Sample Content Preview

Introduction

In today’s 24/7 connected, digital world, we see people who seem to accomplish their achievements quickly. Everyone, it seems, is on social media, showing off what they have and how they got it. But, have you ever wondered how they really accomplished what they set out to do? Do you wonder if they put in any effort to achieve their success, or was it pure luck that they were able to accomplish their goals so quickly?

While a majority of us know what we want to do in the beginning and have a clear picture of how we see ourselves as successful in the end, but many of us are lost when it comes to what happens in the middle. We wonder what it takes to actually make it to the end and accomplish everything that we’ve set out to do in our life.

If you feel a little lost about what happens between the beginning and the end, don’t worry, you’re not alone. It seems that no one really knows the exact steps to follow in order to make success happen. Don’t worry, by the end of this book, you’re going to learn about what happens in the middle and learn what you need to do to follow through to the end, where you finally find success. Every goal, no matter what it is, has a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is simply the point in time where you decide what you want to do, essentially, your goal. The middle is where you have to put the work in to reach your goals. This is where most people lose their traction and stray from the path, because they may not know how to continue on, or they may not want to put in the work that it takes to accomplish their goals and achieve success. The end is where you have achieved your goals and met success.

Everyone has a different idea of what success looks like for them. For some, success is passing a difficult class, for others it could be putting the finishing touches on an old car they’ve been rebuilding for the last year, while others view success as finally landing their dream job. The following strategies will show you how to work the middle, so you can become a success at anything.

Learn the steps that will put you on the road to success. Time is of the essence, so you will want to begin as soon as possible if you want to reach your end results and achieve your goals. With these simple strategies, you’ll find that you can achieve more in six months than you have in the past several years of your life.

Chapter 1 – What is Inner Drive?

Inner drive is often referred to as motivation, which is defined as “internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a role, job, or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal.” In essence, inner drive is the force that pushes you to continue to work toward accomplishing your goals and obtaining the life you desire.

Unfortunately, not everyone possesses an inner drive or has the motivation to accomplish their goals. While some people find it easy to be motivates, others aren’t so lucky and find it challenging. Despite the importance of motivation in life, many people don’t possess the quality for a variety of reasons. Others may only suffer from the occasional loss of motivation. If you’re one of those people who don’t think they possess inner drive, here are some reason you may be lacking.

Ignorance

It maybe that you don’t realize that you lack motivation in your life. You may have the erroneous notion that all is well in your life. You may feel that whatever you can’t achieve in life is simply unachievable and leave the rest up to luck. Unfortunately, if you are ignorant about your lack of motivation, then you will find it extremely hard to achieve your goals and find success.

Depression

Another powerful force that can lead to a lack of inner drive is depression. If you are depressed, you naturally lose interest in your environment and other things. This can degenerate into a lack of motivation. According to experts, one of the most common symptoms of depression is anhedonia. This is merely a lack of interest in any activity, especially activities that were once enjoyable. The impact this can have on your lack of motivation can lead to failure in reaching your goals.

Procrastination

Something else that may be affecting your inner drive is procrastination. The need to continually shift your daily tasks until another time is both a negative and destructive trait that should be addressed immediately. Pushing your tasks off until later will only give you a backlog of tasks that you will find difficult to find the motivation to start. Procrastination can take away your motivation and replace it with excuses for not reaching your goals.

Low Self-Confidence

Having faith in yourself is a great way to stay motivated in life. When you lack faith in yourself, you will find it impossible to find success. Low self-confidence will stop you from daring to be different and make you wrongly believe that you don’t have what it takes to be successful. Unfortunately, you may believe these negative things about yourself and find it challenging to push yourself forward in your quest for success.

Lack of Courage

To keep moving forward and pushing ahead you need courage in all aspects of your life. When the path to success becomes blocked with difficulties and troubles, some people just give up, because it is the easiest thing for them to do. Lack of courage will eventually lead to the absence of the desire to move forward and to work in alignment with your goals. If you give up when others are lacing their boos, you will end up lacking the inner drive to see your dreams through.

Chapter 2 – Finding Your Focus

Have you ever started something, only to find out later that you didn’t complete it? There are many factors that could contribute to your incomplete tasks and goals, one being focus. Focus plays a vital role on your path to success. With all the distractions that we have to content with these days, especially in the digital age, there is one thing that will make or break your path to achieving your goals: focus. Focus is being able to complete your tasks without being distracted by what’s going on around you. If you have strong focus, you’ll be able to get more done. While you can focus on anything, you really want to concentrate more on the completion of your goals. Your focus will become the foundation of everything you will be doing to accomplish your goals and achieve success.

