How to increase your blog visitors with Pinterest

A picture is worth a thousand words!  The more attractive your images are, the more they get the attention of your viewers. That's how the magic of Pinterest works to get more traffic to your blog and website, when viewers Pin, Add to Favorites and Repin your images. But have you linked your blog post image correctly, when you upload them on Pinterest?

Recently, I checked my Pinterest blog images that were uploaded directly on Pinterest. I noticed the images were linked to my blog, but does not link directly to the blog post url. This has to be done manually.

When a visitor clicks your blog post image on Pinterest, it should take them directly to the blog post and not to your blog homepage.

Below are the guidelines to ensure that your blog post image is linked correctly on Pinterest, so as to drive traffic back to your blog:

• Upload your blog image directly on Pinterest 

• Enter the title, description and keywords.

• SAVE the image

• When you hover your mouse over the image, you would notice a 'pencil icon' on the top right corner, as shown in the image below.

•  Click on the 'pencil icon' and add your blog post link in the space provided for 'Website'.

• Save the image once again.

Many of us would have failed to notice this feature. But aren't we leaving behind a plethora of wealth?  Make it a point to link your images on Pinterest, back to your blog posts and web pages. 

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Quick tips to increase your ebook sales on Amazon

Promote Amazon eBooks

 

Simply uploading your eBooks on Amazon is not going to increase your sales overnight.  That is just the initial process and there is much more to do, before it catch the attention and interest of readers. Just like any other product, you need to promote your eBooks effectively.  This doesn't mean you need to spend hours in marketing your eBooks, but promote them smartly.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's Founder and CEO

Here are quick tips that were shared by successful authors who climbed up to the Amazon Best Sellers page, apart from promoting the eBooks on their websites.

1. Participate actively in the Amazon's Discussion Forum

Active participation at the forum would draw the attention of other amazon members and visitors to take a look at your profile.  Create an Amazon Listmania Lists and a Wishlist.  Ensure, that you list your eBooks in these two categories.



    2.  Kindle Boards

Share your thoughts, ideas about writings and be helpful to other members of this board.  Shameless self-promotion without adding value to the discussion is not going to benefit you in anyway.


   3.  Mobile Read

 

An online community that give members the opportunity to exchange ideas, gain knowledge and seek suggestions on every topic regarding the mobile internet world.  Be a part of this gadget community and its worth your time spent here in getting many hot leads. 

 

   

   4.  Amazon's KDP Select (Kindle Direct Publishing)

A self-publishing platform to sell your books at the Amazon Kindle Store. The eBooks are available for purchase on all Kindle devices and Kindle apps. When books are made available through KDP Select, you can earn 70% royalty and also promote your eBook for free.

 

Another feature is when your eBook is exclusively published at KDP for 90 days, it would also be available in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.  The best part is you would earn a share of the monthly Kindle Owners' Lending Library fund, when your books are borrowed from the library.

Certainly, these tips would have a great impact on your eBook sales on amazon.  Just ensure not to blast these platforms with advertisements and surely, in no time readers would soon start recognizing your presence on these discussion boards.

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Purpose of Optimizing Blog Images for Search Engines

By seeing an image on a blog post, search engines does not understand what our blog is all about.  We need to make it more clear in a descriptive manner to allow search engine spiders to crawl our blog. 

Optimizing blog images helps to get targeted traffic through Image Search Engines like Google image search, Bing images and Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa that are popular photo sharing sites on the web.

It is only recently that bloggers have started giving importance in optimizing their blog images.  This is such a cool method in getting targeted traffic without much effort.

Blog Image Optimization

You might as well may want to check out the 5 guidelines for better blog image optimization:

1.   Alt text

This is an 'alternative text' (alt text) for blog images.  It is a text that help search engines to have a better understanding about the image.

The syntax is also useful where viewers would like to browse the blog by turning off the graphics.  Here the visitor would only see the alternative text instead of the image.

Once you add an image on your blog, go to the Html view and you will see a code as shown below.

Change the code to

In the code only just change the "Alternative Text for Image" to a text relevant to your blog post and image.

For Example:
If your blog is about SEO Techniques, you can use an alternative text for image with a keyword relevant to the blog post.



2.   File Name

The file name of your blog should be keyword oriented and this too help visitors on the web to quickly find your blog image.


For Example:  When you use Google images or any other search engines to find an image for seo tips, you would notice that most images display the file name.

