Review: Blog Writing Service - Water My Blog?

This is a Sponsored Post written by me. All opinions are 100% mine.

So you have a business, your website is going strong, and you’re working on your SEO and other marketing to get more traffic to your site and take your business to the next level.  You’ve heard that everyone needs to have a blog.  You’ve heard about all the benefits of blogging, from delivering valuable content to your users, customers, subscribers, etc. to improving your search engine rankings.  You’re sold on the benefits, but where are you going to find the time to crank out regular blog posts?  After all, one of the things you’ve learned is that the key to blogging successfully is providing quality content on a consistent basis.

This is the dilemma for a lot of people.  Blogging is a tremendous tool for your business, but it takes a focused effort and a lot of time that many of us just don’t have.  Add to that the fact that many people just aren’t writers and have a hard time coming up with interesting topics much less presenting them in an effective way, and it can all seem very overwhelming.  Well, fear not!  There is a solution to all these challenges, and it’s an easy, affordable solution that you can implement immediately.

Introducing WaterMyBlog.com
WaterMyBlog is a blog writing service like no other.  While it’s popular to hire virtual assistants, freelancers and ghost writers to fill blogging needs, all of those are missing a key element.  They’ll provide regular content, and it might even be written very well, but what are the chances these sources are SEO experts?  Pretty slim.  That’s what makes WaterMyBlog.com different.  This service provides quality blog posts based around your chosen key words, written in a way that serves to greatly enhance your SEO efforts.

How it works
Getting started with WaterMyBlog.com is easy.  First, you’ll provide them with the key words (5-10) you want to optimize for.  This is of course very important, because these words (topics) will end up being the focus of the blog posts they write.  If you need help determining the best key words to rank for, they have SEO experts on staff to help you out.  Next, they connect their software to your blog.  It works with all the popular blogging platforms, so no worries there.  This gives them the ability to directly upload your blog posts once they’re approved.  Once their software is integrated, their researchers get busy using their news aggregators to create a plan that will ensure your blog is relevant to readers and to the search engines.  After the research is done, all that’s left is writing your posts.  The writers at WaterMyBlog.com are called Gardeners, and they will use the information they’ve learned from the news aggregators to create quality, SEO-relevant posts, which will be submitted to you for approval.  If you want changes, you can edit the post yourself or ask for the changes you want.  Once it’s done to your satisfaction, your post will automatically be posted to your site.  It’s that easy!  You’ve saved tons of time while reaping all the benefits of adding outstanding blog content to your site.  And the pricing for all this is outstanding.  You’ll pay no more than $13 per post!  They also have some great promotions running right now, like a one-month free trial!

While they aren’t the solution I’d recommend for pro bloggers who make their living off their blog, WaterMyBlog.com is a great solution for anyone with a primary product or service looking to add a blogging component.  So if you understand all the benefits of adding a blog to your site but haven’t had the time to do it, or if you’re already blogging but are looking for an inexpensive way to free up all the time it’s taking you, OR if you just want to make sure your blogging efforts are paying off with proper SEO, take a look at WaterMyBlog.com.

Affiliate Network Review: EWA Private Network

Every now and then, a product, service or program comes along that really needs to be reviewed and promoted - not because it’s a paid review or affiliated site, but because it’s just outstanding.  Even though this is a paid review, that’s definitely the case with EWA Private Network.  EWA, which stands for Eagle Web Assets, is an affiliate network that has built a solid online reputation through ethical business practices, proving they really know what they’re doing, and taking great care of their affiliates and their advertisers.

EWA is made up of a small, hand-selected group of marketers, media buyers, SEM pros, and email marketers.  The company is run by Ryan Eagle and Harrison Gevirtz, who lead a team of dedicated Network and Affiliate Managers 7 days a week to provide the kind of support not often found in an affiliate network.  It is clear that their focus is on their affiliates and helping them to be successful in their affiliate marketing efforts.  They promise to maintain personal connections with all their affiliates and work closely with each affiliate every step of the way to ensure success, and they have a reputation of backing up that promise.

If you’ve been an affiliate marketer or have researched the possibilities, you’ve most likely either experienced or read about issues with affiliates of various networks not being paid on time, as much as promised, or not at all.  Not only does EWA pay out weekly, they pledge to beat any payout for the same program, and they pay everyone - on time.  They truly understand that taking care of the people who count on them (affiliates and advertisers) pays off for them in big ways, which is reflected in their motto: Help more; Pay more; Get more.

