The knowledgeable & generous Adam W. Warner of WPProBusiness.com (author of the very useful Facebook business page guide I reviewed last year) is running a huge WP Giveaway for the next 2 weeks, starting today Feb 15th.

You can enter any number of times & the lists of prizes up for grabs is truly amazing : Gravity Forms plugin (I want one!!!), the Backup Buddy Plugin, a bunch of premium themes, and a whole lot more.

Of course I have entered myself, and will be reporting on any prizes I win, and doing a review to help my visitors/readers…

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A couple of clients … and my mum … have asked me what is “cloud computing”, or “the cloud” – and when the penny drops after a simple explanation, you realise how complex & scary simple concepts can sound!

So, what IS “cloud computing” ?

Basically “the cloud” is just the internet! So if you remind yourself it’s really just “internet computing”, where you are running programs on the internet rather than on your computer, it might feel a lot easier to grasp.

To use one of these services, you will usually have to sign up to an account on a website, and in some cases download an application (e.g. Dropbox) to make things work even more effectively.

What are the benefits?

1. Number one has to be FLEXIBILITY! You can access your stuff anywhere, from almost any internet-enabled device (laptop, smart phone, desktop). This makes remote working and growing your business quite simple.
   And you buy what you need, and upgrade if you need more.
   One example is having your email available online all the time (for example, with GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc.) rather than being tied to a single computer.
2. Cost – you can do a lot more with your information for a lot less, as many of the basic services are free. And upgrading to premium services is usually pretty cost effective too, especially for small businesses.
   It can also mean, especially for smaller businesses, that you don’t have the expense of expensive IT equipment just to get started, and you are only paying for what you use. And monthly subscriptions smooth out your cashflow too.
3. Security – you can store your information online in an encrypted format, and it can only be accessed by logging in with a user name (or email) and a password. And your data is backed up by someone else – fewer headaches!
   (Caveat : too often, people use the same password across multiple sites, so if one site gets hacked, your whole life could be exposed – so follow my useful tips to make your passwords harder to guess.)

What are the possible downsides?

1. Do make sure that you choose a reputable provider for whatever service you are purchasing – they will have access to very personal data and you want to know it’s looked after, backed up and most of all safe!
2. You need to take responsibility to ensure you understand the fine print of the terms and conditions, so that there are no problems if you choose to move your data to another provider. You need to remain the legal owner of your content, and be able to migrate it when you choose.
3. If you don’t have a fast internet connection, it could be a bit slow with file uploads & downloads.

Many businesses can use applications “out of the box”, whereas other businesses might choose to have applications developed to integrate with other services – it really depends on your business needs. But whatever you do, do check some of the services out so you can make informed decisions!

Examples of cloud services I use:

Evernote:

What if you could collect, in one well-organized, searchable, private digital repository, all the notes you create, clips from Web pages and emails you want to recall, dictated audio memos, photos, key documents, and more? And what if that repository was constantly synchronized, so it was accessible through a Web browser and through apps on your various computers and smart phones? Well, such a service exists. And it’s basic level is free. It’s called Evernote. (Source: Walter Mossberg, allthingsd)

Dropbox:

Dropbox (free to $19.99 per month) is the simplest, most elegant file-synchronization tool we’ve ever used. The premise behind Dropbox is it gives you access to your files no matter what computer or device you have at hand. The service stores files with strong encryption on multiple servers and lets you get at your files quickly, easily, and for the most part elegantly from virtually any Internet-enabled device. Dropbox is both a downloadable product, with a version for every major operating system—Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, BlackBerry—and every user also gets a Web account with file access, too, just in case you’re on a computer that doesn’t have Dropbox installed. Dropbox works equally smoothly on Windows, Mac, Linux, as well as mobile devices. (Source : PCMag.com)

GMail:

Google’s email offering, GMail, gives you access to your emails any time, any where, as long as you have an internet connection. There are a lot of other webmail providers (Hotmail, Yahoo etc.) but if you take into account all the other free Google Apps you get with a Google account, it becomes a compelling case for Gmail.

TeuxDeux (pronounced “To Do”!) :

There are many online “To Do list” applications, but I really like the simplicity of TeuxDeux. And it automatically rolls over unfinished tasks, so no excuse, you can’t forget!
(Now I just have to remember to actually check TeuxDeux daily!!)

And a few others: Flickr for online photo sharing; Google Docs for MS Office-style documents you want to store online & share with others; and Spotify for music playlists…. and there are MANY more!!

