Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Link to ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Blog

2012’s top trade show displays: What made them so appealing?

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST

While the last year the economy has been going through tough times, the trade show industry has managed to continue to flourish. Throughout 2012 trade show displays continued to evolve, attract visitors and display designs and concepts that continue to amaze and capture the imagination of attendees.

A number of trends really drove some of the top trade show displays to success this year. Some of those trends included interactive media, integrated technology, LED lighting, unique fabric structures and displays that created an environment and experience for trade show attendees. Many top trade show displays this year utilized these types of elements. Let's look at some top trade show displays from 2012, and why they were successful designs.

Allwin Powersports

Allwin Powersports attended the 2012 DealerExpo for their brand LS2 Helmets. Their booth was a great success, increasing their sales and sales leads. What brought about this result? An intelligently designed custom modular exhibit that kept the focus on Allwin's products. Their modular pieces were shaped as hollow cylinders which created multiple booth spaces for guests. With this design Allwin was able to divide their display according to products and include a small seating area for meetings. Small details are what truly made this booth showcase its products well, with movable, lighted, acrylic boxes and stands to hold products.

A large custom fabric structure hung high above the booth to draw attention. Allwin also took advantage of the bright color in their brand, opting for a bright red carpet that made the exhibit POP from far away. In addition to bright colors their large scale dynamic graphics depicting different motorcycle sports made it clear what their company did, and added an impressive visual element to the display.

Overall, Allwin was able to create a dynamic, appealing display with intelligent design that played on the visual strength of the company's products.

Amada

Amada exhibited at the International Manufacturing Technology show held in the very large McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. Their trade show display proved that you don't always need to be near the entrance to make a splash. When they found themselves in the back corner of the hall, they saw an opportunity to go big or go home, and they turned what could have been a bad booth location, into the talk of the trade show hall.

They were able to capture the attention of visitors from the back of the trade show hall with a custom 100' x 22' curved fabric structure. The white fabric structure was used to project informational videos about the company, and projected their logo so branding was visible from very far away.

Midwest Fastener

Midwest Fastener is a leading distributor of packaged fasteners for hardware stores, and this year they made a splash at the Orgill Fall Dealer market with a unique exhibit. Their exhibit made use of a unique hanging structure which called attention to their products. A 17ft long suspended rotating silver screw added the WOW factor to this booth. They successfully kept visitors attention when they arrived with integrated LCD screens sharing information about their products. They even won an award for "best new booth" at the show, bringing further attention to the appealing exhibit.

Each of these top booth designs from 2012 played to their strengths, and incorporated unique design and technology to reach their audience and showcase their products and services.

Looking for an SEO service that won’t get you banned?

“How to Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle” plus 1 more

How to Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle

Posted: 28 Nov 2012 12:09 PM PST

This guest post is by Ali Abbas of thenextgenwriter.com.

Have you published your blog on Kindle?

If not, you should do it, pronto! It's easy, it's productive and it's free.

We’re not talking about publishing ebooks or PDFs, but your dynamic and regularly updated blog.

Rather surprisingly, not a lot of bloggers have considered this option hitherto, but some big guns, including The New York Times, PC Magazine, Amazon Daily, Huffington Post, and others—that realize the potential—are already there.

On a positive note, that means less competition for you.

Is it really worth the effort?

Kindle publishing for blogs has already opened the doors to myriad opportunities for many businesses that have a blog.

Amazingly, all you need to do is invest just five minutes of your precious time. Here's what you get in return:

New readers

Millions of people use Amazon Kindle as their ereader.

So, by publishing on Kindle you'll pull in people who might never hear about your business otherwise.

As per the International Data Corporation report, Worldwide and U.S. eReader 2012–2016 Forecast, new models of Kindle Fire are more than likely to disrupt the market once again.

So, will people really pay to read your content?

Yes!

There are several reasons, but the main ones are that it costs only 99 cents to subscribe to a blog on Kindle, and it offers added handiness. Obviously, not all the Kindle owners want to be reading ebooks all the time when they can access more vibrant and au fait weblogs.

SEO

How on earth can kindle publishing help your SEO? It does not. Apparently, it doesn't improve your blog's ranking in SERPs.

But it can raise your profile.

Amazon is an authority even in the eyes of Google, and having your blog there gives you more exposure.

