The Meritorium Tour: A Review of the Latest Novel by Joel Ohman

Everyone Has a Number

What's yours?

Charley swallowed hard, and then slowly stood upright from his crouch. He needed to get back to camp, and soon. He was being ridiculous, the bird had to be long –

A whump of pressure scraped Charley’s back and jolted him to the ground. He rolled sideways and, standing on one knee, looked up to see…

Wavy, knee-high grass brushed Charley’s legs as he trudged along. They had been traveling hard for about five hours since awakening in the morning, all without food or water. He licked his cracked lips. They hurt, but not as bad as the manacles digging in to his neck, ankles, and wrists, which were already chafed and raw.

Welcome to the Meritorium Tour

Author Joel Ohman

This book takes you on a wild ride from page one to the very end. It is thought provoking and the characters are well developed. Charley is an accessible character and you relate to his struggle against the system. Unlike many other dystopian novels, Meritorium is not predictable and has plenty of twists and turns to keep you engaged. As you can tell I really enjoyed Meritorium. Meritorium is the second book in the series, but it can be read as a stand alone novel. If you enjoy good writing, engaging characters, and a plot that really makes you think, I highly recommend Meritorium by Joel Ohman.

About the Book

Under the System everyone is assigned a numerical Score that decides their worth to society and whether they live or die.

Charley has escaped from Meritropolis...

but in his quest to take down the System that has taken his brother from him, he must go through Meritorium, a city where gladiatorial games of life or death combat are waged between High Scores and Low Scores, man and beast.

Charley and Sandy must face man-eating plants, religious zealots, slave traders, and the ever present mutant animal combinations that roam a dystopian Coliseum presided over by Emperor Titus, the one man standing between Charley and the answers he seeks. Man is not an animal, but if they are to make it through Meritorium, will they even be able to tell the difference?

The lines between man and beast, friend and foe, will blur in Meritorium, the riveting sequel to the best selling Meritropolis.

About the Author

Joel Ohman is the author of Meritropolis--"The Hunger Games meets The Village with a young Jack Reacher as a protagonist". He lives in Tampa, FL with his wife Angela and their three kids. His writing companion is Caesar, a slightly overweight Bull Mastiff who loves to eat the tops off of strawberries.

Learn more about Joel here:

JoelOhman.com

Get notified of new books here:

Meritropolis.com

Follow Joel on Twitter here:

Twitter.com/JoelOhman

Connect with Joel on Facebook here:

Facebook.com/joeljonathan

About the Prizes

Don’t forget to check out the rafflecopter for this tour here! The tour prize is a $75.00 gift card to Amazon! Think of all the books you can buy with that!

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Letting wedding cards beckon the grand moments in your life

Deciding to get hitched is no cakewalk. There can be no better way than celebrating this gala event than making it official to all your near and dear ones. And what better way than going for some extraordinary invitation techniques. Over the years, wedding concepts have undergone a drastic change and brought in new trends to make this milestone in one’s life all the more special.  Today you see a variety in tastes in nearly everything concerned with weddings. From exquisite décor themes to lip-smacking dishes, there is unending effort much before the D-day.

One thing that marks a suitable platform to display one’s creative skills is the wedding card. Whether you opt for something simple and handmade or prefer catering to the tastes of tech-savvy people by taking the email or online card route, there is always scope for going offbeat and unique. However, that does not mean one goes out all his or her way to burn a hole in the pocket and opt for cards that are way above the budget. Since there are other things to manage in a wedding, wooing people in innovative ways can be done easily by a careful selection of designs.

Since modernization has impacted wedding cards greatly, here’s taking a look into some effective tips and tricks for designing wedding invitations:

Get a clear idea about the design

It is only on the basis of the design that an event’s formality can be determined. Your wedding style should be underlined in the best way possible in the invitation card. Most guests remain confused if the wedding pertains to the classic period, i.e. the traditional style or something glam, elegant or modern wedding. You can think of using gorgeous fabric scrolls or get some cutouts and designs from the latest printing techniques. For those who are artsy can pick out few pictures and make a collage to attract guests.

Color themes are in

Wedding themes are appropriate in making the auspicious occasion stand out to the rest. From invitations, save-the-dates and thank you cards, there are plenty of options to be thematic in outlook. It is not necessary you have to take a single colour as your pick but can balance it out with a cohesive look too. Just because you have chosen an ivory white shade for bringing alive the classic and formal look does not mean you will not throw in some colour.

