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By Mel Strocen in Featured

According to a study by the TNS Compete and the Consumer Electronics Association, Americans who are 50+ years old currently comprise 31% of the US population and will make up 35% of the total population in 10 years, or roughly 119 million people by 2020. Although older Americans  have different interests than the younger generation, their usage of, and interest in, cellphones, laptops, HDTV’s and the internet is at or near comparable to younger age segments.  

Detailed stats can be found at: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101760

Some of the more interesting points noted in the study and highlighted in the Mediapost blog are as follows:

Internet Usage:
    * 78% of 50-54 year olds are online
    * 45% of 70-75 year olds are online

Cellphone Usage on a Weekly basis:
    * 80% of those in their 60′s – nearly equal to
      the usage rates of 18-34 year olds
    * 67% of those in their 70′s

Technology Frustration:
    * 24% of 18-49 year olds
    * 37% of 60 year olds

Search Engine Usage in the Past Week:
    * 77% of those in their 50′s
    * 71% of of those in their 60′s
    * 52% of of those in their 70′s
    * 77% of 18-34 year olds

Social Networking in the Past Week:
    * 20% of of those in their 50′s

Online Videos Seen in Past Week:
    * 24% of of those in their 70′s

It appears that the rapid changes in the online and tech worlds appeal to all segments of society.

By William J. Thomas in Featured

I have always enjoyed writing. When I was younger, I can recall sitting up in my room and writing scripts for T.V. shows that were on at the time, such as ‘Chico and the Man’. Having recently went back and re-read some of them, I was surprised at the quality of the writings. Perhaps I missed my calling in life, but at the age of thirteen I was more interested in having fun and enjoying the creative process, than being concerned about making money with my writings. Nowadays, I no longer dabble with writing scripts and stories, my writing centers more on articles that can actually earn me money through the process of article marketing. This article looks at the basics of article marketing, and shows how anyone can turn simple articles into cash.

In its most basic form, Article Marketing is simply the process of writing an article and getting it posted to as many places on the Internet as possible. While there are numerous ways to accomplish this, one of the most effective is through the submission of an article to Article Directories. The reason this arrangement works so well is because Newsletter and Ezine publishers, website owners, and other interested parties are always looking for new content to post on their sites, and the first place many of them turn to find this information is Article Directories. As a writer, your task is to provide the information that these people need, and in exchange you receive backlinks and traffic to your site. The more places that your articles appear, the more traffic you receive. While this process is commonly referred to as Viral Marketing, I like to call it magic, because once it’s started, it’s nearly impossible to stop.

When it comes to writing and distributing articles, there are a couple schools of thought. One says that you should write as many articles as possible, even employing ‘ghost writers’ to write articles for you. With this method, quantity trumps quality, and your main concern is getting as many articles and backlinks out as quickly as possible. The other approach is to write your own quality articles which attract newsletter publishers, ezine operators and others. While there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach, writing your own articles allows you to control the content of your writings, and in the end place your name upon something that is uniquely a reflection of your own thoughts and knowledge.

Once you have completed an article, you then need to distribute it to the Article Directories. What options do you have to achieve this?

1. Submitting Your Article Manually

This is the most time consuming and tedious method of all, and if you’re not careful, you’ll spend more time submitting your articles to directories than writing them. While there are literally thousands of article directories on the Internet, my suggestion is to focus on the major directories; the one’s with the largest readership base. You can find out which one’s are the most popular by simply doing a search with the words, ‘best article directories’. While space prohibits me from listing them all, some that I consider must do are ‘Ezine Articles’, ‘Go Articles’, ‘Article Dashboard’, Idea Marketers’, SearchWarp’ and ‘ArticlesBase’.

2. Using Article Submission Software

Article Submission Software is supposed to automate many of the functions of article submission such as filling in forms. etc. My experience however with this type of software left a lot to be desired. A few of the problems that I encountered with it were having numerous sites listed in their directory that were no longer in business, many sites not loading, and having your articles submitted in the wrong categories. In the end, I had to go back and ‘cut and paste’ most of my articles into the directories which sort of defeated the whole purpose of why I purchased the software in the first place. While I would imagine that there are in fact article submission software that actually does what it claims, I would urge diligent research before purchasing this type of software.

