Ron Deibert — director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab research centre at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto—sees more than just some kind of technical glitch here and warned of dark clouds on the horizon recently for freedom in cyberspace.

He called the whole episode the beginning of a perfect storm where cyber warfare in all its different forms will take the place of many of the geopolitical conflicts we’ve seen in the past. What it all means is experts in the field are warning us that Big Brother knows how important and effective the web can be and is taking steps to control it.

Deibert goes on in the article to say he thinks that the lockdown of the web was more than just a temporary situation, and that the Iranians were in fact testing what they call a ‘National Internet’ that will control all the sites that are allowed into the country.

“To me, this is changing the very architecture of the Internet,” Mr. Deibert said in an interview this week at an academic conference in Toronto that was reported in the National Post in Canada. “The digital curtain is going up all over the place. You can imagine the conversations that happen in, say, Belarus. In the past, these governments would just censor access to a few websites, but in the wake of the Arab Spring, what are they thinking: How do you nationalize this technology?”

It seems that years after one Iron Curtain crumbles, another one is being set up in cyberspace.

And of course what would a discussion on restricting the Internet be without mentioning China? The GhostNet cyber spy ring was discovered by Deibert’s team in 2009, and this Chinese ring was found to be spying on NATO operations in Germany, foreign embassies globally, and even the Dalai Lama’s American headquarters.

Still we can’t just wag our fingers at the people in other countries when it comes to curtailing cyberspace. Let’s not forget The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being considered right here in North America and here the US government would have the power to shut down websites that were suspected of breaching copyright laws.

Over there they control their Internet to give religious and political institutions power over the people. Here we do it for big business.

Distraction!

More people fail due to being and staying distracted. It’s no secret that a lot of big marketers want you to stay distracted so you’ll keep buying their next product to finally learn “the secret.” It’s kind of ironic that they do mention you need to get focused, but you most likely skim that part.

All successful people have one thing in common. It does not matter what their niche is, what business model they use, or what their product offering is. The one thing that they have, and you need to have, is focus. They don’t let anything distract them from working and building their business.

By having laser focus on their business building and working during their work hours, they have the luxury of having more free time. They are in control of their time. I know you’ve seen these guys posting pictures of their latest travels or vacation and you wonder how they can run a business and goof off so much. It’s because of focus. They focus on business when it’s business time and they focus on play time when it’s play time.

How can you develop more focus?

1. Decide and define what matters to you. You need a strong passion and a strong reason for why you want to build and run an online business. Until you decide and commit to that, you’ll likely keep floundering around, distracted.

2. Make a list of 3 things you must do each day. These should be tasks that actually grow your business or your online presence. Do not do anything else until these 3 tasks are completed.

3. Avoid email, social media and anything else that distracts you. There is a time for these things, but while you are working on the 3 tasks mentioned above, you need to turn everything else off and tune it out.

4. Do not multi-task! I know, you think you’ll save time by doing 3 things at once. Unfortunately this rarely ever saves time. Give your full attention to each task.  If you focus only on one thing at a time, you’ll likely end up finishing before you thought you would. That creates more free time for you.

If you’re a parent I’m sure you’ve read advice to give each child their own special time with you if you have more than one child. Each child needs some one-on-one attention from their parents. It builds their self-esteem and makes them feel special. Treat your tasks as children if you need to. Spend time with each task. Give that task your undivided love and attention.

5. Take breaks. Try to do this before you start losing focus and feeling distracted. You can push this to the last minute, but by doing so you’ll likely waste time trying to push through something. Instead, go take a short walk or enjoy a soda, coffee or tea away from your work station. Go have a few minutes of “you” time to regroup. Be sure to set a timer or an alarm on your phone so you get back to work after your allotted break time.

Focus can be a hard thing to master, but the more distractions you remove from your work time, the more you’ll get accomplished. Clear out the clutter and close off the world until you’ve done your tasks. You’ll be surprised how much free time you can create by doing this. One day you may even be the one posting those pictures of exotic places.

Feel free to share your time saving tips or how you developed your own focus. We’d love to hear from you.

I’ve been there. I’m a writer. I “thought” my niche should be writing. The thing is, I’m not passionate about writing about writing. I love to write, I just don’t want to talk about it all day. I also love Internet Marketing, and while it’s not my true passionate niche, I do have a newsletter called, “The Write Marketing.” It goes out once a month, which is manageable, and covers topics on writing and marketing. However, it’s not my “have to do this” niche. It’s more of a side niche to break the monotony of daily writing.

