@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

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Did Google Panda Change the Playing Field?

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From time to time, when Google identifies a ‘gaming’ of their search engine results, its engineers open up the algorithms and tweak them, sending shudders in the world of e commerce and Internet advertising. Speculations run rampart until Google launches it to the world.

One such tweak happened lately; in February 2011, Google launched such a change and named it Panda. They called the tweak “A High Quality Sites Algorithms”. It came in reaction to what they call “Content Farms” and the blogosphere immediately filled in the name of one of the biggest player – Demand Media, who was gaining top listings with copied content.

In order to cut on the clutter of results you get from a query, Google is trying to root out the low quality sites either by checking content, enabling users (through a Chrome extension) to block sites from their searches, or by lowering the ranking of copies material. “The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original site’s content.” Said Google’s Matt Cutts.

This changed impacted US sites only until April 11, 2011, when Google rolled this change to all English language queries and made a few changes. Their statistics show the change has impacted 12% of the queries in the United States. Most impacted were Mahalo.com, Wisegeek.com followed by Ezinearticles.com, Hubpages.com, Suite101.com, Superpages.com and spike.com. The gainers were news sources like Reuters.com, LATimes.com, CBSnews.com and information sites like Techcrunch.com, Blogpost.com, Mashable.com and even YouTube.

The new adjustment was meant to take care of a gap in their program that enables a site like eHow.com not only slide down but gain in ranking. Demand Media, the owner of eHow, was immediately impacted.

Some small businesses might have seen a change in their ranking. Google is said to be open to complaints that will be implemented, if found correct.

Online Publisher Association estimated that $1 Billion will be redistributed across the online publishing industry as a result of this change.

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Writing a Great Press Release

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Press Releases are a crucial part of marketing, in fact they are one of the few traditional marketing tools that have flourished in the new media or Digital Brand Age. There are six major types of press releases.

  • General News
  • Event
  • Launch
  • Staff or Executive Announcement
  • Expert Positioning
  • Product

Each of these press releases may have differentiating information, but should take one single overall format. And while it is important to be certain that your press release will help to boost your company’s search engine rankings, it is also critical to consider what will happen once people do find and read your press or news releases.

Creating Your Press Release

Many elements in the creation of the press release are very important.

Title Creation

Above all, you need to make sure the title is compelling. This is what draws the reader in and drives them to continue to read past the first sentence. It is good practice to be sure your title supplies a question that would appeal to those whom your marketing efforts target.

Subheadings

Subheadings or bullet points provides visual breaks in the content. Although some readers may not be bothered by massive chunks of text that contain many sentences, most readers can quickly become overwhelmed by the ‘job’ that reading five hundred words in a few paragraphs may be.

Body Content

Create the strongest lead paragraph you can formulate. Try to remember the five important W’s that should be incorporated into the first two paragraphs.

  • Who
  • What
  • When
  • Why
  • Where

Try to make these two paragraphs read to a viewer so that even if they do not continue to read beyond this point, they understand the general idea of the press release.

Supply quotes and statistics. Depending on the direction your press release is taking, gather related quotes from company engineers, experts in the industry or even customers who have tried, and enjoyed your products or services. Select the most shining example that you have.

Boilerplate

The last part, or the last few sentences of your press release can sometimes be referred to as the boilerplate. The text used here should be very standard and for this reason could be used on any other press releases regardless of their nature. This information always immediately precedes the use of  # # # which signals the end of a press release.

This informative selection of text should include the contact information or instructions on how or where you can get more information on the news, product or service behind the press release itself. Phone contacts, physical location and website information are all common elements of the boilerplate.

Before setting your press release in stone by submitting it online or even to a physical news source, be sure you have reviewed it and while doing so keep an eye out for common mistakes in press releases.

  1. It should never exceed one page and a half. Even if you have much more to say, this size of press release is fairly large. The ideal press release will fit on one digital document or one sheet of paper.
  2. Avoid writing in singular or plural. Stick to a third party, neutral source point-of-view.
  3. Use reader-friendly English, not tech jargon understood by only a few.
  4. Do not use overly hyped language in your press release. Phrases such as breaking news, most unique, the best are all considerably generic terms that may turn your viewers off instead of compel them to read on.
  5. Most important aspects of the press release are in the first two or three paragraphs.
  6. Always include a means to reach a live contact.
  7. Proofread and edit for typos or other grammatical issues.

