The Blast Alliance

Give Your Articles Away!

How writing articles and giving them to others can drive traffic to your website.

It sounds counterintuitive, but it works: you can pre-sell customers and drive them to your website. The idea behind it is that other sites have what you want: a proven pool of customers who are looking for products and information that you have. In other words, they’re pre-sold on your products. All you have to do is show them the right item and you’ve got them.

How do you reach these pre-sold customers? By proving that you know your stuff, and then giving them an easy way to reach your products, like a direct link to your website.

The only way you can demonstrate to someone that you know your stuff is through communication; the primary way to communicate online is through writing. It stands to reason, therefore, that if people read what you have written and are impressed, they’re going to expect that you know what you’re talking about.

So you try to reach as many people with your words as you can. It’s that simple, and that complicated.

The Concept: Giving Away Your Words

The one thing that everyone is hungry for online is great quality content – not just words, but words that tell people something they didn’t know before: information on a new product, a new use for an old one, consumer information, etc. Think about it – if someone asked you to put a good article on your website

For example, suppose you sell paintball guns and related products. There is a surprisingly large online community for these items, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, not many people who have really good content on the sports surrounding paintball. The sites that do have great information are very popular indeed with aficionados.

These sites usually make money in one of two ways: either they sell items through affiliate links, or they sell advertising on their websites. For instance, if you look at paintball.about.com, you’ll find good, constantly-updated information about paintballs, and lots of advertising. About makes money on their advertising and by selling products from sites they’re linked to.

But About, and sites like them, are always in need of fresh information and articles, for a few reasons. The older articles have been read; the most valuable customer online is a repeat customer, but if you never update your site information, customers don’t come back. Also, the Google search engine spiders have been paying attention lately to sites with fresh content. If you consistently have fresh content on your site, your site will move up in the Google rankings. And that’s something everyone wants.

If you can supply these sites with this fresh content, they will keep coming back to you. And as long as your name is on the article as the author, you’ll get fresh customers from their site.

Becoming A Guru

Before you start writing articles, you need to know what you’re talking about. You become a guru.

First, haunt the online chat rooms, forums, and message boards where people go to talk about your product. Perhaps you think you know everything there is to know about paintball – you’re almost certainly wrong. Forums will tell you what your customers are looking for, what information they treasure. And these are the bits of information you want to include when you start writing articles.

Second, make sure you really know what you’re talking about. A paintball fan will know pretty quickly whether you’re faking it or not, and they won’t go to a fake’s website.

Once you’re secure that you can act as a guru, you’re ready to start writing great articles.

How to Write Giveaway Articles

First – not everyone can write. This is a simple fact, so if you’re one of them, hold on; there are other alternatives.

If you can write well, and you know your information, you’re more than halfway there. Now you just need to understand how to write for an online audience and how to optimize your article.

First, write short. Keep your paragraphs short, make bullets and numbered points in your text whenever you have a list of information, and write in a conversational manner instead of an academic one.

Always do your best to use good grammar, and spellcheck everything.

If you have an article longer than 400 words (that’s about one page in MS Word) break it up. You can serialize it, or you can insert headings in the best places for the article to break across web pages.

Finally, choose a set of keywords. These are the words that you think people interested in this article are most likely to search for. For instance, paintball articles should always use “paintball” and “paint ball” as keywords. If you’re writing about a specific paintball gun, use the gun’s brand name and manufacturer’s number as a second keyword.

Sprinkle the keywords throughout your article. Be certain to use them in headers as often as you can: “Paintball for Kids: The Mark X-23″. If you can, try to have a 5% frequency of your keyword in your article – that’s one keyword every twenty words. Less is okay, particularly if the article sounds better overall, but high keyword count will get your article to rank higher on search engines.

If you write your articles in this way, you’ll make your reader happy, convince them that you’re a guru, and ensure that your articles do enough good at the website they’re donated to that you will continue placing articles there.

What If You Can’t Write?

