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Recording Your First Podcast

By Patrick Schwerdtfeger in Featured

Podcasting is one of the best ways to build an audience online. Not only do listeners become familiar with your expertise but they are also introduced to your personal style and delivery. Podcasting also falls nicely into the exercise of acquiring expertise and giving it away as a strategy for becoming a recognized expert in your field. All in all, podcasting is a great way to position yourself as an authority and find an audience of people interested in exactly what you have to offer.

In a previous article, I discussed the tools necessary to begin podcasting. You can find that article by visiting my website or viewing my author profile. As a quick summary, you’ll need a microphone with a foam-rubber pop filter, an RSS hosting account and you’ll need some recording software. None of these things cost a lot of money and you can get the basics setup easily within an hour or two.

This article will discuss the steps involved in recording your very first podcast. Keep in mind I went through this entire process in about 13 hours when I first got started. I discovered podcasting on the same day that I recorded and posted my very first one. I say that to assure you it’s just not that hard if you just put your head down and get it done. But with the following tips, you’ll also save some time down the road.

The first thing you should do is write an outline for the first 20 episodes or so. That might seem pretty daunting at first but don’t be intimidated just yet. I’m talking about a title and 3 or 4 bullet points for each episode; nothing fancy. The idea is to get an idea how your expertise will unfold in the series. Each episode should build on previous episodes, allowing your audience to learn in a chronological way. It also encourages them to subscribe to your series, automatically receiving future episodes as they become available. And by the way, I would plan on posting one episode each week if possible.

The second step involves scripting out your first episode. You should already have an outline and this step requires you beef it up enough to begin recording. For some people (including me), I actually write out the entire episode as a Word document. I type pretty quickly and the process allows me to get my thoughts organized and fleshed out. Often, once I’m finished typing it all in, I go back and add paragraphs where additional explanation is necessary. But this may not be required for everyone. You might be able to speak freestyle with only a few notes in front of you.

I actually have the Word document open on my laptop screen with the microphone plugged into the front, allowing me to read along as I make my recording. I also know that I speak at a rate of about 145 words per minute so I know a 2800-word episode will take me about 19 minutes to record. And that’s the average length of my podcasts. You can choose whatever length works best for you but I recommend less than 1 hour per episode unless you have some really captivating content.

Once you’ve made your recording, upload the MP3 file to your RSS hosting account and then register the feed URL with iTunes. Just go into the iTunes Music Store, click on Podcasts and then scroll down. You’ll see the Submit a Podcast option at the bottom left. You’ll need an account to submit your feed but it’ll only take you a minute or two. I would also register the feed with some of the top podcast directories and I’ve included links for the Top 10 on my website under the Links tab.

Podcasting is nice because listeners will find you all on their own. Now, if your content is weak, they’ll abandon your series as quickly as they joined. But if you have good content, you’ll be surprised how quickly you develop an audience. I started my first series in January 2006 and ended up with over 16,000 downloads in 27 countries. Believe me; nobody was more surprised than me. Give it a try and get ready for fascinating journey; a journey that completely changed my career and might change yours as well.

Author:  Tactical Execution with Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a strategic company focused on growth marketing and program implementation across business markets. Visit the website for actionable guidance for revenue generation.

The Clash Of Titans: Article Directory Owners vs. Automated

By Bill Platt in Featured

Article marketing has been considered a useful method of promotion on the Internet, since the very early days of the Internet. By writing an informative article, writers have been able to get their sales message read by millions of online consumers, through their resource box that follows their articles. Until 2005, the whole point of article marketing was for the purpose of attracting huge numbers of readers as a result of the articles being published in ezines that had a large reader base.

A New Kind Of Article Marketing For Link Popularity

In 2005, Jason Bradley, owner of Article Dashboard, released his free article directory software. Websites that use his software are commonly referred to as AD sites.

During the same time frame, people began turning to article marketing in droves, based on its promise for building link popularity with Yahoo, MSN, and primarily Google. Most people who jumped on the bandwagon in 2005 to endorse article marketing for link popularity purposes promoted a very limited view of this promotional technique.

Their thoughts went along the lines of “the only purpose for article marketing is link popularity.” There was no other role for article marketing, they said. And since one only needed to type enough words to get a link into an article directory, the most common recommendation was that articles should only be 300-400 words in length.

It was also commonly recommended that most article directory owners do not review the content submitted to them, so it was not important that the article made sense or pleased the article’s readers. After all, the recommendation being made was not for the possibility of generating traffic from articles; it was only for the purposes of influencing the search engine algorithms, which are not capable of actually reading articles for grammar or understanding.

People flocked to this new kind of article marketing, and they were more concerned with “quantity than quality” – quantity of links that is.

Software Developers Rallied

With the mass deployment of websites under the Article Dashboard software, and others since, programmers jumped through hoops and developed new article distribution systems that relied on computers instead of people for the distribution process.

Soon, these programmers had systems in place to mass submit articles to the new breed of article directories. They told the new article directory owners that if they would add a simple script to their website, then the submission service would populate their directories with article content.

