Cedia Great Driving Challenge
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Mitsubishi has launched "Great Driving Challenge" in India, to promote Cedia. A great way for some viral marketing. The contest is targeted at Indian audience and holds an opportunity for three couples to drive the Cedia for 10 days(all expenses paid) and a Rs. 1 million for the final winner amongst these three.The selection will depend on the way they use social media to talk about the contest and the destinations they visit. I will be covering the action in my latest blog venture Secret.Travel . To mention and you might notice along side in the banner I collected some 312 votes and have got in their Top 100 shortlist. Well, not bad, huh? Taking this space to thank all the people who took time to vote for me. A big thanks.(You can view my application, here)
Here, I plan to cover the social media strategy they followed, and where it worked for them. This will come in once the contest is over, and the results are out.
Till then wish me luck, and for updates on the contest, do visit Secret.Travel .
You might like to have a look at a small presentation done by me...
Cedia Great Driving Challenge
View more presentations from Divya Uttam.
Ways to avoid scams...
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Some people will not just stop fooling others. The more brilliant internet platforms prosper the
more scams you will find related to it.
I recently saw a banner ad below:
Curiously I clicked on the banner and which took me to the site of “Washington Reporter”...(http://washington-reporter.com/college-dropout-shares-secret-fb/?keyword=KAT_728_01) Sounds like a credible URL. To my surprize it was a scam from
someone promotin Twitter Cash Kit.
A not so intelligent search on Mike Steadman brought up the following results...
It’s strange that somebody will give you $25 per link you post even if you have absolutely no twitter followers.
Twitter Cash Kit is being promoted at all possible places in all possible ways, and even on twitter. The strange point is some people actually bought it.
I will put it as another scam which could only have a few people interested. If you do a quick search you will find people who bought it complaining on different forums like Get Saqtisfaction.
I can point many scams that are going on, in the online space, but I would rather let you know how not to fall prey to such spammers, specially if their is cash invloved.
- Before buying a product, always research about the company or individual selling it. You may try putting product's name in quotes + scam. For example- "Twitter Cash kit" + Scam. And for a change you will find yourself learning from other's mistakes :)
- Do not fall pray to "Your distant relative died and left you cash" emails, and don't ever send your personal information to them.
- While making a payment always do so through secure payment gateway.
- One of the most famous scams are Job Scams. One explained above may fall in this category. Avoid jobs that ask you to buy something or pay a security before you can join. These will turn out to be scams or otherwise worthless anyways.
- Do a search on Scam.com for the name of the company, which is a great forum where people complain about being scammed.
Hopefully this post will get atleast one person saved from getting scammed. Go get your luck out there.
Labels: Spamming
How to Revive a Dead Blog?
Monday, February 02, 2009
Citing a Gartner study there are eventually "200 million people call themselves ex-bloggers." That's a ton of dead blogs but it won't matter to most blog readers. Lots of these ex-bloggers want to get back to scene. Quoting a question by David-
To start with- This post is about reviving your old blog… and Not starting Afresh.
You may not have been blogging well for a year. Or Your blog has been one of the known blogs of its time, but now everybody seems to have forgotten it. Even I did not blog at regular intervals and other things in life took priority. What happened to “blogging to fame” could have happened to anybody in the blogosphere.
Now you want your readers back. You want them to know about your coming back to the blogosphere. What do you do to revive your dead blog?
Do this and bring your blog back to life…
1. Start Blogging- A No-Brainer you would say… It may sound obvious, but, it takes time. Bringing a blog back to life is not easy. It needs the same energy and enthusiasm that you started your blog once with. Give your blog some time.
2. Reconnect with fellow Bloggers- Blogging is all about relationships. Make your old fellow bloggers remember you. Talk to them, comment on their blogs, and re-build your relationships. Oh great! If you have already kept the friendship alive, but if not, now is the time to do so.
