Ben Pei Dot Com is undergoing a custom theme renovation. My apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Do check back and be the first to witness the change and tell me what you think. Organising a big contest with big prizes ( and I mean really big!) along with my new theme.
Stay tuned.
Blogs are like ripe apples hanging on the tree ready to be picked, beautiful and oh so delicious. Indulging to it will never be a poison. . It can also be likened to a virus but the difference is the benefits blogs give and also because they are vastly and fast spreading around the globe.
Knowing the benefits of blogging will leave you lacked-jaw. In terms of personal necessity, blog acts as an avenue for you to express yourself. It can serve as a memory bank for articles you dragged from the internet. It functions like an organizer and thus keeps you updated on everything. A blog is nevertheless a personal website.
The functions of blog never stopped there. In the field of businesses, blog is also being used as an instrument. There are more than a handful of companies that has adapted blogs to push their businesses at the summit. Focusing to the power of the internet, these companies managed to trust blog for the growth of their businesses. They have actually gambled in a sure win game. Knowing how many people surf the web everyday these companies are genius giants.
That’s for the giants of the arena of business, but how about those smaller enterprises? Does blogs suit them? By all means, yes.
These small enterprises or we may address as home based businesses is no different from those gigantic ones. They follow the same system only that the former has lower capital as compared to the latter. So what’s supposed to be the rub in there? In the first place, as we are dealing with, blogs are acquired for free. Aside from that, unlike the mainstream websites, blogs has low or even no maintenance cost. You can utilize it in no limited time and in the price of none.
Small businesses or home based ones needs more blog than any other businesses. Or shall we be more specific by saying that such type of businesses necessitates more promotions than that of the mainstream businesses. Since their business place is far off from the central marketplace, people need to be informed and be aware of the existence of these smaller enterprises through blogging. By means of blogging, these types of businesses are given chance to be known and be noticed. They can gather audience and later on customer by means of these super business channels- Blogs.
To add to that, let us take these advantages of blog for home based businesses:
» Blogs are all-you-need package. HTML is hard to learn and a little time consuming. By using blogs you will no longer problem the appearance since it is preset for convenience purposes.
» You can post any thing on blogs without any hassle at all. Plus you can post any time. Nonetheless, posting is not a problem.
» Since basically blogs are not e-mail communication, spam has no place in it.
» Blogs are convenient to the point that you can make many of it.
With these entire advantages all for free means a business with high profits.
But having a blog for your business requires a little of attention and as you wait for the profit will cost you patience. Anyway, what is business without these two? For you to reach the number of desired audience and customer, listed below are a piece of advice. It will not be a burden or a heck on but rather a better proposition.
You must update your blog every now and then. New updates mean another to look forward to on the side of your audience. In as often as possible, you may update your blog at least thrice every week. It will let your audience ask for more. Never overlook all current information and issues that will surely catch their attention.
Your blog must have a place for comments, reactions and suggestions. It will help you reach the audiences tastes and desires through their own feedbacks. Criticisms are very essential tool for growth. Just take every criticism positively.
Do not forget to link your blogs to other resources. It will help not just you and your business but also your customers
Simplicity is not ugly. Complicated layout and color will attract customers easily and also can shoo them easily too. Remember that content is more important than anything else in your blog.
Lastly, take all your good values intact. That will require you of an ample of patience, comforting aura, proper relationship through words, etc. You may not have more audience at first, expect that. Just work on and dream big.
The entire earth is waiting for your business to be known. Take that mouse and make your own blog.
It is not just a matter of posting your article in free article sites. Remember that your mission is to offer something that your potential client can not resist. It is like hypnotizing him using your articles.
Before anything else, what are the qualities of a well-written article?
First, it must help you put up your profile as an expert. The article will be reflected to its writer. Just like your website, articles must be considered to be your alter-ego. So it must be well-written to portray your expertise in online business industry.
Second, it must be able to draw traffic to your site. The popularity of your site and the products or services that offered there will be dependent on the amount of web traffic that is occurring inside your site.
Lastly, it must help you to put up a database of potential customers through e-courses or newsletter. Once your site is now familiar, you can now make ties with different sites to further increase web traffic.
Anyone can make an article. You just know the basics of article writing (it has an introduction, content, and ending statements; grammar and spelling must be observe) then you are on the go. You can also hire writers to produce more that can be published in several articles sites around the web.
But the question is, can you attract your readers? Can you make them say “Yes” on the things that you are offering for them? Can you lure them to click that link below the article that you have written?
