With Google Plus seemingly taking over the internet as millions flock to try it out, many bloggers are now looking for a simple way to integrate Google+ into their blogs.

After trawling  the internet for a suitable plugin, and experimenting with the many widgets, plugins and pieces of code that I found, I finally unearthed a WordPress plugin that was quick to install, simple to use, looks pretty cool, and works a treat.

It’s a neat little plugin for WordPress called Googlecard and it enables your blog visitors to easily add you to their Google+ Circles. It’s a widget that you can use in your sidebar, it fetches your Google Plus profile picture and lists underneath it how many Circles your Google+ profile is listed in. There’s even a nice little button that visitors can click to add your Google + profile into their own Circles and begin following you.

Take a look in the sidebar on my blog here you’ll see the plugin in action and you can test it for yourself, go on, try it out by clicking the button to add me to your circles!

Follow the step by step walkthrough below to learn how to install the Google+ widget in your own blog.

Step by step installation instructions:

Download the plugin from Google+ Devs website Here> and save the zipfile to somewhere where you can easily find it again on your computer. (You may have to right click the Download link and select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” – It depends on your browser)

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Log into your WordPress blog dashboard, open Plugins / Add new plugin.

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Select Upload, click the Browse button, navigate to where you downloaded the zip file, select the file and click the Install Now button.

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After the plugin uploads and installs, click Activate to activate the plugin.

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Once the Plugin is installed and activated, navigate to Appearance / widgets in the WordPress dashboard

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Drag the Googlecard widget to where you would like it to appear in your WordPress sidebar

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Entering your Google+ settings into the Googlecard widget:

1. Twirl open the widget box by clicking the little arrow
2. Update the Title that will appear above the widget in your sidebar
3. Enter your Google Plus ID number (instructions for finding your Google Plus ID number are below)
4. Click Save to save the updated settings and you’re good to go!

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Finally, click your Site Title at the top of your dashboard to view the results of your handy-work…

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…and you should see the new Googlecard plugin in all its glory in your sidebar!

Update September 2011

A good alternative is here: http://widgetsplus.com/
Pop the resulting code into a text widget in your sidebar and you’re good to go!

How to locate your Google+ ID

Here’s how you can find out your Google Plus ID. Log into Google+ and click on your profile picture. Doing this opens up your public profile and you can find your ID by looking for the 21 digit number in the address bar at the top of your browser. See the image below where I’ve highlighted my Google+ ID number, you will find your own ID number in the same place when viewing your public profile online.

Hope this all helps!

So what are you going to do with Google+? Is it going to make a big difference to how you manage your social networking activities? Is it going to replace Twitter or FaceBook for you? We’d love to know, so please give us your feedback in the comments below.

PowerPoint Presentations; We’ve all seen them, some of us fear them, they’ve even been known to fill a few of us with dread!

When someone mentions that they are bringing along their PowerPoint to show us we sometimes can’t help but shudder at the thought of having to sit through a multitude of bland, boring slides all crammed to the brim with mind numbing facts and figures.

Have you ever wondered if that’s what’s going through the minds of your prospects as you jump into your car, clutching your laptop bag which you have just uploaded with your latest and greatest PowerPoint presentation?

Here are a few tips you may want to consider if you want to create compelling PowerPoint presentations that will engage and inspire your audience, and help you to close more deals. I also share several ideas on how you could  use social media and the Internet to ensure your presentations reach more people and improve your Google rankings.

Before you begin – Create a story board

Every one likes a story, and each one has a beginning, a middle, and an end – As should your slide show. When preparing your PowerPoint slides, approach the task as if you were preparing to shoot a film. CLICK HERE> to download my PowerPoint Storyboard template, print it out, grab yourself a pencil and sketch out a storyboard that describes the journey that you will be taking your audience on. Roughing out your story in this linear fashion, and sketching the images by hand will invariably fuel your creative side and inspire you choose the most appropriate graphics, words and anecdotes to get your messages across in the most memorable way.

Don’t say it with text – Say it with pictures

A picture says a thousand words, so see if you can get away without using any text at all in your slides. Most stock photo sites have fairly extensive search capabilities. Try typing in a few abstract phrases about what you are saying with each slide and see what comes up, you may well find the perfect image that supports exactly what you have to say which will have a far greater impact than any words can say. Let the picture do the talking for you, and use it as your own personal cue card to remind yourself of what you need to say to emphasise the message you’re communicating.

