Welcome to Catchtheposts! I hope that the content of this blog will be helpful to you. Don't hesitate to use the contact form to send me your comments, feedback, suggested topics or questions. Thanks for visiting!

If you're new here, you may consider to subscribe and receive all new tips for free. Updates may be delivered on your feedreader or directly on your mailbox!.

Photo by by tinou bao

Since the beginning of the year, many give their opinion concerning the 2008 Marketing Trends. I did take a look at them and extract the main 2 trends:

Trend #1: The Shift from Offline Marketing to Online Marketing

This is not a big surprise for anyone: the numbers of Americans that actively use online communication devices grow from year to year. In fact, according to a research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, this number reaches approximately half of American. Now, still remember this: where people are, marketing is growing! In fact, according to eMarketer, the US online media advertising spending will grow from $21.4 millions in 2007 to 27.5 millions in 2008 which represent 9.3% more money to be moved online.

Of course, that money will be spread among different market. This will bring us to the second trend.

Trend #2: The Growth for Interactive Marketing

First, what do “Interactive Marketing” means? Well this includes new marketing channel such as emails, search marketing, online video, social networks (or social media) and mobile marketing.

What is interesting is that eMarketer, expect both social network advertising and online video advertising to double compare to 2007! In term of numbers, this means that social network advertising will move from $920 millions in 2007 to $1,560 millions in 2008 and online video advertising will move from $775 millions in 2007 to $1,350 millions in 2008.

This online marketing trend will be support by the offline marketing campaigns. You already see in your environment publicity about article that gives you the URL to a website. In fact, this is a way to move people online and give the chances to the company to give you more details on the article and to suggest you related articles that could be in your interest.

For sure, TV, radio, newspaper will still be the favorite for marketing, but the goal will gradually change to move people online.

Take Advantage of the Trends

As a blogger, you probably have an idea of how those trends could help you to develop your blog in a different way. I think that, depending of your niche, your development plan could be different. However, I think it is a good exercise to think about the impact or simply to know how you can take advantage of those trends. Here is a short list of item that could worth thinking about:

• A successful blog may have a good opportunity to take advantage of those trends by creating good product reviews;
• It seems to me that every blog should enable a full RSS feed to get a chance of a good opportunity;
• What about Google AdSense Video Ads?
• What about YouTube?
• If social networks (social media) are a new channel of marketing, then it could be profitable to be careful about sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, etc.

There will be big players in this marketing game. The question is: where that money will be going? If you want to be in the game, than you’ll have to listen to social media and grab the opportunity when it will appear!

Photo by timetrax23

Do you remember when the web went alive? There was a programming language called HTML which was developed to create web pages. This simple language was (and still is) oriented to create a structure similar to a book. What are the elements of a book?

• The title;
• The headings;
• The paragraphs;
• The text itself;

Now, if you are searching for a book, what are you doing? Well, maybe you are looking at the title to be sure it treats of the subject you want to read about and maybe if the title is interesting you’ll open up the book to look at the headings (in the table of content) to know more in detail what this book is all about. Then you’ll have a very good idea if you will read it or not.

Just think a minute that the books are web pages and that the searcher is the search engine. How does the search engine will suggest you web pages that fulfill your keywords request? Of course, it will look for the keywords within the title just as you did for the book and then the headings (also, like you did) and so on…

The conclusion is quite simple: searching for web pages is similar as searching a book! Now, as a web pages author, you just need to create your web pages as you would create a book!

The Common Sense

The SEO basics are based on the common sense:

1. The title MUST be accurate and contains your main keywords

Example:
If your keyword are “weigth loss” the it could be:
<title>Weight Loss Tips and Articles</title>

2. Your web page MUST be structured with headings

Example:
<h1>Weight Loss Tips</h1>
<h2>Do Exercices</h2>
<p>… blah blah blah…</p>
<h2>Eat Better</h2>
<p>… Blah blah blah…</p>

3. Your content MUST contains the keywords people are most likely to search for.

In order to be sure you web page is about weight loss, the search engine will search for the keywords requested. According to the occurrence and other criteria, the search engine will return web pages that are most likely to answer its request.

However, I would say that optimizing the contents to fit the search engines criteria could be a bad idea, because it could decrease the quality of your content and this is not better. In fact, this is dramatic.

The Conclusion

Personally, I think the conclusion is the following: create an accurate title for every page, use headings to give a good structure to your content and write your content for your targeted audience. Your audience is humans and not search engine. Simply create quality content and don’t worry about the search engine! If your content is great, everybody will link it and you’ll drive traffic to your website.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Whatever the route you choose, I wish you the best chances!

