Quick Online Tips » Guest Posts

Local Search Advertising: New Dimension For Small Businesses

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:15:50 +0000

Guest Post by Donny Gamble
A couple of years ago, local search advertising was defined as online search advertising which is made through mapping websites, local internet yellow pages, local search engines, and classified ads websites. The purpose of conducting a local online search is to rely on information collected from online sources to execute an offline transaction.

This type of search is extremely important for small entrepreneurs and small businesses. This is simply because it is almost free as it only requires a small budget to make a successful advertising campaign. The small business only seeks customers and potential clients locally and from surrounding areas. This process is also cheaper from all other types of local advertising as newspapers and media advertising like TV and radio commercials.

Image credit: Cartoon Church

Some small businesses do search engine marketing by themselves, and some outsource this operation by professional and specialized third parties. They later achieve more successful and efficient results as it is a simple process, but needs experience and knowledge of the market variables like economical conditions and customers’ trends.

Local Advertising Benefits

1. Local search advertising is based on the IP to deliver local search results. When a customer searches for a general term like “lawyer”, the search engine delivers local and non-local ads’ results, which will benefit the searcher in both cases. IP targeting search results are not perfect, but serve as required and in most times they are sufficient enough for the searchers. This is of a great advantage for advertisers like small businesses, as it will help them achieve more customers when local customers conduct online searches.

2. Local search advertising can give you the option to target customers within a specific area, like a region, a state, a city, a town, a county, or a small neighborhood. You can specify a point on the map and then target all customers from 50 or 100 miles in every direction of that point. Local search can turn up to be international advertising or exclusive to a couple of countries. The options here are unlimited as you can target more than one area with the same ad.

3. Pay per click and classified ads are the most common two methods of conducting and executing local advertising campaigns. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo are specialized in providing advertisers with hundreds of options to publish their advertising campaigns locally and globally. Craiglist is considered to be the biggest classified ads website on the web and most of the ads are for local users only.

Donny Gamble writes a blog about creating wealth by combining Internet Marketing with Network Marketing and explains why every Internet marketer should have an MLM business. You can also share your tips and write a guest article here.

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Original article: Local Search Advertising: New Dimension For Small Businesses
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3 Different Types of Keyword Research

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:26:29 +0000

Guest article by Pradeep.
All bloggers and web marketers know that keyword research is important for success of the blog or website. However many people new to internet marketing (even some veterans) make the mistake of assuming that process of keyword research is the same for all websites.

In this article I shall explain the different types of keyword research that can be used, the tools that may be utilized for the purpose, advantages and disadvntages of each method and how to select a method for your own website. I shall be explaining the concepts using examples from the second hand goods market as I have been working extensively on that domain for quite sometime now.

Based on my experience, keyword research is of 3 types viz
1. Finding keywords that have been popular for quite sometime
2. Finding keywords that are popular right now
3. Finding keywords that will become popular in future

1. Finding keywords that have been popular for quite sometime

This is the most popular way of doing keyword research and most of the time when people talk about keyword research, they are talking about this particular method. In this method we shall be looking for keywords that people have been using for quite sometime. Let us say, we want to figure out whether enough people are interested in second hand cars or not. We shall be using Google Adwords Keyword Tool for this purpose. We start with the keyword car. The tool will show popular keywords related to cars that are used by users. A quick glance at the result will tell us that people use keywords like “second hand cars”, “used cars” and “cars for sale” to search.

If people have been interested in these keywords for quite sometime, there is a really good chance that they will continue to be interested in them in future as well. Hence if I am planning to build a website about second hand cars, I can be fairly confident that there are enough people who are looking for it. However a quick search for “second hand cars” on google will reveal that websites that are present in the top 10 are quite strong ones and it is going to be extremely difficult for me to get into the top 10.

2. Finding keywords that are popular right now

Mostly these are keywords in the news. Result of some cricket or football match, any controversy, Oscar awards 2010 etc will fall into this category. These keywords get a lot of traffic for a short span of time which then dies down. Since the keyword did not exist till yesterday there are no existing web pages for it and the first ones to write about it can rank quite high on Google. Google Trends and Trending topics on Twitter are some of the best places to find recently popular keywords. Write them fast and write regularly and you shall be surprised by the result.

