Internet marketers and bloggers are often called upon to create excitement for products and market demand out of nothing more than thin air. One tactic in promoting your products and services in a new and interesting light is to use seasonality or ”hot markets” in your marketing mix. I was reminded of the power in these tactics recently while creating some promotional ideas for a UK company which sells dedicated servers around the World Cup. You may find this tactic suits your blog well – here’s how it works.

Seasonality and ‘Hot Markets’

Most online marketers are already quite familiar with seasonality. In online retail, the prime selling season is the month of December – traditionally the season of giving. Similarly, any business selling items related to love and relationships will make strategic use of the February Valentine’s Day season to promote their goods and services. There is also a similar marketing technique related to ”hot markets”. So what exactly are hot markets? Let’s look at the example of a retailer that sells sporting goods and apparel. Whenever there is a championship match for a particular sport, a hot market is created. The most obvious example in the U.S. may be the Super Bowl. If a retailer sells team jerseys or football equipment, they can leverage the excitement around the Super Bowl to sell items related to the teams and the sport itself.

Leveraging ‘Hot Markets’

Some may ask how hot markets apply to their business when they sell products unrelated to the hot market events themselves. There are two ways – tangentially related promotions, and unrelated promotions. To again use the example of the Super Bowl – a tangentially related promotion would be sales of televisions to watch the game. While televisions are not featured in the sport of football, the excitement surrounding the event reminds consumers that they have been intending to purchase a new television. The date of the game creates a built-in deadline for purchase, and yields a fantastic call to action for the television vendor. Unrelated promotions are those promotions which feature products that truly have nothing all to do with the hot market event.

Selling Unrelated Items Into a ‘Hot Market’

The key to leveraging hot markets for most businesses is to generate a creative marketing idea which use the hot market event as a springboard for the promotion. Here is an example based on the World Cup promotion mentioned previously. If you have an unrelated product, why not offer a progressive discount based on the performance of your home team in the World Cup? For example in the U.S. – one could offer 10 percent off for each goal that the U.S. team scores in each game. One goal means a 10 percent discount, 2 goals is a 20 percent discount. This rewards the customer for a hot market event that they are already excited about. An alternative idea may be to have a promotion entitled, ”If the U.S. wins, you win!”. This promotion could offer the customer a free item (free shipping?) if the U.S. wins the match. The permutations of these promotions are practically endless.

Seasonality and ‘Hot Market’ Ideas
So what are the various seasons and hot markets that can be used to create special promotions? Here is a short list to give you a few ideas.

Seasons
Beginning of the Year – New Year’s
Valentine’s Day
President’s Day
Summer
Back to School
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Winter Holidays (Christmas, Hanukah)

Here are a few ideas to consider as well.
Any major sporting events (Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, etc.)
Special events that recur (The Oscars, American Idol, Movie launches)
Trade shows, conferences or events (Comic Con, CES, any trade event in your industry)

Getting Started

It’s really quite easy to get started thinking about promotions for seasonality or hot markets. Use a calendar program and begin to enter events that you think might appeal to your customer demographic. When you have a few hot market events on your calendar, consider promotions that you could roll out to coincide with the events or season. You’ll be armed with plenty of great promotions in no time. Good luck using seasonality and hot markets to your best advantage in promoting your blog.

Let’s say that one more time: YOU ARE NOT A SUPER HERO. Sure, with enough coffee, you might feel like it, but even the most productive employee or entrepreneur has their limits. Ironically, one of the worst things you can do for your productivity is push yourself too hard, too fast, and too long. What you will end up with is a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and very little actual accomplished.

If you’re a professional blogger, especially when working for an agency, often times it’s hard to refocus yourself when you feel the imminent burn-out. While writer’s block and burnout isn’t completely unavoidable, there are some tricks and systems that may be able to ease the stress.

Here are some simple tips on how to de-stress, and avoid getting to the point where recovery is necessary.