That’s okay. You can hire a web content ghostwriter. There’s a whole new breed of writers online who can research your information fast, and who can write articles for you based on the information you supply. In general, better writers charge more, but no web content writer should charge you enormous fees.

When you hire your writer, make it clear up front that you’re purchasing all rights. This gives you the right to put your name on the article as the writer, establishing your credentials as a guru.

But you should always read through the articles written for you. Make sure the information included in them is accurate and easy to understand. Remember, the article you’re placing is your face to your customers.

Where to Place Your Articles, And What Your Terms Should Be

Here’s the kicker: when you have your wonderful, informative, keyword-rich article ready, you ask the owner of the website you’re placing it at to run the article – at no charge to him – but to please include a link to your website in exchange.

That’s it.

With your name and website link attached to your article, a reader whose interest is piqued will click to your site. There he or she will have the opportunity to buy your product; and if you’re running advertisements on your website, they’ll also rack up a hit for your billing.

The best thing is that you’re pre-selling your customer with your informative article. That does not mean your article should be a sales pitch, by the way; instead, you should use your article to teach your reader why he or she needs a specific product, or a range of product, or should come to your site to learn more. This means that you’re only telling them about the fantastic stats of the Mark X-23 paintball, and why it’s such a great gun for kids. Leave it up to them to decide to go to your site.

You can place articles at dozens of great places. Check first with other sites that deal with items peripheral to your product. For instance, a paintball organization’s website might be willing to run your paintball article. There are also dozens of generic websites that run articles on a wide variety of topics, including:

* http://www.About.com (submit articles to the guide in the subject area most closely related to your business) * http://www.Ask.com * http://www.goarticles.com * http://www.ezinearticles.com * http://www.ideamarketers.com * http://www.marketing-seek.com

Fringe Benefits: Improving Your Search Engine Rankings

There’s one more advantage to placing articles with other websites. You can improve your own site’s search engine ranking with each link you build.

If you have your website keyword optimized, you should insist on having a “resource box” at the end of your article. This is a section enclosed in a border that tells the reader a little about you as well as giving them a way to get to your website. “Mark Borders runs FabuWare, home of paintball accessories for the last 20 years.”

Notice that your link is not “FabuWare.” Instead, it is “paintball accessories.” There is an important reason for this.

With plenty of links to your site from other sites, your search engine rankings will go up. This means that along with your free link and pre-selling through the article, you also get a free boost to your website.

If the words that link to your website also match your keyword, your ranking will be boosted much higher than with other links to your website that don’t use the keyword. And the only way to do this is to write the resource information yourself and ensure it’s used exactly as you wrote it.

To do this, design a reference box with text exactly the way you want it to appear, complete with your link set up, and submit the reference box along with your article.

Recap: What To Remember

Writing articles and giving them away can:

* Make you into a guru * Allow you to presell your products * Drive fresh traffic to your site * Improve your search engine rankings

A single article, properly written, can be worth much more on someone else’s site than it would be on your own. Choose carefully, and write it well.

For more information, please visit: www.WordContent.com “Content is King”

Do you need a website?. Well that depends entirely on how you wish to market your business and whether your competitors have an online presence, it also depends on the type of clients you hope to attract. Let me ask you a straight question – Do you want to increase business for a minimum outlay?.

Most people now have some form of access to the internet, whether at home, at work or through their school or university. For many, searching for a service or product using Google is now much the prefered alternative to opening a phone directory, or scanning the Yellow Pages. With the increase in Broadband technology and the rapid fall in prices then this trend is very likely to continue and grow, with more and more people of all ages having some form of regular internet use. Do you want to miss out on this potential and growth?

Many small business owners and CEOs think nothing of spending hundreds or even thousands of pounds on conventional advertising such as that in Yellow Pages and similar directories, and yet are still missing out on the earning potential of having a website presence. For some this is simply through not having the relevant skills or feeling that they have no webdesign capabilities to even begin to build their own site. However with many webhosts now offering WYSIWYG web creation tools and web builder packages, anybody who is capable of booting a computer now has the possibility of creating a basic website to promote their business.