Only problem with this method is you need to keep writing regularly to keep getting traffic. And since the keyword did not exist till yesterday, it is unlikely that anyone has setup an Adsense campaign for it. So monetizing the traffic is difficult.

3. Finding keywords that will become popular in future

I think this is one of the best methods to use for anyone who is serious about building an e-business. For example there are lot less people looking for second hand bikes on Google right now. However I am confident that the number will go up in future. That is why I am working on developing a website for second hand bikes in India. The traffic will take time to buildup. But by the time it does, my website will be an authority website for this term.

The trick lies in finding keywords that are popular right now, using tools mentioned in 1 above. Then apply your knowledge to find out keywords that are going to be popular in near future. Let us say keyword research shows that browser extensions are popular for Firefox. When the discussion about Google Chrome started, using this method you could have created content about Google Chrome extensions. As soon as Chrome got released, your site would have become exceptionally popular.

To conclude …

Use method 1 i.e finding already popular keywords if you have a really strong website say like QOT.
Use method 2 if you have a website that is at least 1 year old with some backlinks. It is going to be really easy to rank for news items if you do on-page optimization right.
The last method is my favorite one. This is how businesses were supposed to be built and this is your best chance at becoming really successful.

Let me know your views in the comments below.

Guest author Pradeep is a blogger with more than 4 years of experience of developing web businesses in India and advises other bloggers about increasing traffic and earning from their blogs. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks.

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Original article: 3 Different Types of Keyword Research
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5 Out-of-the-Box Keyword List Strategies That Work

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:33:01 +0000

Guest Article by Edward Khoo
There are dozens of keyword selection “strategies.” All you have to do is Google keyword strategies to get 50,100,000 search results the day of this writing. That is over 50 million hits on a very narrow, industry-specific subject, but it makes a good point.

Anybody – everybody – working in the web space, from site owners to W3 marketing gurus, has a theory about keyword selection. The diversity of opinions offers up another point: there is no one way to select the perfect set of keywords.

The fact is, keyword optimization is more art than science. However, by using several helpful tools you can gather empirical data, test the results for your site and tweak your keyword list to increase site traffic and, simultaneously, deliver a more highly-qualified buyer – knowledgeable, motivated to find a solution and willing to pay for that solution.

The solution you sell.

Image via davidkjelkerud

1. Start with your own industry / business knowledge.

First, trust your instincts. What keywords would you enter into a search box? You know the insider jargon, you know your target market, you know your products or services so start with a list of the search words you’d use.

But don’t stop there. Remember, you bring a bias to the search. You already know the lingo. So, your intuitive keyword list brings with it a bias. Same with lists developed by other knowledgeable executives in your company. Even so, these keyword lists provide a foundation for finessing a keyword list over time.

2. Test your list of intuitive keywords.

I like Google’s keyword generator for a couple of reasons.

First, Google controls the largest share of the search market so why not go with the 600-lb gorilla. Second, Google’s keyword generator delivers empirical data – the actual usage figures of Google users over the past 30 days.

Enter your URL and intuitive keywords into Google’s keyword tool and click check. One of three results will be immediately evident:

- Your intuition is correct. Keywords you selected are popular search words.

- Your intuition is incorrect. Your search terms are too sector- or B2B-specific and, as a result, the search terms don’t drive much traffic.

- Or, the most likely result – the affirmation that some of your keywords are on target with SE users, some aren’t and, happily, you’ll discover additional keywords used by searchers. Happy surprises that you might not have considered.

3. Test the strength of each keyword.

If you operate in a commercial sector that crosses numerous business and industries, Google will hand you a list of a few thousand keywords used by its patrons. Narrowing the list down is a crucial part of the development of an effective list of 10-15 keywords.

There are a couple of ways I test the strength of a keyword to deliver good SERPs for my client. First, I use a term extractor, available for use (free) on SEOmoz.org. This tool identifies strong keywords on an existing site that’s been indexed properly by search engines. A quick examination of the results of term extraction always reveals some interesting data.

