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Monday 8 December 2008

7 Signs to stay away from Fake SEO Consultants

The most sensitive issues in SEO service industry is the existence of some fake SEO consultants, who claim their skills and their overall job regarding offering consultancy. But as we know, things are now always as pink as they look like. So being very careful in these situations might be the only way to avoid being tricked in anyway.
The signs of a SEO consultant who just doesn’t have knowledge, who follows some interests or who does not seem a SEO consultant are many, but there are some important ones, which will help people find out and identity those ones who are only lying.
1. The first sign would be the references unknown “experts”. There are many sources that refer some appropriate, skillful and well prepared SEO consultants (SEOBook.com and SEOmoz are two of them). But there are also some ambiguous references to some unknown SEO consultants. As the SEO industry is very similar to encryption industry, those SEO Consultants that are truly SEO Consultants will always make their ideas public and they will be willing to have open discussions.
2. Another sign would be the keyword density. The doubtful SEO Consultant will advise to use some specific keywords at a density of 14.2%. But what would be better instead of using a great number of keywords is using some links in order to make the people enjoy it. There should be some keywords, but in an agreeable amount, without exaggerating with them and using them wisely.
3. The specific SEO consultants advises submitting the website to some online directories, claiming that he knows some of the best of them, which are also not known by other people. But those directories will be no more than useless for the person in question: they will not bring any benefit.
4. Buying links would be just another way for that doubtful SEO Consultant, as he will ask for a great monthly budget that will be specially created to buy links. Every person is able to buy links, but the effort of creating high-quality inbound links that do not request paying for them every month is higher. It is very important to buy only those links that are worth and efficient for the business in question.
5. Submitting the site to popular social web sites is another sign of avoiding that so-called SEO Consultant. In this situation, there is no doubt regarding the proficiency of that Consultant. The only result after submitting the site on social sites like reddit and StumbleUpon is having the URL of the site banned, which will not be very good. The articles must be interesting and useful, otherwise the results will be horrible and the value is also minimal.
6. But there is also one very doubtful thing that must be definitely avoided: black hat techniques, like using hidden text on pages redirecting to other sites or other similar practices. This represents a trial to trick the search engines. This is why Google is even better than a SEO Consultant: the results have high quality and they are pretty reliable.
7. Complicated explanations are also the most common sign of being tricked.Simple explanations are the best and they always come from intelligent and well prepared SEO
Consultants who can make the clients understand everything because of using known words. There is no need of any diploma to understand some terms; it is just about the person and his explanation: he will always adapt it for your own degree of understanding.
These seven ways of identifying a doubtful SEO Consultant are also the best and the most used nowadays. People tend to believe unreasonable theories and some other people trick them and gain some profit after that. But the steps from above should lighten the way that those tricks work: and people will be able to avoid them.

Thursday 10 July 2008

How to Publish an Ebook ! Step by Step hot titorial

Want to publish a book? You can either kill a bunch of trees, or get with the 2010s and publish it as an ebook.
If you haven’t noticed already, ebooks are no longer a niche market. As of June 2011, ebook reader adoption had reportedly hit 25 percent in the United States, with the market growing at a phenomenal 169 percent year over year. Today, most new releases are being published in ebook format.
An ebook can provide your small business a real competitive advantage by giving you instant credibility and visibility in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, the ebook sales market is fragmented. Publishing an ebook means working directly with numerous companies, each with its own formats, rules, and quirky systems. While Amazon is the clear leader, both Apple and Barnes & Noble have solid user bases for their respective devices. Industry watchers generally believe that Amazon holds about a 60 percent share of ebook sales, while Barnes & Noble has 30 percent and Apple claims the remaining 10 percent, with a smattering of other services filling in the cracks.
As a budding publisher, you will need to prepare your book for at least those three platforms. I'll walk you through the process here.
I have a couple of ebooks on the market, but for the past few years they’ve been available only for Kindle. To create these tips, I went through the republication of Five Stars! (my manual for aspiring film critics) on all of the major platforms.
Prepare for E-Publishing
Before you even create your Amazon or B&N account, here’s how to get ready for your career as an e-publisher.



Start with the book: First, write a book. That’s hard enough, but putting your book into an ebook-friendly format is almost as complicated, because each ebook seller has its own rules on everything from illustrations to indentation to the way bullet points work. Amazon’s “Formatting” Q&A forum has over 3000 threads in it.
The best advice I can offer is to spare yourself the headache and hire someone to format your book. Using a list from ebook aggregator Smashwords, I found a provider who formatted my book in a matter of hours for $65. Shop around: Pricing can range up to $100, and turnaround time can be up to several weeks. Just remember that formatters do not edit your book’s content.


Understand ePub: A few years ago the world of ebook formats was a mess, but today the ePub format is the most common standard. This open-source format looks a lot like HTML, but you don’t need to deal directly with ePub--every ebook publisher will convert a Microsoft Word document into ePub for you, and many will let you download the converted ePub file to check it out yourself. (Use Adobe Digital Editions to read your ePub file for free.)

