Make Sure Your Doing These Blogging Tips

A lot of entrepreneurs these days are getting a share of the internet profit and beginning to run businesses online. With an internet business, your service or products can reach different parts of the world especially if your website/product can attract much traffic. In order to establish one of the best online businesses, one of the recommended methods to promote it is through a blog. This is not an easy task and so you will need all the help and some tips to keep you on the right track, especially when you are totally green to blogging.

Here are some useful tips that you can incorporate in your blogging internet business:

1. Build Backlinks Like No Tomorrow. In order to promote your business through the use of blogs, you have to give importance to back links. The blog post contents should be able to incorporate appropriate back links. By doing so, you can attract much traffic to your website in a more effective manner.

2. Do A Proper Keyword Research. All the contents of your blogs should have the right or appropriate keywords. Effective blogging can also place your internet business among the top searches in the results of search engines.

3. Make Sure You Can Post Regularly, Otherwise Don’t. If you forget to make posts, your blogs will not be very effective for your internet business. Sporadic bloggers have no place on the net and so if you want your efforts to be rewarded, make sure that you post blogs frequently.

These 3 simple tips are what you can and should follow when you considering to implement blogging as part of your business. Indeed, blogging can be very useful for online business but only if you can post effective blogs.

At present, many owners of online businesses are now making use of blogs to promote their products and services. If you want to become a blogger and at the same time a successful owner of a business, try to learn how to make effective blogs.

There may be gurus saying that blogs are not that hard to handle. To some individuals, it may be their way to share their personal experiences and everyday life. But according to some expert bloggers, you also need to consider the interests of the readers and online researchers. Remember that once you start posting blogs in your business’ website, you have to post frequently (at least once or twice a week) so that your potential customers and readers will not forget you or your business.

So why not start a blog to compliment your business today? Learn to make blogs now and become an effective blogger. Your business will surely benefit from the blogs that you post. If you want to learn more about effective blogging for business, you can easily conduct researches online because you can find a wealth of information there.

Will Internet Marketing Product Launches Always Work?

You are probably seeking an answer to this question and all these gurus have promised a yes with their secret formula to product launches but you still find yourself failing each time you try. Let me put this cold hard fact straight to you, the answer is NO.

Put this scenario into your daily life happenings and you will find the truth yourself. For example, does every new movie sell when they launch it? The answer is no, yet again. This is because a product is very much depended on the many factors including the quality of product, your launch date and time and what are the channels that you use to launch your products.

1) Quality Of Product

If your product is of more than excellent quality, then you know you have the upper hand. There is no sane reason that someone would reject a top quality product right? At the point of creating your product – whether personally or outsourced, do ensure that what you are going to offer in your product is exclusive and something so real and original that people want to read or use. Nobody wants your information that is readily available on the web!

The outlook of your package or product also plays an important role in determining the quality of your product. Having a good outlook will bring you ahead of your competitor and that gives you a higher chance of achieving a successful launch.

2) Launch Date And Time

If you think the launch date and time you have pick do not matter, then you are absolutely wrong. Launch at the wrong date and time, then you can pack up and forget about making an impact. Why so? If Darren Rowse launched his blogging guide book last week and John Chow released his secret money blogging tips yesterday, how will your product fair in comparison? Even if you are already a famous internet celebrity, you know it is a bad strategy to pick this as your launch date.

3) Channels Of Launching/Promotion

Having joint venture partners is a very essential step to ensure that you can create an impact on your launch day because these joint venture partners are going to help you boost your initial sales big time. If you fail to tie up with any JV partners then the chance of you succeeding is pretty low. Launching your internet products on social media like Facebook or Twitter may have a certain effect but the end result is very minimal.

Ultimately, the success of your internet product launch is determined by the decisions and choice you make with regards to selling your product. Do it right and timely and you can go merry after that, do it wrong and you probably never see yourself doing it again learning from your errors is the key.

Is Twitter A Time Waste Or A Powerful Business Tool?

Ever since the interception of this powerful microblogging platform known as the Twitter, both online and offline business owners are rushing to get their own pieces of cakes and hopefully finding something beneficial for their respective businesses. Whether Twitter is a time waste or a powerful business tool is very personal and it very much depends on how you spend your time on Twitter.