Example: I had a client that provides hearing aid advice online. The site offered a free consumer download, articles, product reviews and other helpful information for people conducting research on an upcoming hearing aid purchase.

The site owner, intuitively, selected hearing aids as his primary keyword but couldn’t understand why his bounce rate was over 80%. Well, hearing aids, when extracted, proved to be a strong keyword. The problem was, the site didn’t sell hearing aids – the objective of a SE user querying “hearing aids.” No hearing aids for sale? Bounce to the next site.

A simple adjustment to this client’s keyword list in the site’s meta, alt and title tags and playing down the keyword hearing aids in the site’s corpus did the trick. The client’s bounce rate dropped to 40% in a matter of weeks.

Use a term extraction tool to identify which keywords and phrases are strong with search engines. You’re almost certain to be surprised at the results.

4. Calculate the “pull” of a given keyword.

I use SpyFu, a very useful tool in determining the effectiveness of any keyword.

The software is actually an AdWords metrics tool that identifies bidding ranges of given keywords for AdWords placement. Of course, I use SpyFu to help my clients get a bigger bang for their AdWords buck, but it’s also a great tool for determining the effectiveness of a keyword – even if you don’t use PPC advertising.

AdWords functions much like a stock market with investors bidding up the price of keywords, just as investors bid up the price of stocks. SpyFu shows me the range of bids for a keyword. And if AdWords users keep that keyword at $1.27 a click, well, I know that’s a keyword that pulls and more than pays for itself at $1.27 per click.

Conversely, when SpyFu identifies a low cost AdWords keyword – six cents per click (see chart), for instance, I know it’s not popular, I know it doesn’t pull but I don’t necessarily cross it off the list. Here’s why.

5. Use lower-ranking keywords to beat higher ranking competition.

If you’re just launching a new site, if you’ve just added several sub-domains that don’t show up on SERPs, or if you’ve made significant changes to your business or revenue model, you can often upend deep pockets competitors by using lower-ranking keywords.

Let’s say you own a small site that sells digital cameras and accessories. You’re in a highly-competitive market sector up against the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, J&R and other well-known, branded names. So, a search of “digital cameras” reveals that your little site is on page 34 of SERPs, and when was the last time you drilled down 34 pages searching for anything?

Using the identical keywords that deep-pockets, well-known competitors use will bury you. BUT, if you deploy lesser-used keywords, for example “digital cameras real cheap,” you won’t see as many SE users entering those particular keywords, but those who do will see your site at the top of page one of Google’s SERPs. Why? Because the heavy hitters aren’t using those long-tail keywords. Once again, before you opt for a long-tail, test it on all major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Inktomi.

Also, run that long-tail through an AdWords metrics generator. This will enable you to uncover strong terms that aren’t being used, even by stronger sites. Look for keywords that haven’t been bid up in price but still pull a good quantity of traffic each day. This eliminates the stronger competitors.

Check out the spread sheet showing keywords and prices for digital cameras. I’ve highlighted popular search terms that haven’t been “discovered” by the competition because the AdWords bid price is comparatively low. Consider :

1. Using these less popular keywords as your primary search terms or

2. Add the most promising candidates to your existing list and incorporate them in your site’s meta data, description tag, alt tags and title tags where appropriate.

One last piece of advice: keyword list refinement is an ongoing process. It’s not something you do once and forget about it. Use tools like Google’s keyword generator, SpyFu and other AdWords metrics analyzers to determine the best list for your site – a list of keywords that pulls, but also isn’t used by more powerful competitors.

Then, as your business grows, you can add more of the most-used keywords and go head-to-head with the cost-cutting big box stores. That day will come a lot sooner if you select the strongest keywords for your site.

This guest article was written by Edward Khoo, a full time blogger from Malaysia. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks with our readers.

