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A Malware Threat Most People Are Unaware Of

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:02:18 +0000

Home > Computers > Guest Posts > Security

There is one malware threat that most people are not aware of and sadly, they get trapped by this threat. As we know, the presence of the Internet and personal computer several decades ago enable some irresponsible people to spread malicious programs. And day after day, people are more aware of those threats. Computer security experts also have been teaching people how to prevent their computer from being infected.

You probably have known these practices: we shouldn’t open email spam and its attachment, only download software and game from trusted websites. You probably even know the most dangerous country domain name and the most dangerous search terms and that you should avoid them. But, sadly most people are still not aware with this malware threat.

So, what is the malware threat? It’s a malware that disguises as a video or audio codec. Suppose some people downloaded a video or audio from a website. Or they visited a video streaming website and they wanted to play a video player. But, they got a message that said they didn’t have the required codec or media player and that they needed to download and install them.

Malware examples and how they spread

Some computer and Internet security vendors released their reports, stated that this threat is a trend today. The rapid improvement of Internet that enables people to share multimedia files can be one of the culprits. People today can easily watch video streaming and enjoy TV programs from their computer and mobile devices.

According to GData statistics, from top ten malware threats in April 2012, the first and third places were belonged to malware that disguised as codecs. Both are Trojan.Wimad.Gen.1 and Trojan.Sirefef.BV. Trojan Wimad.Gen 1 pretends to be .wma audio file and it traps you to install a codec. Once you did it, the attacker can install any kinds of malicious codes to your computers.

While Trojan.Sirefef.BV pretends to be a legitimate file AFS2K.sys (Audio File System, Oak Technology Inc.). It infects browsers on the infected computers and manipulates search engine results whenever the users use the browsers to search something. The main purpose to lead users to click the infected search result and generates money for the attacker (by PPC ads).

From where are those codecs distributed? According to PCWorld.com, from 17 dangerous places on the Internet, the fifth and sixth positions belong to adult video streaming websites and peer-to-peer video streaming websites. The report said that the threat on adult video streaming sites is moderately dangerous. While the attack on peer-to-peer video streaming websites is very dangerous.

How to protect our computers:

There are several simple ways to protect our computers from this threat. Actually, these solutions have the same principles that you use for other threats.

1. Install legitimate codec packs on your computer

There are many legitimate codec packs on the Internet available for you. You can download and install programs like K-Lite Codec Pack or Windows Essential Codec Pack. Instead of downloading unknown codecs from unknown website, try to download and install one of these codec packages. If you already have one of those codec packages and you’re still asked to install a codec or media player, do a simple research on the Internet before you follow the request.

2. Avoid visiting dangerous websites

This is the basic and simple way: don’t visit either adult video streaming websites or peer-to-peer video streaming websites. And it’s better to visit legitimate websites such as Hulu.com or TV.com instead of those websites. If you can’t do that, visit them with a secondary computer. So, in other words you probably should have an additional computer that is meant for this purpose.

3. Power your computer with maximum protection

Install security add-ons on Firefox and Chrome. You can try to install WOT, AVG link scanner or McAfee Site Advisor. And of course, you should have an antivirus program that is being updated regularly.

If you download any file from torrent sites or video streaming sites, scan the file with your antivirus. And wait for several days. On the first scan, the file could look clean. But, some new malware are tricky and hard to be detected. Waiting for several days will allow your antivirus to get the signatures if the file is a malware.

I believe these steps are easy to apply. Have you ever experienced the threat above? Please share in the comments below.

This article is written by guest author Timothy Ario, a blogger and the owner of Freeware Catalogue. Visit the blog and get the latest giveaways, helpful tutorials and free software. Picture: ©Chohdra - morguefile.com

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Original Article: A Malware Threat Most People Are Unaware Of

Better Ways to Search Google

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:53:46 +0000

Home > Google > Guest Posts > Tutorials

Want to Search Google in a better way like a pro? So much information is on the web, its mind-boggling. Thankfully we have search engines to sift through them and categorize them for us. Unfortunately, there is still so much info that even with these search engines, it’s often a slow process to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Google Search Tips

Lets get right into it. I use google.com as my primary search engine because it presently tops the charts as far as the sites that it indexes, which means more pertinent info per search.

1. Page translation. Just because someone speaks another language doesn’t mean they don’t have anything useful to say. I use translation tools like the ones found at babelfish.altavista.com and translate.google.com to translate a few key words I am searching for. Be specific and creative because these tools aren’t the most accurate things on the planet.

2. Directories.
These days everything is about $$$. We have to deal/w SEO (search engine optimization) which seems like a good idea on paper until you do a search for toys and get 5 adult sites in the first 10 results. Using a sites directory will eliminate that. You can narrow your search down easily by looking for the info in specific categories.