It’s literally been years since I started searching for that “perfect” niche that fits me. I ran a health and fitness blog for a few years, and while I enjoyed that, it wasn’t my passion.

I’ve finally decided what it is that I’m supposed to do and I’ve started working on that area. I’m not ready to announce the website yet, but it’s in personal development. If you’d like to know when it’s launched you can sign up for the newsletter I mentioned above.

How did I decide this? Not long ago I decided I needed some training. I was floundering around in the marketing world, buying products and still not getting anywhere. I discovered a membership site called, “Nicheology.” I’ve really enjoyed it. There’s a ton of how-to videos inside and real, no-bones-about-it advice—solid advice. The main theme for Paul Evans (the owner) is to keep things simple and understandable.

I went through the video series on, “Find Your Niche,” and that’s when it hit me that I need to do what I do best–inspire and motivate. It was under my nose all along. Imagine that.

If you feel lost and can’t find your niche or just need some instruction on marketing, setting up blogs, profit systems, there’s a plethora of information inside Nicheology. You get tons of training and even monthly products that you can use in your business. All for less than $30 per month.

Stop chasing your tail and make a wise investment in your business and your future.

image credit: canalecomm.com

However, if you’re willing to go the long mile and do what it takes to keep your blog going, here are 5 essential tools that can help you with that. If you’ve been blogging for awhile, then you know that there are way more than 5 essential tools that you need as a blogger, but these are definitely 5 that you should be using if you aren’t already.

SEO Blogger: Optimize Your Posts As You Write

If you’re a Google Chrome user, this is one of those tools that almost makes it worth it to switch to Firefox (at least for blogging). This Firefox Add-on helps you find the most sought-after keywords for whatever you’re writing about. It happens all within the Firefox sidebar so that you never have to leave the current window/tab.

This is a very essential keyword research tool that shows you how popular a keyword is and then shows you how often it is used within your content, thus helping to increase your search engine rankings for those keywords.

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer

There are a few ping optimizing plugins around that you can use for your WordPress blog, but MaxBlogPress is one of the most popular. Whenever you publish or edit a new post, WordPress pings it. This means that a single post could be pinged 10+ times in a matter of a few minutes. Unfortunately, this excessive pinging puts your blog at risk for being banned altogether from ping services, because it appears as if you’re spamming. So a ping optimizer is essential because it helps you to control how often your blog pings so that you won’t lose out on traffic.

While some users believe that these plugins are no long needed, since WordPress supposedly fixed the issue a few updates ago, it definitely won’t hurt to use it for extra precautions.

nrelate: Free Products For Online Publishers

nrelate offers extremely useful and stylish tools for publishers like in-text linking, a most popular plugin, and a related content plugin. However, my favorite plugin of theirs that is great for any blogger (and eye catching too) is the flyout plugin. It works by flying out from the corner of the page once users scroll to the end of your article; it’s really great for suggesting more content that they may like.

This is “not just another related posts plugin, it’s a patent-pending technology that continuously analyzes your website content and displays other related posts from your website”. This, of course, results in higher pageviews and lower bounce rate since users will remain on your blog longer.

Additionally, you can also enable advertising for the plugin and it will display sponsored content mixed in with your related content, so that you can also make money. There are many different styles to choose from such as an animation style to thumbnails with text to Huffington Post style.

Social Sharing Buttons

There are so many social button options out there to choose from, that finding the right sharing tools for your blog can be overwhelming, but it’s definitely essential! If you’re looking to increase your Web presence and want others to be able to share your content, you must have share buttons somewhere on your blog. Some prefer buttons above their content, others below, and some even prefer on the left side of their content. There are also social toolbars that you can add that encompass social sharing buttons, plus a lot of other great features.

Here are a few choices that provide options for all preferences.

• AddThis – The AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget allows any visitor to bookmark and share your site easily with over 330 popular services. (Blogger version)
• Share and Follow – Add Share Icons, Follow Links, Facebook Like, Twitter Tweet and other buttons in the way you want. Simple & adaptable social networking.
• Sociable – You can get more Sociable with Sociable Skyscraper and easily getting Rating and Review of: posts, pages, comments, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, Twitter.
• ShareThis – The ShareThis plugin seamlessly enables users to share your content through Email,Facebook,Twitter, Google +1, Like, Send and many more. (Blogger version)

Real-Time Analytics

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you how important and essential it is to use an analytics tool. You can’t measure how well your blog is doing and you certainly can’t create a marketing plan if you don’t know anything about your traffic (how much you’re getting, where it’s coming from, what is being viewed the most, etc). Personally, I prefer a real-time tool to a static one because I can see everything as it happens.

