With a growing number of people now opting to use their mobile devices to browse the internet, this should be made a priority. If you want to be sure about this, you can use Google Analytics to check the number of people accessing your blog from a mobile device.

You may also test your blog to find out for yourself how it looks in a mobile gadget. Use Google’s How to Go Mo then go to the Mobile Meter page and enter your website address. An image will next appear showing how your blog will look in a mobile device.

There are certain aspects of a blog that you need to modify in order to have it display better in a mobile gadget such as an iPad or smartphone. Text should be made shorter and the images have to be in the right size without requiring people to zoom in and out on your content all the time. When you are able to adjust them, you can be sure your readers will have a fast and easy access to your site.

You have an option to build a separate website exclusively for mobile devices. This has its own advantages being easy to do, cost effective and requires no technical skill. But there are also downsides particularly as you will need to update two sites every time.

Perhaps the best option is to use a mobile-optimized theme that instantly displays a mobile version of your blog when a person visits your site via a smartphone or tablet.

Image via blogger

It should be noted that the results of search engine optimization do not come overnight. They can take time but if you do the steps consistently, you can be sure to obtain the results you desire at the right time.

Having a blog is a great opportunity to share valuable information and increase exposure to a wider audience. But then again, SEO building should be part of your strategy if you want to improve your rankings in search engines.

The keywords are key. Based on your site’s niche, you should be able to come up with words that people use to search for your blog. Consider words that best describes your brand, products or service. You will have to research about this using a free keyword tool such as Google.

Just a word of caution, though, be sure to use only three keywords in one page at the most. Too little or too much is not good SEO.

Do use titles, heading and subheadings. These three aspects you need to use not only on your home page but also on your blog posts as they are indexed by search engines. Make sure that you use your keywords in creating them.

Do use images in your blog posts. A post that is all text can be quite boring but one with a photo can increase the interest of your readers and encourage them to read the entire post. Also, there’s a good chance that your image will appear in an image search which translates to greater exposure for your blog and articles.

Include valuable links. When you include one or two links to sites that support your article and directs to other pages in your blog, search engines will index your blog and include it in their search rankings.

Image via webmastersdesk

Mega is new file hosting service in the data recovery industry. As a cloud storage provider, it offers both free and paid plans but regardless of the package chosen, the company ensures subscribers of safe storage of their files round the clock, every day of the week.

A 2012 survey on storage purchasing intentions by companies, data showed that 20 percent have already implemented private cloud products, 18 percent have it and will implement hybrid cloud storage while 34 percent plan to use it on a limited basis. In addition, 20 percent of the respondents claimed that cloud storage is already a major part of their storage infrastructures while 25 percent are strongly considering it in their future plans.

In terms of volume, the average data stored in the cloud was 17 TB. Late in 2012, 29 percent of respondents reported having more than 20 TB in the cloud.

Mega: Piracy or Privacy – An infographic by the team at Who Is Hosting This.com

]]> http://jackofallblogs.com/site-news/mega-piracy-or-privacy/feed/ 0 http://jackofallblogs.com/general/great-apps-ideal-for-microvideo-blogging/ http://jackofallblogs.com/general/great-apps-ideal-for-microvideo-blogging/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:31:15 +0000 Teresa Te http://jackofallblogs.com/?p=388 Are you into blogging? How about video blogging or microvideo blogging? Obviously, these are three different things.

Traditional blogging involves posting text and images only while video blogging involves posting videos saved on various video sharing sites such as the most popular YouTube. Microvideo blogging, on the ot her hand, involves posting short video clips that can be easily shared on social media, SMS and through email.

It’s easy to record videos today what with the availability of the handy smartphones. With this handheld device, you can bring it anywhere and take videos of just about anything that fancy you. The best part is it lets you easily share short videos whenever you get internet access in wi-fi hotspots near you.

Fortunately, there are now plenty of apps that you can use for microvideo blogging purposes. Here are a few of them that you might find useful.

Keek

Image: vtechbots

Keek lets users record 36-second video and share them right away on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. It also has its own networking site where people can share their videos and follow others. This app can be used in both iOS and Android powered smartphones.

Tout

Image: inflexwetrust

Tout allows for shorter video recording up to 15 seconds only via iOS and Android powered smartphones. Videos captured can then be shared instantly on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, SMS and through email. Similar to Keek, it also has its own social sharing site where people can create accounts, follow other users as well as view and comment on videos.

