Life Say Articles » Pay-Per-Click

Internet Pay-Per-Click Marketing Strategies

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:16:15 +0000

Feature Product Review:Internet pay-per-click marketing strategies can have a great impact on your business. This article discusses Internet pay-per-click marketing strategies. PPC (pay-per-click) is something we have a lot of experience and knowledge on. We know what works, and what doesn’t. We know some of the best strategies and approaches you need to take to

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Internet Pay-Per-Click Marketing Strategies

Affiliate Profit Pack

BlogPostman — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:14:32 +0000

Feature Product Review: If you are a newbie in the world of Internet marketing, then Affiliate Profit Pack from Oliver D’Souza is for you. The product from Oliver is meant to target the new entrants and those struggling marketers who don’t find any appropriate way ahead in their affiliate marketing career. Affiliate Profit Pack is

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Affiliate Profit Pack

3 Steps to Take Yourself from Good to Great

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:00:00 +0000

In a good economy, you can do reasonably well with “good enough.” Good enough design, good enough marketing, good enough skills. When demand is high and dollars are sloshing around, there’s a market for Decent. Capable. Adequate. Acceptable. Unfortunately, we’re not in a good economy. We’re in a wretched economy. Industries all over the world are falling like bowling pins, and “good enough” professionals in all fields are scrambling. There’s always room at the top, the guru says smugly. Don’t you want to smack that guy sometimes? How are you supposed to get to the top? And how are you supposed to pay your bills until you figure that out? But believe it or not, there’s a map to the top. And you don’t have to have superhuman skills, talent, or even perseverance to get there. Take these three (ok, four) simple steps. No, they’re not easy, but they are simple. You can do them. And you must do them. Good enough isn’t good enough anymore. Find out what you’re better at than anyone in the world Now before you start hyperventilating, hear me out. You’re probably not going to be the greatest copywriter or greatest web designer or the greatest dry cleaner on the face of the planet. You’re going to be the greatest in your world. The greatest copywriter for Dallas high-end commercial real estate, or Orange County chiropractors, or for B2B direct marketing in Bangalore. You’re going to find a world small enough, and then work your tail off to make yourself the greatest Doer-of-the-Thing-You-Do in that world. Sometimes you create a world of one. I’m the world’s greatest practitioner of Sonia-style marketing. Brian’s the world’s greatest Copyblogger. (I nip at his heels to keep him honest, but he’s still the greatest.) Seth is the world’s foremost Seth. Being “the world’s greatest you” isn’t an excuse to slack off, though. It means that every day you show up and try to do your thing a little better than you did yesterday. Find a viable business model If what you’re best at is playing Mozart sonatas on air guitar, even if you’re quite amazing at it, you may struggle to find paying customers. If it’s a business, you’ve got to get paid. Sometimes there are multiple strong business models for what you do, and it’s a matter of picking the one that suits you best. Sometimes one strategy will stand out. And sometimes, what you do is a very enjoyable passion, but it doesn’t form the kernel of a business. A viable business model isn’t a matter of will power or can-do attitude. The customers are either there or they aren’t. If they aren’t, keep framing and reframing your ideas and strengths until you find a market of buyers. Then offer them