This is Sunday Post Round Up for another week featuring some interesting post from around the world wide web. Round Up gather post from my readers and features them here if you notice any interesting post during your logging journey please feel free to email the link to me and i will feature them here. Round Up is my Sunday feature where i focus and giving back to the blogging community  for there support. here are five featured post for you to enjoy. Remember that sharing is caring and feel free to mention this article on all your favourite social networking and social bookmarking websites.

(1) Drive-by Guest Bloggers: The Dangers of Spun and PLR Content - Beware of drive-by guest bloggers offering to write free articles for your website. You may say, “But I’m not a writer. I can’t turn down free content!” You know that you need fresh content to attract buyers, and guest posts seem like an answer to all your prayers. Free? Even better. But when a writer appears out of nowhere, offers to write you unique posts – exclusively yours – in exchange for a backlink or two; remember that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Your rich, overseas fourth cousin, seven times removed, did not just die and leave you a database overflowing with free PANDA food.

(2) Building Authority and Influence in Google+ - When Google announced last week that they’ll be starting to roll out Search Plus your World, it became more evident that search is shifting towards a simpler way of retrieving data for their users by merging personalized search and social search on their result pages for logged-in users (including relevant Google+ pages). This sudden – but already foreseen – move from Google is definitely going to make massive changes on how businesses should market themselves, as this is certain to affect traditional online marketing methodologies.

(3) Social Contest Marketing for Buzz and Links - It’s no secret that social media based contests are a sure fire way to gain brand exposure, social followers and links. There are many ways to go about executing your contest so I thought I might go over some ideas and tips that have worked wonders for clients in the past. I’ll be getting into everything from which social platforms work the best, tools to help you out and how to score links all over the place during the process. I’m pretty excited to be writing about this topic mainly for one reason. Building a strong social follower base is key to a brand’s survival. Why? Well, it scares me to think how many businesses rely mostly on Google’s organic traffic for business and just how much a strong social following is contributing to organic rankings. The organic search game is a volatile one so take advantage of your contest and start growing your follower base. The potential for your Facebook fans getting your brand message to their friends is great! Since Google+ posts are now being indexed in the SERPs, there’s a whole other angle to start thinking about.

(4) Advanced Preparation for SEO Campaign + Link Building Plan Blueprint - It has been really busy starting this year, as you saw there wasn’t a single post published here in January, so I decided to give you something to make up for the lack of posting. If you are serious about doing proper SEO for your website and capitalizing on link building and social media as well as understanding what is required to rank high in your targeted niche, than save this page for when you have time to concentrate and take notes. I like to think there are 4 stages in preparing a serious SEO campaign: Research Preparation Action Analysis Of course this is a circle, so once you complete the analysis of your work and results you need to tweak the campaign accordingly and continue. For those of you that want a quick reminder of the process outlined in this article here is a slideshow I did on the topic, and at the end of the post you will find a masterpiece of my designing skills, a blueprint.

(5) 2 Free Binverse Usent Accounts to winners of the first ever giveaway contest on this blog - Here comes a pleasant surprise !! A giveaway for the visitors of this blog. Yes, this is for the very first time, I have come up with a giveaway for the readers of this blog. I don’t know why I couldn’t think on the same earlier but anyways, here is a great chance for you to be a part of the same and become a lucky winner..! Now, what does the lucky winner get ? The lucky winner has a chance to grab the Binverse Usenet Account for free. You may be wondering what is this all about? Well, once you have the free account with Binverse Usenet, you can download as much content as possible from the same (50 GB). For those who are unaware of the term Usenet, please visit this Usenet page to know more on it. In short -

That is all for this week featured post please remember that sharing is caring retweet and share on facebook

Graphic design may not be the first thing that occurs to businesspeople about their business operations. As a matter of fact, it’s everywhere, in every business. From the website to the company letterhead, graphic design is very much part of the business process. A lot of major companies retain graphic design services on a contract basis, simply to cover their basic needs for materials for their online and hard copy publications.

The roles of graphics in business

There’s nothing cosmetic about graphics in business. In advertising and marketing, visual presence is one of the core elements of product presentation and public image of a product or a business. The graphics are quite literally the public face of the business.

