I am always on the lookout for tips and tools that can assist me and make my job easier. I don’t know of too many folks that don’t.

So, when I found this Get Premise, created by Studio Press, I just had to investigate it myself.

I find that one of the downsides to working with a wordpress blog platform is that they are normally built to have a sidebar where you can put various widgets and plugins.

I can work my way around a stylesheet, but I am not knowledgable enough to do any real coding. I leave that to the experts.

When creating landing pages, or sales pages, it can be distracting to have all the extranous items that accompany a page on a wordpress site. I have been using a progam from Studio Press, Get Premise. It enables you to create stand alone sales pages, video pages, thank you, etc. It’s a wonderful program. I love using it.

The program also enables you to create your own style and it’s quite easy to do.

I could go on and on about all of the tools that this program comes with, but I will leave it up to you to investigate it.

If you are struggling to create sales pages of any type, Get Premise and forget it!

No one likes it when bad things happen. That is true for me as well.

I recently lost a client due to a “perfect storm”. And to say that it was not my fault would be an untruth. It was a comedy of errors, so to speak. It was not “my fault” but a series of them.

Let me start at the beginning.

I left for a convention in Orlando, Fl., Be the Change Event with Suzanne Evans. I left confident that I had informed all of my clients that I would be out of the loop for a few days, but staying in touch via email.

What I did not know, was that a new client was doing a launch and had a number of technical items that needed to be done while I was gone. I did not find this out until I was in FL. So, I put my husband on task. He is my business partner and his area of expertise is exactly what the client needed.

BUT wait, not exactly……to make a long story short, there was formatting, testing, etc. that needed to get done that he was not familiar with and although I did try to talk him through it via phone and online, it just didn’t work. At this point, what I should have done, was put on the brakes, contacted the client and stopped the whole process until I returned and could really dive into it.

To add insult to injury, I got delayed in FL. due to the tornadoes that rampaged through Dallas and that is where I was flying through on my way home.

Needless to say, it was a disaster. Client very unhappy, husband very unhappy and me, well, extremely unhappy.

So, what to do about it. 

At this point, there really is nothing we can do. The mistake happened, the client was embarrassed as were we.

This is what I did. When I spoke with the client, I expressed my apologies and offered to “fix” whatever I could. I also emailed my apologies and send an Amazon gift card. The client felt that I “got it”. She felt validated and of course, the gift card went a long way in helping that as well. 

You know, when you make a mistake, own it. That is the most important part. Owning what is yours and letting the rest go.

Yes, I felt bad. I have clients that have been with me for over 10 years and yes, I have made mistakes along the way. I have also learned from those mistakes.

I stand behind our services 100%. No doubt about it. She may come back and again, she may not. I did everything I could to make it better and although the mistake could not be fixed, the relationship was.

One of the coolest thing about the WordPress platform is the huge number of plugins available to make your job easier. From spam protection through to SEO (and everything in between) there is bound to be either a free or paid plugin available. In fact, SEO plugins are some of the most popular WordPress plugins out there. If you’ve been using WordPress for a while then you will probably have tried a few different SEO plugins – some are bad, some are good, and some are even better.

In today’s Affilorama blog post I’m going to be giving you a hands on look at one of the newest SEO plugin. 

At-a-glance SEO analysisns available. It’s called ‘Push Button SEO‘, and has been developed by a guy called Brian Johnson. What I’ll be doing in this blog post is showing you some of the different features of Push Button SEO. I’ve installed the plugin on one of my personal WordPress blogs, and deactivated any other SEO plugins I had setup previously.

My favorite feature of Push Button SEO is it’s very simple graphical representation of how well your posts are optimized for on page SEO. You can enter the main keyword you are targeting for your post or page, and then see how well your content has been optimized for that particular keyword. This is very handy, as it means you don’t have to crunch any numbers 

Let’s see an example of this in action. I’ve got a post on my blog that is targeting the keyword “gold investment guidelines”. So what I do is enter this keyword into the “Primary Keyword” field of Push Button SEO, and then I press “analyze”:

As you can see, Push Button SEO then returns a graphical representation of my on-page SEO for this post. I’ve got an orange bar that is half full; this tells me that there’s quite a bit of room for improvement here. But what if I want to get more in-depth information? To get Push Button SEO’s full page report I simply click the “Report” tab.

Even more graphical representations here in the in-depth report, which is once again useful for quickly informing you as to what needs work. I can easily see that my URL is matched properly (this is because my post is /gold-investment-guidelines – an exact match for the keyword “gold investment guidelines”)

My META Title, page headings (h1, h2, h3 tags) and internal linking are all good. My META description and outbound links are letting the page down, according to Push Button SEO. A good META description will encourage visitors to click through to my website from the search engine results, and having outbound links optimized for anchor text gives your page more credibility and weight with Google.

This kind of graphical analysis really does make proper on-page SEO much more simple and accessible. In my humble opinion, a lot of people are put off doing proper SEO because they find it confusing. With this plugin, there really is no excuse.

