now browsing by category
Drive traffic to your website by blogging on “The Business Woman”
How would you like a blog post written by you syndicated to our
thousands of followers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many
other social networks?
Come on, take advantage of this fantastic, FREE, marketing opportunity!
Sign up on the left and start blogging.
If you are new to blog writing, here are a few tips on writing a basic yet
effective blog post.
1. If it is a “how to” post then formulate it into a list, like this one,
it keeps it neat and easy to read.
2. Put a lot of thought into the title of your blog post,
it needs to catch the readers attention.
3. Keep the introduction and conclusion short.
4. Don’t try to include too much info, keep the tips clear,
clean and concise and to the point.
5. Keep one post focused on one topic. If you have
several things you want to talk about then try writing
separate posts for each topic.
6. Write with a sincere desire to help your reader.
7. Don’t write an article that is basically just a
sales letter for your company. You can promote yourself,
un-ashamedly, in the signature at the end of the post.
8. When writing a good signature make sure it is good enough
to entice your reader to go to your site or request more
information from you.
9. Don’t forget to mention the subjects of any future posts
to encourage them to click through to your website where they may
even subscribe to your blog.
10. If possible, on your website, offer a free gift such as an eBook, newsletter or email course.
This will enable you to capture their email addresses but make it clear to them that
they will be added to your mailing list in return for the gift.
In your post, tell them about the free gift, it is a strong motivator to entice them to follow the
links to your website.
Make sure you have many clear links back to your website in your signature.
How to Enjoy the Pleasures of Good Food and Good Health
“Tout est question d’equilbre” It is a question of balance. – Mireille Guiliano (1946-) French American Author
One of the reasons the French are so well known for their slim figures is because they walk everywhere. They also take their coffee black and never eat between meals.
If there is one thing I’ve learned in France, it is never to eat walking down the street. The frowns, the fingers pointing, and the embarrassment are too much. Even emporter (take-out) dictates that you find a park, a bench, or a table to eat at, no walking, driving, and eating on the go.
What we’ve learned from the French obsession with food, mealtime, and good health are the following:
- Never eat while walking, driving, or sitting at the computer. Sit down and enjoy your food. It’s good for the health. You get to actually taste it and it makes you realize you are eating.
- Bon apetite — Sit down at the table to eat with your family or friends as often as possible. Light the candles and enjoy the conversation and the food.
- Drink black coffee, good tasting espresso to be exact. Non-fat milk is hard to come by and ruins the taste of a good cup of coffee. In France I do as the French, but give me a Starbucks and I order my small non-fat latte in a mug or emporter.
- Breakfast is small, lunch is medium or large, and dinner is the opposite of lunch. All of it is eaten sitting down with a china plate and tablecloth. Treat yourself by eating off pottery–not paper. It is good for you and good for the planet.
- Eat healthy and well at home and when you go out (maybe once a week) live it up with desert and wine.
- Buy fresh produce from the farmers’ market and use seasonal food. Seasonal vegetables and fruits get cheaper and cheaper as the season comes to a close. Stock up and use readily, freezing the leftovers.
- Try new recipes with seasonal food. If it is fresh, it becomes fun.
- Walk after dinner. Walk on Sunday. Walk whenever you can.
- Don’t take things so seriously–Ce’nest pas grave.
- Go slow and enjoy sitting in a cafe’.
- Drink lots of red wine (cheaper than a soft drink).
- Drink lots of water. Watch the frites. If you are anything like me, ask for the French fries to be replaced with salad. I just can’t resist.
- Sundays are for family day, for getting out in nature, and for relaxation. With all the stores closed on Sunday in France, it becomes easy to make the day a healthy, fun, slow day.
- Have people over for Sunday lunch under the trees or on the terrace whenever the weather permits. Take a walk afterwards, no matter what the weather permits.
- Share a desert and use the three bite rule. The first bite is delectable, the second bite is a must, and the third bite satisfies the palate.
- Find the funny things in life all around you. Whether it is something you heard from your child or grandchild, something you saw, or something you did. Enjoy sharing stories and anecdotes and laugh about them. Sharing stories and laughter are a great way to keep us healthy and joyful.
