Copyright 2005 Priya Shahhttp://www.priyashah.comBlogging is the latest buzzword in online marketing and PR.But with so many marketers jumping on the blogging bandwagon, few people are giving a thought to whether blogs are really up their alley, or taking the time to consider the best ways of going about it.If you are planning to start a business blog, ask yourself these questions before you take the final plunge.1. Do you really need a blog?Writing and maintaining a blog takes a certain degree of commitment, as well as a passion (or at least a liking) for stringing words into a decent sentence. If you don’t enjoy writing that much, you could always create an audio or video blog.But would your business objectives really be served by starting a blog? Or could other methods of online marketing – like SEO, ezine advertising or newsletter publishing work just as well, if not better?2. Whom do you want to reach with your blog?The first step to reaching your audience is understanding where they go to find information about your products.If your audience largely consists of people who live in your town or use products that they search for in the newspapers, offline advertising might be more suited to your purpose.If however, your target audience belongs to one or more of these segments, a blog might be just the thing to boost your business.- Internet usersDoes your target audience really use the internet? If not, then starting a blog (or any online activity, for that matter) will just be a huge waste of time and effort.- Blog readersDoes your target audience read blogs? Or do they prefer to get their information in their inbox? If the latter is true, then an email newsletter might be a better option than a blog.- Search engine usersA blog is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings and get listed for a lot of your target keywords. If you know that your audience uses search engines to find information, a blog will increase your chances of getting their attention.3. What do you want to achieve with your blog?There are a lot of things that a blog can do for your business. Blogs can help you — Increase your visibility and search engine rankings- Brand yourself, your products, your services, your company- Build a community and network with people who have similar interests- Expand your reach to those outside your current sphere of influence- Establish your credibility as an expert or thought-leader in your field – Put a human face on your business- Reach out to potential customers and stakeholdersDeciding exactly what you want to achieve with your blog can help you get focused, so that you can spend your time and effort in activities that help, not hinder your business objectives.4. How much time can you spend on your blog?Serious business bloggers not only spend time writing their own blogs, but also spend a great deal of time reading up on current events and browsing other blogs in their field for information.If you are prepared to put in the time and effort required to do that sort of research, your blog will serve as a good branding tool for your business.If not, you should either hire someone to do the research or seriously rethink your decision to start a blog.5. What blogging platform will serve your needs best?Deciding your blogging platform is an important step that you should take only after becoming familiar with the features and benefits of each option.The reason it is so crucial is because it can be extremely difficult to migrate an established blog to a new platform once you have started it. Moving your blog can result in you losing your data, search engine listings and readers, so don’t take this decision lightly.Decide which platform will best meet your marketing objectives, time constraints and personal preferences before you make your first post.According to T.L. Pakii Pierce who writes at “How to Blog for Fun & Profits!” http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com, if you are short of time, and want to spend more time writing, then a hosted solution like Blogger, Blogware, Squarespace or Typepad might serve your purpose better.This might also prove a better option if you want to get started as soon as possible, are new to the internet, or are unfamiliar with scripts or code.If, on the other hand, you’re a control freak (like me) and don’t mind spending some time and effort to customize your blog, then a server-installed software, like WordPress, b2Evolution or Movable Type might be just right for you.If you don’t want to install the scripts yourself, choose a hosting solution with Fantastico, which comes with a one-click install of a number of blogging software.6. How do you plan to promote your blog?Why is it good to know this before you start your blog? Because it will help you decide where best to invest your time and effort when you need to build traffic to your blog.You’ll learn more about the methods to promote your blog when you subscribe to the email course below. Some of these tasks can be outsourced, while others you would have to do yourself.Decide what you want to take on and look out for service providers to handle the other functions so you can start building traffic to your blog as soon as possible.7. How will you assess the success of your blog?To determine how successful your blog is in boosting your profile or profits you will have to measure your blog traffic and track sales or leads that have come through it.Planning this in advance will help you take more informed decisions about your blogging metrics, choice of blogging platform and degree of customization you require on your blog.Understand that blogging is not for everyone. It’s just another form of communication.Don’t get so hung up on the technology that you end up ignoring more appropriate ways of communicating your message.Some things may be easier to communicate face to face, in a conference room, or even through the good old telephone.But if you asked yourself all the questions above and decided that blogging meets all your objectives, then a blog may be just what the doctor ordered for your business. Priya Shah is a former journalist who writes on business blogging and publishes an internet marketing newsletter. Subscribe to her free eCourse on Blogging for Marketers  

