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Archive for the ‘Marketing’

I’m new to Internet Marketing – what’s my first step?

January 15, 2010 By: Claire Morawski Category: Marketing

Dear Friend, …what do you think of our journey so far?! Send me a personal e-mail with your suggestions on how my blog can serve you better. Also make sure to leave comments, and get in touch for further assistance. Follow me on Twitter, add me as a fan on Facebook, Linkedin and MySpace for constant updates. To your success!

I personally have been doing internet marketing for only a few months. However, before actually taking the plunge I had been on a huge learning curve – learning and trying to understand everything about internet marketing, and had a massive overload of information in about 1 year. Then I decided to act. Within three months my blog is looking more and more professional everyday, my traffic is increasing and my Alexa ranking is climbing.

So, what I want to do in this article is to funnel you towards one direction which will help you get started in internet marketing without getting lost. As, through personal experience, I have found that the more you learn, at times the more confusing it becomes and you end up doing nothing because you simply don’t know from where to start.

Down to the Basics

As with any other career, first comes the learning. There is a lot to learn in internet marketing, but what you have to understand is that this process is a journey. And sometimes by acting you will learn more and faster, than by just reading about it. The same goes with any other career – first you gain knowledge, but then you get better at it once you start implementing your knowledge. One thing that you have to keep in mind though, is that you can’t expect to plunge in and become an expert or a six-figure earner overnight.

Once you start doing your research, you will definitely come across a lot of hype of earning thousands of dollars in one week, or get rich overnight schemes, or buy this course which will allow you to discover the secret of top leaders in the industry. Let me clear this from the beginning – that’s, more often than not, just a load of crap. Make sure that you do your research well. As with any career, internet marketing requires a learning curve and lots of hard work, although the good thing about it is that you can achieve massive success if done properly, unlike with other careers.

Internet Marketing is as a legitimate business as you make it. Unfortunately, some people look at an internet marketing as suspicious career, and that is because, as with any career, some people have abused internet marketing to scam people and hence to tarnish this industry’s reputation. My advice to you is to always follow your honest characteristics and use this massive industry to leverage your business, wealth and reputation, and eventually to contribute to society at large.

As in any industry, the key to success is to always keep on learning. Internet Marketing is an evolving industry, with things changing every day, so it’s essential to keep abreast with what is happening and to keep learning for personal growth. In addition, hard work, determination and focus are essential qualities, if your goal is to succeed in this industry.

What attracted me to Internet Marketing in the first place?

Below is a list of benefits (in no particular order) that made me personally embrace Internet Marketing as a career…
Your office can be anywhere you want it to be (home, beach, coffee shop, office, … – your call) – this is ideal if one of your priorities in life is to spend time with family, friends and live life humanly.
No time wasted on commuting – other than trips to the bank!!!
 There are 1.5 billion internet users which can be your potential next customers. You can deliver your product, training, skills to a wider audience – so in a sense you get to ‘help’ more people.
 You can first start off to complement your full-time job, and eventually turn it into a full-income full-time-job-attitude working part-time hours. This makes it less risky than quitting your current job completely or investing in start-up costs to start operating your own business full-time.
 You can be your own boss. This allows for flexibility and you can work on your own terms, values and priorities.
 Build a business which you can call your own.
 Can supplement an existing offline business.
Develop business skills along the way.
 Will network with a lot of people all over the world.
 Can choose your niche market within internet marketing – find what you are good at, strengthen your skills and offer those services over the internet.

I’m sold – tell me more

First of all you need a solid foundation on which to build your business. And the heartbeat of any internet business is your own self-hosted blog. Nowadays it is very easy to have your own, unique, professional website – and you don’t even need to know any html or computer programming degrees. Blogs are essential because they are your voice to the world – they are constantly changing (so people keep coming to them), they are your communication tool (you tell people what you want to tell them), and they can be personalized (you design them how you want).

I have created a 5 day training course which you can access for free, which allows you to learn and implement the basics to be able to start your own business online. The first day is all about building your own blog – at the end of the presentation you are easily able to create your own blog – it’s the same presentation I used to build my blog. I created this training, especially for people like you who are feeling lost and don’t know from where to start. I was in the same position as you, not a while ago, and I just wished I could have had something similar to my 5 day training, as it would have saved me lots of time and would have propelled my business in motion faster than it did.

So sign up for the 5 day training course on how to start a business online for free, and get cracking TODAY if you are seriously interested in adopting internet marketing as part of your life.