You could be spending hours on twitter sending messages telling the world what you ate for lunch or what are you planning for dinner. Similarly, you could also be spending the same amount of quality time tweeting messages that sell your business or create a brand for yourself. So, which are the upsides of Twitter that you can fully make use of to maximize your business profits?

1. Ability To Keep In Touch With The World In Real Time

Honestly, what beats the ability to be able to send your contacts message any time and where in the world in real time? Your followers get updates about you or your business on the go and this sort of communication is very important in building up healthy business relationships. Always remember, communication is the key to the success of your business.

2. Build Up A Brand Name For Yourself

Have you ever thought of how powerful a tweet message from a popular web celebrity can get? There are many cases of famous bloggers who tweeted an affiliate link in less than 140 characters and made $800 plus profit within a day and that makes $24,000 a month! This could be your long term goal as a business owner and tweeter and that is to build up your massive number of followers and also your own brand name along the course.

3. Messages Kept Short And Straight To The Point

This is no need to beat about the bush if you want to sell your business well. Do not underestimate the power of the 140 characters message that you can send through Twitter because this is where you are going to convince your followers to click on the link and read what you have for them! Make use of words like “Secrets Revealed”, “Tips To…” or even “ Learn How To…” because these are the hypnotic money making words that have proven to bring a higher Click Through Rate (CTR). Humans are curious creatures.

If you are able to follow these strong points and advantages to your best then Twitter is definitely on your side of the game. If you have been discouraged by someone telling you that Twitter is a waste of time for your business, then prove them wrong with these believes and techniques. Always bear in mind that branding is very important in building up your business and be thankful that such a powerful microblogging tool has surfaced to meet your business needs.

Build A 100% Original Website In Just A Few Minutes

Thanks for all the comments and questions regarding my email with your free report on creating Multiple Streams of Income, I’m glad to hear that so many of you liked the report and video, and also liked the look of the product.

I only ever do this with products that you express a strong interest in, and this certainly seems to be one of them!

So to get the launch going I’ve teamed up with John and Dave to offer you a ton of bonus items and I’ve added an extra special bonus from myself just for my loyal subscribers which you’ll be able to see as you read on.

Now before I send you to the page with all the details, I will point out that these bonuses have been put together by the creators of multi profit websites – John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson, and they’ve given each affiliate a set allocation of bonuses to offer, so don’t be surprised if you see these bonuses floating around on other pages, there’s nothing fishy going on

But anyway, you can check out all of the bonus items that are available by visiting the site below:

Click here to view my Multi Profit Website Bonuses

Full details on how to claim the bonuses can be found on my bonus page, and can be claimed as soon as you purchase MPW . Although do remember that MPW will launch on the 27th October, so there are still a few days to wait before you can get your hands on them!

There’s also a very good free report that will keep you busy until the 27th if you head on over to the MPW website right now, as far as I know it’s going to be available until the 27th and then replaced by the sales page. So if you fancy getting your hands on the free report, click here to go to the MPW site, and the free download is located to the right of the little and large video!

If you have any Questions then let me know

Best Tools For Search Engine Optimization

Any search engine marketing company should be utilizing the latest technology to obtain the best possible results for any web business. Writing articles and submitting press releases online have been traffic generators for quite some time, yet some companies are not utilizing tried and true methods to obtain results for their customers. Blogs or weblogs have become common among internet businesses as a way of talking direct to customers, telling them news about your company, giving better explanations of your products and just about any other ideas you can come up with. There are new (and not so new) technologies online that any wise SEO company will be utilizing to generate traffic for their customers.

1. RSS, or real simple syndication feeds, are a very simple method of updating customers on your products or services as the updates are made. Through an RSS feed aggregator, or reader, your potential customers can receive updates immediately through an RSS feed. RSS Readers will update your customers as soon as you add new information. The information can be easily set up to show on their homepage or sites like Google.