So let’s take a look at a few tools (besides Google Analytics) that can really help.

• Woopra – Features real time web analytics, live chat, and web statistics including tracking conversion and funnel reports.
• Leftronic – Create a website dashboard in minutes. Combine data from Google Analytics, Twitter, Chartbeat, and others tools. Easy web reporting templates.
• Cyfe – Web-based software that helps you bring all your business metrics into one single location. Monitor individual departments, multiple websites and anything else.
• Newsbeat – Tracks the activity of every page you publish in real time, from the top performers to the diamond in the rough.

What are some of your essential blogging tools that you regularly use?

So, does this mean that my blog will come to an end once I depart? If the same thought hunts you every night, you need to check out the rest of the article carefully:

Pass The Responsibility

I remember a story I read in a newspaper that I cannot recollect properly how friends of a deceased person are maintaining his facebook account as an act of remembering him even when he is not around. Don’t be puzzled. These amazing friends used to share passwords of each others’ social media profiles and so when the unfortunate incident takes away the life of their beloved friend, they decided to sign-in to his profile and post something related his past life to keep alive his memory. Now, you can do the same thing. Rather than keeping the admin access to you, you can share the detail to someone you have faith in. Now, do not blame me, if things go awry or the person you trust deceives you. It is up to you.

Have A Co-blogger

This is the best way you can ensure that your beloved blog is not going to die anytime soon. Rather than managing the whole thing and getting all the profit, you can have a co-blogger with equal amount of responsibility and profit already shared. Since both of you have all the details like paypal id, affiliate program details etc, your blog is less likely to go off even if you die. Moreover, you will have the peace of mind that your co-blogger is there to take care of all these trivialities and eventually your blog will live a day or to two more.

Do Maintain A Diary

This may sound a bit old fashioned but still, it makes it easier for other people to get information about your personal life and other details. If you are putting down even confidential details like bank account password or your social security no in a diary, you need to make sure that the special person in your life is also aware of its existence. So, do add some personal details like admin password of your blog as it will help him/her to discover it if you passes away unexpectedly. At least, your blog will have someone to look after when you are not around.

Multi-Authors Blog

If your blog has more than one contributor, you are in luck. Once you find some suitable candidates, you can give them admin access so that they can publish them at their free time. I personally have admin access of some high quality sites. It is beneficial for both. You can be sure of one thing that your blog will not come to a sudden halt once your life cut short by some unexpected event.

This guest post was written by Michael Evans, a passionate writer and he has been writing for Site2You, which is the best drag and drop website builder. He has written different article on web design, online marketing and SEO. He is equally enthusiastic about latest gadgets.

I have good news for you! This article will be focused on helping you be more productive as a blogger.

Step #1. Have a Home Office

Having a home office is one of the cool things that just happened to me and the experience has been exhilarating. It has been a great experience and I find myself not wanting to leave the office anymore these days. I spend an average of around 12 hours daily in my office, yet I still don’t want to leave it at the end of the day. Why? I’ve found a place more conducive and fun for my working. No disturbances or distractions, I can create my own space and give it my own look and feel. The same thing can work wonders for you.

You might believe there is no need to spend additional money creating a home office “just for your blogging”, but you’ll be surprised. You need to start taking your blogging serious if you want it to take you serious, and that means you also have to keep investing more effort into making your environment the perfect place for you.

You will be at least 5 times more productive in a place without distractions than you will be in a place filled with distractions so make sure you have an office, or at least a room, dedicated just for your blogging.

Step #2. Create a Schedule

The next step to follow is to create a schedule for both your home office and blogging.

Make sure you have a fixed time to go to the office, and a plan on how to use that time. Don’t ever spend less, or more, than your appointed time in your home office or you will end up losing motivation. It might be tempting to keep working till 8PM when you initially planned to be closing at 5PM, but the reality is that, while it might be fun at first, you will end up burning out and all your efforts will have been wasted.

Make sure you have a strict schedule to follow and ensure you only use your time for what you planned to use it for.

