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Why I Gave Up Naked Blogging for My Internet Marketing Blog

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But not the kind you're thinking. I'm talking about the kind of blogging or posting to a blog that just sits there naked, waiting to be found, blocks of text without links or related images, under the search radars, no matter how interesting the subject might be. We're talking about taking the proactive approach and making it happen with Zemanta, dressing things up with links and other cool stuff instead of the same old boring crap from me about how great I am or how much I know about social media marketing for small business.

I really had no way of creating any other kind of interest in what I had to say and no way to provide anything else of value or related interest for my readers until Zemanta came along. Well, that's all changed, thanks to Zemanta.

So What is This Zemanta?

Zemanta is a tool that looks over your shoulder while you blog and gives you tips and advice, suggests related content and pictures and makes sure your posts get promoted as they deserve to be.  Zemanta makes blogging a snap, one button publishing at it's finest. They are always coming up with ways to help make blogging easier and for small business owners worried about not having the time to network online with social media, Zemanta will change the way you think about blogging. They are continually engineering better and more creative tools to help you get the most out of your blogging time.

Six Things That Cause Bloggers Headaches – and How Blogging with Zemanta Can Put the Fun Back in Blogging

Blogging made easy, you get to focus on your content while Zemanta spreads the word and helps you to:
Link, Embed, Remix like a Pro, Easily Design the Post, and they care about Copyright issues.
Zemanta will Link You All Over and everyone knows that the key to better page rank is quality inbound links, right?? Well, what better way to get inbound links than to link out to relevant posts and articles related to yours?
Zemanta will help you Engage your audience longer, Link your old posts to keep visitors on site longer and will get you visitors from other sites.
Here is how you can get all the benefits of blogging with Zemanta - FREE and how you set it up on your own blog.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 in Blog, SEO, Writing Tips
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Welcome Visitors to Planet Gearth

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It's a Google World

And as a blogger, I am grateful to Google for providing me with all the tools I need to be a successful one. My definition of success happens to be measured by how much money I can make online. People say write to your audience and the rest will come, blah! I say write for Google, wait for the Index Fairy to sprinkle some Google Dust on my blogs, give me good PR (and yes, I do care about PR) and my future as a blogger is secure!

Top Ten Things Google Does for an Aspiring Blogger

What does Google do for a blogger, let me count the ways!:
1. First and foremost you go and get yourself a free Google account and start off with Gmail. Google is not just the number one search engine, no!, the whole world is a better place because of them. They brought us Gmail, email with no more spam, no more Nigerian letters, no more phishermen in your favorite blogspot!

2. And with Gmail comes a cool Calendar, Google Documents, etc. Why, you could run a corporation on the free tools they give you! And for just a few bucks a year you can change the world with Google Apps!

3. Google was a green company before green became a color, well almost. I know they make a lot of green for themselves but they sure know about the true meaning of web 2.0, (information sharing) and there is a rumor that Matt Cutts has green eyes too.

4. It's empowering to create a blog with Google Blogger, your own personal website with free, unlimited hosting, beautiful templates and other cool stuff, not to mention it's the easiest blog application to use that there is. If you think it takes too much time to blog, think again!

5. You can dress up your blog's posts with Google Images and YouTube videos that are relevant to your blog's theme and topics. (BTW for you new guys, Google owns YouTube)
4. Connect your blog with your Twitter account automatically. Instead of copying and pasting code into your blog to see your most recent tweets, just click a button in Twitter's Goodies tab.
6. Use Google's Adwords, Keywords tool to determine what people are searching for so you can target your writing topics to those searches.

7. Use Google Adsense to monetize your blog. Adsense for Content, Adsense for Search, Adsense for Feeds, Adsense for Domains, WOW! Watch those Googlebucks ad up!

8. Take advantage of Google Analytics to measure your blog's performance. Tweak this, change that, next thing you know you have become the next rising star in the Blogosphere!

9. Create a Google profile for the rest of the world to see that you are a blogger of some repute!

99.9% of Google's Tools are free for the taking!

Who else can do that, WordPress? Nope, Tumblr, again no, Typepad, nyet, not that there is anything wrong with any of those blogger platforms, I LOVE WordPress for example but Google is my choice for what I call Turnkey Blogging. Google does it all for me, and I would be willing to say that if man blew it up and we had to start over again, Google would have all the resources to re-create our planet – the right way.

Oh, I almost forgot! Number 10 in our list of The 10 Top Things Google Can Do for a New Blogger?

Google creates a legacy for the common man. Think about it.

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Posted Saturday, May 1, 2010 in Blog, Google
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Google's Best SEO Tips

Google U

Google Inc.