So even if nobody subscribes to your blog via Kindle, you're getting free publicity and people searching for relevant keywords will surely be tempted to take a look at your blog after seeing it listed on the largest online retailer.

Added income

It's free money. You get 30% of the total price, which is set by Amazon and can be anything between $0.99 and $1.99. So if you get, say, 1000 people to subscribe to your blog via Kindle, and the price is $0.99, you'll make $297.

It may not be that lucrative for large publications, but it’s still a decent choice for solopreneurs and bloggers who don't want to clutter their blogs with ads.

Higher conversion rate

Kindle readers are paying to read your content and conversion rates are always higher for paid subscribers.

Unfortunately, the JavaScript and ads are stripped off Kindle-displayed blogs, and only text content, links and images are displayed. So if your Call to Action involves more than just clicking a plain link, make sure you encourage your Kindle subscribers to view the page on another device.

Feedback

If your blog’s available for Kindle, people will be able to rate it, just like they rate any other product on Amazon.

If your blog features high-quality content (which I am sure it does), this is the easiest, and arguably the most efficient way to get endorsement and feedback.

3 steps to publishing your blog on Kindle

Ready to get your blog onto the Kindle platform? Great!

Note that this functionality is currently available to the residents of the USA and the UK only.

1. Create your Kindle Publishing Account

The standard Amazon account won't work, so you'll need to sign up for the Kindle Publishing Account if you don’t already have one.

2. Add and publish

When you log into your Kindle publishing account, click Add Blog, and fill in the signup form.

Once you're done adding all the info, hit Generate Blog Preview.

If you get the blog preview, cool. Go to step three!
If you get an error as shown in the image below, don't get teary. Just click the Save button and then hit Return to Dashboard. Here, you'll see your blog has been saved as a draft. Open it and try again, and this time there will be no error.

Now go ahead and click the Publish button.

Don't forget to add a screenshot (choose the most appealing page on your blog), as it will be displayed on the Amazon sales page.

At the end of the day, it should look something like this:

3. Choose payment options

You'll be redirected to a page where you can enter your address, business type etc. and choose the desired payment option. After that, your blog may take 48 to 72 hours to appear on Amazon.

How it works

To make a long story short, this is a quick self-publishing tool to help you sell your blog on the Kindle store.

Its working is similar to RSS: your updates are auto-delivered wirelessly to the Kindle and updated throughout the day.

The only difference is that instead of just the headline, your readers can access the full text content plus most images on your blog. Moreover, the updates are downloaded to the Kindle and can be read even when the device is not connected to the internet.

A couple of moans

On a 70-30 revenue share, the bossy retailer walks away with the lion's share and the publisher gets the smaller piece for all his hard work. That sounds cruel, but your blog is available freely on the internet … remember?

The more annoying aspect is that you can neither regulate the price, nor give away your blog subscription for free.

And in addition to the advertising, the useful social networking links for Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and Facebook are also removed> I don’t have much respect for that!

Is it really the Next Big Thing?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Yes, you can reach out to a sizeable readership through the Amazon Kindle, but don't expect to make big bucks out of it. However it goes along, it's a fascinating idea and part of the constant move to mobility.

Do you have any questions or suggestions about Kindle publishing for blogs? Let's discuss them in the comments.

This guest post is by Ali Abbas. Check out his Blog if you want to: improve your writing skills, land better-paying writing gigs or learn some 'kinky' ways to drive traffic to your website. Ali is a young, enthusiastic freelance writer and blogger. Click here to learn more about him.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle

How to Establish the Right Priorities to Grow Your Blog and Profits

Posted: 28 Nov 2012 06:05 AM PST

This guest post is by Nathalie Lussier of The Website Checkup Tool.

Here's a harsh nugget of truth for you.

Once you get this, your blog will not only take off, it will become way more profitable. Are you ready for it?

Here it is: You don't need more how-to's or to-do's… You need priorities.

As bloggers and business owners, we're constantly introduced to cool new tricks, strategies, and techniques to grow. There's just so much information, much of it competing, about what you need to do to make it big online.

Think webinars, SEO, social media, magic beans, WordPress plugins, guest posting, YouTube videos, list building, product launches, silver bullets, Facebook ads, Pinterest, contests, joint ventures… The list is endless.

You know you have a ton of options when it comes to growing your blog and making more money online. You just don't have enough hours in the day to implement all of them. Not to mention that some of these tactics are likely to work better for some markets, some personalities, and some stages of development than others.

