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.

What would you do if you lost everything in your Gmail account? It’s happened to some people – some Gmail users recently suffered a data loss. Gmail was able to get everything back for them eventually. However, it woke many people up to the possibility of losing everything in their account.

If you use Gmail, chances are your life is stored in those archived messages. So how do you protect it?

A Variety of Choices

There are actually many services you can use to back up your Gmail. Backupify is a paid service that backs up Gmail, Facebook, Flickr, Google Docs, Twitter, and many additional web applications. It’s a “set it and forget it” type of backup security system. Another option is to use TrueSwitch and back up your Gmail into a Hotmail account. Gmail Backup is another free option for backups. If you prefer to have all of your backup data in your possession, rather than stored on an outside server, then consider Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s free email application. If you use Firefox as your browser then you may be familiar with the application. The steps to backup with Thunderbird are easy.

Step #1 Download Thunderbird

Simply visit the Mozilla Thunderbird download page and click to download. Save the set-up exe file on your computer. Once it is saved, open the file and click “Run” to install.

Step #2 Change Your Gmail Settings

In the meantime, log into your Gmail and change the settings to enable POP for all mail, and set Gmail to keep its copy.

Step #3 Finish Installation

Follow the procedures to finish the installation and set-up for Thunderbird. You can import your Outlook or Outlook Express settings if you use that software.

Step #4 Back In Gmail

On that same settings page “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” in Gmail, you’ll see a link at the bottom of the page. It says, “Configure your email client (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, iPhone) Configuration instructions.” Go ahead and click the link. Follow the instructions for Thunderbird and you’ll be good to go. Your information will now be backed up on Thunderbird and you’ll have a second tier of protection.

If you like to have a third tier of protection, consider backing up everything to an online service. This way, if you’re ever hacked and they gain access to everything, you haven’t lost anything.

When you become a solopreneur there are a million things that you are responsible for. If you can, outsource your needs to those who are better qualified to handle it for you. One of those individuals could be an accountant.

As a solopreneur you may not need an accountant starting out. With the advent of bookkeeping software like QuickBooks, you can enter your financial information. There are instructions to help you keep everything organized.

As your business grows you may hire others to work for you – full time, part time or on a contract basis. There are additional tax concerns as well as financial obligations. If you don’t have time to deal with it, then it may be time to work with someone else.

Hiring an Accountant

You have options for accounting services: hire an accountant firm or hire an individual accountant on a consulting basis. Depending on the scope of your need, you may want to start out with the latter. As the company grows bigger, you can then consider bigger issues like investing company funds, retirement accounts and such.

To find the right person for you at this time, here are some tips.

Know what you need – Accounting firms can handle such responsibilities as tax return preparation, analyzing your books and preparing fiscal statements. A part-time accountant can deal with the more day-to-day activities like balancing the books, taking care of payroll and bill payment.

Check their credentials – You want a person who is qualified for the job to handle your financial needs. Whether using a firm or contracting an accountant, know how they have been trained. Interview them. Ask for certification verification, work history and recommendations. Also ask about their specialty in accounting if they have one.

Check their work history – What type of accounts have they handled? Were they large or small?

Time commitment – Even if they are working on a consulting basis, does the accountant have time to handle your work? You will need some face-to-face time with them. If that can’t be managed when you need help, then maybe you will want to find someone else.

Ask for referrals – Do you know other small business owners? Who do they use for their accounting needs? Use this as a starting point.

Check references – Ask questions about your potential accountant. Be diligent in your pursuit. You want to find the right person who will handle your job with as much attention as any of their larger accounts.

At some point, your business may need the services of an accountant. Choosing the right one to handle your financial affairs is necessary to keep you in the black. Use the above tips to make the best choice possible.

You can now get instant access to 350+ Social Media and Internet Marketing gifts absolutely FREE.

Stephanie Mulac, Queen of Giveaways, is returning for her second giveaway event of 2012. The Ultimate Social Media Giveaway is a time limited event with a MASSIVE collection of FREE Social Media and Internet Marketing products and services….

You’ve heard it from me many times…

Social Media is HOT right now with millions of users worldwide logging into popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ each and every day.

9000+ jobs were created last year thanks to Social Media – so I think it’s fair to say that having the necessary knowledge and skills needed to use a range of Social Media sites, is definitely something you will benefit from!