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From time to time something comes up that reminds me of the good old days when I was still in school, all I had on my mind was the next party and getting good enough grades to stay there and not be drafted.  I wasn't afraid of those little fellas in SE Asia, I just had other plans. (I ended up going there as a young marine anyhow!)

But I was always a good student of History, English and American Literature, subjects that came rather easily, and these were the studies of the kind where I was able to make up the ground I lost in math, and foreign languages.  So now, when I see informative articles such as Google's Best SEO Tips Ever a little bell goes off in my head – this is the kind of stuff that gets pasted on the mirror in my bathroom – reference material, timeless stuff that you know you will be tested on – time and time again!

I recall that when the teacher announced an upcoming test in one of those subjects I wasn't particularly good at, I would slump over like I had been punched in the gut, only to perk up again when that announcement was followed up with – it's an OPEN book test! Yessss, a chance to boost that marginal grade of mine into a respectable one. Open Book, My favorite kind of exam!

And that's what my friend DiTesco at the iblogZone has generously provided us aspiring-to-be-bloggers with, an "open book" test on how your blog can pass the biggest exam ever given to someone who wants to make money online. Not only pass it but get an "A" grade on our Google U. report card,  Yeah, "A" as in algorithm!

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Posted Saturday, April 24, 2010 in Blog, SEO
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The Ten Commandments of Social Media

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1. Thou Shalt Create a Blog (preferably with Google Blogger)

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Facebook, Inc.
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2. Thou Shalt Post Often (on topics relevant to your niche)

3. Thou Shalt Create Profiles (Google, Lifestream, everywhere)

4. Thou Shalt Comment (on many blogs)

5. Thou Shalt Join a Blog Community (and support it's members)

6. Thou Shalt Podcast Often (try Screenr, web based video recording – it's free and easy to use)

7. Thou Shalt Upload Videos & Photos (to make your posts more interesting)

8. Thou Shalt Create Social Media Accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc)

9. Thou Shalt Spend One Hour a Week on Social Media Activities (tweets, updates, explore Hootsuite)

10. Thou Shalt Get Connected (with as many people as you can find)

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Posted Monday, April 5, 2010 in Blog, Social Media
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Why Create a Blog for Your Business?

Creating a blog for your business is a simple process nowadays with the help of free blogging platforms such as WordPress and Google's Blogger. A blog is the first crucial step in getting any business started with a social media plan and a blog itself is the highest form of social media.

Think of the world as a giant spider web and visualize your business as located in the center of the web. Everything you do to promote your business via social media connects it with a new strand of the web, eventually branching out in all directions, each strand representing millions of people.

Just a blog alone can:

Separate your business from your competition.
Build trust and create authority with customers, the business buck stops with the final authority, the business owner.
Humanize your business and helps spread ideas and information about your business practices, special promotions, business philosophy and ethics.
Allows you to Connect with the other social media tools, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and others.
Helps your business Take advantage of being found by search engines with regular posts about your business that are written with keyword loaded text.
Gets you found first in local searches.
Build your own Internet community around your product, service and brand.
Provide a way to communicate with your customers and answer the FAQ’s you see on a daily basis.
You can target your businesses marketing to your specific location.
Build and market to an email list that has come to trust you.

And that's only the beginning! Once you get the hang of your blog's many features you can then send it out as a scout to the world wide web, connecting with potential customers, creating new prospects and spreading the word about your business.

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Posted Friday, April 2, 2010 in Blog, Blogging
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Google Apps

Payson Web is in the process of becoming an authorized Google Apps re-seller. It's a great way to "drive" productivity and get organized with one tool that does everything!

Google Apps offers messaging and collaboration solutions to help employees be more productive, and to help businesses save time and money. Take a look at a few other ways to get your questions answered, or contact me about setting up Google Apps for your office. 480-282-3445

A quick video tour of Google Apps

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Posted Friday, February 12, 2010 in Blog, Google
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Is Having Adsense on Your Blog Worth It?

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Should you or shouldn't you – feature Google's Adsense on your new blog? Turns out, that is a very good question, with two parts! Do you need it on your blog to make money? And if you think so how will you manage it?

Worth it? Depends on how you look at it. Thanks to awesome bloggers like my friend Sarge over at Beginner Blogger we have a great source of open dialog about this topic (and a lot of others), someone to bounce our ideas off of as well as swap opinions about topics such as Google's Adsense program, and tons of others. We don't always agree and thats what makes it so interesting.

Good, bad, or indifferent, opinions matter. Because after reading a post that interests you, sometimes the comments that follow will answer questions that the article may not have included. Bloggers are the first to admit that they don't know everything! The comments other bloggers leave can even change your mind about something. Or it could even stimulate even further dialog or another post even.

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Posted Tuesday, February 9, 2010 in Blog, Monetization
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