2. Social Bookmarking is becoming a very important aspect of search engine optimization. A social bookmarking site is very much like adding a website to your favorites. The difference is that a social bookmarking site lets you communicate your favorites with everyone else on the internet! This also leads to one-way links pointing to your website. The premier site for social bookmarking is del.icio.us, first you register and then you can begin social bookmarking. Our secret for the easiest social bookmarking is The Socializer. It is constantly updated to include the latest social bookmarking sites. It provides you with a code that you can use on your sites to automatically allow your customers to social bookmark your site! There is another tool that teaches you how to use social bookmarking to promote your website it is called Tag and Ping and you can find it here.

3. Webceo and IPB 9.0 are the best seo tools we have ever seen. Either of them will give you some major insight into the way search engines work. They assist you in analyzing your competition, choosing keywords, validate your site’s html and fix what is broken, submit to search engines and directories, check your rankings and more!

4. Google Sitemaps give the top dog of search engines a close look at your website. Instead of relying on the google robot to find every page of your site, your sitemap tells it exactly where to go. You can have your sitemap generated for you at this Google Sitemap Generator. Google analytics will tell you exactly what keywords people are using to find your site and which ones are getting clicked the most.

5. Our last, and possibly most important tool for search engine optimization is Roboform. This software remembers passwords and logins for many sites, but this is not the main use. We use Roboform for directory, article and press release submissions. This totally automates the process. All you do is enter your information and click a little button and it will fill in every bit of repetitious information in one second. This saves you a ton of time and allows you to get on with more important things, like customer service!

Search Engine Optimization is a huge part of online business, but a necessary one. Your goal should always be to offer your customers the best website in your industry. If you cannot put in the time to create the best website online, there are plenty of companies that would be willing to do it for you, just be cautious and work with a reputable company.

Multi Profit Websites Is The Solution

Well it’s good news for anyone looking to build their own website because someone has finally devised a program to help you build a website in three easy steps regardless of ability.

And let me tell you this is so simple a 7 year old can do it. If you have tried to create a professional looking website of your own but failed Multi Profit Websites is the solution.

You have the ability via a simple admin control panel to create a website that is 100% unique that can generate an affiliate income from companies such as Google, ClickBank, Amazon, eBay, commission Junction and many more. You also have the ability to display your eBay auctions, or any auctions you choose. And this can all be done in three easy steps.

Here’s all you need to do:-

#Step one – Login to your admin control panel.

#Step two – Edit your website (this is so easy a 7 year old could do it)

#Step three – Start Making Money

And it gets better, you can create a website based on any niche you choose.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you want to create a niche website based around weddings.

You would simply add the keyword ‘weddings’ to your admin control panel and Multi Profit Websites would AUTOMATICALLY generate you a wedding themed website. You can also add your own content to make your website 100% unique. AND YOU CAN BUILD AS MANY WEBSITES AS YOU WISH.

This really is an amazing product and you simply have to check it out:

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I have already started building my online empire with Multi Profit Websites and I would suggest you do the same.

http://craigdawber.com/go/profitswebsites/

Feel free to share your comments and experiences with Multi Profit Websites.

Make Sure There’s No Broken Links On Your Website Or Blog

If your business has a website, most likely it’s constantly changing and evolving. This can be a good thing but how you handle these changes can make a dramatic difference in how effective your website becomes.

Some of your content may be time sensitive, such as information on special promotions, contests and things of that nature. Some content may no longer be relevant to your business, such as discontinued products or services. Most people’s first course of action in these cases would be to simply remove these pages and all internal links (links from your own website pointing to your own pages) so that there is no path to them. This is not the best approach and can result in less website traffic and also potentially affect your search engine rankings.

There is a strong possibility that other people have placed links on their website pointing to the removed pages. Some people may have even previously book marked the removed pages for future use. Once you’ve removed the pages you have eliminated these sources of prospects.

Search engines follow links to find websites and web pages. By removing these pages, you are removing the content that they have come to expect (once they’ve found and indexed it). If they are unable to find a number of pages that you have improperly removed from your server then they very often will leave your website. This can make getting your new pages indexed difficult and slow.

Fortunately, the solution is relatively simple. If you plan to remove a page from your website you would first set up a 301 redirect to another related page. For example if you had a page named “july-sale.htm” and it is now August, you would set your 301 redirect to automatically send all requests for that page directly to “august-sales.htm” instead. Once that is in place you can safely delete the page. If you’ve already deleted pages from your website without setting up 301 redirects you can still fix the problem. If you view your error logs on your web server you can find all of the 404 errors which are caused by requests for files that do not exist and then set up a 301 redirect for each missing file.

