Don't Forget to Back Up Your Bloghttp://www.blogbackuponline.com
Blog back up online backs up the blog and incrementally adds whatever posts you do on a daily basis. DOwnload these backups and use blogbackuponline to restore your entire blog if your blog server fails. Controlling Customer Controlled Media Releaseshttp://www.google.com/alerts
This is a link to a service from google which allows you to set a search term on google and have google email you when there are any updates on your search terms. This could potentially help alert you to any posting or article that comes out bearing your company name, website title or your personal name.
Can be used to either reward the poster or to do damage control if
anything negative inadvertently arises.
Colin Online Web and Blog Development"Web creation made easy" ... and it sure it. Weebly is a free online software that helps you set up a website and/or blog with drag and drop templates. You can set up multiple blogs for the one site (meaning you can easily establish several section with updatable information). Check it out! http://www.weebly.com. A Wireless Vocabulary EvolvesCheck out article on wireless hacking. If not for anything, it's good to be aware so you can protect sensitive information.
http://www.computerworld.com/networkingtopics/networking/lanwan/story/0,10801,74321,00.html Sales Cycle Manager 2.0With Ardexus Sales Cycle Manager, you can have a mobile sales assistant by your side at all times.
http://www.tucows.com/preview/182541 5 Minute Management Course (Humour)Lesson 1:
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her
shower, when the doorbell rings.
The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour.
Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.'
After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in
front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.
The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.
When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'
'It was Bob the next door neighbour,' she replies.
'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'
Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your
shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable
exposure.
Lesson 2:
A priest offered a Nun a lift.
She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.
The priest nearly had an accident.
After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up
her leg again.
The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.
On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It
said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'
Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great
opportunity.
Lesson 3:
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch
when they find an antique oil lamp.
They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'
'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas,
driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'
Puff! She's gone.
'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing
on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas
and the love of my life.'
Puff! He's gone.
'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'
Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.
Lesson 4
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.
A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do
nothing?'
The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a
sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.
Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.
Lesson 5
A turkey was chatting with a bull.
'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey,
'but I haven't got the energy.'
'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull.
They're packed with nutrients.'
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough
str ength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of
the tree.
He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.
Moral of the story:
Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there..
Lesson 6
A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze
and fell to the ground into a large field.
While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.
As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize
how warm he was.
The dung was actually thawing him out!
He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.
A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.
Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung,
and promptly dug him out and ate him.
Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your
friend.
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep
your mouth shut!
THUS ENDS THE FIVE MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE
And send this to five bright people who have enough sense of humor to take
it! CRM Softwarehttp://crm.zoho.com/crm/login.sas
Affordable On Demand CRM
Sales & Marketing
Zoho CRM aligns your Sales and Marketing by integrating sales with campaigns, leads, sales pipeline, forecasts etc., Learn More
Inventory Management
Zoho CRM empowers you complete the sales cycle by providing an integrated inventory management system. Learn More
Customer Support & Service
Zoho CRM employs Cases and Solutions to streamline your customer support process by integrating with sales data. Learn More
Reports & Dashboards
Zoho CRM helps you to analyze sales & marketing trends and key CRM metrices by reports and dashboards. Learn More
Role-based Security
New!
Zoho CRM empowers you to control the CRM data access based on users' job role in your organization hierarchy. Learn More
Outlook Plugin
Zoho CRM enhances your productivity by synchronizing CRM Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, and emails with Outlook. Learn More MIT Reference Sitevideo at MIT the gateway to online video collections
http://watch.mit.edu/
Free Online MIT Courseware Audio/Video Courses
The following courses contain substantial video and/or audio content.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/ Business Calculatorhttp://www.calculatorweb.com/
Welcome to one of the best collections of financial and business calculators on the Internet! Please choose from the following categories: Investment, Finance, Tax, Salary Packaging, Planning and Other. IS: Backup Data Onlinehttp://www-archive.allmydata.com/
Automated Backup
Unlimited Storage
Remote Access to your Files
Multi-Computer Plans Available
No Ads
llmydata was created for all of us who have lost important information due to disk crashes, viruses or even a mere computer replacement. Allmydata was created for all of us who have given up on backing up our computers due to the cost and complexity of current backup solutions: external drives, tape drives and complicated online solutions.