Step #3. Set Goals, and Reward Yourself for Achieving them

Most of us just go through life setting goals, achieving them and repeating the same cycle over and over again. The reality is that you can only take so much of that, and sooner than later you will end up giving up. A solution to this is to create plans to reward yourself for every goal you achieve, and no, that reward shouldn’t be the product of your goal. In other words, if you plan to get an additional 10,000 visitors to your blog in a particular month by publishing 25 guest posts on top blogs in your niche, the reward of sticking to that goal shouldn’t be the 10,000 additional visitors…it should be something else totally unrelated to your goals. It could be giving yourself a day off, or treating yourself to a cruise or whatever else you find pleasing. Make sure your reward isn’t something that kills your passion, but something that makes you happier and determined to do more.

Step #4. Create Constant Changes, that can be Felt and Grasped

This is one particular lesson I’m starting to come to terms with lately. If you studied how human beings work you will notice that one of the best ways to motivate them to give their best is to employ constant, creative change. In other words, while you might have heard about the latest techniques that work really well to make people act better and work better, the reality is that that approach will only last for so long, as is with everything in life. There is only one solution, though; always work on creating changes. Make sure your working environment is always new, make sure your passion for working is always renewed and make sure your rewards for getting things done are constantly changed.

Getting used to the same version of one thing at the same time will soon wear you off, so introduce some changes every once in a while. It could be rearranging the furniture in your office, it could be repainting it, it could be adding music to it and it could be implementing the mundane in ways you’ve never seen. Make your working space feel different and your drive to work will come alive again!

Image Credit

There’s another story of a miner who kept digging for gold. He did this for a long time and then gave up and sold his mine. At the time he stopped digging, he was only one foot away from striking it rich.

Now, you can argue that there is a time to give up. However, if you fully believe in something, you should not give up until you bring it to success. Last week I shared a blog round up and I highlighted a recent article by Zac. One of his biggest suggestions was about not giving up.

Here is an excerpt:

Take a look at Problogger, Copyblogger, DailyBlogTips and even this blog. They all have one thing in common, and that one thing is that they never quit. The moment you quit, you’ve just taken a step towards failure, and every single day you think about quitting but you persevere, you’re taking another step towards success.

Be sure to read that if you missed it last week and find out more of what probloggers know.

Another interesting story of success is Walt Disney. I don’t think there is anyone living in a modern society that isn’t aware of Disney World. What most people don’t know is the number of times that Walt declared bankruptcy before his successful idea of Disney World.

It’s extremely easy to give up. For some reason, people have come to believe that if something doesn’t strike rich in the first year, then it never will. In fact, the opposite is true. It often takes at least five years to reach a desired level of success. It also takes a lot of hard work. If you aren’t willing to put in the effort and the work to see something through, then perhaps blogging and Internet Marketing isn’t for you.

It does take work and while you may not be able to fully plan ahead for the success of your blog, you do need to have some kind of vision of what you want to accomplish.

Are you ready to give up or do you have a success story because you pushed through the hard times? We’d love to hear from you.

image credit: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/

First up is, of course, the owner of this blog, Zac Johnson. He is a highly successful blogger who you can learn a lot from. He recently discovered some secrets of probloggers. Now, he may not admit it, but he is up there in the ranks of problogger. I think you’ll get a lot out of this post, especially if you’re a new blogger.

Another great blog post I read this week is actually a guest post. Nicole Dean offered Susanne Myers a guest slot and she gave some excellent advice. In this post, she talks about skipping the “super-secret-just-press-a-button-and-get-rich” systems and do what really works in marketing. Both Nicole and Susanne are successful marketers.

Charnita Fance shared some great resources on cleaning up your inbox. This is a review type post that I enjoyed. I’ve been trying out her suggestion for OtherInbox. It sends me a daily email and has certain emails in categories for me.

Lynn Terry of Clicknewz, who is one of my favorite people, shared her thoughts and experience on keeping your content consistent. You may be wondering why you should listen to her. Well, if you’re into affiliate marketing, she is one of the Super Affiliates. She’s been doing this for well over 10 years and has supported herself and her family.

That’s it for this wrap-up. Keep learning and keep putting out content. It WILL pay off.

Every new year is an opportunity for a change, and if you embrace the opportunity that comes your way you will increase your chances for success. Most bloggers create new resolutions at the beginning of every year, and while most people are totally against new year resolutions, I think the problem isn’t with having resolutions but with having the wrong resolutions.

This year is just starting, and it is also a new chance for you to embrace change for your blog. There are some things you should do, and there are also things you shouldn’t do. Below are 3 mistakes you shouldn’t make as a blogger this year.

1. Don’t Build Up Traffic, Don’t Build Up Subscribers and Don’t Build Up the Numbers

Instead, build a tribe.