3. Article Submission Services

Another option that you can use to distribute your articles is Article Submission Services. The reasoning behind using a article submission service is that you will get your articles distributed much faster because of their large network of contacts such as Newsletter and Ezine publishers. As mentioned previously, these publishers are looking for valuable content and they rely upon places such as submission services to obtain it. It’s a real win-win situation for all concerned. I currently use a submission service and it seems to working very well for me in that I have noticed a big increase in my backlinks since I started using them. If you are a busy person(who isn’t)this might be a good option for you.

Article marketing can be a great way to get the word out about yourself and your business. While there are several ways to accomplish this, by consistently submitting your articles to various article directories, you will see an increase in your traffic, and most likely your profits.


William J. Thomas is currently involved with several Internet ventures including one of his passions, a Rock and Roll Internet Radio Station. Bill also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows how you can earn excellent money from home with Affiliate Marketing. http://www.billthomas.ws

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com

Permalink: http://www.submityourarticle.com/a.php?a=52715

By Cory Threlfall in Featured

I really enjoy blogging now that I have learned the essentials of how to start a blog and keeping it updated regularly. While you can’t learn all there is to know about starting a blog in 15 minutes, that is really all it takes to get one set up on the internet using the steps I’m about to share with you in this article.

If you want to reduce the risks involved with starting a blog then make a plan now to read this powerful information regarding it.

With that said are you ready to get started on setting up your first blog using WordPress, the most popular blogging software on the web today?

I’m sure you are because that’s why your here right now in the first place.

Enough said already. Lets move on to Step #1.

Step #1: Choose a niche your passionate about.

I was blow away by how powerful choosing the right niche really is. Here’s why? Why start something you have NO interest in. Remember, your going to be producing content about a topic and if you have no interest in it you’re setting yourself up for failure. By choosing a niche your passionate about you’ll love blogging about it every day or every other day.

Believe me, this is the most important step to understand so choose wisely.

Step #2: Register a domain name around your niche.

Now don’t let this next step scare you. It’s very easy to register a Domain Name. Here’s what you do.

Go to – www.domainsbot.com – and enter in one of your main keywords related to your niche. For example – self improvement. From there Domains Bot will search its database of all available domain names around your keyword phrase and present you with the results. It doesn’t get any easier then this.

Once that is done and you have found a domain name you like that is focused around your niche it’s time now to register it with one of the domain registry services Domains Bot has built in to its service. To do this simply click on the ‘Buy Now’ button. From there choose a domain register and set up an account, then proceed to follow the steps it guides you through.

Once you’ve finished that move on to Step #3.

Step #3: Get a web hosting account set up.

Setting up a hosting account is easy as well. Things that are new to us always seen difficult, just be patient and follow the steps each service has in place for you. So with that said it’s time now to set up your web hosting account.

First go to – www.bighosts.com. Here you’ll find web hosting reviews so you can make a sound decision on which web hosting service you want to use. Take your time and read through a few of the reviews.

Once you’ve selected a web hosting service and set up your web hosting account and have followed there emailed instructions for adding your new domain name to your web hosting account, proceed to Step #4.

Step #4: Install wordpress blogging software using Fantastico through your cpanel.

Assuming you are logged into your web hosting account and things are working smoothly with your new domain name it is now time to install WordPress using Fantastico. What you need to do now is login into your cpanel(Control Panel) using your login information you received from your web host and scroll down the page and locate the Fantastico icon.

Click on the icon and follow the instructions Fantastico guides you through. This only takes about 2 – 5 minutes. It’s very straight forward.

Once you’ve completed that and have everything installed you’ll be given an login admin URL along with your username and password you set up. Simply login into your new wordpress blog using your username and password.

That’s it. Your blog is up and live. Now all you have to do is choose your theme and plugins.

Here’s a few resources for you to get started with. For WordPress Themes go to – www.wpthemesfree.com – and for WordPress Plugins go to – www.wp-plugins.net/beta/.

Now this may take you a little more then 15 minutes the first time around but after you do this a few times your timing will increase.