Like you, we are truly passionate about our digital memories. We have spent countless hours taking pictures, cataloguing our music, editing our videos and writing e-mails. Having lost so much of our digital memories already, we built Allmydata to preserve them forever - easily and seamlessly. Free Business Softwarehttp://www.sofotex.com/download/Business_Software/
Business Software downloads
Accounting
Barcode Software
Contact Management
Finance
Inventory
Invoice And Billing
PDF Tools
Spreadsheets
Time Sheets Free Survery Softwarehttp://www.questionpro.com/free-survey-software.html
The Free Basic License offers free access to the survey software. The Free Survey Software license is ideal for simple projects. The Free Basic License allows up to 10 questions and 100 survey responses. There is no time limit on the Free Survey Software license.
QuestionPro is a web based service for conducting online surveys. The process is simple using QuestionPro's online survey software:
Build your survey using the intuitive wizard interface.
Send invitations using the integrated email system.
View your reports online automatically.
QuestionPro offers a complete Free Survey Software solution. Business Dictionaryhttp://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/business/4941806-1.html
Dictionary of Business Terms
More than 7,500 definitions of key terms and definitions used in the business and financial world. A handy reference guide for students, business proprietors and managers, and general readers. Topics covered relate to accounting, taxation, advertising, business law, communications, transportation, computers and the Internet, economics, finance, insurance, international business, management, marketing, real estate, statistics, and other areas of business.
Also business advice... Personal MBA ManifestoThe Personal MBA (PMBA) is a project designed to help you educate yourself about advanced business concepts. This manifesto will show you how to substantially increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost, all without setting foot inside a classroom.
http://personalmba.com/manifesto/ Communications: VideoconferencingFree web meeting software which allows you to communicate and collaborate between two people using voice, video, whiteboard, share applications or your desktop, and uploaded software. The software is hosted and web-based, so it's way easy to get computer-illiterate stakeholders on board! They just log onto a web-site - no downloading of software at all!
http://www.dimdim.com
Colin Eye-tracking Guide to Site Usability
Eye-tracking looks at how users scan a web page and what components feature highly to their appreciating your site's layout.
1. Navigation is extremely important, and features highly in terms of site usage satisfaction. Good navigation increases the probability that the customer will buy at your site. This means that confusing navigation would put most consumers off. At the web development stage, site owners should spend some time to look at how navigation will work through their site. If it doesn't match your business needs, change it immediately!
2. Visitors are attracted to different navigation options. Doesn't matter if you've got a slick animated menu system, go ahead and use a text-based table of contents. Have a category list. These simple ways of presenting data are extremely powerful.
3. Consumer-generated content catches the eye. Testimonials. Reviews. Customer-generated ratings. All these show how other 'real' people are using your site. Let in some negative comments, this makes information more 'real' and adds a dimension of honesty to your site.
4. Some users like traditional text-based navigation whilst others like sophisticated interfaces. Different options appeal to different people, and there's no one way to sort this issue out. You may better stick with something that you like or which would make sense to your business or branding needs.
5. Images are important. But they don't necessarily focus attention on the text that is placed next to them. It is worthwhile to experiment with simultaneous information presentation and formatting. Or maybe to embed small flash-based components onto your site. It may be worthwhile to include on-link or clickability functions and tie that into a Goal with Google Analytics.
Web Pages that Suck
Testing Web Page Design Concepts for Usability
Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design
Traditional vs Modern Product LaunchesThe immense power of interconnectivity in Web 2.0 has changed the face of product launches. Formerly executives would create a buzz by getting their secretaries to alert various media outlets, and pitch their product launches through traditional mendia. This is old-hat.