Hundreds of directory owners flocked to this new kind of article distribution system.

Early on, people who used article marketing to promote their businesses were elated. They were getting links all over the place.

The Realities Of Article Directory Management Sank In

In September of 2005, one company bought nearly 200 domains and installed the AD software on all of them. By May of 2006, their operation had never actually gained a foothold in the profit sector of the Internet, so they sold their domains to another company. In early 2006, I had documented a list of 180 websites owned by this operation. On a recent review, I was unable to locate a single one of these 180 AD sites still running the AD script, and most were offline completely.

In order to fully understand the job of the article directory manager, the manager must manually approve or reject every article submitted to an AD site. Many AD directory owners realized that the approval process was a long and tedious affair, especially when they were receiving hundreds of articles per day from these automated distribution systems. For testing purposes, I had set up my own AD site and subscribed to receive articles from these automated systems. I let go the approval process for one week and returned to find 800 articles waiting for approval. It does not take long to get overloaded with articles that require manual approval.

After only a few months of operation, many Dashboard sites stop approving articles for one of two reasons: 1) it took too much time to manage their article directory website, or 2) the amount of income generated from the process did not match the time requirements of the directory.

The Clash Of Titans

Things really began to change in the AD directory ownership game a few months into the project. Directory owners began to realize that in order for them to profit from their article directories, they must do something that brings readers to their websites and encourages loyalty from their site’s visitors.

Since most article directories rely on advertising to drive their revenue stream, the directory owners had to do something that the other directory owners were not doing. They had to distinguish themselves from the masses.

The AD owners who have survived the early explosion of AD sites have generally taken the attitude that they should focus on “quality over quantity”.

This one step has set the goals of the software developers’ article distribution systems and their customers (quantity over quality) in conflict with the best interests of the article directory owners (quality over quantity).

Directory Managers Began To Implement New Submission Rules

Early on, many of those article directory owners who were intent on survival took actions to reduce the garbage flowing into their directories. Directory managers noticed trends in the articles that consistently failed to measure up to their new standards.

The owner of Invisible MBA, an educational article directory, told me that he had to review ten articles to find one he wanted to use. He also regularly complained about people who did not follow even the simplest instructions about appropriate content on his website. He eventually resorted to banning 70% of the people submitting articles to his website, including the automated article submission services, because they simply could not follow his category guidelines for submission.

His whole issue is a common complaint among the article directory managers. They insist that writers should take the time to appropriately categorize the articles they submit. Since it takes so long to approve articles manually and to select the correct category, directory managers have resorted to deleting articles instead of categorizing those articles for the writer.

Article Dashboard, Article Garden and many others have taken the step to prohibit the submission of articles that only point to affiliate websites. Article Express had gone one step further to prohibit affiliate links, even if the affiliate programs are advertised from the writer’s domain.

Across the board, directory owners have stomped on Private Label Rights (PLR) articles. When article directory managers began to realize that their websites housed dozens of copies of a single article, each of which had been signed by different people as the stated author, they realized that they had a serious quality problem. They instinctively knew that those PLR articles created a trust problem with their readers. When one article has been claimed to have been written by twenty people, it makes one wonder how the website owner can claim to have a quality website. And if the trust factor has already been raised as an issue, why would the reader want to trust anything else on that website?

Lee Asher who owns Articles-Galore and a couple of other AD sites was one of the first to come down hard on software submissions to his website. His guidelines state in no uncertain terms that if someone uses software to send articles to his websites, the person will have all of their articles removed from his website.

Some AD site owners have implemented minimum word count guidelines as a measure to break some of the junk article peddlers. After all, the people focused on writing articles for link popularity are driven by the concept of 300-400 word articles. I have seen word count restrictions that include the minimum of 500, 600 and 700 words. 80% of what is submitted to my AD site does not even have the number of words I require.

Proper Category Placements Is A Consistent Issue For Article Directory Managers

Article directory owners want to impress their readers and the search engines. But, they need the properly categorize articles primarily for their human readers, who are looking for specific information on their website.

In order to help their website visitors, the directory managers frequently update their category arrangements. For example, on my AD site, I provide several well-defined subcategories for the health category. In the cancer subcategory, there is a wide range of cancers that needed their own child categories. Since the AD software only shows 30 articles per listing page, and since there is one writer who has written more than 400 articles just on the topic of mesothelioma, it made sense to subdivide my cancer category so that it was not an advertisement for only one writer.

One of the main problems with the auto-submission software is that the software does not accurately address the up-to-date category hierarchy for each article directory. This creates a real quality issue for the directory owner and managers. In order for the directory manager to stay true to the formatting of his or her directory, he or she must either complete the category selections for the auto-submitters or delete the articles submitted through them. Manual deletions take as much time as manual approvals, unless the manager has to choose the category for the article, then it takes longer.

