A guest post by Joe Gullo. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

If you’re looking for some fresh content on your blog, you can look to your community for local issues pertaining to your niche. By looking to your community, you can tell someone’s story, build your representation, and it’s an easy promotion to get more readers on your blog.

Here are 4 tips on how you can blog news in your local community:

Find the story.

Before you begin, you will need to have a story idea or general idea of what you want to cover. If you’re having problems finding a story idea look to your local newspaper or to the community. What issues are influencing your niche right now? What information can you provide that will help people do their jobs easier?

It’s important not be wedded to any story idea because it may change. As a journalist, I’ve gone in with one story, but came out with a completely different one. People always surprise me with their responses. They may not answer your questions the way that you expect them to and changes your whole angle or meaning of your story.

Things to keep in mind:

• What story are you trying to tell? In news, you want to find people that best tell that story.
• What is the angle of the story? What point of view do you want to tell it from? If you’re covering how the economy is forcing a business that has been around for 25 years to close who do you want to tell the story through? Do you want the customers reaction to the store closing and what the store has meant to them? Or do you want to tell it through the store owners point of view? How will this change their lives? Both are powerful story options.
• Summarize your story in one sentence. The more concise and simple your sentence the better. You don’t want to your idea to be too complex that your audience doesn’t have a clear idea of what your reporting on.

Identify yourself.

It is important to identify that you are a journalist (even if you’re a blogger) looking to ask questions for a story. Even if you have no prior experience in journalism and are only planning posting information on your blog.

Be sure to share what your story is about and what your focus is. The more transparent and open you are about the story, the more success you will have. Give people a reason to trust you, not distrust you.

Some people, especially if you are using a camera, will not speak to you. Whatever the reason, you should accept it and move on. Do not force them to answer your questions if they do not want to. There will be other people that will be more than happy to answer some of your questions.

Ask questions.

Your goal once you find your interviewee is to offer depth and perspective that you may not be able to provide yourself. Let your interviewee tell the story.

It’s good to have an idea of the questions you want to ask, but do not make it sound unnatural. Sometimes your best quotes are merely from just listening and having a conversation. It may also be helpful if you are nervous to view it as having a conversation with someone rather than I’m doing an interview with someone.

It’s also a good idea to ask open ended questions during your interview. You will get more in depth answers than just asking yes or no questions. If you’re not getting the responses you would like rephrase your question differently. Don’t be afraid to keep asking the same question in a different ways until you get the answer you’re looking for.

Have a plan (well kind of).

When you are writing a blog post, you want to have a general idea of what you are going to write about. The same goes when you’re interviewing someone for a news type story. Depending on how you’re producing the story (video, photos, or text) will depend on what kind of planning you need to do.

Your plan should have a general overview of what you’re trying to accomplish. Again, you want to allow some flexibility but you also want to have a story focus that you’re going to achieve.

Unless you are under tight deadline, it may take you a couple of days of interviewing people for the story you are trying to tell.

The Author, Joe Gullo is Freelance Journalist, Photographer, Videographer, and Video Editor. Visit his blog/website at www.joegullo.net.

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Leave a Comment: 4 Tips to Blog News In Your Community

A guest post by Gary Barzel. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Building up a successful blog from scratch takes a significant amount of patience and hard work. While many new bloggers may understand that providing useful, quality content is important, the truth is that producing content is only just the beginning. If you want to maintain a successful blog, then you will need to juggle a relatively long list of time consuming tasks, such as networking with other professionals and niche bloggers, engaging readers by responding to post comments as well as reading and commenting on other blogs, promoting your work, exchanging links, and keeping your social network accounts active.

The point is that even with all the time-saving apps and tools out there for busy bloggers, blogging is still a commitment that can easily suck away your time and energy, and that is the same time and energy you could be using to run the other aspects of your business.

Moreover, what do you do when your blog is not meant to be a priority but only a periphery support for your business, such as by providing fresh, relevant content on your site to improve its performance with search engines or by funneling traffic to your website where a possible sales conversion can happen? How can you still maintain a successful, relevant blog without being run by it? Here are four points to keep in mind:

1. Make sure that you have clear goals for the blog.

Before you write even one word or start to design the look and feel of your blog, you need to be very clear about what you want to get out of it. For example, will you be trying to generate income from any outside ads placed on the site, are you using the blog to draw your readers’ attention to your product or services, or are you using it to build up your professional writing portfolio? Moreover, you need to decide what subjects you plan on covering, who your targeted readership may be, and how much competition you may have from other bloggers.

