We all know that surveys play an important role in everything from product creation to customer satisfaction to market segmentation, and the list goes on and on… It’s one of the most valuable tools that we have in our hands and we NEED to use it in order to know what our prospective customers and visitors want to see from us and our products in the future.

There are many services that will let you create an online form and promote it to your fans and friends, but most of them have limitations when it comes to their Free tier. I know, I know; if you value something that much, why don’t you give some money in order to get the best out of surveys? In fact I did, and the next article on Moneytized will explain why and how we’ve created that solution. But if a reader wants to test the waters and see how surveys can help their business, why pay for testing the waters? That’s where Google Docs comes to save the day!

I used Google Docs in the past and thought that it was a good collaboration tool. But when I asked for some recommendations for good Survey systems in Google+, Google Docs came up three times in the thread! I knew I had to check it out again. ;)

The recommendations were correct. You can create your own survey in Google Docs, with beautiful graphics and all the form elements you will need, while at the same time be able to export all answers into Excel or get great graphs of the responses, all for free.

Step by Step survey creation in Google Docs

When you log-in to Google Docs, you will be able to see a button that let’s you create a new file. Click on Form and the next screen will appear. Name your survey and start adding questions. You have many options to select from and you will be able to create the survey with the exact way you prefer.

Once you’re done, click on the theme button and select the theme of your form page. There are many themes you can select from but remember, you need your visitors to pay attention to the survey itself, not the design. ;)

After you make sure everything is perfect, you can save the form and click on the URL at the bottom of the screen and share it with everyone that you want to complete your survey. That’s it, you’re all set ;)

After a few people answer your survey, you will be able to view statistics, what people selected the most, etc. You might think, why should I need a more advanced solution? Doesn’t it do exactly what I want? What else would I need? The answer will be given in the next article, so stay tuned! ;)

Edit: New article is up, learn how you can create a survey with WordPress and what are the huge benefits from using this solution.

Create your own free online survey with Google Docs is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

With personal branding becoming a trend in marketing, competition is growing bigger and stronger every minute. What everyone who is marketing themselves needs to work on is creating and making their personal brand known, if they want to have a chance at making it big. This gives competitive edge, and the kickstart entrepreneurs and businesses need to get their name out into the world.

You may ask yourself, what exactly is personal branding, and why is it important to me and my business? In a nutshell, personal branding is marketing yourself, your career and your work as a separate brand, which makes people think of you as soon as they hear it. This is a big thing; one that we’ll have to write a whole other article (or maybe even series!) about! So stay tuned to learn more about personal branding.

A good step everyone with an online presence should take is to set a professional photograph or a custom digital brand logo as their avatar. Many may think it’s not that important to have the appropriate picture, but it’s actually a bit more important than you think.

- A good avatar or social media photo must be memorable and distinguishable. This helps for personal branding; after a visitor to your blog or website sees it about 7 times, people will become familiarized with it, and remember you and your brand. This picture should be used as your avatar on social media, blogs and websites, or at least your blog or website’s About Me page. In this way, visitors, prospective clients and subscribers will remember your avatar or face, and will relate that picture to the trust they’ve gained in your personal brand.

- As good as it is to relate to you and see your human side (which is why it’s preferable to post a real picture of yourself), your visitors must be able to take you seriously. Just think of how you’d show up at a job interview: it may not be necessary to dress up, but you wouldn’t go to a job interview in jeans or slacks or looking like you’re ready to go out and party. Sure, we’d love to post our Facebook pictures from last week’s party or our summer vacation (we just look so good in them!) but putting vanity aside, a smile against an office or your home wall will be sufficient to reach out to your readers.

- Like I mentioned before, posting a picture of yourself will help your clients and visitors to your website relate to you, thus gaining trust (and their sales and money!) more easily. We all like to try and have some kind of tie or bond with the person we’re going to be transacting with; it’s better to know they’re not trying to hide behind a computer screen or silly avatar. It’s like we say, “putting a face to the name.” We tend to trust people more if we’ve seen them, rather than have just talked to them over the phone or read some words on a screen.

