RSS is Not Only for Blogs
Contrary to popular opinion, RSS is not only good for delivering content from your blog, although blogs are what made RSS so popular.In fact, RSS can be used to deliver a great variety of content and content types. If you can break down your content in to individual stories or individual pieces, you can deliver it via RSS.Just to give you an impression of the power of RSS, here are some examples of content you can publish using it …--> MarketingVOX is using RSS to deliver internet marketing news to their readers as it becomes available. Instead of having to wait to receive all the news in a single e-mail newsletter, RSS users get them as soon as they are ready.--> Amazon.com is using RSS to announce their bestsellers and to help their users keep track of releases they are most interested in.--> Some affiliate managers already communicate with their affiliates using RSS. You can of course use it to communicate with any other target audience as well, such as your employees or team-members, and even your company owners.--> FindSavings.com uses RSS to deliver savings coupons and related information.--> Lockergnome uses RSS to provide visitors with the latest downloads and relevant software. Yet again other companies are using RSS to deliver product updates and patches directly to their customers, just as they become available.--> A few hundred content publishers are using RSS to deliver audio content, such as .mp3 interviews and even “radio” shows.--> Textamerica.com allows people to post pictures, videos & text from their mobile phones and then make this content available via RSS feeds.--> Other companies are using RSS to deliver whitepapers and other educational content.--> One company uses RSS as a consulting billing awareness tool. The consultants create activity reports and the RSS feeds from the activity channels carry the billable information to the accounting staff for invoice preparation.--> Many internet publishers are using RSS to deliver t

Link Building Basics for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It is now common knowledge, at least among online marketers and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists, that the success of a SEO campaign is dependent to a great extent on the success of link building efforts. Greater the number of links from high-quality, relevant websites, greater the chances of a website getting ranked higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords.However, this fact is lost upon a high number of website owners, particularly small to medium sized enterprises. Recently, we were extremely surprised that one of our SEO prospects in Singapore had zero link popularity several years after the website had gone live. So, there is undoubtedly a need to educate clients and prospects on the basics of link building and why achieving a good link popularity is an important tactical step in online marketing / SEO.When undertaking a link building project, there are three criteria to be borne in mind:• Quantity of links: More the number of links, the better it is • Quality of links: Better the quality of pages and websites from which the links are obtained, greater the weightage of those links to the overall link popularity of a site • Relevance of links: Greater the relevance of the sites from which the inbound links are obtained, better the results will be with the overall off-site SEO efforts.Focus the link building campaign on the above three aspects to achieve optimum results.How to embark on a link building campaign The key to building high organic search engine rankings is to ensure that the search engines view the site to be ‘naturally’ relevant to its target users. Therefore, all efforts in the various aspects of SEO, including boosting link popularity, should take into consideration the need to make them seem natural.Broadly, we consider two approaches to building links—the one-to-many approach and the one-to-one approach.The one-to-many approach to link building helps create visibility

Free Publicity for Restaurants
One of the best ways to get a restaurant free publicity is by taking advantage of events and seizing the opportunity. For example, February 5th is Television Weather Persons' Day! Bet you didn't even know such a day existed, but it does, and it can give you free publicity. How? Weather people are the forgotten people at television stations. Deliver one of your specialties at the station. There's a good chance the weather person will be so delighted with the attention, he or she will mention you on the air. Even if they don't mention you, your goodies will be shared with the others on the staff and you'll get your name out there. When you call to let them know about a newsworthy event (and you will call, won't you?), they'll know about your restaurant.Actually, it's not a bad idea to deliver goodies regularly or periodically to a television station or a radio show host. Remember, nobody ever says no to food. People love to eat, especially when it comes gratis.If your restaurant serves breakfast, or, even if you don't serve breakfast but your kitchen staff comes in early,, here's another idea. Send breakfast (juice, pastries, coffee) each morning to the host of your local Morning Drive show on radio. I guarantee after a few times he'll look forward to it and mention you on the air. Then you can start sending hot meals of pancakes, eggs,etc. He'll constantly talk about you or perhaps even have you on as a guest.If there's a special radio or television show on during the afternoon that everyone watches, send lunch. You don't have to feed the entire staff, but do send enough for the host and a couple of others.I frequently bring my restaurant chefs to a television program where they prepare food on the air. They always bring enough for the staff to devour (and I do mean devour) after the show. The hosts and staff cheer when they see us because they've come to expect good food. And it's easy for me to get the producer to agree to use my clients! You might consider tr