All of these elements are important in creating a press release that can provide coverage for your news and information on your company’s products or services in one tight article.

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The State of Now – The #140conf

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Jeff Pulver is an interesting character. Not the most charismatic of speakers, yet his words make a lot of sense. He started “in computers”, as he calls it, 17 years ago. He was one of the co-founders of Vonage, and invested in Twitter back in 2007. Here is, paraphrased, what he says about the State on Now and why #140conf. is needed.

Our world is changing very quickly with the new technologies. Things we can do today were unthinkable just 20 or 30 years ago. In his opinion, one of the biggest changes happened with the invention of Twitter. He compares it to the invention of the telegraph or the radio.

Here is why:  Social Media has brought with it a new opening for people to express their thoughts and feelings and share them with others.  The ordinary, everyday folks could voice their opinion. The more people think and feel the same way, the bigger impact the citizens have on what is going on in their world. We saw the power of the internet in raising funds in the 2008 elections.

At the same time, our modern world has made us all Short Attention Span sufferers. We want the information now, and we want it fast and accurate. And we want it short. When it comes to voicing our opinions, not everyone is a good writer who has the patience and the stamina to hold a blog. Twitter combines those two elements and allows composing only a short message that even the untalented writer can do. It opens the door to so much, Jeff Pulver says, that we are still incapable of determining what kind of impact it will have on our future world.

Social media changed advertising, changed reading habits and changed politics. Even though Jeff Pulver said those things in 2009, he was right on the money when you look at the last event in the Middle East.

What Jeff does now is provide a platform for people who spend time learning all those new technologies and implement them on a daily basis, to share their knowledge and observations. He does it in the form of #140 Conferences all over the United States and Canada. He invites interesting people to speak, and the interested to listen and learn.

These conferences, like the June, 2009 #140conf. in NYC have a theme. The New York one talked about the role of news media in the world of Twitter. The uprising in Iran was on everyone’s mind at the time and the experts pointed out that the world was watching – not on CNN but on Twitter.

This year, the conferences are held in NYC (3/9), in Austin during the SXSW (3/14-17), De Moines (5/9), Vancouver (5/19), Twain Harte, CA. (5/24) and Long Island (5/26). An international conference will be held in NYC (6/15-16)

The #140conf. provides an opportunity for the Twitter community to connect, listen, share, engage and learn while exploring the effects of the real time internet on business. As an example some of the invited speakers in the NYC International conference are as diverse as:

Alicia Yarbo, producer of the Today Show and co-author “Today’s Moms”, Alon Nir, founder, Tweet Your Prayers, Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist, Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ and Hank Wasiak, partner, The Concept Farm, together with other founder of small and large businesses, educators and writers, media and non-profit organizations representatives.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_qf9YoypA]

The Long Island #140Conf is set for May 26th 2011 at Touro Law Center, this event could be one of the biggest Social Media Events to hit Long Island, especially given that it has been often overlooked in the shadow of NYC. Long

Island has long been host to some great social influence all the way back to the days of AIM. With Long Island boasting a social landscape that forms the bridge between NYC and the coveted Social Elite of the Hamptons, this Social Media Valley is ripe for such an event.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv6QJssVcGs&feature=related]

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EmpireAvenue: Social Networking or Social Training?

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EmpireAvenue is classified as a social network service site which is quite an understatement. Launched in July of 2010, this site resembles a stock marketing simulation game. Users are allowed to buy and sell shares of other users and their websites.

Alexa’s global ranking for EmpireAvenue is #15,209. Currrently statistics show that a disproportionate amount of users are childless, lower-income men under age 45 who do most of their browsing from work. The site is most popular in the U.S. as well as in Norway where it ranks at #705 with Alexa.

