5 Ways to Increase Your Social Media Footprint

Social media today has become a meeting place for virtually every one from around the globe. The percentage daily users of popular sites like Facebook, Twitter etc is growing each day by leaps and bounds. With this level of insurge, the question is, 'how can you have a foothold and make the best out of social media, for your business and yourself?'


Here are 5 proven ways you can achieve that, according to the smallbusinessesdoitbetter report by Melanie Fleury:

1) Invest your time in the right social media.

There are thousands of social media options out on the web today. However, attempting to engage with them all will only result in mediocre campaigns and spreading yourself too thin. Think about where your audience spends their time. For many, hitting the bigger social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will provide great paths to your marketplace. Other avenues that offer great SEO return include creating YouTube videos, as well as encouraging sharing on Pinterest.

2) Look to the experts.

It might be tempting to tackle your social media plan yourself, but getting an expert opinion can really help to boost your business. Given the importance social media is starting to take on, getting your business’ mix right can actually affect your bottom line. SEO specialist companies, like Everspark Interactive in Atlanta, can help you develop a plan of attack and even implement and maintain it for you, leaving you to focus on other aspects of your business.

3) Don’t underestimate the importance of blogging.

It’s a fact: Google loves fresh and unique content on your site. When Google sees that you’re updating your site frequently and taking it seriously, then they’ll take you and your website more seriously. Blogging is an easy way to achieve this, and you can promote your posts on your social media channels, driving traffic right back to your site. Try using guest bloggers to discuss issues in your industry that might be of interest to your readers.

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4) Make sure your website is social media ready.

Sharing is the name of the game when it comes to social media, and you’ll want to ensure that your site is ready for it. Have social media buttons available for your content and blog posts, and encourage your audience to re-post and re-tweet your uploads. The easier you make it for your readers, the more likely you are to reap the rewards of social sharing.

5) Join the conversation.

Blasting your audience with repeated marketing messages isn’t effective communication, and it also doesn’t encourage them to pay much attention. Use your social media to ask questions, and be sure to share relevant posts and tweets from your followers with your audience. By treating social media like a conversation, you can organically build followers and a great reputation for your brand.

5 Ways to Create Contents for Your Site

Every website owner wants more traffic, and content creation helps you achieve just that. By providing your prospective customers with useful information, you not only give them a reason to frequent your website, but you also build loyalty and trust for your company.

If you’re not blessed with a talent for literary composition, lack the time or are struggling to find new angles and topics for your subject matter, consider one or all of these options for opening the pearly gates to content heaven.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a terrific option, especially for those who have more money than writing skills. Plenty of websites, such as Elance and oDesk, connect freelance writers with publishers like you. Simply post a project, such as for writing a single article, and freelancers will bid for the job.

This method often provides many candidates as well as a wide payment range. Some writers may bid as little as $5 per article, but remember that typically, you get what you pay for. Be wary of authors whose first language is not English because their unfamiliarity with the language could result in awkward sentence constructions.

Don’t be afraid to request edits or make them yourself. A long article does not equate to a quality article. You are an authority on your topic, so ensure the article contributes valuable information and not just bulk to your website.

Your local college can also be an excellent source of guest contributors. The close proximity allows you to interview candidates if you choose and the opportunity to discuss the project in person.

Talented writers are available, but you may need to test out a few before finding a winner. You may have to be willing to pay a little more too.

Private label rights resources

Private label rights (PLR) content is written material, such as articles and ebooks, that you can purchase the rights to, allowing you to claim authorship, revise and repurpose as you desire. Some PLR content may come with different restrictions, but typically, the author relinquishes almost all rights to the content upon purchase.

To obtain PLR content, you can purchase a membership to a PLR website, buy content by the pack, or seek other sources. With buying a membership such as on PLRpro, the cost per article is low, but you may not find content specific to your particular niche.

With purchasing PLR content by the pack, as is available on the non-membership site PLRProducts, the upfront costs are lower, but at the individual level, you often end up paying more per article. Without members, the provider has less incentive to keep customers happy, which can result in lower quality work.

PLR content is also available on forums and eBay, but there are no guarantees of the quality. If you’re willing to make some revisions, bargains do exist.

Article directories

Free article directories such as EzineArticles.com offer a wide range of articles, reviews and other content for reposting. With this option, the content and links within the content can’t be altered, and the author’s information must be included.