Pace Yourself
When you work, you should certainly be working your hardest, but there’s only so long that a person can go before needing some time to breathe. Those ten or fifteen minute breaks that are installed in your day are there for a reason. Skipping them can literally be disastrous. One method of time management, known as the Pomodora technique, suggests working for a half hour, then taking a five minute break, in order to make sure you stay consistently refreshed. This will allow you to be relax a little more, true, and it will also make you more productive during your work time.

Track Your Work Time
One common mistake that productive workers fall into is to mix their concrete writing work with other activities. A far more productive and low stress way of approaching the situation is to do concentrated work and track what you do at what times. You can use iPhone apps or other software in order to time the work you do on given projects, manage emails and other tasks in batch processes, and otherwise make the most out of the time you have available.

Delegate to Machines
You won’t always have the chance to get human assistance with your projects, but you can always hire out to a machine. There are many minute tasks that you don’t need to do simply because there is software that can do it for you. Systems like Microsoft’s exchange hosting will complete a lot of your tasks for you, including synchronizing documents and information, and sorting files, emails, and contacts. If you set up appropriate filters, then exchange hosting can even do most of your organizing work.

Delegate to People
There are other times when human assistance will be a crucial part of not overwhelming yourself. While writing isn’t necessarily something you always want to hand over to someone, it’ll help the stress a lot if you can manage to make an outline for someone to follow. In order to not disrupt workflow, and to be able to work with individuals or groups who are outside your office or shift schedule, project management solutions like 5pm are basically miracles. With 5pm, you can easily assign and track tasks. It’s okay to share the burden.

Project management software like this makes sure that the shared burden gets finished.So, now you know how to avoid stress, manage your stress flow, delegate your tasks to others who are less weighed down, and otherwise evade burnout. You may be tempted to ignore this new information when projects come at you in the future, but keep in mind that business success isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. Prepare yourself for the long haul, assuming you want to make it to the finish line.

Being creative and able to change around your website to draw in consumers isn’t a match for initially stomping your way through the internet to find what the right affiliate marketing software is for you. I’ve been pretty ecstatic to share this infographic that I found- because it cuts out your search time on this topic.

Hope this helps cut down the confusion so you can clearly see what each has to offer! That way you can get to gettin’ on being efficient with your affiliate marketing

Use hosts designed for Wordpress.

Some hosts have seen this particular niche as an opportunity, and have created easy to set up and integrate hosting options for Wordpress users. One of the most prominent of these is Media Temple, which offers shared servers for about $20 a month and virtual dedicated servers for about $50. Media Temple can remove some of the burden of switching hosting providers, and this company has experience with the exact sort of hosting that you’re doing. There are also various other companies with Wordpress specific packages.

Work on the fastest server you can.

Dedicated servers are incredibly expensive, costing hundreds of dollars per month. This isn’t going to be a worthwhile investment for most webmasters. As you increase the volume of traffic to your website, it may be something to consider eventually. In the meantime, shared hosting and virtual dedicated servers are great options. If you’re looking for the most affordable option, shared servers are absolutely the way to go. Keep in mind, though, that not all shared servers are equal in terms of speed. Be sure to check out reviews and statistics prior to making the switch.

Have communication tools set up through your hosting.

If your blog is successful, chances are good that it’s not just you writing entries in your basement on a Friday night. Rather, you have a number of contributors. You can use a hosted exchange to maximize the possibility for collaboration on your blog, and this service is available with most hosting.

Let contributors know their rights.

Your authors and contributors should have access to certain rights for the materials that they’re providing. Sometimes it’s a good idea to have these rights expand into your hosting, giving access to specific folders or admin privileges. Whatever happens to be right for you, making these rules clear and concrete and setting up your hosted exchange permissions and access will help speed this process along, and make your contributors feel loved.

Use snazzy speed up plugins.

There are two major types of plugins that you can use to make your site load more quickly. One is a cache plugin, which will store your site’s pages directly on the server, reducing database queries and therefore speeding up your site. The other is a code cleaning plugin, which will minimize the amount of code required to have your site load. Lowering your site’s loaded content and queries will mean decreasing bandwidth use, and that means lowered costs for hosting and a faster overall load time for your site.