3. Advanced – Here are some tips that google refers to as “advanced”

“xxxx” / will look for the exact phrase. (google isnt case sensitive)
-x / will search for something excluding a certain term
filetype:xxxx / searches for particular file extension (exe, mp3, etc)
-filetype:xxxx / excludes a particular file extension
allinurl:x / term in the url
allintext:x / terms in the text of the page
allintitle:x / terms in the html title of that page
allinanchor:x / terms in the links

4. OR
Self explanatory, one or the other… (ie: binder OR joiner)

5. ~X
Synonyms/similar terms (in case you can’t think of any yourself)

6. Numbers in a range.
Lets say you’re looking for an mp3 player but only want to spend up to $90. Why swim through all the others? MP3 player $0..$90 The 2 periods will set a numeric range to search between. This also works with dates, weights, etc

7. +
Ever type in a search and see something like this:
“The following words are very common and were not included in your search:”
Well, what if those common words are important in your search? You can force google to search through even the common terms by putting a + in front of the denied word.

8. Preferences
It amazes me when I use other people’s PCs that they don’t have their google search preferences saved. When you use google as much as I do, who can afford to not have preferences? They’re located on the right of the search box, and have several options, though I only find 2 applicable for myself…

Open results in new browser
Display 10-100 results per page. (I currently use 50 per page, but that’s a resolution preference, and 5X’s the default)

9. *
Wildcard searches. Great when applied to a previously mentioned method. If you only know the name of a prog, or are looking for ALL of a particular file (ie. you’re DLing tunes) something like *.mp3 would list every mp3.

10. Ever see this?
“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the X already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.” The answer is YES. yes yes yes. Did I mention yes? I meant to.

11. Search EVERYWHERE
Use the engine to its fullest. If you don’t find your answer in the web section, try the group section. Try a whole different search engine. Dont limit yourself, because sometimes engines seem to intentionally leave results out. ex. use Google, yahoo, and altavista. search the same terms… pretty close, right? Not exactly.

Power Search Tips

If you’ve read this far into this tutorial without saying, “Great, a guy that copied a few google help pages and thinks its useful info then I will show you WHY (besides accuracy, speed, and consistency finding info on ANYTHING) its nice to know how a search engine works. You combine it/w your knowledge of other protocol.

Example: Want free music? Free games? Free software? Free movies? God bless FTP! Try this search:
intitle:"Index of music" "rolling stones" mp3

Substitute rolling stones/w your favorite band. No? Try the song name, or another file format. Play with it. Assuming SOMEONE made an FTP and uploaded it, you’ll find it.

For example….I wanted to find some Sepultura. If you never heard them before, they’re a popular Brazilian heavy metal band. I started with this:
intitle:"Index of music" "Sepultura" mp3 <– nothing
intitle:"Index of música" "Sepultura" mp3 <– nothing
intitle:"Index of musica" "Sepultura" mp3 <– not good enough
intitle:"Index of music" "Sepultura" * <– found great stuff, but not
enough Sepultura

At this point it occurs to me that I may be missing something, so I try (Also try inurl:ftp):
intitle:"index of *" "sepultura" mp3 <– BANG! (and that’s without searching for spelling errors)

I find that * works better for me than trying to guess other people’s misspellings. The same method applies for e books, games, movies, SW, anything that may be on an FTP site.

This article is written by Guest author Shlok Inani. He is a tech-savvy person and loves to experiment on computers. He runs his own blog at gocompu.wordpress.com. Please give a visit there.

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Original Article: Better Ways to Search Google

Your Blog NEEDS an Awesome Logo

QuickOnlineTips — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:18:50 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts

Your blog’s logo is one thing that your readers will never forget if you have a great one (or a really bad one). If done right, a logo can become a symbol that is universally recognizable and represents your blog to the world. A blog can either just be a content source, or it can become a brand; a content source is boring, but a brand is exciting. Having an awesome logo is pivotal to building a brand, but how does one build an “awesome” logo? Follow a few simple guidelines and you’ll end up with a cool brand – not just another blog.

Keep It Simple:

Your logo doesn’t need to be an elaborate family crest-type image (unless your website is about your family of course). It’s easy to get over-excited in Photoshop and continually add effects, but don’t fall into this trap. TechCrunch is a great example of this. There logo is nothing more than two letters, and if seen completely out of context you would still know what it was – the power of simple.

Be Bold:

To make an impression on your readers’ eyes, your logo must pop. There a lot of ways to pull this off; bright colors, sharp edges, or strange shapes, but the end result will be a logo that really grabs attention. Think about the Blogger logo, odds are you remember it (even before you saw it on the screen). This is another example of a simple logo, but it’s also a strong one. Be bold, get remembered.

Get The Colors Right:

This is a matter of aesthetic life and death. Contrasting colors or a cool-looking scheme can really make your logo stand out from the crowd. WordPress does a great job with this one. Their blue and white color scheme really gives off a cool look. Have great colors – attract readers.

Make it Fun:

A blog isn’t a super staunch platform, so why should its logo be overly serious? Be a bit quirky, off-the-wall, or original. Sometimes it just takes a little extra touch of quirkiness to get remembered. The Kissmetrics blog is spot-on in this aspect; their logo is showing data bars (arguably the most boring thing on earth) and yet because of the lightheartedness of the logo (pun intended) the blog is fun.

