Archives for February 2011

What’s the Difference Between Tags and Categories?

What are WordPress Tags? What do they do?

These little tags that you add to your blog posts are used by All in One SEO and the search engines as the keyword phrases of your post. They basically say what your post is about. They also help search engines to find your posts.

Does this mean the more tags I have the better?

No, you don’t want to put any irrelevant tags on your posts. In fact, Google will lower your rating if you put irrelevant tags on your posts. I would recommend about 5 targeted tags that have to do with that particular post.

You’ll want to include the obvious keywords that pertain to your post as a tag. Also include other keywords that people might use when looking for a post like the one you are writing. For instance, this post is about “tags” and “categories” and one might look for “keyword phrases” as well. Be sure to use synonyms for your tags as well. Using 5 tags for each post should be plenty.

Keep in mind who your target audience is. If it’s geographically specific, you could potentially corner the market in terms of having a top search result for that topic. For instance, “small business owners” or “small business owners in Las Vegas, NV” would attract a different set of readers.

How do I pick my categories?

Categories are the broad topics that you would use to classify your posts. Several posts should fit in each category. Find the highest searched related keywords to give you a start on your categories. You can see the highest searched keywords by looking at your Google Analytics reports.

Since the categories are broad topics, it is possible to have one post that fits in several categories. You don’t have to have a post for each category; however, you can have several categories for each post. It is acceptable to have only one post for a single category.

Your categories should be 2-3 words long at the most.

How many categories should I have on a blog?

I would recommend about 5 – 10 categories depending on how many sub-topics you can go into on your blog that still fit with your main blog phrase.

In general, tags can be specific and categories are designed to be general yet relevant to your post.

Here’s a tip: Since I use both tags and All In One SEO on my blog posts, I had to find an easier way to include my keywords without typing everything twice. The tag area likes to put an “X” between each entry. So I use Notepad ++ to do a search and replace to turn the X’s into commas and then copy and paste into All In One SEO. It’s just a small task but it does cut down on some time as I’m not always the best typist in the world. By the way, Notepad++ is a free application. I love free, don’t you?

Best Advertising for Small Business Owners

By SoftwareGirl

Surely by now you’ve heard about the coupon sensation called Groupon? If you’re a small business owner, this is an excellent service! Since the buzz created with Groupon produces paying customers rather than just browsers, I consider this the best advertising for small business owners!

Groupon will use the social networks for you to get the word out about your special offering. They encourage deals to be sent out to friends or being using by friends to add to the fun. Prospective customers can use their social networks to arrange plans and further spread the word about your business.

Groupon negotiates huge discounts—usually 50-90% off—with popular businesses. They send the deals to thousands of subscribers in their free daily email, and they send your business a ton of new customers. These are not just browsing folks on the internet, these are actual paying customers that have already purchased and are ready to redeem their coupon purchase. That’s the Groupon magic!

There are no out of pocket costs associated with being featured on Groupon. They make money by taking a piece of each Groupon they sell. In other words, they only win if you win – and you know what you’re getting at every step of the process.

Since a minimum number of people must buy for the offer to be valid, Groupon guarantees paying customers. These subscribers are not looking for “the perfect deal.” They’re looking for the perfect excuse to try something new. They get them to your business, and you bring them back again and again.

A Groupon feature puts you in front of thousands of subscribers in each Groupon city – with thousands more opting in each day. Their subscribers share your offer with everyone they know via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. This buzz will continue to attract new customers for months following your feature.

Just as you’ve seen people who have appeared on Oprah before they are ready, you should also be ready to receive a flood of customers to your business prior to advertising on Groupon. It makes you look better when you’re prepared and there’s less stress that way! Before advertising with Groupon, think ahead of time about how you will bring these new customers back again and again by offering a special promotion just for them once they visit your store.

Do you have a fitness business and you’re offering New Year New You packages? Perhaps you’d like to offer a special on a cruise celebration once they’ve reached their goal weight to show of their newly acquired physique? Or perhaps you could do a buy one get one at half price special for the cruise or other special event?