- The quality of your profile picture must show that you took the time to pose and fix yourself up so you can look presentable. Readers always appreciate this. We don’t all have the time or money to hire a professional photographer to take our head shots, but we can be honest enough and ask a friend with a camera to take some snaps of us. Hey, it may even turn out to be lots of fun! Anyways, pretty much everyone has a digital camera they can lend you; it doesn’t even have to be a professional camera.

- You don’t have to be wearing a suit and tie, or a pants suit or skirt. Your clients and colleagues want to know that you can get the job done when you have to, which means you can’t show a picture of you goofing off or out partying! Clients have to trust that you are serious about your work, and that you mean business. However, it’s not a bad thing to show a hint of playfulness, either! You have to make your visitors feel comfortable with you, so you don’t have to take expensive professional head shots in a tuxedo taken at Trump Towers. Looking too extravagant or expensive might actually turn off your readers, who mostly are average Joes like you and me. Go for simple, down-to-earth, and neat-looking. As you can see in my silly profile picture here, I’m at my old office, wearing a smile, but showing my teddy bear posters in back.

- It might be considered racism or favoritism, but it’s true that when you see a person well-dressed and well-groomed in a serious way it makes you trust them more with your work (not as a person!) Take what I said about job interviews earlier. Unfortunately, the first thing we notice about someone or something they see is the way they look. If you get hired for a job, you may see that you’ll slowly start to dress more and more casually, and probably won’t hear a thing about it. The thing is to get hired in the first place, right?

- If you’ll be using a digital logo as your avatar, make sure that it looks professional enough. You don’t have to be an expert at digital design. You can always outsource your logo creation to another; there are hundreds of online marketplaces you can go to. This means you can’t just make it in MS Paint (unless you’re really good at MS Paint!)

Take this real-life example of a logo that was acceptable at first, but with a few tweaks, actually became profitable:

In the first example, we see a cute speech bubble with text inside. It’s pleasurable to look at, but the design is pretty plain, and wasn’t as distinguishable or memorable. On the other hand, the second avatar is more clear, with bigger letters, memorable white and red color association, and all around more pleasant to attribute the website to. This is an actual case study; Best WordPress Themes actually jumped up a whopping 220% more followers per day after the avatar was changed throughout the website’s social media pages! As you can see, the new logo isn’t all that fancy, flashy or extravagant: just a few simple changes made all the huge difference.

As far as your social media is concerned, you can use a service like Gravatar to assign an avatar to your email address. 99% of blogging platforms today support Gravatar, so when you comment or write an article on such a platform, your profile picture will be automatically included next to your comment or post.

Do you have any stories, experience or case studies on how a picture, logo or avatar helped or broke your business? We’d love to hear about it!

Why You Need A Professional Social Networking Avatar is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

Creating, maintaining and tinkering with your blog is hard enough. Creating quality content for your readers is your new job; you’re excited, you have millions of things to give to your readers, offering value to their new ideas and prospects, and who knows? You may even help a lot of people in the process. The thing is, how are you going to get your readers to know you, without them ever seeing you in person or having a conversation with you? Surely you can’t partake in instant messaging with them all: you don’t have the time for that, and you wouldn’t want to look THAT available either. You’re going to have to sum yourself up in a clean, neat and precise page – your About Me page on your blog. Here are the things you should include in order to keep it short and sweet, while giving as much information about yourself as your readers need to get as close as they should!

1. Make sure to use a professional photograph as your avatar. Sure, Zombatars or XBox Live gamertag avatars are neat, but you want your readers to become familiar with you. It doesn’t have to be suit-and-tie or business casual. Your photo should show your face, just enough so that readers can personify you and relate to you. Plus, make sure to use this photo in all your social media accounts – you’ll start to actually create a personal brand for yourself! People will recognize your face in no time; most people never forget a face.