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This guest post is a useful addition to my earlier post (too many months ago!!) on Facebook business pages. It was written by Greg Allbright, and is for all FB users, not just those with pages.

Facebook has changed the default setting on the news feed to limit the posts people see only to those they interact with most. That means if your business has a fan page the posts may not be seen by people that have not interacted, through comments or likes”, recently.

If you were following my tweets in late May/early June, you may have read that I was at Phill Turner’s “Ministry of Traffic” event 10 days ago, listening to a brilliant line-up of speakers teaching us how they get more visitors to their websites… and we all know, provided you have a good call to action (or “conversion environment”) …

more visitors = more business !

What was striking was that 5 out of the 6 speakers use Facebook extensively to drive visitors (traffic) to their websites – and by making use of the updated features in Facebook pages (also called business pages) you can add a free (or pretty cheap) marketing tool to your arsenal without loads of technical knowledge.

I know how to set up a page… but I definitely don’t know all the handy tips and “ins & outs” that can make my page work really hard, so I bought WP Pro Business’s new e-book “Facebook Fan Pages for Business and Profit“, which contains chapters on setting up pages (with or without your own personal Facebook profile – something I didn’t know could be done!), how to create the photo strip on your Facebook page, and very usefully, how to integrate your Aweber autoresponder optin form to turn your business page into a squeeze page.

An added bonus are their tips about how, once you have become familiar with all aspects of Facebook pages, you can sell your services creating business pages for OTHER businesses! I know a few people who have set up business as Social Media Managers and are doing very well – so this is a really useful (and thoughtful) addition to the book.

I would liked to have seen more examples/screenshots in the e-book, as I am definitely a visual learner – but the information is excellent, and they include links to a host of free and low-cost resources which is worth the price of this ebook, in my opinion.

Click on this QR Code to read the full info page – or use your smartphone QR code app to take you straight to the website!

I’m trying out more & more new technology – Facebook AND QR codes in one post??? Wow!!!

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Today’s post is an article by Ana Hoffman of Traffic Generation Cafe. Thanks for these useful tips Ana!

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t receive an email that tells me how I can finally afford to buy a bunch of high-quality high-PR links for peanuts.

Or the ones that tell me that, if I only use their SEO services, my site will be guaranteed to make it to the first page of Google for practically any keyword.

Nonsense.

Those kinds of claims warrant this email.

Google search engine ranking myth #1:

If an SEO expert approaches you saying that he can guarantee you will get the top search engine ranking for your chosen keyword, laugh in his face (or at least your computer screen).

I doubt it that any SEO expert owns search engines, has control over them, thus he can’t guarantee any result.

He can however assure you that he will use all his expertise to try to increase your traffic generation through top Google search engine ranking.

Google search engine ranking myth #2:

Pay $100 and some SEO expert will get you 100 links to PR 5-8 pages.

Impossible! It costs an arm and a leg to get links to high-ranking pages, $100/month and up.

Actually, there are only five ways I know of to get links to high-PR pages:

1.  Talk them into putting a link on their site for free (!).
2.  Get them to enroll in your affiliate program.
3.  Provide them with unique content that they WANT to put on their sites.
4.  Put them on low PR pages and wait for the PR to rise.
5.  Have such a fantastic site that people voluntarily put links up and tell others about you.

So hope this info will keep you away from the temptation of hiring all the wrong people to “take you to the top”.

Learning to do it yourself is your best bet – that way even if you hire someone eventually, you’ll know whether they are doing a  good job for you.

Warmly,

Ana

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April has been a busy month – business has been good (thank you Universe!) and I’ve been taking part in the Ultimate Blogging Challenge.

Michelle, one of the organisers, does a monthly round-up post, and I thought, as I blogged 21 out of the 30 days of April, a round-up would be useful for everyone.

As usual the majority of my posts were about WordPress, SEO and related topics, but we had a great “guest” post about chasing away your readers, from Adam Warner’s blog, written by Lauren Tharp. Judging by the comments, people had a good laugh at that

So here is what I wrote about in April :

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Phew, last post of the 30-day Ultimate Blogging Challenge! I didn’t make all 30 days, but I do hope you all learned a lot from the posts during April!

Anyway, on to today’s topic: I’ve been commenting on blogs for a few years now, and I remember seeing that a few of the commentators had their pictures showing next to their comments, but most did not, including me! So here’s what happened …

I heard about Gravatars (“Globally Recognised Avatar”).

Here’s how it works:

• You sign up for a free account at http://en.gravatar.com/
• Enter your primary email address on the sign-up page, check for the confirmation email, click the confirmation link, and your account has been created.
• Now you can upload your photo (a square image – 80 x 80 pixels is ideal) which will be associated with your primary email address web-wide.
• You can add other email addresses and associate them with different photos/images if you like.

Once you’ve done this, whenever you post a comment on a blog which has “Gravatar” activated (and a lot of them have nowadays), your picture will appear next to your comment if there is one associated with the email address you use in posting the comment.

That’s all there is to it.

Simple

I suggest that you go and set up your gravatar right away – it will help people to recognise you online.

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Yesterday I gave you the first part of a list of things to do to scare away your blog readers… but some readers are just so persistent you might need a “Phase 2″ … so here are a few more hints & tips to kill them off!

Have a read of these “hints” … and once again be honest, how many of these things do YOU do on your blog?? If you are … time for a re-think!!

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• Make them use their side-scroll. Use every single inch of space you have.  Make sure your content goes to the very edge of the page.  Make them put that side-scroll to work!
• Your website should be a Flash website. Flash websites are practically invisible to search engines.  If the readers can’t find you, then they can’t read your content!  How’s that for staying one step ahead!
• Ads, ads, ads! Flashing banner ads all over your site!  Or, better yet, use pop-up ads—they’re an unforgettable classic for a reason.
• Write lots of copy over a large image. Combining “Wall o’ Text” with slow-to-load large images?  It’s the best of both worlds!
• Make your site compatible with only one web-browser. Be sure to include an incredulous error message.
• Dizzying color combinations. Your text and your background should clash as much as possible. Make your reader squint as much as possible.  Induce vomiting if you can.  Might I suggest using neon yellow text on a hot pink background?
• Music. It doesn’t matter if it’s “good” or “bad,” just so long as it loops incessantly and is difficult (or impossible) for the visitor to turn off.
• Choose a hard-to-read font. If they’re going to insist on reading your content after all your efforts to deter them, then you might as well make it as hard to read as possible.
• Send daily automated e-mails. So, none of your attempts to banish readers from your website have worked, eh?  Well, you’ll show them.  You’ll give them SOMETHING TO READ.  Every day, send them automated e-mails, filling their inbox with lengthy sales pitches and trivial nonsense.  Waste their space and waste their time.  That’ll teach them.

Readers.  Who needs ‘em.

How do YOU like to piss off your visitors and customers?

We’re always looking for new methods of creating a terrible online experience. If you have a technique that you think we should try, we urge you to share it with us below in the comments.

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Thanks again to Lauren R. Tharp, writing on Adam Warner’s blog, and to Adam tfor permitting to share for this laughter-inducing post with my readers.

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Today’s post is Part 1 of an article from the site of a bit of a WordPress guru, Adam Warner of WP Pro Business. Writer Lauren Tharp has come up with an excellent list of the best techniques you need to use to keep pesky readers from bothering you on your blogs

Have a read of these “hints” … and be honest, how many of these things do YOU do on your blog??

A Guide to Tormenting Your Readers

No one wants readers on their website.  This type of visitor is obnoxious and downright nosy!  Why are they doing all that reading anyway?  What’s their game?  Needless to say, if you have a website, this type of visitor needs to be deterred as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Treat your readers like they’re stupid and you are all-knowing.  Obviously.  (What, you didn’t already know that?).
• Write your content in long, unreadable blocks of text. I shouldn’t even be breaking up this list with bullet points—it might encourage those rascally readers!  You need to create what I like to call a big “Wall o’ Text.”  If you can manage it, don’t even break up your writing into paragraphs.
• Hide your contact information. The last thing you want is people contacting you.  Never, ever, have an easily accessible Contact page.  You need to get crafty!  Try hiding your contact information deep, deep, within an About page.  Or, better yet, don’t have your contact information on your website at all!
• Install as many bells and whistles as you possibly can. You must, I repeat, must, do everything you possibly can to distract those pesky readers from actually reading your content.  Try having animated snowflakes or “glitter” constantly falling down the screen in front of your text.  And, if possible, transform your visitor’s mouse cursor into something silly—the more animated the better!
• Related to the above, make your site as slow to load as possible. Use high-resolution, slow-to-load images; as many complicated graphics as possible; and try to have several moving things on the page at once.  People hate to wait, making this one of the quickest ways to get rid of readers yet!
• Always use Windows Media Video (.wmv) files for your videos. Or any other unpopular video-viewing web format.  Just be sure to stay away from Flash or Quicktime.
• Broken links! The more the better.
• Have poor web navigation. Make everything a confusing mess.  And don’t make it easy to return to the main page.  If they want to get back where they came from, they’re just going to have to re-type your URL.
• Use pictures instead of text. Any time you have a button, make sure it’s a picture.  No text!  And try to make your pictures as vague as possible.

