Blog – Page 24 – Louisa Chan

Keyword Research And Online SEO

September 4, 2011 by Louisa Chan Leave a Comment

When I get ready to write an article or prepare a speech, the first thought I have is: What is the central message I want to communicate? Or more precisely what is the purpose of the message?

Without this central theme, the article or speech can go in all directions. There will not be a focused message that either informs the audience or helps them solve their problems. At best, this will be a casual conversation which is delivered without purpose and with no expected results in mind. This conversation does not add value to the listener nor the person delivering it.

Tip#1 for speaking and writing is to know the purpose of your message. And as we write around that central theme, there will be categories of related keywords that will be used without any conscious effort on our part. For example, if I write on the topic of “stress management”, related words that will pop up may include “stress management techniques”, “work stress management” as well as categories of keywords such as “burnt out”, “emotional fatigue”, “anxiety” and “depression” etc.

Where am I going with this? Bear with me.

When we want to research on a topic as we prepare for our speech or article we go to google and type in these keywords or related keywords, or even long tail keywords, right? (“Work related stress management” or “stress management for parents” may be the long tail keywords for my seed keyword “stress management”).

When we type in these keywords, google will come back and supply us with lists of relevant articles, videos, blog posts that use these keywords. We can then look through these relevant sources or content and do our research. It helps so we don’t have to pull ideas out of thin air.

So far so good?
So we use keywords to help us do research, write and publish our content (speech or articles).

Now if you are contemplating an online business or presence, and if you want to rank high on google (so that when others search using your keyword you come out on the top 1 or 2 listing), then you need to know what keywords to use to achieve that. If you want to be searchable or visible on google, bing or yahoo, you need to know what seed keyword, categories of keywords and long tail keywords to use so you are searchable online.

How do you do that? You can use google keyword tool, it is free but I find that rather complicated, time consuming and challenging. Lately, I have been using a software that is also free (you can download Market Samurai here) and it makes the whole process of research, finding content and publishing consent much more friendly and easier.

With this software, Market Samurai, you not only can do all the above in one place, you can also find out if the seed keyword you choose has high Search Engine Optimization values, reasonable search traffic or whether this is a keyword that will bring your people who are willing and ready to pay you money for the products or services you sell at your site. Pretty cool huh?

I have avoided doing keyword research for the longest time although I know how important it is. It was over my head and I was quite lost until I tried using Market Samurai, the friendly yet super duper keyword analysis software. I find myself making progress in this area and not fearing keyword research.

You can check it out, it is free to download. There is also a paid version that comes with a suite of other features but if you do not need the other modules, you can keep Keyword Research for free.

Without using the correct keyword your message will go nowhere; there is no focus and you will be lucky to rank anywhere on search engine results.

So in summary, finding and using the correct keyword(s) for your content or online presence is basic and paramount. Get this wrong and we will not be able to add value to others or ourselves. We can be writing and posting but there will be little or no visitors/traffic if we do not rank high on the search engines. That translates into a waste of time, effort and money, lots of frustration and with nothing much accomplished.

There are lots of video tutorials to guide you through what Keyword Research is. If you like to give this a try just click on the banner below to download it Any online work will benefit from doing some basi keyword research!

Original article published at Abundant Lives Coaching.

If you like more regular helpful resources that save you time and give better productivity, feel free to join us at the Synergy Marketing Pro Business Page here. And if you like, you can also get a free report on how you can Master Social Media In 5 Simple Steps Using An Hour A Week

How eMail Marketing Helps Businesses Build Relationships II

August 30, 2011 by Louisa Chan 3 Comments

EmailMarketing To Grow Your Database and Reach

In the previous post on eMail Marketing, we saw what an eMail Marketing System is and why that can help you reach out to a wider audience.
Geographical boundary is not an issue.
Your eMail System facilitates your on going follow up with your audience and helps you build a relationship with them.
For those of us who prefer making phone calls and face-to-face meeting, this is an added channel that will enhance your current marketing effort; it does not replace the human side of marketing.
An eMail Marketing helps you keep in touch with people who may only have met you (or visited your website) once. By providing them an opt in form, your audience can indicate their interest in your product. When they give you their contact details, they are giving you permission to continue communication with them.
This is permission based marketing and is very different from you just sending bulk emails to everyone you meet.
In the latter case, you don’t know who is genuinely interested in your message and who may be annoyed by your mails! Your mails can be marked as spam and your efforts are not focused as you are not addressing a targeted group of willing audience.
With an eMail Marketing system, it puts the power in your audience as they can choose to unsubscribe; you are not imposing on them in any way. Yet as long as your audience is interested in your valuable tips, resources and messages, this eMail system ensures that they will get your updates while you build a database who are interested in your products.
In this 5:30-minute video we go behind the scene and see how these emails are designed to work. It is not technical at all and a little diagram will make this clear. Once you how the information and message flows, you will understand how powerful and effective eMail Marketing System is.

