Share about your passion on International Passion Day

September 30, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comment 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

September 30 is International Passion Day.

My Passion formula:

P: Professionalism

A: Action

S: Stay Sane

S: Share: If you are new here, you might not be aware of my Keys to abundant living. caring about others, daring for others and sharing with others.

I: Ingenuity

O: Objectives.

N: Network.

If you are able to hear yourself saying, “Woohoo! it’s monday”, then you can be sure you are passionate about your work.

To pep up your passion for work, follow these simple tips.

  • Discover your talents and work in the area that matches your talents.
  • Brighten up your work space. Make it as much fun, pleasant and conducive to work as possible.
  • Network with like-minded people.
  • start listening to your people (customers/employees/readers).
  • With constant reinforcement, you’ll be able to internalize passion towards your work.

People who live passionate lives can and do change the world. Mahatma Gandhi, is passion personified, IMHO.

Today, on the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PASSION, let’s envision our dreams about our ideal life and work towards achieving them.

Motivate yourself to expansive thinking and dreaming and join me to take at least one action to follow your passions and begin fulfilling your life’s purpose.
“When you are clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent that you are clear”.
- Janet Bray Attwood
My question to you today: How important, do you think, is passion responsible for success?

You might want to subscribe to my RSS feed to stay tuned to tips & news about cross blog promotions

To your blogging success,
Cross Blog Networking

Send article as PDF to PDF

Cross Blog Conversation – 10 do’s and don’ts of blogging

September 29, 2008 · Filed Under cross blog conversations · 3 Comments 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

Cross blog conversations are a great way for cross blog networking and promotion.

What are cross blog conversations?

This is similar to a tagging game. The participants tag each other with questions and answer them in their blogs.

How does this help?

Apart from being loads of fun, it is great way to gain some organic backlinks. (Organic backlinks are inbound links that point towards your site. These play vital role in Google’s pagerank algorithm). If you are interested in checking out what the google formula might look like, here is an interesting resource.

To sum it all up, the more inbound links you have, the better. I’m sure you know this, so try out creative ways to collect these nuggets.

Here is THE chance.

At Budding Bloggers Community, we planned cross-blog conversations every saturday. If you are interested to hopping in, you are welcome. It will be great if you can join the community, but this is not a pre-requisite.

Mail me at shri (at) smartadvise (dot) info, if you want to join our cross blog conversations.

I am tagging John of www.workingsolelyonline.com with the question below.

Q: What are the top 10 do’s and top 10 don’ts of blogging, you learnt during your blogging career?

Tagging question for Mike of www.dropthemike.com

Q: 10 valuable web design resources for bloggers.

That should give us loads of valuable information. Stay tuned. You might want to visit both the blogs for great resources.

You might want to subscribe to my RSS feed to stay tuned to tips & news about cross blog promotions

To your blogging success,
Cross Blog Networking

Send article as PDF to PDF Printer

5 Proven ways to improve alexa ranking

September 27, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · 1 Comment 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

The Alexa traffic rank of a website is measured according to the number of visitors to a website.

Ad networks use the alexa rank of your website to determine its popularity. Your Alexa rank will have great impact, if you intend to monetize your blog by selling text links ads or sponsored ads. Here are few quick ways to improve your alexa ranking.