Groupon allows you to target a specific area which makes it great for opening up a new area of your town or state or section of the country. Perhaps you would like to couple it with a fund raising event to double your exposure and donate to a good cause as well.

Be ready to create a buzz about your incredible offering and get your message out to thousands of people for your next big launch. Contact Groupon today!

Firefox Extension That Enhances Your Blog

By SoftwareGirl

Are you working smarter or harder? Well today I am going to show you how to blog smarter. What does this mean exactly? I have always found that being organized have having my tools close at hand has always increased my productivity.

I just started using a fantastic little FREE Firefox addon that automatically gives me related links, photos, articles and tags as I type my blog posts. I use it to enhance the quality content and tags in my blog.

No more searching for related information to add to my posts. It appears right on my wordpress admin post page. Let me show you…

How to I get this? Easy! Head on over to Zemanta.com and click on the Download Zemanta Firefox Extension button.

How I Use Zemanta

I do not use the “Links” they provide in my blog posts. Why? It creates “leakage” on my site. I prefer for my readers to stay on my blog and read me articles. I have no control over what someone else puts on their site. I do use them to find more information to write about.

Secondly, I only use photos that are either licensed as Public Domain or I create them myself. Why? Because if they are Public Domain I don’t have to post a link to the source like I would with the other images.

As far as articles go, it is great that they do research for you and give you different articles related to your blog post. I often visit them and read what others are saying about the topic. It’s a treasure trove of ideas for your own blog.

I LOVE that they give me tags for my blog posts. I just need to click on the related tags and it does the work for me. This is awesome! I’ve been using tags since the beginning; but I always felt like I was overlooking some tags…but which ones? Now I know and can include them with the clickety-click of my mouse!

The BEST Part

Let me tell you the BEST part of Zemanta. Above all, this is the main reason I use it… It leaves a little symbol at the bottom of your blog posts that looks something like this:

This little button gets me more backlinks than articles posted to an article directory! However, this only works if you have really high quality blog content.

How it works: Someone visits your blog and falls in love with your posts. He or she clicks on the REBLOG button and is presented with a choice of different quotes from your blog post that they can post on their blog in exchange for a backlink to your post. You get to contribute to someone else’s success and you receive a back link in return. That’s a win/win situation!

This does not mean they get to copy your post. They can only choose one paragraph to quote and you gain a backlink and some free publicity and advertising for your blog.

So if you don’t use Zemanta for any other purpose, use it as link bait! Get your backlinks and increase your search engine rankings.

What are Backlinks and Why are They Important?

Google and other search engines often base your rankings depending on how popular your blog is. The more backlinks you have the more important your blog looks. You want to gain as many HIGH QUALITY backlinks as you can.

Blogging Economics and Disaster Recovery

By SoftwareGirl

Are you getting good value for the money you are spending to keep your blog up and running? Are you overspending on tools for the position your list is in this month?

Hosting can run anywhere between $0.01 (yes, you read that right) and $20.00 per month per website. An autoresponder can cost anywhere between free (yes, you read that right) and $75.00 per month or more depending on your list size. So if you’re beginning, do you think positively and buy the largest package available believing that you will grow exponentially this month or do you sign up for what you need today and upgrade as you need it?

Are there other factors to consider besides price in choosing your services? Some of the factors that might be worth considering would be ease of use, flexibility, support, availability, scalability and speed. Does the tool do what you need it to? If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t matter how much it costs – it’s not worth your time to mess with it!

For a beginner, support is essential! Do you enter a ticket into a help desk system to be answered …. someday (which is not a day of the week) or does a human with a pulse answer your request? When I’m learning something new, I find it to be quite nice to have a friendly voice on the other end of the phone. I don’t mind waiting 24 hours to get an answer; however, I’d like an acceptable answer within a reasonable time frame. If I’m paying a premium price, I’m expecting great service!