Photo by Tatiana

I was recently reading the article Secrets of Self-Made Millionnaire (which I encourage you to read also)! While I was reading, I was amazed to see how every secret could also apply to bloggers (and for sure to many other areas). Without loosing a minute, here are the secrets:

1. Set your sights on where you’re going

Driving your car without setting your sights on where you are going could have dramatic consequences. In fact, doing the same while blogging will have the same consequences with the only distinction that you will still be alive!

What is your ultimate goal with you blog(s)? What are you dreaming about? Maybe you want to be rich? Or maybe you just want to be free? Maybe you don’t want to make a living from blogging because you really like your boss or your work? Maybe you just want to write because writing makes you happy? Where ever you are among those different possibilities, you have an ultimate goal or at least you have a very good reason for blogging.

Of course, this is not enough to have a goal. In fact, you need also to be convinced about what you are doing and where you are going. You MUST be focused on your ultimate goal and be firm about your success!

I don’t really remember which Olympic Games it was, but I remember the statement: it begins by a dream! When an athlete works hard and never counts the effort years after years to have just a little chance to win the gold medal he is dreaming about, I have no doubt that he sets its sights on where he is going.

2. Educate yourself

No matter if you are an experimented blogger or if you are a newbie in that area, you need to educate yourself! First, you need to know what blogging is all about. You will always get benefits to visit other blogs. There is always something to learn. Never forget: things changed! This is a law of life!

The whole blogging knowledge is not in the hand of one person. Even if you are a blog expert, you must be honest to yourself and be humble enough to say that you will always have something new to learn.

3. Passion pays off

Being passionate is being energetic and contagious! The passion gives you the energy to pass through all kind of roadblocks. It keeps you motivated about your ultimate goal. When 24 hours is not enough to conjugate your day job, your family, your courses and your blog, than there is only the passion to keep you on the track!

Blogging with passion is something your audience feels! And, of course, its part of you blogunicity. The passion may be the difference between 100 loyal RSS readers and 3000 or even 5000 loyal RSS readers! Passion is contagious. If you have enough talent to transmit it to your audience, you are a winner at the starting point! Never stop believing and recommit your dream over and over!

4. Grow your money creativity

Of course, growing your money would probably help you being more motivated about everything around you (including your blog). However, to stay in the initial idea of the original article, I would replace the money by the creativity.

In fact, I really think that creativity is an asset that every blogger should develop. It could be needed to find new idea, to find a new way to see a news headline, to create a beautiful blog design, to make affordable and successful marketing campaigns, etc. Being creative is a MUST, so grow your creativity!

It could be interesting to how this could be done. I guess you already catch it: this will be part of another post! If you want to be sure to get it, just sign-up my feed!

5. No guts, no glory

Do you know that the fear is one of the most powerful emotion? It could make a lot of damage to anyone, including keeping you away from your dreams! If you are consciously aware of what fear is all about, than you have everything needed to change it into guts! Having guts is putting the fear away and moving forward with strong beliefs that you’ll live your dream.

As a blogger, you will need guts to increase your blogunicity and create a real differentiator while compared to other blogs in the same area as you. No guts, no glory. Sometimes, guts means doing things in another way. Who say that there was a way to do this or that? Be creative, you’ll find THE idea! Than, put the fear away, take your guts and move forward. This is the road of successful bloggers!

And at the end…

I don’t know if this post will make you a successful blogger (I really wish it will help!) or maybe a self-made millionaire (who knows!), but at least if this could help you to be a better person, a better blogger, than I will have reach my own personal goal with that post!

Photo by HAMED MASOUMI

First, what means the term ‘blogunicity’? To be short, it means everything that makes your blog different from other blogs. It is a word that congregates every element and every differentiator (including the blogger) that make your blog unique. That said, let’s take a look at what could help you increase you own ‘blogunicity’!

1. Be yourself.

My personal opinion is that YOU are the first ingredient of your ‘blogunicity’. Just try to answer that simple question: what do you have that other blogger cannot have? In fact, there is always a way to get what other blogger have. The ONLY thing we cannot have is the blogger’s personality itself!

I often heard people say: ‘His blog is successful, so I will do the same and the results will also be the same’. Maybe the results will be the same (I wish you the best). However, the chances are very low. Why? Because the actions are not done by the same blogger. Period! Your experiences, your writing style, your personality and even your values will influence the way every action will be executed. Don’t try to be someone else; just be yourself!

