Tips to increase your blog's traffic by targeting Non-English users

Most of us have our blogs in English.That's the right language choice as English is the most popular business language in the world.
BUT WAIT!!
Have you thought of people/audience/users who actually prefer to surf the web in their own language as they are not that comfortable with english.Top examples are users in China,Russia and Japan.And mind you, thats a market big enough to be explored for your products /services.Let's see what you can do to achieve it.

1.You can reach this wider audience of Non-English speaking internet users by providing them a page in their own language. To accomplish this, visit http://translate.google.com/translate_tools

to get Google Translation Service for your website/blog.
Google gives you a reliable translation service to translate and present your page quickly.This service can be implemented on a website by simply putting in a code snippet provided by Google or in the form of a widget.Recently Google launched a new addition to this service which prompts a non-english user to translate the page to her native language.

Google Chrome browser supports this service automatically.

2. Submit your blog to major Non-english directories and search engines.Though Google is the most used search engine it is still not the favorite among non-english users.In China, Baidu search engine is ahead of Google while Russians rely on Yandex search engine more.Submitting your site to these search engines will give you a foothold in these countries and bring you increased traffic from these places.

A. How to submit your site to Baidu?

Submit your website or blog to baidu (Gives a translated page)


OR visit

http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html (Chinese language page.Use Google Translation to translate)

Simply write your URL, Enter the captcha code and click the Add button to let Baidu index your site.

B. How to submit your site to Yandex ?

  

                                     visit this link   http://webmaster.yandex.ru/site/add.xml

Recently Yandex has made it mandatory to register before you can submit your site.Registration is a simple two step process. After registration you will be required to confirm that you have site management rights by pasting a meta tag in your page template.Once you have done that, click on check button and you will see a success message if everything goes well.

3. Visit this page to see more country specific search engines and submit to as many as you wish.You only stand to gain from this excercise.

When you try to submit your URL to these sites particularly Non-english ones you will need to translate non english pages to english.It can be easily done using translate services and plugins.Google Chrome automatically detects the language and prompts you to translate.Otherwise,translate pages using  using Firefox Add on or IE plugin for Internet explorer.

Be happy that now you have made your page accessible to a large Non- English speaking audience.If you have some ideas please share them in comments.

Read more...

How to See Live Twitter posts or 'tweets' on a specific topic using Google

Even if you are an avid twitter user you can not follow each and every tweet about a particular topic in tweet space.For example, if you want to know what people are tweeting about tiger woods or newly launched iPad, logging in twitter will give you tweets from only the people whom you follow.If somebody somewhere posted something very interesting about iPad and tweeted about it, you certainly will loose that info if you are not folowing that particular person or site.
Here is a better way to get latest tweets about a particular topic of your interest as they appear on twitter using your favorite search engine Google.

Lets say you want to know about latest tech sensation iPad. You open Google and type

 "iPad site:www.twitter.com" 

without the quotes.Google will show you some results which are not so impresive.
Now click on "Show options" and then click on "Updates" and voila!!

You will get a live stream of tweeets about iPad giving you interesting information and links.

You can search about any topic and get streaming relevant tweets about it in a very sleek way.Same method can be used to find updates about a topic on orkut,buzz,or any other micro blogging site.So, from now on, enjoy live streams about your favorite topics in one go!!!

Read more...

How to get maximum out of your Gmail Account using Firefox Greasemonkey scripts

If you work on the web you in all probability own a Gmail account. Also, you may be using Gmail for managing your important communication -official or personal. Many of us own multiple google accounts and we know how irritating it is to log out of one and then log in to other and then switch back. Also you want to take notes at times but don't get it in Gmail. Moreover you may want to sort mails in a hierarchical folder structure but can't do this using default Gmail Labels. You can do all this and more.How?? Read on. . .

If you are using Firefox as your primary browser (if you are not then I will recommend a switch!!) you can increase your productivity immensely using these five Greasemonkey scripts.Greasemonkey is a Firefox Add-on to use java scripts to enhance the usability of your browser.These scripts allow you to

• Add Notes to your mails
• See the attachment type in Inbox without opening mail
• Switch seamlessly between multiple Google accounts
• See your Google Calender events and notifications in Gmail
• Sort your mails in a hierarchical folder like structure

Lets take a close look at these five scripts.

1. Add Notes to your mails

Add an annotation application to your Gmail account and take notes while going through your communication.You need to log in once using your gmail account and from then on as soon as you open a mail a create note link appears in the Notes client which can be used for notes making.

All notes can also be browsed together making it an excellent to-do application as well.

Thanks to Script Author: Johntray

Install this script here

2. See the attachment type in Inbox without opening mail

Its a nice little utility that lets you see what kind of attachment is there in your mail i.e. whether it's a documnet , pdf image or zip fille. This can save a lot of time on slow connections and help you decide which mails to see first in time of haste.

Thanks to Script Author: DMaster

Install this script here

3. Switch seamlessly between multiple Google accounts

Switching between multiple Google accounts has been a major irritant for me and this script has saved me a lot of hassle.

A nice dropbox appears in your Gmail interface in place of signout button that lets you choose which account to log into.Accounts have to be added once and then you can switch quickly between different accounts.

Thanks to Script Author: Jerett

Install this script here

4. See your Google Calender events and notifications in Gmail

If you are an active Google calendar user and rely on this service to remind you of important dates and events,then this script will help you see all those important events in Gmail itself.

This will help you to communicate effectively and quickly and also to plan your appointments in accordance with the scheduled events.This Calendar opens up in a right pane and shows your current tasks/events.

Thanks to Script Author: Jeff Killingsworth

Install this script here

5. Sort your mails in a hierarchical folder like structure

Again a very handy script.You may want to arrange your mails in an explorer like folder structure to help you organize them better.This script does exactly that for you.Just install it and all that you need to do is add new labels as "Family/Dad" or "Family/Mom";this will create a folder "Family" folder has two subfolders "Dad" and "Mom" as shown in figure below.

You can SORT and GROUP mails as per your wish and click on the little "+" sign on a folder to view subfolders. Impressive indeed!!

Thanks to Script Author: Arend

Install this script here

Install these scripts and you can make the most of your Google account.If you use other scripts which help you in using Gmail more effectively, please consider sharing it in comments.

Read more...