Due to these limitations, search engines will penalize your website for duplicate content. Plus, the content quality can be lacking, but if you’ve just launched your website and want some substance in place while you develop your own content, this may be an adequate temporary solution.

Blogging

Anyone able to compose an email is competent to blog. Because of the nature of this format, your writing can be much less formal than that of articles or ebooks. Not only is it acceptable for your personality to shine through, but it is even encouraged. Many readers find the conversational tone and personal anecdotes of blogs intriguing.

By allowing comments on your blog posts, you can even have your visitors help add content to your website for you. Be sure to monitor the comments though to address any complaints and remove anything overtly offensive.

Interview

Not even experts know everything on a given topic, so interview people in your field. You can conduct the interview via email and simply post their responses in a Q&A format, or record the interview in-person and post the video.

If you’re more comfortable talking than writing, you can even have a friend interview you and either post the video or audio recording or have the interview transcribed. Elance and oDesk connect you with more than just writers; these platforms also have members who transcribe interviews. A one-hour recording usually costs $25 to be transcribed and can yield 40 pages of content, which could be broken up into multiple entries on your website.

Whatever your content method, take the time, energy and wisdom to produce quality content; you alone are responsible for what makes it onto your website. Even if you dabble in all five options suggested here, you won’t increase traffic to your website if readers don’t find the content compelling and valuable.

Simon Slade, CEO and co-founder of Affilorama. More than 200,000 members consult Affilorama for its 100 free video lessons and articles and suite of marketing and website monitoring tools, all designed to help your e-commerce venture thrive.

smallbusinessesdoitbetter

Tech Report: Google is going to punish mobile sites that show 'intrusive' full-page ads

Google is cracking down on websites that show "intrusive" full-page adverts and pop-ups on their mobile sites.

The search engine announced on Tuesday that it plans to downgrade sites that use excessive "interstitial" pop-ups in its search rankings — effectively cutting off a major part of their traffic supply unless they change their ways.

"Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible," the Californian technology giant said in a blog post.

Not all pop-ups will be affected. Age verifications, and messages alerting users to the fact that the website use cookies, are allowed — as are overlaid banner adverts that use a "reasonable amount of screen space."

Google has tried to crack down on intrusive full-page adverts before. In September 2015, it announced it would be downgrading sites that show annoying full-page ads prompting users to install mobile apps.

But this new move will take it a stage further, and punish all kinds of pop-up adverts. Google is giving websites plenty of time to prepare and change if necessary, however; the change won't come into effect until January 10, 2017.

Here are some examples from Google of interstitials it thinks "make content less accessible." Any websites that make use of them will be downgraded in the search engine's rankings.

More Info here...

How to Convert Your Contents to E-Book and Drive Huge Traffic

Driving traffic to a site remains the core objective of every blogger and website owner, as every other goal may not be achieved without traffic. The popular saying, 'no traffic, no tomorrow' emphasizes on the fact that without traffic, your site has no future.

While there are many platforms where you have promises upon promises of free traffic, it has been discovered that the best way to get quality, but free lasting traffic is coming up with a quality content, then convert it to ebook and submit it to free ebook directories online in exchange of huge traffic.

Someone asked, 'you mean free ebook directory, why not paid one'?

And I answer, 'If giving out your contents for free and get in exchange free traffic that will turn to a sales funnel in the nearby future, is that not a good trade off? After all, the ebook converter is free...

How do you go about it? 

Follow these steps:

You simply convert one of your articles (or a collection of related articles) into a PDF. You can do this for free at http://www.youconvertit.com orhttp://www.pdfonline.com/convert-pdf.
You then submit your newly created ebook to:

• http://www.free-ebooks.net
• http://www.getfreeebooks.com, and
• http://www.myebook.com.

There are hundreds of ebook directories online, but these are the most popular one’s that will send you 99% of your traffic.

If you’re a blogger, you could easily be driving thousands of extra visitors to your website simply by converting your existing content into ebooks.

Important Note: You MUST make sure that you have links pointing back to your blog within the report. I also highly recommend that you include a promo at the end of your report that sends people to your squeeze page where you can grow your list of subscribers.

If you have paid ebooks, you can submit them to http://e-library.net/add.html.