After word of mouth, my website accounts for nearly all of the new business which my own business gets. Given a price versus revenue comparison, it is the most competitive form of advertising which I have ever used, and the one which yields the most success when it comes to new business leads!.

Remember that the more professional your website looks, the greater chance of impressing potential clients, and of getting an enquiry. For this reason, employing the services of a webdesigner may be a prefered alternative. But for now, let’s talk about how you can build your website with only limited knowledge. Your options are popular software such as Microsoft FrontPage, or other software such as x-site pro. Many internet users have found great success in designing their own websites. Some webhosts now include free website building tools in their hosting packages. Whichever option you decide to choose, when building your website and promoting its existance, there are a few points to consider, and we will discuss those below.

Always avoid free hosting. These are webhosts who allow you to upload your own site for free onto their server. However in return they often add Advertising banners and pop ups onto your website, and these can prove very annoying to internet users, look cheap and tacky and do not portray a professional, business image. You may have a very professional looking website, however if you use free hosting then you do so at your peril and when masses of pop ups great your visitors, then they’ll often close their browsers or surf away without bothering to read any further. Professional webhosting without any form of banners is available for as little as the price of a coffee per month! – far cheaper than any form of newspaper advertising, so don’t skimp when it comes to reliable hosting.

Buy a domain name. This promotes your unique company identity, and it is also a good idea to use your company name, as your domain name. Domains ending in .co.uk are often cheaper than .com and will also boost your search engine rankings in geographical area based searches such as google UK. This may be useful to businesses only serving clients in their country, or those with overseas offices.

Remember to try and incorporate a relevant keyword describing your business service or product(s) within the domain page name. So for example, if you had a business called Acme Widgets and you had a product called Mighty Widget – then you could name the page name extension as mighty-widget.html so the url to that page would look like http://www.your-domain-name.com/mighty-widget.html

We will get to other keyword use later.

The most effective websites are the ones which load fast and offer a clean, smooth appearance free of useless information and which are largely uncluttered. Make sure that your name and description of your business appears on each page, and that if your site has more than one page that they are all linked together using an HTML Menu. Do not be tempted to use flash or other fancy image type menus, because search engines will not be able to index the site easily. If you do decide to use a flash based website then make sure that there is an HTML alternative, complete with HTML menus.

Keep the site simple. Remember that you have to make the site appealing to search engine spiders as well as human visitors in order to get your website onto the search engines. After all, it is pointless having a good, professional looking site, if nobody can find it!. Avoid the use of fancy flash based websites and splash pages, although they may add an initial wow factor to the first impression, they are often difficult for some search engines to spider and index, plus they may take forever to load on a slow connection. Very few visitors will wait 30 seconds or more for pages to load, or install special viewers so avoid going over the top with these types of presentation!

Keywords are the words that people use to enter into search engines in order to find a site. Consider which keywords people will be using to find your website. Don’t just concentrate on the obvious and most popular words which describe your business, since these will be difficult to rank highly for, due to the competition!.

Instead, look for other niche search terms and phrases too. Your website should contain as many keywords as possible on each page. Don’t be tempted to just add loads of raw keywords in meaningless strings onto your page, since search engines are wise to this practice of cheating and will penalise your site, plus it looks messy to your human visitors too!. It is far more effective to incorporate these keywords into text paragraphs and try and vary their frequency, so for example if you were a company suppling widgets in London, you could try the following:-

Widget and Sons, a family company suppling widgets in London, we are retailers of the popular Mighty widget range

And then later in the page…

For the best price on mail order widgets and sole distribution of the mighty widget contact our sales department

By doing this, and varying the phrases whilst keeping them keyword rich, you are effectively giving Google something to work with. Hopefully, by adding as many keyword strings as possible your site will (hopefully) appear for several different search terms such as ‘Widgets’ or ‘Mail order widgets + london’ or ‘Mighty Widget’

A Picture paints a thousand words, so don’t forget to add pictures to your website!. But keep the, fairly small so that the site loads quickly. Often 640 x 480 resolution is ideal, or use thumbnail software to load a gallery of clickable smaller images neatly onto a webpage. Remember if you use images that clients like to see happy smiling staff! and a structured, well organised company, so make sure that you don’t accidentally capture your warehouse man reading the paper, or that rubbish in the corner of the office!.

