Jun 10

Win a WordPress Theme

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Giveaway

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We have partnered up with eBloggingHow to bring you the MyThemeShop WordPress Themes giveaway that kicks off right now.  There are 10 themes being offered in this WordPress theme giveaway and the winner can choose which theme they want to win.

Here is a list of the 10 WordPress Themes from MyThemeShop being given away.

  1. Pinstagram – Pinterest-inspired WordPress Theme
  2. Spike – WordPress Blog theme
  3. NewsMag – WordPress Magazine Theme
  4. Boxline – WordPress Magazine Theme
  5. Glamour – Minimal and Elegant WordPress Theme
  6. Report – News Magazine WordPress Theme
  7. Splash – Tech Blog WordPress Theme
  8. Nominal – Premium WordPress Blog Theme
  9. Trendy – Lifestyle Magazine WordPress Theme
  10. Sensational – Magazine/Blog Theme – See Sensational WordPress Theme Review

This giveaway is run off of the Punchtab giveaway platform, as always this means the more you share your custom PTAB.it link the more entries you can earn and the more entries the better odds of winning, but it is a random draw for the 10 winners. as there will be 10 winners your odds of winning a WordPress theme for free are pretty good so if you are looking for a new WordPress theme for yourself, or just want to experiment with a new WordPress theme than enter for a chance to win.

MyThemeShop Themes Giveaway

This giveaway is also being sponsored by SmartEarningSecrets.com who blogs about ways to make money online.

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Jun 05

5 Tips For Building An Ecommerce Site With WordPress

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It still amazes me how many people that want to put together just a simple, minimalized ecommerce site to sell a few products, get stuck installing some heavy open source cart system like Magento or Zen-Cart or even worse end up paying for some expensive clunky shopping cart service such as Yahoo! stores. There’s got to be a better way people. Seriously!

If you’re willing to do a little work (or hire someone to do dev work for you) and planning, you could leverage a content management system that you are most likely already using. According to Wikipedia, 22% of all active websites on the web today run WordPress. Why not just build ecommerce functionality directly into your already existing WordPress site? The truth is that this is a great option regardless of what some experts may say, but there are a few things you should know. The following are the top 5 tips for building an ecommerce site with WordPress:

1. Don’t Use All-In-One Plugins

There are many premium plugins available that are pitched as "all-in-one" solutions. Unless one of these plugins meets your exact needs and specifications in great detail, I would recommend staying away from the "all-in-one" solution. 9 times out of 10 these plugins get you in trouble because they don’t give you flexibility and end up trapping you. Instead… leverage plugins that are more specific in nature if need be for example, a PayPal integration plugin or a Form plugin like Gravity Forms.

2. SSL Enable The Whole Site

There are many great tutorials online that you can find that help guide you through the steps of making your WordPress site fully compatible with your SSL. This simple step will solve a ton of headaches for you.

3. Leverage PayPal

While you can build in your integration to really any platform, I highly recommend leveraging PayPal. There are already dozens of plugins and hundreds of pieces of documentation to help you. And from a business stand-point PayPal just makes more sense.

4. Use The Tools WordPress Gives You

The biggest problems with ecommerce platforms such as Magento, is that they are great with Ecommerce but terrible with content publishing. WordPress is great at content publishing, something you’ll desperately need to better market your store. Leverage these great tools that WordPress gives you.

5. Get The Right Hosting

Some hosting providers, particularly shared hosting providers, simply don’t have the ability to help you serve a great ecommerce experience to your visitors. Make sure you get the right hosting service with the right amount of specs. Services like MediaTemple, Rackspace, and Linode are fantastic for this sort of thing.

My last tip is more of a recommendation than anything. WordPress is incredibly stripped-down and simplified in nature and your ecommerce/shopping cart should be no different. Do not over-complicate things with added little bells and whistles that won’t actually have an impact on conversion anyways. Focus on developing your WordPress ecommerce site with simplicity for the end user in mind. Doing so will not only give you high conversion rates, but you’ll save tons of money and time in development costs as well. A "win-win" if you will.