PS Make sure to let me know how the course has helped you and what you wish to see in the future.

To Your Success

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P.S. Are you still hoping for the big break? If you are sick and tired of chasing people, with no break in sight, then it’s time to take control and change your action plan. Uncover my secrets to generating free leads and signing up more reps than I can handle on complete autopilot using social networking marketing. Go here NOW! => Give Me The Secrets

Popularity: 4% [?]

David Wood – A Review of the Article Marketing Rockstar

January 13, 2010 By: Claire Morawski Category: Marketing, Reviews

I first learnt about David Wood, about 3 months ago, when I was invited to attend a training call in which David Wood revealed all his secrets on Article Marketing and how he personally uses this strategy to get traffic to his websites, to generate leads and to sponsor distributors in his primary company. The maxed-out training call was one of the turning points in my internet marketing career.

Three months ago I was following a lot of people who were industry leaders in the internet marketing, and I learnt a lot from them. However, somehow I resonated with David Wood for various reasons, some I will mention, and decided that he will definitely be one of my mentors. So I deliberately chose to join the Marketing Funnel System that we both use in our business, specifically through him than anyone else, because I figured that like this I can have him as one of my great mentors.

Who exactly is David Wood?

He had started in the network marketing industry about 7 years ago. However he was doing the old traditional network marketing methods, because he knew no better. He failed in the first 2 companies he got involved in, and in his third attempt he became somewhat successful, because of his persistency and determination to make it work, and because of his right mental attitude, which I highly encourage, of continuous personal development and growth. However he had bigger dreams for what he wanted his business to be like. Failing 3 times was a blessing in disguise, because it helped to lay the grounds to what happened to him next. His continued quest for answers, led him to figure out the secrets of the network marketing industry, and to go from struggling in this industry to massive success in a very short period of time.

How did he do it?

Let’s look first at some of his characteristics that I admire. First of all he has the mindset of an entrepreneur. He is 100% focused – he has his eyes fixed on his goals, and knows the process he will be implementing to get him there. Because I have been following David from nearly the very beginning of when he started online, I have had the privilege to watch David grow from someone determined, but still testing his grounds, to someone who is confident, a true ‘alpha-networker’, yet still down-to-earth, in just 4 months. And, seeing this change for myself, gave me the encouragement necessary to believe that I, and anybody for that matter, can succeed online – only if you have the drive, enthusiasm, passion, determination, attitude of embracing personal growth and mindset that David Wood has.

In addition, he is creative – always coming up with innovative ideas, he is a great entrepreneur with laser focused vision, and he is on fire, working hard to achieve his dreams. And it is all these combined together, that has enabled him to win a brand new BMW as part of a contest of who generates the most sign ups in the Marketing Funnel System I mentioned before, and a sum of money from another contest of whose team sells the most copies of Magnetic Sponsoring – which is a book based on the psychology of Attraction Marketing.

Speaking of which, David has embraced Attraction Marketing himself, and realized that the key to developing an organization is to develop oneself to be a person that attracts people to one’s organization. This is one of the fundamental ‘secrets’ that one has to acknowledge, to be able to prosper like David and other industry leaders. Another ‘secret’ that David Wood mastered is that relationships come before recruiting – hence one has to have a series of escalating exposure to have people join you.

David also came to understand something that 99% of entrepreneurs will never grasp or implement. Even though all businesses are competitive in some way or another, yet David has an ‘Abundance Mindset’, and figured out that eventually everyone will benefit, when he decided to reveal ALL his top online article marketing secrets for free during the training call. With this mindset, David also does free weekly training calls to people on his list, because he is a huge fan and understands the importance of personal development and personal growth. And I think it is this common approach – of giving without hesitation, before expecting anything in return – which ‘attracted’ me to David, and which leads us to prosper – because in the end everyone will benefit, as the internet is so vast that there is enough opportunity and money for everyone to gain success and financial freedom.

An Invitation to YOU

David and I have implemented strategies in our businesses, because we believe in personal growth, and hence have continued to search for answers on how to grow our businesses. We have come to realize that ‘old school’ MLM strategies, such as opportunity meetings, in-home presentations and prospecting to complete strangers, are a thing of the past. We have moved on with the times, and embraced fresh marketing strategies which took our businesses online, and where we really wanted to be.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to join forces with me. I’ll introduce you to David Wood and other leading MLM trainers, and also I’ll personally train you how to build your business successfully using internet marketing.