After you send your document to a formatting service, you’ll receive it back in .doc format (older versions of Word, pre-.docx, are best). Take some time to make sure everything looks good; my finished file had some unsupported characters that I quickly cleaned up manually before submitting. Use this .doc as a master file for everything else you do.
Prepare multiple versions: While the master .doc file you create will be the most common one, you’ll want to have different versions available, mainly with variable front matter. Smashwords, for example, requires a Smashwords-specific notice that you’ll want to remove from the file for submission to Amazon and other providers. You’ll also want to have a PDF of your book available (which you can create in Word), as well as excerpts ready to go. Just save a portion of your book (the first 20 to 50 pages) as its own file to create an excerpt. While you’re at it, prepare descriptive blurbs at various lengths. You’ll need these as you submit the book to sellers.
Create a cover: Even though your book is electronic, you still need a high-quality (300 dpi), full-size cover, since this image will help to promote your book on seller sites and can get you placement in Web image search results. You can design a cover yourself using stock art or your own photos or illustrations if you’re handy with Photoshop, or you can hire someone to make one for you. It isn’t cost-prohibitive, but expect it to take some time during the revision process. While you’re at it, make sure to create a back cover and a spine. Some services require these items, and you’ll want them if you decide to print on paper someday.
More E-Publishing Preparation
 
Image credit: Bowker ISBNUnderstand ISBNs: An International Standard Book Number is the unique code assigned to every book published, much like a UPC. A company called Bowker issues and manages ISBNs, and they aren’t cheap: $125 for a single number, or $250 for a ten-pack. (I bought a ten-pack in 2005, and have used only three of them to date.) ISBNs are mandatory for all printed matter, but by and large they’re optional for ebooks, as most ebooksellers don’t require them.
The only real reason you’d need one is that Apple insists on it. You can obtain one directly from Bowker or arrange for one through an aggregator (such as Smashwords), which usually doesn’t charge anything for the number but ties you to its service pretty much forever.
Set up a publisher website: It’s good advice to create a publishing “company,” or at least an author’s website where you can link to all the places where your ebook is on sale. Most sellers link back to any available publisher site, and this helps with search rankings. My publishing company website isn’t much to look at, but it covers the basics. A blog system would work fine.
Have a bank account ready: Most payments for book sales are wired directly to a bank account, or sometimes to PayPal. Have these account numbers ready to go when you’re preparing to sell. You’ll also need to provide your Social Security number or Employer ID Number to sellers for tax purposes.
Set the magic price: Pricing isn’t too tough with ebooks. Unless you are publishing a highly technical textbook, you’ll almost always have to price it at $9.99. This is the accepted and nearly required price level for all ebooks today: You’ll make far less in commissions from most sellers if you go higher--and if you price it lower, your book will look cheap.
However, if your book is short--under 45,000 words or so--lower pricing may be required. You’ll also find that some services have clauses ensuring that you don’t charge less for the book somewhere else, which pretty much locks you in to one price for every platform.
Determine what you earn: Now that your pricing is set, your profits are going to look absolutely fantastic. Most services now offer 60 to 70 percent commissions on sales, and some smaller sellers give you even more. The bottom line is that you’ll be making close to $7 for each book sold, which is vastly more than you would make with a dead-tree book--often about $1 with a traditional publisher, and only after you’ve made back your advance (read: never). Even print-on-demand sales aren’t much more profitable: The Five Stars! print version, published by Amazon’s CreateSpace service, earns about $8 on each book sold for $19.99 at Amazon, but books sold elsewhere barely earn $4 each.
Understand your rights: The terms of service for ebook sellers tend to be byzantine and baffling. I won’t pretend to be an expert about these terms--or even to have read them--but if you’re concerned about what rights you’re giving up, pay close attention to the fine print. Apple’s iBooks Author terms have already generated significant controversy.
Tackle the DRM conundrum: One of the big decisions is whether to protect your book with digital rights management technology, which prevents it from being shared with other readers. DRM will lock your ebook to the reader’s account and the service from which the customer purchased it. The argument over DRM isn’t one I can delve into here, but ebook piracy is a growing phenomenon. It’s unlikely to materially impact your self-published work; but if you’re paranoid, it is something to consider. The catch: Once you make a decision about DRM on most publishing platforms, you can’t change your mind. It’s on or off for life.
Always be promoting: Once you’ve submitted your manuscript to the ebook sellers, the tough work begins. You’ll need to promote your book ruthlessly--which is what Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are for, right? Reviews are immeasurably helpful, but those can take time to get, and most reviewers prefer reading paperback manuscripts over ebooks. They are well worth the effort, though, as review blurbs look great on your ebook listing pages.
Make revisions: Luckily, you can change an ebook at any time. Whether you're fixing typos or adding new material, you can upload content in a matter of minutes. Upload freely and frequently.
Now that you know what you need, let's move on to the specifics each ebook publisher requires, starting with the biggest name.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
 
You can’t argue with the numbers: Amazon should be your first stop as an ebook publisher, and if you’re planning to go with just one seller, this should be it. The uploading process for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing is quite straightforward and lacking in surprises; you supply book and author info, keywords, excerpts, and your DRM selection, and then send your manuscript for review. Books are generally online and available on the Amazon store within 24 hours.
Amazon’s royalty system seems complex, but the bottom line is that you’ll make about 70 percent on your book if it isn’t stuffed with illustrations and it costs between $2.99 and $9.99. Amazon will also make your book available through its various foreign divisions at your request.
One intriguing option is Amazon’s KDP Select program: Make your book exclusive to the Kindle for 90 days, and you get a share of Amazon’s multimillion-dollar Lending Library fund, plus some free promotional juice.
Amazon has its own file format called KF8 (Kindle Format 8), but uploading your ePub-ready .doc file will work fine. Inserting a table of contents is nice, but not required by Amazon. The finished book looks good both on the Kindle and on Amazon’s site, with the listing page linked to any paperback versions of the book, an author page, and more.
For more details, check out Tony Bradley's guide to publishing for the Amazon Kindle.