2. Give just enough information as needed. You do want people to relate to you, get familiar with you, and feel like they know you, but no one really cares how well you surf! Besides, it’s easy to go off and rant about how good you are at things, which may make you seem arrogant. Try to sound modest – list your important accomplishments, but don’t go overboard!

3. Talk about how long you’ve been involved in this niche. If it’s about making money, you have to let your readers know that it’s not an overnight job; it takes time and investment to get where you are today, but it won’t take a million years! That’s a surefire way to get potential readers to stick to your blog and who knows? Maybe they’ll even follow your tactics, subscribe or buy your product! Besides, if you’re a newbie in your field, people will be less likely to follow you or trust in you. If you show a bit of experience, like list your accomplishments, it’ll get your website’s visitors to trust in what you’re saying. We always believe in authority, right?

4. Let your readers know how much you love what you do. You could be an expert in your field for the past 20 years, but if you’re heart’s not in it, how will you persuade anyone to subscribe to you or buy your product, let alone listen to you? You have to let your potential customers know that you’re totally into what you’re doing, and should show them why they should be into it, too.

5. Why should people listen to you? Are you the next revolutionary that has the most pioneering ideas in your field? Did you manage to make $1 million in your first two years? Are you a results-not-typical success story? Make people believe in you, and persuade them to by explaining why exactly you’re the first and foremost expert and authority on whatever you have to say. Give them top-notch stuff!

6. Give both your new and old readers things to contemplate. Readers new to the field? Post Top 10 and How to Get Started posts. Older, experienced people visiting your website? Give them some valuable content with updates on everything they need to know on their niche. No one said that your posts can’t tend to your competitors, as well! Sure, you’ll most likely be copied and plagiarized, but everyone (mostly Google!) will know or find out eventually who actually came up with that content. Pillar posts, newbie learners, how-to articles, step-by-step guides and what’s new stories will keep old and new visitors of interest coming and subscribing to your stuff.

7. Keep in touch. Make sure you give your readers each and every link to all your social media profiles. (Don’t go so far as giving them your postal address and personal phone number, of course!) Social media is free, is booming, and is the best way to actually benchmark how you’re doing. Sure, Facebook likes may not really document how well your make money online website is doing, but it sure can’t be doing too bad if you have 10,000 likes, or you have 1,000 connections on LinkedIn? Also, patch up a contact form so your readers and visitors can leave feedback and comments. It’s good to receive kudos, but constructive criticism as well (many will say that even hate mail shows you’re doing pretty well!)

8. List other successful projects you’ve been involved in as well. Don’t let everyone think you’re a recluse and shut-in, and that you haven’t done anything else in your life – yes, your successful-millionaires-to-be readers will have to invest time and money (and most likely sweat) on their projects, but most of them sure want to continue to live their happy, carefree lives. Show everyone that you may be insanely successful, but still enjoy partaking in your local animal shelter’s activities, raising your wonderful family (hey, that’s a lifelong project in itself!) Show your readers you’re a normal person with other things to do as well.

9. Throw in a laugh or two. Add something entertaining and funny to your About Me page – there’s no better way to make someone trust you than giving value and at the same time making them laugh, even when it’s totally about you! Things like that make your readers feel closer to you, gives a personal touch, and lightens your visitors up, consequently opening them up to what you’re about to tell them. People are always so much more receptive when you throw some comedy into the mix!

10. Think about what you’d like to see on someone’s blog (obviously not a competitor’s blog!) What would you consider interesting? Who would you follow after seeing interesting things on their About Me page?

These are surefire ways to get your readers to follow you, subscribe to your blog, listen to what you have to say, and buy or endorse your product, all from the simple About Me page! Make sure to not let little “details” like these fly by; even these subtle pointers can go all the way and convert your readers into subscribers or even clients. Leave no stone unturned; these details may point you the way of success!

The 10 Things you shouldn’t leave out on your “About Me” Blog Page is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

When .co domains got released one year ago I thought it would be a great idea for a domain for two reasons. The catchy domains that you wouldn’t be able to get otherwise and the misspell traffic (trying to write .com) that you would be able to get (yes I am evil like that)! After the smoke disappeared though, I didn’t see the domain extension catching up with the hype. Not many people used them to create authority sites and people just sticked up with .coms.