Remember, these are just the basic steps to setting up your WordPress blog using Fantastico and getting it online, but is the easiest in the long run.


Cory Threlfall – Looking to become an expert blogger in record time AND are serious about earning BIG money with blogging, then I highly recommend you check out my honest make money blogging product reviews. I’ve checked out all the top blogging products on the Internet and these are the ones that I think will benefit you most ==> How To Start A Blog

By Merle in Featured

advertising to facebookIn the “old days”, if you wanted to meet someone, you had to get dressed up and drive to a public place. Not anymore. The Internet has changed all of that with the popularity of social networking sites. Two of the biggest are MySpace and Facebook.

Basically, a social network website allows you to register, display photos and some personal information, then you can invite others to become “your friends”. You can meet thousands of people right from the comfort of your living room. How great is that?

By Seomul Evans in Featured

If you haven’t yet realized that social networking is now the focal point of internet marketing, then you haven’t been paying attention. Utilizing social networking is more than creating a group on Facebook or opening a MySpace account. A business owner who truly understands social networking has a gift for taking a broad view of the internet. Where do people gather on the internet? What do they talk about?

How do they talk to each other? The difficulty with using social networking as a marketing strategy is that social networking requires marketers to step outside of their comfort zones and find new ways to deliver their messages. It doesn’t require a total rejection of traditional marketing techniques, but if you’re unwilling to follow your gut and build authentic relationships, then it might not be right for you.

Potential customers are constantly bombarded with marketing messages in some form or another. What they really want is to make authentic connections with other people, which is why social networking is such an overwhelmingly popular phenomenon. To be successful, you have to make those connections instead of simply throwing your message out there to see where it sticks. In fact, if you’re using social networking the right way, you might not even feel like you’re “marketing” anymore.

Here are 7 keys to building authentic communities on the internet:

  1. Create of map of your customers. Keeping your niche market in mind, find the places on the internet that have the most influence on your potential customers. What are your potential customers and your competitors talking about? Does your company have anything to add to the conversation?
  2. Recruit. Now that you’ve figured out where your potential customers are and what they’re talking about, invite them to talk with you. 3. Determine the appropriate platform(s). Which of the following will work best for your goals: social networking sites, e-communities, blogs, or reputation aggregators?
  3. Engage your community. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the place where you have to put your most authentic self out there and engage the people you’ve recruited to be part of your conversation. Be real and be genuine. Make this about a conversation, not about selling something. Mostly importantly, find a balance between content generated by your users and content generated by your enterprise.
  4. Measure involvement. Watch your community carefully over time and pay attention to what resonates most with them.
  5. Promote, promote, promote. Your site may not need much promotion. If that’s the case, then consider yourself lucky. But if you find that you need to promote yourself, go seek out places where that can happen. Invite yourself to someone else’s place and then invite them back to yours.
  6. Give incentives. Once you have a quality community, focus on giving people a reason to stay. Be aware of what works and what doesn’t, what people enjoy and what they don’t. Always look out for ways to make your community more friendly, useful, convenient, and rewarding.

The most important part of marketing through social networking is to make sure that your community adds values to its users. If your users feel like they’re getting good advice, good information, and making good connections, then they’re more likely to stick around. And it’s your job to facilitate a quality community. It may not feel like marketing, but it may be some of the most important marketing you ever do.

If you’re not sure whether now is the time to make social networking part of your overall marketing strategy, go ahead and take the plunge. Climb the learning curve now, ahead of your competitors, and build your communities. You’ll be glad you did.

Seomul Evans is a SEO expert with a leading SEO company specializing in internet Search Engines and a contributor of Social Networking Articles

By Steve Shaw in Featured

Improve Twitter RankingWhen you’re article marketing it’s not enough just to write articles–you want to write articles in such a way that they draw targeted traffic to your website. What is targeted traffic? Targeted traffic is basically website visitors who are interested in the topic of your website. So, when they read one of your articles and then click through to your website, they will likely be receptive to and interested in what you’re offering at your site.

First and foremost, the way to get targeted traffic through article marketing is to write articles on the topic of your website.

