Good Article Content
Like I mentioned in another post, you cannot stuff an article with keywords. They must also be considered as good reading materials. Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic. As more people believe in you. They will be able to trust you and your products.

Linking Articles

And another important thing to remember: if you are going to submit articles to E-zines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, DON’T ever forget to include a link to your site. If you submit your articles to Ezine Articles, they allow you what is called a Resource Box. It is placed at the end of your article. In this resource box is where you place your link/links back to your site. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site.

By submitting your blog post to an article directory, you are repurposing your posts. You can also read your post as an audio for your customers to listen to. I’ll talk about that in a future post. For now, write your post and post them on your blog first. Then submit them to Ezine Articles for publication. Be careful to read their guideline before posting. That article will bring traffic to your website to grow your business. How many articles have you submitted so far?

These are tips to help you achieve success with your articles. Your goal should be to make a profit earning and traffic overflowing site.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases

Your article should always be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases. As each website visitor goes to a site, there are those who are just looking to see what you have or offer. Others are looking for something specific. When this happens, a searcher usually goes to a search engine and types in the keywords they are looking for (e.g. get out of debt, migraines, or taxes in 24 hours). It could be anything they want.

The important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you must be able to have articles about cars and their parts. There are many tools in the Internet that provides service in helping you to determine what keywords and keyword phrases are the most sought out. You can use this tool to determine what keywords to use and write about. I recommend you try the fr*ee Google search called keyword tool external.

Keyword Density
Now that you have your keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them to the full extent. An article must have good keyword density for a search engine to notice it. Articles should at least have ten to fifteen percent of keyword density in their content for search engines to rank a site high in their search results. Getting a high rank is what articles do best for a site.

Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used on an article. The number varies depending on the number of words used in an article. An effective article must have a keyword density that is not too high or too low. With a very high density, the essence of the article is lost and may turn off a reader as well as the search engines. It comes off as stuffing your articles. A low number may be ignored by the search engines.

These two will get you stated in writing your first article. Next time, we’ll talk about what you need to include within your articles to grow your business. Let me know if you have written your first article and send me the link.

Once you purchase your domain, go over to your hosting company. I recommend Blue Host. It has C-panel which is great for blogging. Log in over on the Blue Host site and scroll down until you find Software & Services category. Then chose WordPress and click on it. Then select the domain name where you are installing the blog. Fill in the blanks. Under advanced options, select a user name and password, etc. Then click the complete button. On the next page, it will show you as it is installing it right before your eyes.

It will then give you the link to your page along with your user name and password. Write down your username and password and then to connect to your page. That’s it.
There is a search bar on Blue Host. Type in videos and look on the right. There will be an icon for you to click on and a large list will appear. These videos will walk you through installing WordPress.

If you don’t have C-panel on your hosting, there is another way to install wordpress. It is a few more steps. You can go to Google search bar and type in “5 minute wp install” and the first entry that comes up will be a link to help you install it another way.

No matter which way you install it, your blog is now ready for your first post. To your business growth!

Let’s say I wrote an article about 5 Ways To Save Money. My article outline would be:

· How To Save On Groceries

· How To Save On Utilities

· How To Cut Back On Unnecessary Spending

· How To Save On Gas

· How To Save On Clothing

Once the article is written, I can take each of these points; add a subject line, a one or two sentence introduction and an affiliate offer at the end. It won’t take you more than a few minutes per message to do this.

Then I just load the emails to my autoresponder, creating a 5 day sequence on saving money. If you’d like you can also hint at what’s coming in the next message, creating anticipation and improving your email open rates. For example, after the first email about saving money on groceries, I might mention that next week, I’ll share how to save x amount of dollars on utility bills.

But we’re not stopping there… I can even turn the original article into a short report, add the affiliate offers, create a pdf and add it as another email message to the autoresponder with a link to download the entire series.

Now let’s take it a step further. If I write a series of related articles, each of them broken down into 3 ways to accomplish something, 5 tips or 7 ideas etc. I can quickly create a series of 20 to 50 auto responder messages. If you schedule them to go out 7 days apart, and include the additional messages encouraging them to download the free reports you will easily have enough messages to last you for six months to a year. And each one of these messages is monetized with an affiliate offer, or an invitation to come back to your site.

Can you see how spending just a little bit of time thinking outside the box, can help you grow your traffic, your list and thus your affiliate income?

One last quick tip: Encourage your readers in some of these autoresponder messages to invite others to join your list. This will create a viral effect and get increasingly more people on your list.