Klip

Image: venturebeat

Klip is for iOS devices only and is capable of recording longer videos up to one-minute long. Videos can be readily shared on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email and SMS. Users can sign up to open an account on the site where they can connect with other members, video and comment on videos.
ideos.

In fact, this online tool is also helpful in improving an organization’s marketing efforts on social media platforms. And with a strategy combining blogging and social media, a company or any business owner for that matter can be sure to reap the rewards moving forward.

One way to maximize the potential of your blog is to share every blog post on social media. On Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter, you can share the link to your post. Experts recommend not to do a hard sell kind of status update on the social networking sites. If people see that the post looks like a sales page, they tend to move to another site and not read through what you’ve written.

An ideal way to share a blog post on social media is to make your status update 80 percent informative and 20 percent self-promotional. This is a better way to encourage readers to click on your link and bring them to your blog particularly when they see the first part of the post as interesting to read. If they find the post valuable, they will likely read other articles on the blog and find out more about the author or publisher.

When sharing your blog post, make sure that the image included in your article is also being displayed. Research has shown that a post with photo normally gets more engagement on social media compared to those that provides only a link.

Also, you can mention certain people or businesses in your status updates particularly those you include in the blog post. You can use the hashtag on Twitter and tag them in your Facebook update.

Fortunately, there is now a way to schedule posts on social media sites. This will enable you to share status updates several times in a day without having to log in to your account every time. Facebook allows this but if you want to use only one site to automate your posts, Hootsuite is a popular site to use.

Photo via smashinghub

The details of a business’s operating costs will differ, naturally, but for small businesses, you can expect items such as rent, Internet service provider/s, phone provider, payroll, and office supplies. What can you do to cut back on these expenses? Here are some simple, but effective tips.

Go paperless as much as you can.

Going paperless has a lot of benefits – from saving the trees to more efficient workflow, but it surely does have an impact on the finances. You do not have to totally stop using paper in the office, but imagine the money you can save from not purchasing all those reams of paper and ink/toner for the printer?

Consider switching telecomms provider.

It is an age where choices are practically limitless, and that applies to phone and Internet providers. I am pretty sure that you if you looked around, you will find more than a handful of alternatives to your current phone and Internet service provider. You might find providers that offer bundled services that will cut down your expenses even more.

Get everyone involved in conservation.

Utility bills rank high in the list of expenses. Of course, you can’t totally do without the lights, air conditioning, and other equipment that use electricity. What you can do, however, is to instil a culture of conservation in your business. From the cleaning person to yourself, make sure that everyone imbibes habits that contribute to conserving electricity. The savings may not be all that much, but it does add up at the end of the year.

Go open source.

What software do you use for business? How critical is a specific brand for your business to function efficiently? The chances are that you can work with other software that will not require high license fees. For example, you can go for Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. You can even use Google Apps for better collaboration and access. Why not take a look at how you can make changes in this department? You will certainly make considerable savings by doing so.

Small business or not, if you make an effort to save a little here and a little there, you will appreciate the results at the end of the day.

About the Author
Jeff Mathers has been running his own business for almost a decade. In that time, he’s been through good and lean times in the business, and he’s picked up some lessons along the way. For his Internet needs, he relies on http://www.satellitestarinternet.com/.

Image via Vbridges

Blogs are currently the winner when it comes to influencing consumers. A new report by Technorati entitled 2013 Digital Influence confirmed that consumers now rely on blogs when deciding on their purchases. Specifically, blogs ranked third as the most influential digital resource when making purchases after retail sites and brand sites.

Compared with social media, blogs occupied a higher spot than Facebook, YouTube and even Twitter. Those that provide valuable and compelling content were found to be the most trusted source of people when they decide on what to buy and where to buy them.

For this reason, the experts suggest that companies start a blog if they want to be a major influencer to their regular and prospective customers. The key, they stressed, is to gain the trust of people by providing useful and compelling content on a regular basis.

The report also found that the size of an online community matters. More than half of the people surveyed said a smaller community have a major influence on a particular topic. This means that popularity does not always translate to positive results. When it comes to promoting an important topic, trust and influence counts.

As for social media, there’s no doubt that Facebook is the top choice of brands in their marketing campaigns.

Research has shown that most people hang out on Facebook and companies have recognized its significance in their promotional efforts.