If it’s complex – Build it up step by step

If you have complicated processes, or a complex way of thinking to get across then build it up one image at a time, using complimentary, simple animations. Make sure the audience understands where you are in each step of the sequence before introducing a new element. That way you will keep your audiences focus and attention, and it will also help you to clarify the message you are conveying. This technique works really well when presenting graphical data, particularly when overlaying data for comparison. If all the data is on the screen at once the audience are concentrating on working out what they are looking at, rather than listening to you and absorbing your message. Your slides should support and reinforce what you are saying, and not dominate or distract your audience from your presentation. Watch this example HERE>>>

Pace your delivery – Use light and shade

Watching someone delivering a PowerPoint at a million miles an hour, at the top of their voice, with the same intensity of passion throughout the entire presentation will simply wear you out. All you will remember is the speakers speed and intensity of their delivery rather than the message. Similarly, watching someone present using a gentle, timid monotone from beginning to end will soon send you to sleep! Just as we appreciate, when listening to a good piece of music, or when watching a well edited film, light and shade keeps your attention and helps to deliver the message. Your presentation will be far more memorable, it will engage the audience more, it allows your audience to relax and enjoy the journey that you are taking them on, and grab their attention when it needs to be grabbed.

Define clear calls to action

Do not to ask too much of your audience during your presentation, ideally you should never have more than three calls to action in your entire slide-show. When delivering your call to action build it up gradually so that when it appears on the screen it has the maximum impact. Use silence to let it sink in, pause for a moment when it appears, and carefully watch your audience to make sure everyone has seen it. Reinforce your call to action by reminding the audience that they are welcome to take notes. If the only notes and follow ups that your audience make just happen to be your carefully crafted calls to action then you can expect a high conversion rate from your presentation.

It’s not a sales pitch – Really it isn’t!

Never commit the cardinal sin of ramming your business down your audiences throat. No-one likes sitting through the adverts while watching TV so don’t try to sell to your audience with blatant adverts about how good you think you, or your products are. The best sales presentations work well because they demonstrate just how the product or service has helped someone, and the trick is to create the desire in your audience to want the same solution, or peace of mind for themselves. The key is to find out what pain your audience suffers before hand, and use your presentation to demonstrate how your customers, who used to suffer the same pain as them, now have complete peace of mind since using your products or services. This approach will create the desire for those your audience to be just like them, and they will be far more susceptible to your proposition as a result.

It’s not about you – it’s about them- about how they benefit

No-one is interested whatsoever that your business was established in 1879, or that you have a widget machine that is far superior to your competitors widget machine. People want to know what you, or your product or service can do for them. They want to see examples of how easily, quickly, or cost effectively you have helped their peers (or their competitors) out of the same hole they find themselves in. People value personal recommendations or practical examples far more highly when making their buying decisions, and they will not be based on the fact that you’ve just bought yourself a brand new fleet of vans! Of course, if there is information that is critical to impart to gain the confidence of your audience, leave it towards the end of your deck where it will have more impact. This will help you to tick the boxes that they need ticking, right at the very moment you need to gain their commitment and to progress onto the next stage, or close the deal.

Record it – Put it on the Internet

Once you’ve composed your presentation it won’t be seen by many people while it’s on your hard disk or memory stick. It could be seen by thousands if you upload it to the Internet, even while you sleep! There is plenty of free software on the Internet that allows you to capture your monitor display while you record your voice talking through the slides. Even professional screen recording software like Camtasia Studio, Adobe Captivate, or Adobe eLearning Suite2 cost only a few hundred pounds, which would enable you to create Screen Casts and rich eLearning content that you can post on YouTube, and even promote through your social networking marketing activities. This strategy has the potential to bring you many thousands of pounds worth of new revenue, so it would be a false economy to ignore this as an option.

Get onto page one of Google – Be seen as the expert

When you have access to simple tools like this you will be able to easily produce content on the fly and post it to your blog,  and it can become a core element of your social media marketing strategy. Using PowerPoint to create simple walk-through’s, capturing these and posting them as videos on YouTube, and then as articles on your Blog will soon elevate you as the expert in your field. If you produce content that is helpful then people will bookmark you, and your site will become the one that everyone turns to when they need the information you provide. Gathering valuable back-links like this will allow you to reap the rewards of excellent search engine rankings, and could even get you listed on page one of some of the worlds top search engines like Google. The cost of managing the blog side, the hosting, the integration with YouTube, and all of the magical “SEO webmastery” that goes with it is quite reasonable these days, especially if you get one of our new SuperBlog II’s.  These new SuperBlogs are now making it so much easier for everyone to get started because everything has been set up for you and you’re good to go, and they even come complete with free set of simple to follow on-line video tutorials as well!