To Focus is to Concentrate

It can be challenging to concentrate on anything when you are constantly bombarded with various notifications, dings, and pings. These are just some of the common disturbances that you can face, because everyone has a cell phone that chirps and chimes. Unfortunately we’ve been trained to look at our phones every time we hear these chirps and dings to see what’s happening because we have what is known as “fear of missing out.”

Sample Content Preview

Chapter 1 – How and Why Creative Marketing Works

Today's business market is an extremely competitive place. More businesses enter the fray all the time: for the past ten years, more than 750,000 new startups spring into existence across North America. Unfortunately, over 60 percent of new businesses fail in the first four years.

Why do they fail? According to a study performed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, there are three main reasons startup businesses fold:

- Lack of financial planning
- Poor sales skills
- Poorly planned and executed marketing

Creative marketing addresses all three of these concerns. It is one of the most successful marketing methods available, and since it is low-cost and high-impact, you won't need a huge advertising budget to take advantage of this powerful strategy.

What you will need is a basic understanding of how and why Creative marketing works.

The Element of Surprise

One of the reasons Creative marketing works is that the methods are often unexpected. Many Creative campaigns are highly visible, and contain some sort of element that is unique to the business using it.

Though it is something of a cliché by now, you should be prepared to “think outside the box” when it comes to planning your Creative marketing campaign. The classic, expensive methods of advertising your business should be employed sparingly, if at all. These include:

- Yellow page advertisements
- Newspaper or magazine advertisements
- Radio or television commercials

Think about it: when is the last time you were heavily influenced by a yellow page, newspaper, magazine, radio, or television advertisement? The fact is that today’s consumers are so bombarded with advertising messages, they’ve learned to tune out the traditional sources.

As a Creative marketer, your goal is to catch them off-guard, and advertise in unexpected places. Many times, consumers won’t even recognize your marketing efforts as advertising.

The good news is: you can usually do this for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising venues. Creative marketing trades effort for money. You will work harder on your marketing than a mega-corporation with a million-dollar ad budget, but if you are persistent and creative in your efforts, they will pay off.

It Pays to Be Different

Remember the old Arby’s slogan: “Different is Good”? This catchy little phrase could serve as a basic premise for one of the primary reasons Creative marketing tactics are so successful.

You might have a product or service that is completely unique. However, the chances are greater that you’re competing with dozens or hundreds of other businesses for the same market share. One of the strengths of Creative marketing is the ability to capitalize on the aspect or aspects of your business that make you different -- and therefore worthy enough for consumers to spend their hard-earned money on your product or service.

So, what’s different about your business? Here is a brief list of possibilities to investigate. Your business might offer:

- The best, friendliest, or most attentive customer service.
- The lowest prices.
- Products that are higher quality than the competition.
- A wider range of products than other businesses in your area or field.
- The simplest ordering methods.
- Fast, convenient, and/or reliable delivery.
- More expertise in your area than your competition.
- The most informative and easiest to navigate website.

This aspect of your business is sometimes referred to as your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. Once you have determined your USP, you know what makes your business different -- and different is good!

Controls and Variables

As with any marketing campaign, there are a lot of different variables that concern the outcome of your Creative marketing efforts. Some have to do with your business, which is often largely in your control. Others have to do with your customers, which are not always under your control.

Sample Content Preview

INTRODUCTION

As a business owner, you know the importance of having other people know about your business. Advertising is rarely an option. Even those huge companies that you know well, who do not need to advertise (because you will likely go to them repeatedly) put a good deal of their profits back into advertising their business.

As a small business owner, marketing your business is important. It does not matter if your business is a small one, such as a local repair shop or retail store, or a larger one, finding the right way to communicate with your prospective clients is critical.

One of the biggest concerns a business has is getting their potential clients to know about them. You know you have a great service. You are confident that you can wow the customer with your abilities. Yet, they do not call. They do not come in to your store. They do not visit your website. The only way to help this process is by spreading the word about your business and letting everyone know what it is and what it can do for them.

