Google Takes Care of Idiots Too
July 31, 2009
There’s an old saying that goes, “God takes care of babies and idiots.”
Truly this statement applies to me, because when it comes to my search engine optimization skills, I’m on the idiot side of scale. But that’s okay because idiots are loved, and can easily survive in the search engine game too.
Let me explain.
Although NONE of my 6 web sites rank in Google’s top 10 (or top 20 and 30 for that matter), and I only advertise 2 of my sites using AdWords, Google still helps me make a lot of money.
That’s probably because I went into this search engine optimization ‘thingy’ with a grain of salt. I don’t keep any secret arsenals of software tools that reverse engineer web sites to figure out why their ranking high. I haven’t read any of the latest must-have volumes on search engine optimization. (Although they’re on my to-do list when - and IF - business ever slows down.)
And still my MVP Google does its best to make me happy. And I do my best to give its searchers relevant content. But not in the way that most SEO savvy webmasters would recognize
Voice Recognition And Medical Transcription
July 30, 2009
Voice Recognition And Medical Transcription
by: Mila Sidman
You’ve probably heard different opinions and views on this subject. If you’re a medical transcriptionist you may even be concerned about voice recognition taking over your career and you’re not alone.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into voice recognition.
As you already know, doctors are busy people. This is never more obvious then when they’re dictating their notes. It’s understandable they’re busy, and as their MT, I can surely forgive them but will the latest voice recognition software be as forgiving as me?
Not likely.
As a transcriptionist you will have typed through background noise, patients moaning, doctors eating their lunch, personal conversations (oops they forgot the recorder was on) and other incomprehensible noise. Not to mention, ESL doctors with heavy accents and very tired ER doctors after a long shift!
At this time there is no voice recognition software which can handle this type of voice recognition. It is impossible for the software to determine actual speech from mistakes in conversation, background noise, heavy accents, etc.
So what does this mean for our future?
Kick-Starting E-mail Profits Growth From One Single Shot!
July 29, 2009
Perhaps the most critical step in guaranteeing the success of your e-mail promotions is to send your messages to a targeted list of opt-in subscribers who have specifically requested to receive information on a particular topic from you. That’s your “in-house” email list.
Sooner or later, you’ll face the same challenge: how to build a list of qualified, targeted prospects from scratch.
When it comes to building an e-mail list, online marketers tend to spread on too many options. Offen, they neglect to focus on a single promotion ’til the end and exploit to the fullest potential. Here’s an example.
Suppose you run a newsletter and have a web page or popup window which invite prospects to subscribe. As a reward for giving their e-mail address, you offer them a bonus.
That’s fine — but not enought! You are loosing money simply by leaving empty profit places in your message.
Wouldn’t be nice to build actually 3 different mailing lists from one “stroke”? Of course! For better understanding, I’ll stick with the same newsletter example. So, clear-up your newsletter invitation and insert couple of extra carefully selected phrases. Follow these steps:
Step #1 –> Insert a Newsletter Subscription
Establishing Your Web Presence
July 28, 2009
Part of the success of most home-based businesses is their web presence. After all, you want to benefit from the global exposure, reduced marketing expenses, and low entry costs. But to receive those benefits, you must first get your web site off the ground which means you need to select an effective domain name and find reliable web hosting.
The tips below can help you accomplish both goals successfully.
Picking a Domain Name
When it comes to choosing your web site’s domain name, you need to keep a few things in mind:
1. Your domain name should relate directly to the product or service you provide. Avoid picking a name that is vague or misrepresents your company.
2. Your domain name should be easy to remember. Keep the name as short as possible, but do not use unconventional spellings or add hyphens just to secure a version of the name you want.
3. Your domain name should be simplistic. Do not pick words which may be difficult to spell or which have multiple spellings. Also, select words and phrases that are common and easy to pronounce, especially if you are aiming your business toward the general public.
What a Billionaire Balloonist Taught Me About Internet Marketing
July 28, 2009
Billionaire Richard Branson, the entrepreneur behind the Virgin brand, is one of the world’s most successful and adventurous businessmen. Not being satisfied to run several highly profitable businesses Branson also engages in occasional feats of courage, or stupidity, depending on your stand point!
I read his autobiography recently and discovered something that perfectly sums up what it takes to achieve success on the Internet.
To set the scene - Branson had called a meeting a few hours before he and his co-pilot were due to embark on an attempt to fly from Japan to America across the Pacific non-stop in a hot air balloon. The attempt would be fraught with countless difficulties, challenges and life-threatening risks. One last pre-take off meeting was held to talk through all eventualities of the flight and to discuss what Branson and his co-pilot needed to do to survive in each case.
