pages.
A splash page is normally a pointless page people put on their websites as an introduction. The page normally contains some sort of image on with a big click here to enter sign, or sometimes people don’t say anything and just hope you will click on the picture to enter their site. Splash pages are fairly pointless and it is just creating more work for your visitor as they have to click the mouse button an extra time just to see the content of your site. By removing the splash page the visitor can get to see the best parts of your site straight away, without having to wait for a pointless page to load.

Structure your paragraphs into reasonable readable lengths
Although having lots of relative and informative content on your website is good, it is a bad idea to have the blocks of text to big. Not everyone likes reading and to much can deter a visitor. If you keep your paragraphs in reasonable lengths it is much easier for a visitor to read and absorb.

Use CSS and Standard Fonts.
Make sure your text is readable by using a standard font which is compatible with other systems. While some fonts may look good on your computer other people might not have that font installed. It is good web design practice to use CSS when building you site. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets are a perfect way to set and adjust your websites font and size settings. The great thing about using CSS is that you can change the look of your whole site simply by editing the one file.

When deciding to develop a web presence, these are basic web design tips that will help you ensure you implement the correct components for a well designed web site.

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In an ideal world, one would like to show up in the first two results pages in a search engine for certain keywords that your site is relating to. Because right after the top 30 listings, your chance of being visited and browsed over by researchers and customers will be very slim.  Just because you’ve made a website doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be found within the top search engine page results.

Each search result usually includes page’s title or a brief description of the page.  the Search Engine Page Results will bring forth a listing of what the search engines have deemed to be the best sites that matches the entered keyword search terms.  Hence, it is imperative that your site contents are search engine optimized to covet the top SERP listings.

SERP is very crucial especially on advertising and marketing campaign. They are known to make or break a certain business.

So why is it important especially to the business? And how can one make money just by concentrating on the Search Engine Page?

One gets an answer as one gets familiar with the importance of SERP. Here are the most important aspects about Search Engine Page Results:

First page – A study shows that a much higher percentage of visitors and searchers limit themselves to just the first page of the of the search engine result. Therefore, it is best that one’s ranking should be on top of the Search Engine result to have a better chance of introducing your site and your products to customers and visitors.
Search Engine Optimization- Known as the process of increasing the popularity rating of a certain website to search engines and the customers, this would help as well to be on top of the SERP. It can be considered as the best thing that is needed for the improvement of the website on the search engine result page.

Ranking – The ranking of a website in the search engine page is clearly of utmost importance. Though there is a lot of competition on the search engine results page, the key needed to get to the top most ranking on the search engine results pages is with the proper optimization of a website, and it is by this that a better ranking can be achieved.  Page Ranking for the website and that of individual page content can vary extremely.  The key is to ensure that your articles and site contents are using targeted keywords within it’s structure.

Keyword Research- Is one vital role in dealing with the Search Engine Results page. It analyzes and clarifies the perfect keyword perfect for the said site, thus making it friendly to the SERP. Due diligence in utilizing the numerous keyword research tools will greatly alleviate your site chances of ranking high in search engine page results incorporating the targeted keywords with your site contents.

Though the Search Engine Results Page is known to conclude the success and failure of a said website, it is never a guarantee. But it would be a very good idea to put in mind the importance of SERP and to have a really good grasp of how your website can be improved to ensure your contents appear within the top search engine page results.

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If you fail to optimize your blog posts and articles it will not get the exposure of the search engines.  It will not be ranked well, and therefore not succeed in your objective and miss out on lots of traffic opportunities. Optimizing your articles for the search engines is not a hard thing to do and site owners can easily do it.

What you only need to do is devote a little of your time and effort to do search engine optimization to your website, and the search engine’s will recognize this with a high rank for your pages. There are some tips in creating SEO optimized articles that you can do, below are SEO Optimized article writing tips:

First, you have to always make sure that the articles you write are well written, without errors and with proper sentence structure. These articles have to contain the specific keywords since this will be your means to target the quality people that you need.

It is important to put the keywords in the right locations, such as the first paragraph, probably on the middle of the content body, and ideally within the last paragraph. This method will be great for optimization and will have a natural flowing resulting from your keywords. Avoid over stuffing your content with keywords.  By not stuffing your article contents with keywords you will not be labeled as a spam site by the search engines. The right keyword density applied on your article contents is actually a good SEO effort on your part.

When you write your articles, write it with the users foremost in your minds, and not only thinking for SEO. Your readers will be the one who will make your business profitable and the keyword placements strategicly placed are the tools for being cataloged by the search engines.

While you will be writing for your readers, the search engines have to be satisfied also, and SEO is this way. Optimizing your article title, sub-headings and description with keywords are going to be the of giving the search engines valuable reasons to index your site in the top search results pages.

If you submit your article to article directory, the keyword phrase you used must be included in the resource box that you will add to the bottom part of your article. The resource box can include anchor text links and your URL links,  which when keywords are included, will give more value and recognition by the search engines.

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So instead of recreating the article, I have instead decided to create a Comprehensive List of Twitter Tools from A to Z.

A – I

Autopostr – let your twitterfriends automatically know you posted a new photo on flickr, by just by adding a # to your photo title!

Bkkeepr Want to remember what you read? Want to share your dog-eared pages, and see what everyone else dog-eared? Love LibraryThing, but are always forgetting to add your books? bkkeepr helps you do it, wherever you are.

ceTwit – a windows mobile twitter client written in c# leveraging the .net compact framework.