To view the complete post, clink below:

http://www.affilorama.com/blog/hands-on-with-push-button-seo-for-wordpress 

This post is courtesy of Sam Frost, a staff member and blogger with Affilorama. a well known Affiliate Marketing Training. Software and Support company based in New Zealand.

Thank you Sam for your timely and informative post

Still hassling with changes to your Facebook timeline cover changes and don’t know how to proceed. Have you put it off hoping that the Facebook bunny with fix in the night!!

Need a graphic artist or just some one to do a quick fix. It’s not too late…

Thanks to Denise Wakeman …..AKA The Blog Squad. 

Just follow this link to find a list of resources that are willing and able to assist you in your project. DO get caught with your pixels dangling!!

Connect with Denise on FB http://facebook.com/BlogSquad

I was recently interviewed by Lisa Girard, writer at Entrepreneur.com. The article focused on the fear associated with selling your product or services.

Here are my five tips:

1. Don’t be afraid to sell yourself.
You are your most valuable commodity. Whether you are selling a product or service, you first have to sell yourself.

2. Sell to those you have already sold to.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you already have clients in your sales funnel, you have ready-made sales leads.

3. Ask your existing clients for a testimonial.
Your best sales team are you clients. Ask them for testimonials. If you have openings, ask your clients for referrals. Proudly display them on your website.

4. Don’t be afraid to consistently improve your products or services.
Take classes or sign up for webinars to learn new software, programs and ways to improve your skill set.

5. Be confident in your abilities and your products.
You can be your worst enemy. The only one afraid of your price is you! Test the market. If it doesn’t sell, try a new approach. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

For me, training is the key. If I’m not confident in myself and my abilities, I can’t expect new or existing clients to have confidence in my abilities to provide optimal service.

The Internet is constantly changing, with new and innovative ways for marketing and selling your products and services always looming over the horizon. If you are looking to hire a great virtual assistant or an online business manager, you’ve got to find one who keeps up with the ever-changing online technology and your ever-changing business needs. You can hire a virtual assistant to handle just one or two short-term tasks, or you can create a long-term business relationship with them where they are “on call” for any internet business need that arises.

Therefore, before you can begin interviewing prospective virtual assistants, you need to define the perfect virtual assistant for you. Get out a piece of paper and answer this question for yourself: What tasks do you want your assistant to take over? It can be the mundane, such as posting videos to your sites and social network profiles. Or it can be the advanced, such as building social networking profiles for you, from the ground up.

Start shopping for potential virtual assistants by obtaining referrals. Ask your business colleagues and friends if they have recommendations. Then check them out online. The best candidates may not necessarily have huge corporate-looking websites. Look for clean, uncluttered websites and profiles with clear information.

Whether potential candidates are referred to you or you just found them while surfing the ‘net, check out their reputation. Google that individual’s name and company. Do they have a solid online presence and have they received positive feedback from past clients? Do they look good online? Look at the testimonials, services they offer, etc. This will give you some basic info, such as how long a prospective virtual assistant has been at it and their education and training.

Also request some client recommendations. It’s okay though, if they cannot supply you with names of past clients, because some past clients may have requested that their names remain private. This is especially true in industries where business marketing and new product news is held under lock and key.

Be aware that some virtual assistant companies act more like agencies. They outsource talent to do the work for you. The danger in this is that the person you interview over the phone may not be the person doing the work for you. Could they be asking someone in a foreign county to do your precious work for pennies on the dollar? If so, that’s ok as long as the work is being done to your precise specifications. This is where a virtual assistant acts as your project manager or online business manager.

Therefore, when you’re interviewing for your virtual assistant, it’s important to be talking with the person who is directly responsible for completing your tasks, regardless of whether you are going through a large virtual assistant company or not.

Wikipedia.org defines a Virtual Assistant as the following: “A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients – usually to other independent entrepreneurs and solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. Virtual Assistants work from their own office (hence “virtual”), thus making it a fairly popular (and growing) profession.” In simple terms, a Virtual Assistant acts as your own “satellite office”… without the office overhead!

The use of virtual assistant services is especially beneficial to small business entrepreneurs who need various administrative tasks/projects completed, but may not have need nor budget for full-time employees and office space. Virtual Assistants are responsible for their own taxes as self-employed sub-contractors, and do not collect standard employee benefits. Virtual assistance is used only on an as-needed basis.

Why You Should Hire a Virtual Assistant: As a business owner, you understand that managing details does not make optimal use of your valuable time, and has a directly negative impact on your bottom line. Yet, you may not have need nor budget for office space and full or part-time employees.

Delegating administrative tasks to a Virtual Assistant only makes good sense for your business. An experienced Virtual Assistant will not need to be micro-managed, and the ‘learning curve’ is minimal. This enables entrepreneurs/business owners to spend their time doing what they do best; to work on their business instead of in it.

How Virtual Assistance Works: A Virtual Assistant generally charges a set hourly fee, keeping track of all tasks performed, and the length of time spent on each task. The Virtual Assistant then provides each client a detailed invoice at the closing of a pre-determined invoicing period, (usually on a monthly basis) In some instances, a Virtual Assistant and client may agree upon a flat rate for larger projects, on a case-by-case basis. While the hourly rate to hire a Virtual Assistant may be higher than that of an in-office assistant, the overall cost is considerably lower than maintaining an office and hiring a year-round employee, with or without benefits.