Experimentation with the right sizes and shapes

Gone are the days when it was mandatory on your part to abide by the conventional shapes and sizes of invitation cards. This is no more the age of 4.5 inch by 6.25 inch rectangular card. As long as you know how to get shapes like squares or rounds or scalloped ones right, there’s no harm treading the not-so-followed route. Besides, online card creating applications have now become a more practical option for most bound by time factor.

Choice of legible fonts

There is every possibility that you go overboard with the invitations as regards patterns, colors and fonts are concerned. Obviously there are no set rules about these, but the most important aspect is that the text on the card is readable or on other words, must be legible. If online is what you swear by, select from fonts like Georgia or Times New Roman. Since the idea is to be decorative, it is quite natural that one will face difficulty in reading smaller sizes. For such reasons, it is always recommended you choose a large text size that does not forsake on clarity.

Bring in uniqueness

Your wedding must have something exclusive of yours. A wedding invitation card is the perfect platform for bringing in that desired uniqueness to the fore. It could be highlighting your love story through a short film or a video incorporating special matters in your life. Or you could also choose to add few quotes or photographs of yourself to bring in the necessary fun element. Whatever you choose, remember it’s all about getting that signature touch to your card, so you can customize it to your requirements.

Your wedding is not just the most special day in your life, but marks the onset of a fulfilling chapter in your life. By bringing something out of the box on the table in your invitation pattern, you are only laying the framework for cherishing something memorable throughout your lifetime.

For more information about the Indian wedding party planner, you can visit :Subhmuhurat.co.in Guest post written by Amoi Pall. 

Death in the Park

The wine and olives and Parmesan cheese were warm from the sun and the ants were just beginning to find them as Detective Slaughter looked down upon the victim. She had short gray hair cut into a bob, delicate features that had once been very beautiful but now were marred by the years. Her dress was simple and conservative but she was barefoot. As he looked at her lifeless corpse sitting on the park bench with her rotting lunch beside her he wondered what had brought her to this point. No signs of struggle were apparent and nothing seemed amiss. Could she just have met her fate this sunny afternoon in the park or was it something more sinister, he wondered.

Image by Flickr

As he investigated the scene he saw that there were two wines glasses and two napkins with food on them. That piqued his interest. Who had her dinner companion been and where had he or she spirited off to? Taking out his notebook, he despised Blackberries and stuck with an old fashioned notebook and pencil, he began to take notes of the scene. The wind was blowing gently and he could hear children playing in the background. Somewhere a dog was barking and a couple was laughing. Not a bad place to meet your fate, he thought as he continued to make his investigation.

Suddenly he spied a note clutched in the dead woman's hand. Carefully he used his tweezers to retrieve it and after he donned his gloves he read it. "I'm so sorry for everything, Love B" was all it said. Now he was curious.

How to Learn SEO

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, may seem like a concept that only the most technical minds can fathom. It really isn't, SEO is fairly easy to understand and it takes only a bit of research and study to grasp the concepts. One of the easiest ways to learn about SEO is to check out other blogs on the subject. There are many many blogs devoted to teaching you how to optimize your website and become an expert on SEO. Several websites even offer free courses on the subject as well as numerous videos on YouTube. I've found Google to be the best resource to learn SEO. Here's some of the links to get you started.

• Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide has everything you need to know to get started with SEO.

• The Official Google Blog has everything tips and up to date information about optimizing your site for Google. Say what you may about the world's largest search engine, they lay it out for everyone free of charge to learn how to use their own tools to boost your page rank.
   
• Google Webmaster Guidelines gives you the basics of what Google expects from your website and how to make sure it is optimized correctly. This is a PDF file you can save on your hardrive for reference. There is so much information in this section of the Google website that there is no way I could describe it. This is where I've learned the bulk of my knowledge about SEO.

This may look like a commercial for Google, but the fact remains Google is the number one search engine. They don't hide how to make your page rank increase, as a matter of fact the more you learn from Google the better it is for both you and them. Take some time and explore their site. If you don't want to do your own SEO work, contact The Cutting Edge Pros. We have experts who can help you out and increase your website's page rank. We offer free consultations and our rates are extremely fair.

Do Regular Blog Posts Really Draw Readers?

