Author Archive
FREE Teleseminar: Inspired and Prosperous with Duanna Pang-Dokland and Janet Slack
Posted by: | CommentsOn May 24 at 1pm EST (New York, USA), join us as Duanna Pang-Dokland reveals key takeaways from her book “Inspired and Prosperous: 11 World-renowned Coaches Reveal their Success and Sustainability Secrets” such as:
• How one coach got on the Oprah Winfrey Show
• Why two executive coaches don’t seem to have to market their businesses yet continue to obtain clients
• Whether credentialing is necessary to success
• The one sustainability secret these top coaches engage in that is virtually free
• What mindset to have during downtimes
Duanna will also share insights from her self-publishing process that will help you to avoid common pitfalls and ensure that you’ll have a smooth-sailing journey if a book is in your future.
When you sign up to attend Inspired and Prosperous you will automatically begin receiving our weekly newsletter, Biz Tips for Entrepreneurs and Solo Business Owners, which is released every Tuesday.
What Is Search Engine Optimization? – Part 2
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Click here to read part one of our series on SEO…
Once your site is search engine optimized, you can expect to get more traffic to your site from the search engines. People who may be interested in your site will find it easier if your website is search engine optimized. Most people use the search engines to find what they are looking for when they go online. By having your website optimized and easy to find in the search engine results pages, you can attract more traffic to your website through the search engines.
There are many internet marketing companies that will help you get your website search engine optimized and keep it that way. Some of the methods that they use to optimize a website include the following:
Article marketing
Blogs
Press Releases
Video ads
Google ads
All of these can be optimized in order to incorporate keywords that will make the website appear in the search engine results pages or, in the case of Google ads, land them on pages where they are most likely to find people who will be interested in your website. The entire purpose of making a website search engine optimized is to make it easier for potential clients or customers to visit your site.
Those who may be interested in your products or services can only take advantage of them if the know about them and where to get them. You have, most likely, gone online in search of something that you wanted to buy at one time or another. Chances are that you put the information into the search engine toolbar to pull up search engine results pages (SERPs). You probably sifted through a few pages before you came up with what you wanted.
This is the basic concept of SEO. Those who understand how to use search engine optimization effectively to make their website more searchable are more likely to come up in the first two pages of the search engine results pages and are more likely to have clients visit their site.
There are probably many sites out there that offer you interesting information as well as products or services. Unfortunately, many of them are buried deep in the search engine results pages. Most people, when searching online for something, will give up after going a few pages into the search engine results pages. In some cases, a search may produce millions of hits. Needless to say, you do not want to go through every one in order to find what you are looking for. Most people have neither the time or the inclination to do this.
This is why it is so important for businesses and others who want to have their website noticed make sure that they use SEO techniques in order to do so. By using SEO, a website will no longer be buried in the middle or at the end of millions of results. It has a better chance of getting to the front of the search engine results pages.
What Is Search Engine Optimization? – Part 1
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used in all aspects of web marketing. You need to understand as much as you can about how SEO works in order to get the proper marketing of your website online.
When you use SEO in all of your content – both text and visual, you can draw more traffic to your site. In order to understand how to use SEO, you need to know why people use this type of marketing and rely on it so heavily in order to get the desired traffic to their website. SEO is what gets a website noticed in the search engines.
So what exactly is SEO? This sets up your text, photos and videos so that they are easy to find when someone is searching for them using the various search engines online. While it is often said that Google relies more on SEO content than Yahoo, which relies more on link building, the truth of the matter is that in order for a website to be discovered online, it must come up in the search engine.
For example, if you have a website dedicated to a coaching business, you will want to make sure that you structure your site so that others who may be looking for the services and products you sell will be able to find it online. Those who are looking online for what you have to sell may do it in a number of different ways, although the easiest way for someone to find something online is to use the search engines. Most of the traffic to your website will come from search engine optimization.
You need to know which keywords will work for your website. These are the words or phrases that people will put into the search engine bars to receive the search engine results pages. Many people today are putting in longer phrases into the search engines to narrow down their search.
There are tools that the website owner can use to investigate the best keywords for their website, based on what they sell and what words potential customers are likely to plug into the search bars that will lead them to the site. In order to succeed at this, a website owner must not only know the concept of SEO, but also much about the target market, which is those who are most likely to purchase the products on the website.