Being able to adequately answer these questions is an important first step that will help to keep you focused and ensure that any blog-related activities are bringing you closer to your original goals.

2. Identify what tasks need to be done, and schedule them around your other commitments.

Once you have an idea about where you are taking the blog, you then need to make a list of all the steps that need to be accomplished to get things up and running, such as designing the layout and getting some initial content up.

You should also begin to determine what will be your daily and weekly commitment to the site after those initial steps have been taken care of and you are already starting to draw a readership. This includes the number of posts you intend to put up per week as well as your available time to write them, your social networking and promoting content, as well as the time spent on building relationships and links.

3. Sometimes it just pays to hire a ghost writer.

Even if you dislike handing over the reigns to another person, there are many instances where hiring someone else to create the content on your blog is appropriate Some typical reasons to consider include: if you are not naturally a good writer, you can write but you don’t like to, or you do not have enough time available to put up sufficient content.

Sometimes, you can use the content from guest posters to fill in any gaps, but it may be a while before people will express interest in writing for your blog especially if it is new.

4. Set benchmarks and re-evaluate how you are doing along the way.

As I mentioned above, maintaining a successful blog can be a drain on your available time and energy since it typically involves more than just putting up content. If these resources are limited, then it becomes all the more important that you get the greatest return on investment and weed out any unproductive activities.

One way to do this is to set realistic benchmarks and goals and set aside times to consistently evaluate how you are measuring up against them. You can use an analytics service, such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools which are both powerful, accurate, and free, to get much of this information. Some good benchmarks to consider include: the amount of traffic coming to the site, how long visitors remain on specific pages and on the site as whole, how your site ranks for specific keywords, and what is the rate of total traffic to sales conversion?

In short, by considering the above, you can prevent your part-time business blog from becoming a full-time headache.

The Author, Gary Barzel is the manager of business development for Fastupfront. Fastupfront offers business loan alternatives and working capital solutions for established businesses.

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Leave a Comment: How to Prevent Your Business Blog from Taking on a Life of Its Own

A guest post by Jeff. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Making the most out of your Google+ experience comes down to understanding the tools that are before you. As always, Google’s proactive approach to connecting users to worthwhile information is at the core of this effort. The following list are some tips and tactics that you can use to streamline your experience, make the most of your time, and find what you are looking for.

About Your Profile

Your profile is much more important on Google+ than it was on prior social networking sites. Information from it is displayed in search engine result pages. That includes the following:

• The Google+ Profile Name will appear as the result Title text.
• The Google+ Profile Introduction field will be used for the Description.

Locating Your Friends

One feature to take a look at is the ability to import friends from Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. This is done in the Circles view by selecting either the Yahoo! or Hotmail indicators. Further search options include general email, name, and associated suggestions. Of course, there is a blocking option to rid yourself of the unwanted.

Circles

Circles are a great feature in that you can dictate who is able to see what and what actually makes it to your feed. Setting up Circles is as easy as point and click, drag and drop. An excellent organization method for your Circles is to lump them by Friends, Professional, and Associates. Friends and Professionals will keep your personal information in the stream it should be in. It is a good idea to have an Associates Circle to put extraneous interests and people you do not know well in. That way you can maintain your contact without revealing too much to them.

Catching up on your Circles is easy to do since they feature their own feeds. Swap over to that feed by clicking the circle under “Stream” on the left side of the page. Navigating the page of a longer stream is as simple as pushing ‘J’ for page down, ‘K’ for page up.

Security

Security set up for Google+ features a lot of depth and specificity. By selecting ‘view profile’ and following to ‘Edit Profile’, you will land in a location that allows you to set security settings for the sections of your profile. Visibility is customizable to various settings and circles.

Photo security is handled a bit differently. You can easily specify where to share a new photo and approval settings when it is uploaded. Geo settings can also be enabled to show where the picture was taken place. Geo tagging, while robust, is disabled by default.

Other Useful Tips And Points

A great addition to the Google+ platform is the ability to comment directly on notifications as they are posted. Instead of needing to visit the link, you can simply reply in a comment box in the notifications window.

The option to “Mute Post” allows you to squelch it from spamming your Stream and notifications.

