If only we could read minds. Courtesy Paramount Pictures

The other day my wife emailed me a link to a “What’s Your Personality Type?” quiz (PersonalityType.com).

At first I wasn’t too interested but after hearing the results from her test I was intrigued and headed over to the site to take the quiz. It asked me a few questions about what type of person I am, such as do I often say whatever comes to my mind or do I hold things back? It also asked me questions about how organized I am and orderly I like my universe; I prefer orderly, however, with 2 young children running around all day . . . you get the picture

So you’re probably curious as to what personality type I am, aren’t you?

I was awarded with the INTJ personality type. “Yes thank you, I accept this award and I’d like to thank my mother, father, beautiful wife . . .”

Direct traffic.

I was scanning through our company’s website stats the other day and noticed quite a few visits came from direct traffic.

This typically means either these visitors typed in our web address in their web browser’s address bar or they have our site bookmarked.

At first glance this may appear to be useless information regarding your website and how people find you, but realize this: This is what you want to see!

Yahoo! doesn’t want to see people are finding their website through your website, neither does Google. What they want is every time someone thinks “I need to search for this on the Web,” they need to go to our site.

No referrers, no links, no tweets.

What is it then they strive for (and the reason why I like seeing direct traffic in my stats)?

Brand recognition!

The other day Akemi, author of the blog Yes To Me, asked me a few questions in regards to my SEO tips article which I thought deserved a better answer than a quick reply in the comment section.

If you have a question regarding SEO, please feel free to ask below.

SEO Q&A’s

What is duplicate content and how is it created?

Duplicate content is when different URLs show the exact same content. Many times, as in the case with most blogs, duplicate content is generated automatically.

Let’s take for example my article, 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website. When Googlebot comes to my blog and collects and records a list of URLs on my site, it will notice the following URLs all contain the content of my 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website article (links open in a new tab):

• http://eventurebiz.com/blog/204-ways-people-scan-your-website/
  (the article’s actual page I want Google to index)
• http://eventurebiz.com/blog/?s=20.4+Ways+People+Scan+Your+Website
  (found through my search box)

Like any good business should, we are always looking for ways to grow our business by doing nothing more than solving people’s problems.

By helping you, we help ourselves - hence my Avatar selection.

I’m curious about something today and would love to get some feedback from my blog readers. I know many of you read my blog but rarely comment, but if there’s one post you would consider commenting on I’d love for it to be this one.

This blog has been primarily me teaching things I know in business and on the Web, but one thing I do know - I don’t know everything and I need your help to make my business ventures successful as well. So here it goes . . .

My Goal

I want to create the best place on the Web for hosting a paid WordPress blog.

One might say, “Shouldn’t your goal be money or a destination you see yourself in 10 years?”

This is a guest post by Ann Smarty, a SEO consultant and online entrepreneur.

Blogging long ago stopped being just the way to share news and / or personal thoughts. Today it has become a common fashion already to create a blog supporting your main website. Several reasons for that include:

• you can update it regularly with useful relevant information (and thus improve your chances to rank well in Google);
• you can get closer to your customers or readers (by starting a real communication with them);
• you can build business relationships with influential bloggers in your niche (by linking to them and referencing their posts).

Let’s look how these aims are achieved by reviewing just a few examples:

FreeShipping.org

FreeShipping.org, a valuable resource that helps shoppers save money by showing them what stores offer free shipping and provides the necessary coupon codes to get it, has a coupon codes blog where exclusive and time-limited offers are posted regularly. The blog also reviews other similar resources that might be useful for their readers. The blog is thus meant for several aims:

This article is for those of you who want to start a blog but aren’t sure what the best way to start one might be. We’ll look at helping you answer the following questions and end with an open discussion for questions.

1. Should I go with a free blog OR spend a little money and purchase my own web hosting?
2. Which program should I use - WordPress or Blogger?
3. Where should I host my WordPress Blog?
4. Conclusion and open discussion.

When I first came to the conclusion that I wanted to start a blog, I treated my decision just like I would any other business venture I might enter into.

The first thing I did was examine what everyone else was using. I quickly noticed most bloggers were using WordPress and had their blog hosted on their own domain (which means they opted to pay for a web hosting account).