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20 top tips to get blog traffic and comments
At Silicon Beach Training we offer a wide range of Social Media Training courses including WordPress Training, Blogging Training and Search Engine Optimisation Training in Brighton, Sussex.
The problem encountered by many new to blogging is finding your audience.
Most people will read a blog post without commenting or sharing, however:
- A blog with several comments will encourage others to comment
- A blog that’s been recommended by one person will encourage another to recommend it
- A blog with clear bookmarking, sharing, and comments will encourage people to do so.
Here are 20 tips to help you grow your blog traffic, comments and subscriptions:
Read the rest of "How to get blog traffic"
Posted by Heather Buckley in Sales & Marketing, SEO, Social Media on June 27th, 2010| 2 Comments »
Silicon Beach Training offer creative software courses including Adobe Photoshop Training and Indesign Training, we also offer a range of Social Media courses and SEO training in Brighton, Sussex .
Lesson 1 – Build a relationship with your subject
Image by Heather Buckley - http://www.heatherbuckley.co.uk
Portrait photography is an intimate process, it is essential to build a relationship with your subject. Communicate with your model as you shoot, as well as before you shoot. Rapport is vital to a good portrait photograph. Even when you are taking pictures of strangers, as in street photography, the more you talk to people the easier it gets and the more fun you’ll have. On the other hand……when doing street photography somtimes you don’t want people to notice you, so there are no hard and fast rules. If the person you are taking a photograph of knows you are taking the photograph get talking.
“A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people”
Annie Leibovitz
Don’t be shy about recommending a different pose, or changing the lighting, position or location slightly.
Read the rest of "Photographing People – 10 steps towards stunning portraits"
Posted by Heather Buckley in New Free Resources, Photography, Photoshop on May 24th, 2010| 6 Comments »
7 secrets to make sure you pass your PRINCE2 exam
If you’re thinking of attending PRINCE2 Training in Brighton, read these handy tips to help you perform to your best:
- Read the manual! It sounds silly but you’d be surprised how many skim read the PRINCE2 manual or miss out chunks. The five-day PRINCE2 Practitioner training is very intensive, so do yourself a big favour by reading the manual right through in advance.
- You can take in your PRINCE2 Practitioner manual although you can’t take in your own notes or documents. But you can put notes all over your PRINCE2 manual – this is fine! So whether it’s a process diagram or a one word memory trigger, fill the white spaces on the inside covers with notes to help you.
- Familiarise your self with PBS (product breakdown structure); if you are not familiar with this you will struggle with many of the questions. If you really have difficulty interpreting the product symbols then include your own notes in your PRINCE2 manual. You need to then understand how a PBS relates to a product flow diagram. Lack of revision in this area is an easy way to lose marks.
- When choosing from multiple choice answers, watch out for answers that have the word “must” or “always” in, because there are very few straight and simple answers in PRINCE2 and the examiners will try to catch you out.
- If a question requires the same answer twice in a row e.g. “who would be the most suitable person for this task?”, don’t worry about choosing them twice – the questions are not related to each other at all.
- Beware of common sense! The PRINCE2 exam is looking for an ideal application of its methodology in specific scenarios, not what you may well do in a real-life situation where your colleagues haven’t taken their PRINCE2 certification.
- Remember your photographic ID as the invigilator won’t let you take the exam without it. If you have changed your name since you registered or took Foundation then take the appropriate paperwork.
Posted by Alistair Wylie in New Free Resources, PRINCE2 on April 30th, 2010| 3 Comments »
KeePass Review – Store passwords securely
To start with I have about twelve different passwords just for social media, about seven for different websites that I manage, three for different forums…you get the message I have a lot of passwords to remember!
It gets even worse if you are a business engaging in social media, you want to protect your passwords but also want employees to use your social accounts.
So how do I keep track of all these online passwords?
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Posted by Daniel Twigg in New Free Resources, News on March 10th, 2010| No Comments »
Blog Post Ideas – 
Find inspiration for your blog posts
To keep your readers interested in your blog you need to post regularly. It’s not only important to keep your visitors coming back but is very important for improving your search engine ranking especially in Google. See our SEO Course to learn more, or if you are just setting up your blog you may be interested in our Blogging Training, WordPress Training or our Social Networking Training. If you just need some great blog post ideas read in.
Posting Regularity
Whilst it’s best to post every day, you may not have the time to post daily so try at least to post three times a week. Once a week is the barest minimum. Coming up with new ideas all the time can be tricky so I have written some Top Tips for Bloggers to give you some blog post ideas.
Read the rest of "Blog Post Ideas – 10 Top Tips for Blog Inspiration"
Posted by Heather Buckley in New Free Resources, Personal Development, Sales & Marketing, SEO, Social Media on December 14th, 2009| 11 Comments »
“You can’t solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.”
One of the hardest things about being a manager is managing yourself. Over 140 delegates per year come through our public Management Skills for New Managers training course here in Brighton, and before we teach them about managing a team we first cover a range of techniques for managing yourself .
One thing we’re often told by attendees is that they find it easier to give advice to other people than to think about their own approach to problem solving and to give themselves advice.
This short article describes a simple but highly effective 3-step process to reaching objective solutions for yourself. Visit our Free Resources section for a range of other Management Skills Resources and Leadership Resources
What Advice Would You Give?
To quote Albert Einstein, “You can’t solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.” We all know what it feels like to give others good advice, but when it comes to giving ourselves advice it doesn’t seem to be as simple. It can be difficult at times to employ clear thinking when we are so personally involved. Especially in emotionally charged situations such as dealing with personality clashes, handling conflict and managing stress. However, I believe that people do have the resources within them to meet their own needs – it’s just a matter of accessing them.
Read the rest of "Techniques for Managers: 3 Simple Steps to Reach Objective Solutions"
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Management & Leadership, New Free Resources, Personal Development on November 17th, 2009| No Comments »
If you’re new to Photoshop the interface can be a pretty daunting sight. The best way to learn is to attend one of our tutor led Adobe Photoshop workshops which are delivered by industry experts.
However – here are 5 quick and easy tips that will help beginners with their Photoshop technique and help you to save time:
If you like these tips and would like something a little more advanced check out our guide to replacing a bland sky with Photoshop
1: Temporarily Hiding Palettes.
Opening lots of palettes at the same time can clutter the Photoshop workspace and hide the image you’re working on. An easy way to get rid of palettes temporarily is to press the tab key. To bring them back again you just press the tab key once more.
Read the rest of "Top 5 Tips for Photoshop Beginners"
Posted by Andy Trainer in New Free Resources, Photoshop on October 27th, 2009| 1 Comment »
Today we’ve launched a complete guide to PRINCE2 Processes and Themes in our free resources section, which will prove a valuable source of information for Project Managers.
This post provides some valuable tips about the interpersonal and organisational skills you’ll need as a Project Manager.
Our Introduction to Project Management, PRINCE2 Foundation and PRINCE2 Practitioner training courses explore these areas in more detail
Stay calm:
Your job as a project manager is to give a sense of organisation and direction to a group, the result of which should be a more efficient and well thought out project. The ability to stay calm is vital, you need to be able to think quickly and clearly under pressure and not get too overwhelmed and make rash decisions.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in New Free Resources, Project Management on October 20th, 2009| No Comments »
