I belong to a number of online discussion groups for Coaches. This past weekend one member of a particular discussion group posted a message that made my jaw drop. She had found that 3 other coaches had stolen her website content and placed it on their own websites. One of which had called her for a sample session. I find this to be shocking behaviour for Coaches who are trained in the distinction of integrity.
Others on the discussion group gave her a tool to use to find any other sites that copied her website content. What she found from this tool was disturbing. A past client of hers had, you guessed it, had “copied and pasted” her content. Now, I understand that some phrases stay in your head when you like them and you use them without even noticing. But this was a line by line copy and paste job.
Now this story takes an interesting and almost hilarious spin. One of the websites that had copied her website content had forgotten to change the links and so when you click on the link to “find out more”, you are directed to the original site, you know, the site that the text was copied from in the first place!
Now how can you find any “copy and paste” Coaches who are copying and pasting your content? It’s easy. Go to www.copyscape.com and enter your website’s address (and individual pages as well). This tool will search the internet for any websites that have similar terms, phrases, sentences, paragraphs…you get the picture.
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
December 2nd, 2008
Last week I wrote a post called “What is Twitter and Why do I want to Tweet?“. This week, I’ve got a little tip for you. I have always suggested that you buy the website of your name ie. www.MarySmith.com. Why? Because you want to get your hands on it before someone with your same name grabs it. You never know what they will do with it once they have it and it could potentially be damaging to your brand and your company. Seriously, I’ve heard a few bad stories. 
Now with Twitter you get your own page on www.twitter.com, such as www.twitter.com/techcoach, where you can find me on Twitter. So you can imagine how quick companys such as CNN, www.twitter.com/cnn, Yahoo, www.twitter.com/yahoo and WordPress, www.twitter.com/WordPress moved quickly to get their Twitter accounts and pages. In fact, if you take a look at www.twitter.com/iPod you’ll find that this account is for sale!
So, if you haven’t signed up for your Twitter account yet, get on it…it’s free!
Register the following user accounts on Twitter to cover yourself and your business:
- your full name
- your business name
- your book name
- your other websites addresses (I’ve registered www.twitter.com/wpblogsites where I will be promoting my book)
- any trademark names you have
- your children’s names…why not!?
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
September 23rd, 2008
It’s hard to forget what happened on this day 7 years ago. We will forever remember what we were doing the moment we found out about the attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
I had slept in that day and heard on my clock radio that a plane had hit a tower in NYC. I quickly ran to the television to see what had happened. I thought a small 1-4 person plane had hit the tower and thought “How did the pilot hit the tower? Do you not see it? Were they drunk?” I wouldn’t have imagined that this was an attack, done on purpose with a big passenger plane. That was not the way we thought pervious to 9/11.
I made my way to work on public transit and before heading into work I stopped to pick up a bagel and coffee at a shop attached to my subway stop. As I walked into the shop I noticed it was oddly filled with people with their jaw dropped and facing the 2 tiny televisions on the wall. That’s when I heard the reporter say “…and when the second plane hit…”, that’s when I knew this was a planned attack and this was not going to be a normal day.
When I got into work (no one noticed that I was REALLY late), I was bombared with requests for mobile numbers of my co-workers who were in the U.S. on business. I got on the phone to call them. When I finally got through they had no clue what was going on as they were in their hotel rooms preparing for their sales meeting. I told them “You should really call your wives and let them know you are ok”, and they responded “yeah, sure, we will call them later.” They really didn’t get how big this was.
I got off the phone with them and called my older sister who was living in California at the time with her husband and my Mother who was visiting. I was the first to tell them what was going on and they thought I was joking! “No seriously, turn on CNN! You will see the video footage of it all”.
I then tried to find more information on the attacks to answer the 1000+ questions in my head. What was really going on? Who did this? Have any other cities been attacked? Are they really flying in people into Toronto hospitals? Is there really an average of 50,000 people in the World Trade Centre at a time? Will my Mother be able to fly home next week?
As you probably remember cnn.com was down. Why? Because their website couldn’t handle the millions of people who were logging on to get onto the site to learn more. I was lucky to get one radio station online but soon enough I couldn’t connect because too many people were also trying to connect to them! Like many others I tried to find another radio station that would let me connect and would help answer my questions. I had no luck. The next day I brought my old radio into work. Just in case something like this happened again I could be informed with my low-tech radio.
So how would September 11th 2001, been different if we had today’s technology?
Twitter.com – Updates on the attack could have been posted on Twitter by news stations and by anyone else who had access to a television that day.
FaceBook.com – FaceBook could have been used to let family members and friends know you were ok through your Facebook “status”. Facebook groups would have been flooded with discussions about the attacks and news updates.
Text Messaging – Although we had the ability to text message back then, North Americans didn’t text message as often as they do today. Most of us didn’t even know how to send a text message! Text messages could have been used to update your friends and family of your status and make alternate arrangements home from work, if need be.