Quality in hosting is many times determined by service availability and speed. Did you know that you can get hosting that has 99.9% availability for less than $5 USD per month? That’s not the introductory offer.

What does 99.99% availability mean? Why is that important? Availability is defined by uptime. I.e. the time between failures. It is dependent upon

Downtime and
Recovery Time

Downtime is the amount of time that the system is unavailable due to either failures or scheduled maintenance. Recovery time is the average time it takes to recover from failures. This includes time for detection, isolation and resolution. This is important if you are expecting your website/blog/store to be open 24x7x365 days.

Well, if we consider a 24×7 environment like that of eBay, Amazon, etc then four nines would mean that in a year the total downtime + recovery time is approximately 52 minutes and 30 seconds. And three nines would mean downtime + recovery time of 8 hours and 45 minutes.

Simple math

3 nines –> (365×24) – .999(365×24) = 8760 -8751.24 = 8.76 hours = 8 hours and 45 minutes

2 nines -> (365×24) – .99(365×24) = 8760 -8672.4 = 87.6 hours = roughly 3.5 days!

1 nine – > (365×24) – .99(365×24) = 8760 -7884 = 876 hours = more than one month!!!

Just because you expect that a service will be available 24x7x365 doesn’t mean that it is available for that long. You need to look at your contract. Maybe it is only 24x5x365 (big difference)! That would allow for the system to be down for about 3 months out of a year without a raised eyebrow.

Will Google know who you are if your blog is offline for over a month? Do you have someone technical in your corner who is able to respond in case something technical happens or do you just have a helpdesk e-mail system that will be answered…someday? If your website/blog/store is your sole source of income either now or in the future, this would be considered a mission critical system.

Mission critical systems still fail but when they do there are knowledgeable people available to fix the system 24 hours a day everyday and give you an update of what is going on and when difficult decisions need to be made, they are knowledgeable enough to give you all the information for you to make a good business decision. Even if that means assisting you to move your website/blog/store from your backup (you DO have one, right?) to a different platform until theirs becomes available again.

For your autoresponder, think about what you are currently doing with your system today, especially if you are just starting out and don’t have that large of a list. It is possible to use a system to send 12,000 emails per month to a list of 2,000 subscribers completely free! If you are paying $20 – 75 per month to e-mail 10 people or even 50 people, it may not be the best use of your money this month.

Are you using your autoresponder as part of your membership program(s)? If your autoresponder went offline this afternoon, would that put a kink in your systems? I know it would kink my systems a bit! Once an issue is detected, it should take a very short period of time for you to switch to a different method of communication for your lists and programs. Not all systems that are readily at hand can send out large amounts of e-mail all at once.

The time to identify how to recover from such circumstances is before the issue arises so that you can respond calmly and orderly. Be aware of your contracts and use your resources wisely.

10 Ways to Convert Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Readers

By SoftwareGirl

Do you want your blog readership to grow? Convert your blog visitors into dedicated readers using the following 10 tips.

Visitors are people that stop by your blog, skim through an article or two, and then leave – never to return. They are simply browsing.

But dedicated readers regularly read your blog, spread your articles, leave high-quality comments, and buy your products. These are buyers.

Your mission is to convert your blog visitors into dedicated readers.

What good is 1,000 visitors a day if most of them don’t return? Traffic figures alone might make you feel good, but it doesn’t get you any desired results.

It’s all about quality over quantity. 100 dedicated readers beats out 1,000 passer-by visitors.

Here are 10 ways to convert your blog visitors into dedicated readers:

1. Be Yourself

This is slap-in-the-forehead common sense. But some bloggers try to be someone they’re not just because that type of personality is successful.

Just be yourself. Not only is it easy when you don’t have to force an unnatural persona, but you’ll have a 100% genuine and desirable voice. You are unique and as such you are special.

Are you funny? Be funny. Serious? Be serious. Angry? Be angry.