The development of online business and the rise of the new media have added a few more dimensions to this situation. A simple PowerPoint presentation, for example, generates a lot of visual information, and that information needs to be very well presented to have an impact. The same applies to the various videos used by practically all businesses online and elsewhere.

The strictly conventional market role of graphics is presentation, but there’s another extremely important factor- Competitive values. Some graphics are a lot better than others, and in the real marketplace, graphic design often affects choices made at point of sale. That’s a fact which has been progressively re-orienting commercial visual materials of all kinds and raising the standard of production of everything from commercials to basic logos.

Graphics in digital media

Digital media and new technology have done a lot to enhance and develop new graphics options, too. What were once very expensive “visual effects” are now standard, and there are more options coming on stream every day. The big Adobe Creative Suite packages are a good indicator of the level of demand for a vast range of digital graphic options from professionals in all forms of visual and graphic media.

The fact is that the borderline between graphics and other media has been eliminated. The new media is really a hybrid of different media, and graphics are now built in as default properties of this medium. Quite literally everything related to modern business involves graphics and graphic design issues, at some level.

Graphic design best practice for businesses

There are two basic options open to businesses regarding graphic design:

1. Engage the services of a graphic design company to streamline the production of visual content. This is a cost-efficiency exercise as well as administrative best practice, keeping the expertise of the graphic design company available to deal with any needs for new media, publications, etc. on standby.

2. Get good graphic design through an advertising agency or marketing consultancy. This is a default quality control, ensuring professional standards of graphics work are available for promotions, literature, etc. on a needs basis.

Graphic design is now very much part of the business mix. It’s important to ensure high standards of presentation and professional quality materials are standardized, and that production of new materials can be done cost-effectively. Quality and talent are the core elements of business graphics, so lock in a good provider for your business.

This is Sunday Post Round Up for another week featuring some interesting post from around the world wide web. Round Up gather post from my readers and features them here if you notice any interesting post during your logging journey please feel free to email the link to me and i will feature them here. Round Up is my Sunday feature where i focus and giving back to the blogging community  for there support. here are five featured post for you to enjoy. Remember that sharing is caring and feel free to mention this article on all your favourite social networking and social bookmarking websites.

(1)  A blogger’s decision to sell his blog for lump sum cash – A question for my blog readers – Have you ever been approached by any person who is interested in buying your blog? Have you ever thought of selling your blog and if yes then what really made you think on the same? And if not then why shouldn’t you be selling your blog ? Eventually money has to come anyway, either your carry on your blogging with a hope to see people visiting in huge numbers on your blog and being kind enough to click on your ads or affiliate links which eventually keeps money pouring in. This surely doesn’t happen overnight and instead requires continuous involvement, dedication and commitment to pursue your blogging goals. It may take a year or two to see those results and when it happens, nothing looks more satisfying then. Well, I am still to reach that satisfaction level but anyways, what if I had sold this blog.

(2) Sync Chrome Bookmarks With iPhone – Want to sync Chrome bookmarks with iPhone? Google Chrome is a widely used desktop browser but however there is a lack of app to sync its bookmarks, open tabs and history from your desktop to iPhone while you are on go. However, the guys at Macstories have reported that VoyagerApps.com have come up with an app which will enable you to sync Chrome history,bookmarks and tabs right from your desktop to iPhone and other idevices.

(3) How to Increase Website Conversion Rates with Derek Halpern - If you thought my quest to increase my website conversion rate ended with the last post on conversion optimization, you don’t know me really well.I decided to get an extra pair of eyes to take a look at Traffic Generation Cafe and tell me what I was doing wrong and, hopefully, right. And not just ANY pair of eyes mind you, but someone who knows what he is talking about (most of the times) and is not afraid to give it to me straight.

(4)  Google’s Policies & Principles: Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service – All Google users should. I’m aware that Google Friend Connect (GFC) widget will no longer be supported on non-blogspot blogs but there are more great things to expect. The general Google policy aims to: – make it easier to work across Google. Simplicity is the key. While Google keep sending reminders about product policies and terms of services, it is easy to overlook some emails and notes. Some people also tend to forget their usernames and password. But with the new policy, merging has lots of rewards, too.

