The guide to money

Nice infographic on how to promote your blogs

2013-04-17T02:26:00.000-07:00

Where has all the money in the world gone?

2013-04-17T02:10:00.004-07:00

It's hard to explain this to a five-year-old, because there are some fairly abstract concepts involved, but here goes...

All actual "money" is debt. All of it, including monetary gold, etc. (Don't argue with me yet, I'll get to that.)

Imagine a pretend world with no money, some kind of primitive villiage or something. Now let's invent paper money. You can't just print a bunch of paper that says people have to give you stuff, because nobody would honor it. But you could print IOUs. Let's walk through this...

Let's say you're an apple-farmer and I'm a hunter. You want some meat but haven't harvested your crops yet. You say to me, "hey, go hunt me some meat and I'll give you 1/10th of my apple harvest in the fall". Fair enough, I give you meat, you owe me apples. There's probably a lot of this kind of stuff going on, in addition to normal barter. In time, standard "prices" start to emerge: a deer haunch is worth a bushel of apples, or whatever.

Now, let's say a week later, I realize that my kid needs a new pair of shoes more than I need a bushel of apples. I come back to you and say, "Hey remember that bushel of apples you owe me? Could you write a marker, redeemable for one bushel of apples, that I can give to the shoemaker in trade for a pair of shoes?" You say okay, and we have invented a transferable note, something a lot like money.

In time, our little villiage starts to figure out that a note redeemable for a bushel of apples can be swapped for all kinds of things. The fisherman who doesn't even like apples will accept apple-certificates in trade for fish, because he knows he can trade them to boat-builder who loves apples. In time, you can even start to hire farm-workers without giving them anything except a note promising a cut of the future harvest.

Now, you are issuing debt: a promise to provide apples. The "money" is a transferable IOU-- your workers get a promise to provide value equal to a day of farm-work, or whatever, and it's transferrable, so they can use it to buy whatever they want. The worker gets fish from the fisherman, not in exchange for doing any work or giving him anything he can use, but in exchange for an IOU that the fisherman can redeem anywhere.

So far so good. But there are a couple of forks in the road here, on the way to a realistic monetary system, that we'll address separately:

What happens if your apple orchard is destroyed in a wildfire? Suddenly all the notes that everyone has been trading are basically wiped out. It didn't "go" anywhere, it's just gone, it doesn't exist. Real value was genuinely destroyed. There is no thermodynamic law of the conservation of monetary value-- just as you and I created it by creating transferable debt, it can also be genuinely destroyed. (We'll get back to this in a minute, it gets interesting).

The second issue is that, in all probability, the whole town is not just trading apple-certificates. I could also issue promises to catch deer, the fisherman could issue promises of fish, and so on. This could get pretty messy, especially if you got the notion to issue more apple-certificates than you can grow: you could buy all kinds of stuff with self-issued debt that you could never repay, and the town wouldn't find out until harvest-time comes. Once again, value has been "destroyed" people worked and made stuff and gave you stuff in exchange for something that doesn't exist, and will never exist. All that stuff they made is gone, you consumed it, and there is nothing to show for it.

The above two concerns are likely to become manifest in our village sooner or later, and probably sooner. This leads to the question of credit, which is, at its most basic, a measure of credibility. Every time you issue an apple-certificate, you are borrowing, with a promise to repay from future apple-harvests.

After the first couple of town scandals, people will start taking a closer look at the credibility of the issuer. Let's say the town potato-farmer comes up with a scheme where his potato-certificates are actually issued by some credible third-party, say the town priest or whatever, who starts every growing season with a book of numbered certificates equal to the typical crop-yield and no more, and keeps half of the certificate on file, issuing the other half. Now there is an audit trail and a very credible system that is likely to earn the potato-grower a lot of credit, compared to other farmers in town. That means that the potato-grower can probably issue more notes at a better exchange rate than some murkier system. Similarly, the town drunk probably won't get much value for his certificates promising a ship of gold.

Now we have something like a credit market emerging, and the potato-farmer is issuing something closer to what we might call a modern "bond"...

So some time goes by and people start catching onto this system of credit-worthiness, and farmers and fishermen and so on start to realize that they can get better value for their IOUs by demonstrating credibility. People with shakier reputations or dubious prospects may not be able to "issue money", or might only be able to do so at very high "interest". E.g., a new farmer with no track-record might have to promise me twice as many potatoes in exchange for a deer haunch, due to the risk that I might never see any potatoes at all.

This obviously gets very messy fast, as different apple- and potato-certificates have different values depending on whether they were issued by Bob or Jane, and everyone has to keep track of and evaluate whose future apples are worth what.

Some enterprising person, maybe the merchant who runs the trading-post, comes up with the idea to just issue one note for all the farms in town. He calls a meeting with all the farmers, and proposes to have the town priest keep a book of certificates and so on, and the farmers will get notes just like everyone else in exchange for the crops they contribute to the pool, and the merchant will keep a cut of the crops with which to hire some accountants and farm-surveyors to estimate the total crop yields across town and so on.

Everyone agrees (or at least, enough farmers agree to kind of force the other ones to get on-board if they want to participate meaningfully in the town economy), and we now have something like a central bank issuing something like fiat currency: that is, currency whose value is "decided" by some central authority, as opposed to the kind of straight-up exchange certificates that can be traded for an actual apple from the issuer, for example.

Now we have something that looks a lot like a modern monetary system. The town can set up audit committees or whatever, but the idea is that there is some central authority basically tasked with issuing money, and regulating the supply of that money according to the estimated size of ongoing and future economic activity (future crop yields).

If they issue too much money, we get inflation, where more apple-certificates are issued than apples grown, and each apple-note ends up being worth only three-quarters of an apple come harvest-time. If they issue too little currency, economic activity is needlessly restricted: the farmers are not able to hire enough workers to maximize crop yields and so on, the hunter starts hunting less because his deer meat is going bad since nobody has money to buy it, and so on.

At this point, you may be asking, "Why the hell go through all this complexity just to trade apples for deer and shoes? Isn't this more trouble than it's worth?"

The answer is because this is a vastly more efficient system than pure barter. I, as a hunter, no longer need to trade a physical deer haunch for a bushel of apples to carry over to the shoemaker in order to get shoes. You, as an apple-farmer, can hire workers before the crop is harvested, and therefore can grow more, and your workers can eat year-round instead of just getting a huge pile of apples at harvest-time to try and trade for for whatever they will need for the rest of the year.

So back to money...

The thing to remember is that all throughout, from the initial trade to this central-banking system, all of this money is debt. It is IOUs, except instead of being an IOU that says "Kancho_Ninja will give one bushel of apples to the bearer of this bond in October", it says "Anyone in town will give you anything worth one bushel of apples in trade."

The money is not an actual thing that you can eat or wear or build a house with, it's an IOU that is redeemable anywhere, for anything, from anyone. It is a promise to pay equivalent value at some time in the future, except the holder of the money can call on anybody at all to fulfill that promise-- they don't have to go back to the original promiser.

This is where it starts getting interesting, and where we can start to answer your question...

(for the sake of simplicity, let's stop calling these notes "apple certificates", and pretend that the village has decided to call them "Loddars").

So now you're still growing apples, but instead of trading them for deer-haunches and shoes, you trade them for Loddars. So far, so good.

Once again, you want some meat, except harvest time hasn't come yet so you don't have any Loddars to buy meat with. You call me up (cellphones have been invented in this newly-efficient economy), "Hey otherwiseyep, any chance you could kill me a deer and I'll give you ten Loddars for it at harvest-time?"

I say, "Jeez, I'd love to, but I really need all the cash I can get for every deer right now: my kid is out-growing shoes like crazy. Tell you what: if you can write me a promise to pay twelve Loddars in October, I can give that to the shoe-maker." You groan about the "interest rate" but agree.

