Web terminology guide
Because Web terms are relatively new, some are in transition from one form to another. This guide lists common Web terms and defines which of their sometimes many variables are correct.

Keyword analysis 101
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just write your gems, put them on your Web site or blog and have search engine traffic come swarming? Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way — unless you make the effort to research your keywords and include them in your text and online marketing efforts. This beginner’s guide to keyword analysis will help you do just that.

Why you sometimes have to write blog posts with no regard for Google
The author of this post makes the important point that sometimes, creating relationships with your readers is just as important as reaching out to search engine traffic. This post is pointed at the real estate trade, but it applies to anyone who is trying to convert readers into customers for their core businesses.

Grammar myth-busters
Many of us grew up with grammar rules that aren’t true, yet for some reason everyone believes them. So if you worry about ending a sentence with a preposition or beginning a sentence with and or but, check out these posts.

Offline resources
If you want to learn more about writing but don’t want to spend a lot of time doing it, I recommend these resources:

The Elements of Style
This book contains all the important rules of grammar and editorial style in one small volume. If you’re looking for a quick course in the rules of writing, The Elements of Style would be a good choice. Even seasoned writers re-read it every so often because it covers many important points.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
If you’d like some inspiration along with your writing instruction, this book is for you. It was written by horror-genre titan Stephen King, but don’t let that fool you. It’s a powerful book that not only shares priceless writing tips; it will leave you with the feeling that you can be a great writer too.

If you really want to dig down and learn about the minutiae of writing, this is the perfect resource:

The Chicago Manual of Style
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) contains nearly every rule about grammar, usage, punctuation and anything else related to writing. The CMOS is available in print and also through paid subscription to their online version. But if you don’t want to spend the money, you can search their free online FAQs section. The answers to reader-submitted questions by CMOS editors provide quite an education all by themselves and are often very funny.

As with anything of substance, the resources above can’t be digested in one sitting. You might want to bookmark this page and access it the next time a writing issue comes up or if you need some inspiration. In the meantime, happy writing!

Carla Chadwick is the owner of B2B Content Solutions and the author of the WordPlay blog, which provides editorial tips and tools to help you write better Web copy.

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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The upgrade itself was actually damn easy - Once I got the files online… all I need to do was upgrade the database, which was a one click operation. Congratulations Wordpress!

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Before we settled down on the Yahoo, Microsoft merger to rival Google, Google has put a big bombshell on their Adwords URL enforcement. From April 2008, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination/landing page URLs. What this means is that the URL that is displayed on your Google Adwords will need to be ‘relevant’ to your landing page URLs.

Below is an example from Google Adwords:-

For example, the following would be acceptable:

• Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
• Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
• Landing page URL: www.google.com

However, this example would be unacceptable:

• Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
• Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
• Landing page URL: www.trackingurl.com

Though the existing ads will not be affected by this new rule, it is recommended by Google to comply with it has Quality score may play a part in this. I supposed you know what that means.

To learn more, please visit https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=91451&hl=en_US.

As for now, we have to live with the Google rules. God Bless!

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Here are the three most common mistakes people make when working with affiliate marketing:

Mistake number 1:
Joining too many affiliate programs

Since affiliate programs are easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiple affiliate programs to maximize your earnings. True, this approach does have the potential to give you multiple income sources. But joining too many programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time could also prevent you from concentrating on each one. The result? The maximum potential of each affiliate program won’t be realized and the income probably won’t measure up to your expectations.

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, a safe and sane approach would be to join just one or two programs that pay at least 30 percent in commissions. Then promote your products enthusiastically. When you begin to make a reasonable profit, you can implement another affiliate program.

Mistake number 2:
Not buying the product or using the service

As an affiliate, your main purpose is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find customers. It’s difficult to do this if you’re not familiar with what you’re promoting. Try the product or service personally before you sign up as an affiliate. This will allow you to see if it’s really delivering what it promises. If it does, you can then convey your confidence in the product or service to your potential customers.