First stop: making an ebook for Amazon's Kindle.
Barnes & Noble Nook/PubIt
The royalties from this seller aren’t as good as those from Amazon--65 percent on most books from $2.99 to $9.99--but the Nook is a large enough platform to merit investing the time it takes to publish there. The procedure is nearly identical to that of the Kindle: Just fill out a form and upload your ePub-friendly Word file, and you’re ready to go. A table of contents is optional.
One of the nice features about Barnes & Noble’s PubIt system is that it includes an offline app (Nook for PC eReading) that you can use to preview your manuscript without having to click through page after page of your book in a Web browser, which can be agonizingly slow.
Once your book is uploaded, B&N promises that it will be live within 24 to 72 hours, and the company had Five Stars! up faster than that. The listing page is a bit spare--even with the five review blurbs I uploaded--and the book is unfortunately not linked to its paperback counterpart, which is also available from Barnes & Noble.
Still, the process is simple, and the sales possibilities are enticing.

Don't overlook the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Apple iBooks

 
The 70 percent commissions from Apple iBooks are dandy, but before you get too excited about your book being available for the iPad, be aware that publishing directly through Apple requires you to have a Mac. Die-hard PC owners can use an aggregator to make an end-run around this issue (see below), but the commissions are lower if you do.
To get started, sign up for a Paid Books Account (you can offer your book for free via a different mechanism), using your Apple ID. Fill out the personal information requested, and wait for an email reply: Apple has to approve your application. Once you get the okay (my approval took a few days), you have more paperwork to do, including a bevy of additional forms to fill out.
With that complete, you must navigate additional hoops. Apple requires both an ISBN for your book and your manuscript in ePub format. While other providers will translate a .doc file for you, Apple won’t. You can use any of a variety of tools to convert your book to ePub format, or just use a tool that one of the other sellers made for you (which is what I did). Then, using the iTunes Producer software (here’s where the Mac comes in), you can finally publish your book. But you’re not done yet: Apple has another “quality review” at this point. A week later I was still waiting for my book to be live on the iBookstore.
Suprisingly, compared with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Apple’s publishing system is by a wide margin the most confusing, slow, and difficult process you'll encounter, even if you already have a Mac. Admittedly, the iTunes Connect Mobile app (which lets you check on your book sales via your iPhone) is a nifty addition to the package. On the whole, however, if you’re considering using an aggregator at all, the complexity of Apple's process is the best reason to pay for that kind of help.

 
You need access to a Mac to publish via Apple iBooks.

Aggregators
One option with ebook selling is to let someone else do some of the work. You still have to write and format your book properly, but after that’s done, the aggregator works with the reseller on your behalf, freeing you from dealing with accounting, ISBNs, and signing up multiple times on each service. In fact, Apple openly encourages the use of an “approved” aggregator in its service FAQ, likely due to the headaches outlined above.
You can find many aggregator services. I checked out two for this piece, Smashwords and Lulu. In general, the process is about the same as working with retailers: You upload your manuscript, a cover, descriptive terms, and payment information, and then the aggregator takes over. Aggregators coordinate with the retail sites, and they sell the books directly themselves, as well.

 
Smashwords is a somewhat scrappy startup, and next to the polish of Amazon and Apple, it looks a little quaint (the site is a bit buggy too). Smashwords will prepare your ebook for just about every platform known to mankind, including Kindle, Nook, and iOS, plus Kobo, Sony Reader, Stanza, Borders, and more. Commissions range from 80 percent for books sold directly through Smashwords to 60 percent or less for books sold via other merchants, as Smashwords takes a cut of each sale alongside Amazon or Apple’s cut. After all is said and done, you could be earning about 50 percent commissions in the worst possible scenario.
To sell with additional merchants, your book must meet Smashwords’ rather strict guidelines for “Premium Catalog” inclusion. Unfortunately, two weeks after I submitted my book, I was still waiting for the approval process to complete, with no ETA received. That is vastly longer than working with the merchants themselves, but given the likelihood of someone actually buying a book directly from Smashwords and manually syncing it to their ereader device (instead of having it automatically downloaded for them from a retail ebookstore), it’s certainly worth the hassle if you’re planning to go this route instead of selling to a retailer directly.

 
Lulu is another solid option, but it has fewer sales partners: It sells only via its own site, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble. Commissions are 81 percent for direct sales, and 63 percent for other merchants. Lulu began its life as a print-on-demand provider (particularly for people creating photo books), and its roots show: It offers to print a hard-copy book for you and even design a professional cover (for a fee).

The site is a bit buggy and slow, and the service requires you to pay significant attention to automated email messages to get your book online, but ultimately the finished project looks just fine, requiring virtually no manual intervention if you've done your formatting right.

 
lulu lets you publish and sell via iBooks and Barnes & Noble.

