It’s fundamental and it’s key to your own business success.  Don’t just take our word for it, look at the millions who use it every hour of every day.

We’ve all;

- had trouble developing our client base;

- over-spent on marketing;

- struggled to understand and demonstrate our ROI (return on investment) when it comes to promoting our brand(s), products, services.

And that’s the short list!!

Social Media can deliver targeted, relevant followers and clients.  The integration of Twitter into Google shows the awesome power of Social Media and we hardly need to touch on Facebook, but we will   Facebook has an incredibly loyal following.

Just take on board one stat:  “50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day”

Imagine leveraging even part of that for your business.

Click here for the Top 18 Social Media Resources for Developers.  It’s a great list and full of fantastic information.

There’s a mass of amazing information out there in the blogosphere, but a lot of it is diluted or just plain hidden behind money-making ideas and get-rich-quick scams.

You won’t regret looking at some of these, below (totally unrelated to ClubBlogger, may we add!)

Enjoy

• A VC
• About.com Entrepreneurs
• Biz Informer
• Biz Plan Hacks
• BizzBangBuzz
• Blog Business World
• Blogtrepreneur
• Boostrap Me
• Bootstrapper
• Branding & Marketing
• Business Blog Consulting
• Business Opportunities and Ideas
• Business Opportunities Weblog
• Business Pundit
• Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Blog
• Church Of The Customer
• Consultant Journal
• Copy Blogger
• CreateBusinessGrowth
• David Allen, Getting Things Done
• Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing
• Drew McLellan – The Marketing Minute
• Duct Tape Marketing
• eMoms At Home
• EmpowerWomenNow
• Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Fast Company
• Freelance Folder
• Freelance Switch
• HELLO, My Name Is Blog
• How To Change The World
• Influential Marketing Blog
• Instigator Blog
• Marketing Deviant
• MicroPersuasion
• MindPetals
• Net Business Blog
• Occam’s Razor
• Rough Type
• Self Made Minds
• Seth Godin
• Small Biz Survival
• Small Biz Trends
• Small Business Canada
• Smart Wealthy Rich
• Solo Entrepreneur
• Sox First
• Springwise
• Startup Addict Musings
• Startup Spark
• Stuff4Business
• Success From The Nest
• Successful Blog
• The Digerati Life
• The Engaging Brand
• The Entrepreneurial Mind
• The Freestyle Entrepreneur
• The KISS Business
• The Marketing Technology Blog
• The Personal MBA
• The Selling Sherpa
• Todd And
• Trust Matters
• Working At Home On The Internet
• Young Go Getter

The event: Apple will unwrap the Tablet.

Amazing pictures leaked a short while ago:

It’d be very, very cool wouldn’t it?

But how useful will it be? And will it hammer other pieces of geek kit like the Kindle? We really do feel so.

IS THIS REALLY IT?…..

It’s easy to be a little bit sceptical, especially with the not-so-accidental hype. But, remember how people, now unbelievable, criticized and were sceptical of iconic gadgets such as the iPod and iPhone were before they released.

Remember – Apple generally (not quite always) “does excellent”. So hang on – wait a minute and see. We predict a riot

Factery Labs (when its server isn’t down due to overload – isn’t popularity great?) is a service which serves-up facts and allows the reader to lift-out the key nuggets of info he/she has been searching for – is this the holy grail of search?

Its consumer engine has just launched (following a developer API test at the back end of last year).

Whilst its front-end needs a polish, it’s quite intuitive and easy to use. It’s heavily-based on trends (we’re all pretty interested in those) and, yes, Twitter feeds are key, here.

The ‘facts’ are categorised and served up for you on a sesame bun. C’mon – don’t take all the hard work out of using search engines

This will give you a range of useful stuff in one place… anything from links to free hosts, to domain utilities, counters, you name it.

If you have any burning ideas, shout now:  we’ll try to include what you’d like.

Catch you soon,

CB

It got your attention  Which is good, since we’ve literally just launched v.2.0 of ClubBlogger and we need all our users (existing and new) to sign-up!

Apart from that, the above isn’t just a philosophical statement.  It goes to the hear of blogging; and what keeps bloggers going.

You may have the seed of an idea; or one is already growing or has grown into something real (be it a business, a hobby, you name it) . It may be something you love; cherish; value; strive for; hate, even (we’ll come back to the last one: it’s interesting, believe me). And you want, need, have to write about it.  And others want, need, have to read about it.