Article Marketing Still Works For Those Who Care About Quality Over Quantity

If you still like article marketing for its ability to get your business seen by ezine readers, then it is as effective as it has always been. If you only like article marketing for its ability to influence your link popularity, it can still be effective, if you do it right.

It is true that those automated article distribution services can get your article to a lot of websites, but on a percentage basis, how many of those submissions are getting approved?

For my own use, I use my own article distribution service to reach ezine publishers. And for mass directory submission, I prefer to submit articles to the directories by hand, because hand submission permits me to get the category right every time, which in turn permits my articles to get approved more often.

In the end, it is a karma thing – if I treat the directory managers right, they will treat me right by approving more of my articles. Since it is not uncommon for me to spend six to seven hours to write an article like this one, it makes a lot more sense for me to spend the extra time to get a wider reach for my articles, by honoring the desires of the more substantial article directories.

Author:  Bill Platt is the owner of thePhantomWriters article distribution service. In business since 2001. http://thePhantomWriters.com

Crafting Good Title Tags For SEO and Clickability

By John Buchanan in Featured

It’s amazing to me, the number of people who still do not take proper advantage of the power of the title tag. The title tag, is arguably THE most important on-page factor in SEO (and much more as you’ll soon learn).

If you happen not to be too versed in HTML coding I’ll explain what the title tag is.

The title tag is found within the and tags of a webpage. It’s format is as follows: “Your Page Title Here”

The title tag is important for two very simple reasons.

1. The title of the page is given an enormous amount of weight by the search engines. It always has and it always will. It’s of less importance today than it was 6 or 7 years ago, but it is still the most important on-the-page factor a page has. After all, it’s sole purpose is to describe the page so it *should* be considered important.
2. The title tag is also used as the anchor text of your listing in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). When someone visits a search engine and runs a search for one of your products, if one of your pages comes up in that search, it is the title tag that the visitor will see (along with a short description) and be able to click on to visit that page.

The problem is a LOT of webmaster’s simply don’t understand or make proper use of the title tag. Instead of name the page using keywords relevant to that specific page, they use their company name, etc.

Unless you are FORD, GE, or some other multi-million dollar company you should NEVER have your company name or website name (unless it’s an SEO’ed website name) in the title tag. Are people going to be searching for your company or website name or are they going to be searching for keywords related to your product or service?

Let’s look at a quick example from a real search I ran earlier today:

So a ran a search for “lawn chairs” clicked to page number two and there sitting at #14 is a site with the title “Brookbend”.

Now, this particular site actually has a LOT wrong with it, but for now we’ll stick to the title tag, or lack-there-of as this particular site’s title tag actually just said “Untitled Document”. As a result, Google replaced that with the name from the URL which Google will often do when a webmaster does something stupid such as this.

As I said, this particular listing was the 14th listing for “lawn chairs”. That is actually VERY good considering it doesn’t have a title tag. Imagine what it could have ranked if it had actually made use of the title tag? Possible using something along the lines of:

*Beautiful Outdoor Furniture, Lawn Chairs, Patio Tables*

Think they may have been able to achieve an even better rank? I would venture to say yes.

Now, there is also a second problem with their lack of a title tag and that is that their listing in the search engine is simply “Brookbend”. I don’t know about you, but if I’m looking for “lawn chairs” I’m probably not going to click on a listing that just says “Brookbend”. For one reason, it doesn’t contain either of the search terms I used in the title. For another thing, it isn’t very “clickable”.

You see, a title tag should do two things. It should incorporate that pages most important phrases and it should make someone want to click on it. You will notice in my above example, for the title I used “Beautiful Outdoor Furniture… “. That is because, while I wanted the keywords in there, I also wanted it to read well and entice the surfer to click on it. After all, it doesn’t do much good to get a top ranking if no one clicks on your listing.

So, when you are designing your pages always remember to:

1. Decide on what that pages target keywords are
2. Incorporate those keywords into the title tag of the page
3. Make sure the title tag is enticing enough to make the visitor WANT to click on it.

Do the above three consistently and you will see the results in no time.

See you at the top!

Author:  John Buchanan is a veteran search engine optimization specialist with over 9 years experience. For more information, visit his site at http://www.sesecrets.com or his newest site http://www.seovideoanalysis.com where he will provide you with a professional SEO Video Website Analysis of your site.

How to Keep Your Blog Traffic - Tips for a Stickier Blog

By Tinu AbayomiPaul in Featured

So you finally figured out how to get those visitors to your site, huh? Well, partner, it’s not over. Now you’ve got to keep them there if you hope for your blog to be effective.

So, how do you keep your blog traffic? I knew you’d ask that…

Your Audience Is More Important Than Your Search Engine Rankings

Who knows what way the wind will blow in years to come. You may be able to do without traffic from Google one day - just like you’re probably doing without traffic from Hotbot right now.

However, you’ll never be able to do without your clients and prospects. If you could you wouldn’t be in business, would you?

So pay attention to what your audience wants to hear. If you configure your blog correctly in the first place, you won’t have to worry about a good ranking so much.