The Ultimate Social Media Giveaway hosted by Kerry Russell, Stephanie Mulac and Paul Teague will only be open for a VERY LIMITED TIME – just a few weeks in fact! So if you don’t want to get left behind in 2012, then you need to jump on board as soon as you can.

Here’s just a small sample of the 100s of FREE gifts that are available for you to download instantly once you join the event with your name and email address:

* Social Media Marketing Sniper – Paul Mueller
* Create Your Social Media Success – Ruthi Backenroth
* How To Get 10,000 REAL YouTube Views In A Week! – Karl Reynisson
* The Ultimate Twitter Pack – Mieke Janssens
* 30 Free Ways to Get Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less – Suzanne Morrison
* Social Media 45 Day Traffic Plan – Lianda Ludwig

And 3 items from me…
*Looking Good on LinkedIn
*How to Do Facebook Marketing the Right Way and
*Pinterest for Biz!

Here’s the link to get whatever you need for YOUR social media marketing.

Like any giveaway of this size, you will need to spend some time sorting through the offers to find the gems, but I am sure it will be well worth it. This REALLY is the largest collection of Social Media and Internet Marketing information you have ever seen!

Hope to see you there

http://ultimatesocialmediagiveaway.com/go/742

One of Google Analytics long-requested features is the ability to analyze the data people type into the “site search” search box. Finally, Google has delivered.

This new feature allows you to find out all kinds of data about your customers. It allows you to get into their heads, figure out what they’re looking for and better provide exactly what they want to find.

Here are a few of the main reasons why you should have site search in Google Analytics.

See What People Are Looking For

What are people who come to your website actually looking for?

Let’s say you run a website about solopreneurs. You cover a wide range of topics, but it’s very hard to tell what people who land on your site are actually looking for.

With the site search analytics, however, you can quickly figure it out. For example, if you track your searches you might find out that most people are really interested in how market their business using social media. You can then gear your site more to that angle.

See What People Search For … Again

Let’s say someone searches your site and doesn’t find what they’re looking for. What do they search for next?

This can tell you even more about your customer. For example, let’s say someone types in a search term about how to create a YouTube video. If they don’t find it, their next term is about videos in general.

That can tell you they’re really just interested in creating videos. But if the second term is then on lighting and sound tips, then you might glean that your visitors are interested in creating videos that look professional.

See What’s Returning No Results

When someone searches for content on your website, how often do they turn up no results? What queries are people searching for that get no results?

If you can identify common searches people type in where you’re showing no results at all, that’s a simple and easy way to improve the customer experience.

You know what people are looking for and not finding. Create that content and your user satisfaction will go up right away.

See What Group of People Are Most Likely to Search

Is your PPC (pay per click) traffic more likely to do a site search than your SEO traffic? What about returning visitor versus new visitors?

This can tell you a lot about what kind of people are coming to your website. For example, if you’re getting a lot of site searches, that probably means people are seeing your site as an encyclopedia-type website.

On the other hand, if you have a low search rate from all but one segment of traffic, that could mean that that one segment of traffic is having trouble finding what they’re looking for. After all, most people don’t see your site as an encyclopedia, but one group in particular is trying to use the search box to find what they’re looking for.

These are some of the many benefits of the site search in Google Analytics. It’s not the most important metric of all, but it’s absolutely a metric you should be paying attention to.

Don’t you just love technology? A few short years ago it really wasn’t possible to run your business from your phone. Now you can do almost anything with the help of applications for your iPhone.

Writing/Editing

There are a number of apps that let you view and edit documents directly from your smartphone. One of the most popular is called Documents to Go. It lets you view and edit documents right on your phone.

You can also find text-based writing tools like PlainText and iA Writer that are inexpensive and easy to use.

Desktop Communication

You can use the GoToMyPC app to connect to your work computer. This makes it easy to access your work files directly. No need to plan ahead. You can also use Apps like Dropbox and CloudTalk to share and store information that is accessible both from your computer and your smartphone.

Communication

With Skype you can have voice chats (and video chats if your device has a camera) with customers and contractors.

You can also use dictation applications like Dragon and QuickVoice to record your thoughts or create business content or documents.

Payment and Invoicing

PayPal offers an easy to use payment application that lets you send invoices and manage your account from your smartphone. Many banks also offer applications that let you manage your account from your phone. Intuit, the makers of Quicken and QuickBooks also have a payment processing application called GoPayment that you can use on your smartphone.