(5) THE 40 BEST IPAD APPS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS - The best way to get your parents to buy you expensive gadgets has always been to really sell the educational value. “But Mom, if you buy me a Nintendo, think about how much my spelling will improve playing Wheel of Fortune.” Of course, these days it’s all about the iPad. For every Angry Birds there’s an educational game out there to improve your child’s mind. Here are 40 of the best apps for your young Einstein. Most of them are paid apps, but if you’ve got $500 to drop on an iPad, we’re thinking you won’t mind.

That is all for Round Up This week

Hard copy has been reincarnated as a high value business product. High quality hard copy is now considered best practice, high status business material. This new status has been achieved by a combination of adapting search engine optimization principles to hard copy and by top quality print design. The top quality hard copy product is best described as the very high quality corporate documents you’ll have seen at work and when looking for business information.

The reinvention of hard copy as a top of the range business product is a very interesting study in media presentation and information management. The glitz and flashy media of the web has helped develop a greatly improved approach to hard copy, and it’s paying off well for businesses around the world.

The elements of good hard copy, explained

There are several elements in the new hard copy:

· SEO style information- The new hard copy is based on a basic SEO principle- Making it easy for people to find the information they need. The new layouts are information-rich, and include fundamental areas of interest for targeted readers.

· A typical example is something like “Big Trucks” or “Big Rigs”. The subject is obvious, and whether you’re printing a magazine or a brochure, that’s what your target audience is looking for.

· Best quality visual presentation- Modern readers, understandably, won’t look twice at something which doesn’t have at least some level of visual appeal. This is another SEO principle, replacing picture tags with subject-relevant images, and presenting those images very well.

· Information value- One of the most fundamental principles of advertising, marketing and SEO is content value. With any type of media, readers make a split second decision whether they want to know about the content. The new hard copy format is based on additional information which promotes the product as having genuine value to the reader.

Business cards- The ultimate hard copy value in your pocket

Business card printing is a very clear example of the values of information in hard copy form. As you know, some business cards are much higher value than others, and it’s largely a result of the information they contain. The business cards you keep have actual value. When you keep a good magazine or business document, it’s on very much the same basis.

Now think about it for a minute- The hard copy products you actually want and keep are based on:

· Information you need

· Visual elements you like

· Subjects you both want to know about and like

This is your own personal search engine at work, hunting down what you want, using subjects as your preferred keywords.

It’s also the basic SEO principle behind the value of the new hard copy business products. A lot of web media products, like Adobe’s various design products, are based on achieving that level of product value. Modern printing services are in fact using very much the same methods as web-based media, which has led to the rebirth of a medium which was supposed to be “obsolete” because of the web.

What went around has come around- The new hard copy business materials are now top of the range marketing products. Check out what your printer can do for you, because you’ll be astonished.