To Your Success

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P.S. Are you still hoping for the big break? If you are sick and tired of chasing people, with no break in sight, then it’s time to take control and change your action plan. Uncover my secrets to generating free leads and signing up more reps than I can handle on complete autopilot using social networking marketing. Go here NOW! => Give Me The Secrets

Popularity: 5% [?]

Authority BlackBook by Jack Humphrey of BlogSuccess.com

January 12, 2010 By: Claire Morawski Category: Free E-Books, Marketing

If you are just starting out in internet marketing, and don’t even have a self-hosted blog yet, then I advice you to download Authority BlackBook for future reference, but don’t go through it as yet, especially if blogging is something completely new to you.

First of all you need to have your own website. And this is much easier than you think. On my blog I have a webinar that shows you in easy steps, how to set up your own self-hosted blog. All you have to do is to sign up for my 5 day training, and Day 1 covers the physical setting up of your own blog. Either put in your details in the box to your right or Click Here and insert your name, e-mail address and optional phone number to get access to the free webinar today.

Once you have your blog in place, then you can start reading Authority BlackBook and implementing a few of the strategies that Jack Humphrey from BlogSuccess.com talks about. These strategies that Jack talks about are the next step that you need for your blog to be successful.

Authority BlackBook is a HUGE reference book. Don’t expect to implement all there is at one go – as you won’t. In the beginning, when I first got my hands on it, I used to take it with me to read on the train, while on my way to work. I remember, when I first went through the whole book, I was more confused than better off. But then as you start implementing one thing at a time, and your blog starts growing, then it becomes a useful (must have) resource. Now I use it as a reference book. Sometimes I just pull it out, and flick through it, I find something that I like and implement that just one strategy.

Authority BlackBook is a must resource in your library if you want to have a successful blog.

Download Authority BlackBook For Free Now

To Your Success

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P.S. Are you still hoping for the big break? If you are sick and tired of chasing people, with no break in sight, then it’s time to take control and change your action plan. Uncover my secrets to generating free leads and signing up more reps than I can handle on complete autopilot using social networking marketing. Go here NOW! => Give Me The Secrets

Popularity: 5% [?]

12 characteristics of a successful online marketer

January 05, 2010 By: Claire Morawski Category: Marketing

The other day I was invited to a webinar hosted by David Wood and his team (Jim Chao and Kenny Gregg). The guest speaker was Norbert Orlewicz, co-founder of MLM Lead System Pro. During this exclusive round table Q&A, I suddenly discovered the secret of why some people succeed and others don’t. I’ll be sharing this with you today.

Let’s first visualize this scenario:

A group of 10 people enrol in a system that is excellent in teaching online marketing. All of them have access to the back office of this phenomenal system, where there are tutorials, training, videos, mentors… – all in the purpose of teaching them how they can successfully build their own online business. However, after 3 months, only 5 people are left from the starting 10. Six months down the line, 3 are left. One year on, only 1 person remains and is doing phenomenally well in his/her business earning a 6 figure income!!! How is this possible, if all 10 were treated equally and given the same tools to be able to succeed?!

Is there something wrong with the system? One would conclude that there can’t be something wrong with the system, since one person managed to succeed. There would definitely be something wrong with the system if no one succeeded!!!

Let’s then look at the personality of the 9 people who didn’t make it:

Their course of action must have looked something like this:
They tried out pay-per-click, then they jumped onto facebook, then they tried video-marketing, then they jumped onto article marketing… They stayed with each marketing strategy for a few weeks or months, then moved on to the next. They kept on trying different marketing strategies maybe the next strategy will work for them.

So here is their problem – they tried it. You can’t just try something and expect success. You have to choose something, you decide on it and make it work, no matter what.

Jim Chao initially started out solely on Facebook in his marketing campaign and then moved to pay-per-click, David Wood uses article marketing mainly, Kenny Gregg is an SEO expert, Norbert Orlewicz had mastered MySpace and pay-per-click, Larry Beacham uses LinkedIn. So all these marketing strategies do work (proved) – if one person manages to generate leads off one marketing strategy, then, there is no question about it that that marketing strategy works!!!

The personality of the 1 person who triumphed:

We can attribute a strong drive, determination and passion to succeed.

1. a student forever – committed to learning
You have to keep constantly on top of the industry. Read books, research on internet, take courses. You have to become the leader in your industry. Allow development for personal growth – to allow the opportunity that comes your way when the timing is right.

