S2Member Framework Download
The Pro version is a complete package that is customizable and supports every imaginable payment system, mass import and export, unlimited levels of paid memberships, Google Checkout, Authorize.net and others. The Free version supports affiliate management, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, and Quick Cache, all imaginable combinations of download and content restrictions, 4 paid membership levels max.

Features:

• PayPal Std integration
• recurring billing
• custom registration pages
• BuddyPress ready
• one free membership level and four paid levels
• limit access to parts of website, based on membership

Paid Memberships Pro Download
Contrary to what their website presents, the plugin is free. They try to trick the visitor by presenting three paid options, clearly visible and large. In fine print at the bottom right you can find a link to the free plugin. You can forget other membership plugins, though. This one is all you need. Unlimited membership levels, access to parts of your site based on membership levels, and Paypal (Std. And Pro) and Authorize.net integration. You can even set up a member forum.

Features:

• content types access restricted by membership levels
• search engine crawlers/bots (for SEO) and non-members access to excerpts
• set up a community forum
• PayPal standard and pro, plus Athorize.net integration
• present your ads only to non-members
• trial periods and other flexible billings

WP-Members Download
It works without modification and it integrates with your theme, without altering the files. Offer membership only content, but understand that this plugin does not prevent someone from downloading the content if they know the direct location. You have to work with the .htaccess file to accomplish that.

Features:

• SEO is empowered by the excerpt option to allow crawlers and bots access
• registration option for CAPTCHA
• tighter integration with your theme than other membership plugins

Pie Register Download
Perhaps you simply want to get more control over your registration process to enforce uniformity with your branding. Pie Register handles this easily.

Features:

• disclaimers
• CAPTCHA
• invitation codes
• PayPal integration
• custom logo
• simply registration fee for membership

Maven Member Download
Although this is not strictly a membership plugin, it does do everything a membership plugin does. Well, except payment integration. In other words, that makes this plugin a failure for memberships.

Features:

• easy setup
• in-post login
• CAPTCHA
• no payment integration system

WP-PaySite Download
There is no website for this plugin, so without installing it you are left guessing. Its best use is for running a membership site for photos and videos, since it has some sort of updating feature for visual media. I doubt this is worth messing with if you are looking for a fully functioning membership plugin. This really is one of the worst we have seen.

Features:

• WP remains unaltered
• dynamic or static possibilities
• thumbnails in all areas of the site are automatically cropped
• free tour section

Conclusion
Membership plugins have a long way to come yet. This area is not nearly as rich as areas like shopping cart plugins. Paid Memberships Pro gets our #1 spot here. There are just no other viable competitors.

WordPress Backup Download
This is perhaps the simplest and most complete solution available. It backs up either everything or just the database. You also set the frequency with which the backups occur. It really is this simple. The problem is that it only allows for emailing the backup, which is an inefficient approach. Also, it goes under the name of Backer.

Features:

• scheduling
• option of all or database only backups
• send to email

Snapshot Backup Download
This is a simple, but thorough plugin. You can set up the automation if you like or run it manually. The backups are of the entire site, not just the database.

Features:

• frequency of backups
• number of backups to retain
• backup to any FTP server
• email notification for each backup

Backup and Move Plugin Download
This plugin is too simplistic. There is no automation not any options. If you only need a button to do a complete backup of your site now and then, this is your plugin.

Features:

• one-button click backup
• super simple
• complete site backup

WP Complete Backup Download
This plugin appears to either be dead or a scraper site to collect your email and spam you. The home page mycodetree.com reads a database connection error. Yet the plugin reads that it does not have my domain registered, that I can do it for free, and that they would like to help me by asking for feedback after I evaluate the plugin. For all this they ask for my name and email address.

Features:

• automated backups
• complete backup, not only the database

WordPress Database Backup Download
This plugin does one thing and it does it well, even if it might not be enough for the task of backing up your entire WP site. There are plenty of options for a precisely customized database backup. It appears, though, that scheduled backups must be emailed, without the option of backing up to the same server your WP is on. That is strange, since there is an option of where to back up to, which include the same server, your computer, or send by email.

Features:

• core WP tables backed up
• additional tables optional
• backup on same server, download to computer, or email the backup
• scheduling

Online Backup for WordPress Download
They offer 100 MB of free online storage, backing up the settings, pages, posts, comments, and database, as well as attachments, media, themes, and plugins. Use the same account for many WP sites and view the history of backups. It includes compression and AES encryption. It is fully automated by nature. You do not have to use the 100 MB online free space. Instead, backup to a zip file for download or have it emailed to you.