One more site with Facebook sign-in integration, getting logged on to begin using EmpireAvenue takes only a matter of moments.  Once in, fill in your profile detail, link up your other social media accounts and you are ready to begin trading.

Playing the “Game”

Highly customizable, EmpireAvenue allows users to set their interest, which in essence, are the same keywords and phrases you have used on your other social media sites to attract like-minded users. Once you have those set you will likely begin to see others buy shares of you.

Each player has their own portfolio in this created virtual economy. Users can increase their virtual worth by participating in the game as well as by building networking relationships with other users, as well as by interaction on integrated social media sites.

As you move along and buy shares of others, you will also see a ticker just like the NYSE bar that floats near the top of your screen. You can easily keep up with your shares of other users and their progress. The money on this system is referred to as Eaves, and although you begin with plenty, around 7 to 9k depending on how many social medias you integrate, you can also earn them or purchase them when they run low.

What Can This Do For Your Small Business?

The quick answer is that it is truly a gamers world, even those who have not spent years of their childhood immersed in anything and everything video game, have quickly flocked to massive social media games such as those found on Facebook. Since its beginning rankings show this site has steadily climbed in user numbers and participants.

A large part of personal branding requires consumers to get familiar with your product, service and you. Interacting with prospective clients or buyers in this manner can certainly increase your web presence, as well as increasing other users trust in you and your products or services.

Once your EmpireAvenue account begins to become more profitable this too can reflect on how driven you are as a business owner to succeed. In addition to that note, once your own account begins to gain recognition, you may have broken through the social media world as a serious competitor.

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Facebook Questions Re-Launch

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Earlier this week Facebook re-launched a previously tested aspect of social networking known as Questions. Questions, although similar to the idea of Yahoo answers actually provides quite a bit more personalized Q & A experiences.

Users can simply head to Facebook Questions and opt in if the account isn’t already enabled. Head to Facebook questions and check out the format. Set like polling questions and answers you should be able to immediately see any questions that any of your friends have posted, or replied to.

Although the last version allowed users to reach out to friends and strangers on Facebook, the new release goes completely against that original grain. This time the design is more geared towards targeting Facebook friends to get their questions answered. Those who have used the new format already can definitely attest to the fact that this system is what makes the Facebook Q & A stand apart from other available services.

Many random users were given beta access to Facebook Questions a year ago, so those same users are the first to gain access to the upgrade, however, once a friend post an answer to one of your questions, or one viewable on your wall, they too will receive an invitation to join the Q & A option.

Like Life

Like life when a question needs to be answered, most often an individual will seek out those who they feel may have a bit of knowledge in that area. Most do this because they feel their chances of getting a question answered on a topic obscure to them, will be much easier if they head to an expert. Even then, we hope if our knowledgeable friend cannot answer it, they will be knowledgeable enough to know someone who can. This is the manner in which the newest Questions upgrade intends to function.

Of course, the new version is also created to take full advantage of the viral nature of mass social networking by allowing users to easily share their own questions, or answers, with their full social graph. This system of take a question, answer it, or pass it on, may very well be far more likely to garner the results Facebook developers were looking for in the first release.

Says Product Manager Adrian Graham, users have many formats where they can go to ask perfect strangers for the answers to their questions, but Facebook Questions may be the first format where users can quickly go, if they aren’t there already, to a format that allows them to ask those questions of their friends.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfPA15Ur8do]

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New Media Press: Paper.li a Social Media Tool

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Do you get a bit intimidated by data mining or researching through your Twitter or Facebook accounts as they scroll by at light-speed? If you are like many business owners, large and small, you have likely been just as torn as others who know that their social media sites are littered with incredible information, free tools and professionals offering free advice that could mean the difference in a crash-and-burn or soaring to the top, but approaching them may be a different story.

The Good with the Bad

The great part is that if you have this problem, you likely have plenty of friends and followers which was the ultimate goal in the first place. However, reaching those friend or follower goal numbers will also mean that your visits to check on your preferred topics and URLs will take longer each time.

Then there was Paper.li.