Highlights:

• EWA will beat any payout you get from any network.
• They pay weekly - from day 1, with no threshold.
• They are available 7 days a week to help you make your campaigns bigger and more profitable.
• They help you scale and optimize your campaigns and find traffic sources.
• EWA pledges to get any offer you are currently running at another network within 3 days and beat the payout!
• They have over 1500 offers for 60 countries on their network live and active.

So is there a downside to EWA?  Well, not really a downside, but it is a private network.  That means the only way in is usually through a referral.  However there is an application on the site, and even though having a referral will help, if you meet their criteria, you can be accepted without it.  For anyone who is accepted into their network, their “pickiness” is a very positive thing.  They really want to work with serious marketers because they plan on investing in your success through one-on-one training and support.

What others are saying:

If you want to see what the buzz around the net is, check out these other reviews and comments:

AffPortal

Zac Johnson

Affiliate Marketing Compare

Jeremiah Cooper

Bottom line is this: If you’re a serious affiliate marketer looking for an affiliate network run by people who know what they’re doing and who will do everything they can to help you make lots of money off your affiliate marketing efforts, you’d be crazy not to check out EWA Private Network.

Review: Print24 for Business Cards

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Print24. All opinions are 100% mine.

You probably either have business cards, or you don’t think you need them.  Either way, you still might want to consider checking out Print24.  If you have cards already, take a look at Print24’s free 250 card promotion.  You’ll just pay shipping on 250 full-color cards of great quality.  The Print24 logo is printed on the back, so why would you want these cards?  Anytime you attend trade shows, conferences, or anywhere you drop your card in a drawing box, avoid wasting your regular cards, by using these cards.  If you’re of the mindset that you don’t need business cards, that must mean you’re not attending any networking events, seminars, trade shows, or anything where you can meet potential customers, partners, and colleagues.  If that’s the case, you aren’t doing all you can to build your business, and you might want to rethink that.  In any case, here’s the scoop on Print24:

About Print24

Print24 calls itself “one of the world’s most modern printing businesses.”  And while their site could use a few tweaks, their product certainly backs up the claim.  Located in a 107,000 square foot facility about 100 miles northwest of London, Print24 is part of unitedprint.com, Southeast Europe’s leader in web-to-print.  But if you’re in the US, don’t let the fact that they’re located overseas keep you from using Print24.  With their quick turnaround times and reasonable shipping rates, you won’t notice the difference.

Ordering

When you first arrive at the Print24 site, you notice right away that it’s not like a lot of web-to-print sites.  The first page is the order form, letting you get right down to business without having to search the site for what you’re looking for.  That said, there are a few frustrating features that you should be aware of.  First, be sure to register before you do anything else.  If you fill out the form without registering and try to continue, you’ll be sent to register, and when you go back to your original inputs, they’ll be gone.  Avoid the frustration and time of entering everything twice by registering right away.  The other potential frustration with the initial process is that pretty much every field is required - even “Greeting” (Mr., Ms.) and “Legal [business] form” (LLC, Corp, etc.), and if you miss something, other information drops out, so you can get stuck in a sort of loop.  Avoid this by just filling out every field.  Also, don’t enter dashes or spaces in your telephone number, because, even though they don’t tell you, that will confuse the form too.

If you get through the signup process, your reward is that you get to begin your order.  Print24 offers great pricing on flyers, business cards, calendars, labels, brochures, catalogs, and more.  One huge plus is the fact that they have very low minimums.  For example, you can order as few as 100 business cards.  Of course 500 is only a couple of dollars more, but if you want to cut down on waste and save a couple bucks on shipping, just get what you need.

You have two options for designing most products: you can upload a file, or you can use Print24’s online design platform.  The online program is great. (Note: make sure your popup blocker is off.)  For business cards, they have hundreds of ready-made designs to choose from, ranging from very basic to quite elaborate, so you’re sure to find one to fit your needs.  The WYSIWYG editor for the online design is fantastic.  You get tons of options for type styles, alignment, color, graphic editing… you name it.

Once you complete your design and submit it, you’ll proceed to checkout where you’ll be pleasantly surprised that shipping on 500 business cards is less than $6.  Total with shipping for 500 high-gloss, full-color business cards is about $26.  Not bad at all.

Bottom Line

Print24 could benefit from some changes to their signup and initial ordering process, but once you get through that, it’s smooth sailing. And since you only have to sign up once, any frustrations are short-lived anyway.  The real value is in the quality of the finished product from Print24.  The cards are good quality and look great.  Which, after all, is the whole point.