By Jamie Simpson in Featured

At its most basic, Multilingual Search Engine Optimisation is the process of modifying your website in order for it to appear on Internet search listings in different languages in various countries. The higher the listing the more traffic or click throughs you will generate to your site. Theoretically, the more click throughs you have to your site the more conversions you are likely to get, but only if the website and content appeals to your target audience.

Pay per Click Advertising or PPC is an Internet advertising system where the advertiser only pays for the Ad when the Ad is clicked on by an Internet user. In order to get the Ad to appear on the search listings you need to have the right key words and appropriate copy. However, having it appear isn’t enough. If the user then clicks on the Ad and lands on a landing page that isn’t appropriate or relevant or is difficult to navigate then you lose a potential customer and you pay for it.

Contrary to what people might think, the majority of Internet users are not English speaking so by aiming at only an English audience you can lose out on huge potential revenues.

What is required for Multilingual SEO

Multilingual SEO is obviously a much more complex process than standard SEO as it also needs to consider language and cultural differences. For example, if you want to appeal to a global market your site would have to be modified in order to take account of differences not only in language and culture, but also the various search engines and how they work too. Basically, you really need to know what you are doing to get the desired results.

It’s essential to have an understanding of what people are likely to be searching for using the correct keywords in the target language. You cannot just translate your site and your keywords and expect that to work because it won?t. Certain words or phrases may be translated correctly but will not necessarily be the words and phrases that are used in a particular country.

You would also need to consider common miss-spellings in each language and the possibility of slang words for a particular term. Ideally your website should be written from scratch in the target language by a native speaker as then it will have the best chance of grabbing a share of the foreign market.

With multilingual PPC you should also ensure that it isn’t just the landing page that is translated, you really need to have several pages of relevant information if you want those conversions.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of thinking that Google is the most popular search engine across the globe. Yes it does have an international presence but it isn’t the most dominant search engine in every country. A professional in multilingual SEO will know which search engines are the best options in different countries.

All things considered, to get the best results from multilingual SEO you will either have to be an expert yourself, or call in an expert in multilingual SEO to do it for you.


Jamie Simpson – Open your business up to new markets with multilingual seo. Search Laboratory offer seo in a large number of languages.

By Tracy Mu Sung in Featured

Despite there being over 200 parameters taken into account by search engines when ranking sites, one of the most popular facets of search engine optimisation (or SEO) continues to be linking.

However, this article isn’t about non-spammy content, it is about non-spammy linking strategies. Yes, although linking has fast become an industry whereby directories have popped up everywhere and links are put in footers, headers, background color, or a myriad of other disguised ways, there is still a non-spammy way to do links. Whats more, my history shows that this way works better for your ranking over the long term as well.

Before we get started, a very brief introduction for those newly initiated into the world of SEO. The bottom line is this – Google will recommend your site, if others recommend it first. This means, to get high rankings in Google, Google needs to know that others find your site useful. How does a search spider know what people think about your site? Links. If people are linking through to your site, the Google spider will think your site is well liked. If relevant sites are linking through to you, this is even better, because Google will consider you to be an authority on this topic.

So, how do you go about getting the nice mix of links that Google might consider appropriate? Well, you can just dive in and submit your site everywhere you can think of. Or you can take the longer, more well thought-out way around…

