Blogging Tips Blog

Icon Demon Not A Good Buy

I like to use icons ion websites and I do buy templates at template monster. So, when I saw a special offer for a membership to Icon Demon, I decided to try it out. They have some nice icons, but the way the site works, Icon Demon was a total waste of my time. Here’s why;

1. You can view individual icons and sort them by category. Good so far, right?

2. You have to drag each individual icon into the shopping cart window. You cannot drag them by sets.

3. Then you click the download button for all the icons you dragged into the cart.

4. Then you go to a page that says click here to go to your downloads page.

5. Then you have to click download for each and every individual icon you previously dragged into the cart window.

6. The icons are numbered, no names to describe them and if you accidentally click to download the same icon twice, it just gives it a different number rather than saying it already exists, do you want to replace it.

7. There is no download all button.

8. They have icon sets for download, if you want to pay them an additional $99.

So, basically, the site is designed to be a hassle, unless you upgrade to their premium membership. The offer at Template Monster is just a come on.

On a positive note, this demonstrates how usability of a website is extremely important. I’ll never use or recommend Icon Demon to anyone because of the hassle of using the site. The hassle at Icon Demon seems very intentional, but is your website easy to use?

If you aren’t looking to suck people in to buy a premium membership like Icon Demon and you have a real offer that has value instead and aren’t trying to “trick” your customers, you should make sure that you are not adding too many steps or complications for your potential customers.

I welcome anyone from Icon Demon to come and tell me why it isn’t just a come on to con me into the premium membership and that the hassle is worthwhile. Because as it is, the money I paid for a membership to IconDemon.com was a total waste of time and money.

Professional Management for Business Blogs

FaceBook SEO

Is your FaceBook Company page doing all it can for you? Some of you may not even have a company page yet. If not, you’re missing another opportunity to rank well in search engines and another way to reach your target audience. If you don’t know anyone who uses FaceBook, you live in a cave. Your customers use it. So you need to have a presence there.

It’s easy to create a company page. Once you have done so there are even FaceBook Templates you can use to spice it up a little. Just do a search for FaceBook Templates in your favorite search engine.

OK, I have a FaceBook Company Page and found a template I like. What’s next?

Once you get a few likes you can get a custom URL. So instead of a set of numbers like facebook.com/394857687, it will be facebook.com/yourcompanynamehere. You can also add a keyphrase in your custom URL. Once you create your custom URL, you are stuck with it, so think about what you want there.

Next you need to add content to your wall. There are tools like TwitterFeed.com that will help automatically update FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter whenever you make a new blog post. But that is not enough. You need to go to your FaceBook page and share videos you uploaded to YouTube, articles that you have online somewhere and other things that will interest your targeted audience.

That doesn’t mean you have to put all of the content there. You can do a summary, then link to the content wherever it is on the web. part of Internet Marketing is the ability to get people to click links and follow where you guide them.

Once there, you need to make sure they are finding something truly of interest to them. Do not mislead people into following your recommendations. There are a ton of so-called marketers that think if they can trick someone into doing something or buying something that they are somehow a great marketer.

Great marketers tell you the truth and still make the sale. They don’t need tricks. So make sure you create quality content and recommend it to your FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn followers.

Adding content to your wall is easy. If you are writing a short summary you can just add it. If you want to write more, use the link that says NOTES in your sidebar.

Next make sure you use the INFO tab to add more information about you and your company.

That’s just some basic tips on how to SEO your FaceBook Page. There is a lot more you can do. But if you haven’t even done the things I mentioned here, you’re not ready for more yet. Call me at 512-322-9566 if you need help or you are ready to do more with your FaceBook Company Page.

Professional Management for Business Blogs

Is Your Business Blog Performing the way you would like it to?

If you believe everything that you read on the web, it’s possible to make millions of dollars with nothing but a blog and a passion.

Now, when you’re already in business, this thought quickly leads to others. The most notable of them is this: if bloggers can make money without a product to sell, what can a blog do for my business?

Managing a business blog can do a great deal for your business:

• A business blog enables you to communicate with your customers on a more personal level;
• A business blog will allow you to share details about your products and services, announce sales and let current and prospective customers get a feel for what your company has to offer;
• A business blog will enable you to get feedback from your customers in the form of surveys, comments and even posts that they make in their own blogs.