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So… which of these are YOU guilty of?!

Time to schedule a good review of your blog writing perhaps! Look out for the other half of the list tomorrow…

Thanks Adam and Lauren for the smiles!

Happy Blogging

Tracey

I’m going to take as my inspiration today, a post by a friend & coach, Wendy Ager, who did a very useful talk at my networking meeting yesterday, and then blogged about one of her points, “Knowledge is Power“, today.

It got me thinking about how much we forget we DO know… about life, the universe and techie things!

In mid-April, I blogged about getting called from someone in Brazil (yay SEO!), a potential client – well, I got the job, but have been challenged technically in several areas, as he wants the website to do things that I knew COULD be done … I just hadn’t done them before!

After my initial worry about whether I could do the job, I knuckled down, figured out what I knew about the things he wanted done, where I wanted to be, and who I could ask the right questions of. It did take time and persistence, but I now know
(a) how to use Custom posts in WordPress
(b) how to make the Nextgen Gallery plugin link to pages/posts not just images (thanks Adam Warner for the hints!)
(c) how to do video galleries using a YouTube playlist

and you know what?? It means I can increase the number of (chargeable) services I offer my clients!

So, if you’re facing something outside of your comfort zone, it does help to take stock of what you do know, and where you want to be … and then the gap in the middle can be filled with small steps until your goal is reached.

Good luck

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Are your products protected?!

If you sell digital products online, or sell webinars that you later use as part of a product … anything that is downloadable is potentially vulnerable to theft if you don’t take the right precautions!

If you use a digital download service (such as e-Junkie) then you’re OK – you can stop reading now, and grab a cup of coffee while the rest of you stay at your computers

And if you just send PDFs as part of an email autoresponder series, for example … same applies. Go on, grab a coffee!

Those of you still reading should be the ones who have “secret” download pages for your products, probably with unintelligible URLs to make guessing them tricky.

If you sell digital products, you’re inevitably going to find that some people will pass on the files to mates – and there’s not a lot you can do about that, really.

But what you CAN prevent is your download pages, so carefully hidden from view within your site, from being found and indexed by the search engines, for the world to find at the press of a search button.

Here’s the thing: you need to make sure your pages are NOT INDEXED!

Some themes very handily have page settings that you just check, job done!

Robots Meta

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But a large number of themes do not have this enabled, so you have to fix things in other ways. (note: this is for self-hosted WordPress sites only.)

The setting you want to ensure complete security for your download pages is”noindex, nofollow”

And this is what your source code will look like after saving the settings:

Nice

You can now relax!

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Do you wonder what people are saying about on the world wide web? In earlier posts on this blog I’ve mentioned the importance of managing your brand and your reputation, but it’s not always easy to check … if you even remember to try!

Google Alerts is a really useful (free) Google service that allows you to monitor key phrases or words, and receive email alerts when new content is found containing those criteria.

For example, I’ve set up alerts for mentions of my name, my Twitter name, and my business names.

Do remember to put phrases in quote marks, other Simple Blog Company (instead of “Simple Blog Company”) returns all sorts of articles about random companies!

And if you want to see results online, in real time, just click on the specific alert search phrase & you’ll see it all…

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Today I’m going to write a little more personally about business, instead of yet another (admittedly handy!!) technical tip.

It’s all very well having loads of technical know-how and marketing tips, or knowing a fair bit about social media or SEO, but sometimes being in business on your own can just be tough! And having someone to chat to, to call for help or bounce ideas off is a blessing.

I got the idea for today’s post after Skyping with my friend Val in the US. We became friends in London when we worked together back in about 2001 or 2002. We stayed friends after we no longer worked together, meeting for coffee & a chat, and talking about everything from computers to photography and cats. We couldn’t let that stop when she went to the US!! And so we both still regularly run ideas past the other, and exchange great website links and ideas. And if one of us is feeling a bit down because we lost a client or got stuck with something, we’re there at the end of a Skype chat. (And that’s just on the business side of things…)

This also made me think of other who have supported me in my business over the years:

• my business coach Tony Brooks, who knows the right questions to ask to really make  me think (and squirm!) and challenge myself. I look forward to this year with him helping me with my goals and accountability.
• my life coach Lusanna Hoddell, who I worked with from 2007 to 2009, who helped me through the transition from “suffering” after being made redundant, to working through the “stuff” in my mind that I needed to move past to confident about starting my own business.
• networking friends who over the years have been there to chat to, exchange business ideas with & be friends with.
• More recently, my wonderful Twitter friends who let me know I’m on the right track with my blogging by sharing the good stuff – thanks!!!
• People like Faith Barnard and Michelle Shaeffer and Michele Scism who take large amounts of their own time to create blogging challenges that help connect people and promote our business … and learn … huge amounts!
• And Val for saying I’m an inspiration to her

So if you’re finding life as a business owner a little lonely, reach out to people who are there to help – coaches, friends, bloggers… peoples hearts are huge!

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One thing that’s important when you’re in business is consistency of branding – make sure the style your website matches that of your business cards for example … and make sure your also have your website URL branded to make more of an impact!

The”favicon” – pronounced “fave icon” – is the little icon to the left of the website URL and name in this picture … and it’s not that hard to create one.

1. Create a small square image reflecting your brand.
2. Go to a Favicon Generator site and follow the instructions to upload this image, create an icon and download the result.
3. Upload the resulting icon, using FTP, to your hosting account.
4. Some WordPress themes have functionality where you can updte the favicon from within the theme, but this isn’t all that common.
5. It can take several hours for the icon to be updated all across the internet – but by the day after you’ve made the update, you should see it on your site no problem.

One of the really cool benefits of doing this is, when someone bookmarks (or favourites) your website in their browser, the icon is also shown next to your site in the saved list – making your URL so much easier to find as it’s branded!

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Hello everyone,

well, it’s half-way through April, and half-way through the Ultimate Blog Challenge – wow! Thanks again to Michelle and Michele for organising it… I think

I’d forgotten just how dedicated you have to be to create a post a day!

Today (or rather, tonight… late!) I’m just going to tell you about something really nice that happened to me today, business and website-wise. It’s relevant to this blog in that it’s related to SEO…

I had a phone call this afternoon, out of the blue, from an American guy working in Brazil. His VC company is launching a startup project, and they need a WordPress website in a hurry … and he googled and found ME … and I’m going to be quoting for the job!

This is for my other website, The Simple Web Company… and even though it’s not very highly ranked in Alexa terms (in the 800,000′s), my title tags and keyword phrases stood me in good stead today – they got my message across to this potential client that I can help solve the problem he has: no WordPress website, and 2 weeks till launch.

So folks, make sure your website is getting your unique message across!! And cross fingers that it goes well with quoting for the job!

To success!!!

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Have you ever had someone say to you that there’s something wrong with a site (or even your site?!) and yet when you check it out, everything looks just fine?

Often the reason for this is that you’re using a different browser to that “someone”, but we seldom think to check that basic fact!

Recently a client complained that there were some weird grey dots around the blog posts on her site, but I couldn’t find the darn things… until *light-bulb moment* I thought to try a couple of other browsers! And in Internet Explorer I could see those weird grey dots too…

That was great – if you can see a problem, you can often fix that problem!

There’s a very handy tool that will do a lot of the hard work for you: go to http://browsershots.org , select a few browsers under “Windows” and “Linux” (I normally only check the “Big 4″ – Firefox, IE, Chrome & Safari), fill in your website URL and click “Submit”. (If you choose too many browsers it takes too long.)

I selected 17 browser options (different versions of Firefox for example, under Linux and Windows), which took quite a while (I would allow about 1/2 an hour for this)  – you can just let it run in the background. Remember you only need to do this on the odd occasion if you’ve made some big changes to your website’s appearance – not something you have to do every week!

A few notes:

• the images are in landscape, so may appear a bit “stretched”, so just check that the main things appear to be OK.
• If you have a pop-up optin form (like I do) it may obscure some of the screenshots!

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• How many times do you have to use that option when trying to log on to a website?
• And how many of you resort to using very easy passwords?
• And how many of you then end up using the same easy password across just about every site you need to log in to?

I’m guessing that probably 95% of those who started reading this post still have their hands up at this stage!

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this – but before I tell you, let me share part of a very amusingly-written email sent by a friend in response to her email accounts being hacked in the last couple of days:

It seems that overnight I went to Nigeria, got assaulted and need your money – I didn’t. I’m here, intact and very p’ed off that i’ve had my identity stolen. I am so grateful for the lovely caring people I know who have been on the phone to check i’m ok. It’s nice to know that you care.