Photo via zachbussey

There are various reasons why blogging should be part of any company’s marketing strategy. It attracts more website visitors, it gains more inbound links and it results in more indexed web pages. A HubSpot report revealed that updating a business blog with at least 20 posts per month can gain five times more website traffic and four times more leads than companies without blogs.

• Your own expertise and knowledge on the products and services you offer.

• If you have created content earlier, they can still be repurposed. For example, you can create a 3-part series from a long article or old posts can be compiled to create an ebook.

• Various resources are already available for businesses to tap for their blogs. Companies with more than 10 employees may have staff who are in the know about industry topics and are able to write well.

• Industry contacts are a good source of information as well and can be interviewed.

• Information and advice from keynote speakers at conferences are another resource.

• Comments and questions from clients can also serve as sources of ebooks, blog pots and whitepapers.

• If you do webinars and podcasts, you can always transcribe the audio file and then share the content on your blog.

Keep these in mind and you’ll never run out of blog posts moving forward.

Photo via serverplus

Google marked the Safer Internet Day on Tuesday, February 5, to raise awareness on the ways people can protect their personal information online. Unaware to some of you, Google launched a site called Good to Know in 2012 as a venue for promoting its educational campaigns particularly on staying safe online. The site also provides guidelines on how to best secure your computer and mobile devices.

Emails and even blogs today are not spared from hacking and Google definitely has some surefire tips to help you deal with these issues. The search engine giant revealed it identifies more than 10,000 unsafe websites on a daily basis and they are taking action to keep internet users informed. Google said it displays warnings on up to 14 million Google search results as well as 300,000 downloads informing users of something suspicious in the site or link.

To ensure that your sites, blogs, social media and other accounts do not get hacked, here are simple yet very important steps you can take moving onwards.

Password

When creating passwords, use long ones that contain numbers, letters and symbols. Do not share them with others and avoid sending them via email.

There’s also a way now to set up your password recovery options. This can be done through your mobile phone, another email address and through the security question feature.

Content

Do report and flag content that you feel is illegal or contains abusive information. You can also adjust your privacy settings with regards to how you want to receive and share content.

Browser

Be sure to update your browser and operating system as well. Always check your source, though, to avoid virus and malware attacks.

Web Address

Most often, we’re asked to sign in before entering a site such as social media and online banking services. To ensure that you’re connecting safely, check that the web address starts with https:// which means the site is encrypted.

Photo via geekersmagazine

Platforms

Blogger is the top bog site used in the U.S. with 46 million unique monthly users. This is based on the 2012 blogging stats.

As for WordPress, there are now more than 60 million sites worldwide that use this platform. Each month, some 33.9 million new posts and 40.9 comments are made on WordPress.com while more than 399 million people view more than 3.5 billion pages. On a daily basis, data from 2011 showed that more than 100,000 new WordPress sites are created.

Bloggers

Bloggers fall into five types, according to the 2011 State of the Blogosphere Report. They are the hobbyist, part-time professional, full-time professional, corporate and entrepreneur. Most bloggers are also young with nearly 60 percent aged between 25 and 44, educated and with experience.

The business bloggers were found to be managing an average of three blogs.

Blogging Habits

Among entrepreneurs, 60 percent normally spend from one to five hours blogging on a weekly basis.

Majority are also updating their blogs about two to three times each week. Most have been blogging for at least two years.

Technorati also revealed that one-third of bloggers have experience working in the traditional media usually as journalists. It also found that 65 percent of bloggers follow brands on social media and that most of them write regularly about these brands.

It’s never too late to start blogging. You can find many resources on the web to help you get started.

Photo via perfectenvision

But in order to have a regular stream of readers, there are vital tools you need to include in your blog. Some of these are the basics which many, unfortunately, overlook.

Start with the anti-spam plugin called Akismet. This is free to use for personal blogs and costs $5 a month for business blogs. This tool keeps track of spam comments and trackbacks and stops them to ensure you have a clean blog that drives traffic.

Allowing comments is a good way to build relationships with your readers and to get feedback. When you know what people are saying about your blog, you can find ways to improve your content. Ideally, asking a question at the end of a post is a very effective method of encouraging readers to post comments and engage with them.

Your blog’s design is as important. The simple, the better. Ensure a clean layout and get rid of clutter in your sidebar. Use text fonts that are eye-friendly and create an attractive header to customize your blog.