Did a lightbulb just go off? You and I have once again created Money. Twelve loddars now exist in the town economy that have not been printed by the central bank. Counting all the money trading hands in the village, there are now (a) all the loddars that have ever been printed, plus (b) twelve more that you have promised to produce.

This is important to understand: I just spent money on shoes, which you spent on deer meat, that has never been printed. It's obviously not any of the banknotes that have already been issued, but it's definitely real money, because I traded it for new shoes, and you traded it for a dead deer.

Once you and I and others start to catch on that this is possible, that we can spend money that we don't have and that hasn't even been printed yet, it is entirely possible for a situation to arise where the total amount of money changing hand in the village vastly exceeds the number of loddars that have actually been printed. And this can happen without fraud or inflation or anything like that, and can be perfectly legitimate.

Now, what happens if another wildfire hits your orchard? Those twelve loddars are destroyed, they are gone, the shoe-maker is twelve loddars poorer, without spending it and without anyone else getting twelve loddars richer.

The money that bought your deer and my shoes has simply vanished from the economy, as though it never existed, despite the fact that it bought stuff with genuine economic utility and value.

Sidebar on gold and gold-backed currency and stuff like that:

Because I said I would get to it...

The above pretend history of the pretend village is not how modern money actually came to be. In reality, things are much less sequential and happen much more contemporaneously without the "eureka!" moments. The above was a parable to illustrate how money works to a 5-year-old, not an actual history of how money emerged.

Until fairly recent times, paper money was not really very useful or practical for most purposes, especially if you wanted to spend money in a different village than where it was printed.

If we go back in time a period before ATMs, wire-transfers, widespread literacy, etc, then a piece of paper written in Timbuktu is not likely to get you very far in Kathmandu. You could take your apples and deer-haunches and shoes around with you to trade, but the earliest naturally-emerging currencies tend to be hard things that were rare and easily-identifiable (jewels, colored shells, etc), and they frequently coincided with the personal decorations of the rich, in a self-reinforcing feedback loop (people with a surplus of time and food could decorate themselves with pretty things, which became valuable as status symbols, which made them more valuable as decorations, which made them more valuable as barter objects, which made them more prestigious shows of wealth, etc).

Gold emerged as a sort of inevitable global currency, before people even thought of it as currency. It is rare, portable, easy to identify, can easily be made into jewelry, and can be easily quantified (unlike, say, jewels or seashells, which are harder to treat as a "substance"). Once word got around that rich people like it, it became easy to barter with anyone, anywhere, for anything.

In the early stages, it was not really the same thing as "money", it was just an easy thing to barter. But it had money-like characteristics:

If someone walked into your apple-orchard offering to trade a yellow rock for apples, you might look at them a little funny. What use does an apple-grower have for a yellow rock?

But if you know that rich people in town covet this soft yellow metal as something they can make jewelry out of, then you might be happy to trade apples for it.

Once everyone knows that rich people will trade for this stuff, it becomes something like actual currency: neither the hunter, the shoemaker, nor the fisherman in town has much use for it, but because they know they can redeem it for the stuff they do want and need, it becomes a sort of transferable IOU that can be redeemed anywhere, i.e., money.

The early history of paper money did not evolve the way I described in the earlier posts (although it could have, and would have got to the same place). Instead, the early history of paper money was certificates issued by storage-vaults of precious metals (i.e., early "banks"). Instead of carrying around yellow and silver rocks, you could deposit them somewhere and get a piece of paper entitling the holder to withdraw a certain quantity of gold or silver or whatever.

Pre-1934 dollars, like virtually all paper currency until fairly recently, could be redeemed for physical gold or silver at a Federal Reserve Bank, and dollars were only printed if the treasury had enough physical gold and silver to "pay off" the bearer with precious metals.

For a whole lot of reasons that are topics for another discussion, decisions were made that eventually led to the abandonment of the "gold standard" and now the dollar, like most modern currencies, is pure fiat paper: it's only "worth" whatever everyone agrees it is worth, and can only be "redeemed" by trading it to someone else for whatever they will give you for it. There are long, loud, and ongoing feuds over whether that was a good idea, and I'm not going to get into that here.

From a reddit user

Google’s newest knife for the market pie

2009-03-14T05:12:00.001-07:00

Long time to posts!

Looks like the current economic crisis couldn't make Google cease their innovation, here's the email I received yesterday from Google.

Hi,

We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

Which makes me realize that this blog doesn't even have a privacy policy! I'm pretty busy these days I can't even make a proper page for it :P. Therefore I hereby declare that the privacy policy of this site is subject to the latest policy of AdSense (at least to when I decide otherwise).

For the publisher, I don't think this would make much difference to their income. Web surfers visit a site because it currently contains the content they want. Take the sport enthusiast mentioned above for example, if she is only interested in sports news, she will see sports news channel ads everywhere (not really, I think the news ad percentage will only increase a little), even when she is trying to shop for sport instruments and vice versa. This behavior based kind of ads is possibly most benefit to Google because now they will be able to display ads that fit the user's behavior on their search pages based on user activity data you gathered. This may also be beneficial to some so called SEO groups where they use money from an unknown source to buy each other's product rapidly, thus receive huge income (and yes, that's money laundering). Now they can see more relevant ads for their purpose…

Privacy concerns may arise for the normal user, which is exactly why the European Union worried about the Doubleclick acquisition: now Google have just updated their policy to track everyone using their service. Well, there's nothing you can do about it except to trust them though; so far Google is trustworthy :). It's true that they censored search content for their Chinese interface but hey, at least they never disclosed user data to our bloodthirsty comrades like Yahoo!

2008-08-21T19:18:00.021-07:00

Pinging can make true wonders when running a blog. However, when blogging for money or hobby, most of the bloggers don't know that they are playing with fire and can be called ping spammers.

Every time you click 'Save and Continue Editing' button, or edit the previously published post and click 'Save' - you are sending a ping. And now imagine that when working with a new post you click'Save and Continue Editing' 10-15 times; this is not much when you are working with a long post, do many changes in fonts and colors, etc. But for the ping services it means you pinged them 10-15 times. An attempt for ping spam? Who knows: each of the ping services can have its own inner policies about what ping exactly to start thinking that your blog is a ping spammer. But this is definitely the game not a single blogger would like to play.

Because it can result in a ping service to simply block your blog and stop taking the new post feeds from it. We can talk a lot about if this is fair or not, but ping services are definitely not interested to re-digest one and the same content (or almost the same content) all the time!

NB: This ping spam issue is peculiar to WordPress blogs, however other blog platforms seem to have most of the problems with ping spam unsolved as well.

How to Check If My Blog Crossed the Line?

Ping services don't say when exactly they are sure you are ping spammer, but these 2 signs can be very useful for you.

#1. Check the online accounts of your blog in ping services.

Some ping services, like Technorati, have a very useful feature of running "account" for each of the blogs on their server. When you know the URL to this account, you can check the account of your blog and see how quickly the ping service is gulping your new posts from this blog.

For example, if previously this service has been catching the fresh posts from your blog every 24 hours and was publishing their digest on the server, and now got stuck for 3-4 days - this is a possible sign of the blog getting ping spam penalty. It's crucial to note that thisis a POSSIBLE sign, because there are some factors that can also explain this sudden "gap in love" from a ping service.

#2. Check your ping list service messages.

