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Inspired by Holly at June Cleaver Nirvana, I’ve stolen some badges (and made some of my own!) to participate in Potluck What’s potluck you say?

Potluck: random, unorganized thoughts smashed together into one post and branded as a potluck

 

Learn more about potluck and how to participate on Holly’s Potluck: How To. Now on with the show!

Just like the majority of regular bloggers, as a business I am very interested in how people are finding my site. The best part is some of the more random search terms used. My favorite of the week: admin assistant “a”

Now I wonder why they were searching with the letter A in quotes. I like to think they were looking for an A+ assistant… but who the heck really knows what they were looking for. You have any ideas?

This is my Most Epic Tweet badge that I created. Feel free to steal and use for your potluck.

My most epic tweet last week was in response to @TPEntrepreneur’s tweet: “Putting your website address (URL) on every email you send, on your letterhead & business cards is obvious. But where else could you put it?”

My response: “Written on your forehead, wall of a bathroom stall, sand on the beach, your car, social media profiles — are a few ”

Oh, and don’t forget to follow me on twitter at @AVirtualEdge.

And now for free resources and tools (I made this badge, too – feel free to steal it).

One of Shauna’s client’s – side note: grammatically, that was a double possessive. I can remember my mother saying something about these when I was little, but darned if I can remember if it’s actual proper English – introduced me to this nifty free online tool, a color palette generator. You plug-in the URL of an image and it will pull together a color scheme/palette from it. Loving this tool and used it for the Most Epic Tweet Badge. Find it online at http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/.

That is all for this week! I hope you enjoyed my first potluck, and if you have any suggestions on other ways I can put a biz spin on it please leave your thoughts in a comment below! And don’t forget to check out the other potluck in the Blog Hop below!

Tags: Free Resources, potluck, tweets

Who couldn’t use some free caffeine? If you’re anything like me, there are times where you live on caffeine.

It’s easy to enter. You get one entry for doing any of the following:

Following me on twitter @AVirtualEdge.

Friending me on facebook.

“Liking” AVirtualEdge on facebook. This is a new page and I would really love your support!

Please leave a seperate comment for each that you do and a winner will be selected by random on Sunday, May 23rd! The content closes at midnight on Saturday, so don’t forget to get those entries in!

Thanks and a big shout out to Business2Blogger, a rockin’ service that makes blogger marketing easy for both the business and the blogger!

Tags: blogger contest, starbucks contest, starbucks gift card

Welcome to my second installment of the WordPress Plug-In of the Week!

This week I’m going to review iCopyright, a plug-in for content publishers so that content can be tracked and monitized when republished.

I pulled the following information about the plugin directly from the iCopyright developer’s website:

Some of the many benefits to publishers of adding the iCopyright Tag include:

• Offers permissions and licenses at the user’s point of contact with the content
• Offers permissions and licenses when users get the content through aggregators, republishers, and other users (self-perpetuating copyright licensing system)
• Enables the publisher to efficiently syndicate their content to thousands of downstream blogs and publisher websites, on a revenue-sharing basis
• Provides advertising-supported free uses for limited printing, emailing and posting by users
• Sells and delivers reprints, email forwarding, posting and republication rights
• Educates users about copyright; about “Fair Use” and when a license is absolutely required
• Ensures that the publisher’s branding, copyright notice and links to the publisher’s website stays with the content when users share it or re-purpose it
• Finds unauthorized uses of the content and compels infringers to buy a license or cease using it
• Markets the publisher’s content to new readers via iCopyright’s Clip&Copy service
• Provides corporate users with a one-click permissions and licensing system through which employees can bill the company to copy or repurpose the publisher’s content
• Integrates with the publisher’s reprint vendor and other partners to provide leads and more opportunities for revenue

The plug-in does require a sign-up, which I found is easiest done through your WordPress installation when installing the plug-in. I don’t see the plug-in for download on the developer’s site, so if you decide to install it, it’s easier just to go through your ‘add plugins’ menu item in WordPress.

Once you’ve downloaded, installed, signed up, and activated the plug-in, it will look like this (though you have some options in the plug-in settings of the display):

Top of Content:

Bottom of Content:

Have a plug-in you use and would like to recommend? Feel free to leave a comment and I’ll check it out and review it! If you use or try iCopyright please share your thoughts with us!

Tags: copyright plugin, iCopyright plugin, Wordpress plugin

You may have heard some of your colleagues speak of hiring a “VA” or Virtual Assistant and you may have wondered how this works and how you can benefit from it. The key factors of hiring a VA over an employee or just doing the work yourself are: time, money and expertise. These factors are of course very important to all businesses. They always need to be improved upon continuously so that your company can run smoothly, efficiently and profitably. You may think you can do it all yourself, that you can’t afford to hire anyone, or that hiring an “employee” is safer and easier. Let’s look at the three factors in depth.