eMail Marketing System Part II: How This Works

If you like to understand what an eMail Marketing is how it can help you build and warm up to your leads, you can refer to “eMail Marketing: How They Help Businesses Build Relationships“.If you like a little help with setting up your eMail System just get in touch with us anytime.
If you find this video helpful, do leave me a comment or click the “Like” and the “+1” bottom at the top of this post so others too can enjoy this post.
If you like more regular helpful resources that save you time and give better productivity, feel free to join us at the Louisa Chan’s Business Page here. And if you like, you can also get a free report on how you can Master Social Media In 5 Simple Steps Using An Hour A Week.

eMail Marketing: How They Help Businesses Build Relationships

How eMail Marketing Helps Businesses Build Relationships

August 28, 2011 by Louisa Chan 4 Comments

You may have seen these little boxes on some website and blogs. We call these Opt In boxes, or Opt In Forms.
They are tools that serve to connect you with the subscription you are interested in. And they work hand in hand with an email marketing software.
What Is eMail Marketing?
It is a system of emailing, rather like what you would do when you send emails to your friends and contacts; except in this case, this is many times more effective and powerful in reaching your audience. And it saves you lots of time too.
I have a 5-minute video here explaining what eMail Marketing is and and why I think it will greatly help you build you business, whether you are doing your business online or running an offline local or MLM business.

eMail Marketing Software:
What They Are And How They Can Help

We will talk more about the mechanics of how this work in eMail Marketing System And Relationship Building II.
Here, I have just introduced what an eMail Marketing System is how it can help you build and warm up to your leads. They ensure a consistent message to all your audience thereby making results quite “duplicable”.
I think every business should have an email system so your mails (and therefore their messages) get delivered to people who are interested in your message and you are not spending time writing to those who are not interested in what you have to say! We use this in our business all the time and is one of the core tool of our marketing strategies.
Watch out for a follow on video that takes you back stage to understand how this email marketing is set up. If you find this video helpful, do leave me a comment or click the “Like” and the “+1” bottom at the top of this post so others too can enjoy this post.
If you like more regular helpful resources that save you time and give better productivity, feel free to join us at the Louisa Chan’s Business Page here. And if you like, you can also get a free report on how you can Master Social Media In 5 Simple Steps Using An Hour A Week.

How RSS Feeds Can Save You Time And Increase Productivity

August 18, 2011 by Louisa Chan Leave a Comment

RSS Feeds Showing Up At Your Browser’s Address Bar

You may have seen these little orangy icons showing up at your browser’s address bar. They appear also on most sites that you visit. This is the universal symbol or icon for RSS feeds.
What are RSS Feeds?
Nothing that you can eat! Ok, Just Joking 🙂
I have a 4.5-minute video here explaining what RSS Feeds are and how these can help you. Have a cup of coffee ready and then hit the play button.

RSS Feeds And How They Make Reading Easier And More Enjoyable!

So are RSS feeds a helpful tool do you think? They save you time and keep you updated with what’s happening in your industry or blogs and sites that you are following and interested in.
They also make life more manageable – by keeping all the updates nicely kept in one central location. Actually you can also categorized your feeds into folders so it will be very easy for you to read only updates on a certain topic/category. I didn’t have time to include that part in the video above.
If you find this video helpful, do leave me a comment or click the “Like” and the “+1” bottom at the top of this post so others too can enjoy this post.

How To Enable Secure Log In Using HTTPS

August 16, 2011 by Louisa Chan 2 Comments

How To Make Sure You Log In To Facebook Using Https?
In the previous post we talked about what Https is and why you want to make sure you are using secure connection as far as it is possible for you. Click here if you want to know What Is HTTPS And Why Does It Concern You?
In this post we will show you how to turn this on for your Facebook Log in as well as when you are accessing mails through Gmail account.
Let’s talk about Facebook setting first.