And now I would like to invite you to learn more about affiliate marketing and how you can grow your own niche site in as little as 30 minutes a day using the strategies and checklists I’m using each day.

For more info check out Daily Affiliate Tasks“> or Daily Affiliate Tasks.

Posts will be updated on a regular basis such as 2 to 3 times a week. They are listed in chronological order with the most current listed first. You can decide how many posts will be listed on each page. A good number would be to list 10 posts per page. If there is a post you want to stay at the top of a page then you can call that post a ‘sticky’ post. On the left side of your dashboard, look for the post section. Click on ‘Posts” and all your posts should come up. Hover your curser over the post and underneath the title, you will see edit, quick edit, trash, view. Choose ‘quick edit.’ Over on the right side, you should see sticky and an unchecked box next to it. If you want a particular post to stay at the top of the page, check off that box. Then click update. If you change your mind and want to change a sticky post, simply uncheck that box.

Pages are listed on your dashboard too on the left side. They are permanent. Pages are not updated weekly or a regular basis. You can change or update them but it won’t be very often. They do not use tags to locate a page. The most common pages are an ‘about me’ page, or a ‘disclosure’ page or simply a ‘home’ page. There are no categories for pages and no dates.

This is a post to grow my business. The most common misunderstanding on a blog is page vs. post. Do you know the difference? Send me examples of your pages vs. posts below in the comment section.

Susanne Myers has written a great informational document to help you make and keep your New Year’s Resolutiuons throughout the year. I believe this document was not written for small business owners. But I do believe it will help brick and mortar businesses that are trying to transfer their business online and those who are having trouble. Here are some of the items Susanne covers in her free special report:

• Are you planning your goals for this year?
• Are the goals you set realistic?
• How will your reach those goals?
• Will you experience a mid-year slump or give up after a while?
• Would short term goals help you through a rough patch?

This document was placed on her Hillbilly Housewife site. The information in this report applies to all business owners – whether you have a brick and mortar business or work from home on your computer. Susanne talks straight talk. She doesn’t beat around the bush. She knows how to tackle the obstacles all small business owners go through. She gives examples that you can relate to.

Go here to download your free special report to help you plan your New Year’s Resolutions!

As a small business owner, you know that your business is all about the customer. Your online presence should be increasing and your list should be growing. But you need to know where you are before you provide for your customers. When you finish reading this report, I want you to post your response below in the comment section. How are you planning for this year?

“SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines.”

This blog is based on having a brick and mortar business or a service business that would like the phone to ring by transferring their business to an online presence. You can see that I used the keywords ‘transfer business online’ as my keyword. But sometimes those specific keywords get mixed up with a business that wants to transfer money online. That means I have to work harder to get folks to come to my site.

The domain name you choose for your business should include keywords that are relevant to your business. They should be keywords that potential customers will type in the search bar to find you to answer their problem. The best place to find domains is Go Daddy. On their site is a small search box that anyone can type in keyword rich domain ideas to see if it is available for no charge and no commitment. We all think we can come up with a great name only to see that someone else has already purchased it. The dot com is the most popular. I don’t use the dot org, dot net, etc.

Remember to use the keywords as your page names too. When entering a new post in WordPress, look at the top next to the title. You will see ‘permalink’ where you can ‘edit’ the title of your blog posts. Make sure you edit your title of your post to include your keywords. This, too, will help your SEO.

The idea is to grow your business online. You can do that through SEO by using keywords for your niche. What keywords are you using to get customers to your blog?

Coaches matter. In fact, a so-so team can be taken to an unimaginable level based solely on the coach they have. Coaches serve many roles for a baseball team:

1. They see the big picture. A catcher or first baseman may see the game only from their limited perspective; the coach sees everything on the field and how all the pieces fit together.

2. They have the wisdom of experience. The average coach has lived through more games than the average player, and they’ve seen things that some players haven’t. They bring that experience to the team.

3. They are invested in the outcome, but they are in it for the long haul. Just as kids can’t see past the end of the school year, players sometimes can’t see beyond the end of the season. The coach can put things into perspective.

4. They inspire. Because they care deeply about the players and the game, they are able to connect with the team in a way outsiders cannot. (If you have any doubt of this, just check out some of the famous “locker room” speeches from great sports movies such as “A League of Their Own.”)

5. They get you in shape. No one WANTS to do stadium steps or run wind sprints, but the coach knows that these unsavory exercises are what’s needed to whip the team into shape.