SmallRivers, Big Currents

A private startup that was incorporated in Switzerland, SmallRivers was co-founded by Iskander Pols, and Edouard Lambelet. They wanted to devise a method to help cultivate what users want out of their social medias that they have built on for their businesses. One of many ventures between this dynamic duo, Paper.li has become their main focus in recent months which is becoming very obvious with its increasing Alexa rankings.

Survey Says!

Paper.li’s current global ranking is at #808 while about 35% of its viewers are U.S. based where it has achieved a ranking of #508. It is also very popular in the United Kingdom where it is currently ranked at #307. Statistics show that it is used most widely by white, educated females between the ages of 25 and 55 who browse from both home and work. Average annual incomes for these viewers averages $30k USD.

Small Business Benefits

Whether you are marketing a product, service or even yourself, you can always use any tool that helps to organize the information you need. In fact, there is an entire industry built on and successfully creating expensive tools for this exact function.

Whether used alone or even in conjunction with other helpful Twitter tools, Paper.li will help you to take any specific interest or niche, and create an easy to manage and read newspaper out of the chosen keywords or hash tags you have designated.

  • This can greatly reduce cost spent on data mining for the social media aspect of your marketing campaign by providing you with the most relevant return for your set keys and phrases.
  • It can help to build social media relationships with those you pull content from.
  • You can gain consistently valuable information about topics relevant to your small business.
  • You can implement Paper.li fully into your content marketing campaigns.

Who Uses Paper.li?

Many personal marketers and small business owners have begun to implement Paper.li as part of their SMM campaigns. One such company, SBA, a financial service, has begun to utilize it to market in the areas it specializes in as well as to branch out to other markets that other Paper.li users share with them.

They currently use them to span wide markets in the Financing and Accounting of:

  • Jewelry
  • Sports
  • Fashion
  • Marketing
  • Public Relations
  • Small Business
  • Restaurants
  • Pro Job Listings

And these are just a select few of the niches as they plan to continue to add more.

Why Not Paper.Li?

Since most wise business owners know that achieving a balance in advertising and satisfying the bottom line lies with great time management, organization and social interaction, it seems almost irresponsible to not use Paper.li to cultivate the lucrative aspects of your social media websites.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dcByDEzegw]

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Brand Blogs: Mashable

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Considered an internet news blog, Mashable was launched from Pete Cashmore’s very own home in Aberdeen Scotland in 2005. Its primary purpose is to cover the latest news in social media, but it also covers any new news and developments in entertainment, online video, web development, technology, mobile and other gadget reviews and information.

The site has reported as many as 30 million viewers and users in one month and has a vast following on a variety of different social networking sites. With over a million Twitter followers and a great Alexa ranking it seems to be continually improving and proving itself in the eyes of the search engines.

Mashable’s provide straight to the source information, reviews, blogs and other sources of great informative content that keeps users coming to check it out, and previous users returning when they need to get to the root of just about any problem Mashable addresses. Mashable is also gaining a huge following through sources like Facebook and Twitter users, which is continuing to be an influential demographic.

Awards and Recognitions

Mashable began at the end of 2007 to host an International Open Web Award contest that would give recognition to the best online services and other communities. Voting was conducted online and not only by Mashable but also by its twenty four blog partnerships. In January of 2008 Mashable’s announced their Open Web Awards winners that included Facebook, YouTube. ESPN, Pandora, Google, Twitter and Digg.

Mashable acquired Blippr, a micro review service website, in March of 2009 and has only continued to rise in popularity among those who rely on blogs, news sites and reviews of technology to do their own related jobs. This process helps to keep a continual flow of updated materials that Mashable users know they will find when they head to their site for answers.

In 2011 Mashable CEO and founder Pete Cashmore was named one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Fourum. The World Economic Forum, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is an independent international organization that aims to improve the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

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What is a Creative Commons License?

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With so much business being conducted online these days, it has become imperative to have methods to protect and copyright our works in a manner just as remote as how it was posted. Regardless of whether your work is writing, photography, or even coding or programming, you will want a means to ensure that regardless of what happens with those items, you are given credit for producing them.

