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

There’s only one answer to the question, “How many email addresses should I have on my mailing list?”

More. As many as you can get. Pile ‘em on.

Assuming you’re getting email addresses from targeted individuals who opted in because they already had an interest in your content, your business, or whatever it is you sell, there’s no such thing as having too few email addresses.

But how do you build a list from scratch? Here are a few easy ways to get started:

1. Put your sign-up form above the fold.

You probably already know that the sidebar is a good place to put your sign-up form, but is your form where visitors can see it?

Placing the sign-up form below the fold is a no-no. Readers are less likely to find it, which means they’re less likely to opt in.

That doesn’t mean the sign-up form needs to be the first thing in your sidebar. Just make sure nobody has to scroll down in order to see it.

2. Give something away.

A free product offers an incentive to sign up.

Lots of bloggers give away free eBooks, white papers, or reports in exchange for an email address. If readers know they will receive something of value, they’re more likely to drop their email addresses in the opt-in box.

But just because others give away books doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing. Get creative! Design a free course or create a free app (if that’s your thing). Offer them something extraordinary that they’re not used to seeing.

The more you can blow them away, the sooner they’ll become raving fans.

3. Include multiple sign-up forms.

Experimenting with sign-up form placement can be a great way to get more email addresses.

For example, lots of bloggers invite readers to subscribe to their feeds at the end of each post. On some posts, why not replace that call to action with an opportunity to join your list? Test this to see how many readers sign up. You can always reevaluate when you see the results.

4. Archive past newsletters.

Don’t beat around the bush. Give readers a sneak peak at those great newsletters you’re publishing!

Simply upload selected newsletters on your site, and include an easy-to-locate link from your blog to a newsletter archive page. That way, readers will be able to see exactly what your newsletters give them before signing up.

There’s no reason to fear doing this. If the content is truly useful, readers will want to join your list after reading your newsletters.

5. Put a checkbox on your purchase page.

Ok – this tip may only relate to your blog indirectly, but who’s counting?

If you sell products on your Website, don’t forget to include an opt-in checkbox on your purchase page or checkout page.

Whether you leave this box checked or unchecked by default is up to you. Either way, it’s just one more great opportunity to build your list.

The Author, Adam Green is an avid blogger and email marketing savant. On the weekends, you may catch him performing an enterprise file transfer or riding his bike through downtown Atlanta, where he lives and works.

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I have been a freelancer since March of 2009 and ever since I have worked on more than 90 projects, big and small. Before I started, I had no idea how to find a project, but after the initial hiccup’s clients started finding me.

The most important part, no matter how skilled or how quick or how cheap you are, the most important thing while working on a project is to keep the client happy. That’s the only way they will keep coming back, and when you have repeating clients, you are in business.

Then again, your client is happy when you deliver what they asked for in the time frame you agreed upon, but there is a more important element: Communication.

I recently bought a Flash Disk from an online market place in India, LetsBuy. I paid in advance, and as per their website the item was shipped the next day. Even after the expected date of delivery, the item didn’t reach me. When I was not able to reach a real human in their customer support over phone, I emailed them, but they never replied.

I tried many ways to contact them, emailed them but I never got a response. Finally after 11 days they sent me a mail stating that my original shipment was returned and they are shipping it again. I got the item 2 days after that.

I got the item, I am not buying from LetsBuy again. It’s not that they made a huge delay, that’s something you can understand. But they didn’t communicate with me, made me wondering what was happening.

(On a similar note, I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 from a seller on Ebay.in, due to some technical issues, he got delayed a little bit, but he was great on communication and that made the deal very pleasant.)

When you have a client, its okay to get delayed on deadlines, its okay to take more time to figure out things, its even okay to admit that you don’t know what you are doing and you can even ask for time to figure it out. But keep your client updated on what’s happening. Communication is what that will make them wanna do business with you again (assuming you are competing with people with similar skills).