In a word yes. Case in point: I own a few websites with my business partners and one of them has been blogging on hot topics everyday at iThinkRevolution. Our subscribers have jumped from just over 20 to almost 1,000! Granted the posts are on hot topics, but it would seem that everything we've been preaching about regular posts and intelligent backlinks is working. We're all stunned and delighted that our subscibers have grown so much in just the past week. As we were trying to manage the list it kept growing and even as I write this more people are registering.

So if you ever think you're just writing your wonderful prose for no one to see, fear not. If you write it, they will come. You don't have to write a lengthy tome, as you can see this blog post is short and sweet. If you don't want to write it, hire us to do it for you. Contact us at The Cutting Edge Web Pros and let us put a package together that works for you and your wallet.

Are We Just Talking to Ourselves?

I've been in the SEO business for about a year now. It occurred to me the other day as I was thinking about work in general if we're just talking to ourselves on the internet or is anyone reading what we put out there. What I mean by that is there's a lot of blogs and articles written about the best way to do SEO and how to design a killer website. But who's reading these articles? Is it the people who want to learn how to do this or is it those of us involved in the business? Are regular people being schooled or are we just making so much noise?

Image by Renoir Gallery

I'd like to believe that people who want to learn are reading all of this information we're churning out. Take this blog for instance. I have no idea if anyone reads it or not. I have yet to build a following, but I'm doing everything I can to get it noticed. I know of blogs with hundreds of followers and many many comments for each post. What makes them different from blogs that sit there and gather dust?

Consistent posting. This is what separates the people who are serious and those that just do it for the heck of it. You have to be passionate and post at least three times a week, if not every day. It does matter what you write about, but what is most important is to have a real fire lit under you about what you're writing about. Your content has to be well written and original. We've covered all of that in previous posts but it's worth saying again. Content is king and frequent posting is the ticket to developing a following.

So are we talking just to ourselves or not? Well your website statistics will tell you along with any comments you get. Don't give up and keep writing, keep posting and stay with it. If you write, they will come.

Need professional blog posts or website content? Contact the pros at The Cutting Edge Pros Web Service to set you up with a package you can afford.

How to Increase Your Web Presence Simply and Easily

To get noticed on the web you need to have a powerful web presence. But if you're like most site owners you're not sure how to do this. It's really quite simple and anyone can do it. One of the easiest ways it to have several incoming links to your site. You can do this with what is known as the "hub and spoke" method. Sounds sort of Western, right? Well what this refers to is having your main website (expertly SEO'd and glowing) and several spokes out on the web with links leading back to your main site.

http://ruttledge.se/category/car/

For example, I use this blog as a spoke for a web services site that I own with two partners. Each post has at least one link back to our site and a call to action to visit it. Shameless self promotion, well yeah, but also smart SEO. The more links you have pointing back to your site, the greater the network you build and the better Google's search algorithms will work for you and the higher your page rank will be. In other words, the more spokes the stronger your wheel. There we go back to the Old West again...

In his recent blog, Five Pillars of an Internet Marketing Strategy, Harvey Rivet uses this method as one of his pillars to increase your web presence. This is a great article by the way and worth a read. A Facebook page and a Twitter account are also great spokes as long as you keep them active and well maintained. You can use the other major blogging sites such as Squiddo, HubPages, Huddle and a new one called iThinkRevolution. (Shameless self promotion warning!) 

If you need some more spokes, get a free consultation from the experts at The Cutting Edge Pros. They can set up and maintain blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts for your business that will draw visitors and get your page rank increased. Contact them today and become a force to be reckoned with on the web.
 

How to Kill Your SEO Juice and Suck the Life Out of Your Website

greencine.com

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the backbone of getting visitors to your site and turning them into clients, customers or regular readers of your blog. Like I've said before on this blog there really isn't a magic formula that will garner guaranteed results, but there are some basics that every site owner should know and practice. But sometimes knowing what NOT to do is as important as knowing what you should do. Here is a tongue in cheek list of practices that guarantee to kill your SEO juice and suck the life right out of your page rank. (If I offend anyone...too bad you shouldn't be doing these things anyway!)