3G networking has been something of a slow burner over the years, largely because it took mobile hardware so long to catch up and to unlock the potential offered by this now widely available service. While there may be a good deal of hype surrounding next-gen 4G networking, 3G is still more than adequate if you want to experience the new age for internet browsing through mobile phones. 3G has enabled the creation of mobile broadband services, online gaming from your handset, video calling, app downloading and much more, so it deserves plenty of praise.
3G international roll-out began over a decade ago, but the mobile phones of the time were hampered by small screens, low display resolutions and limited input options as a result of physical keypads. Smartphones gradually began to emerge to make a better job of utilising 3G. Moreover, the Nokia N Series and RIM BlackBerry ranges brought better media and emailing capabilities to the table.
However, web browsing was still underwhelming, in part due to hardware limitations but also as a result of a dearth of mobile-optimised websites. Endless scrolling and fiddly navigation meant that things needed to change if internet browsing through mobile phones was to compete with the fixed line browsing experience or the cable services in my area.
Few would disagree that the Apple iPhone’s launch in 2007 was the first point at which there was a phone with the right components to squeeze a desktop browsing experience onto a modestly sized mobile. However, since Apple neglected to include 3G networking capabilities in this first iteration it would be another year until high speed mobile internet could combine with a device capable of making web browsing really work whilst on the move.
The key element which the iPhone perfected and upon which subsequent handsets from rival manufacturers have expanded was the way in which users could interact with websites loaded over a 3G connection. While mobile optimised sites are growing in number, many people are still forced to look at the desktop version of the site on their handset. However, with the prevalence of touch screen technology in modern handsets it is easy to swipe around a page, use pinch-to-zoom to enhance an element of text or an image and to re-orient the site using the internal accelerometers.
The most advanced mobile browsers are now compatible with key technologies including HTML5 and Flash. This means that you can enjoy rich media content and the interactive elements of websites on your handset. 3G can even match the cable services in my area and elsewhere when it comes to providing video streaming from sites such as YouTube.
More recently, the mobile internet browsing experience has become still more accessible thanks to the gradual increase in average handset display sizes and resolution. With improved screen real estate and higher pixel densities, text is ever clearer and images are largely free from fuzz. The iPhone range has retained its 3.5 inch diagonal screen size but the introduction of the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 in 2010 meant that the resolution was given a much-needed boost. Meanwhile, Android and Windows Phone handsets have a wide selection of large displays on offer, from the 4.3 inch screen of the Motorola Razr to the 4.65 and 4.7 inch screens of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and HTC Titan respectively.
With web pages increasingly optimised for modern phones with 3G connections and large touchscreen displays, it is easier than ever before to surf the web without a laptop or PC. In many ways, the lack of physical buttons or a mouse and keyboard setup gives you a far more tactile, engaging experience when accessing sites. This is something upon which tablet devices such as the iPad have capitalised, allowing web users to experience the information on the internet as if it were housed in a traditional printed publication, but with the flexibility of a digital format accessed via 3G networking.
It seems that 3G internet will continue to be a common feature of the mobile internet market for the foreseeable future, given that 4G roll-out is still somewhat limited.

Tamara Matthews is the editor of a renowned broadband technology company. Tamara likes to share her knowledge and ideas on broadband and cable providers. You can check her latest articles: internet providers in my area, AT&T internet etc .

Here are some exciting articles for you in this week featured Weekly Round Up of those post from various website that i have visited. We are in the middle of January already and the bloggers are putting out some great post and making headway for the coming months. This year will be a better year for us bloggers although it will still be challenging as the competition is still there and as the blog sphere gets bigger we need to work much harder and continue to produce great post for our visitors and at the same time attract more advertisers. Here are five featured post for you in this week’s Round Up enjoy.

(1) Linker Outreach: A Method for Social and Editorial Link Building - Social linking has been one of the most significant and realistic indicators of how credible, useful and/or authoritative a content is these past few years, helping search engines identify high quality pages over the web, and to the extent of somehow improving their search results.With different social platforms being widely used by people worldwide, link building seems to be much easier than before, especially in reaching out and engaging your link targets.

(2) Quit Smoking Apps For iPhone – 1. LIVESTRONG MyQuit Coach:LIVESTRONG MyQuit Coach app provides to all the quitters with personalized plans which will be approved by physicians.You have the option to quit smoking with immediate effect or do it gradually.Users can track their every day intake of Nicotine,get personalized tips and photos,earn badges,rewards and update your status in Facebook and Twitter.The app can be downloaded for free from App Store.

(3) 100 resolutions every entrepreneur needs to take this year - 2011 is over. It is time to look at things with new perspective and create some resolutions of your own. Here are 100 of them from me. It took me three days to compile this list. Take whatever your like. A lot of them are going to become posts in the blog in future 1 Learn about business planning 2 Network a lot before 3 Social Media 4 Develop a razor sharp focus on business area 5 Listen to your customers

(4) Pinterest, Google+ Search, Social Web, SEO, Speedlink 02:2012 - Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great and productive week. Undoubtedly, one of the most noteworthy news this week was about Google+ Search Your World. This move from Google appeared to have “pis*** off” a lot of people, most particularly Twitter, who publicly announced a statement to various news outlets, Tuesday afternoon. Google responded quickly by saying “that were surprised about

(5) Tips on setting up a Google+ Brand Page - A business cannot do without online marketing strategy today. To grow a business the business houses are planning online strategy which is supporting the offline presence. Social media has come up as one of the most effective means of online marketing strategies in the current time. In the world of social media Google+ is the latest buzz which has unfolded a new avenue for business and brands. Undoubtedly a new dimension in social media development, Google+ allows the business houses to create their own page with an aim to target and follow the clients or customers. A big advantage of Google+ over its competitor is it provides a business the option of following its fans.

