The day came and went without much fanfare. I’m not talking about my recent birthday but the February 3rd 2011 “D-Day” when the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority released its 5 last octets (/8 blocks) to each Regional Internet Registry. For those of you in love with the simplicity of the IPv4 sequence, this is a sad time and you may be shrugging off internalizing the change. It’s time to face your demons, look IPv6 right in the face and say “Ok, I’m Ready. I will no longer ignore ICMP. I know you are better and use ICMPv6 for many critical functions. I love and appreciate you.” So what’s the deal with this new internet address? Does it just mean a longer number sequence or is there something more. Well, here’s the skinny. Read the following points well as they are your future.
Search results for: “label/Web Site – Review”
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How to Secure Your Windows 7 System – Part 3
This is the third part in my series on securing your Windows 7 system. In part one I talked about securing your system using a hardware router and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). In my last post I discussed creating a standard user account, disabling certain services, and a few other tasks you could perform within Windows to secure your system.
In this post I will begin talking about some applications you can install, as well as a service that I recommend you use. The focus on this post is mainly on securing the communication channel to and from your Windows 7 system.
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How to Protect Your Identity While Online
Identity theft is a major issue, and has been increasing with alarming regularity in the past few years. Along with identity theft, there is also the possibility of someone also using your financial accounts to purchase items online. While it may be impossible to completely stop someone from getting at your information, there are several things that you can do to help protect yourself while online.
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Using Google Alerts to Track Copies of Your Web Content
In my last post I wrote about What to Avoid When Designing Web Sites. I mentioned various points that you should not do when designing a Web site. One of the points talked about copying the work of others and posting it on your site as your own. It was then mentioned in the comments about monitoring such copying of your own work.
In this post I will look at one easy-to-use method of monitoring Google results for duplicate work of yours, which you can then use to take the appropriate action.
What is Google Alerts?
Google Alerts are simply e-mails sent to you when a specific set of criteria you setup is found. The search criteria are a set of search terms against the Google index, and when there are new items for those search terms an e-mail is sent to you.
An alert can be setup for searches against News, Web, Blogs, Video and Groups.
You can easily setup Google Alerts by visiting the Google Alerts home page and enter your search criteria on the form provided. You can then manage your alerts from your Google account.
Using Google Alerts to Monitor Your Content
Now that you have an idea of what Google Alerts actually is, let’s see how we can use that to monitor your Web content. Keep in mind that this isn’t 100% foolproof, but it can help you find those who duplicate your content.
Within my posts I try to link to other posts within my blog. This helps to provide more information to my visitors, but it can also help to monitor my pages with Google Alerts. Here is how I do that:
- I navigate to the Google Alerts home page. This is where I will create a new alert.
- Since my posts usually contain a link to another post on Technically Easy, I will use that as a search term. Beside Search Items I will enter link:technicallyeasy.net. This will alert me when another site contains a link to my blog.
- Beside Type I select Comprehensive.
- For How often, I select once a day as I don’t need more alerts than that.
- I then enter my e-mail address to receive the alerts, and then click Create Alert.
- You should now receive a confirmation e-mail. You will need to click the link in the e-mail to activate your alert.
You can use any search terms you would like to use to monitor the Google search results. The search criteria above won’t work if someone were to change the location of the links, or if a post doesn’t contain another link to your blog or Web site. You can always come up with your own method of keeping track of your hard work.
As a side note, the above alert will also inform you of who has linked to your blog or Web site.
Summary
This post provided a brief overview of Google Alerts as well as step-by-step instructions for creating an alert. A simple example was provided that can allow you to track other sites that may copy your content and post it on their site. I have been able to catch a few sites that have copied my content.
If you have other ideas of finding those that duplicate your content, I would like to hear them. Just post your ideas in the comments section.
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Blogging Rules: Knowing About Copyrights
So you have finally started your blog. Congratulations! But there are several rules and etiquettes that you need to keep in mind with regards to copyrights, otherwise you could land in trouble.
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5 Dreadful Mistakes that Must be Avoided by a Web Design Company and a Website Designer
If you are a website designer you might be planning to make another grand website that you fancy will captivate a great mass of visitor’s attention. Indeed it will, depending upon the efforts you put into your work. You will be having in mind great design ideas that constantly tempt you to put your imagination into creation, an entity that is visible, admirable and tangible. But don’t be over anxious, it’s good to be enthusiastic but it may happen that some of your design ideas turn into dreadful mistakes that you repent over after creation. It’s not just the website designers who can make such mistakes; a web design company can also be prone to such mistakes. So what are these dreadful mistakes which must be avoided especially if you are planning to represent your business online? So here are we going to discuss them.
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4 Profitable Ways to Monetize Your Website
If you’re the owner of a website or blog, you know how much work goes into those all-important page views. Dedicated individuals create new and engaging content on a regular basis, carefully curate photos, and utilize social media channels to draw in visitors.
Unfortunately, for many of these website owners and bloggers all of this hard work elicits little in the way of income. However, you’re also likely very familiar with the royalty of bloggers who are pulling in six figures per year, and others who make enough of a profit to offset the amount of work they put into their sites each month.
How do they do it? There are several ways to monetize a blog or website, and while a great deal of your ability to do so depends on qualifiers such as Domain Authority and the amount of engagement you have with your readers, some ways of making a profit require very little work on the part of the blogger.
If you’d like to start making money from your site or blog these are four great ways to get started. However, a great way to kick off this strategy is to look at your site as a business and as yourself as the boss. If it works out well, you could find your blog becoming your main job, enough you apply for a business credit card. Might seem far-fetched now, but it could happen.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a relatively easy way to generate income from your website, especially if you have a history or product reviews or you recommend products to your readers. Essentially, your site acts as a go-between for the merchant and the buyer and you receive a percentage of the purchase prices.
Amazon is one of the most popular merchants who utilize this method. As a blog owner you’ll place a sidebar ad on your site, and when your readers click through and make a purchase, you get paid. There are several ways to maximize this option, such as working with a niche retailer if your site is a good fit; and as passive income this type is very attractive.
2. Google Adsense
Working with Google Adsense is very straightforward. You simply go through their registration process and add the provided code to your website. In many cases you choose the types of companies whose ads will appear on your site, and in the case of a high-traffic site, businesses may even bid to have their ads show up on your site. Some accounts work by page views alone, and some accounts require that your readers actually click through the ads.
The downside to this method is that it can take months to see any revenue generated, and even when you are paid, it may only be a few dollars. However, some bloggers can make several hundred dollars per month, and the key to this is increasing your page views.
3. Sponsored Posts
If you’re a blogger with a reasonable number of page views per month and a solid social media engagement, you could be contacted about hosting sponsored content on your site. Sponsored content usually consists of a blog post that contains one or more links to a specific company. The content is generally geared toward your niche so it appeals to your readers.
The amount paid for sponsored content varies widely and is usually related to the stats of your site. Content marketing companies may be the ones requesting a sponsored post or the request could come from the company itself. Regardless, it’s best to be sure that the content is a good fit with the overall niche of your site.
4. Market Your Own Services
If you’ve built up a solid reputation as a writer or other skill that you’ve mastered via your website or blog, why not use your site as a virtual resume? Many writers, web developers, and social media specialists have honed their skills through their websites, and now offer these services to others.
By adding a tab to your site that details your experience and references you could find yourself getting paid to do the things you’re already doing on a daily basis. Of course, it’s not always that simple. Unless you already have a large following who might take notice of your new strategy, you’ll need to do some self-promotion.
More and more people are making a great income from their websites, and with a few of these simple strategies you could be one of them. Take some time to learn more about these options and how they might best fit with your site, and then get started on your way to a more profitable website.
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5 Things Can Boost Your eCommerce Business
After days, weeks and even month of hard work, your ecommerce website is finally ready to conquer the online world. From an idea in the back of your heard, to the process of turning concept to the reality of a published site, here you are, ready for the next step: getting sales.
Easier said than that in an increasingly competitive online world, but just because the road to success might require a lot of work, and a smile or two from lady luck, doesn’t mean your site won’t be among the few ones that will make it to the top.
Here is a brief SEO guide for ecommerce websites including 5 tips that could help you along the way:
1. Bring targeted traffic to the site
It is important to make sure you understand what targeted means. If traffic is the key to a website success, qualified traffic is its holy grail. Whilst thousands of visitors to a website is what we all ultimately strive for, nothing is more important than ensuring that the visitors who come to your site are actually interested in the products or services you specialize in.
That means that traffic for the sake of it is not sufficient. What you really need is qualified, targeted traffic!
There are many ways qualified traffic can be brought into a site and they all fall under the category of internet marketing:
- SEO or search engine optimization will ensure that the content in your site and the structure of your site is aimed at providing your user with an optimal experience and a wealth of information visitors are looking for. SEO is a complex process which requires a lot of work and an adaptability of thoughts some people possess more than others. For that reason, you might want to enlist the help of a professional firm specializing in SEO.
If you choose to do this yourself, then be prepared to set aside time and effort in order to familiarize yourself with the requirements of SEO.
- Advertising: A sometime expensive process, advertising represents the quickest way to bring qualified traffic to a site. There are many advertising platform you can choose from including google AdWords, Facebook ads, pay per click systems etc. The idea is to test the waters so to speak by going small, to see where any dollar you might spend in one platform will generate more traffic for your site in another.
2. Upsell and cross-sell products
An often-neglected area of online ecommerce sites, upselling and cross selling products within your site can be one of the best (and most economical) ways to maximize revenues.
We all know how tough it is to not only bring visitors to a website but to turn them into customers and the idea that they should be able to come in, click on the BUY HERE button and then be allowed to leave doesn’t make any sense.
You have worked hard to bring them to your site, you’ve convinced them that your product is what they are looking for and they have made a purchase. Now is the time to tell them about the other products or services you specialize in which might be of equal benefit to them. Say you specialize in health supplement and your customer has just selected a one month supply of one of your products.
An upsell campaign might present him or her with the opportunity to earn discounts on a 3 month purchase instead. Another one might be to offer further discount if the order is marked as auto renewal.
A cross-sell campaign might tell them that the particular product they have just purchased might work even better with this other one.
Upselling and cross-selling is a unique way to increase sales revenues. Make sure you use this system in your own e-commerce site.
3. Don’t let abandoned carts go to waste
Customers, for a number or reasons often choose not to complete a purchase on sites. E-commerce sites will usually have the necessary tools to list abandoned carts and as a savvy business owner, you should at least try to find out why the cart was abandoned in the first place. The good thing about an abandoned cart is that you already know who the customer is and the details of his or her email.
A simple set of recovery emails can go a long way in turning these abandoned carts into actual purchased. Here is a sequence of emails you could send:
- Thank the customer for initiating a purchase and remind him or her of the products that are waiting in the cart.
- Remind them how uniquely impactful these products can be and how they have made a difference in the lives of so many other people who are using them.
- Offer an incentive, like a discount code valid for a number of days only.
There are also specialized recovery tools which you can use. These tools come at a cost but claim that through their appropriate use, they can help you recover up to 50% of all abandoned carts.
4. Work on your content, fine tune your descriptions, add photos, videos
Make sure your SEO tags and titles are informative and accurate. Don’t rely on automated descriptions pulled by your e-commerce management software from the content of your products page.
The idea that once a product page is up, there’s nothing else that can be done to improve it is false. On the contrary. Search engines actually like regularly updated content.
5. Use social media
Making used of social media is an important aspect of a successful eCommerce business.
Recent research indicates that social media platforms such as Facebook generate more traffic than google. As the world begins to incorporate the use of social media in their online activities, so should you.
Many companies with limited advertising budgets start on Facebook and for good reasons. Using FB ads has been shown to boost sales by up to 37 percent for some and it would be a mistake not to try.
Facebook targeted audience can help define a customer base that is going to be highly interested in your products and services and the more targeted your audience the less money the ad will cost.
Spending less for more qualified traffic is a win-win situation and considering social media is driving sales more than ever, it is an advertising platform you should definitely not pass.
As final thoughts, it is important to remember that e-commerce sites have the potential to be highly rewarding in terms of revenues earned from sales. The mere fact of putting a site out there is not sufficient though.
As a business owner, you will be required to apply both time and effort to ensure that your site becomes successful. If you are prepared to do the hard work, follow the guideline above, then you will give yourself the tools to succeed where many others have failed.
It’s up to you!
Author Bio
Erica Silva is a blogger who loves to discover and explore the world around her. She writes on everything from marketing to technology, science and brain health. She enjoys sharing her discoveries and experiences with readers and believes her blogs can make the world a better place.
Find her on Twitter: @ericadsilva1.
- SEO or search engine optimization will ensure that the content in your site and the structure of your site is aimed at providing your user with an optimal experience and a wealth of information visitors are looking for. SEO is a complex process which requires a lot of work and an adaptability of thoughts some people possess more than others. For that reason, you might want to enlist the help of a professional firm specializing in SEO.