Let's Talk VoIP

We’ve all heard the phrase “VoIP” but how many of us really understand it?

Let’s start with the definition….”VoIP” stands for “Voice Over Internet Protocol”.  Ok everybody knows “VoIP” now, right? 

Lots of today’s companies throw around “VoIP” as a buzz word in their marketing efforts.  Ever heard of Skype, Magic Jack, and Vonage?  They are all over your television and they all use VoIP technologies.

Next question…..What is “Internet Protocol”?

Wikipedia defines “Internet Protocol as…….  

“IP is the primary protocol in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite and has the task of delivering packets from the source host to the destination host solely based on the addresses”

The Business Outsource Guy (Me) defines “internet protocol” as:

"the method used to take a human voice and convert it to a digital signal which can then be sent across the caller’s internet service to another person and then converted back to a human voice" 

VoIP is to the telephone as HDMI is to your TV signals.  We’ve all lived the latest craze to convert from analog TV to digital TV.  But I think we all agree our picture is better with digital & high definition signals!  As VoIP technology continues to evolve, the voice quality will also reflect similar advances in quality.

Here’s a simple non-tech example to understand the basic science on analog vs. digital signals:

Analog Signal Diagram

If you tie one end of a rope to a tree 100’ away from you and shake it, you will see the rope move in a wave type motion, with bigger waves closer to you and diminishing waves as you get closer to the tree.  Imagine this is your voice.  If you call your neighbor, you’re very close and your voice sounds great.  If you call you cousin in Europe, they are at the other end of the rope and your voice sounds weak and far away.  Now take a picture….if you gave one to your neighbor next door and one to your cousin in Europe, the picture looks exactly the same.  No deterioration of quality between the two.  Same theory works with your voice on digital service.   VoIP technology is layman’s terms, takes a picture of your voice and transmits it to the person you are calling.  No reduction in sound quality.

Digital Signal Diagram

VoIP has a great future and it looks like we’ll all soon be using it for better or worse. If I can answer any specific questions, please enter them in the comments sections and I’ll be happy to respond.

 If you’d like more information on how to utilize VoIP technologies for your business and take advantage of some wonderful equipment and service packages, drop me a quick note at dave@davehanron.com or @DaveHanron on Twitter

1st Step to Growing Your Blog Readership

Blogging…it’s exploding into quite a phenomenon these days.

Blogs are really great tools to add to your social interaction.  They can be used for all sorts of things, from promoting your business, to voicing your opinion about a current event, or simply to keep your friends and family updated on family affairs and vacations.

Any form of advertisement, whether it’s a TV ad, radio ad, newsprint ad, internet pop up (we all love those don’t we?) or a blog, is only as good as the amount of views it receives.  That is clearly demonstrated by the difference in price for the various types of advertisements.  For instance you might pay $50 for the week to run a classified ad in your local paper or you could pay upwards of $3 million to place a 30 second TV commercial on this year’s Superbowl broadcast. 

Today there are literally millions of blogs.  According to Pingdom’s latest statistics, there were more than 152 million blogs at year’s end 2010.  With this many blogs available to read, how does the average blogger drive traffic to his/her blog?

There are loads of ways to drive traffic to your blog and opinions vary across the board on the best ways to do so.  There are several methods that I use but the first and in my opinion (IMO) perhaps easiest method you should try and consistently use is to create backlinks.

What is a backlink?  According to Wiki, “Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are incoming links to a website or web page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain from another web node.  Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today, their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO).

So how do you start creating backlinks to your blog?  Here’s where the opinions start to vary and hopefully my readers will supply some feedback on their techniques.  You can use any number of free or pay per use programs on the web which will create these for you.  Some seem to work (www.yousaytoo.com is one I use) better than others or you can start creating your own by simply reading other authors blogs and posting comments on them.  When you leave a comment, be sure to leave your name as the author of  your blog appears (I use “The Business Outsource Guy”) and most importantly, leave the link to your website where your blog appears under the URL field.  Once you've followed these simple steps, congratulations! You've created your first backlink to your blog.

It takes some time to get the backlinks going but if you follow your blogs statistics (and you should be!), you will gradually start seeing the hits rise on your page, indicating you’re expanding your reach and growing your blog.

Try to spend some time each day, reading blogs and posting comments and in a very short time, you’ll begin to reap the benefits of your new blogging strategy.

Have other ideas on creating backlinks or promoting your blog that have been successful?  Please let us know how so we can all reap the rewards