Blog Tools

4 Tech Innovations to Grow Your Business

by Melvin · Jun 1, 2013

This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

Running a successful business requires you to get things right on many levels. This is where new tech innovations come in that help you with your business. Right from document management software to simple gadgets that make your job easier as an an entrepreneur – tech innovations are all around the business world. In the following article we discuss four such innovations that can help you take your business to the next level…

#1: Adapx Capturx Forms for Excel

Digital pens aren’t new – they’ve been around for a long time now. But a lot of them are confusing to use and are focused on “general note taking”. Adapx Capturx Forms for Excel comes with an Anoto digital pen along with a software that helps you focus only on forms. When you fill out a particular form with this pen, only the data acquired from this form is captured, details such as name or social security number. This very limited approach can prove to be a great innovation for businesses who want to use the digital pen technology more effectively.

#2: Dymo LabelMaker PnP

Any device that is “plug n play” makes things easier, and thus can be branded as an innovation. Most of the hardware gadgets out there either require a difficult to find driver or do a confusing software install. The Dymo LabelMaker, which costs only $60 bucks, simply plugs into your computer’s USB port. Its software is directly housed in the device and appears on the screen automatically when you start using it. So all you need to do is take care of the label design and do the printing, nothing more. The app utilizes your computer’s font and lets you add your logo.

#3: Addonics NAS 3.0

You’ll find many reputed companies out there that offer cloud enabled storage devices, helping you make your files available/accessible from anywhere. For small companies/businesses, you may not have a way to access your data over the web, even though you already have a USB drive. The Addonics NAS 3.0 is an adapter that you can simply connect to your current USB drive using a regular USB cable. You also have an Ethernet port to help you connect your adapter to the router. It’s great for bootstrapping businesses that are on a budget, and want easy access when going mobile for a day.

#4: SnapShell® Camera Scanner

The SnapShell® camera scanner happens to be one of the fastest camera ID scanners available in the market today. Its 3 megapixel camera allows you to place an ID card face down, on its window, and press the scan button to capture a high quality digital image in less than 3 seconds. Right from giving you high quality picture resolution (600 dpi true color) to getting easily integrated into a 3rd party software – it is the real deal.

It’s a perfect solution for your business if you have to deal with lots of “human traffic” in a short amount of time. For example, if you run a car rental agency, you can use this camera scanner to get a copy of the customer’s driver’s license as a part of the overall registration process.

PHP Dir Submit Review – A Directory Submitter Software

by Melvin · Aug 7, 2011

Back in the early days, directory submission is one of the most powerful ways to both drive traffic to a blog and to rank in search engines. The algorithm of Google back then makes it very easy for sites listed in directories to be crawled and to be considered an authority site. With that people rushed quickly into this and tried submitting their sites to as much directories as possible.

Nowadays it isn’t as effective as it used to because Google has tweaked their algorithm. But make no mistake of it, it can still benefit you if you do it properly. With that I would like to introduce you this software called PHP Dir Submit.

What is PHP Dir Submit?

PHP Dir Submit is simply just a web application that allows you to ‘semi-automatically’ do directory submission service. As its name suggests, its a PHP script and with that being said its compatible literally to all web server setup. This directory submitter software can be used depending on how you want it to be utilized.

If you own lots of mini niche sites that make some good money then you can use this script to submit your site to 300+ directories so it can start picking up in the search engines. Again this is done automatically with a press of a button. You no longer need to go into these different sites and type the same information again and again.In short, it will save you a bunch of time.

Another good use of it is submitting sites for your clients. It has an automatic Paypal integration so you can easily build a business around submitting sites for them. If done correctly, we all know this model of business makes a lot of money although it would really really take a lot of work for you to be able to reap that benefit if you’re about to go to this path.

PHP Dir Features

Now do take note that aside from the 300 web directories, they also have a list of 300 article directories and another 300 social bookmarking sites. Of course, you have the ability to add more sites to the list and PHP Dir Submit makes it very handy for you to do so through their admin console.

