Tag Archives: Writers/Bloggers

UPDATE: MS Excel Based Guest Posts Submission Manager – 2 Videos On Youtube!

Watch the videos and you’re likely to come away with a few ideas of how to become more efficient in your guest blogging efforts. I’ll be writing a useful guest post on the steps involved in building a simple Excel based Guest Posts Manager like this one soon.

Send in your comments/requests: If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this topic/application, I’d be glad if you post them right here. I’m trying to see if I can build this app to be useful to as many guest blogging enthusiasts as possible! (And if you want to send yours in privately, use this form).

Annotated screenshot image, showing how to view Youtube video in full screen mode

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In Video 1 of 4: I point out that you can build an Excel Guest Posts Submission Manager & Performance Monitor like this. Just watching these 4 videos can give you enough ideas to create your own custom spreadsheet based Guest Posts Manager.

In video 2 of 4: Continuing from video 1, I show how the Guest Post Manager can manage a huge list of target blogs. It instantly creates clickable links to each blog’s “Write for Us” page so you can submit with ease. And it also stores clickable URLs, traffic, link backs & other metrics for each published guest post.

Among other things, this application:

(a). stores URLs and Alexa traffic/Page Rank data for up to 1000 websites

(b). automatically generates clickable links for you to open the “Write for us” or “Submit Guest Post” page on the websites in your list

(c). also generates clickable URLs that open each of your published guest posts on the host blog

(d). Autocomputes a Weighted Average Performance Index (FWI) that identifies your best performing guest posts – AND presents it in an easy to understand ready-to-print dynamic
bar chart format.

Watch ALL 4 videos + get a FREE copy of this app ($500 USD value) at : http://spontaneousdevelopment.com/gpmanager.htm

Blogging, Article Marketing, & 21st Century Illiterates

Since 2003, I have actively used my writing (articles, reports etc) to promote different aspects of my business to potential customers. The (well) written word has always had this powerful effect on people.

I have learnt from personal experience – and observation of others over the years – that creative writing, weaving useful information with promotional copy, in a way that does not offend, can generate valuable sales leads.

In June 2012, after changing hosts, and re-organizing my website content, I launched this Word press blog to manage the changing content I have been serving to my different target audiences since 2005, when http://www.spontaneousdevelopment.com first came online.

This blog aims to attract buyers for NOT one, but a variety of services (and products) I offer:

  1. MS Excel-based custom spreadsheet software development
  2. Web Marketing Systems Development (including web content writing)
  3. Best Practice Systems Development/Extension Advisory Services Support for Farm Businesses.
  4. Performance Enhancement Talks, Seminar and Coaching Programs for my target audience of Entrepreneurs, Corporate Decision Makers, Employees, Parents, Teachers & Students.

This Blog Is Part of a Larger Web Marketing System

Using my skills as a multipreneurial service provider, I deliver products and services that help clients achieve their goals at work and in life, with less effort, and at less cost.

This is what I do – and it’s why I call myself a Performance Enhancement Specialist. There’s a good chance that you belong to one or more of the groups I identified above. And that means I may be able to help you.

The above is why even as I publish new posts on this blog, I WILL progressively relocate my over 171 articles from my main website (http://www.spontaneousdevelopment.com) into it, so that they can be more easily found by people who need them. This also will make it easier for me to update them – the static HTML pages built in Dreamweaver over the years, always made doing that a bit tedious in the past.

Data/statistics for my articles have helped me identify topics attractive to visitors fitting my client profile. I’ll be publishing posts here, to serve more of such audiences. By implication therefore, this blog is now an integral part of my re-invented Web Marketing System.

What I’ve enjoyed the most about using my Web Marketing System, is that it has repeatedly served as a SELLING TOOL with which I have closed profitable sales opportunities with clients. In many interactions with prospective clients, I have successfully used different aspects of my web marketing system in face to face meetings, to demonstrate to, and convince them to engage my services, or extend my mandate.

And this is apart from people who have purchased my products online after finding them through an article I wrote on a subject that interested them.

So, if you’re here and wondering why I have IMPORTED my write-ups labeled with dates going as far back as 2003, into this blog, the above clarification should hopefully have answered your question(s).