Thursday 12 June 2008

Convert MS Word docs to e-books for free

The first time I heard someone say "Everybody has a book in them," I recommended that they see a doctor right away.
At least that explains all those books I've read that appear to have traveled through the author's colon. Writing can be painful, but there are limits.
Lots of people have unpublished novels and other book-length documents sitting forlornly on their hard drive, waiting and waiting for an audience. If your magnum opus (or even half-pint opus) is a Word document that's ready for the world to fall in love with, give the freeSmashwords e-book-publishing service a try.
Follow the style guide's formatting tips before submitting to the Meatgrinder
The universe of e-books is huge. CNET's David Carnoy has written two great overviews of the current state of e-book publishing, both of which he recently updated: "How to self-publish an ebook," and "Self-publishing a book: 25 things you need to know."
David's stories mention Smashwords along with several e-book-publishing alternatives. My goal was simply to convert about a dozen of my blog posts on managing contacts into a free e-book:Workers' Edge Guide to Contact Management.
I chose contact-management tips for my initial foray because the tips are among the most popular I've written, and the resulting e-book would be a manageable length (just under 8,500 words).
It took me about 6 hours to combine the tips into a DOC file, reformat the file following the 29 steps in the Smashwords Style Guide (pdf), and upload the file to Smashwords' Meatgrinder file converter. The style guide is written by Mark Coker, Smashwords' creator. It includes an extensive FAQ and links to Coker's publications on marketing your e-books.

Because the contact-management tips were written and published in HTML originally, much of my production time entailed copying and pasting the text and images from their Web pages into Word. Even if you wrote your book in Word, the file will likely require quite a bit of reformatting to make it through the Smashwords Meatgrinder without encountering some errors during the conversion.

As a for instance, your file likely has tabs, tables, or text boxes. These are among the formatting elements that will give the Meatgrinder fits. I may have benefited from having the e-book material in a non-Word format to begin with because I was able to start the book-formatting process from scratch.

The Smashwords guide explains how to remove all existing formatting from a Word DOC file and then reformat the material in a way that will display well as an e-book. (Appropriately, the first of the guide's 29 steps is to make a backup copy of the file before you do anything else.)

Steps two and three are handy for all Word users: show paragraph marks (aka "pilcrows") and other formatting, and disable Word's auto-correct and auto-format features. Perhaps the most difficult instruction for me to follow was to use only the Normal paragraph style. Doing so requires that you create custom paragraph styles for each font size and style your document uses.

Create your own TOC rather than let Word make one for you
The style guide walks you through the process of creating a linked table of contents for the book, which entails deleting the internal bookmarks Word creates automatically in addition to creating section links manually. (Coker warns you not to use Word's automatic ToC creator.) You may also need to change Word's default setting for line spacing.

The only formatting error in the e-book I created was the result of ignoring this advice. I changed each tip's title to 24 points via Word's font-size drop-down menu rather than choosing the font size as a custom style under the Normal drop-down menu in the paragraph-style section. In one ebook format, the tip titles reverted to the default Normal size of 12 points.

I was pleased to find that my first attempt to upload a DOC file to the Smashwords Meatgrinder resulted in zero reported errors. The Smashwords AutoVetter analyzes the uploaded material and identifies the "glaring" format errors that will prevent the book from being included in the service's Premium Catalog.

The actual file upload is as simple as clicking the Publish button on the site's home page, providing the book's title and a summary, setting its price (or designating it a freebie), entering a category and tags, choosing the e-book formats you want to use, uploading the cover image (JPEG at least 2,400 pixels tall by 1,600 pixels wide), uploading the DOC file itself, and agreeing to the site's terms of service.

One-stop e-book publisher handles all the details for you
Smashwords does an admirable job of anticipating the pitfalls newbie book publishers face and offering timely advice. For instance, the service's style guide provides boilerplate text for the all-important front- and back-matter, such as a license statement for the copyright page, an "about the author" template, and ideas for promotional blurbs.

Yes, books are judged by their covers, and Coker emphasizes the importance of a quality cover image for your e-book. Smashwords recommends that the image be in the standard 3:2 ratio length to width. The service links to several sites that offer to create a cover for your book at affordable rates.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I ignored the advice to pay a pro to come up with a cover for my contact-management book. My lame attempt to devise my own cover sticks out like a sore thumb next to the professionally crafted covers.

If you're uncertain about the price to set for your e-book, you can let readers set the price by selecting that option on the Smashwords upload form. You're also reminded that Apple requires e-books it sells to be priced at 99 cents, $1.99, $2.99, or some other amount ending in .99.



Set the price of your book (or designate it a freebie) before you upload the DOC file it's based on to the Smashwords Meatgrinder for conversion to e-book formats.(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET)
After your book is converted, you're prompted to create a profile that includes a list of the Smashwords books you've published (along with your picture, a brief biography, and links to your site or blog, among other information). Smashwords also prompts you to assign the book an ISBN, which the service provides free of charge. You can purchase your own ISBNs singly or in batches or do without an ISBN, although Apple, Sony, and Kobo require ISBNs.
The book's own Smashwords page has a link to your profile along with information about the book: publication date, number of words, the description you provided when you uploaded the file, and tags. Below this are download links in the formats you specified prior to the file conversion: EPUB, PDF, RTF, MOBI, PDB, LRF, TXT, HTML, and JavaScript.

Once your e-book has been converted you can view and edit information about the title via its page on Smashwords.(Credit: Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET)

Smashwords encourages authors to review their book in all the formats they selected. I was pleasantly surprised that my test book appeared about the same in the EPUB, MOBI, and PDF versions, but the HTML version showed the book's section headings in the normal 12-point font rather than the 24-point font I had specified in the DOC file.

Heeding the advice in the Smashwords style guide, I kept the book's formatting simple, simple, simple. More care will be required if your book uses paragraph indents, drop caps, lists, or other special formatting, all of which Coker covers in his style guide.

Likewise, the contact-management book is a free download, so I haven't had to deal with theSmashwords payment system, which pays via paper check or PayPal. Smashwords claims to pay authors about 85 percent of the revenue generated from sales of the book on the Smashwords site, and about 70 percent of the sales from affiliates.

