Think about the design of your site and how you want it to look, but remember you cannot please everyone’s tastes, but my biggest advice is to keep the design as simple as possible, without too much clutter. This is a great article about design for your blog – the 4 principles of sound design aka C.R.A.P.

Content

The content of your blog is what will keep people coming back to you, so it has to be good quality and accurate. Readers want you to solve their problems – they are online looking for answers to their particular issues, so give them a ton of quality, accurate and interesting information.

Promotion

This is where the hard work comes in – there are so many ways to generate the traffic you need to your site – you might want to check out my posts on traffic generation strategies Here is  some  really great information on Blog Promotion

Build your community

Combine your blogging efforts with social media to build that community you need. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are your weapons in building that all important community of raving fans. Of course it goes without saying that you have to pay attention to the above 3 points in order to be successful in building your community around your business.

Related posts:

1. 7 Tips For Social Media Success in 2010

They have all been well received, even though they only scraped the surface of the subject really.

However I still feel that most business owners still have the impression that social media, with blogging sitting at its hub, is something which has still to fully arrive and may not even be necessary for their business!

Perhaps if we all close our eyes, then it might disappear and be replaced with something more friendly and less threatening?

I don’t think so!

Maybe we will return to our Yellow Pages and newspaper ads, like the good old days!
I don’t think so!

Social Media is here…. Social Media is now….Social Media is here to stay!

It is already massively affecting what we do and how we interact.

From a business perspective, it is hugely impacting how we find, evaluate, and share information on products and services we may wish to purchase.

From a customer perspective it is changing the ways in which companies need to listen to us, and engage with us if they wish to succeed.

So there are still many companies who seem to believe that they can ignore it or avoid it – well, they can certainly choose not to actively participate but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be involved. If people are talking about them, as they probably will be, then they are involved.

If they choose not join in the conversation it means that they have no say in the discussion and so no control over what is being said about them – good or bad.

So those companies and individuals sitting there and thinking that they will not need to get involved, or insisting that it is not for their type of business, I say they will have to jump on that Social Media bandwagon at some point so why not get involved now and get ahead of your competitors.

It will certainly be beneficial and you never know, you might even enjoy it too!

Related posts:

1. 7 Tips For Social Media Success in 2010
2. 5 Tips For A Top Social Media Plan

Determine your target audience

Who are your prospects – no it’s not everyone – you must really stop and think and determine who the people are who need what you are offering.
When you have decided who those people are think about where they hang out online.
Do they visit certain forums or blogs – do they prefer Twitter or another social site.
Now when you know who they are and where they are you also need to know what they want and need, what their likes and dislikes are.
You could try writing a profile of your ideal customer – right down to their age, education, hobbies etc. This will allow you to target your networking more effectively.

What is it that your ideal customer really wants?

What information does your customer need from you.  Provide that information for them – they will love you for it.
Keep them right up to date with news relating to your products and services and direct them to relevant and timely information.
Identify the benefits of your products and services and make sure your customers know these benefits.

Plan your content creation

Where are you going to find all this great content for your readers and followers?
You can trawl all over the internet or you could set up alerts like Google alerts.
Do not forget to retweet interesting posts on Twitter.
Set yourself a time limit for your social media maintenance and use that time – do not forget that time can so easily run away with you!

Write down your plan

I love mindmaps and you can get free downloads of Freemind or Xmind and try it out.
Or create a calendar where you can see at a glance what you need to do and when. You can use Google docs for this.
Don’t forget to record the keywords you will be using in your social media plan.

Schedule and automate the content

Decide on your schedule of content creation and schedule and automate as much as you can.
Be very careful when automating not to create a loop of duplicate postings. Twitter, Facebook and blogs all have the ability to post to each other so map this out.
Also always do a certain percentage of live tweeting and updating, because you can often tell the difference.

So you really do need a written plan. It will never work  if you are randomly posting here and there, and have no objectives set. Knowing your target audience is also crucial so that you can find the right people to follow – the ones who will be interested in your products and services!

Related posts:

1. 7 Tips For Social Media Success in 2010
2. Social Media Is Here….. Social Media Is Now!
3. 7 Tips for Home Business Success

We are all touched in some way by the power of social media every day, but many business owners are still hesitant to harness that power for their company. There are a few things you can do to ensure success with social media in 2010, and here are my top 7 tips.

• Social media is a set of tools to get you closer to your customer to begin the process of relationship building. It is all about people, so do not forget to give value and listen.

• Social media content, in the form of blog posts, tweets, videos, etc. allows you to demonstrate your value to, and build relationships with your prospective customers. So tweet and blog regularly, be interesting to your audience.