You see, getting a domain with a new extension and making it your primary address is a risky thing. Take for example the .info sale-out ($0.99 domain names) that it was spammed like crazy, or the recent ban of co.cc domains from Google’s index. People were and still are skeptical to make a move on the .co train but google’s about to change that!

With an announcement some hours ago Google bought the G.co to use as it’s new shortener, going to replace goo.gl. A great move if you ask me because the domain is much sorter and at the same time going all social with the newly created Google+ service, the auto-shortening features of the g.co would be a perfect fit, making the new website popular from day one.

All we have to see now, is the service itself, where google is going to use it and last but not least, if the .co domain names will become popular again.

Is Google crazy going for a .co domain? is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

Many people ask me what I do for a living and if they can also do what I do. Not many have the patience for Internet Marketing but one thing is for sure. They can do it and so can you! It’s not a matter of I.Q., huge knowledge or technical background. Sure, it will help having all of the above, or at least some of them, but nothing can stop you from doing what you love. And now, I have a new amazing example, Bradley!

By reading an interview of Bradley Nordstrom,  I’ve just found a new way to answer to whoever  thinks they don’t have what it takes to make it online. The kid is 11 years old and he’s crushing it online! If an 11-year-old can do it, then so can you!

To continue with my story, after reading the interview, I went to visit his site straight away; and this is what I saw:

After catching my breath from laughing so hard, I felt sorry for the little fella. Given the fact that his father knows all about web development, how Google works and the detrimental effects of having a successful blog temporarily offline, I’m pretty sure he did something VERY bad to have no access to his blog!

Anyway, that got me thinking.

Bradley did something bad and according to his parents the best punishment was to take the blog down from the net. Why?

Because that was the most important thing for him apparently! Not games or surfing or something else, but his blog!

So, still wondering how he became so successful at such a young age?
Passion is the only ingredient the blogging recipe needs to make you successful online; and that kid has enough of it!
Do you?

Can I make it online? is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

It is a common saying that to be able to excel in business you have to be at least a little bit better than your competition. It might seem a bit childish as a thing to believe in but actually it’s true. To become a powerful player in your niche, no matter what market you’re into, you’ll have to be better than your competition in everything.

As an inspirational speaker on Ted mentioned, (and please if you can remember the talk, do send me the link) buyers are becoming more conscious of their buying habits and they are requesting a lot more than simply a product. They are much more demanding because now their money is more important to them. Therefore, beating your competition is not only about marketing and how to play with profit margins, but it’s also an effort that should be spread across every level of your organization, no matter how big or small it is.

To give an example, if your competition is using social media, don’t just copy their tactics just so you can to sleep well at night, don’t be like that guy on the left! Try to utilize social media in smarter ways and gain a better following, both quantitative and qualitative. Does your competition offer free shipping? Offer something more! There’s no end to the examples I can think of, but I’d love to focus on how to make your clients feel that you care about them. After all they’re the ones that actively make the decisions that can make or break your business; no matter how big or small it is.

We can all run our companies by that rule. No matter what your competition does, try to do at least 5% better than them.

Recently I’ve been paying more attention to companies, just to see what they’re doing to differentiate their services from the rest. The following are examples of good practices that I have come acrpss. This post will always be updated with new examples.

Google on doing 5% more:

I’ve had an AdSense account for quite some time. It was much more active some years ago, but I still use it for some of my projects. I’m a fanatical user of their AdWords and Analytics apps, so when they recently sent me the following brochure in the mail, I was more than happy to receive it! It’s not everyday that you get something from Google other than a cheque. They want me to become more aware of all the professional services that their company has to offer. They could just e-mail me, but what they did instead of that, was to send me a physical brochure. How considerate.

Aweber on doing 5% more:

When I registered for an account on Aweber, I got mail from them too! It was a letter from them telling me that they loved having me on board, plus a small card with their contact information so I could have it easy at hand. They too, could just have sent me an e-mail.