About the Author

Solomon Thimothy is a writer for ONEims, an ecommerce Chicago company that can help you create an image that will truly represent your company.

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Jun 03

How to Blog While on Vacation

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Blogging Tips

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Blogging on vacation can really get the creative juices flowing to help generate great content for your website.

There are several ways to blog on vacation, but the details of how to blog on vacation really depend on what kind of blogger you are. Some people are emotional bloggers and use it as a sort of means of therapy while others focus on a specific niche or blog professionally rather than for pleasure.

If you blog professionally and you want to take a vacation that does not involve blogging, the best thing you can do is to set up your blog before you go. Make general posts that do not involve the vacation at all. How to’s and informational posts can keep your blog thriving while you are gone. You simply create the blog and then set a time and date for it to post. This is especially useful if you do not want anyone to know you are on vacation. It might take a bit of work before you go, but you will definitely reap the rewards once you are on vacation!

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Share Your Experience.

If you want to blog while you are on vacation, why not blog about the vacation itself? This is a great way to get into travel writing that includes reviews of restaurants and travel services. You might even line up some paid blogs for this information before you leave. Because so many people use blogs as a sort of diary, blogging while you are on vacation can be a great motivation for you to take pictures and record your vacation!

Use your time wisely. Set a particular time that you are going to blog. You might blog in the morning about the experience of the previous day or plans for the current. You might blog every night. You might plan to blog, but never really get the urge. Create a few posts to publish on your blog in case you decide you do not want to do it while on vacation. The main idea is to plan ahead. This is why it is a great idea to set a schedule or create posts ahead of time. You do not want to be at the mercy of your blog while you are on vacation, but you want to keep it active.

About the Author

Steve is a writer for 180 Fusion. Check out their LinkedIn page for more info about them!

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May 31

High Level Overview on What Web Development Involves

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Web Development

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Web development encompasses what the eyes can see when looking at a website online. It is very broad in the sense that there are a lot of things that form part of what could have been the biggest innovation in technology creating websites and be accessible for any person wherever he is in the world. Web development includes the following: development of web content, web design, server side scripting, client-side scripting, and configuration for network security and web server, client liaison, and developing of an e-commerce website.

For web professionals, the term web development refers to the non-design side of creating a website. It is more focused on the coding and writing markup. Web development can be anything like a simple one-page static website down to the most complicated and complex social network sites, e-businesses, and even internet applications.

For big businesses and organizations, they have an in-house web development team that can be about 5 people or 100 individuals in one team. For newly established companies and smaller businesses, they usually opt for hiring an outsider and do web maintenance monthly.

Web development can be best done by a collaborative effort from different departments than one single department.

Rose Web

Here is a sneak peek behind web development:

The Elements

These elements are important to determine the very core of the existence of a website before it would be developed. Most likely these elements will form a huge part in the planning process. Therefore, it is highly recommended to sort things through piece by piece to ensure that there is no detail being missed out. Once the elements are properly addressed to, the planning process would be a breeze.

  • Information about the target audience
  • Purpose why the website exist
  • List of objectives
  • Information about the domain or subject
  • Specifications for the website
  • Presentation

The Process

In web development, there are 6 different stages to complete the entire process. Each of the stage is unique and requires different steps to finish up one stage. There are no short cuts here. To come up with top quality website, it is required to follow through every stage of the process in order not to miss out an important detail along the way.

  • First is planning.
  • Second would be analysis.
  • Third is the web design.
  • Fourth is implementation.
  • Fifth is web promotion.
  • Sixth is innovation.

As you may have observed the elements and entire process involved may look simple. However, in reality it entails a lot of discussions, debating, trial and error methods, before a web development team can come up with a good looking website that functions as it is designed to be.

photo by: Sharon Mollerus
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May 26

How To Use Chat Sites To Grow Your Network

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Social media has become an unstoppable force. It ought to be put into maximum use. Most social sites have a chatting option, and rather than spend a lot of time just chatting, on topics that are not necessarily beneficial, it is a smart way to build and grow your network. You can do this in a number of ways:

Available Chat Sites

The first step knows what options are available to effectively use to achieve your goal. There are popular sites, for instance, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which have millions of users and are available in many places in the world. They can undoubtedly be very beneficial, considering the huge numbers of users. It is also smart to put relatively new ones into consideration, as well as those specific to or popular among particular countries or people.