Create attention grabbing headlines all the time if you want to attract readers. If possible, use numbers and adjectives to spark the interest of people visiting your blog. An example would be 5 Simple Steps to Write a Blog Post.

Don’t forget to include images in your posts. They can be photos or screenshots particularly if you’re posting how-to articles. Images help improve your post and keep them interesting.

Keywords and links should also be included. They help in having your blog and blog posts easily searched.

For links, you can link to authority sites and request other bloggers in your niche to link to your blog.

Finally, ensure that your blog is mobile-friendly. With more people now having smartphones which they use for a lot of tasks, it’s a must to make your web display properly on mobile gadgets.

These are all for now but stay tuned as there will still be part two of these blogging tips.

Photos via 1stdesigner.com and devilprince.com

A popular method in doing this is to embed a video music from YouTube. All you need is get the embed HTML code and then insert it in your blog or blog post. Remember that when you create or edit a post in your blog, it needs to be in HTML so you can easily add the embed code in there. Make sure as well that you preview your post before publishing it so you’ll know that your player is working fine. Once you’ve published it, try the player again to ensure that it is working properly.

If you want to stream a playlist, however, you will need to use music stream services. These online services allow users to download MP3 music and videos in the thousands or even in the millions at no cost at all and without legal impediments.

The popular ones are Spotify, Rdio, Last.fm. Grooovetube and BearShare. It should be noted that these services differ in what they allow users. Some allow a limited number of songs or limit your tracks to a few artists only. There are also others that require a fee before you can access their playlist.

To use the sites, you will have to create an account and download the streaming music player. The others require downloading of an app before you can download songs from the site.

So make your blog more interesting by adding music to it. Just make sure that it does not get in the way of visitors who want to read your content. Give them the option to adjust the volume level and pause the music when they want to.

Photo via smallbusiness.chron.com

Reports have it that internet usage is rapidly on the rise in the Asia Pacific region. For a 10-year period from 2000 to 2010, the growth rate among internet users went up with Vietnam topping the list at 12,035 percent followed by China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Chinese are the number one social media users and RenRen is where they often hangout. Among Facebook users, India is on the top spot with 29.4 million users followed by the Philippines with 25.3 million, Malaysia with 11.1 million, Thailand with 10.6 million and Australia with 10.4 million.

Internet wise, it’s the Australians that lead. Among the country’s more than 21.2 million population, 80.1 percent or more than 17 million are internet users. Their preferred social media channels are Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogspot and Twitter.

China comes in second with 477 million internet users. This is 35.6 percent of its total population of more than 1.33 billion. The top five favorite social networks of the Chinese are Qzone, Pengyou, Renren, Sina Wriba and Kaixin001.

Hong Kong, for its part, has 4.8 million internet users or 68.7 percent. The preferred social media sites of residents of this once British colony are Facebook, YouTube, Blogspot, Wikipedia and Twitter.

A research group, eMarketer, earlier predicted a rise of social network users in Asia from 1.18 billion in 2011 to 1.4 billion this year 2012. The forecast was based on the growth of Facebook and other social networking sites in Asia. By 2014, the number will have gone up to 1.8 billion.

According to eMarketer, the emerging markets such as Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific will experience the fastest growth. In addition, the group forecast an 18.5 percent growth of users in the Latin American region.

While these statistics especially for Facebook penetration may still be low when compared with those in North America, Europe and Latin America, it is considered to be a significant growth. In fact, Facebook growth is expected to be fastest in Asia Pacific. Specifically, usage rates in India, Indonesia and Japan are expected to go beyond the average growth worldwide of nearly 27 percent.

This only means that Asians are keeping up with the use of internet technology as a way of connecting with friends and colleagues and reaching out to their target market. Many people from Asia also love to travel to other countries within their region and in fact, some of those who often visit Thailand for business or leisure have decided to learn Thai through the short courses available in Bangkok or through online as advertised on their favorite social platforms.

Photo via 21cb.net

There are lots of ways you can promote your blog and using as many as you can will ensure increased traffic moving onwards.

Links

Building links can be done on various platforms. This means displaying the URL of your website or using an anchor text link.

An anchor text link refers to a word or several words that link to the website or blog. It’s also a good disguise when you’re on sites that don’t allow users to display their blog URL.