Godaddy on doing 5% more:

I have been using GoDaddy to register my domains for quite some time  now and had seen their VIP program, but had never really paid attention to it. Some months ago they contacted me to inform me that I no longer get standard support, but  that they have assigned me with my own account manager and that I could reach him at a specific email and telephone number. This is actually very convenient! Since I do actually have quite a few domains, it’s now much easier to talk with the same person every time! Remember, they didn’t wait for me to ask them to become a VIP user, they made me one themselves.

I’m trying to do 5% more!

I’m always trying to become better in all the areas that I can and I’m always trying to over-deliver. We should always try to do everything 5% better than our competition. And when it comes to business cards, that’s actually what I did. I had two versions made, one plastic and transparent and one from stainless steel. Especially marketeers, we have to differentiate our selves from the rest of the crowd.

How are you trying to outperform your competition and in what market? Do you know any good examples of other companies that do that 5% more? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you.

;) Angel

On doing that 5% More is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

Hello and welcome to our Evernote Showcase post! You could say: “why create one in the first place? Isn’t all the information publicly available already?” and I can say that yes, it is. The difference is that by showing you how we currently use it, it might give you ideas to organize your information in a much better way. Yes we love Evernote THAT much! Let’s take this one step at a time though.

Evernote is a multiplatform application for note taking. While that doesn’t sound like a big deal, it really is. It can change:

• The way you work
• The way you organize and retrieve information
• The way you cooperate with peers
• The ability to become 10 times more organized

While the word ‘multiplatform’ is quite a mouthful, it really is important when it comes to personal or work information.

Evernote applications work for the following operating systems and devices: Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Palm and Windows Mobile. The ability to always have all your notes with you is probably the most important feature us freelancers need.

Every platform has different features, so let’s take a closer look at what we can do with each one.

Evernote for Mac

Evernote for Mac (and for Windows) is the Full application when it comes to features. It’s usage is simple. You create folders on the left hand side of the screen, then organize all your different types of notes notes in them. This helps keep them separate and easy to distinguish. For example, I have a Personal folder for my own stuff, folders for specific projects and others accordingly.

The application itself is very easy to use and the speed of doing things is amazing. You can drag and drop an image , a pdf or part of a web page into a new note and automatically have it saved.

Every few minutes the application automatically syncs with the server so that everything is uploaded and updated, making you able to access the same information from any computer or smart phone. And when we want to make a new note and instantly be able to look it up from another device, all we have to do is manually sync it.

Evernote has a rich editor for mac or windows , though not for mobile devices. Let’s see how the mobile version makes up for the lack of features…

Evernote for iPhone

Evernote for iPhone has additional features as it’s mobile.

The first option is obvious and it is to add a new Text Note. The Snapshot option is handy because it connects to your camera and makes it very easy to share pictures you just took. The great thing about it is that you can share the location where the picture was taken from, inform someone on your whereabouts, or a give a visual of a meeting point.

Third and fourth options are the Camera Roll and Voice recorder. Camera Roll does exactly the same thing with the Snapshot feature, but with an image already existing on your file. Voice Note on the other hand, lets you take voice notes, store them and make them available to all other devices. I can’t stress how much I love this feature! I know that when I have a good idea, I’ll be able to instantly record it without the need to type a note. (My iPhone typing skills are not that great!).

Evernote for iPad

iPad always make things look prettier and therefore we can expect the same thing from the iPad version of Evernote too! Everything can be organized according to the folders that we have created and expanded with the pinch of our two fingers. The only thing that’s missing from the  iPhone version is the snapshot feature, for obvious reasons :)

Other than that, it’s a breeze to use and to view all the notes you’ve taken.

All the above seem “cool”. But why is Evernote a game-changer?