2. Put the Reader Experience First

What makes you return to a restaurant? Chances are it’s not just the food but the experience.

Great articles alone aren’t enough. You also need a great reader experience. If you want visitors to convert into dedicated readers, you need a website people want to regularly return to.

That means don’t do anything on your blog that’ll compromise the reader experience. Translation: don’t annoy your visitors.

Common offenders: too many popups, ads, social bookmarking buttons, and subscribe links.

Just look at some of the most successful blogs: Daily Blog Tips, Problogger, Copyblogger and so on. No popups, and very light ads, social bookmarking buttons, and subscribe links.

I have even installed a translation button recently after noticing where my visitors reside. If you look at the picture, you’ll see the red dots all over the globe.

I thought I wonder how many don’t speak English? Or perhaps would be more comfortable reading my blog in their own language?

If someone really wants to subscribe or share your article on Twitter, they’ll do it. Don’t annoy and turn them away, losing what could’ve become a dedicated reader.

3. Focus on Benefits to the Reader, Not Your Features

If you want dedicated readers, your blog should focus on what the benefit is to the visitor. Not just your thoughts and ideas but value to a visitor.

Answer the “so what” question for new visitors: what’s in it for them? Why should they care?

Instead of putting the spotlight on what features my blog has, I focus on the benefit to visitors: helping you maximize your life. Ideas and strategies to help you do more of what you love and are passionate about. Not only do I state it in the About page and anywhere else, but that’s the focus I have for each article I write: how can I help and provide value to you, the reader.

Visitors care what you can do for them (benefits), not what thoughts and ideas you have (features). Focus on benefits, not features.

4. Write for Humans, Not Search Engines

Who reads your blog? People read your blog. So write for them.

Some bloggers make the mistake of writing articles solely based on highly-searched keywords. That results in nothing-new, unremarkable traffic bait. They might get search engine traffic, but very few visitors will be converted into readers.

The best search engine optimization is valuable content. Not website tweaks. Not a WordPress plugin. Not meta voodoo. Just content that human’s find valuable.

If people like your articles, they’ll share it on social media, blogs, email, and even word of mouth. You’ll get higher-quality links, too, since it’s interested people linking to you. And, as Daniel here or Darren of Problogger and Brian of Copyblogger will tell you, high-quality backlinks are the ultimate SEO.

Now, optimizing for search engines can help with search traffic. And if you find a keyword phrase that happens to fit what you were going to write about anyway, go ahead and use it.

I don’t consider searched keywords when writing an article. Only once I have an idea down, I’d use the Google keywords tool to see if there’s a wording for the topic that people use most often. If not, I don’t worry about it at all. I never once let keywords dictate what I’ll write.

But put your message first – don’t compromise it. Make search engine considerations a distant second to writing what you have to say.

Write for people first, optimize for search engine traffic later.

5. Be Consistent

Choose a posting schedule and stick to it no matter what. Build a cache of articles or schedule your posts if needed. I recently created a video on how to schedule posts.

Consistent readers need consistent updates to return. Provide it for them.

They’ll know when to expect a new article, just like how people regularly check in to their favorite webcomics and news sites on certain days.

6. Make It Easy for Visitors to Subscribe

The more you have to work to get something, the less likely you’ll take the time to get it. Right? Don’t even try to deny it. That’s why iTunes is killing it in music sales: it couldn’t be easier to find and download a tune.

Be like iTunes on your blog. Make it clear and simple for visitors to be able to subscribe via email and RSS feed. Remove as many doors for your visitors as possible.

A visitor who subscribes is much more likely to convert into a dedicated reader. This is because your visitors can read your latest articles from the convenience of their email inbox or RSS feed reader. Your stuff is sent to them, so even after they forget about your blog they’ll still get your new articles, increasing the chance of them reading regularly (and maybe even sharing or buying your stuff).

Putting an RSS and mail icon in a sidebar isn’t enough. Make the subscribe option on your blog as non-cryptic and easy as possible.