That is Round Up for this week hope you have enjoyed these post and will share them with your friends on your favourite social networking websites

How do you outline your authentic strategy to Search Engine Optimization? It is truly too vast to increase the number of people to recognize the best way to have websites rank in search engines, it might be explained in the quality of finding ones internet websites throughout the little brown eyes of Yahoo and Google. What exactly allows it to become enhance is usually the point that a lot of the techniques intended for enactment are normally a tad bit more precise in comparison with different, far more essential methods, which enables it to involve many exclusive instruments in addition to methods.

Tired with the same kind of web optimization tactics you have long ago? And so, I will discuss the latest Enhance Web Optimization Procedures for this year of which offers you far more thoughts, practices in addition to ways of bringing you for an obviously better search engine optimization projections.

Webpage Optimization

Attaining websites are significant with organic search engine ranking (web optimization) in addition to engage in a critical purpose with increasing normal targeted visitors to help internet websites. Most of these manufactured webpages search engine optimization are effective in addition to an enhance web optimization processes.

You should concentrate on hugely unique key terms in addition to key phrases which often from time to time possibly tough to add into your key web sites. The right strategy for SEO attaining websites in addition to inbound links incorporated to this spine word period to help going towards webpage that ought to possibly be applicable. It will undoubtedly help advance in addition to get PR juice connected with almost any top priority internet site of this web page.

Potential Audience Research

Discerning the crowd is essentially the most significant web optimization tactics. It will assure the appropriateness of the market to your works. It is by means of profits, era, computer system ability, knowledge, position and many others.

You need to know correctly who’d consider whatever you will provide, often with products or services. In this particular web optimization practice, you need to understand all the era, sexuality, knowledge, and work in addition to higher level of profits of this potential audience. On the subject of the position, you will really need to know what many people completely intended for their enjoyment, peace or hobbies. With conditions you intend to command in your community, you need to do regional web optimization advertising and marketing.

Web Optimization Requirements

The employment of latest marketing channels such like video lessons; info graphics, widgets, and e-books in addition to podcasts have grown successful on the net. Your next challenging task due to this season is usually to uncover the obvious way of optimizing most of these procedures intended for Yahoo and Google requirements.

This outbreak connected with latest marketing channels provides the capacity to alter the online world promotion of textual inbound links, although an interactive video lessons, audios or widgets can complement users’ deal on the net.

Instead, this point of interest will likely be how long readers usually are paying ones specific. I do believe that this could be the season where by most of us may able to gain that higher level of search engine ranking intended for latest marketing channels. The primary difficult task is usually to alter this rich media marketing in a way of textual for search engines.

Ideal Web Optimization Information

Semantic web optimization is ideal information of this web page. That means a lot in addition to meta labelling of this web optimization projection. Although at this point Semantic Mark-up is usually a state-of-the-art on-page web optimization process to consider.

Intended for web optimization requirements, semantic code advances is a basic search engine optimization robot that can certainly recognize this in the website page. Your recognized semantic would be the most important as Google bot doesn’t like to list or maybe provide almost any word value through your web page that isn’t visible to help mankind. Search engines’ spiders will endeavour to help associate more importance, or maybe meaning, to help number of words with your internet site.

You will discover many semantic mark-up limitations intended for web optimization, and you ought to possibly be regarded having these people make use of with value. In the event you’ll know that most you can be accomplishing good.

Web Optimization Values

A different web optimization process is usually by means of denoting web optimization value connected with life values for making your enterprise or maybe internet websites some sort of just an applicable one. Accomplishing this will probably make a sturdy groundwork connected with confidence in addition to respect concerning people. I most certainly will definitely not talk about the main points within the web optimization value with life values as you’re able to seek it at any place. Simply just abide by it and don’t cause harm to.

Basic enhance web optimization procedures for 2012 most likely is easy to include in your individual tactics in addition to practices within the enjoyable and even more fulfilling strategy for web optimization.

After you create a blog that is interesting, now it is time to start making money. The second step of getting visitors is the most important, if you plan on making money. The third step is choosing how you will make money from your blog. You should try to keep your blog on the same topic on all your post, being that you can have an unlimited number of blogs, you can have a blog for any and every topic you choose. Make sure to start a new blog if you are totally off the main subject of the blog that you are posting to.

