Archive for the ‘advice’ Category

I’ve been hearing a lot about viruses spreading on Facebook and seeing it personally from friends who have been infected on the social media site. Recent infections on Facebook are growing “virally”, pardon the pun. Review these tips and advice to avoid potential problems on the social media website.

You normally get one of these viruses from a friend who was unknowingly infected. They could come from a simple message, or a “video of you”. These viruses can take your personal information to log into your account and cause you to spread them to your circle of friends as well.

The most recurring one, called the “Koobface”, gives you a link to a video with “you” in it, and when you attempt to play it, you get an error message saying you need to download a file to update your Adobe Flash software. Now this “flash_player.exe” file contains the malicious Koobface code.

Another bit of advice involves keeping an eye on and adjusting your privacy settings in Facebook. There is a new privacy setting on Facebook called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-Facebook websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.” Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization > Edit Settings, and uncheck “Allow”. If your Facebook friends don’t do this, they will be sharing information about you.

Just a heads up to keep alert and watch what you click on. Some of the applications on social media websites can spread infections as well. Personally I’ve always stayed away from game applications such as Mob Wars and Farmville, but proceed at your own discretion. There’s always going to be a threat of some kind somewhere, but the point is to be educated about it to avoid headaches in the future.

There’s No Place Like www.home.com, your business website’s home page. With this familiarity, the website should encompass a professional theme. The home page should make visitors feel just as comfortable, but sometimes it’s hard to have an objective opinion of your own site.

The journey of a thousands sites begins with a single click, so maintain a positive first impression. With a positive home page reaction, your website visitors soon become interested in products or services offered. Sharp graphics and layout should use appropriate colors and fonts to match your business cards and printed material. The website visitors should be able to recognize your market branding on a website that is easy to navigate. Give your potential customers the ability to gather information quickly and easily.

The home page is the first thing your website visitors see and should attract website traffic. Bringing repeat customers is the advantage of a small business website, and with enough visual appeal, visitors will be encouraged to bookmark the website and tell a friend as well.

Consider these computer management shortcut tips when working with documents, photos or videos. Using shorcuts is very helpful and saves time when working on anything. With quick ways of accomplishing complicated tasks, your projects will tend to run smoothly.

Some useful tips include the use of shortcut keys such as with the shift or control button. Copying text or a section of a photo can be easily done with ‘control + x’ to cut, ‘control + c’ to copy, ‘control + v’ to paste and ‘control + a’ to select all. To undo anything on a text document or a graphic, just click ‘ctrl + z’.

Here’s a great tip for moving or uploading multiple files at once, and an alternative to selecting them all by dragging the mouse and boxing them in. Highlight the first file in a group to begin. Then go to the last file you want to highlight in the group and while holding the shift key, double click on it. This should highlight the entire group in between and allow you to move, copy or upload that entire group quickly and easily. If you want to copy a file instead of moving it to another folder, drag it with the right click of your mouse.

F5 is used to refresh a website page if you want to reload it, whether for seeing new changes made or to just refresh a stale webpage. In the same way, to do a “hard refresh” simply hold control while clicking F5. ‘Alt + F4′ closes the current window you are on.

Changing photos from one format to another is simple. If you want to change a file from gif or bmp to jpeg, or vice versa, an easy way is to right click on it, choose ‘open with’, choose paint, then on the top right of paint, under ‘file’ choose ‘save as’, and choose the format you’d like to save it as. Paint is kept in your accessories folder and can be useful to resize and edit photos as well, using the options across the top.

When changing video files from wmv to mp4 or between any other formats, DVD Videosoft could be a useful option. Adding graphics to photos can be easily done with Befunky.com. Add special photo effects such as starbursts, ink, text, shapes and speech bubbles.

Keep checking my blog and website for tips, tools and advice for making your online experience more productive. I offer custom CMS website design and SEO services for small businesses worldwide.

When writing, the importance of targeting your audience remains a valid strategy. So many business owners have a website and a blog, but rarely do any writing on them. Review these tips and advice on involving your readers in your business and reading your articles.