Introducting Web 2.0 - let's get the creative juices flowing...
Imagine your latest invention, the 'SuperWidget', appeals to those with a taste for Hawaiian shirts. Log on to your Facebook account (if you haven't already got one join the other 34 million users that have), and create a new 'Group' called 'I own a Hawaiian Shirt'. Ask your friends to join (all of us know at least one person who might own a Hawaiian shirt). Then, sit back, relax, and watch the membership to that Group start growing.
The great networking capabilities of online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace mean friends will tell friends-of-friends, and they will tell their friends etc. Potentially you will have thousands of members to this 'Hawaiian shirt' group, where you can display photos, videos, polls, and various other information about your SuperWidget - powerful stuff! "We have only anecdotal evidence on how our site is peforming ..."OMG! I was sitting with a customer today, a small business owner. The man has excellent energy, some good business acumen, and a vision for how he wants to be more successful. The one thing he said that made me hurt on the inside? He said he can't get statistics off Iinet, so only knows by anecdotal evidence that his site is performing well. He's not heard of statcounter, free site counter and web tracker info, nor had he heard of Google Analytics. Poor guy! Don't fly blind, kids! You need to figure out how your website is doing! Or else how do you justify your web development dollars? Search Engine Optimisation AdviceI found myself on my lunchbreak yesterday at a nice book cafe about 5 minutes away from the office. Flipping through a marketing book for authors, I found a section on internet marketing. I specifically focused on website marketing and the tips she had for search engine optimisation. You know, I found her tips quite good. She touched on keywords, optimisation of links, sitemaps, alt tags for pictures, keyword stuffing through the page, etc. But I question what I got through that page as opposed to any young or would be author trying to figure out what she was saying. My typical advice to small business owners trying to do optimisation compares search engine optimisation to the idea of editing or creating a magazine. Each page focuses on a specific topic. Each topic should contain specific keywords or phrases that a potential customer types in look for your page. I also then mention the importance of link popularity with Google, comparing the credibility or importance of the site in terms of the number of links pointing back at your page or site. With this, I then talk about using those keywords and placing them into link fields in order to allow Google to understand what the site is about. Most business owners seem to respond more favourably to this explanation then to a more granular approach on optimisation methodology. Eyeballs or Catch-no-balls?At a management discussion today regarding the optimisation needs of a client, we discussed the importance of traffic to a website. What was mentioned was that it was not so important to have a huge number of web traffic. What was more important was the amount of time that a visitor spends on a site. The one example that was quoted was AOL v Microsoft. Apparently MS outstrips AOL for web traffic, but AOL gets much more time per page than MS does. So what is right for the customer? The answer lies in the objective for the site. If it was your intention to get a lot of people looking at the first page quickly and then bouncing off, then hey, what am I to say. But if you benefited from a person sticking around to find out who you are and what you do, then you should make a compelling website and ensure that people stay for longer and longer.
