Source: Nettuts+

This article aims to show you how to attract users and make them hungry for more. Who is this post for? Anyone with a website. Not all of the items listed below will apply directly to you and your business; however, they are, at the very least, an excellent source for inspiration.

1. Write Fresh and Catchy Content

If you have good content, people will always come back for more. One of the most important things about content is to keep it fresh and up-to-date. But, just like Smashing Magazine, make sure to archive your content for people to refer back to.

2. Listen to Your Community

If you are already lucky enough to have a community—even just some regular users—listen to them. You can do this by emailing your users directly, setting up comment forms, live chat, or even user feedback systems such as UserVoice, which allow users to vote on site issues and functionality. By listening to your community, you can determine exactly what they want.

3. Monitor How Your Site is Used

Knowing how users use your site is vital. This allows you to target their needs better. The best way is to keep a close eye on your analytics data; check what country/area your users are coming from, what search terms are working well for you and what sites are giving you the best referrals.

Find out how users navigate your site via heat maps. These help you alter your site so that it is easier for your visitors to use and find what they want. This keeps your users happy and more likely to return.

Read the rest of the article at Nettuts+

Give your business a powerful competitive advantage which can shoot you up the search rankings and achieve more leads than your non-blogging competitors.

When suggesting a Blog to clients we usually get asked “What exactly is a blog?”, which gets followed by, “I don’t have time to play around with one of those” or “Where would I get the time and what would I write about?”

The first stop in deciding to create a company blog (after understanding exactly what it is of course) is to decide that it is a worthwhile strategy and that means understanding the WIIFM (what’s in it for me?). What’s the pay-off?

What Is A Blog?
Simply, it is just a tool that allows you to quickly and easily create and publish new content. Plus, it allows readers to leave feedback on that content and interact with the feedback from other readers.

We have talked about Web 2.0 in the past Newsletter articles which, incidently can be found on our Blog at X2 World Blog, and a Blog is a Web 2.0 strategy. The 2.0 is just about the ability to engage and interact with people, compared with the original web concept which was an online brochure…you have moved on haven’t you?

The Pay-Off

1. Google Search – Google, in fact all search engines, places more emphasis on websites that have a growing and relevant content. Therefore you have a better chance of getting more web visitors if you add more content to your website…that is what a blog does.

2. Create Better Relationships – People do business with people they know and trust. A blog is a great way to achieve those outcomes on the web. Let people get to know you and your company. Offer value and people will return regularly. Over time, more and more people will contact you and become a lead or prospect. Then you have a chance of doing business with them.

3. Increased Online Lead Generation – businesses that have a blog and regularly publish new content will generate more new business leads than businesses that don’t blog. But don’t take my word for it, the following research by HubSpot shows an 88% and 67% increase in new leads for company’s that have a Blog.

The good news is that the statistics show that lead generation is substantially higher for both B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) company’s, making it a universal best practice strategy for internet or web marketing.

4. Improved Search Engine Results – The search engines apply ratings to websites and they favour certain elements over others. If your website can have more of the favourable elements, then it stands a better chance of appearing on the coveted “Page 1 of Google”. A blog helps in 2 key areas:

That’s a massive benefit! A website that is rarely ever updated and has no new content being added gives no reason for any search engines to come back and index pages. Your competitors who do Blog will get an advantage in the search rankings.

Another big factor in search engine rankings is links from other websites and blogs to your website. As the above chart shows, businesses that blog get much higher results.

What’s The Point Again?

Marketing is a science. It is measurable and you can try things, find out what works, tweak, improve and do more of what gets results.

The charts above from HubSpot’s research provide compelling evidence that you should be thinking seriously about a Blog for your business. If you have one, then think about how you can improve it and get better results.

It should be integrated with your website so that it adds value to your web domain name and in some cases could be a standalone website.

Why not get in touch with us and find out how your marketing could be boosted by adding a Blog or improving your current Blog?

One of our professional digital marketing Partners would love to talk you through the process and identify how it would work for your particular business.

Source: X2 World

Eavesdropping Webcams, spying ISPs, toxic PCs, and more. Here are 21 dangers that the industry is hiding from you–and what you can do about them.

Dan Tynan – Mar 30, 2010 1:00 pm

Yes, the truth is out there. But they don’t want you to know about it.

Who’s “they”? It could be Google or product manufacturers, your boss or your wireless carrier, Hollywood or Uncle Sam.

What don’t they want you to know? That your cell phone, your Webcam, and your employer may be spying on you. That you’re probably paying too much for printer ink, and that your wicked-cool subsidized handset will cost you way more over time than an unsubsidized one. That your PC may be coated with toxic flame retardants. And that’s just for starters.

Don’t despair. For every dirty little secret revealed herein, we describe a fix or a way to work around it (if any exists). You don’t have to be a victim, if you know what to do.