This ensures that when someone comes to a page that no longer exists, rather than getting an error message and leaving, they are instantly whisked away to the next most relevant page and you get the chance to turn them into a client or customer. It also ensures that when the search engines come looking for a page that no longer exists they are redirected to the next most relevant page causing them to spend more time crawling your website. It’s important to point out that some hosts do not offer the ability to set up these types of redirects and will recommend adding a java script to the page. This will not work for the search engines because they do not execute any scripts, and it will only work for a portion of visitors.

How To Get Traffic To Your Blog

Getting traffic to your blog is as important as food is to human. The next time you patronize the most popular restaurant down the street, take a closer look at what’s keep their business thriving. You will notice it is the traffic flow that comes first and of coz quality product being next in line. So, what is a perfect blog without any traffic?

You may have heard gurus saying that money is in the list, but without any traffic, how do you get the list? Follow these 5 tips below to ensure you start growing an unstoppable flow of targeted traffic to your blog.

1) Write Articles For Article Directories

Besides writing actively for your blog, you should consider writing some quality articles and submitting them to popular article directories like EzineArticles.com. Why is this placed first on the list? Article marketing has a long lasting viral effect because publishers or fellow bloggers who like your articles will borrow your article and post it on their site and then have a link back to your blog in your resource box. And, other visitors who visit these sites love your articles as well; they will again grab the post and post it on their own sites. See how viral this works? The only downside to this is that it may take a longer time to see visible result but be assured that it is going to be a long lasting one.

2) Writing Guest Posts

This is one of my highly recommended ways of getting your name out and driving insane targeted traffic back to your blog. First of all, ensure that the guest posts you write are of top notch quality; the more popular topics being the “How-To” tutorials. This method makes use of the traffic that other popular bloggers already have and driving a portion of them to your own blog if you are able to capture their interest with your guest post.

3) Get Connected With Social Networks

There are an uncountable social networks surfacing in the World Wide Web today with the more popular ones being Facebook and Twitter. These social networks are highly regarded and used by many bloggers to gain traffic and also brand and sell their names. This works effectively because of the ability to get connected with your readers readily and you can send them a message anytime you want to. Staying in touch with your readers is one of the most important ways to keep your traffic flowing.

4) Social Bookmarks

Make sure that your blog posts are easily bookmark-able.  Whether it is your first time reader or returning reader, they will bookmark your post and send it to share on social bookmarking sites if they like what you write. This will not only bring you extra traffic your blog post hits the front page of social bookmark sites but also a backlink to your blog from established sites deemed by Google.

5) Rank Well On Search Engines

This will be your ultimate goal and target because getting ranked well for your desired keywords will not only drive you immense amount of traffic, but you can also make use of the fact to brand yourself as a SEO expert. What a winner! However, this will also require you to commit to your seo work as it really takes time to move up the list for popular keywords.

Do you have any unique ways of driving traffic to your blog? Feel free to share it by leaving a word or two in the comment section below!

Useful Plugins For Your Blog

Blogging on the self hosted wordpress platform gives you an undeniable advantage over your fellow bloggers who are still clinging on to the free blogging platforms because wordpress brings more flexibility when it comes to customization. Most importantly, wordpress is free of third party ads.

Have you been wondering how some popular bloggers manage to make their blogs highly interactive or professional? To help you spice up your wordpress blog, there are Top 10 essential plugins which are “must-haves” and you are not doing yourself a favour if you missed them out.

1. All-In-One SEO Pack

All-In-One SEO Pack allows you to readily define your blog’s keywords and description and keyword is vital in your seo work. Moreover, it allows you to rename your blog pages’ titles and make them “SEO-ed” with your desired keywords. If you have missed this seo plugin for your wordpress blog, then prepare to regret for life.

2. Google Sitemap

This is yet another gem plugin to improve your blog’s SEO work. It allows you to create a search engine friendly sitemap which is like a mini blueprint of your entire blog with just a single click. This sitemap will get crawled by search engines daily, weekly or even monthly and they will get packed with the latest information on your blog. Thus, these search engines are able to index more of your blog pages constantly.

