Google Docs - An Essential Blogging Tool?

In managing my blog one of the tools I rely on is Google Docs. In this article I provide an introduction to Google Docs and explain its advantages to those running an blog.

What is Google Docs?

Google Docs is best summarized as a completely web-based, simplified, free version of Microsoft Office. It provides basic functionality such as word-processing, spreadsheets and presentations. The fact that it is an online service gives it a number of advantages, but there are also one or two disadvantages you need to be aware of.

Web-based service

The fact that Google Docs is an online service has a great advantage, you can work on a document from anywhere you have Internet access and a browser. This is more convenient than it sounds. For example, I have several computers and, using OpenOffice, I might create a Word-compatible document on, say, my desktop computer. If I am then on the road I don't have access to that document from my laptop as the document might still be on my desktop computer's hard-drive.

There are ways to transfer between computers, and one technique I used in the past was to email the document to Hotmail. This ensured that I could access the document from any of my computers and it was backed-up by Microsoft. This wasn't convenient though as I ended up having several versions of the document on different computers and keeping track of the current version proved difficult. Google Docs solves this problem as all the documents you create are hosted by Google. You can access your documents from any computer that has a browser and Internet access.

Summary

I would say I am addicted to Google Docs and find it to be an essential part of running my blog - it is one of the main reasons I use Blogger. It is convenient, easy to use and being able to store your documents (and publish them) on the web is a huge advantage. I no longer have to transfer documents between computers or worry about issues such as versioning. It is very easy to be able to export the documents to a local file, such as a PDF. So far, I have found Google Docs to be invaluable.

Google Docs can be found at http://docs.google.com

Tony Bedford first started blogging in March 2000. Tony currently maintains a free guide to more profitable blogging at http://the-business-of-blogging.blogspot.com

What NOT To Do Using Pay Per Click Campaigns

I see a lot of experts recommending that new online entrepreneurs use pay-per-click programs as a traffic building source to generate profits for their new online businesses. Unfortunately, what they fail to mention is the potential costs involved. Many new online business owners underestimate the potential traffic if they are new to pay-per-click programs and wind up paying much more money than they had planned on. This is particularly true if they are unfamiliar with PPC.

Others who are new to the program choose a very general search term in order to maximize the number of clicks. They mistakenly think that more clicks will automatically mean more money. Unfortunately, this is not true. In order to make money using PPC programs, you need TARGETED clicks. You have to use a very narrow focus to concentrate on people who are likely to need the products that you are offering.

If you focus on the word "ebooks" in your campaign, you will get tons of clicks from people who are looking for free ebooks, but you probably won't get many buyers for your "ebook maker" product. This campaign will be doomed to failure. But unfortunately, many new entrepreneurs hear about the PPC hype and jump right in without doing the necessary research.

So, if you are new to the Internet marketing business. Do your research before committing yourself to any type of program. Make sure that you can afford the 'worst case scenario.' If you are using PPC programs, narrow your focus. Be aware that a higher number of clicks does not necessarily mean a higher amount of profit, but it WILL mean a higher cost. And sometimes it means a much higher cost. So do your research. Your online business doesn't have to begin making profits in 2 minutes; it's okay if it takes a little longer.

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SEO, the HTML Source Code and Competition

You have a business, and ever since you started the SEO campaign, business has been good and most of your business enquiries have been coming via your website. You are getting professional SEO support and an ongoing SEO program takes care of all your SEO work.They have optimized your website and now it attracts a fairly good quantity of relevant incoming traffic which has been resulting in good business enquiries and sales. Now, suppose you have other competitors for your business in your region and would like to know if your competitors also have an SEO campaign going on with their website. As you are ignorant on this issue it has been making you anxious. They have always been your stiff competitors so you can't just call them up and ask about it! So what do you do?

Ok, if you want to find out about your competitors are also optimizing their website it is a very simple process to find it out. It is not necessary for you to send some one out to spy on your competitors to get this information because it will only take you a few minutes to find out and confirm this information online. All you need to do is just go to your competitor's website and check on its HTML source Code!

This is how one should go about it. Go to the concerned web site's homepage on the browser and click on "view" and choose "source" and the HTML source code page opens up. If you are using Internet Explorer 2.x, right-click on the web page, and then click View Source. To view the HTML source code for a web page that contains frames, right- click the web page in a frame, and then choose "view source". Looking at this page you will be able to get the required information.

On this HTML source code page, just see if there are main keywords in the header tags KEYWORDS , the title tags , and in the image alt tags KEYWORDS . These are always located near the top of the source code. Also if the content on the webpage has been optimized for the search engines, you will find that the text on the web page contains a minimal repeated use of the keyword. These clues are more than enough to confirm the fact that your competitor is also smart enough to have gone for website optimization. (Now you have another new area of competition and must outsmart him)

The author of this article is Ricci Mathew of Outsource Strategies International (OSI), a US based company that offers services in Search Engine Optimization, SEM, PPC advertising for clients across the US.

Alexa Traffic Rank - Improve Your Low Ranking

Informing Alexa Of All Website Visitors

I wanted Alexa to know about "ALL" visitors my traffic exchange website was receiving, not just traffic from their toolbar users. I wanted them to know not because I support them, but because so many other users did. Users that were apparently unaware of the traffic-ranking prejudice. I accomplished this by installing the Alexa traffic rank banner on all of the pages within my website.

Free Advertising

The Alexa traffic rank banner is a free advertisment for them. Adding their banner to your site is a small price to pay for the increase in traffic rank. They offer several types of banners in different sizes, so it should be easy to one that fits your pages.

Since installing the code on January 15, 2007, the traffic rank for checks4free.com had improved by over 4.5 million within 15 days. That does not mean there was that much traffic. It means that the website had moved up the list from the number 6 million spot to approximately the 1 million spot.

You can view the Alexa traffic rank for the Checks4Free Traffic Exchange using this URL: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=checks4free.com.

Conclusion

If your website has a low Alexa traffic rank, I hope the suggestion in this article will help you to improve your ranking as well. The help file on the Alexa website talks about the biased ranking. However, to the millions of users that base an opinion about a website using the Alexa traffic rank, numbers speak louder than words. Your only other option is to hope that more Alexa toolbar users visit your website.

Tim Predaina is with Checks 4 Free, a free manual traffic exchange - http://www.checks4free.com - that delivers real visitors to your websites. Visit: http://copywriting.predaina.com for information about writing articles for content to build traffic.

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