We’re undergoing awesome new changes here at ClubBlogger and have been considering what makes us, errr, tick.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s still the same core thing which kicked-off our time in the blogosphere: enjoying writing about and sharing interesting stuff.  We have tended to be business-biased in terms of topics, but certainly that’s not an exclusive road for us; indeed, many of our readers prefer the other stuff we write about (I’m not convinced that’s a good thing!).

So, what’s changing?  Well, we’ve always been focused on community.  The name of the site’s a bit of a give away in that respect.  So we’re opening-up into real ‘club blogging’ and with that interactive social networking for our users.  The site isn’t fully ready yet; it doesn’t look like what we envisage as the end-game.  But what is ever ready?  No, we won’t dive into philosophy again.

But it IS ready to use – JOIN US, GUYS!!!

Fact is, to make things happen in life you need to start.  And we’re not ones for keeping things hidden under a blanket.  Watch this space, all.

Best, CB x

Whatever, we know it’s possible in different ways. Sure.

But there’s nothing quite so motivational as hearing about it for real. In a world where making it on the internet can feel like pushing water up hill (;o)) it’s great to hear some real-life stories.

These are some of our favorites:

“My goal was to build an online business that would generate an income equal (or greater, of course) to the salary I was earning. And also wouldn’t be dependant on any country’s economy (as my country’s economy is in shambles…).”

~ Elad Shippony

coolest-parties.com

“My online success means so much more to me than money. The fulfillment I feel in my own life and the example I’m setting for my kids far outweighs the dollars (although dollars will always be welcome!). My boys are growing up with the knowledge that they really can achieve their dreams if they’re willing to have faith in themselves and take action in their lives. Then all it takes is some dedication and hard work, which is easy to muster when you’re doing something you love! … Oh yeah, and SBI! of course.”

~ Michelle Schill

style-hair-magazine.com

“Having the opportunity to share Vieques and Puerto Rico with so many people around the world is a great satisfaction. As a bonus, I get to go on a tax-deductible vacation every year. I can visit my beautiful island, ride my jeep, take lots of photos, meet great new people, and write travel guides about places I love. I felt that money would just be the icing on the top. Of course, I did not realize how much icing my cake would have.”

~ Luisa Cupeles

viequestravelguide.com

“From the beginning of this year, my site traffic has rapidly increased and my Adsense income has more than tripled. At the time of writing this, my traffic is hovering around 800 visitors a day.”

~ Sara Ding

Juicing-for-health.com

Building Your Landing Pages

We could talk about this all day.  Let’s not do that  )   Let’s talk about what works.

If there’s one thing you must focus on, it’s copy. Copy, copy, copy.  You know it deep down.  So why do so many people not follow this golden rule? All the search engines in the (known!) universe understand text. Yes, top of the list, Google, does too.  They don’t care much for design, pictures, animation or other ‘clever’ stuff. Search engines exist to give people what they want and they do that using copy when they crawl your pages. That’s why they say copy is king.  Copy IS king.

You want to CONVERT.  Suggested tips:

A. Write good content

Supposing you’ve done your homework and all the people that come to your landing page are targeted visitors, driven by one of your AdWords™ ads. Here’s what the page must do:
* be genuinely helpful
* offer reliable information
* avoid the mambo-jumbo sales lingo
* put the benefits of your service ahead its features
* offer real solutions to real problems
* create the urge to buy
* make it easy to order

Getting your page copy right is a very important job. You need knowledge, patience and some skill to do it. But if you do it right, you’ll be truly amazed with the results.

B. Choose your keywords

Use your keywords with balance. Make them come naturally. Don’t overoptimize. Remember your goal.

C. Matching Ads with Your Content – Match, Match, Match!

This is fundamental to making your landing page convert: your ads (together with your keywords) are the ones that send you traffic. If they don’t work for the same purpose (i.e. selling the same product), all your trouble is in vain.

The biggest mistake you can do is send all the traffic to the home page. So don’t. Each ad in your campaign should work for its own landing page. By customizing them, you make them more effective.

D. Set one goal per page

Don’t over do it.

Having more than one goal per page will confuse your visitors and drive them away. Everything you write must converge towards the same purpose.

E. Add relevant links

Remember that you offer solutions to problems. If you know about something else that may help, don’t hesitate to link toward it. It could be something in it for you, too. But that’s another story and we prefer to save it for the affiliates section.

F. Obtain testimonials

This is a common way to gain your visitors’ trust before they actually get to know you. Whenever somebody praises your service or product, remember to ask for their accept to publish that on your web page.

If you want a great way to build great great landing pages (and, generally, pages!), try this.

Looking forward to hearing from you.