According to their site, these are the features for the site owner:

Easy to use administration control panel
Preloaded with hundreds of directory sites
Add unlimited number of directories and bookmarking sites
Support these platforms: PHP Link Directory (PHPLD), ArticleMS, Pligg, Scuttle, Scuttle Plus, PHPDug
Send email newsletter to all users (or individual user)
Fully search engine optimized
Paypal integration
Free lifetime directory updates

Again this is a PHP Script so it should be easy to install on your end. In case the ease is still not enough, there’s a fully fledged FAQ page on the site that walks you through the most commonly asked questions.

Pricing

Pricing starts at $49 for a single site license and $99 for a multi-site license. My advice is to try out the single site license first and if you’re happy with the script and you think its a pretty good model, then you can grab the multi-site license if you’re planning to create multiple ones.

As far as the disparity with the features, here’s a screenshot:

All in all, it seems to be a pretty decent software. I was able to navigate through the demo panel and on a hindsight, I could say it should capture your interest if you’re looking into this type of model.

The question on whether the product is worth it or not is kinda related to the question “is a directory submission business still effective these days?”. Of course using that as a business is just one of the options for this software since you can again, use it on your own web properties as well.

But it’s all up to you. I highly suggest you to check out PHP Dir Submit and the reason being is because they allow you to navigate through their admin demo console and the normal demo for users. With this, you can instantly navigate around and see if what it offers is worth your time. Or if you’ve had your experience with it, let us know through the comment form.

Five Things Bloggers Should Do That They Probably Don’t

by Melvin · Aug 3, 2011

This is a guest post entry by Jessica Wagner

Blogging is supposed to be fun. But in order to get good at it, you have to take it seriously. It’s not just a matter of establishing a destination on the Internet where you can spill your guts for whoever comes across it. If you truly want people to read what you have to say, then you should probably try to accomplish the following:

1. Keep up with current events

Nothing is sure to keep you more depressed these days, but then again, nothing is going to keep your writing relevant than maintaining at minimum a general understanding of world events. You might not find phone hacking and government debt debate interesting and certainly not something you want to spend your limited free time writing about, but being able to tie in the pulse of current activity with whatever you write about adds an extraordinary amount of professionalism to the look of your blog.

2. Utilize social networks

Sure, every aspiring blogger has a Facebook page and somewhere on it a mention or link to their blog. But that’s hardly utilizing social networks effectively. Convince several of your friends to be relays for these links, and find a way to bring Facebook to your blog via a “like” box or other application installation. Use social networks to spread your word. That’s what they’re there for.

3. Get a business valuation

Even if you don’t make squat from your blog, you aren’t aware of how much you could be making. An increasing number of business appraisals experts are extending their valuation expertise into the digital world. This means many appraisers can examine a blog or other website and determine whether or not there’s a potential for monetiaation. For anyone serious about earning extra income through their blog, this should be a serious consideration.

4. Yoga

Yoga enthusiasts claim the practice can help relieve the stresses of just about any situation with the exception of perhaps straining muscles through yoga. At any rate, any activity that centers on focus and physical as well as mental relaxation has to be healthy for those who love to write. Good writing needs a clear head and a clean bill of health, and taking the time to achieve both will do a lot of good for the quality of your blog.

5. Write everyday

The Internet is jam packed with blogs. Most of them consist of several entries over the course of a week or two, then reduced numbers of entries for about a month afterward. Several weeks go by, another post appears apologizing for a lack of activity, and that’s about where they end. Your first mission is to prevent this from happening to your blog. How? You make it your objective to post content on your site every single day. You should post multiple times a day if it’s possible. You need to build up content, but more importantly you need to make blog-writing as necessary a daily habit as exercise or brushing your teeth. Only then, will you have the blog existence it takes to capture peoples’ attention.

Melvin’s sidenote: Of course I don’t agree with the guest blogger’s take mainly because I don’t and can’t post everyday. But I hope you see the point that writing content for the long term is nothing but hardwork and dedication.