Your posts should be about your readers’ interests and related to your own business. Keep your readers involved with popular topics that are the buzz on social media websites and the news. Think about who is going to be reading and tailor what you write to your audience’s needs.

Make sure you stay focused on what topics your readers expect you to write about and revolve your writing around them. Keep up with what’s interesting in the news by doing searches, watching what others post about, and using Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a great way to choose what topics you want to be informed on to organize them for review and research.

With these tips in mind, write about your business and current events whether on your blog, website or in articles. Target your audience and let them know you’re thinking about them by writing in a fashion that is beneficial. When you involve your readers with your writing you can expect to provoke an interest in what your business is about as well.

When you have a business and email clients on a regular basis, I suggest to add a signature block for a professional look. A signature block adds a touch of professionalism to your correspondence, and may be an element to sway potential customers in your direction.

A signature block generally contains your name, company name, website, phone number, and a slogan if you have one. Many email platforms support adding an automatic signature block to your emails so there is no need to add one manually each time. When you add a signature block to your correspondence, the customer has your contact information at hand, rather than depending solely on your email for correspondence. A signature block also allows your customers and potential clients to have a more personal feel for you and your business.

Add a professional signature block to all your correspondence and let your potential customers know that you mean business. By identifying your business information in a signature block, you not only facilitate any potential customers’ ability to contact you, but you will emanate a professional appearance.

Review these social media networking quick tips for a successful experience connecting with your peers online. Avoid making common mistakes many people make and get the most of your experience on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

It’s always a bad idea to seem like a spammer while social networking so keep your business related posts to a minimum when networking on social media websites. If you want to be avoided like the plague, seeming spammy while socially networking may be a good idea. If your intent is to promote your business and keep your friends from blocking or deleting you, my advice is to limit the promotion of your business and don’t hit everyone who seems interested with that “hard sell”. A simple mention from time to time is good enough, and will keep you from making your online aquaintances think you’re like the door-to-door salesman of Facebook or Twitter.

When interacting with your peers on social media websites, keep it friendly and informal. A simple mention of your business is good enough to give an impression like “I’m here if you need me”. When you have updates in your business or on your website, it’s customary to post them to your social media circle. With business related posts you allow your social network to become aware of your company and the services you provide.

Offer free tips and advice to your friends and followers on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. A great way to attract potential customers is to offer something for free such as presenting tips and advice. Helping one person out could be a possible referral for another, and providing useful suggestions for your readers is an effective way to do so.

Consider these business marketing tips and questions when you want to advertise your business to potential clients. Why do they buy from you? What do you have to offer that your competition cannot? The answers to these questions are your competitive advantages that make you stand out from your competition. They may be related to price, location, attitude, responsiveness, professional skills or your own personality.

Focus on the aspects of your business that display reasons a potential client should be drawn to utilize your services. Think about what you really do for your customers and what skills and advantages you have before you contimplate how to approach your audience. Give concrete examples from personal experience to your customers and back up your points so they will be able to relate to the information you provide.

The key is to deliver the right message to the right people as often as your budget will allow. Put forth a message that proclaims why your target market should do business with you. Speak in a language that your target audience wants to hear. Your message should represent the strengths of your business since that is what you do best, so put it in terms that will interest your target market.

Review these tips to optimize your system for file and folder organization. When dealing with a huge amount of files at once, some tips and advice come to mind about file and folder organization. Having an organized file system on your computer is essential whether your computer is for personal use or for running a business.

If you have a folder with a large amount of files in it, a great idea is to create a variety of subfolders to organize them. Then conveniently put the files with the same theme in folders together. If you want a file to be at the top of the list for quick and easy access, simply put a dash or another symbol for the first character of the file name. Then when your folder is viewed in name order, that file will be at the top.

If you can’t seem to locate a file, you can check them by date order by clicking on the ‘date’ tab, putting your files in date order. If the document you’re searching for is the last one you worked on, it will be at the top. Therefore, knowing the time frame the file was created will facilitate its location.

I like to organize my files by how I name them, and be descriptive in the titles. If a title is too broad, you may not remember what that item is 6 months from now. Name your files according to what they are or how they function. Place your folders according to how often you use them. Have an area of programs and folders you use most often making it easy to find them.