If you want to streamline your social networking experience, functions such as Hangouts allow you to stream video to 9 other friends either through your mobile phone or webcam.

It remains to be seen what other fun features Google will manage to work into their social media experience. There are already plenty of 3rd party extensions for Google Chrome that allow the user to share things from Google+ to Facebook or Twitter. Though Google+ is a bit late to the game in comparison to other longer standing platforms; the simplistic, fluid functionality is ripe for additional renovations and improvements.

The Author, Jeff is an internet marketing consultant and a part time blogger. Currently, he is writing for a real estate company in queens that offers Queens homes.

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Leave a Comment: Tips For Making The Most Of Your Google+ Experience

A guest post by David. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

If you thought search optimizing your blog couldn’t get any more complicated, think again. It’s only a matter of time before the cloud company boom and increasingly sophisticated mobile device technology makes web-browsing on-the-go the dominant means by which people access the Internet. Indeed, studies predict that by the middle of the decade, web browsing through mobile devices will see a 400% increase.

For bloggers, this means the majority of future readers are going to be doing so through their smartphones. Those serious about maintaining readership ought to consider the following ways to make blogs mobile-friendly:

Drop Flash, or Make a Mirror

Adobe Flash Animation isn’t something that most bloggers use anyway, since it tends to detract from the content not improve it. Those that do use Flash, however, risk kissing goodbye any iPhone-based traffic goodbye, since as of today the iPhone does not accept the Flash platform and it probably will never. iPhone users are ever growing and if you don’t want to loose potential readers, you should consider this. If Flash is essential, then you must create a mobile version of your blog instead that is absent the platform.

Reduce Image Size

Large high resolution images can make an otherwise visually uninteresting blog look professional and alluring. The problem is that even with 4G, the small 3.5-4 inch screens of most smartphones are not capable of handling the intensity of such images. Even if they were, the time it takes to load these images is enough to incite most would-be visitors to hit the back button. If big images are what makes your blog stand out through traditional desktop browsing, then use CSS to create a reduced version for mobile traffic.

Center Your Content

Mobile web browsers automatically hone in on the center of a website unless otherwise instructed by the site itself. It’s important to make sure that your written work can be easily found once the page is loaded. If your blog site is packed with several images, links, and icons, in addition to an unconventional content placement, then it’ll be harder for readers to actually navigate to your writing and they’ll instead reverse course and seek information elsewhere.

Perform Monthly Tests

It’s not easy to round up enough mobile devices to have the ability to instantly observe how your site looks through individual browsers, but by doing so you increase the likelihood of identifying a potentially SEO-killing problem before it gets worse. Not all mobile browsers are the same, and while through the Android browser your blog looks great, Safari might project it with just enough of a gradient change that it’s impossible to read the text against your chosen background. Examine your blog through as many different mobile browsers as possible as often as you can.

Making sure that mobile web users have easy access to your site should be a primary concern for most bloggers. It won’t be long before people primarily consult the blogosphere via smartphones and nothing else. Don’t put your advertising revenue at stake: make your blog mobile-friendly today.

The Author, David Avrick is an Android application developer and works for a mobile application developing company based in UK.

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Leave a Comment: How to Make Sure Mobile Browsers Can See Your Blog

A guest post by Arun Garg. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

I have very little knowledge of html or you can say I was always afraid to try my hands on coding, same happens when I was looking for a simple logo for my site. The thought of coding always restrict me doing even search on Google.

But one day I make my mind and search on Google “Free logo generator”.  I find many sites related to free logo generator but some was paid and others have very few options to edit them. I also came across Cool Text but I passed it without noticing as this site is also advertising on google (still advertising ) so I thought it will definitely be a paid site. Then I tried many sites and did not find anything useful, so I tried Cool Text and my experience with this website was really good one which i mentioned below.

What is Cool Text ?

CoolText.com which is online since 1998 (domain registered) is a website which helps you to create logo’s and button without any knowledge of designing. It provides you 38 types of logo styles & 20 types of button designs for free which you can use on your blogs and sites. Some of my favorite logos styles are Starburst, iText, 3d outline gradient, Embossed, Simple, Chromium, Felt, Glossy and Burning.

How you can use this website to generate free logo?