Make it Yours:

Your blog is only as good as the effort you put into it, and the logo will reflect that. Don’t go and pay a designer to make a logo and then leave him to do what he wants. Be a part of the logo design and make sure that it reflects the blog’s personality and theme. This will make your design look clean and flow well instead of looking gaudy and cold.

But What If I’m not a Designer?

Not having the skills or tools to design your own logo can be a major setback (especially if you are just starting out and have no cash). Additionally, if you want to hit all the points of a good logo you probably have a specific design in mind and need someone to work through the logo-building process with you without charging an enormous fee.

The best and cheapest way to build a logo is to ask around among your connections – you’d be surprised at how talented some of them are. Everyone wants exposure, so odds are that a friend will be willing to help you build a logo in return for recognition on your blog. Also, since you are already in contact with that person you can work together to build the logo and end up with a result that’s awesome.

Redesign? Or Just Integrate A New Logo?

Has anyone told you they like your blogs design? Ask for honest feedback, if the overwhelming response is that you’ve got a good thing going don’t change your theme – build your logo to integrate into what you’ve got. If, on the other hand, people think your blog’s theme is boring then by all means rebuild your scheme.

You want your logo to fit in well with the colors on your blog, and if that requires you to change the design, then do it. If you are using a platform like WordPress or Joomla, there are lots of themes available for free. Find one that goes with your logo and build it out.

A Logo Will Give You An Edge:

One thing that sets a great blog apart from an average one is the ability to appear visually pleasing while still delivering awesome content. With the proliferation of blogging platforms like WordPress it’s easier than ever to create and fill up a blog. If you want to get a little extra visual edge on your competition, a snazzy logo is a must-have piece. If you have had success branding your blog with a great logo, share in the comments below!

This article is written by guest author Josh, the editor of Entrepreneur Stories and an entrepreneur. Josh is a student, writer, and involved in the L.A. startup scene.

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Original Article: Your Blog NEEDS an Awesome Logo

Reputation Management: SEO on Steroids

QuickOnlineTips — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:51:07 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts > SEO

Online reputation management (ORM) emerged as a natural evolution of search engine optimization—and to this day, reputation management makes heavy use of leading search engine optimization (SEO) principles. It’s almost enough to make the novice think ORM and SEO are just two sides of the same coin—but of course, that’s a major oversimplification.

Really, online reputation management can better be described as SEO on steroids. Yes, many of the tools and techniques used are the same. But ORM takes everything about standard SEO and pumps it up.

A Matter of Purpose

The best way to think of it is in terms of objectives. In SEO, the goal is usually to get certain keywords optimized. If you can get a particular page of online content to “rank” on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing, then your SEO campaign has been successful.

In ORM, however, the goal is usually to get certain listings off of the first page of search engine results. It’s not about advancing certain content to the top of Google, strictly speaking, but rather it’s about suppressing listings that you don’t wish to be seen.

To put it another way: Claiming the top spot on a Google search results page would be, for the SEO professional, a major win. For the ORM professional to consider it a win, however, he or she would need to take control of the first ten spots on Google—that is, the entire first page. That’s what is necessary to successfully suppress an unwanted listing and bump it off the search engine’s first page.

ORM: Pumped Up SEO

Obviously, online reputation management is a much farther-reaching, more expansive undertaking. So while the techniques used in ORM are sometimes similar to those used in SEO, the big picture is very different. Here, in a nutshell, is how a typical ORM campaign operates:

Each ORM campaign is tailored to meet the specific reputation management needs of the client, which means each campaign begins with a thorough assessment. The reputation management professional will assess the negative listings that are out there; which search keywords are used to find these listings; and how authoritative these listings are (which is to say, how tough they’ll be to suppress).
From there, a customized action plan is formed. A ORM team will involve SEO strategists, for sure—but also content writers, social media specialists, news syndicates, and more.
Next comes the execution of that plan—a huge undertaking by any standard. Remember that the goal of the reputation management campaign is, at the very minimum, to assume control of the first ten listings on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This involves the creation of a huge volume of unique and compelling content, which is used to flood the search engines and push those negative listings out of the way. It also involves a newswire blitz, an aggressive social media campaign, and more—all in the service of propelling the new, positive content to the top of the search results page, and pushing the negative listings out of the way.

ORM: Not Just SEO

So is online reputation management just another spin on SEO? Hardly. The similarities are unmistakable, yet everything about ORM—from its purpose to its scope—is on a whole other level. If anything, it’s SEO that’s been beefed up and made battle-ready, which is ultimately why it’s so powerful in influencing public opinion and managing online listings.

This article is written by Rich Gorman, a veteran of the direct response marketing industry and an expert in reputation management and direct response marketing for companies large and small. Rich also operates the official blog for the Direct Response industry, Direct Response, where he shares his thoughts on Direct Response Marketing.

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Original Article: Reputation Management: SEO on Steroids

Successful Blogging Needs More Than Just Willpower

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:36:46 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts

To be a successful blogger, it’s not just the quality that is important. The quantity (or, at least, frequent enough regularity) is at least as critical. After all, regularly writing interesting articles is the core of this business, so you need to be persistent at doing it.