In article writing, it is important that your readers are the Very Important Persons (VIP) in the web. Put them first in your list. Give them what they really need in you. You must turn them into long-term clients and not just one-time visitor. Think of what they want to know, not what you want to tell them
Still clueless of how will you do things right to win your reader’s approval? Here are the four tips that you can follow to pull your readers and make them say “Yes”:
1. Find out what are your reader’s interests. If you are specializing in infant supplies, then provide articles about the infant’s needs and why they need it. If you lack the necessary information that will be feed to your readers, then have an extensive research. Log-on to different forums and acquire relevant details on things that you want to promote.
2. When you are now writing an article, start it with attention-grabbing title and introduction. It is all right if you take your time constructing it. Make it interesting—something that will lure them to read the preceding contents. For instance, if you are promoting diet pills, then try to make some introduction that will pertain on a single person having some difficult problems in losing weight. Make the reader feel that you are addressing him/her face-to-face.
3. Include in the contents all things that should be included. Readers need facts, details, tips, and strategies, so include it. However, make your style of writing in a natural and relaxed way. Although your readers want that information, they also look forward for some entertainment-type of article. Make it worth reading, not worth deleting.
4. You must not loose that excitement even the article is about to end. That is one of the greatest problem of writers—how to end like they are the superheroes in their own game. Make sure that excitement still lives on while the reader does non click yet your link. You can have ending statement such as “So, what are you waiting for; get started today!” You can also include humorous quotes. Maybe, that smile of your reader will bring some bright opportunities for you.
Article writing is not only for advertising. It is also for informing and possibly, amusing your readers as well. You can say that you are winning in the game when these people already click that direct link going to your website. So start to pull you readers—make your articles be hypnotizing; something like everybody in this planet will dream of having you.
There is not much difference between a big time and an unheard of company or business when it comes to joint ventures.
You have probably heard of rags to riches stories of how some people are making millions by getting into joint ventures. What makes their stories amazing is that before they got into the alliance, they were unknown entities making a decent income.
Joint ventures made the sudden boosts in their businesses.
This strategic alliance, or joint ventures, is a type of organization where businesses work together to share knowledge, profits and markets. Joint ventures can take on a variety of structures.
Small companies can combine to take on the “big sharks” in their industry. While big companies form alliances with faster and small businesses with the right potential.
It is also possible for smaller companies to form an alliance with companies that have big name to be able to expand their geographic reach.
It is estimated that 25% of all revenues for the year 2005 alone, which total to 40 trillion dollars, is all because of businesses going into joint ventures with other businesses. This is enough reason for small businesses not to ignore the benefits that joint ventures can give them.
What are some of the valuable opportunities you can get from joint ventures?
1. You can cut down on the time-consuming business development. If you have a small business, getting into joint ventures will minimize the need to create new products and the knowledge to be able to expand your market. These things do not happen instantly, they take time.
With joint ventures, you get more leads, advance expertise and accumulate fewer costs.
2. You get to improve your business’ credibility. This is the most common problems encountered by new businesses. They struggle to gain credibility within their target market and customer base.
An alliance with already known and trusted company will significantly advance your credibility with your customers.
3. You can have new sources of revenues. Normally, small companies do not have enough capital and resources needed for growth.
By getting into a joint venture with a sound and stable partner, your sales force will be sales force and channels will be expanded for a lower cost.
4. You can be shielded from your competitors. With the many existing competitors out there, there is a big probability that they will try to infiltrate through your business.
A partnership will major key companies will help lessen that. You get to build solid walls to keep your competitors out while retaining high profit boundaries.
With all these benefits up for grabs, you are probably too eager to start thinking of going into joint ventures. But then, do not start rushing to get into the first ones that you see. A badly executed and poorly planned joint venture is likely to be doomed early on.
What are the secrets of a successful joint ventures?
1. A clear objective. You have to know what you want to achieve from the start. The partner you chose may not have the same goals but at least they should be complimentary to yours.
2. The right partner. The best partnership should put you both in a win-win situation. Take some time to find the company that has an interest in joint ventures and has similar objectives set. If what you want is not in line with what they want, your ideas will probably clash sooner or later.
3. Plan the venture. Work out a plan on how you will go about negotiating and the tactics you can use. You have to understand the different aspects of the deal you are getting into. What is primary on your mind is to enter into a win-win venture.
4. Manage the alliance well. It is said that a joint venture relationship is like a marriage. Its foundation should be built on understanding and trust. The real work takes place once an effective alliance is formed. If you find yourself in one, treasure it as you would something that is valuable to you.
Joint ventures can work effectively for all the parties concerned. You just have to understand the processes involved so make the relationship smooth-sailing.
But first, go find yourself a good one.