  1. Put an alexa widget code on your website or blog. Grab the widget code at Alexa Rank Website, copy & paste anywhere on your site. This will keep alexa informed about the number of times your page is loaded.
  2. Use your website / blog as your browser homepage. Each time you open your browser, your site is loaded which will be counted as a visit. (Not very clever, eh?. As of now this is how it is, so lets do it). You will have an added advantage if you work on multiple computers, like in an office, change browser home pages on all computers.
  3. Download alexa toolbar: Download the Alexa toolbar and use it every day to visit your own website. Alexa even gives you the ability to co-brand the toolbar with your own logo and give it away. Encourage your friends & family to download and use it.
  4. Install FireFox Add-on: Monitor your alexa ranking & Google PR with search status FireFox add-on. This add-on sits on the status bar and displays the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and more.
  5. Install Alexa Re-direct Plug-in: The great thing about wordpress.org blog is, you get plug-ins for everything you can possibly imagine. There is a plug-in for Alexa Ranking too. Download the plug-in from here: wp-alexa-redirect-0.3.zip 3.0 KBHere is how it Works:The particular plug-in scans the entire set of links on any page of your blog while someone is watching it and it adds a JavaScript event to each of them, which upon clicking on the link (no matter is it a Left Click or a Right Click) will prefix it with the Alexa Redirect URL: in this way the person visiting your blog will visit the desired URL by forwarding the URL to Alexa. Here is an example – you have a link on your blog like http://www.yourblog.com/page/2, but when the user clicks on it, it will transform into http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?http://www.yourblog.com/page/2. In the same time, when a Search-Engine bot like Google visits your page it will not trigger the JavaScript event, because they are not JavaScript-aware: and in this way you “Alexa-Rating boosting efforts” will not mess your Google rating and search results positions.

With these techniques, you can decrease your alexa ranking drastically. Don’t believe it? Try it out. Note your present alexa ranking and monitor & record once every 10 days. I’d love to hear how you improve your ranking. My Alexa rank as on 22nd sep is 439176. This is radically low in comparison to my rank a month ago.

Send article as PDF to Create PDF

Winner’s attitude. Do you have it?

September 25, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comment 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

There are four kinds of people

  1. Those who make things happen
  2. Those who watch things happen
  3. Those who wonder what happened
  4. Those who don’t know that anything happened

People who make things happen are set apart by their attitude, personality, objectives & abilities. If you are a blogger like me, you must have set goals to direct you in a direction. If you haven’t set your goals yet, here is a typical blogger’s goal sheet.

People who succeed have the enthusiasm, purpose, discipline, creativity, determination, appreciation of others, the willingness to work, learn, serve & share.

Most people live & die without ever materializing their dreams. They never dare to try. Because lack of self-confidence. Women especially have so much untapped potential. Often I hear about a woman who is in desperate need of hearing this message. She may be a home maker who has been out of job market for years. Perhaps she never worked outside the home and now, because of divorce or widowhood, she finds herself seeking a career. May be she worked long and hard in another field, never having heard words of encouragement. Whatever the reason, she needs to build her feelings of self-esteem and worth. It makes sense for every person to try to have everything going for him/her.

Here are some do’s and don’ts

Dos
Build your self-esteem & worth
Build courage to just give it a try.
Network with like-minded people. (You are the average of 5 people who mix with).
Think positively
Take care of your health

Don’ts

Take responsibility for your successes & failures
Don’t whimper
Don’t be jealous
Don’t be late
Don’t be afraid to take a stand
Don’t ever loose control

There is no reason why you should not succeed in business. All you need is Intuitiveness, foresight, product knowledge, market knowledge, guts, clear judgment, a stubborn streak and a computer with internet access.

Everything you do should manifest your integrity.
Tell yourself “I CAN DO IT”, SMILE and “JUST DO IT”

Send article as PDF to PDF

25 ways to make your blog unique

September 23, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · 6 Comments 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

Unique décor: Choose a unique style for your website. This will leave a lasting impression on the visitors. It gives out a professional look. Imagine a white page with black letters or a web page which looks like a cluttered html lab. There are thousands of themes available, pick the right one that suits your niche, customize it to serve your purpose.

Easy To Navigate: Blogs are known for their bad navigation. Limited place or tabs are available to fit the vast amount of information you amass on the blog. You have to provide links to readers so they can easily browse around your space. You will want to include an about page, contact details, archives among other links.

