Engaging and Keeping Your Readers

Have you often wondered how to engage and keep your blog readers coming back for more? With so many distractions and something more interesting being just a click away it can truly be a daunting task to get folks to spend a few minutes reading your blog post.  Whether you write for monetary purposes or just because you love writing, you still want your content to be read.

Come on, I know you have valuable and useful material to share with others but perhaps you ‘re struggling with readership. Well let’s look at a few ways to engage readers and make them want to read, share and comment on your blog.

1) Decide on your target audience and write specifically for them, don’t get side tracked writing for friends and family unless they are you’re target audience! Think about who you’re trying to communicate with, who is your ideal customer?

2) Grab your reader’s attention with a catchy ‘headline’. This is your chance to communicate the gist of your article in an amusing or hot topic title. Great titles can draw in the crowds or turn them away!

3) You want you’re readers to participate to some degree on your blog, right? So ask questions, have ‘like’ and share buttons that they can utilize, be sure that you have a ‘follow’ this blog gadget.

4) Stay in touch with your blog traffic stats. Use Google analytics or another stat counter to see which of your posts receives the most traffic. Which ones get shared and tweeted!

5) Be sure your blog articles contain value for your readers. Readers will not stay on your page for long if they aren’t engaged and learning something from your content. Keep your writing clean and free from nonsense. People won’t come back or bookmark your blog if you’re just wasting their time.

Do your readers share with you, do you consistently get comments and re-tweets from others? Tell me about your experience with this?

As always I’ve been working on marketing and trying to build my business day by day! Here is a sampling of some of the fun products you can purchase at my store Designs by Shell. I’m adding new designs almost daily so stop by often.

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10 Steps to Re-Charge Your Battery

Sometimes in our routines and daily patterns of life we just get plain tired and run down. We can often become over whelmed by physical and mental fatigue. Keeping up with a demanding job, maybe a second job for some, taking care of family, kids, the house and all that entails can wear you out! Perhaps you need to take a step back and see what you can do to re-charge and re-energize  your life, today! 

Often just a few simple changes can bring renewed energy and vitality to your life once again. Here is a list to check out!

1) Eat the right foods! Too many carbs could be zapping your energy. Try consuming less bread products and sugar.

2) Reduce caffeine intake, if you’re a big coffee drinker try having one or two cups less per day! Smaller doses can help but too much can leave you anxious and jittery!

3) Drink more water! Our bodies crave water and need to stay hydrated! Often we miss the signs! Keep a water bottle on your desk or in your car for convenience!

4) Exercise, just a few minutes of exercise a day can help increase your energy level. Anyone can take 5 to 10 minutes even if at work to do some stretching or go for short walk, you’ll reap the benefits.

5) Breath in some fresh air! Step outside for a few moments even on a rainy or cloudy day, fresh air has a way of boosting your mood!

6) Play a brain game! Just a few minutes of this type of stimulation can increase your focus and step up your thinking!

7) Put on some relaxing music, nature sounds or even something classical has been known to energize!

8) Get enough sleep! Don’t burn the candle at both ends and expect to be full of get up and go the next day! Our bodies need sleep to refuel us!

9) Ditch the sugary snacks! Replace your muffins and cookie habit with fresh fruit and veggies. Easy to cut up and take to work or wherever your going for the day!

10) Add something new to your routine, change up something, anything, really! Getting yourself in a rut can stifle creativity!

Come by Designs by Shell to see the latest products and designs. Always adding new and creative ideas …

Technorati Tags: energy+tips,re-energize,health,designs by shell

Fascination

The definition of fascination by the Merriam Webster dictionary simple means, a) the quality or power of fascinating b) something fascinating c) the state of being fascinated: the state of feeling an intense interest in something. 

Today I spent the morning with a friend and her daughter in law and two little grandkids. The children are twins that are almost 2 years old. We took them to a local airport for a lunch outing and to watch the planes and helicopters landing and taking off. The little boy Eli was especially fascinated by all the airplanes and got very excited when he spotted the helicopters in the sky. He kept saying airplane, helicopter, airplane, helicopter… so cute! Aw, the simple, yet amazing things that we as adults often forget to marvel at. 

Here are some Fascinating Facts that perhaps you never thought about: for more info. on these facts check out this site, Did You Know

1) The first submarine was designed in 1578, sketched out by Leonardo da Vinci

2) Light bulbs were in use before Thomas Edison applied for the paten in 1879

3) The first box of Crayola Crayons sold for a nickel in 1903

4) The human head consisting of the cranium and facial bones contains a total of 22 bones.

5) Cows do not have upper front teeth

6) Diamonds are the hardest natural substance on earth but if hit hard with a hammer will shatter or split

7) The muscle in your eye that causes you to blink is the fastest muscle in the body, blinking around 15 000 times a day.

8) Tomatoes are the world’s most popular fruit

9) If you’re an August baby you are born in the month with the highest birth rate.

10) Bicycles were sketched out by Leonard da Vinci but a Frenchman named De Sivrac built the first bicycle-style transportation in 1690

Well just a few fascinating facts, did you learn something new? 

I’ve been working on new designs and marketing as usual and here are a few designs and products to share with you. Drop by Designs by Shell to see more!