Technorati Profile
The percentage behind affiliate marketing is that:
20 percent of affiliates produce 80 percent of all income; while
80 percent of affiliates generate 20 percent of all income.
Ironic but true.
You would almost certainly want to be one of those 20 percent that is earning the 80 percent of the total earnings. Who wouldn’t?
Follow these basic steps and you will find yourself sharing the profits that the most fortunate ones are getting.
1. The best affiliate marketer cover their web site links. Cloaking affiliate links may not seem necessary, but it actually is. Apparently, visitors will not tend to click on your link when they see that it is leading to an affiliate program on your site once they point their mouse over them.
The usual tendency is for them to go directly to the affiliate domain. Thus ignoring your affiliate ID from the URL displayed. The best way to avoid this problem is by covering your URL. There are cloaking tools available over the Internet that you can take advantage of.
2. Successful affiliate marketers create and distribute their articles. Writing articles regarding your market niche is necessary to expand your reputation as a specialist in your field.
You can get the greatest benefits not just from writing these articles but also from getting those articles published and reprinted by other site owners and ezine publishers. Your articles will then give you both reputation and links from other web sites because of the resource box attached at the each of each article.
3. Affiliate marketers focus on a market niche. Loading your site with content that is focused on a certain product or service niche is one way of getting more web traffic in your target market.
There are tools over the Internet that can help you point out market niches that is important for your website.
4. Top affiliate marketers uses autoresponders. Autoresponders are important tools that makes you capable of sending a timed series of email messages to those persons that signed up for them.
Most of the time, these autoresponders are sent through by a third party provider. Look for the best provider that will cater to your autoreponder needs.
5. Smart affiliate marketers build web pages in order to pre-sell. Create either testimonial pages or review pages that talk about and pre-sell the product or service you are affiliated with. This is the best method of getting increased orders for your chosen affiliate programs.
Many programs truly offer an article or recommended text to sell their products for you and permits duplication of those articles with your links implanted.
6. An outstanding affiliate marketer collects email addresses. The best affiliates gather email addresses on their web site by presenting free reports thru autoresponders,giving out ebooks and newsletter signup forms.
This method is best used in building your own list of email addresses to contact. This also lets you contact potential customers that clicked away once they got into the raffiliate program website.
7. Top affiliate marketers markets everywhere. You can advertise using PPC or ezine advertising depending on your market niche. Some categories of Pay-per-click can be expensive, but advertising somewhere is needed to get additional traffic to your site.
There are some good bargains in ezine advertising and some less popular PPC engines other than Yahoo’s Overture and Google’s Adwords you can check out.
8. Affiliate marketers optimize for the search engines. Search engine optimization is now getting more complex as new and more webmasters participate. But the basics put into your site can add to your visibility over time. Technorati Profile
The most critical of the many SEO techniques is the use title tags that shows individual page content. Many webmasters write a master title tag and apply that site-wide. This is the worst thing you could do for search engine ranking.
9. Affiliate marketers have their own mailing lists. The best of affiliate marketers have their own newsletter or ezine and gather email addresses on their site to build their list of subscribers.
Having this list allows regular contact with potential customers interested in your site, your product and your market niche.
If you understand and make use of the above mentioned techniques, you can be one of the top people that are making it big in affiliate marketing. What are you waiting for?
Twitter has an insurmountable number of applications from the very useful to the rather comical . It’s hard to weed through and find the truly great applications/services.
To better help you in your Twittering efforts, I’ve put together a list of 5 great tools to help you monitor your followers and unfollowers… since we all know is about that ratio. Hopefully you find the list useful. If there are some I’ve neglected to add or if you know of other ones please leave a comment with a description and a link
Twellow Followers
Twellow, The Twitter Yellow Pages, has many features that range from extended profiles to Twellowhood (one of my personal favorite Twitter tools on the Internet).
Mixed in with the plethora of features that Twellow offers is an unsung hero which is just simply called “Followers”. With this you can easily see who is reciprocally following you. But, the best part of Followers is… you can follow or unfollow directly from Twellow. No clicking to go back to Twitter, you can get the job done without leaving the page.
Qwitter
Qwitter is a nice little service that emails you when someone stops following you on Twitter with a message, below is an example.
John Gruber (gruber) stopped following you on Twitter after you posted this tweet:
What’s the difference between Arial and Helvetia?
That’s pretty much it… no extra frills.
Friend or Follow
Friend or Follow is pretty self-explanatory, you enter in your Twitter username and it gives you three tabs of information:
- Following
- Fans
- Friends
Following (who your following, but not following you back), fans (who’s following you, but your not following them back) and friends (people who you follow and they follow you back.