Blogger and several other free blog companies make it very simple to have a brand new blog up and running in a matter of a few minutes. Try not to post an article about dogs on a blog about golf. Once you have an interesting blog on one particular topic, the best place to start making money is Google AdSense. Blogger has made it very simple to add AdSense ads to your blog.

The ads that show up on your blog will be targeted towards the topic of your blog, which means if you have a blog about dogs, the ads that show up on your blog will deal with pets. It’s like Google is paying you to advertise on your blog.

Another way to make money with your blog is with affiliate programs. Companies will pay you good money to advertise their products, and all you have to do is put a link or banner on your blog leading to that companies web site. Once a sale is made the company gives you a commission. That is the reason you should pick one topic for your blog. If you want to have a blog about your life, by all means do it, but have other blogs about specific topics if you want to make money.

Once you find a topic that interest you, look for affiliate programs for that particular topic. With the dog blog example, there are several dog training products that you can have links and banners to on a dog blog that will make good money. Click Bank is the top company when it comes to affiliate products, they have over 10,000 products to choose from. Browse their products to see which ones you would like to promote. Obviously you want to pick something that fits the topic of your blog, but don’t limit yourself to just one, you can change a product you are promoting with a few clicks.

The internet is the essence of marketing, by that I mean, every word in an ad matters, every colour, where the ad is located on your blog, whether is is blinking or not, and the colour of the text. It might not seem like all of those things matter, but the fact is, everything that you decide matters. The good thing is you can experiment with how your blog looks as much as you want. There are several e-books written on how you should place and where you should place them, in the beginning, just go with the basic blog set-up until you get the hang of things.

For the past few years, the graphic design industry is growing at an enormous speed. If you want to become a reputed designer, you should possess certain skills. These can include creative, business, and communication skills.
For the past few years, the graphic design industry has been growing at an enormous rate. The reason is that this industry offers creative as well as monetary satisfaction. Studies reveal that in the year 2008, 286100 persons in USA were associated with graphic designing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, by the year 2018, number of graphic design jobs will increase by 12%.

This statistics proves the fact that graphic designers will have good opportunities in future. However, this does not mean that the industry will absorb anyone who wants to be a designer. Rather, chances are high that it will only accept those who possess certain qualities. If you want to know, whether you possess certain relevant skills and can leave your mark as a graphic designer, read on.

1. Creativity

Creativity is the most important requirement. With the help of creativity, one can develop designs that are original and unique. Remember that if you do not possess creative skills, you cannot survive in this industry.

2. Education

A graphic design company will generally prefer people who have a formal degree. Therefore, if you are an aspiring designer, try to obtain a degree or diploma in graphic designing or related field. In case, you do not have a degree, attend seminars or workshops to refine your designing skills.

3. Powerful Communication Skills

These days, any job demands good communication skills. Graphic designing is no exception. A good graphic designer should possess excellent written and verbal communication skills. You should be a good listener as well. Listening carefully to the client’s ideas is critical. It will help you to develop designs that reflect requirements of the clients.

4. Ability to Use Computers

For the past few years, experts are taking help of software programs for creating designs. A good designer should know how to use Quark Express, Adobe Photoshop, Flash, and others.

5. Business Skills

To earn reputation in the graphic design industry, you need to possess powerful business skills. You should be aware of marketing and sales strategies, database management. Remember that smart implementation of business strategies will help you to realize your potential as a graphic designer.

6. Technology Skills

Technology now dominates every aspect of our lives. To survive in the graphic design industry, you should know how to operate PCs, printers and other equipment. Additionally, if you already possess social media marketing skills, it would definitely work in your favour.

7. Project Management Skills

Graphic design projects usually come with deadlines. If you are aware of project management skills, you can complete your job within the deadline in a hassle-free manner. This will help you to earn appreciation of your clients. Also, managing time will help you to handle projects effectively and thus, impress clients.

8. Network Building Abilities

Network building abilities will help you to connect with other designers and learn from them. Furthermore, smart networking can help you to acquire more clients.

9. Interpersonal Relations Skills

This is especially important, when you are working as a team. Good interpersonal relations skill will ensure smooth functioning of the team. Additionally, it will encourage your colleagues to trust you.