The Beauty of Affliction
Ever heard the term, “turn a positive out of a negative”? I have. It is with this same sense that I write this blog I call, “The Beauty of Affliction.” 
Just think, without affliction, we may not have ever had our current USA President, Mr. Obama. So moved by the distressed world conditions that it caused him to place his name on the presidential ballot. Because of injustices and afflictions amongst classes of people, Dr. Martin Luther Luther King Jr. was provoked to civil rights work to help bring about equality. Just think, without affliction the world may not ever have heard of a Helen Keller, nor would we have the diary of a young girl named Anne Frank.
Though unfortunate, it is at the expense of their affliction, pain, hurt, grief and distressing situations that caused great gains in varied ways on behalf of others. Without the afflictions and complexities surrounding the lives and circumstances of these individuals, chances are you may not be reading about them on this page today.
Additionally, scripture denotes another famous person who was a son of Jesse, named David, who drifted astray from the commands of his Heavenly Father. But because his Father loved him so much, he used trouble to draw him back, close to himself. Yes, he allowed affliction to come upon David, one in whom he loved so much. God had a great plan for his life. In other words, there was a “big-picture.”
Scripture further tells us that at one point David (the King) wrote, “before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word.” Then just four verses down he adds, “it was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your ways.” Now I tell ya, the affects of trouble doesn’t get more beautiful than this.
Psalm 119:67, 71
Jeremiah 29:11 “…thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you an expected end.”
Genesis: 41 Joseph moves from imprisonment to the palace
Linda Johnson Belfrey has 14-years of radio experience working in faith-based broadcast ministry including, JFM LIVE, www.jfmlive.com. Additional media ministries include her cable market telecast, Reaching a People, by Any Means Necessary and A Word for You print news media inspirationals.
Email inquires to: Johnsonbelfrey@aol.com
Website: www.ljbelfreyministries.com
This blogger is on Twitter: twitter.com/ljohnsonbelfrey
To Retweet – What does it mean and how important is it?
A Retweet allows Twitter users to share their favourite tweets with their own followers.
So if someone has 10,000 followers and they like one of your tweets and they retweet it, then it will go out to all of their followers, good eh!
It is done by copying and pasting the original tweet and sending it out. It’s usual to put “RT” plus the originator’s username at the beginning of the tweet. Here’s an example:
RT@thebizwoman: How to monetize your blog!
Obviously, if you regularly tweet great content then people will pick up on it and retweet you. They will also retweet you if your tweets are relevant to them or even, dare I say it, complementary.
A good way to get people to retweet you is to to ask to be retweeted.
This works really well if your tweets are for a good cause or are likely to be helpful to your follower’s audience.
Here’s an example:
Entrepreneurs – learn how to monetize your blog PLEASE RETWEET ME!
This is only about 66 characters; very important if you don’t want retweets with clipped off ends as you are only allowed a total of 140 characters in your tweets.
It is always better to simplify the procedure for your retweeter.
There is a great little application called PleaseRT.me – http://pleasert.me/
You add your tweet and it makes you keep it short then it adds a plea for a retweet at the end of your message, (I’m saying “message” because I’m fed up of saying “tweet”), which your follower can then click on to easily retweet without all the copy and pasting.
You can try it out now by retweeting this post.
Let’s face it if you don’t ask you don’t get!
Pat Sutton – Official Blog, http://www.patsutton.com
A world of Discovery
Looking back I wish that someone had taken the time to sit down with me and show me there was a world of discovery beyond the bottom corner of Belmont Avenue. A three dimensional chat involving the mind body and spirit which would inspire and uplift and take off the restrictions of what I perceived possible for my life and which career path i could choose.
The fifties were a time of both freedom and structure. As a kid I could play in the street or go to the park by myself, even travel on the train aged 8 to meet my father in London – shock horreur – couldn’t do it now but this freedom came with some strange rules. No eating food in the street – including ice creams, don’t speak unless spoken to and certainly do not ask for anything for yourself and be nice to everyone.
