Best iPad & Tablet Apps of 2013

New apps are being developed every single day. It is almost impossible to keep track of what is available in the android and iOS markets. As the same apps are available for tablets and smaller devices, it is often difficult to know what applications will have the best resolution; features and work better on larger tablet surfaces. With some advice, it is easy to make the most of your gadget and get the best apps for you. As more people opt for smartphone, android and iOS devices, it is essential to take care of them with relevant gadget insurance and utilise them with the best apps on the market. Here are some of the best iPad and tablet apps of the year.

Solar Walk

Solar Walk is an impressive app that shows off the amazing visual capabilities of the iPad. It boasts a beautiful 3D model of our solar system and when used with Retina display, it really is a pleasure to the eye. It is the first app in the app store that supports 3D TV. Even when zoomed out, detail on the planets is visible. The pixel wide orbit lines of the moon are impressive but not in your face. Explore our neighboring planets and moons in a quick, easy fashion. The impressive high-resolution interface and texture of the planets makes it a really true to life experience. The app is not available on android yet, it is available from the Apple app store for €1.89.

Real Racing 2 HD

If you are a gamer, you are in for a treat with Real Racing 2 HD, available for both iOS and Android devices. It is the most critically acclaimed racing simulation on Android. Its high definition graphics, easy to use controls and high performance gameplay set you up for hours of gaming. Drive on a 16 car grid and test your racing power from 30 officially licensed cars. Choose from 15 different locations with over 40 miles of highly detailed graphics race tracks, speedways and city circuits. Handling power is amazing, with its touch or tilt to steer capabilities, as well as customisable options for your own personal driving style. The app is €4.49 and available in the app store and play store now.

Glasses.com

Glasses.com is a truly impressive app that allows you to try on thousands of styles of glasses and sunglasses. Simply upload your image, and you can view yourself on the screen at any angle wearing the specs of your choice, from Ray- Ban, Gucci, Versace and Burberry all scaled to perfectly fit your face. It may seem like a simple concept, but the quality of delivery is second to none. You can use the app for pure entertainment or genuine research before purchasing glasses. The 180-degree 3D facial mapping software gives you a real life 3D view in a fun manner. The app allows you to view up to 4 looks in a single view and tap to look at your head from each side. What’s even better is that the app is free!

NASA Earth as Art is another great app brought to you by NASA. It offers an amazing set of images of earth seen from satellites and are best displayed on larger iPad or tablet screens rather than smaller mobile screens for optimum display. The New York Times app is also best enjoyed on an iPad or tablet. Its high quality, easy navigation and stunning imagery are optimised on these impressive screens. Take the time to do research into the best apps for your device, to utilise your gadget to their full potential. You literally have the world at your fingertips. Happy downloading!

Iveta Ivanova is a web and technology enthusiast who lives in Dublin. She has lots of interests such as SEO, digital marketing and social media. Although she is fond of tech and gadgets, she basically loves blogging on different topics. 

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6 Mistakes That Wordpress Bloggers Make

It is widely accepted that WordPress is currently the most popular blogging platform with features and capabilities very few content management system software packages can match. Most internet marketers love WordPress for the SEO value it adds to their e-commerce website although a good part of the population is more inclined to channeling traffic to websites or blogs they built using the CMS software. To keep you followers interested, below are six things you need to emphasize on if you are one of those who believe in the power of WordPress.

1. Always update your blog content

One of the reasons why most people's blogging efforts fail is reluctance to update their posts. It is understandable that some posts might only be valuable for a short period of time but this does not necessarily mean that you should overlook the essence of updating as it would cost you in the long run. For instance, if you have a post whose title is "Must have gadgets for 2013" it would be necessary to update it "Must have gadgets for the year 2014". If you have noted, a web user visiting your blog in the year 2014 would navigate away if the change and other modifications were not made.

2. Protect your website

Malicious software can cripple your blogging efforts and even discourage you from ever posting again. Consider a situation where you blog is banned from major search engines and not to forget the devastating message which warns visitors of malware whenever they land on it. The short term effects of such an attack would be losing your followers after which you would be forced to start all over again with an aim at seeing your blog get back on major search engine rankings. To prevent this from happening invest in an Antivirus software and security plug-ins which protect your site from malware.

3. Update your WordPress website and all your plug-ins

To ensure convenience for its users, WordPress makes regular updates to its software. The reason why installing these updates is necessary is because they fix bugs and other issues which might expose you to malware and malicious hack attempts. Remember, hackers are always looking for challenges and will soon loop holes which might cost you a lot if ignored. Update all your plug-ins regularly as one of your security strategies.