High Website Traffic May NOT Necessarily Win You Clients

Here’s the most important lesson I’ve learned in using my website as business marketing tool. This is a truth that I always make a point of alerting clients to – IF they listen:

You do NOT need tons of website traffic to sell your services. Depending on the kind of service you provide, it is actually possible to get more business than you can handle from as few as 1 to 3 clients in a year.

So, your website and all your web marketing efforts can be deliberately set up to CONVERT such high value/premium prospects into clients when they visit it.

If ten such people visit your site in one year, and one or two engage your services, you would be better off, than if a million visited but none stopped long enough to buy. Same rule applies when selling products. Some information products cost $29 USD. Others cost $3,500 USD. The two products may not target the same kind of visitors or require equally high traffic.

I operate this blog based on the above insight – gained from experience. And I also put my understanding of this fact, to the best possible use for my clients.

How I Can Help YOU

We all have our strengths. My greatest strengths are my adaptability/work related stamina, quick-learning skills, versatility and resourcefulness. I have used them to the benefit of my employers in the past, and clients MANY times since becoming self-employed over 10 years ago.

It’s those same multiple competencies that I now offer to any visitors to this blog who may seek solutions I offer. As long as you are sincere, and prepared to provide a clear brief about what you want done, you WILL get value for your investment in my services.

Take a tour of this blog, and review the depth and variety of experience based content on offer. Notice the deliberate effort made to include anecdotal accounts ane industry relevant research based information, to enrich your reading experience. That’s what will demonstrate to you that this blog is NOT an ego trip.

There’s more to see on www.spontaneousdevelopment.com

This blog is however NOT all there is. I say this at the risk of stating the obvious. I have set it up to make it easier to create, and maintain NEW useful content to visitors – some of who may fit my desired client profile.

However, I’ll also be incorporating links to different sections of the larger website in some of the write ups that are related to the theme or subject of any post I make.

Four key areas I will incorporate links for are:

(1). Creating automated MS Excel applications

(2). Developing low cost Web Marketing Systems

(3). Providing Farm Business Best Practice Ideas and Solutions

(4). Performance enhancement learning events

(5). Information products

FREELANCE WRITING

As you will see from the link provided at the top of this blog, I offer to write for interested persons. Since 2004, I’ve done A LOT of freelance writing for clients (in a wide variety of industries) in the course of developing web marketing systems for them.

Do You Have A Topic/Subject or Theme You would Like Me To Write A Blog Post About?

If yes, click here to send in details of your request for me to write on it.

You can use this as a risk-free way to evaluate the quality of my writing, if that aspect of my services interests you.

FINAL WORDS: About Article Marketing

From 2005, I leveraged articles marketing online, to attract traffic and generate pre-qualified leads for the services I offer as an MS Excel-VB Solutions Developer and also a Web Marketing Systems Developer.

Articles Marketing helped me achieve name recognition quite quickly. And it also helped me sell many of my information products.

However, following the recent Google algorithm updates, article marketing as a strategy suffered a drastic setback due to the abusive manner (frowned upon by Google) that some people had used it to create duplicate content online.

As a result, I’ve NOT submitted any new articles to Ezinearticles.com since December 2011, because I’m trying to decide on a safe and effective way to continue using that strategy. Some people have already thrown the Article Marketing baby out with the bath water. I believe that’s a mistake. And it might cost them later. A smart way is always to adapt.

That’s what I do quite well i.e. adapt. It is also why I love the following quote:

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write. They will be those who cannot learn, unlearn or relearn” – Alan Toffer

I believe article marketing done with integrity still offers major benefit. And it can be done to complement one’s blogging efforts. You just have to spend time learning HOW.

Now that this blog is up, I’m beginning to gain clarity on how I can use my Ezinearticles.com submissions to complement my blogging efforts.

Tayo K. Solagbade | 02 July 2012

Update(25th Aug. 2012) – I have since resumed publishing articles on EzineArticles.com:

1. 14th Aug. 2012 – Speaking Success: Abuse Your Audience and Lose Credibility (True Story).