First, let’s look at time. If you’re doing everything on your own, you are probably often thinking, “I really need to be working on marketing strategies,” or “I really need to be increasing my billable time,” or whatever it is that you do best and what your business is really about! Yet, there you are, doing data entry, research or tweeting and facebooking throughout the day. As a company owner or entrepreneur you need to spend your time wisely to get a jump on the competition. Can you do it all? If you work 12 to 18 hours a day – probably. But is that why you decided to own your own business or be self-employed? Probably not.

You may wonder how you can save money by hiring a VA. If we think about what it takes to hire an employee, we can easily add up the savings. When you hire an employee, you pay them salary or on an hourly basis – sometimes just to sit and wait for the phone to ring. You pay them for every bathroom break, personal phone call or co-worker chat that they have. When you hire a Virtual Assistant you pay only for the work that is actually performed, down to the minute. Sometimes you pay a flat rate for a project to be completed; regardless of the time it takes for them to complete it. Of course you also save money on all the extras that go along with hiring an employee, rather than a VA. When you hire a VA there is no Worker’s Compensation or disability insurance to purchase; no lengthy tax paper work to keep track of. No Social Security Tax to pay – and of course no paid benefits like sick days or vacation time!

What is YOUR expertise in? Probably not document formatting or creating calculations in spreadsheets, social networking for your business or updating your website. Your expertise likely lies in what your business is all about. As an entrepreneur or business owner, you may be familiar with Michael Gerber’s book, “The E-Myth Revisited”. Gerber talks about the baker who opens a bakery, but not only has to make the pies and other baked goods that they specialize in, but who also has to market the business, wait on customers, keep the books, clean the shop and just about everything else. The baker’s business is just starting and they feel they can’t afford to hire anyone to help.  But do you think the business will make it? Is the baker really happy owning their own business, when they are working long hours and having to rush through what they love to do and what they do best – baking? The whole idea is lost in the logistics of it all. A Virtual Assistant has the expertise to do the things that need to be done to keep your business running, while you do what you are passionate about and what your business is all about!

Hiring a VA will save you time by getting things done quickly and efficiently; giving you your life back. Hiring a VA will save you money by getting paid only for the work actually accomplished and not for “dead air” time, as well as saving on benefits. And lastly, the expertise of a VA will allow you to do what you got into business to do – your passion, your business, and your expertise! Oh, and somewhere in there, you get to have a life outside of work too!

Tags: find a virtual assistant, hire a virtual assistant, using a virtual assistant, virtual assistant

So you have finally figured out SEO and figured you were in the game now, right?  Wrong!  Like technology, online marketing has one up on you again!  The latest buzz is SMO – Social Media Optimization. Social media networking, when done correctly, can drive huge amounts of targeted traffic to your website.

The good news is that many of you may already be doing it.  SMO is the use of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites to promote and draw attention to your company and your services or products.   Why social networking? Because the old ground rules still apply, people buy from people they know, like and trust.

If you’re a Facebook user, you know that there are tons of groups and fan pages on the site to become a part of – and the user does so at will.  For instance, on my profile you will see I’ve added WordPress, Microsoft Office and newegg.com – among others on Facebook.  They are companies whose products I enjoy, who I trust and who I want information from to see what is new with their products. 

As entrepreneurs, we can do the same thing.  Most of us are not as big as Microsoft or even newegg.com – but we can invite and offer something to those who may be able to use our services.  We can offer something new, something exciting and something different – right there in the moment!  Those who are listening to the buzz we create will be doing so willingly (unlike the Facebook ads that pop up beside our friends and family on our Home page).  This is the same for Twitter, Digg and the other social sites out there that help us connect with our target market. 

Social media can be a successful component in your marketing plan. The key in this is not to get followers on a social site and then hit them in the face with your product or service!  And you need to participate! Give them something so that they want to get to know you better and along the way, they will want to see what else you have to offer.  Engage with them and then they will get interested in you and what you are selling!

Tags: SMO, social media optimization, What is SMO

This new WordPress plug-in is pretty useful, especially for those of us with do-follow blogs. It’s called InComment and you can learn a bit more about it at http://www.gospelrhys.co.uk/plugins/wordpress-plugins/incomment-wordpress-plugin. What this plug-in does is let you know where the people who comment on your blog came from. For me, I installed InComment for the exact purpose the developer has listed on his website – so that anyone who comments on my blog isn’t finding me from some listing of do-follow blogs. It can also be useful though from a marketing perspective, so you can see where your most engaged visitors are coming from.

Have a plug-in you would like to nominate for AVE’s Plug-In of The Week? Feel free to add your recommendation below or contact me with it and maybe you’ll see it featured here!