something they want (not need) to buy . Find something that gives you juice Remember when I mentioned working your tail off? Running a great business, even a business of one, isn’t easy. You’re going to have to be stubborn. You’re going to have to get past hurdles that make you uncomfortable. You’re going to have to give some things up, especially when you’re getting started. You’re going to have to care. A lot. And you’ll never do that if your business bores you to tears. Understand — you don’t have to necessarily love real estate to be the best agent in your well-defined world. You might love negotiation, or you might love the type of clients you focus on, or you might love playing matchmaker between houses and buyers. But you’ve got to adore something about it. It’s got to give you juice. It’s got to make you stronger . Otherwise you’ll run out of gas before you can make it happen. Of course this comes from the book Good to Great The three steps above are from Jim Collins’ groundbreaking book — he calls this trio the “ hedgehog concept .” (Hence the cute if slightly creepy small mammal at the top of this post.) These three factors aren’t just for copywriters and web designers — they’re for multinational conglomerates and billion-dollar empires. And they’re for soccer teams and nonprofits and musicians. I’d heard great things about Jim Collins’ book for years, but I never read it. I looked at it this way: Every idiot CEO and Dilbert-worthy executive in the country has read Good to Great . And from what I’ve seen, most of them couldn’t effectively manage a hamburger stand, much less run a great company. But then I read Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness , and darn it, Hsieh does run a great company, and he found Good to Great essential reading. If I can pick up a $14 book that made Tony Hsieh smarter about business, don’t you think I should? So I did. And it’s brilliant. But I can also see why it failed. The crucial fourth step Collins (or more accurately, his team of researchers) found another common element in great companies. It’s certainly the case with Hsieh. You’ve got to love the business more than you do your own ego. The leaders of Collins’ great companies were, without exception. personally humble and self-effacing, but they were fanatically passionate and driven to make their companies succeed. If you’re in it for the Breitling, the house in the Hamptons, the thrill of watching minions scurry to carry out your personal immense vision, then your endeavor (small or large) is in deep trouble. (If your CEO is in business for these things, start looking for a way out now. Luckily, mine isn’t). If you’re crazy in love with the market you serve, the product you create, and the good that you do in the world (even if that good is a bit frivolous … frivolity can be a beautiful thing), you’re on to something big. Don’t stop. That’s why Good to Great didn’t create a million great companies. Every executive in America read it and puffed up with pride. “Why, we’re in luck! Humble and self-effacing, that’s me to a tee!” Self-delusion is a powerful thing But you’re more honest than that. You have the potential to level with yourself, and to step up your game. Good to Great is probably a pipe dream for most big companies — the entrenched egos are too giant to shift. More important, they don’t really want to. But you can hone your hedgehog concept. You can refuse to let yourself off the hook. And you can get the hell over yourself and start getting obsessed about helping people. And when you do, you’re going to do some amazing things. How about you? What has your own “good to great” journey looked like? Let us know in the comments what you’ve found along your path. About the Author : Sonia Simone is CMO of Copyblogger Media and founder of Remarkable Communication . Share your brushes with greatness with her on twitter .