2. Be creative. Open your mind.

Being creative is one of the most important assets for a blogger. In fact, to be different, you need creativity. Don’t be stucked with the old perspective and the old approach about your activities (contents, marketing, writing, etc.). Remember that there is always many ways to do something. If you keep your mind opened, you’ll create the proper conditions to find new approach and new ways of doing things.

Always get the same question in mind: ‘What could make my blog different from other blogs?’ You are the only one to know what could be the answers. Just to give you a tip, maybe it is possible for you to offer a service (free or not) that other blogs cannot offer. Maybe this service is possible because you have a special talent. Don’t limit yourself to what’s already exists; open your mind! A boundless number of idea waits to be discover!

3. Stay tuned on your competitors.

If you want to be different from you competitor, you need to know exactly what they are doing and when. I may guarantee you something: they will try to make their blog different just as you are trying to do! So you need to stay tuned on them. Here are some sample questions you may ask to yourself about your competitors:

• What do they talk about? Is there a pattern?
• What is their perspective? Their approach concerning the information?
• What makes them different from other blogs?
• What are the strengths of their blogs?
• What are the weaknesses of their blogs?
• … and so on.

4. Don’t wait for things to happen, make them happen!

Do you want to make the world or do you want the world to make you? You can take a passive approach with your environment and look at the parade. Or you can take an active approach with your environment and be part of the parade! In fact, both approaches are good, however I’m sure you will agree with me that your chances to be recognize as a special blogger by the community are bigger if you take an active approach.

Make things happen isn’t an easy thing. It requires time and lots of effort; I guess this is the price to pay to be different and to be recognize as a special blogger.

5. Stay tuned on social media.

Where will you get the information about social trends? How could you be the first to be informed concerning new headlines, new opportunities, and new trends? For sure, the social media are one of the best places for that kind of information. Of course, you’ll be finding lots of craps and lots of spam out there, but you need to search if you want to find the gold mine!

Social media will be growing a lot all through the next years. There will be a bunch of new big opportunities that will come up. However, they won’t knock at your door. You’ll be the one to decide whether you take it or you leave it! Believe me: being proactive will pay you back!

Photo by seeks2dream

When a new year is beginning, many people take this occasion as a specific time to fix some goals to achieve. Some are personal like stopping smoking (which is a good idea in my own opinion) and some are professional or related to the business like being a profitable organization. If you own a blog, I guess you already (or are planning to) fix you some goals to be achieved during the next year. In fact, goals are the basis. If there are no goals, there are no achievements and there is no success! How can you say that you are successful if you have no reference at all? How could you say you are in the good direction if you don’t know where you want to go?

The Quality is better Than the Quantity

Don’t set you too many goals. My opinion is that setting from 2 to 4 goals is quite reasonable. More than that may discourage you! Please remember: goals MUST be a source of motivation and not the opposite! How many goals will motivate you? Do you prefer one major goal at the time or having a major and some minor goals? Take the time to thing about that!

Setting SMART Goals

Setting SMART goals is an old concept; I won’t learn you anything (and if I do, that would be profitable to you). However, I personally thing that setting goals is a decisive milestone and when those goals are well defined, than you are in the good shape to achieve them all and be successful! One of the most common reasons why goals are not achieved is because they are not properly defined. To help you staying away from that common pitfall, I’ll remember you the SMART way to define goals.

A goal must be:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

Specific – The simpler way to be sure your goals meet the “specific” criteria is to apply the 6 “W”: Who, What, Where, When, Which, Why. Note that a general goal could be split in many specific goals. For example, if your general goal is to eat better, then maybe you want to split it in many specific goals like “eat vegetable with every meal” and/or “eat a maximum of 2 junk food meals every week”. This makes your general goal to be more specific.

Measurable – If you are not able to measure how far you are from your goal achievement, then I would consider that you are in the wrong way! A well defined goal is defined with concrete criteria you can measure. For example, let say you want to eat at least 4 apples each week because you believe this is a good way to stay healthy. This would mean that your measurement criteria are 4 apples per week; so you are always in a good position to know how far you are from those 4 apples. Let’s say you already eat 3 apples this week. You know that you are 1 apple away from achieving your week’s goal. Note that defining your goals with concrete measurable criteria will help you staying motivated!

Attainable – When you set your goals, you already begin to construct the favorable condition to achieve them. The simple action to write them down and believe you can reach them will construct your mind and your attitude to be successful. A goal is attainable when those conditions are met. But don’t be worry: I’m pretty sure you won’t set a goal that is unattainable. Why? Simply because the action of setting it will (most of the time) make it attainable.