If you are reading your ping messages (that say "pined successfully" or other tech messages), this information is another proof factor for you. The strategy is the same: if after no problems for a long time with a ping service all of a sudden you start getting messages that say that you have not been pinged successfully and no other traits of the problem (like a message saying that you have incompatible format of the ping signal or anything else) - this is another

possible sign of the ping spam penalty.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.019-07:00

Web analytics is a quantitative indicator of behavior of visitors to a website. Simply explained, web analytics involves identification of visitor, analyzing the reason of visit and tracking his/her movement within your website until the time he/she leaves the website. In essence therefore, web analytics provides a clear picture of the performance of a website so that the website owner can devise strategies to maximize acceptability of the website.

Web analytics mainly comes in two flavors in terms of collection of visitors' data. The first concerns collecting data from server logfile, and the second by tagging each webpage with javascript. A third web analytics method is a combination of the two whereby more relevant data can be produced than what is possible with either of the two methods.

In this article, we will briefly define some popular web analytics terms, moving on to comparing the two methods before outlining why studying web analytics is beneficial.

Key Web Analytics Terms

'Hit' denotes a request for a file from server and is recorded only in logfile. 'Page View' means different for the two web analytics methods. While tagging script considers the whole page as one request, the logfile on the other hand will record multiple hits (one for each file, including images, .js and .css) within a single page-view.

A visitor is one who requests for a file to be shown. Once again, while server log will record several files for each visit, the page-tagging script will only consider the page as a whole seen by the visitor. In either case, the web analytics data will clearly identify if the visitor is new (new or unique visitor) or has come before (repeat visitor).

Other Information

Both web analytics methods will be able to gather several other important information, notable among which are as under.

               1. The length of time a visitor spends in seeing a website.

               2. The keyword phrase used to arrive at the website.

               3. The unique IP address and therefore the country from where the visits generated.

               4. The arrival and exit pages.

Logfile vs Page Tagging

Data transfer to and from web server is always recorded in server's logfile with clockwork precision. Since early days, realization dawned that it is possible for a suitable program to extract logfile data and arrange them in a meaningful display. That is how web analytics came into being. Today most servers come equipped with web analytics programs such as Webalizer, Awstats, etc. which analyze raw logfile data and portray valuable visitor information in easy-to-follow graphics.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.017-07:00

14 November Google released a new service with the name Google Analytics. Google Analytics is basically a rebranded version of Urchin, a web analytics service that Google purchased a few months ago.

Web Tracking Analytics Services

Like other web analytics services Opentracker.net,shinystat, or truehits.net, Google Analytics is a service that tells you where visitors to your site are coming from, what links on the site are getting the most traffic, what pages visitors are viewing, how long people stay on the site, which products on merchant sites are being sold and where people give up in multistep checkout processes. The difference between these tools or website analyzers is that Google tracking is not done in real-time, they use a system what's similar to log analyzers. That mean it will not measure human behavior or what's done by the visitor.

Google Analytics vs Other Website Tracking Services

Another difference between Google Analytics and other web tracking services is that Google Analytics is free and unreliable. Google Analytics doesn't work with Safari and Mac OS X. In order to view a Google Analytics report on Mac OS X, you have to be using a Mozilla based brower, IE. or Firefox. But for sharing your data with the company, Google doesn't require you to pay directly for their web analytics service.

But unfortunaly if you want to open an account with Google Analytics you will get this answer:

New account signups are temporarily suspended. If you want to be notified when signups re-open, please enter your e-mail address on our signup page. Thank you!

Should you use Google Analytics or should you pay for a better service?

Google already knows a lot of things about you. If you also use their new tracking service or log analyzer system, you will tell Google how much you earn, when you earn it, which products you sell, how often you sell them, how much you spend for ads on other sites and you will reveal much more information about your personal online business and company details.

Ask yourself if you want Google to know that much about you and your company. Do you really want to share your revenue information with Google that also wants your advertising money? Do you want to share your revenue information with any other company at all?

Google officials have declined that they will use the data to better understand how much you are willing to pay for ads, based on conversions. They also claim that they do not plan to tap into the data as a means of improving regular search results or to identify bad sites. Nevertheless, these things are easily possible if you use Google Analytics also your ranking would be in danger. Google engineer Matt Cutts even writes in his blog: "Blackhat SEO companies may be leery of using Google for analytics, but regular site owners should be reassured. That sounds as if Google might actually use the information for other purposes.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.015-07:00

Article marketing is known as a very effective method of advertising and generating free organic traffic, so let`s dig deeper and have a look at some lesser known ways on how article writing can improve your affiliate home based online business.

Article directories are usually where we start off submitting articles and for many their article submission process stops there. Whilst this is a proven and highly effective method to build back links to your affiliate home based online business website as well as generate free traffic there are other ways to spread your articles far and wide over the internet.

Before we look at these lesser known article submission methods, do be sure, prior to submitting your articles, to include the resource box at the end of your article as this will not only provide another valuable back link to your site but is also a form of free advertising for your affiliate home based online business. It is also a good idea to put your publishing guidelines in your resource box as well i.e. “You are welcome to publish my article provided you include the resource box with links intact.”

Start off by doing a search for the terms ezines and article publishing websites as you will be sure to find many links on these sites to submit your articles. It is worth looking at the ezine directories as some do accept article submissions. Going off topic a little here, but if you do have an email ezine or email newsletter be sure to submit it to the ezine directories for added exposure.

You could create a free e-book with all your own articles and offer it on your website as a freebie, or give it away to your newsletter signups. You can get more free advertising by adding your own affiliate home based online business advert to the e-book as well.

An article directory added to your own website will encourage visitors who are looking for free content for their own websites. You could also earn extra online income by becoming a freelance writer by submitting your articles to print publications that pay for submissions.

Create a free report on internet marketing or affiliate home based online businesses, include a few of your related articles and give it away as a bonus to those who purchase a product or service from you?

Ever considered publishing a book containing all the articles you have written and selling the book from your website? By offering other webmasters the opportunity to get an instant article directory by linking to yours with give you massive exposure and also increase the traffic to your website.

Don`t miss out on the opportunity to submit your articles to related online communities, such as newsgroups, forums and email discussion lists as this will attract a huge amount of free advertising to your affiliate home based online business.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.013-07:00

The science of analyzing your website and marketing campaigns to see what performs best and what methods simply benefits you the most is website analytics

I am going to make this simple without any geeky tech stuff. Getting rid of the technical jargon, website analytics simply is the study of the impact that a website has on its users. This could be for example which products generates the most cash on your website and how many new subscribers your new opt-in page is pulling compared to your old opt-in page.

Web analytics can be done both manually, the old way, or by using different software. Many prefer a mix of those two methods.

How you can analyze your websites?

Understanding visitor behavior is crucial if you want to succeed in internet marketing. By closely watching and monitoring the number of visitors and from where they came, understanding how they navigate throughout your website and what keywords they have searched for in the search engines that brought them to your website are examples of analyzing tasks that you should be doing. Is your website content rich enough to hold visitor attention?

Analyzing the effectiveness of advertising methods is another important task. Website analytics will enable you to find out how your website shows up in the organic as well as the paid searches. Which of your AdWords ads are being clicked on the most and which affiliate programs are generating you the most profit?

Evaluating your sales is another must do. Let’s face it! Your ultimate objective and first priority is to get sales and you want to generate as many sales as you can and bring in the highest amount of profits possible. To do this you need to know your customers behavior and which sections of your website is pulling in sales like a magnate on steroids and which part is not. Optimize the wrong parts and you are doomed!

Outsource someone to do the website analytics

If you feel you don’t have the knowledge or don’t have the time to do the analyzing properly you can outsource someone to do it for you. But beware, you have to choose carefully! Identifying an appropriate analytics company or consultant is critical. Review their testimonials and ask for telephone numbers from past clients who have used them before and also check their references thoroughly. Be sure that you choose a qualified vendor who can offer a deal tailored to your specific business needs.