Choose the style you like most. When you click on that style you will be taken to a new page where you will find more options to customize it. Here you will come across a box named “design your logo” where you can enter your desired text, font (1200 fonts to choose from), text size, text gradient, background color, background image etc. depending on the style you have choosen. When you are satisfied with your desired logo you can choose from various file formats like gif, jpg, png, psd and xcf.

Now click the “Render Logo” button as mentioned in above figure and you will have your own logo which you can edit if still not satisfied, download, email and also the option to get the html code.

This is how you can create a logo easily in just 2 minutes or less . If you have tried Cool Text then share your experience with it.

The Author, arunii loves to write about blogging, gadgets & sometimes bollywood. Read more on me at about section.

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Leave a Comment: How to Easily Create Free Logo For Your Site

A guest post by Michael Chibuzor. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Search engine optimization has evolved since over the years. After the recent Google panda updates, a lot of blogs and corporate website witnessed a heavy blow. In the same vein, several other blogs climbed up the ladder, started ranking pretty well and has since stayed on Google’s homepage.

What factor contributed to these?

I want to share with you my 5 steps rules to optimizing your blog, in order to rank highly on search engines. When your blog becomes search engine friendly, there is no question of ranking, because every step required to succeed would fall into place. So, the first aspect of ranking highly on Google is to know what your blog is focused on…

1. What’s Your Primary Niche?

You’ve to clearly define your niche. When your niche is vague or widely spread, your blog tends to confuse search engine algorithms. The rate at which your blog’s rating goes depends on your niche. If you’re into gardening for instance, how widely spread are you in terms of this niche. Do you blog about gardening tools, tips and how to grow tomatoes – or do you focus on gardening tips alone?

There is no rule of thumb to niche selection. Just make sure you are focused in it. It isn’t creative when you channel you marketing to the wrong path. Whatever you do on your blog, your posts and every article you write should be channelled to your primary niche (gardening tips).

2. Know What Your Audience Want

There is no better way to read the minds of your prospects, than from the keywords they search with. Globally, web users who are targeted, speaks the same language when it comes to making searches. When you properly research your keywords, you would discover that when a prospect is ready to buy any specific product, their keyword swtiches from “how to, to “review” kind of keywords.

So, you must be able to know what they want at every point in time. For those who use android phones, you know that app is the rave of the moment right now. New apps are being delivered for sales and free downloads online these days. If your blog is for free downloads, be clear about that and research keywords that draws free prospects. If you’re into app reviews, research key phrases that shows intent of the search buying.

3. People Optimized Articles

After your keywords have been researched, you’re now ready to write your articles. Your article is the content that Google needs. Fresh content has no rival when it comes to getting fast indexing, ranking and overall blog performance.

It’s of note that new blogs are gradually out-ranking aged corporate websites. The secret is in fresh content. Keep your blog updates with original, informative and quality content and Google spider would come around you.

When writing your content, don’t be overly dependent on the keywords. For instance, while creating my recent blog that showcases 6pm coupon codes and sittercity discount deals, I had to optimize for online shoppers that wants to save. This way, Google is well informed on what my blog is all about and this makes ranking easier.

With the primary keyword researched, make sure it appears on the title. Begin with the keyword in the title and sprinkle in within the body of the content. Don’t try to embed key terms when it’s no convenient. Avoid stuffing these terms especially when the terms are long. Write in an interesting manner, suitable for the end user (me and you) and be natural.

Google wants articles and blog posts that interests visitors. If you write for the end user, Google would locate your blog wherever it is and rank you highly.

4. Focus On Deep On-page Linking

On-page SEO is very important. If you neglect this part, ranking would be difficult, notwithstanding the number of external backlinks you attain.

So, locate posts in your archive that are similar to your current posts and link both together. Utilize anchor texts when deep linking. When this is done, you create a strong web presence, that situates your entire search engine marketing and put you at a vantage point.

Do not insist on external backlinks, unless you’ve done your on-page deep linking. It’s the first that makes the significant difference.

5. Build Quality & Relevant Backlinks

Backlinks still remains one of the ranking criteria stipulated by Google. Even after the panda updates few months ago, backlinks still plays a very vital role. But not the way it’s been, now what you need more than anything is quality and relevant backlinks. How do I mean?

When building your backlinks, you should focus on blogs and websites that are in your niche. Do you know that a backlink from a gardening blog is superior and more relevant, than a link from a blog that talks about gaming. Even though the pagerank of the former is 1, Google would reward you for sharing similar content with that blog.

