What is Google+?

Google+ is the new social network launched by Google. It's the fastest social network to take off in history, with over ten million members just a couple months after launching. It already has over a billion pageviews per month. However, it's not getting as much traction (growth) as Facebook and Twitter, because many people (including me, at first!) find it confusing.

What sets Google+ apart from other social networks? And how can it be used to build your resume writing business?

There are two main features that set Google+ apart from Facebook: Circles and Hangouts.

Circles: What They Are and How to Use Them

Circles are like friends groups. You choose what groups to put people in without them knowing what group you've placed them in.

You can then choose to share things with people in certain circles, without other people in other circles seeing it.

Let's say you write resumes and coach clients on job interview tactics. You'll be able to put all your students and contacts of each group into their respective groups. You'll then be able to share course updates to one group without the other seeing...unless you want to share content between the two groups.

Circles also solves another problem many professionals have had with Facebook. You want to be able to share photos and status updates with your friends, but not necessarily with your professional contacts.

Circles makes this very easy. You can share just about anything with whoever you want and hide it from whoever you want.

Hangouts for Video Conferencing
There are many video conferencing programs online. However, by and large every single one of them is a paid option -- and often these are quite expensive.

Google+ changes all that. Google+ makes video conferences completely free, backed by Google engineered technology.

You can have any number of people join a Google+ hangout. You can invite people one by one, or you can open a hangout to an entire group of people who can join at will.

You can share YouTube videos. You can type text into a chat box. The speed of the service doesn't slow down no matter how many people you have on it.

In short, the Google+ Hangouts makes it easy to hold video webinars as well as video conferences with clients or other resume writers.

Is Google+ Here to Stay?
Of course, if you're going to adopt a new social network, you want to use one that other people are actually on and one that's going to be around for a while.

Will Google+ still be here a year or two down the line? There's no way to know for sure. The uptake was much faster than any other social network in history, but users' number one complaint today is still that there's "nobody else on it."

If your resume writing clients are already on Google+, then you probably should get yourself on Google+. However, if nobody you know is on the network yet, you might want to wait for a short time first to see how it plays out.

If you're interested in a full, 28-page special report on "Getting Started with Google+," sign up for a Bronze membership to BeAResumeWriter.com and you can find that special report in the "Paid Member Resources" section, along with other special reports, a full archive of back issues of Resume Writers' Digest, and Pass-Along Materials (PAM) content that you can repurpose and use with your clients.

How to Drive Traffic to Your Resume Website

Although I believe it is possible for a resume business to succeed without a website, an effective website that draws "significant" traffic (and significant can mean different things to different people), can help propel your business.

Generally, the more traffic you have, the more prospective clients you will have.

Here are five ways to drive traffic to your resume writing business website:

#1 Social media. Social media works quickly and if you have a large following on any of the social media sites (Twitter, Facebook), you can generate a ton of traffic to your website quickly. The key is to create attention-grabbing posts that arouse curiosity, make people laugh, or stir up a controversy. You want to generate click-throughs to your website.

Make the most of your social networking tactics and use technology to get the job done. For example, one StumbleUpon post can be integrated with both Facebook and Twitter profiles so you're making waves on all three social sites at once.

#2 Article marketing. Article marketing works well when you concentrate your efforts on quality article marketing sites with large audiences. One well written, informative article, rewritten a few times, and submitted to a handful of directories can generate the traffic you're looking for. Be sure to include a bio box that includes a call to action and a link to your website to motivate click-throughs.

#3 Blogging. Post on your own blog or be a guest blogger on a blog with a large number of subscribers. Like social networking, if you offer an informative, controversial or entertaining post, youíll have people clicking through to your website like mad. Of course, if you also promote this wonderful blog post(s) via social media, you can double your traffic results.

If you don't have your own blog, you can pay to be a featured career expert on Careerealism. It's not inexpensive ($149 for 3 months), but you can get significant traffic for your website from their links. (Here is resume expert's Dawn Rasmussen's blog post on Careerealism.)

#4 Video content. It's amazing how quickly a video can go viral. Like print content, videos that entertain, stir up a bit of controversy, or offer tremendous value cause a buzz. They're forwarded to friends and downloaded on laptops and mobile devices around the globe. A good video can generate all the traffic you need. Again, integrate a bit of social media to promote your video, blog about it too, and you can multiply your traffic results.

#5 Partnerships. Partnering with another business can work quite well to generate traffic fast. The key is to come up with a mutually beneficial agreement. Find people in the careers industry that are willing to work with you and help each other drive traffic. A partnership may include guest blogging on each others' websites, swapping advertisements, or even promoting one another in your e-newsletter.

Itís possible to drive a ton of traffic to your website fast. The trick is to have a plan in place, know your audience and your goals, and take action.