2. focus
focus, focus, focus. Visualize your goal and work aggressively towards attaining your goal. Sometimes the internet can be distracting with all the noise – focus on one good system and forget the rest.

3. know yourself
You need to find and tap into your strengths – this is critical for success.

4. decision time
make your decision, commit and move forward. Once you make the decision, then no matter how hard and high the obstacles are – no matter what, you are going to climb over them.
Some successful people find themselves at the point of bankruptcy or their back against the wall, with nowhere to go – they’ll either win or lose. Then they end up making a decision and succeed. They would have to make it work because of their situation – in a way, there is no decision to make, the decision is made for them. However, there is no need to come into such a desperate situation before you start making it work for you – you don’t need to come to such a low point. You can decide to go from where you stand now and climb up / move forward from here.

5. passionate
find a subject / marketing strategy that you are passionate about – facebook, article marketing, video marketing, linkedin, …

6. committing
commit to something, make a decision, and go for it a 110%. Choose one or two marketing strategy and work at it until you master it successfully.

7. constantly tweaking your marketing, constantly tweaking your conversions
You don’t pick a strategy like pay-per-click, and you hope it works. No, you work at it until you master it successfully. Jim spends hours tweaking his marketing campaigns because they are not producing, they are costing too much, the conversions aren’t right – he is constantly at it. Need to still spend lots of hours a day on marketing until it works for you.

8. taking massive action
You don’t just get involved. You don’t set up a website or study a marketing strategy for a few weeks, then you hit play and you sit around at the beach. That is the dream that is portrayed on the internet – get-rich schemes, but that is not the reality. Everyone who has success in the industry still works hard.

9. persistence and determination
Choose one or two marketing strategy and work those strategies until you make them successful. You have got to stick with it, you have to be persistent.

10. understand that you have to fail before succeeding
Example, when a stock trader plans out his/her strategy and what and how s/he is going to invest, s/he expects to lose 90% of the time. And all s/he has to do is win at least 1% of his/her trade and earn hundreds of dollars.
Another example is direct mail. A good direct mail campaign is anywhere between 0.5 – 1% response rate. If you get a 1% response rate, then you succeed => a profitable campaign. This means that you are expecting to fail 99% of the time – with the mail going into the garbage. You are counting on 1% to respond.
You need to understand that 80-90% of your marketing will fail. You need to focus on 10%. Now people usually fail, fail and then quit. But successful people fail, fail again, pick themselves up, fail, pick themselves up, fail and then they win.
Being consistent, persistent and knowing (being confident) that you know that you are going to win – you just have to stick it out long enough.

11. set your mindset
You don’t hope that your business will be successful, you make your business successful.
You don’t treat it as a hobby – “I’ll see if this thing works”, “I’ll see what happens in 3 – 6 months”, “I’ll try it for 3 months, then I’ll see what happens”. If you are using words like ‘hope it works’, then you need to seriously work on your mindset. Hoping that you are going to generate leads is not going to get you anywhere. That’s the critical difference. If you catch yourself using the word ‘hope’, then you’ll know that you are not being successful, because you actually don’t believe that you can do it yourself.

12. being an entrepreneur as opposed to an employee
If you start any business, you need to invest and work hard. An online business is no different – many people go on the internet and they think it’s a lottery ticket, a free ride, a game. We are still talking about starting a real business.
If you never started a business before in your life then you need to read/study some books. You have to learn what it means to run a business – what’s the difference between being an employee and being an entrepreneur. Pick up some Robert Kiyosaki books and understand what it takes on a mental level to make the huge leap from being an employee to being an entrepreneur – and running your own business.

Summary

The only limit is your drive, determination, your passion to be successful. That goes for anything that you want in life. Being passionate about something. Committing to something, making a decision and going for it a 110% … and knowing in the core of your being that you will not be denied.
Only you set your own limits.

To Your Success

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P.S. Are you still hoping for the big break? If you are sick and tired of chasing people, with no break in sight, then it’s time to take control and change your action plan. Uncover my secrets to generating free leads and signing up more reps than I can handle on complete autopilot using social networking marketing. Go here NOW! => Give Me The Secrets

Popularity: 2% [?]

Attraction Marketing – how to have a stream of eager prospects contacting YOU

November 04, 2009 By: Claire Morawski Category: Marketing

Imagine your cell phone going off. It is the 5th time today. You take the call and you hear:

Hi Claire. My name is Jack. I have been checking out your website for the past hour and I’m interested in working with you.”

 Imagine getting an e-mail:

Hi Claire.