Evernote’s amazing features

Image recognition – This one’s a killer! When you upload an image to Evernote, it automatically gets in queue for image recognition. The amazing thing is that it has the ability to recognize words and numbers from scanned images. So, for example, you can scan you phone bill,  type any key word, like you name or phone number and Evernote will automatically draw up images that contain those key words. Neat huh?

Spotlight-like Search – Mac users know what I’m talking about, but one of the best features of a mac computer is the spotlight. When a file gets copied to or created on a mac, it automatically gets indexed. When we search via the spotlight, we can see all the PDFs, documents, and pictures that have the file name we want. The same thing happens with Evernote and it’s really fast! When you search for something using the program, it will search all your notes, PDFs and also images that might contain that keyword in them.

Sharing between accounts – This feature is amazing for collaboration of colleagues. After you create a folder in Evernote, you can specify who can have access to it. When you share it with someone else, that person is able to see the folder and get the latest notes you want to share, on their shared tab. One addition I would gladly welcome is the ability to move a shared folder I have to my main folders tab so I can pay more attention to it. Plus the iPhone versions should have a way to display the shared notes too. I’m sure they’ll add it soon!

Notes from email messages – If you’re on the go and you want to remember something, you can send an email to your own personal Evernote address and it will be added as a note to your Evernote application. This one’s a must for people who are always on the move and want to keep track of what they should remember.

I really feel I could talk for hours about the amazing Features of Evernote but I would love to move to the next part which is:

How we specifically use Evernote on our day-to-day collaboration.

Since we use Evernote everyday, especially for collaborating with our team members, I thought it would be a good idea to show you the most common ways in which we use it, for our daily Business life.

Let’s start with the setup: We have one account that is premium due to the fact that I love the offline use of the app with my iPhone. Our copywriter uses the same account. While this can be mind boggling some times, it’s very helpful for the time being, because we’re in constant collaboration and to synch back and forth is very easy with one account. The programmer of the team has his own account and uses it on his MacBook. I share the Task folder with him so he can see what our current tasks are and at the same time his mobile Evernote is logged in with my account. So let’s take a look at what we use it for!

Folders for Projects: We have created one folder for each one of our main projects, then some more general ones. This way we can add notes to each folder and immediately the other person knows what it’s for.

Post ProofReading: When I write an article, I upload it to the appropriate folder on Evernote. When the copywriter checks it and makes adjustments, she writes READY before the note title. Then when I post it, i remove READY and write DONE. We might keep or delete the note after that. Attention: Only one person should delete notes to avoid confusion (except if a note is in a personal folder, in which case it’s not up to you to decide when they might no longer need it).

New post Guidelines: Our team started a website/quest to find out the best WordPress themes on the Internet. Since we are on the look for new themes all the time, it’s a good resource for us when we want to find a theme for a new project we might undertake. When I see a good looking theme with good options, I just take a screenshot and add it to Evernote, together with the title. Then i add the preview, download and buy now links, together with the main benefits of using this theme. After that, our editor takes the information, gathers further info and compiles a post on the site with everything a visitor might need to make an informed decision about whether or not they like the theme. It really has helped us automate our posting process.

Task Completion: Since this isn’t not a one-man-show and each one of us is an expert on something different, we need to collaborate and give tasks to each other. We have created a To Do Folder so when we want someone to do something, we add their name to the title. For example “[Angel] – Finish the Evernote Post”. Inside the note we add additional information that will help the other person finish the task. It’s an ideal solution, but only if it’s used by all members of the team and with frequent intervals (you don’t want to block the system by synching at the same time). We thought this would be better than just sending an email, because with Evernote all members can provide info and let’s face it, email is a huge time spender. We don’t want to be looking at our emails 50 times a day.

Registration Information: Especially for products we have purchased, we add a post with the serial numbers and all the necessary information needed in order to find them again in the future.

So… Do you need more proof that an application can enhance and simplify your business life? Go and download evernote straight away! I am sure you can think of many ways that you can use Evernote to simplify and sort out your day-to-day tasks and save yourself from information overload. If you have any suggestions, please tell us in the comment section.

Ps. This was not a paid post, nor are we getting any financial benefits from writing it. We just love Evernote THAT much!