You can also submit your ebook to a few document sharing sites like Scribd.com, DocStoc.com, eSnips.com, Calameo.com, Issuu.com, and Yudu.com.

There are so many ways that you can re-purpose your content for extra exposure. You could easily be getting 10x more traffic from every article you write simply by reformatting it into ebooks, videos, podcasts, forum posts, etc…

Good reading? Make your comment or suggestion... We value it so much.


Crunch Ideas

7 Powerful Web Design Tool Every Webmaster Needs

Web design walks a thin line between art and craft. While the aesthetic side of a website is important to maintaining your artistic integrity, clients typically insist on designs that will convert customers, be responsive, and follows the latest industry’s trends.

And if you really want to make sure you are keeping clients and customers happy when it comes to web design, these seven tools from my mentor friend, Dianna Labrien will go a long way in helping you out.

1.Webflow

Webflow is a great tool for emerging web designers or the DIY crowd. Instead of using a good old pen and paper for prototyping and wire-framing, you can now use the simple drag and drop interface for doing the job for you.

Users can also make use of the pre-made templates that are provided for them, the in-built CMS and hosting offered by the platform. 

2.RealConverter

Image optimization is extremely important when it comes to good design and page performance. This is where RealConverter comes into play. It allows designers to quickly convert image files into any format they need, and allows for image editing as well.

Many file conversion services only focus on file types that are already web design friendly. These include JPG, TIF, and PNG. How many of them take on CAD images as well? RealConverter can tackle both of these tasks and make things easy for you thanks to an extremely user-friendly interface. You can convert one image at a time, or batch process hundreds of them.

3.Macaw

Macaw is a great web design tool for folks who are just now beginning to learn how to code. The interface is much like that in Photoshop, so if you are familiar with it, you’ll enjoy using Macaw too. Especially because its functionality for creating responsive and mobile-ready designs is unmatched. 

4.Atomic

This web design tool allows you to work directly in your browser to create a design mockup. You can then share your design with anyone to a bunch of different devices. Atomic perfectly integrates with Sketch, and Photoshop, or you can start creating your design from scratch.

Once you have your design in place, you can double back and add in interactive features. This makes for simple web design with an artistic feel.

5.PowerMockup

PowerMockup is part of the well-known PowerPoint package. If you have coworkers or clients who are not quite technically savvy, this is a very approachable way to create a presentation of your web design mockup. Use it to create enticing presentations in just a few clicks. 

6.Form

Form features tons of great resources and supporting documentation for building or modifying existing themes, modules, plugins and a decent API library.

This database is a real treasure chest not just for web designers, but for front-end developers as well. Besides, the makers of Form recently teamed up with Google, so you can rest assured that this tool will always stay up to date and reflect the latest in design trends.

7.Avocode

Avocode is a collaborative tool that allows front-end crowd to easily collaborate with the engineers. You can import visual objects from Photoshop, your mood boards and a bunch of other tools and rest assured that everything will be coded into perfection.

Avocode allows you to effortlessly create unified style guides, which would reduce the hassle and communication required between the design and developers teams. The biggest convenience of all is that while this is happening, everything is in the same place.

Tech.co

How to Change the Design of Your Blogger Blog

Blogger usually comes with default templates one must have chosen from while launching a blogger blog site. Usually, after having a feel of one's blog site in comparison with the attractive designs of others, one may wish to redesign the blog interface. To do this, you just need to follow the following steps:

To change the design of your blog, you can use the template designer or CSS.

Change the design with the template designer

1. Sign in to Blogger.
2. Select the blog to update.
3. In the left menu, click Template.
4. Under “Live on blog," click Customize.
5. At the top, use the carousel to choose a template. Below the carousel, use the preview to see how your blog will appear.
6. Use the left menu to customize your background, adjust widths, layout, and other settings.
7. On the top right, click Apply to Blog to make your changes live.

To clear your changes, click Live on Blog.

Change the design with CSS

You can also personalize your blog's appearance by using cascading style sheets (CSS).

To add custom CSS snippets to your template:

1. Sign in to Blogger.
2. Select the blog to update.
3. In the left menu, click Template.
4. Under Live on blog, click Customize.
5. In the left menu, select Advanced > Add CSS.
6. Add your code.
7. On the top right, click Apply to blog.

To learn more about html and css, I have a mentor friend that can teach you.  Visit this site.