Know where you are heading. Have clearly defined goals for your website and know where you are going.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.011-07:00

With quality SEO blogging software is a key to success you can fully focus on just growing your blog with quality content. These free blogging tips will help to choose the best SEO blogging software.

Blog itself is a very effective invention that helps to reach real success with blogging for money, profit or hobby. However, a nice SEO blogging software can make real wonders with the positions of your blog in search engines, traffic to the blog and profits. With the pinging pumping up your blog like crazy and wise automation of SEO jobs done by a quality SEO blogging software you can fully focus about how to publish as much quality content on your blog as possible.

That is why the question of "How do I start blogging?" should go together with another question "How can I choose the best SEO blogging software for my blog?"

The answer is very simple - you should choose the blogging platform which already has quality SEO blogging software integrated.

So, what should SEO blogging software have?

1. Meta data.

The proper choice of keywords can bring you huge traffic. That is why every post should have proper keywords in all legal spots on the blog. In meta title, meta description and meta keywords.

Yes, meta data is not a top priority for Google any longer, but these meta keywords will later on (after being pinged by the ping services) will turn into tags - and tag power is really great. Ping services create separate pages for each of the tags, these pages quite quickly are indexed by search engines and receive nice Google PR with time, and your post will be published on this page as an example of posts for this tag.

2. SEO sexy URLs.

SEO sexy URLs means that you have the necessary keywords in the URL of your posts. Quality blog solutions (that already have the guts of SEO blogging software integrated inside) will give you a change to automatically add the title of your post into the URL of this post. As you are using the keywords in the title, they will get to the URL as well.

And though keywords in URLs are not the priority for Google's algo, wasting such a chance is a big mistake.

3. Do Follow vs No Follow.

If your blog is successful - people will start posting comments to it, and some comments will have URLs in the comments. Quality SEO blogging software will have an option to decide whether you are going to leak your linking power to every comment (and put Do Follow tag) or not to share the SEO value of outgoing links in the posts and have No Follow in all URLs in the comments.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.009-07:00

You may have noticed a new error message upon Windows start-up since December 31, 2006. The error dialog looks like this:

" Windows Defender

Application failed to initialize: 0x800106ba. A problem caused Windows Defender

Service to stop. To start the service, restart your computer or search Help and Support on how to start a service manually. "

In addition, you will see the following in your System Event Log:

" Event Type: Error

Event Source: Service Control Manager

Event Category: None

Event ID: 7023

Description:

The Windows Defender Service service terminated with the following error:

The system license has expired. Your logon request is denied. "

The issue is that Windows Defender Beta support ended on December 31, 2006. Now, I would have expected this software license expire error to let you know a bit more gracefully.

The good news is that if your are running Windows XP, there is a easy fix. Simply go to Microsoft and look for the "Download Windows Defender" link near the bottom of the home page. Follow the download and install instructions, and you will be up to date, protected and will have fixed the start-up error in just minutes.

Now for the bad news...

If you are running Windows 2000, Microsoft has decided to no longer support the Windows Defender product for the Windows 2000 platform. You can fix the start-up error by uninstalling Windows Defender from the Add/Remove Programs in your Control Panel. Unfortunately, this will leave you unprotected from Spyware and Malware. Since Microsoft is no longer providing a Spyware protection product for Windows 2000, you will need to purchase a third party product in order to be protected in the future.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.007-07:00

It's been talked about that Google is secretly planning to eventually launch its own phone service at some point in the future. If so, Google will eventually become an Internet Service Provider (ISP) — enabling them to effectively enter the telecom industry, add a boat load of services to their growing empire, and eliminate the threats against Net Neutrality which they so strongly oppose.

Sources suggest that Google may first introduce its telephone service to users in the United Kingdom, but the actual date when the service will launch and the exact details of the plan are as of yet unknown. The service will be a free, ad supported VoIP service — (technology that that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the internet).

Google has released numerous services focusing closely on the telecom and communications industry some of which include a Free 411 Phone Service called GOOG-411, Google Talk which can be used via both a PC and smartphone (BlackBerry.), Google Mobile which brings additional Google services, videos, and software to cell phones, Google SMS - a text message service.

More recently, Google has announced its acquisition of GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing voice communications. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information. The service also assigns unique phone numbers and voicemail services.

Additionally, there has also been a lot of heated discussions over a Google-branded phone called the GPhone, which could be compared to the recent craze over the release of Apple's hugely successful IPhone. As far back as August it was reported that Google Inc. had developed a prototype cell phone that could reach markets within a year, and plans to offer consumers free subscriptions by bundling advertisements with its search engine, e-mail and Web browser software applications.

According to a story published in The Wall Street Journal "Industry watchers have long heard rumors that Google was designing its own mobile phone." Google added fuel to that speculation in July when it announced it was willing to spend $4.6 billion to buy wireless spectrum in a U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction and they have also bought the rights to 270,000 square feet of space at 111 8th avenue in Manhattan, a key New York interconnection facility.

According to LightReading, a source for technology and financial analysis of the communications industry, "Google is building a network so massive that several service provider specialists believe it could end up with one of the world's largest core transport networks, effectively building its own private Internet", reports Light Reading. " Google is in the process of acquiring space in carrier hotels, purchasing dark fiber, and issuing RFPs for network equipment."

With around 60% share of the Internet search market, Google clearly has the critical mass of users and brand strength to make a play in telecom markets around the world. And with a market cap like Google has, the investment or acquisition capital it needs is hardly a problem.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.005-07:00

Microsoft has many computer certifications that appeal to a wide range of expert computer repair technicians to operating system geniuses. They also have certifications in administration and engineering. Microsoft Certified Professionals are a standard above in the field of information technology. Microsoft certification is widely accepted and recognized by the service and support industry. Microsoft curriculum has the practical knowledge that only an advanced developed company can provide.

MCDST is one of the most sought after Microsoft certifications on the market today. Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician is a title that has much recognition for employers who want a highly qualified technician to work as a help desk specialist and give desktop support by phone and by servicing the individual station. Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) on Microsoft Windows XP is a certification that validates the fundamental and higher skills needed to enter the IT industry as a support desk professional. Because of the recognition that Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) receives many online and classroom IT schools are offering some free tutoring. You will find free information technology Microsoft computer training on the web almost as much as you will find pay certification training. There is a long list of online schools that offer free study guides, some free online tutoring and free practice exam questions in order to prepare you for your certification.

MCDST certification demonstrates valuable troubleshooting expertise with the Windows Desktop Operating System to employers and consumers. It provides a structure for learning the skills that support technicians need. As a desktop support technician, you will use excellent customer service skills, educate users, and solve hardware or software operation and application problems on the desktop. You will learn valuable skills and best practices consistent with networking and file sharing to maintaining DHCP communications devices and Domain name system for Internet system to translate names into IP addresses. Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician certification validates the fundamental skills needed to enter the IT industry as a support professional. It communicates the technical skills of the individual to clients and employers and distinguishes career candidates from their peers. MCDST certification enhances job satisfaction through increased technical proficiency as you increase your knowledge and skills.

MCDST certification helps advance support technician careers by providing a structured framework for learning skills, and provides a knowledge basis for additional Microsoft certifications, such as the MCSA and the MCSE. Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician Certification Requirements on Microsoft Windows XP are to pass two core exams that provide a valid and dependable measure of technical proficiency. These exams are developed with the input of professionals in the industry and reflect how Microsoft products are used in organizations throughout the world.