…and one of these tips you can get from a sewing class! More than 100,000 Americans are unable to get from their bed to the bathroom without assistance because of problems related to their hip or knee. So says Dr. Nathan Wei, Clinical Director of the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center of Maryland. He adds, Too many people put up with pain when there are so many treatments available. The hip joint plays a major role in weight-bearing and walking. Its a ball-and-socket joint that combines great stability and a wide range of motion. This joint is comprised of the head of the thigh bone (femur) which is shaped like a ball. This sits inside a cup-like area of the pelvis called the acetabulum (socket). It is surrounded by powerful muscles that help maintain the body in an upright posture and also help with walking. Many ligaments also help support the structure of the hip. The most common symptom with hip problems is pain Pain due to hip problems may be felt in the groin, on the outside of the hip region, the buttock, inner part of the thigh, the front of the thigh, and even the knee. In fact, there have been patients whove had knee surgery… when the problem was really in the hip. NOT a good thing! Pain coming from the hip joint also needs to be distinguished from low back disorders as well as knee disorders. Activities of daily living that are affected by hip pain include going up and down stairs, getting out of chairs, getting out of bed, getting shoes and socks off and on, and sexual intercourse. Hip pain is often aggravated by weight-bearing. Besides arthritis, hip pain can be due to bursitis. The most common is trochanteric bursitis. Trochanteric bursitis is inflammation of the large bursa that sits on the side of the hip. It tends to come on in middle-aged people. The major symptom is a deep aching pain over the upper outer thigh. It is made worse by walking. It is often bad at night and is aggravated by lying on the affected side. The treatment consists of anti-inflammatory medication, physical therapy, steroid injection, and stretching exercises. Another potentially serious condition is avascular necrosis of the hip. Here, a patient will have severe pain- usually in the groin. Weight-bearing is excruciating and the pain may also be present at night. Avascular necrosis is a condition where the blood supply to the head of the femur (the ball) is interrupted… …and the head of the femur actually dies! The bone collapses. Remember the great athlete, Bo Jackson… he had avascular necrosis. The diagnosis is confirmed by MRI scanning and the treatment involves surgical procedures. In patient with an arthritis condition, treatment modalities should include anti-inflammatory medication, physical therapy, exercises, and weight reduction, if necessary. Specific stretching exercises are helpful. Dr. Wei says, One of my favorite is called thread-the-needle. You cross one leg across the thigh of the other. Reach down through the hole formed by this crossing over maneuver with the same side hand as the leg youre using to cross over. Clasp fingers with the other hand behind the thigh and gently pull. Youll feel the stretch! Hold for 10 seconds. Repeat with the other side. Joint replacement- known as hip arthroplasty- is still the resort of choice in patients with end-stage arthritis. Indications for arthroplasty include: pain that hasnt responded to more conservative measures and… loss of function in the hip. In the past, the limiting problem was that the replaced hip was only good for 10 to 15 years with normal use. Problems that limit the lifespan of hip replacements are wear and… inflammatory response to particles that eventually cause loosening in some patients. Dr. Wei (pronounced way) is a board-certified rheumatologist and Clinical Director of the nationally respected Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center of Maryland. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and has served as a consultant to the Arthritis Branch of the National Institutes of Health. He is a Fellow of the American College of Rheumatology and the American College of Physicians. For more information on arthritis and related conditions, go to: http://www.arthritis-treatment-and-relief.com

1. Don’t bury your subscriber form, place it on your home page and or at every page and make it VERY easy to find.2. Add a one-liner to the byline section of your online published articles. For example: “You can subscribe to [name]’s free e-newsletter by visiting [URL].”3. Give people an additional incentive to subscribe. Give them a free ebook or ecourse that has valuable content on a topic that will attract the exact type of ideal clients/customers for you.4. During network events, ask if you can sign them up for your newsletter. Then manually add them when you return from the function with a double opt-in feature. Explain the opt-in feature when you ask them to subscribe. This gives them a way out if they were just being polite. Keep asking and don’t stop. Practice a simple two or three-liner to explain the frequency and purpose of your e-newsletter.5. Contact any trade organization or associations you belong to or memberships that have your target market. Ask for their member list. Members usually get this free, they may charge you if you aren’t.6. After you have the organization’s or association’s member list, send a direct mail letter, and offer a free subscription and other free offers you have that will help them get acquainted with you, the type of services you provide, and the benefits of working with someone such as yourself. You can educate them through free ecourses that were created from your e-newsletter articles.7. Recommend your client’s company’s newsletter in your e-newsletter. Ask them for a reciprocal recommendation. Both of you win with new subscribers.8. Write reviews or provide feedback to other newsletters (electronic or printed) you read and enjoy. Many times your comments will get posted in a future issue, along with a link to your site.9. One of the top ways to attract people is by giving them various ways to interact with you at your web site. Use questionnaires, contests, giveaways, games, or ask for post survey