Most Americans were outraged to learn the NSA had been
spying on all of us through our email accounts, phone calls and YouTube
videos.It didn’t help either to learn
the FBI had methods to activate our cameras and microphones on our cell phones,
tablets and computers to listen and watch whenever they wanted.
Now a new vulnerability
has arisen through Google Chrome.Software
developers can take advantage of this by asking you to
innocently authorize access to your microphone, then listening in even when the
website is closed.
Basically, this allows Google Chrome to be used as a tool to
spy on you, further lessening your privacy at home or work.
To see if you have compromised your microphone, follow these
steps:
1.Click the Chrome
menu button
2.Click Settings
3.Click Show
Advanced Settings
4.Click Content
Settings
5.Click Manage Exceptions (under Media)
6.Look at the list and remove any permissions you
want
Voice recognition is a popular feature, especially with cell
phones and tablets.People love the
ability to talk to their devices in get directions, find restaurants, movies or
whatever their heart desires.However,
are you willing to allow just anyone to listen in and record what you are
saying without your knowledge, just for a bit of convenience?
This weakness in Chrome’s programming was discovered last
September (2013) by Tal Ater, an Israeli programmer.He notified Google and quickly received a
response that programmers were “addressing” the issue. However, four months
have passed and nothing has changed.Knowing how often we all must monitor our computers for viruses created
by hackers, it does not take much stretch of the imagination to believe someone
will take advantage of this weakness for their own perverse desires.
This video demonstrates how the Google Chrome weakness
works:
I just saw a television commercial for “Kashi’s Go Lean
Crunch!” cereal.The spokesperson was
Kikkan Randall, who is training for her fourth Olympics.So, what does a successful affiliate marketer
have to do with those who participant in the Olympics?
Perseverance!Kikkan
Randall is a 31 year old cross country skier from Alaska with a long list of
impressive wins in her area of competition.As an 11 year old in 1994, she was named the “Fastest Woman in Alaska on
Skis” and she went on to participate in her first Olympics in 2002 as a 19-year
old.Her hard work got her to the 2006
Olympics, and even though she developed a blood-clot in 2008, she was front and
center for the 2010 Olympics.
Now the 2014 Olympics is right around the corner, and once
again Kikkan is in training for the Olympics, her perseverance shining through.It is her perseverance that has pushed her
through more than 20 years of training and competitions to achieve a deserving
level of success.
Affiliate and network marketing is no different.It requires perseverance.Like Kikkan’s struggle with her blood-clot
disorder, as well as other aches and pains over 2 decades of training,
home-based business owners will hit roadblocks along the way.Those that persevere will achieve success.
When I started my business, my mentor expected me to pay
$4,500 month after month after month just to find people who might be interested in starting their
own home-based business.When I was
unable to sustain this he disappeared into la-la land.
I could have picked up my toys and gone home, but I am not a
quitter.I was determined to learn how
to market a business online, so I looked high and low.It wasn’t long before I found the perfect
place to learn:My Lead System Pro
(MLSP).
In many ways, MLSP is similar to IBO.IBO is a way for marketers from a variety of
companies to come together and help each other market their businesses.Likewise, MLSP is a way for marketers to come
together and train and get training from industry experts on a variety of
methods.This allows people to find the
method(s) that work for them.
I met MLSP through their free Wednesday night online
classes.These classes are taught by
very successful marketers in their area of niche marketing.The classes are about one to 1 ½ hours long
and provide a great deal of valuable and easy to use information that can
immediately be put to use.After three
weeks of exceptional information I decided to join MLSP.
The benefit to this was expanded training material and the
ability to do it on my schedule.If I
missed the Wednesday night class, I was able to watch the recording on Thursday
or Friday or Saturday or ….This has
been very helpful because it seems everybody offers trainings on Wednesday
evenings, including IBO Toolbox.
MLSP does have an affiliate program with a variety of
levels.The higher levels offer affiliates
products they can sell, and some people do use that as their primary
business.Most people, however, mainly
use MLSP to learn how to market whatever their business opportunity or products
may be.
