In the business world, an event is a public gathering for the purpose of networking and/or marketing. Holding events on your blog or website can help give your traffic a substantial boost. By holding different events, you bring more life and interaction to your blog which in turn will bring more traffic.

Contests and giveaways are effective events to stir up some interest and excitement. If you are not sure which type of event to consider, below are ten ideas to help you to get started.

1. Charity Week – Offer to pay a percentage of all orders to charity. Have your visitors post information about their favorite charities and donate to them. Present prizes, discounts, gift cards, etc., for your visitors. Hold auctions with your products to raise money for various charities. Ask people to help you raise money by making others aware of your charity event. NOTE: Please be sincere in your efforts to raise money for charity. Do not just use it as a marketing ploy!

2. Meet & Greet Event – Hold a meet and greet event for other bloggers. Invite bloggers to come to your event to meet, network, and brainstorm with fellow bloggers. You could have a couple of games for prizes such as trivia or other quick and easy games. Have a question and answer forum to offer advice, experience and expertise. Present guest speakers to share their knowledge and expertise as well.

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Summer is upon us! This is the time of year to spend quality time outdoors with your kids and family. It’s also time to bring out the grill and patio furniture. Also, if you have a pool, get busy with cleaning it out for some summer fun!

Summer time can be a slow time for some home businesses. Although, It will depend on what type of business you have to determine if you will experience some slack with your business sales and traffic. Kids are home from school, and families go on vacations. Of course, that means many people will be busy during summer months and also spending less time online visiting your blog or website. That usually means a stall with your business.

If you experience a stall with your business this time of year, do you tend to get depressed and thus, experience some demotivation? I have been there many times! However, what an ideal time to kick your writing opportunities into high gear!

Don’t get down in the dumps during summer! Instead, especially if you don’t have any kids or summer obligations; take the opportunity to get in deep with your writing. Why not join an article writing challenge? Or maybe, start writing that eBook or online course you’ve put on the back burner for so long, or perhaps do some videos for your home business. For most people online, the opportunities are wide open to take advantage of during slow times.

Above all, DON’T ignore your business during the summer months! Most times, if you do, your business will suffer. And when it’s time to get going with sales, leads and sign ups come this fall, you will fall short even more of much needed traffic for success.

10 Writing Opportunities to Think About

* This is the ideal time to freshen up your blog or website with new writing material

* Get started with writing some eBooks for your business

* Start a writer’s group with your home business associates

* Take a free online course

* Study the writing markets; looking into what the various markets are looking for, guidelines, etc..

* Contact old clients and offer some freebies. This could lead to new client projects

* Prioritize your email list, paying close attention to your top clients

* Write up and schedule some blog posts for the fall and winter months

* Polish up on your resume and cover letters

* Declutter your home office and re-organize

There are all kinds of things you can be doing during the slow summer months that will benefit you and your business. However, don’t let those things take priority over enjoying a fun-filled summer!

Tammy offers more articles on writing and also her freelance writing services at Freelance Writing Jobs and Services.

You can also find Tammy at her Grandparenting Articles and Tips blog.

As yet another epidemic of hacked WordPress blogs is happening around the web this weekend, my inbox is filled with panicked emails with questions like, “Help! What can I do to make sure my blog is safe?!”

Here are two important steps you need to take right now to keep your WordPress blog secure:

If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch it on YouTube:

Ready to discover step by step how to attract more traffic to your blog? Get access to a free video training right now at http://michelleshaeffer.com/driveblogtraffictraining

Michelle Shaeffer is a trainer and consultant, showing online business owners step by step to harness the power of technology and internet marketing to build successful businesses. She teaches her clients how to save hours and hours of frustration and shows them how to make their online presence work quickly to attract traffic, generate leads, and build authority.

Blogging is a form of social media and for social media to be successful you need interaction. A non-interactive neglected blog will simply die out and become oblivious to the cyber world.

Blogging became popular in the late 1990s and is one of the most effective ways of social networking. Although blogging started out more as an online personal diary, the importance of blogs today for all businesses is greatly significant.

Below are some ideas for you to help make your blog more interactive so it can reach its full potential.