So, when building your backlinks with the hope of ranking higher on Google, make sure it’s relevant, quality and comes with anchor text. Nothing compares with contextual linking – focus on it and you’ll reap greater search engine ranking.

There you are. The 5 steps to optimize your web pages for better search engine ranking. It’s not all about knowing these steps, but the result you derive is in the doing. Take action today and meet me at the top!

The Author, Michael Chibuzor is a Freelance Writer and often writes about discount deals at coupon blogs that share promo code for sittercity and 6pm discounts. He is currently contributing to a coupon site that offers a free sittercity.com promotion code and coupon code for 6pm shoes

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: 5 Steps To Optimize Your Blog To Rank On Google

A guest post by Alice Sweeney. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

As a freelance writer in the digital era, I’ve encountered many a content management system. As a writer, I’m both more busy than I have been in a long time and have a higher learning curve to climb.

More busy because of Panda – and Google telling everyone that not only should they have unique content, but that the attic light should be on – you have to have fresh, unique content on a regular basis; someone needs to be home, so to speak.

Higher learning curve because I have different clients with different ways of managing their websites, and I need to be able to hit the ground running and be able to do what they ask with a minimum of confusion and questioning on my part – and I have had to acquire the basics of SEO, development and content management, along with a smattering of design.

Above and beyond, my experiences with WordPress have been the most straightforward, but I’ve worked with many other a content management system. Here are my thoughts on the three I have worked with most frequently:

Squarespace

One that I have had a great deal of exposure to is a paid CMS/server called Squarespace. As someone who has a basic understanding of SEO and knows what the code on a good website should look like – Squarespace makes me cry. It has a great design interface, and some really good templates, but that is about it.

The functionality that I got used to having with WordPress really isn’t there. Editing the source code on any given page is kind of convoluted – changing the CSS even more so – and if you want to edit the <head>, forget about it. Custom domains are CNAMES and you can’t do 301 redirects from one to the other. Add on top of that that Squarespace adds a lot of code into your page automatically, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.

They also say that SEO is a bad idea, and don’t allow easy access to the meta-data on a site.

Overall, the only way I would recommend Squarespace was if all you cared about was having a pretty site that was easy for you to edit, and didn’t care about actually getting found. I don’t have the heart to tell my client that the CMS they’re using isn’t helping their business at all – though I have a responsibility to, at some point or another.

Joomla

Joomla is a CMS that I am a little less familiar with, perhaps because the biggest downfall for me with Joomla is that there is a steeper learning curve than WordPress. WordPress is ready out of the box, and is extremely intuitive – plus, if you do something wrong, WordPress will tell you; Joomla not so much.

Also, as a person who is fond of clean designs, the websites that I’ve worked with in Joomla have ended up being a bit too modular for my personal taste.

I’m not an authority on Joomla, in any way, but from what I understand it is in some ways more powerful than WordPress. But – it takes a good deal of learning to really leverage all that power and capability.

I would recommend Joomla more to folks who are programmers, or at least developers – you need a thorough understanding of how a website really works to truly appreciate everything that Joomla has to offer.

WordPress

As I have said, my personal preference is for WordPress. Why? I think it’s because it is so intuitive, and as I grow in my knowledge of HMTL and various standard web practices, WordPress grows with me – there are capabilities that I can activate and plugins that I can install – what you can do with WordPress is endless – and if you just want to have a wordpress.com blog using only the visual editor, you can do that too.

It’s workable for everyone on any level – WordPress is actually used by nearly 15% of Alexa’s top million websites, and has been downloaded over 32 million times. Colleges and news sources use it, and that website your neighbour created for their cat uses it too. Inexpensive, as well.

But whatever CMS you use, it all comes down to your web presence – if you have a strong identity and are satisfied with the traffic (or conversion) you’re getting, that’s all that matters.

The Author,  Alice Sweeney is a freelance writer who writes most frequently for an environmentally friendly lighting company. She keeps the attic light on with her own websites, posting regularly and getting involved in the conversation.

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Leave a Comment: The Goldilocks Dilemma – Choosing A CMS

A guest post by Yo Noguchi. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

There are certain demographics that tend to like receiving and viewing emails more than others. Sure, easily accessible information on products and services are beneficial to all subscribers but they are especially helpful to moms who tend to have more on their plate than your average customer.