Here are just a few items that a virtual assistant can help you with:

• Set up a blog Blogger, Typepad or WordPress
• Set up Google alerts so you can find content for your own blog or post comments
• Keyword research to help you to maximize your website for search engine optimization
• Set up and manage your social media accounts

If you are a virtual hesitant and need more ideas on what you can do to assist your client, see ”How to Help Your Boss or Client with a Publicity Campaign“ A Graduate-Level Course for Assistants, Virtual Assistants & Interns taught by Joan Stewart, AKA, The Publicity Hound for an in-depth training.

If you are a business owner in need of a virtual assistant see “How to Find a Virtual Assistant to Help with Your Publicity Campaign” with Cindy Greenway and Diana Ennen

Just when you start feeling comfortable with the latest round of changes to Facebook, along comes another series of new features that can throw you into a tailspin. Like me.

For example, I voluntarily converted to the new format rather than waiting until later this month when everyone will be forced to convert. But that places an ugly photo ribbon right at the top of my fan page.

That’s prime real estate, darn it! Most of the photo ribbons I’ve seen on other people’s pages include a series of five unrelated photos that show fan page owners posing with people they’ve met at events. The photos are usually poorly cropped, too dark, or so small that people looking at the page can’t identify who’s in the photo.

Nor do they care.

But I’ve figured out a way to manipulate that photo ribbon so I use it to promote my business and bring visitors to my website, blog, Twitter profile and even product pages–without being obnoxious.

You can check it out by going to http://www.facebook.com/SerenityVAServices

While you’re there, click on the Like button at the top of the page. Then click on each of the five photos and see what happens.

Knowing how to use the photo ribbon to help your visitors and to promote–and understanding what you can do with all the other new Facebook features–will give you incredible power that you never knew you had.

Three years ago, when I was a guest on  the webinar “11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook,” with Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound and we  walked participants through Facebook and demonstrated how to use the site to attract friends and fans, join the conversation, find your target audience and make people love you.

But that was three years ago. So much has changed on Facebook that some of the strategies we recommended back then can actually waste hours of your precious time due to the numerous changes on Facebook.

I’ve fielded so many questions about Facebook’s new look and navigation that Joan and I are hosting a webinar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 15. It’s called “12 More Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on the New & Improved Facebook.”

If you participated three years ago, or you’re confused by any aspect of Facebook, you owe it to yourself to take this crash course to learn about the new tools and how to use them to promote your expertise.

We’re even going to be sharing a cool new tool I discovered that will help you find other people’s fan pages where you can post helpful content to their walls, talk directly to their thousands of fans, and get a link back to your own fan page–without spamming.

Register here, even if the time is inconvenient for you because I’m recording it, and Joan will send you the replay link and all the handouts.

It’s Joan Stewart’s a.k.a The Publicity Hounds birthday and she is blowing out 59 candles on the cake.

There’s an old tradition that says the birthday person should get a birthday spanking–one light pat on the behind for every year. But at 59, she won’t let that happen.

So here’s another way to make her cry.

Clean out her inventory and slash 59 percent off the total price of your order. If you’ve been putting off buying CDs, transcripts, ebooks or special reports, now is the time to grab ‘em.

Go to her website at The Publicity Hound and look around.

Important: You must enter the numeral 59 into the promo code box at check-out and then click on “Apply.” And you must order by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow night, Feb. 4. This applies to products only, not the mentor program or other services.

P. S. She is cleaning out her inventory in the next few weeks and eliminating old titles. So if you see something you want, grab it now before it’s gone. Or kick yourself later.

Having trouble with developing interesting blog content? Does it seem that you are seeing the same old “stuff” about your industry in all of the posts? Sometimes it can be a real challenge finding interesting subject matter. In his most  recent blog , Nick Stamoulis of Brick Marketing offers some topics you business blogging.

Here are a few of his tips:

Company News: It pretty much goes without saying that if you or your company has been mentioned in an article or at an event;  put it in your blog/. Don’t forget to post to your social media sites

Lists: Search engines seem to really like lists. Create some innovative lists that your readers can easily relate to.

Product Reviews: Pick some interesting and/or unique products and write a review about them. Hint: Maybe you can get some input from your social media connections.

Photos: If you’re bogged down grab some photos of friend and colleagues (maybe the FedEx guy) or something humorous or ironic.

How-To-Guides: Share some helpful tips that you have learned and share them. Everybody loves free information.

Industry Rants: Tasteful rants can be the source of many interesting rants. Be professional, but remember ” Hey it’s your blog”. If the subject is something that many others can relate to. you could be surprised with the responses and feedback.

How-To-Guides: Try writing a variety a different posts where you industry can learn and better their jobs or careers. Everyone loves free information.

These are just a few topics for Mike’s article. If you would like to read the entire article, you may find it at Blog Writing Topics to Use.

We are always here at Serenity VA Services to assist with your social media marketing projects and strategy.

Happy Blogging