AMVA - Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant

Welcome to the June 15, 2008 edition of the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival. We received a ton of entries this week, unfortunately several were unable to be included for various reasons. But, we still have a great carnival for you this week so hopefully you enjoy!

Steve Oliphant presents Free Backlinks! Woo Hoo! posted at Steve Oliphant’s Musings.

Patrick Schwerdtfeger presents How I use Twitter and Utterz posted at Tactical Execution, saying, “This post describes how you can use free micro-blogging platforms like Twitter and Utterz to build a following and push value to your audience, all without leaving home.”

Webmaster_1 presents Avoiding Make Money From Home Scams posted at The Entrepreneurs Online Magazine, saying, “Tips on how to avoid money making schemes”

Diego Norte presents Internet Business 101 posted at Internet Business 101.

Jose DeJesus MD presents Business Startup - Testing Your Idea and Yourself posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

Steve Faber presents The Steps to Starting an Internet Business posted at Home Based Business Success.

Laurie presents Law Practice and Life Balance posted at Halo Secretarial Services.

Fiona Lohrenz presents Why Your Day Care Needs A Website posted at Child Care Only.

Social D presents Social Marketing Traffic Experiment Updated Results Video posted at Social Networking Bookmark Domination.

Jose DeJesus MD presents Business Document Resource posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

Janet Barclay presents Keeping Track of All Those Blogs posted at From the Desk of Janet Barclay.

Tammi Metzler presents My journey from full-time employee to full-time entrepreneur posted at Writeassociate’s Weblog.

Jennifer Naughton presents Day One Of A New Life posted at Jennifer Naughton — Virtual Assistant.

Mary Havlicek presents I’ve Got Spirit, How ‘Bout You? posted at Hours by Design.

Raymond presents Internet Service Is More Important To Me Than Phone or Cable TV posted at Money Blue Book.

Amanda Moore presents 10-Second Must-do SEO for Bloggers posted at AMVA - Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant.

SJ Yee presents On Becoming A Full-Time Blogger/Internet Marketer posted at Personal Development for the Book Smart.

Mark Riffey presents Who has time for marketing? posted at Business is Personal.

Jimmy Sansi presents A Big List For Improving Article Marketing posted at The Kaizen Business.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

In hosting the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival each week, one thing that continually surprises me is the number of bloggers who submit articles that don’t have text-based permalinks and that have titles which are not Search Engine Optimized (SEO). These are also usually the blogs that use a lot of “click here” links on their websites. These three things are so easy to change and will have a huge impact on the ranking of your blog that it makes no sense not to do them.

Titles

As any journalist will tell you, the power is in the title. If your article doesn’t have an eye-catching, interest building title, the odds of someone clicking on your link to read your article are greatly reduced.

For example, which article would you rather read?

1. Resource List
2. 97 SEO Resources That Will Get Your Blog Noticed

If you chose #2, you’re with the majority, but is that how you’re writing your titles? I’ll admit, sometimes it can just be hard to come up with a catchy title, but at least try to use something more descriptive and eye-catching than “Resource List.” The more info you give in the title to get interest the more people will see your post.

Permalinks

Even more important than your title for SEO is the way your link is generated. Using text-based permalinks is crucial for good SEO. This applies mainly to WordPress bloggers, but every blogger should double check their settings.

Which link would you be more likely to click on?

1. http://www.yourblog.com/?p=255
2. http://www.yourblog.com/97-seo-resources-that-will-get-your-blog-noticed

Obviously the answer is #2. Not only is it descriptive for the reader which will give you more clicks, it’s descriptive for the spiders which will help with your page rank.

In WordPress, the default setting is option #1 but it only takes about 10 seconds to change and will do your blog a world of good. Here are the instructions on how to change this setting.

1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard
2. Click on the “Settings” link on the right side of your screen
3. Click on “Permalinks”
4. Choose the setting that you want to use (depending on how much info you want displayed)
5. Click the “Save Changes” button

There you go. 10 seconds and you dramatically increased the your blog’s SEO.

Keyword Links

Spiders are constantly crawling our blogs looking for information. One thing they like are links. If something is linked, that indicates that it’s important so you want to give the spider as much information as possible in that one tiny link.

Using key words to link is a great way to tell the spiders more about your site. For example, if I wanted to send someone to my services section, instead of linking “click here” (which is the #1 linked phrase on the net) I could link this phrase “Learn how AMVA can give you more free time.”

This will do a couple things.

1. It gets my company name into a link, and therefore into the search engine info about my page
2. It uses my tag line (which is “Giving you more free time”) which means that when people search for those words, my site is more likely to come up.
3. It’s more interesting to readers than “click here.”