The two core exams are: Exam 70-271:

Supporting Users and Troubleshooting a Microsoft WindowsXP Operating System consisting of about 60 questions and Exam 70-272:

2008-08-21T19:18:00.003-07:00

If your the type of person who loves to skim through tidbits of news or read about short and up-to-date announcements online, then chances are you have run into RSS. RSS or Really Short Syndication is a very potent marketing strategy used by webmasters and online marketers for better online exposure of their articles and to improve search engineplacement for their websites. RSS makes news and information accessible wherever RSS can be applied or RSS readers can be used. Several blog providers like Blogger, Wordpress and Live journal offer RSS for their members content. More and more users, who are catching on the blogging craze, are putting importance on the relatively fast and reliable RSS.

Users often keep their blogs as an online organizer. RSS come in as a handy tool in keeping all the information from different websites all under one little corner of your blog or webpage. RSS is really a convenient option for those who tend to visit a lot of websites, and who wish to be updated about certain site activities or articles. Online users also use RSS to check out the latest news or sports update. RSS is a great tool to improve search engine ranking as well as to organize data from different sources.

RSS displays a short summary of your articles, around two or three lines of text, which the RSS readers will then display over websites, or through applications. Your articles can now be seen on different parts of the globe through different RSS portals or websites that display categorically related RSS content.

There are many directories and websites that accept and promote RSS data. If your in the market to promote your articles, then submitting your content to RSS directories and websites can help bring you very good exposure. Several websites run updated copies of your RSS data over their main page at certain intervals to help promote your website to those who would otherwise have problems seeing your updated content. People download RSS information for news, stock and trading updates, article submissions and marketing and to improve search engine ranking, among others.

With the right articles or marketing copies, webmasters and web marketers say that RSS do help a lot in passing their message across to their clients and other online visitors. Promoting the RSS data over targeted channels can greatly boost your websites exposure online. Choosing categorically related websites and marketing RSS information on them can have huge benefits on your online business. The whole concept of the RSS is to make information readily accessible to end users, as well as help promote content online. In both areas, I believe RSS has greatly excelled to become one of the top web marketing tools.

So if your planning to promote your content online, better avail of RSS. It can greatly simplify your work. Plus a lot of websites offer free RSS promotion service. With RSS, your sure to be able to get wider reach for your targeted online users. But one thing you should put in mind when doing RSS is that too much RSS data coming from other sites can cause your website to get penalized due to duplicate content. The lines are still scratchy on how duplicate content is checked even though a person is using RSS, but the basic idea of having 30-50% of your content originating from RSS information from other related websites can get you into trouble with the search engines, and not to mention those websites where your data or content is coming from.

2008-08-21T19:18:00.001-07:00

Welcome to part 2 of the article that aims to give you just enough information to help you understand RSS and start using it. Part 1 gave you simple instructions on how to read and subscribe to an RSS site feed, part 2 will give you simple instructions on how to publish your own.

Firstly, which websites can benefit from a site feed? Well, pretty much all of them. If you provide a service, you could use a site feed to announce amendments and upgrades. If you sell stuff, you could use a site feed to announce new products and special offers. And if you own a website or web log that is regularly updated with news of any description, a site feed is virtually a necessity.

Site feeds may not be exactly commonplace at present but don’t doubt for a moment that their popularity is growing. If you get a site feed up and running now, you’ll be ahead of the game for some time to come and offer a friendly alternative to email communication.

Site feeds are usually written in a code called XML. If you view the code for a site feed it will look a little like HTML.You could:

-- Learn the language and write your own site feed. Each time you want to add an update, just update your site feed page.

-- Buy some fancy software that writes and updates the site feed for you.

-- Or… setup a site feed online that automatically updates, for free in about 20 minutes.

Third option sound good? Ok, start by setting up your own blog at Blogger. This is free to do and, if you want, they will even host it for you in exchange for a couple of banners at the top of the blog. The great thing about Blogger is that it works in tandem with the Google Toolbar.

Found a website you want to note in your blog? Click the icon in your Google Toolbar and it’s taken care of.

Everytime you add or change something on your website, record it in your blog so individuals and search engines viewing your blog can be made aware of it.

The other great thing about Blogger is that it automatically creates and updates a site feed for you. Everytime you post a message to your blog, this is added to your site feed as well.

You can get the address of your site feed from the Blogger control panel by visiting the section marked "Settings" and selecting "Site Feed".

2008-08-21T19:17:00.007-07:00

Have you ever read an article, intended to explain RSS in simple terms that, begins well, but soon descends into confusing jargon or information overload? If so, take heart, I was in the same place a few months ago.

Often the best way to understand something, is to use it. RSS is no exception.

So rather than try and create a definitive explanation of RSS, this article will tell you how to use it. I guarantee once you’ve done so, everything will that much clearer.

If a website you visit utilizes RSS, there are a number of ways it will communicate this.

The most common way is to show a little orange button with the letters XML.

Alternatively, you may see words such as "ATOM", "RSS", "Site Feed" or variations on these.

What they have in common is that they will link to a webpage that, in most browsers, looks like gibberish.

It doesn’t matter one way or another, what is important is the address of the web page they link to.

To demonstrate, I will relate how to read a site feed for my website, The Nettle Blog. Don’t confuse RSS with blogs (web logs). They are two separate concepts. The only reason you see them together so often, is that blogs are the perfect website to take advantage of site feeds. More on that later. Here we go…

Click on this link to go the site feed for The Nettle Blog. Ignore the content in the window, just make a note of the URL in the web address bar. It should read: Feeds: Feedburner

Now you’ve got the web address for the site feed, keep it safe somewhere. You’ll need it again in a moment.

The next step is to use an RSS reader to make sense of the site feed. There are lots of these available and if you are a heavy user you would probably want to purchase a nice piece of software.

But to begin with, start with something simple and free. Start with Bloglines.

Go to Blogliness - Register and create a new account.

From the "My Feeds" section of your account you can add new site feeds you want to keep track of.

Select "ADD", enter the URL you copied and hit "Subscribe". You can preview the results, but skip that stage for now. Select "Subscribe" again and the title of the site feed will be transferred to the left-hand window.

Well done. You have now subscribed to your first RSS feed.

2008-08-21T19:17:00.005-07:00

Blog security is a serious question. That is why today many bloggers join the online discussion about better way to make a blog more hacker proof.

As blogs have become a serious power not just for blogging for cash or hobby, but also for Internet marketing in general - the attention of hack minded people to the blogs has naturally increased as well. They are sniffing around to find any possible door inside the blog platform to access the admin area. Some can do that as game, others as business - but this is still a big pain for every average WordPress blog or Blogger or any other blog platform owners. They do their best to send you patches to fix the security issue, but sometimes hackers can just have a better luck.

In the most recent times, the idea of limiting access to the blog is circling the minds of bloggers. It is really better and easier just to give special or secure blog access to a number of highly trusted people (your blog admins or trusted blog authors). The attempts to access the blog admin area from any other IPs would be blocked.

This means the readers and visitors of your blog will not have any problems with reading blog materials. And you enjoy maximum security - because even if a hacker gets through a hole, the access for admin area to him will be cut off by default.

2008-08-21T19:17:00.003-07:00

Quality linking practices are encouraged by the major search engines as an acceptable way of improving site popularity, website traffic and help contribute to higher search engine rankings. As a webmaster you must be wary of engaging in poor linking practices that have the potential to strip your website of its ranking status on the major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN.

In this two part Article Series we will firstly discuss those linking practices that will find your website penalized by the major search engines, with the most current controversy over 'paid links'. Google has recently penalized several sites with ranking drops for violating its quality webmaster guidelines by selling paid links. This penalty can also be applied to those sites displaying 'paid links' that are considered spam or of low quality by the search engines and provide users with a poor browsing experience.