Don’t Add to the Noise

It’s okay to be silent for short periods if you have nothing interesting to say. In the meantime, while you’re keeping your lips tight, find something *really* interesting to say.

Of course, I believe that there’s never nothing to say. But I’m a writer and not everyone thinks that way.

After the first six to eight weeks, post every day if it suits you and you have words of interest. But after that, if you can sense that your posts aren’t full bodied and home brewed, it really is fine to make us go without for a few. We’ll live. We won’t think so, but trust us, we will.

Just make sure you have something darn near-earth shattering to share when you get back, so we will all sit up and take note… and realize that we missed you.

When You Do Talk, Do It Loud and Proud

Even if you find out later you were Loud and Wrong. It’s considered impolite to behave like a Rock Star when you’re having a business dinner, even if you are one.

But guess what? When you’re blogging, you aren’t at a business dinner. That’s not to say that you must indulge in Rock Star behavior if it doesn’t suit you.

You don’t even have to be *a* star. But you definitely want to be noticed, maybe referenced, and hopefully linked. A great way to do that is to be different. The most unique thing about you is You. Inject your personality in all that you do online.

So if you have news, share it. Heck, if you have gossip share it, just always, always, always, link to your suspicions or sources. On the rare occasion that a high-profile blogger’s information is totally off-base, they print a retraction. So don’t be afraid to suppose. Just let us know whether you are sharing a rumor, hunch, a fact or opinion.

Do Unto the Blogosphere, and Make It Easy for Them to Do Unto You

When I have credible sources, I link to them. Even if I read something from the Google Blog, but know when I first saw it first at Micropersuasion, I’m still linking to Micropersuasion. That’s all there is to it.

And let me tell you, it’s a Huge deal when Steve Rubel links to an article that you wrote even when it’s not posted on your site. Think about that the next time you’re tempted not to link out because “they have enough traffic.

For the majority of people, I realize, that situation may never be in consideration. Most of the people reading this have nothing to do with search engines, public relations, or internet marketing.

Well, I’m here to tell you that even if your business is timeshare resales, you should still link to your sources. You never know who is reading and who is going to link back. Especially if you’re in a business niche where twenty visitors eventually means at least one sale, find out what the neighborhood is like in your part of the Blogosphere, look around, and play nice with the other kids.

Blog Like You Talk - But if You Talk “Funny” Get Someone Else to Blog with You

Nothing will scare your visitors away faster than landing in techno-babble by accident. I landed at a friend’s site about search engines, and the first paragraph I saw said something about (a+n) times the square root of pi and I clicked out before I even remembered why I went there.

Don’t get me wrong - if that’s how you talk, keep it real. But if that’s not the language your clients speak, you might want to either have an employee represent your company in the blog, or do a team blog that represents all the prominent voices.

Give Every Subscription Option Under the Sun

Most people paying online are going to use their credit card or debit card, by far. How crazy would you have to be to say, hm, 90% of people use credit cards, but the hell with that. If they want my binoculars, their only choice is to send me a $20 check by snail mail on Tuesday mornings.

In this same way, refusing to turn on your site feed, because most people are currently following you by email, makes absolutely no sense. Refusing to start an email list or offer subscriptions to your blog headlines, summaries or posts via email is equally nuts, particularly now that there are tools in place that will translate feeds to email for you.

Not serving as much of your audience as you can is turning down money, plain and simple.

Hopefully these tips will help keep visitors coming back to your blog. It’s like the old adage said, it’s easier (and cheaper) to keep your present customers than it is to constantly find new ones.

The same thing goes for your blog visitors.

Author:  Tinu AbayomiPaul, http://www.rescueyourblog.com/ blog traffic for more blog tips.

My Secrets of “Forum Marketing”

By Willie Crawford in Featured

If you visit the popular “Internet Marketing Warriors” discussion forum, you’ll notice that I have nearly 7500 posts! If you were to visit any of several dozen other online forums and discussion boards, you’d also discover thousands of my posts.

The reason that I have so many posts to online forums and discussion boards is that I have found them a very effective marketing tool. I use online forums to:

1. Allow potential customers and joint venture partners to actually get a feel for who I am.
2. Share my knowledge on topics that I understand, while at the same time generating links back to my sites.
3. Get quick answers to questions I have and quick feedback on ideas that I have.
4. Conduct market research - investigating the problems, concerns, needs, wants, and quirks of my markets.
5. Getting a feel for potential clients and joint venture partners.
6. Getting feedback on products and services that I’m considering purchasing, marketing or developing.

As you can see, forums can be very useful for many purposes. Since I am in business online, I think of much of what I do on forums as “marketing.” In that regards, there are certain rules that I follow and recommend that you do too.

Let’s look at some of my “secret” or often unspoken rules for forum marketing.

Don’t be anonymous
People buy from people that they know, like and trust. If they don’t even know who you are, can’t find a link to your sites, and have no clue who they’re dealing with, they can’t “know” you… let alone like and trust you.