questions and post the statistical responses. Send out a special e-mail announcement when the results of thequestionnaire, survey, contest is posted on your web site. The Sales Lead Report, http://www.imninc.com/macmcintosh, adds a survey with each issue, then uses the information in its PR campaign with phenomenal success.10. Offer a different writing style. One that is warm, comforting, as if you are talking to a friend on the phone. Write conversationally with a personal tone. Add I’s, me and you.11. Always encourage your readers to forward a copy of your e-newsletter to friends, colleagues, and co-workers. You can even write a “forwarding e-mail paragraph” at the beginning so it is even easier for them to forward.12. If you do speaking engagements or sales presentations, use one of the first few slides or last slide to invite them to subscribe to your e-newsletter. Don’t turn off the screen so it is displayed after you are finished speaking, if possible.13. At speaking engagements, pass around a clipboard with a manual way they can register for your e-newsletter. Start passing the board around before you begin speaking. Place a small different piece of paper with a short letter from you to them explaining the topics, frequency, and objectives of the e-newsletter as well as the opt-in option.14. Send out a press release regularly to the organizations you belong to about what’s been going on in your e-newsletter. I began mine by sending out a short press release whenever an article was published. When I began getting published 10 and 20 times a month, that no longer seemed practical. Thus, I moved over to a once-a-month press release with a list of where the articles were published. Add a press release section to your web site and post them there as well — at least the last six releases.15. Find sites that give out awards for e-newsletters and keep applying until you receive one. When you do, send out a special announcement to your list as well as post it in a few issues of the e-newsletter and rewrite your bio paragraph at the end of your articles.16. Don’t add people on your list without asking for permission first. Always offer an opt-in/out option. Give them a personal greeting if you are responding to a particular networking group or other particular groups. Some web hosts only need one s*p*a*m complaint before they shut your e-newsletter down. And it isn’t worth the problems caused by not respecting this.17. KISS your subscriber form. Meaning, “keep it short and simple.” Ask for their e-mail and first name only. You can even simplify it more by just asking for their e-mail address.18. Set up a section for past issues of your e-newsletters. I recommend just listing their main topic or the name of the article and not by date. People don’t like to read things that they consider “old” easily. If you create pdf files for past issues, remember that it does save space but it also doesn’t allow you to use unique meta page tags so that they show up in the search engines.19. Add your e-newsletter bio line to all your e-mail signatures.20. Send out your e-newsletter articles as content for reprinting into other media.21. Offer targeted subscribers a special report when they refer your e-newsletter to three or more colleagues. Add a price to the special report to give a perception of added value. A special report is 3-10 pages on a very focused topic. 22. Offer your readers high-value content for them to read. Content they can’t find easily or ever somewhere else on the Internet and they will keep coming back. This is the new wave for 2004. Subscriptions to e-newsletters are going down because content is too general. Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newslettersand articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Copyright 2004 Adam Waxler Ask any internet marketing guru and they will tell you the same thing: Sooner or later you will have to have your own product to sell. The fact is, the easiest product to make and sell is an ebook. Even if all you do is sell affiliate products, at some point youll need to write your own ebook, such as How to Make Money as an Affiliate. However, the purpose of this article is not to show you how or why to write an ebook. If that is what you want then read Jim Edwards ebook How to Write and Publish Your Own Ebook in as Little as 7 Days (http://www.money-teacher.com/7daysebook.htm) The purpose of this article is to teach you how to make money once that ebook is written. Here are 10 tips for making money with ebooks: 1. Allow newsletter publishers or web site owners in your niche market to print excerpts from your ebook with your byline included. Just be careful with this, you dont want to give away so much information that customers dont feel they need to buy your ebook. 2. Increase profits by selling monthly updates of your ebook, or the never released chapters of your e-book. 3. Purchase reprint rights to other people’s ebooks and combine them with yours in a large package deal or as a bonus for buying your ebook. 4. Change the benefits on your ebook ad copy into links. When people click on the link it will take them right to the order page. It’ll give them an urge to buy your ebook. 5. Offer freebies that are related to the ebook your selling. It could be free monthly ebook updates, free newsletter, free consulting, free software etc. 6. Show your prospects a sample page out of your ebook. Just black out some of the important info. This will make your prospects curious to buy. 7. Offer the reprint rights to your ebook. You can sell the rights with the regular purchase price or as a separate higher price. 8. Make your ebook available in other mediums. For example, you could turn it into a video or audio ebook, etc. There is plenty of easy to use software out the market that can do this. 9. Redesign your ebook for specific niches. You can create multiple ebooks with very little work. For example, turn a business ebook into a craft business ebook. Or, turn a Job Interview Tips ebook into several ebooks geared to specific job markets. 10. Give your prospects discount coupons on other products when they purchase your ebook. Discounts could be for your products or others that you made deals with. Remember, ebooks are a great way to start earning money online. However, once your ebook and web site are created, you still need to find ways to increase your sales. —————————— Adam Waxler owns and operates The Money Teacher web site and publishes The Money Teachers Home Business Tips Newsletter teaching others how to reach online success. To get your free newsletter subscription send a blank email to: newsletter@money-teacher.com or visit our web site at http://www.money-teacher.com