• Have crappy content. Copy and paste from other sites, in other words steal content and post it as your own. Never mind that Google will flag your site as a dupe and kill your page rank, go right ahead and do it if you're too lazy to write your own or too cheap to pay a writer to do it for you.
• Don't worry if your links work. Never test them and don't be concerned if they lead to completely unrelated sites. 
• Stuff your pages with keywords. Write your content around your keywords and make sure you get as many as you can in there. So what if it doesn't make any sense, no one reads your content anyway and you're just writing for the search engines.
• Make your site as hard to navigate as you can. Keep your navigation a mystery. Everyone likes a maze right? If you visitors get lost it will just expose them to more of your pages.
• Spam forums and comments. Post totally unrelated comments and have as many links as you can in your comments and forum posts. Copy and paste a form-letter type comment on all the blogs and forums that you find. 
• Use Black Hat SEO. Use hidden text, misleading links, have one link for the search engine spiders and one for real people. 

These are just a few things to do if you want to kill your SEO juice. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can cut corners. Black Hat SEO may give you immediate results, but these results won't last and you'll end up killing your page rank or getting your site banned completely from the search engine's databases. A few posts ago I said that if that happens, you might as well be singing in a windstorm - no body is going to hear you. Real SEO does take time and diligence. Anyone who promises quick results doesn't know their facts. To be sure that you aren't doing anything that is going to hurt your site, get a free consultation from the experts at The Cutting Edge Pros. They offer complete SEO packages and can tailor one just for your site and budget.

Increase Your Web Presence - 5 Easy Steps

We all want to have a hefty web presence. It's what makes people find us and want to be on our websites. Did you know that there are 5 easy steps to accomplish this? It takes dedication and a bit of work, so don't go looking for a magic wand or miracle formula. Just like everything else in this world, if you want results you have to work for them. But don't dispair, you won't end up working 60 hours a week or 12 hours a day. The internet moves quickly and if you keep up your efforts, you will see results.

1. Make sure your site is optimized to the fullest. Is your content sharp and original? Do you have relevant incoming and outgoing links? Are your meta descriptions on target? If you answered yes to these questions you're on your way. If not, get busy and get your site some SEO juice. 
2. Do you have a Facebook and Twitter account and if you do are you active on them? Do you have social bookmarking accounts like Digg, Diggio, Stumble Upon and Delicious? If not you need them. Bookmark each and every update, article, Facebook status and Tweet that you do. Post interesting links on Facebook and Twitter, not just promotions for your website. Invite comments and interact with your friends and followers.
3. Use a blog either on your website or at one of the major blogging sites such as Blog Spot, Hub Pages, Word Press.com and Squidoo. Your blog is your voice and you can use it to build community, get links, point people back to your website through links and link with other bloggers in your industry. Post entries at least three times a week. They don't have to be long, just interesting.
4. Use article directories to post interesting articles that give away your knowledge about your industry. Invite comments and have at least one link back to your website.
5. Do you have a signature file on your email messages? This is one of the easiest ways to increase your web presence. A simple signature file with links to your sites reaches everyone that you email.

These are just 5 simple ways to get you noticed on the web. Think out of the box and you can discover different ways to market your site. If you don't have time to do these 5 steps, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. Consultations are always free and they guarantee results. 

Upcoming Trends for 2011

With the New Year almost upon us the question of what is on the horizon is on almost everyone's minds. The trends that were popular in 2010 will continue to gain momentum. These include the explosive popularity of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as the continuing development of mobile apps. Mobile access to your website should be one of the top priorities in 2011. In the US alone mobile use skyrocketed a whopping 110%. In Asia over half of all web users access the web via their mobile devices. You can see how popular mobile use is and it shows no signs of slowing down in the near future. As mobile devices become more and more sophisticated experts predict the home PC may go the way of the rotary telephone for accessing the web.

Social media is not far behind mobile use. Facebook has over 500 million active users, Twitter has over 300 million and LinkedIn is not far behind in third place. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the second most popular searched site behind Google. If you don't have social media accounts you should. If you don't you're missing out on a great number of possible contacts and customers. Social media is a way to connect with your customers and clients as well as keeping your name on the forefront of their minds. Every business needs social media accounts.

What does this mean for you and your business? It means that you need to be mobile friendly and connected to social media. If you don't have the time or don't know how to do these things contact the experts at The Cutting Edge Pros. They can set you up and maintain your website and social media accounts. Consultations are free and their rates are competitive. Let them work for you and get you in on the upcoming trends for 2011.