  1. Before you even start – look at who your client is. What is and isn’t going to be effective for them? Where and where wouldn’t they want to be seen? You need to know exactly what the limitations of your link building strategy are going to be. For example, if you have a government body as a client, you are going to have to think VERY conservatively. Similarly for national brands or straightlace industries like insurance. On the other hand, start ups, media and online retail might be more willing to take risks. You need to note all this down, and make a memo of what kind of strategy you will be following. This is particularly important if you are sharing this client work with others.
  2. Similar to point 1, point 2 is about relevancy. you don’t want to damage your brand image for some basically worthless links, so make sure all your links are on topic in some way. Its best for your SEO and it is best for your brand. The effect of directory links seems to be negligible these days, so you might want to consider if this is worth your time. In content links however are much more valuable.
  3. Assigning the work. Link building is often assigned to junior staff, or as a starting task. Now, sure, it might seem like brainless work – but if your junior gets an irrelevant or inappropriate link for your client, and your client or a competitor sees it, you will have a lot of explaining to do. Make sure that the person doing your links has some experience or good training, and most importantly, that they have read your client memo.
  4. Now, in the interests of corporate knowledge and continuity, it is also recommended that you keep good records of every link you do for your client. No, not so you can copy this strategy for the next client (see point 1.- client suitability!), but so that you can go back and see what has worked and what hasn’t. Going hand in hand with this is the obvious monitoring of rankings to see how your efforts are affecting them.
  5. Step 4 will help you with step 5. Evolution. You can’t just get links and then stop. You need to constantly increase, improve and diversify your sources of links. This takes creativity and experience, and is yet ANOTHER reason why the most junior people in your organisation shouldn’t always be given linking to do. As part of evolution you need to monitor your progress, learn more about your client and keep up with their latest developments (look for linking opportunities), and also keep on top of general SEO industry developments.

This is the general overview of how a linking strategy should be undertaken. Sure it is a lot more complicated than just submitting your site to link farms, or sending out a mass email, but SEO is about having the edge over your competitor, and these steps will help you get there. Website Marketing is an increasingly popular and competitive form of marketing, you need to make sure you are keeping up with the Jones’s not just looking for the fast or easy route.

If this advice is too vague for you, here are some more specific do’s and don’ts:

Do use relevent anchor text, which helps Google to know what exactly it is you are an expert about.Don’t use ‘click here’ as your link – ever! * Don’t forget to check if a site you are trying to link from is nofollow’ed * Do try to diversify your links – 100 links from one site isn’t the same as 100 different links * Don’t use irrelevant links – Google can spot this a mile off, and may penalise you. Also, it just doesn’t look good if you want to retain some dignity for your brand * Do try and generate buzz with good content so that links will come to you naturally * Don’t undertake any paid links without thinking very very carefully about the implications * Do contribute valuable content/comments/reviews to other sites, with relevant links embedded * Don’t try and contribute spammy content with embedded links that aren’t relevant. Your content will either get blocked, or Google will devalue the links. * Do think laterally – always be on the look out for good, relevant, linking opportunities. There are opportunities out there if you remember to keep thinking, developing and diversifying.

This article was written by Tracy Mu Sung for MooMu Media, the search engine marketing experts. MooMu Media provides search engine optimisation, PPC marketing and web analytics advice. MooMu’s clients include multinational companies including professional services, online retail and digital media.

By Paula Brett in Featured

More and more of my I.M. colleagues and indeed new people that I meet on line are `getting into blogging’.

And why not? Blogs are relatively easy to produce and use, no matter which platform you choose, and they can be a brilliant tool for internet marketers.

However, no matter how easy they are to install and use, and no matter how helpful they can be to your business, the one thing that I’ve noticed more frequently is that many people are neglecting the security of their blogs.

Now I’m actually talking in particular about WordPress blogs here. Yes, I have used Blogger blogs in the past, and I know that many people swear by them, but I found Blogger a bit too restricitive for my liking (though I understand that things have changed a lot at Blogger since I first used them).

Because WordPress is an open source blogging tool, meaning that it’s free and available to everyone, it’s a prime target for hackers and ne’er-do-wells.

Of course, the WordPress development team are tireless in constantly working on the script for our benefit, but none of this is any use if we don’t actually get up off our backsides and do a bit of work on our blogs behind the scenes.

It’s par for the course to worry about your blog theme, your next blog post, your readership, attracting subscribers to your RSS feed etc. etc., but do you actually think very much about your blog’s security?

I suppose that I might perhaps see more WordPress blog security problems than most, being in the hosting business.

Did you know that probably the biggest cause of server compromisation is actually people who install WordPress blogs and other open source scripts and don’t keep them up-to-date with the latest versions and patches?

Hackers find it easy to search around, find a way in through an old script, hack your blog, access your email accounts, start sending viagra and cure for baldness spam emails `from you’ and generally get up to all kinds of nasty things.