As bloggers, we’ve been obsessed with the numbers for so long that we fail to see what really matters. We don’t care whether those numbers to our blog represent real readers with real challenges that care for our message as long as they appear in our traffic logs. The advice has always been to build traffic, or to build readers, but to really succeed this year you need to change that, completely!

Build a tribe instead.

Compared to just traffic or numbers, a tribe consists of real people, connected to a particular idea or message which is the focus of your blog, connected to one another through a platform which is your blog and connected to you at the center of everything. By building a real tribe you will be building a happy and enthusiastic group of readers who are not just looking for a way to make quick cash, but who are very passionate about the message of your blog and are passionate to spread the word.

When your focus is on building a tribe not everybody will support you, but the people that matter will do; or at least those that matter to your purpose.

The day your blogging starts to change is the day you begin to realize that your blog is more than just a platform that can be used to amass readers you only want to sell to. A real leader cares for his audience, and building a tribe requires great leadership.

Change your approach this year and stop looking for the quick bucks. Instead, start focusing on providing more value to your readers, start working on becoming their leader and look up for the benefits that comes with it.

2. Don’t Mix Up Business with Pleasure

This single mistake has been affecting me for so long now and my blog’s growth has stalled due to it; yes, I’m seeing some increase in traffic numbers, but I believe growth is much more than that. I’ve been making some changes since the beginning of this year, but I guess the lesson still stands.

Don’t, ever, mix up business with pleasure.

Make sure you have a dedicated office for your blogging; a office focused on escaping the distractions around you, a office focused on making you more productive and a office dedicated to your blogging only. The office might be a room in your house and it might be a complete office specifically built for your blogging. I know you might be wondering why you should spend that much on an office for your blogging, but you should also realize that your blog will never take you serious until you start taking it serious.

Not mixing up business with pleasure also has a lot more to do than just having an office, it also has to do with your mindset; make sure you have a work mindset when in the office and also create an environment that motivates you to do more.

3. Cut Down on Time Spent Reading Blogs and Focus More Time on Reading Real, Practical Books

One major step I took towards the end of last year was to cut down on the time spent reading blogs and focus more on reading books, and as a result I ordered over $1,000 worth of books on Barnes and Noble towards the end of last year. The result? I feel more refreshed as I’m starting to consume more practical advice from qualified experts compared to the basic blog posts from generic bloggers.

A lot of us spend so much time reading blogs that we fail to realize how practical books, the right books, can be. Look for trusted authors online and read their books; read everything Seth Godin writes, read quality books recommended by trusted experts in your field and often research yourself to see what books to add to your reading list. The more real knowledge you have, the more you have to offer to the world and your readers, and the better your chances of actually succeeding.

Image Credit

In case you’re not yet convinced about why to invest your time, or money, into SEO, according to the data linked above, below are a few reasons why SEO can be the best investment of your time and money.

• For every click generated to a PPC ad in the search engines, around 8 clicks are generated to organic results; this only shows that people are more naturally inclined to click an organic result in the search engines, and that SEO is also far more effective when compared to PPC.

• SEO has been proven to be the most effective form of marketing in comparison to email marketing, viral videos, RSS, blogs and even the “over-hyped” social media.

• 75% of Americans use search engines on a regular basis. That’s a huge chunk of targeted traffic that should never, ever be ignored, if you’re a marketer, especially one that depends on the internet for income.

Even with the above data, what surprises me the most is that most companies and startups spend a lot more money on PPC and other forms of impression based marketing in comparison to SEO. Personally, I believe SEO is more effective, and contrary to what most people believe, you can start getting quality results from your efforts in a few months from starting. What I think most people lack is actionable, and underused, tactics to help them get results from their efforts. In this article I share 5 SEO tactics to help make your blog uber-successful.

1. Start Using More Multimedia in Your Articles

Search engines are starting to place more emphasis on multimedia content, and it is starting to become obvious that is what readers want.

A recent study by Forrester has shown that videos are 50x more likely to rank for a keyword in comparison to just using the keyword in your article, and ignoring a study of this nature might have more impact on your marketing than you can expect.

We all know that videos are not that easy to create and edit, the search engines know this too, and we also know that it isn’t easy to plagiarize another person’s video and take credit for it. This is one of the major reasons why making videos a part of your SEO strategy can have a lot more impact than you expect.

Using videos on your website also makes it a little more interactive, and as a result helps your readers get more value from it; when readers enjoy your site, they tell others about it, this results in more readers and links to your site and as a result more SEO success for you.