Use your real name in your profiles, include links to your websites, and include a photo. You don’t need to tell them everything about yourself, but people do buy from their friends, and I’m certain that you know “who” your friends actually “are.”

Be courteous
For some reason, people are often ultra-rude, more aggressive, and just plain “nasty” in online interactions. The person that you’re being mean to may be an ideal customer or joint venture partner. Why would you kill the relationship before it can even begin. Also beware that others observe your interactions and take permanent (subconscious notes).

Consider the long-term consequences of your posts
When you make a comment, accusation, or attack someone on a public discussion forum, your words often become a “permanent” part of the search engines databases. So, even if you later apologize or point out that you were mistaken, when someone searches for a person or company’s name in the search engines, they may encounter the inappropriate remark that you made. The title of that post is often the title that show in the search engine results! Many people will look no further after seeing your post “headlined” in the search engines!

There’s really no easy, effective way to undo the damage once you’ve posted something to the database.

Don’t forget to leave ways for people to contact you
If the forum allows a signature file, use one. If the forum allows a profile, set one up. Use a username that tells who you are, and not something that you’ll later want to change

Optimize your posts
Given that search engines DO index your posts, you want to make sure that your keywords are in the right places, such as the title of the posts (and maybe in hyper-linked text). Busy forums are frequently spidered by the search engines and are therefore an excellent way to get your pet projects indexed!

Use images in your posts
Some forums allow you to post an image link underneath your post. Where that’s allowed, you often want to include a relevant image. Images naturally draw the eye to where you want to focus your readers’ attention… the link that you want them to click on.

Participate in popular threads
Many forums give you the count of how many views and/or posts a given thread has. It’s human nature to want to be “a part of” something popular. So people have a tendency to read threads that lots of others have read, and to post to threads that lots of others have posted to. Therefore, it follows that if you post to one of these threads you’re more likely to be a part of the noticed conversations than if you post to one that ONLY you posted to or read.

Don’t try to be deceptive
Many forums allow the moderators or visitors to readily identify forum users through features such as IP tracking. That means that when you use multiple identities on a forum to make your topic appear “more popular,” you are often only deluding yourself. People are alot smarter than some of us give them credit for, and they often quickly see through such ruses.

You should acknowledge that if you can figure out a “sneaky” way to get an unfair advantage on a discussion forum, then those who’ve been a part of that community and using the same software for countless years have probably seen it all. So, your tricks are painfully obvious to them - even when they politely don’t “call you on it.” Instead the community will simply ignore you until you go away.

Post often but watch how much time you spend on forums
Participating in the discussion at online forums has generated countless clients, subscribers, business partners, and friends. That has made it a very worthwhile investment for me. As long as you don’t use participating in forums as a means of procrastinating, it can be very helpful for you too.

Using my secret forum marketing tactics, I have built a steady flow of business and traffic to my websites. It’s also an excellent way to build some real relationships. Frankly, it’s not even in my top 10 most effective methods of generating free website traffic. At the same time, I learned a lot of those other traffic generation techniques from online forums!

If you are curious as to what my top 10 free website traffic generation techniques currently are, visit: http://Top10Traffic GenerationTechni qes.com

Enjoy your time at online discussion forums. It allows you to market while also facilitating our need for social interaction. It is also a great way to market, as long as you remember “my secrets of forum marketing.”

Author:  Willie Crawford is an 11 year veteran of internet marketing. His websites run on near autopilot, with huge amounts of traffic generated with very few simple techniques. Discover these simple, free traffic generation strategies at: http://Top10TrafficGenerationTechniqes.com

Understanding RSS and Its Effect On Viral Marketing

By Seomul Davis in Featured

Viral marketing is one of the most creative ways of promoting a business. It can work wonders for any business although there are certain principles that play a lead role in making viral marketing for business websites so effective. Different businesses use different techniques while applying viral marketing to enhance their visibility and here are some of the best and time-proven techniques that can help your business too.

One way is to create content and share it with other publishers. RSS makes the transfer of content a lot more simple and hassle free. With this ease in sharing content make sure you have a signature in your content so that your link spreads online virally as well to boost your link popularity.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is one of the most valuable technologies available for webmasters, administrators and users. In spite of RSS being such a valuable technology only 12% of users know what RSS is while only 4% have used RSS. So let us try and understand what RSS really is and how it can help you or your business.

RSS is a type of feed that internet users can subscribe to. RSS feeds are updated on a regular basis and mostly distributed in XML format. This helps in creating custom tags. There are quite a few websites which show the RSS logo in orange and, if you click on the icon, you will get connected to the website’s feed.

As far as the content contained in a RSS feed is concerned, it depends largely on the feed that you might be viewing. Most of the RSS feeds consist of a title and a brief portion from the article. RSS is becoming overtly popular with bloggers because in this the headline format comes in automatically.