My initial venture into the world of self-publishing via Smashwords went smoothly. I'm inclined to publish other compendia of Workers' Edge tips as e-books, although I might spring for a cover by a professional graphic artist.

There's a lot to learn about e-book publishing, and through my limited experience with Smashwords I'm aware of how much I don't know about the process. Still, I can't think of a better starting point for would-be publishing moguls than Smashwords.

Tuesday 13 May 2008

How to Use Microsoft Word to Create an Ebook

Microsoft Word has lots of features that make creating ebooks easy. You can use styles to format an ebook or update its formatting to work on a different platform. You can use the References tool to create a table of contents automatically. And you can produce a design template that's ready for repeated use, so you can spend more time creating content and less time futzing with layouts. Once you’ve mastered these steps, you can create great ebooks effortlessly. I’ll show you how.
Understanding Ebook Formats
Before you dive in, be aware that more than 20 common ebook formats exist today. Although some are readable on multiple devices, you'll find no single format that every device can read. On top of that, screen sizes vary, so page sizes, image formats, image sizes, and other elements vary, too.
If you want your ebook to be readable on multiple devices, you’ll probably need to publish it in multiple formats. You should plan out which e-readers to target before you start formatting: Your choice of devices will dictate which formats you can use, and from there you’ll need to research the exact specifications of each device so that you can design for it.
The most popular ebook file formats--the ones that most devices can read--include plain text, Adobe PDF, ePub, and HTML. Most e-readers can display images as well, although some, such as Amazon’s Kindle, have only monochrome screens. If you think people will read your ebook on a monochrome e-reader, make sure that the images look good in black and white.
(When you're done with designing, and you're ready to introduce your ebook to the world, read "How to Publish an Ebook, Step by Step.")
Design Your Ebook in Word

Within Word, you can save your file in .doc, .pdf, and .html formats; afterward, you can use other programs to convert the files into whatever other ebook formats you need.

To start your ebook, create a new Word document. If you plan to make multiple ebooks, design a basic layout and save it as a Word template so that you can use it for each new book. If you are making just one ebook, you can go ahead and place your text in it as you go.
Add the Title Page
Start with the title page, typing the book title, subtitle, and author name, along with any other details that should appear here. Select the title text and format it by clicking the Title style in the Styles gallery on the Home tab of the Ribbon toolbar. Select the subheading text and click the Subtitle style (if this doesn’t appear in the Style gallery list, press Ctrl-Shift-S to display the Apply Styles dialog box, type Subtitle into the field, and click Apply.
Click a style in the Styles gallery to apply it to the selected text.


Select and format all of the other text on the title page, too; for example, you can choose the style Emphasis for the author name and other information.
If a style does not format text the way you want it to look, you can change the style by right-clicking its name in the Style gallery and choosing Modify. Make your desired changes to the font, font size, and any other settings in the Modify Style dialog box, and click OK to apply them. All text formatted with that style will change automatically to match the new settings.
Configure the Table of Contents
As soon as you’ve finished the title page, you’re ready to start a new page. Choose Page Layout, Breaks, Page to begin a new page. If this next page is to be a table of contents for the book, type a title such as Table of Contents and then choose References, Table of Contents, Insert Table of Contents. Set 'Show Levels' to 1 or 2 depending on how many heading levels should display, select a format from the Formats list, and click OK twice. You will see a message stating 'No table of contents entries found', which is to be expected since you haven’t created any yet. Later, when your book does have content, you can update the table of contents by clicking that message and pressing F9.
Set Up the Ebook's Chapters
To continue, start a new page by choosing Page Layout, Breaks, Next Page. Now you’re now ready to start with Chapter 1 of the book. Type the first chapter heading, and format it using the Heading 1 style. Add second-level headings if you desire, and format them as Heading 2 style. It’s important to use Heading 1 style for chapter headings and Heading 2 style for subheadings, because Word automatically configures them to be the first- and second-level headings in the table of contents.
Add some placeholder text for the chapter content, such as Text goes here, and format it using the Normal style.
Add Page Headers and Footers
To make your pages look more professional, add a header displaying the book title, plus a footer with page numbering. To do this, click the Insert tab on the Ribbon toolbar and clickHeader. From the list choose Edit Header to create your header. Click Header & Footer Tools, Link to Previous (if it isn't grayed out already) to break the link, so that the headers in each section can be different. Now type the book title into the header--or enter some placeholder text indicating what should go there--and format it using a style.

Configure the footer for the document to start numbering at the first page of the first chapter.Still on the first chapter page, chooseInsert, Footer, Edit Footer, and again choose Header & Footer Tools, Link to Previous (if necessary) to break the link between this section’s footer and the footer in the preceding section. Click in the footer area. On the Ribbon toolbar, click Page Number, Bottom of Page, and then select a page number style (such as Page Number 2).
Now, choose Page Number, Format Page Number, and click Start at. Set its value to1 and click OK. This gives you a footer with the page number in it, starting with the first chapter as page 1. Click Close Header and Footer to return to the document.

Set Up the Next Chapter

To set up the next chapter, choose Page Layout, Breaks, Page and again add the chapter title (or placeholder title text), subheadings, and placeholder text for this chapter. Format these items using the same styles as you used for Chapter 1. Alternatively, you can copy and paste the placeholders from Chapter 1 and update them. Continue in the same way to add more chapters as necessary.

To test the table of contents, return to it, click inside it, and press F9 to update it.