Blackberries www.rim.com – The Blackberry network (although around back then but not widely used) would have been a quick way to send loved ones texts, emails, instant messages and it would have been used to browse the web for updates.
Mobile TV phones – Yes they exist! You could have used your tv phone to view the news on your favourite station.
Blogs - A smart tech savvy person could have set up a blog within seconds and posted updates on the blog. They could have also offered a service for loved ones looking for their family members.
YouTube.com - YouTube would have been FILLED with new home videos and news clippings of the events of the day. YouTube would have also been bombared with visitors curious to see these videos.
The above assumes that all networks do have the capacity for millions of visitors/users today. I for one hope we never have to find out.
What other technology do you think would have changed how we went about our day on September 11th 2001? Feel free to submit your comment.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who were victimized by the attacks.
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
September 11th, 2008
By default WordPress displays your blog posts on your home page. If you’d prefer your blog posts to be displayed on a page called “blog” and to display a “welcome” page on your home page instead here’s how you do it.
1) Create a page with the title “Home”, press save/publish
2) Create a page with the title “Blog”,press save/publish
3) Go to options/settings
4) Click “reading” in the submenu bar
5) Under “Front Page displays”:
a) Click “a static page”
b) Make your front page “Home”
c) Make your blog page “Blog”
6) Save
You’re done! You know have a page named “Blog” which displays your recent blog posts and a page named “Home” which you write whatever you’d like on. When your website is visited the “Home” page will be displayed and the blog page will be displayed when they click on “blog” in your menu bar
If you liked this tip consider our new book “Does this blogsite make my wallet look fat? How to use a WordPress Blogsite to make money, attract clients and gain expert celebrity status” available at www.WordPressBlogsites.com
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
June 9th, 2008
This is a question I get all the time. Here’s just part of the long answer.
A website (a traditional site created with html) becomes a pain to maintain. You either need to know html, have expensive software to update it or have your web person update it when they have time.
A blogsite is easy to maintain and you can update from any computer in the world (yes macs and PCs) with internet access.
Google and other search engines are giving priorities to blogs over regular sites for many reasons. Two main reasons are that blogs are updated with fresh content more frequently than regular sites and blogs are structured in a way that makes it easier for Google to find, index and add them to their list of results.
With blogsites you can:
* create static pages such as “our services”, “our products”, “contact us” etc.
* maintain your own website
* blog by posting articles, tips, promotions, etc.
* interact with web visitors and start building a relationship with them
* promote your newsletter, services, affiliate programs
* get Google to fall in love with you and your site as it’s built with search engine optimization in mind
* take advantage of web 2.0 functionality
* add media to your site easily
All this and more is available in our book “Does This Blogsite Make My Wallet Look Fat? How to use a WordPress Blogsite to make money, attract clients and gain expert celebrity status”. To order your copy visit www.WordPressBlogsites.com
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
May 15th, 2008
I’m working on my book but I need your help creating a powerful title for the book.
The book will be about WordPress Blogsites and all the amazing features that it contains and that can be added to it. How to set up your own blogsite. How to use it to get to the top of Google’s list, how to attract international clients and how to easy maintain your own blogsite (website + blog) easily!
How you can help:
Please add your suggestion in the comment form.
Be the first to know when the book is ready by getting on our VIP list. Simply send a blank email to bookvip[at]aweber.com.
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
April 8th, 2008
A blogsite is a blog with all the features of a website. A website has a static menu bar linking to static web pages such as about us, contact us etc. A blog allows you to add new posts, articles and tips onto a webpage easily without a degree in Computer Science! So a blogsite has the features of a website and the functionality of a blog all in one. The greatest blogsite software out there (in my humble opinion) is WordPress. Our websites www.TechCoachForCoaches.com and www.TechToolsForCoaches.com are both blogsites created with WordPress. There are many advantages to WordPress blogsites over traditional websites. Blogsites are:
- easier to update (you can do it yourself without a Computer Science degree)
- search engines like Google and Yahoo love them
- you can update them from any computer with internet access
- you can add posts or articles to them quite easily
- you can delete any post or page whenever you like (you know in case you make a mistake or change your mind)
- you can password protect pages or posts for client or project sensitive information
- you can add accessories (known as ‘plugins’) to spice up your blog such as polls, ‘email to a friend’, statistics, site maps, books from amazon and many more
- WordPress is free to use
- WordPress offers 1000’s of free blogsite designs (known as ‘themes’)
If you’d like your own blogsite here are a couple of options for you.
1. Join us for a 6 session “Building Your WordPress Blogsite” teleclass series beginning soon.
2. Watch our training videos on www.HelpDeskForCoaches.com
3. Don’t want to create your own? We can do it for you. Our webpage will be updated soon with our offerings. If you cannot wait, and I don’t blame you, reply to this email to ask your questions and to get us started on your blogsite.
If you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee.Written by Sandra De Freitas
Check out our other blog:
WordPressBlogsites.com
March 15th, 2008
