Which is Better - Blogger or Wordpress

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter
http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm


Blogging is very popular today. The two main blogging platforms are blogger.com and WordPress. The platform that will work best for you depends on many factors. Learning the advantages and disadvantages of each will help you make that decision. Blogger allows you to put up a blog quickly and easily. There is no need for you to have a website or a domain name. Blogger hosts the blog for you. Registration is free and takes only minutes. Once you are registered, you can immediately begin to set up your blog. Templates are provided for you to use and can be easily changed at any time to give your blog a new look. When you add a post, you simply name it and, if you have a website, link it to your site so visitors can easily visit your site by clicking on the title. Type in your text and preview it to be certain it looks good. Then publish it. Your blog is now live. If it's this easy, why would you not simply choose Blogger and be done with it? When you get done posting, you need to ping your blog. Let blogging networks know you have just updated your blog. You can do so by going to Pingomatic.com and entering the name of your blog and the URL address of your blog. Click on the websites you want to ping and you're done. If you don't take time to ping, there's a good chance no one will find your blog. This pinging is not hard, but it is an extra step you need to take when you post, unless you are posting for just family and/or friends. The fact that Blogger is hosted at Blogger also means they can delete your blog at any time. You don't have total control over your blog. Chances are this will not happen, but it does tend to make many marketers worry a bit. WordPress, on the other hand, is hosted on your hosting service. You use your domain name and the WordPress blog is in it's own folder. You have total control over your blog. Once setup, it is very easy for you to post to it. You go into the administration area and write a post. When you are finished, you click to publish it. If you have setup WordPress properly and have listed auto posting at Pingomatic, your post will automatically be pinged to the blogging networks. You do not have an additional step. There are also many templates for you to use and it is possible to configure these templates to fit your needs. Once again, you have more control. However, WordPress can be a little complicated to install and, to take full advantage of it, there are many different plugins you will need to install as well. This can be a bit of a daunting task and something you might not want to be bothered with. You do have to have a domain name and you have to have web hosting set up. These costs may limit the number of different blogs you might want to publish, whereas Blogger allows you to make as many blogs as you want on different subjects and you never pay anything. Some people have blogs using both platforms. You need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each and make your decision accordingly. The best way is to dive in and give it your best shot.


Tom Taylor BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)
http://online-business-centre.com/
Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter
http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm
This article may be republished so long as the resource information is left intact.

Affiliate Marketing with a Twist - The Free Way to Easy Money

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter
http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

Article marketing is nothing new. But applied to affiliate marketing it is the easiest way to make money online. And best of all, you can do it without spending a dime using only free tools available online. This is all you will need: - A free keyword research tool - A free text editor - A free Clickbank account - A free Blogger account Do a quick search on your favorite search engine and you will find these free tools very easily.

Quick cash blue print:

1 - Keyword research: Using your keyword research tool, search for low competition keywords. Those are keywords that have at least 300 searches a month and that have less than 5000 competing pages in Google (when entered between quotation marks like this "keyword"). Try to find 5 to 10 good keywords related to the same topic. The idea is to focus on keywords for which you can get a first page ranking in Google, Msn and Yahoo. Hint: If you have no idea of which market to target, start by checking popular phrases like: how to, purchase, get rid of, help, cure, tips, etc.

2 - Find a digital product to promote Go to Clickbank.com and find a product related to your topic. Choose one that pays at least $15 to $20. Generate your affiliate link and write it down or save it in a text file on your computer.

3 - Article writing: Write an informative article (approximately 400 words) focused on each of your keywords. Put your keyword in the title and in the first and last paragraph of your article. Also sprinkle it throughout your copy. You can also throw in a few other keywords related to your topic. This will help you rank well. Most important, write a great bio box that will make people want to learn more and click on the link to your blog. Put your keyword in your bio box as an anchor text link to your blog.

4 – Set up your blog. More and more article directories will not let you put your affiliate link in your bio box. So your blog is going to be your landing page. The idea here is to put up a simple blog that will presell (not sell) your product and make people click on your Clickbank affiliate link to go to the sales page. Hint: set up a blog for every product you promote and give it a keyword-focused name.