Blogging

Like to blog on the go? Check out the WordPress application that makes it easy to write, edit and publish blogs from your smartphone.

Social Networking

There are myriad applications to manage your social networking for both Facebook and Twitter. You can post pictures, comments, and stay in touch with your friends from just about any mobile device. Check out Friendly and the iTunes Facebook app for Facebook. Check out the HootSuite application for Twitter.

Organization

Last but definitely not least are the wide number of organization and brainstorming applications that you can find to not only grow your business but also to manage it from your phone. Check out MindNode for mind mapping applications. Evernote and One Note are both fantastic note taking, clipping, and organizational tools.

And don’t forget the basics. You can access your Google accounts with Google applications which means you can check your AdSense earnings, analytics and of course you can check your email too.

Smartphone applications make owning and operating a business easier than it has ever been before. You can network, invoice, pay bills, brainstorm, publish content and launch new products – all from your phone.

Most word processing software programs don’t come cheaply. Even the most commonly used, MS Word comes at a hefty price tag if it wasn’t preinstalled on your computer. If you’re looking for a top-notch word processing software that is absolutely free, don’t look any further than Google Docs.

Google Docs is Google’s answer to a web based documents system. To use the software all you have to do is have a Gmail account or go to http://docs.Google.com and register for a Google account. It’s absolutely free. In addition to word processing, you can create spreadsheets, forms, and presentations.

Once at the Google Docs website the rest is easy.

Step #1

Click on the Create button in the upper left hand corner.

Step #2

Choose the type of document you want to create. If you’re familiar with Excel, MS Word, and PowerPoint, these document types will look and feel familiar.

Step #3

Once you’ve made your document choice a new document will open. If you have chosen to create word processing document you’ll see the same type of toolbar at the top of the page. You can format your content the same way you would a Word document. You can choose your font type, size, and formatting. You can justify the page right or left, highlight, list items, and include text links.

Step #4

After you have created your document, the final step is to save it and here’s one of the ways where utilizing Google documents really pays off. You’ll save your document as a Google document. It won’t really ask you how you want to save your document. And it will store the document in a main folder or you can create sub folders, this allows you to label and organize them how you see fit. Whenever you sign into your Google or Gmail account you will have access to all of your Google documents.

Step #5

If you want to export the document and store it on your desktop or hard drive all you have to do is click on the file menu and choose “download as” from the pop up list. There you will see that you have the option to download the document as HTML, Open Office, Text, Word, RTF or PDF. That means if you’re sending the document to someone who uses MS Word, you can download it as a word doc and send it to them quickly and easily.

Step #6

Here’s the final reason Google documents is a great resource, you can share your documents by simply clicking the word “Share” in the upper right hand of the document toolbar. There you will see you have a number of options including sending a link to the document to a person, emailing the documents to a person or persons, inviting people to view the document or publishing as a web page. This makes collaboration very simplistic.

Google documents is one resource that makes creating, editing and sharing documents quick and easy and perhaps best of all, it’s extremely user friendly and it’s free.

Conducting keyword research is likely to make up a large part of your online activities. You’ll need to know what keyword you’re targeting for every blog post, article, squeeze page, and sales page you write. You need keywords for anchor text, blog commenting, and domain names. Finding them is easy but keeping track of them can be a little daunting. That’s where keyword research tools can help make your business easier.

Google’s free keyword research tool is perfect for discovering new keywords you might not have considered, comparing the viability of hundreds of keywords at a time, and judging the commercial intent of your chosen keywords. What it lacks, however, is tracking.

For example, once you’ve chosen your keyword, written your blog post, and done some backlinking to help it rank better in the SERPs, you may want to keep track of how you’re post is performing. That’s where paid tools like Market Samurai can help.

Market Samurai allows you to enter your URL and keywords, and will tell you where your site ranks for each keyword you choose. It also keeps track of this data so you can watch trends and make sure your efforts are working. Finding your site’s rankings can also be accomplished via free tools like SEO Book’s Rank Checker, or simply by searching yourself, though that will take more time than simply tracking it via a paid tool.

Another important component of the Market Samurai tool is the ability to see a visual representation of the competition for any given keyword. Using a complex algorithm, Market Samurai evaluates the top-ten websites for your chosen keyword and produces a color-coded chart that allows you to see at a glance whether you will have an easy time ranking for that word, or if you’ll need a PhD in SEO to land on the first page of the SERPs (SERPs = Search Engine Results Pages).