4. Keep abreast with information about new WordPress plug-ins 

As a WordPress blogger, it would be difficult to survive without using plug-ins. Most of them are intended to help you keep ahead of your competition by making certain webmaster tasks easier. For instance, a tool like WP polls allows you to get information from your web visitor and displays it in an attractive way which can be used to influence more people into making a certain decision. Most people like Plug-ins because they allow them to improve the look and feel of their website without necessarily reviewing their CSS files. 

5. Reply to those who comment on your blog

Replying to those who comment on your blog might not be necessarily a good strategy for SEO but it helps where one wants to improve their conversion rate. Communicating with your followers helps you win their trust and hence makes it easier to convince them into taking a required action. Besides, a follower feels good when a comment they made is replied to; this increases the chances of such a customer revisiting your blog for more information in the future. If you are after making a long emailing list, you could use your replies to manipulate visitors by promising them free informational products like e-books.

6. Take care of your wording

People read blogs because they need views or advice about something. Although it is important to portray yourself as an authority in your niche, your wording should not make you sound as if you are bragging about your expertise in the field. Always use a tone which will make your visitors believe that you intend to help them and all you are doing is sharing valuable information and not selling it.

With these tips, you will soon notice an improvement in your search engine rankings and more important your conversion rate. Emphasize on them and do whatever you can to keep ahead of your competition.

Author Bio:

Jason Smith is an online manager for High Concrete Group. He likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.

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Top 10 Dictation Apps for Your iPhone

The good thing with new mobile devices today, like iPhones, is that you can use amazing applications with them that will make life very convenient for you. One particular area that can be made much easier is taking dictations and transcribing them into text. There will always be a need to take important notes to prevent forgetting vital information that is related to your job or assignment, whether at school or at work. Taking notes manually is difficult because there is a chance to miss important parts of the lecture or interview. Now, with the help of software applications for iPhones, you can use your device to record important audios, which gives you the option to transcribe them later on your own or with the help of dictation companies. If you are planning to download an application, you can choose from the following top ten dictation applications.

1. Dragon Dictation

This is a voice recognition application, which means that whatever you dictate will be automatically converted into a text format. With this application, sending email messages, text messages, posting a new blog to your site, or making Twitter updates can be as easy as speaking straight to your device. If a brilliant idea pops up on your mind, you no longer need to pick up a pen and a paper, just turn on this application on your device and watch your dictation transform into words in your notepad or to-do lists.

2. Vlingo

Having Vlingo in your device is like having a virtual assistant. It does not simply convert your voice into text format, but also follows commands. For instance, tell it to text a friend, send an important email, or even update your Facebook status, all with just the use of your voice.

3. PocketDictate

This voice recorder application not only allows you to record easily with its user-friendly controls, but it also lets you edit your recordings. You can overwrite or insert extra notes to recorded sound files. This app can also compress your files, so it would be easier for you to send large files through emails.

4. iRecorder Pro

iRecorder Pro also produces clear and crisps sounds to make sure that your recordings are of utmost quality. Even when your iPhone is on sleep mode, you can continue recording through this app. It also has a SmartSplit feature, which splits large files into multiple smaller files for easy sending through email.

5. QuickVoice2Text Email

This application produces quality sound, which makes it ideal for all purposes, like recording meetings, lectures, your dictations, or even your own music. It has a lot of bundled up features. For instance, you can use your recording as a ring tone for your phone's contacts and you can do lengthy recordings, as long as your device has the required memory. Its best feature is that you can email your recording and the recipient will receive both the sound file and its transcription.

6. Audio Memos

This voice recorder app can be used with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Its intuitive interface can make any recording task simpler. One thing that sets this recorder above the rest is its sound quality. Your recordings will be heard loud and clear so you do not miss any vital word or phrase. It is very easy to use, has no set limit on the recording length, and with its iCloud feature, you can access your recording everywhere.

7. Recorder

Be it short interviews or hour-long lectures, this app will help you record everything. Aside from that, it can also record outgoing calls, which may be essential for you if you need your correspondences documented on file.

8. iTalk Recorder

This voice recorder app lets you choose between three levels of sound quality in which you want your audio recorded. Then, with the use of iTalk, you can directly email your recordings and you also have the option to share your files through iTunes.

9. Voice Answer

Here is another virtual assistant that can help you in many ways, from doing online searches, to sending emails, and even playing your favorite tune. Would you like to know the time in Malaysia now? Or learn more about historical figures? Just give the proper audio command and this app will do as you say.

10. Dictamus

Forget about waiting for your transcriptionist before you can start with your dictation. Dictamus lets you record your dictations straight on your iPhone in different kinds of audio formats. You can then send it to your transcriptionist through email, file sharing, or even in Dropbox.