On your email, for instance, you can use an anchor text link by including the URL of your blog in your signature or hide it in your name.

If you’re submitting to article directories, you can also do it in your resource box. Avoid including a link in the body of your article as most sites don’t allow this.

Social Media

On your social media accounts, you can freely include your blog URL in your profile. Normally, users are allowed to post the URL link of their various websites. Facebook and LinkedIn allow the inclusion of two or more URLs.

Apart from the profile section, you can also include links in your status updates specifically on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. You can include it in your message or you directly share the link of your blog.

On Pinterest, you may include a URL in the photos you upload and share on the site. You can edit them anytime as well.

Bookmarking Sites

Bookmarking sites are another way to share your articles and blogs. They have millions of users who are constantly on the lookout for interesting and useful posts.

Popular sites you can use are StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Delicious and Tecnorati.

Other Blogs

Did you know that you can also promote on other blogs? It’s possible and you can do it in a number of ways.

Comment on blog posts and include a link to your blog or submit a guest blog post on another site closely related to your niche. You may also request for a link exchange or join a blogging community and share information with other members.

Photo via aimzo.com

Target Audience

Knowing your target audience is vital. It’s similar to planning a business in that when you are able to determine your specific audience, you’d know how to tailor your content to keep them informed.

Quality Content

With regards to quality of the information you’re writing, you’ll have to ask yourself if it’s worth sharing by readers with their friends. Keep in mind that an engaging content is one that’s well researched, provides examples and offers solutions to every day problems.

Structure

The structure of your blog post is also essential. Make sure to write an introduction about your topic then proceed with expounding on it and end with at least three useful tips that will solve an issue or can help carry out changes.

Remember as well to use short sentences for easy understanding by readers and subheads to break your sections. Subheads should also be catchy to grab attention and highlight some text for emphasis.

Image

Finally, don’t forget to include an image in every post that you make. They make a big difference in attracting readers and encouraging them to read through the entire article.

Photo via problogger.net

What matters in blogging is you continue to learn about the latest in utilizing this tool and not stop at what you now know. Here, we share some tips from the experts that you can practice moving forward.

Leo Widrich, co-founder of the BufferApp pointed out the importance of treating articles as the product. This means that if you’re writing posts, think about its usefulness to people and if it worth’s paying for. Make sure that you write on topics that people are interested in and provides tips that can help solve their issues. It has to be well researched with statistics if possible to spark the interest of your visitors when dropping by your blog.

Widrich also added that business owners should never forget to reply to comments on their blogs. This will make visitors know that you’re listening and that you value their opinions.

For his part, Jim Belosic who is CEO and co-founder of Shortstack said there’s nothing more valuable than creating original content and sharing your own images and videos. This, he added, improves a blog’s SEO as there’s a big chance other bloggers will link to your post and images. But again, make sure that your photo is relevant to the topic you’re discussing in your article. Search engines are very
particular about relevancy so keep that in mind.

Meanwhile, Emeric Ernoult shares that he only shares his best ever content. Quality blog posts, he said, means sharing content based on your expertise without asking for a fee. When people read and learn from your posts, they often see you as an expert and when you continue with what you do, it’s not impossible that you’ll get more clients in the end.

Finally, don’t forget to engage your audience by asking questions at the end of your post or encouraging them to comment on what you’ve written. Make sure to reply to their comments as well.

Photo via blogwritingcourse.com

What are some steps you can do then to increase your blog’s visibility?

Posts and keywords

Find out which among your posts and keywords are most popular. Use Google Analytics to help you determine this aspect. Some social sharing plugin such as Shareaholic and Digg Digg also provide free analytics on the most popular content.

Trending topics

You also need to find out the trending topics on various social media sites to guide you on what content to write and post on your blog. When Some free tools you can use are Trendsbuzz, LinkedIn Today, Google Insights, Know Your Meme, Hashtags and Topsy.

The why

Think about the reasons why people will share your content. Your goal in blogging should not just be to simply disseminate information but you need to provide value to people. This means sharing something useful such as those that can entertain, educate and help them build relationships.

Headline

Create a captivating headline for your blog and for your blog posts. This should be done all the time. Here’s a tip. Copyblogger’s advice is to use the 4 U’s – useful, ultra-specific, unique and urgent.