Save the Design as a Reusable Template

To save this design as a reusable template, choose File, Save As, and in the 'Save as type' drop-down list, select Word Template (*.dotx). Click the Templates entry below the 'Microsoft Word' name in the top-left corner of the Save As dialog box so that the file will be saved into the Templates folder. Type a name for the template, and click Save. You can now close the document, as you no longer need it.

To create a new ebook based on this template, choose File, New, My Templates, and then select the ebook template you just created from the Personal Templates list. Click OK, and you’ll have a brand-new ebook document with all the prompts and layout in place.

If you are creating only one ebook, and if you don’t want to create an ebook template from your file, go ahead and save the file as you would any regular Word file.
Save in Other Formats

Once you have completed your ebook and it’s ready for formatting into a special ebook format, you can save it in the required basic format within Word. If you need a file in the .rtf or .html format, choose File, Save As and select either Rich Text Format (*.rtf) or Web Page (*.htm;*.html) from the Save As list. Type a name for your file, and click Save.

If you need a .pdf file, choose File, Save & Send, Create PDF/XPS document, and click theCreate PDF/XPS button. Type a name for the ebook, and then select the desired optimizing option and click Publish.
Test as You Go

Creating your ebook as a Word document gives you multiple options for publishing the ebook as a .pdf or converting it using an online or downloadable converter. As with any process that is likely to be somewhat complicated--particularly the first time you do it--you should create a chapter or two of your ebook and test the template design with your preferred publication method to make sure that everything works as expected, before you invest a lot of time and effort in formatting the entire document.

Although no “one size fits all” tool for ebook publishing exists, Word is a customizable and flexible layout tool. Its .doc file format is so widely used that you’ll likely find a way to get from there to any ebook format relatively simply.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

Setup Self-Hosted WordPress Blog in 20 Minutes For Business or Personal Purpose

The easiest way to build a platform in today’s world is to start a blog. While you can do this with free hosted options like WordPress.com, TypePad.com, and Blogger.com, you will get the most control by using self-hosted WordPress. This is what most serious bloggers use. 
However, this is where many people get stuck. They assume that the process of setting up a hosting service and installing WordPress is complicated and time-consuming. It’s not.(By the way, if you are not sure about the difference between hosted and self-hosted WordPress, check out this helpful infographic.)

In the video above, I show you how to setup your blog in twenty minutes or less. As a bonus, I explain to you how to write and publish your first blog post. If you don’t need this information yourself, perhaps you know someone who does. Please feel free to pass along the link to this post.
The good news is that you won’t need any technical expertise to setup your blog. This tutorial is simple. I walk you through the process, once click at a time.
If you prefer to read about the process rather than watch a video, you can do that too. I have written down all the steps here. This will also save you the trouble of taking notes as you watch the video.
Please understand: you can get everything you need just by watching the video above. The written material below is optional.
You can launch your blog by following these seven steps:
Gather your resources. To set up a self-hosted WordPress blog, you will need:
A domain name
A credit card
20 minutes (give or take)
It’s easier if you haven’t already registered your domain. It’s also cheaper. I will show you how to get one for free, using the service I recommend in Step #2.
However, if you have already registered your domain, no sweat. You will simply need to add an additional step. I will explain the process at the end of this post.
Set up a hosting account. This is where your blog will “live.” This is a server in the cloud (i.e., a remote computer), where you will rent space to install the WordPress software and manage your blog. It’s far easier than it sounds. Stay with me.
There are a hundreds of hosting services available—perhaps thousands. However, based on my experience and research, I recommend Bluehost. I believe it is the best option for most people for the following seven reasons:
Reason #1: Support. Bluehost has great 24–7 support via phone, e-mail, or chat. I have personally used it several times and found the support staff to be courteous, professional, and helpful. All of the company’s support staff are located in the U.S.
Reason #2: Reliability. Bluehost is super reliable. It boasts an uptime average of 99.9%. That’s about as good as it gets.
Reason #3: Ease of Use. Bluehost is super easy-to-use (as you can witness in the above video). In fact, shockingly so. They have worked hard to make it simple for non-geeks.
Reason #4: WordPress. Interestingly, WordPress itself only officially recommends three hosting services. Bluehost is number one. It hosts over 850,000 WordPress blogs.
Reason #5: No Limits. Bluehost offers unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains (i.e., you can host multiple blogs or sites on one account), and unlimited e-mail accounts.
Reason #6: Affordability. Bluehost is inexpensive—about $4.95 to $6.95 a month, depending on which plan you select. The longer you are willing to commit, the cheaper it is.
Reason #7: Values. In its Terms of Service (see Section 10.03, Bluehost prohibits pornography, nudity, and other adult content. It strictly enforces this standard and deletes sites that violate it. Personally, I don’t want my blog sitting on the same server as some pornographer. If you feel the same way, you may be surprised to know that almost all of the most popular hosting services allow pornography on their servers.

Note: I am a Bluehost affiliate, which means the company pays me a commission every time someone signs up via one of my links. But this didn’t influence my recommendation, because all hosting services have similar programs. I recommend Bluehost because I honestly believe they offer the best hosting available.

You should also know that I do not use Bluehost for MichaelHyatt.com. My site is too big and complicated. It requires a dedicated server with a mirrored backup. However, I have my other sites on Bluehost, as do several of my family members and friends. Bluehost specializes in shared servers and it is the right choice for 95 percent of bloggers.

By the way, Bluehost offers a thirty-day, money-back guarantee, which is written into their Terms of Service. I have personally tested this and got my money back within a few hours. So there’s really no risk on your part.