Author Bio:

Jason Smith is an online manager for Athreon. He likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.

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Why You Should Learn About Black Hat SEO

Any SEO practitioner worth their salt knows that black hat tactics should be avoided. While such activities may boost your rankings in the short term, they will ultimately have a negative impact on your website, and it takes a lot of work to rectify the problems that will occur.

Rather than ignoring black hat SEO completely though, the best approach is to educate yourself in the area. Here’s why.

It gives you a broader understanding of how search works

SEO is a complicated field, and if you want to get it right, it’s wise to know about the potential pitfalls that you could hit along the way. It’s only through gathering as much knowledge as possible that you can do this. A good tactic here is to review your site whenever you learn about a new black hat process. Checking that you haven’t accidentally broken any rules will help to protect your site.

The rules are always changing

Some SEO practices that were commonplace in the past are now widely accepted as being black hat, so it’s important that you keep on top of any developments and tweak your campaigns accordingly. Not gathering new knowledge whenever you can means that you’re putting yourself at risk of falling foul of ethical guidelines.

It can help you to spot bad SEO practitioners

If you’re using the services of an SEO practitioner for your campaigns, it’s a good idea to be aware of how they’re developing your site and the sort of activities that they’re carrying out on behalf of your business. And perhaps more importantly, you need to know what they really shouldn’t be doing, as it can harm your business. Part of the reason for hiring a professional SEOcompany is that you can leave the tricky stuff to someone else. Whilst this is true, it’s always best to know sufficient about the field yourself, so you can choose the very best practitioners to work with.

Of course, now the main question is how you gather all the information that you need. Due to the fast paced nature of the field, the internet is your best resource here. Pinpoint around five of your favourite blogs and news sources, and make a point of checking them on a regular basis. Any more might be too overwhelming, so it isn’t a viable long-term option. This sort of dedication to ongoing learning is bound to have a positive impact on your skills, and ultimately, your search engine rankings.

This article was brought to you by Ruth Richards on behalf of WebSearch SEO. WebSearch SEO is based in London and offers link building packages and other SEO services to businesses that want to get ahead online. 

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How to Manage Multiple Social Media Platforms Simultaneously

Facebook and Twitter are the top two social networks that any small business must use. Google Plus is also becoming a significant social media force, and depending on your industry, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and Foursquare can also be vitally important. There are dozens more social media sites that you could also be a part of!

You do not need to be on all of them, but you definitely should be on more than one. That means finding or creating content, deciding whether it should go on all the sites, or which ones it should go on and how often, and scheduling and publishing that content. It can be a lot of work. Social media management tools can help tame the social media beast – but they cannot do it alone. Organization and preparation are still important.

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tools

There are several social media management tools to choose from. However, they vary greatly, based on the sites they manage, cost, number of social profiles they manage, mobile apps and number of team members who can access them. However, social management tools are very cost efficient, with different price points to fit all sizes of business. You will easily recover any investment made with freed-up man hours and more effective use of social media.

Tweetdeck

At one time Tweetdeck would manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and others, but after Twitter bought it, they dropped support for all the other social media networks. It streamlines tweet scheduling and is a great tool if Twitter is your most important platform, but if you want to manage more than Twitter, Tweetdeck leaves you in the cold. In addition to scheduling tweets, Tweetdeck can monitor Twitter mentions of your business or important keywords. 

HootSuite

HootSuite supports all the major social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare and more. A true management system, it allows teams and collaboration, scheduled posts and publishing information from feeds to your networks. It even monitors any mentions of your business on social networks, so you can stay on top of lead generation and respond appropriately to those interested in your business. The free version can generate reports to tell you how your social presence is faring. The pro and enterprise versions add multiple team members and integration with Google Analytics and Facebook Insights.

Seesmic

Seesmic also supports Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites and used to be a HootSuite competitor until HootSuite purchased Seesmic in 2012. Seesmic users, particularly business users, are now being transitioned to HootSuite.

Buffer

Buffer is another social media management tool that supports multiple networks including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can use it to schedule posts on your pages and profiles, as well as in LinkedIn groups.  It offers both a free plan and a paid plan that is $10 per month. 

Sproutsocial

Sprout is a commercial social media management software with three levels: Standard at $39 per user/month, Deluxe at $59 per user/month, and Premium at $99 per user per month. It offers a 30-day full feature free trial. The base package, included in all plans, includes tools to aid engagement, publishing, analyzing, monitoring, collaborating, and support and has a module for mobile platforms. It supports Facebook, Twitter and Google+. 