2. 15th Aug. 2012 Ideas for Exploring Low Cost Feed Ingredients, When You Have No Laboratory On Your Farm

Click here to view my over 170 other published articles at the Ezine Articles Directory:

Proven Techniques(And Strategies) You Can Use To Start And Finish Writing ANYTHING

Are you like most people who want to write, but struggle? Then this article can help you. How many times have you come up with a title for an article, report, book, or speech/talk, but failed to get beyond the first page? In this article I share a number of techniques(and strategies) that I personally use individually, and in combination, on a regular basis to start and finish writing my articles, books, reports – and even speeches/talks I have to deliver! All the original publications available on this website were written using one or more of these methods. Some I learnt about from reading other authors’ advice, while others I actually conceived and developed by myself. Where the latter is the case, I have taken pains to mention it :-).

First published online: 2006

Continue reading

Write Great Articles That Get Read, By Computing The Readers’ Interest Index (RII)™ For Your Articles As A Guide!

It is possible to write a great article that never gets read by most of those who visit the site it is published on, even though it contains useful information they would appreciate – IF they saw it. A major reason why this happens is often the article title: No matter how loaded the complete article is with useful knowledge for readers, if the title is not “attention-getting”, and “action-inducing” enough to compel them to click “for more”, you may not be rewarded with as much exposure as your efforts would deserve. (Then there is of course the issue of keyword research in crafting an article title, which ultimately affects how easily an article will get found via search engines). Read this article to learn about the “Article Readers’ Interest Index (RII)™ Analysis” that can help you determine what titles your visiting online readers are most interested in. What you discover using that tool, will better equip you to decide, more intelligently, on the next article title/area to write on, that will give you the maximum marketing exposure you desire.

First published online:  2006

(This article is based on real-life applications developed by Tayo K. Solagbade) Continue reading

A “System” That Can Produce Millionaire African Writers

On page 36 of the Daily Sun (Nigerian Tabloid) of Tuesday June 21, 2005, a report was published titled “Our System can’t produce millionaire writers”. It was written by Amaka Adetula based on an interview with Nduka Otiono – a Poet and Secretary of Association of Nigerian Writers (ANA).

[NB: This write-up is based on an original piece written/published online on spontaneousdevelopment.com (in 2005)]

Nduka’s commentary on the state of writing in Nigeria was indeed illuminating. Continue reading

Are Entrepreneurs Who Achieve Success Luckier Than Those Who Don’t ?

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF - Are People Who Achieve Success Luckier Than Those Who Don't? [Featuring TEDx Talk: “5 Major Reasons Why Religion Is No. 1 Cause of Poverty In Africa”]Click here to download FREE PDF and start reading…

In my Ten Ways self-help manual, I referred to a definition of luck given by someone as: “when preparation meets opportunity”. Well, that was just one of the many definitions of luck that have been given by people who have achieved success (see more below). Some people always try to explain away another person’s success (or lack of it) as being due to luck (or bad luck). But the fact remains very obvious to anyone who will take an objective look at the issue. There is NO shortcut. Lasting success, very frequently, comes to those who apply themselves with commitment to a chosen cause. Continue reading

Fake It Till You Make It

The success philosophies I subscribe to, teach that one needs to ALWAYS Think and Act like a Success In Order To Become One.

A doctor without clients, is still a doctor.” – Jennifer Fader

Jim Donovan in his best-selling e-book (titled “This Is Your Life, Not A Dress Rehearsal“) – click to download FREE PDF – that I bought from www.asamanthinketh.com in 2001, described a technique called “Fake It Till You Make It” – FITYMI. He explained it by saying that without mis-representing him/herself, the person who seeks success must act as if (and BELIEVE) s/he has already become the successful person s/he wants to be.

You would speak in the present continuous tense about the value you intend to deliver. For instance you would say “I Help People Solve Their Business Financing Problems” and NOT “I Hope To Help People Solve Their Business Financing Problems”.

Your apparent self-belief is what will convince persons sincerely interested in having THAT kind of problem solved to engage you.

Faking It Till You Make It – As An Expert Who Speaks

Click here to read full article