Only a small percentage of your visitors will actually know what what an RSS or mail icon mean. Spell it out for the rest of your visitors, including why they should subscribe (it saves them time and energy because new content is delivered directly to them).

And people love free stuff, so don’t forget to mention that visitors can subscribe for free. Magazine subscriptions still have some thinking that subscribing to anything means paying.

7. Be Remarkable

Be unique. Be great. Amplify yourself.

Don’t try to be the best in some field where you could never dominate. Instead, do what Seth Godin says: create your own category and dominate it. Analyze and figure out your unique traits, then crank them up to a 10.

People aren’t going to be interested in yet another productivity, personal finance, time management, self improvement, or whatever blog that says nothing new. Use #3 (Be Yourself) and amplify your unique traits.

Would you return to a blog that bores you or doesn’t excite you? Of course not. So be interesting to read, and visitors will start converting into dedicated readers.

8. Talk With Your Visitors

It really is that simple: talk with your visitors. Reply to their comments and emails, send thank-you notes if they leave a comment or subscribe, or whatever else.

Use what works best for you (and doesn’t compromise your personal style – remember, be yourself). Email, comments, Twitter, whatever. But use at least one method of communication, so that visitors can form a relationship with you and feel like they’re reading from someone they know (or know that they can contact, at least).

People regularly return to something that they’ve formed a relationship or connection with. Think about it: you care way more about what your friends are doing than strangers.

9. Be Unconventional

Say something new that gets people thinking, motivated, and/or take action.

I’m constantly pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone and become even less self-conscious by writing about unconventional topics (or at least an unconventional perspective on something). Heck, even I would get bored of my own writing if I played it safe.

If your article is no different from the latest blurbs that day, your visitors will treat it at such: a quick skim-through and then move on.

Get visitors thinking and talking and you increase the chance of them coming back for more (and maybe even bringing some friends along).

10. Have Fun

A blog isn’t a cubicle job, so just have fun.

People want to enjoy what they consume. If you have fun writing an article, chances are people will have fun reading it. And people tend to return and consume more of what’s fun and enjoyable.

I have so much fun writing and making music on Lifebeat it should be illegal. Like, I’ll be writing an article or creating a new tune or mix, and an alarm will sound. Woo woo woo! It’s the fun alarm: someone’s having way too much fun.

Have fun, and your blog will be fun – and visitors will start converting into dedicated readers.

Maximize Your Blog Visitors

Maximize your blog visitors by converting them into dedicated readers using these 10 ways.

Your blog will grow, your readership and subscriber numbers will increase, your content will be constantly spread, and you’ll make more money from more products sold. Now who doesn’t want all that?

Have these 10 ways helped you convert your blog visitors into dedicated readers? What other ways have worked for you?

How to Make Money From Your Blog

By SoftwareGirl

A lot of people are really perplexed about how people make money online. There are many ways to do this. Once my students take my free 7-Day Blogging eCourse, I schedule a time for them so that we can map out the many ways that they can specifically make money with their chosen niche.

For beginners just starting out, I will show them how to add Google Adsense to their blogs along with Kontera and Chitika ads. If these words are foreign to you, let me explain. There are two sides to the advertising equation. There are those who buy advertising and those who sell advertising. It’s a very simple concept. Most bloggers just starting out don’t care much about selling advertising; however, getting the money from advertising is something that can hold some interest. Adsense, Kontera, and Chitika are three types of services where you can apply to host ads on your blog. These services will look at your blog and serve up ads that match the content of your blog. For example, if you blog has content about artichoke recipes, you will likely attract ads about cooking, recipes, and such. You will accumulate money by providing meaningful content for your readers and when they click on your ads, you will make money from your blog.

Another popular way bloggers make money is by offering products on their website. It is very easy to affiliate with Amazon to open your own store with products supplied by Amazon and get paid a commission for each product sold from your website. Amazon takes care of fulfilling the order and collecting the payment and paying you the commission. You are even able to pick and choose which products you would like to offer on your blog. You can place one or two products in your sidebar or open a full store if you prefer.