If you want to learn about how to leverage your blog content through article distribution then read this article all the way to the end. Specifically, I’ll cover how to post your article on your blog, submit to article directories, and submit to blog carnivals. After you’re done with this article you should be able to get more targeted traffic and increase your sales. Posting your article on your blog is vital to getting the most from your article marketing. The reason is that not everyone uses article directories to find information or blog content. If you have a following of loyal readers already, they won’t go to the article directories looking for your articles. They will come to your site. You want to make it as convenient as possible for them to find your articles. Your next step is to submit to the article directories. This step is vital to getting more traffic and sales from your sites. You want to get the widest possible distribution so that those who read articles for information will find you.
Submitting to article directories also allows you to build backlinks to your websites, which is an important search engine optimization strategy. Article marketing is one of the few opportunities you have to combine several effective internet marketing techniques to increase your traffic and sales.
One thing I would recommend is that you invest in a good article submission service. Although this will cost you a little money, it is well worth the effort because of all the time it will save you. Look for a submission service that submits your articles to top article directories, as well as smaller, more niche related directories. The most important thing is to make sure you get the widest possible distribution for the price because this will help you increase your backlinks easily without a lot of extra work on your part. Submitting your articles to blog carnivals is another way to easily leverage your articles. The reason is that it allows you to increase your exposure even further by submitting where most article marketer don’t submit. In other words, you are submitting your content where a different but overlapping market has a chance to see your content. This is people who enjoy reading blogs but might not have read yours.
Just as you would submit your articles to article directories to increase your traffic and sales, make sure you submit regularly to the blog carnivals. Constantly updated content is more likely to be read than content that isn’t fresh.
Each of these techniques is an easy way to get more traffic to your web sites, especially if you have a blog. Combined together, they will increase your traffic and sales exponentially. Done consistently, you will build an audience of readers who are interested in what you have to say. With a loyal following, you will increase your traffic and sales easily because your readers will rely on you for recommendations. Don’t take them for granted.

About the Author
Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for {a href=” http://contentcrooner.com/article_marketing.php”}article marketing automation programs

1. Make sure that your permalinks are set up optimally for SEO – whenever you publish a blog post it will have a permanent URL known as a “permalink”. By default the WordPress permalink setting is not optimal but you can easily edit this by clicking on the Settings->Permalinks menu in the WordPress dashboard and then use a custom setting such as yourdomainname.com/category/postname. This will mean that your blog post category and title will appear in the URL rather than a number.

2. Install the All in One SEO Pack (or a another similar plugin) – the All in One SEO Pack plugin allows you to add a custom title, meta description and keyword tags for your home page and blog posts.

3. Optimize each blog post for a low competition long tail keyword phrase – before you make a blog post take some time to do a little keyword research. Visit the Google AdWords Keyword tool and use this to find a long tail keyword phrase that has a low amount of competition. Ideally this phrase will have just a few hundred monthly searches rather than a few thousand monthly searches. Use a different keyword phrase for every blog post that you make and put the keyword phrase in the blog post title and 2-3 times throughout the post.

4. Use Social Bookmarking services to bookmark each blog post – whenever you post to your blog use a social bookmarking service e.g. Digg or StumbleUpon. There are also services such as OnlyWire and SocialMarker that will let you submit your site to multiple bookmarking services at the same time. Social bookmarking can get you additional traffic to your blog and give you a backlink to your blog post.

5. Optimize the home page of your blog – it is normal for the home page of your blog to get more traffic then any of the other pages. You can increase the number of visitors even more by optimizing your home page. Pick 1-2 keyword phrases for your home page using a keyword research tool such as the Google AdWords keyword tool and choose one or two phrases that are related to your niche. Ideally these phrases should get a few thousand searches per month and the competition shouldn’t be too tough. Ensure that you include these keyword phrases are mentioned in the TITLE tag, meta description and throughout the permanent content of your blog home page.

6. Install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin – this won’t increase your search engine rank, but having a sitemap will help to ensure that the search engines index all the posts and pages of your blog. You can use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin to create a sitemap for your blog.