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3 Steps to Take Yourself from Good to Great

Insiders HQ Webinar Review: Insiders HQ’s Dual, 8 Module Program

BlogPostman — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:01:35 +0000

Feature Product Review:Insiders HQ‘s Ran Aroussi and Phil Mansour held an Insiders HQ webinar on Monday, October 11th, 2010. Before that webinar, we knew that Insiders HQ was a dual, 8-module program. By that we mean that is that the program’s 2 instructors (Ran and Phil) will each be teaching their respective components of the

Transition To Microsoft AdCenter

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:49:41 +0000

Up until now I hadn’t had any issues migrating Yahoo account data to the Microsoft Advertising Adcenter. However today my attempts to transfer data were fraught with errors and failure. The following are several of the messages I received from Microsoft while attempting to make the transition from a Yahoo account to a Bing account. The following message is the first one I received and I have no idea why… Compatibility Report I then attempted to import an account and got this account import errors message. Yahoo Account Import Failure I tried to import the account several more times and finally got it imported only to learn there were “71 issues” with my account. 71 Issues Not one but seventy one issues… I can’t wait to discover how long it takes for me to get each one of them resolved!

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Transition To Microsoft AdCenter

Announcing the Prose Theme for WordPress

BlogPostman — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:30:59 +0000

You may have seen recently that we merged StudioPress, creator of the powerful Genesis theme framework , into Copyblogger Media. Why did we do it? I can sum it up for you in a single phrase: because we’re control freaks . With Genesis, we saw an opportunity to create WordPress themes that were tailored exactly to our customers’ needs and desires. We could incorporate the features that are most important for content-rich sites, the expert SEO you insist on, and the security to keep your sites as safe as possible. Brian and I worked closely with Genesis founder (and our new partner) Brian Gardner on a new collaboration. A WordPress theme designed for those of you — bloggers, copywriters, consultants, and content marketers — who in one way or another produce great content to make a living or part-time income. I’d like to introduce you to Prose . An elegant minimalist design The first thing we knew was that we wanted the design to support your content, not fight with it. Some themes make great use of animated widgets, or are designed to highlight striking imagery. Or they’re great for e-commerce, or building a corporate brand. And Genesis has terrific themes that do all of those. Prose is something different. It’s all about words. Your words. It’s simple and elegant, so it doesn’t distract. But it has enough design sophistication that it never looks amateurish or “fly by night.” Like the perfect little black dress, it doesn’t call attention to itself … it just makes you look amazing. Point and click design controls But just because you may not be first and foremost a designer, that doesn’t mean you want to commit yourself to a single rigid design mold. Writers are creative people, after all. And we knew you’d insist on being able to change some key elements yourself, without “breaking” the overall clean, designed look of the theme. That’s why we built in point-and-click design controls into Prose. They let you control site colors, typefaces, font sizes, and other critical elements of your site design. Instantly. Do your readers want a larger font size? That’s just a few clicks away, starting right from your WordPress dashboard. Want to try a different column layout for your site, or to change the look of your subheads? Takes less than a minute. And if you don’t like it, it’s a few clicks to change it back again. You can change how your links are styled, how tall you want your header to be, and dozens of other key design elements. And you don’t have to know any CSS, HTML, PHP, or any other letters. If you can point and click, you can customize your site design. Search optimized and powered by Genesis You might have seen that Genesis isn’t just a WordPress theme, it’s actually what’s called a theme framework. So my first question when I saw that was, What’s a theme framework? The first thing you need to know is that when it comes to web design, form and function need to be separated . In other words, how your web page works (like the code that Google looks at to find your content and how to rank it, or the security that keeps evildoers from hacking your blog) should be separated from how your web page looks . Why? Well, in the first place, Google is a big fan of clean code. The Google “bots” are sophisticated, but they’re only so smart. Clunky, junked-up code can confuse them — and if Google gets confused, they won’t give your site the ranking you deserve. In the second place, the web evolves. Those “back end” elements always need to be up-to-date. Security evolves, SEO evolves, WordPress evolves, and your page function needs to grow with those things so that everything works the way it should. But the last thing you want is for your carefully designed web page to suddenly look completely different because you updated your WordPress theme. That’s the beauty of a framework. When you click the button to update Genesis, it automatically takes care of all of those security and SEO issues for you. But it doesn’t touch the design of the page, because that’s handled by “child themes.” OK, so what’s a child theme? The theme framework is all about how the site works . A child theme (like Prose and 27 others from StudioPress ) is in charge of how the site looks . The colors. The layout. The typefaces. The child theme controls the “look and feel” of your site. And the exact same content will have a very different feel depending on how that content gets presented. The nice thing about child themes is that with the Genesis framework, you can change them in just minutes. That means you can take a funky site with a handmade flavor, like the Genesis Bee Crafty theme, and in about two minutes you can give that exact same content a sleek professional gloss by switching to the Enterprise theme. And you’ll never touch the important “behind the scenes” code that makes your site work exactly the way you want it to. The biggest security hazard for most blogs Unfortunately, bad guys are everywhere, and blogs get hacked every day. The most common culprit? Bloggers who haven’t updated their theme or their WordPress installation because they’re worried it will mess up the look and usability of their sites. Outdated software is a major security hazard. In fact, Brian Gardner told me that one of the reasons he developed the Genesis framework in the first place was to make updating his own sites one-click-easy. When it’s easy for you to update WordPress and your theme framework, and you don’t worry about anything breaking, you won’t put it off. And that keeps your blog (and your readers) safer. Get Prose + Genesis today Pick up Prose with Genesis today and you’ll get: Prose’s point-and-click design controls to create the exact look you want A great-looking theme that puts the focus on your content All the SEO and security benefits of the Genesis Framework Unlimited updates and support The ability to use Prose on as many sites as you like (no developer surcharge) Find out more about the best WordPress theme for writers and content marketers here. About the Author : Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Follow her on twitter .