Just make sure you are not overdoing it, sending in regular updates, maybe one email after you have crossed an important milestone will make the client know that you are on track.

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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

Hey Folks, I just wanted to drop in a quick note to let you know that the following domains are up for sale.

• ThemeMyWP.com
• dyWP.net
• dyWP.org
• ThemesMag.com

These are a year old, if you are interested, drop a line. Hope you all are being good!

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

The large user base of social media sites has made it an attractive destination for businesses of all sizes where they can promote their products and interact with their audiences. But at the same time, social media has poised new challenges too. The mistakes of the businesses that earlier used to get unnoticed are now seen by millions of people, spreads much faster that can cause serious reputation problem for issues or in some cases can even lead to lawsuits.

The purpose of this article is to cover some of the famous social media blunders and to learn from them regarding what not to do on social media sites.

Fedex-Ketchum

Everything started with a tweet of James Andrews “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say “I would die if I had to live here! “  (url) when he was in Memphis ( Hometown of Fedex) to present a digital media in Fedex headquarters on behalf of his employer agency Ketchum. Fedex employees treated Andrew’s tweet as an insult of their hometown Memphis. Later, James Andrews and Ketchum had to apologize for their tweets.

Lesson learned “Be careful what you post”

Habitat

In June 2009, Habitat the UK’s leading furnishing store started using irrelevant popular hash tags along with their tweets to get some traffic for their competiton.  The situation turned ugly when Habitat started using hash tags related to Iranian elections which enticed few Iranian people. On realizing their mistake, habitat deleted all Spammy tweets, individually replied to all twitter users who complained about it, posted an apology on their blog and twitter profile. Later, it was revealed that Habitat twitter account was being managed by one of their interns.

Lesson Learned “Make sure that the person who is managing your social media accounts is experienced and understand what he is doing”.

Virgin Facebook Blunder

In late 2008, Virgin Atlantic airlines fired 13 flight attendants who referred passengers as ‘chavs’ and criticized flight safety standards on Facebook and brought the company in disrepute by insulting passengers. Company took this incident seriously, launched investigation and sacked its employees for violating company’s policies.

Lesson Learned “Give proper training to your employees on how to behave on social media sites.”

Mark Cuban Twitter fine

Billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was slammed with a fine of $25000 by NBA for publically complaining the NBA officials here and here. Obviously, Mark never apologized and paid the fine.

Lesson learned “Behave properly. Your actions are being monitored”

VodafoneUK Twitter

Thousands of Vodafone’s twitter followers got angry when one of the Vodafone employees posted an obscene tweet “VodafoneUK is fed up of dirty homo’s and is going after beaver” regarding homosexuals.  Vodafone suspended the employee for severe breach of company conduct policies.

Lesson Learned “Avoid posting anything that can be controversial on your business accounts”.

Toyota Australia and Saatchi & Saatchi

The social media campaign of Toyota Australia brought a lot of embarrassment for the Automobile giant. It all started when Saatchi & Saatchi’s launched a “Make your Video“  contest for Toyota on Facebook where participants have to create a movie featuring Toyota Yaris. But the competition hadn’t received any entry mainly due to low value prizes. But it becomes ugly, when Saatchi & Saatchi started emailing video production houses contests for participating to avoid embarrassment and selected an incest themed video as winner. The whole contest initiated a great debate on social media sites and earned lot of bad comments for company.  

Lesson learned “Be genuine and honest on social media sites. Practice transparency and take care of sentiments of others”

Social media is must for every business but do not let your social media campaigns get derailed because of some silly mistakes. Think twice before saying something on social media because what you say or how you act is being watched by millions of other social media users.

The Author, David Smith is working for conversion optimization company Invesp and enjoys writing on conversion rate, PPC and affiliate marketing.

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Leave a Comment: 6 Social media Blunders and what you can learn from them

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

There’s nothing like a cool, chilled out office. The perfect way to set the mood for a cool and calm environment is by playing music with ambient beats and relaxing melodies. Back in the day, it was easy enough to get smooth jazz or easy listening moving through the radio waves.