If you are just starting out your website, or if you have a website up and running already, you need to know how to use search engine optimization in all facets of your marketing. While there are other ways to market your website and products without using SEO, the fact of the matter is that 60 percent of all traffic on websites comes from those who found the website in the search engines. These people are seeking out what you have to offer and are finding you online as long as you are accessible.
Is it Time for an iPad?
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Convinced you need an iPad to make your life complete? You’re not the only one! The latest estimates say that there are some 7.5 million iPads already being put to use by rabid consumers world-wide, and those numbers are bound to rise even further with each holiday season.
So if you want an iPad, what’s the next step? Here’s what you need to do:
Decide if you want to buy from Apple or from a reseller
I always recommend buying from Apple, because of the added confidence you’ll have in being able to get repairs or a refund if something were to go wrong. Also, if you purchase an Apple product elsewhere than the Apple Store, they will not replace it if there’s a problem. The lower price isn’t worth the hassle; go with Apple.
Decide if you want to buy online or from an Apple Store
With over 300 stores world-wide, there’s a good chance there’s an Apple Store near you. But if you don’t want to deal with parking, lines, and “the mall” (where most Apple Stores are located), you can buy your iPad online with free shipping. Just go to their website or copy and paste this link in your browser to see your choices:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad
Choose a 3G or a Wi-Fi model
There have been problems with the Wi-Fi model; our next door neighbors barely picks up the household signal, even when their iPhone and laptop are picking up a strong wireless signal. If you plan on using it outside your home at all, I recommend going with the 3G; the monthly data plan is very reasonable, and the ease of being able to pick up a signal anywhere is a huge convenience.
Choose your size
$200 for four times the storage space seems like a no-brainer to me, but I’m one who firmly believes that bigger is better, at least when it comes to hard drives! However, if you don’t plan on using your iPad to store videos or audios, you may find the smaller sizes perfectly adequate. Remember though; just as with closets and garages, if you have the space, you’ll use it. And the more space you have, the more you’ll use your iPad.
That’s it. The only other question you may have is what accessories you’ll want, and if you want to engrave a pithy saying on the backside of your iPad (think of it as an electronic tattoo). The process is painless, as it should be. And setting up your new baby will take even less time than buying it did.
Protecting Your Business from Malware
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It’s an unfortunate fact of life that if you do any part of your business on the internet (even if it’s just a simple website or blog), then you’re at risk of an attack from hackers. While we tend to read about the large corporate hacking targets most often in the news and think of hacking only in terms of big companies, in truth every business with an online component is a target.
Even if your website doesn’t collect any personal information from your customers, or have any financial assets that could be stolen, it might still have value to hackers. For example, a hacker that compromises your website could gain access to your web server and use that server to send spam, store illegal files or engage in other illicit online activities.
Stay Current on Security Updates
Hopefully you’re already in the habit of staying current on all the security updates for whatever web platform your website is based upon. For example, WordPress users who stay up to date on all of the underlying security updates are generally quite safe.
But the current trend in web business and web commerce (a trend that is continuing to accelerate) is using custom functionalities and custom applications along with the standard web platform. For WordPress users, one common type of custom web application is a “plug-in” that’s used to provide a new function on the website. These plug-ins can take many different forms, and are currently being used by many websites.
WordPress Plug-In Safety
Many WordPress websites use plug-ins that are available either on WordPress’ own plug-in directory, or through the plug-in author’s own website. One advantage of sticking with plug-ins that are available through the WordPress plug-in directory is that you’ll be able to read feedback from other users who have already tried the plug-in.
For this reason, you might want to avoid using any new plug-ins until there is enough feedback for you to feel comfortable that any security risks are minimal. Positive feedback is certainly no guarantee of a secure plug-in, but that feedback should be helpful to your decision-making process.
If your custom application is truly custom (in the sense that you retain a programmer to build the application to your specifications), then the best way to protect your business is to be confident that the programmer or company that’s making the application for you is highly qualified and has created other secure applications in the past.
Test and Verify
In addition, if your business is large then you may have the budget available to hire a computer security consulting firm to review and verify the security of the code that makes up your custom applications. If you’re unable to hire a security firm to test the security of your custom applications, then you can gain some level of comfort by using the various open source tools that are available, including those at w3af.sourceforge.net and www.websecurify.com.
Because your web presence is so valuable, it’s ultimately up to you to be confident that whatever custom applications you include on your website don’t compromise your overall site security.