2. Interlink Your Blog from Old Successful Articles

Another approach most people underuse is interlinking their blog posts to each other. Many of us have written successful articles in the past when we knew little to nothing about SEO, and as a result many of these articles have little to no links back to articles on our website. The end result is that this simple action is costing you a lot in rankings and SEO benefits.

Search engines consider several things when deciding which page to rank, and two main factors they consider are the crawlability of a website and how long readers spend on that website. Interlinking your articles to one another lead search engines to hidden pages on your website, while at the same time ensuring visitors spend more time on your website and as a result leading to better rankings.

A great SEO trick you might want to consider using for interlinking with Google is the “site:yourwebsite.com keyword” strategy. Simply replace “yourwebsite.com” with your website URL, and “keyword” with the keyword you want any of your articles to rank for. The articles that will be returned are articles that can pass potential link juice to your articles, and you can easily update any of those articles with internal links to the page you want to be ranked.

3. Use Videos to Build Quality Backlinks

You can also build quality links to your blog by leveraging videos you publish online. Most of us record and publish videos on a regular basis for the purpose of distributing them to video sharing sites, and that alone can be a source of quality backlinks on its own.

If you submit your videos regularly to sites like Youtube and Vimeo, make sure you tag your videos with keywords related to your website so as to let the search engines have an idea of what the video is all about, and also include a link in your description to let people know more about your site. Youtube, for example, only gives publishers nofollow links, but you can still leverage it by encouraging people to use your videos on their site with a link back to your site.

4. Make Website/Server Maintenance a Priority

A lot of SEOs are obsessed with building links and monitoring social signals that they forget one golden rule of SEO; your site is the most important part of SEO. There is no amount of links and optimization that can help you rank if your site isn’t prepared, which is one of the reasons you should keep working on making your website maintenance a priority. Make sure you constantly remove broken links on your site and from your articles, make sure your server is always responding and also make sure your site is super fast. Don’t ever underestimate the importance of a better website, so don’t ever give up optimizing your website to be its best possible self. The better, faster, cleaner and useful your website is for your readers, the higher it is likely to rank in the search engines.

5. Catch the “Low Hanging” Keywords

One more little known SEO tactic is capitalizing on the “low hanging” keywords. Whenever most people are looking to increase their search traffic, the first thing they do is launch the Google Adwords Keyword Tool or any other keyword tool they use, look for top keywords and then work on ways to rank. While that has more potential for traffic, it will also probably take a lot of time and effort on your part to rank for your desired keywords. An effective solution in this regards is to work on capitalizing on your existing rankings; take a look at the top 100 keywords sending traffic to your blog for the search engines, look for the new long tail keywords sending traffic to your blog, check your rankings for those keywords and try to get ranked #1 for keywords you are not ranking for already. This tactic is way too simple, very effective, but so underused.

John Smith is an expert who loves to review Bistro MD Coupon and Diet to Go Coupon codes for his clients.

1.

WordPress can be an easy to use project management system if you work with a team of people who all need access to the same content. It can set up as a members only site to keep your material private.

2. Forum

People love community areas and WordPress can be used as a community site as well as a blog site. You can use it as a public forum or a private forum.

This is also a great way to do group coaching sessions.

3. Help Desk

You can set up WordPress as a ticket system so clients and customers can contact you with technical problems, order problems or any other thing that relates to your business.

4. Article Directory

Tired of fighting for placement on the big article directories? With WordPress, you can start your own directory. You can grow it as big as you’d like or just limit it to a few select authors. The choice is yours.

5. Auction Site

If you like sites like eBay or if you want to auction off websites or even physical products, you can set up your own auction site and let viewers bid on your items.

6. Storefront with e-Commerce

If you don’t want to use a commercial eCommerce site for your products, you can set up your own site with WordPress. There are many plugins and themes that you can use to accomplish this. One of the benefits to this option is it’s a one time fee for a great plugin instead of a monthly fee like some commercial sites charge you.

7. Membership site

Membership plugins are available for WordPress if you decide to go private, or you can have different levels of membership. Some are free and some will cost you a little bit of money. The paid plugins are usually the best option because most offer support if you run into problems with installation or other issues down the road.

8. FAQ portal or Q&A site (private or public)

WordPress is a great way to set up an FAW section or a Q&A site where others can ask you questions and have them answered. You can do this as a public site or as a member site.

9. Easy to use CMS (content management system)

WordPress is a great way to organize content, either for your own personal use or as community group or as a group of team members. WordPress really is easy to use and manage so this is a great way to line out your content in a systematic manner.