Web analytics for Media Buyers and Media Planners
Time spent more valid than the page view Feel Good v Real GoodI'm consulting for a friend who's setting up a medical and holistic practice in South East Asia. She's just sent me her three screenshots from the web developer. The sites are stark, monochromatic, contrasting, very trendy, and hip. Two out of the three would probably work quite well from a search engine optimisation perspective. However, the main issue I brought up to her is that the websites and the web designer are trying to represent her dream - her excitement. The screenshots however seem to forget that the user is going to be looking for what the business is doing. As they scan the left vertical and standard menus, and the 'contextual' horizontal menus, all they're seeing is what I'm seeing ... all the 'cool' stuff, but none of the actual stuff that the business is going to be selling! It's a little like comparing categories with products. We're now at the platform to show our products or services. The user needs to be able to understand the range or breadth of services on offer. The vision and culture of the practice can be sold when they drill deeper. The website needs to recognise that the business owner has some solid core differentiating points - she is warm, sincere, credible, highly respectable, empathic, intelligent, caring, and objective. When you're in front of the web developer, you need to include what your unfair advantages are - meaning, what you have that no one can buy or acquire easily. This is how your customer would come to you over someone else. Few web developers are going to ask you all of these questions. It's up to you to include a good brief otherwise your 5 minute off-the-top-of-your-head vision is going to be passed from sales rep to web design (team lead) to web developer (grunt), and he's going to sling some graphics together without a major thought for what makes your business great. So you're doing the same thing as [Web Developer's Name Here]?I was speaking with a coder that used to work with me in a system's integration company dealing with multimedia applications for the cultural sector. I was mentioning that I was starting to work again for this search engine optimisation firm in Perth, Western Australia. Upon which he asked whether we did the same thing as [name of some web development firm here in Perth]. I should feel complimented as he did compare us favourably with a good sized company that's doing some good work. But the fact is IMO web development companies and search engine optimisation don't seem much aligned, despite SEO being a logical service extension for web development and design. We've previously looked toward web development firms to sell our services. The few that acquiesce and seem interested don't end up promoting search engine optimisation services alongside their core business. Worse is that they promote services then attempt to do some optimisation themselves. This invariably means optimising meta tags, some search engine submissions, and maybe a small link popularity push. Warning: this may be disastrous for your search engine rankings - resulting in a low rank and then difficulty in improving on your position within search results. The more difficult or mingy customers are sent to the search engine optimiser! We've found however much more willingness to explore SEO services from technology based companies like software developers or system integration firms. For some reason, techies understand that some specialisation of labour can vastly increase the delivered value to the client. Clients are advised to read up on online marketing and search engine optimisation before looking to develop their website.
Search Engine Optimisation for Web Developers
Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer's Guide to SEO Putting Blogs to WorkBlogs are supposed to be funny, irreverant, or highly topic relevant for them to draw readers and loyalty. I set up one up for a specific hobby that I had April 2007. When I thought to check a few months later, at a mere 35 posts, I was ranking on the first page of Google for the specific search term I used plus the word 'blog'. Six months after I started I was on the first page for the specific term I used without the suffix 'blog'. Not bad for two posts a week and some corresponding links shared with other blog authors. Search engines account for 35% of my online traffic, referring sites account for 56%, and direct traffic less than 10%. As I said to one of my clients, blogs "create their own traffic," something I did not qualify, but which summarized this additional online channel nicely. Amazingly I am getting 67% new visits! I thought I was going to have to cook up some figures to reason out why I would get the same old group of bloggers back to my site - but needless to say I was surprised. Average time on the site was almost 2 minutes. The most interesting thing I learned just last weekend? I found an old friend of mine I haven't talked with in over 10 years. He had just put a website online for his business. So I thought to see how fast I could 'optimise' my blog with his name. I made a post with his name tagged in the title and in the body, including a link with his website. That was on Saturday morning. Well, again to my surprise, when I checked on Google the next morning, I was ranked higher than his new website!!! Shhh. Don't tell anyone.
Blogs will change your business
Blog for business
Business blog consulting Finding Products and Services OnlineA little more than half of all users would search on some search engine like Google or Yahoo, and then follow pertinent links. About a fifth of users are driven by word of mouth from friends or co-workers. Less follow advertising information from other media (like TV or radio) and email newsletters. A few follow advertising off favourite websites and an insignificant portion follow referrals from people they don't know through social networking platforms like blogs or discussion groups. This is an excellent proposition for search engine optimisation and online marketing. It also prompts us to look at opportunities to use the explosion of online social networking amongst friends to spread viral or word-of-mouth campaigns.
Search Engine Statistics
Know This: Marketing, Market Research, Internet Marketing, etc
Internet marketing resources useful links to various online resources, articles, directories, etc.
|