Revive Latent Posts: Despite the number of advantages of blogs, there is one disadvantage I detest. Blog posts are filed in chronological order and slowly get buried in the archives. Your most important latent articles would need some revival. For example: This post is an improvised version of my post dated 14th May’2008. The original post is Make your blog standout of the crowd.

Amiability: Make your readers feel welcome to your blog. Don’t spook your visitor with cluttered text ads, banner ads, affiliate links, popups etc. This leaves limited space for the actual posts.

Offer something free: Many people just love the word FREE. Your visitors have so much of choice. If you want to keep them, you need to show them how good your products are. This will attract people to your site. Offer them a small free gift for signing up to your email. This is not just to attract people but also as a courtesy for the newsletter signup.

Don’t spam: Keep strict privacy policy and adhere to it. My vocab falls short to stress enough on this point.
Choose the things you offer to people: You need to pay close attention to what you are offering your visitors. Don’t just offer because it gets you more commission. Try it out yourself if possible, or browse around for reviews. Mention to people what reviews you went through and how you support them or controvert them.

Transparency: Don’t make false promises. One of the key objectives of any brand is to build consumer trust in its values. So rather than a humbug sales copy that exaggerates or spins the truth, why not just tell the truth in the first place?

Genuine: Be yourself. Don’t sell yourself as someone else or boast that you are something which you are not. False pretensions don’t help build credibility.

Attention to detail: Don’t rush. Take time on each thing and draw attention to detail. This will bring out the best in you. As a child I always wanted to finish my work as quickly as possible and end up messing things. I learned to slowed down a little and now I feel things are under my control.

Stay in touch: Once you build a subscriber/ customer email database, you’ll need to use that list to stay in touch with them at pre-mentioned intervals (week, fortnight, month  or once in a quarter) by sending e-newsletters, special offer emails, special discounts, free products etc. This will help them remember you among your competitors. Over doing this by flooding subscriber inbox will not only lead to higher unsubscriber rate.

ROI (Return On Investment): Don’t expect to become rich overnight. Trying to monetize your blog too early can hamper its growth.

Taste: If you have what they are looking for, and instead of just reading about it, if they can savor a little, they are obvious to come for more.

Specialize: specialize in a micro-niche in your area. If you are running a blog on pets, find a micro-niche you are passionate about. Centralize on a that smaller topic. Ex: Pets > Dogs > Great Danes. Master that area.

Frequency of posts: Writing posts at regular intervals will keep your readers informed about your posting habits. If you can’t post for some reason, let your readers know about it.

Be Pragmatic: When you are writing a post, think about its practical utility to the readers. The more your posts are written with a mindset to help, the more readers will be attracted to your blog.

Fast: Quicken your speed than competition. You should be able to finish a project in a week which your competition would take to finish in a fortnight.

Conversing Tone in Writing: Blogs should not sound like website. They should have the personal touch and blog posts should be written in conversational tone.

Interact With Readers: You should also take the advantage of comment facility with blogs to interact with your readers.

Hand pick your affiliate programs: Before recommending products to your readers, a blogger must have tried and reviewed the product. If that is not possible, you should have a strong reason why & how your readers are going to benefit from the product.

Reflect Your Personality: Quote: “Imitation is suicide”. Come to think of it, Imitating another blogger won’t serve any purpose. Your blog’s uniquity comes with you and your writing. It should reflect your personality.

Primary Goal Of Your Blog: A focused blog is well admired by readers especially those who subscribve for rss feed. They will know what to expect from your blog. Choose a micro-niche and post continuously about it. Pretty soon, your blog will gain prominence.

Balancing quality & quantity of posts: I see that many bloggers set a goal about number of posts per month. It is great to set such goal, IF you have enough content. Your content should be relevant to your blogs niche and should be of quality.

Organic Posts: Try to write posts about topics that haven’t been covered before. Or at least try to add more value to the topics already covered. There is no point in writing the same points which have been covered by hundreds of other blogs.