Realistic – To be realistic, a goal must represent something within your control. You must also own the necessary tools to reach it or, at least, be able to have access to those tools. For example, it won’t be realistic to set the goal: “Make a little trip in space and walk on the moon”. Unless you already are on spatial missions or are able to spend millions of dollars to make the trip, this goal would not be realistic.

Timely – To be a well defined goal, a timeline must be set. Let’s say your goal is: “Lose 10 pounds”. This is a good goal, however there is no timeline. Do you want to lose 10 pounds this month? This year? The goal is not the same in the 2 cases. You will also realize that the action plan is not the same at all; the plan is dependant of the timeline you want to achieve. Remember that setting a timeline is one of the most important aspects of goal setting.

Goals Prioritization

When your goals will be properly defined, then it’s time for you to prioritize them. Of course, they are all important to you. However, if you are the only actor to reach those goals, then you must be aware of one important thing: you can’t do everything at the same time. Now, unless you are a super hero (and let me know if you are), the last affirmation is true. Don’t try to do everything at the same time! Doing so will result on disappointment and unachieved goals! Instead, take the time to make a list with all your goals prioritize in importance order. Then take them one by one. You will stay motivated and you will be in good shape to achieve them all!

Photo by Unhindered by Talent

The First Post

When I first visit a blog, I would say that I’m always curious about the first post… the first message from the blog owner. Why? Simply because I think that the first post may indicates a lot about the blog and its owner. I really think what’s making a blog unique is its owner; the blog is the media… the owner is the voice! So this first post will let you know more about my blog CatchThePosts! and a little bit about myself.

A Little About me

For myself, having a blog is building a relationship with a community; it’s all about sharing and helping each other. My main goal here is to share with you my thoughts, my ideas, my discoveries… So if you are passionate about exploiting the web, if you love innovation and are looking over today, than you are at the right place! I’m personally passionate about any kind of web evolution which includes search engines trends, new algorithms, marketing trends, semantic web, business exploitation, etc. What is the future of the web? Where are we going with this “all mighty” super network? How does the web will influence everyone’s tomorrow? There are so many questions to answer… so much to say and so much to exchange together. I personally think that we cannot change the whole world, but at least, we (the community) can influence the trends in a particular direction.

A Little more About me

I have the background of a software engineer. I’m actually working in the telecom area and more precisely into the VoIP technology. Without any doubt, we are creating the best VoIP gateways on the actual market! Anyway, if you are a fan of VoIP, I would be pleased to talk with you about that technology. Just drop me an email! In the meantime, I’m completing my MBA. This is another sign of my passion about marketing and the business management globally. What do a business needs to be successful? What are the indicators? What are the appropriate actions to take in some particular situations? What do your business needs to be the leader in a particular niche and what do it needs to be profitable in that niche? Traditional businesses are quite interesting but I really enjoy also applying some creative business management concepts to the online world! Maybe we can share many ideas in this area.

My ‘Blogunicity’

I already said that I think that YOU are the only ingredient to make your blog unique; this is what I call your ‘blogunicity’. The color of a blog is given by its owner… if you have no color or if you take the decision to stay anonymous to your community, then you will have a blog written in black and white! However, if you give your blog a style, if you give your blog YOUR style, YOUR personality, YOUR ‘blogunicity’ than you have a unique and valuable blog because YOU are valuable as a unique person. I’ll do all my best to communicate you my personal style, my colors, my ‘blogunicity’ and I invite you to give me some feedback. This will always be appreciated! Never hesitate to drop me an email at anytime!

The Posts

How many posts will I make in a week? Well, I really have no idea but my goal would be to do at least 2 to 3 posts each week. I better love quality than quantity… I would however guess that it will be more than that if I include all the small post I will do to share some interesting news and to give you some good links I will discover over the time. I would highly encourage you to subscribe to my feed; this will allows you to easily CatchThePosts! As I said before, I really see my blog as a relationship with my community, so take few minutes to rate my posts, comment it and submit your preferred ones to your favorite social bookmarking site. You will also notice that I include the ‘Top Commentator’ widget to my sidebar to encourage you to leave me some comments. Take also the time to leave your traces in my poll (also in the sidebar). I would also like to tell you that I will do some blog review. In fact, I really enjoy visiting new blogs so be sure that I will visit yours if you leave me a comment!

The Community is you

I really hope to count you on my blog’s community. If you like what you read and if you want to know more about my passion, don’t hesitate to subscribe to my feed; this will take a minute and you will be notify as soon as a new post will be submitted! Don’t miss any of them… just CatchThePosts!