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Announcing the Prose Theme for WordPress

Bryan Winters

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Feature Product Review:Bryan’s story has proven that success doesn’t come overnight and there is no short-cut to it. We all have heard about the Internet marketer Bryan Winters, but we know little about the path he travelled to reach where he is today. He worked in a factory for more than a decade before he

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Bryan Winters

Post To WordPress Via Text Messaging

BlogPostman — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 03:40:52 +0000

WordPress continues to improve ways bloggers can post to their blogs first by email and then by voice now by text. Case in point, for an extra $20 a year blogger can post to their WordPress blogs via text message. ? Post To WordPress Via Text Messaging ? The two previous alternative WordPress posting methods – email and voice – were added at no additional cost. I have used both but prefer posting the old fashioned way – via laptop and browser. However, text posting looks interesting and I might consider adding it to one of my blogs in the future to give it a try.

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Post To WordPress Via Text Messaging

7 Tips for an Authentic and Productive Writing Process

BlogPostman — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:00:00 +0000

Does this sound familiar? You’re sitting in front of your laptop, staring at a blank screen. The deadline for the article you need to write is approaching, and you’re struggling to get started when you should be in the final editing stages. As you sit there trying to put your expertise in writing, a strange insecurity creeps up your spine. You see yourself changing before your own eyes, transforming from a confident expert into a self-conscious amateur. It’s your own Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde transformation experience. I’ve been there. I used to hate writing Well, actually, it was more like loathing than hating. Anytime I needed to write anything I’d procrastinate, pretending that avoiding the project would make it go away. Needless to say, the procrastination led to a flurry of rushed writing at the last minute to meet my deadlines, resulting in less than my best work. But my real problem wasn’t the act of writing. It was fear. Fear of making mistakes, fear that what I wrote would sound stupid, fear that my writing wouldn’t make sense to the reader, etc. My insecurities were turning me into a monster So there I was, a guy with more than 15 years of experience, who has won some awards and is even a judge for three international design competitions, worried about sounding stupid. It sounds ridiculous, but my fear of screwing up made writing a miserable experience for me. I even used to try to compensate for my fears. I’d use stiff, formal sentences and large, important-sounding words to try to “prove” I knew what I was talking about. Unfortunately, all that did was make me sound like a pretentious jerk . It was like I was changing from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde anytime I had to write something. Then one sentence from my college professor changed everything I had a job that offered tuition reimbursement benefits, so I decided to take some college classes. One of my classes was a composition class, and the professor gave me the best writing advice I’d ever heard. “Write the way you talk.” Wait. What? It can’t be that easy! Seriously? What a liberating idea! That one piece of advice helped me break free of my fears and relaxed my writing style. No more procrastination. No more using large, unnecessary words to try and impress the reader. I could just relax, be myself, and write. Now before you get the wrong impression, let me explain something: writing the way you talk does not give you permission to write poorly , or to publish content that sucks . What it does is help break down the mental barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you from being a more engaging, and more productive writer. Here’s how to use “write the way you talk” to squash your insecurities and avoid sounding like a pompous idiot: 1. Imagine yourself having a chat with a trusted friend Good writing is like a conversation between the writer and the reader. So when you’re writing, think about how you would explain your topic to a close friend who was sitting next to you. If you were having a conversation with that person, what words would you use? What would you talk about first? What examples would you give to help them understand your topic? What questions might they ask? Approaching your writing this way will help you write copy that’s more informal and conversational in tone, that better engages your audience. As it happens, it’s also the best way to write sales copy . 