10. Client/Customer Management

WordPress can be used as an invoicing system and a way to keep up with your clients, customers and contacts. This is much like a Help Desk except you organize it for customers so you can manage them better.

image credit: http://www.freshtilledsoil.com/

Technology sure is wonderful.  However, technology can also be a hindrance, particularly in the realm of business.  For example, all of us are familiar with online and pay by phone payment programs.  How many times has it been a mistake at the bank, because your Internet connection was too slow to process a bill before your session “timed out” to use the computer parlance.

Likewise, how many first-rate in minutes and hours have you spent on the telephone talking to a computer, who with its monotone, robotic, in human voice kept repeating “, I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please enter or say your account number now” it’s so frustrating that it makes you want to scream.  At times you probably wish that you could reach the phone, and strangle the automated voice at the other end.  Isn’t life wonderful?

Based on this information, it is safe to say that people have varying opinions on the utility of technology.  Some people have been in business for years, and there are quite skeptical about using the Internet to improve their business.  This is understandable, due to the ineffectiveness of older Internet-based advertising schemes such as mass e-mailings and pop up advertisements, which are both ineffective because they are seen as annoying nuisances by many Internet users.

In light of this general consensus regarding the annoying nature of these two previously mentioned Internet-based advertising techniques, many website administrators and software Internet browser creators have begun to develop applications and programs are specifically designed to filter out spam and disable pop-up advertisements on their sites and within their browsers.

I’ve spent a huge amount of time studying successful bloggers around me. I’ve studied the probloggers around me to see what they all have in common, to see what they do that makes it easy for them to succeed, and to see why readers are always excited to flock to their blogs. The general idea is that they are very lucky, or that they are pretty smart, or that they got a big boost from someone much more successful than them when they started, but you’ll be surprised to see just how wrong that idea is!

Have you ever wondered why the probloggers are very different from you? Have you ever wondered if they know something that you don’t? Well, probloggers know a lot of things that you don’t, and I hope to share some of those very important things you should know with you right away.

You Really Don’t Need a Plan

When you go to a newbie blogger to take advice about blogging, the number one thing you will hear from that blogger is to have a plan? Just try to take a look at the fields where you need a plan to succeed, and you will notice that it is only experienced people that have plans. Newbies don’t have a plan, because they have no idea how the field they are venturing into is, and what on earth they need to do to succeed.

You might see a few probloggers who have a plan, but the majority of them didn’t have a real plan when they started, and almost all of those who had a plan at the beginning had to ditch it at one point or the other. Why? Blogging is all about experience. Do a little research into the top blogs in your field and you will notice that the majority of them have been in existence for over 5 years now. Tell me, how can they plan what they will do in 5 years time when they don’t even have an idea of how blogging works?

Blogging is about growth, about development, and about change. We’re all getting tired of the old media, and the new media is catching up. The probloggers have realized that change is a huge part of what they do, and they are always ready to make the best of every change they experience. After all, can change ever be planned?

It Takes More than Building Just a Blog, or the Numbers

Statements like these are very common among new bloggers:

“If only I can get a link from an A-list blog”

“If only I can get featured on Lifehacker and get a huge stream of traffic”

“If only this and that can send me 20,000 visitors in one day”

Well, you’re wrong. From my own experience, there is a huge difference between getting traffic and keeping it, and that is why you might get 20,000 visitors to your blog today and not see a single one of them return tomorrow.

Probloggers know this too, and they already know what to do.

It takes more than just building a blog, it takes building a tribe, and the probloggers know that.

According to Seth Godin, bestselling author and highly successful blogger, a tribe is a group of people, connected to an idea, and connected to a leader.

In other words, you have to be a champion of your readers. You have to be a leader. I hate to bust your bubble, but that also means you have to drop all your visions of getting a million readers so you can quickly sell to them, you have to think far beyond that.

Think for a moment, what is the idea you want your tribe to exist on? What do you want to champion your readers for? Probloggers are leaders, and we all look up to them for their leadership. The key to blogging success is far more than being a blogger, it is being a leader.

You should be amazed by now at why so many people have blogs but very few people succeed? Well, the only reason is that the leaders are the only ones who succeed.

Instead of focusing on the numbers, start focusing on building your own tribe. Start focusing on being a leader, and start working on championing your readers towards a cause! If you don’t understand how to go about it, make sure you read the book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, by Seth Godin!

You’re Only One Step Away from Failure, and One Step Away from Success

Yep, every day you wake up as a blogger, you need to realize that you’re just one step away from success, and that you’re also just a step away from failure. It doesn’t matter how small your blog is, or how big it is, but that’s the truth!