Features:

• AES encryption
• compression
• downloadable zip, emailed zip, or online storage
• fully automated
• backup all the site and the database
• backup your entire site that your WP blog is part of

myEASYbackup Download
When myEASYbackup backs up your entire WP site it places it outside your WP structure so it is not accessible to the world. However, when we tested it, the system setting the plugin asked us to first configure refused to show our directory structure. We made sure the path was set correctly to our admin folders, but it still failed. There are more kinks they need to work our of the system before it works straight out of the box.

Features:

• easy data set list
• FTP management of the list
• backed up outside WP structure
• compressed backup

Online Backup for WordPress Download
They offer 50 MB free online space for backups, but this is insufficient for most sites. The plugin also can create a downloadable .ENC file or email it to you. The interface is easy and intuitive. You will be backing up within a couple of minutes of configuring. Scheduling is fine tuned to hourly, every 6 hours, every 12 hours, daily, or weekly. Choose whether to backup each of the filesystem and database. In our test it created a 23.5 MB compressed file and we downloaded it. There was a warning that the next complete manual backup would overwrite this file on the server. The backup was very fast, but we could not get an archiving program to recognize the archive in order to put in a decryption password. Apparently the program does it when you FTP the archive into a specific folder in the plugin tree.

Features:

• DES, AES (128, 192, 256) encryptions
• compressed file
• back up to their server, create a downloadable file, or email it to yourself
• full automation (hourly, 6 hours, 12 hours, daily, weekly)
• activity log with icons

WP-DBManager Download
If you are a database freak and just want complete control over your WP database from within WP Admin Panel, this plugin is for you. It can perform backups of your database, configured to your heart’s delight. You can even schedule automated backups. It depends on mysqldump, which may not be available on every server.

Features:

• full control of your database
• automated backups
• automatic optimization of database
• manage backups from list

BackWPup Download
Wow! This is the winner! It has basic and advanced configuration options that will blow your mind! It is free. Anything you can imagine it can do.

Features:

• file system and database backup
• micro select/deselct anything you want (tables or folders)
• many compression formats available
• optimize, check, and repair database
• backup to Amazon, Google, MS Azure, Dropbox, SugarSync, RaceSpaceCloud, or Email
• Multi-site capability

It was amazing how much development has gone into a type of plugin that serves what should be part of the core features of WP. There were many premium services offering the whole enchilada, but a bit of researched turned up varying levels of backup control. The #1 spot is clearly BackWPup. This was the real gem we found for true backup management, and it is free.

eShop (Download)
When you are looking for a simple and complete shop to put up and manage from your WP site, eShop is your plugin. Upon installation, 6 pages are generated (in the Pages section of the Dashboard):

• Shopping Cart
• Checkout
• Thank You for Your Order
• Canceled Order
• Downloads
• Shipping Rates

All of these are easily customizable, as are product pages or posts. The eShop plugin is one of the easiest solutions for getting a complete shop up and running in no time. Administrating it is also a breeze.

Features:

• generate product pages through WP pages or posts
• customizable options by price and groupings
• fundamental statistics and download sales data
• customizable shipping
• email templates (customizable)
• stock controls and tracking
• many discount possibilities
• multisite compatible
• supports many payment systems
• connect to WP Affiliate to run your affiliate program
• additional code snippets and plugins available for free

wooCommerce (Download)
Woo Themes have created a strong shop for WP. While it is quite complete and rock solid, there are a couple of suspiciously missing items. Importing and exporting products with all their variations should be a given, but are not. Additionally, there is no way to integrate with a POS. This defeats any possibility to supplement a physical store with this shop. Nevertheless, it is still worth taking for a spin. You might need these two missing features, but if not, then you have found your e-commerce plugin.

Features:

• everything is so simple for both the customer and administrator
• a widget to collate most viewed products
• assign a different SKU for each product variation
• clean reporting interface for administrator
• both tax and shipping more than adequately handled
• inventory and stock are cleanly managed

WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart (Download)
Perhaps you do not need a fancy shop, but just a simple shopping cart to plop in anywhere you want on your WP site. Place your shopping cart’s Add to Cart button wherever you like, whether in a post, a page, on in the sidebar. The cart reveals to the shopper what is already in the cart and allows them to add/remove products.