Organize your life with Evernote is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you’ve even read it. Published in 1989, this book still influences people all around the world, giving them valuable lessons in personal change. Even today, it holds some very powerful ideas which, when put to correct use, can help you accomplish your dreams.

It’s called The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and it was written by Stephen R. Covey. If you’ve already read this book, then you know that I’m talking about a piece of sheer apocalyptic writing. If you haven’t, then I suggest you do. Either way, here follows my own interpretation; a paraphrased synopsis if you will, of what you can do to lead yourself to success.

1- Successful people have a dream

They have a dream and arrange their life so as to make it a reality. Their plan of action is adjusted to the dream and not the other way around. They don’t compromise for anything less than what they want. What is also key, is that they don’t allow other people’s expectations to predetermine their own. They are not apathetic, but proactive in whatever they do. They truly envision their dream from beginning to end and understand the concepts of growth, evolution and progress.

2- Successful people have a plan

They try to view their aspirations with realism and flexibility. They make sure to prioritize and set both short-term and long-term goals and always have a Plan B, C and D. Correct planning can make or break a project, so they try to be as well-organized as possible. They set plausible objectives and evaluate their performance once they are done.

3- Successful people have skills

They understand that confidence and determination alone are not enough- they need expertise as well. This is why they are in constant search of new knowledge and innovative ways to apply what they have learned. When faced with something that is outside their own field of practice, instead of risking success, they make sure to recruit the best partners and employees for the job. They seek to understand what needs to be done and how and then go about achieving it.

4- Successful people work hard

They put in the hours and sometimes even work over time. Not because they have to, but because they realize that it’s the only way to get to where it is they want to go. They enjoy working towards their dreams and so always try their best. When faced with a task that they can’t take on alone, they prefer to synergize, rather than cut themselves short. They appreciate hard-working people and reward them for their diligence.

5- Successful people are determined

Equipped with unwavering willpower, they let few things discourage them. When any kind of problem arises, they view it as a challenge, rather than as a liability. They focus on finding mutually beneficial solutions but realize that it is part of life to rise and fall. This is why they take it in their stride to learn from their mistakes, rather than wallow in them.

6- Successful people are decisive

If you don’t speak for yourself, someone else will speak for you. This is also true for decisions and this is why successful people face situations head on. They often have a utilitarian approach to their decision making process and realize that unhappy employees or partners could be detrimental to their end game. This is why they proactively seek win-win situations for all parties when possible. They stand by their choices with conviction, confidence and dignity.

7- Successful people take responsibility

“With power comes responsibility”. It is not enough to revel in ones successes and take credit for the hard work; one must also take responsibility for failures. For that is what successful people achieve through hard wok, decisiveness and determination: to strive for balance and sustainability, no matter how many pitfalls they encounter along the way.

Whatever your dream is, surely these seven points can help you towards achieving it. Like all things in life of course, they are to be taken with a pinch of salt and a spoonful of sugar. Every person is different and that is where our collective strength lays: in our mutual exchange of knowledge, experience and ideas.

What have you observed about successful people? Is there maybe something that I have forgotten? I would love to hear what you have to say- especially if you’re successful already ;)

7 Traits of Successful People is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

One thing is for sure. Getting into the internet marketing field also means getting excited about all the possibilities and opportunities that come along the way. Most of the time, we tend to take on too many projects simultaneously. This is almost fine, as long as the projects are short-term ones. The main problems arise when our projects are long-term and involve teams with many people.

For quite some time, I used to think that the way to go was many in-house projects with many other people. My aim was to get involved with several teams and help each one with its project management, promotion, monetization and branding. I thought that since my tasks were limited to team management and promotion, and since my involvement actively starts near the end of each project right before its release, it’s the best to take on as many as possible and hope one of them meets success. I thought I had all bases covered.

But I was wrong!

What I found out the hard way was that, when you undertake a project (and especially an in-house project), you have to completely devote yourself to it, even if your instincts tell you otherwise. Trying to juggle too many projects at once can only go wrong.