10. Typography

Every design requires type. If you have in-depth knowledge about typography, chances are high that you can create interesting designs.

11. Flexibility

As a good designer, you should be flexible. You should be able to learn, unlearn, and relearn various things. Every project has different requirements. Therefore, you need to modify your skills and ideas accordingly. Flexibility will also help you to earn a wide range of clients.

12. Paying Attention to Details

Ensure that your project is perfect. Check the spellings and other important details in your designs. Before sending designs to the client, always double-check your work.

13. Problem Solving Skills

While creating designs for a particular project, you may encounter various problems. You have to solve these problems quickly, so that they do not affect quality of your work.

14. Photography Skills

As a graphic designer, you may or may not possess photography skills. However, if you do, it will act as an added advantage. By capturing interesting photos and using them in projects, you can impress your clients.

15. Knowledge about Print Design

Knowledge about print design will help you to understand how your creations would look in print. Knowing this is important, because it will help you to maintain consistency between the computer-generated works and printed products.

We highlighted certain skills that a good graphic designer should possess. However, remember that while working on a project, you may discover that a new skill is needed. In such a situation, you will have to learn it as soon as possible. For this reason, you should always possess an open mind for accepting challenges and overcoming them.

If your blog went viral it is likely that your ears are ringing since readers are talking about it to those within their circle of influence who are then spreading the word even further. Perhaps you posted an article or series of articles that caught fire in the blogosphere. What you don’t want is for this to be a one-time occurrence but how do you keep up the momentum so that readers will keep coming back and develop loyalty? Below are give strategies for keeping readers and engaged and coming back for more.

Strategy 1: Mix up the content

Rather than focus your blog on one style of writing (e.g. “how-to”, advice, opinion) mix-up the writing style so that your readers are attracted by the range of topics provided. For example:

v Use one posting to discuss various aspects of Web design. e.g., the cost vs. benefits of using templates.

v Post comments regarding industry trends, such as incorporating a shopping cart on ecommerce sites or the use of multimedia and how it affects downloading speed of content.

v Write a series of posts on one topic such as designing a Web site for a multicultural audience.

v Ask for comments from your readers, such as their favourite Web sites and why

v Expand on the topic of an article prepared by one of your competitors or provide an alternative perspective

Strategy 2: Use Videos

Videos extend the amount of time readers spend on your blog. Videos may be instructional in nature (e.g. how to keep costs low when building a Web site), provide an introduction to your services, or replay a speech you have given on Web design (and this last will do much to boost your rep!)

Strategy 3: Link your blog in email

Do you use email lists? If so, try and see if this might increase reader loyalty. In trying to generate email addresses a good idea is to embed the “sign-up” form in a prominent position on the page, such as the top of your blog page or right sidebar (so that readers see it when they finish each sentence. It is well known in the sales world that it takes a minimum of seven “touches” for a prospect to take action. With this in mind, the more times readers see the email sign-up form the greater the likelihood they will input their name.

Another suggestion is to offer a give-away for signing-up. This may be a free mini-eBook or some other promotional item. To build motivation, you might include a deadline with the offer.

Strategy 4: Use an RSS feed

Not all blog readers like to access content in the same way. Some prefer to receive messages via email, others on their social media profile, while still others prefer an RSS Feed. To reach the most people, it is a good idea to use each of these venues since you don’t know which method each reader prefers. Install a big RSS feed link on your blog, perhaps next to your email sign-up form.

Strategy 5: Get the Picture!

People get the most fun out of two things on the Net: videos and images. As a Web designer you have no shortage of images in terms of your portfolio pieces. You can also have some fun posting the images of your own favourite Web sites with an explanation of why you like them. Your image gallery should contain about 20 to 30 pictures and include a variety of design styles. Not only will this show the range of your skill but will provide a fun experience for your readers. However, to keep their interest it will be necessary to change the pictures on a regular basis.

As you can see from the above, there are several methods you can use to develop reader retention. Although they may have first visited your site because of the buzz one of your postings generated, you can keep these readers by using some creative imagination—and for a Web designer that is precisely your domain—pun intended!

Ashyia Hill is a small business blogger at CreditDonkey, where she helps web designers and bloggers find business credit card deals for their online business.