There are many reasons why bloggers and even regular users are choosing RSS. One of the primary reasons being that using RSS can save time especially on an everyday basis. Let us take an example to understand how it saves time. If you are a technical expert and you visit at least 6 websites on a daily basis to collect information then you probably open each website on a separate browser to look for news items. So in a way, you are visiting them one by one as you can’t see all of them together.

On the other hand, if you have RSS, then all you need to do is visit a RSS feed reader or a RSS aggregator and this will help you to instantly identify the websites that have added new articles and these websites will be separated from the ones that don’t. Another salient point is that you can see all the past entries using RSS.

If you are visiting only one website but on a regular basis, then there are times when you will miss a new article added on the website on one of those days when you didn’t visit the website. This is where the RSS fits perfectly. Let us for once imagine that there are 20 websites for which you want to keep tabs then RSS will prove to be truly indispensable.

In order to use the RSS, you will first have to find a feed that you can use. If you are using Mozilla’s Firefox then you will be able to find out with ease if a particular website has an accessible feed or not. You don’t even have to go through the entire webpage looking for an RSS icon. When you open a website using Firefox, you will see an orange icon on the right side of the navigation/URL bar. If you see the icon, then it means that the website has RSS feed.

Click on the orange RSS icon in your Firefox browser and it will ask you where you would like to save the feed. Firefox treats RSS feeds as live bookmarks. Once you have saved the feed, go to the particular folder. The folder will have an expand arrow and you can click on the arrow so that it can show all the new entries that has been added on the website in an ascending order with the latest entry on the top.

There are times when your browser may not find a particular website’s feed as not all of them have RSS feeds. This is where you will have to search through the web pages to find any items related to feed. There are some websites that have FeedBurner feed, which normally displays the current feed subscribers for that website. If you find a FeedBurner feed icon then click on it and copy the location of the link.

This is the basic information regarding RSS feeds for all those who want to use it to their benefit personally or for viral marketing purposes.

Author:  Seomul Davis is a SEO Services expert with SEO 1 Services a Dallas based search engine optimization company (http://www.seo-1-marketing-services.com) and a frequent contributor on http://www.seo-services-expert.com

Six Tips for Perfect Podcast Interviews

By Michelle Pierce in Featured

Interviewing is an art that requires a certain amount of finesse. If you’re planning on hosting a podcast or radio show, jumping in without any experience whatsoever can lead to awkward pauses, fumbling questions, and a generally dull interview.

It comes naturally to some people, but for others, the mere thought of doing an interview makes them break out in hives. If you’re one of the second group, here are a few tips for you to remember when preparing for and conducting an interview.

1) Do your research, and have a list of questions prepared.

Nothing’s worse than getting on the phone or sitting down for an interview and having to fly by the seat of your pants. Some people can work that way, but by and large most of us need some guidelines. Otherwise, you’ll end up looking unprepared and unprofessional, which is not a good way to start off an interview.

Before you interview somebody, do your research on them and formulate a list of questions to ask. You should have about six questions ready to ask, but not too many more or you’ll be more concerned with following your own agenda in the interview. You just need a good starting point. Plus, it’ll be helpful to have a “cheat sheet” there to remind you of what questions you need answered.

2) Always ask open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions are questions that require a certain amount of explanation. “Do you like bunnies?” is not an open-ended question, because your interviewee could easily answer “yes” or “no” without adding anything else. “What do you like about bunnies?” is an open-ended question, because it requires interviewees to detail exactly what they think

By asking open-ended questions, you eliminate the chance of your interviewee giving you a simple one-word answer. Few things are more boring than listening to an interview where one person only says “yes” and “no,” and it stymies the conversation. If you don’t ask an open-ended question, be sure to follow up with “Why?”

3) Follow the conversation.

Although you are trying to get information in an interview, what’s equally important is that you not try to force the interview in a predetermined direction. When that happens, the interview sounds more like a question-and-answer session instead of a dynamic, informative conversation. It can also seem like you’re ignoring your interviewee in favor of your own agenda.

As you conduct the interview, your interviewee might say something that warrants a detour from the topic of conversation you had in mind. It’s okay to steer them back on topic if they’re going far from the direction you need, but follow it up if they say something interesting. The new direction may have a few pearls of wisdom that you’d never find otherwise.

4) Listen and respond.

During an interview, don’t just sit there and think about what you’re going to say or ask next. Listen to the person you’re interviewing and respond to what they’re saying. Tie it in to other points they’ve made or to other points you’ve made. An interview should be dynamic and interactive, almost a conversation (with the focus on your interviewee), especially if you’ve got people listening.

If you just sit there like a lump on a log, or ignore what the other person’s saying, then you’ll not only make your interviewee feel like you don’t listen, but you’ll make the interview downright boring. And if your interviewee feels like you don’t listen to them, chances are they won’t be back for another chat.

5) If you get stumped, try the Eliza approach.

Eliza was a computer program developed in the ’60s that parodied the responses of therapists who answered their clients’ statements by repeating the statement back to them in the form of a question. For example, if someone said, “I feel like I’m a jerk,” the program might say, “Why do you feel like you’re a jerk?” or “Why do you say that?”