However we all know bloggers who had a very good start, but after some time they do not publish anything anymore. Chances are good that it happened to you in the past. It happened to me for sure, and this is so frustrating! Doing all these efforts and not being persistent enough to reap the rewards…

What happened? Were these bloggers less talented, less skilled or less motivated than others? No. Not at all. They simply fell into one of the biggest trap when it comes to do something over a long period of time (like a diet, learning a language or blogging): They thought that willpower will help them to succeed.

Willpower is overrated

The truth is that most bloggers rely on willpower alone in order to continue to write their blog articles. As you are going to discover in the below lines, this is a big mistake, a mistake that will cost them their dream of making money while blogging. The objective here is to ensure that you won’t fall into that trap!

Willpower alone is not going to help you to become a successful blogger. Why? Because willpower is not designed to do that. Willpower is an emergency system, like a spare tire: it is not meant to be used for a long period of time. It is helpful to press on for few miles, but using it is very demanding for the mind and the body: Using willpower alone can and will exhaust you, and your motivation will not help either…

Your motivation will fail

Motivation is cyclical: like the tides, it goes up, then down, then up again, and so on.

At the beginning of your project, you are excited and fired up about what you are doing, and your motivation is very high. Then, in the following few weeks, your motivation is going down little by little, and in order to continue to write articles based on the schedule you defined, you rely more and more on willpower. It may work like this for few more weeks, even for few months for some highly motivated people, but no one can sustain this for a very long time.

Sooner or later (usually sooner than later) there will come a time when your motivation will be down and there will be no more willpower to tap into. At that moment, if you don’t have the right environment and the right habits in place to take over (see below), the dream is over: you are not creating new articles; you do not think about your blog anymore, other things are taking the priority in your life. You don’t really give up (at least you don’t admit it), you simply put the priority on other things…

Given all the efforts, all the time, the energy and the money you’ve invested in your blogging activity, this is something that you definitely want to avoid.

The Solution? Understand what persistence really is!

Persistence is not willpower.

Persistence is a process, a skill that you develop and that you can use to produce regular efforts in a sustainable way. Please note the words used in that last sentence:

Skill: contrary to what is commonly accepted, persistence is not a talent, something that you are either born with, or not. People who claim that persistence is a talent are using this as an excuse to hide behind. No, persistence is not a talent, it is a skill, and as such it can be learned, trained and improved.
Sustainable: when we talk about persistence or about blogging, we are talking about long term: the desired result is not going to show up in few weeks only. So all the systems that you will put in place to help you to persist have to be sustainable, otherwise the system will fail and you will give up at one point.

Here are the three key components of a winning persistence process:

1. Motivation. Being clear about what you want to achieve, and why you want to achieve it. This clarity of objective and purpose will provide a huge amount of motivation, and there are many tools and techniques that you can use to ensure that your motivation stays high for a long time, and low for a very short time. Here are three things you can apply right now to boost your motivation:

Put a big sign on your desk with the number of visits per day you are aiming for. This will be a reminder of your objective and a good source of motivation.
Set a clear deadline for your objectives (or milestones). There is some magic in setting up a deadline: it triggers something inside you that will help you achieve your goal.
Chart yourself: if you want to post every day (or anything that you want to do daily), create a simple chart, and tick it each day that you did what you were supposed to do. Seeing the chart being filled day after day will motivate you to continue. Plus, you will want to avoid having a day with no tick, so it will provide extra motivation when you don’t feel like posting on a particular day. Simple & effective.

2. Environment. All the things that constitute your environment have an influence on you. They can either push you towards the completion of your goal, or they pull you back. The same for the people around you. Your whole environment is critical in your ability to succeed, so you need to consciously design the best environment to support your blogging activity. Here are three things you can apply right now to create a more supportive environment:

Don’t speak about your blogging activities to your friends and family members that know nothing about this topic. Not only they may provide bad advice, but they may also push you to abandon your dreams and come back to the “real” world. They don’t mean any harm, they probably have your best interest at heart, but they know nothing about that field, so their opinion, though interesting, is irrelevant and can be harmful for your motivation.
Share your commitments with other bloggers. Tell them what your plan is. If you want to post at least 3 times per week, tell them. They will hold you accountable, and it will create an external pressure: you don’t want to be embarrassed, so you will keep your commitment. Use your guilt, competitiveness or arrogance at your advantage.
Join a community of like-minded people. These people understand what you are going through, they understand your challenges, they understand your life. This can provide valuable information, support and inspiration. If you are not part of a community yet, quickly find one!