Not all paid linking will be penalized, the current focus tends to be on those links that are primarily being used to manipulate search engine rankings. Purchasing paid links may also affect your rankings if the originating site selling the links is considered to be a 'bad neighborhood' site by the major search engines, your site's rankings can be affected by association. As a general rule, avoid companies selling links who are promoting paid links that are 'hard to detect by a search engine' and with the recent increase in the reporting of paid links to Google, their ranking algorithms are being adjusted to detect such paid links.

The advice from Google on paid links is that it's okay to promote paid links that are aimed at increasing website traffic but are not being used to manipulate search engine rankings. If you are using paid links:-

Add a 'no follow attribute' to the linking info, for more information on how to do this see Google Webmaster Tools.
You can also redirect the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from the search engines with robots.txt file.
Clearly define paid advertising links on your site to the search engines ie. with a 'sponsored link' title heading.

Another linking practice that is discouraged by the major search engines is using Link Farms to artificially increase a site's link popularity. Link farms are usually classified as a website or web page that displays a series of links to other unrelated sites and displays no content of real value or interest to site visitors. These types of links pages are usually created by automated software programs and services. To avoid being caught linking to a 'link farm' vigorously check all link exchange requests and the reciprocal URL location of your link on their site. Link farms will be obvious in nature as no actual web content will be present for site visitors except links and often the link exchange will be represented as a '3 way link' exchange.

3 Way Linking' has been an emerging trend over the past 12 months and is designed to quickly boost the search engine rankings and online presence of the requesting link partners site by anonymously building link pages that have no direct link to them so that they can't be penalized by the search engines for deceptive SEO practices. 3 Way Links are of little or no benefit to your site or your linking campaign as typically the third party site that your link is located on has no content relevance to your own site or worse still it is just a 'link farm'. Once again your site's search engine rankings can be penalized by association.

2008-08-21T19:17:00.001-07:00

Numerous programs on the internet offer you the opportunity to earn an income online by recruiting others into the business and by offering your help as a sponsor to the new recruits will certainly help you create a profitable internet home business.

I am sure it is just not me that has signed up for affiliate programs and never heard a word or received an email from my sponsor. This is surely one way of not only leaving money on the table but also leaving new recruits feeling all alone and unwelcome and must certainly contribute to the high number of people who never earn an income online or build a profitable internet home business.

Your time need be the only thing required to help others by explaining to them what you do to earn an income online as all communication can be done by email. You could set up a series of training emails in your auto-responder, detailing exactly the steps you have taken to get where you are, or have a section on your profitable internet home business website dedicated to helping your new recruits.

Although lot of the programs do reveal who your sponsor is and ways of contacting them, others don’t and so it is a good idea to always send a welcome email to a new recruit letting them know you are their sponsor and that they are welcome to contact you with any queries or questions.

Confidence may be lacking with new sponsors who may feel they do not know enough about the business to help a new recruit and therefore rather ignore them and omit to send a welcome email at all. One of the best ways to learn and gain confidence is by teaching others and this in a way will actually accelerate your own profitable internet home business and online income.

Lots of new recruits will not even respond to your welcome email and choose to go it alone, but at least you have made the effort to contact them and offer your assistance if they need it.

There will be others who will be thrilled and reassured to hear from you and take you up on your offer of assistance and be more than willing to implement the internet marketing strategies that are working for you and start earning their own income online. It is through these people that your online income will increase.

A few people, although thankful for all your help, unfortunately fail to get into action and actually do the work required, and you will be the first person they contact to complain bitterly that they are not earning an income online, what a useless sponsor you are and that the whole internet home business is a scam! The few people who react like this should not even worry you if you have done your best in trying to help them.

Being the best sponsor you will pay off handsomely, because you will benefit from helping those that run with your suggestions and start earning an income online with their own profitable internet home business.

2008-08-04T19:18:00.005-07:00

What does this have to do with Google?, you will ask! Well, let’s take a look at the similarities:

A. Both Google and The Eiffel tower are money generators.

The Eiffel Tower was rejected or criticized by many, yet it showed its value in annual revenue and in the fact that it turned Paris into one of the most famous and most visited cities in the world.

Google is criticized as well for many reasons: Some people feel Google has too much power, the bots can know too much. Some completely reject it, but those who don’t harvest the benefits at the end of the day.

B. It’s not easy to “get in.”

At the bottom of The Eiffel Tower the crowd is waiting to get in for a chance to reach to the top and enjoy the view. That’s their goal. That’s what they all want to do. Thousands of people each day stay in line four hours and hours, ready to pay the price to get in. It may be hot, it may be cold and windy, raining or even snowing (but snow has been known to shut down the tower) but there they are, day after day, week after week, standing in line, taking pictures of each other, moving ahead in the long line of people ahead of them who want to get to the top.

At the bottom of Google… the crowd is waiting for the same thing: to get in. For some Webmasters, the waiting takes long weeks, others find faster ways. But the waiting is there, the crowd is there: for example there is a blog born every half second, and over 170000 new blogs every day. Can you imagine the statistics for websites? And all these new sites have the same goal: to rank in Google.

C. It’s a long way to the top.

The Eiffel Tower: eventually you get in and once you are there, you have choices. You either join the masses and take a lift to the top, or you take the stairs and enjoy the experience longer, with the satisfaction that you truly made it to the top on your own. Sometimes the ones who take this route just can’t make it, and, frustrated, sweaty and panting, they turn around and start their descent.

Google: there is a fast way to the top (let’s call it black hat SEO), and then there is the long, assiduous way that will takes all your power, skill and will — but it is the most rewarding because you learn a lot in the process. You have time to enjoy “the view” (looking at the other websites from the top, learning from them, envying them…), you have time to rest every once in a while, just to start your ascension with even more power later…

D. Shops, Restaurants… Businesses Flourish at the Top

The Eiffel Tower is home for some restaurants and snack bars and some souvenir shops. Can you imagine how much money the owners make? And also… how much do they have to pay for that location, location, location? The only drawback is that not everyone can get a commercial space there. Many are called, but a few are chosen.

2008-08-04T19:18:00.003-07:00

These days, many companies expect you to send an electronic resume and cover letter instead of mailing them. It's faster and easier for both the employer and the employee. While this is done for several reasons, the main reason is that the number of resumes, especially for virtual positions, is usually very high. In order to cut down on the time it takes to process each applicant's resume, companies have resorted to using online resume databases or instructing applicants to email resumes to one person in the office in order to save time and find the right person for the position as quickly as possible.

Creating a Virtual Resume

Creating a virtual resume is similar to creating a traditional resume. While you should include all the basic sections in an electronic resume, you may need to format it differently so the document isn't a jumbled mess when the hiring manager receives it. When creating your resume, you should create four different versions of it - a standard print version, an e-mail version, a scan-friendly version, and a plain text version. By creating different formats all at once, you will save yourself a lot of time when applying for virtual positions.

The standard print version can be used when companies specifically ask you to send one to their offices, or when you are turning in an application in person. An e-mail resume is a simple version that does not include bold or italicized headings. It is more straight-forward with simple headings that indicate a new section. If sending an email resume, always check it first before sending it. If copying it from a word processing program like MS Word, you may need to alter it to fit the email program you're using. Changing the font size, style, and making sentences shorter are common ways to make an email resume more appealing.

A scan-friendly version of your resume is also less complex than a standard print version. You should remove bold or italicized headings because those can appear blurry or faint to the reader. Plain text versions should be composed in MS Word or other word processing program so you can check for grammar and spelling errors. You can easily cut and paste your finished resume into MS notepad or other plain text program. You can use this version when uploading your resume into a company database.

Sending Your Virtual Resume

Always follow the company's instructions when it comes to sending a resume. If the company wants you to send the resume in an email instead of an attachment to the email, make sure you do so. As a potential virtual employee, you need to show employers that you can follow directions.