Catchy Phrases: This point has been stressed upon by every professional blogger. The title should be catchy to attract readers. You could also include an interesting piece of your post to display as excerpt. You will find this under advanced options, if you are running your blog on wordpress.

Keep your blog fresh: Provide fresh interesting content to your readers at regular (stipulated, if possible) intervals.

You need to provide a reason why your visitors should visit your blog among millions of blogs. Do you have a strong reason? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Send article as PDF to PDF Printer

Huge entrecard contest news

September 23, 2008 · Filed Under News · Comment 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

This is really huge entrecard contest. I signed up for entrecard only a few days ago and still trying to get the hang of it.

I am entering this contest and would love to win 30,000 Entrecards. Would love to use it for cross-blog promotion among bloggers from budding bloggers community. Want to join hands?

Here is the list of prizes and sponsors.
1st Prize:

30,000EC  from  Freebie Reporter
125×125 ad for a month from The Asian Economist
125×125 ad for a month from Free Famous Quotes
1 VIP membership to CreateBanner.com
1 Entrecard banner design from  A Phone Sex Life

2nd Prize:

20,000EC from  Freebie Reporter
1 VIP membership to  CreateBanner.com
125×125 banner  ad for a month  from Journal Of Journey
125×125 banner  ad for a month from  Charcotrip.com
1 month blogroll link from A Phone Sex Life

3rd Prize

2000EC  from  Today’s Games
2000EC  from  Debit vs Credit
2000EC  from  People You Need to Know
1500EC  from  Positive Thinking
2000EC  from  Realm of Prosperity
1500EC  from  NickThrolson
1000EC  from  Fantasy Baseball
125×125 ad for 3 months from  Cash Advance Blog
1 VIP membership to CreateBanner.com

Other Prizes:

EC Credits:

14 Lucky winners will get 1000 credits from one of our fabulous sponsors:

1000EC from  Michael Aulia

1000EC from  Øblog

1000EC from  Better Inspirational Communication

1000EC from  Random Detox

1000EC from  Multiply Themes

1000EC from  Momawannabe

1000EC from  Singaporean In London

1000EC from  Abhishek

1000EC from  SEMscoop.com

1000EC from  A Second Cup

1000EC from  Kutsara at Tinidor

1000EC from  Ohio Real Estate

1000EC from  MonkeyChapps

1000EC from  Today’s Games

Advertising:

4 Lucky winners will get premium advertising spots from the following bloggers:

125×125 ad for a month  from Positive Thinking

125×125  ad for a month from Gift Reviews

1 month blogroll link from Freebie Reporter

125×125 ad for a month from Freebie Reporter

That’s a total of 21 prizes that will be distributed between the people who participate in the contest.All the winners will be picked by using the random list generator at random.org .

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Write about this contest and just mention the one prize you want to win. Then leave a comment on this blog post with the link for us to see. 5 Entries

2. Write about this contest on your blog, mention the prize you want to win and copy all of the sponsors. Then leave a comment on this blog post with the link for us to see. 10 Entries

3.Subscribe to FreebieReporter.com feed via email.Then leave a comment on this blog post. 2 Entries

The Contest Ends on the 10th of October so if you wish to participate you must enter before that date.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE !  I HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY THIS CONTEST !

Send article as PDF to PDF

Cross Blog Promotion

September 22, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · 8 Comments 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

cross blog promotion

What is cross blog promotion?

Cross Blog Promotion is a set of strategies to promote a blog by networking and swapping blog promotion favors with other bloggers in the blogosphere.

Though the term Cross Blog Promotion hasn’t been used before, it isn’t a new concept. All the professional bloggers do it constantly and SMARTLY. It wasn’t ever done before in a systematized or collaborative way.

My cross blog networking techniques are advanced permutations of the irregularly used, highly effective marketing concepts.

There are basically three types of blog weaving:

1) Internal Blog Promotion:
Intra-blog linking: Embedding posts from the archives into latest posts is intra- blog linking.
Inter-blog linking: Linking blogs authored by the same blogger.
2) External Blog Promotion: Swapping blog promotion favors with other bloggers.