Features:

• Paypal default payment system
• insert Add to Cart button anywhere on your site
• thorough video tutorial to setup a basic site

Jigoshop (Download)
The graphics are beautiful in their Jigoshop theme, but what you are installing does not have these. In fact, to get this theme you must pay $40, though they make it look like they are marking it down just for you from $70. It smells of cheap tricks all over it. Even if the shop is rock solid, there are many others to chose from who do not resort to cheap gimmicks to grab your money. I would say pass on this one.

Features:

• coded on WP core functions
• graph reports of orders and stock
• extensive extensions
• create a shop using shortcodes and widgets
• products can be filtered
• one-step checkout, right upon installation
• affiliate program to resell club membership for Jigoshop

MarketPress (Download)
Here we have yet another who is less than honest. They have tacked on their competitor’s name to the front of their name to deceive people who are looking for the competition into coming to their site. This is a tacky trick that sickens me. It seems to scream out that they do not have a good enough product to stand on its own.

Add onto this that they have no free version and I am staunchly against this company. They have benefited as much as anyone from community software, so should give something back to the community without charge. Having a second product that costs is fine, but to not give back to repay what they received freely is low.

Features:

• digital products are handled well, including limits and tracking
• coupons
• product variations fully customizable
• supports many payment systems
• multisite ready

DukaPress (Download)
Although a business must make money, this one feels like they built a great product and then chopped it up into pieces so you have to buy many different parts to get a whole shop. Also, the demo worked with the Add to Cart buttons, but one Buy Now button failed. This company does not have a clear idea of what it is doing. Use at your own risk.

Features:

• invoices can be printed
• digital products
• shop vs. catalog modes
• scalable system

Ecwid Shopping Cart (Download)
On their WP page they claim it is a free shopping solution. Dig a little deeper and you will find they have a free and a $17/mo solution. There is no problem with charging, but to advertise that the plugin is a free shop is less than honest. Buyer beware!

Features:

• social network integration
• multisite mirrored shop
• many shippers
• many payment systems
• terms & conditions to be accepted
• shopper’s IP basis for real-time shipping estimates

Zingiri Web Shop (Download)
At least they are honest enough to not pass it off as free. Although this is a functional shop, I would not pay money for it. The interface is ugly and lacks certain intuitive aspects.

Features:

• xml file importing
• both orders and stock are managed
• special module for CRM
• AJAX technology
• professional extensions

wpStoreCart (Download)
At their website you are greeted by a popup that says Save over $1,200 off wpStoreCart PRO Unlimited. Only $89.99 until May 1st. Buy once, own all future versions for life! When you get inside you see many wpStoreCart Pro purchases of varying prices, but none even close to $1,200 or even close to $89.99. This smells of another deceitful business trying to milk money from an unsuspecting visitor. The one nice add-on is the desktop notifier for Windows, telling you when you have a sell (free of charge).

Features:

• registration is customizable
• Paypal (free version), more payment options in Pro.
• product variations and properties
• discounts and coupons
• low overhead, real-time statistics
• customer management and history

WP Online Store (Download)
WP Online Store is your basic osCommerce website tucked into WP. You benefit from SEO, but you lose payment and shipping options that they break out and charge for. Ultimately, you would be better off keeping the original osCommerce. The admin area is identical.

Features:

• osCommerce features (minus payment and shipping options)
• benefits from WP SEO, as all other shops do

The Final Word
While every e-commerce business has to earn money, how they do it can alienate potential customers. Every one of these plugins are guilty of deceit and trickery in order to finagle your money from you. The only two that are honest are WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart and eShop. If it does not bother you, go ahead, but I must say that eShop is our #1 choice for an e-commerce shop solution.

Guest post by Daniel Offer.

Over the past few years Facebook fan pages have become ubiquitous for business and websites alike, but are you making the most of yours?

It’s easy to forget that you need to use your Facebook fan page in order to derive value from it. A Facebook fan page is a low touch, easy to use commodity with which you can promote new and existing business initiatives. However, using it requires a bit of consideration and planning. Whilst most businesses have become somewhat used to managing their newsletter, fewer have used their Facebook fan page to its full marketing capacity.

The unfortunate truth is that the number of fans that you have on a given Facebook fan page is meaningless unless you use those fans in some capacity to promote your goods or service. By way of customer engagement and customer awareness you can influence future decision choices.

Could you make better use of your Facebook fan page? Written below is five tips that you can implement to make better use of your Facebook page.