Always include a cover letter in your email. This should be your standard cover letter. It is considered unprofessional not to send a cover letter.

2008-08-04T19:18:00.001-07:00

A computer system, being an electronic device can be uniquely identified when hosted in a network by utilizing the exclusive facility of IP addresses. This IP address can very well be classified as IPv4 and IPv6, where the latter provides greater assistance or advanced support for the diverse purposes met by a computer system. The IP addresses will have a form of a group of bits and period (.) which separates these bits. This separation is done to meet very specific requirements.

Searching of IP address could be done through Ip Tools for the identification of real time information of IP address. A database is globally maintained and this database contains all the IP addresses assigned to each and every system. The global management of IP addresses is too vigilant in updating the database every now and then. Searching the IP address could be done by examining this database. Effective measures had been taken to get the country wise Internet Service Providers and even the cavernous end details like city, country, country range, latitude, longitude etc could be obtained. This is facilitated by IP to location.

The domain naming system assigns a name to each and every IP addresses so as to make the users feel friendly in understanding it. Domain name could be found from IP address and at the same time, IP address could be found from the domain name in any network. IP Finder is employed to find the IP addresses of each and every computer connected through a logical network.

Collection of information in relation to an IP address has attained great importance. To meet this requirement, IP lookup facility can be employed. Functioning of this entity find its platform on TCP/IP protocols and through domain naming services. The DNS system gives IP addresses, when domain name is given.

The IP lookup facility helps in tracking the IP address of systems that visits the websites. When employed as a marketing strategy or technique, this tool proved to be extremely worthy for the marketers or business firms in receiving a feedback, by calculating the reach of their websites. Certain application demands extremely secure identity verification where they can't allow a second person to interfere. Free IP lookup facilities are provided by numerous website hosting companies.

Certain other application requires the IP address to be hidden from the network. Subnet mask is a method to achieve this. Security can be enhanced by employing subnet masking methods. Make the computer free from network problems, avoid the misuse of websites etc are examples of some useful needs of subnet masking.

101 Methods To "PR" your website

2008-06-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

I got this idea from SEOPedia. It was pretty interesting that you could actually generate interest through that list, so I decided to do the same over here to help people generate traffic. It may not be filled by the time you read this, but I’ll be adding on along the way.

1. Submit articles to article directories.
2. Conduct link exchange activity with other blogs and websites.
3. Run a teleseminar.
4. Be a contributor on Yahoo/MSN Answers
5. Create a blog and join MyBlogLog.com
6. Create a MySpace.com account and make friends with your target market.
7. Create a viral report with links coming back to your website.
8. Generate a software product that you distribute free but advertise your website in it.
9. Build an article directory for a hot niche market
10. Produce a useful web-based software for public use
11. Ask thought-provoking questions
12. Build viral videos and upload them to Youtube.com
13. Buy links from Text-link-ads.com
14. Submit classified ads to USFreeAds.com
15. Publish content based on the latest news or unique items to tap on long tail traffic
16. Optimize your webpages for meta tags, title tags and H1 tags
17. Run online contests with kick-ass prizes
18. Run article exchange campaigns with HTML links in them
19. Generate your own social networking site
20. Join and participate in the Internet Marketing Singapore forum to get suggestions and ideas
21. Produce an unbelievable product and sell it on Clickbank.com
22. Auction off cheap digital items on eBay
23. Write articles for major sites like About.com
24. Create a regular PDF newsletter
25. Talk to 5 people every day about one piece of content on your site
26. Visit online guest books and leave a comment
27. Visit other blogs and contribute actively on a regular basis
28. Use banner advertising on banner exchange programs like BannersgoMLM.com
29. Seek out joint venture partners to promote your site/event
30. Purchase leads from a co-registration service
31. Write an offline book
32. Distribute flyers
33. Sponsor an event with prizes that have your website on it
34. Run a charity event
35. Submit a press release to PRWeb.com
36. Use resell rights promotions
37. Produce a web or blog template using Open Source license
38. Create a community with a community badge/chicklet for identity
39. Look for newsworthy information and syndicate to Digg.com
40. Use your MSN nickname/message
41. Provide a free download on your site with a message on the back of your business card
42. Leave an email signature
43. Have a tell-a-friend form
44. Newspaper advertismenets
45. Direct response mail
46. Regular podcasts
47. Run a “live” seminar
48. Create an affiliate program
49. Get invited to events
50. Run a 24-hour answering service
51. Give people the right to syndicate your content
52. Keep your content fresh
53. Create multiple offers
54. Use ping sites for your blog
55. Use article submission services like ArticleAnnouncer.com to create backlinks
56. Give a DVD out for free that requires opt-insk
57. Car decals with your website on it
58. Generate a member-get-member promotion
59. Offer a 50% sale for products on your site
60. Create an online community of friends
61. Invite 10 people to visit your site on a regular basis
62. Print t-shirts with your URL
63. Advertise in trade magazines
64. Advertise in the main newspapers
65. Radio interviews
66. TV interviews
67. TV advertisements
68. Use Google Adwords
69. Use MSN Adcenter
70. Use Yahoo Search Marketing
71. Use Adbrite
72. Getresponse Co-registration service
73. Optimize your website for a specific, targeted key phrase
74. Use PayPerPost.com to get bloggers to write about your site
75. Run a Web 2.0 community
76. Advertise in the Yellow Pages
77. Directory submissions
78. Affiliate directory submissions
79. Direct email campaigns with list owners
80. Use direct response postcards
81. Build a free software directory
82. Build a free image directory
83. Offer a bonus product during a product launch to JV partners
84. Use well-optimized websites and content
85. Bait providers to visit your website through eLance.com and Scriptlance.com
86. Purchase outdoor advertising space at targeted locations
87. Create an Opt-in mailing list
88. Visit and participate in forums related to your niche.
89. Build more backlinks for popular keywords
90. Narrow your market to a specific niche
91. Build more websites within related niches
92. Attend more seminars to gain connections
93. Use a Feed Reader to subscribe to RSS feeds - comment on targeted posts
94. Have multiple distribution locations for a physical product
95. Create your own products and let affiliates sell them
96. Blog controversially
97. Deliberately start an online war (flaming - not recommended)
98. Look for related websites in #1 position and buy advertising space from them
99. Set up account with Squidoo.com
100. Set up account with Hi5.com
101. Set up account with Multiply.com
102. Set up account with iConnectE.com - A Singaporean social networking site
103. Set up account with Huminity.com
104. Do a giveaway rights promotion
105. Build a presence on 43 things
106. Create an affiliate promotion with Clickbank
107. Run a Cost-Per-Lead program
108. Run a Classified on http://www.Mocca.com.sg
109. Find a Cause to support and promote the cause
110. Get people involved in your community
111. Use a tell-a-friend script and place this automatically with people have opted-in
112. Run a blog carnival
113. Use games to “tag” people
114. Encourage article exchanges
115. Request people to submit articles that you will display on your blog for free
116. Build a free online widget that people will use
117. Join discussion groups on Google, Yahoo or MySpace groups
118. Advertise on Alexa.com
119. Use Global SMS service
120. Leverage Craigslist.org

2008-06-12T15:00:00.005-07:00

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing to communicate promotional messages to potential or current customers. E-mail marketing are often more effective than printed direct mail. Here are a couple of recommendations when setting up an e-mail marketing campaign.

Determine Your Goals

Behind every successful marketing campaign there must be specific goals. You must set goals that are specific and quantifiable. Once the goals are determined, you must be committed to reach the targets. Every campaign sows better results when there is clarity of action.