5 – Submit your articles to article directories. You will need to find article directories with a PR of 5 or more. These are the ones Google likes and it will help you get a first page ranking in the search engines and drive tons of free traffic to your blog. Post one article a day on each article directory and do not post the exact same article to more than one directory. Hint: Your best choice is Ezinearticles.com. You will need good quality articles, but it is the most powerful directory online. Alternatively you can use Goarticles.com.

6 – Rinse and repeat! Article marketing is a game of numbers. The more articles your submit, the more money you will earn. But every product is not going to be a winner. Some will do well, some will not. So test a new product every week putting up 5 to 10 focused articles each time. That is all there is to it. This may seem to good to be true, but it really does work. Off course it will take a couple of weeks for money to start rolling in on a regular basis but the magic of this method is that once you write a money making article it will generate residual income for months and maybe even years -- without ever costing you a single dime.


Tom Taylor
BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)
http://online-business-centre.com/
Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter
http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm
This article may be republished so long as the resource information is left intact.

Building a Business Selling Other People's Stuff

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter
http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

Do you want to work online? Do you want to build your own business? Do you have a dream of working for yourself, from home, where you could work as many or as few hours as you like and still make a good living?

A lot of people have that dream too, but what's the best way to make it come true?

Chances are when you start on this journey, you'll end up joining some get-rich-quick schemes and multi-level marketing programs; but you'll soon realize that only a select few make money this way, and unfortunately the odds are against you.

However, there are in fact many multi-millionaires being made online.

Most of them are selling their own products they've developed; but nearly all of them are also selling products as affiliates.

What does that mean? Selling as an affiliate means working as a commissioned salesperson, or making money selling other people's stuff!

While the product owner takes care of billing, customer service, refund requests, tech support and so forth, the affiliate just recommends the product to others, and gets a hefty sales commission for doing so... which can often be as high as 50-75%, and sometimes even 100%, for digital downloadable products.

Why would a product owner offer such high commissions? They do it because 25-50% of your sales, and every other affiliate's sales, add up to a lot more than 100% of their own sales. In other words, they wouldn't be selling those products at all without you.

Why would anyone offer 100% commissions? Because they want to give you a good reason to promote their product (usually at a fairly low price point so they don't mind giving up the sales money) in exchange for building their list of opt-in subscribers. Everyone who pays you the 100% commission for the product also ends up signing up with the product owner to download it, so it’s a win-win scenario.

Now here's the biggest question: how do you get people to buy products through your affiliate link when it seems everybody online is promoting the same thing?

There are numerous ways to get the attention of a customer, which leads them to buy through you.

1. Pay per Click Direct-to-Merchant

Many people are making great money online by purchasing clicks from Google AdWords or other pay per click search engines, and sending that traffic directly to the product owner's sales page through their affiliate link. This can be very profitable if done right. The main drawback is that only a couple of people can use the same domain name when promoting through AdWords, so rather than using your affiliate link as it is, you should create a redirect link. The other drawback is that the traffic you have purchased may be interested in other products you're promoting, but you don't have contact with those people once they've clicked through to the sales page, so that’s a lost sales opportunity.

2. Pay per Click to a Landing Page

This method uses the same type of pay per click advertising, but sends people to your own landing page first. You can offer a review of the product or some other type of unique content, before offering the visitor your affiliate link to click on if they like your review. Again, once the people click through to the sales page, you won't be able to contact them anymore.

3. Combination of Pay per Click and List-Building

This method is very similar to #2, sending people to your own landing page first. However, the idea is to have them opt in to your newsletter list before they get to see your review or the sales page. Once someone is on your list, you'll be able to send him or her related offers down the road. But be careful that your landing page is not just a "squeeze page" with an opt-in form and no content, which goes against Google’s AdWords regulations.

4. Combination of SEO and List-Building

If you don't want to pay for traffic or worry about operating within Google’s pay per click terms, you can go the natural search way and build traffic through SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. This takes a different resource – your time -- in order to properly optimize your page. You will also want to research how to do it the most effectively. However, many super affiliates are to the point where all their traffic comes naturally from the search engines, and they get thousands of visitors a day.

To combine SEO with list building, you would once again offer an opt-in form to the visitor so that you can keep contact with them. Otherwise you’re letting them leave as easily as they came, which is a waste of your SEO efforts.

As you can see, there are numerous ways to get traffic to your sites and build your affiliate marketing business. If you choose an option that involves opt-in list building, then you'll also have a growing list of subscribers who know, like and trust you, and will buy much of what you recommend.