Unless your business is technical or technology based then avoid long descriptions about specifications of products and what machinery you use!. Comparing equipment is only of interest to others in the same industry as you and rarely of concern or top priority clients just looking to buy and end product or obtain service. Besides they can see just how good and how neat and tidy your business looks from your pictures!.

Always display clearly your contact information, and this should include a telephone number. Avoid Hotmail and other free web email addresses such as MSN or Yahoo because this doesn’t look professional and can also be blocked by your recipients spam filter. If you have registered a domain name for your site you will be able to set up email based on this, and cutomise it to your own requirements, for example:- sales@widget.com or enquiries@widget.com . Offering an enquiry form on your website is also a good idea, since it will prevent your email address being copied from your site to be used for Spam (Unsolicited Emails), and ensure that you have all of the relevant information from the client to be able to quote accurately.

Getting your site onto the search engines is the hardest part of the excercise, and this may take between 3 and 12 months to get a decent rank. The more you promote your site the easier it is, and the more successful the results. Simply submitting your site URL to Google’s Submit a Site page is not the most effective way of listing your site and neither is it the quickest. The most effective way of getting your site visited by Search Engines is to add your link to Existing websites of a similar theme and subject and the many online directories which already have a search engine presence.

Another very effective way of boosting search engine presence and getting your website onto search engines quicker is to swap links with other sites. Why not build a simple links page or invest in a topsites script on your website and use this to return links?. Remember that it is only polite internet etiquette to link back to websites which link to you, so it is often expected that you will have a link already in place on your own website, when you contact another webmaster and ask to add your link to his /her site!.

There are many other features which you can build into your website, such as e-commerce features including shopping carts and credit card processing facilities, if your company offers products by mail order. However adding these usually requires some detailed knowledge of website building and other skills in website code and is therefore outside of the scope of this article.

Hopefully, this website article, has given you some information on getting your business a web presence on a budget!.

More Website resources and links to webhosting can be found on the original article site at located at http://www.djsite.info/idx/8/026/article/Benefits-of-a-Website.html

Please also visit our own Entertainment Related Website at http://www.mobiledisco.org

You may use this article on your own Website, Blog, Forum or Newsletter provided the above credit and active links are included without modification.

The Five I’s are a simple way to remember how to look for new volunteers to build your serving teams. Follow this process and you can, over time, build a strong body of serving teams in your church.

These simple five steps are: 1. Identify 2. Introduce 3. Inquire 4. Inform 5. Involve

Identify–Find somebody

You have to identify who you believe would be suitable for the serving task you are looking to fill. Typically, this will be someone you don’t know, and someone who is alone or whose family tends to stay by themselves. Look for someone who appears nervous or looking around your church. Don’t forget those rare people who ask to be connected, and anyone who is attending a medium-sized group activity.

Introduce–Make contact

If you do not know them personally, you must make contact! It sounds simple but is often overlooked. Most people won’t jump out and volunteer automatically. Smile and say hello. Briefly tell them your name and what your level of involvement is at the church and how long you have been coming to the church. Then flow immediately into the next step.

Inquire–Ask about them

This must be done on contacting new people first. You must ask if you can serve them in any way. If it is their first time or first few times to the church and no one has approached them, the chances are high that they came to church looking for some help–so be ready to help them!

Your next step is to ask if they would like to serve others–ask about their desire! Do they want to serve in some capacity? Are they looking to get involved? Do they know about their gifts and about their passions? Use the answers to these questions to help connect them to others in your church community.

