QUICK TIP – Using Google Webmaster Tools

Today’ Quick Tip Features Google’s Webmaster Tools.

If you have a website and have not set your site up with Google Webmaster tools then you are missing out on one of web’s hidden treasures.  Google offers great tools to any webmaster (and if you work on your own website then you ARE the webmaster).  You get tons of information on SEO, Google ranking, forums and more and it is all FREE TO USE.  We love FREE on LIBT!

It is very easy to get set up, submit your site to Google, and start using all the great tools they have.  Just go over to their website and set up your account.  Once you log in they will walk you through adding your account.  You can get the Googlebot to crawl your site and identify common errors.  Google also give great ideas to improve your site for ranking and there is a very active forum full of insider tips and tricks.  All this for ZERO DENARO!

Give Google Webmaster Tools a try.    Let me know what you think.

ROCK ON!

Social Icons – What The Heck Are Those Thingys?

I recently set up a new computer for my friend’s mom.  It was her first “in home” computer and her first time using the internet in her home.

Hard to imagine right?!

Oh she had used the internet before at a friend’s house and the library but she had never had a home computer and never really used the internet for any length of time.  To her this was a new frontier.  It was a thrill to watch her as she explored the web.  It was also a very rare opportunity to gain insight from this point of view.  There were so many things that I take for granted while surfing that seemed so foreign to her.  It became very apparent of how ‘trained’ I was by the internet and how I expected things to be in certain places on a page or within a site.  If they were not where I expected them to be I grew frustrated rather quickly as I was attempting to show my newbie where to look for information.  This was, to say the least,  a great learning experience.

As we went to one particular site my friend’s mom inquired about the Orange RSS feed button.  “What the heck are those thingys?”, she asked.

I began to explain what the symbols meant and how they were mostly universal across the web.  I further explained how she could set up a reader and centralize her information (I used a newspaper analogy to make it easier) to save her from going back and forth between favorite sites.  After I explained this to her she told me that I should write an article about the icons so that other new users would know what they were as well.  So as promised, here it is!

WHAT ARE THOSE LITTLE THINGYS ANYWAY?

Those bright shiny buttons you often see on web pages, more often blogs, are called Social Icons.  Website owners use them as a way for readers to connect to other accounts that the website owner may have.  You may also see icons that allow readers to subscribe to the sites content.  These are commonly referred to as RSS Feeds. Although there are various designs for these Icons, they generally have the same recognizable look based on the sites they represent.  Below I have outlined some of the most commonly used Icons and what they are for.

FEED ICON

This symbol represents a link to the RSS Feed for that site or blog.  It allows you to subscribe to the content on the site through a reader. You can read more about RSS FEEDS here. You can find a READER here.

TWITTER ICON

This is a link to a site called Twitter. Twitter is one of many Social Networking sites which are common and growing rapidly on the web today. Twitter itself is a micro blogging site that is used to update information about yourself or your company to others in your network of followers. You will also see many people use various types of little blue birds (Twitter’s well known symbol) to represent Twitter. You can learn more about TWITTER here.

FACEBOOK ICON

Facebook is another Social Networking site that is commonly used by websites and individuals. It is extremely interactive and one of the biggest. You can learn more about FACEBOOK here.

MYSPACE ICON

MySpace is yet another Social Networking site which is similar to Facebook but most commonly used by the teen age group. If you know a 12-17 year old I almost guarantee they are on MySpace. You can learn more about MYSPACE here.

YOUTUBE ICON

YouTube has become the single most popular Video Sharing sites on the planet! It allows users to upload and share their videos with the world. It also allows anyone to view some of the millions of videos available from the web. Learn more abut YOUTUBE here.

DELICIOUS ICON

Delicious is a Social Bookmarking site. It allows users to ‘bookmark’ pages they find while surfing the web and “tag” them according to topic. This allows the user access to all of their favorite websites in one centralized location. You can learn more about DELICIOUS and how it works here.

There are just a few of the more common Icons you will see but the complete list is huge and changing all the time. Sometimes you will see these at the top of webpages, othertimes they will be at the end of articles so that users can share the information on their social network sites.