Do you have a strong advertising background? Most small business owners (offline and online) do not. Yet, you do not need to have this type of advertising background to find success through advertising means. The more creative and direct you are, the more successful you will be. Keep in mind some things you do not want to do such as promising more than you can offer. However, be as creative as you can be if you hope to attract new customers to your business.

This book outlines the tips and strategies your business needs to do well in 2018, a year that promises to offer new opportunities, new insight and plenty of profit for those businesses that can provide they can advertise well. However, this is an area of business that is changing. If you are to find success in business in your 2018 advertising strategy, you need to stand out from the crowd and approach advertising in new and interesting ways. This book provides you with 101 ways to build an effective advertising plan.

HOW IS ADVERTISING DIFFERENT IN 2018?

Advertising a business is still as important as ever. Each year, thousands of new companies open their doors. Internationally, hundreds of thousands of businesses get their start. Many of these businesses are direct competition for you. With that understood, it is important to consider a few more important details about advertising.

STAND OUT OR NEVER BE KNOWN

With advertising, you need to be more creative than ever if you are going to stand out. A simple ad in the local newspaper is not enough to generate enough talk about your business to have people interested enough. A small banner ad on a moderately sized website is still not enough to generate the type of income that your business is looking for. More so, the times have changed. Consumers themselves are more used to shock advertising than ever. A scandal may hurt one person, but it can often bring higher revenues to a company. However, now, people have very high standards in where they shop, what they buy and what they pay for it.

To further to explore that topic, consider these important factors when it comes to advertising your business.

1. It is easier for the consumer to do the same thing repeatedly. In other words, they are not going to go out of their way to visit your location or to remember your website’s domain name unless you have something that is new enough to them to make them want to do so. If it is easier to do something else, though, people will do that.

2. People do not want to pay more money for something. If you cannot compete with big companies, include those large department stores that seem to outdo every other company out there, then consumers will not pay attention to your business. Use your advertising budget to differentiate your business from the businesses of others. This is more important in 2018 because it now is more important than ever for people to watch every penny they spend.

3. Forget about misleading ads or promising more than you can offer. Most consumers are wise enough to see right through the advertisements that are obviously too good to be true. Consumers also do not want you to spam them, to overwhelm them with mail or email just to learn about your product or service.

4. There is more game in town. That means that there are more people competing for those all important ad spaces on your favorite websites. This may mean that your average advertising dollar is not going to do as much as you had hoped that it would. On the other hand, it may provide you with an ideal option for doing something big that is memorable.

5. The Internet, television, newspaper and even direct mail is all interconnected today. Your message needs to be strong enough to reach across all of these playing fields properly. If you use conflicting information, you will simply confuse your company. There are a few things to point out, in addition, that are more positive. For example, today’s consumer is well aware of the price of products, but they are still looking for a good deal. Getting more for their money is always going to be a big factor for the average consumer. Look for ways to add something to the product you are offering that helps it to stand out from the rest of the world’s products.

More so, consumers are knowledgeable. They are happy to learn about new companies, but they want to learn about them before they will use them. Either through your website or through your advertising, you need to communicate who your business is, what it has to offer as well as what makes it unique and better than the rest.

IMPORTANT MESSAGES IN 2018

There are a few important messages that you want to use within the advertising that you do in 2018. These messages are what people are looking for.

1. Cost effectiveness: Price is a strong, important tool especially as more consumers are looking for a way to save money after taken advantage of by lenders, leaders and investments.

2. Environmental friendly: Today, people expect a business to be doing everything that it can to actually save the world. In your advertising, this can and sometimes should be the message that you give. Show the world that your business is committed to providing a safe haven for the environment.

3. Something new: Having a product that is new and better than someone else’s product is going to make an impression that you want to make on your customers. Although not all businesses will have the same level of expectation on this front, many business owners should advertise that they have something that trumps the other person’s product.

4. Easy access: With people saving more money, working more jobs to make ends meet and going out of their way to get the best of the best, it is important to alter customers that you have a product that is easy for them to use or easy for them to get to. Virtually all small businesses need to be online in 2018, even if you are not serving the entire Internet, but a local market. People turn to the web to learn what is happening and to find what they are looking for.

5. Trustworthy: Yet another important advertising method for 2018 will be trustworthiness. Of course, with so many people feeling taken advantage of by the horrors of the last few years, it is important to distance yourself and your business from those companies. Focus instead on being a company that is trusted, secure and a great place to be.