3. Routines. All the routines and habits you create to put your activity on “auto-pilot”, so that you effortlessly move forward without having to think about it. Here are three routines you can use starting today and that will help you tremendously:

At the end of each day, you create a list of 6 tasks that you want to achieve the next day, and you rank them in order of importance. Then the next day, first thing in the morning you start working on the first task until it is completed. The more focused and uninterrupted your work will be, the better. Then you move to task number 2 and you complete it. If you are interrupted, you handle the interruption, then you come back immediately to your list of six item, until all six are completed. This routine alone can greatly boost your productivity.
Never complain, blame or justify. By taking full responsibility and focusing on finding a solution rather than someone to blame, you will be happier, more productive and way more successful than if you play the role of a victim. Catch yourself when you blame, complain or justify, and put $1 in a jar to celebrate the fact that you are moving in the right direction.
Create a checklist that you will systematically go through before posting anything. On that checklist, you can add things like “Is there anything else I can add on that topic?”, “Is it how I would explain it to my grand-mother?”, “Are all my sources quoted?”, “Is my title attractive?” or “Did I check the spelling mistakes?”

There is a lot more that you can do, but if you just start with the above, you can already go a long way.

Do you have what it takes?

When you have a strong motivation, a supportive environment and powerful routines to rely on, everything is pushing you towards the completion of your objective. Success becomes the normal consequence, the expected outcome, whereas failure becomes more and more unlikely with each passing day.

Persistence is an important skill to develop if you want to be successful at blogging, a skill that you will be ill-guided to overlook.

You may become a successful blogger even if your writing style is not that great, or if the design of your blog is not appealing. But you cannot achieve success in this field if you are not persistent.

Check your motivation, your environment and your routines; See how you can improve all these, and start building today your success of tomorrow!

Guest author Laurent Vigneron is writing about having A Life Worth Living, realizing your dreams and making your life more meaningful. Visit the website and get his latest product for free while the offer is still on. Picture: © Helder Almeida – Fotolia.com

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Original Article: Successful Blogging Needs More Than Just Willpower

Google Penguin Update: How to Create Natural Looking Backlink Profiles

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:51:38 +0000

Home > Blogging > Google > Guest Posts > SEO

How to create a natural looking back link profile after the Google Penguin update? Google has changed the game again in the SEO industry. The penguin update was intended to fight web spammers who use shady techniques to rank websites.

April was a big month in terms of algorithmic updates for Google. First, they adjusted their algorithm again in early April, targeting sites with excessive onpage optimization (high keyword density, keyword stuffing, etc). Just a few days later, a new algorithm tweak went live targeting offsite factors (backlinks, social indicators, etc.) which meant a lot of sites were either deindex or penalized.

This new tweak, code-named Penguin has generated a huge buzz among SEOs and bloggers because a lot of legit websites were affected. Even quality sites were punished by Google Penguin update, and a lot of webmasters have complained about the inconsistency of the latest algorithmic adjustment. If you were affected, and you feel you shouldn’t have, Google has opened a web form where you can request a manual check of your website.

Create a natural looking backlink profile

Create quality content. If you start building links but your content can’t back up your strategy, you’re likely going blind in terms of SEO. Think of your websites as a long term business and deliver good and useful content for your visitors. If your content provides value, you’ll gain natural links from other sites and no algorithm can beat that. It takes time and effort, but it’s well worth.
Use varied anchor text in your links. A natural link profile contains backlinks from other persons who think your content is share worthy. Many of those persons are not webmasters, so probably they don’t even know what an anchor text is. People tend to link other websites using the URL itself. Try to build links with anchors like mysite.com, www.mysite.com, MY SITE.com, visit my site. com, HTTP SITE.COM, etc.
Use long-tails as anchor text. A natural looking links profile have variations of the main keyword. For instance, if your site is about dogs use more specific anchors, for example: dog news, dog pics online, great dog training website, dog friendly blog. Remember: people will link to your site because of your content and that’s why you’ll have to use long-tails as anchor text.
Not all links are text links. You can use an image as a link too, and any SEOs overlook this. If you want to increase the relevancy of your image links, use a keyword rich alt tag. For example: title="my keyword">alt="my keyword" width="100" height="100" />

Mix dofollow and nofollow links. I’ve read countless times how people disregard link building opportunities just because those links are nofollow and thus (according to their theories), that link is not worth buying. PageRank is not all you need. Relevancy, authority and quality are things I look for and PageRank is not that important for me. I’d rather get a Wikipedia link, which is no follow, and not a dofollow crap profile from an untrusted website.

Be part of the winners

We can go on trying to find patterns in natural looking backlink profiles but Google’s algorithm is too complex; instead, try to emulate what the winners are doing in your niche. Use tools like Majestic SEO or ahrefs and analyze the anchor distribution of the top sites. Analyze how many links they are building, what anchors are they using, etc.

I hope you can get some ideas from this post; build a natural backlinks profile, and remember this: nothing can beat the experience. If you really want to learn what works and what doesn’t, test and make your own conclusions.

This is a guest post by Alan Medina, the owner of BitsEverywhere.com, a tech blog where he writes about tech news, SEO, blogging and Windows Tips. He has been a blogger for 7 years and this is his passion. Follow him on @bitseverywhere.