1. Keep your Facebook fans ‘exclusively’ informed developments

Building rapport with your visitors will encourage them to continue to use your products and services. Keeping them informed of the latest exciting developments will encourage them to both follow the development of your products and services, but also encourage them to engage with your service.

2. Offer rewards for reaching mile stones

Offer rewards to your fans for the number of likes. For example, offer to release the new build of your software application once you reach a certain amount of likes – 100 likes could expand the reach of your offering by 10,000 people.

3. Cross promotion

If you don’t have anything to directly promote. It’s important to keep your fans up to date with interesting developments. Perhaps you could strike up deals with other firms to promote their software or application developments. You may be able to earn monies from affiliate agreements.

Also consider swaps – swap cross promotion opportunities may exist. Engage in them and see if they work out for you.

4. Offer Coupon Codes or Limited Time Discount Opportunity

By offering coupon codes or discounts on your Facebook fan page you can encourage engagement on your fan page. Such engagement can encourage additional sales or additional traffic visit.

5. Link Candy

Like eye candy, link candy is a method by which you use to attract attention. Engaging writing is likely to get more likes than writing that is not engaging, moreover, if you can write something interesting, unusual and exciting its more likely to be liked or commented on. The more comments and likes the more that it will appear in your users feeds and thus spread your message.

Guest post by Daniel Offer.

What is a CNAME?

Before baffling you with the technical definition of what a “CNAME” is, let me explain to you in layman’s terms exactly what it is and what it does.

In short, a CNAME is a method by which one can label a resource that is not hosted on your server with a shortened URL.

Let’s assume therefore that you own the domain eggcups.com and you host your website with mywebhosting.com (the names here are irrelevant and provided for illustration purpose only). You have images and files that you host on Amazon S3, Rackspace or another content delivery network and you wish to make it look like those resources come from eggcups.com – how can you do this? With a CNAME.

For example:

images.eggcups.com can link to images.eggcups.com.aws.amazon.com
myexe.eggcups.com can link to 127.31.23.49

A CNAME operates a domain level and therefore is a much cleaner and professional way in which to link resources together than with a clumsy HTML or JavaScript redirect script.

The technical definition of a CNAME is a record or canonical name by which one can create a record in the DNS that specifies a IP which to access.

Why Should I Use Them?

The primary reason for using CNAMES is to give the illusion that a user is still on your domain hosting whilst in fact they are accessing resources from another server that you control.

Example 1: Improve Image Loading Time & Reduce Web Hosting Bandwidth

Assuming that you have already web-optimized your images, this is a great way in which to additionally speed up the loading times of your images. It also reduces the risk that your website is taken offline due to resources of your webhost being over used.

A content delivery network, Amazon S3 for example, will send your images to the user from the nearest server.

Your images will appear as if they are coming from your server – albeit on a subdomain- once you’ve created a CNAME.

Example 2: Software Application That “Calls” Home

It’s not uncommon for software developers to decide that they want their application to call home to check for updates on loading. However, this can put serious strain on ones server when users build up over time.

By hosting the server side script on a content delivery network, you reduce the amount of PUT requests on your server and are easily able to scale your requirements thanks to the cloud.

In this method, your server won’t slow down due to too many PUT requests – in short, your webhost won’t think that your server is under attack from a bot!

Example 3: Large Files & Bandwidth Heavy Items

Let’s assume that you distribute an application albeit as a EXE or ZIP file on your server. The file might be big or small, however, now let’s assume that your linked to by a huge site – your hosting could quickly go offline due to excessive bandwidth requirements. You’d be a victim of your own success.

Using the cloud you will be able to pay for what you use in terms of hosting, moreover, you can give the impression that you are hosting the resources that you are providing on your own server.

How Do I Create Them?

In order to create a CNAME you’ll need access to configuration at a server level. You will be unlikely to be provided this on a basic web-hosting package and will need to request that a web-host makes these changes for you.

An example template to ask for such a change to your hosting would be:

Hello,

I’m writing to request that you create a CNAME:

Can you please create a CNAME on mydesiredCNAME.mydomain.com to resourceurl.com

Thanks and Regards,

Daniel Offer

If, however, you have access to server configuration and you’re feeling adventurous – or you just don’t want to have to ask the web-host to create a CNAME for you. Then follow this tutorial.

Step 1: Open up your Webhosting Management suite e.g. WHM (normally, yourdomain.com/whm if you have it)

Step 2: Search for “Edit DNS Zone” and select it.

Step 3: Select the domain DNS which you wish to edit from the list.