7.Build links to your blog – building links back to your website is the surest way to improve your ranking in the search engines. If you ignore this it will be very difficult to get a good level of visitors from the search engines. You can build links using article marketing, directory submission, forum posting, commenting on other blogs, press releases, link exchange and social bookmarking.

For more tips on how to improve your search engine rank visit Suzanne Morrison’s website http://www.3StepsToSearchEngineSuccess.com
You can find more ways to get a Higher Search Engine Ranking on Suzanne’ Morrison’s website and on her free SEO for Blogs series.

Some days I have so much to blog on that I can never get to it all; I just have so many ideas, so many things I want to say or write in my blog. On other days, I just have no idea what I am going to blog on. I may be looking forward to blogging but I just don’t have any ideas. Here are some tips to combat writers block, something all writers eventually experience.

1) Read your old blog posts. Just read what you’ve written before. This will often give you new ideas.

2) Surf the net for new post ideas. Read other peoples blogs as well as other kind of content. You never know what may spark a creative thought.

3) Go and blog somewhere different or just go somewhere different. I like to go to a local coffee shop, which has free wireless access, good coffee and good sandwiches too. Sometimes I will go there and blog for an hour or two when I have writers block and just don’t know what I am going to write.

4) Another technique that works for me and other people is googling bizarre or random terms. For example, last week I was at a loss on what to write and I remember I googled “evil cheese,” “hairless goats” and some other strange terms that popped into my mind and I ended up laughing and I got inspired. I actually got some good ideas and did some writing as my writers block passed.

5) Just write! Maybe total drivel will come out, maybe something great, but just get some words down. Even if you produce nonsense, the very act of writing will often cure your writers block.

Every writer will eventually experience writers block. Simply reading, searching, changing your environment, surfing, writing anything down, or some combination, will usually quickly cure writers block.

About the Author

And for over 100 tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook “Secrets of Successful Blogging” at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com 

By Ted Demopoulos, author of “Blogging for Business” and “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”

Here are 5 tips to help supercharge your blog writing, and by extension your blog as well!

1) Write in a conversational tone.

Marketese and business speak do not work in blogs. Write as though you are speaking to a friend. “If you ever went to business school ignore everything you learned about writing while there,” is very popular advice that lots of people give and is not far off the mark. If you have trouble writing conversationally, try saying your thoughts out loud as if speaking to someone before writing them down.

2) Improve your vocabulary. Great writers have great vocabularies.

The best and most painless way to increase vocabulary is just to read a lot. Now I fail somewhat here, because although I read a lot, it’s primarily blogs and business books. I am sure if added some fiction to the mix, and I love fiction, I’d improve my vocabulary even faster, but with three kids time is a challenge.

Read a wide variety of stuff; if you don’t like to read, you probably shouldn’t be trying to write!

3) Write like yourself; don’t try to emulate writers you admire!

You might love Dan Brown or Steven King, but you simply can’t write like them and they can’t write like you either. You have to find your own voice, your individual style, and then you will write with a lot more confidence.

4) Play with the language while you are writing.

Now what does this mean? It means have fun writing. Use the vernacular, use slang and expressions that perhaps are not that common, but which hopefully people understand.

Make your prose accessible; make it entertaining. This adds extra appeal to your blog. Forget about grammatical correctness. It’s not absolutely required nor even desired in many cases.

5) Remember that blogging is like speaking in public, emphasis on public. Use common sense. Don’t blog about what should remain private. If it’s something you wouldn’t talk about loudly outside, perhaps in the neighborhood pub or in a restaurant, don’t blog about it.

People often forget the Internet is public — very public. Even if you don’t mention people or events specifically, if you provide enough detail, people are going to figure out what you are talking about. Even anonymous bloggers have to watch out.

Blog writing is critical and most people enjoy it. Forget about the literary nonsense your teachers beat into your head and write like you speak, conversationally. Have fun writing, using slang as appropriate and improve your vocabulary. Do remember the Internet is public, but have fun!