3. Blog Networks- If you blogged earlier, you would be most probably be a member of sites like MyBlogLog and BlogCatalogue. Spend time on them (the site), and with them (the blogger members). Use Twitter, and other sites to get your voice up and going, and trust me, you are definitely going to feel good about it.
4. Redesign for a fresh feel- A full facelift. Like starting a new day, this will help you to get your creativity to flow again. This is totally your choice. You can continue with the old one.
And this time maintain your commitment to blogging... :)
So, I am not sure how to go about this, but I need to know what everyone thinks. I have a few blogs that I have let fade away, but I really want to revive them, and over the next two weeks especially, I feel like I have the time, energy and hopefully continual focus to make them part of my daily routine.
Do I just start writing on them again and act like they never faded? Do I give up on them, and start again fresh without any of the baggage and the apparent break in posting? What do you think? What is the best way to revive a dead blog?
To start with- This post is about reviving your old blog… and Not starting Afresh.
You may not have been blogging well for a year. Or Your blog has been one of the known blogs of its time, but now everybody seems to have forgotten it. Even I did not blog at regular intervals and other things in life took priority. What happened to “blogging to fame” could have happened to anybody in the blogosphere.
Now you want your readers back. You want them to know about your coming back to the blogosphere. What do you do to revive your dead blog?
Do this and bring your blog back to life…
1. Start Blogging- A No-Brainer you would say… It may sound obvious, but, it takes time. Bringing a blog back to life is not easy. It needs the same energy and enthusiasm that you started your blog once with. Give your blog some time.
2. Reconnect with fellow Bloggers- Blogging is all about relationships. Make your old fellow bloggers remember you. Talk to them, comment on their blogs, and re-build your relationships. Oh great! If you have already kept the friendship alive, but if not, now is the time to do so.
3. Blog Networks- If you blogged earlier, you would be most probably be a member of sites like MyBlogLog and BlogCatalogue. Spend time on them (the site), and with them (the blogger members). Use Twitter, and other sites to get your voice up and going, and trust me, you are definitely going to feel good about it.
4. Redesign for a fresh feel- A full facelift. Like starting a new day, this will help you to get your creativity to flow again. This is totally your choice. You can continue with the old one.
And this time maintain your commitment to blogging... :)
It is time…
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
All the time that I got busy with something else… My blog suffered the most.
New Year did not get any special post and neither did I declare my resolutions till now. But if now this blog does not get the love it deserves it will soon be dead. Which, I will never let happen.
I pledge to remove my laziness and give my blogging a tequila shot… Cheers to a new day… A New Year and ways to go forward...
New Year did not get any special post and neither did I declare my resolutions till now. But if now this blog does not get the love it deserves it will soon be dead. Which, I will never let happen.
I pledge to remove my laziness and give my blogging a tequila shot… Cheers to a new day… A New Year and ways to go forward...
Merry Christmas- The Internet Way
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Three Sutras of Blogging
Think Beyond Optimization
Define Objectives: Plan effectively, develop your funnel, be motivated.
Million of blogs take birth and die. This is because bloggers do not define their objectives properly. After the initial push, they find other priorities, and interests.
Blog is not about posting articles. Sometimes a well researched post and thoughtful content may not be enough to make the blog successful. The need is to define the very reason of the existence of the blog, and communicating with your readers.
Blog don't Splog
One can splog for various reasons- for earning money, for bringing search engine traffic or for building backlinks. Whatever your reason be, do NOT do it.
If your objective is to make money, sell your product/service or you want to sell affiliate products, a blog cannot be your online store. Internet is great direct selling machine, but unfortunately Blog is NOT. Blogging is not a sales channel but a marketing one. Most successful blogs which are monetized are done essentially from advertisement.
To do this you need to work to get articles (truth actually need not to be very original, but need to be very you)
If you want get traffic or build backlinks, there are ethical ways to do it. You will be able to find lots of articles online to follow. Any splogging in the long run do not benefit anyways.