Take a look at Problogger, Copyblogger, DailyBlogTips and even this blog. They all have one thing in common, and that one thing is that they never quit. The moment you quit, you’ve just taken a step towards failure, and every single day you think about quitting but you persevere, you’re taking another step towards success.

Every successful blog I know of and really want to be like has been in existence for over 5 years, and I’m willing to put in more efforts, and time, if that is what it takes to be like them. That is the key to success, and you have to realize it.

Probloggers know that a single decision can mean failure or success for them, and as a result they don’t take the decision to quit very lightly.

Quitters never win, and winners never quit, so make sure you never, ever, give up!

You Have to Sell Sooner or Later, whether You Like it or Not

“I hate selling”

“Selling is for suckers”

“Must I sell?”

Those are sayings you need to avoid, and not just avoid, but hate. It took me really long to realize this, but every successful blogger has to sell, at one point of their career, if not every day.

The reason why a lot of people hate selling is because they think it is the act of tricking people to buy a product so they can earn money; but that is only thinking on the surface. You still need to sell even if you don’t have a product, and that is the intrinsic nature of selling. We all sell every day, anyway, so it’s either you embrace it and master it, or you ignore it and blame yourself for your decision later.

You need to sell your ideas, to your readers, to potential partners, to influential bloggers, and to every other people that can help you make a difference. Your success as a blogger will only be limited at your ability to sell your ideas, your dreams, and your content, and probloggers know this too.

The top bloggers are not afraid of selling. They know how important it is, they love it, and they embrace it!

What Will You Do from Now?

Will you read and ignore like every other article, or will you take that huge step and start acting from today? The above are the tips you need, but what you do with them is left to you!

John Smith loves to write about weight watchers promo code during his free time, and when he is not busy reading from the best, he is helping others find the right nutri system discount code

But the Man wont listen to my common sense. They don’t get it. They wont ( or more likely can’t ) and tell me about my ‘civic duty’ –that’s what they call it…after a recession where all us common folk got slapped around or knocked down and trampled..they  have the nerve to tell me I still have some obligation to them that involves more than just paying taxes.

There’s more. I have a neighbor that won’t be quiet and I’ll more than likely need to get the municipal courts involved to shut them down. More time close to the strange vibration of authority. More hours wasted falling even further down the rabbit hole of senseless and archaic bureaucracy. I don’t mind telling you that I’m frightened—worried that once these stone faced throw backs to the public sector world get a hold of me, their numbers will seal up around me like sand on a beach and I’ll never be heard from again.

The numbers they’re rounding up for the jury duty are cause for concern alone. In the last day I’ve run into three people who have been summonsed to some sort of Great Hall for the selection process and when I asked to talk with Big Brother or someone in charge, they told me I couldn’t. It’s all way too much like Logan’s Run or The Wized of Oz. Both as frightening, weird and full of meaningless jibberjabber about civic duty as something people who lived under the Hammer and Sickle had to endure.

And there doesn’t seem to be anything to do about it. In the end, it’s just about the old world telling us they wont go away and leave us to our new world jobs without a fight.

PicYou is a photo sharing site that works with Twitter and Facebook and makes it extremely easy for you to snap photos from your cell phone, then quickly upload them online. No, it’s not some traditional uploading site that we are all used to. PicYou has a nice collection of filters (viewable in the screenshot on the right) which allow you to customize and upload creative additions and different looks to your photos before they get uploaded online.

But that’s not all… once online, you and your friends can start browsing through you collection of images, all on your personal PicYou member page. It makes sending photos to your friends easy and fun. Upload your photos and add a filter to create new and unique enhancements.

Best of all, it’s available to anyone and always free.

Download PicYou in the iTunes App Store

As mentioned, PicYou is also an app for mobile devices, and can be download right now in the iTunes store. There are plenty of other photo apps out there, but none of them compare to the quality and filter options that PicYou offer, while also having a web site where all images upload to.

PicYou Features

• Free PicYou filters (including Albion, Killowatt, Infatuation, Zeitgeist, Gammanation, Dreamy, Ralston, Cuttlefish and Hipster)
• Cool PicYou frames
• Unlimited uploads to the cloud
• Share your photos instantly on Facebook and Twitter
• Make new friends through giving and receiving likes & comments
• Full camera capability, front and back
• Access from the web at PicYou.com

If you don’t currently have the PicYou app on your iPhone, be sure to download it now and try it out.