Don’t ever forget that writing a blog needs to be an enjoyable experience. But at the same time, don’t underestimate the seriousness of your task. If your writing is truly meant for the eyes of an audience, then you have to take steps to ensure you’re getting readership, that readership is increasing, and that you’re constantly supplying readers with more. You want people to keep coming back. The only way you do that is by giving them reason to keep returning for more.

Key Ingredients of a Likeable Blog

by Melvin · Jan 30, 2011

Not so many people can create a blog and be a blogger that gets a lot of people to read his blog. That being said its much harder for someone to create a blog and be a blogger that people would like and would love to read to for a long time.

I know that of course, I’m a lurker. In my free times, I do a lot of blog hopping and try to see what the blogosphere is talking about. Some blogs are good and I like them a lot while some are good, yet I don’t feel like I ever want to get associated with them. And that’s the truth, needless to say.

There seems to be some key substance or ingredients that make a blog or the blogger that’s behind it likeable for people and for this post I’d like to share them to you based on my own experience. If you find that I’m missing something in the list, feel free to let me know it through the contact form. Anyhow here’s the list:

1. The blog loads smoothly and quickly

Let’s face it, blogs these days are plastered with ads. Look at you’re blog, look at my blog, look at this blog. But the truth is that it does not mean that your blog has to look cluttered, the truth is that there’s a lot of ways still to make a blog presentable and look uncluttered. And that is by making sure your blog loads smoothly and quickly.

There’s nothing worse than craving to find information only to wait for days and days before that info loads (of course “days” is a hyperbole description). I experienced that too and it took me a while to realize that my blog was loading slow enough for people to actually just move away and bounce from my site.

2. The author cares to reply to comments

These days, it can quite be hard to drive and attract traffic to your site especially if you’re just starting out. There’s just so much to read and there’s a chance that someone is always better than you, writes better content and knows more. So how do we counter that as a smaller blogger? Well the simple answer is to interact better to our audience.

As obvious these days, blogs that get loyal audience are the blogs that care about their readers. For my own perspective, I always feel appreciated everytime someone takes some time to reply to my comments and thats the reality about it. You may not be able to reply to all comments or may not be able to do it in a timely manner. But what’s important is to at least show you interact with them.

3. It’s easy to connect to them

Blogging is often associated to social media simply because they’re really connected to each other. You see, I have a blog but because I have a blog, I also use Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon or whatever. What makes a blogger approachable and easy to connect to is when he/she shares his/her information publicly to his readers. When connecting to him/her is easy.

4. When the blogger is nice and transparent

By saying nice, I don’t mean angelic or religious in some way or another. What I mean is that the blogger is nice and a true person. Here’s the thing, I myself is a big advocate of criticizing someone and in my blog I always voice out if some things or tools suck and that’s because its who I am.

I wrote a post not so long ago entitled, “its not about making controversy, it’s about being me” and in that I emphasized the importance of being yourself and not faking it. Although I also covered the consequences that one could face by being so transparent. Blogging is a human to human connection and I haven’t seen anyone succeeded who’s pretending to be someone else.

5. They reward their readers once in a while

This is a big reason for most readers and audience why they have to stay. Not all bloggers do this and I’m not talking about rewarding someone by giving him cash or gadgets. What I’m talking about is the simple things like commenting back on the blog, or giving a mention or link love. How about a simple retweet or a stumble? Those things are really small yet they mean a lot especially for your readers.

Those are the 5 things that I think makes a blog and its blogger likeable . They are definitely simple things but the effects can be dramatic especially for the growth of the community of your blog.

Did you notice I haven’t even included writing good content? Yes, writing superb articles will always be a factor for one’s success but good writers and informational blogs aren’t really always likeable, you know what I mean? People read for two things, first is to find information and second is to connect and if you’re just going to write good blog entries then I’m not sure that’s enough for you to be successful.

I just named 5 here because I know you have other things in your mind too. So what are the other key ingredients of a likeable blog that you think I missed out?

Setting Up a Facebook Fan Page for Your Blog

by Melvin · Aug 30, 2010

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I’m trying to be active in Facebook once more, not with my personal account but with the blog’s fan page. So far it’s been good, slowly but surely I’m getting people to communicate with me through that medium.

