Dec23

How to Use Your Blog For Therapy While Maintaining the Privacy of Your Family

by Don on December 23rd, 2011 at 11:59 am
Posted In: Guest Posts, Social Networking

The delicate balancing act between writing as a release and protecting your family’s privacy became even more complicated with the invention of the blog.  Once, your biggest worry was a wandering eye finding and reading your journal.  Now, if you blog, your journal is exposed to nearly 2.1 Billion people worldwide.

Most bloggers throw their words to the internet to connect with people in similar situations, share knowledge and seek advice.  It makes sense to write about daily challenges.  Making it too personal, however is unwise.  Here are some suggestions for venting without over sharing.

Make Your Blog Private

Invite friends and relatives to view it.  This allows for nearly 100% privacy as long as you trust your friends and family not to over share with their friends.  Another caveat:  if you want to make some cash with your blog, private is not an option.

Clever Concealment

I use aliases for my children and avoid posting pictures online. When it comes to aliases, the sky is really the limit.  I know of bloggers who use numbers for their children.  Some have nicknames like Pete and Repeat.  Be cute.  Be clever.  It’s all up to you.  I have aliases for my kids.  They work.  My kids know who they are.  My friends can figure out which kid is which.  The rest of the blogosphere hasn’t got a clue.

There are bloggers who have a strict no kids/ no photos rule.  I can’t stick with that myself but if it works for you, great!

Don’t Blog

Instead of flinging information out wide to the internet, find communities of like-minded, similarly situated folks and share on the message boards there.  Google your issue.  If there isn’t a community in existence that meets your needs, that looks like an opportunity!  Remember to require membership and watch carefully for spammers!

Write in Third-Person

Instead of “my son” use “a child I know”.  Your friends and family will still know who you’re referring to if you’re well-connected to them in real life but your child is not exposed to random blog readers.  This is the easiest way to keep confidentiality.

Respect the Anonimity of Your Kids

As your children get older, it may become more important to them that you not share their lives online.  For the sake of family harmony – because it will give your teens one less thing to be difficult about – please respect that.

Respect the Preferences of Your Spouse

Mine doesn’t always like my rants about his profession so I have learned to tone it down.  I do not always love what we refer to as “his other wife” but I’ve found other outlets for venting.

I know you’re thinking “BUT THIS IS MY BLOG!  Why can’t I write what I want?”.  The bottom line is that your family is more important than your blog.  If they ask you not to talk about them in the blogosphere, respect that.  There are other ways to vent and share.  Call a friend for a cup of coffee.  Walk the dog.  Anything that preserves family harmony and lowers your stress in healthy ways is a good choice.

From the creative blogging studio of Lisa Sharp. Lisa is an avid blogger who delights in delivering first class content by using first class tools like Grammarly grammar checker the most reliable grammar tool on the web.

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Dec21

Pros and Cons of Making YouTube Videos

by Don on December 21st, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Posted In: YouTube

Are you one of the millions of internet users who enjoy watching free videos on YouTube? If you are, the thought of creating your own YouTube video may have crossed your mind; has it? If so, you may be wondering whether or not you should make your own YouTube video and then upload it to the YouTube website. When making your decision, it is advised that you can examine the pros and cons of doing so.

When it comes to making your own YouTube video, there are a number of cons or downsides to doing so. Perhaps, the biggest downside to making your own video and then uploading it to YouTube is that you are essentially sharing the video with the whole world. Many individuals mistakenly believe that their videos will only be seen by YouTube members, but that isn’t the truth. Any internet user, even those without a YouTube account, can view videos on YouTube. In fact, it is not uncommon for YouTube video viewers to email a YouTube video link to those that they know. Therefore, the views that your YouTube videos may get may be more than you ever expected or wanted.

Since any video that you upload to the YouTube website can be viewed by just about anyone with an internet connection, you may want to be careful with the amount of information that you disclose. For instance, if you are doing a video blog, you might not want to give your real name or at least not your full name. It is also important that you don’t mention where you live. If you want, you may want to outline the state that you reside in, but never give the city or town, especially if you disclose your name. You will want to try and refrain from giving any personal information to any YouTube member, even those who send you personal messages asking for information. As with most online website, YouTube can be a dangerous place, but you should be able to stay safe as long as you stay aware.