Step 4: Your current DNS settings will be shown, don’t edit these unless you understand what you are doing.

Step 5: Scroll all the way down to see the ability to add another CNAME, you will need to click “select” from the drop down menu to select “CNAME” you will then be able to enter the domain which you wish to link to.

The format is the “subdomain” on the far left, CNAME in the middle and the domain which you wish to link to in the far right. Once you are finished, press “save”. Visit the CNAME to test your changes.

Recommended Content Delivery Networks:
-Rackspace
-Amazon S3

Guest post by Eric Greenwood.

Online storage has seen phenomenal growth in the past year, thanks in no small part to companies like Dropbox. Dropbox and the other services give you a certain amount of free online storage that you can use from anywhere there’s an Internet connection, with any number of Internet-enabled devices. More than just a new trend, it would seem that the time for online storage has really come. Businesses and individuals alike are finding new ways to use this technology.

Here are some ways that free online storage sites can improve your efficiency:

Less email overhead

Sending attachments is one of the least efficient ways to get a file to someone else (or to yourself in another location). Every time you create an attachment, you create another instance of the file. You open up the possibility that the current version of the file will be mistaken for a previous version, and you add to the amount of space being used in your email inbox. Online storage is significantly more efficient than emailing files back and forth.

Real time collaboration

Let’s suppose you’re developing a presentation along with other members of your team. Each of you has data that needs to be added to the presentation, and is responsible for certain elements. Rather than creating a single file that has to be handled one at a time, some online storage services allow you to access that file from multiple locations by multiple users in real time. This saves tons of time in going back and forth, allowing for real-time collaboration.

Mobile access

Online storage has a huge advantage over any other type of storage: you can access your files from anywhere that has an Internet connection. That means no more fumbling to find your USB drive to plug in to give a sales pitch when you’re visiting a client. It means having the data you need at your fingertips. Many online storage services work with multiple devices, as well, including PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

Project management enhancements

here are some online services that integrate well with your existing project management software, and there are other services that provide you with built-in project management features. Regardless of which type you choose, having the ability to attach given files to milestones within a project greatly reduces time spent digging around trying to find the right information.

Effective file delivery

Anyone who’s ever had to send an attachment knows that they’re not always the most reliable way to get a file to someone. With an online storage service, you create a link to send to the recipient, and from that link they then can download the file. While the email with your link could certainly go missing just like an email with an attachment could, the file is still out there regardless, waiting to be accessed.

If you haven’t looked into the world of online storage, do some exploring and see just how these services can increase your efficiency today.

Guest Post by Mohd Aktar.

There are lots of reasons I personally think that Android is better than the iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no way saying Android is a best platform.

I do strongly believe even though that these kinds of are three very valid reasons which make Android a much better platform compared to iOS as well as the iPhone.

1. Open Source

This is usually a very hotly argued aspect of Android, with a lot of people relating this as some thing negative about Android. Many have confirmed that in fact Android being open source leads to a lack of control by Google, therefore results in fragmentation. Through that in mind, however, I believe the good qualities of the open source model greatly outweigh the disadvantages, and here’s what the reasons are.

Developers and producers are free to apply and change Android in any aspect which they wish, which generally opens up the internal system to a huge number of new concepts and improvements. Approved all of these changes aren’t always for the better, however the ability for a developer or creator to design some thing exclusive and customized utilizing Android is there – thanks to the actual fact its open sourced.

2. Application installation

Using the Android platform, you can set up apps coming from the Android Market, from a PC by merely copying the file into the mobile, or possibly transferring via Wireless bluetooth. As a matter of fact, you are able to install home-grown programs just as easy as “official” applications created by Android developers.

For designers, it is a real benefit, since you don’t need to depend upon primarily on an emulator to ensure your application functions properly. A few people debate that this unique opens up Android for possible spy ware, however if done cautiously, it won’t be a major issue.

3. Adobe Flash

Many companies (including Adobe, ironically) are starting to push for HTML5 to start to be the new standard. However, up to the time when that day comes, Flash nonetheless powers a lot of the Web’s multimedia. At the same time, Android relishes full Flash help with Android 2.2, but the one way to even look at Flash video on an iPhone would be to utilize the recently released iOS version of Skyfire.

To tell the truth, I’ve had hardly any problems using Flash on Froyo. I haven’t realized any major decreases within my phone’s overall performance, and doing some thing as trivial as watching a YouTube movie in which it’s embedded on a page is really a good feature. Flash could be a dying star, but whereas it’s still here; Android has it, as well as the iPhone doesn’t.