I can’t tell you how many panicky emails I’ve had to answer from people who’ve logged into their blog one day and have been smacked in the face by a skull and cross bones proudly proclaiming that their carefully crafted, lovingly nurtured blog has been hacked by Hound Dog Horris the Hardcore Hacker!! Great!

So I’ve put together a few suggestions that you might like to implement to help keep your WordPress blog `safe’.

Keep Up-to-Date

First of all, the most obvious fix is to ensure that you keep your blog up-to-date with the latest version released by WordPress.

Most WordPress blogs display a little warning in the Dashboard that tells you when a new version is released and a link for you to click to download it. If yours doesn’t, then it’s worth checking the WordPress website fairly regularly for updates. They also invite you to sign up for email notification of updates.

If you feel a bit daunted installing updates via FTP, or you installed your blog initially using Fantastico in your cPanel, so are not sure how to install the updates, WordPress offer quite a good set of instructions for this.

Plugins

It’s a good idea to hide the list of plugins you are using. Any known vulnerabilities and bugs that may occur in some plugins can be used as tools to harm your website.

Check out your blog, now… yourdomain.com/wp-content/plugins

The chances are, you will see the full directory of all of your blog plugins, and in some cases, the date they were installed.

To hide your plugins, simply create an index.html file and upload it to the wp-admin/plugins folder. This index file can be blank or you can be really creative and add some promotions to it.

Another way that Hound Dog Hacker uses to determine whether your blog is furtile ground for hacking is to check which WordPress version you’re using.

So, if you’re one of those that has put upgrading on the back burner, then you could be announcing that you’re ripe for a hack harvest with a huge magaphone!

How so? Well, go to your blog… go on, open a new tab in your browser and type in your blog’s url. Then right click on your blog with your mouse and select View Source, View Page Source, or similar, from the drop down menu.

Check out the coding… about 10-12 lines down, you will see something like this

The plugin is merely one small .php file that you upload to your plugins folder, and then activate it in the usual way in the plugins section of your Dashboard.

Block Access

A folder that Hound Dog Hacker likes to have a good old nosey around on your blog is your wp-admin folder – this is the storage place for all your blog’s most sensitive data. So here’s a quick tip to secure this directory…

Open notepad or wordpad on your computer, and add the following code:-

AuthUserFile /dev/null AuthGroupFile /dev/null AuthName “Access Control” AuthType Basic order deny,allow deny from all allow from TYPE YOUR IP ADDRESS HERE

If you don’t know your IP address, you can find it here whatismyipaddress.com

Next, save your txt file as .htaccess and then upload it to your wp-admin folder.

NOTE: This method might be a pain in the neck for you if you don’t have a static IP address, however, if you are with an internet service provider that has a range, you can add the range.

I have to say that my IP address isn’t static BUT, I’ve only had to add extra IP addresses twice in the past 6 months or so, to allow me to login.

I did wonder why, when I went to my blog login page whilst on my laptop that I was denied access… doh, then I realised that my .htaccess file was denying me access from this computer.

I now keep the .htaccess file on my desk top and just add an IP address, if and when it changes, to the file and upload it in seconds. So your file might look something like this

AuthUserFile /dev/null AuthGroupFile /dev/null AuthName “Access Control” AuthType Basic order deny,allow deny from all allow from TYPE YOUR IP ADDRESS HERE allow from TYPE YOUR IP ADDRESS HERE allow from TYPE YOUR IP ADDRESS HERE

I hope this has helped give you some ideas, or at least galvanized you into taking a closer look at your blog security.

Paula Brett is a writer and internet marketer in several niches. She works mainly with newcomers to internet marketing. You can check out the plugin mentioned in this article and other free downloads her blog

By Darren Dunner in Featured

Improve Twitter RankingSince March 2006, Twitter has evolved into one of the more popular ways to keep people connected from all over the world. As well, it has created marketing opportunities that no one expected.

Every month people are finding new ways to connect their marketing efforts to Twitter and while many of these Social Media sites eventually disappear, it seems Twitter will flourish.

The problem that most people have is finding how to make the most of Twitter and even understanding all its features. Although there are many tools available, we will only cover a few here and spend most of our time on how to use Twitter to improve your social networking status.

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