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Original Article: Google Penguin Update: How to Create Natural Looking Backlink Profiles

6 Useful Blog Proofreading Tips

QuickOnlineTips — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:19:27 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts

Guest post by Ferb. Need some Proofreading Tips? Not only you, everybody is having problems with proofreading. One thing you should know is that a great post usually gets lots of people to head in and enjoying reading beyond the first paragraph of the post.

Just imagine how disappointed you’d be after crafting great content and failing to carry the momentum with unexpected glaring errors.

Proofreading Tips

Before you leave, follow these 6 tips for your most recent post and carry on the momentum of blogging.

1. Walk away and come back after an hour
Bloggers usually write a post and then immediately publish it. But don’t! Walk away and come back after an hour to refresh your mind then check it. Proofreading a killer article is important – break it up one by one and walk away then come back to proofread it. By doing the above, you’ll spot more errors.

2. Ask your friends for help
You’re tired because you’re hard working. Find a blogger or a friend who has good relationship with you to spot out more errors on the post. No matter how careful you are at spotting errors, your eyes will skip over many errors in the post. So you really need someone to help you out.

While you’re asking your friends to check mistakes on the blog post, ask your friends to read your post first and see if they are clearly getting information from your post. Remember, your voice and checking mistakes on posts are a completely different story.

3. Use spell and grammar checker
Spell and grammar checker would be great even if you are a flawless speller. When writing blog posts, time and the hurry are really confusing and might cause many errors. Using spell and grammar checker will help you write better.

However, relying on a software is not good enough because it will change what you want to bring to your readers, particularly the grammar checker. Don’t let it change the meaning of a sentence. Reread many times by yourself and repeat tip number 1 to spot more errors.

4. Double your proofreading times
Do you just check post errors once? Check it twice. After once, save your post as a draft for going over by others and then come back for another proofread of your post. It’s best to go through your draft multiple times and check for major errors.

5. Print out posts
Don’t ruin your eyes on any technology devices. What happens to your eyes when looking at it over a long time? Print it out and read it on a paper to search for elusive errors. Stay clever on a computer, stay an hour on it and rest for 15 minutes. You’re going to live longer or blog longer when you keep your body healthier.

6. Read it out loud
Start by making your post font size bigger for your eyes and read it out loud. See if your voice is lovely to your readers and find subject verb agreement errors. Blog posts typically take on a conversational tone. Choose a tone for your blog and keep it consistent for your readers.

Build instant credibility to readers with these 6 proofreading tips and I’m still hoping that I’m not missing any others proofreading tips, if yes, then please add it below the comment.

This is guest article by Ferb L Wong from FerBlog.com. He always loves to provide valuable information to you and works hard on every single thing. Now he is trying to improve his blog’s RSS feed and really appreciates your support.

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Original Article: 6 Useful Blog Proofreading Tips

How to Create Resource Pages for Your Blog

QuickOnlineTips — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:31:23 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts > Tutorials

Resource pages can help show your visitors the best your blog has to offer. A resource page is basically a collection of internal links to posts you made revolving around a given topic. A visitor looking for specific information on that topic can find it quickly and more easily in a well-organized resource page than normal blog navigation aids such as categories and archives could.

The Benefits of Resource Pages

Creating resource pages is beneficial for the blog owner for several reasons. It can help to:

increase average visit lengths
encourage people to come back to your blog
showcase your best articles on a subject and
give you the opportunity to get organic bank links

Visitors may stay longer on your site while exploring your resource page because there are lots of relevant links in it. Because it serves as a reference or “table of contents,” they may return to it again and again for additional information, possibly even bookmarking that page.

With a resource page, you can collect the posts that you think are the best in a particular subject or category, and organize and present them in a way that’s truly accessible, clear and logical. That’s not something you usually see when you merely click a tag or category link on a blog.

Why make your readers scroll down page after page of posts when there’s a better way to present the material? You don’t want to beat around the bush; you want to take them straight to where they need to be.

And when you show off the best stuff you have to offer, other bloggers might just take notice. Your resource page can get you natural backlinks from blogs, websites, forums, social bookmarking and social networking sites.

How to Create a Resource Page

Making a resource page is fairly easy. The hardest part is the amount of time it takes to compile a comprehensive and impressive list of your posts.

To build your first resource page:

Choose an existing category in your blog that has plenty of useful articles.
Browse that category and note down your best posts.
Create a new static page on your blog. Give it a keyword-rich title that pertains to the subject.
Write a compelling introduction that encourages the reader to browse the links on the page.
Make a list of your chosen articles in the page, grouping them under sections or sub-headings.
Add the title of each post under its respective sub-heading, and link to the text to the post.
Save the page and link to it from a prominent menu (such as the menu above or below the blog header).

Don’t forget to update your resource page with new posts on that subject. This will keep the list fresh and consistent with your blog content.

How Many Resource Pages?

Ideally, you should have a resource page for every major category your blog has. So if your blog is about SEO, Internet marketing and WordPress blogging, you should work on devoting one page for each of these. However a resource page is only as good as you can make it comprehensive. Try to have at least 12-20 articles in a category to put in the page first, before you start one. If you have only five posts about social media, it’s probably not time to unveil its own page yet.

