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Put Your Blog Promotion on Auto-Pilot

Put your blog promotion on auto-pilot with these “set it once then forget it” promotional strategies.

Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories

Once you’ve requested a listing, you’re done!

blogcatalog.com
bloghub.com
blogarama.com
blogexplosion.com
blogflux.com
blog-search.com
blogbunch.com
iblogbusiness.com
quickblogdirectory.com
bloglisting.net
blogrankings.com
weblogalot.com

Ping When You Post

If you’re using Wordpress, it’s probably already set to ping rpc.pingomatic.com Add that to your ping list if it’s not there already. Ping-O-Matic will receive your ping then let lots of other sites know you’ve updated your blog.

If you can’t ping directly from your blog, try Feedburner’s Pingshot service.

Offer Your Readers an RSS Subscribe

Techno-savvy readers love RSS feeds they can subscribe to.

Your blog may have this built it just waiting for you to link to. You can also sign up with Feedburner or Feedblitz.

Be sure to add the code to your blog once you’re setup so readers can subscribe.

Add Social Bookmarking and “Tell a Friend” to Your Posts

Sociable and Share This are two great plugins you can use to easily add social bookmarking and “tell a friend” capability to your blog.

Just download, install, setup, and then the plugin of your choice will add the social networking icons to every post on your blog.

Connect to Social Networking

Using social media you can syndicate your blog content to reach your social networks.

If you Twitter, you can tweet your blog posts with TwitterFeed.

If you’re on Facebook, try the Wordpress Facebook App.

These five strategies take a few minutes to setup but once you’ve got them up and running they’ll promote your blog for you. Strategies 2 - 5 will promote your blog every time you post!

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at http://www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com

8 Easy Steps to Creating Your Own eBook or Special Report

There are many great reasons to write your own ebooks. Two of the best reasons are: (1) It helps establish you as an expert on the products you sell or services you offer, and (2) it can add an additional stream of income to your business.

But where do you begin? Follow these eight steps to create your own professional ebook.

1) Choose Topic and Deadline

Step one must involve selecting your topic. Be sure there’s a market for what you’re planning to write. Some good methods to find this out are keyword and competition research, target market surveys, or asking your newsletter subscribers for their feedback. In addition to choosing your topic, set a reasonable deadline to have your project completed.

2) Write the Outline and Sales Page

Next, write the basic outline of your ebook including notes of any worksheets or supplementary materials (interview transcripts, checklists, resource lists, etc) you want to include. It’s helpful to write your sales page early in your planning, before you’ve completed your content, because as you’re writing you can include the things you want to teach and the benefits of that information, which will help you develop and focus your outline.

Tip: Take your outline and set mini-goals for each section based on your overall deadline so you know which part needs completed by what date in order to reach your goal date for completion. Leave time at the beginning for research and time at the end for proofreading and seeking feedback.

3) Research

Based on your outline, you should have a good idea of which areas you already know what you need to write and which areas you need to research. Like any other writing project make sure you have multiple sources for your information. Consider the library, books, periodicals, reference books, wikipedia and online resources, surveys, interviews, etc as you research.

4) Write

Next step is writing. It takes me anywhere from a few days to a few months to finish a special report or ebook; it just depends on how much time I can invest in it.

I use Microsoft Word to write my books in if I’m on my Mac (99% of the time) or Open Office if I’m on my PC. If you need nice software to write in with formatting features, try Open Office.

As I write, I sprinkle in clip art or photos where appropriate to add some visual interest. I like iStockPhoto. You can also check Big Stock Photo or other similar websites for royalty-free images.

Use the header/footer feature to include your product title and copyright on each page of your product. Include a nice title page at the beginning and a final page with your website and business info at the end.

5) Proofread

When I’ve finished writing, I print a copy then set the ebook aside for at least a few hours or a day, and come back and proofread with fresh eyes. I generally also have my VA proofread for me.

Hint: If you have more than one person proofread, have them turn on “track changes” in Microsoft Word so you can easily spot their edits and decide whether you agree or not. If you’re not using Microsoft Word, request notes include the page and paragraph where changes were made so it’s easy to locate their edits.