3. Do-Follow

By making your blog do follow, it means that you are giving away link love to those who get a back link from you. This way, you will probably land your blog name on many do follow blog lists which will gain you extra and free advertisements. However, this is done at your own risk because of the SEO penalty that you might be faced with if you end up linking out to someone that big G doesn’t like.

4. Top Commentators

This plugin is a perfect match with the do-follow plugin mentioned above. You reward your top commentators with a free link back to their own website or blog because they are the people who can help keep your blog alive. This also encourages more people to leave their precious comments since it is a win-win situation.

5) Askimet

This is the plugin which comes preset when you set wordpress up. How else can I stress the importance of this plugin when wordpress themselves have already done so? For those who do not know, Askimet is a plugin which helps you deter all possible spams on your blog and automatically deletes them if you set it to be. Believe me, when you get popular enough, you know how much you need this precious gem.

There are many important plugins out there for you to explore which can improve your blog’s functionality. The above mentioned plugins are what I call the basic necessities, so do not limit yourself to this list and keep tracking your conversion rate and result to determine which plugins work best for your blog(s).

Improve Your Ezine Publishing Success

Publishing an ezine is a terrific way to promote your products to your visitors and achieve more sales.

Your ezine can also be used to carry out joint ventures or ad swaps that will increase your subscriptions or put more money in your pocket.

Here are 4 effective swaps that will help you get started right.

1. Swap an ad

This is the most basic swap that you can participate in, and will create a win-win situation as both you and your swapper will get your ads in front of a targeted audience.

Some ads you could swap:

1. Top sponsor ads

2. Feature ads

3. Classified ads

4. Solo ads

Choose ezines that offer related content to yours, that are informative, and are double opt in.

Also try to swap your ad for multiple issues, when you can, because repetition will increase the number of new subscribers you get from your ad.

In addition, to helping you to increase your subscriptions, you can also get more new customers by swapping an ad for your business. Like when you swap an ad for your ezine, choose ezines that have subscribers that would be interested in what you offer. Also choose ezines that offer valuable content as they’ll have a higher readership, giving you more eyeballs for your ad.

2. Swap a recommendation within your ezine

Because your swapper has readers that presumably already trust her and view her as an expert in her field, your recommendation swaps can be even more successful for you than simply swapping ads. Use the place in your ezines where you talk to your subscribers (i.e., your publisher’s note) to swap your recommendations. Your swaps could be for your ezines, or you could pull in more sales by swapping recommendations for each others’ products or for each other’s freebies (i.e., free ebook or teleclass).

3. Swap a thank you page ad or recommendation

Thank you page swaps can be very effective because the people that will see your ad or recommendation have just shown themselves to be interested in an ezine related to yours by subscribing to it. On your thank you page, you could post 3-5 ads for ezines that your new subscribers might be interested in exchange for those ezines doing the same for you and for each other.

You could also simply share the benefits of joining another publisher’s ezine on this page in exchange for that publisher’s winning recommendation of you.

4. Run a recommended ezines section

Choose a few targeted ezines to join forces with, then place each other’s ads in this section.

With this swap, you’ll be able to get your ezine endorsed by several ezine publishers. You’ll also be able to get valuable long term promotion of your ezine, as your ad will be run in each of your swappers’ issues for the life of your swap.

Now, you have four profitable ways to increase your ezine’s success through joint ventures.  Do some networking with other ezine publishers and find some new swappers that you can partner with and effectively increase your subscriptions or your sales.

What Are The Benefits Of Niche Article Directories?

In marketing, friends will never be enough. There will be plenty of people willing to offer you help and guide you to increase your site’s link popularity. One of these folks are article directories website. In particular, niche article directories will give you plenty of advantages.

What is a niche article directory?

This is a web directory that allows you to publish your content of similar field at their site. In exchange, it will let you promote your website at the end of the article. Niche article directory benefits from you getting your content while you get the chance to promote your website.

In particular, niche article directories can give you several benefits:

Link Popularity. Niche article directories will help you gain link popularity. At the end of each article, writers are allowed to place a link to their website on the resource box. The more you write, the more backward links pointing to your site. This eventually increases your link popularity.