The answer you've been looking for is not another silver bullet, or another cool marketing strategy. It's simple, it's free, and it works.

It's priorities.

How to establish the right priorities for your blog

Okay, priorities. That sounds good, but unless you've built a successful blog before you might not know how to set them properly.

It's easy to model another business owner or famous blogger and just try to do what they do, because it seems to be working for them. But you need to remember that we're all on different paths, with different experiences, and different blogs.

Unique blogs and businesses require unique priorities and strategies to be wildly profitable.

My aim here is to help you figure out what you need to do, in what order of importance, so that you're not putting the cart before the horse.

The first step to figuring out your priorities is to take a quick assessment of where your blog and business are currently.

Let's look at a few questions that you can quickly jot down an answer to:

Do you have a blog or website that you're proud to send people to?
Are there enough people visiting your blog on a regular basis?
Do people join your email list on a consistent basis?
Are you blogging on a regular schedule that feels comfortable for you?
Have you built a network of likeminded bloggers that you can support and be supported by?
Does your blog employ SEO and/or are the right people finding your blog?
Do you have a social media presence that engages your audience and spreads your influence?

Alright, so these questions might be pushing your buttons, but they're not meant to make you feel bad if you don't have all of these items in place.

On the contrary, it's important to know what you are doing and what you still haven't gotten to, because this will inform what your priorities and schedule looks like.

What should I do first? How to decide on your top priority

I’m often asked by my clients and readers what should come first when you're starting up a blog or online business. Do you get the website up, look for clients and customers, guest post, set up social media profiles..? I mean, it's all so overwhelming, so how can you get it all done?

It might feel like you need to have all of these things done simultaneously, preferrably last week. But it is possible to grow a blog by taking it one step at a time. In fact, it is the only way to grow a blog.

Everyone's blogging journey is going to be different, but here is my recommendation for establishing your priorities.

The very first thing you need to focus on when you're building a blog is setting up your web foundation or hub. That means your blog and website, and I recommend that you get your own domain name and hosting. Then get yourself a WordPress installation and theme.

Do not spend thousands on a design quite yet, because your blog's direction may change as you evolve.

Next, it's time to start honing your voice by writing or creating video for your blog. I don't recommend overcommitting to creating a ton of content just yet. Especially since your blog might not have the audience to warrant spending a ton of time in creation mode. Once you do reach a certain audience size, then it makes sense to commit to a consistent blogging schedule.

Finally, outreach comes next. Once you have your blog as a hub, you've practiced writing and have a bit of content on your site, it's time to bring people into your sphere.

The outreach part is definitely where things can get hairy, so I suggest picking one or two things that you will get really good at and focusing on those.

Take, for example, two strategies that you might want to focus on: guest posting and SEO. Another set of strategies might be social media and webinars. Yet another might be joint ventures and advertising.

Just pick two!

Doing more than two types of outreach will not only burn you out, but will have you spread so thin you won't be getting the results you're looking for.

Now that you have all three steps handled, it's time to iterate. The more people who come into your world and read your blog, the more clarity you will have around your topic and direction, which will inform your site's design. This in turn will shift your writing and voice, and help you decide where to spend more time in outreach—whether that's specific sites or strategies.

Rinse and repeat, and keep those priorities tight.

Write 'em out, and stick to your priorities

Now that you know what steps to take to really grow your blog's online presence, you need to write out your priorities. If you don't have your plan and priorities down in digital ink then you might as well go back to throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Keep your priorities front and center as you go about your daily tasks. If something falls into a non-priority activity list, then it's time to take it off your todo list. If a cool new system or marketing tool comes out, ask yourself if it fits in your priorities.

I guarantee you will go much further by mastering just two outreach strategies, focusing on your home base on the web, and getting your voice honed.

Do this prioritizing exercise right now! Don't let another week, month, or year go by without having focused priorities in your blogging career.

Let me know in the comments below what your top priority is, and what stage you're in (building your hub, honing your voice, or outreach).

Nathalie Lussier is a digital strategist who combines original ideals with forward-thinking marketing expertise, and delivers competitive results in the online space. She helps you get techy with your business, and she's the creator of The Website Checkup Tool.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Establish the Right Priorities to Grow Your Blog and Profits

Pages

USAHA BERSAMA

Ads 468x60px