Instead of paying the $4,500 my mentor had wanted me to dish
out each month, I chose to pay MLSP $20 a month, which is the lowest affiliate level.I don’t make much off anyone who comes in
under me and I am not eligible to sell any products offered by MLSP.However, I am interested in the training I
get through MLSP to grow my primary business, not recruiting for MLSP.
MLSP offers a core of 23 topics I can get training on at a schedule
that works for me.In addition, I can
get training on five new sessions every week.
Between building my business, staying fresh in my training
and spending time with my grandkids, I have little time to promote MLSP, which
is sad because it is a great learning environment for anyone with any business.Besides the free Wednesday night trainings, MLSP
does provide me with 27 different funnel / capture pages ready to use with swipe
copy tailored to each type of page and marketing method.Each funnel page also gives a bit of free and
valuable training for the prospect so they see the value they receive from MLSP.There are also a variety of banners for
different marketing areas which makes it easy for me to spread the word
without
having to spend a lot of time on it.
If you are looking for an inexpensive way to learn a variety
of methods from industry experts to market your business, then I invite you to
take a test drive.Check out the free
trainings offered on Wednesday evenings. (Click here.)
Some other tools available at this level to which you can
send prospects are:
In the first blog, “You Own a Business…Should You Blog?”, we discussed why home
business owners should write a blog, much like the press releases provided by
brick-n-mortar businesses.We also
talked about blog topics and how frequently you should blog.
This blog focuses more on the “how-to” aspect of
blogging.Since the point of blogging is
to connect with others to market yourself and your business, there are several
practices you should follow to increase your blog’s visibility on search
engines, which is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).As the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo,
Bing, etc modify their algorithms to determine ranking, it is possible those
who post to the interest will have to modify their SEO tactics to improve their
rankings.
However, there are several standard techniques that can be
incorporated into your blog to aid your rankings.
1.Keyword / Keyword Phrase:once you have decided on a topic, you should
determine the word or phrase search engine users are using when performing a
search for your topic.This word or
phrase should be incorporated within a few places in your blog:
a.Blog title
b.First and last sentence of your blog
c.Subheadings
d.URL address of the blog
Do not saturate your blog with
your keyword or phrase.It should fit
into your blog naturally and flow intelligently.
There are a couple of easy ways
to see what words are being used in search engines:
a.Google Keyword Planner:this does require an account with Google
Adwords, but the account is free and the benefits great.Sign up for your free account at: http://bit.ly/1cSJJkS.
i.Select the Keyword Planning tool:
ii.Select “Search for new keyword and ad group
idea”
iii.Enter your keyword topic
iv.Look for results between 800 and 1400.Your
goal is to get on the first page of the search engine results.If you select a keyword or phrase with a
larger search result, you are going to have a lot of competition and the
chances of you ending up on the first page drop sharply.However, if you look for words or phrases in
the 800-1400 range, you will have much less competition and a better chance of showing
up on the first page of the search results.
b.Google Search Engine suggester: Google attempts
to help you out when you type into a search box, offering suggestions:
2.Length – Your blog should be around 750
words.If people want to read a book,
they will read a book.Very few will sit
around and read a blog of a couple of thousand words.If your blog is that long, it should be
broken up into 2 – 3 blogs.
3.Internal links – this ties back to the previous
strategy, length.A blog is a category,
with multiple posts within it.Providing
a link within your post to one of your other posts keeps the blog reader within
your sphere and increases your posts’ popularity on the search engine.A perfect example of this is the link at the
beginning of this post to one of my other, related posts.However, don’t get too crazy with the
links.Doing so could drive off your
readers.
4.Add an external link if it is relevant to your blog.When readers click on the external link, your blog link will appear on
the list of referring sites for the external link’s site analytics.This will then make your blog’s existence
known to the owners of the external site.
5.Add relevant pictures and videos.Again, less is more.Depending on the length of your of your blog,
you should have no more than a couple of pictures and one or two videos.
6.When adding pictures and videos, be sure to
complete the alternate (Alt.) text and Title / Caption with accurate
information.If the picture is of a man
riding a horse, than the alt. text should be “Man riding horse.” and this tells
the search engine what the picture is about.