So now you know.

Keep Learning!

QUICK TIP – Twitter – ReTweet Please?

Do you Tweet? Do you like to get your Tweet ReTweeted?

I do! It’s like that old shampoo commercial “…and she told two friends, and she told two friends, and so on, and so on…” Ok, I’m totally dating myself! =)

Here are a few handy tips I learned for tweeting information what I would like ReTweeted.

1. Put your link at the front – When you message gets retweeted the  retweet will have an ‘RT’ and then the ReTweeter’s Twitter ID.  (ex. RT @Twitternamehere…[YOUR ORIGINAL TWEET] )  If your link is at the end it might get removed in order to fit the retweet into the 140 character space.

2. Keep your message under 120 Characters (Twitter allows 140) – This will allow the (RT @Twitternamehere) at the beginning without loosing any of your message.

3. Follow ReTweeting Twitter users such as @RTsweets, @_rtweet, etc – Some will auto retweet when you note the word ‘ReTweet’ in your message.

That’s it for now!  Hope you enjoy these tips.

QUICK TIP – Affiliate Marketing – Beginners DO THIS NOW

If you are getting started with Affiliate Marketing you will soon begin to notice the abundance of sites that offer Affiliate programs. There are so many and this article will not go into Affiliate Marketing and finding the best Affiliate programs. What I offer here is a quick tip.

Managing your Affiliate Programs will be much easier if you keep your information in one location. Create a text document or a spreadsheet to keep affiliate sign up information organized. You can keep track of your signon, passwords, tracking codes, banners, buttons, and more in one neat place. This way, when you need to find your info you can pull it all up with a click of the mouse.

I use a spreadsheet but you can use anything that works for you and remember it must be secure.

If you would like a free copy of the spreadsheet template I use, just let me know and Ill send you a free copy.

The Importance of Focus and Finding Yours

“Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.” ~ Jim Horning

One of the biggest challenges I often face with learning about Internet Business is keeping my focus. As a newbie, I find the amount of information that is presented to me daily and the various arenas I visit to seek out new ideas can often be overwhelming. Add to this the fact that I have always been a multi-tasker. I think when you become a Mom it is a divine requirement handed down from the universe and once you learn it you tend to integrate it into everything. Why just wash dishes when you can wash dishes, cook dinner, and listen to your eight year old recite spelling words? I can hear my Mother laughing.

So when it came to learning about Internet Business I began to follow the same habit. I would read on every subject, follow every link, listen to every podcast, and absorb as much as I could on every Internet Business model out there. I was following 5,000+ people on Twitter (big mistake) and had added so many friends to my FaceBook account that the term Friend completely lost it’s meaning even in a Social Networking sense. Trust me when I say at the end of the day your head is spinning and by the time you actually sit down and attempt to go to work, you are paralyzed! Should you write a blog or an eBook? Do I start a website or learn about AdSense? Should I order this product or join a forum?

If you try to do everything at once you will successfully arrive NOWHERE FAST.

It was only of recent that I have started to understand the absolute necessity of focus in Internet Business. It is ESPECIALLY important to stay focused when you are still working full time (like me) and only have a limited amount of hours to dedicate to your Internet Business. The Internet, as we know, is still in it’s infancy and yet even now the amount of information available to us is enormous and scattered. In order to move from analysis paralysis and into action we have to find our focus. This is not to say that you should not take the time to learn and seek information. I just recommend that when you find a subject that interests you, keep your learning focused to that one item and learn it until you feel confident that you fully understand it. Then, move on to the next.

Here are some steps you can take to get and stay focused as you begin to grow your Internet Business.

Begin with the end in mind. In other words, know what it is you are trying to accomplish. This doesn’t always have to be the BIG picture (although you should have that in mind). Just think about what you want to accomplish today and then think of three immediate actions that can do to get you there. For instance, if your end goal is to start a blog you should focus your action toward that intended target until you reach it. Some examples of immediate actions you could take for this goal might be: Sign up to WordPress, Learn the program, and set up your profile.