• Too many businesses are lacking in direction when it comes to social media. You do need a sound strategy and a goal-driven plan to achieve your objectives.

• Always listen and you will learn. Every single product out there is talked about on the Internet. Whatever product or service you sell, you can listen in to the conversation on blogs, Twitter, forums and social networks and have a front-row seat into customer thoughts and points of view.

• You have got to know your audience. Connecting with people is the goal of social media, but what if those people don’t want to connect? Ask your customers what they want from you in social media and how they want to receive it – do they like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, podcasts.

• Think about your keywords. 80% of consumers use search engines to find local businesses and social media content factors prominently into consumers’ ability to find you! Keywords are the terms people type into a search engine to find what they are looking for. When you’re engaging in social media, use keywords that identify what you sell and that differentiate you from competitors.

• The great thing about social media is that it makes marketing and building your business fun and puts you in contact with real, live potential and real customers who are listening to you. Return the favor by listening to them too and commenting on their posts so that they know you’re listening.

Related posts:

1. 5 Tips For A Top Social Media Plan
2. Social Media Is Here….. Social Media Is Now!
3. 7 Tips for Home Business Success

Did you know that the Google search engine processes 1.4 million search requests per minute!

Have you ever wondered how a small business could appear in the list of Google’s local results.  The local results are the lists of businesses that appear at the top of Google search results with their location on a map.

In order to list your business here, all you have to do is register your business at Google Local Business Center.

It is very easy to register, and you can include additional information like photos, videos,  business hours, testimonials and a link to your website.

Google’s local search results appear when a searcher combines a search item with a geographical place name, i.e., “Hairdressers Manchester.”

The results are sorted by their relevance, which is often heavily weighted by the result’s proximity to your own geographical location.

For some searches that do not include a geographical location, Google will display local results based on Google’s knowledge of your current location, based on how you access the Internet (ie your IP address).Just search “hairdressers” and you will likely see a list of local results as well.

Google’s Local Business Centre has many advantages for small businesses – the main one being that Google Local Business Center is absolutely free, unlike the Yellow Pages, direct mail, or even Google’s own AdWords programme.

Google Local Business Center is one of the Internet’s  hidden treasures and the new way to search for local businesses.

Related posts:

1. Getting Better Visibility on Google: An Interview with Google’s Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts gives his usual great advice -- this time about getting better visibility on Google:-

• Just think about what people will type in to find your site and use those keywords on your page.
• “Title tags matter”, when people search on Google the title tag is what people see, and is the first impression of your website.
• The description tag is a short summary of what your website is all about and is also often shown to users when they search on Google.  So if the title and meta description are in good shape, that is what people will find and they will know that your site is the one they are looking for.
• Matt says that a blog is one of the best ways of participating in the conversation that is happening on the web all the time. A blog is great for any business and it does not have to be complicated.  You can talk about things like your weirdest customers, what made you decide to start a small business.  Do not forget that if something interests you then it probably interests others too.  People start to participate and get to know more about you and your business, and start to form a more positive perception.  Participating on other social media sites helps too.
• Provide facts and tips about your business that others will be interested in -- you will generate interest and gain natural back links.
• Google crawls all  sites for free and frequently.  You don’t have to do anything special or pay Google anything.  Just make sure that Google can find your website as above.
• You don’t rank higher on Google if you buy advertising.
• Submitting a sitemap helps Google to find your site more easily.

Related posts:

1. Google Local Business Search

Wow! What a fantastic experience it was.  This was my first event and will not be my last!

Met loads of fantastic people, and listened to some great speakers, including Jit Uppal and Stephanie Mulac as well as Alex himself of course.

Because I live in the Uk and it is so fabulous to visit the USA we decided to combine this Internet Marketing event with a long vacation.

So I am looking forward to some time in San Diego followed by a cruise to Mexico.  I am in such a great mood that I wanted to give you all a gift.

If you click on the link below you will receive access to Alex Jeffreys ‘Post Launch Profits Secrets’.  Enjoy!!

http://www.sueworthington.com/free/ajplp

Here is a photo of me with Alex Jeffreys at the event.

Stay tuned for more gifts from my vacation coming soon.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• home business internet
• allintext: “Top Commentators” “Powered by WordPress “
• allintext:top commentators and powered by wordpress
• internet home business
• success mindset
• wordpress blogs

No related posts.

Press releases can be a very effective way to  generate traffic to your blog.

You can generate thousands of visitors, within a very short time.  You can also get quite a few incoming links  which will help to push your site and your press release up in the search engines rankings.

It is generally after a week or two, when the release begins to be get noticed by the search engines and starts gaining rankings, that you start seeing traffic.