How to Choose and Use Your Keywords Wisely

You know how important quality, original content is and how important the right keywords are, but do you know how to choose them wisely? Choosing your keywords is more than just sticking words that you think are related to your subject into your content or blogs. It takes a bit of research and thought, but don't worry it's not rocket science and there is a free tool that makes it very easy to have effective keywords at your disposal.

webwise.com

Google Adwords Keyword Tool is the most comprehensive keyword research tool and it is free. You can sort your results by Relevance, Keyword, Competition, Global Monthly Searches, Local Monthly, Searches, Estimated Avg. CPC, Ad share, and Search share. You'll need to have a Google account first to use it, but having a Google account also lets you use all of Google's free webmaster tools and gives you access to their blog.

1. Make a list of possible keywords. Think of the most obvious ones and then think out of the box. For example if you own a beauty salon you can come up with the obvious ones but then also think in terms of the services you perform. You may want to include hair color, human hair color, haircuts for men, haircuts for women and children, you get the idea.
2. Go to the keyword tool and enter your keywords from your list one by one. You will then get a report showing the frequency of the searches based on the most recent searches done on Google. You will also get related keywords and phrases related to each keyword. 
3. Make note of the ones that perform well and also the ones that don't. Knowing what not to include in your content is also important. Pay attention to the competition column. This will tell you how many people are looking for this term. Using a keyword that has low competition is also a good idea because you can get the hits that are rather random or search term specific. 

Once you have your list you are ready to start writing. Keep your keyword saturation below 3% and make your content flow freely. You can designate primary keywords and secondary keywords to include more without making your content seem stuffed and pick up on more search hits. Use your primary keywords in the first and last paragraphs so that they will be found by the search engine's spiders when they crawl your site.

With a bit of creativity and research you can come up with a list of keywords that will give you quality content that is more likely to be picked up by the search engines and found by potential visitors to your site. Don't want to do all this work? Contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. They are experts at keyword research and content writing. They'll get you the most effective keywords and provide you with quality, 100% original content and blogs.

What An Article Writing Service Can Do For You

You know how important content, blogs and articles are to the search engine optimization of your website. But what if you don't have the time or talent to write your own articles? An article writing service can help you out, but exactly what does one offer you?

youchg.com

• Professional writers that are fluent in conversational English or your native language.
• 100% original articles
• Well researched articles that use reputable websites
• Error free articles that are grammatically correct
• Articles that are keyword optimized and not keyword stuffed
• Professional writers that know the difference between content, article writing and blogs
• Deliver your content, articles and blogs on time

This is what an article writing service can offer you. Ask for writing samples and ask about the writer's credentials. Professional writers will be glad to show you samples and let you know their experience. If you need a qualified article writing service, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. They have the experience and knowledge to provide you with articles, content and blogs that are dynamic and engaging. 

Follow Up To Yesterday's Article About Article Spinning Software

Guess what I found today? One of the articles that was either one of the spun articles from yesterday, or since it makes a bit more sense it could even be the original. Both articles showed up in a Google Alert so for now their SEO is intact, but soon when people and Google discover the horrible content their page rank will soon drop. Look at yesterday's post, Article Spinning Software - Is It Really Worth It? and today's excerpt and you will see what I mean.

smh.com.au

"The busy bee schedule and the lifestyle of hustle and bustle have simply turned humans into living robots. In this new era of internet, people then use web as an effective platform for connecting and keeping acquainted of what is happening around them and on the planet. Internet now meaning virtually everything for many has lead to drastic increase in number of internet users in past few years. Redefining life today, it has influenced almost every sphere of life. From financial transaction to business making and shopping, online is the new craze among users who believe in enjoying new technologies and lifestyle as a way of living."

This version is a bit more palatable, but not by much. This is just another example of what is wrong with article spinning software. Hire a professional, like the ones at The Cutting Edge Pros, and make sure you have quality 100% original content. Your website and your brand is worth it. 

Article Spinning Software - Is It Really Worth It?