The key to success lays in project selection, not project quantity.

Getting involved in a team project requires that you give it your full attention. Why? I can think of many reasons:

First off, it’s the decent thing to do! It helps group morale, knowing that all members are devoted to the same project and that you all work towards the same common goal.

Secondly, if you give a project your full attention, chances are your focus will be better, thus your performance and ability to come up with better ideas for implementation.

This way you also give each project less failure points and, upon completion, you’ll have no questions, doubts or last minute changes teasing your mind. Worrying about multiple problems from multiple projects all at the same time hardly makes good practice for success.

Lastly, you can be sure you did everything you could to make the project successful and, perhaps most importantly, move on to the next one with confidence.

What the image above explains is how time between projects should be divided and distributed. Undertake a project, focus on it, complete it and when the project reaches its maintenance stage, then move on to the next one.

Ps. Deciding what projects you will devote yourself to is close to an art-form. It’s very important and needs a lot of thought and attention. Read my post on the project selection process to get a better understanding of this concept.

Ps2. What can also work well is to have one team project that you focus your main efforts on, and one long term personal project (like a blog) that you can work on in your free time. This way you won’t be putting all your eggs in one basket and you’ll be building yourself some brand equity at the same time. If in the end the main project doesn’t turn out so well, at least your personal blog will have evolved by doing something you love.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on this one! What do you do? Are you involved in many projects at the same time, or do you focus only on one and why?

Juggling many projects? is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.

Nowadays, the amount of information shared over the Internet increases exponentially. This includes the information available that many organizations make known. A never-ending cycle, it implies that  a source exposing more information makes the source more influential, resulting in even more information being exposed by other sources. In order for this information to be managed, several systems have been implemented to facilitate the creation and, most importantly, its organization. Therefore, any modern web site of dynamically managed content should implement a Content Management System (CMS).

The most popular CMS are:

1. WordPress
2. Joomla
3. Drupal

Let’s take a look at them and see what each one has to offer.

WordPress

WordPress is so popular mainly because it became the best platform for blogging. People started to use it for its ease and its light backend. Some years later, people started to want more from the WordPress system and started creating more and more plug-ins to better serve their needs. Now it has more than 3,800 plug-ins and countless themes; making it a great solution for even an amateur blogger.

I have used WordPress without a doubt on many blogs and simple sites I’ve created, like company profile sites. (This blog is created with WordPress, too!)

Joomla

Joomla is one of the oldest content management systems. It became popular due to the fact that it’s very easy to use and produces results quickly. It’s actually something between WordPress and Drupal. It currently has more than 4,200 plug-ins and many templates to choose from.

Personally I‘ve used it to setup a fast portal-like site. It’s not my number one choice though, because if I want something simple, I’d rather use WordPress, while if I have a complicated task, requiring feature updates, I’ll go with Drupal.

Drupal

Drupal is extendable, with many generic and application-specific modules and good scalability. It also has a great support community, in terms of expertise and population. Not much coding is required to get a functional result, while many developers have joined the Drupal community so as to further better its CMS. Of course, press and consultants have not left Drupal go unnoticed either: it won the Packt Publishing’s “Open Source CMS Award (Overall)” in 2007 and the CNET’s “Webware 100” award in 2008.

Personally, I’d suggest Drupal CMS for every large scale project and I’m sure it would prove the best solution for companies. Beware though; it’s the hardest of the three to develop and support and I would not suggest it to anyone new to the world of CMS.

There are of course many other options out there and there’s also always the solution of creating something from scratch. I’m not a huge fan of reinventing the wheel, but when a project or service requires it, I gotta roll with it. If, on the other hand, I can create a website with the features I want by using one of these three, I opt for them.

What CMS are you in favor of, and which have you used in the past? Please share your experience in the comments. I am always looking for alternatives and/or software that can help me things faster and more efficiently!

What is a CMS? is a post from Moneytized Blog
Follow @Moneytized @ Twitter.