When you apply for a Creative Commons license you can keep the copyright to your work, while allowing others to copy or distribute you work, as long as they give you proper credit, on the conditions you get to specify. You may choose to offer your work freely with no desire for crediting, or you may determine exactly the manner in which you want to be credited regardless of its use.

There are some more reputable websites that can help you to create your licensing for your work.

CreativeCommons.org  is an example of a reputable licensing site. You are able to choose a license and once done they will provide you with an HTML tag that will list your work as copyright restricted. However, CreativeCommons is not a registrar and will not retain records of your selections.

Flickr.com also offers create commons licensing and the format to help you protect your work. Flickr and CreativeCommons both have things in common. Their licensing types mirror one another perfectly.

CreativeCommons offers the following licensing options.

  • Attribution: An attribution license will let others tweak, change, build on, remix, distribute or otherwise alter your work, they also have to credit you for the original creation in the manner you request.
  • Attribution NoDerivatives: This particular license allows for commercial and non-commercial use, as well as redistribution, however, it must remain unchanged and all credit must go to you.
  • Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike: Like Attribution, users can tweak, alter, build on and distribute, however, they must credit you and license their own product or creation under identical terms.
  • Attribution ShareAlike: An attribution sharealike license will allow others to alter, tweak and otherwise build upon your original work for commercial purposes. They must however, credit you and license their own agreement under the same terms.
  • Attribution NonCommercial: Others can tweak, alter, rebuild or build upon your work for non-commercial purposes. Any new works should acknowledge the original creator and also be non-commercial.
  • Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives: The most restrictive license, this one only allows others to download or otherwise save your works and even share them with others as long as you are properly credited. This license does not permit users to alter your original creation in any way.

If you are new to creative commons licensing it may be important to read up before making the decision on your license choices.

This is also likely to be one part of your copyright policy and protection practices, an example of how this is used as part of a policy or image see: Copyright Info

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Plagiarism and Content Monitoring Review for Social Media Week

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Plagiarism isn’t always purposeful as any good writer knows. Commonly certain aspects or even particular content is used and reused. For example, when a user does a product review on an HP computer, specifics, and indeed specs, such as Intel Atom, 1 GB, 250 GB, 10.1 in TFT active matrix, Microsoft Windows 7 Starter are always doomed to be repeated. Of course any user can also arrange and rearrange them to make them original, at least for any available number of combinations. Although there are still many within the above listed specs, those, in fact, do run out as well. This could make the continued review of the above HP computer eventually show up as plagiarism.

That isn’t the only example. Some places, let’s go with Hawaii, are doomed to have the same common language used to describe them. Tropical paradise, clear blue ocean water, and so on. These items can eventually build up as well to where a writer will really need to pick and choose their words with fine tooth combs to beat the plagiarism detectors.

The goal of any good content provider should be to add something to the content. A blogger is more than justified in taking sections of articles by another writer so long as they provide recognition or credit to the original source and then provide an add on to the content. The add on can be an I agree but also…., or I do not agree and here is why. This form of copied content are provided to spark original thought or new direction, as such they are worthy of original recognition.

Plagiarism Detectors

Plagiarism detectors helps users to find copies of their pages online for free,

  • Copyscape

Ranked #1 in independent tests, Copyscape protects writers and content owners from having their valuable content plagiarized elsewhere online. Everyone from bloggers, to business owners who outsource their content creation, know what Copyscape is and are likely currently using it, or have done so in the past on projects that have required it. For paid, albeit affordable cost for most, Copyscape provides two other powerful detection tools. Premium allows a user to check their offline content against all online content Sentry provides protection for a users website by scheduling a scan for weekly, or even daily, and emailing you if any are found.

  • CopyGator

CopyGator is geared towards bloggers who want to be sure their original content remains their own. Duplicate content is gauged as ‘collisions’ with three levels that explain their possible issues. From pages that share small sections of similar text, to dual post that share more than one section of similar text, to outright exact copies, CopyGator provides a very helpful service to those who take their copywriting seriously.