1. Ask for Comments – At the end of your posts, ask readers to share their ideas, suggestions and opinions on the post. You will be surprised at how big a difference this little detail can make.

2. Make Leaving Comments Easy – Don’t ask visitors for their life history just to leave a comment. Just have them leave their name, email and website url. You also might want to consider not having a captcha or word verification. These can cause problems and end with the person leaving and not coming back.

3. Allow Signatures – If your visitors are allowed to leave a small signature with their url, it might be the deciding factor in whether or not they will take the time to leave a comment. It is a way of repaying them for their time and participation.

4. Social Media – Be sure to link to all your social media sites and also allow your visitors to share your blog with their followers and fans. You can do this with free social media plug-ins.

5. Subscribe to Comments – Be sure to find a plugin that will allow your visitors to subscribe to comments on particular posts. This way when anyone comments or replies to their comment they will be notified and will probably come back to add to the conversation.

To continue reading this post, click here.

Technology is a great way to promote your upcoming business meetings. You should learn the basics when it comes to using technological resources to promote your business meetings so you can have a great outcome every time as well as the feedback you need from your team.

Blogs for business meeting planning create awesome feedback

Several free blogging websites allow you to set up your upcoming meetings with details and comment sections regarding what will be covered. What makes a blog so great is the ability to have your entire team sign up for alerts to updates, and a comment page that allows them to post feedback that they forgot to mention when the meeting was in discussion. A blog is a great way to manage the content of a meeting itself as well as promote upcoming meetings as they are posted.

Twitter and Facebook boost your business meeting planning strategy

With caution, meaning make sure your Facebook and Twitter accounts are for business only, these types of media outlets are great for keeping your team in the loop. Since these updates coincide with media outlets your team is likely already using, you can quickly reach your entire team for meeting updates and planning schedules without feeling like you’ve left anyone out.

Facebook groups for your team will give them a private forum to discuss and meet online. This provides great value in connecting long distance team members. Having online meetings and discussions will enhance the live meetings.

Old-fashioned technology is still tops

Finally, phone, email and text messaging still work great for keeping your team informed of all the meetings you have coming up. These avenues are particularly great if you aren’t hip on advancing technology (which you should be to help your business succeed). In using these types of technologies, you can safely alert your team to any business meetings you have planned without venturing too far out of your comfort zone.

Technology is wonderful for keeping business meeting planning in check

From a simple blog that you can set up in minutes to allow your team to offer great feedback to a simple email that you can send to everyone at once, technology and media outlets allow you to quickly keep your staff updated and informed of any meetings you have coming up in the future.

Since keeping your team updated on any meetings you have scheduled is important to helping your business thrive, now is a great time to start using technology to your advantage.

When using a wide variety of technological resources you are sure to find one that will match the direct sales team training needs for every consultant’s personality.

How can you add hundreds or thousands of new subscribers to your mailing list and community? Try hosting your own challenge!

I’ve successfully co-hosted more than a dozen challenges for bloggers through the Ultimate Blog Challenge and 31 Days Blog Challenge over the last several years and it’s skyrocketed the growth of my community and my visibility.

Here’s how you can swipe this strategy and use it for yourself:

Step One: Identify a Key Struggle

What challenges and struggles stop your community from being able to take action and break through with what you teach?

As an example, one of the key struggles we address in the Ultimate Blog Challenge is how to come up with ideas to help bloggers post consistently.

What’s a key struggle for your people? If you teach video, maybe the hurdle is just getting that first video done. If you’re a business coach, maybe mapping out strategies and breaking down action steps to reach a goal is a frustration for your clients.

Step Two: Indentify the First Step or Big Action

What is the first step you know they need to take to get to their breakthrough? Or, what big action gets a big result for them?

Continuing with the video example, if the first step your people need to take is to get that first video done and published then you could break that down into a weekly challenge:

• Day 1 – brainstorm your video idea
• Day 2 – write your script
• Day 3 – record your video
• Day 4 – upload your video to YouTube
• Day 5 – write an email to your list to share your video
• Day 6 – post your video on your blog
• Day 7 – kick back and celebrate

Step Three: Plan Your Support Strategy

What kind of support does your community need to be able to take the action you’re challenging them to take?