Another way to stand out is to offer a bonus or rebate that nobody else offers. You'll make less on each transaction if it's a cash rebate, but not everyone will cash in on your offer, and you'll also have more sales overall.

With a little ingenuity and effort, you can be a super affiliate in no time.

Tom Taylor
BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)
http://online-business-centre.com/
Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter
http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm
This article may be republished so long as the resource information is left intact.

15 Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use:

1.) Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to "Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts" by TNL.net

2.) Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo it is indexed by Yahoo.

3.) Submit to Google's Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS to Google's Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

4.) Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

5.) Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time you add a new post.

6.) Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as AltaVista, and MSN.

7.) Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ. Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google. DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

8.) Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

9.) Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy comments like "I agree." Leave well thought out replies that will force readers to wonder "who wrote this?"

10.) Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few interested readers from the linked site.

11.) Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards, business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible know your blog exists.

12.) Ad a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

13.) Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups, Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE group services and find like minded people and talk with them. Make sure your use your blog URL like it is your name.

14.) Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own site and leave.

15.) Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted across the web. Sites like Del.icio.us, Technorati and many others have a social feature that allows you to place your article under keywords or "tags" that everyone interested in that tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive traffic to your blog!

Tom Taylor

BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)

http://online-business-centre.com

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

This article may be republished so long as the resource information is left intact.

Gear Up Your Site for Social Media Marketing

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

The year 2006 saw the emergence of social media. If you are engaged in operating a website, you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traffic.

You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new form of interactions in more and more sites and they may have an expectation of the same from your site also.

If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus this year should be on the social aspects of your site.

Social media use technologies like RSS, blogging, podcasting, tagging, etc. and offer social networking (MySpace, Facebook), social video and picture sharing (YouTube, Flickr), and community-based content ranking (Digg, MiniClip) features.

The central theme of these sites is user generated contents used for sharing among the end-users. The social aspects of these sites are to allow users to setup social communities, invite friends and share common interests.

You don't have to change your site completely within a month or so to take advantages of these new technologies. Introduce small changes incrementally through out the year and you will be on your way to meet these new challenges.

The first step is to declare who you are to the online community. People should be able to relate to you. Unless they know more about you, you will be just an unknown identity and most people don't like to deal with unknowns. Create an About Us page and list your achievements and skills.

Create a MySpace page and link your bio in the About Us page to the MySpace page. Also provide a link back from the MySpace page to your website. Spend an hour every week to develop your online social network in MySpace. Invite a few of these new friends to write blog articles at your site about your products or services.

Install a free blog software and start publishing at least one article in your blog. Provide an easy bookmarking feature to social bookmarking sites like delicious. This is done by providing an action button for each article in your site. The action button takes users to the submission page of the bookmarking site.

Also, provide an action button for direct posting of blog articles to digg. Digg is a popular news ranking site. A well dugg article will bring thousands of visitors to your site.

Provide a forum at your site for users to discuss your products and services. Don't delete negative comments because they provide insights into the improvements needed to serve your visitors better. However, censor hate speeches and meaningless bantering. Register your forum at BoardTracker. BoardTracker is a forum search engine.

If you are offering products, allow users to review and rate your products. This will help you in inventory management because you may want to discontinue low rated products.

Provide RSS feeds for your new products, blogs, forum postings, etc. An RSS feed provides teasers of your contents. Users will use RSS readers to scan your teasers and visit your site for more information if the teasers draw their attentions.

Publish all your feeds at feedburner. Feedburner provides media distribution and audience engagement services for RSS feeds. They also provide an advertising network for your feeds. If you have quality contents, you will be able to monetize your contents using their services.

Create short how-to or new product videos and post these videos in social video sharing sites like YouTube, Google video. Provide a few start and end frames in these videos to introduce your site with your site url. Post these videos using catchy titles, teasing descriptions, and appropriate tags to make them discoverable.

Provide embedded links to your posted videos in your site. This will save your bandwidth and storage space because the videos reside in the video sharing sites.

Besides videos, use social photo sharing sites like Flickr to share pictures related to contents in your site. Use the same title, description and tag techniques discussed earlier for social video sites.

Provide a Send to Friend feature for all products and services you offer. This feature is a link that sends the article, product description, etc. to a recipient via e-mail.