Apart from the famous ones mentioned above, here are a few more which are essential, especially if your main purpose is business: Ortega, Ecademy, PROskore, and Biznik, as well as Entrepreneur Connect.

Community

Chat sites generally are communities of people, as people interact. You need to have people who are loyal to you, if your network has to grow. To do this, identifying your target audience is of crucial importance. Identify their age, as well as tastes and preferences, what would appeal to them.

Feedback

Connecting with your audience on a one to one basis, is one of the biggest advantages available, and there is absolutely no reason why you should mess it up. Your audience wants to get in touch with you, and so fast, if not immediate response, is of utmost importance. Someone wants a fast response when they need to confirm something. Quick response brings you forth as an honest, sincere person, thus you win their trust.

It also helps you improve your business, or other areas that you may not be doing so well, thus benefits you too.

Features

There are various features available on the various sites, which are very helpful. For instance, one can connect several sites, thus your followers on other sites, and other people on other sites can get to know you, or your brand, depending on your purpose.

Trends

Again depending on your purpose, via chats, one can get to know what is trending and effectively use it. For instance, if one is a blogger, being among the first to blog on what is trending may increase the views on your blog, and your network too!

Professional Opportunities

Some social sites meant for professionals, for instance, LinkedIn and Zinzz, will help you link up with prospective employers, or employees, and other professionals in your particular area of interest.

Participation in various discussions on the different groups there are, also exposes you to more people. If you have good articulation of ideas, you stand out too. Chat sites do play a key role in networking, and it is best to be equipped with the knowledge of how to go about growing your network via use of chat sites.

About the Author

Cruz is working as a part time link builder at Philoutsource.com. Cruz is currently maintaining his personal blog and helping small business to increase social activity.

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May 23

Get Your Formidable Pro Form Template Pack

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WordPress

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As you may know, I have been a big fan of the Formidable Pro WordPress form plugin for a while, and I wanted to showcase some of it’s impressive benefits and justify why I think this WordPress form plugin is worth paying for.  First let me tell you a little about Formidable Pro and what it can do.

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Formidable Pro WordPress Form Plugin

This form plugin for WordPress goes above and beyond traditional form plugins in that you have not only the flexibility to add a plethora of form fields, advanced options but also it allows updates/editing of existing form submissions, keeps all forms stored in the database so you can pull reports and CSV file exports of all previous form submissions, as well as build graphical reports with analytics from your forms.

Formidable Pro has you covered and can be used for contact me forms, guest blogging forms, sign up forms (Mail Chimp Integration, Aweber Integration, Highrise CMS integration), WordPress Registration Forms, Purchase Forms (you can link Formidable Pro submission to Paypal where it sends user for payment), Quote Request forms, real estate listing forms, forms with signature using the signature add-on so that someone can draw a signature with mouse or trackpad and more.

Formidable Pro tracks Paypal payments and even records the Paypal transaction ID and stores it in the form for you.

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With Formidable Pro you get to track your form submissions and you never lose track of them.

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That is only the basics of Formidable Pro, virtually any type of form you want you can create with Formidable Pro, but wait you can also use Formidable Pro to create WordPress posts from form submissions, this means you can use Formidable pro to automate guest posting on your blog as well as allow for directory or event type submissions.

Buy Formidable Pro now if you haven’t yet, because once you do you then can use the Formidable Pro Templates that I have created for you.  You can download these templates and use one or all of them to help get you instantly setup with forms that may fit your needs.

How to install Formidable Pro Templates

You do need to use either FTP or your web hosts File Manager, you will want to navigate to your blog install and into your wp-content/uploads folder.  Create a new folder called templates.

Then in Formidable Pro, click on Formidable > Global Settings

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Go to the very bottom where you will see the Path to Extra Templates

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Make sure you cut/paste the recommended path under this section and just change out everything after the /wp-content/ to use /wp-content/uploads/templates.  Then click Update Options.