Okay, so if you are still with me, go to the Bluehost home page. Click on the Sign Up Nowbutton.

Now you need to decide whether you need a domain name or you already have a domain name. I’m going to assume that you haven’t previously registered a domain, using some other domain registration service (e.g., GoDaddy.com). If you have, I will explain what to do at the end of this post.

Now enter your domain name in the left-most box, choose the appropriate extension (com, net, biz, whatever) and click on the Next button.

Fill in your account information and then scroll down to select your package. As you can see, the prices range from $4.95 to $6.95 per month. It all depends on the length of your commitment.

Keep in mind, you will be required to pay the annual rate in advance. That’s how Bluehost is able to offer these super low prices. Here's
12 months at $5.95 per month is $71.40 per year and $71.40 upfront.
24 months at $4.95 per month is $59.40 per year and $118.80 upfront.
36 months at $3.95 per month is $47.4 per year and $142.20 upfront.
I would not sign up for any of the other services listed on this screen, but that’s up to you.
Now enter your billing information. Confirm that you have read and agree with Bluehost’sTerms of Service, and then click on the Next button. The system will now verify your credit card information.
Bluehost will next ask you to “Select the Upgrades that Best Suit Your Needs.” I would skip all of these. Click the Complete button at the bottom of the page.

Now you need to choose a password for your account. Click on the Create your password link:


Use the Password Generator option to create a strong, difficult-to-hack password. Copy this to the clipboard by pressing Command-C if you are on a Mac or Control-C if you are on a PC. Now click the Paste button to paste the password into the appropriate fields. The click the Create button. This creates your new Bluehost account.

Warning: You might get an error message here. It is simply because it sometimes takes a few minutes for the Bluehost robots to create your account. Don’t panic. Worst case scenario, call BlueHost Support at 1-888-401-4678.

Then you will be asked to login to your domain. Your domain should be automatically inserted for you. If it is not, type it into the field provided. Now use the password you just selected. Since you previously copied it to the clipboard, you can paste it with Command-V on the Mac or Control-V on the PC. Now click on Login.

You may have to click through another upgrade offer. Feel free to decline by kicking on the “No thanks” link and proceed to the next screen.

You should be at the Welcome screen. Now click on cPanel (short for ”Control Panel”). You should now see a page with a lot of buttons.
Step 3: Install WordPress. Don’t be intimidated by the number of buttons in this step—it’s amazingly simple. The process used to be complicated, and you had to be a semi-geek to pull it off. But Bluehost now makes it super-simple. Trust me, anyone can do this.

Scroll down the page to ”Website Builders.” Click on the WordPress logo and wait for the new page to load. You should now be looking at a page full of ”scripts.” Again, don’t get overwhelmed. Simply click on the ”WordPress” logo under “Blogs.”

This will tell you it’s loading up your Mojo account. Mojo is simply a system for managing automated scripts. Don’t let this confuse or overwhelm you. This is what you should be seeing.

A new ”Install WordPress” screen appears. Simply click on the “Start” button. Now select the domain on which you want to install WordPress. It should default to the correct one. Click on “Check Domain.”

You should get a new screen with an error message. This is normal. Check “Oops. Looks like something already exists there. I understand that continuing will overwrite the files.” Since this is a brand new blog, you do. So select the checkbox that says, “Directory Exists! I understand that continuing will overwrite files.”

If we were running this on a website that we already had up and running, we would not want to do this. But it is not an issue here. Now click again on “Check Domain.”

The next screen will say “You are almost there.” You don’t need the “Advanced Options,” so leave that unchecked. Click on the item that says, “I have read the terms and conditions.” Now click on the “Install Now” button. The installation process should begin and will keep you updated on the process. Be patient, this will take a minute or two.

When it is done, you will get a screen with your Blog URL, Login URL, username, and password. Bluehost will also e-mail this information to you, but I like to have a backup. I would write it down or take a screenshot. Also, copy the password to the clipboard (again, using Command-c on a Mac or Control-C on a PC).

You’re making great progress! Now things will speed up considerably.
Step 4: Load your new blog. Simply click on the blog URL address. Your new blog should load in a new browser tab.

As you can see, there’s nothing very fancy here. WordPress uses a very generic theme by default. But that’s the beauty of WordPress. There are thousands of themes available. I will recommend one in a minute.
Step 5: Log into WordPress. While you’re still on your blog’s home page, scroll down to the Login link in the lower right-hand side of the sidebar. Click on the link.

You should now be looking at your WordPress login page.


Now enter your username and password. (Remember, you wrote these down in Step 3. You also copied the password to the clipboard.)

You are now looking at the WordPress “Dashboard.” Sometimes, bloggers refer to this as the WordPress back-end. The front-end is what your readers see—your normal blog site. Theback-end is what you see—how you control what appears on the front-end.
Step 6: Write your first post. Click on the Posts | Add New option in the left-hand side menu. You should now see the New Post screen.

Enter the title of your post, perhaps something like, “Welcome to My WordPress Blog!” (I know, clever, right?)

Now write your first post in the field directly below the title. Perhaps you could explain why you are starting your blog, the topics you plan to write about, and how often you intend to post. (Tip: under-promise and over-deliver.)

Now click the Publish button. This literally publishes your post for the world to see. You can click on the Preview Changes button to see it.

Congratulations! You have just published your first post on your very own self-hosted WordPress blog.
Step 7: Bookmark your blog. You’ll want to come back to your blog on a regular basis, so it’s a good idea to bookmark the two main pages: the front-end and the WordPress back-end.