Just remember: You’ve been warned.

Your ISP Is a Copyright Cop

The RIAA and the MPAA may have a new ally. The next people who bust you for illegally swapping music and movies could be the folks you pay for Internet access.

Illustration: Barry Blitt
The recording and film industries are seeking to manipulate upcoming net neutrality legislation to allow ISPs to scan the bits passing through their networks and to block any that may violate copyrights–similar to Comcast’s notorious attempts to throttle BitTorrent connections in 2007. The Federal Communications Commission’s recommended rule changes already contain an exception for “reasonable network management,” which could include sniffing for copyrighted content, says Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Meanwhile, according to leaked reports, the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) now being negotiated in private sessions contains provisions requiring ISPs to police their own networks for copyright scofflaws. Critics of the proposed treaty fear that copyright holders will insert a “three-strikes” policy, under which users could have their Internet access revoked if they’re caught exchanging copyrighted content more than twice.

“It’s dangerous giving so much power to copyright claims,” says Wendy Seltzer, project leader for the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse and a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. “Imagine someone telling you, ‘If you violate our copyrights, we can terminate your Net connection, not just your blog.’”

With such a powerful new partner playing the role of both investigator and enforcer, might copyright holders be emboldened to pursue more consumers suspected of violating copyrights? And what protections will consumers have against false claims of infringement?

The Fix: Contact your congressional representatives and tell them that you oppose net neutrality loopholes for content filtering. Support organizations such as Chilling Effects, the EFF, and Public Knowledge, which fight laws that turn ISPs into Hollywood’s hired guns.

Cell Phones Don’t Crash Airplanes

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration have each recommended that airlines not allow passengers to use cell phones during commercial flights. The FAA fears that the RF signal emitted by devices using the 800MHz spectrum band might interfere with the navigation systems of the plane, specifically GPS instrumentation. Yet there is no documented case of an air accident or serious malfunction caused by a cell phone’s interfering with a plane’s navigation system.

Read More on PC World

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By Renai LeMay, Delimiter.com.au on April 7th, 2010

Microsoft appears to have accidentally deleted six years of blog archives hosted on its free Windows Live Spaces platform belonging to Australian mobile technology evangelist Shane Williamson.

“About 3 weeks ago my Windows Live Spaces blog was deleted by Microsoft for no reason,” Williamson wrote on his site over the weekend. “That is over six years of blogging on mobile, technology and convergence gone … Microsoft claims they cannot reclaim any part of the data lost, or will they give a reason why it was lost.”

“This should be a major concern to anyone who is, or thinking of, using Windows Live SPaces as a serious blog or any other type of cloud computing services from Microsoft.” Delimiter couldn’t reach Williamson for a comment today.

When contacted about the issue today, Microsoft Australia’s public relations agency punted the question to ninemsn, which operates the Windows Live brands in Australia courtesy of its joint venture relationship with the software giant.

A spokesperson for the company said it was investigating the issue back in Microsoft headquarters in the US — as that was where the Windows Live Spaces blogs were administered from, although it hoped to provide further information on Williamson’s case in due course.

Previously known as MSN Spaces, Windows Live Spaces was initially released in 2004, and is broadly seen as competitor to other free hosted blogging platforms such as Wordpress.com and Google’s Blogger offering.

Williamson himself is seen as one of Australia’s foremost experts on the mobile technology space. In the past he’s held senior roles focused on the mobile space at a number of companies such as Microsoft, Optus and Hutchison Australia (before the merger with Vodafone). He is also the co-founder of the Mobile Monday Sydney chapter, which attempts to bring mobile industry professionals together.

Read the blog post on Zdnet

By now, you’ve probably heard that Facebook has made some big changes that affect your privacy. However, you might not know what they are.

So far, the changes have been explained in the language of the people that they benefit: companies and app developers. What about us, the end users?

Here’s a handy collection of the best tips that we could find for protecting your privacy on Facebook’s wild new frontier.

Read More on Download Squad

In its rush to take on Facebook and Google Buzz, Microsoft is now collecting and displaying personal information on your Hotmail page — information you may never have wanted to broadcast.

Exactly how it’s mining this information is something of a mystery, but if you use Hotmail or Windows Live, it’s time to review your privacy settings — lest something you said or did comes back to haunt you.

One user signed in to her Hotmail account recently and was greeted with Microsoft’s new, improved social networking splash page.

What’s wrong with this picture? All three What’s new with your network entries contain potentially embarrassing information that the authors never dreamed would appear on someone else’s Hotmail sign-in page.

Read More on Windows Secrets: http://windowssecrets.com/comp/100422#story1

Do you Facebook?? – You MUST watch this if you are a facebook user. Know all the facts before blindly continuing in being a user.. for you are a user being used. learn how.