Archive for the ‘Blogging for Business’ Category

As I see everyday, many offline business owners are both overwhelmed and intimidated about taking their small businesses online. They may have been determined enough to get a website, but after that, well, everything just seems like too much — too many options and too much to do.

Well, I understand! I am right there beside ya! LOL

I was talking with a friend last night. She has an offline service based business but does have some products that she sells and which are unique to her and her business.

She has had a blog for several years, but like many us, has had trouble gaining traction.

I think that we understand intellectually how online promotion works and we know that business blogging is a good way to promote an offline business online… but emotionally, it can be difficult to grasp.

DO people READ business blogs from just regular folks?

I mean, really… does this actually work for a small, local business?

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Introduction 

One of my common rants when talking about making the transition from an offline business to an online business is the need to clearly understand the differences between OFFline and ONline.

There are many obvious differences, but as I am sure you can understand, it is the subtle, hard to recognize differences that can be the most significant.  This is in large part because you, the poor business owner, may be totally unaware of the problems those differences may be causing!

An excellent example of this is the online concept of *Keywords* and *Keyphrases*.

Offline, about the closest you come to this issue having to choose a category to list your business under in the Yellow Pages Directory… and I am sure for most offline businesses, there is only one YP option…

So… what ARE *Keywords* and *Keyphrases*?

The term Keyword refers to a word or phrase that an Internet user would use to search for online information. In many cases, the web surfer would be using a Search Engine to find the word or phrase. The Search Engine could search the entire internet, as Google does, or merely search a specific website, such a looking for a specific book or author on Amazon.com.   

Keyword refers to a general search such as the term *golf club*.

Keyphrase refers to a more detailed and targeted search such as
        *Callaway Big Bertha 08 Individual Iron (Sand Wedge) *.    

Keywords and keyphrases offer insight into what online visitors are looking for, they can provide information about products sought, or information that is needed. They help make up for the minimal interaction between an online business owner and his targeted customer.

Why ARE Keywords and Keyphrases Significant?

Keywords and keyphrases are what drive the external Search Engines, such as Google. In this way, they provide valuable opportunities to get websites and specific web pages seen.
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WordPress has come a long way in the last couple of years.  One of the improvements I like best is the ease with which you can now add images to a blog post.  Now that it is so easy, there is almost no excuse to not add an image for every post… provided you have an appropriate one available!  Needless to say, most of my business posts aren’t going to have pretty pictures!

On the other hand, I do have posts where images would be appropriate, such as when I write about my vintage cookbooks.  It’s now very easy to add an image of the cookbook cover.  What would be even nicer, would be to be able to pretty up those images.  However, there hasn’t been an easy way to do that, until now…

Thomas is one of my favorite online friends. Part of it is the fact the he has a graphic design degree AND a programming degree… which make for an unlikely, but powerful combination.

His most recent project is a handy dandy little program the makes it VERY easy to dress up web graphics.

Called Tiger Web Graphics, this program allows you to import a web ready image and — in just a few mouse clicks — give it rounded corners, or make it look like a film strip, or a polaroid, or give it the serrated edge of a postage stamp.

It will also manipulate the image to give it perspective, add a reflection, or give it a drop shadow…

I use CorelDraw and CorelPhotoPaint for most of my work, simply because I need the powerful options that these programs offer, but, truth be told, I have only taken the time to learn what I need to do for the technical drawing and other applications I need.  I know that they will do many other wonderful things… but I simply can’t justify the time needed to learn how to do those things.

But now I don’t need to learn to do a lot of them!  Thomas has done the work for me!

One of the other reasons I like Thomas so much is because he understands the importance of providing good reference materials.  Tiger Web Graphics comes with an excellent 45 page PDF help file, explaining what you need to know to get started immediately.

Here is a link to check out the sales page.  Amazingly enough, this wonderful program is only $14.95!

Tiger Web Graphics

Let me be clear… this software is NOT designed to be photo editing software.  You need to start with an image that is already the proper size and has been prepared for the Web.  However, if you have that, you can add these wonderful effects in seconds.

If you look below, I took screenshots showing the three steps needed to access the help file. I played a little bit and added a different effect to each of the three images.

Tiger Web Graphics is a very powerful tool at a very small price!  I think you owe it to yourself to check out.

Thomas was kind enough to offer a 100% affiliate program for this software.  That means if you use my affiliate link, I get the money! This means that the PayPal payment is made directly to me, so don’t be confused when you see my name on the payment screen!

My affiliate link

I do realize that there are people online who prefer not to use affiliate links, but this program is so wonderful I don’t want to leave them out of the loop, so here is a a non-affiliate link.

Non-affiliate link

Which ever link you use, I think you will find this a very handy program.

Here are the images showing how to access the Help File:

Step 1 - Open the program and click on the Graphic Icon

Step 2 - Double click on the Miscellaneous Tab

Step 3 - Doubleclick on the Help Icon and the Help Manual PDF will open

Let me take a moment to add that Tiger Web Graphics would work great for Business Bloggers, (it’s not just for hobby bloggers)  and the images can actually be used on any web site. In fact, I plan to use them to add interest to the images in my next Survival Guide!

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink

WordPress Secure is a nifty, new piece of software designed to make your blog safer. It’s simple to use, well documented, and it adds a really neat extra layer of protection around your WordPress Admin section:

Click HERE to read the sales page.

Remember, a blog is a VERY important piece of the online marketing puzzle. If you’re nervous about your blog being hit, you’ll want this!

Do a search on *my blog was hacked* — I did a search last week and got 3,230,000 responses! YIKES!

This software strengthens your WordPress Admin access, and is independent of what version of WordPress you are using. This is a good thing since it means you don’t have to worry about whether it will work with an update. This also means that it is effective against Zero Day Exploits. (Zero Day Exploits are exploits that come out the same day as a new version of software is released.)

It is NOT appropriate for Blogs with MANY users… sorry!

It doesn’t solve all WP security issues, but it does do a nice job with the Word-Press Admin section.

The script requires a Linux based Apache web host (nearly all are Linux based)

It comes with:
An Installation Video
A Special Report discussing other WordPress Security issues.

If you want additional protection for you blog, this is a useful tool.

Tink