Understand SEO vs Social Media
As one of the very popular posts of this Blog on Search Engine Domination, things eventually came true. SEO is good if you can dominate in search engine rankings on popular and on demand keywords. You have a great inflow of targeted traffic. But if not SMO can help you out.
As Rohit Bhargava said “The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”
It helps you increase linkability and helps your content flow to the people interested. If you are interested to know the rules of SMO, please go through “5 Rules of SMO”.
Define Objectives: Plan effectively, develop your funnel, be motivated.
Million of blogs take birth and die. This is because bloggers do not define their objectives properly. After the initial push, they find other priorities, and interests.
Blog is not about posting articles. Sometimes a well researched post and thoughtful content may not be enough to make the blog successful. The need is to define the very reason of the existence of the blog, and communicating with your readers.
Blog don't Splog
One can splog for various reasons- for earning money, for bringing search engine traffic or for building backlinks. Whatever your reason be, do NOT do it.
If your objective is to make money, sell your product/service or you want to sell affiliate products, a blog cannot be your online store. Internet is great direct selling machine, but unfortunately Blog is NOT. Blogging is not a sales channel but a marketing one. Most successful blogs which are monetized are done essentially from advertisement.
To do this you need to work to get articles (truth actually need not to be very original, but need to be very you)
If you want get traffic or build backlinks, there are ethical ways to do it. You will be able to find lots of articles online to follow. Any splogging in the long run do not benefit anyways.
Understand SEO vs Social Media
As one of the very popular posts of this Blog on Search Engine Domination, things eventually came true. SEO is good if you can dominate in search engine rankings on popular and on demand keywords. You have a great inflow of targeted traffic. But if not SMO can help you out.
As Rohit Bhargava said “The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”
It helps you increase linkability and helps your content flow to the people interested. If you are interested to know the rules of SMO, please go through “5 Rules of SMO”.
Stay Away from Fake SEO
Sunday, November 09, 2008
I do not acclaim to be a SEO Guru but I am working for few clients who need SEO consultation. This brings me in contact with many companies who provide SEO and other online promotion stuff. There are a lot of website owners I know who are still wondering how to go about their online marketing.
They are not aware of what tools should be used for online promotions, how effective they can be to attract target audience. Everything for them boils down to SEO and SEM. These are overwhelming terms and the way they are presented, it’s easy to get exited and at the same time confused.
Here are telltale signs that are good enough to hint to jump away from those companies and better look out for someone who have better understanding of SEO:
1. Self-acclaimed Expertise with due display of expertise: Those who are good most of times will be able to show their involvement with active community of SEO world instead of quoting "proprietary" insights and strategies. They would often display testimonials from the experts who you would have never heard, or recommendations from website owners who would be rarely searchable on internet.
2. Inflating Keyword Densities: Few days back, at a coffee lounge I just over heard a company discussing about their client’s online SEO strategy. They were discussing about infusing the content of the website with keywords to get the website, rank good for those keywords. According to it content should be written in a way that desired keywords are equally distributed all over the page uniformly.
Unfortunately Search Engines are much ahead. Beware anything over 5% of keyword density can make Google be more skeptical about your web pages. Onpage optimization is important, but keyword stuffing is good indication to smell something wrong. A professional SEO firm wont even discuss such a thing.
3. Search engine and Directory Submissions: Many SEO firms suggest that they will submit your website to 100's and 1000's of directories and search engines. The matter of fact is that even if they do, these hundred thousand directories and search engines wont even give you a single visitor. Though there are some very cool industry specific directories and search engines who get best of information from particular industry. But they should be well researched. Save money and save time by staying away from organizations with such suggestions.
4. Link Buying: Link buying for me is an advertising strategy than a SEO. A natural link can never be replaced by purchased one and is easily identified by present search engines. It is expensive and not a sign of good SEO firm, as anyone with very little knowledge and efforts can buy links or rarely good links. The benefit is temporary and you need to keep renewing the contract (Read- Spending Money) to keep them in place. A good SEO firm should be able to cultivate good quality links that you don’t need to buy.