However, with new technology comes new ways of listening to music. These days, radio stations are available just as easily from the car radio as they as from the Internet. This offers every modern office their ability to pick and choose which ambient music they wish to create the perfect atmosphere to work.

While one radio station is not necessarily better than another, there are several online radio stations with hundreds, even thousands, of listeners. The top ten most listened-to ambient radio stations vary, but are currently as follows:

1. Groove Salad at SomaFM
2. 181FM
3. Drone Zone at SomaFM
4. Lounge Radio
5. Chill-out at DI.fm
6. Smoothe Lounge
7. The Chill-out Lounge at 1FM
8. Nirvana Radio at 1FM
9. The Buzzoutroom
10. Zen Radio

More Detailed Information

DI.fm

All of these radio stations and worthwhile, but some offer premium items and amenities others do not have. For instance, at DI.fm, there are 37 electronic channels, 32 SKY.fm channels, it’s commercial-free, has enhanced sound quality and it is compatible with iTunes, Windows Media Player and WinAmp. However, to get the full experience of this website and all the music, there is a Premium option that costs up to $4.99 a month, $49 for one year or $89 for two years. That being said, DI.fm boasts it has been mentioned by BBC and About.com among others, and speaking from personal experience, it’s worth it!

SomaFM

Another notable website, Soma FM, is home to perhaps one of the most popular ambient radio stations, Groove Salad, as well as the Drone Zone. This website, unlike DI.fm, is maintained via listener donations. In order to keep afloat and be commercial-free, SomaFM asks for a $50 donation in trade for a SomaFM t-shirt. SomaFM’s mix of ambient music is very accessible and chilled out – exactly what you’d need to stay focussed in an office.

Smooth Lounge

One of the best things about Smooth Lounge is that they broadcast for free in spite of the fact that their radio quality is at a higher bit rate. Smooth Lounge will work with such media players as iTunes (where it’s included as a radio station under ‘Electronic’), Win Amp and RealPlayer. As you’d expect with a name like Smooth Lounge, this is a station that oozes peace and tranquility. Their choice of tunes tends to be very relaxing, down-tempo and super chilled. Speaking again from personal experience, Smooth Lounge tend to avoid the somewhat eery ambient music that is served on some other stations – it is a great station for non-intrusive background music.

The Author, John is one of the writers who work at OfficeKitten.co.uk, one of the leading office stationery suppliers from businesses based in the UK.

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

As a freelancer working at home, your work and play areas are combined. The computer that you use to finish a hard assignment is the same one that you use to play the latest and greatest video game. You tell yourself that if you are awake, you must be working. Here are ten tips to help you regain the balance between work and play.

1. Use separate user accounts your computer: With one computer, it is difficult to separate work from play. At the end of the working day, log out of your computer. If there is a video you want to watch or a game you want to play, log back in as a different user. Use a different background to further the separation.

2. Separate your environment: Create a physical separation between your work environment and your home environment. Set one room aside for your office, bringing in a separate phone line and a separate atmosphere. Put things on the wall which remind you that you should be working. If you have two computers, don’t touch the work computer during your off hours.

3. Wearing work clothes: When company employees are going to work, they put on their work uniform or outfit. On their return home, they change into something more casual. Place yourself into the work mindset by wearing a ‘work outfit’ to help physically separate your work and home life. You can work the hours of your choosing, but you can help distinguish whether you are on or off the clock by your clothing.

4. Money is not the answer: You want to earn more money, but you want to see your friends and enjoy time with your family. You might find that all of your waking hours are spent in the office. Your friends are more important than your work. Having a great conversation with a friend is worth more than the assignment.

5. Set working hours: Freelancers unbalance their lives by believing that they are working if they are awake. To avoid falling into this trap, establish set working times. Declare a specific start and end time to your day. You have the freedom to decide which eight hours of the day that you will work, take advantage of them. When your end time comes, log out of your computer and go ‘home.’