Mistake number 3:
Choosing the wrong affiliate

Many people want to earn from affiliate programs as fast as possible. In their rush to be part of a program, they tend to choose a “bandwagon” product without actually considering if the product appeals to them. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, choose a product that truly interests you. Then do some research to see if it’s in demand. Promoting a product you’re passionate about is easier than promoting one for the sake of the earnings only.

Here are some additional suggestions for choosing the best affiliate programs:

• * Look for a program that is of high quality and is associated with experts in that particular industry.

• * Choose programs that cater to a growing target market. This will ensure there will be continuous demands for your referrals. Make inquiries by using forums, discussion groups and by talking to current affiliates.

• * If you can, find a program with a compensation plan that pays out residual income in addition to giving commissions of 30 percent or more. Don’t waste your time with programs that don’t reward substantially for your efforts.

• * Be aware of minimum quotas you have to fulfill or sales targets that are too hard to achieve. Some affiliate programs impose prerequisites before you can receive commissions. Be sure you’re going to be capable of meeting their requirements.

• * Select an affiliate program that has plenty of tools and resources to help you grow the business in the shortest possible time. Not all affiliate programs have these, so it’s important to ask what resources they offer.

• * See if the program has a proven system that can allow you to check your networks and compensation. Also check if they have this information available online for you to check anytime and from anywhere.

• * Check if the program offers strong incentives for members to renew their memberships. Affiliate programs that provide continuous help and upgrades for products tend to retain their members. These incentives can help ensure the growth of your network.

• * Be aware of what other members aren’t happy about with the program. As mentioned above, you can do your checking at discussion forums.

So there you have it. By paying attention to these common-sense guidelines when choosing affiliate programs, you can go a long way toward maximizing your income and minimizing your frustration.

By WordPlay

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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The study found that the content most often forwarded is that which contains humor. Here’s a list of all the topics they found have a tendency to go “viral,” in order of popularity:

• * Humor
• * News
• * Health articles and medical information
• * Religious and spiritual material
• * Games
• * Business and personal finance information
• * Sports/hobbies

It’s easy to see that humor is an important component for a viral email campaign. As a shining example of this, consider the way Disneyland married the first two types of information, a timely news topic and humor, to great effect: After making the rounds on the Internet, about 35 million people ultimately received an e-mail containing a picture of Donald Duck lying in front of Disneyland’s Cinderella’s castle. The title of the picture was “Bird Flu Has Hit Disneyland.” Disneyland used the edgy strategy of making light of something serious… and it worked.

Cartoons, jokes and funny video clips also can be added to an email to stimulate viral marketing. Depending on how much your friends like to forward emails, all you might have to do is open your email in-box to find jokes. As you probably know, you can find a wide selection of funny video clips on YouTube. And if you want to include a cartoon, this list of artists offers free cartoons. All these sources can provide great material for your next email marketing campaign.

Remember, people just naturally want to pass along something that makes them laugh. They’re a lot more likely to hit the forward button and send your email to their friends and relatives if it contains “advertainment” rather than an advertisement.

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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What can you get with a $100 on the internet? A single backlink will set you back by this amount in just a few months. If you have multiple backlinks purchased from the so-called link trader such as Text Link Ads, you probably may need more than a hundred bucks.

Backlinks are links from other websites than link to your site. It is a good gauge by Google on the PageRank factor. So how do you get unlimited backlinks with less than $100? Simple. Just by doing up a wordpress theme. Basically, whenever your theme are downloaded and used by other blogs, you will get a backlink. So the more theme you created and are used by other blogs, the more backlinks you will have.

Don’t understand? Just scroll down to the bottom of each wordpress theme and you will find “designed by XXX”. XXX is a hyperlink that will be linked to the website of XXX. So basically, this is one backlink done. Easy.

So what if you don’t have the technical knowledge to design a wordpress theme for people to download? You can always look up www.elance.com. There are tons of freelancers who are more than willing to take up the job for less than $100. Normally, the theme design are of a high standard which will increase your theme’s download ratio.

Therefore, the more theme that are downloaded and used by other blogs, the more backlinks you get and of course in less than $100.