Reminisce about the woman who brought you into this world, remember her compassion and endless love for the family, then with compassion, try these 5 great tips for email marketing to moms.

1. Time

Moms are busy! They spend their days multitasking and juggling chores while selflessly tending to the needs of their families. By creating emails that pertain to special deals and specific products of their interest, you can save moms from having to conduct the research on their own. Every second you can spare them from having to navigate through websites or drive around to different stores for the best deals is a moment more they can spend with their family.

When a mom can check her inbox to find the best prices on the things she’s interested in, she can spend more time focusing on the things that matter more to her, like raising her children.

2. Family

Remember that moms don’t just buy products and spend for themselves. More often than not, they’re out looking for deals that benefit the entire family. Make sure that your emails are marketed towards products and services that appeal to the entire family, not just moms.

This unique demographic allows for your email campaign to include content that transcends the limitations set for gender specific markets. Take advantage of this and use insider information to spin products or services meant for both genders.

3. Mind your P’s and Q’s

Although it is important for a newsletter to reflect your charming personality, it’s more important to be mindful of your audience and to display your content appropriately.

Always refrain from topics that may be offensive to the audience or that may be distasteful. Take the time to develop a tone of voice or writing style that best suites your intent and for god’s sake, no swear words! Don’t make mom have to get out the soap!

4. Research

Consumers will often do research on items before they decide on which product to buy and where to buy them. Moms are no different.

Emails that you send to a mom’s inbox are at the starting point of a thorough price comparison process and investigation into the details of listed products or services. The nature of moms can’t be changed, but your email marketing campaign can be altered to better serve their needs.

Exceed their expectations by making content as easily accessible as possible and spare them the time they normally waste conducting research.

5. Cover your mistakes

As my mother used to say, “everyone makes mistakes.”

The important part is how you recover from them.

Mistakes are bound to happen. The best line of defense against them is to plan ahead for mistakes to happen. Make sure to have solutions for common errors in your campaign so that when they do occur, you’ll be ready to cover the mistakes.

Don’t just brush mistakes under the rug. In fact, tell your co-workers about them so as not to make the same mistakes twice.

Not every mom is going to be interested in receiving emails about products and services, but there are plenty of moms who are. Depending on your line of work, this is the mother of all sales demographics and really, should be treated as such. Use these 5 tips to better suit your email marketing campaign for moms.

The Author, Yo Noguchi is a well-known blogger and email marketing expert for Benchmark Email, one of the world’s global email marketing services. He has written for Technshare, madimmarketing.com, work.com, and other websites.

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Leave a Comment: 5 Great Tips For Email Marketing To Moms

A guest post by Erick Smith. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Old forms of media and advertising are out and free marketing is in, which is definitely good news for any business with an online presence, or for any company looking to create one.

Social media and online videos are two ways to improve your company’s online presence through search engine marketing (SEM). And combining these two forms of online marketing creates an opportunity to further optimize search benefits while establishing your company as an authority in its industry, two forefronts of SEM.

Social media can be considered any form of internet media that requires user participation. The very heart of social media is that it demands and depends on user-generated content, which—and this is the great news for businesses—consumers consider more trustworthy than an advertisement or marketing campaign directly promoting a company’s goods and services. Consider the following:

1. Consumers trust the opinions of people who are just like them—in other words, other consumers—and ratings and reviews are the third most trusted source of marketing.
2. Consumers trust information provided by industry experts.
3. However, consumers distrust overt marketing campaigns making unfounded claims like “our company is the best.”
4. Nearly 75 percent of North American Internet searchers will click on organic search engine results before a sponsored link (a paid advertisement).

Social media gives businesses a unique opportunity to simultaneously create the two types of content that consumers like to trust the most: content created by other consumers, and authoritative content created by industry experts. Your business is an authority in its industry, and the trick is to show your potential customers that you know your stuff by offering them free, useful information, rather than simply telling them you’re an expert. Showing consumers that you’re an authority creates a relationship of trust that makes them more likely to purchase from your company.

How can social media do all this? Due to its interactive nature and dependency on user-generated content, the different forms of social media allow you, the expert, to publish content related to your field. Hopefully you’ve published content that your audience will find useful and applicable in their lives, for example, by offering them information that helps them solve a problem they are looking for an immediate answer to.