In order for your press release to get the traffic you want, it must be crafted correctly. You will need to place your keywords in the title and throughout the release, much like you would optimize an article.

Below are  three reasons why it could be worthwhile using press releases to drive traffic to your website:-

Press Releases Bring An Immediate Rush of Traffic:

• A press release can bring you an immediate rush of traffic. News outlets and even other blogs are looking for quality news for their sites, and you can provide this with a press release.  If your release ends up on the right site, it could mean thousands of dollars and visitors for you.

Press Releases Rank Well in the Search Engines

• If you write a properly optimized press release, in a couple weeks, you will likely see it in the top 10 for a targeted keyword. However, to make this happen, you have to optimize it like you would an article, choose a niche or keyword that is not ultra competitive and submit it to the right PR company. There are many free PR sites that will get you decent rankings, for the right keywords.   PRWeb gets great results if you are willing to spend between $40-$80. Remember, you must pick a keyword that is not ultra competitive and you must optimize your release.

Press Releases Are Objective

• A good press release is not a glorified sales pitch, and should  offer good, newsworthy information phrased objectively. More people will buy from you, if it is not simply a sales pitch. So don’t include phrases like “best product ever,” or “buy now.” Reporters and blog owners won’t pick up your story and readers won’t believe you, anyway.

Here are some examples of press releases.

You can submit press releases monthly providing you have news that is interesting and current.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• millionaireprofitsecretsreview org

Related posts:

1. My Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 2 – Web Directory Submissions
2. Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 4 – Pinging
3. Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 11 – Squidoo Lenses

It helps to generate traffic to your blog if you have links from other sites.  I have covered linking strategies and also blog linking strategies in other posts, in my ‘Traffic Generation Strategy’ series of posts.

Creating a squidoo lens is like an amalgamation of both techniques.  The lens will contain separate information form your blog, but is your ‘virtual real estate‘ in that you own it and create the content for it, and you can link from it to your blog and vice versa.

My multi blogging strategy (available when you subscribe to my list on the sidebar) describes exactly how to link your blogs together across different platforms.

You must stay tuned to get my new report ‘The Link Wheel’ when it is published.

Your lens can contain information on any subject you like, and can be monetized by Adsense and Amazon links.

Squidoo is used to generate income for charities – 5% of  any revenue earned through lenses is donated to charitable causes.

So your own Squidoo lens is a webpage which is very easy to create and can be used to drive traffic to your main blog.  I have seen Squidoo lenses described as Article Markiting with extra ‘OOmph’, and I guess that is a fairly good description.  So you basically can write a (fairly large) article, but when you add it to your lens, you can then add modules to make it different and special.

So it is called a lens because it focuses on one single subject.  When choosing your title use your long tailed keyword, and also in your URL.  You also need to select from the category list which subject most closely matches your niche.

In your bio box you can put your links to Twitter and to your blog.

So although you still need to drive traffic to your lens, you are now beginning to create a ‘Traffic Wheel’ with your blog at the hub of the wheel, and your other platforms shooting off from the centre.  The wheel begins to form when you start to link not just from your blog to other platforms but also linking these other platforms to each other.  Fantastic!!

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Is A Squidoo Lens And Why Should I Build One? (ronmedlin.com)

Related posts:

1. Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 7 – Link Your Blogs
2. Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 9 – Article Marketing
3. My Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 2 – Web Directory Submissions

I use social bookmarking as part of almost every post I make.

If you read my post entitled  ‘Writing The Perfect Blog Post’ you will see the specific technique I use in each post I make.

However, that technique involves social bookmarking other sites on which I have commented.

I also bookmark my own posts too – not every one though.

It is a horribly time consuming task though and really tedious.

You have to create accounts at every social bookmark site – now I know this is only a one off task but it still takes time.  Then you have to log in to each site every time you want to make a bookmark.  I was finding that it took hours just to bookmark one single post – most of us busy bloggers simply do not have the time to do this properly.

My favourite bookmarking tool is Bookmarking Demon.  It is a great tool and I also like it because it is a one off payment rather than a monthly fee.  You do get all the upgrades as they are released.  It automates the whole process of bookmarking for you!

If you would like to know more about this fantastic piece of software I have a Free report which you can download here:-

http://www.sueworthington.com/recommends/bmdemonintro

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Bookmarking (slideshare.net)
• Social Bookmarking – Day 2 – The SOCIAL Behind Bookmarking (engagedlearning.net)
• Social Bookmarking – Day 1 – Intro (engagedlearning.net)

Incoming search terms for the article:

• leads traffic home based business
• home business success
• site:sueworthington com download

Related posts:

1. Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 9 – Article Marketing
2. My Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 2 – Web Directory Submissions
3. My Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 3 – Other Directory Submissions