If you find yourself grasping for questions, listen to what your interviewee says and either repeat a statement back as a question, or ask them to expound on a point that they’ve made. It’ll give you a little bit of leeway, and your interviewee’s response may give you what you need to get back on track.

6) Always ask “Do you have anything else to add?”

Every journalist has been trained to ask this at the end of interviews, and if they haven’t been, they should’ve. Asking “Do you have anything else to add?” or “Is there anything else you’d like to add?” inevitably leads to the answer, “No, not really, just that (insert pearl of wisdom here).”

You’ll get the best quotes by asking this question. Ask it at the end of every interview. There are no exceptions. Get in the habit now.

Practice makes perfect. It may seem like a lot to remember, but try to follow these tips in every interview you do. Eventually it’ll get easier, and you may find that interviews are no longer a dreaded chore but a fun and entertaining addition to your podcast.

Author:  Jessica Cox and Michelle Pierce are graduates of the University of Oklahoma’s College of Journalism with a background in Internet marketing and writing for the Web. They currently provide PR services at Xeal Precision Marketing. Sign up for a free 25-point website evaluation and pick up crucial tips at Xeal’s free Thursday webinar at http://www.xeal.com/webinar.

Secret SEO Tips for Ezine Publications

By Darren Dunner in Featured

Article writing for the purpose of ezine publication has become the norm for SEO tactics. You can finds articles covering just about any industry on 100s of ezine sites. Having become a standard for site owners to write articles and have them published, we now see more ezine sites popping up all over the web. The effectiveness of this method is very strong when done the right way. If the reverse effect is done in the wrong way you are greatly benefiting the ezine sites and loosing out on potential traffic.

The biggest issue for any type of SEO method is discovering where to learn to do this properly because there is no real education out there for this, only hit and miss tactics. What I am going to outline here are 6 secret tips on how to publish ezine articles for better traffic results. Now, I say secret because even though article writing is a common practice it is not always done correctly. What I will reveal here will work wonders for your site and motivate you to want to write even more!

Focus your article on a long tail keyword
This means that if you are selling shoes then go after a specific work like “Mens Nike Shoes” or “Or “Nike Air Force 1 Shoes”. There are many sites for you to use to research keywords and find the keywords you want to use for your articles. Submit Express is a great site to start searching for the best keyword.

After you find a great keyword to work on, focus that article on that keyword. Stick to one subject here, especially if you are writing articles for not only a link back to your site but to see your keyword move up in the ranks.

Proper Keyword Insertion for your Ezine
This is very important as you focus on your ezine article and want to get acceptance to as many ezine sites as you can. If you over use the keyword then many of these ezine sites will just deny your request. If you use the keyword to little, then the search engines will not rank your site appropriately.

If you write an article and use too many keywords then they end up being ignored or marked as spam by search engines and again you loose the effect of keyword placement. If you really need to use additional keywords because the article just won’t make sense without them, then use them as little as possible or use different variations of the keyword so that your primary keywords stands out.

Ezine word count for a higher approval rate
Now that you have your keyword and you are going to write your ezine article, your word count should be 500 words or more.  For great effectiveness in this method try to keep it within the 500 word range, if it becomes a 1000 word or more, then split the article into 2 parts.

Make sure to use the keyword 1 time per every 100 words and no more! What this means is if you write a 500 word article then use the keyword 5 times, you don’t necessarily have to make sure the keyword appears literally every 100 words. The idea here is that you are optimizing your content for your primary keyword.

Link Usage and Subject Matter
Never use links within the body of the article because many ezine sites will not approve your article. Though there are sites that allow this, it is very few and you can modify your article for those sites and submit individually to them.

Every ezine site has a bio line for “Author Name” and “Bio” about your company. In your bio make sure to include a link to your home page and a link to your product, service or landing page. Yes, you can use 2 links in your bio, but beyond that you will most likely be denied.

You are not trying to make your ezine article your sales pitch or your call to action on how they can now use your services from the subject you are writing on. Your subject matter is informational only. Again, this is information about an industry, product or service type. Plus you only have about 500 words to keep it simple but educational.

The most difficult tasks behind your content is your title. You want to make sure to include most or part of your keyword or part of your keyword phrase and make it unique enough that it will not be a duplicate of other author’s titles.

Best Submission Method
Submit your article to more then 1 article directory and make small changes per each submission in each of your paragraphs. Okay, I know this can be time consuming to not only submit but to edit differences in your article. There is an online service that allows you to make only 2 additional small variations to each paragraph and after you make your changes it will submit to over 1000 article directories instantly for you. The great part is that it takes your variations and creates a unique version for each ezine site it submits to. For more information visit Unique Article Wizard.

There are other sites that will auto submit your articles, but as of now I don’t know of any other program that allows you to use different author names and generates unique versions of your articles.

Now if you are not into this method you can always submit to your favorite ezine directories one at a time. The more you submit to the greater the benefit.