Some people will create their own content and products to add to the offerings on the website. Your knowledge is valuable! You can easily create an eBook about a topic in your niche using Microsoft Word and then saving it as a PDF file. You can then sell that eBook on your blog or website. A friend of mine actually has created his own eBook store where he sells eBooks that others have written. You can find many eBooks at the Gutenburg Project to get your creative juices flowing.

Becoming an affiliate through Clickbank or Commission Junction offers many opportunities to sell other peoples products by posting a review of the product online. The way this works is by signing up with Clickbank and/or Commission Junction, finding a product that fits your niche and then writing articles about the product with links to the product that you’re reviewing. When people read your review and purchase the product, you get paid. It’s just that easy!

The main concept to keep in mind is to provide quality content, products and services for your readers. People are smart and can instinctively sense when something is not being represented accurately. Offer quality and you will receive quality in return. Just as a brick and mortar store has to sell quality merchandise that is dust free and something their customers want, you much do the same with your blog by providing up-to-date, fresh and relevant content on a regular basis so that your readers remain interested in what you are offering.

How to Install the Latest Release of WordPress 3.0.5

By SoftwareGirl

WordPress 3.0.5 Addresses Security Vulnerabilities

2 Vulnerabilities:

Could have allowed a Contributor‐ or Author‐level user to gain further access to the site.
An information disclosure issue has also been fixed that allowed Author‐level users to view the contents of posts which they should not be able to see, such as draft and private posts.

I have prepared a step-by-step video to assist you through the process of updating WordPress to the latest release or you can follow along with the detailed instructions below the video.

In WordPress, log in to your dashboard. In the dashboard at the top of the screen in the gold bar, you will see a message that advises that WordPress 3.0.5 is available.

On the left at the top of the screen underneath Dashboard, you will see an option called Updates with a circle and a number in the circle.

Go ahead and click on Updates. You will now see a screen for WordPress Updates. Click on the Update Automatically button which will launch the update process.

Once it has successfully loaded, it will display a screen telling you the steps that it is undertaking to update WordPress

As you can see, WordPress has updated successfully. From here, you can click on the Go To Dashboard link to return you to the dashboard.

If you have any questions, submit your question on the Ask SoftwareGirl tab.

New 7-Day eCourse Teaches How to Make a Blog

By SoftwareGirl

You’ve heard of a blog but you’ve not really sure if you really can blog to the bank. Having a blog that is monetized properly can introduce 10 or more additional independent streams of income to your business.

A website is the equivalent of a billboard that is passed by everyday by thousands of people…but who passed by? A blog is the equivalent of having a pleasant greeter at the door of your business who can provide your customer with valuable content. It can collect your readers information for you so that you can continue providing information that your customer desires time and time again.

The blog you will learn to create from this training is not the same as a free blog. You will actually own and control the content in this blog. It will become an asset that increases the value of your business. How many other assets can you create that provide 10 or more independent streams of income to your business?

It creates a massive amount of leverage for your advertising dollar. It can help you establish your personal brand and it helps prospective customers get a good flavor for your knowledge and expertise. It helps your audience to identify with the services that you offer as well as learning how they can best interact with your business.

Your blog always gives out the proper information about your business. It never gets sick, goes on vacation, gets sick or goes to sleep. It is available to your prospective customer all the time. It’s never rude or in a bad mood. It always says the exact words you want it to say and gives the impression about your business that you design.

You don’t have to be a great writer to have a blog. There are lots of high school and college age students who can assist you in creating your content for very little money.

This 7-day eCourse is a step-by step tutorial that will guide you to creating your first blog and is available to you by simply providing your information below. You do not need to know how to program or write HTML code. If you can write an e-mail, you can create your own blog!

Take your first step! Get registered at http://monetizationmagic.com/upcoming-classes/ today!