The above is my new email address please please don’t respond to any emails from any of my other addresses and please forgive any messages that you may have received from Nigeria.

Lorraine

ps. If you were thinking of sending funds i’ll happily provide my uk bank details!

So here’s a tip for anyone who is suddenly panicking about their passwords!

• Don’t panic! Start planning instead.
  Make a list of your most sensitive login websites (preferably just on a piece of paper) – for example your banks, Paypal account – anything financial.
• Choose what I call a “base password” – a 6 to 8 letter word that you can add to.
• Go through your list, changing each password to your base password plus some combination of website identifiers, somake each password memorable but unique.
• EXAMPLE 1: if your base password is “giraffe“, then your password for your Halifax Bank account might be “giraffeha1″, where “ha” is part of the website identifier, and “1″ is the number you always add at the end.
• EXAMPLE 2: using the same base password, your Paypal password could be “giraffeP#9″, with “P” being the capitalised website identifier, with “#9″ your consistent ending.
• I’ve been using this idea (NOT this base password though !!) for about 3 & 1/2 years & it works – no hacking, and I can remember most passwords, even though they are different.

• Once the really important ones are taken care of… repeat with “lesser” sites & passwords

Of course there will be some sites where this type of combo won’t work… but at least you’ll manage most passwords you need to remember… and hopefully avoid having an erroneous report of your mishaps in foreign countries!

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Hello again,

In the last in my series of posts of essential tools, I’m going to talk about an OFFsite tool that can still really help your website in local searches.

The tool is Google Places (http://places.google.com/business), a free-to-register Google tool. By registering your place (or places) of business, and completing the profile in full, with keyword phrases and descriptions relevant to your business, you get yourself a free listing.

Note: you will have to verify your listing, by phone or snail-mail, so this isn’t instantaneous. But once you’re listed locally, anyone searching for your service in the local area is far more likely to see you on page 1 of Google ! FREE!

[Click on image for larger version.]

Try this for yourself: type “plumber” into Google, for example. and you should see any local plumbers who have registered on Google Places… close to, or at, the top of the listings! (as per the image above, where I searched just for “electrician”)

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Wishing you success…

Continuing on my (slightly interrupted) series of posts on tools that I consider essential for your blog, the next is probably more a series of tools, encapsulated in one heading, “Social Media”.

Of course having a WordPress website (and/or blog) is already a huge advantage in terms of search engine indexing, but why not get a “little help from your friends” ??

By this I mean, make it really easy for people to FOLLOW you on your social networks of choice, and also to PUBLICISE your content on their networks.

Following:

If you look on the right of my website, you’ll see a “follow” bar like in this picture. This is a plugin that I’ve configured to contain the networks I primarily use, and it allows people to go straight to the place where they can follow/friend or like me, at the click of a button.

There are loads of ways to do this: you can also just have icons and links (opening up in new windows of course) in your sidebar, or use a plugin that you like – the method isn’t important; the presence of the icons IS.

FYI: the plugin I’ve used for this is called “Share and Follow”.

Publicising:

This involves adding tools so that people can retweet or share your post very simply.

This may be a simple “Retweet” or “Share” button, through to a more complex plugin that gives you a wide choice of networks.

These plugins are “Tweetbook Meme”, “Facebook Meme” and “Sexy Bookmarks” (to the right of the blue arrow).

Have a look at my blog, see which you prefer & then install & configure them so that you make it easy for people to tell other people about your brilliant posts!

By the way – please do feel free to retweet or share this post of mine, right now!!

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Wishing you success…

Hello again,

Michelle’s “blog tip” for today, Day 10 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge is to write about a business product that has changed your business… and I definitely have one!!

I get a lot of questions about small things that clients aren’t sure about, or can’t remember how to do – and instead of writing a long & perhaps overwhelming email, I just do a short video clip for them, showing them step-by-step how to do whatever it is they were asking about.

I have realised how powerful short videos are in getting a message across succinctly and simply. A lot of people are visual learners it seems, and it’s great to be able to follow a short video step-by-step to get a task done. And the feedback from clients is amazing – they all rate my videos as one of the best tools to help them quickly understand things!

I have been using a great product for my screen capture videos, for over 2 years now – it’s called “Jing”. I did a video about it for a blog challenge I did about 6 months ago, which you can see here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Useful hint: Don’t forgot to read my post on You Tube videos, to ensure you do your video title, description and tags correctly when loading to YouTube.

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And get in touch via the comments box below, or drop me an email!

Wishing you success…