Anyways, I set the fan page last year and even up to now, I am constantly getting asked on how I do it. I’d love to point to amazing and definitive guides like the one from Pat Flynn and some others. Pat has absolutely helped me set up mine by writing a Facebook Guide for Bloggers which is an extremely popular article.

Now the reason I’m doing this post is that I want my readers to have a place too, or just a reference just in case they want to set up a Facebook Fan Page for their blogs. Another is that Facebook has made some changes with the custom box and I believe most of the articles haven’t updated their guides yet so it’s good to have the latest one right? 😉

Setting Up a Facebook Fan Page

First things first

I’ll go straight into the topic. To start creating a page, head on to the Create a Page page. You have three options there, you could create a fan page, a community page, or a Facebook group. In this what we’d like to do is create a fan page so click on the Fan Page section. Don’t worry creating a page is FREE to anyone.

Make sure you name your page carefully because it’s something that you can never change later on. So take your time in naming your page (usually it’s just the name of the blog as well), and double check if you typed it correctly.

You may also want to put in some status messages first. People don’t subscribe to a fan page that has empty interaction. I know its odd to put a status message when there’s no one following you yet but trust me this is what is needed. Plus, everyone does that initially.

Personalization

Now make sure you don’t become one of those millions of fan pages that create just a generic page for their brand. Facebook fan pages almost look the same but you can customize it by personalizing the way it looks. And you can do that by simply uploading images.

Upload your photo, make sure it’s something that would represent the brand of your blog. You could either place a custom logo image of your blog or simply just a pic of you. Do not also forget to write details like the tagline (the one that appears under the logo) and the info tab which would contain all the basic information about your fan page. Again take time to write those information.

Lastly, create a custom box! A custom box is just basically a box that is outside the default “Wall” and “Info” boxes. The main use of this is you can create a custom landing page for your fan page. Here’s how mine looks:

You could easily do that clicking on the + sign on tabs and adding a custom box. You can then name it and put content inside the box. The “in thing” however is the use of images. As you can see above, my landing page just consists of an image and a simple html text. Make sure to get your message clearly across your target audience. Do not also forget to ask them to LIKE your fan page.

To create an HTML, simply add the application Facebook Markup Language and you’re ready to go. Using it is as easy as using an HTML editor.

Little update that I’d like to emphasize is that Facebook has updated their terms when it comes to custom boxes. Before the maximum width for an image is 760px but Facebook has reduced it now to 520px. Make sure you comply with the settings or else the custom box would look ugly.

Finishing Touch

Now maybe you’re wondering, where is the custom box for? As I’ve written a lot in the past few months, I’ve always emphasized the importance of landing pages. With landing page, you can actually “convince” your potential readers more to do something that you want.

Now head on to the settings of your fan page and change the “Default Landing Tab” to your specific custom box. Now every visitor that goes into your fan page will land to that custom page where they will be more enticed to “like” your page as opposed to just landing to the default wall tab.

As you can also notice, your url is pretty not personalized. That’s normal. As soon as you hit 25 fans, Facebook will give you the ability to change the vanity url of your page. Again, make sure you are sure with what you input as this is pretty much unchangeable.

Conclusion

Now you have a Facebook Fan Page for your blog. Utilizing a Fan page is like using Twitter except that there’s almost no limit. And since anyone uses Facebook more than Twitter, you could literally build a powerful community behind that communication medium which in turn can translate as traffic to your blog or vice versa.

But how do I get people to like my page? There are thousands of ways but the most clever way first and foremost is to initially contact your friends in Facebook and tell them politely to fan your fan page. It’s easy, if you have 50 friends, Im sure almost all of them wouldn’t mind “liking” your page.

Did I miss anything here? If you would like to add something or ask anything, feel free to write in the comment form.

Blog Posts Retweets, Do they really make sense?

by Melvin · Aug 3, 2010

When retweets was first introduced, I was really really so much into it. I thought it was the coolest thing ever especially with the fact that if someone retweets your article, then there’s a good chance more than a thousand people can actually see it and have the opportunity to retweet it as well. It’s mainly because the potential of Twitter is really there.