6) Get Feedback & Revise as Needed

Send your completed ebook to a few colleagues or friends who are willing to review it for you and offer their impressions and advice, then make any necessary changes. This is also a good time to solicit testimonials and feedback that you can add to your sales page.

7) Convert to PDF

If you’re on a Mac running OS X, you can print to PDF by doing File / Print / PDF.

If you’re on a PC and don’t have Adobe to convert your file to PDF, two free alternatives that work for ebooks are PDF995 and PDFOnline.

I don’t recommend using .exe format files because you’re cutting all Mac users out of your market if you do (about 8-10% of computers right now, and growing). I’ve seen more than one ebook that I would have loved to purchase, but it was only available in .exe format so I didn’t purchase. If you are determined to use .exe, please consider providing an alternative .pdf format and purchase route for Mac users who may want to purchase your ebook. Please make sure you note somewhere what format your ebooks are in. I’ve also purchased a product before after scouring the sales page to be sure it didn’t say Windows only, then sure enough when I downloaded, it was Windows only. I won’t be purchasing anything from that internet marketer again.

8) Design Cover & Add to Website

Sometimes I do this step sooner with a “Coming Soon!” note. I use Photoshop to design my boxshots and covers. For boxshots I design the cover image, then use the Perspective or Distort tool to make it 3D. An easy way to do a report cover is to purchase an image from somewhere like iStockPhoto then put your cover image on top of it. Or use layers and shadows to make your image look like a few pages.

Now you’ve got a product and sales page ready!

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com

10 Fast Ways to Get More Links to Your Website

Comment on High Traffic Websites: One great way to not only boost your website rankings but to also increase your visibility and get additional traffic to your website is to post meaningful comments on blogs and websites that are relevant to your website’s products/services.

Specialized Directories: Use the search engines to find trade associations and product directories that you can be listed in. One example is diaperpin.com for cloth diapering websites. You can find good, targeted directories by searching Google. For example, try this: “product name” directory. For example: “cloth diaper” directory or “website design” directory

General Directories: General directories such as dmoz.org and alexa.com are free to request a link from. You may want to consider paid directories on individual basis. Their value for you will depend on your particular business and the type of traffic the directory generates.

Other Directories: Look at local directories such as yahoo.com and msn.com as well as small business directories, environmental/ethical directories, and other similar sites to request listings on. Also check the websites of the retailers/wholesalers you purchase from, the shopping cart or web host you use, and other businesses you work with. Many offer directories of their clients or retailers and you may be able to pick up some links and targeted traffic by being listed.

Article Marketing: Submitting articles you’ve written to article directories can be a great way to get links back to your website. Anyone who publishes you article will link to you in the resource box. My favorite article directory sites are ezinearticles.com and wahm-articles.com

Shopping Websites: A very popular way to shop online is with the shopping directory and product comparison sites like Google Base and Shopping.com. Are your products listed there yet? It’s easier than you might think to get added! Google Base is a great place to begin. Formerly named Froogle, it’s a popular, free, easy to use comparison shopping website from the geniuses who brought us Google. Many popular carts offer a built-in system to upload directly to Google Base, so check with your cart’s support team or site owner. You can also upload your items one at a time or using a spreadsheet: base.google.com

Review Products & Services: Take a few minutes to write honest testimonials for other small or home-based businesses and email them. They are likely to print them on their websites and be willing to include a link to you (I do this if someone sends a testimonial about my ebooks or services, I link to their sites and they get some free promotion).

Blog: Start a blog! It’s a great way to get search engine traffic as well as build a sense of community with other bloggers and to help your visitors get to know you. Be sure to use your Blogroll feature, turn on your RSS and pings, and use social bookmarking plug-ins on your blog.

Social Networking Pages: Websites like MySpace, Facebook, and Ryze allow individuals to connect with others by sharing their interests, opinions, photographs, and whatever parts of their lives they choose. Take some time to explore a bit and see which sites are a good fit for you and reach your target market.

Links from Other Sites: Create a “Link to Us” page and offer visitors both well-written text links and a selection of banner ads to use.

Pick one or two of these ideas and get started! More links to your website means more opportunities to be found, and it will help boost your search engine rankings, too.

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com