Current Feature Set:

• Timeline display (merged and filtered)
• Account storage
• Status Updates
• Direct Messages
• Click to reply
• Automated Refresh
• Smartphone support
• Avatars in timeline
• Local caching of avatars
• Squeezer support
• Relative Timestamps
• Follow/Unfollow
• Twitpic support
• ping.fm support
• timeline updates while device is sleeping
• audible/vibrate alerts
• retweet
• favorite
• delete
• and more

CommuterFeed – Commuter Feed is a free service that lets you post reports on traffic and transit delays in your local area using Twitter or Pownce.

Crowd Status - Crowd Status is made up of crowds, each crowd contains people and each person in the crowd has a status. This means that you can see what everyones current status is in a crowd.

Flaptor Twitter Search - A simple Twitter search engine. You enter keywords and like the search engines it brings up the tweets containing those search terms.  You can also put in a twitter username to get the tweets for that person.  Why would you use it?  Well, it does have some benefits.  I’ve entered a few keywords and if you’re looking for recipes, it’s a great search engine.  Tells you who have posted tweets on recipes.  You just have to target the keywords to find useful tweets.

Foamee – Foamee is a free service that helps track who you owe beers or coffee to (and vice-versa) using the popular messaging service, Twitter.  Drinks are currency! You’re saying “I owe you a beer” (or coffee) often. Foamee is simply a fun way to keep track of those I.O.U.s. It can also be just a little virtual pat-on-the-back for good deeds.  Similar to the many apps available on social networking sites, but this one is for people who have twitter accounts.

FoodFeed – foodfeed is a service that helps you share your eating habits with everyone, from anywhere.  Interesting concept!  It’s still under a beta release.  I guess a fun way to tell everyone that you’re a health food junkie or just a junk food junkie, lol . .

Friendfeed Filters – Friends & Groups is the first Greasemonkey script in a series of upcoming filters and enhancements – specially-designed for FriendFeed noise-reduction! Friends & Groups enables you to efficiently filter your FriendFeed experience by creating Groups of friends. For example, you can create a new group that will only display items shared by your family members! By default, the group “Most interesting people” is added for your convenience. It is essentially a filter that is based on your very own attention data as aggregated by FriendFeed. This group is based on the “People you find interesting” section of your stats page! And for added convenience, the drop-down box added to the right of your FriendFeed page also allows you to quickly jump to your friends’ feeds.  Created for Firefox + Greasemonkey.

Friendfeed Tiny URL Resolver – enables one-click instant inline preview of TinyURL links that show up on FriendFeed (ie. embedded in messages that originate from Twitter). TinyURL Resolver saves you valuable time – you no longer need to guess the destination URL or waste your time clicking on links that cannot possibly interest you! Results are cached locally and displayed on subsequent page reloads.

GeoTwitterous – Enter a Twitter ID and this tool will display where the people that particular person is located on the global map.

GroupTweet – Allows you to post private message to a group of Twitter friends. You need to create another Twitter Account specifically for your group.  All members must be part of that group in order for them to get the private message.

Hahlo – if you are not happy with the look or set up of your Twitter Profile, you can check create on on Hahlo to manage your Twitter account. It gives you a separate profile page and the rest of the Twitter features in a new look.  It has some neat features.  Just check out the screen capture below. If you like you can tweet there instead of going to Twitter. The site only keeps information for 7 days.  So, if you like the set up, you just have to login with your twitter username and password and tweet or look at your available stats.  It’s a little silly if you ask me.  Why would you go in and do your settings to find that you have to do it again if you haven’t logged in for more than a week?  Would make a neat tool if the site would keep your information and maybe provide you with a URL to link to.

Hashtags -was designed to accommodate the real-time news community. It provides analytic reports and indexing features to allow users to track what’s happening now. Hashtags is a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

HelloTxt – you can post your status once and have it appear automatically on all of your networks, allowing you to keep all of your friends up to date with ease. It also lets you read your friends’ updates from main microblogging and social networks all at once. You can update your status on the website, or using email or even from your mobile phone. You can also embed photos and video right into your status updates.

InnerTwitter- Meditate by receiving chimes at regular intervals from InnerTwitter. Excerpt from the site: When you receive a chime it’s time to take a break. You can take a break. You know you can. Work will still be there when you get back. Look at it this way, if you take a break you’ll be happier and more productive over the long run. Can you really afford not to take a break? End Excerpt.  So, I guess in your frantic internet business life, if you are a follower of one of the Inner Twitter’s, you get a message and you should take a break!

iTwtr – This is an open source Twitter client for iphones. You login using your Twitter information, click the Update link and add your tweet.  I guess this will go to someone’s iPhone?  Not sure where the tweets go, lol . . Looks to me like another place where you can receive your twitter friends tweets.  Beyond that, I haven’t a clue.  No About Us to be found anywhere.

As I find new Twitter Tools that belong in this Listing I will add them.

A squeeze page is a one-page website that is used to gather the names and emails of people who want to know when you update your main e-commerce website, when you’re having a sale, when you’re giving stuff away or other important information.  A squeeze page (also called a lead capture page) captures leads by collecting the contact information of your site visitors.  A squeeze page does not include long copy or buy now options.

A squeeze page is effectively a web page that provides some information on what you’re offering with an opt in form where visitors can enter their name and email address on your squeeze page in return for some free information.  A squeeze page can be up and running within a very short period of time.  A squeeze page isn’t a set-and-forget option, it has to be tweaked continuously if you want to generate excellent results.

Here are Traffic Tactic Marketing Tips on Squeeze Page Optimization Tactics.

Have a target market

Know who you are wanting to sign up and tailor the page to them. You may have to do some market research so you can define your target market.