You don’t want to go all nuts and try to cram in 1001 keywords into one link, but be more creative with your link choices so that you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

Implementing these three concepts (but particularly the Permalinks part) doesn’t take very long and will do amazing things for your SEO.

Welcome to the June 1, 2008 edition of Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival.

Terry Dean presents Quality Website Traffic posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Webmaster_1 presents 5 Reasons Why Blogging Is Beneficial posted at The Entrepreneurs Online Magazine, saying, “An article on why blogging is beneficial to any internet business”

Jose DeJesus MD presents Defending Yourself Against Time Thieves posted at Physician Entrepreneur, saying, “Here are some ways to become more effective by avoiding things that steal or waste your time.”

Colleen M. Johnson presents Web Database Management Tools posted at cmjoffice.com Blog, saying, “Discover some information on web-based database options.”

John W. Furst presents Aweber – A Marketing Lesson And Smart Pricing posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Are you freaking out? One of the popular Email Marketing Tools provider — AWeber — has new features and new prices. What’s in it for you?”

Jimson Lee presents Free or Cheap Help Desk Support Software posted at CRM Help Desk Software.com, saying, “A quick review of the 2 best free Open Source Help Desk Support Ticket software for your business.”

Cindy King presents How To Use Online Translation Tools posted at Cindy King, saying, “I think free online translation tools are great… for certain tasks. Never use them to write any sales content or sales materials. And think twice about relying on them for any other translations.”

John Crickett presents How To Start A Blogging Business posted at Business Opportunities And Ideas, saying, “A guide to starting a blogging business”

Terry Dean presents From a Sale to An Experience posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Craig Andrews presents Small Steps for a lot of Traffic Generation posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.

Laurie presents Lawyers and Technological Change posted at Halo Secretarial Services.

Janet Barclay presents Business Lessons Are Everywhere posted at From the Desk of Janet Barclay.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Welcome to the May 25, 2008 edition of the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival.

Monique Terrell presents 15 Tips to making the Transition from Employee to Business Owner posted at Virtually Speaking.

Craig Andrews presents Proper Direct Email Marketing For An Internet Business (Don’t Kill Off Your Email List!) posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.

Anya Portnik presents Who cares about Web 2.0? Sales training & business development tips for the uninitiated posted at Gavin Ingham.

Terry Dean presents 7 Step Easy Writing System posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

Wendy Piersall presents Important Benefits from Working with a Virtual Assistant posted at Sparkplug CEO.

John Crickett presents How To Turn Your Home Business Idea Into A Home Business posted at Business Opportunities And Ideas, saying, “a guide to taking the step from home business idea to home business.”

Steve Faber presents - Free Blog Traffic - How to Get More Traffic to Your Blog posted at Home Based Business Success.

Woman Tribune presents I am Addicted to Entrecard posted at Woman Tribune.

Brianna Young presents Naming Your Virtual Assisting Business posted at Young Fox Consulting.

Raymond presents Nigerian 419 Scams and Spam Emails Are Funny But They Make Me Paranoid posted at Money Blue Book.

Yvone M. Kon presents Marketing - it is not all about YOU! posted at M.Y. Blog - M.arketing for Y.our business.

Janet Barclay presents The Status of Ezines posted at From the Desk of Janet Barclay.

Caroline Melberg presents Can A Home-Based Business Blog? posted at Small Business Mavericks.

Caroline Melberg presents Networking Groups Help You Grow Locally posted at Blue Chip Marketing Tips.

Mary H. Ruth presents Blogging and Branding Consider This… posted at Consider This ….

Cindy King presents Write A Better International Website posted at Cindy King, saying, “One of the the things you need to do when communicating with any prospects or clients is to think about what they want and need to hear from you. You need to look at your business offer, communication or message from their point of view.”

Rich Maltzman, PMP presents The Big Yellow Taxi of Project Management posted at Scope crêpe.

Vera Lang presents How To Insure A Home Business posted at Be Safe Insure.com, saying, “Insuring a home business is in no way less important than insuring a big corporation. However, there are many differences when you go to insure a home business and a corporate business. This article sets out the details you should know.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Virtual Assistant/Home Business Blog Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

by Nicholas Nanton

If you’re looking to grow your business, then a BLOG is a great tool to add to your tool chest. In this article we will discuss BLOG basics and how you can use them in your business.

1. What’s a BLOG?

What’s a BLOG you ask? Well, let me tell you. According to Wikipedia.com:

A blog (short for web log) is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order [newest entries are at the top].