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Original article: 5 Out-of-the-Box Keyword List Strategies That Work
Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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How to Transfer Domain Name to New Registrar

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:17:07 +0000

Guest Article By S.Pradeep Kumar
In this article I’m going to explain the steps involved to transfer domain name from one registrar to another. If you have couple of domain names, it is better to keep all of them in a single registrar. Below mentioned steps are common and can be applied to all the top domain registrars.

1. Purchase Domain Transfer At The Your New Registrar
Normally if you purchase a domain transfer, your new registrar will let you to keep all the time remaining on your existing registration and provide One-Year free extension. After the purchase of domain transfer, your domain at the new registrar will require an Authorization Code. Your new registrar will send an email to you which contains “Transaction ID” and “Security Code”.

2. Request Authorization Code At Current Registrar
Login to your current registrar account and request for Authorization Code. But remember you should have turned off the domain protection or your domain should be unlocked before requesting the authorization code from the current registrar.

3. Authorization Code Received From Current Registrar
You will receive an email from current registrar with “Authorization Code”. Now you can begin the domain transfer from the new registrar using the authorization code. Login to your new registrar and begin the transfer process. Then the new registrar will display the status as “Authorization Required” and choose “ Begin Transfer Authorization”(Recommended).

Now enter the authorization code that you received from the current registrar through mail and complete the process. After completing this step, the status will be displayed as “Pending Current Registrar approval” and choose “Accept transfer at current registrar” (Recommended).

4. Email Notification From Current Registrar
After completing all these steps, you will receive an email from your current registrar confirming your transfer request. You don’t need to take any action if you want to accept the transfer. If you wish to cancel the transfer, follow the link provided in the email.

You will receive an email like this :

We received notification on November 5, 2008 5:11:27 PM EDT that you have requested to transfer to another domain name registrar. If you would like to proceed with this transfer you do not need to respond to this message…..

…..If we do not hear from you by November 10, 2008 5:11:27 PM EDT, this transfer will proceed. We are committed to providing you with the solutions, services, and support to help you succeed online. We hope to continue serving you in the future.

5. Domain Transfer Completed To New Registrar
You will get a confirmation email from your new registrar received approximately four days after initiating the transfer at the current registrar. Remember that the current registrar has up to 5 days to release the transfer of the domain.

Have you ever transferred a domain name to a new registrar? If so, please share your experience here.

This guest article was written by S.Pradeep Kumar, a technical blogger and writer specializing in blogging tips, product reviews and tutorials. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks.

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14 Easy-to-Use Time Tracking Software

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:35:54 +0000

Guest post by Elisabeta Ghidiu.
Time trackers have been more and more popular these days in different ways if you choose to use them on your computer at home or at work. These applications allow you to have a general view over the activities performed in a specific day and see the achievement level. Here is a list with the most used time trackers -

Image by Temari 09 under CC

Paid Time Tracking Applications

1. Achive Palnner – is a Windows time management software that capture, organize and manage all your projects and tasks in one central place. After you organize the projects, you have the possibility to prioritize them using ABCD priority system.

2. Cyclope Employee Monitoring Software – is a time tracking software that records your activity without needing you to introduce dates. It provides information about how much time you (or your team) have spent on different activities in a specific day or a specific period of time (week, month or period defined by you). You can find out total active hours, overtime periods, total time spent online, idle time and the top of the most used application. The application can also generate productivity reports, which allow you to check how much time you spend on a productive/unproductive application. This time tracking software helps you refocus on important tasks. Online demo available here.

3. Chrometa – is a great time tracking software that captures every second and you don’t even have to enter dates. The application allows you to view activities from days, weeks or months before. You can set reminders, organize your work and export the dates into a Microsoft Excel workbook. A nice feature is the possibility to organize your time by dragging records into client or project categories. Online video available here.

4. Dovico – time tracking software is not just another time tracking software. This application can help you can increase project profitability allowing you to compare budge vs actual time and costs. It’s a complex application but even so it’s easy to use and it takes only 15 minutes to learn improving your time management skills. Online video available here.

Free Time Tracking Applications

5. Klok – is an easy-to-use personal time tracking software with a very nice interface. The application will let you know how much time you spend on past projects and allows you to better estimate future projects.