When you put all of this together, you will have the right advertising plan for your business. Throughout the rest of this book, you will find more than 100 tips and tricks to help you to advertise your business in 2018. Is this year any different from last? Of course it is. Today, it is even harder to get in front of others than ever and people expect a lot more than ever before.

CREATE AN ADVERTISING PLAN

Can your business make it? With the right advertising plan, your business can excel. Take the time to consider the following tips and methods to improving your business advertising plan. Use as many of these methods as is possible, but do put together a cohesive plan that outlines your goals first.

What does your advertising plan include? How many of the following types of advertising methods can you use? Consider the following steps.

1. Look at each of the advertising methods mentioned here.

Determine which of these is most beneficial for your business. If it is a possibility, note that it is. If the plan seems to be a good one right off the bat, mark it as that. If there is no chance of it being usable for your business, you should cross it off.

Sample Content Preview

INTRODUCTION

The publishing industry remained virtually unchanged for decades in terms of how books are published. The writer would write a fiction or nonfiction book, hire an agent, select a publisher, and eventually a book would be printed. Of course, printing and marketing a book are two entirely different things. The point is that once the printing process was developed, books were destined to be printed for hundreds of years on paper.

The printed book still remains the most common and popular method of publishing. Five-hundred thousand or more new titles are published every year. But there is an emerging trend that is expected to eventually change the world of publishing. Electronic books available online that can be downloaded to special readers or desktop computers are becoming more and more popular. In fact what people seem to be waiting for before this form of publishing explodes is a more comfortable reader, more available titles, and time to adjust to the idea of pages that are electronic rather than printed.

When you talk to people about books, many get a faraway look in their eyes. They are thinking of those wonderful moments before going to sleep with a book in their hands. They are remembering those golden moments when the day’s struggles and worries are over and it’s time to get lost in another world contained in the pages. This may seem like a romantic view of the books, but people who enjoy reading talk about the feel of the book’s page in their hands and the words that can convey emotions, actions, concepts, failures, and successes.

And for every person that loves to read there is most likely someone who wants to publish a book. There are millions of people who have a story inside of them but are afraid to tackle the world of book publishing. How do you compete with the likes of Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, Kathy Reichs, or any of the hundreds of other popular authors whose books have prominent places on bookstore shelves?

There is a way. The publishing industry is always looking for new authors that can appeal to both mass audiences and to niche markets. You don’t have to be the next Edgar Allen Poe or Sandra Brown to become a published author. You can simply be…you. Almost everyone seems to have a book “in them” but what separates the real author from the wouldbe author is first writing the book and second finding a way to get it published.

If you have a passion to write a book then you need a passion to get it published. Today there are two main choices: traditional books printed on paper and electronic books. Within the electronic book publishing industry there are even more options including eBooks, print-on-demand books, and books that can be downloaded to a special portable reader.

In the following sections the process of getting a book published is reviewed. There will be a discussion about the writing process, finding an agent, choosing a publisher, working with an editor, and marketing the book. There is also a section on electronic publishing using Amazon as an example of industry trends. Book publishing has never been more accessible to potential authors then it is today. That is good news for anyone who is ready to publish!

OVERVIEW OF THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

As mentioned, the publishing industry offers several options for getting your book published.

TRADITIONAL PRINT PUBLISHERS

The traditional print publisher prints a book on pages, adds a cover, binds the pages, and then reproduces it in as many copies as believed to be sellable. But first you have to get your book to the publisher before any of this can happen. That can happen in one of two ways.

- Submit to an editor who works for a publisher
- Submit directly to the publisher

In the chapter titled All About Publishers there is a lengthy discussion about publisher and the selection process.

SELF PUBLISHING

Self-publishing is exactly what it sounds like: you take most or all of the responsibility for printing, cover design, binding, reproduction, marketing, and distribution of the book. You can self-publish a printed book or you can self-publish an electronic version of your book or you can choose a print-on-demand option. Some authors choose to publish both print and electronic versions of their book in the hopes of selling more books. When you do everything yourself, you also assume all the up-front expenses. That is why there has been growth in the businesses that assist self-publishers. One of the fastest growing self-publishing areas is electronic publishing. Even sellers of print books, like Amazon, have added self-publishing units that give authors a forum for getting their books into the marketplace.

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING

Electronic publishing is considered to be the wave of the future in the opinion of some experts. There are several options to choose among.