Now, when you download the template files below, unzip them and upload the .php file by using FTP or File Manager to upload the template to your folder above, then click on the Update Imported Templates Now link in the bottom of the Formidable > Global Settings, this tells Formidable Pro to re-read the directory and import the templates.

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Now the templates will show up in your templates section and you can just click on New Form from Template, or you will see the template in the drop down when you select new form.

Here are the Forms Included in the Formidable Pro Template Pack (Download each template individually or full template download link at end of article)

Formidable Pro Guest Blogger Form Template

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This template comes with the collection of first and last name, email, website and includes verbiage around submission quality, word count and also allows the form submitter to upload a guest post attachment so you can quickly review and either approve or reject the guest post.  It also includes default verbiage about an editing charge to the submitter if you need to do edits and cover your cost of editing.  You can feel free to modify any fields or description parts.  There is Captcha protection and this only works if you setup the Captcha component of Formidable Pro or the Captcha won’t show up.

Download the Become a Guest Blogger Formidable Pro Template

Formidable Pro List Your Giveaway Template

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This List Your Giveaway Formidable Pro form is very specific for giveaway bloggers who want to give people the option to list their giveaways or sweepstakes.  They fill out their basic contact information but also include details about their giveaway including the platform, prize, value, URL of the giveaway and an image for the prize.  Even better, all of this information is collected and a draft WordPress post is created in addition to an email being sent to you.  This draft post has all of the information carefully presented so all you have to do is look at the Draft post, review it and publish it.

Example of what post submission looks like:

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Download the List Your Giveaway Formidable Pro Template

Formidable Pro Become a Sponsor Form Template

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The become a sponsor form template is also geared toward if you run contests, giveaways or sweepstakes and is generic enough to accommodate any type of sponsorship you are collecting.  This form comes with fields for the sponsor to fill out Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Pinterest accounts that they may want to promote as well as additional information.  I do not have any hooks into Paypal with set dollar amounts, but you can easily add a drop down field with price amount and hook those into Paypal if you want to automate payment collection as well.

Download the Become a Sponsor Formidable Pro Form Template

What type of templates are you looking for or do you need, if I get enough suggestions I will build additional form templates for others.

Buy Formidable Pro Now, it is a powerful form plugin for WordPress that can accommodate everything from simple forms to complex forms to collect all of the information that you need.

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Download the Formidable Pro Template Pack which includes all 3 form templates listed above!

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May 21

Resolving WordPress You Do Not Have Permission to Preview Drafts

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WordPress

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Ran into an interesting problem with WordPress the other week and thought I would share the various solutions to the problem where you do not have permission to preview draft posts in WordPress or end up with 404 errors on posts in WordPress that are published.  One or more of these tips may resolve your issue, but remember to first and foremost disable all plugins as a first step when troubleshooting any WordPress issue.  If that resolves your problem, then start activating 1 plugin at a time until you find the culprit plugin.  This resolves about 90% of all WordPress issues that crop up, so make sure you do the disable all WordPress plugin method of troubleshooting first.

If you try to preview a published or scheduled article and you get a post page that says you do not have permission to preview this post then the following should be attempted.

Check WordPress Address and Site Address

The culprit which may be a bug in WordPress that leads to you do not have permission to preview drafts in my case ended up being a mismatch between the WordPress Address and the Site Address.

imageYou can find this in the WordPress –> Settings –> General

In my case, one of the URL’s was set to http://domain.com with the other set to http://www.domain.com and because one URL had the www and the other did not, it caused the you do not have permission to preview this post WordPress error.

Update WordPress Permalinks

This is especially an issue if you do a bulk import of WordPress blog posts or create a new WordPress blog, sometimes the permalinks can get confused and this will lead to 404 errors when viewing published WordPress blog posts or other URL oddities.  All you have to do is Open your WordPress –> Settings –> Permalinks menu and then click on one of the permalink settings, click update and then select the permalink setting you had previously and click update again.