5. Amateur Social Media Strategy: Many SEO firms state in their packages that they will submit your website to many Social Media websites like Digg, Netvibes, Delicious, or StumbleUpon. But as these sites have millions of active users, an equally huge amount of content is updated on these websites, so just submission or bit of push does not work if they are not having an expert to monitor and optimize your website for such Social Media websites. Jump away if you can find any amateur claims like getting votes or favours for your website. Any mistake can easily get your website being continuously banned by such Social Media Websites. Otherwise these social media sites can be of great tool for effective SEO for your website and a great tool to get to your target audience.
6. Malicious SEO Practices: Any blackhat techniques like putting hidden text, different landing pages for search engines, redirects and different content for users. Stay away, as sooner than later your website will be banned for such activities.
7. Complicated Strategies: For all the strategies, that have no logical reasoning to suffice your doubts, except proprietary strategy, it would be better to not involve yourself. Though SEO is tricky, its no rocket science and every strategy needs to be backed by logical reasoning, which should be in lines of best practices personalized effectively for your website.
For any SEO firm that tries to outsmart Search Engines, you know the answer.
So if you are looking for an SEO firm, do read SEO journals and blogs to know whats in and whats correct.
Bookmark this article:-
Technorati Tags:- Blog Optimization
They are not aware of what tools should be used for online promotions, how effective they can be to attract target audience. Everything for them boils down to SEO and SEM. These are overwhelming terms and the way they are presented, it’s easy to get exited and at the same time confused.
Here are telltale signs that are good enough to hint to jump away from those companies and better look out for someone who have better understanding of SEO:
1. Self-acclaimed Expertise with due display of expertise: Those who are good most of times will be able to show their involvement with active community of SEO world instead of quoting "proprietary" insights and strategies. They would often display testimonials from the experts who you would have never heard, or recommendations from website owners who would be rarely searchable on internet.
2. Inflating Keyword Densities: Few days back, at a coffee lounge I just over heard a company discussing about their client’s online SEO strategy. They were discussing about infusing the content of the website with keywords to get the website, rank good for those keywords. According to it content should be written in a way that desired keywords are equally distributed all over the page uniformly.
Unfortunately Search Engines are much ahead. Beware anything over 5% of keyword density can make Google be more skeptical about your web pages. Onpage optimization is important, but keyword stuffing is good indication to smell something wrong. A professional SEO firm wont even discuss such a thing.
3. Search engine and Directory Submissions: Many SEO firms suggest that they will submit your website to 100's and 1000's of directories and search engines. The matter of fact is that even if they do, these hundred thousand directories and search engines wont even give you a single visitor. Though there are some very cool industry specific directories and search engines who get best of information from particular industry. But they should be well researched. Save money and save time by staying away from organizations with such suggestions.
4. Link Buying: Link buying for me is an advertising strategy than a SEO. A natural link can never be replaced by purchased one and is easily identified by present search engines. It is expensive and not a sign of good SEO firm, as anyone with very little knowledge and efforts can buy links or rarely good links. The benefit is temporary and you need to keep renewing the contract (Read- Spending Money) to keep them in place. A good SEO firm should be able to cultivate good quality links that you don’t need to buy.
5. Amateur Social Media Strategy: Many SEO firms state in their packages that they will submit your website to many Social Media websites like Digg, Netvibes, Delicious, or StumbleUpon. But as these sites have millions of active users, an equally huge amount of content is updated on these websites, so just submission or bit of push does not work if they are not having an expert to monitor and optimize your website for such Social Media websites. Jump away if you can find any amateur claims like getting votes or favours for your website. Any mistake can easily get your website being continuously banned by such Social Media Websites. Otherwise these social media sites can be of great tool for effective SEO for your website and a great tool to get to your target audience.
6. Malicious SEO Practices: Any blackhat techniques like putting hidden text, different landing pages for search engines, redirects and different content for users. Stay away, as sooner than later your website will be banned for such activities.