6. Maniac Time – is not just tracking your time spent on a specific project but tracks which applications you use and presents them in an easy to understand way. More than that it is tracking your computer usage showing you how much time you were idle or active.

7. ProjectHamster – works like an agenda, allowing you to schedule your day and to track the time spent on a specific activity. The application provides some statistics of how many hours you have spent on what and the reports can be exported to some suitable format or printed out.

8. Rachota – is a time tracking software developed having in mind 3 ideas: planning work, work your plan and analyze your time data. Compared to other free time tracking software, this one seems more complex providing beside the standard features – HTML report generating, history view of activity, tasks prioritizing and compared view for specific users.

Web-based online time tracking software

9. 1TimeTracking – is a paid web based time tracking software that provides a wide range of features. The application is perfect for managers to track costs for specific projects and to find out which employees are maximizing their billings and track the profitability of each. What makes this application different from others is that users can now update and view their timesheets while out of the office via their mobile phone or cell phone.

10. ClickTime – is a simple time tracking software but its great advantage is the compatibility with Mac, Windows, or Linux. More that that, the time tracking software has a Mobile Edition for PDAs & Smartphones in order to keep you up to date with your tasks even when you are not at your computer.

11. My intervals – is a paid web-based project management software that combines the time tracking with task management providing data reporting. A specific characteristic of this software is the Theme feature. This will enable you to personalize the intervals so they can match your palette and workflow.

12. SlimTimer – is free and easy to use. It is so easy that all you have to do is to enter your name and tasks for a specific day. After the task is completed, you can click the checkbox to mark it off. Even if the application does not provide many features, it allows you to run reports or to export any report to CSV (Excel), subscribe to its RSS feed or email it to a colleague.

13. Toggl – is a web based time tracking software that can be embedded into a specific Internet application like iGoogle, Netvibes, Gmail, or in your own company intranet. The application provides both paid and free versions, depending on chosen functionalities and number of users. The application has nothing special compared to other applications but it provides real-time performance charts and reports for the whole team.

14. Time-Assistant – time tracking software has so many features embedded that will provide detailed information about a project or about the person working on a project. Beside the time tracking features, the application includes calculation of expenses and multilanguage support (English, French, German). Time-Assistant is web based timesheet software with time track and payroll automation. Online demo available here.

Beside the fact that all time tracking software are design to track your activity, each of them has its specific features trying to make you more productive and to better suit your needs.

This guest post was written by Elisabeta Ghidiu, who is interested in online privacy and security solutions. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite web services.

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Original article: 14 Easy-to-Use Time Tracking Software
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How To Backup and Restore WordPress Database

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:36:07 +0000

Guest Post by Udegbunam Chukwudi.
How can you backup and restore your WordPress blog database? If you’ve been blogging long enough, you might have heard the words “Backup Your WordPress Database Regularly!” Well, this is quite true. Don’t take it with a pinch of salt! A healthy backup of your database could one day be THE ONLY means of restoring your blog should something go wrong such as a bad plug-in installation or an attack by blog hackers.

For a second time since I started blogging, this database backup of a thing, as some would call it, has saved me a lot of headache. Recently I messed up my blog’s permalink structure and my saving grace was the day before’s database backup.

DISCLAIMER: This tutorial is provided as it is. I shall not be held responsible in any way should you encounter problems like loss of database and entire blog/website along the way. Use this at your own discretion. It worked EXCELLENTLY well for me and should do the same for you hopefully!

How to Backup Wordpress Database.

1. Download, install and activate Wordpress Database Backup

2. Go to Tools in the sidebar of your dashboard and click on Backup

Under Backup options as shown below, select “Download to your computer” and click on “Backup Now”. When the backup is done you’ll be given an option to choose where to save the backup. Save the backup and you’re done.

Note: I strongly advice you schedule a daily backup of your database as issues could arise at ANY TIME. Simply navigate down the Backup option page to Scheduled backup. Select the once daily option and select which tables you’d like included in the backup. Type in your email address, click the schedule backup button and all is well. Check to see if your first backup gets delivered successfully the next day.