This concept works on weaving blogs without spamming. It focuses on various aspects, like link building to gaining social media favors, driving traffic and so on. I concocted ;) 50 cross blog promotion techniques, working on 25 more and aim to hit the 100 mark soon.

If you like the idea, you might want to join the Budding Bloggers Community to join hands with like-minded bloggers.

Cross Blog Promotion – The Positive Team Experience

If you are a first time visitor, you might want to read a few of my best posts.

Archetype of a bloggers goal sheet
Top 10 reasons why you must comment on blogs
Budding Bloggers Network

You might want to subscribe to my RSS feed to stay tuned to tips & news about cross blog promotions

To your blogging success,
Cross Blog Networking

Send article as PDF to PDF

12 Ultimate Time Saving Tools

September 16, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · 9 Comments 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

As you know, every minute you use wisely will get you closer to success. As bloggers we have lot of tasks to accomplish each day. Besides writing (which is the top most task), we also work on SEO tweaks, article marketing, forum marketing, info research, social networking and many more. If the potential of web 2.0 tools is not harnessed desirably, they pose the danger of hampering our productivity. Despite all the advantages, evolving as a blogger in the web2.0 generation can become more time consuming than ever before.

Here is a nice post on problogger about time suckers.

Some productivity tips:

  • Maintain two to-do lists. One for high priority tasks and another for medium priority. Work on the high priority tasks during your most productive hours (sans twitter :) ). When you need a break from brain raking, take up the medium priority goals. To make this more effective, pick 3 high priority goals as the Super Priority Tasks. Accomplish these tasks at any cost. This will leave you contended and less stressful day to focus on other tasks.
  • Your least productive hours have to be tracked & analyzed. They are not time suckers, instead you can utilize such time for Socializing on Twitter, tidying up your desktop, organizing your files & folders and so on. This will not need much of strategic thinking and leaves your work-life balance.
  • Allow yourself more time than you would normally need
  • Don’t slog. Learn to Say “No”. It’s better to turn down an assignment than fail to complete it.
  • Stop Procrastinating: Procrastination can ruin your career if it results in completing projects late or not at all.
  • Delegate or outsource jobs, especially when you have to research and learn a new subject just for one task
  • Don’t forget to include breaks in your schedule. Take breaks at regular intervals. Human brain needs a break of 3-5 minutes for every 20 minutes of work.
  • Eat healthy, exercise, sleep well and don’t forget to smile often. You’ll be less productive if you are tired.

Here are some tools I find very handy and save my time.

ORGANIZING TOOLS:

1. Autodial firefox extension:
Autodial firefox extension is like speed dial for your regularly / recently visited websites. It works like a control panel that compiles links to all important websites. Every new tab you open will contain the icon, domain & tagline of the sites you recently/regularly visited.

2. Keepass:
For security reasons, I tend to use different passwords for each account I create & forget the passwords as easily as I create them. Password Amnesia is Human. Keepass is the solution I found. Keepass generates, stores & retrieves strong passwords. Its very easy to use. I often take a backup on an external device to avoid loosing passwords in case of a hard drive crash.

3. Picasa:
Google picasa is a very popular image organizing software. I love to store memories as photos. My Fujifilm S5700 (not a pro camera but like it) works hard for me, leaving streams of images onto my hard disk. With Picasa you can Organize, edit & share your images seamlessly.

4. Jott:
With a simple phone call to 866-JOTT-123, you can capture notes, set reminders and calendar appointments, stay in touch with friends and family, and interact with your favorite web sites and services…all with your voice! All you need to do is call Jott and tell them where you want your message to go. They capture your voice, turn it into text, and send it to the destination you chose.