Hopefully, as Android is continuing to proceed and producers maintain production of better and better gadgets, we will always add to this list. For the time being, however, these are also the points of Android which I feel allow it to be better than the iPhone, and that I inspire you to leave a comment below and make your voice be heard.

Have we missed anything? Is there any feature that has that best? Please share your views in the comments.

Guest post by Muawiyah Haider.

Need of a Multilingual Twitter account:

It has now become essential to get multilingual when talking about your Twitter account. Most of the big companies and brands have taken this step and have gotten many effective and valuable results. Getting multilingual is really very important if you want to get your brand or product known all over the world. Now separate teams and companies are hired for this project. The use of these kinds of social networking sites has now become really essential in the field of internet- marketing.

Handling multilingual Twitter accounts:

With the frequent use of social networking sites around the world, it has now become essential that it must be supporting multiple languages. It has been estimated that one out of two Twitter accounts are used in a language other than English. It is calculated and estimated that in the last year more than 60 percent tweets were outside USA and more than half of them were in a language that was other than English.

Now in this age of globalization where world has now become very small with the help of these social networking sites, it is very important that these social networking sites must be supporting languages other than English. This helps in interacting with different individuals, cultures and customs.

In the marketing world it is of core importance. This is because you need to market your product or brand across the world so tweeting in other languages can help a lot and can prove to be very fruitful. Now Twitter is being used as an advanced and modern tool for marketing and advertising purposes. Brands and small business can create their own pages with their logos, pictures, mottos etc on Twitter to stay in touch with potential audience and keep them updated with all new activities.

Twitter goes multilingual in nature:

Analyzing the importance of other languages availability, Twitter in last October officially announced to provide support to FIGS that stands for French, Italian, German and Spanish languages. Now other languages are also in pipeline. Great! It means that now you can also tweet in other languages as well. It’s really fun and is useful for others who don’t know English language.

How to Tweet in multiple languages?

Now the question arises “how to tweet in multiple languages using your Twitter account??” You don’t need to worry about this anymore as there are several ways of tweeting in multiple languages. It is recommended that you should not tweet in multiple languages using the same Twitter account. This is because it is not helpful for others who use one language and are most likely not to speak other languages. If you are interested in tweeting in multiple languages you can create separate accounts for those languages and start tweeting with your potential customers and prospective clients.

5 Key strategies for Multilingual Twitter Accounts for Business:

Let’s talk about some of the significant strategies that are being used and are recommended for handling Twitter accounts in multiple languages. Following are the significant five strategies used for managing multilingual Twitter accounts for different purposes.

1. Set different feeds and follows:
You need to create separate feeds and follows. It is highly recommended not to tweet in multiple languages using same account. You need to ensure that your content is optimized with your niche keywords. It is used to facilitate users so that they are able to find you through search engines.

2. Try incorporating with a translation service:
Another easy way of managing your multilingual Twitter account is to let it incorporate with a translation service that will allow automatic transfer of your tweets to a human translator and will then send it to your feeds.
Feel free to write your tweets in English and then send it automatically to the translators who will then translate your tweets.

3. Try to include local content:
You must add tweets for the local audience, and you would certainly be requiring the services of a local manager for social media.

4. Try to be a regular poster:
Being consistent is very important. If you cannot be regular in posting then you must hire someone who is able to tweet in regularly, update daily tweets keep in touch with your clientele. This would keep your account lively and users (especially potential customers) will actively participate and respond.

5. Try to be interactive:
Your twitter account must be able to interact with the local users regarding anything. The objective should be to be interactive and by using this strategy you can amplify your profile and rankings in the market.

For languages other than English you should be able to interact with them with what’s going on around their locally. If you are stuck somewhere your strategy should be to change the topic and involve with the local audience on it.

Translating your Tweets:

Once you have decided to go for a specific language/s then the next step should be selecting the perfect translator. There are two different types of translators.
• Human Translator
• Electronic Translator

Human Translator:
A Human translator is considered to be the best possible solution if your budget is not very limited. This is really effective and is helpful in translating your tweets in the required language. Apart from budget restrictions it is still said to be an effective solution for translation purposes.

Electronic Translator:
There are several advanced and modern tools in the market that help you in translating your tweets. By using these tools you can easily become internationally known. But electronic translators have no comparison with professional human translators when it comes to quality and accuracy.