- Use a commercial e-publisher to publish, market, sell, and distribute an electronic book
- Set up a print-on-demand version of your book where you can order small quantities of your electronically formatted book to be paper printed as needed
- Set up your own website and publish and sell your book
- Use an online bookseller like Amazon to publish and sell your book
- Self publish your book but use an online bookseller like Amazon to promote and sell your book

As you can see there are a number of ways to get your book electronically published. Electronic books can be downloaded and printed, downloaded to a special handheld reader, or read online.

GETTING STARTED

With so many great options available today in the publishing industry, it’s easy to get confused. It is important to keep in mind that most of the publishing concepts are the same. Many of principles behind the writing process, editing, finding a publisher, and marketing apply whether you are talking about a traditional print book or an electronically published book. The principles are the same but the process may differ. For example, marketing principles underlay the strategies for selling a book but the actual tactics can differ if the book is only available electronically. In the following sections the principles that are discussed assume a book is being published in print form. In the chapter Self Publishing and Electronic Publishing the process for publishing and marketing eBooks and other electronic book versions are reviewed.

THE WRITING PROCESS – AN OVERVIEW

This is an eBook about publishing and not about writing per se, but you will have a much greater chance of getting your book published if you choose your idea carefully and keep your ultimate goals in mind. Your idea should not be strictly driven by the desire to get published, but you also do not want to write a book that only five people will read. For most writers coming with the desire to be published is the desire to make some money too. As you will learn later the amount of money you will make will be dependent on the number of books you sell and the negotiated contract.

FINDING IDEAS

So where do you get ideas for a book? The answer is you get them everywhere! If you want to know what sells and what people are interested in reading, you can start with a visit to the bookstore. Just simply visit a neighborhood bookstore and look at the prominent displays. What are the tables displaying? What types of books are present in the largest quantities?

With the internet it is also easy to search for lists of the most popular books that are selling. Bestseller lists provide a quick view of the book market and what the public is reading. There are even lists by type of book. If you are determined to write a nonfiction book then look at the nonfiction bestseller lists.

Chapter 1

Right Into The Strategies

The Internet is enormous. This is perhaps the most important concept you need to understand as an Internet marketer. No matter how original your idea, you are going to have competition online. The question becomes then: how are you going to stand out from the crowd and attract business?

The good news is there are many things you don't need for online success. These things include:

- A massive advertising budget
- Expensive graphic designers
- Making your company a household name
- An elaborate base of operations
- 80-hour work weeks

What do you need, then? You need to work smarter, not harder.

Running with the giants

There are top competitors in every industry. Microsoft dominates software, Google rules search engine technology, McDonalds is the emperor of fast food. However, the Internet is a level playing field, and your company can appear as big and established as you want it to. You only need a fraction of a percentage of the online pie to enjoy business success.

Search engine placement is still the best way to gain exposure for your Internet business. In the beginning of the Internet, the practice of keyword stuffing—placing irrelevant or excessive keywords on web pages to achieve a higher search engine
rank—was prevalent. Today, though, search engine technology is far more sophisticated, and there is no "magic" formula to ascend the ranks.

How can you place high on search engines and compete with the top Internet businesses in your industry? All you really need to do is keep it real. Make your website informative, interesting, and ever-changing, and you will score high with search engines.

Today's "secrets" for top search engine ranking include:

- Strive to provide visitors with real, useful, and interesting information that makes your website not only a great selling tool, but a great place to visit and spend some time.
- Plant hooks on your pages for the search engines that are related to the information on each page.
- Build buzz and word-of-mouth for your business using pay-per-click advertising and other relevant avenues for your target markets.

Getting started

All you need is a computer and a dream

When you choose your Internet marketing business, there are several aspects you need to consider. The wrong business will lead to wasted efforts and a lack of profits—a discouraging prospect indeed.

The first consideration should be your own interests and passions. If you are not passionate about your products or services, your business will not succeed. It's as simple as that. You must be convinced beyond doubt that your product or service is worthwhile, exciting, effective, and something other people will want or need.

Another reason you need enthusiasm in your corner is your own business stamina. You've probably worked at jobs you couldn't care less about, if only so you could get a paycheck. You may even be working at a job like that now. How long do you intend to stay there? Are you putting your best efforts forth at work every day? If you are not, you're not passionate about what you do—and you won't get very far.