Promote

Promote in different ways. Use not only text but as well as photos and perhaps even videos if you can. And promote on various social media sites including Pinterest which a very popular now for driving traffic to websites.

Call to action

Finally, keep visitors coming back on your site. Don’t forget the calls to action at the end of your post or on your blog pages. Provide links to previous content and use the recommended content widgets.

One effective method in driving traffic to your blog on a consistent manner is by using images on every post. Keep in mind it has to be in every post as much as possible.

Isn’t it that a picture says a thousand words? That is always true and come to think of it, people love to see photos whether on newspapers, magazines and on the internet. Putting all text in a post can be straining to the eyes and boring. Some people find it lifeless.

But try putting a beautiful photo in your post and you can be sure to attract visitors. Do this on a regular basis and you’ll also gain regular followers. In short, an image adds color to a post and is
normally the first attraction on your blog post or your blog in general. People view it first rather than read the text right away.

Do remember, however, that it’s not just about putting any photo you like there. It has to be something closely related to your writeup so readers will be encouraged to continue reading. It can serve as an introduction to your post or you can also include it within the body of your article.

Photos in a blog post are also essential in search engine optimization and establishing your credibility. You can attract search engines to your blog by putting meta tags. These refer to the title, description and alt text ofo your image.

Images are also indexed by search engines which means you can expect your blog to be included in the search results. This is not limited only to Google but as well as other search engines such as Yahoo and
Bing.

Photo via curbybet.net

To link your blog to social media sites, there are simple steps that you can follow. They’re fairly easy to do as long as you know how to follow instructions and you have much patience.

First things first. Choose only the social media buttons that you actively use. Avoid putting too many share buttons that can only confuse people. Using only the major social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will be most ideal. The experts recommend three buttons only. What counts is you know where your target market frequently hang out.

If you’re after a well organized set of buttons, you may use the Catchcall Service. This requires only a few lines of code so it should be easy to include it in your blog. The only issue with this is the lack of a strong call to action.

Share This is another service that you can use. You can choose from including a small button, single button or large icons with vertical and horizontal counts.

Some other options available are Sociofluid and Sociable which is a plugin on WordPress.

There are several factors why retailers today need to seriously consider this tool.

Firstly, for search engine optimization or SEO purposes. Search engines index blogs more than websites particularly when their content is updated on a regular basis. This then is your opportunity to show on the top search results when internet users search for products and services. Make sure you utilize relevant keywords in your blog that you think people will use when looking for your business offerings.

A second factor is building your credibility as an expert. As a blog needs to be updated regularly, this is your opportunity to share valuable information on your business niche and gain the trust of internet users. When they see and feel that you know what you’re sharing, they will eventually turn to you for expert advice.

Thirdly, this online tool is free to use. There are different blog platforms available today and they’re fairly easy to use that a background on HTML is not even necessary.

Finally, you can use a blog to update clients and other internet users about your company’s current activities such as mergers and events, new products and other offerings. This is what Apple has been doing to get the word out about their latest happenings.

About the guest author:

Jenine is a business writer knowledgeable about the technologies businesses utilize today to achieve their goals. She agrees that sage retail is vital for retailers committed to succeed in what they do.

Income from this job can also be limitless. As one can work for various people and companies at the same time or set up his own company, a blogger or web content writer can earn as much income as he or she wants per month. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that freelance content producers earned from $32,140 to $166,400 per year as of 2010. This is equivalent to an hourly rate of $15.45 to $80.

But if you think that being in a home-based position frees you from paying taxes, that is not totally true. Even if you don’t have a permanent employer and work on your own or you run your own business, you will still have to pay the appropriate taxes to the IRS normally on a quarterly basis.

Basically, the primary taxes you will have to file depends on the type of business you have. The rates are different for sole proprietorship, limited liability company (LLC) and for an S corporation.

The so-called self-employment tax refers to the amount of tax one pays for Medicare and Social Security. But instead of paying only half which is the case when you’re employed, you need to pay the full tax rate as a business owner. The good news is that you can deduct the total amount on your personal taxes.

You should also know that as a home-based business owner, you can actually deduct your purchases from your taxable income. These include office supplies, furniture and even a car as long as they’re used in running your business.

If you have a home office where you do business, you can avail of the home office deduction. You can deduct part of your rent or mortgage as well as your utility bills but this will be dependent on the ratio of your office space to the entire size of your home.