Of course at first, I really didn’t figure out how I can get that much retweets that would enable me to reap those benefits. I started to install that little Tweetmeme plugin so that my readers can start retweeting my article for me. Obviously I started to realize that each of the 100 visitors will not really retweet it.

So what I did then was start using Twitter genuinely. I started following people that is related to what I’m blogging and started really giving tweeting some time. Eventually my follower count started growing and interaction has been more lively now. And not surprisingly with that, I started getting retweets.

The highest retweet count that I got is 133 and not surprisingly it came from a contest post. But then I got a little contented with the fact that at least I was getting more than 10 retweets almost every time. And now I started wondering. Is this retweets really worth it? or is it just a number that you could flaunt and brag to other people?

Ok ok. Unlike in the previous posts, I’m not gonna flash out some geeky numbers on your screen or some screenshot from Google Analytics and then explain it one by one. Studying the behavior from Twitter is a quite a it tricky that just showing stats doesn’t mean anything that much.

So for this year, Twitter has sent me over a 1000 uniques and more than 2500 pageviews. Of course the bounce rate and stickiness weren’t as effective as let’s say guest post campaigns and stuffs. Twitter has so many bot accounts and in fact I have a couple for myself and the reason for that is mainly for testing. If someone is being followed by 1000 bots, that will not make any sense right so I guess that’s why it’s not converting that well.

Of course the main benefit of it is that it’s free and if utilized well, it can be a source of free yet targeted high quality traffic for any site. But how can one utilize it and maximize its benefits? That’s literally the question of every blogger in this space. I know big guru bloggers utilize it so well that for instance, Shoemoney even called as “the best marketing medium” right now.

For me what I do is basically just host all my shortlinks via bit.ly. Bit.ly has some free basic tracking which is pretty darn good. You can find the no.of unique clicks, no.of referrers/retweets, the location they were retweeted and even the day to day activities of your posts. In fact, I already considered it’s PRO program just because of how slick it is.

If you’re using other shorteners, I’m pretty sure they have their built-in trackers as well so make sure you’re making the most by using that to analyze things.

So all in all, retweets really matter. As I said above, I got some pretty good (yet not really massive) traffic from it and from a hindsight I can say that it’s one good way to get new readers to your blog. The number of RT’s alone can quite a bit be misleading but the traffic stats will always speak for themselves. From that on, its just a matter of tweaking it more and more.

What do you think? Maybe you have some secrets to share as well?

OnlineProfits.com Reopened its door, for FREE! (wtf?)

by Melvin · Jun 10, 2010

Internet marketing is a very broad topic. In fact, some school are either having an exclusive course on this subject or integrating it to their marketing course. The internet has been around for quite some time so expect it to have more and more impact to our offline ways.

Anyways, if you can remember Daniel Scocco last year launched his own internet marketing course called OnlineProfits. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it’s basically like a university course on the subject of internet marketing. It contains 24 huge modules which would take you from the start up to the advanced modules. Those modules are the main core of the program.

OnlineProfits.com Relaunched, now for FREE

Yes, thats not a typo or whatsoever. I actually had to refresh Daniel’s announcement to make sure I’m reading it right. His main reason is that he wants to have as much people as possible to gain access to his membership program. Whether that’s true or there’s something fishy remains to be seen. 😉

There’s actually a catch though. In order to get lifetime access to the OnlineProfits Membership area, one must sign up either to the hosting plan of his partners for this program. The partners I’m referring to are Hostgator and Hostnine. The deal is that if you sign up to them via Daniel’s affiliate link, you can get the whole membership site for free.

Now I understand that each and everyone of you already have your own hosting but as Daniel said “sparing an extra $10 to get a $325 membership program” is the best deal and if you don’t find it lucrative enough, then the program may not be for you. To be honest, I didn’t mind paying $10 to get this membership site that is this good. Actually if you use the code “onlineprofits” you will get your hosting almost free ($0.01) but then you have to sign under Daniel’s link. So it’s definitely a no-brainer.