After an intense 3-hours’ briefing, covering everything that could go wrong, on this, one of the most complex and risky aviation record attempts in history, Richard Branson came away having written just eight words into his notepad;
“Keep the fire burning - that’s all that matters.”
By The Way, Are We On The Same Continent?
July 27, 2009
By The Way, Are We On The Same Continent?
by: Allan T. Price
I’m amused how little geographic location matters on the Internet. I often smile when I wonder if the person I’m chatting with is even on the same continent. Everyone in the world might as well be just across the street, if they are using the same messenger program or in the same chat room.
The irrelevance of distance and location is on my mind because I am expecting to have a rush of new Internet friends. I’ve just started an online novel writing course with Forward Movement Writers (FMWriter.com.). My classmates and I will all be looking at each others’ work, giving encouragement and ideas to each other. Three weeks in, having barely started out on the two year course, I’ve already got one great suggestion that inspired a new subplot. I’m sure I will ‘click’ with some of these aspiring writers and not with others. I’ll find some people who like the same books, think like me, and write the same way that I do. Plus I’ll encounter others who write and think very differently. I’m not sure which of these people I will create lasting friendships with, since difference is often interesting, and I want to chat with writers with different strengths and weaknesses. I dream of finding a complementary writer, and co-writing great books filled with my terrific plots and their awesome descriptions. This person probably exists somewhere in the world, and thanks to the Internet where they are located is fairly irrelevant.
How to Avoid the Biggest Mistakes Member Sites Make in Their Marketing Copy
July 26, 2009
If you have a web site to which people pay a periodic member fee, it’s likely that you belong to other member web sites and have done so for at least a year or two. Thus it’s easy for you to overlook the fact that to the average person, member web sites are either a relatively new phenomenon or a completely new phenomenon. It follows that you can’t afford any sloppiness or hanging back in making clear to your web site visitors that they are looking at an opportunity to sign up for a paid membership in your web site.
Several member web sites that I’ve been asked to review were sowing confusion in this regard by using both "Join" and "Subscribe" in inviting readers to become members. These words are not interchangeable, however, since we associate "join" with becoming a member of an organization, which normally costs money, and on the web, "subscribe" most often accompanies a invitation to sign up for a free newsletter.
To The Next Level With Google Groups 2
July 25, 2009
If you haven’t visited the Google Labs lately, they have released a beta of Google Groups 2 that you may want to check out. This is Google’s answer to Yahoo Groups, and they’ve added some new features to make their service more useful.
For those who don’t know, such groups allow anyone to easily and quickly start their own announcement lists and discussion forums. There is no need to install scripts or anything else on a web site, and no technical knowledge beyond email and posting to a discussion board is needed. If you want, you can use Google Groups to post to and read Usenet postings as well.
Of course, nothing is truly free, and Google Groups is no different. In exchange for making the technology available to host your group, Google displays relevant text ads on your group’s home page on Google. “Relevant” is determined by the content of your Google Group discussions. This is the same type of technology used by Google to display AdSense advertising on web sites and relevant text advertising on their free Gmail email service.
KEI Concerns and CID Alternative
July 24, 2009
Like many folks, I have been using KEI for some time now to determine what keywords I should target with my web site. And this has led me to becoming concerned with the results KEI provides and the keywords it suggests. I need to say here that my concern is very subjective as many folks are happily using KEI and don’t seem to have a problem with it.
My main concern with KEI is that, by the way it works, it strongly favours demand numbers without, I feel, sufficiently taking into account the corresponding supply numbers.
I need to say here that I interpret supply numbers as a representation of how competitive a keyword is. For example, if keyword 1 has a supply of 200,000 while keyword 2 has a supply of 5,000,000, then I would consider keyword 2 as being more competitive than keyword 1.
And all things being equal, I would prefer to target a keyword that is less competitive and with less demand, rather than a highly competitive keyword that has a higher demand. The reason for this is that I feel that I have a better chance of cornering a section of a less competitive market than I do that of a highly competitive one.
Changing to a New Host? No More Worries!
July 23, 2009
John’s online business is expanding. His customers are increasing day by day. However, he feels very frustrated at the moment as he finds his website is ‘down’ about every 4th day. Whenever he calls up the support team of his web host, he gets the same old answer that his problem will be rectified soon. If the problems do persist it will surely hamper his business. He has been with his present hosting provider for the last year but now he feels he has to find a new web host as soon as possible because his present hosting package is also not able to meet up with his growing demands. This is not a one-off occurrence that has happened only to John, it happens with many people like him. Changing the web host might become a cumbersome task if John and other people like him don’t know the correct procedure of doing it. So, let’s have a look at the following easy and simple steps:
