Lifelong Learning

Electronic books also known as ebooks are one of the hottest topics on the Internet these days because of a lot of benefits. Since e-books are fairly easy to create, publish and delivery, many internet business owners use e-books as powerful tools to grow their business.

While self-publishing is made possible by the availability of cheap tools and widespread Internet access, there is the huge glut of poorly written e-books that has been flooding the market, and it can be hard to find anything worth reading. E-book readers will have to do some digging to find quality stuff with some patience these days.

In order to write a good e-book, develop a high quality information product, we think that creators need to consider the following three key factors.

1. Creativity
Creativity and innovation make difference, for e-books, no exception. Just like the paper books, e-books need high quality contents, as usual, contents is the king. Find what the prospector is really looking for and what currently exists in the market, and discover a new way, which allows you to bring value to users.

Innovation allows you to stand out and will come branding, and then successful business.

2. Usability
Usability is another key for a high quality e-book. We all are facing information overloading on the internet. For a user to find really useful information is not easy. Most of time, like looking a needle in a haystack. A good e-book creator should be a wise collector and organizer as well; he or she could choose and tailor the information to suit users’ specific needs.

All you have to do is to provide something really useful.

3. Provability
With information overloading and flooding of low quality info-products, prove the value of your approach promoted in your e-book is very important, so that users do not doubt the value of your e-book and believe in it. If you can provide case studies to support the approach, you will be bringing extra value to the users.

Since an e-book is nothing more than a PDF document, anyone who can write and use computers can create it. Writing informational products also can be a fun and lucrative home-based business since your ebooks can generate residual income for years to come. However, to write a winner e-book is not easy task, it needs creativity, usability, and provability. The good news is that everyone can learn, try and improve it!

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Every web site wants more visitors, in webmasters’ word, wants more traffic comes to the web site. How to generate traffic is a very hot topic for webmasters, and there are many ways to achieve it, such as SEO, web 2.0 etc. Using a list of ping services to generate more traffic is one of the great ways.

Ping services allow you to automatically notify web directories and search engines that your web site has been updated, which expose your site to many other web sites. Therefore help you to generate traffic and increase your visitors. Basically the bigger your ping lists the higher the chances of receiving traffic from those sources.

After I did some research on the web and tested by myself, I use the following list of free open ping services now and what to share with you, but just for your reference.

My List of Ping Services
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

How to Setup Ping Services for Wordpress
Login WordPress admin panel, go to “settings” > “Writing” and paste the list into “Update Services” field. Put one URL each line, and then click “Save Changes” button.

Important Reminder
Actually, pinging the Ping-o-matic(default of wordpress) is a very good one, which will ping few others popular ping services for you. However, you may want more chance to get noticed by other sites, and may want to use more ping services.

This list is based on what I did the research on current date, so just for your reference. The web is changing constantly; some services may be disabled when you want to use them. Do your own proper research before using it.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for a website to get traffic from search engines, namely to serve more users. There are Whitehat SEO and Blackhat SEO. If you use Blackhat SEO, your web pages can be banned. Therefore, to learn the good techniques and avoid bad ones is a must.

Here we did some review on SEO and summarize some top SEO tips to assist web masters in forming a basic understanding of how to create user friendly web pages while easily understood by the most popular search engines(Google, Yahoo, MSN).

SEO techniques can be categorized into two groups.

Top 10 On-Page Search Engine Optimization Tips

1. Insert keywords within the title tag, which is located at the top of your document within the head tags.
2. Add the same keywords for your h1 tag, which shows there is a relation between the title of your page and the headline.
3. Make sure to use the same keywords within the body of the page as well. The most important keywords can be bolded, and a good place to do this is in the body at the top of your article and in the sub-headings.
4. Use the same keywords as anchor text to link to different pages on your site. Internal links to your content help search engines find your posts.
5. Use permalinks in your titles.
6. Insert the title tag within the HTML of your text link, which can add weight to the link and the page where the link resides.
7. Use the alt tag to describe your images, which will help search engines index images and will also help readers who use text only web browsers.
8. Do not use the exact same title tag on every page on your website. Otherwise, search engine robots might determine that all your pages are the same, and your pages might not get indexed.
9. Do not stuff meaningless keywords in the description or keyword Meta tag. SEO pros all agree that these tags are not as important today as they once were. It is recommended that to place your headline once within the keywords and description tags.
10. Do not use doorway pages, which are designed for robots only.