Technorati Tags: fascination,facts,through a child's eyes,designs by shell

Feed on the Good, Weed Out the Bad

You’ve heard it said before, garbage in garbage out!  The things we eat good or bad will effect our health. Things we watch, read and listen to will shape our hearts and our attitudes. Even the people that we hang out with will put a positive or negative spin on our lives. There are so many opportunities on the internet and hundreds of channels on television that bombard us with information and visual stimulants daily. Whether you want to believe it or not, what you put into your body and mind has a profound effect on your life. With this said, we need to be selective with what we feed ourselves. How often do you take inventory of what you watch, read, listen to or participate in? Are your values be watered down, it’s good to weed out the bad and soak up the good!

Even in business we need to be selective with whom we associate with, who we listen to and whom we take advice from. Negative thinking can seep into the mind subconsciously and can desensitize us, watering down our business ethics.  I like to participate in networking business forums and in these places everybody is trying to push their thoughts, marketing methods and various business tips, some of which are good and have value but some that have questionable practices and advice that needs to be weeded out. With so many people offering their own personal thoughts and ideas we need to decipher the good from the bad. Just remember to weigh things out constantly in order to stay healthy in life, business and all you do! 

Designs by Shell

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New Marketing Strategies

Time for some new marketing strategies! SEO is basically finding ways to promote and improve your website so that your traffic from the search engines increases. It seems SEO has become a lot harder these days and way more challenging for the online marketer. Some of the things that come into play with SEO involve words and descriptions, the way other sites link to your site on the web and also the set up of your site. Search engines are the main method that traffic is driven to your site. The big ones are Google, Yahoo and Bing. The thing with search engines is that people put in the description of what they’re looking for and if that’s what your site offers they will be directed to your page. These are referred to as targeted visitors. That’s why it’s important for the search engines to be able to find your business or you may just miss out on potential sales.

There are lots of new ways that are available to market your online business. Sure they are going to take some time but you have to decide how much time and effort you want to put in in order to promote your business.  Social networking sites are great to promote and advertise your company but you don’t want to bombard these sites and become known as a spammer because that will get you no where in a hurry!

My most recent method to promote my store came about when my son told me about this site called Weebly.com, perhaps you’ve heard of it. This site makes creating your own webpage really easy, you can buy a domain name like I did and create a page marketing your products. This is where you want to go niche’ and choose one type or theme from your business and promote through their own webpage. So I chose to promote my ‘baby shower section’ of my store and my ‘birthday invitation’ section. They now have their own website, so cool! Just click on the underlined words to see my new sites. So now I can promote them with their own url rather than a mass store url. I still have lots to learn but little by little I’m getting there.  Basic sites on Weebly are free but you can upgrade at any time to the Pro package. Basic is good for testing out and to see if this could be something that will help your business.

With my new websites I’ve been working on designs to fit into those pages, so lots of new baby shower invitations and birthday party ideas have been flowing lately. Here’s a sampling below, thanks for stopping by Designs by Shell

Technorati Tags: marketing+strategies,tips,create+website,designs+by+shell

Words of Wisdom from Influential People

This post is a little different in that I wanted to share some quotes from influential people that can be applied to your every day life as well as your work life. We all need to be inspired and motivated to move forward and keep shining in whatever it is we do.

“Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently”  – Maya Angelou

“I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble” – Rudyard Kipling

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” – Steve Jobs

“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,”that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.” – Stephen R. Covey

“Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.” – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there” – Zig Ziglar

“One thing life taught me: If you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream an new dream – C.S. Lewis

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen R. Covey

In keeping up with my latest designs I’ve been working on a variety of different themes and creations. Feel free to visit my store and check out my designs.

 

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Hand Writing Suffers Due to Technology

Due to the digital age and so many of us only using computers to send messages, letters, memos etc. hand writing has become a skill that many of us are losing. Just like the saying use it or lose it, it’s very true in this case. Cursive writing takes much practice when first learning it but also contributes to dexterity and good hand-eye coordination.

Hand writing is used less and less in the business world, everything being pushed out on computers. Granted keyboarding is much faster  for many and more efficient with spell check at hand. Holding a pen actually feels a little foreign,the letters begin to lose their shape while penmanship declines. Many people can still print okay but cursive handwriting when not practiced regularly begins to fade and get rather messy for some.

What do you think? How often do you use cursive writing in your day to day life?  Many of us simply only use it as our signature and nothing more.  The question has been brought up in high schools and colleges as to whether cursive writing should be continually worked on or the focus should be towards keyboarding skills. In college many students still prefer to take notes by hand but when it comes to turning in assignments the majority prefer to hand in a typed paper. It looks neater, easier to spell check and move words and paragraphs around. Bad penmanship isn’t an issue and the professors can mark it with ease.

Graphologists believe that your hand writing can give clues to your personality. A Graphologist is someone who analyzes hand writing, this term was new to me! They say the size, the slant, the loops etc. all say something about personality traits. Hmmm, interesting!

Well feel free to share your thoughts or comments here, hope you enjoyed the read! 

Been busy creating new designs for my store, always new ideas brewing, stop by for a look around!

Technorati Tags: hand writing obselete,hand writing suffering,technology,designs by shell