Have a strategy

Know the point of your page before you start working on it. Make sure you know how you are going to go about getting the sign up.

Research and incorporate it into your page

Make sure that you do some market research. Learn about effective squeeze pages and incorporate all those ideas into your page.

Target top keywords

Make sure that you use your squeeze pages to target the best keywords you have. If you need to do more keyword research to find out the best keywords then do so before getting your squeeze page ready.

Keep it simple

Do not make your page more complex then it has to be. Be upfront and straight forward. Avoid any extravagance and just keep it neat and easy to read.

State the purpose

Make sure that the visitor knows that point of this page. State it right away. Let them know what they will be getting.

Avoid being too flashy

Do not try to attract with flashy designs and style. That is actually distracting. You will want to avoid anything that can distract from your core message and your core goal.

Make your headline grab attention

The headline is one of the most important factors of your page. It needs to be exciting and peak interest so that a visitor will want to continue reading.

Use sub headlines

Sub headlines compliment the headline. They provide more information and add to the intrigue.

Make copy the right length

Do not ramble on if you do not need to. Make sure you make it long enough, though. Include the information you need to and forget the fluff.

Point out benefits

Make sure to highlight the benefits of signing up. You want to make this an offer they can not refuse.

Point out your uniqueness

Tell them why you are different than everyone else. Let them know that you can give them something that nobody else can give them.

Give details

Do not try to make your page so intriguing that it tells them nothing. Give them details. Tell them what they get and lay it all out on the table.

Explain how to they can use your offer

Let them know how useful this will be to them. Tell them how you are an expert and quite knowledgeable so you will be giving them something of value that they can get a lot of use out of.

Use photos

Put your picture on there. It has been shown that when people use a picture they get a better response. This is due to the fact that people feel more connected when they see what someone looks like. Make sure it is a good photo.

Use video

For even more impact put a video on your page. Video will not only let them get to see you in action, but also is much easier on them then having to read a page of copy.

Have a simple layout

Do not have strange things all over the page. Make it a simple layout that is easy to follow.

No links

Avoid putting links throughout the copy unless they are links to sign up. Links are distractions you do not need.

Give information about your business

Let them know about you. People are not going to be quick to do anything unless they know more about your company, so tell them about yourself and your business.

Have a privacy policy

Privacy is important and people will not likely sign up for anything unless they know their information is safe. Let them know clearly what your privacy policy is.

Generate interest

Make sure you are always building up the hype. You want the reader to really want to sign up by the time they reach the end and preferably before they reach the end. Make it fun and interesting.

Make it easy to opt in

Put a mini form on the page so they can sign up quickly. Make it something they can do in a matter of seconds.

Offer an incentive

Give them a reason to opt in. Make your page about what this will do for them. Offer them a free gift when they sign up, but make sure the gift is something valuable that they will really want and that they can not get anywhere else.

Be honest

Never lie. It is a simple matter of good business. Just keep things honest. Do not say something that isn’t true just to get the subscription. It will come back to haunt you.

Follow through on what you say

Make sure that when you say something that you can back it up. If you say you will only send one email per month, then only send one email per month. If you do not follow through then you will lose their confidence and likely their subscription to your list.

Don’t exaggerate

People will be able to tell when you are exaggerating. Unless you can back up some huge claim with facts leave it out. It is better to be upfront then try to wow them with lies.

Build customer confidence

Use your squeeze page to help give your customers confidence in you. You want to make sure that you make them feel at ease with you and that they feel like they can trust in your and your product.

Make the customer feel secure and safe

Let the customers know that you have their safety in mind. Tell them about how safe it is to shop with you and back that up by giving them the proof they are safe.

Use multiple squeeze pages

The more squeeze pages you have around the internet, the better. Just make sure you have a unique URL for each. Using multiple pages allows you to target more keywords.

Understand the point

Make sure you really know what the whole point of a squeeze page is. It is the marketing effort to get people to sign up for your opt in list.

Squeeze page are better to convert leads than a regular landing page.  It is really one of the most important things for anyone building a list.  Squeeze page will transform cold visitors into warm prospects eager to listen to your pitch.  It is the best tool to use in capturing the name and the email address of the visitors.  It is designed so that the visitor will be compelled to take a very specific action.  It is one of the most widely used tools by Internet marketers to generate sales.

Was this article helpful? Please share your views by leaving a comment below (this is a do-follow site for links in comments). Become a Fan on Facebook where fans will soon gain access to Squeeze Page Templates and more.

While third-party sites and apps pursue to push Twitter use and efficiency forward, not all of them will be completely honest with regard to their access to your information. Data security can be really tricky for an expansive Web app, especially one with an open system that freely shares the codes beneath its dead-simple interface to the masses.

According to the Twitter blog , the updated authorization process will give you more control over the information you share with third party apps, and will even provide detailed information concerning the Twitter integration. Part of this is a redesign of the authorization prompt window which before will only inform you that a specific third party app will be accessing some of your data on Twitter, and asks whether or not you want to allow it or not. The latest authorization prompt will include details like what you will be allowing the app to do, and what it won’t get access to in your Twitter data.

This is part of Twitter’s effort to better its solutions focusing on the security of its continuously growing user base. After all, devious utilities and harmful apps can masquerade as “useful” Web tools programmed with various intrusion schemes. Because they can gain access to your private information, the amount of possible damage it can cause on a brand’s online reputation, and sociable engagements with their followers can get astronomical.

“Twitter has been preparing these changes in response to requests from users and developers who asked for a greater level of clarity and control. For a summary of the applications you’ve authorised or to make changes to this list, visit the “Applications ” page in your Twitter account.”