  • FairShare

eBook writing and blogging are very lucrative businesses these days for many, and is the reason behind a program such as FairShare.  Throw your RSS Feed URL containing your blog or eBook text into this tool and watch it go to work. This valuable, and free, service, is a lifesaver for many bloggers or eBook creators who desire to create only the highest original content work on the internet.

There are many types of copy protection to utilize, however, the best method to practice at all times is the use of only user created original content. The copy protection should only be a means to ‘double-check’ content before posting it and then monitoring your content to see where and how it is being used.

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Blogger VS WordPress

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Since both of these blog services have their pros and cons, let’s just cut to the chase and investigate what those are.

Why Blogger?

  • Blogger’s dashboard doesn’t look overwhelming. Although for a shiny new internet user, it would likely still be cause for concern, even a novice can pick up on its formatting, configuration and customization options.  Things have changed since Blogger first set out, their updated custom design and template features are an incredible tool for those with little experience in this area.
  • Blogger has built in stats that will help you track your traffic. You may also add any third party tracking scripts for monitoring.
  • If you want to create a private blog with only designated access, Blogger has no restrictions on the number of allowed users per blog.
  • As far as Bloggers commenting system. It comes with captcha and spam filtering options, but no ability to edit comments.
  • For an individual that is new to online business and indeed even new to being online, Blogger is a great place to set up your first shop and learn the ropes.

Blogger Cons

  • This may be a perfect blog option for personal users more than business. As although there are tagging features to help increase traffic to your site, there is little else besides the power of your own words to drive viewers to you.
  • You may only import blogs from other Blogspot user pages.
  • Blogger has no gallery options for users who need to upload multiple photos.
  • There is no available contact form.
  • The simple fact is that although you may tweak Blogger to look like most any other available, for the business owner looking for a busy blog server to hawk their wares, it just doesn’t have those all important bells-and-whistles.
  • You will likely need to invest a bit more marketing funds into Blogger than WordPress.

WordPress

  • One of the main trade-offs that become glaringly obvious is the overwhelming number of folks that use WordPress. This could have a good effect, or an entirely negative one, depending on your writing, aesthetic and marketing strengths.
  • WordPress will import from Type·Pad, Israblog, Live·JournaI, MovabIe·Type, Vox.com, Posterous, Yahoo! 360, Blogger, Blogli, or another WordPress blog.
  • While Blogger supports one gig of image storage, WordPress supports three gigs. They also have optional paid upgrades for more image storage if needed.
  • WordPress offers comment editing and Akismet spam protection.
  • WordPress is highly functional for affiliate marketers, business owners, niche writers, online storefronts, and the many endless options in online businesses blogging. Its SEO features and options will allow a person who targets the proper keywords and information to quickly raise their blog to the top of, at least, WordPresses website relatively quickly.
  • Although WordPress does a bit of marketing for their users with their own high rankings and blog system, it may also take the more ‘novice’ user a bit of time to fully understand, and therefore fully utilize properly its many options and functions.

WordPress Flaws

  • WordPress can  be quite overwhelming. A person new to the internet will most likely be highly intimidated by some of its more technical features. Those who have a working knowledge on the World Wide Web may have a bit better luck, but if they want their blog to succeed, and in a relatively quick manner, they will need to do quite a bit of studying, and picking and choosing the right plug-ins for their sites needs.
  • WordPress is a web designers nightmare. Want a custom theme? First thing you will need to do is get your WordPress, off of WordPress. WordPress free blog accounts do not allow users to create their own custom themes, but do provide thousands of options to choose from. Even once you have your press on its own domain, the ‘average’ web designer, meaning one who is adept at managing their own site, will find WordPress to be a bit cranky when it comes to creating templates.
  • If you want to remain on WordPress’s server, you will find it pretty costly and for this reason it is not optional for a lot of small struggling businesses, or even larger ones in the struggling economy.

With WordPress most of your investment will be in the time you spend learning how to utilize its many helpful tools and features correctly. It is a good rule of thumb, however, to keep up with trends in blog services and aspects of what each has to offer. Dependant on your course of business and your plan for the path to success, there may be better options, free or paid, that can help you target your specific niche visitors.

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