Online demonstrations – Perfect deal closers

Have you ever thought about creating and recording your presentations to use as on-line product or service demonstrations? Make them as punchy as possible by keeping them short, no more than 2 or 3 minutes long at the most. The fact you have slick looking on-line training collateral to better serve your customers needs can create a hugely positive impression on them about your business.  These can be perfect to point your customers to while they are on the phone with you, as not only can you can use them to help them with their enquiries, or answer their questions, but they can even be used to close deals with them while they are on the phone with you.

Get professional help – It pays dividends

A cheap, amateur looking  presentation has the potential to kill your business with a single viewing so you should never leave this to chance. To succeed in today’s competitive marketplace you have to outshine your competition like a beacon, you must be looking at your very best and leave no causes for doubt. I help businesses and individuals create professional quality, and highly persuasive presentations, More Here> I also help organisations of all sizes grasp social media by the horns and help them to formulate business winning social media marketing strategies, which can be  backed up with all the policies and procedures necessary to protect even the most heavily regulated bodies. To make sure you’re going along the right track we offer a free consultation.  Phone or email us at 01279 755 555 or customer.care@superblog.biz, or visit us by appointment at our Bishop’s Stortford office.

What has been your experience with PowerPoint?
If you have any ideas or feedback that you’d like to share with us then please leave us your comments below

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A Superblog is very different to the free blogs that many people use. It has all the features of a web site and can actually replace a website in many instances.

A SuperBlog has special aspects that work in the background to create superb Google rankings, allows you to analyse results and enables you to create a comprehensive on-line marketing strategy. It also contains tools making it easy for other social networkers to tell others about you.

It’s a fact: One of the newest and most powerful marketing tools you can use to promote your business is fast-growing social media sites like [blippr]Facebook[/blippr], [blippr]LinkedIn[/blippr], [blippr]4Networking[/blippr] and [blippr]Twitter[/blippr]. There has never been a more cost effective way to get your message out to a huge number of potential clients - Your SuperBlog is the centrepiece…

Get connected to millions of potential clients

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You may be a technical wizard or a technophobe.

You may have a very big business or a small one. You may like to control everything yourself or hand it over to us to manage. Because our clients are not all the same we have devised several different packages that can quickly put your business in front of millions of potential clients through key social networking sites. People who need your products and services can instantly and effortlessly connect with you. A Superblog is very different to the free blogs that many people use. It has all the features of a web site and can actually replace a website in many instances.

What is a SuperBlog?

A SuperBlog has special aspects that work in the background to create superb Google rankings, allows you to analyse results and enables you to create a comprehensive marketing strategy. It also contains tools making it easy for social networkers to tell others about you, and automates many of the processes a dedicated web-master would do for you.

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FREE domain name

No need to pay for, register or transfer your existing domain name. As part of our service we advise you on the best domains to use and do everything as part of our hosting deal.

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A SuperBlog gives you a clean, fully functional blog with full capabilities. It’s not cluttered with advertising as many free blogs are. A SuperBlog is entirely yours and you have complete control.

Installation

The world of blogging is changing at an increasingly fast pace and so we’ve done all the research and will install your Superblog with all the features for the functions you need it to do. We’ll also keep you up to date as new features are developed.

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A SuperBlog gives you the choice of hundreds of designs and for a small fee we’ll even customise it to match your branding. There’s no need to install, setup or configure any templates, we do all of that for you as part of our service.

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Plugins are tools that are used behind the scenes, and we’ve included several plugins that enable your blog to become search engine friendly and get you onto the front pages of popular search engines like [blippr]Google[/blippr], [blippr]Bing[/blippr] or [blippr]Yahoo[/blippr]. We install and configure the SEO plugins you need as part of our service.

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Our SuperBlog subscribers have exclusive access to our SuperBlog Support Centre where our team of blog and WordPress experts are waiting to solve any problems our customers encounter. There’s nothing wastes more time, or causes more frustration than trying to find answers to your problems over the Internet. Our experienced team has all the answers and are ready and waiting for your support questions. We are committed to delivering exceptional customer service which means our customers are able to spend more time reaping the benifits of their investment.

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Each SuperBlog subscriber has free access to the SuperBlog Forums where users can post questions or ask advice from our support team and other customers in our SuperBlog community. You will have full access to our SuperBlog Training Site where we have published training videos to help take the complete novice through to becoming fully competent SuperBlog expert. Our training videos are fun, short, to the point and aim to get you to where you need to be in the quickest and simplest way possible. Access to this rich, wonderful resource is completely free to all customers hosting their SuperBlogs with us.