Once you've identified a business you can generate plenty of passion and enthusiasm for, further consider these two important questions:

- Does your product or service fill a need or a demand? Is there a high demand for this product or service, at least in niche markets?

- Can you inexpensively attract high numbers of targeted traffic to your website? Are there popular forums, ezines, or websites dedicated to this type of product or service, or used by your target market?

If you cannot answer these questions with a resounding "yes," you need to go back to the beginning and choose another product or service you're passionate about.
The best thing you can do to facilitate success as an Internet marketer is to exercise patience and put in the research at the beginning. Don't invest your time in finding a supplier, setting up a website, choosing affiliates, and putting your marketing machine into motion until you have the three key ingredients in place: passion, demand, and marketing avenues.

The good news is that there are thousands of niche markets out there, and each one presents an opportunity to begin a profitable online business!

Marketing Tips

Once you have settled on your business, it's time to start your market research. Again, this step falls into the category of strategy and preparation. Keep in mind that strategy, not investment, is your ticket to success!

OTO (One Time Offer) Marketing

You've seen examples of this strategy if you've ever taken advantage of a freebie offer. The OTO theory is simple and straightforward: give away a great product for free, and immediately offer another valuable product along with the freebie for a deeply discounted price.

For example: say your Internet business is selling e-book software. You can advertise for a free report on the secrets to creating e-books that sell, and then offer a discount on the software itself when customers take advantage of your giveaway.

Sample Content Preview

Getting Setup

Blog Platforms: An Introduction

Setting up your blog will require a little research and review; you’ll need to consider the factors of cost, the time and skills you currently have, and your readiness to learn some new software. Almost all blog software is very easy to sue and offers a variety of plug-ins and other resources to make yours unique. You don’t necessarily need to hire a professional or specialist to start publishing; most blogs can be setup with a few hours, and you can learn how to use them as you go.
We’ll discuss how to make use of today’s leading blog platforms. The three most widely used platforms include:

- WordPress
- Blogger
- TypePad

Choosing the Right Blog Platform for Your Business

You’ll find a number of free and low-cost fee-based blog platforms available, and most of them use a simple text editor box for publishing. The cost differences vary depending on the type of blog you are running; if you are going to host the blog on your own domain, you will need to manage hosting fees. Blogs run within the blog’s domain are usually free, but you will not have a simple address to work with. If you want a unique URL, it’s better to consider the different packages, even if you’re starting out with the very basic.

Most basic packages allow you to add your own design elements and start making money with advertisements immediately. Most free hosts will not allow advertising, which limits your ability to start generating a separate stream of income from ad-clicks and sales. If you’re just starting out, it’s best to pick the basic version so you can at least start driving traffic to advertisements.

Next, you’ll need to consider how much you know about blog design. If you’re already proficient with web design and templates, this will be fairly easy, but if you do not know where to start there are plenty of blog templates available. Blog templates can help you construct your basic site, and then change it later when you need to. These can be easily replaced with a more comprehensive design, but most blog platforms provide a variety of options, colors, and basic attributes to make your blog stand out.

Blog platforms such as WordPress can be very helpful in getting you setup with a professional look, especially if you have limited design skills and are not working with a web or graphic designer immediately. Blogger also offers customizable options, and you’ll find a range of colors and styles to choose from. Moveable type is somewhat limited, but you can still find a basic, well-organized template.

Basics of Blog Setup

Even though each blog platform has different elements and plug-ins available, you’ll need to come up with some ideas of your basic blog setup and structure. This is comprised of the types and categories of information you intend to share with the audience. For example, you will need to create content for your:

- Profile page/About Us section
- A contact page
- Resources
- Blog categories for each type of news
- Deciding whether to accept comments
- Basic marketing elements such as a blogroll or link exchange
- Space for advertising
- Feeds
- Ad Sense sections
- Logos
- Blog archives
- Page headers

After identifying the basic elements of your blog, it’s time to choose the actual platform you will be using. It’s not a good idea to switch platforms at a later date, since you’ll probably end up reformatting and editing every piece of content. Choosing the right fit from the start is the best way to keep things moving along smooth and simply.

Using Blogger

Blogger is a widely-used blogging platform because of its ease of use and simple templates. You’ll find a number of startup blogs
that use blogger to publish online, and anything with a ‘.blogspot.com’ extension indicates that it is a Blogger blog. Blogger is free to use, and only requires a username and password for setup and access.