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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Perhaps we’ll get around to implementing OpenID and an OpenSocial container as well… we also need writers of good quality. In the old 99Bloggers, we managed to generate thousands of visitors per week, with only a view solid authors and one mediocre (at best) editor!

So if we were to recruit several good authors, and perhaps a few more mediocre editors - then we may be able to generate some interesting content, over a range of different fields - though all the John Chow’s out there will help us make some money - here’s hoping.

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And if you write, why not? you’ll get to add your Adsense account into the mix and generate some cash!

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In my opinion, here is a list of pointers that will save you headaches later.

a. Be clear about what you are selling.

Spend as much time as you need to define and clarify what you are selling. From the gettgo, come up with a 15 second elevator pitch. This will come handy later on. If you need professional help to come up with a pitch, companies like - 15secondpitch can help. This is a great resource to help you discover who you are, what your company does, and what others perceive of you and your verbal and written messages.

b. Come up with Mission, Vision, and Objective statements for your venture.

Mission, Vision, and Objectives - They may all look the same at first glance, but they reflect different rationale.

The mission statement represents the underlying operating philosophy and the values of the company - ‘The mission at Company ABC is to provide a reliable, yet affordable XYZ technology for residential customers.’

The Vision statement represents a long term plan - that provides a direction to make significant impact - ‘Our vision at company ABC is to become a global niche leader in XYZ technology by the year 2009.’

The Objective represent definitive goals for different purposes within the company. Peter Drucker first popularized the term “management by objective” in his 1954 book ‘The Practice of Management’. Objectives can be set in all domains (services, sales, R&D, human resources, finance) - ‘The main objective of company ABC is to understand the target market, to implement the most optimized form of logistics, to include a series of efficient fulfillment processes and to provide an unmatched form of customer service.’

c. Be honest with your Strengths and Weaknesses.

You can conduct a simple SWOT analysis on your venture. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Create four quadrants and fill up with honest lists of answers. This simple test allows you to assess your compatibility with the venture that you are getting into. This test will also indicate opportunities, threats and barriers to entry that exist in your vertical market.

d. Conduct a thorough research on your vertical market.
Leverage on new Internet research tools to conduct comprehensive studies. At every stage of your research, be open to adopt new directions based on your findings.

e. Make sure there is a real opportunity.
or move on to a different venture.

f. Make sure your product or service addresses pain point (s).

This goes back to the point (a). Understand and address your customer needs.

g. Conduct a thorough research on your competitors.

Create a matrix and conduct a thorough competitive analysis. See what your competitors are offering.

h. Make sure your product or service addresses pain point (s) better than your competitors.
Its all right if your competitors got in the market before you did. But, focus on doing things little bit differently that you address the customer needs, pain points better than them.

i. Be realistic with the revenue projections.

Don’t fall for cliches like - ‘According to Forrestor’s research, our market will be $ X billion by ___’, ‘We will drop our product in China and we will make billions.’ There is nothing wrong with wanting to become another Google or Microsoft, but make sure you have unique product or services. If you have a patent on your innovation, that helps. If you already have an angel investor on board, that gives you credibility. If you have a veteran management team in place, thats going to help you a lot! Always be ready to explain to lenders and Venture Capitalists how you are going to reach the big numbers - and never ever use cliched answers.

j. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. Do not be afraid to ask for help.

Always reach out to people smarter than you. Big ideas take right people to bring them to life. You want to do things smartly and not give your idea away, but at the same time you need to be open to sharing with right people. One rule of thumb is - it is better to team up with people with complimenting skill sets. If you are an engineer, you don’t need another engineer to support your point of view. You need a professional sales partner to sell your product, and a sharp finance guy to keep the numbers in order.

k.. Seize the opportunity to scale up - quick.

Big deals don’t happen on their own. Big deals happen because of right people, right product, right momentum in the market among many possible variations. If you have everything in order and luck is in your favor, seize the opportunity to scale up - and do it quick! Otherwise, good entrepreneurs know when to pack up their bags and move on to another opportunity. I advise entrepreneurs to get out of business if the venture doesn’t take off within two years.

More to follow on this topic. I can be reached via my blog 4entrepreneur.net

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