WRITING TOOLS:

5. Simple Sales Copy:
Simple sales copy in the words of the creator: “create captivating sales copy in just a few clicks of your mouse – you simply select the letter components you want to use and enter some basic information and the software program does the rest … instantly creating order-pulling, cash-producing sales copy you can start using immediately!”. I find this useful to get a basic sales page which I edit to personalize to my specific needs avoiding the cumbersome task of starting from the scratch. It is available for free on many sites. Google search it or just leave a comment below if you want me to pass it on to you for free. I have a copy with master resale rights.

6. Freemind:
Freemind is an open-source, mind mapping tool application written in Java. Mind mapping is a very effective way of synchronizing and organizing thoughts in one place. Later we can expand on the fundamentals drawn on the map.

7. Mobysaurus:
Sometimes, we get stuck for the apt word. Brain seems to be taking too long to parse & retrieve the most suitable word. This tool comes in handy at that time. Mobysaurus is a free English thesaurus/synonym finder/word finder for Windows, with over 2.5 million synonyms and numerous unique features. Online version also available.

RESEARCH TOOLS:

8. Domize
Domize is a domain search tool. It is the fastest, instant domain search tool ever. You must try it once to see what I mean.

9. Word Tracker Keyword Search Extension
Keyword research is very useful in optimizing your blog or even each blog post. If you use Internet Explorer 7, or Firefox 2 or 3, you can add the Wordtracker Keywords search to your browser. This makes keyword research very easy.

BLOGGING TOOLS:

10. Scribe Fire:
ScribeFire, an extension of Firefox, enables you to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into your blog(s), post entries, take notes, and optimize their ad inventory, directly through the Firefox browser. Very handy and I use it often. Click F8, write and publish. Publishing a blog post couldn’t have been easier.

11. Zemanta
Zemanta brings tons of relevant content from all over the web instantly into your sidebar as you blog.
It also helps build traffic with immediate tagged links created between your posts and others… sharing related conversations.

PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS

12. Rescue Time
Rescuetime is a free time management software. It is very useful to track your time, an analysis of time you spend on websites & programs you actively use and much more. This analysis was an eye opener for me and I targeted on improving my efficiency.

As i’m using more awesome tools, i’ll continue with another post in this week. So check back soon or subscribe to my RSS feed to stay tuned.

If you are a first time visitor, you might want to read a few of my best posts.

Archetype of a bloggers goal sheet
Top 10 reasons why you must comment on blogs
Budding Bloggers Network

Like the post? Subscribe to my RSS feeds to stay tuned Smart Advi$e.

Delivered by FeedBurner

Wish you a very productive week
Cross Blog Networking

Send article as PDF to PDF

Archetype Of A Blogger’s Goal Sheet

September 14, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing · 11 Comments 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

Goals are like map while hitting the unfamiliar road. They direct you to your destination.

I have a vision and I approach it step by step using shor-term goals. When I meet one goal, I set another reasonable goal I can achieve, IF i work hard. This allows me to visualize exactly where I want to go and I focus on getting there. As i reach those goals, I gain more confidence and motivation to move forward. When i’m stuck, I don’t hesitate to ask for help. It’s like a “Treasure Hunt”.

Some Great Quotes About Goals:
The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.” –Benjamin Mays

“By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands — your own.” –Mark Victor Hansen

If mentors told you this before, i’m sure they did. But nobody ever told you HOW TO. So here is an archetype of a blogger’s goal.

So What is your blogging goal?

If you have a strong positive answer and are pretty sure about it, then ignore this post and move forward to achieving your goals.

But if you don’t have set goals yet….this IS the first step. List down your long-term & short-term goals. Long-term probably for a period of 6-12 months. And short term goals for a month.
(Note: Your goals must be achievable, small, next step goals).