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Typically you could use Post Name instead of Custom Structure for the post name, as this is now built into the later versions of WordPress and having custom structure with %postname% is a legacy configuration from older versions of WordPress.

Flush Browser Cache

Another thing you may need to do as an additional step or the only step is to flush your browser cache or try your same attempt with an Incognito or browser with a Private mode.  This is different for each browser, but if you still have the issue with being unable to preview WordPress posts or getting permission issue with WordPress preview after the above attempts try flushing browser cache.

Update WordPress

Finally, the last step if none of the above has solved your issues you can replace your WordPress install, you can do this with the automated WordPress reinstall which can be found in your WordPress –> Dashboard –> Updates

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Then go ahead and click on Re-install Now

again, remember to make sure you have any caching plugins disabled and try to hit your preview button again on a blog post and you shouldn’t see the you are not authorized to preview this post error any longer on your WordPress blog.

If one of the above tips to solve your preview not authorized WordPress issue, let me know and I will see if I can find something else that helps but in doing my research as well as resolving my own issues one of these should resolve the issue, especially if you disable all WordPress plugins and try again after completing the above options to try.

Good luck WordPress users.

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May 20

Shared Web Hosting – Is It the Best Web Hosting for Beginner Bloggers or Webmasters

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Web Development

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Choosing the right web hosting provider is one of the most common problems faced by beginner bloggers or webmasters. There are many free hosting companies, which will allow you to create sites on their platforms and host them. However, it is best to avoid them if you are taking blogging seriously because there are limitations and technical hassles with the free hosts. Therefore, I would recommend a beginner blogger who wants to earn through blogging to get some cheap, reliable shared hosting.

The kind of hosting you should choose depends on the kind of platform your site is running on. This article mainly deals with the kind of hosting to choose for those on the WordPress platform.

As a beginner, you may get confused with the many packages Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Hosting. In addition, you do not have much money to spend monthly (or yearly) on hosting because you have not earned a single penny yet from your online business. We have already talked about the things to consider before buying new hosting. In this article, I will talk specifically about the type of web hosting you should consider as a beginner.

The Type of Hosting to Buy as a Beginner

Technically speaking, there are many types of hosting Shared Hosting, Reseller, VPS, Dedicated server, Could Hosting. Each of them is further divided into Linux hosting and Windows hosting. Now for example, if you have a WordPress site, it is best to go for Linux hosting because if you do not have technical knowledge, you can still install your WordPress site by following the manuals. However, for Windows hosting, you need a little technical knowledge, and it is costlier too.

When I started out about 6 years back, there were not as many video tutorials or manuals available. I switched between various hosts, and learned the hard way. I tried and tested on various servers until I found the one that satisfied my requirements completely. However, now that is not the case, as the internet is flooded with video and instructional tutorials.

Through the experience gathered all these years, I can say that shared web hosting is the best for beginners. Plenty of resource of hosting is available to meet your basic requirements in the shared servers. Once you feel the need for an upgrade due to growth in business, you will be free to do so.

If your site is heavy and it is consuming much resource, I would recommend you to optimize the site. What you need to do is lessen the use of plugins, optimize the database, and clean up the orphan tables.

In a nutshell, those who are starting out with blogging on WordPress can choose shared hosting because:

  • Shared Hosting is cheaper
  • The traffic is less, so you would not need high configuration servers
  • They lack experience in handling cPanel and lack technical knowledge

As a beginner, you need to have the knowledge of handling FTP, and making changes to your website through cPanel. That is all you need and you will be in a good position to start your site.

According to you, what would be the best kind of web hosting or webhotel as the Danes call it, for beginner bloggers or webmasters on a WordPress platform?

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May 15

Internet Marketing- SEO Or PPC? How To Decide Which To Use Or Both

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SEO

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When it comes to marketing your business if you know little about internet marketing in can be difficult to know which route to go down. There are two main options when it comes to internet marketing; SEO and PPC. SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is used to get your website ranked on search engines for targeted search terms increasing your traffic. PPC stands for pay per click. PPC is paid advertising which is displayed above organic results on search engines and is used to increase conversions. Choosing which method is best for your business can be tricky if you don’t know the details, so here is a look at both and when they should be used-

SEO

When it comes to looking for a product or a service online almost everyone turns to search engines to do this. This is why as a business it is important you are ranked well on search engines for your targeted key words. Being on page one of Google and page two can be the difference between getting 1000 visits a month and 10 visits a month.