Top 10 Off-Page Search Engine Optimization Tips

1. Create high quality content and attract other websites to link back to you. The more linkbacks you have, the greater SEO.
2. Add comments on other blogs and forums.
3. Write guest posts or articles.
4. Add your URL to directories.
5. Send your latest post links across social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.
6. Partner with other website owners.
7. Include a XML site map on your website.
8. Submit to the search engines yourself. Do not use a submission service or software, which may result in your site getting penalized or even banned.
9. Link to high quality website; do not link to other search engine unfriendly neighborhoods.
10. If you want to ask SEO service company to help you, it is recommended to read some of the following warnings first.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

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Keyword research is used by search engine optimization (SEO) to find actual search terms users enter into the search engines when they are conducting a search. It is the first and a vital step for search engine optimization to raise your website’s visibility. If your website is targeting the wrong keywords, the possibility that search engines and your users find your website is very low.

Research what your target audience want is always must, because your assumption may be not correct. By researching what your users are searching for, you will serve them better.

The keyword research process can be broken down into the following three steps.

Step 1 – Creating a potential keyword list

Firstly, create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think users might use related your website. This includes thinking of phrases that are general and specific, and single and multi-word. Those words that are relevant, but less competition are better candidates.

Learn from your competitors’ Meta Keyword tag is a good idea as well. Find out what key words they are targeting, then think about yours.

Step 2 – Using the keyword research tools

Secondly, narrow down your potential list. The keyword tools are very helpful for you to achieve this goal, which is find those highly attainable phrases bringing the most qualified traffic to your website.
By entering your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that term, and other important analytical information, which depends on the keyword research tool. It may also spark you to better keywords meeting your needs.

Here are some of the tools for your reference.

Google Trends
It gives you a big picture, which helps you on which direction you want to go combining your interest and the number of audience.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Google’s keyword PPC tool gives you a little more information; it displays a colored bar, giving users a relative comparison, which is very useful.

Google Suggest Tool
It shows frequently search for phrases starting with the words and letters in your query.

Microsoft Keyword Forecast
It shows predicted Microsoft search impression count and historical trends.

Bruce Clay’s Check Traffic tool
It estimates the number of queries per day for your search term across the major search engines.

Wordtracker Free Keywords
It provides actual search numbers for keywords.

Keyword Discovery
It is another free keyword research tool.

You need to check both your targeting keywords and the competitors who also target them. Again your goal is to find something with more audience and less competition.

Step 3 – Finalizing your keyword list

Last but not least, you need to test your list, which you have narrowed it down. By using a spreadsheet recording your experiment data including word’s conversion rate, search volume and competition rate, you can figure out the winners and make your final keyword list.

Keyword Tips

Make your goals clear

In order to perform an effective keyword research, you need make your goals clear and keep your mind on them.

• Who are your audience?
• What your audience is searching for?
• What keywords are your audience are using?
• How many websites are you competing against?
• What is your competitors’ strength? (the sites’ rankings, how many other sites link to them, how many pages do they have indexed, etc.)

Be focus

It is recommended to make your final list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords, and use three or four related keywords per page.

Use your keywords effectively

In order to maximize the benefit of keywords, you need put them at the following places of your website.

• Title Tag
• Meta Description Tags
• Meta Keywords Tag
• Headings
• Alt text
• Anchor Text
• Navigational Links
• On-page content

Tuning your keywords accordingly

Users’ needs change, so does your website. In order to compete and move forward, you need keep monitoring your keywords and make changes accordingly. It is suggested to adjust your keywords at a certain period of time.

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Like any business, marketing your website is crucial. In order to market your website inexpensively and effectively, here we introduce five online and four offline marketing ways to achieve that.

Online Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

The most important and inexpensive and effective way to market your website is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The higher your SEO rankings, the more visibility your site will get.

Make sure your site has the necessary Meta tags (description, title, and keywords), alt tags, title tags, and copywriting.

Submit Your Website

• Register your website with as many search engines as possible, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.
• Add your website to local searches. Most of the search engines have local search functions, such as www.local.yahoo.com.
• Submit to related directories such as DMOZ.

