Stephenie Meyers Books For Halloween?

In the spirit of Halloween, a holiday that I haven’t truly cared for since I was in elementary school — I pulled out a People Magazine article I read on a young adult author named Stephenie Meyers, and popped into my local Barnes & Noble to buy the first book in her Vampire Trilogy - Twilight.

Little did I know that I was going to be drawn in like I was a 13 year old girl on a Saturday morning! The book was excellent. So good in fact, that I went back to the store and bought the other two books in the trilogy - New Moon and Eclipse. Also - excellent.

What’s my point? Well other than to recommend some great reading for your teens or yourself — it is to point out the power of the “buzz”. I only considered buying the books based on a story I read about this author in the magazine. While they feature authors all the time, this article presented a “mom” just like me - making a name for her self in the publishing market by writing what was authentic for her and for creating an excellent product.

Those are key things for us to remember as online business owners and internet marketers. The buzz will come when you are creating products and services that are true to your soul’s purpose AND when you’ve created something of quality. Your best work.

Something for us all to strive for!

Lisa Angelettie

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Should I Send Text or HTML Emails?

Isn’t this the age-old email, ezine, newsletter question of all time? Email is the life-blood of most online businesses. Sure we have RSS feeds, social networking, etc. - but at the end of the day, all of us should be asking the permission to continue contact via email of every visitor to our site(s). Period.

So how should you get your message out - effectively every time? Well, there was the theory that we should just send everything out via text because it was sure to get through the spam filters and many people do not have the capability of viewing html emails.

Then there was the case for html’s power to get the emails opened and read. They are attractive and compelling - just not as boring as the dozens of text emails we receive each day.

So now this is the new theory - really not so new:) - and that is to send out your newsletters in both text and html format for each issue. This way you are covering your bases. Those who can only view text emails or choose to only view text emails - will see your text email. Others who prefer html - will get your html version. This gives your subscribers the power to make the decision how they read your newsletter - and not you giving them only one option.

*HINT - There are many newsletter/autoresponder services out there which may give you the option of a text or html message, but pay close attention to the details.

There are some that can generate a text message out of your html message automatically - which is a nice feature.

There are others which can have you post both versions - and will send both versions. So your subscribers will get two emails with the same content. (That one annoys me. I use to have that option with my old service.)

Or you can have the option of sending both text and html versions - but the subscriber will only see the version they have set up on default. For example, I have set up my Apple Mail to always read html messages. I prefer them. So when I send a test email to myself - that is the only version I see. Others will only see the text version - never both. This is a really cool feature I use over at aweber.

Bottom line - take the extra step or the extra few minutes and send out both text and html versions to ensure deliverability. Remember that building relationships with your members/ readers is at the core of creating a buzzed about business!

email marketing, spam filters, text message

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How To Become A Famous Blogger

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Get Noticed

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Password Manager For Mac Users

If you didn’t know - if I haven’t told you - I am a MAC girl. I have been using macs since my freshman year of undergrad (year not necessary:). And I absolutely love them. In another life, I would have gone to work for Apple:)

So anyway - from time to time, you will hear me mention tools and resources that mac users will benefit from - especially as owners of online businesses. Because let’s face it, most of the software, many of the cool tools are developed for the majority of PC users. But that’s okay - we are growing in numbers. Many people are switching to macs these days.

So back to business here…I have this white two-sided pocket folder on my desk full of white pieces of paper and sticky notes that have my passwords written down for every site I’ve ever been on. Well - the important ones. Crazzzzy! Now I do depend on mac’s “keychain” to remember most of my passwords - but for many secure sites - you cannot depend on keychain or autofill or “remember me” on a website. You have to know the username and password. And that’s where 1passwd.com comes in handy.

This award-winning password management tool keeps track of all web passwords, automates sign-in, guards from identity theft. Best of all it is shareware, so you can test it out for FREE. Now that’s my type of buzz word:)

macs, management tool

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Is Your Website Ready For Google’s Universal Search?

Have you heard about Google’s new [tag-tec]universal search[/tag-tec]? Or better yet, have you noticed that your search results look a little different?

For example, this search on “money” in google gives you results of images of money first - then you see the top few sites. And depending on what topic you search for, google will also return video and news results as well at the top of the page.

So in this new google age of universal search, it is going to be important for you to tweak a few things on your websites and blogs:

1. Tweak your “alt” tags for your images to included your keywords.

2. Start creating video for your website(s) if you haven’t done so already.

3. When possible and appropriate, get some news related information you have written on your topic or around your website submitted to google news. (*Check the requirements for submission). Or submit news related articles to websites that google visits often for news content.

Lastly - don’t spend a huge effort in doing this - but keep it in mind as you add new content to your site(s). It’s a small SEO effort that will go a long way for future search ranking results that will benefit your business.

search ranking, seo, universal search

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Should You Build A Squid Who Page?

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the phenomena of squidoo pages. The great site developed by marketing whiz Seth Godin, where you can write about almost anything under the sun and instantly become considered an expert on your topic. Well - almost instantly.

The PR ranking for these sites were extremely high about a year ago - and some say they have been taking a hit by google recently, but the ranking is still worth the effort. Especially if you build a squidoo page around the topic of your niche.

Another new cool squidoo offering - is to build a page about “people” only on SquidWho.com. This site is pretty much the same principle as squidoo, except that you can’t build a page around say things like “laptop bags” - only on people.

This is great for us buzz builders! We can build a site that will get us some great google love all about us. While there are pages on many famous people - the site also invites the not-so-famous to create pages as well. So don’t be intimitated by the Top 100 on the home page. You’ll be there soon:)

A few things to note…

1. When you create a new squid-who page - the royalties are automatically set up to go to the Acumen Fund - but like your squidoo pages, you can set it up for cash to you. A nice option.

2. Your squidoo pages and your squidWho pages will be together on one dashboard - so you don’t have to login two places. Sweeeet. You will also be able to see how many clicks your pages are getting, what your rank is, and how much money they’ve earned.

3. SquidWho also gives you a few great traffic tips for your pages and they send out a nice newsletter (squidoo does) which helps you refine your pages as well.

To set up your own SquidWho page go to: http://squidwho.com

To build your own page on practically anything, go to: http://squidoo.com

seth godin, squidoo

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