7. Complicated Strategies: For all the strategies, that have no logical reasoning to suffice your doubts, except proprietary strategy, it would be better to not involve yourself. Though SEO is tricky, its no rocket science and every strategy needs to be backed by logical reasoning, which should be in lines of best practices personalized effectively for your website.
For any SEO firm that tries to outsmart Search Engines, you know the answer.
So if you are looking for an SEO firm, do read SEO journals and blogs to know whats in and whats correct.
Bookmark this article:-
Technorati Tags:- Blog Optimization
Your Blog will fail IF!
Saturday, November 01, 2008
It’s time to understand the essence of your Blog. Whether personal, niche or corporate blog, whether you post it yourself or have multiple authors, it is very essential that your blog has a soul of its own.
Now answer these questions:
What separates and makes your Blog standout?
What is that thing which adds individuality and essence to it?
Is it your style? Or is it the knowledge you own. May be it’s your experience.
You own the blog, but are you there in it?
Blending yourself in your blog will come up some time of your blogging, as you learn that what excites your readers and what you they try to find in your blog.
Your blog will fail if... IT’S NOT YOUR BLOG...
What is not you?
It's when you are too obvious like a news channel, or you have lots of syndicated posts without your opinions or trying to be similar like some other successful blog. Just like any writing, when you're first starting out you will most likely look at blogs of others for example sake, and whether you know it or not, will emulate them in some form or fashion. After you've begun to blog for a while, however, you'll find your voice starting to creep out and eventually taking over, but, only if you are passionate about what you write.
It's always a challenge to write exciting blog posts. Getting your inner voice that is unique as well what excites your reader is demanding and comes with time. But it's almost essential, an absolute necessity when you expect to build an authority blog.When I started this blog, things were a bit different. It just happened when I was trying my hands in blogging hence the URL of the blog: "blogandpingtutorial.blogspot.com". Now do not laugh. :)
Surprisingly it started to happen and this blog saw some good days, and this blog is among the biggest community at MyBLOGLOG, and obviously you are welcome to join it here. But now it is being too tutorialistic and I am not able to get my passion out.
I found a new voice... Ya the one I am talking in...Do you want to find yours? Keep Tuning in...
Or Subscribe it.
Bookmark this article:-
Technorati Tags:- Better Blogging
Now answer these questions:
What separates and makes your Blog standout?What is that thing which adds individuality and essence to it?
Is it your style? Or is it the knowledge you own. May be it’s your experience.
You own the blog, but are you there in it?
Blending yourself in your blog will come up some time of your blogging, as you learn that what excites your readers and what you they try to find in your blog.
Your blog will fail if... IT’S NOT YOUR BLOG...
What is not you?
It's when you are too obvious like a news channel, or you have lots of syndicated posts without your opinions or trying to be similar like some other successful blog. Just like any writing, when you're first starting out you will most likely look at blogs of others for example sake, and whether you know it or not, will emulate them in some form or fashion. After you've begun to blog for a while, however, you'll find your voice starting to creep out and eventually taking over, but, only if you are passionate about what you write.
It's always a challenge to write exciting blog posts. Getting your inner voice that is unique as well what excites your reader is demanding and comes with time. But it's almost essential, an absolute necessity when you expect to build an authority blog.When I started this blog, things were a bit different. It just happened when I was trying my hands in blogging hence the URL of the blog: "blogandpingtutorial.blogspot.com". Now do not laugh. :)
Surprisingly it started to happen and this blog saw some good days, and this blog is among the biggest community at MyBLOGLOG, and obviously you are welcome to join it here. But now it is being too tutorialistic and I am not able to get my passion out.
I found a new voice... Ya the one I am talking in...Do you want to find yours? Keep Tuning in...
Or Subscribe it.
Bookmark this article:-
Technorati Tags:- Better Blogging
Labels: Better Blogging
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