Exposures. Niche article directories will give you plenty of exposure. Website owners who would want additional content, will visit these niche article directories to get their content. This constant flow of visitors will give your content extra exposure that you won’t get from your website. Furthermore, if they decide to publish your articles at their sites, they are not allowed to change the content of the article. Therefore, the link that you placed will remain and you have one more webmaster linking to your website.

Higher Sales Conversion. If readers like your writing, it is easier to convince them to buy a product or service from your site. By sharing your knowledge, they are grateful that they have come across to this piece of wonderful article. You are deemed to be the expert on your field who like to help your audience, instead of pushy marketers trying to offer your inferior products.

More Interested Visitors. Niche directories are offering content of similar fields. This will attract like-minded visitors. For example if a niche article directory is offering content in the field of finance, web surfers seeking to lose weight will not be looking around at this niche directory. This results in more interested visitors viewing your finance article. These visitors are looking for something and that is why they arrive at this niche directory.  A lot of business values this kind of visitors more than general web surfers.

Less Competition. Niche article directory has a lot less categories than a general article directory. This attracts visitors as they do not have to find hard for something they are looking for. For publishers, this will enable your article to stand out. You have less competition to attract the visitors’ attention. More and more visitors will be able to locate your article in a niche article directory. This is precious. After all, the reasons you publish your content is to let others read your masterpiece.

Faster Approval. Niche article directories will have to approve limited number of articles since they specialize in one field. This enables them to publish your article faster and with less errors. On the other hand, big general article directories will have to approve hundreds if not thousands of articles daily.

Free Advertising. On top of it all, submitting your content to niche article directories is free. You can promote your site, derive extra visitors to your site, regarded as experts in your field and increase your link popularity all for the cost of … zero. How sweet is that?

Increase Traffic and Generate Sales Through Article Marketing

If you are working to become a successful online entrepreneur then you have probably already tried to increase traffic and generate sales through search engine positioning and pay per click advertising. Have you also tried article marketing? Article marketing is the strategy of writing articles related to your business and publishing them on other websites and in the ezines of complementary companies with a link back to your site. This form of online promotion is a very effective way to build traffic and boost sales. Below you will find the main ways that article marketing can benefit you.

1. It is your best way to get known as an “expert” in your field.

Why should someone buy from you and not from one of the thousands of your competitors that are also online? The few lines that you write in your “about us” section of your website may not be enough to set you apart from the others. However, if your potential customer sees your name on well-written and informative articles appearing on several websites around the Internet, then they will regard you as an expert in your field. The more you publish, the greater your recognition will be and the more your reputation will be enhanced.

2. Informative articles build trust in your ability to provide a good product or service.

If you are selling online your most important asset is to be seen as knowledgeable and trustworthy. When one of your articles is selected by another publisher and placed on a website or included in an ezine, that publisher is in effect endorsing you. This kind of endorsement will impress the readers of those articles and they will feel more confident in doing business with you, especially if your article is published in an ezine or on a website which they already respect.

3. Your articles help to “pre-sell” your products and services.

It is the quality of website traffic that counts, not necessarily the quantity. The best kind of traffic you can get is from people who have read one of your articles, and have liked what they have read. These web visitors come into your website with an eagerness to know more and are much more likely to buy something from you then someone who comes onto your site “cold” or without any introduction to your ideas.

4. Article writing is a great way to generate content for your ezines and your own website.

Although you can look at article marketing as an outreach activity designed primarily for publication elsewhere, you can also use these articles in your own newsletters and on your own website. Keeping in touch with your customers and clients through a regular newsletter is an important part of doing business online. However, you need a steady flow of good material to really be successful. If your articles are good enough to be published on someone else’s website, then by all means publish them first in your own newsletters and on your website.

5. Articles published on other sites help to build one-way links to your website.

Link building is one of the keys to making a website successful, but, as with traffic, it is the quality of the links that matter, rather than the sheer number. Each time one of your articles is placed on another website, you will get a link back to your site. These are one-way links because you did not have to trade links to get them. Usually these links come from pages with fewer outbound links than the standard link pages where your link is usually placed when making a reciprocal arrangement. One-way links coming from pages with few outbound links help to build Page Rank more effectively than reciprocal links.