TweetLater
TweetLater is an online service that has an abundance of features ranging from scheduling tweets to Ping.fm integration. They offer a free account as well as a paid professional account.
Buried deep within the features of TweetLater is the option to “Follow those who follow you” and “Unfollow those who unfollow you”. This is completely automated and set by the user:
- Follow those who follow you – Automate!
Automatically follow people who follow you and save a ton of time while your Friends list builds itself.
- Unfollow those who unfollow you – Automate!
Automatically unfollow somoene when they unfollow you if that is how you prefer to manage your Friends list.
Twitterless
Twitterless is an online service that notifies you when any Twitterer stops following you, and gives you their username. But, they don’t stop there. They take it one step further and give you a graphed out “follower history” over a period of time to help you understand where your gaining or losing followers.
They also offer follower filters that give you a more descriptive view of your followers. You can filter in real time and search using keywords to see if your followers are talking about anything that interest you.
The main purpose of creating a viral e-book is to pass it on to as much people as possible with only minimal effort on the author’s part. To be able to pass it on to others, it should be in the form that can easily be accessed and opened by other people.
After you have accomplished authoring your viral e-book, the next thing you have to do before it actually gets to the hands of other people is to compile it. There are two ways that you can do it, either to compile it as an exe file or as a pdf file.
EXE, which means executable, is the file extension for files created by e-book compilers. PDF, or portable document format, is the extension of files created with Adobe Acrobat. In the World Wide Web, PDF e-books are considered to be the industry standard.
Advantages of PDF over EXE files
1. If you choose to compile your viral e-book using Adobe Acrobat, you do not have to create an HTML web page for every page of your e-book. A simple MS Word document will do.
2. When you compile using Acrobat, the PDF file automatically numbers each of the pages. EXE compilers do not have that function.
3. PDF files are relatively easy to edit. New pages can be added; you can also delete or replace pages. Page numbers will automatically adjust itself once you modify the pages. EXE files are actually fixed once compiled and cannot be edited. You have to compile a new one to be able to change your e-book.
4. You can print PDF files a lot easier than EXE files.
5. PDF files have a bookmark tab on the left side of the page. Using this feature makes navigating around the file much easier than in an EXE file.
6. When PDF files are compressed, the file sizes are significantly smaller than EXE files because PDF converters compress better.
7. PDF files are not at all susceptible to viruses since they are just simple files, unlike EXE files which are like programs or applications. EXE files are more prone to carrying and transmitting virus and end up being corrupted.
8. Last but not the least, PDF files are universal. As long as the computer has an installed Acrobat Reader, PDF files can be opened and viewed, whether the computer is a PC or a Mac. EXE files are not read on a Mac computer.
Since your main goal is to expand your target market, considering this fact would not harm. According to the Nielsen Netratings, over 8% of the US online population use Mac. It may not be a huge number but can still be significant in the increase of your potential customers.
Advantages of EXE files over PDF files
On the other hand, EXE files also have their own set of advantages over PDF files.
1. e-Book compilers, the software that create the EXE files, are just a fraction of the cost of Adobe Acrobat. Though there are a number of PDF creators recently released that are also cheap, e-book compilers still have the advantage in terms of price.
2. The most important advantage of EXE files over PDF files is its ability to allow rebranding of the e-book. Some of the e-book compilers such as e-Book Generator, e-Book Edit, and e-Book Paper have built-in rebranding function.
If viral e-book is your tool for doing viral marketing, granting rebranding rights is the key to your success. Allowing rebranding of your e-book will guarantee increased promotion and distribution because people can modify the book with their affiliate codes to earn incentives.
If you want increased exposure by having more people able to view and read your e-book, then go with PDF files. Not only that it is readable with a PC or a Mac, it also has relatively small file size compared to EXE files.
But if your main concern is giving out free customization and rebranding rights to your e-book for wider distribution, then you must better go with e-book compilers to produce an EXE file.
Given the different advantages of one type over the other, it is really up to you, the author, to choose which one you think will work best for you. Both types have their own good sets of advantages. It is just a matter of determining your priorities for your e-book and basing your decision from those priorities.
This post is dedicated to all office workers out there.
If you work in an office then I am pretty sure there were mornings when you dragged yourself out of bed and then tell yourself you’re going to do this for the rest of your life. Now, if you still aren’t discouraged enough then let me share with you 10 cruel facts about working in an office cubicle.
1) Being told to “Think outside the box” when you are in the darn cubicle all day.
2) Not being able to check e-mail attachments without first checking who is behind you.
3) Fabric cubicle walls do not offer much protection from any kind of gun fire.
4) 23 power cords, 1 power outlet.
5) Prison cells are not only bigger, they have beds.