Although there are a few downsides or cons to uploading your videos to the YouTube website, there are also a number of pros or plus sides to doing so. One of those pros is ease of use. Even if you consider yourself to be unskilled with computers, you should still be able to make, upload, and share your video or videos on YouTube. In all honesty, all you need is a video recording device, like a camcorder or a webcam, and a movie editing software program, which now comes standard with most computers. Once you have your video on your computer and edited, if you wish to do so, you will just need to follow YouTube’s step-by-step uploading instructions and then your video should be ready for sharing, in as little as a few minutes.

Another pro to using YouTube to share your own videos with other internet users is uses. Although a large number of internet users use YouTube videos for fun or for personal reasons, there are many others who use them for business or at least to up their exposure. You need to remember that millions of internet users watch videos on YouTube. While your YouTube video will be unlikely to get one million views, you could get quite a bit. Whether you are advertising your services, like as a website designer or an online actress, you can do so through YouTube. The only thing that you will want to do is try to not take the spam approach. If you are advertising yourself as a website designer, try taking a few videos of you making a website or use your video to explore websites that you have made. Simply adding your business information at the end of the video is a great way to get your point across, but without making your YouTube video seem as it is an advertisement.

As you can see, there are a number of advantages and disadvantages, or pros and cons, to making your own YouTube videos. As stated above, it is advised that you use your best judgment. Of course, you can post a video on YouTube if you want to do so, but just make sure that you are doing so safely.

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Dec20

Can Craigslist Increase your Sales?

by Don on December 20th, 2011 at 12:59 am
Posted In: Advertising

Can Craigslist Increase your Sales?

It all depends on the way in which the business owners utilize Craigslist. Internet marketers who are able to identify the target audience and create sales copy which entices the reader may find advertising on Craigslist to be incredibly profitable. Conversely, marketers that do not do their research and take a spamming approach to advertising on Craigslist are not likely to see significant financial gains.

There is plenty of opportunity to gain financial benefit through advertising on Craigslist. Advertising for all products and services is free on Craigslist making it highly cost effective. Additionally, Craigslist already receives extensive traffic with approximately ten million visitors generating four billion page views each month so there is no need to drive traffic to the website. While Craigslist offers many advertising benefits, these benefits may be wasted if the advertiser does not do his research or evaluate the competition.

Research before Posting

Advertising on Craigslist is similar to advertising in other forms of media. Despite the existing heavy traffic flows to the website, successful marketing campaigns require extensive research. This research should provide the Marketer and his staff with insight into where to post the advertisements to reach the target audience, how to word the copy of the advertisement to make it most appealing to the target audience and which relevant keywords should be included in the advertising copy to make it likely for members of the target audience to find the advertisement easily when searching for products and services offered by the company.

Research of this capacity can be conducted either online or offline. One of the most effective forms of research is to have members of the target audience fill out market surveys. The answers provided by the participants should give the marketer a good idea of what the target audience is seeking. Incorporating this information into the marketing campaign can make it noticeably more successful.

Evaluate the Competition

The search feature on Craigslist gives an Internet marketer an excellent way to evaluate the competition. Studying the competition is important because it can help you to learn how you can be more successful. This increased success can be a result of determining successful aspects of the competitor’s marketing strategy and implementing these strategies as well as determining faulty aspects of the competitor’s marketing strategy and avoiding these strategies.

To get a good idea of the competitors who are advertising on Craigslist, use the search feature to search for keywords relevant to your own products and services. You will likely receive search results including advertisements from competitors. Next, carefully analyze these advertisements to determine how your can not only create better products and services at more affordable prices but also write more engaging advertising copy. Many wise Internet marketers have the reasoning skills necessary to properly analyze the advertisements for competitors but they often falter when taxed with the dilemma of creating better advertisements. This is when the services of a professional sales copywriter with search engine optimization (SEO) skills become a vital part of the equation. This writer can use his SEO training as well as his knowledge on the subject of writing advertising copy to effectively entice members of the target audience to either purchase products or services or at least investigate these products or services further.