These were the funny restrictive beliefs of my family , with grandparents who belonged in the Victorian age and had a certain dislike of anything which involved chatting with or playing with children. Children belonged outside or in their rooms. Those cold icy places with counterpanes as thick as mattresses, a little radio, a shelf of books and a onebar electric fire to be used on days when the ice was on the inside of the windows.No wonder I trained as a therapist in order to get rid of this madness of passivity and blow in fresh air.
If I had had a fairy godmother, then she would have helped me to see that I could find a pathway through the thorns and brambles and stayed by my side whilst I went on my journey. She would have informed, encouraged, motivated and at times where needed, waved her magic wand.
So thats what I do, I help you blow fresh air into your life, dust out the cobwebs, polish up your Aladdin’s lamp and let out the genie and with a sprnkle of stardust – off you go.
So, the New Year is in sight and in this blog over the next month I’ll give you some tips as to how to make your resolutions work like magic so you can become who you were meant to be rather than the result of your family beliefs.
How to market on Twitter
I am not going to explain to you how to create an account, I am sure you are capable enough! Once the account is created with a nice profile and picture you can then start to add your “Tweets”.
You are allowed up to 140 characters and it is advisable to keep the tweets as short as possible, I will explain why shortly.
I know a lot of people use Twitter to talk about their latest night out or what they had for dinner but as a business person you can utilize Twitter to market your business.
The first thing to do is to find followers. You do this by using the search facility and searching for keywords that people, who are your target audience, would be using, either in their names or their tweets. As an example, “business”! You will have pages and pages of people talking about business and now you need to scroll down to choose who you want to follow.
Now, it is etiquette on Twitter that if someone follows you, you then follow them, not everyone abides by this rule but a lot do. As I am sure you have worked out by now; you will end up with people following you who are likely to be your target audience.
Be careful not to follow too many people all at once as, you must balance your follower/following ratio. So as not to bring down the wrath of the Twitter police, basically; you can’t follow 50,000 people if only 23 people follow you.
I would suggest that you follow 100 a day for a couple of days then wait until you have upped your following then you can go and follow more.
There is a great little website called, http://huitter.com/ where you can automatically un‐follow people who have not followed you. Don’t do this every day as you need to give people time to notice that you are following them but it is worth doing it about once a week.
OK, now you have a few followers it is time to do some marketing.
Obviously you can announce new items you are selling or services you are offering but the strength of Twitter is the relationships you can build.
So tweet stuff like motivational quotes or links to great blogs or websites that you think will interest your followers. Keep these short and remember to always add your website address at the end of the tweet. If you have a long address you can pop over to Bitly.com and get it shortened. You just enter your web address then hit “shorten” and it will give you a short version that you can use when space is limited.
Now I am going to tell you a secret trick that is so valuable that we need to keep this between you and me alone!
Find someone who is tweeting and is following you and who has a whole load of followers then find their website and take a look at what they do. Then come back to your Twitter account and Tweet an exceptionally wonderful complement about them. With luck they will see your Tweet and will then re‐Tweet it to their whole follower base, they won’t be able to resist it; we all love complements and can’t resist telling people that we have received them!
This is the reason your original tweet needs to be short, to enable people to re-tweet your comments. People do it all the time.
Here are a few tips you can do to simplify Twitter.
You can automate a message thanking people who follow you thus creating those important relationships. You can set this up at TweetLater.
You can go to the Twitter Yellow Pages, Twello, to search for people to follow.
You can download Sesmic Desktop to keep an eye on everything including, tweets, messages and mentions.
You can set up an RSS feed into your tweets so that even when you haven’t the time to tweet, something is going out for you.
The list is endless and I could fill another book but I think we have touched on the most of the important stuff here.
How does Twitter work with “The Image Attraction System”?
When you write a blog you announce it on Twitter, say something like: Great blog about Viral Marketing see http://www.patsutton.com you could shorten this link in Bitly.com if it’s too long.
People will then click through to your website and see you, your great profile and your product. Clever isn’t it?
You can also set up a welcome message through TweetLater directing them to your blog or product page or better still your profile.
Excerpt from “The Image Attraction System” by Pat Sutton