If by any chance you find after giving it a serious try that writing is not for you, you can always use video and audio for your blog content as well.

About the Author

And for over 100 tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook “Secrets of Successful Blogging” at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

By Ted Demopoulos, author of “Blogging for Business” and “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”

Did you know there is more money in cybercrime than the illegal drug trade? And many cybercriminals would love to hack any established blog or Website?

Here are three things you NEED to do to protect your blog!

1) Choose a good password and CHANGE it regularly.

What’s a good password? No dictionary words, certainly no words or phrases remotely connected to you like your favorite sports team, your daughter’s name, or your blog’s name either!

Ideally, I suggest a combination of letters, numbers, and at least one non alpha-numeric character. Preferably something you can remember easily but that no one can guess easily. Be creative! For example, Ba!dP0pe was something I used once that I could remember easily (note it contains not just letters and numbers and non-alpha numerics, but capitals and lowercase too — a good thing).

Despite what most “security gurus” tell you, you CAN write down your password if needed as long as you keep it safe and treat it like a credit card. For example keep it in your wallet or purse, and if it gets lost change it immediately.

2) Back up your content regularly.

Just in case! Backing up your ’stuff’ is critical, because you never know what may happen.

One entire blog network disappeared because they didn’t have good backups . . .

Check out your blog platform’s help for backing up your content — most have pretty simple steps documented.

3) Update your Blogging Software regularly.

if you have your own Web server with blog software installed on it, for example WordPress.com, MoveableType or ExpressionEngine, update it regularly.

Updates typically fix bugs and known security flaws the bad guys know about. Note that If you are using a hosted solution like TypePad (recommended), Blogger (OK), or WordPress.com (good), they update the software themselves.

Will this actually hack proof your blog? No, but it will make it much less likely that you’ll get hacked, just like if you’re a safe driver it’s much less likely you’ll have an accident.

I could go on almost forever since I’m a security guy, but these three tips will make you MUCH less likely to get hacked and extremely inconvenienced or worse!

About the Author

And for over 100 tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook “Secrets of Successful Blogging” at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

By Ted Demopoulos, author of “Blogging for Business” and “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”

Well actually you could post whatever you want. On the other hand you may be serious about doing something constructive with it like building a list of loyal subscriber’s who share a common interest.

The point here is if you have a definite direction or purpose for your new blog you should treat your first post much like an introduction to a new friend.

Here are 4 key elements you will want to include in your first blog post.

1) Introduce Yourself

Here’s your opportunity to give your readers a little insight into who you are. Share with them your interest, business experience, other personal experiences that may be of interest to them and relevant to the theme of your site. Inform your readers of any family or pets you may have and of what importance they may have to you and why. Share pictures if you’ve got them. After all one picture is worth a thousand words. Your readers will appreciate this.

You want your readers to become familiar with you while also gaining their trust.

2) What is Your Reason for Blogging

Now you’ll want your readers to know and understand your purpose or motivation for blogging. Make your intentions clear as to what nagging questions, dilemmas, or passions you plan to address. You want them to feel the anger, frustrations, passions, or enthusiasm you feel and the commitment you have to your blogging efforts.

3) What you Will be Blogging About

Your readers will want to know what to expect when they visit your site. What direction you’ll be taking on the stated theme and how you intend to address the issues of this subject matter. Will this just be an online ranting station or do you intend to take a more constructive, tactical and problem solving approach in addressing the topic at hand.

4) Encourage Comments

You immediately want to foster an atmosphere of community and involvement for your readers. Commenting and reader participation is a major factor in the growth and popularity of blogging. Build upon this by encouraging comments, disagreements, or criticisms from visitors and making it easy for them to do so. Make available your contact information (any of which is comfortable to you) but make it clear you are accessible to them.

Be sure to clearly state your comment policy so as to keep this area under control and constructive for both the blog owner and its readers.

Realizing that your first blog post is an introduction to your readers and including these 4 key elements in your initial post will give you a solid start for your new blog.

About the Author

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit:http://blogbrawn.com/