 

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Dec14

Can you Profit by Blogging?

by Don on December 14th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Posted In: Blogging

Blogging begins with a desire to share information. Many people dream of blogging, and this goal is not far beyond the reach of someone with average intelligence, a willingness to work hard and a basic grasp of blogging technology. However, very few people manage to reap the profits they want from their blog. Most people who attempt to make money with their blogs do not succeed for two reasons. Often, bloggers have unrealistic expectations of how fast their readership will grow and how much money they will make, and when these expectations are not met the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging. The other trap that many bloggers fall into has to do with lack of planning. If you want to turn a profit as a blogger, the key to success is to make a realistic plan and stick with it.

To succeed at blogging, the main thing that you will need is a large readership. The higher your traffic, the more advertisers will agree to pay you. However, cultivating the regular visitors that you will need in order to make a profit isn’t easy. As more and more blogs appear each day, having a great idea or a wonderful writing style is no longer enough to get attention. You need to be able to market your blog effectively.

Too many bloggers spend all of their time writing posts and almost no time marketing their project. To be certain, updating as often as you can is a great way to keep your blog high on blog rolls and high in blog search engines like Technorati, and once your readers know that you update frequently they will return to your site on a regular basis. However, it does not matter how often you update if nobody is reading your page, so don’t skimp on the time that you spend drawing visitors to your site. To make your dreams of blogging a reality, try decreasing your number of posts and using some of that time to draw new visitors by setting up link exchanges with other bloggers, making contacts in the blog community, and following other established modes of winning traffic. Of course, even if you are a marketing genius or have a really great idea for a blog, success is not going to happen overnight.

Building the kind of readership that blogging requires takes time, and in all likelihood it will be at least several months before you are able to turn much of a profit. Try to stay committed to your blogging project during this initial rough period. To stay motivated, set goals for how often you will update and how many readers you want to attract, and then reward yourself for sticking with your plan.

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Dec11

Copywriting

by Don on December 11th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Posted In: Article Writing

For those of you who are not familiar with the art of copywriting, this article will focus on giving an introduction to the subject and why it is in such high demand today.

The field of copywriting is large and continues to expand every year. A way to describe copywriting is putting a creative message in front of a consumer. In the book, Copywriting, it is mentioned that copywriting is based upon three fundamental principles.

When you are writing to a customer, there has to be an involvement between the customer and the seller. You must then make sure that you explain the rewards as far as when the customer is purchasing a product. The final piece is achievement and that is what you as the writer will be focusing on.

Whenever you write copy, you are looking to have a certain effect upon consumers. Usually this effect will be for consumers to desire a certain product because they will want to gain certain rewards. You know that you’ve achieved your objectives by hitting certain sales goals that have been set for your copywriting. There are many writers in the world but there is a specific niche for copywriters.

Copywriters are the ones who write messages but mold them in a way that it brings about an interest in a consumer. With the number of advertisements out there today, consumers will not respond unless it is something that specifically interests them. This is why it is more important than ever to have a clear focus when you are writing your copy so that you know which particular niche you’re trying to hit within the broader population.

There will always be a need for copywriters no matter whether the economy is in a recession or in a boom. Companies must always put out a message to consumers and as long as this demand is needed, copywriters will be in high demand. If you are interested in working as a copywriter, you will have many different places to look for work. You can decide to work for advertising agencies, on the Internet, or be your own boss. There are many different markets for you in these three that were just listed.

When you are writing copy for a seller of a product, the key is that you must remember to put yourselves in the shoes of the consumer. This is done through doing extensive research and studying what goes through the mind of that particular consumer. Each niche or group of people will be different in what will motivate them to do certain things. By doing this research, you will have a better idea of where you need to go with the message that you are trying to convey to your target audience.

This article on copywriting is meant to give you a broad overview of the field. The demand for copywriters will always be strong due to the need of companies to send messages to their audiences to buy their products. If you do not employ someone to promote your product, you will be left behind. This is why copywriting is such a good field and is in such high demand.

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