SEO does take time and it’s safe to say that when it comes to SEO slow and steady wins the race. SEO cannot be used as a quick fix and takes time, commitment and perseverance. Choosing search engine optimization means your traffic will slowly increase month after month and you will see a slow and constant growth in traffic to your site.

Choose to use SEO if your business is doing well but you wish to grow it slowly over time leaving you able to adjust and expand as your rankings improve.

PPC

PPC unlike SEO is paid advertising on Google. Like the name suggests you pay a set price every time someone clicks on your advert taking them through to your site. PPC is displayed above the organic results at the top of Google and are the first results the user sees. You can set a daily budget for clicks when using PPC and once this budget has been spent your ads will no longer appear to avoid any over spending.

Use PPC if you want to see quick results, unlike SEO PPC results appear right at the top of Google straight away, if you are willing to spend the money Google are happy to put you straight to the front resulting in more clicks. PPC is a great way to get a start up business off to a kick start or help pick up a business that is struggling.

When To Use Both

There are no rules against using both SEO and PPC. You may choose to do this if your business needs an extra kick when you don’t have time to wait for the results of SEO to take effect. Using PPC and SEO means you can bring in the traffic you need whilst increasing your organic rankings until they are ranking well enough to bring in enough traffic without PPC.

About the Author

Eilidh MacRae would recommend using SEO or PPC to help grow your business and bring in targeted traffic. She works for Marketing By Web who are a Bristol SEO Agency.

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May 13

Knowledge Of SEO Tools Are Vital For Your Website

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SEO

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SEO used to be easy and simple. All it took was a few minutes of some tedious work and that was that, your SEO tasks were complete.

However, all has changed and SEO now continues to increase the stress level of many website owners. SEO tools are very helpful to a website’s needs. SEO is something that needs constant attention. As technology is always changing and growing, new SEO techniques and tactics will appear, thus having the knowledge and being updated and upgraded is vital.

 Search Engine Optimization SEO

How SEO Affects Your Mood

As algorithms are being updated, it is essential for your business to possess some of the best tools available to you. People are either happy or sad when the search engines update their algorithms. Their mood depends on how their website reacts to the update. Some see a big boost and practically overnight success from all their hard work, whereas others see their hard work just fail.

However, search engines such as Google are updating their algorithms more often as time goes by. Instead of the regular 4 month period that goes by, you may start to experience a monthly update. The right SEO tools are vital to have and some can even assist you in the overall appearance of the website.

Not Every Tool Is a Good Tool

Tools you and your business should possess shouldn’t necessarily be to make magic work on your website, nor allow you to see overnight success because with SEO that is impossible.

There are a dozen of very good SEO tools you can get your hands on that will be of great assistance to your SEO presence, however, you will still be required to manage and work on SEO tactics, but the tools may lighten your load.

Other Things to Keep In Mind For Your SEO

Search engines and Google are now looking at your websites load speed and page speed to assist in determining the overall SEO quality and ranking of your site. Make sure your website, along with the pages loads quickly. Comments are also a big factor.

If the search engines see a lot of spam visitors coming through your site, you may want to reconsider your recent SEO strategies, as the spam visitors and comments can tremendously affect your website’s presence.

Another Consideration

As you can see, SEO tools are vital to maintaining a good on site SEO presence. If you operate your website on high quality and SEO rich articles, it will ultimately result in a good SEO website.

There are a handful of very good plugins to choose from. It is best to install a few and see which seo ranking tool will best fit your business needs and which you are most comfortable using. For example when using a platform such as WordPress, consider downloading a plugin. That will assist you in developing a high quality presence.

Robert is a new media consultant. He works with various business sectors, mainly focusing on their internet marketing needs. Robert hopes to one day develop his own seo ranking tool. However, until then, he enjoys reading and expanding more in the marketing industry.

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