6) When tours come through, you get peanuts thrown at you.
7) Can’t slam the door when you quit and walk out.
If you talk to yourself, it causes all the surrounding cubicle inhabitants to pop their heads over and say “What? I didn’t hear you.”
9) If our boss calls you and asks you to go into his office for a minute, the walk there is like a funeral march. People hand you tissues as you pass and refuse to make eye contact.
10) You always have the feeling that someone is watching you, but by the time you turn around, they’re gone!
Now my friends, how have these cold hard facts hit you? It’s about time you consider laying your office job aside and consider the alternative of making money online. Subquently, I will write reasons to making money online and the numerous way which you can work on.
Good news guys! Creator of Atomic Blogging 3.0, Alvin Phang has just launched a twitter product called the Twitter Online System and it has just gone live.
I witnessed Alvin’s twitter follower when it was stuck at 400 and my followers were 600 at that time. After constant testing and researching, he has found a method which helped him increase his twitter followers by 400% and actually monetizing it. He was kind enough to introduce this Twitter Online System to me and you can see for yourself where I am at now, close to 7,000 followers and actually making money from it. Check out my testimonial for him at his website: Twitter Online System
Here is what you will get in this system:
- How Alvin Increases His Twitter Followers By 400% In Just Days!
- The Biggest Mistake Made By 99% Of Twitter Users That Professional Twitter Users Do Not Want You To Know
- Discover The Incredible Tool That Helped Generate A Whopping 230,000 New Followers Online!
- Finally Revealed: The Secrets To Building A Twitter Empire That Earns Over US$100,000 Per Year
- Automate Your Content Creation And Followers In Twitter!
So without further ado, I invite you to join me over at Alvin’s new Twitter Online System launch and check out his product. You will only love it! Make yourself a twitter superstar today!
Writing an article doesn’t just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the interest of your readers and get them to keep on reading. To send your message across you have to get the attention of the reader and have a firm grasp of their interest and pique their curiosity.
The main ingredient in baking up an article is a large dose of creativity. While creativity may come natural to many people, some just gets into a block or something to that effect that can drive someone crazy. Many writers have literally torn their hair out when they get writers block and just can’t seem to get their creative juices flowing.
Putting words into images in the readers mind is an art. A clear and crisp depiction requires a certain flair that only creativity can provide. Similes and metaphors help a lot, but the way an article gets entwined word for word, sentence by sentence then paragraph by paragraph into a whole article develops the essence of the article.
So just what do you have to do when nothing comes to mind? There is no surefire ways to get the perfect ideas but there are easy ways to get your creative juices flowing. No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but many methods may aid you in achieving that state of mind. Here are five easy ways for that.
1) Keep a diary or a journal with you always. Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into a journal and keep it with you for future reference. You may also write down anything that you have read or heard, someone’s ideas could be used to develop your own ideas and this is not stealing. Remember that ideas and creativity can come from anywhere; it’s the development of the idea that makes it unique.
2) Relax and take time to sort things out. A jumbled mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Everyone must have a clear mind if one wishes to have their creativity in full speed. Get rid of all obstacles that can be a hindrance to your creativity. If you are bothered by something, you cannot force your mind to stay focused.
Try to relax every time that you can and think about your experiences and interactions with others. Your experiences are what shape your mindset and your opinions which could be reflected on your writings. Try to discover yourself, find out what triggers your emotions. Discover what inspires you and what ticks you off. You can use these emotions to help you in expressing yourself and your ideas, with this you can grow creatively.
3) Create a working place that can inspire your creativeness. Your working place can be quite a hindrance if it doesn’t make you feel happy or relaxed. Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind and a messed up workplace that causes distraction won’t be conducive in firing up your creative flow.
Surround your working place with objects that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures, or scents, objects that inspire, or anything that can get your creativeness cranking. A clean and well organized workplace also rids of distractions and unwanted hindrances. With a good working place, you can work in peace and never notice the time pass by.
4) Set the mood. Setting the mood requires you to just go with the moment or to induce your self to feeling what makes your mind works best. Finding out what makes you tick could help you find ways to get your creative juices flowing. Set the pace and tempo for your mood and everything else will follow.
There are many ways to set the mood. Some writers have been known to use alcohol, a little sip of wine to stir up the imagination. Some would like some mood music while others let the lighting of the environment create the mood.
5) Go on a getaway and just do something unlike crazy. Letting yourself go and have fun produces adrenaline that can make your imagination go wild. Take an adventure or a solemn hike. Whatever it is that is unusual from your daily routine can take the rut out of your schedule. In no time at all, your creativeness will make use of that experience and get your imagination to go on overdrive.