The Web is swarming with blogs, and more are generated everyday as brands are realizing its benefits as a powerful tool to carry out their online marketing strategies. However, blogs are only effective social media channels when talented and capable bloggers are at the helm, ensuring the quality of the published content and boosting readership engagements. Obviously, finding the right people to take charge in producing great content for your blog is crucial.

Why?  Well, the article should be well written and compatible to your site content.  It should be legible as easily understood.  The flow of content should make sense.  The structure of the sentences should be easy to read and not long winded.  Also it is important to find bloggers who writes with the same similar tone as you.  While the web is overflowing with bloggers, it’s best to sift through and find the right ones that will actually fit your brand’s blog. Here are a few tips for finding the right people for your blog and how to manage them.

Locate Potential Bloggers

To find bloggers to expand your blog, you need to know where they are, filter the ones you think would be great additions to your team, and then initiate contact. And there are many places where you can find bloggers.  You can do a search online using the same keywords you would use to find your type of niche.  You can even start with those who are already interacting with you through your blog’s comments section, or you can even expand your search to existing collaborative blogs that operate within your specific niche. These can be great sources as you can be sure that your potential candidates are already working within your topics.

Aside from these, you can utilize online resources like My Blog Guest or Blogger LinkUp that actually match the content creators looking for employment and writing gigs with blogs searching for people to enhance their blogging muscles. And then you can also put up announcements and want ads on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Filter Your Options

Unfortunately, quality and skills aren’t always top notch in the blogosphere—a fact easily bolstered by the overabundance of underwhelming blogs littered with badly constructed posts and an ecosystem  where just about anyone who can string words together, has the cash to buy domain names, and has enough techie know-how to set up a CMS software can be classified as bloggers.

Okay, that may sound a little harsh, but reality says anyone can create a blog, anyone can write and get attention online.  However, you must ensure as stated earlier, that the guest blogger can write and is knowledgeable to write content in-tuned to your specific niche.

Now that you’ve created a lineup of candidates for your blog, you need to do some quality checks on each one and filter out the ones you think aren’t fit for your type of website.

Think of it in reality show terms: take note of their skills, strengths and weaknesses and most importantly make sure that they aren’t using articles that have already been regurgitated a million times online.  I’m talking about bloggers that use Private Label Rights Content as is without making at least 35% changes in the text content.  This will not bode well for your blog since Google is now checking for duplicate content.

Command of the written language- This is downright the most important among the blogging skills obviously. Being able to come up with nondescript write-ups won’t be enough though, so locate bloggers who can shape words into truly compelling pieces that will engage the reader.  A writer who knows how to use a thesaurus and be able to use similar words without sounding repetitive.

Research, Editing and Proofreading Skills- Sharing wrong and unconfirmed information and claims can kill a blog, and cause a dent on you and your brand’s reputation. Grammatical errors and faulty content structures, on the other hand, can make your blog posts hard to read, and may even turn your readers away from you.  Sentence structure is important.  Sentences should be structured for ease of reading.  Long paragraphs should be broken down into 5 – 6 sentences.

Hiring bloggers to help provide your site content can alleviate a lot of your time which free you up to concentrate on other pertinent aspects of running your business.  This brief guideline can help ensure that you find just the type of blogger you need to get the job done.

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[nrelate-related]

Though a highly competitive medium, YouTube helps you reach your niche – whether you’re an aspiring film maker, makeup artist, politician or a comedian. Lately, we have seen many new ideas coming up in this medium and there is no limit to how creative or even eccentric you can get in grabbing attention.

Why It Works

When you see an interesting video on YouTube, you tend to post the link on Twitter, Facebook, or share it by emailing it to friends. They pass it on to their friends and the effect just multiplies and your message spreads rapidly, resulting in massive exposure. This approach, also known as viral marketing, doesn’t even have to be expensive. The reason we connect with these campaigns is because we understand the product better and the brand has a face. We identify the brand, making the whole experience personal.

Here, I have listed out some of the most innovative viral marketing hits on YouTube that you can learn from!

1. Will It Blend: The first campaign cost Blendtec, a company that produces blenders and mixers, less than $50. The team filmed a video featuring Blendtec’s co-founder Tom Dickson who said, “Will it blend? That is the question.” He made a smoothie of salsa, tortilla chips, Buffalo wings and Budweiser in the blender. Five days later, Blendtec’s marketing director excitedly told him that they hit 6 million views on YouTube. This was later followed by videos of blending golf balls, a crowbar, a video camera and iPod. My favorite is their latest, the iPad. Their online videos are still a rage and Blendtec’s online sales have grown by 500%.

2. America’s Got Talent: This is the latest one on the block. Their auditions are being done entirely on YouTube. You can record your performance even at home and upload it right away, giving an opportunity to many more. You can sit back at home while the judges and voters (viewers) decide whether you have it in you to take you to the next round. NBC and the producers of the show have partnered with YouTube to process the auditions online. Are we seeing the latest trend for reality shows here?

3. Best Job In The World: YouTube was the platform for the Australian Government’s ‘Best job in the world’ campaign as a caretaker of islands in the Great Barrier Reef. Applicants were asked to post a video of why they were fit for the job on a dedicated page. They received over 34,000 applications from 201 countries. The website got 8 million visitors and user generated content on YouTube went up to 610 hours. It even scooped the two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

4. Michelle Phan: Three years ago, Michelle Phan was turned down for a behind-the-counter job at Lancôme. She started off giving makeup tutorials on YouTube, and now, after Lancôme knocked on her doors, she is now their video makeup artist. She is the most subscribed YouTube Guru and her videos have been viewed over 150,000,000 times. She also owns a skin care line IQQU. Who would’ve imagined something like this a decade ago?

5. America’s Election Campaign: I will admit that Barack Obama’s Harvard degree wasn’t all; the online campaigns did get to me. It made me feel like I know him personally. Obama’s strong presence on YouTube made him accessible to everyone as he spoke directly to YouTubers about his plans to uplift the US. It clicked, especially among the American youth and resulted in a high voter turnout among them, a task that was once considered impossible. Obama has given politics a new face and a new platform for presidential campaigns.

6. Movie Trailers: There are a bunch of us who love reaching cinema halls on time, just to catch the movie trailers showcased before the movie. Trailers leave me wanting more. When trailers started being available on YouTube, producers started targeting YouTubers for viral marketing campaigns. Cloverfield, a monster movie, had scary teaser trailers on YouTube, but without the title – a big risk that paid off well. The buzz was created well before the second trailer with the title was introduced. There were no big names among actors and the budget was comparatively small. The movie secured the biggest January opening of all time in North America and all the credit was given to these campaigns.

7. Greyson Michael Chance: Chance is a young musician who had posted his performance of Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’ at sixth-grade music festival on YouTube. It wasn’t viewed much for a week or two until Ellen Degeneres reported it on her show. The number of views shot to over 1 billion (we’re still counting). Ellen even decided to sign Chance up as the first artist promoted by her newly formed record label eleveneleven.

You can see in these examples how people have broken boundaries of time-tested marketing campaigns and succeeded. If you have come across any such interesting campaigns, do share the link with us. It’s time you start thinking out-of-the-box and find yourself a unique way to create that connect with the audience. Who knows, maybe I’ll feature your story here someday!

On an e-mail Google sent to users of its Video property, the search engine giant announced that they will be completing their video search engine and distribution product’s retirement by May 13. This comes as a surprise for most of us to find out that Google Video is still up, even after Google purchased YouTube back in 2006.

According to the e-mail, all the uploaded content on Google Video will no longer be available for playback starting April 29. As such, they’ve enabled subscribers to download their footages from the service and move on to other services.

It would have been better for the company to provide an easy way for users to redeploy their videos to YouTube. But that is not the case as they’ve only added a Download button to the site to let users to manually download their videos, save them or move them to YouTube or any other video sharing/hosting sites. Subscribers have until May 13 to do so; after which Google will be disabling the Download button.

Here is the letter Google sent its Google Video subscribers:

Most of us (those in the Tech space at least) were expecting Google to consolidate Google Video and YouTube just as it has done in the past with their existing services and their acquired startups.

However, as YouTube’s popularity rose to massive proportions online, its once rival service Google Video still persisted as a pseudo parallel product struggling to get better mindshare. That is until Google announced that they’ve disabled uploads to Video two years ago.

Google Video lingered on with the uploaded videos still playable until this recent announcement, sending it to the graveyard of axed Google Products. Its video search index capabilities live on though, being a part of YouTube’s search DNA and as a search layer for Google Search.

Search engine giant Google recently announced that it has buffed its own URL shortener, goo.gl , with a handful of useful features as crowdsourced from its army of users. Now, you can quickly copy links to clipboard, remove items from your dashboard, and report spam. According to software engineer Devin Mullins on the Google Social Web Log , the new capabilities were taken directly from the feedback the company has been receiving from their thriving community of passionate users.

“We appreciate the feedback, and today we’ve completed a series of feature rollouts aimed at addressing your most common requests.” Mullins says.

Copy to Clipboard

A frequently requested feature on the Google URL Shortener forum , copy to clipboard lets users quickly copy shoretened URLs for easy sharing online. Whenever you shorten a URL, the resulting short link will be automatically highlighted so you can easily copy it (CTRL+C on Windows, Command+C on Macs). And while this new tweak isn’t exactly a revolutionary update, it’s still a step to the right direction for the Google tool as it makes link sharing a little more convenient.

Remove from Dashboard

Like most URL shorteners, goo.gl has a dedicated dashboard for the users’ line up of shortened URLs, complete with detail pages per shortened link. One of the new updates allows you to remove items from this list, letting your hide the links you no longer need and just view the ones that are still relevant to you. This works well for better link management.

While the removed shortened links will still work, you won’t be able to bring them back to your dashboard.

“Please note that when you hide a short URL, you’re only removing it from your own dashboard.” Mullins states. “The URL will still exist and work. You can’t add short URLs back into your dashboard once you’ve hidden them, so be sure you won’t need to find that short URL from your dashboard later.”

This also means the removed URL’s detail pages (filled with stats like number of clicks, traffic sources, referrer sites and visitor profiles) won’t be accessible within the dashboard. Instead, you can view these details by directly typing the hidden URL on your browser’s address bar and appending a + sign (http://goo.gl/rQ6HT +, for instance).


Spam Reporting

Along with these new features, Google has also enabled Web users to report goo.gl links that have been generated to direct to spam sites. The page goo.gl/spam-report has also been set up specifically for this purpose, where spammy shortened links will be blocked once identified by the Google team. Needless to say, malicious entities online have been using short URLs and goo.gl’s spam reporting feature is a great way to prevent malware and spam-riddled sites from spreading online.

Of course yes! Nowadays, your baby website can amass huge traffic in no time thanks to free website promotion.

Note of Caution: When submitting your sites to free website promotion directories, make sure to create another email account just for this purpose.

Now let’s figure out how this free website promotion works. Here’s a list of things that you can do.

1. Enlist your website.

Look for the hottest Internet directories and enlist your site there. This is the easiest and most effective free website promotion tactic. Start with this step and the rest of the good things will follow.

Just don’t forget to prep your website and make it all spruced up for a higher chance to get accepted in your directory of choice.

2. Know your forums.

One reason why forums are created is for free website promotion for everyone. Log in, post actively, let them know about your site in every post and you attract instant visitors right there. The more you post the more you’ll get to know the other members. Soon, they’ll be checking out your site. The more clicks you get the better your chances of getting your site listed in the Search Engines.

3. Write a press release.

Release your writing prowess and start up a press release that advertises your site! Then go and submit your Press Release for Free. This is a free website promotion tactic that you can do anytime. Type a brief paragraph or two and email it to your friends, colleagues, internet e-zines, newspapers and other media and massive traffic will come to you pronto!

4. Be friendly online.

Free website promotion means you need to be friendly to other webmasters. Why, you ask? So they can link you immediately! Establish contacts and never tire of link requests and exchanges. If you find a site that has similar content to yours, that site will usually have a “Link Exchange” or “Link to Us” information. Some will have you copy and paste their HTML link information before your link is added. For those sites that do not have this info, find the email address of the “webmaster” and request a link exchange.

5. Write an article.

Say, your website is about your travel agency. Write an article about the perks of traveling or the hottest travel spots in the world. On the concluding paragraph, mention your website in passing. This article works as an advertorial and doubles as a free website promotion approach. Make sure you write an article that’s filled with great content and not just links. Your Author Bio should include a link to your website.

6. Just let the whole world know about your site.

What is free website promotion without the word of mouth? Insert your website, its URL and features in daily conversations and let the good news spread from one mouth to another! Create your email signature to contain your site information and everytime you send out an email, it will be attached.

7. Make a banner ad.

Make a banner ad for your site and ask another webmaster to do the same for his site. Then swap! If you don’t have the tools to create your own banner and don’t want to pay for one, you can use Free Banner Generators available online.

8. Take a free website promotion course online.

Yes, there are free website promotion tutorials. Did you know that you can actually take a free website promotion course that can help you out further? Part of the free website promotion program is signing up for newsletters.

When you make a website, you need not pay anything to promote it.  Yes, you just read it — there really is such a thing as free website promotion! If you don’t have the advertising budget, the best site promotion is Free!  I’m not saying that it’s going to be fast and easy, you need to do some research and spend time each day utilizing these free promotional tools.  There are numerous free ways online to help promote your website but, it will take up a big chunk of your time.  Better to spend your time searching and using these free promotional sites than to spend a big chunk of your money.

If you are just starting or don’t have a big budget put aside for promoting your new online business.  Try using the free website promotions mentioned here or do a search on Google for “free website promotion”.

[nrelate-related]

Gone are the days when Internet marketing was perceived as the bold, new and innovative way to market and publicize your products and services. Today, email marketing and other forms of pushing your products on the web are passé. The Internet is growing faster than leaps and bounds, and most marketers find that they’re being left behind because they’re not able to keep up or change pace accordingly. They’re sticking to tried and tested methods that have worked for them so far without realizing that for a medium that changes as fast as the Internet, you must continue to hone and revamp your marketing strategies if you wish to ensure continued success. Just as you took the step and crossed the chasm between traditional marketing and Internet marketing a decade or so ago, it’s time to start bridging the smaller chasms between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 and any future avatars that are sure to follow. So with these basic principles in mind, here’s what marketers need to do to ensure that their tactics continue to work:

1. Monitor and research future trends

If you’re going to take advantage of technology, you must go the whole hog. It’s no use getting on the Internet to market your products and services just because everyone else is doing it. Rather, you must use this medium to the fullest and extract all the benefits that it can provide your business. To this, it is necessary to keep up with future trends that will affect the way people use the Internet. For example, today, most people don’t use their traditional email addresses for personal or even professional email. They’ve moved most of their communication to Facebook, Twitter and other social media. So if you want to gain the marketing edge, you need to be where it’s all happening before it starts to happen or soon after. And when it does happen, you have an advantage over your competitors.

2. Go where the crowd is

Most marketers fail because they don’t differentiate between the general population and the population that is likely to be interested in their products and services. And so they jump on the bandwagon that everyone else is keen on and start their sales pitch. What they fail to understand is that a shout that is directed at all and sundry is much weaker than one that is targeted at a certain, select crowd. For example, if your target is the older crowd of baby boomers, sure, some of them are active users of social media. But you’re more likely to find most of them playing Scrabble or Bingo online. So if you place your ads in these communities rather than on the general pages, you’re likely to taste more success. Go not just where the crowd is, but where the crowd who is most likely to patronize your business is.

3. Understand what customers want

This is one time-honored rule that most marketers still don’t get – don’t market what you have to customers; rather, sell them what they want. No, you don’t have to change your products and services; all you need to do is make the customer perceive that they need what you’re selling. Previous buying patterns, lifestyles and interests, and other random data can help you identify what customers want, and sell to them accordingly.

When you change with the times, you don’t have to worry about being left behind.

About the Author:

This article is contributed by Susan White, who regularly writes on the subject of High Speed Internet Service. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com.

Guest post by Alexis Bonari

If you aren’t on Facebook by now, you are probably the only one who isn’t. My grandmother has a Facebook page and anyone who can type, is able to start their own page with no problem. Most everyone uses Facebook as a social meeting place, but did you know that you could easily make money on Facebook as well? I’ve compiled a Top 5 list of the best ways to make a buck on Facebook without leaving your living room:

1. If you are a musician and would like to sell your music, but don’t have the money for a website or to make top of the CD’s, check out flametunes.com, where you can sell your music from your Facebook profile.