How To Restore Wordpress Database

The guide below will help you restore your database in no time using the backups that have been made in the past. I’m assuming that your current database has been damaged or is behaving erratically.

1. Log into your FTP account and Delete everything in the /wp-content/cache directory.

2. Log into PHP MyAdmin and select your wordpress database. It’s mandatory you remember clearly well the name of your wordpress database especially if you auto-installed it using Fantastico.

A list of all of the tables contained in the database will be shown. As shown below, click on Check all to select all the tables then select the Drop option to delete them PERMANENTLY.

You’ll be prompted to confirm the Drop action

Choose Yes and all tables will be DELETED with this result displayed on your computer screen

Now that the database for wordpress is empty, let’s proceed to uploading our database backup file

Click on the Import menu as shown above and then browse to the location of the backup file as shown below. Once you’ve done that, click on go and wait for the upload process to finish.

A successfully database restoration will show you something similar to the message below

Once the whole restoration process is done, log into your dashboard and make sure everything is working okay. Don’t forget to browse your site to see if it’s functioning as expected.

This guest post was written by Udegbunam Chukwudi who shares make money online and blogging tips @ his PR 2 dofollow blog. You can also write a guest article and share your WordPress tips.

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Original article: How To Backup and Restore WordPress Database
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5 Free Programs to Manage Windows Clipboard

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:52:44 +0000

Guest post by Aseem Kishore.
Looking for free Windows Clipboard mangers? The Windows clipboard is probably the most under-recognized feature of the entire Windows family, yet it’s probably used the most often. In this post, I will give you my list of the 5 most useful clipboard manager tools that will help you increase productivity.

Best Free Clipboard Managers for Windows

1. Ditto – Ditto is an open source extension to the standard Windows Clipboard. You can store text, images, HTML, or any custom formatted content onto the clipboard. It has a simple and easy to use interface and a lot of cool features. For example, you can search previous copy entries and you can also keep multiple clipboards from multiple computers in sync with each other! And the data is encrypted when sent over the network. Even better! It also uses a database backend, so accessing and storing clipped content is super fast. Overall, it’s one of my favorites.

2. xNeat – This little program is really tiny! It weighs in at only 644KB! If you want something that will let you store more items in your clipboard and not eat up very much RAM, then xNeat is the clipboard manager for you. Of course, it’s not as fancy as Ditto, basically allowing you to bring up a menu with a list of all the items you have copied to the clipboard. You can setup hotkey also to make the copying and pasting very efficient.

3. Clipboard Manager – If you love using the Sidebar in Windows Vista and Windows 7, then you’re going to like clipboard manager. It’s actually a Windows Live Gallery gadget. Since it’s a gadget, it runs in the Windows Sidebar and lets you manage your clips from the sidebar itself, which is pretty neat. The copied items show up in a nice list that is also styled just like your sidebar.

4. Ten Clips – Another lightweight and easy to use clipboard manager is Ten Clips. Everything can be controlled by hotkeys, so you never have to use the mouse. If you work with any kind of data where you are always copying and pasting between programs, Ten Clips will make it much easier. It’s main standout feature is that you can quickly paste “purified” text, which means it removes all formatting and paste in uppercase or lowercase.

5. PasteCopy.NET – Though this program requires the .NET Framework to be installed, it works really well on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003/2008. It also is the only clipboard manager in the list to support multiple languages. It has some cool features like auto convert of HTML to RTF or TXT and auto convert of RTF to TXT. What’s really cool, though, is that you can mouse over and see a preview of the actual clipped item. It also has an export and print function built in.

Are you using another clipboard manager that I didn’t mention here? If so, post in the comments! Enjoy!

Aseem Kishore is a blogger and Internet entrepreneur who blogs at Online Tech Tips and Help Desk Geek about technology, software, and computers. You can also write a guest article on QOT and share your tips and tools.