Link Building

• Ask related sites to link to your site.
• Use search engines to help you find appropriate online discussion groups, online forums and blogs, and announce your website on them. When joining a forum you have the opportunity to create a signature under the Profile section, which gives you the opportunity to hyper link your keywords to your website to build back-links.
• Use Google Groups, Yahoo Groups to find appropriate sources. Don’t “spam.” Don’t use aggressive marketing. Engage in the conversation and let the “signature” at the end of your e-mail message do marketing for you. People will gradually get to know and trust you, and visit your site.
• Use Online Social Networking sites like MySpace, Face book, Twitter, etc.
• Use social bookmarking to ask visitors to bookmark your website.

Article Marketing

Write articles about topics relating to your website, and publish them on your website. Search for “Article Submit” and submit your articles with profile including your website address to as many article directories as you can find.

E-Mail Marketing

• Don’t spam. Sending bulk unsolicited e-mails without permission to people with whom you have no relationship are meaningless.
• Make it easy for people to contact you from your website by adding a Contact Us form, not just listing your email address.
• Install a “Signature” in your E-Mail Program to help potential customers get in touch with you.
• Create a subscription-based monthly or biweekly or weekly e-mail newsletter (”ezine”) to promote updates to your website.

RSS Feed

Create a way to allow people to receive updates about your website via their RSS readers.

Analyze

Using tracking software like Google Analytics, online questionnaires, etc. monitor the traffic of your website, for example, the number and type of people visiting your website, what pages are visited most other than the home page, what days of the week or month most people are visiting, etc. This will help your marketing efforts, and you will find where you can improve your website.

Offline Marketing

Business is all about relationship, online marketing is just one way, and another very important way is offline marketing of your website. Your website address (URL) needs to be on any item accessing to the public.

• Include your website address (URL) on Stationery, Cards, and Literature, such as business cards, letter head, newsletters, fax cover sheets, etc.
• Announce the launch of you website, as well as major changes to your website, such as new product, new services etc. in your printed newsletter.
• If you write an article for a publication, attach your website address with your bio at the beginning or end of the article.
• When talking to the public, remember to mention your website address.

Successful marketing needs constant effort. Market is changing and new websites emerge and disappear frequently. To market efficiently and effectively you need to put the marketing of your website as a part of your daily work.

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Here introduces three major steps to start a website.

1. Choose a Web hosting

Use the key word “Web hosting” to search, you can get many providers. While we think to choose one, which is best for you, you may consider the following factors:

• Dependable hosting service with good support, which is why we do not recommend a free web hosting.
• User friendly “Web Software” and “Easy Installation”, which save you a lot of time and energy. If you use WordPress, the free web software introducing as follows, please confirm that the Web hosting you choose supports PHP and MySQL.
• Plenty of storage and bandwidth, which are keys for your long-term growth.
• Competitive price, which fits your budget. You can find something around $4 per month.
• If you build a web server by yourself, you may not need a Web hosting.

2. Choose a Domain Name

There are hundreds of places you can choose from to register your domain name, just use a search engine and the key word like “domain name register”; you will find a lot of them. The domain registering cost usually is around $10. It is recommended to use “something.com”, because it is easier remembered by most people compared with “something.net” or others. Most Web hosting companies provide domain name registration as well; the cost is included in the monthly fee.

3. Choose Web software

Building a GOOD website from scratch takes a lot of design experience and effort. People with low investment budget usually use free web software.

We strongly recommend WordPress at http://www.wordpress.org, which is free and the most popular content management software for your website with one-click installation. Although WordPress is considered a blogging software, it can be used to design a big website.

In addition, you can change the look of your website easily just by using different free theme, you can download at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. Wordpress also has rich plugins with very powerful features, you can download at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/plugin.

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Here introduces three basic ways to start a internet-based business.

1. Start an Online Business from Scratch
Develop your own product or service to sell. Creating information products is a good example; however, the internet business ideas are endless.

2. Start an Online Business with Affiliate Programs
If you don’t have your own product or service to sell, you can sell someone else’s products through affiliate programs. With an affiliate program, you are paid a percentage of sales, called commission after you referring someone to a company’s website and made the sale.

3. Start an Online Business by Reselling Products Bought from Wholesale
If you don’t want to develop your own products, you can resell other people’s products. You can buy them from wholesale and ship them out, or just take the orders and ask wholesale does all the shipping for you, called drop shipping.

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