Inform–Tell about opportunities

The first step is to be knowledgeable about church serving opportunities. Make sure you have a good handle on what needs to be done (it sure doesn’t hurt to have such opportunities written down in the weekly church bulletin!). Through questions, find something that they have interest in doing and introduce them to a leader in that area.

Involve–Direct them toward growth

Do not leave the new person until a “set thing” is confirmed. A “set thing” is a follow-up time–a connection with another church servant-leader or team member that agrees to help–where an opportunity to learn about a particular serving ministry is set up.

Use these Five I’s and continue to grow your ministry through volunteer serving teams!

When you’re working on your BCMSN exam on your way to CCNP certification, you’ll read at length about how Cisco routers and multilayer switches can work to provide router redundancy – but there’s another helpful service, Server Load Balancing, that does the same for servers. While HSRP, VRRP, and CLBP all represent multiple physical routers to hosts as a single virtual router, SLB represents multiple physical servers to hosts as a single virtual server.

In the following example, three physical servers have been placed into the SRB group ServFarm. They’re represented to the hosts as the virtual server 210.1.1.14.

The hosts will seek to communicate with the server at 210.1.1.14, not knowing that they’re actually communicating with the routers in ServFarm. This allows quick cutover if one of the physical servers goes down, and also serves to hide the actual IP addresses of the servers in ServFarm.

The basic operations of SLB involves creating the server farm, followed by creating the virtual server. We’ll first add 210.1.1.11 to the server farm:

MLS(config)# ip slb serverfarm ServFarm

MLS(config-slb-sfarm)# real 210.1.1.11

MLS(config-slb-real)# inservice

The first command creates the server farm, with the real command specifying the IP address of the real server. The inservice command is required by SLB to consider the server as ready to handle the server farm’s workload. The real and inservice commands should be repeated for each server in the server farm.

To create the virtual server:

MLS(config)# ip slb vserver VIRTUAL_SERVER

MLS(config-slb-vserver)# serverfarm ServFarm

MLS(config-slb-vserver)# virtual 210.1.1.14

MLS(config-slb-vserver)# inservice

From the top down, the vserver was named VIRTUAL_SERVER, which represents the server farm ServFarm. The virtual server is assigned the IP address 210.1.1.14, and connections are allowed once the inservice command is applied.

You may also want to control which of your network hosts can connect to the virtual server. If hosts or subnets are named with the client command, those will be the only clients that can connect to the virtual server. Note that this command uses wildcard masks. The following configuration would allow only the hosts on the subnet 210.1.1.0 /24 to connect to the virtual server.

MLS(config-slb-vserver)# client 210.1.1.0 0.0.0.255

SLB is the server end’s answer to HSRP, VRRP, and GLBP – but you still need to know it to become a CCNP! Knowing redundancy strategies and protocols is vital in today’s networks, so make sure you’re comfortable with SLB before taking on the exam.

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNP and CCNA tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages.

For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, “How To Pass The CCNA” and “How To Pass The CCNP”, just visit the website! You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Get your CCNP certification with The Bryant Advantage!

The Internet has truly revolutionized the global economy and the way people conduct business. With E-commerce, there are now numerous opportunities of making money anywhere in the world, working at your office, at the comforts of your home or even while you’re asleep!

There are many ways to earn money on online businesses, and some are listed below:

1. E-stores. With the power of the Internet, you can now create your web site (or have someone create it for you) and have your own shopping center and sell goods and services to anyone anywhere in the world. You can have a fully automated system that allows your store to operate on its own, 24 hours a day – this means undertaking sales transactions and generating income even in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping!

There are numerous advantages of having an E-store. You are providing your customers with the ability to shop at their own convenience, no matter what time of day. You can also create an opportunity to ‘reach out’ to your customers through a personalized customer service by asking for their feedback or by setting up an ‘online community’ for them to communicate with you and the other online shoppers.