Building a Responsive List of Prospective Resume Clients

If you're doing Facebook ads or Google Adsense, you might be driving prospective resume clients to your website who aren't necessarily ready to buy yet. But you've already spent money to get them to your site ... it would be a shame to let them leave your site without capturing some information that will allow you to keep in touch with them in the future -- and provide value to them at the same time.

Creating a list of interested people gives you a base with which to begin building -- or to expand -- a successful resume writing business. These are people you can consistently contact and get a favorable response to your product offerings.

Steps to Building a Responsive List
So how do you get your website visitors to bite? You want to provide content about more than just writing a resume -- because your prospects might be at various stages of the job search process -- and you want to provide information that will be valuable to them no matter where they are in the job search cycle.

That is where you start. Give people what they want so that they will come back. Try the following steps:

* Create an easy to use opt-in page -- This is the page on your website where customers enter their email address and name. It could be for a free resume critique or an ebook. Be sure to have it stated clearly that by filling out the form they are allowing you to contact them with future offers and information. The worst thing you can do is to deceive customers and send them things without their permission.

A good example of this type of offer/opt-in is Marty Weitzman's Advanced Resumes of NY website.

You'll notice the opt-in box on the left side of the page, including privacy policy. (Very important!)

* Offer something that they want -- With the opt-in information, offer a special report, discount on first order, video link or something else that they might otherwise have to pay for on another site.

A great example of this is Louise Fletcher's 12-day resume ecourse, offered on the Blue Sky Resumes website. This is tremendous value to the client (but the content convinces many job seekers they don't have the skillset to do it themselves!)

* Keep your promises --  If you are offering a monthly newsletter with engaging content and discount offers, make sure that that newsletter comes each month to their inbox. Also, create compelling offers that they will want to use and tell others about.

Another example is Mary Jeanne Vincent's website. Not only does she have the opt-in list for her newsletter, but she also offers a free special report, "Recession-Proof Your Career."

She also sends out emails to folks who have opted into her list (like this one sent in August):

* Give links that work -- Test your links to pages before placing them in email text. Especially for links to your website. Customers may try once or twice to reach your page, but you won't get a third try if it doesnít work.

Do you want to build a responsive email list? Inspire trust, confidence and loyalty in your customers with the tips above.

How to Back Up Your Computer Files Automatically

The theme of the most recent issue of Resume Writers' Digest is disaster recovery. Probably the one disaster ALL of us have experienced as a resume writer is the loss of data. Whether it's losing the file you were working on when the power blinked or, as has happened to me on at least three occasions, the loss of data when your computer dies. I know I'm not the only one, because I see your anguish on Facebook when it happens to you!

Even if your primary computer cost several thousand dollars, you probably place a much higher value on the data that's actually stored on computer. Since we conduct the transactions of our resume business on our computers (not to mention financial records, family photographs and other items that are now stored solely on our desktop and laptop computers), a single catastrophic failure of your computer's disk drive could result in an incredible loss.

You can protect against this type of scenario by periodically backing up your data to an external hard drive. Some people prefer this over backing up their data and documents online and sending their data into "the cloud." There's something reassuring about knowing that your data is backed up to an external drive that only you have access to.

But while backing up our data is something that we know we should be doing regularly, chances are we're not actually doing a good enough job at it. Fortunately, there are some ways to automatically back up your computer files to an external hard drive, reducing the chance that you will suffer any significant data loss.

Before you can set up your backup process, you'll need an external hard drive. In recent years, the price of hard drives has dropped significantly, so you should be able to purchase a high capacity drive on practically any budget.

Because the backup process is not something you will be performing every day, don't be overly concerned with data transfer speeds. For most people it's simply not necessary to have the absolute fastest hard drive for backup purposes. You should, however, try to get the largest hard drive you can afford. The more space you have for backup storage, the better.

In order to have your backups occur automatically, you will want to have software that manages the process for you. Having to do manual backups of all your files on a weekly basis is a sure way to get frustrated and stop doing backups altogether.

If your computer runs Windows 7, then you already have a software solution available to you -- the "backup and restore" feature. You can begin the process on Windows 7 by entering yourControl Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, then selecting Backup and Restore. The Backup and Restore function lets you choose the folders of your computer that will be backed up, and schedule the process to occur automatically. Some earlier versions of the Windows operating system also have similar functions.

Some Windows users might not be satisfied with this solution, however, and want something with more options and features. There are other options available, including software packages that actually synchronize -- in real time -- all of the files and folders that you want to back up. This means that you always have backup copies of all of your important data in files. (If you use a backup solution that backs up only on a twice monthly basis, for example, you risk losing any new data since the date of the last backup.)

If you have a Mac like I do, you can use Time Machine to set and schedule your backups. Find information how to do that here.

You can always refine your backup process later, but the important thing is to get a schedule in place and get into the habit of protecting your important data.