The answer you get by any SEO expert on keeping your readers faithful is -have great content! Although writing ‘great content’ is easier said than done, we can use a few simple tools to keep our readers on board with additional content to our own. In this post we will show the use of a few simple widgets that can enhance our blog’s content.
The first advantage of widgets is that they are easy to install and use. You don’t have to be a software designer in order to install a text widget on your site or blog. The second advantage is that most widgets can be customized in size, color and style to fit your blog in an elegant way. In this post I”ll recommend a few content-related widgets, that add relevant content to your readers in addition to your own original content:
Twitter Search Widget – There is no doubt about the impact tweets have on the web. over 50M users tweet daily billions of tweets, why not share the relevant ones for you with your readers? Instead of adding a twitter widget of your own tweets, add the search widget and cutomise it to your blog topic.This example is a search widget on ‘Ipad’
Twitter, one of fastest growing social media tools in 2009. One of the popular uses is promoting content through Twitter. In this post I’ll explore the possibilities of using Twitter with automatic and manual tools.
The first and not recommended option for Twitter users when promoting content is manually tweeting every time you post a blogpost, video, podcast. This is not recommended, especialy when most bloggers post more than once a week at their blog, FaceBook, LinkedIn,etc. and upload a video to YouTube every now and then. You would usually like to tweet on most of that. Luckly, today you can add your Twitter account to most of the existing platforms.
The subject says it all: we are active on more than one social platform. It can be difficult to manage all at the same time and connect them with your blog or website. Wibiya is a new and cool tool that does it in a very elegant way.
Operating and managing your blog’s social media activity can be a lot of work, and it might not be so effective if not done right. Many tools offer badges, widgets and toolbars for blogs and websites, I found the Wibiya toolbar very effective and well designed. We implemented it both on this blog and on Sortfix’s blog.
First of all the Wibiya toolbar has a simple step-by-step plugin installation wizard-
Well, the first place to look for money is your bank account. If there isn’t much there, and you have a great idea, you’ll have to search for funding and investors. In this post we will try looking at the subject with a different perspective.
Part of my work with start-up companies includes finding investors and funds. With time you find that somethings works for you better than others. Of course, these are just my impressions. Hope you’ll find them useful:
As said here before, networking happens everywhere. As a proud owner of a new dog, I found a community I wasn’t aware of at all. Except for the fun of having a dog, and especially a young and energetic one, in the past few weeks I met a lot of people with dogs, and some great connections.
There is always an exception, dogs who prefer different things to do with their leisure time-
During my work with business partners and clients I hear all kind of opinions and thoughts on how the web, social media, and online networking influence our business. I collected a few that are all a part of the World Wide Web mythology.
Setting up a website can cost as low as $150: there isn’t a bigger mistake for a business than this one, especially for small and medium businesses. In many cases, a business website is the ‘Front Cover’ of the business and your reputation. This is where most of the new clients and costumers first encounter your product. That ‘Front Cover’ of your business should reflect the quality of your product. You don’t have to spend a fortune on it, but have a professional do the job, plan wisely what your site should consist of, make sure the design is friendly, and that all the features work properly(links, payment, video’s, ads etc.). This still isn’t a big cost, and it is of great importance. Isn’t it worth paying a little more on your website?
Social media is a waste of time. I will start by how NOT to use social media (Sent by Shooky Galili) Read more…
About a week ago I met and old colleague for a beer after work. While having our beer, I heard someone ordering a beer in Spanish two seats away from us on the bar. Being curious about the spanish, I introduced myself, and so did my colleague. The person we met turned out to be ‘Gale Talk‘, A Madrid based techno artist, who came to town for a concert. We had a fun talk about music and a few more rounds of beer.
Gale Talk
From here on, networking went on using MySpace, where you can find information and more importantly a few tracks. So I could listen to his music, which I really liked. Hope you will enjoy it too. I couldn’t make it to the concert, hope to see it next time in town.
In a previous post named Where to Network, we have covered in which circles to connect and how to network online. It occurred to me, that we still haven’t given any tools on how to ACTUALLY network with people when the opportunity occurs, even if you are not a people person. In this post we will explore one classic example, which is attending a convention. I gathered my opinion on the subject from attending, organizing and networking in a few events, and organized my thoughts in 5 practical steps easy to follow:
1. What to wear? If you are a man, don’t laugh at this point, this is not a fashion tip! It’s important to wear something suitable for the occasion, but try to wear something comfortable for you. If you usually don’t wear a suit, don’t start now, people will notice you are uncomfortable, and it can be interpreted as unreliable. If you are not sure, and there isn’t a clear dress code, try asking a colleague on similar events. Remember, dress code is important, but feeling comfortable around others is crucial.
Sometimes, dressing wrong for the occasion is serving a purpose…
Do you have any friends working in sales? Is any of your friends a blogger? Count the amount of people you know who work with anything to do with technology. If you answered ‘YES’ to these questions or most of them, potentially you have a successful new company in your hands. More on connecting your connections in this post.
In this blog we dealt with how to built your network, and how to make it grow. Assuming you already have a network of considerable size, it’s time to make it work for you, and for your connections. A non-active network, won’t bring any value to your business. Connection won’t last – the next time you’ll need someone from your network you will have to start rebuilding your relationship from scratch.
The web is rich with ‘How To’ guides. I also read some of these articles and posts every now and then. You can probably find endless blog posts on ‘how to network ‘ online. I chose to publish here the first official ‘how to’ post to be on 5 things you should try NOT to do regarding your network. Remember, we all learn from mistakes, why not learn from others’ mistakes?
Don’t miss opportunities – When does that big opportunity come? You could never know. In order to avoid missing opportunities, there’s only one thing to do. Take part in activities related to your business and personal life as mentioned here before. Any occasion or person you meet, could easily become a great opportunity for a big client or a new contract, or finding the perfect candidate for a job your hiring for.
Then again, some meetings just bring up too many bad memories
Don’t force your business – Your product is great, I’m sure of that. But try to understand the event you’re participating in. Timing is everything (along with a good product,creative marketing and some luck…). Sometimes you might just have one opportunity to introduce yourself to someone relevant to you - don’t blow it. If you speak about your business in the wrong place, you might be considered rude and maybe even boring. From my experience, always introduce yourself first as a person, an individual. Don’t talk about your business straight away. People like to connect with people, not companies. Start by a short introduction about yourself. People will remember you but they will seldom remember a company name. If people will remember you it doesn’t matter which business it is, They would be interested in YOU.