Photo via globallifebalance.com

If you’re serious about sharing your knowledge and expertise on the internet and getting more web traffic, it’s time you take into account the so-called blog SEO strategy. This is about your blog being searched easily and getting a high ranking in search results.

An ideal blog description uses keywords relevant to your passion or business. These are terms often used by people when searching for a specific topic or business. They may not necessarily be the popular keywords.

There’s also a rule on the number of characters for a blog description. If you’re using the WordPress platform, for instance, the SEO description box recommends at least 160 characters. This is because most search engines normally just show 160 characters in the search results.

For this purpose, your description can include keywords of your blog. If you’re posting articles, however, you may include the first sentences that are closely related to your title. Avoid using your article title because it won’t give you benefits at all.

Keywords play a significant role in gaining a higher rank in search results. They should go hand in hand with your blog description.

A tip here is to use the post categories in your blog as keywords. Remember that they have to be relevant to your blog’s main topic or your particular business industry. Don’t even use your country or state as a keyword if you’re not writing about it in your posts.

To determine the keywords your readers frequently use when searching for your blog or posts, you can use Google Analytics. This tool is most useful in giving you information about posts that rank high on search results as well as the keywords visitors often use.

So keep in mind that for every new post you create on your blog, always provide a relevant blog description to be indexed by search engines.

Photo via szsolutions.com

A research done by Jakob Nielsen found that 90 percent of blog readers will never comment on a post, nine percent will comment once in a while and one percent will leave a thoughtful response that adds value to the post. The majority are called consumers while those who comment from time to time are the contributors.

So how then can you encourage people to post a comment on your blog? Apart from providing valuable and interesting information, what are other ways that you can do to invite people to share their views on what you’ve written?

First of all, do make it easy for your readers to post their comments. Avoid the format that requires them to register because they won’t often do that.

Asking a question at the end of your post is also an effective way. Compared to just stating your thoughts and making a conclusion, a question at the end normally prompts people to comment. Some effective questions are “What do you think?,” “Have you experienced the same?” or “Have any of these worked for you?”

Do make it a point to reply to your readers’ comments. This encourages them to share their views more or provide useful tips as well. Just make sure that you’ve enabled your spam filter so you are able to moderate the messages and avoid unrelated or annoying comments.

Finally, make everybody feel welcome. Avoid replying only to one or two people because this will make some of your readers feel unwelcome. Find the time to reply to all if you can.

Some of these widgets can link to social media sites and your personal websites while the others allow you to show the number of your followers or fans as well as page ranking. So what are some of the popular widgets that you can use on your blog?

Twitter badge – With most people tweeting about what they do today, it would help to put this on your blog if you’re the type who wants to share your tweets with a lot of people.

Facebook badge – This lets you share your status updates on Facebook. You can add the Like button as well if you like.

LinkedInABox – This one shares your profile on LinkedIn.

WikiSeek – If you want to make it easy for your visitors to search Wikipedia, this is the widget to use.

MyPageRank – This displays your Google PageRank and is a good way to attract advertisers as well as potential customers.

CheckPageRank – If you want to display your Alexa ranking apart from your Google page rank, this is perfect to use.

PollDaddy – Are you fond of doing polls to get the opinion of your visitors? Then this widget is ideal as it lets you easily create polls fast.

Google Map — This one lets you display as searchable map on your website.

3Jam — For those who like to be reached through their mobile via text messages without you letting people know about your number, this is the one to use.

The good news today for authors who are passionate about sharing original and quality information is that their name can now be displayed in Google’s search results. This helps internet users easily find useful and valuable information that they need from specific writers. So for example, when a person now searches for a particular topic which you’ve written about, your name will show in the results.

The trick to doing this is to link your content with your Google+ profile. Make sure you create a profile in Google’s social media platform first and include a clear and good headshot photo.

The next step is to verify authorship of your content. You can do this by connecting your articles with your Google+ profile. You have two options available.

First, you can use a verified email address. If you have a Gmail account, you can very well use this.

Secondly, you can set up authorship by linking your Google+ profile with your content.

What will happen then is every time you publish new content, it will also show on your Google+ profile. This is a great opportunity to gain links and +1s to your articles wherever they may be posted.

Finally, do not forget to include the +1 button on your website or blog and use the author markup to link your content and Google+ profile page.

Photo courtesy of Techlila