Figure out what you can offer to support them in completing your challenge. Maybe it’s ideas, templates, step by step directions, or creating a support group for interaction on Facebook. Make that happen.

Step Four: Create Your Opt-In Page and Thank You Page

The next step is to create your opt-in page. It can be something simple: here’s the challenge, here’s why you need to do it, here’s what you get to support you. This is where people join the challenge by signing up for your list.

You’ll also need to create a thank you page that tells your challenge participants what their next steps are and what to expect. The key to this page is to get them excited about the challenge and encourage them to share it with their friends. When they share, not only do you grow your list faster, but they’re more committed and likely to complete the challenge you’ve created because they have more accountability.

Step Five: Get Results

Your community needs to get results from the challenge you host (assuming they follow through and take action!). When they see results, that’s when they fall in love with you.

It’s their action that got the results, they created it, but you provided the energy, support, and guidance to help them make it happen.

They’ll want to tell their friends about you and share you.

Step Six: Adapt as Needed

Ask for feedback. Keep in mind that there’s always room for improvement.

When you accept feedback graciously and implement what makes sense, you give your community ownership in what you’re creating and they’re even more engaged. Plus you’ll find some of the BEST ideas for expanding your challenge and more come from the community.

Asking for feedback also allows you to gather fantastic testimonials to share.

Step Seven: Repeat!

It worked once, so run it again! The first blog challenge I co-hosted several years ago added around 150 people to my list. The most recent hit nearly 1,000. It gets easier every time because the main pieces are already in place and it’s just promotion and little tweaks.

Over the past couple of years I’ve added more than 5,000 to my list using this strategy and you can do it, too!

Michelle Shaeffer is a trainer and consultant, showing online business owners step by step to harness the power of technology and internet marketing to build successful businesses. She teaches her clients how to save hours and hours of frustration and shows them how to make their online presence work quickly to attract traffic, generate leads, and build authority. Get your free checklist to make your blog more awesome at http://michelleshaeffer.com/51

When it comes to reading and visiting blogs, do you leave meaningful comments? Or, are you the type of person who reads a blog entry and then just leaves?

When it comes to leaving comments on blogs that you frequently read, it is important to leave meaningful comments. Why you might ask? Because leaving meaningful comments can benefit your home business by driving traffic back to your business web site or personal blog.

When I speak about leaving meaningful comments, I specifically mean that you should draft up several sentences about the blog post you just read…your thoughts or opinions on the post and if appropriate, engage the author of the post by posting your own questions to them within your comments.

Now you might be asking yourself…why should I spend my valuable time by leaving comments on an author’s blog? Well, I am going to tell you how this benefits you.

1. Leaving comments can drive traffic back to your sites. An author of a blog sees way too many insignificant comment posts or spam posts and won’t take the time to come visit your web site or blog unless you engage them in conversation. You can do that by leaving an engaging comment or question on their blog.

2. When you leave well thought out comments on a writer’s blog, you can build a relationship with them. Part of online business networking is about relationship building…commenting on posts can open the door to a new professional and/or personal relationship.

To continue reading this article, click here.

One of the hardest things people struggle with when it comes to a business blog is the length of the post. While there are several other things to worry about, but the length of the post is a big worry to some people. It’s important to have enough content for your post, but at the same time it’s important to not be too long.

If your post isn’t detailed enough people will be lost with what you’re saying and they’ll leave. It doesn’t matter if you plan to have multiple posts to cover the topic you’re writing about or not, if they don’t see enough in the post they won’t come back. You don’t want that so it’s important to make sure you cover enough in your posts to keep them coming back.

It’s also important to keep an eye on the length of your post. It’s a good idea to not have posts more than 300 to 350 words for each post. If you go longer than that people may either not read it at all or they’ll leave without finishing them. You don’t want either to happen, so it’s best the keep it between 300 and 350. If you find your post really needs to be longer you can either post them as multiple posts or try to condense it so it’s only one post.