What You Need To Know About Credit Cards
What is a credit card? A credit card is a card that allows you to borrow money to pay for things. There will be a limit to how much you can spend called your credit limit. At the end of each month you can either pay off the whole of the amount you owe or make a minimum repayment. Other kinds of cards include: 1) A cheque guarantee card, issued by your bank, that you can use to ensure that your cheque will be honoured up to a certain limit. 2) A chargecard where you have to repay the full amount at the end of each month. 3) A debit card, issued by your bank, where whatever you spend is immediately deducted from your bank account Do you need a credit card? Using a credit card is a useful way of making purchases: a) A credit card means you don't need to carry huge amounts of cash around and risk losing it. b) A credit card means you can buy items over the internet. c) A credit card means you can make purchases abroad without having to worry about local currency. d) A credit card gives the opportunity to spread the cost of a large payment over several months. e) A credit card is useful in an emergency. For example, an unexpected repair to your house or car.How do you choose a credit card? The main two UK credit card issuers are Visa and Mastercard. These are accepted in most places and in 130 countries worldwide. Beware of less well known brands that may not be accepted everywhere. Before you choose which credit card is the best for you, remember to read the terms and conditions carefully. Never sign up for a credit card without fully understanding what you are agreeing to. Remember that all the plus factors will be prominently displayed in large print. You may have to study the small print carefully to discover if there are any negative factors.A list of the current cards on offer in summary is available on this What is PPC
PPC stands for Pay Per Click. It is a method of paying for advertising on the Internet search engines.Users who are searching for the products/services you are selling are in a receptive mode and most likely to convert to paying customers.How does PPC work?Taking Google search engine as an example, when a user is searching for "widgets", your PPC ads will be displayed as part of the search engine results. Depending on how compelling your ad copy is, a user can decide to click on the ad for more information.Upon clicking on your ad, the user is redirected to your website and your account is charged a fee per the click on the ad. The most compelling aspect of PPC advertising is - you only pay per clicks. Or in other words, you only pay for qualified traffic delivered to your website. Rates range anywhere between $0.10 per click to $5 per click, depending on how competitive the market is.I see several ads listed. Who decides which ads show up first?Advertisers bid on keywords that their target market (people they think would be interested in their offer) would type in the search bar when they are looking for their type of product or service.For example, if you sell red widgets, you would bid on the keyword red widgets, hoping a user would type those words in the search bar, see the ad, click on it and buy.Who are the top players in the PPC market?Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter are considered the tier-1 search engines in the PPC market place. Tier 2 players include Ask, Kanoodle and several other smaller players.Google, the most popular search engine, controls the largest portion of the market. If you're just starting out, we

Exactly How Strong Is That White House Fence?
Ed Henry for CNN reported that a man carrying a suspicious package tried to jump the White House fence. A response team put on their funny hazmat suits to gather up the package.The package is being investigated. It probably holds the guy’s lunch, maybe more. Read about it at http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/04/white.house.jumper/index.htmlThe Secret Service arrested 44-year-old Roger Witmer for trying to jump the fence. Tom Mazur of the Secret Service said Roger didn’t make it. Evidently he needed more training along the Mexican border. Roger lives in Washington, D.C. so his relatives will not have a difficult time visiting him in jail.According to CNN, “Mazur said Witmer will be charged with unlawful entry, disorderly conduct and destruction of government property.” He had no previous record with the Secret Service. Evidently he was just getting started.The package was in a plastic bag. I guess Witmer dropped the bag onto the White House lawn as he was trying to scale the fence.The Chicago Sun-Times said there were bags, not “bag.” They also said that no explosives were found in the bags. See http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-white05.htmlAccording to CNN’s story, “Mazur said the incident happened shortly before noon on Sunday. President Bush, who had just wrapped up a late morning bike ride off-site, was on his way to the White House complex at the time.”The President probably hardly noticed the commotion.Witmer, according to CNN, will be charged with:Unlawful Entry: Even though he never entered.Disorderly Conduct: He should have checked in at the gate.Destruction of Government Property: He must have scratched the paint.Now if the fence is so flimsy that it can be damaged by a person climbing over it, what the heck is the purpose of the fence? “The White House fence encloses 18 acres of land.” I read that at http://www.whitehousehistory.org/06/subs/06_b.htmlThe last time I saw the fence it looked pretty sturdy and diff