6. Learn to say no: You might find yourself over extending to earn those extra dollars. When a client asks you for work, establish your time to complete it based upon your working hours, not your waking hours. The overtime would be nice, but getting to spend time with your friends and family is better.

7. Track your time: Some find that the time just slips away. Track the time that you are using for specific jobs so you can be more realistic about your turnaround times. If you find that articles are taking more than the expected time, make a note and correct. Keep your calendars and to-do lists separate.

8. Focus: When you are working, focus your time on working. Divide the day into comfortable segments and ask yourself what you are doing within each individual segment. When you use a timer, you can reset yourself each time the bell sounds. Your awareness will make you more efficient.

9. Delegate: You might find yourself working on tasks which are out of your strengths. Sometimes, it is easier to pay another freelancer to do the work. Delegate your work when necessary, so you can focus your attention on your core responsibilities.

10. Work smarter, not harder: Freelancers establish patterns. Be on the lookout for ways to alter the pattern for more efficiency. Try different methods of working. What will happen if you perform the research for your daily jobs in one sitting? How about tracking your time in different increments? Research time management.

Maintaining the balance between work and life is stressful. By devoting yourself completely to your work, you find that you have no time for the more important things. Pull yourself back, become more efficient and relax. Life is more important than work.

The Author, James Adams writes reviews of franking machine ink at an online print cartridge supplier based in the UK.

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Leave a Comment: 10 Work/Life Balance Tips for Freelancers

I was looking around for a post on the PayPal Blog and look what came up.

The post on Resuming Local Bank Withdrawals to India had this:

Other posts had Movie Download Links, Twitter Tools Links and the like. Some links like the movie download link blend so well into the content.

Looks like someone is drawing out links without taking down any posts so the authors still do not know of this. Or maybe they are selling paid links. Totally in-appropriate.

Time to have a look PayPal!

Update: PayPal have just removed some links, but not all. For instance, the Movie Download link is still in place. Looks like they are selling paid links.

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Leave a Comment: PayPal Blog Hacked and They Dont Even Know?!

As I was jotting down 8 of my most favorite logics or thoughts that I use in my life, two logics that I use with the internet crossed my mind.

These are just common sense, but thinking it this way, makes some things a lot easier.

#1 Everything Soft is Designed for the Nobie user.

This comes handy when I deal with new stuffs online.

If you look around at software both online and offline, the user-interface is designed in such a way that even the most non-techie user can use it. I am not talking of everything, but in general this applies to everything made for the common consumer.

For instance, take the case of a Software Installer. Once you open the Installer, you get a welcome screen that says You are about to install This-Fantastic-Software ver 3.0 on your computer. Click Next to continue.

The wizard takes you through each step, one after the other. An experienced don’t need this. He would be happy if he got all the options on a single screen (like a Jet Cockpit). Saves time and looks geeky.

Obviously, the software developers doesn’t expect all their users to be the pro’s. And they want their software to sell. Will everyone buy it if it’s hard to use? No.

The Moral of the story: Everything is designed for the Dumbest User. If you look around, you can figure out anything on yourself. And when you get stuck, there is Google. (Thanks to all the bloggers around, even the simplest of the simplest topics are documented well)

Action Point: Stop being afraid of new software’s and tools, give it a try.

#2 Everything that you see in your browser, can be Downloaded

Okay, so how do I download Google?

I wish I knew a way to download Google Search Engine. You do not see Google on your browser, what you see is a server rendered user side of the software. What ever you cannot see cannot be downloaded, sorry.

Think about Music Files, Videos and Photos. Orkut blocked the right-click menu in photo galleries so that users wont save photos, but we know to save them, right? We know how to download Youtube videos too.

If you can see it online, you can keep it offline! Comes handy at times

Do you have anything similar? I am interested!

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Leave a Comment: Two Common-Sense Logics that Make My Day