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5 Twitter-Like Microblogging Sites for Blog Traffic Building

QuickOnlineTips — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:41:39 +0000

Guest Post by Alan Liew
Twitter has popularized the concept of microblogging. It has changed the way people use the internet and has increased the time they use the computer. It provides many online activities from internet marketing, online diary updating, affiliate marketing, blog traffic generation and a lot more. It has made people busier but provided many opportunities not only to big online entrepreneurs but most especially to small online businesses and individual bloggers.

What is microblogging? It is the process of posting short information with at most 140 characters per post. Updates about various topics can be posted. This has paved the way for online marketing and generation of free traffic to blogs. Twitter is currently the most popular microblogging site online. However aside from it, there are also other microblogging sites that have their own poll of members and great services.

This article will tackle 5 of these microblogging sites online. These sites are Plurk, Sweetter, Microblogger, Yammer and Tumbler. Discussed in detail below are the site’s functions and special features.

5 Twitter-Like Microblogging Alternatives

1. Plurk
The updates or tweets (as it is called in Twitter) are called plurks. Members can send plurks to other members in the form of links to their blog posts or other sites and short messages. Plurk gives you a chance to create your online journal and share it with your friends and family. Using Plurk will help you network with other people who have the same interests as you are. This site is a combination of social networking and microblogging and the services it provides are simple yet very useful and not only for ordinary internet users but most especially for those who wish to connect and market with other people online.

2. Sweetter
Quite a unique name for a microblogging site. This open source microblogging site provides a lot of fun stuff. Sweetter like Twitter allows you to write what you are doing and updates your friends about your activities. You can write everything you want to write about. Following other members is also possible and they can see what you post on your page and vice versa. Replying to another member’s post is also possible (@user). Sweetter uses a TODO system where you can send someone a list of things to do. This site also applies the voting system where members can vote your posts which causes for your karma to go up or down. The karma ranges from -50 to 50 points. Members can vote up the posts that they like while vote down those that they don’t want to appear higher in the index page. Updating your profile is also possible where you can either change your avatar, your personal URL or your location.

3. Microblogr
This microblogging and social networking service allows instant collaboration with friends from the network using their SMS feature. It allows instant communication with members and newly found friends. Once you send a message to your friends, they can receive it on their index page and also on their mobile phone if this service is activated by them. Tracking of messages as well as those of your friends is also possible. For example, if you want to meet up with your friends in the network, you can just send a simple and short message and all those from your network will be notified either through their microblog account or their mobile phones.

4. Yammer
Yammer is a great tool for companies and organizations to update them of their member’s activities and answer a simple question, “what are you working on?”. Everytime an employee answers this question, a feed is created to all its members which enables co-workers to discuss different ideas, ask relevant questions, share news, links and other information. Every employee at Yammer has a profile and accessing past conversations for reference is possible. Yammer is a great service for companies and other organizations. The privacy of every member and the company is secured as those who can access are only those with a valid company email address. Yammer service is free, however, if a company would like to claim and manage their own network, they can just pay a minimal amount.

5. Tumblr
Tumblr tweets are called tumbledogs. These tumbledogs can be short blogs less than 140 characters which can be links, quotes, photos, videos, music and dialogues. Anybody can freely express himself using these tumbledogs at Tumblr. All members can also customize their own page or even have their own domain names. Tumblr provides great service and joining takes only a few seconds. You can join at anytime and explore the simple yet very functional service of this microblogging and social networking site.

Guest author Alan Liew has been a blog marketer for about three years. He writes and shares topics like Internet marketing, blogging, make money online, affiliate marketing in his blog. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite Twitter tools.

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3 Ways Google Can Show What Your Readers Want

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:04:25 +0000

Guest Post by David Godot.
All bloggers secretly wish that their readers would just tell them what to write about. But selecting new topics is seldom so easy. Well, what if I told you that Google has devised a system that allows you to tap into your readers’ psyche and magically predict which topics will interest them the most?

In fact, nothing is better for Google than for you to produce the type of content that people want to read. Every time you do, their search results get a little better. So they have really worked hard to provide tools which help you understand what topics are the most sought-after within your niche. Below are three free tools from Google along with tips for using them to improve your site:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides a great starting point for generating new content, because it can tell you what people already like about your site. As you look through the keywords that people have used to find your site in the search, pay close attention to the ones you have never really written about. If someone searched for this piece of information and the best they could find was an article that didn’t really answer their question, then you have just found a question worth answering on your site!