When you keep these two important things in mind when you sit down to write your blog posts, you’ll find it’ll be easier for you to write and you won’t worry nearly as much. It’s important to keep your readers in mind when you write. Think about how much time they have and how busy they are. When you do these things you’ll find your posts will be read more often and people will continue to come back.

Over the years that I’ve been in the work at home industry, I’ve grown accustomed to the “trial and error” scenario. Everything I’ve succeeded at, I had to learn myself. I’ve also learned my craft of marketing by never giving up. I don’t throw in the towel easily. And I thank the good Lord up above that I have this particular trait in my character.

Successful network marketing with blogging doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes time to learn what works and doesn’t work for you. I’ve found that getting personal with your marketing tactics gets people curious. They want to know more about YOU, and what makes you different than the rest of the norm. Getting personal and sharing what experiences you’ve had and also sharing what you know on a professional level gets the reader’s attention.

And that’s exactly what you want to achieve, you want your readers to hang on your every word; always clicking onto the next page to read more. Does this sound like a pipe dream to you? It doesn’t have to be! You CAN pull this kind of traffic into your blog.

So how can I produce this kind of reaction in my readers? Have a look in the tips provided below…

*1 Get your message across to your readers with simple words. Avoid using long fancy words within your posts. I know for me personally; if I come upon a post where I don’t know the meaning of some fancy, long words, I usually click away and move on. I usually won’t linger on and read the full article/blog post.

*2 Include attention grabbing titles to your articles and also strong points within them. This is what is really going to attract your audience into your blog.

Here is one example: I wrote a blog entry for my Grandparenting blog. The title itself wasn’t a real attention grabber, however, one point that I made in the blog content itself was a strong one, (about believing in God). It did get a few comments.

http://grandmahomebloggers.com/2012/08/share-family-history-with-your-grandchild/ Share Family History With Your Grandchild

*3 Be yourself and talk in your everyday voice and style in your blog posts. Don’t try to be someone you are not. People come to your blog wanting to know about YOU and what kind of topics, advice or tips you will be sharing with them.

*4 Post content for your specific audience and based on why they are visiting your blog in the first place.

For Example: If you sell jewelry on Scentsy, don’t write a post about pet care.

*5 Create a topic that is controversial in nature; although not one for a heated debate. The topic should be undeniably *you; something that only you could get away with writing about.

*6 Be as open and personal as you comfortably can be in all your posts.

I’m still learning just like all the rest of us. Just be yourself in your blog and updates with fresh posts often.

Tammy offers free telecommute job leads at Work At Home Jobs

She also offers her Freelance Writing Services at freelancewritersdesk.com

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” ~John Steinbeck

Looking for an idea for your next 10 (or more) articles? Find them hiding one of these 5 places:

1. Your Blog Reader

What blogs are you subscribed to and following? Check out the latest headlines and hot topics for inspiration.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you agree with the the post or have a different take?
• Is there an idea or concept within the post that you could write about?
• What else comes to mind as you read?

2. Books You’re Reading

Always be reading new things and you’ll always have new ideas to write about.

Some ideas:

• Share a short quote from a book and share your thoughts.
• Write a review of the book and share your biggest takeaways.

3. Blog Comments

Take a look through your recent blog comments to find:

• Questions readers have asked that you could answer in more detail.
• Topics that caught their interest and got them commenting.
• Replies you’ve posted that you could expand into a complete post.

If you don’t have many comments on your own posts yet, use AllTop.com or Technorati.com to find popular blogs in your niche and see what their commenters are talking about.

4. Social Networking Sites

Visit some popular Facebook groups or fan pages, search for a #hashtag on Twitter or browse groups on LinkedIn and see what the hot topics and questions are that you’ve got information on or opinions about that you could share.

5. Question Sites

Search sites like quora.com or answers.yahoo.com for your topics or keywords and see what questions people are asking.

Michelle Shaeffer is a trainer and consultant, showing online business owners step by step to harness the power of technology and internet marketing to build successful businesses . She teaches her clients how to save hours and hours of frustration and shows them how to make their online presence work quickly to attract traffic, generate leads, and build authority. Get your free checklist to make your blog more awesome at http://michelleshaeffer.com/51