2. Garage Sale, in association with buy.com, allows you to sell your unwanted “stuff” to your Facebook friends.

3. Zazzle.com is one of my favorites! You can create your own products and design your own t-shirts, hats, etc. The cool part is that they walk you through and post your items on their site as well as your Facebook profile.

4. Sites such as Shopit.com help you easily create your own store, allowing you to sell your old CD’s, electronics, DVD players and more via this simple application.

5. Lemonade.com allows you to pick items from a selection of sites, add the icon to your profile and sell it for a commission.

About the Author:

Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She spends much of her days blogging about Education and CollegeScholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

If you’ve ever gone to an industry conference, film festival, grand opening, or author signing, then you can appreciate the energy such events can create. Industry conferences gather together the best and brightest minds in order to share ideas and plan for the future. Film festivals celebrate great work by experienced and up-and-coming film makers. Grand openings drum up customers for brand new businesses. And author signings are often just one of many stops on a book tour to connect with readers who might want to buy the author’s latest books.

So how does this relate to you? Well, bloggers can also apply these same strategies to their own blogging practices. As bloggers, we thrive on buzz and the latest keyword trends, but we also need to figure out how to keep readers loyal. One way to do this is to set up a similar energetic event that excites our community of readers and other bloggers, while also creating momentum for the year until the event rolls around again. Here are a few Blogging Event Ideas to Spice Up Your Blog:

Organize a Blog Tour

This idea is similar to a book tour, and like a book tour it will take advanced planning. You’ll have to pitch the idea to a number of blogs within your community, create content to suit each blog, and then follow up by interacting with commentators at each blog. The pay-off is that your ‘tour’ can expose you to a greater audience, while providing some content to your fellow bloggers.

Moderate a Guest-Blogger Panel

The opposite of the Blog Tour is to moderate a Guest-Blogger Panel. Invite some of your favorite bloggers to a discussion, either live or edited, that you moderate. Make sure the discussion is timely and addresses a recent issue in your community. Also ask that your participants be available to respond to reader questions and comments. Your guest bloggers will get backlinks and you’ll have a week’s worth of content.

Lead a Book Club

You don’t necessarily have to discuss a book, but the idea is that you lead discussion with your readers about something that directly relates to your community. It could be a book, a movie, a magazine, a paper, a presentation. The idea here is to interact with other members of the community, but to regularly host that discussion at your site.

Create Themed Weeks

For this, you should consider both the atmosphere of your blog and the sensibilities of your readers, as well as the overall health of the community. Does your community need a pick-me-up? Then have a Positive Thinking Week, and post inspirational ideas for your readers. Could your community use some solid criticism? Then maybe a Truth Hurts week could be appropriate. Whatever you pick, make sure it will both create buzz and benefit the community of which you are a part.

What’s most important about these ‘events’ is that you make use of the momentum they generate by following up with excellent content and selling your services, if applicable. And, you should create anticipation among your readers by somehow having these events be reoccurring features at your blog.

About the Author:

This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online colleges.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

Social media campaigns are becoming more integrated into the overall online marketing mix. And as with anything on the Web, you need to think global to succeed in the long term.

To succeed with social media marketing for different cultures, you need to familiarize yourself with what’s happening in social media around the world.

You must research the emerging trends and identify where the social media hotspots are. You also need to consider that different social networks are popular in different parts of the world. You should carefully research which networks are popular in the regions you aim to target

With that in mind, here is a summary of the most popular social networks in various countries around the world.  Social Strategies for Different Societies.

France
Skyrock.com is a popular social network in France. It’s second to Facebook but it has over eleven million users locally. Skyrock began as a blogging network and many prominent French political institutions have chosen Skyrock as their preferred blogging platform.

Germany
German people have been relatively slow to adopt social media. In 2009, an article on ReadWriteWeb suggested that Germany was five years behind the USA in terms of social media adoption.

The VZnet group of social networks is popular in Germany with over seventeen million users across its studiVZ, meinVZ and schülerVZ websites. Two of the networks, studiVZ and schülerVZ, are aimed at students and schoolchildren, while meinVZ is for non-students.

Finland
With over half a million users, IRC-Galleria is Finland’s largest social network. It started life as a photo gallery for Finnish users of IRC (Internet Relay Chat), but now less than a fifth of its members are IRC users. Most visitors to the site are aged 13-22 with the average user being twenty years old.

China
Renren.com and Qzone.com are the biggest networks in China. Renren is a Facebook clone. It is popular with students and claims to have over 120 million users. Qzone claims to have over 380 million users, but many of these are likely to be dormant accounts opened via QQ network, which is China’s largest instant messenger service and owned by the same company.

Japan
Mixi.jp and Twitter.jp dominate the Japanese social media landscape. Mixi is easily the largest with over 80% share of the market, which is about 30 million users.

Twitter’s official Japanese site has grown to around five million active users since it was launched in 2008.

Twitter.jp employs a revenue model where users can charge their followers to view their tweets, either on a monthly basis or for each single tweet. In Japan, users are willing to pay for content, especially on the mobile web. Many online marketers are excited by the fact that writing in Japanese and Chinese characters enables Twitter users to squeeze a lot more content into a single tweet than if it were written in English.

India
In mid-2010, Facebook overtook Orkut in India in terms of monthly unique visitors. Facebook now has 20.87 million visitors, compared to Orkut’s 19.87 (according to July 2010 Comscore data).