Search Based Keyword Tool

The next step is to look at the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool. If you have an Adwords campaign promoting your site, you can get keyword suggestions based directly on the content of your site. But this tool is still extremely useful if you don’t use Adwords.

What you’ll do is simply take the keywords that you identified from Google Analytics as being good topics for new articles, and plug them into the Google Keyword Tool. Google will show you related terms that people are searching for. This can help you understand what questions people need answered the most, so that you can make your new article as useful as possible.

Google Insights

Another great way to find related keywords is through Google Insights. This tool works a little differently than the search-based keyword tool in that it shows you recent search trends related to your topic. This is a great way to see which areas of your topic are becoming more popular with searchers. Being the first blogger to answer an important question can give your readership a tremendous boost in organic traffic as well as RSS subscriptions.

Google Is Your New Best Friend

If you follow this process you will be able to attract more traffic naturally, because you will be creating articles that accurately reflect the needs of internet searchers. Google will be happy to send the traffic to you, because your new articles will answer the questions that people are looking to them for the answers to. They look good because you look good.

David Godot is the founder of Chicago Psychology, a networking site offering group blogs and free web marketing tools for psychology professionals. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools and services.

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5 Smart Twitter Tips to Find Shopping Deals

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:32:45 +0000

Guest article by Jessy Troy.
How to find shopping deals with Twitter? The Holiday season is coming, the wisest of us are already getting ready for it to avoid last year’s holiday rush. More and more people choose to escape mall queues by shopping online and thus are looking for ways to spot a timely Internet deal. Twitter has turned into an awesome tool to do almost anything: you can use it to track news, keep in touch with your friends, find a job and save some money.

This post is about shopping with Twitter to use the micro-blogging platform to develop a smart shopping strategy.

1. Use Twitter Search

Check what people / sources you trust have to say about the product / seller you are considering: Twitter search has a few nifty advanced operators – one of them allows to find all updates tweeted by someone:

[apple from:CNETnews] – allows to find all news and reviews of Apple products tweeted by Cnet.

2. Use Comparison Shopping

TinyMassive is a Twitter bot allowing you to compare product prices while on Twitter. Just tweet your product search to @tinymassive and the bot will get back to you with the search results generated by the site itself.

Thus, the Tweet will contain:
1. The Twitter user name who has requested the info;
2. The search results count;
3. The minimum price found;
4. The link to the search results.

3. Follow Your Favorite Money-Saving Site

If you are an experienced shopper, you should be keeping an eye on a couple of coupon aggregators and deals directories. You might be monitoring them via email or RSS. But you’ll be happy to learn, there are more ways to track them.

Some of these sites have an associated Twitter accounts where they post coupon updates from the site. Here’s a quick example of how this can be useful:

My favorite coupon aggregator, Cheap Stingy Bargains tweets coupons here, so I follow it;
I use Seesmic Twitter desktop application which is awesome because it allows to sort your friends into groups. So I create a separate group for “Money saving tweets” and categorize it there. So each time there’s an update, Seesmic will update me.

4. Use Twitter-Based Tools

There are a couple of online tools searching Twitter and aggregating all the tweeted prices. Cheap Tweet is my personal favorite. It lists all tweeted prices in a Digg-like interface allowing users to upvote deals by clicking “It’s cheap!”. It also enables the user to quickly share the deal on Twitter (Share link) as well see all the Tweeple who have Tweeted this deal (Details link):

5. Contact Customer Service

Plenty of sellers are on Twitter – what you need to do is to find them there, see what they Tweet and who they follow as well as try to get in contact with them via Twitter. Here’s the most comprehensive list of customer service agents on Twitter I was able to find.

Quick tip: try @search on Twitter to see what people are saying about the seller. Example: [@zappos]

The guest post is written by Jessy Troy, an Internet enthusiast striving to discover plenty of web hacks and creative DIY gadgets. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools and services.

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