So, its really just an online journal or diary that is written by anyone who wants to tell the world what’s on their mind. (Side note: When I say “the world” I really mean it, so be careful what you write.)

Ok, so how can this help you grow your business? Great question. To understand the answer you have to know just a bit about how search engines work.

2. BLOGs and Search Engines

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and all the others use what they call “spiders.” Spiders are software programs that “crawl” the internet looking for new content, and rank it based on its contents and its relevance to a certain topic. This is all done by some very complex math, but the important thing you need to know is that if you write often and/or discuss topics that are getting searched online a lot (i.e. topics in the news), the search engines will consider your site “relevant” and if you include “key words” (popular search terms) in your content, that you know your potential customers are searching for, there is a much better chance that they will actually be able to find you.

So to recap, my 3 Principles of BLOGging for Search Engines are:

1)Write Often

2)Write Relevant

3)Write Using Key Words

3. What makes a good BLOG?

This is a rhetorical question. The only thing that really matters is the opinion of the audience you are trying to reach. So here are a few tips that will help you stay on track.

1. Know who you are writing for - If your audience is 13 year olds, writing about retiring next year probably isn’t going to get you a lot of return visitors

2. Keep it short and to the point - 100-300 words is all most people will have the time to read, so keep your articles short and to the point. Over time this will build a great deal of credibility with your readers.

3. Write actionable content - “How To” and “Top 10″ lists are great. It gives your readers action steps they can take to use your content in their everyday lives. Think about ways to use these to point out how you are different from your competitors.

4. Don’t be afraid to tell some of your secrets - People love to hear about how to make something happen, then they love to pay someone else to do it. Let’s be honest, even though you just told me how I can edit my html code on my website to make it stick out like neon lights in a search engine, that doesn’t mean I want to do it myself. Just give me a way to contact you to hire you. After all, you just showed me that you are the expert.

5. Allow Comments - Consider allowing people to post comments about your BLOG. In fact, you should be the first one to post a comment after each blog, pose a question or comment to simply getting a discussion started. If visitors are interacting and writing comments about your BLOG, they are actually adding relevant content that the search engines are going to like.

Well, there you have it, BLOG basics.

JW Dicks & Nick Nanton, founders of TheBusinessGrowthLawyers.com, publish the Business Growth ezine monthly covering topics that every business, start-up to international powerhouse, needs to know. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, get more FREE info now at www.TheBusinessGrowthLawyers.com
Article Source: Keyword Articles

Ok folks, this one has been at the back of my mind for a while but I just experienced it again so I’m putting it out to the world.

Blogging is SUCH an important part of building your online presence. However, there are things you can do that will detract from your visitor’s experience. Here are a few things that I’ve run into lately on some blogs that make me want to not go back:

1 - Advertising. Too much advertising is a *huge* turn-off. Particularly if the ads blink or move in some way (anything moving and blinking is a no-no) or the ones that are the double underline of the word with an ad that pops up of you hover over it. The amount of money you make may not be worth how many people you send away.

2 - Pop-ups. Pop-ups are evil. Please don’t use them. And in this I’m also including the ’snap view’ or whatever it’s called that wordpress.com blogs default to. It’s the little box that pops up when you hover over a link. Annoying in the extreme.

3 - Music. Unless you’re a band, there’s no reason to have music on your blog. If you feel you *must* have music, make it really, really, really obvious how to turn it off.

4 - Comments. Comments are the life blood of a blog. It’s how you get your readers engaged with you and coming back. If you set your blog up to only accept comments from people who have to be members of a certain service (i.e. blogger.com blogs) you’re going to lose a lot of people. I have a blogger/gmail ID, but it’s not linked to my business, it’s personal and I don’t want that linked to my business comments. Make your comments so that ANYONE can comment and just moderate them.

5 - Contact information. If you’re running a blog for a business, you MUST give your visitors a way to contact you - particularly if you don’t allow open comments. An email address is easiest, but if you’re not comfortable with that, at least put up a contact form. Otherwise you might as well just put up a post that says “I don’t want your business”

6 - RSS feeds. If you have a blog and you don’t have an RSS feed you’re making a big mistake. I’m still seeing a lot of blogs out there where you can subscribe to a newsletter, but not to an RSS feed. Well, I don’t do newsletters so, while I enjoyed your blog, I won’t be reading it again. Sorry.

So, to the blogger who had a bad experience that I wanted to commiserate with but who didn’t have contact info or wouldn’t let me comment - sorry that happened. I’ve been there, it gets easier.

So…what are your blogging pet peeves?