Unfortunately, blogging isn’t just about showing up at the keyboard. Many business blogs don’t perform as well as the companies hope that they will.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t keep a blog for your business? Not at all: it just means that you need to take advantage of services that will quickly bring your business blog up to its full potential.

By hiring a Professional Blog Management Company, you can be sure that your company blog contains the right mix of elements to get noticed. A blog content provider can work with you to include straight up text, photos or other images of your products or services, video, audio files and more in your blog.

More importantly, however, a blog content provider who has experience with search engine optimization can work with you to ensure that your company blog includes links to your business’ website – your home page as well as pages that are deeper in your site.

These links, coupled with an attention to keywords related to your products and services can work to promote your business.

When prospective customers are searching for products and services similar to those that you offer, a well-optimized company blog can help them to find you: not only will it lead them to your company, but also to the information that they need in order to understand the benefits of what your company has to offer.

You may be wondering how a blog content provider will be able to boost the performance of your company blog. You may be wondering how a service that is not connected directly with your company can effectively market your products and services.

The answer is simple: a professional blogger will work with you. He or she will take the time to learn more about your company, your products and services and your goals. Then, that information along with his or her blogging experience will come together.

As a result, your company will benefit from daily web marketing. Your company’s web presence will grow daily with additional pages of content and you’ll know that you are reaching out to a wider audience – one that you’ve been trying to reach on your own.

A blog content provider can ensure that your business blog is performing up to its full potential: your company blog will communicate clearly, stay focused and be noticed – by your current customers, the search engines and your best prospects.

Professional Management for Business Blogs

Blogging on Free Hosts Like Blogger and WordPress A Bad Idea

This article is about blogging and why you should never blog on a free host like blogger.com or wordpress.com I am writing this to alert people out there who are building blogs on free blog hosts like blogger.com and wordpress.com.

Installing wordpress is free and gives you full control over your blog. There are other platforms like moveable type to choose from as well. Take a look around and find the platform you like or that best fits your blogging style. I’ve learned an expensive lesson and now will only build blogs on my own domain names.

The reason?

Lets start with blogger.com

They have a new out of control spam bot. Search the blogger help forums and you will find the horror stories. Legitimate blogs are being deleted, people are getting locked out of their blog until reviewed, and assumed to be a spammer because either the bot flagged the blog or someone clicked the little flag button at the top of all blogger blogs.

That and the fact that they have constant problems with the publishing getting stuck at 0%, slow load times, etc. it makes blogging through blogger.com a buggy experience at best and your content or reason for blogging is up to someone else’s interpretation of what is or is not legitimate.

I understand getting rid of splogs and spammers, but in blogger.com’s case the cure is worse than the disease. They were not always that way. I’ve been on blogger a long time and the service used to be good.

As far as wordpress.com they are just as bad. If the blog links to a website and looks as if it might be promoting people to go to that website they will suspend your account without warning and lock you out of all the content.

I’m not sure what they think blogs are for, but they seem to think they have a noble purpose in life and that they alone decide what is a “genuine blog” or not.

A “genuine blog” is one that is controlled by the individual who writes to it, not one that must adhere to someone else’s idea of what their blog should look like and what it should say.

If you blog on freehosts just be aware your content and your blog is in the hands of others who will decide for the world whether or not your blog should be seen by others.

I recommend all bloggers get their own domain names and install their own blogs. You probably have learned that using a freehost for your company’s website is bad for business so why put your company’s blog on a freehost?

The same goes for individuals. Blogs allow you to express yourself the way you want to express yourself. That is the beauty of blogging. Are you willing to sacrifice your individuality to conform to what blogger.com or wordpress.com thinks is a “genuine” way to express yourself?

Many times the person deciding your fate is someone who has never had any authority over other people and who think that now they have Godlike powers to decide the fate of content written by others. These are people who likely produce no content of value themselves and think they know what is best for the rest of the world.

Get your own domain name and install a blogging platform that fits your needs. It’s the best advice you will ever get about blogging.

You only own the blog if it is on your own domain name.

Everything else is just providing content for someone else.

Professional Management for Business Blogs