If you give good advice, a consumer will regard you as an industry expert, making them more likely to click through to your website to look around for more, possibly making a purchase. The same consumer may leave some feedback about the content you’ve published for other users to see. Or they may share your content with friends or colleagues who are looking for answers to the same problem. Of course, the content you’ve published includes a link to your website.

Some of the different forms of social media include anything from blogs to wikis, user ratings, social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, and social media blogs like Facebook and Twitter. Video is another form of social media—and YouTube is considered a social media site as well due to its interactive nature—but video is both inherently social media and extremely compatible with other forms of social media.

In fact, video may be the ultimate form of social media because it covers so many of the bases necessary for sufficient search engine marketing. Videos reach a broad audience, promote sharing and interaction, and drive traffic to your website. For example:

• Your business can publish videos offering free, authoritative industry content that can be embedded in your own blog or website as well as shared in a variety of social forums online.
• Viewers can comment on your video, providing the user-generated ratings that other consumers love.
• Viewers who really love your video will bookmark it on Digg and share it with their friends and colleagues on Facebook by posting the video to their own profiles.

And the snowball effect takes over from here.

So as you can see, video, a useful tool for social media services in itself, is highly compatible with many other forms of social media your company may already be using in its online marketing campaign.

In addition, you can search engine optimize your videos the same way you would optimize written content, and videos are already more likely to receive an organic search ranking than traditional text. Or, just hire an online marketing company to manage your videos in your social media campaigns. Since video is an inexpensive, permanent, and user-friendly form of self-publishing (and getting easier all the time), it makes a lot of sense to create, publish, and share videos, and then sit back while your friends, customers, and potential clients promote your video (and business) for you, for free.

The Author, Erick D. Smith lives in San Diego and blogs about Social Media and Web Marketing. Improving your site’s Social Media approach is a great way to bring new viewers to your site without relying on search engines to generate traffic.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

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A guest post by Lauren. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Blogging communities are often very cohesive, and can sometimes even feel like a second family for you. With this cohesiveness comes a passion for the subject matter—whatever content unites you with other bloggers in your niche—and with that passion comes, sometimes, disagreement with fellow bloggers. These disagreements can range from a casual jesting back and forth to a full-out flame-war, in which each side trades harsh arguments.

Hopefully, you’ve never experienced something like that; however, odds are you have found or will eventually find yourself on the receiving end of a leveled, logical critique of some of your ideas.

Here are some things to consider as you prepare a response to the criticism.

Keep Your Emotions in Check

The biggest, most important thing to do is to keep your emotions in check. If the criticism was maturely delivered, then you should respond accordingly. If, however, the criticism was purely personal and immature, then it’s best to ignore it: don’t feed the trolls. Remember, many members in the blogging community of which you are a part strive for the same thing: to improve the community. This means that many of these disagreements arise because everyone is trying to find a solution to the latest issue. It’s not personal, so you should keep your emotions under control as you prepare a response.

Attempt to Understand the Criticism

Next, try to understand what exactly the criticism means. See if you can restate the criticism in your own terms. Look for the main point of the criticism, and look to see if you can find evidence that the critic has included to support his or her argument. If you cannot restate the critique in your own words, then chances are you don’t have a solid grasp of what exactly the critic meant. At this point, you should ask the critic to clarify some of what he or she said.

Draft a Response

Once you feel comfortable with your understanding of the criticism, then you can begin to draft a response. Try to use language that is not confrontational, but that still makes a firm argument. Also, be open to shifting your position if you see something that makes sense in the critic’s logic. Showing that you can be firm, but also open to other positions is a great way to advance the discussion towards a solution.

Wait and Revise

This is an important step because it forces you to avoid publishing a piece that is written hurriedly and passionately. Take a break from the situation and go for a walk or watch television. After some time away from the argument, come back and reread what you have written. Does it seem thoughtful and balanced? Or does it seem illogical and defensive? Make the appropriate revisions and then get ready to publish!

Press Publish

Finally, you can publish your response. Depending on its length and the nature of the discussion, whether or not the discussion is fast-paced or drawn-out, you can publish it in a comments section on another blog, or you can publish it on your own blog and link to it.

Don’t forget to follow-up on the discussion!

The Author, Lauren Bailey is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to: blauren99[at]gmail.com.

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