It’s always a good idea to save your work intermittently because it’s better to have a “half-saved” document than none at all. Some common reasons for losing work include power or disk drive failure, a hard drive crash, or closing the document without saving your data. You can save your files either on another computer, hard drive, flash drive, or backup your files online. Use these file and folder organization tips in order to make sure using your computer be stress free.

Review these article writing tips to help you write more to promote your business. Writing often increases your probability of your website being discovered by those interested in your business niche. Writing articles is a great way to get your company indexed in search engines, and an excellent way to get inbound links to your website.

I suggest writing about subjects that interest you or at which you are an expert. Your article will be more believable if you portray your views from a level of passion or expertise.

Clearly state what the article is about in the first paragraph and organize your material by the points you want to cover. An article should have a smooth flow from one point to the next.

Keep your topics based on topical information that is current and therefore more interesting for your readers. Constantly brainstorm topics, research new article ideas and make a list of subjects to cover.

Spend plenty of time researching for your articles before you write them. When your articles provide useful information, your readers may be more likely to follow your link in the resource box, back to your website.

Write in terms that are easy to understand and comfortable for your readers, because flowery language isn’t necessary to impress them. Write like you talk, so your article will be easy to understand and more appreciated by your audience.

Write in short paragraphs or list items so your readers can scan them. Keep in mind that most people do not read an entire article word for word. Short paragraphs or lists make it easier for your reader to scan what interests them.

Tell how you faced a problem and how you solved it. Give concrete examples and personal experiences to back up your points. Your readers will be able to embrace the information you provide when presented with tangible evidence of your good work.

Submitting your articles to article publishing websites is a good way to gain more inbound links to your site. Check your inbound links to see how many you have already. Then write some articles and submit your website to some free directories. Wait a couple weeks and your inbound links should have increased significantly.

Consider these article writing tips and produce an article to promote your business. When you write more often, you increase your chances of being indexed by search engines. Gain more backlinks to your website, and give your business the exposure it needs to be successful.

Review these tips on conducting basic Google searches with advanced features. Although a simple search is quite often enough, using some advanced techniques could be helpful to further refine your results.

Quotation marks (“”) surrounding a search phrase tells Google to search for the exact words in the exact order they have been entered, without any change. Quotes are often unnecessary because Google already uses the order of words entered as a strong indication of the results. Using quotes further insists on search results focusing on only indexed pages with the words in that exact order.

The minus sign (-) indicates that you want your search results to exclude those with that word in it. The minus sign needs to have a space before it in order to be read by Google as an excluded term. For example, consider the query: anti-spyware -software. This would search for anti-spyware, but not those queries relating to software.

Use the site search (site:) to search about a topic within only a specified website. The proper way to do a query of this nature (for example only about CMS relating to this website) would be: CMS site: coderepair.com. This type of search also works for specifying an entire class of websites as well. For example: CMS site: .org, would only search for CMS websites with the .org domain.

Using the asterisk (*) is like using a wildcard telling Google to use it as a placeholder for unknown terms, and to find the best matches. For example, let’s say you did the search: Obama voted * on the * bill. This would produce results on how Obama voted on different bills.

The plus sign (+) indicates to search exactly as is, excluding any synonyms you may not want in your Google search. Use the plus sign before the search word, with no space after it to produce results excluding synonyms to that word. In essence, the plus sign acts the same way as quotes around a single word.

Using the OR separator (OR) to give you Google search results in either of two search terms, rather than leaving out the OR producing pages that include both. For example, imagine doing a Google search query for: lakers champions 2009 OR 2010. This search would produce pages that have EITHER one year or the other, not both.

Some examples of words that are usually ignored include ‘a’, ‘the’ and ‘for’, and are also known as “stop words”. There are even exceptions to this rule. For example if you search: the who, Google will suggest websites referring to the band, therefore not ignoring the word ‘the’. Should you search for the word ‘who’, Google would first index websites that refer to to the World Health Organization.

Knowing some of the basics of doing an advanced Google search could narrow your search results easily. When retrieving your search results with ease, the probability that you’ll quickly find what you’re looking for is higher.