7.If your blogging site allows keywords or meta
tags, enter a reasonable number (5-6) keywords.Don’t stuff.
8.Make your blog look attractive to help draw
readers back to your site in the future.Check your spelling and grammar.
There are more techniques you
can use to increase your ranking in search engines, but these are pretty much
the standard ones to use.Look for more
techniques in upcoming posts in this series on how to write a blog!
A
member of our team recently asked me if I thought she should be blogging to
build her business.I explained to her
that owning a business is more than just selling products or services.She also had to sell or market herself.
Every
single business in the world has to sell itself and they work hard to maintain
a good reputation.A company can have
the best product or service in the world, but if they do not treat their
customers or their employees well, their business is not going to do well.
The
process a company uses to sell itself starts with the company’s philosophy or
mission statement.This starts at the
top and should permeate the attitude of the entire company.This message is also spread via company press
releases.A press release is a written
statement to various media outlets and can announce scheduled events, personnel
promotions, awards, new products or services, accomplishments, etc.It is a
way for the company to sell itself.
Is a
blog the only way you can market yourself?No, of course not.Video marketing
is another valid way to market yourself and your product or service.In many ways, this is like a commercial on
t.v.With the advent of YouTube and
other video sites, video marketing is taking the world by storm.In fact, some people take advantage of both
blogging and videos to market themselves.
Blog Subjects
Trying
to figure out what to write about in blogs can sometimes be a struggle, but
usually it is because people worry too much about what other people want to
read.
Blogging
is about marketing yourself, and by extension, your products, service or
business opportunity.People read your
blog to get to know you so write about things that interest you.For example, I am an affiliate for a
wonderful health and wellness company (with a twist!).I have always felt very strongly about using
as many things from nature as possible to deal with illnesses, so this is an
absolutely perfect fit for me.Many of
my blogs are about things in my spice cabinet and the health benefits from them
such as ginger and cinnamon, or exotic fruits such as mangosteen. (Some blog
links below.)
Will
these particular blogs interest a car mechanic?Probably not.However, there are
many women out there who feel the same as I do and may find my blogs
interesting.
As a mother
raising three boys, I followed this practice as they grew up.My youngest developed an avid habit of
drinking Monster, Red Bull and other energy drinks and I worried about how they
were affecting his health.So I did the
research and found a healthy alternative we are both happy with.This eventually became a topic for one of my
blogs.
At
other times, I will hear something in the news that will catch my interest and
I will do some research on the topic.In
all of these cases, I am first writing for myself, then by extension, writing
for my audience.As they get to know me
they can determine if they can relate to me.I love it when they comment and we can begin a conversation and get to
know each other.
This
blog with the topic “if you should blog to market yourself” will also go out to
my blog site to help people get to know me and, hopefully, help others who have
decided to use blogging to market themselves.Check out future posts for additional blogging tips.
Do You Have to Write a Blog Every Day?
No, you
don’t have to blog every day, but you should do it on a regular basis.Some people are able to sit down and whip out
a blog or two every day.I cannot.I usually have to spend a day or two letting
the thoughts gel in my brain and a few hours on the internet researching
reliable sites I can use as resources for my blogs.After I write my blog I leave it for a few
hours or a day, then come back and proofread it and look for pictures or videos
to add to my blog.
You do
need to plan on writing blogs for a long time, perhaps a few years, before you
start to see results.There are many
people writing blogs and it takes time before you will start to attract an
audience.However, once posted, a blog
can continue to help you build your business for years after you posted it.
You
should also take some time to read and comment on the blogs of others,
especially if their blogs hold something of interest to you.This is a great way to introduce yourself to
others and will help you build relationships.
All-in-all,
blogging is a great way to reach out and meet others all around the world.You may live thousands of miles apart, but
through blogging you can build a community as stimulating as the one in which
you physically live.
developers can take advantage of this by asking you to
innocently authorize access to your microphone, then listening in even when the
website is closed.
Voice recognition is a popular feature, especially with cell
phones and tablets. People love the
ability to talk to their devices in get directions, find restaurants, movies or
whatever their heart desires. However,
are you willing to allow just anyone to listen in and record what you are
saying without your knowledge, just for a bit of convenience?