Take Your RSS Feeds and Submit Them
This is the last secret I am offering. Just about every ezine site has rss feeds for each category and for each article. What you do is find the category your article is in, find the article and click to view it. Look for the rss link and copy it. Usually it will be something like this: http://www.seositemanager.com/rss/Ezines-And-Newsletters/299  

After you collect a reasonable amount of feeds from the directories your article was published in, you want to submit these rss feeds to as many rss directories as you can. If you are wondering how you will locate these feeds there are 2 ways you can do this.

1. If you are using the Unique Article Wizard they will provide a way to locate your approved articles.
2. You can do a search in Yahoo or Google using your article title in parenthesis and find them that way.

Here are 3 ways to submit your feeds to RSS Directories:

1. Create an account with Google Reader and submit your article feeds there.
2. Create an account with MyBlogLog and submit your feeds
3. Purchase “RSS Submit“, download it and run it on your PC. You can cut and paste multiple rss feeds into this program and it will auto submit to over 80 rss directories and then it gives you an option to semi automatically submit even more.

Okay, there is one more secret most people do not even know about. However, I am not going to tell you here, you have to contact me at: (editor@sitepronews.com) using the subject “Reveal the hidden Secret for Ezines” and put whatever message you like. I promise I will respond and I won’t send a huge document that makes you read on and on until you finally get to the end and find out there is no secret. I will send you an email that will explain the final secret that will help push your SEO positions over the edge.

Author:  Darren Dunner - Editor of SiteProNews. All of our articles come rss friendly and you can subscribe using our feed: http://www.sitepronews.com/index.rss

Discover The Top 5 Ways To Generate Low Cost Website Traffic

By Jo Han Mok in Featured

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website: A steady flow of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the sites demise. It takes money to maintain an income generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how big hit sites drive traffic? Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t really have their resources. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I present to you the Top five ways to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Make a Newsletter

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your two cents and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

Author:  Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code. He shares his amazing blueprint for creating million dollar internet businesses at: http://www.InternetMillionaireBlueprints.com

Good Design Doesn’t Get Done In A Day: Part 2 of 2

By Erin Ferree in Featured

Unfortunately once you’ve finished designing your piece, the work is not over. There are several additional pieces to consider when you’re working out your timeline:

Time for other vendors’ work
Writing, proofreading and photography have to happen before the design portion of a project can begin. Get timeline estimates from all vendors and make sure that everyone involved in the process knows when their deadline is. For example, if you have a writer working on copy for a one-page sales website you’ll need that copy at least a couple of weeks before the site is launched. This lets the designer use that copy to design and code the site. Once the design is complete allow enough time for printing. You’ll also need time for web coding, backend development, hosting setup and domain name propagation. Printing is an often-overlooked time component and it can take quite some time to do properly! For most projects I’d suggest allowing a minimum of one week to print the project. Two weeks will prevent the printer from rushing and will give all the final pieces plenty of time to dry as well. And remember that if your printer isn’t local you’ll have to allow enough time for shipping your printed materials as well!

Time to distribute
Once a website is launched or a printed piece comes off the press, the process isn’t over!

If you’re producing a website, and not planning to market in any other way, be sure that you allow enough time to get noticed by the Search Engines. This can take several weeks or even months. If you can afford to market with both a website and some other method, you’ll have a much more effective marketing campaign in a short time frame. Some ideas for this include promoting the website in your email newsletter, in your partners’ email newsletters, hanging or mailing flyers, doing a postcard mailing, or distributing an article online.

It also takes a bit of time to get printed materials out into the world. Allow a couple of days to address, stamp and send any mailed pieces. You’ll save money if you allow enough time to send your materials bulk rate - but that often results in your pieces taking longer to deliver. If you’re distributing flyers or putting an ad in a magazine, find out about the vendor’s lead times for these activities as well.

Time for your target market to react
This is especially important if you’re producing marketing materials or a website to promote a class or an event. You need to make sure that all the designed materials are available to your clients early. Do it far enough in advance for them to consider your offer, budget for it, find out more about your company or your offering and then make their purchasing decision. A good rule of thumb is the more expensive your class or event is, the more time your target market will need to consider and justify it. It’s also good to get things out early enough for people to plan their schedules around it. If your target is solo entrepreneurs it might be hard for them to clear their schedule for a full day if given 1 week notice - even if they’d really like to come. But if you give them 3 weeks notice it might be easier to schedule. If your event requires people to travel you should certainly give more advance notice so that they can book a flight at a reasonable price and find a hotel room.

With all of these considerations, it might seem that you need to start planning your design project many months in advance of your event. But the truth is that a lot of these steps can be done quickly. It still is advisable to allow as much time as possible to address each step thoroughly and without rushing the project. If you follow this method your finished design will usually be better and more effective.

Author:  Erin Ferree is a brand identity and marketing design strategist who creates big visibility for small businesses. Through her customized marketing and brand identity packages, Erin helps her clients design effective websites that help them extend their brands, bring in new clients and make sales. http://www.elf-design.com