OnlineProfit Overview and Comprehensive Review

From a hindsight, Daniel Scocco’s membership program claims to be the most complete internet marketing resource on the web. It contains all strategies that you will need to do to anything you desire, may it be blogging, affiliate marketing, information marketing and etc.

So as I’ve said, the program contains 24 content-packed modules, from the rudimentary history of internet marketing up to advanced tactics like link building and social media.

Each lessons consist of 500-1000 word article specifically targeted to the certain topic. Another good thing for me is that there is this handy “play now” buttons on most lessons. This is also downloadable so just in case you want to listen to the mp3 while on the go or whatever, you can. Btw, my computer resolution wasn’t able to capture all the modules through the print-screen function so to see all the modules and the topics inside them visit onlineprofits site below:

www.onlineprofits.com/

Altogether the lessons are so-packed in meaty content that I don’t have an idea how Daniel was able to produce all of this. It can be a bit overwhelming for you to look at it, but since its presented in modules, its good to take the lessons one at a time.

All Star Faculty Mentors

One unique feature OnlineProfits.com features is their All-star cast faculty. Again I don’t have any idea on how Daniel pulled this people as mentors for his membership program. Some of the lessons inside the program were produced by them depending on their expertise. For instance, Zac Johnson on Affiliate marketing topics while Hamlet on SEO related ones. I never had seen any other membership sites that have experienced people like them on board as mentors

Live Case Studies & Several Add ons

What’s unique with OnlineProfits.com recently is the addition of live case studies. This case study is produced by Daniel himself so this is one exciting way to really understand how the lessons should be applied. It contains exactly the steps as well as the monthly stats that Daniel would be providing as well.

Like any other program, this does also have several addons to inflate the value more. One of which is the tools section. If you’re not new with internet marketing then most of the tools here are probably not new to you but still there are some nice ones like domain name ideas generator and stuffs like that.

One of my favorite place aside from the lessons in there is the Resources Page. In that page one can find all the resource free exclusively for OnlineProfits students. It contains useful stuffs like list of free and paid web directories, list of dofollow blogs, list of dofollow social media networks and etc. I also like the free premium wordpress themes that are given away. These aren’t just your cookie-cutter free template. In fact, the premium ones you see on WooThemes and iThemes are given away here for free w/c is pretty amazing.

Lastly are the library and social clubs. The library is just basically a compilation of all useful (or useless) articles on any niche. It also comes with a MRR rights so just in case you want to resell them, then you can totally do it. The social clubs on the other hand is just simply a club for promotion. Just like a community for retweeting articles, digging, sending it to stumbleupon and etc.

How to Avail the FREE access

The entire program costs $392 before and I’m sure those who joined the program before will be ‘not-so happy’ with the fact that its offered for free now.

Again you have to sign up to Daniel’s partners which are HostGator and HostNine and you have to do under his affiliate link. After signing up all you have to do is email him you’re invoice number and in less than 5 minutes you can immediately access the program.

Verdict & am I recommending it?

Internet Marketing is a big part of online business. Actually for some people, it’s all what online business is all about. I was fortunate enough that I had experience and that I started young. But even with that, I still took the course.

I know most of you here are bloggers and there’s a good chance that since you’re reading my blog, you’re serious with what you’re doing. You hear me preach a lot that blogging alone is not enough, if you don’t have enough knowledge on internet marketing and you’re not a competent marketer, chance is you’ll not succeed.

I rarely promote info products and membership sites here in my blog and even though I consume a lot over the past few years, I made a point that I wouldn’t promote it here if it’s not possible for my readers to avail it or study it. With OnlineProfits, not only you can get it for free. But it also gives you a good and organized lessons on how things work and why they work. I’m sure most of us here learned internet marketing through experience and with this program, it only aims to sharpen up those previous learnings and organize them in such a strategic manner that we can use them immediately.

Be a part now of the highly-touted OnlineProfits membership program for FREE and start learning internet marketing from people who actually do it and not just teach it. Let me know!