The challenge here, however, is to ’steer’ potential customers to your store by having them learn about your website. Intense advertising might solve this problem. Another issue that needs to be addressed is determining the kind of products and/or services to sell. Whether they are books, videos, software, or a skill, the answer here is providing customers with a variety of products while knowing the familiar commodities (those that are selling well) at the same time. There are also a number of conservative people who are hesitant to give sensitive information over the web, especially their credit card numbers, but this can be worked out by resolving the security issues.

2. Marketing. Online advertising is also another way of earning money on the Internet. One way to do this is by joining an affiliate program that enables us to sell a company’s products and earn income from these sales, or earn commissions by enlisting other people to market these products. It is a great way to form business relationships that may prove to be lucrative.

When planning to join an affiliate program, you have to at least bear take the following into consideration:

Believe in the product. You have to believe a product’s sales potential. It would be hard to make a pitch to other people if you yourself would not even want to buy it!

Reasonable pay. Choose a program that will pay you sufficiently and allow you to keep a profit even after deducting your expenses.

No sign-up fee. An affiliate program that charges you a fee or requires you to purchase something first before joining would most likely be an illegitimate one.

This also poses a challenge, specifically on the web site traffic (or the number of visitors to your site). It is important to have a large number of people visiting your web site and to know who they are, because this is what attracts advertisers. One way to do this is to conduct online surveys that requests for the visitor’s personal information. A favorable response can be guaranteed using freebies and other incentives.

3. Subscriptions. This can be done by providing customers access to information for a certain fee – be it a daily or weekly copy of a ‘newspaper’ or a ‘magazine’, or other documents such as thesis or research papers. While a vast amount of topic can be accessed on the Internet for free (using Search Engines), there are still those that are of value that people would be willing to pay for them. There is also the benefit of reduced business costs, because it is less costly to send information over the Internet than to ship them overseas.

No matter what business you decide to pursue on the Internet, there will always be the great potential of making money easily (with considerably less workload), given the best ideas, the right tools, and the proper attitude to go with it. While it is true that there still remains the risk of encountering a possible scam with all the glorified facts and figures (the ‘get-rich-quick’ scheme), the important thing to do is to examine each opportunity thoroughly to know if it really works before putting any of your money on to it.

There are a number of things you will want to have when you commence cycling. The first and most obvious is good quality bike that fits you! While that may well seem like a no-brainer, ample of people begin out on bikes that are either too small, or manufactured with poor quality components, basically because they’re less expensive. The correct fit & a well made racing bike can make your journey a lot better, nevertheless, do not be coaxed to bargain shop for your bike. However, it will be better in the long run to procure one that will survive you a considerable amount of time. As soon as you have a mountain bike that’s correct for you, it is time to buy the other cycling items that will assist you in becoming a keen cyclist.

Lights: The minimum needed by law for your bike is a small number of reflectors. However, a headlight and tail light are very useful, even during the day. When it’s dark & rainy, they can make a vast impact in your visibility to motor cars.

Tools: Just like driving a vehicle, accidents do take place whilst you’re biking. Therefore, it is important to keep a tiny tool kit on you at all times to take care of flat tyres, uncooperative chains, loose bolts and any other issues.

Helmet: While it’s legal in most places to go without a helmet, in a lot of others, one is required. If you are aiming to cycle frequently, it is intelligent to have one even in locations where no helmet law exists. Find wonderful deals on cycling shirts.

Clothing: Although special cycling clothes is unquestionably optional, it’s sensible to pay close attention to what you are wearing. Loose attire should be prevented, or tucked up so they don’t get trapped in the chain.

Locks: Unless you are lucky enough to live in a location where you are able store your bicycle inside all the time, a lock is essential. Even in rural areas, there are people who will happily nick & resell your bicycle.

Related topics of interest include: F1 Grand Prix & Toys Online.