You won’t need to install any special software to get started, this blog platform uses a simple WYSIWIG editor. Once you’ve registered for your free account, you can choose a template and just start copying and pasting content into the publishing toolbar. If you need to add images, just use the upload image tool and paste it right in. Blogger is one of the most user-friendly blogging platforms available and very useful for beginners. You’ll find enough fonts and color options to make your blog stand out from other sites, and can upgrade to your own domain very easily.

Sample Content Preview

Backlink Building Strategies To Help Boost Search Ranking And Traffic To Your Website

CHAPTER 1: WHAT THE HECK ARE BACKLINKS

Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are incoming links to a website or web page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by one web page, directory, or top level domain from another web page.

Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today, their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO). The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (for example, this is used by Google to determine the PageRank of a webpage). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website's search engine ranking, popularity and importance. Google's description of their PageRank system, for instance, notes that Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. Knowledge of this form of search engine rankings has fueled a portion of the SEO industry commonly termed linkspam, where a company attempts to place as many inbound links as possible to their site regardless of the context of the originating site.

Websites often employ various search engine optimization techniques to increase the number of backlinks pointing to their website. Some methods are free for use by everyone whereas some methods like linkbaiting requires quite a bit of planning and marketing to work. Some websites stumble upon "linkbaiting" naturally; the sites that are the first with a tidbit of 'breaking news' about a celebrity are good examples of that. When "linkbait" happens, many websites will link to the 'baiting' website because there is information there that is of extreme interest to a large number of people.

There are several factors that determine the value of a backlink. Backlinks from authoritative sites on a given topic are highly valuable. If both sites have content geared toward the keyword topic, the backlink is considered relevant and believed to have strong influence on the search engine rankings of the webpage granted the backlink. A backlink represents a favorable 'editorial vote' for the receiving webpage from another granting webpage. Another important factor is the anchor text of the backlink. Anchor text is the descriptive labeling of the hyperlink as it appears on a webpage. Search engine bots (i.e., spiders, crawlers, etc.) examine the anchor text to evaluate how relevant it is to the content on a webpage. Anchor text and webpage content congruency are highly weighted in search engine results page (SERP) rankings of a webpage with respect to any given keyword query by a search engine user.

Increasingly, inbound links are being weighed against link popularity and originating context. This transition is reducing the notion of one link, one vote in SEO, a trend proponents hope will help curb linkspam as a whole.

When HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) was designed, there was no explicit mechanism in the design to keep track of backlinks in software, as this carried additional logistical and network overhead.

Most Content management systems include features to track backlinks, provided the external site linking in sends notification to the target site. Most wiki systems include the capability of determining what pages link internally to any given page, but do not track external links to any given page.

Most commercial search engines provide a mechanism to determine the number of backlinks they have recorded to a particular web page.

For example, Google can be searched using link:yourdomain.com to find the number of pages on the Web pointing to yourdomain.com. To find link information on Yahoo type linkdomain:https://www.yourdomain.com. Google only shows a small fraction of the number of links pointing to a site. It credits many more backlinks than it shows for each website.

Other mechanisms have been developed to track backlinks between disparate webpages controlled by organizations that aren't associated with each other. The most notable example of this is TrackBacks between blogs.

Backlinks In Marketing

When we think of Internet marketing, the word “backlink” doesn’t automatically come to mind. In fact, most people who aren’t involved with a website would not even know what a backlink means. To put it simply, a backlink is any URL link from another website that will take web surfers directly to your website. So, a backlink is like a business card (in the form of an Internet address) that you gave to someone who then refers other people back to you. Using this metaphor, one can see that the more backlinks you get the more business you get too. However, that’s not the sole reason why backlinks are important in Internet marketing.

While a backlink is a type of referral, it also can be a measure of your website’s reputation. This is why major search engines use backlinks in their search algorithms. They catalogue the number of backlinks and the strength of the people who are backlinking to your site and use this in their algorithm to determine how well you rank amongst other sites that deal with your website niche. Using backlinks you can raise the visibility of your site by getting your site highly ranked in the search engine. This, in turn, will lead to more people visiting your site and thus more business.

As if that weren’t enough, the backlinks are also used to determine the worth of the website should you decide to sell the domain later. So, backlinks can turn into dollar signs, even if your site happens to be a blog, instead of a full website. That’s how powerful backlinks are!