For business owners, it’s probably best to use free tools to manually discover keywords and track your site’s performance. Doing so will ensure you have a good understanding of the theory behind the paid tools, and will help keep you from becoming overwhelmed with all the information available to you. Once you have a thorough understanding of keywords, how they’re used, and what actions on your part have an effect on your site’s rankings, using a paid tool like Market Samurai can greatly increase the speed of being found on Google and make your business easier.

Keyword Research

In all of Internet marketing, one bit of advice is repeated again and again – do your keyword research. But to a solopreneur, an adventure into the mystical land of keywords often ends in confusion and frustration. Fortunately, learning how to do keyword research is quite easy.

First, understand what keywords are. Simply put, a keyword (or key phrase) is the term an Internet user types into their search engine of choice when they’re looking for the answer to a question. If they want to know how to create a Powerpoint Presentation, they might type in “Powerpoint Presentation” or “how to create a PowerPoint Presentation” or “creating Powerpoint Presentations.” These are all keywords.

Next, you need to find out which is the best keyword for your purpose. This can depend on a lot of factors, but most commonly you’ll want to know how many people, on average, search for that exact term. Optimizing your page for the term “bad Powerpoint Presentations” won’t earn you a bit of traffic if no one ever searches for that term.

There are a variety of tools available for conducting keyword research in prices ranging from free to several hundred dollars per month. While the paid tools are able to do many fancy calculations like analyzing your potential competition and discovering the number of backlinks your page has, the free tools are more than adequate for initial keyword research. One of the most popular is Google’s own keyword research tool, which you can find here: www.adwords.google.com/keywordtool

To begin your keyword research, simply type your basic keyword into the box marked word or phrase, enter the captcha code (the anti-spam code), and click search. Google will present you with a list of words and phrases related to your chosen keyword. Clicking on the various headings will sort your list accordingly. If you want to find the keywords with the highest number of searches locally (local in this case is your country), click “Local Monthly Searches” and the list will sort itself.

For basic keyword research, you can ignore the column labeled “competition” as that is relevant only when choosing keywords for an Adwords campaign. It has nothing to do with keyword competition. You should, however, change your search preference from “broad” to “exact” in the left column. In a later post I’ll explain the difference, but for now just be aware that exact match means what it says, while broad match can be quite misleading.

Learning how to do keyword research is important for everyone who has a presence on the Internet, but it doesn’t have to be complicated or cumbersome. In most cases, simple keyword research using free tools is adequate.

Tablet sales are sweeping the country. Best Buy has confirmed that since the iPad came out, laptop PC sales have dropped by over 40%. Over 15 million iPads have already been sold, with many more to come in the future. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, getting your website tablet ready is now a necessity.

Here’s how to get your website tablet ready.

Make Your Buttons Larger

Buttons that are easy to click can be very hard to press on with a finger. Remember that a mouse pointer is only a few pixels wide, but someone who needs to click on something with their finger is often much less precise.

Small buttons are frustrating for tablet users. Enlarge the buttons on your site so it’s easier for tablet users to use.

Use CSS to Make Your Width Fluid

Rather than using a fixed width, which looks very strange on the tablet, go for a fluid width CSS layout.

This allows the CSS to adapt the page width to whatever device is displaying it. If it’s on a large screen laptop PC, it’ll expand its width. If it’s on the small width iPad, the CSS will shrink the width down without distorting the website.

On WordPress? Get the OnSwipe Plug-In

If your site is hosted on WordPress, then get the OnSwipe plug-in to make your site tablet friendly.

OnSwipe is a plug-in already used by 18 million blogs, with integration features that make it easy for tablet users to view and use the website.

Cut the Flash

Unfortunately, Apple has decided not to support Flash on both iPads and iPhones. If you have a flash-based website or a website that has Flash incorporated in it, chances are your website won’t display properly on the tablet.

Flash has traditionally been quite a slow media and has had other disadvantages as well, such as not being able to be spidered by search engines. If you want to be tablet friendly, now might be the time to cut the Flash from your site.

Test It!

Finally, get an iPad and test out your new website version. What’s the user experience like? What do you like and what do you find frustrating?

Make any changes you need to make, then have a few friends and associates test it out on the iPad as well. Continue this process of refinement until you’re happy with your new, tablet-friendly website.