Artwork adds life to a piece. Whether it is a simple drawing, a complex background, or anything in between, there’s no denying that a website would be boring without a little color and art to it. The problem comes when people get so greedy for images to spruce up their items and sites that they end up stealing others artwork. As an artist myself, I find this very insulting and I’m completely against it.

Not everyone is an artist. Not everyone can use their own work. This is understandable. It still is no excuse for people to steal others, though. There is no excuse for that. It just shows how lazy and inconsiderate some people can be. There are so many artists and websites out there that are willing to lend their work for free that one doesn’t have to steal from other places.

It’s all about having respect for not only the artist you are stealing from, but the other artists out there too. People need to have better respect for the craft. Just because they are not an artist doesn’t mean they have to insult others by stealing the work.

What makes it really rude is people use it for their own benefit. There are plenty of different ways to use images, and a rising online use is for signatures (images at the end of a post) in forums, message boards and other community websites. People even edit (or sometimes not at all) others’ images and sell them to make a profit. Not only did they steal from another person, but now they are using it to benefit themselves. That’s like breaking into someone’s house, stealing the furniture, and putting it upon EBay.

Though there are free websites where artists gladly share their work, they should not be abused. Just because they are free and willing to be nice doesn’t mean people should take advantage of their generosity. I hope everyone will have the kindness to thank the owners of such sites when they use the work. It is always nice to be reminded that people appreciate the time and effort an artist puts into the art.

Artists put time and effort into their work. Artists who say otherwise obviously don’t really care enough about their work and probably should look into other things to do. It’s not just a canvas of paint, or a sketch of pencil, or a group of pixels on the screen. It’s meaning, expression and purpose for us. I appreciate it when people admire my work, compliment me on my work, but not when they steal it for their own use.

I hope others, and not just artists, will stand up against image piracy. It may not effect you personally, it may not be your problem, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something about it. Even if it’s as little as telling friends you feel it is wrong, and if they are doing it that they should stop it, that’s more than enough to help out artists. To some it may not seem important, obviously nothing life-threatening, but it’s all about respect. I hope more people will realize that looks and being cool on the internet are not worth hurting another person’s feelings.

Learning Hebrew online is now easy with free videos. Many teachers now create interesting videos, and upload to the websites such as YouTube. This article will discuss a few types of videos that are now available. All beginners must start with the basics, the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. While you can learn to speak Hebrew without reading it, many of the videos will show the letters, so you will want to learn how to pronounce them first. There are several ALEF-BET songs available online, but one of the all-time favorites is the one by Debbie Friedman. Some of the videos are previews of commercial products, such as “At Home with Hebrew” and “Hebrew Kindergarten” from HebrewResources.com. Ulpan Or has uploaded several videos of their Ulpan students practicing what they have learned. Ulpan Or is a Hebrew language school in Israel. They have submitted a large number of videos. Some of their videos show current and past students demonstrating or putting into practice their recently acquired Hebrew langauge skills. Many of the videos include music. You can often find yourself learning Hebrew faster with a catchy Hebrew song, whether it be ancient liturgy or a modern Israeli song. The melodies tend to help your remember the words, so you find yourself learning with minimal effort. Children can also learn from the online videos. One set of Hebrew lessons are taught by “Vampire Bear”. As an adult, it may sound juvenile, but children probably love it. It’s also possible to learn Hebrew liturgy via the online videos. One of the lessons teaches the prayers for lighting candles on Friday night before the Shabbat meal. Several people have recorded the Shema V’Ahavta, and allow you to follow the words while the liturgy is sung. After you know the alphabet, you probably want to learn some basic vocabulary. Some authors have organized videos topically, such as shopping terms, computer technology, or parts of the human body. The rewind feature can be used to hear parts of the videos over and over as desired. In summary, Hebrew videos have something for all levels and types of learners. The combination of seeing and hearings is a real advantage. And best of all, the videos are all free. Check out the videos on our Hebrew pronunciation video web site. Click here to get your own unique version of this article.