ComputerHunter.org |
|
|
|||
|
 |
How Direct Sales Reps Can Use Blogging
One of the tools that a smart direct sales representative use to attract new business is a blog. A blog keeps customers and potential customers informed about products, events and services that relate to your business, new releases, contests, specials and it always keeps your name front and center. It shows readers that you are a good source of information that they can count on. If you think about it, you also probably subscribe to a number of blog feeds on various subjects that interest you. Where do you think you are going to get information when you are in the market for a product or service that relates to your interests? Yes, that's right, you think about that blog that gives you all that great information! Often direct sales representative's websites are nothing more than a corporate website. Websites in which they are unable to update information. These types of websites also make it difficult for a representative to look unique. They all have the same websites saying the same thing. Corporate sites also make it difficult for the representatives to hold special contests or special sales. With a blog you can quickly update your customers anytime your company released a new product, when you're holding a contest or are placing items on special pricing. Blogs also can be more fun and unique than the traditional newsletter. Newsletters are often sent out at a set time. With blogs you can stop in anytime. With all the feeds available your visitors can subscribe to your feeds and be instantly updated without any spam filters interfering. If you want to produce a professional looking blog, try using a service such as Blogger.com. You can then upload your blog quickly and easily readily available for your visitors. Another great thing about Blogger.com is that it is free. This means no hosting costs or domain costs. Visit http://www.wahm-blog.com/what-is-blogging.html for more information about blogging. About the Author... Anita DeFrank a WAHM of two and co-owner of DirectSalesHelpers.com which was created specifically for those in Direct Sales. Do you find yourself asking how to make more sales? The above is only a small taste of the wealth of information available at http://www.directsaleshelpers.com. Stop on in if you're serious about your direct sales company and want to know how you can make more sales.
Google News - Top Stories
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Build a Website Using Blog Software Have you thought about how easily you could build and maintain a website if you created the entire thing using blog software? Talk about an inexpensive and easy way to make your own website, this is it! Got Blog? In 1999 I asked my friends and colleagues if they blogged. The responses I received ranged from odd looks to questions about the blogging practice. The end results of my findings was "Blog" was a new term and not highly recognized. That was then, a half million blog users ago. To Blog or Not to Blog: Are Blogs Becoming More Popular than Forums, Newsletters and E-zines? Blogging is hot, and seems to be becoming hotter each month. Although blogging originally was dismissed, by many successful publishers and other online "gurus", the truth is that now, a few years after the "blogging trend" began, there are actually more blogs and more bloggers online than ever before. Blogging, obviously, is "here to stay"! The Power of the BLOG Can a Blog earn you a prison sentence? Ask Mojtaba Saminejad. He is an Iranian whose Blog, published in the Farsi language, earned him a two-year prison sentence in June 2005. How to Cash In on Blogs Over the past year or so, more and more webmasters have been creating their own blogs (web-logs). If you don't already know, a blog is sort of an online diary which is updated at regular intervals by the author(s), and can be viewed by the public. How To Display RSS Feeds on Your Website This article is intended as a guide for webmasters who want to display automatically updated content on their website in the form of RSS feeds. In this article I will cover the easiest method to implement using javascript for displaying RSS on websites to create additional dynamic content. This will allow you to display headlines from syndicated content around the web on your website. RSS to Javascript. By far the easiest method is to use client side javascript to parse and display the headlines on your site. To achieve this all you need to do is cut and paste some HTML or javascript code into the web page where you want the RSS feed headlines to display. To achieve this there are several sites that offer a free service that will allow you to select a few options to choose your feed source and display formatting parameters. You will then be presented with some javascript code that you can cut and paste into your website. Now before I give you the address of the sites that offer this service freely there are a few points I need to clarify with you. Although you will achieve your goal of displaying dynamic content on your site in a few short minutes there are some downsides to this method. Javascript is not search engine friendly. As you may or may not already know, javascript is not visible to search engine spiders. They will not see the RSS feed you have parsed into your site and so this will not benefit you if you are doing this to better your search engine rankings. You are using a third party service. The second potential downside is that although the javascript is on your site you are actually calling a script on another server. This could lead to a couple of potential problems. If the server is busy it will mean the news feed will take longer to display on your site. The other point is if the third party server fails or disappears altogether then your feed will not be displayed at all. In summary there are a few downsides, but if you do not code and want some feeds on your site quickly then this is the way to go. Ok, so now you understand what is involved here are the links to the sites that provide the free RSS to javascript service. All you need to do is follow the on site