Article marketing is very powerful and greatly under used, most marketers fail to understand that writing and submitting articles will bring you traffic and sales not just a few times but for years to come, if you haven’t started article marketing don’t delay, start today and generate traffic to your sites.

Understanding Real Simple Syndication (RSS)

Before we go into this topic, you must first understand what is Real Simple Syndication (RSS) yourself before trying to convince your readers to subscribe. There are a thousand and one ways to increase your RSS Subscription number but I am going to be practical and share with you the basic and yet reliable methods to get you started right away. Trust me, you will see result almost instantly!

1)    Educate your readers with what RSS is about. Don’t assume everyone knows what RSS is just because you know. Many people who do not know what RSS is would probably ignore when they see a huge RSS icon with “Subscribe To My Feed Now!” Let them know what are the basic things to expect from RSS and also why should they subscribe to yours.

2)    Make Your RSS Icons Or Call-To-Action Visible. And I mean VERY VISIBLE! Always place your RSS Subscription on the top fold so that it catches your

readers or first time visitors’ attention first and this will highly increase the chance of getting a new subscription.

3)    Start A Blog Contest. Organise a blog contest where your readers subscribe to your RSS and they will stand a chance to win some prizes from you. It works miracles!

4)    Hold A RSS Count Competition. Look for a fellow blogger and run a mini contest between yourselves and see who can more subscribers in a given period of time. This will increase your exposure and more readers will be enticed to subscribe to join in the “fun”.

Understanding RSS Better

What is RSS?

You probably have seen this three-letter acronym in the course of your internet surfing. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; syndicating means republishing an article that comes from another source such as a website.

An RSS is a means of publicizing updates about websites. It may or may not include a summary and photos of the latest posting. But those that provide summaries (thus Rich Site Summary) allow users to skim through the article so that they could decide later on if they want to access the website source. The RSS feed usually contains the title of the update originating from the website. It is also usually the link to the website source.

What are the benefits of RSS?

RSS gives benefits to both readers (users) and web publishers.

1. It gives you the latest updates. Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updates site learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.

2. It saves on surfing time. Since an RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user’s time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.

3. It gives the power of subscription to the user. Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.

4. It lessens the clutter in your inbox. Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online RSS aggregators, RSS does not use your email address to send the updates.

5. It is spam free. Unlike email subscriptions, RSS does not make use of your email address to send updates thus your privacy is kept safe from spam mails.

6. Unsubscribing is hassle-free.  Unlike email subscriptions where the user is asked questions on why s/he is unsubscribing and then the user would be asked to confirm unsubscribing, all you have to do is to delete the RSS feed from your aggregator.

7. It can be used as an advertising or marketing tool. Users who subscribe or syndicate product websites receive the latest news on products and services without the website sending spam mail. This is advantageous to both the web user and the website owner since advertising becomes targeted; those who are actually interested in their products are kept posted.

What are the drawbacks of RSS?

The disadvantages of RSS use are brought about by its being a new technology and some user-preference concerns.

1. Some users prefer receiving email updates over an RSS feed. (Hence the need to provide Email subscriptions as well)

2. Graphics and photos do not appear in all RSS feeds.

For conciseness and ease of publication, RSS feeds do not display the photos from the original site in announcing the update except for some web-based aggregators

3. The identity of the source website can be confusing.

Since RSS feeds do not display the actual URL or name of the website, it can sometimes get confusing on what feed a user is actually reading.

4. Publishers cannot determine how many users are subscribed to their feed and the frequency of their visits. Moreover, they would not know the reasons why users unsubscribe which could be important in improving their advertising.

5. RSS feeds create higher traffic and demands on the server.

Most readers still prefer the whole update over a brief summary of the entry, thus they still access the site.

6. Since it is a new technology, many sites still do not support RSS.

How do I start using RSS?

There are two things needed: an RSS feed and an RSS aggregator or reader. The RSS feed comes from an RSS-supported website. There are also websites that provide a list of RSS feeds of different websites. An RSS aggregator is used to read the RSS feed from the source website. It scans and collects data on latest RSS feeds from the worldwide web.