Adapting to the Culture:

Another important suggestion for those who would like to tweet in other languages is that they must try to adapt to the culture in which they are trying to communicate or interact. This is very important and is very much required if you want to interact with different cultures and individuals who speak different languages. You should do extensive research on the culture and customs regarding that language. This really helps in tweeting with the local audience and prevents you from being stranger to them.

Guest post by Jonathan Kagan.

As a publisher, you must constantly keep your finger on your site’s pulse, making sure your visitors are happy, your site content is fresh and that you are enjoying a healthy revenue stream, or at least have a game-plan and on your way to one. There are plenty of ways to profit from your site, and it often comes in the form of text ads (think AdSense), banner ads, or Action-based offers from an affiliate network of your choice. An often overlooked niche, that is gaining recognition for its effectiveness in allowing publishers to gain an extra revenue stream and helping out visitors get what they want, is here to stay. This hot niche is “Free Stuff”. And who doesn’t like something for FREE?

Each time you the publisher think about placing certain ads or offers on your page, you must do a careful cost-benefit analysis. You need to ask yourself the “Is it really worth it?” question. What’s meant here is, will the extra revenue that the new ads or offers bring in, we worth annoying some of my site visitors? There’s always a tug of war going on between the publisher’s desire to increase revenues and the importance in keeping the site visitors coming back again and again. The great thing about “Free Stuff” is that it caters to the needs of both publishers and their site visitors. Visitors get access to some nice Freebies, while publishers enjoy some extra cash in their pockets. While this sounds like every publisher’s dream come true, publishers must be very careful in choosing the “Free Stuff” they offer.

There are plenty of scammy “Free Stuff” offers that are anything but free. Such offers may not only ruin your visitor’s experience, but may do some serious damage to your site’s reputation. Publisher must put all such offers under scrutiny to be really sure that their site only carries QUALITY “Free Stuff” offers. Sounds like a lot of work, eh? Well, it is. There are no shortcuts to growing a healthy revenue stream for the long haul. Another way to go about getting “Free Stuff” offers is via a trusted time tested advertising network that specializes in Freebies or Free Stuff. While such a Network may take a cut from “Free Stuff” offers served, meaning you’ll get paid a bit less than if you were hunting and placing the offers yourself, it may well be worth it to join a reputable network for the following reasons:

1. Time : The network may often grant you access to hundreds or even thousands of offers all in one place. This saves you time, and lets you focus on what you know best: taking care of your site.

2. Quality: Each network has certain guidelines in place to ensure all “Free Stuff” deals are quality offers. This will give you the peace of mind that your visitors will be happy with the offers you present them with.

3. Relevancy : Networks with many offers can help you display “Free Stuff” that is highly relevant to your site’s content. The network I work with provides publishers with unique freebies, samples and trial offers across a wide spectrum of categories. From our past experience, publishers offering “Free Stuff” that is closely aligned with the general motif of their site content tend to do considerably better than their peers who place a mix of offers on their sites in the hope that they’ll be useful or of interest to someone, working off the logic “well it’s free stuff… and everyone loves free stuff”. Recently, we had a high trafficked content blog publisher focused on photography tips and tricks who was running some random offers, join our network. We recommended that he place “Free Stuff” offers from our “Photo” category. Needless to say, the results improved dramatically practically overnight. Achieving relevancy is highly relevant with Free Stuff.

4. Fresh Content: By joining a network you are pretty much guaranteed a fresh inflow of offers and don’t need to worry about keeping your offers up to date. Not only do you save time, but you reap the benefits of fresh quality content that your visitors love, automatically and constantly updated by the network.

Whether you decide to join a network, or be on the constant lookout for new quality Free Stuff offers yourself, one thing is clear, with the right Free Stuff offers, both the publisher and site visitors are left the winners!

Guest post by MarkupBox.

Now a days when technology is suppressing the world and everything is available online, there are tons of ecommerce stores that cater to different user requirements. Paypal has become an integrated aspect of online business. Every ecommerce store needs to have a robust and flexible payment system which should be reliable as well. Paypal has emerged as one of the best payment gateways. So what exactly is Paypal? Read further to find out.

Paypal allows money transfer and payment to be made online. It acts as an acquirer that processes payments for range of individuals and business houses like online vendors, auction sites etc. moreover, it has a small usage fee. The fee depends on the payments options and the currencies involved. Although Paypal is subject to a lot of rules and regulations which govern financial institutions in USA but it has not been classified as a bank. One of the major reasons for this is that Paypal has its deposits in commercial interest-bearing checking accounts and it does not disburse any of it.