This is Anne. I have been doing some research on the internet and came across your website. I have studied it really well and have decided to join your company. I am ready to get started now.”

 

This is every marketer’s dream. In this article, I am going to discuss how by using attraction marketing for your business, you are taking big steps towards making this dream a reality for you.

 

Traditional Selling

On reading the above, most people say:

Common Claire. I just wish that happens to me, but it sounds too good to be true!

 

And I don’t blame you for not believing in the power of attraction marketing, if you are used to using outdated dinosaur ‘old school’ techniques, that upline trainers still teach, to promote your business, such as:

  • chasing family and friends
  • making lists of warm leads
  • prospecting at malls
  • using the ‘3-foot’ rule
  • buying leads
  • cold-calling
  • sending out e-mails to people not on your list (in other words – spamming)
  • putting up signs on telephone poles
  • handing out flyers
  • wearing embarrassing buttons and pins
  • doing presentations and meetings
  • organizing parties.

 

You have been given a replicated website, taught the ‘art of duplication’ and have been urged to sell aggressively. And most probably, along the way, you have experienced painful rejection, humiliation, frustration, wasted time, and little or no results to show for all your hard work and money.

 

This can all change if you embrace ‘the science’ of attraction marketing.

 

Understanding people

Grasping the philosophy of attraction marketing can be difficult, especially for traditional marketers. To understand the law of attraction, first we need to learn about people and change our focus.

 

  • People don’t like being sold to. The more you sell, the more people resist it. The more polished you are the more they will resist your approach. Don’t sell them, use attraction marketing :-)

 

  • People don’t like the feeling of being handled. They like being free to choose, and to shop around without being pressurized.

 

  • People like to buy. It’s always exciting to go home with a shopping bag or to wait for an item in the post. Also people love the experience of shopping – if it is enjoyable.

 

  • People like being in control. They need to be in control of the whole buying process. They like building relationships and would come back repeatedly for the pleasant experience – to feel good.

 

So, nowadays people don’t just buy because they need something, but rather they buy into the experience. Attraction Marketing is all about creating a long term relationship with the customer.

 

What is Attraction Marketing?

Attraction Marketing is the way you project yourself, which makes people want to do business with you. It makes them keep on coming back to you for more. The more value and knowledge you give, the better the chances of conversion are (from leads to customers).

 

The benefits of Attraction Marketing:

  • doesn’t waste your time nor does it waste the time of uninterested customers.
  • in many ways it takes the pressure off you (the seller) and does not put any pressure onto your customer.
  • your time will be spent talking to those who have a genuine interest in purchasing from you or doing business with you. Remember, your customers will come to you now.
  • implement a system that will allow your customers to get to know and trust you. In their eyes you will become an expert in your field. Helps to build your credibility, and draw interested and targeted prospects to your site. Automatically creates deep, personal and emotional relationship between you and your prospects before they talk to you.
  • brands YOU, which ensures that you never go out of business.
  • gives customers the ability to contact you. (In return, you should return emails and phone calls promptly.) Now the tables have turned – it is they who are contacting you, as opposed to you cold-calling uninterested people. You have become the hunted instead of being the hunter!!!
  • no more selling or painful rejection.
  • uses automation to enroll customers and distributors (almost effortlessly). Hence your business becomes more profitable.
  • generates quality leads – prospects will be giving you their contact details, thus building your own profitable list. Ever heard the saying – ‘the money is in the list’?!
  • puts the fun back into your business
  • in essence, attraction marketing gives you the tools to deal with those who are now well informed about your business and ready to make a purchase.

 

So now the trick is how to attract people and get them to chase you?!

First of all you need to have a web presence. The website has to be unique to you – it has to be YOUR website. It has to brand YOU. Ideally you should purchase a domain name and host a wordpress blog on your own server. This gives you total control over your blog, and positions you as a person who knows their stuff.

 

Then your aim is to direct traffic to your website – to promote your website. You can use different marketing strategies such as social media marketing (facebook, myspace), video marketing (youtube), article marketing, pay-per-click, and even offline marketing (direct mail). The list is endless. You have to choose 1 or 2 marketing strategies that you are good at, and focus on those.

 

The more links you have online, the more prospects you will attract to your website. The more traffic you get to your website, the more visible your website becomes and the more you will be looked at as an authority in your niche. You need to make sure to provide your leads with valuable information, so that they want to keep coming to you and so your name will get out there.

  

Summary

For many, understanding attraction marketing can be a real shift in their way of thinking.