Article spinning has become a popular trend in an effort to create more articles to post to directories and get your links out there. It is tempting to use article spinning software, but usually the resulting products read like pigeon English and make no sense or hardly any sense at all. Recently while doing research for this blog I came across a particularly horrendous article that is obviously the product of spinning software. Here's a small excerpt of it:
"The bustling bee report and a lifestyle of dispatch and discord have simply incited humans into critical robots. In this new epoch of internet, people afterwards use web as an effective height for joining and gripping proficient of what is function around them and on a planet. Internet now definition probably all for many has lead to extreme boost in series of internet users in past few years. Redefining life today, it has shabby roughly each
globe of life. From financial transaction to business creation and shopping, online is a new disturb among users who trust in enjoying new technologies and lifestyle as a approach of living."  

Pretty bad, huh? I could hardly get past the first sentence let alone read the entire 500 word article. I'm still not sure what they were trying to say. Anyone that actually speaks English can see that this is not written correctly. And this is just one example. I've come across even worse ones that left me wondering what on earth they were trying to talk about. Sure the links are in there and the search engines will see them, but what about real people? Don't you want real people to find your links and follow them to your site? Eventually the search engines will recognize that they are the only ones reading your articles and drop their page rank or delete them all together. 

It is better to take the time or spend the money to hire a professional to write quality articles that real people will want to read. The combination of quality original content with backlinks is the secret to high SEO juice. Believe me when I say as an SEO consultant and professional writer, the money you will spend on quality content will be returned to you many times over in revenue. There is no magic formula for SEO juice, each website is unique and each one deserves a personal approach and it does take some time to build your page rank. 

Don't take the easy way out and waste your time and money by using spinning software. Hire one of the professional writers at The Cutting Edge Pros and see the difference real human generated content makes. Contact them today for a free quote on your next project. 

Have you ever used spinning software and been happy with the results? Tell us your experiences with it and if you think it is worth the time and money.  

It's All Gotta Come Out Eventually

I know I usually write about SEO but indulge me for a bit since at heart I am a writer. Another writer friend of mine, Rogue you should follow her blog by the way, and I were talking over Skype and we both agreed that as writers there are some trains of thought that just need to come out so that we will have some peace. I hate it when I'm in bed and my mind won't sit still. It flits from one subject to another until I'm down some previously untraveled road wondering how I got there. Have you ever done that? Started with one random thought and a few minutes later you're halfway around the world with your thoughts? Does it make you think backward to see how you got there and then you discover your starting point and think, wow that was a trip? LOL I do it all of the time.

So what's a writer to do? Write of course. I am so I write, I write and I am. See how it is a circle that is sometimes vicious. As a writer our words define us and sometimes these thoughts are in us and have to come out before they drive us crazy. Non-writer friends find this to be strange and you should see the looks I get from non-writers when I talk about my characters writing my fiction. It does sound strange, but you develop these characters and the become real in your mind and they do indeed talk to you and tell you where they want to go and how they will act in certain situations.

Are we crazy? Well, yeah I think we are a bit insane at time. Especially when the writing takes over and we're dead tired but we have to get out one more page. And that's okay. I'd rather be a crazy writer than a sane non-writer any day.

Midnight Musings

The early bird can keep the worm!

Why does it seem that I get the most inspiration for my blog posts at midnight? I am a night person and maybe it is because I spend most of the day writing for other people. It is a proven fact that people are on cycles. It seems that I'm dead tired around 7:30 pm and then the closet it gets to midnight the more lively I feel. It used to be when I had a "regular" job that I had to be in bed by 10:30 pm or I'd be up all night. Now if I stay up all night I just sleep a bit later. This is great for the convenience factor, but since many of my clients are 10 to11 hours ahead of me that can be a bit tricky for communicating with them.

My family can't understand my hours. They still think I should be in bed at this time and be up bright and early in the morning. For example I stayed up until about 3 am reading last night so I slept in until around 10 am. When I woke up it was raining and dreary outside and I was all nice and warm in my bed so I closed my eyes to sleep just a bit longer. My mom woke me up at 1 pm with "are you STILL in bed??" They're convinced I'm depressed because I sleep so late and don't venture out of the house much. No I stay up late and don't want to go out in the holiday shopping crowds. It's a choice not a need.

When is your most productive time? Are you a morning person or do you get started later in the day? Does your family give you grief for the hours you keep and shake their heads when you mention how late you slept?

Why Your Business Needs a YouTube Account

Do you have a business? Do you have a YouTube account? If you don't - you should! Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine after Google? It's owned by Google so YouTube videos get preferential treatment over other video sites. Advertising on YouTube can be a bit pricey, but the revenue it generates will pay for your ads. You can also use Google AdWords to advertise on YouTube stretching your marketing dollars even further.