Most English-speaking online marketers will already have experience of creating campaigns on Facebook and Orkut, which makes India an attractive market to target via social media. BharatStudent is another popular network in India with 4.32 million monthly unique visitors. As its name suggests, this network has a young demographic and is popular with students.

Brazil
In Brazil, Orkut is by far the largest social network. In fact, over half of Orkut’s worldwide traffic comes from Brazil, which equates to around twenty million monthly visits.

Despite the size of audience, it represents a fairly narrow demographic with half of Orkut users being under 25 and 80% male. Sonico.com is a popular network targeted at Latin American users and has around eight million members in Brazil. MySpace has been the third biggest social network in Brazil for some time, but it now seems likely that Facebook will take the number three position.

Russia
Russians are avid users of social media. Twitter and Facebook are both popular, but the largest Russian social network is Vkontakte.ru. It has over seventy million registered users and at least fourteen million visitors per day. Many Russians tend to use English for personal posts on social networks, and revert to Russian for business and work-related networking.

About the author
Christian Arno is founder of Lingo24, one of the UK’s fastest growing translation agencies. With 150 full-time employees, and a network of over 4,000 translators, Lingo24 secured a turnover of $8m in 2010.

As a creative person, I’ve noticed that creativity and creative inspiration tend to present themselves whenever they see fit, and rarely otherwise. This is an especially unfortunate habit for my creativity to have because I am in the field of design. Over the years I’ve researched and stumbled upon eight nearly sure-fire ways to spark my imagination and creativity and I figured I would share them. Keep in mind, however, every imagination is unique and all of my methods may not strike a chord with you the same way they do with me. Hopefully at least one will bring you some inspiration to keep your blogs unique and intriguing or any situation you may need some outside-the-box thinking for.

As a general rule, when I find myself stuck on an idea for a long time, the best way to go about it is to stop trying so hard. Stop thinking so hard about your work when trying these activities and just let your brain do its thing. In other words, stop looking for the answer and let the answer find you.

1. People Watching

This is my best technique, especially when designing something for a consumer product. Go to a crowded place, any crowded place, empty your mind and subtly observe strangers. This can literally be ANYWHERE that there is a constant flow of new people to observe and absorb. This may seem awkward at first, but 99.9% of the time, nobody will notice what you’re up to and before long, you will probably find yourself quite entertained. Observe people and how they interact with each other, the world around them, and even with themselves. There is no better way that I know of to step outside yourself and get a fresh outlook on what ever task may be at hand.

2. Past Achievements

This works best for me when I siphon through old completed or especially half-completed projects. I find myself often muttering to myself “Oh yeah, I forgot about this project. This would have been great if…” BAM! Creative idea. Doesn’t apply to your current project? Keep rummaging. Even if you don’t find anything that directly applies to your current project(s), it’s bound to at least get your creative juices flowing.

3. Exercise

Being active is extremely important these days. I don’t think it’s any more important than it used to be, it just seems to get harder and harder to maintain an active lifestyle in the modern business battlefield so it IS more important to be aware of your physical state. Exercise when ever you can and you’ll be happier, healthier and more creative. When confronted with a project that stumps you, exercise harder. The release of endorphins that occurs when a body is pushed physically can do wonders for the creative process.

4. Hike

Go to your local national or state park and just go for a walk. Your focus should be on soaking in as much as the atmosphere and scenery as possible as you go. This also gets you a little exercise (#3) and will help to clear your mind and look at your problem with a new perspective. Getting a new perspective is HUGELY important. It’s almost like having another person on your team.

5. Drive

Similar to the idea behind hiking. Your goal is to empty your mind of all your stresses, tasks and negative energy. Embrace the world around you and let it embrace you. Not only should this loosen up your imagination, it can also make you happier and more relaxed in general.

6. Music

Find a genre that you can fall into. The first step is to clear your consciousness of your stresses, fears and surroundings. Then you play your music. Classical orchestra, classic rock, African drum, whatever you can use to close your eyes and just lose your brain into. Try to stay away from anything you know from a movie or that reminds you of a memory. The goal here is to meditate with the music and let it guide your mind into generating images in accordance with the song. When music takes your brain in a certain direction, or when it inspires images in your head, that’s called concurrent association. This is an invaluable tool when trying to generate original ideas.

7. Caffeine

This is an absolute last resort for me. I’m of the school of thought that my body is my temple and I keep it free of toxins as often as possible. But, a deadline is a deadline and sometimes I just can’t seem to get my brain out of second gear. This is when I have to head to my local mom & pop coffee shop (I like it better than the chain stores) where I can kick back and get myself a vat of caffeine to soak my brain in. Again, this is a last resort. The other natural methods I offered through brain power and thought control will keep you happier, healthier and more creative in the long run. You don’t want your creativity to become dependant on foreign substances.

8. Clear Mind

The greatest obstacle in creating something completely original is the frustration that tends to flare up when you can’t get your imagination to give you its goodies. When you try to force your imagination to generate something on the spot, it sometimes works. When you’re frustrated and you try to force your imagination, it never works. If my methods don’t work for you, I recommend you do what ever it is that works for you in order to take a step back, separate yourself from the problem, do something fun for a while and come back to it with a fresh set of eyes and a positive frame of mind.

About the Author:

Rebecca Chelsey is a working mother who has learned that often life and work overlap. Though both her job and her role as mother require her to be creative, she has seen that often the most original ideas are right in front of us merely waiting to be found. Beyond her job as mother and wife, she also works for Homeseasons, which has simplified the holidays with 4th of July decorations, Halloween Holiday arrangements and ideas for every holiday in between.