Social Media Management and Workflow

Whether you manually make every post, use a management app, or a combination of the two, social media has a workflow. Your goals for social media use, the frequency of posting, which social media sites you use, what content is posted and who takes care of social media is all a part of the social media workflow. Choosing to use a social media management tool will maximize the exposure you get with social media and save you time. If you typically outsource social media management or have an employee take care of it, such tools will save you man hours.

Social media is here to stay, and every day it is more important to have a social media presence. The use of a social media management tool will not only save you time by scheduling your posts, it can provide you with valuable tracking information and analytics that can help you see what your followers are most interested in. The increased frequency of your social media activity will also increase lead generation and help you grow your business.

With careful planning and the right social media management tools, it is possible to have a strong social media presence that greatly benefits your business. 

Author Bio

Alex is an avid blogger and IT Director for Servicont - a HughesNet provider. 

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More digital impact on your business makes more of online marketing

Introduction

Online Press Releases and Social Media Marketing combined are abundantly capable of increasing your revenue and engagement. Please allow me to go through some tips in a strategic planning takeaway for you to utilize at a later date.

Here I’d like to assist and help implement your ideal strategy using user-generated content. This includes monitoring positive and negative brand perception through tools such as Facebook, Twitter and G+, as well as increasing brand engagement all-round.

Working at The Genuine Gemstone Company, I experience the online marketing tools and channels for PR as part of our online strategy. My tips here will improve your brand placement online, even without necessarily over stretching the budget. 

Online marketing takeaway

Press Releases

Online press releasing activities include influencing media, communities and online specific audiences; you need to be making a sound through online channels.  You can achieve this via social networks, news search, discussion threads, search engines, and other online communication tools.

A useful tip to about press releases is that they essentially only work as a successful online marketing strategy if used alongside social media and your natural link building techniques. If you do not then you won’t reap the benefits of social sharing, engagement and redistribution that enable the spread of your marketing projects.

Planning an enhanced approach to your online marketing strategy is a critical place to make a start. There are SEO tools that can help, including Google Insights and FollowerWonk from Moz. It’s essential to manage your brand reputation and then monitor it, and then store data, create targets, ensure growth.

•     Give out the social signals that reach the most users, post all PR out on Twitter and Facebook
•       Create strong call to action or incentive to click troughs on the release to your website.
•     Publish your work on authoritative site, like The Times; more positive for reads and re-circulating
•       Follow the organic SEO rule of natural link building each month
•    Create unique content every time you create an article; think of the user before the algorithm
•       Vary anchor text as to not upset any search-engine algorithms

Social Media

Social Media is very good for engaging with other users on a channel used to connect with people. If you were connecting with journalists; especially those that target your industry, reporters, bloggers and influencers who cover topics in your industry then this would be a fantastic way of gaining social interaction and building up recommendations and exposure.

Start tweeting with them and engage, but don’t oversell your business or product, just ask about a particular topic that they write.

Create fun, interesting content, for your users to read and enjoy! Just by being creative, conjuring something, compelling, interesting, or even funny; people will naturally want to talk about it and share it with friends, or even do a write up about it with no pitching required.

Think of the great videos you have seen on YouTube and why videos get so many shares and likes. It won’t be because someone spent ages crafting an amazing pitch, to a journalist. It’s the content itself that was really cool, and that meant that it was popular with the public, who just kept on sharing it with their friends etc.

This can create a lot of links and traffic, and work as an effective tool in your overall marketing strategy.

•          Get fans liking your posts, get popular and improve your Google authority
•          Promote everything that your brand has to shout about through social media
•          Cross promote with other brands and endorse affiliate partnerships on Facebook
•          Make your Facebook username and Twitter handle your brand name
•          Hash-tag and include your brand name in your Tweets
•          Use competitions to draw fans, get them to post and interact for prizes
•          Ensure your logo is your profile picture, and create a nice landing page banner
•          Add your website's URL to your profile

Conclusion

"The company’s No.1 appearance in the Fast Track 100, is testimony to their skill and determination to succeed" – says Sir Richard Branson in The Sunday Times.

Being connected to our audience through the spots they will go to online on a regular basis, their emails, social media, browsing the internet. We may have a new promotion which includes a set of Sapphire Rings on GemsTV and it’s important that the outside world have an awareness of this.

So subliminal signals from channels such as Facebook, and email require our marketing team to create a promotion and ensure that it is maximising engagement and customer reach. Our marketing is completed with an on-site campaign to synchronise our campaign when the user visits us on our Gems TV and Rocks TV website.

Written by Edward Meeks, Online Marketing Executive at The Genuine Gemstones Company

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