Present Site Statistics as on Date: __________ :

• Google page rank _____________
• Alexa Traffic Ranking _________________
• Google backlinks ________________
• Alexa backlinks _______________
• Yahoo backlinks ________________
• Number of Incoming links ___________

Present Traffic Statistics as on Date: ____________ :

• RSS Feeds Subscribers ______
• Number of site visitors ___________
• Number of page-views ____________
• Average daily visitors ______________
• Average daily page-views ___________
• Opt-in list members _______________
• Numner of Guest posts _____________
• Number of Pingbacks ______________
• Comments ____________
• Twitter following ____________
• Ezine article score _____________

Site goals for the month of ______________:

• Increase google page rank to _____________
• Decreasing alexa traffic ranking below _________________
• Increase google backlinks to ________________
• Increase alexa backlinks to _______________
• Increase yahoo backlinks ________________
• Increase number of Incoming links ___________

Traffic goals for the month of _______________:

• Increase RSS Feeds Subscribers to ______________
• Increase site visitors to ___________
• Increase number of page-views to ____________
• Average daily visitors to ______________
• Average daily page-views ___________
• Increase opt-in subscribers to ______________
• Increase number of pingbacks to ______________
• Increase comments to ____________
• Increase voluntary twitter following to _____________
• Improve ezine article score to ___________

Cross blog promotion goals (if you have joined our budding bloggers network):

Join a team of _________ members
Participate in __________ number of cross blog conversations
Request for ___________ guest posts

ONE High Priority Goal Of The Month:
____________________________________________________________
There ends the goal sheet.

P.S. Feel free to copy & print this page. Fill in the blanks, add, remove fields, edit to make it suitable for you. I recommend you to print & stick your goal sheet in your workspace.

Your thoughts, suggestions, questions, contributions & feedback are most welcome. Share your ideas in the comment box. Don’t forget to leave your web address &/or twitter id (if any), so I can visit & follow you.

Like the post? Subscribe to my RSS feeds to stay tuned Smart Advi$e.

Delivered by FeedBurner

Cross Blog Networking

Send article as PDF to PDF Printer

Why I created Budding Bloggers Network?

September 10, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing · 1 Comment 
http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/newsvine_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/yahoobuzz_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/sphinn_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/mixx_32.png http://web2mom.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_32.png

Are you blogger or IMer? If you can correlate with all / any of my points below, then you must be on budding bloggers network. You can read about the network in my previous post.

  1. I’m fed up of becoming the “little fish that needs to get funneled “. Is that what the BIG & PROF bloggers talk at the high-priced conferences?
  2. My harddisk is choking with products I bought from the high profile giveaways, penny offers, even high-priced offers. But I don’t see the “traffic jam” that has been promised.
  3. I don’t want my blog to be a never-ending monologue. I’m not talking to myself on this blog. I need readers, who appreciate/contradict my thoughts.
  4. Did you notice how the BIG bloggers promote each other? Inboxes get dumped with the same product news but from all the mentors? Don’t you want to do that for your product? Who will do it for you? It got to be another budding blogger.
  5. I want to grow as a blogger, continue blogging in the coming years because I LOVE BLOGGING. How long will I be able to sustain the passion if I have no readers.
  6. I have a great product and want to JV (joint venture) and build my list. Where can I post my JV offer?
  7. I wonder what other bloggers are doing? Where can I find a place that other bloggers meet & post resources.
  8. I feel isolated while working from home. I miss that team-spirit which a organization offers. I need a team.
  9. I am stuck and need help. Who will help me?
  10. I want to network and promote my blog without limits. Which forum / blog allows it?
  11. Without constant reinforcement, my ideas go arid & dry.
  12. I need genuine product / blogpost reviewers.
  13. I want to make more friends & network with other bloggers with similar ideas. Where is a network of serious and committed bloggers.
  14. I keep checking my stats and when I see comments on my blog, I go “hurray!”.
  15. I’m technically challenged. Where do I find someone reliable to outsource?

Do you have any other frustrations to share? Just leave a comment below. Join Budding Bloggers Network now.

Send article as PDF to Create PDF

Next Page »