For starter, Yahoo provides a service called Action Buttons (search for Yahoo Action Buttons) that add links to your website for users to share, save, and blog about your website. The Yahoo action buttons use delicious for social bookmarking, and Yahoo blog site for blogging. It also has a print feature.

The social media is not a fad. It is here to stay and bring in profound changes to web surfers' experiences. It is the right time for implementing features that will make your site social media friendly. Also, using marketing techniques that utilize popular social media sites, you will be able to bring traffic to your site.

Tom Taylor

BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)

http://online-business-centre.com

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

This article may be republished so long as the resource informationis left intact.

How to Boost Your Traffic and Profits with Content!

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

Are you aware of how vitally important and valuable CONTENT is to your online business? In fact, content can do more to build your business and profits than just about any other resource or service available.

Following is a list of 5 key ways that content can help build your traffic, subscribers, and customers starting today!...

1. Boost your search engine ranking and daily visitor count by posting keyword rich articles and content on your web-site. For example, if your business involves offering products and services related to fitness, posting fitness related articles and content will attract unlimited prospective customers on a regular basis!

2. Generate double or even triple the number of newsletter subscribers you do currently, simply by offering content in the form of "special reports" or manuals as bonuses for subscribing to your publication. People love freebies, so give them what they want and watch as your results increase!

3. Create an automated cashflow by using content to formulate multi-part email training courses with related web-site or affiliate links "sprinkled" throughout each course. Use an autoresponder service to automate the delivery of your training course (such as a 5 part training course delivered over a 5 day period).

Training courses can also serve as excellent bonus offers for your prospective newsletter subscribers.

4. One of the most important keys to a successful online business is not JUST having a list of mailing list or newsletter subscribers... It's about building a trusting relationship with your subscribers (ie, "cultivating" your list)...

By sending informative articles (content) to your list on a regular basis you will establish yourself as an expert on your topic of business, as well as gain the trust of your subscribers over time. As a result, your subscribers will be EAGER to take advantage of your "paid" product and service offers. (Just make sure that you NEVER take advantage of the relationship you develop with your list by offering products or services of poor quality just to make a quick buck!)

If there is one "constant" in Internet marketing, it's this: A cultivated list of subscribers is as good as money in the bank. Write that down and never forget it!

5. Another excellent way to generate no cost traffic is by submitting ready-made articles to "content hungry" web-site and newsletter publishers with your "resource box" attached. A resource box is nothing more than a little 3-6 line "bio" about you and/or your web-site - including a link to your site (or even instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter)...

When submitting or offering your article(s)
for reprint purposes, just make sure to
specify that each article is to be reprinted
"as is" with your resource box attached.

...Even one article can go a LONG way towards generating no cost traffic and visitors for you. Just imagine your article being sent out to a newsletter subscriber base of 100,000 individuals - many of whom will be reading YOUR included resource box and clicking on your URL to learn more about what you have to offer!

Well there you have it, 5 sure ways to build your online business exponentially with the help of articles and content...

With the declining effectiveness of many of the online advertising methods that we've relied on in past years, content is only strengthening its position as the ultimate KEY to generating unlimited traffic, subscribers, and customers!

Tom Taylor

BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)

http://online-business-centre.com

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

This article may be republished so long as the resource informationis left intact.