 

In traditional marketing, you go out and aggressively tell people what you offer. On the other hand, attraction is a more indirect way of bringing prospects to you based on their getting to know you, trust you and value you.

 

In the attraction approach, you have to add MASSIVE value to people (usually for free or cheap), and then they’ll trust you enough to spend significant money for even more value. The hint here is – instead of thinking about selling, focus on serving. To have long-term success in your business, give value before you expect to receive.

 

Now, attraction marketing doesn’t replace your current marketing campaigns; it rather enhances and compliments them. It can actually be adapted to any business, whether you are promoting a network marketing opportunity or selling a specific product or service.

 

Promoting using attraction marketing is a long term strategy – it might not give you immediate results in terms of conversions, however, it is powerful in branding you and your business, and building life-long relationships based on trust and value, where prospects keep coming back to YOU because they view you as an expert in your field.

To Your Success

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P.S. Are you still hoping for the big break? If you are sick and tired of chasing people, with no break in sight, then it’s time to take control and change your action plan. Uncover my secrets to generating free leads and signing up more reps than I can handle on complete autopilot using social networking marketing. Go here NOW! => Give Me The Secrets

Popularity: 2% [?]

What is RSS

October 29, 2009 By: Claire Morawski Category: General, Marketing

VideoJug user LeeLefever presents a video describing, in simple terms and format, the power of RSS and the RSS Reader. Learn all you need to know about RSS and news feeds by watching this simple yet informative video.


RSS In Plain English

What the Heck is RSS?

And why should I care?

Good questions. First, here’s why you should care.

Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation.

You don’t have to reveal your email address. If you want to stop receiving content, you don’t have to request to be “taken off the list.”

One click, and poof… the subscription is gone.

Plus, since there’s no email address involved, there’s no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you.

That’s right… no more spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. And best of all, no reason to put yourself at the mercy of the publisher’s intentions.

You won’t need to suffer through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one) looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell. No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts “just in case.”

Again, if you don’t like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel. With just one click.

Pretty cool, huh?

That is cool! Umm… What the heck is RSS?

Alright! Now we’re ready to get to that part.

RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest.

You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed – you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

What the heck is a feed reader?

You may already be using a form of feed reader, and not even realize it. If you use personalized home page services like My Yahoo or My MSN, you’ve got RSS capabilities built in. That’s how syndicated content like news, weather and stock quotes appears on your personal page. You can also add content from any blog or other site that uses RSS to provide updates.

Other web-based tools are primarily dedicated to feed reading only. One of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point is Bloglines, and it’s also free and easy to get started with.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can also receive RSS feeds from your tool bar by using the Live Bookmarks function. The next version of Internet Explorer will add this feature as well.

Finally, there are desktop-based feed readers. These function somewhat like an email program for feeds. Examples include Newsgator and Feed Demon.

If it sounds complicated, it’s really not. And things will get even easier when the next version of Outlook integrates feed-reading capabilities. So, you’ll have the same convenience that email subscriptions offered in the old days, without any of the terrible consequences of giving out your email address to potentially unscrupulous characters.

Sounds good. So how do I subscribe to a Feed?

First of all, look for the subscription or feed options (some bloggers make this difficult for some odd reason). You might see a variety of buttons (amusingly called chicklets).

If the site you want to subscribe to uses FeedBurner to aid in the subscription process (like Copyblogger and many other popular sites), you’ll likely see the standard RSS icon, which takes you to a page that will give you an array of the most popular feed readers so you can select yours, and you’ll go from there. This is the new standard RSS icon:

Sometimes there will be a chicklet for your particular reader right on the blog that will take you to the appropriate subscription page. You may see these (among others):

Add to Google

Subscribe in Bloglines

Finally, you may also see little orange buttons that say XML or RSS. Often these chicklets will take you to a page that looks like code gibberish. In this case, you simply cut and paste the page URL from your browser window and manually paste it into your feed reader subscription function.

Hopefully this last method will soon disappear, never to be seen again.

In summary: RSS solves BIG problems.

So there you have it… RSS is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, because it’s a good thing for everyone.

The benefit to readers is obvious. And it’s good for publishers too, because we want to make sure that people feel comfortable subscribing, and that our message is not nuked by an overzealous spam filter.

If there’s anything here that is confusing, or you have a question, please contact me and I’ll be happy to help!

Thanks to Copyblogger for a helping hand with this tutorial.

Popularity: 3% [?]