Guest Post by Bruce Hoag

If you have been involved in online marketing for any length of time, then you will know that writing fresh, unique, and quality content for publication is the fastest and most reliable way to get traffic to your website.

Perhaps the easiest way to do this is by writing articles and then submitting them to an article directory, such as Ezines.com.

This particular directory ranks high in the search engines and also enables you to tell your followers in Facebook and Twitter that you have just written something new. But, you must write a lot of them in order to get a sufficient number of readers.

A much more effective way is to write a blog post for someone who already has a devoted group of followers in your niche. This activity is called "guest blogging."

Because it is so effective, it's also much more difficult to have your posts accepted by the blog host. So I want to help you to write posts that will increase your chances of publication in other people's blogs...

I want you to imagine that the blog host is the editor of a newspaper of magazine that has a large circulation. And I also want you to imagine that you've been given your own syndicated column. That means that you'll be writing articles that will be read by people who live all over the country; and in fact, anywhere that the paper is sold.

As a journalist, who will have a regular readership. How will you approach your column? How will you make your articles interesting and thought-provoking? And how can you improve your chances of getting the editor to publish what you write?

The answer is to think in terms of a series of articles, or a series of ideas. You have one big, main idea, and then you write about all of the parts in a sequence so that your readers gradually understand that topic.

I can tell you from my own personal experience of writing hundreds of articles online and a dozen for a regional newspaper that it's much easier to write a series than it is to think about just one topic at a time. That's because this approach enables you to take a large topic and break it up into smaller ones. The advantage here is that it removes the temptation to try to say everything that you think is important all at once.

You have to remember that while the most popular blogs have regular readers, few of those readers will have read and digested everything that's ever been posted on it. And so whatever you write wil contribute to the collective body of information it contains.

You do exactly the same thing when you write a guest post. The blog host is the editor. The blog is the newspaper or magazine, and it has a main theme. That theme forms the core around which all of the posts have been written.

That's beneficial to you because it means that just by reading some of the published posts that appear already, you can get a feel for the type, length, and depth of material the blog host wants.

You may find the idea of writing a series a bit mind-boggling the first time you do it. Don't let that put you off. The most prodigious writers all had to start somewhere. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you that it gets easier with practice.

So, as a new, or even an experienced guest blogger, you're homework is to find a blog that interests you, read some posts until you understand the central theme, and then list the topics that you think would make a meaningful contribution to it.

Cheers, Bruce

Bruce Hoag, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS
Work Psychologist & Business Mentor

Get my new eBook, How to BE an Entrepreneur, available from http://www.howtobeanentrepreneuronline.com
When you've done that, then you'll be ready to start writing.

While only a few years ago smartphones were considered to be a luxury item, in today's world they're more of a modern necessity. Look around and you will see nearly everyone you know using mobile phones to access websites and data.

If you're an ecommerce business owner, you know how important it is to create a user-friendly website.

Yet now this means creating a website that's not only user-friendly on the big screen of a home computer, but also on the tiny screen of a smartphone or tablet.

One way to go about this is to create a special phone app, but this can be expensive for small business owners. There are other ways to streamline your original website to make it better optimized for mobile users...

It's best to start by thinking about the pages of your website which are most likely to be accessed by mobile users. If you run an ecommerce shop, this could be the checkout page or the home page. You can optimize these first, while including a link to your main website for those mobile users who want to see more. The following are other ways to make your ecommerce site more mobile-friendly:

1. Look at Mobile Plugins.

The type of platform that you use could determine whether or not you could use a mobile plugin. These are programs which optimize your website to make them more agreeable with mobile viewing standards, and are fairly simple to use.

Many ecommerce software programs will include mobile plugin options. There are also plugins available for popular blogging platforms like WordPress.

2. Streamline your Content

If you're creating separate pages for the mobile version of your website, you don't need to have every bit of information carry over. You can showcase your products with minimal text, making use of white space to ensure that your message and images stand out on a small screen.

There's nothing that looks worse on a smartphone screen than a website that's crammed too full of information. These rules apply to your main website as well.

You can use ecommerce templates to design a clean layout that will translate well to mobile screens.

3. Design for Slow Connection Speeds

When someone is accessing your website with their mobile, chances are that they will have a slower connection than they would at home. Eliminating the complicated design features that take ages to load can prevent your audience from getting frustrated. This means scaling back the use of images, and avoiding any use of Flash animation. A good rule is to include one or two images per post, which is plenty to engage the audience without clogging up the connection.

4. Avoid Banner Ads and Pop-Ups

Pop-up features have their place in web design, providing a way for customers to receive more information or register their details without leaving the main page. Yet they are more trouble than they're worth on a mobile website. They can slow down the loading process significantly and block the information that your audience is looking for. It's best to avoid them in these circumstances.

5. Design for Touch Screen Navigation

Modes of navigation are slightly different between a regular computer screen and a mobile screen. A mobile device will often involve a touch screen. To make navigation easier, it's helpful to include large buttons crafted with fingers in mind. These should be bold enough to stand out easily, for a more user-friendly experience.

Another factor to consider is that most readers on a mobile device will be scrolling down the page, so it's best to keep your content in a vertical line rather than placing your products horizontally.

** This post was written and sponsored by Shopify