5 Tips on Using Private Label Content

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

Private Label Content is becoming increasingly popular
as people join the rush to fill their websites with high
-quality information. Admittedly, you can have articles
written by freelance writers at sites like Elance or
Rentacoder, but it gets expensive. For those who are
not yet generating a high income through AdSense or
affiliate sales, Private Label Content (PLC) provides a
welcome alternative.
=== What is Private Label Content? ===
PLC generally refers to articles, e-books and manuals
that are free for subscribers to
use as they wish. There are a few restrictions,
however: you cannot claim copyright to PLC, or
submit it to article sites, unless you change the
content significantly. (Interpret 'significantly' as
'unrecognizable as the original article'.) The cost of
membership varies, but typically ranges from around
$24 to $67 a month. For this you might receive
anywhere from 150 to 300 articles per month. Some
sites also offer graphics (e-book covers and site header
graphics) and even ready-made sales letters. To use
PLC to the best advantage, you need to be aware of a
few things.
=== 1. How Can You Use PLC Articles? ===
The most common use for PLC articles is to provide
useful, interesting content for websites. There are
other uses, however. Think about your immediate
needs. If you require an incentive for people to sign
up for your newsletter, you can offer an e-book or
training manual made up from PLC articles. It's easy
to tweak these to be more relevant to your website
and your clients. (As well as putting yourself in
Google's shoes, put yourself in your clients' shoes.
What do they most need to know?) You could also
create an e-course (anything from 6 to 52 articles -
a short e-course, or one that offers an article for each
week of the year). This gives you an excellent reason
to stay in touch with your clients.
=== 2. How Can You Alter PLC Articles? ===
Submitting articles to public article directories along
with your resource box is a great way to generate
traffic to your web-sites. However, many directories
don't allow you to submit duplicate content - ie, you
have to submit your own unique article. Therefore,
when submitting an article that you obtained from a
private label content resource, it's advisable to first
alter the article before submission. Here are a few tips
in that regard... (a) Change the title of the article. If
you are using keyword-optimized articles, make sure
you keep the keyword in the title - but be creative
about the words that surround it. So if your article is
based on the keyword "Mongolian Guinea Pig", your
title might be "Where to Find the Mongolian Guinea
Pig" or "Taking Care of Your Mongolian Guinea Pig"
and so on. (b) Change the opening paragraph. All you
need to do (usually) is make sure that your keyword
appears once. Take a look at the rest of the paragraph.
How can you say the same thing in a different way?
Look for synonyms - using your thesaurus - or alter
the tone. Perhaps you can adopt a more casual
approach (this might work better for your readership
anyway). You might prefer write a different
introduction altogether. (c) Work through the article.
Add a sentence here; subtract one there. Present the
facts in a different order. Expand by adding some new
points. Break a long article into two shorter articles.
(If you do this, make sure each article seems complete
in itself.) (d) Rewrite the ending. When you do this,
think about what you want the reader to do. Is this a
good place to put your own affiliate link, or write a
lead-in to your own product or services?
=== 3. Blend Several Articles Into One ===
You can get a whole new look if you take two or more
PLC articles on the same theme and blend them into
one longer, fact-packed article. Sometimes you might
find you HAVE to do this, if an article seems a bit
'lightweight'. Not all PLC articles are created equal!
Sometimes it's obvious that the writer was low on
inspiration.
=== 4. Think Outside the Square. ===
Most PLC articles are presented in batches relevant
to one niche. For example, you might find that over
the course of a month you get 20 articles on golf, 20
on cell phones, 20 on credit cards and 20 on travel.
Let's say that you are busy building a golf site. It
might seem at first glance that only 20 of the 80
articles are relevant to your needs. Not so! Golf
vacations, for example, are very popular. Could any of
your travel articles be massaged to fit the theme of
golf vacations? It's very likely that they could. And
what about communication while you travel - or while
you play golf? Does the golfer need a new cell phone
that will easily adapt to overseas communications?
How will the golfer pay for a new set of clubs or a golf
vacation? Might he need to explore credit card options?
You see how it's done. Be creative in your use of
Private Label Content, and you will definitely get your
money's worth. === 5. One Final Tip - Hold Out For
Quality! === Now that Private Label Content is
becoming popular, more and more PLC sites are
opening up. You can afford to be choosy. Check out
the quality of the articles on offer, and especially the
niches being targeted. Niche areas like golf and credit
are popular, and that's exactly what you want. You
want to go where there is an *existing* demand. You
do NOT want obscure niches where there is little
activity. You WANT to go where there is competition.
Naturally, the profitable niches will always have
competition. Where there is competition, there are
buyers! So you want to look for demand, look for
competition, and carve your niche! Finally, consider
being a member of more than one PLC site. Is it worth
it to you to spend $150 a month on quality, no-strings-
attached content? That would get you membership of
3-4 sites and upwards of 400 articles each month.
Even if you can use only 50 of those articles, you're
getting them for $3 each - a bargain!

Tom Taylor

BSc, MSC, PHD (School of Hard Knocks and Real Lessons)

http://online-business-centre.com

Editor of "The View From The Cabin" newsletter

http://www.online-business-centre.com/lan/newsbiz_blog_perm.htm

This article may be republished so long as the resource informationis left intact.