Business Management
Cool WordPress Plugin: WP Featured Post with Thumbnail
By Agnes Ikotun
I’m always researching WordPress plugins and sometimes I forget about a cool plugin that I’d discover but didn’t have an immediate need for. So I’m going to start documenting and share them with you. My recent find is the WP Featured Post with Thumbnail.
A really simple way of putting featured posts on your website.
Description:
This plugin let’s you add – to any spot on your blog’s sidebar – a section dedicated to the articles you’d like to highlight. How it works is very simple: once it’s installed and activated you can decide which articles to add to the highlights section, how many to display, the display order mode and the size of the image retrieved (it takes the first image in the article and automatically resizes it using the “timthumb.php” script).
Some Features:
I Tweet, I Post, Why Blog?
By Agnes Ikotun
I read this very informative blog post about why it’s important to blog by Donna Toothaker, one of my good business friends and I have to share it with my readers.
Read Post:
I’m often asked by my Virtual Assistant clients, “I submit articles, I tweet on Twitter, and post on Facebook, I publish an ezine – do I still really need to blog?”
Yes, you do! And here’s why:
Connect on a personal level: A blog is a way to start a conversation about a particular subject – in this case related to your business and the issues surrounding it. By inviting your readers to join the dialogue, you create an opportunity to engage your readers – clients and potential clients — on a more personal level than in a website or even an ezine. Your posts reflect your thoughts and ideas on certain matters, making deeper connections with your readers’ ideals, values and needs. Readers can comment and commiserate on issues, offering you the chance to offer solutions. This is relationship building – taking you a step further toward creating clients for life.
The consistency of your topics is key to building and keeping an audience. Readers turn to blogs for specific information, news, ideas and conversation about a topic that is important to them. By keeping your posts consistent, you become an expert and the source of what they are searching for.
Search Engine Ranking: Fresh content is the steam that fuels search engines. And as we all know, steam rises! Again, the key is consistency in your posts. When your posts contain related keywords and phrases time and time again, search engines, like Google, put you higher in the rankings. Don’t let your blog sit idle. Post regularly and send your search engine ranking skyward!
Content Really Is King!
By Agnes Ikotun
You have a beautiful website with all the bells and whistles. You have promoted your business to the best of your ability. You’ve spent both time and money but can’t see any return or you are not getting the kind of results you want: the people connecting with you are not your ideal clients or customers.
Have you really looked at your content? Have you really really read through your website with a fresh pair of eyes? It would be worth your while to ask for a second opinion.
Your website might just be what is holding you hostage.
Business Showcasing
By Agnes Ikotun
My favorite thing to do on the Internet is visit websites! I’m always excited about seeing other websites and I get inspired in the midst of all this as well.
In these latter parts of the year, a lot of business owners are working on revamping their websites and I do know that a lot of the websites that I use for various reasons are rolling out their new sites instead of waiting till the start of the upcoming year.
Are you thinking about rolling out a new dynamic website for 2011? Here are some questions on an important aspect of having a business website:
Is Your Website Representing?
By Agnes Ikotun
It takes time, energy, and creativity to design a website that accurately represents the service or product your business offers. This can seem like a daunting task for anyone unfamiliar with the design process – and even for people acquainted with it. Your goal is for your website to show the world who you are and what you can do. So, if you’ve been struggling with fine tuning your business website or you don’t even have a website!, continue reading these reasons why you shouldn’t delay any longer:
- A professionally designed website gives you an edge over your competitors.
- To potential customers, your website is like a store and your business card.
- Your website acts as an interface between your organization and the rest of the world, year round.
- Critical points of building an online business presence is having an appealing, informative & interactive website.
- Having a great website is an absolute first step in creating a marketing brand for your company.
- Your website is a great way to communicate with potential customers.
- Usability of your website can convert more people to purchase services from your business.
- Well designed web sites work so that your company is well-presented in the business environment
- Your website is a reflection of the way you do business.
- Your website has the potential to give your business a larger customer base online.
We’ve Moved to Maryland!
By Agnes Ikotun
Announcement!
AIVS is now located in Howard County, Maryland!
We are going to miss seeing our Connecticut clients and friends but we are excited about cultivating new local relationships in Maryland and surrounding states.
We service clients across the United States and overseas but we enjoy connecting with local clients: going to clients offices, having lunch meetings and forming personal relationships.
Why Hire A Web Designer
By Agnes Ikotun
A lot of business owners start their businesses with an extremely small budget so it makes sense do everything themselves including putting up their websites. With the many variety of site builder tools provided by web hosting companies and FREE non self hosted services like Blogger, WordPress.com and etc, you can get a good looking site up in less than a day.
So you say to yourself why would you need the services of a trained web designer, if you can get it done on your own.
Sooner or later, it gets to the point where you need your business website to reflect your commitment to your business.
Do not think that the well informed potential client would have a positive impression when they view your website as “homemade”.
25 Tips to Using Email Marketing Successfully
By Agnes Ikotun
(Part 2)
Here are my remaining 25 tips on using email marketing successfully:
- Always have the email come from the same person at your end. It helps to create a sense of rapport and stability.
- Never use a subject or title line that is misleading; always make it descriptive of what is in the body of the email.
- On the other hand, keep it snappy. Instead of “Your November Newsletter”, use the title of one of the more important articles in your newsletter.
- Make it clear that it is okay to forward the email to others, if the subscriber likes. This form of viral marketing can grow your subscriber list over time.
- Always include links to your product pages in the body of the email.
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Blog Commenting Etiquette
By Agnes Ikotun
I’ve wanted to write about blog commenting for a while, as its become one of my pet peeves. Blog commenting is a great SEO activity for developing relationships with other businesses and potential clients. But it seems like many people aren’t working it in the right manner.
It’s quite sad when a business owner pays their hard earned money to an SEO company for link building campaigns. And what these so called SEO experts do is make ridiculous and generic comments at the most inappropriate places; which by the way never get approved or published. I’ve reached the point where I close comments on new posts after a short while because I get the silliest comments.
Here are examples of comments I’ve gotten in the last 2 days:
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Published by Agnes Ikotun in Blog Commenting, Effective SEO, Quality Link Building, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Activities