Also, don’t try to fill up the page with as many articles as you can. Choose only the finest of the bunch if you want to make a “killer” resource.

Conclusion:A resource page is a valuable asset for the blog owner and a useful navigation tool for the visitor. Don’t leave your guests with just a search box or post archive. Take them straight to where the cool stuff is at.

This is a guest article by Lee J. (Blog Lady) is an Internet marketer and avid WordPress blogger. Once a full-time freelance writer she now concentrates on running her own blogs and websites including BlogLady.net.

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Original Article: How to Create Resource Pages for Your Blog

Forum Marketing 101: Get Laser-Targeted Free Traffic

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:33:08 +0000

Home > Guest Posts > SEO > Tutorials

Forum Marketing can get you laser-targeted free traffic. Traffic is the lifeline of any internet business. Without traffic, it really doesn’t matter how good your sales copy is or what kind of killer product you have to offer. If no one ever sees your page, sales will be pretty dismal.

There a dozens of ways to get traffic to your site. Some of the methods include Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click, guest blogging, and solo ads, just to name a few. While paying for visitors can bring immediate rewards, it’s also possible to lose a ton of money while you’re learning the ropes. And when you’re just starting out, cash to invest in your online business might be in short supply.

One of my favorite traffic generation methods involves spending no money whatsoever. All it takes is a little sweat equity, and this is one of the best investments you can make in your business. I’m talking about Forum Marketing. I know, not glamorous and sexy, right? Well, keep reading to find out how to leverage the problems people are seeking answers to by hanging around forums in your niche.

Find The Right Target Audience

This is actually pretty easy using our old friend Google. Simply enter your niche and the word forums and you’ll turn up pages of potential marketing opportunities. Add a few keywords to narrow down your search and you can focus your efforts even further.

For instance, I entered “Tropical Fish Forums” to turn up dozens of potential places where I could check out what fishy people are talking about. But to narrow it a bit further I tried “Tropical Fish Beginner Forums” and found a whole different subset of forums that focus in on those who are just beginning to care for tropical fish. Those that may be seeking advice on how to get started, like the best size tank for their place, or the most economical filter, etc. Someone who may be looking to spend money on their new hobby. If that’s not an AH-HA moment, I don’t know what is!!

Getting Your Forum Feet Wet

It’s pretty easy to do this part. To get started you’ll just need to read through some of the forum posts to get idea of what kind of community you’re getting involved in. Spend some time and really read what people have written. This is the part where the sweat equity comes in. And to increase your chances of getting the free traffic flowing, you’ll need to be doing this same thing for perhaps 5 to 10 forums. So initially there’s a fair bit of “work” involved, but the rewards are so worth it.

Once you have a sense of the community it’s time to start contributing to the conversations taking place. You may actually have to sign up to be a member, so keep track of your username and password in a text file on your computer to prevent confusion and wasting time later on. Then pick some threads that appeal to you and offer opinions and advice. The idea here is to be super friendly and helpful without being pushy or pitching any products. Sales pitches will definitely get you banned from almost any forum. You need to establish yourself as a helpful voice and active member. Soon people will begin to recognize your username and rely on you to provide answers to their questions. This will help position you as an expert in the field.

The forum is a place where people come to converse with liked-minded folks and to find answers to their questions. You should be respectful at all times and avoid injecting your personal opinions on subjects other than what’s covered in the thread or forum you’re on. Absolutely no inflammatory posts should be made. Treat this as a great opportunity to get your name out there as an expert in your field, because word travels fast in these forums, and bad behavior will not be tolerated. On the other hand, if you prove yourself to be helpful and respectful, that news too will certainly get around.

Your Key To Success, Your Forum Signature

Blatant self-promotion is simply not allowed in any forum, period. So how in the world do you get people to visit your website or blog so you really show them what you can offer?

When you sign up for membership at the forum, you’ll probably be given the opportunity to create a profile telling other forum members a little about yourself. In this profile is where you have the chance to point people to your online real estate if they want to find out more about you.

If you do things right, people will begin to trust you and naturally want to find out more information about you. Your profile is your chance to gently point them in the right direction. Again, don’t be pushy. It’s a real turn off, and believe me, the word will get out.

Some forums allow a signature box, and you should be able to mention your website or blog here as well. Just remember to be subtle and you should be fine. People hate being sold to.

I’d like to mention just a few more important points about forum marketing:

When seeking out forums, make sure the ones you’re considering are active and thriving. Too many forums have been abandoned or only have sporadic use, so be sure to check to see there are current posts and active users before you waste your time.
Most forums have a FAQ section, and you may be able to get some useful information there.
Look for LONG threads, the ones with many posts and active participation. These have many eyeballs viewing them every day.

Forum marketing can be a very lucrative source of free traffic. The visitors you get will be laser-focused. They will already know and are visiting your site because of the reputation you’ve built offering valuable and free information in the forums. This is the best kind of traffic you could ever ask for.