Tags: incomment, plug-in of the week, wordpress plug-in

As it seems many people have discovered, I changed my blog to allow do-follow links. This is just my way of giving a little back to those who actually want to engage in conversation and leave their comments and thoughts. All comments are personally moderated and doing any of the following will send you directly to jail. You will not pass go, you will not collect $200.

• A blog post is NOT an open invitation to those with the first name “SEO” or whatever brand of shoe it is you’re peddling. Anyone who uses a keyword as their name is lame and not the type of person who’s opinion I care much about.
• If your site is riddled with pop-ups, in a language other than English, the newest nutritional supplement packaged to look like an actual pharmaceutical, get your spam on someplace else.
• You get one link, two on occasion if the link you suggest could be an actual benefit to my readers. If not enhancing the conversion with an actual informative link, get lost.
• Enough with the self promotion. This is my blog, not yours. If I wanted to promote you, I would interview you or otherwise mention your products and services on my own. If you were really that good, you wouldn’t need to post on someone else’s blog how great what you have to offer is.

Get the idea, folks? Yes, spammers suck, and will not be given any link love from me. For all the awesome people that know where it’s at – you rock and thanks!

Edited on April 25, 2010 to add:

Oh, and if your comment is nothing at all relevant to the discussion and is riddled with spelling errors and typos, your comment will also end up in my virtual round file.

Tags: spammers suck

You tell ‘em, Sammy Davis Jr. (full lyrics to “I’ve Gotta Be Me”)

Being an entrepreneur, especially a solo-entrepreneur, and lacking confidence or not being yourself is going to annihilate your possibility for success. If you’re not confident in yourself, it’s going to show… on your website, in your marketing materials, in your communication with others. You may be sitting there saying “Duh!” but this really goes deeper than that.

No matter how good you are, there is always someone better than you… no doubt about it. Skill-wise, you are replaceable. Sorry, it’s true. There’s nothing you can learn that someone else can’t learn. But what can’t be replaced or replicated is you (unless we’re talking growing a human ear on a mouse kind of replication, but I digress). It’s taken me longer than it should have to realize this.

You see, I am great at what I do. But there’s A LOT of people that are good at what I do and many more that will become good at it. My website used to be void of personality, mimicking the types of sites many law and accounting firms have… BORING. Pretty much a pamphlet on steroids. After being hit over the head by inspiration (see credits below), I’ve decided that it’s time to just be me. That’s the one thing no one else can be.

I know I’m a little raw. I:

• Drop the f-bomb frequently (when not around my kids).
• Listen to hard rock and metal.
• Am fiercly competitive.
• Tell really crude jokes.
• Am a gamer.
• Like my in-laws (does this count?).

So what if I’m not the typical soccer mom?

Will my potential clients read this and decide that I’m not the right fit for them? Maybe. And that’s OK. I want clients that can see a little of themselves in me. I want to make that connection with the people that I am surrounded by. To do that, I needed to be confident in me.

Credits

@Shauna Callaghan: Shauna’s awesome, a client of mine, and I’m not getting paid by her to include her here Shauna’s a killer blog designerand we have lots of fun on Skype. I sometimes find it difficult to charge her because I consider her a friend.

@Kai Rostcheck: New client, but I already know he’s cool. Kai was the first victim after my “enlightenment” and was not offended when I referred to myself as a BAMF. He’s putting the finishing touches on a new program, Free Marketing Made Easy. If you need help with Internet marketing, check out the website.

@Scott Stratten: I twitter stalk this guy. You should, too. He’s kind of a big deal on twitter and has the t-shirt to prove it. Seriously, I admire this guy because he’s real and knows how to virtually connect with people. Check him out online at UnMarketing.

Tags: I've gotta be me, Personal Development

One can never have too many fonts, right? Dafont.com is home of the best free fonts on the web.

What’s your favorite font? Is there a particular style you seem to stick with? Here are some of my favorites:

Angelic War

Love Ya Like a Sister

The Gingerbread House

Sunday Monday

Bethany Style Letters
Ok, so this one is only on the list because I have a daughter named Bethany.

Tags: best free fonts on the web

Is blog management overwhelming? Maintaining your blog can be time consuming, especially when you’re not tech friendly or when you’re just swamped with other fish to fry. If you don’t take the time to care for your blog, you’re missing out on loads of traffic. You’re not super human with special powers and sometimes you can’t always do it yourself.

Here’s some of what I can do to help relieve your stress:

• Create and maintain WordPress blogs and sites
• Draft posts and pages
• Plug-in installation, integration and setup
• Theme installation
• Ad management
• Add custom images, tags, titles, etc., to your posts and pages
• Comment moderation
• Hosting and domain management
• Blog backups
• Monitor traffic statistics
• Create and maintain RSS feeds

 Let’s get started! Contact me.