In case, you have already closed the page to the back-end, you can re-open it by going to: http://[the name of your blog]/wp-admin.

If you have followed my instructions, you now have your very own self-hosted WordPress blog. Pretty exciting, huh?

The next step is to install a theme. There are literally thousands of free ones available. Personally, I suggest spending a little money and buying a premium theme, like the Get Noticed! Theme for WordPress. This is the theme that I personally designed and built with my friend, Andrew Buckman.

Get Noticed! Theme for WordPress has features that no other WordPress theme has. It is particularly helpful for anyone wanting to build a personal brand—authors, speakers, comedians, musicians, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, entrepreneurs, and so forth.

Note: If you need to move an existing blog from WordPress.com to your new self-hosted WordPress blog, I recommend you read this article: “How to Properly Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.”

If you want to learn more about WordPress, I recommend WP101.com. This is a tutorial site with hundreds of videos on every aspect of WordPress.

If you know someone else who could benefit from this information, please pass along the link to this post. If you would like to embed the screencast in your own blog, please feel free to do so. You can find the video on both Vimeo and YouTube.
Optional: What if you have already registered your domain name on another service? No big deal. The first thing you will need to do is to point your domain name to the Bluehost servers. This will vary depending on where you registered it. Bluehost describes the process here.
For example, at GoDaddy, where I have some domains registered, you log in, then go to Domains | Domain Management screen:


Now click on the domain name you want to point to Bluehost. You should now be looking at the “Domain Details” page. Scroll down to the bottom, left-hand side of the page. You should see a section called “Nameservers”:


Click on Set Nameservers. A new screen should pop-up.
Enter ns1.Bluehost.com in the field for Nameserver 1.
Enter ns2.Bluehost.com in the field for Nameserver 2.

Click OK. That’s it. Now log out. It typically takes 24–48 hours for these changes to take effect. You might get lucky, and it will start working in an hour or two.

Please note: Bluehost or your Registrar (the company from whom you bought your domain) may change their procedures from time to time. If you have any problems, please check with them. I do not provide technical support for this process.

Once you have done this, you can begin the process of setting up your WordPress blog. In Step #2, after you click Sign Up Now, you will need to enter your domain name in the right-most box that says, “I Have a Domain Name.”


Now click the next button. Everything else should be the same. If you get stuck, you may need to wait for the change in your Nameservers to take effect before proceeding. Be patient.
Question: What questions do you have about the process of setting up your blog? I’m here to help! You can leave a comment !

Tuesday 11 March 2008

Best SEO Content Writing Tips

Before proceeding towards how professional, systematic and significant the SEO contents should be written; we first need to have thorough knowledge about what SEO literally means to various search engines and how important & significant the contents for those infinite number of visitors to these sites, seeking relevant information.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. These days SEOs are not only the primary expertise for content writers, but also for various other professional including web designers, E-book writers, editors of various magazines/newspapers and communication writers. Every business enterprises, companies, services agencies, whether large scale or small, they need other people or potential customers’ gets to know what they offer. To bring their products or services, they are required to market their products or services through advertising. These days, people usually rely on e-stuffs. So whatever he/she need, he’s now not required to go out and search personally wasting time, money & energy. Here comes our own internet. Once connected, the person doesn’t know who’s selling the item, where, when and so on. Now as there are lots of search engines, one enters the name of an item and you have numerous websites inclusive of some or in other ways, the item name. At this point, SEO significance comes in.
Search Engine Optimization is a kind of web designing & marketing technique on the basis of which, relevant web sites of the companies offering products or services, are visited by the visitors virtually. SEO helps various search engines, rank various web sites according to the number of times they were visited. Higher the ranking of the website means more traffic. Every entrepreneur, who holds a web site, expects more & more of traffics in his/her web site. Traffic here means, number of times people browsed the web site at the given point of time. The search engines are responsible to convert the value of traffics / visits into the potential clients for the company. So in this way, Search Engine Optimization plays a vital role in generating traffics into the web sites.
There are many factors which makes SEOs very significant. I believe the most important part of SEO must be the associated keywords, as much as possible, with the web sites. Any site, which is rich in the number of keywords, gets maximum rankings by search engines & optimizes the online visitors. The web sites with high rankings based on the relevant keywords, picked up by search engines and examine how thoughtful, relevant and representative these keywords are. The content writers must be experts in optimizing high quality writings, keeping in view, the ranking of the web site. SEO contents must also include high quality writing blogs, writing various articles, analyzing feedback, press releases and also adding high quality promotional contents to the website.
Secondly, a content writer, must include those contents, which visualizes what kind of information, a visitor is seeking. For such thing, a content writer has to understand the people’s choices, their needs, etc; so as to get stick to his client’s web site. Many people emphasize more on the keywords for their products or services and based upon them, they go ahead with the relevant web site. Some people prefer the rankings of the websites or ease of access to the links given.
This behavioral pattern of the audiences should be very clear to the SEO professionals. This can be accessible by being very active in social networking sites. Being socially active has number of benefits. People usually share their good/bad experiences, online shopping experiences, sharing files & images & so on. A real professional SEO content writer knows that their client’s websites must include links to share the images or experiences of products or services, including links to subscribe the newsletters of new products or services. Therefore, any Search Engine Optimization Content Writer possesses the skills of being extremely proactive in the various above mentioned platforms. He/she must be adventurous, inventive, active & creative.