2. Record yourself talking about your topic. Not sure what you sound like in a conversation? Try recording yourself talking about your topic. This is especially helpful for people who have clients they talk to on the phone regularly. The next time you’re explaining something to a client on the phone, record the call and listen to it later (Be sure to check the laws in your state first. Some states require you get the other party’s permission before you record). The easiest way to do this is with one of the many available plugins for Skype that do call recording. 3. Take a deep breath, relax, and just be yourself By writing the way you talk, you can’t help injecting a little of your personality into what you write. After all, you’ll be writing in your own voice , using plain English everyone can understand, and a tone that makes you seem more human than textbook. Combine that with a few relevant, well-placed personal stories and you have the makings of some irresistible content. 4. Use the same words that you do in your everyday life. If you write the way you talk, you’ll be more inclined to use common, everyday words that you would normally use in conversation. This prevents you from sounding like Captain Jack Sparrow using (in my best Johnny Depp impersonation) obtuse and generally confounding speech that makes your readers wish they were drinking rum. So keep your writing simple and clear without artificially inflated language. A good rule of thumb is: if the average person would need a dictionary to know what your word means, then you need a different word. 5. Toss out the rule book and just start writing If all the rules about grammar, writing styles, active versus passive voice, and punctuation are adding to your insecurities about writing, toss out the “rule book” for awhile and just write. Focus on getting the main points of your idea down in your first draft, and don’t worry about anything else. Once you’ve done that, you can go back and edit the heck out of what you wrote. Do you notice any obvious errors? Is there anything that could be rearranged to bring more clarity to what you wrote? If so, now’s the time to fix it along with any grammatical, spelling, or other writing problems. After you’ve made those corrections, leave the article to sit overnight and look at it again in the morning with fresh eyes. Is there anything you can do to make it even better? 6. Enlist the help of a close friend to keep you honest Want to make sure that what you write actually sounds like you and not someone else? Enlist the help of a close friend. Have them read what you write, and tell you if it sounds like someone else wrote it. This will help keep you true to yourself, and will force you to be authentic with your writing. 7. Read what you write out loud One of the first editing tests I put my writing through is reading it out loud. Doing that makes awkward sentences and bad punctuation become obvious, because as you read, you’ll naturally “stumble” over the parts that need to be fixed. So as you read your writing aloud, pay attention to those places that tend to trip you up — they may need some additional work. The moral of the story Get over the fears of messing up or sounding stupid. Just write the way you talk and you’ll be able to knock out your first draft in no time. If you’re willing to do that, you’ll find that you’ll dread writing a lot less and be able to get more writing done because you’re working on it instead of fearing it. I’ve been using these tips to guide my writing for several years now, and today I got the best evidence yet that they work. I was talking with one of my clients on the phone about blogging, and as we were discussing the content for her blog she told me, “Whenever I read something you wrote, you always sound like such an expert. Like you really know what you’re talking about. ” Need I say more? So go ahead. Dive in. Who knows? You may even start to like writing. About the Author: Logan Zanelli is a business stylist who helps entrepreneurs get found, stand out, and sell more. You can follow him on Twitter or get more from him on his blog .

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7 Tips for an Authentic and Productive Writing Process

Google Places Reports And Irony

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:36:45 +0000

Getting Google Places traffic reports may not be unusual for businesses that have claimed their Google Places account. However, it seems unusual to me because - 1. I have never claimed my Google Places account for my business. 2. As a rule – Google doesn’t show Map results of Advertising or Marketing businesses at the search results level in Google.com. The only traffic an advertising or marketing firm can generate for its Places account is from searches done at the Map level. ? Google Places Traffic Report ? Search traffic generated by maps as a percentage of all search traffic generated for the small business is low single digits at best and thus virtually insignificant. I am sure for most small businesses getting Google Places search traffic reports is even more so.

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Google Places Reports And Irony