Feng Shui, for the uninitiated, is an oriental concept of arranging the elements in ones surroundings to achieve various positive conditions in ones life. I am a positive person. I have some fine qualities. I am loyal, courteous, kind, and quick to hold the door for people carrying packages. Alas, however, discipline is not high among my virtues. Do not think I havent tried. Despite having my own home office (where I ran my own business for several years), a grown and out-of-the-house family, and sweet little dog who seldom barks, and a husband who works capricious hours and is not home during the day. Despite good light, an ergonomic chair, proper tools for the craft, a fairly simple-to-use computer set-up, friends who only call at night and recently updated eyeglasses..Despite all this, I absolutely cannot write at home. Laundry is calling. The dishwasher is calling. Chores I loathe call to me. Computer games call me. Everything in the world calls me, except my Muse. It has taken me countless years (and I am no longer a youngster) to discover that I need to work in a public area. I know it sounds goofy. I wrote three shows in Burger King and they were good shows. I dont do Burger King now that I am home it is too far from the house, and besides, I dont need the calories. But I do find a wonderful writing place very conveniently in our town library. Even when I ran my own advertising business, when I needed to write press releases, or brochure copy, or proposals or anything else that required concentration, I packed up all my gear and went to the library. I find that a) I can spread out, and I am a mega-spreader-outer; and b) the distractions there provide the white noise that turns me into a dynamo. I can get more work done there in two or three hours and good work, at that than I could in my cute little office in a week. I have also discovered my peak times. Are you ready, ladies? Between 4 and 6 pm. Seriously weird. But that is my peak energy time. It has taken me years to discover that little fact, mainly because those hours were always devoted to home/family. It is only now that I have the luxury of being able to utilize those precious high-energy peaks for myself. My husband doesnt come till home till around seven and the grill, the microwave and the crockpot are my best friends. I can spend half a day writing at the library (and I do it longhand, the old-fashioned way), and then I come home around 4 or 4:30 and spend an hour or so retyping it into my computer, editing as I go. And when I am done, I feel like I have accomplished a lot. In reality, it may not be such a lot, but it is five times as much as I would have accomplished had I stayed home in my ergonomic chair. Finally, I am also a sprawler. Not only do I like to physically spread out, but I like to spread out my writing. A half a dozen legal pads, a looseleaf binder, pens of various colors. Tools of the trade. Again, it has taken me years to discover the habits that work for me. I like to write in longhand during the first stages of creativity. I also am a big thinker-about-what-will-be-in-the-next-section of my new book. By the time I actually pick up the pen, I have already thought it out a great deal, so I have a fair idea of where I am going. I type it up at home, print it out double spaced, three-hold-drill it, and put it in my binder. Then, if the Muse is catnapping or on vacation, I can edit what Ive already done. I edit in red or green or bright blue pens. Each day, I use a different color, so I can tell where I left off. I scribble all over the typewritten pages, back, front, and margins. The paper is full of arrows, circles, and see A sections or pick up paragraph 3 on page 46. I love it! I am sure I am the only one who can figure it all out. When I have created sufficient mess, I use my 4-6 time to re-edit and reprint out a new draft, which I put a date on, so I can keep track of my latest revisions. I keep the old copy in a separate looseleaf, and put the new pages in my working looseleaf. Strange. But this is one habit I really like. So the moral of the story (and of course there is a moral!) is: despite what everyone tells you about how to form good habits or break bad ones, it will ultimately be your own body and your own temperament that will find the right level. Dont think for a moment that because the habit is unorthodox that it is a bad one. Hemingway wrote standing up at a podium; Thomas Jefferson wrote at a slanted lap-desk of his own design. There are probably countless others who wrote in bed, or in the bathtub, or at 3 in the morning, or only using green pencils. Feng shui, shmui. It is whatever works for you. It may take you a while and you may need to try many variations, but once you find the feng shui for your Muse, she will snuggle in for the duration. Feather Schwartz Foster is the author of LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities, (ISBN #1-59286-361-2) about the First Ladies between Martha Washington and Mamie Eisenhower. They each write their own chapters and everyone (including the moderns) chime in with commentary. Mrs. Foster has also written as more than a dozen childrens musicals and spent more than 30 years in advertising and public relations before retiring to completely creative efforts. Her second novel. GARFIELDS TRAIN about the death of President James Garfield in Long Branch, New Jersey, will be published in 2005. Feather Schwartz Foster may be contacted at http://www.authorsden.com/featherschwartzfoster fsf@comcast.netFeather Schwartz Foster is the author of “LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities, a unique look at First Ladies between Martha Washington and Mamie Eisenhower. She frequently lectures in NJ, and her second book will be available in 2005.