Apple’s iPad: Entrepreneurs Will Love It – When They’re Not Working

If you keep up on technology news even a little, you know that Steve Jobs recently announced the late-March launch of Apple’s new tablet computer, the iPad. The buzz about the device is in full swing, so we scanned reviews and public opinions from all over the web, to answer the one question we’re most concerned with: Will entrepreneurs want to be first in line at the Apple store on release day?

The short answer is, “probably not.” Don’t misunderstand – this is a very cool device. It does all an iPod Touch does and gives you more room in which to do it. Several apps, such as email, the photo app, and maps, have been revamped for the iPad as well. And there is no doubt developers are by now feverishly working to tweak their already-compatible 140,000+ iPhone apps to look great on the iPad’s larger screen.

So it’s not that the iPad isn’t useful or exciting; it’s just that (priced between $499 and $829) it is very unlikely to take the place of your comparably-priced laptop or desktop, for work purposes. By nearly all accounts, this is more of a device for home and fun than for work. In fact, it seems the reviews of the iPad can’t help but refer to lounging at home: “…seems like it would be a great way to read a book, curled up on my couch,” (SF Chronicle) and “…a casual computer for the living room couch.” (CNET)

Now, if your business involves reviewing websites or HD YouTube videos, or reading books, the iPad might be an additional tool for you. There’s no denying the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen offers a great web experience, and the included new iBook software makes reading books on the iPad a pleasure. But if you’re looking to do the kind of work most of us in business need to do, you won’t be pitching your laptop for the iPad. Even with the available iWork suite ($79 extra), a lack of multitasking abilities, no SD or USB slots, and a smaller-than-standard on-screen keyboard might make serious work a challenge.

Based on feedback from several reviewers (Macworld, PC Advisor, and Gizmodo for instance) and scores of laypeople (example), the Apple iPad is seen by most as a larger version of the iPod Touch/iPhone. If you consider those devices business tools, and you like the idea of an enlarged version, have a closer look at the iPad. If not, stick with the solutions you use now for business and think about getting an iPad for fun.

What do you think of Apple’s new iPad? Is it something you think you’ll buy when it is released? Share your opinion below.

The Top 3 Education/Book Sites

As the popularity of social media expands in the online community, it is little wonder that a variety of second-generation social bookmarking sites have materialized, dealing with a wide variety of categories. In the category of education and books, there are dozens of social bookmarking sites and we have determined the top three within this hierarchy. These sites serve as the perfect gathering place for millions of avid readers, creating a potentially attractive advertising arena for publishers; however, commercialization appears to be in its infancy.

When we were creating this list, we took into account a lot of information, including current levels of membership, visitor traffic, user-friendly accessibility, member features and innovation. So, the Blogtrepreneur Top 3 favorites - drumroll please…

1. LibraryThing

According to our research, LibraryThing has the highest number of unique monthly users and site visitors, and has some 650,000 registered members (according to Zeitgeist overview, January, 2009). This places LibraryThing well ahead of its rivals. We particularly like its interface and usability, though. LT allows you to keep a convenient catalog of book collections and browse others. They give book recommendations and hook you up with other book lovers. For true accessibility they allow you to access your catalog from places like your mobile phone. Further, their format allows you to catalog and categorize your collection simply and very easily.

2. Goodreads

Like LT, Goodreads allows you to catalog your entire collection within your profile. Their database is pretty comprehensive. The application is clean—but a little bare. Goodreads does offer you flexibility, though as you can arrange your books in a variety of ways – author, title, rating, etc. LibraryThing allows you to show which users are borrowing and who’s next in line to borrow each book. This feature is great for those who have large collections, and can allow you to keep track of your loaners; Goodreads should adopt something like this. This site does appear to focus more on ratings than actual formatting and cataloging. In their favor, however, they do have a nifty little widget, which allows you to incorporate your reading habits, according to your Goodreads profile, on a compatible social network or blog.

3. Shelfari

Shelfari’s design is very clean and appealing, They make it very easy to add books to your shelf, you can categorize and tag your books and friends and set up different groups. We think that the orientation of this site is maybe a little too laid-back for those who are seriously looking for a tool to organize their personal collection. Shelfari is arguably the more commercialized out of our top three, as it has enjoyed a considerable infusion from Amazon. They do have just a few too many “cutesy” effects and pop-ups for our liking, but this site is still one of the leaders in the growing field of more than 30 similar sites.

So do you agree? What would your top 3 education and book sites be? We want to hear your thoughts.

Matthew Toren

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