Guest Author Ted Begnoche is a writer, internet marketer, and owner of NetProfitPersuasion. His passion for generating traffic sometimes keeps him from sleeping at night.

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Original Article: Forum Marketing 101: Get Laser-Targeted Free Traffic

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: 8 Essential Tips and Tricks

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:10:11 +0000

Home > Google > Guest Posts

Here are some essential Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tips you need to know. As Android has progressed through various iterations, the world’s number one phone operating system has improved and matured. Today we look at the many secrets lurking under the hood as a result of these improvements.

Since version 1.0 in 2008, Android has made great use of hardware advances to the screen, camera, WiFi, magnetometer, accelerometer, GPS, gyro and much more. All in all, the OS has done a pretty fine job of creating an interface between man and machine. The problem is that there have been so many changes to the core operating system; so many improvements; so many enhancements, that most users don’t have a clue how powerful and useful the OS can be.

This guest post covers a few things that the average user might not know about Android. If you received a manual with your phone, now is the time to burn it while we explore the hidden side of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Take a Screenshot

The first on the list is the lowly screenshot feature. Incredibly for an OS at the cutting edge, and particularly an OS from the mighty Google, a screenshot feature was left out of every version of Android from 2.3 down. In order to take a screenshot of your screen, you were forced to root your device and install a dedicate App to perform the rather bog-standard screenshot feature.

Most Android 4.0 users will have figured it out by now, but if you haven’t then go ahead and hold down the Volume Down and Power Buttons to take that screenshot. The images should appear in your gallery.

Swipe to Call and Text

The next one is quite obvious, but some users will never have stumbled across it. It has been active for the last few versions of Android and will save you the odd second here and there, or a couple of key presses.

While viewing your text message threads or your contacts or your phone log or your contact favourites, simply swipe your finger left across the contact to send a text message to that contact. You can also swipe your finger right to call the contact. Nice and simple. Nice and effective.

Improve Facial Unlock

One new feature that Android 4.0 comes with is the Facial Unlocking Feature. Initially this feature did generate some negative feedback because Android didn’t always recognise your face accurately or quickly enough. To their credit, Google were quick to address these issues however. Providing you have updated your firmware (it only works in later releases of Android 4.0), then there is a way to ‘Improve’ the facial unlock feature.

Go to Settings – Security – Improve face matching. You might have to do this a few times to improve the speed and accuracy of recognition. It is also a good idea to position the phone at different angles to your head to improve the accuracy

Prevent Being Locked Out of Your Phone

Speaking of unlocking your phone: this tip is important if you use the pattern unlock feature, although it’s not strictly an Android 4.0 tip. Pattern unlocking can be very useful and is quicker than enter in a PIN number. The trouble begins if you forget your unlock pattern and you can’t get into your phone.

They say prevention is better than the cure and in this case, you need to sign up with a Google Gmail account (or any Google account for that matter) to apply the prevention. Chances are that most users will have one anyway, but it’s worth stating here. Then, if you do forget your unlock pattern, simply try any pattern 5 times. A button will then appear on the screen saying ‘forgot pattern?’. Press that and then enter your Google username/email and password and you’ll be back into your phone.

Disable Auto App Shortcuts on Homescreen

While Android has seen a stream of steady improvements, they don’t always know what’s best for us. One annoying feature is that when you download an App, the Android Market will put the shortcut to the App on your homescreen. This can get somewhat annoying, so here is the solution. First open the Market Application. Then go to Settings and uncheck the option for Auto-add Shortcuts.

Swipe to Close Apps

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as a new and intuitive way of closing Apps that are running. To find those currently running, press the multi-task button on your phone. You should then see a list of your currently running Apps. You will see x’s next to each App so that you can close it, but there is a more fun way.

Just throw the Apps off the screen by swiping your finger left or right. You’ll find the process can be quite gratifying as a matter of fact, and it frees up memory at the same time.

Use Power to Hang Up

Here’s a neat trick that is designed for Accessibility users, but should really be enabled by default. After a phone call you would generally look at your screen, then hunt and peck for the hang up button to ensure the call is ended (before you embarrass yourself by talking about the caller!).

A better way of hanging up is to go to Settings – Accessibility – Power button ends call. Then when you’ve finished your call, simply press the Power button to hang up.

Auto WiFi to Save Battery

The last useful Tip is for those with battery issues. Unfortunately these mini-computers that we carry in our pockets have a tendency to run out of juice quite quickly. Some of the biggest culprits include features such as Bluetooth, GPS and of WiFi.

Android 4.0 has a handy feature for turning off the latter when the phone is sleeping. To enable this power saving feature head over to Settings – WiFi – Advanced. Then select Keep WiFi on during sleep.

We hope you have found these tips useful. If you’re feeling adventurous, then feel free to have a poke around your OS and discover a few for yourself. You won’t break anything we can assure you.

This is a guest post by Bryan Hunter, the founder of Phone Tips and Tricks which provides the world’s largest database of tips and tricks for smartphones and tablets. Bryan is based in London, UK and regularly writes about the mobile phone industry.

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Original Article: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: 8 Essential Tips and Tricks