instructions. Feed2JS RSS2HTML RSS-to-Javascript FeedSweep RSS Xpress Lite Should Affiliates Really Use Blogging and Pinging To Get Indexed? There seems to be a huge craze lately with everyone trying to blog and ping to get their websites indexed into the search engines. Although this can be a great tool, all marketers should first understand exactly what they're getting themselves into before starting. Why Your Blog Might Be Sabotaging Your Business Many marketers were very excited when forum and newsletter discussion focused first on blogs (about two years ago) and then on RSS feeds (mainly within the past year). It was a brand new opportunity for marketers to use, one that promised both search engine success and a way around spam complaints. So they ran out and created a free blogger account or bought some software and began blogging and trying to set up RSS feeds. Blogging Policies, Does Your Business Need One? Weblogs or Blogs as they are more commonly referred to, have become extremely popular in the last several years. So popular in fact that many large businesses are letting some employees post Blogs on their corporate websites. While many businesses are jumping on the Blog bandwagon for use as a creative marketing technique; a few businesses have fired employees for what they posted on a Blog. These businesses accuse the employees of allegedly disclosing trade secrets, proprietary information, and making statements that showed the employer in a bad light. What is a Business Blog? Although Blog was the most requested word of 2004 as per Merriam Webster Dictionary Online, there are quite a few people, for whom the word Blog is still unknown. RSS Works: Hard Metrics to Prove It Marketers are constantly asking if RSS marketing works and if this can be proved. How To Create A Blog Blogs are more permanent than posts to an online discussion list, more dynamic than older-style home pages. They are more personal than traditional journalism, and definitely more public than diaries. A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary site. So, there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. The Holy Grail that Online Advertisers, Merchants, Publishers, and Shoppers have been Looking for! For Online Publishers/RSS Feeds users - RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a popular way for online users/publishers to pull news and information from across the web. RSS allows web sites to publish real time content to online users/shoppers easily and the trend is growing. Some site have taken advantage of this technology and created RSS/XML feeds using products data feeds from top online merchants/advertisers. How Yahoos Recent Facelift Can Mean More Traffic To Your Site It even surprised me. Yes, even though I have been pointing out the possibility since July, and was forced by demand to release my study findings before my book was even half finished, I was shocked when I heard the news as well. You see, I was sure we were at least a year off from this glorious day. The News Yahoo has had a little facelift, which you've probably read about by now. The real news is more important for your site - the "My Yahoo!" page looks different too. On September 28, 2004, surfers who logged in to their personalized Yahoo area saw an announcement explaining the RSS and Atom files that show updated information to a website as content feeds, effectively pushing news feeds into the mainstream. The new look to this section of Yahoo was presented as a full page ad to every single account holder upon first log in that day, and even now, there remains a notice posted. When I logged into my page in the "My Yahoo!" section, I saw a big difference in the number of feeds left to choose from, as well as in the way they were presented. Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". If your site isn't one of them, its crucial that you act now. If you have one and you're not getting the results you'd like from your set-up, there are small changes you can implement that will make a huge difference in your listing. Best results aren't as easy as submitting your feed now, but you're still within the window of opportunity - if you do it properly. What the News Could Mean For Your Site If You Act Now One of my clients recently called this "the back door into Yahoo". Whether that statement is accurate as far as getting included, or receiving an increase in rankings within Yahoo's search engine via your feed, depends on your site, and whether you create your feed correctly. If you could use a daily stream of traffic from even a small portion of Yahoo's estimated 20 million users, this could be your final wake-up call. You'll want to learn how to create a feed that gets well listed immediately. Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". Yahoo will still need hundreds, perhaps thousands more, even if it only intends to list the "creme de la creme" of the submissions it gets. Being in that group is as easy as submitting your feed. Being at the top of the list isn't. However, you're still within the window of opportunity if you take the time to learn how to do this properly. You can get free details on how to do that at helpmerss.com . "My Yahoo!" RSS Headline module Coming Out of Beta? If I had to guess, I'd say all signs point to yes. When that happens, Yahoo's RSS/Atom directory will likely contain only those who added their feeds early. New feeds seeking to be included will probably face stricter standards. If you don't have one yet don't worry, because it's never been easier to make one. If you can cut and paste, there are tools all over the Net that will show you how- some will even generate the file for you. However, there are still certain guidelines you need to follow with your feed to get a good result out of Yahoo - it's not as simple as adding your feed now that there are more competing listings. Yahoo is still accepting new sources for RSS feeds. Readers of my last book state that they are getting excellent results following my instructions, though initial inclusion no longer occurs at the same rate. Plenty of markets have few feeds available, or none at all. Your site could fill