Just as you’ve never seen a winning ball team without a coach, you’d be hard-pressed to find a winning business person without a coach as well.
A business coach can perform many of these same roles that a baseball coach does. They can help keep things in perspective, guide you from their experience and wisdom, help you think past the next fiscal quarter, and motivate and inspire you to move forward. They know what needs to be done, and in what order, so they keep you from wasting time and energy on unnecessary tasks.

The best coaches get personal satisfaction in helping you succeed, so choose wisely. Find a mentor with a history of successes not just on the field, but as a coach as well. You wouldn’t want a baseball coach who was still reliving his glory days as a Major League fielder and felt in competition with the players on his team; you also don’t want a business coach who feels threatened by your success.

Ask around for recommendations; the list of talented Major League Baseball coaches is short, and the best candidates come from referrals. The same is true in the business arena. Who is your mentor? Who do you go to for advice?

It is pretty cool – but only if you’re winning. If you’re in a hitting slump or your team is in the midst of a losing streak, suddenly, the sport you love isn’t that much fun. And of course, the converse is true: The better you’re doing, the more fun it is!

Translate that to the business arena. When you’re in that golden space where every product you release is a hit and your customers love you, everything is fun – even paying the bills and emptying the garbage. But when your bank balance is hovering near the red and every phone call is another unhappy client, everything seems like a chore, including the tasks you usually adore.

It is possible to make a mental shift – in fact, it’s imperative that you do so. You can’t afford the luxury of a negative attitude, so here’s how to make things more fun when it all seems to be going wrong:

1. Focus on small successes. Did you meet a tough deadline, get a nice thank-you email, or release a new product? Recognize and celebrate these achievements, however small.

2. Downplay the bad parts. Remind yourself that everything seems worse when your attitude is bad. Give yourself a reality check: Was the tone of that call from your partner as negative as you thought, or is your poor mental state coloring your perceptions?

3. Choose to believe. As the famous author and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” You have the right and the obligation to choose your attitude – so why not choose a positive one?

4. Do what you love. If you truly love your job in a broad sense, then the little annoyances (like emptying the garbage!) are just part of the overall mission. In other words, the more you love the big stuff, the less the little stuff matters.

No professional athlete lasts long if they don’t have mental toughness that allows them to continue on, even when times get bad. As a businessperson, you need to cultivate that same mental toughness in yourself. But remember, business is fun.

It was little Joey’s first season in Little League Majors. He was only 10, but he was facing pitchers two years older and 20 pounds heavier than he was, and it showed. Being a smart, if not big, kid, he figured he’d play it safe. He knew that even though they were much more experienced than he was, many of the pitchers couldn’t throw consistent strikes. If he just stood there and didn’t swing, maybe he’d get lucky and get walked.

His first time up to bat, it worked. After three balls and two strikes, the pitcher threw a fourth ball for a walk. He was on base, and he even managed to score a run when the kid behind him hit a home run.

His strategy worked so well, he decided to try it again the next time he was up. This time, he made it to a full count again, but the sixth pitch was a called strike, and he walked back to the dugout for an out. Still, he was one for two for getting on base.

The next inning was about the same — he stood there as three straight strikes went right by him. He was out again. Still, scoring one run in his first Major League game wasn’t too bad — was it?

After the game, the coach went over everyone’s batting average. Joey was a little surprised when the coach read his name aloud and said, “Zero.” Zero? How could you have a “zero” batting average? Hadn’t he scored a run? His coach saw the confusion and hurt on his face, and after the treats had been handed out, he pulled the little boy aside. “Coach,” said Joey. “I don’t understand. How do I have zero?”

The coach put his arm around Joey’s small shoulders and leaned in close. “Son, you have to swing to get a hit.”

You have to swing to get a hit. Those words reverberated in Joey’s brain. Maybe it wasn’t enough to get on base just because the pitcher threw balls. Maybe he did have to take a risk to get in the game.

You know how the story ends – the next game, Joey went in there swinging. Over the course of the season, he hit some, he got out some, he missed some. But he never forgot his coach’s wise words: You’ve got to swing to get a hit.

The same is true in business. Sure, you can score every once in a while because your competition is so bad that customers will choose anything else. But to really be a superstar and make something happen, you’ve got to get a hit. And to get a hit, you have to swing. It’s as simple as that.

Plan your days even if you don’t get through everything you had on your list. Set goals. Those goals bring you one day closer to your business growth. What’s holding you back from growing a business?