Write it down! This was a hard one for me because I always thought I had a mind like a steel trap and, therefore, never needed to write it down. But there are two things that happen when you start writing things down. First, something in your thinking changes when you take a thought from just hanging around in your head and actually put it on paper. I don’t know the psychology behind it, all I know is there is something in our subconscious mind that gives more importance to something once we write it down. Second, you are less likely to get distracted from your goal. If you rely on all the things floating around in your brain then you will just keep shuffling them around like a deck of cards and picking them out randomly as they come to the forefront.

Keep it simple. Don’t make your daily TTD (Things To Do) list so long that you will never complete it. Only you know your pace so keep your action items digestible. There is a great sense of accomplishment when you actually get through your TTD list but you will never accomplish this if it has everything on it. So make it manageable. You can always make a second list if you are feeling particularly productive that day. =)

Find and Use Tools to Help You Get Focused. There are some really great tools out there that can help you with time management and goal achievement. Just don’t take valuable time away from your end goal getting caught up in researching 100 tools to get yourself there. Often the basics work just as good. So think legal pad and pen to start.

Once I started to get focused I noticed I was able to accomplish much more in the limited time I had. Make a plan and stick to it. You will be moving forward with focus and your business will start to excel.

Ancora Imparo!

JUST DO IT! 3 Quick Things Newbies Can Do Right Now

Got 15 Minutes? (No I can’t save you 15% on car insurance).   What I can do is get you started on setting up some necessary Internet Business accounts that you will need or may want to use.

Here are three actions you can do take right now to get moving along.

1. Set Up Two (2) Email Accounts – Unless you live under a rock the term SPAM is a household word and a bad one at that. When you get started in Internet Business there will be MANY accounts, forms, and email lists that you will be putting your email address into. It just becomes part of the daily MO of Internet Business. Doing this, however, can potentially turn your email Inbox to a spam collection receptacle. Trust me when I say that it will only take a few times before filtering through all that junk to find 1 important email is going to drive you nuts! My solution to this has been to maintain two email accounts. Use one account as the account you use for signing up to anything you come across and might be interested in (blogs, Internet Marketing products, account sign ups, etc). We’ll call this the bad and catchall account. You will begin to see just how quickly this will fill up with daily if not hourly emails. Use a second account as your main or good email account. This would be the account you will provide for very important business emails and select information requests. Be very selective on where you input this email address and be sure to unsubscribe to anything you don’t want in there as soon as you see them appear. Keep in mind that anything you send to the bad email account can always be moved to the good account later by simply updating your email address for that particular product or person.

2. Set Up A Twitter Account – In less than 5 minutes (less customization) you can be up and running on one of the largest social networking sites on the planet. Twitter has grown to become a necessity in Social Networking and a great Internet Marketing tool (plus it is a lot of fun). I strongly suggest opening an account. You will want it later. I would definitely give some thought to branding here if that is your end game. You may want to use your own name or a brand name you may be thinking of using in the future. Once you start to gain a following you will be very reluctant to scrap the account for a ‘better’ name. Once you get set up take some time to look around and watch. Don’t start ‘tweeting’ until you have an idea of how the platform works and is being used by other Internet Business Marketers. There is a definite etiquette here and you want to be aware of the dos and don’ts.

3. Open and EZineArticles account – If your plan on diving into Article Marketing or just want to populate your site or blog with content, EZineArticles will become a staple. The set up is quick and pretty much painless. I love the site and have found many hidden tidbits written by internet gurus before they were gurus. I think it is worth the few minutes to set it up.

So there you have three quick actions you can take right now to get you on your way. So go on now…get moving!

Thanks for listening!

WELCOME GUESTS

I thought long and hard about what I would include in my first post but it seemed the more I thought about it the more irrelevant I felt it might be say….a year or even two from now.  So, I stopped thinking about it and decided to just offer a simple WELCOME and THANK YOU to my Internet Business Newbie site.

I hope you will find some helpful information here.  I would suggest searching by topic and not by date as many of my posts, at least in the beginning, will be entered in masses from my previous blog.

Please leave me your comments and questions.  I will always be looking for ideas and suggestions to improve the site.  Your input, as the reader, is vital!

Ancora Imparo!