E-mail Marketing Strategy

Building your Brand name

Let people know about you, your organization and your product. Create a dear image in their mind. A simple way to build branding is sending periodic newsletter over a very short period. Be consistent. Focus on a few messages that are core to your values and goals.

Building good customer relations using emails

The most vital factor in business is creating good customer relationship. Good customer relatioship will foster customer loyalty and increase the possibility of up-selling and cross-selling of your products.

Use your Newsletters or E-zines to promote your sponsors

Once you have established a large mailing list for your newsletters or e-zines, you can potentially bring in more revenues by placing relevant ads, sponsorships or affiliate programs.

Build Trust with Relevant E-mails

Besides providing newsworthy emails you must be focused on making your emails as relevant as possible to your target audience. Keep in mind that your e-mails are competing with hundred other e-mails on your subscribers' inbox. So make your subject line catchy. After all if you don't get their attention, they wont open your emails. Don't forget that the customers will read the email only if they are relevant. "When e-mail is customized conversion rates double. (SmartMoney Magazine, May 2006)"

Make your E-Mail Readable

You must consider on designing your e-mails so they are readable by many popular e-mail programs like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook. More and more web-based programs have preview panes. If your newsletter is too wide or long to load, your audience may not be able to view your newsletter. Some programs will disable images to load on e-mails for spamming reasons. You may consider not using images when sending important or urgent messages to your customers. Testing your e-mails on variety of e-mail programs and computer settings is the only way to ensure that your e-mails are readable by your audience. Many newsletter providers will provide statistics on your conversion rates. Test and measure your conversion rates. Redesign if necessary to make improvements.

Building your Mailing List with Search Engines

Search Engine marketing is an easy and affordable way to attract customers and generate leads to your website. Entice your visitors with free newsletters, white papers and product demos. Use this opportunity to ask their emails to build your mailing list.

Give your Readers some control

You must consider the recipients requirements first. Give them control. Try to understand what they want. Let them choose the format (text or HTML), of the contents, the frequency of getting e-mail, whether you can send other information, etc. Add a link to your each newsletter to allow your readers to unsubscribe from the mailing list.

Finally, sending message is not your only job. Plan for specific follow-ups. Send automated bounce-back replies. Integrate the e-mail campaign with other channels. Try to generate customer interest in every possible way.

Go ahead, all the best!

2008-06-12T15:00:00.003-07:00

Search engine optimization does not have to be complicated but it does require some work if you plan on having your Website in the top 10 on the major search engines. Many Webmasters want their Websites on the first page of Google, MSN and Yahoo when their keyword is put in the search. Unfortunately they believe one of two things. The first being that it is too difficult for them to do it themselves and the second is that there is a secret trick that will have to perform in order to get high rankings. Both of these statements are false.

Some Webmasters will pay thousands of dollars to a so-called professional SEO expert to have their Websites on top in the rankings. The truth is that you can get top Search Engine Rankings spending a little bit of money and doing the work yourself or paying a professional SEO company thousands of dollars to get your Website on the first page. Both will work the choice is yours.

There are many myths about SEO but I want to tell you the plain truth. The do-it-yourself person can accomplish just as much as the professional. You must be willing to do many tasks of Website Optimization if you want to succeed. There is much information on the Internet on SEO. Some will tell you that the secret to high rankings is creating and submitting many RSS Feeds. Others will tell you that you need quality reciprocal links. Is there just one way of gaining first page on Google?

What is required of Webmasters in order to achieve Top Website Rankings? Some believe that if they perform 3 major tasks of Website Optimization that their Website will soar to the top. I believe that you cannot just do a few works of optimization or come up with a secret trick to achieve a high site ranking on the search engine.

Complete Website Optimization is your best guarantee to having a high ranking on the major search engines. What is complete optimization? Using all of the information and tools to get your site noticed on the search engines with a high ranking for your keywords. If you really want a top ranking and only want to spend a little bit of money I will tell you the many things you will need to do in order to have the first page on the search engines.

Having complete Website Optimization will require many working tasks, tools and much researched information. I’m going to give you the many tasks that you will need to perform to accomplish high rankings.

1.   Accurate Description of Website.

2.   Clear Meta tags relevant to your content.

3.   Having your Text Body descriptive of your main Topic.

4.   Finding reciprocal links.

5.   Quality search engine submission.

6.   Proper wording of document title.

7.   Building high traffic Web Pages.

8.   Tools for validation.

9.   Creating and submitting RSS Feeds.

10. Writing and submitting effective articles.

11. Writing and submitting Press Releases.

12. Creating and submitting Blogs.

13. Building and submitting a site map.

14. Submitting to Web Directories.

15. Classified Advertising.

16. Effective email advertising.

17. Traffic boosting tools like toolbars.

After you complete all of the above then you can be sure that your Website will be on top. If you want the much researched information on complete optimization with many tools to speed up the process then visit website ranking top.

2008-06-12T15:00:00.001-07:00

We are becoming more and more a fast-paced, automated society - so why not our home based or online business? In this article we explore the steps you can take to fully automate your own business - so you can finally take some time to stop and smell the roses....

You get up, have some breakfast and head to your home office for a full 8 hour day of optimizing your web site, processing orders, writing articles and press releases and so on. You know that if you stepped away from the office for a day or week or sometimes even an hour, you stand the chance of losing customers and sales. Wasn't part of the benefit of working from home supposed to be the time you would take to have a life as well?

Home Based Business is quickly becoming the new 'catch phrase' for the common household. Something that everyone should do, (let's not forget the tax incentives and ability to set your own hours) but unfortunately impossible for some who are already working 40-60 hours per week. Whether that is you, and you can't stop long enough to start up a business from home, or if you are the individual who already has a home based business but can't step away from it for any period of time, automating your business is the answer.

There are already a handful of businesses to be found on the internet that are 95% or 100% fully automated. This is reason to celebrate! It makes the idea of starting a home based business more enticing, especially for the individuals who are not internet savvy. These businesses have the selling, explaining and closing feature in place (one of the reasons 95% of new entrepreneurs fail is the awesome responsibility to be able to do those necessary tasks), and most only require the business owner to do the actual marketing of the product, which can also be automated.

For the rest of the populous, those who already have the product do the selling, explaining and closing but want to market their goods or service via internet as opposed to offline media, then automated marketing is also the answer.

So how do we automate business? First we look at the necessary components of business; product and promotion. If you chose to work with a niche market, favouring something you have a particular interest in, then one of the best and simplest, most cost effective ways to startis by opening a store on Ebay. There, once you find your product supplier (if it isn’t your aunt Nelly’s attic) you can set up your auctions a week in advance, then leave the country for a few days while your auctions close (at a profit of course!) and when you get back, set up the next set of auctions and ship the sold products. Ebay does the advertising for you on their site, closes the sale and sends you the purchaser info. Nicely automated.

If you already havea store on the web, you can advertise your new products effectively (and inexpensively / freely) through Search Engine submission, Press Releases and Classified Ad or Ezine Submissions. There are numerous companies on the net that, for a fee ranging from $24 per month to $250 total, will “blast” your ad through classified directories, ezines, and online/offline media, as well as submit your website to 100+ search engine directories, even guaranteeing top 10 placement! Definitely worth the bucks! These too, can be set up in advance, submitted, and then forgotten for a week while you vacation in sunny Mexico.

If you are fortunate enough to have discovered a wonderful new fully automated venture on the internet, then you really have it made! You can set up marketing campaigns through the same “blaster” services and leave the selling, explaining and closing to the automated website that came with your business or through the team leaders that direct your buyers through the sale for you. The Cadillac in internet marketing by far!

Once you have taken the time to set up your campaigns, ads, submissions, press releases, etc. then it is only a matter of pushing a button and watching the sales come in! It really can be just that simple…