that void. That means you still have a chance at a first page ranking. The traffic I get on a daily basis from My Yahoo readers alone sounds like I just like to brag. And I do, but that's hardly the point. The point is, there's no place you can even go to buy the caliber of exposure to the quality of audience that reads feeds. The typical audience that accesses information by feed are also blog readers. A study this summer estimated that the 69.3% of blog readers are aged 29-50, and that 40% of this audience are people who have household incomes greater than $90,000. The type of surfer that would subscribe to your feed has pre-qualified themselves as a lead, with a certain level of understanding and interest in your topic, often on a professional level. And if you don't spend every post hitting them over the head with your sales pitch, they can be both loyal and interactive. (If you do, they'll unsubscribe from your feed faster than you can spell s-p-a-m.) And if you're in the business of providing information you can use, in a way that shows how you can solve their problem, it's like preaching to the converted. If your product solves their problem, and you show that you deserve the trust of this subscriber, you'll also find the route to a sale an increasingly downward slope. The bottom line - this is the power surfer's favorite toy. And if your content appeals to them, you need to learn how to play. Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines - The Top 5 Tips Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this - they naturally attract search engine traffic. Blogs Are About Getting to Know Yourself Better I still consider myself to be a blog writing novice but as I've got a few entries under my belt I can tell you about an unexpected bonus of this journaling process. A lot of people think that blog writers are just people who are tooting their own horns blabbering on self-righteously about what they believe to be true in life. On the contrary, for me writing a blog has helped me to reflect on my experiences that I may have otherwise have forgotten if I hadn't written them down. It has become a process of self-actualization, whether others have read my thoughts has become less of a priority for me. Business Blogging - 5 Tips to Help You Smashl Through Writers Block It's inevitable. Everyone hits the wall. Whether you've been blogging ten weeks, ten minutes, or ten months, eventually you'll find yourself with absolutely nothing to say. Or so you think. So what in the world do you do when you're stumped? 1- Talk about what you've already talked about Pick a topic you've gone over before and give it some spin. Try a new angle, like playing devil's advocate. For example, if you are a search engine journalist, and last week your position was that most mainstream sites need Google traffic to survive, try proving your point from the "con" perspective, instead of the "pro" position. There are dozens of ways to write about the same thing. By putting your point another way, you might give someone in your audience what a client of mine referred to as an "Ah-ha!" moment. That's when they realize the true value of the items for sale at your site to them and their business. 2- Talk about what someone else is talking about If you want to have a popular blog, find other bloggers in similar areas, and talk about what they said in their posts. Friendly debate can often spark the soap-opera like drama that will have both your audiences visiting both blogs to see what "the other fella" had to say. As an added bonus, if both of you are using Trackback in your blogs, you've got yourself a mini-link party that other people who are speaking on similar topics will want to join.. 3- Have yourself a good rant The intimate nature and voice of blogs lends itself well to the opinionated, angry ramble. But as a professional, don't let yourself get too unfocused, and remember to back up your opinion with facts. 4- Feature someone, something or somewhere I like to call mine "of the Day". As I zip around the Net conducting my business and research, if my attention is called to a resource or tool that my audience might find useful, I hit my blog bookmarklet and save that bad boy for later. Then when I get too busy for a full blown tip, I'll crown the resource, feed, tool, download or freebie the featured "Deal of the Day", changing the word deal to something else more appropriate as needed. After a while, my audience started to look for it as a feature, as opposed to being upset at the interruption in my mad, mad rambles. 5- Let someone else talk for a change Invite a guest blogger, or post an article that offers free reprint rights, the same way you would in a newsletter. Of course you want to leave the resource box intact, or let the guest promote their site, which brings me to the most common complaint about this tactic. "But I don't want to send people away from my site." Guess what? You'll never believe what I found out. Ready? In a recent startling discovery, I've found that 100% of my visitors eventually turn off their computers or take otherwise drastic measures that cause them to leave my site. Apparently this is beyond prevention, though you can stall them for hours sometimes with good content. Of course you don't want to send them on their way prematurely, but if you're a good blogger, and have done what you can to make sure they sign up to your blog email updates or site feed, they'll be back. Just be sure that you're giving them a good enough reason. In the meantime, since they're going to leave anyway, it might as well be somewhere that gives you some direct or in-direct benefit. So there you have it - enough material for five more days of posts. Happy Blogging! The Language of Blogs I read over a lot of blogs each week, casually surfing one or two of the blog exchanges I belong. Just Tag It! Tags - Revolutionary or Just Folly? What the Heck is a Blog? Everybody is talking about blogs. They are everywhere: on the TV, in the newspapers, and all over the internet. With the number of blogs doubling every five months, there is no stopping the power of blogs.
|
|
|
|
|
Comment by Frank O'Donnell