An aggregator comes in two forms: a downloadable program also known as desktop aggregator and an online or web-based aggregator. Downloadable aggregators may require payment before they can be acquired, while internet-based aggregators are usually free of charge. All you need to do is to register an account then you are ready to use their services. Both versions allow you to customize or choose which RSS feeds to enter. Paid aggregators are usually chosen by more experienced users and they usually allow more freedom in customizing feeds.

1. Choose an RSS aggregator to use. For beginners, web-based aggregators are recommended since they are usually user-friendly

2. Scan the homepage of your target website for the RSS or XML button. It contains the RSS code you need to enter in the aggregator. Copy this code. Syndic8 provides a directory of websites that support RSS.

3. Paste the code (which contains the URL of the website) in your aggregator. There is a space provided for pasting the code. After you have done these three easy steps, you can start reading the RSS feeds coming from the website. New postings appear as they are published real time at the source website.

Based on the information above, you should be able to craft up your own RSS description post or page and educate your new readers and visitors to subscribe. You will see a big jump in number almost instantly.

Growing the Opt-In List

It requires dreadfully hard work to build a robust, responsive and high-quality mailing list. Just flooding thousands of emails to the list of recipients in the database won’t do the trick. The truth is that acquiring email addresses is just a small part of the large process of email marketing. It is very important to realize that the company should build an individual relationship with every person behind the email address. If the starting is wrong, every chance for building a rewarding relationship with the subscribers is instantly killed. And on the other side, if the company proves itself worthy to its list of subscribers, then many happy years lie ahead for both the parties.

For list building some key components need to be kept into account like the method of acquiring the email addresses, how new subscribers should be welcomed, and how the relationship is maintained after the opt-in process. Acquiring the list of addresses is the easiest part of list building. But the basic rule here is to take explicit permission from the owner to send emails. Violation of this rule is going against the U.S. CAN-SPAM law regarding commercial email. This also leads to breaking of the relationship with the customer.

Addresses can be collected by online and offline means. Links for email opt-in should be posted on every page of the website, including the registration page and every transactional page. Paid search can be used to reach elevate the position in search engines results. The land up page should include a vivid link to the sign up page. Alliances can be searched who have a similar or a complementary business so to promote one’s company in return of promoting the other company. Incentives such as email only discount and free shipping can be offered to increase the subscription list. If the list is being rented from another organization make sure the list contains subscribers which have given permission. Offline means include collecting email addresses from visitors to the company, trade show or on-site. Email addresses can be asked for in appropriate situations by the customer support employees and telephone sales workers. Links for subscription can be posted in all printed material such as newspapers, flyers, magazines, bags, store signs, customer survey and feedback forms, catalogs, etc.

The next important step is to welcome the new subscriber. Because of the flood of emails filling one’s inbox, it is a tough to make one read the email and trust in it. A welcome message, with appropriate content, helps in building the relationship of trust with the subscriber. In fact, a complete welcome program must be build for this purpose. Welcoming a subscriber actually starts from the website’s registration page. This page should clearly explain the content, benefits and frequency to the subscribers. The opt-in page should be easy to navigate and shouldn’t be bothersome with numerous questions to be answered. For start four fields are sufficient: first name, last name, email address and format preferences. The other information can be collected via optional forms. After sign-up a thank you page must pop up immediately. This doses the confirmation job and leads the subscriber to the optional form. Next, a welcome email should be send to the customer. This email will not only build up the initial trust but will also check the validity of the email address. This email should include links to optional forms and the detailed preference page. It can also contain the subscription benefits and sample of the past best newsletters.

The next step of relationship management is the most important and delicate phase because of the personal relationship with every subscriber. If it is not taken care of properly, all the effort taken to collect email addresses for subscription list will be wasted. The subscriber’s preferences must be honored in order to expand the email program. The trends in bounces, inactivity and unsubscribing can be noted by the list statistics. Occasional special offers and surveys can be created for sustaining the interest of the readers. People who haven’t opened the emails for a long time should be concentrated upon, especially. Send follow-up emails and query messages.

Opt-in list building takes lots of time, energy and dedication. Certainly all the effort is worth it in the end, which can be seen by the healthy growth of the mailing list.