Enablig Facebook Secured Login Using https

You log in to your Facebook account and click on “Account” on the top right hand corner as shown in the diagram above.

Then choose “Account Settings” on the drop down list. Choose “Security” on the left menu and click on “Secure Browsing“.
It should say “Secured browsing is enabled“. If not you can click on “edit” and check the box next to “Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) when possible“.
And that is basically all you need to do. Now whenever you log onto Facebook, you should be able to see the green https and the padlock at the address bar as is shown in this diagram.
If you like to see me waling you through this, you can check out this YouTube Video: Facebook Log in using Facebook Https.
To do the same in Gmail, you will log onto your Gmail account. Then choose “Options” on the top right corner(it looks like a wheel). From here you would choose “Mail Settings” in the drop down list.

Click on “Mail Settings” and choose the “General” tab. Scroll down until you see “Browser Connection“. You will see 2 radio buttons here. Choose the one that says “always use https“

How do you tell if your connections are secured?
Look out for the padlock and the green word “https” at the browser address bar as is shown in the diagram below. You should be able to see this at most sites you visit.

It is not always possible to use https connection so if you are not comfortable just don’t access those sites and especially not while you are using public wifi system.
However when you are doing any sort of on-line payment or mCommerce, you will want to make sure that you are using “HTTPS” and secured connection!
So that’s it! Now this is not fool-proof but it will protect you to a good degree and you will certainly want to turn these on especially when you are using public wifi connection to check mails and check for updates on Facebook.
If you find it helpful, do leave us a comment or click the “Like” and the “+1” button at the top of this post so others too can enjoy this post.

What Is HTTPS And Why Does It Concern You?

August 13, 2011 by Louisa Chan 2 Comments

Fundamentals On Using & Mastering Social Media
Since we store and share quite a bit of sensitive and personal information over the net (especially if you use social media platforms) it makes sense that we do this in as secured a manner as is possible.

Using Facebook over Secure https Connection

If you pay attention you will notice that sometimes at your address bar it will say http while other times it will say https.

What that means is that some connections are more secured than the http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) connection is.
Let me clarify that this is not an article on internet security – that is an entire topic on its own! So we are not going to talk about digital signature and authentication or discuss what Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is and how that adds security to an http connection or how it authenticates the transfer of data between your computer and the web servers you are accessing.
OK, if that sounds like Greek to you, don’t worry. Let’s just get with understanding why we need to use https instead of http.
To minimise the chances of someone else eavesdropping or accessing and interfering with your data as it travels between your computer and the web server (e.g. Gmail or Facebook or any sites that you are accessing) you want to make sure that you use a secured channel over an insecure network (especially when you are using public wifi).
The secured connection will encrypt your data and create a secured channel when you are transferring data. This ensures at least treasonable protection from eavesdroppers in cyber space and others who want to intercept and access your data during data transfer.
How do you tell if your connections are secured?
Look out for the padlock and the green word “https” at the browser address bar as is shown in the diagram below. You should be able to see this at most sites you visit.

It is not always possible to use https connection so if you are not comfortable just don’t access those sites and especially not while you are using public wifi system.
However when you are doing any sort of on-line payment or mCommerce, you will want to make sure that you are use https and secured connection!
Again when in doubt do not use sites that are not secured. This is especially true when you are using third party applications on Facebook because you have a lot of sensitive and personal information on Facebook. Use the internet but just use it wisely and do not expose yourself to more danger than you need to.
In the next post we will talk about how to enable https on Facebook and Gmail – the two most common applications you will use for daily internet access.
If you find it helpful, do leave us a comment or click the “Like” and the “+1” button at the top of this post so others too can enjoy this post.

Keyword Research And Online SEO

How RSS Feeds Can Save You Time And Increase Productivity

RSS Feeds And How They Make Reading Easier And More Enjoyable!

About Louisa Chan

Get in Touch!

eMail Marketing System Part II: How This Works

eMail Marketing Software: What They Are And How They Can Help

QR Codes And How They Are Used In Mobile Transactions

RSS Feeds And How They Make Reading Easier And More Enjoyable!

Fundamentals On Using & Mastering Social Media

Mastering Social Media In 1 Hour A Week

So Here’s Your Report On 4 Things To Avoid When Using Facebook Page:

QR Codes Making Waves In TESCO (Korea)

Connect With Me

About Louisa Chan

Get in Touch!

eMail Marketing Software:
What They Are And How They Can Help