Use videos to promote your business and park your videos. They can be about anything to do with your business from product demonstrations, introduce yourself and your staff, interviews with industry experts or a weekly video newsletter. Be brief, be interactive and engaging, and be professional yet personable and your videos will become popular. People can subscribe to your channel and get updates as you post new videos and you can link your account with Facebook and Twitter.

With everything that YouTube can do for your business, you really need to check it out. If you need videos produced or a YouTube account set up and maintained, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. They know what it takes to get your business noticed and be successful. 

eBay Entering Mobile Arena

In a follow up to yesterday's post. Today it was announced the eBay has acquired Critical Path Software. This will enable eBay to develop mobile apps for their site.Mark Carges of eBay says that the company is "very serious" about developing its mobile market and the acquisition of Critical Path Software is hoped to speed this along. Last year mobile sales netted more than $600 million for eBay and it expects to increase this to $1.5 billion in the coming year. That's some big money!

valleywag.gawker.com

So what are you doing to bring your website to the mobile market? Tell us what you think of this development and how it will affect eBay. What do you plan to do to enter into the mobile arena or what have you already done?

The professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros can bring your website up to speed and help you with your mobile site development. Contact them today for a free consultation.

Why You Should Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

Some interesting figure passed across my computer screen the other day when I was doing research for a client's article. Did you know that over 70% of web users in Asia accessed the internet exclusively through their mobile devices? In North America the number of users that access the web through their mobile devices is over 50%. Today's smart phones are more like mini-PC's than cell phones. Even cell phones that have internet availability have come a long way toward user ease and quality of service. More people have cell phones than do not today and for this reason it is wise for website owners and designers to make their sites mobile friendly.

So what does this actually mean? It means that users can see your website easily on their phones and that the loading time does not take forever. One way to make your website mobile friendly is to take advantage of some of the programs and plug-ins available. WP Touch is an excellent plug-in that automatically converts your WP Blog into a mobile version that is easy to read on all mobile devices. You can even blog from your mobile device with the use of the Word Press Mobile Pack. This plug-in lets you update your blog, post new entries and answer comments right from your mobile device. The mobile admin pane gives you most of the tools and features of the WP website on your phone. WP Tap offers a complete selection of WP themes for your smart phone. Its admin panel offers the full range of WP features.

With the popularity of cell phones, smart phones and other mobile devices it is just bad business not to include mobile usability into your website design. Contact The Cutting Edge Pros to bring your website into the 21st century and get your website mobile friendly.

Google Insights for Search: One Powerful Tool

While dinking around on the internet I found a tool from Google that is perhaps one of the most powerful and useful tools anyone involved in internet marketing or online business can use. It's Google Insights for Search and I can't believe I didn't know about this sooner. With this tool you can pull up information that Google has collected from the millions of searches. You choose the search parameters and dates that you want to cover and Google provides you with graphs and information that you can use to track marketing trends and hot topics.

According to the Google website the results include:

• a graph with the search volume, indicating interest over time (GMT) for your terms, plotted on a scale from 0 to 100; the totals are indicated next to bars by the search terms (read more about how we scale and normalize the data)
• a breakdown of how the categories are classified
• lists of the top searches and top rising searches
• a world heat map graphically displaying the search volume index with defined regions, cities, and metros

Google reminds you that the results are based on searches that have received a large amount of traffic so keep this in mind when you use the tool. Google can do this because they keep a record of each and every search ever done. After a specified amount of time the searches become anonymous, but until then Google keeps a record of each search you do on their search engine.

This has sparked some concern about privacy issues, but like I always say, if they've got nothing better to do than keep track of my mundane life, have at it. You may feel differently, but face it – are you that important that someone would care about your searches? But I digress on the subject of this post. That issue could fill an entire page of content...

Personally I love the Google website. Everything you need to get the most of their products is right there on their website. The transparency of the company amazes me. More large companies should be so free with their knowledge. Perhaps we all could take a page from Google's book and give away your knowledge top help our customers and site users. But there I go again, getting off topic...

Give Google's Insights for Search a test drive and see what you think. If you want someone else to do the leg work for you and perform your trend and marketing research, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. If you use or have tried the Google Insights for Search, let us know how you like it and if it has helped your business.