Some of the Important Features of Paypal are:
1. It has more than 232 million registered accounts and allows customers to send, hold and receive funds in 24 currencies in a total of 190 markets.
2. Paypal also provides a Students’ account. It was launched in the year 2009. the main aim of this feature is to let teens have access to tools for educating them on spending money wisely. The account can be set up by parents and then they can transfer money into it.
3. Another great feature is that Paypal lets individuals to start business with a worldwide reach. Here Paypal serves as a third party to ensure secure and easy money transactions.
4. It also informs its merchants about the flaws or shortcomings in their online stores so that they can protect themselves from malicious shoppers who try to shop for free from their store.
Like every other technology, Paypal too has its share of Pros and Cons. Let us now look at the Pros and Cons of this service.

Pros of PayPal

Paypal has achieved immense popularity as it offers ease and security while making transactions. This is why Paypal has grown into a company with excess of $2.2 billion in annual sales revenues. Paypal offers a lot of advantages to sellers as well as buyers.

1. It is Easy to Set Up
Paypal is quite easy to set up and has good customization options. All the price options are fully customizable. You do not need to do much beyond copy pasting the existing code and you can satrt selling online within minutes.

2. Good Price Policy
Unlike other payment services that require monthly or regular payment from customers, Paypal requires you to pay only when you sell. Thus you do not incur any loss in case you do not make nay sales.

3. Brand Name
when it comes to online shopping, customers look for brands. The brand name associated with Paypal boosts customers’ confidence in a business store. Moreover, it ensures that credit card and account details of customers are not revealed to the store owner.

4. It is Easy to Execute
It is very easy to execute and can prove to be of great help especially to small vendors and businesses. Paypal does not require much investment of time and money. Thus it facilitates easy financial transactions.

5. It Offers Multiple Account Options
It offers multiple account options to the users like personal account, business account and a student account. Moreover, an individual can also own multiple accounts in multiple categories. Every account has different rules.

6. It Keeps Track of Transactions
Paypal also keeps track of your transactions. It lets you access every inbound and outbound transaction. The accounts are neatly organized. You can also download the complete spreadsheet files that have the details of transactions.

7. It can Accept International Payments and Cards
One of the best thing about Paypal is that it lets you pay and accept payments in 24 types of currencies. One can also make use of debit and credit card to accept or make a payment. The transaction fee is quite nominal, that is, 3.9 percent.

8. It Integrates Payment with eBay
Now that Paypal has been acquired by eBay, the business and premier accounts provide many tools for better integration with eBay.

Cons of PayPal

Although Paypal offers a lot in terms of ease and features, but it does have some disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages can cause serious problems to some businesses.

1. It has Hidden Fees
Although Paypal provides many services for free and the charged ones have a nominal fee but when it comes to non-Paypal payments, the fees charged can be every expensive. Those who have personal accounts do not need to pay any fees for making or receiving payments to and from other accounts. But there is a catch. They have certain limits and restrictions on the amount of money that is moved. These restrictions do not affect much the big business owners but for small seller it is like a big burden.

2. There are Strict Rules
When it comes to security issues, the US government has quite stringent rules. These rules restrict the number of Paypal transactions. Even if there is a slight security issue, the account us locked. And then Paypal takes quite a long time to investigate and unlock the account.

3. Customer Service is Not Good
The customer service is not good. The customer care number is not easily available and even if one finds it, no one receives the call. Also, there are complaints of emails receiving only automated responses. There are also some reports of bank accounts being automatically debited.

4. Verification Process is Annoying
Although the set up is easy, but when it comes to verification process, it proves to be a big nuisance. You are required to provide your account number and routing number. After this a token deposit is made and you are to wait for 5 days to start using your account. And in case you do not have the internet banking facility then you may have to wait for weeks.

5. It has Bad Seller Protection
When it comes to fraud and threats, Paypal is highly vulnerable thus you can become an unfortunate victim of online fraud. Another loophole is that accounts are locked even on a slight suspicion and many times the funds are refunded to the customer even after the products are shipped. If you happen to be a seller, this can prove to be really bad for you. The complain system do not seem to address the issues.

6. It Requires Scripts
Another disadvantage is that you need to use a script to download e-books or other digital products. And when it comes to setting up a script, it can prove to be a very daunting task for most of the people.

7. The Currency Basket is Not so Comprehensive
Although Paypal offers 23 types of currency options but what is bad is that it excludes some important currencies.