Google Image Search for Seo Tips

When you hover on any of those pictures on Google image search, you would see the image file name as shown in the below image.

Image Search for SEO Techniques

Note that you need to save the image file name with hyphen after each word.  Most Search Engines treat the hyphen as spaces.  Eg. seo-tips-and-tricks.jpg

3.   Image Captions

They may not seem important, but it is a good practice to always write a caption. Visitors do find the captions of an image catchy, when they visit a website.  Captions decorated with keywords is another method to drive traffic to your blog.

4.   Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Too much of makeup doesn't make a woman look very beautiful.  The same applies with blog images.  Search Engines would find it disgusting on crawling an image stuffed with keywords and would assume it is spammy.

5.   Monetize Blog Images

Just as you can monetize blogs, there are many sites that help you to monetize your blog images with adsense and CPM advertising.  Find the one that adapts perfectly with your blog and get you more image traffic as well.

It doesn't take much of your time to optimize your blog images, as mentioned in these detailed guidelines provided.  Once done the traffic through images keep flowing and that is until you decide to delete your blog.

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Benefits of having quality twitter followers

Having just a bunch of twitter followers who are interested to read your tweets, is equal to having millions of fans on facebook.  You are already aware how this happen. Each time you tweet and if it is interesting your followers would retweet your post.

I came across a very interesting post on SERPd - a community meant for SEO and Internet Marketing Professionals to learn and share.   It was all about a blogger, who got 150 retweets and it still keeps adding on.... just with a single post.   Imagine the no. of impressions, he would have got for his blog.  Most of the retweets he got through were by two dynamic tweeters, who kept the ball rolling.  It was a total of over 1,031,775 impressions on Twitter, where 508,962 impressions was from just one of those super charged tweeter itself. 

From the above stats, it is clear about the importance of connecting with quality twitter followers. This would benefit your business a lot and you would even gradually notice the increase in the number of followers each day.  It is always advisable to connect with people who share the same interest.  Maybe, you would even be lucky enough to have one or more connectors, as they are called, to get your message across the web.

So how would you track, who were those tweeters that added value to your tweet? 

You can either check the stats by using the retweet button shown on your twitter page or use BackType now acquired by twitter.  Tweetreach is another popular twitter stats tracking site, if you need more details in depth with graphs, charts and so on.  Now retweeting interesting tweets is equally important.  That is only if you find the tweet useful for those in your twitter circle.  

Obviously, you would be curious to check out the profile of the person, who retweeted your tweets.  If they are tweeters who share the same interest as yours, add them to your list of followers or at least return the favor by retweeting their tweets.

Grateful to Tristan, who brought this very helpful topic to our attention on SERPd (mentioned at the beginning of this post).  I'm glad to be a part of this seo community that is a real resource mine.

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Google Plus One would have a great impact on SEO

There have been a lot of mixed responses from the time Google Plus One button was introduced, though they are still in its initial stage.  But this cute little button could be thought provoking in terms of their great impact on SEO.

 

Google +1 impact on SEO

So lets examine closely, how Google Plus One can increase your site's SERP (search engine results page) rankings. 

• Get your website indexed more quickly 

To get your site indexed on google by linking from another website, would take weeks or nearly a month.  But if the same is done by a way of sharing it through Google +1, your site would get indexed in a couple of hours. 

Of course, users need to have a public profile and be signed in Google, when they share content with the plus one button.  The same applies if you would like to view the +1 on SERP.

•  Better Rankings on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Google +1 button is a great snippet that helps your site to get organic links. The annotations listed in a more personalized manner with search history, would encourage users to check your site again.  Besides when a content is shared via the +1 button, it easily helps to build links that are crawled by search engines.

• Impact through your circle of Google+ Friends

The more your circle of Google+ acquaintances and friends share via +1, the better visibility your site would get on SERP (search engine results page).  As a result, your site would notice an increase in organic traffic.  The small notes known as 'annotations' as shown in the figure below, helps your site to get better rankings.  The sole reason is that you are connected with another high profile Google+ user who shares a link through Facebook, Twitter or any other social sites.

Example of Annotations on SERP

Google plus one is in its infant stage and they have more to offer in the coming days.  If all works well, it would be one of the very best webmaster tools that Google has offered so far.  Once the business pages goes live, we could expect more features. But until then, let this be a learning period getting acquainted with social search and how they would improve your rankings.

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Importance of linking with.edu blogs

Blogs with .edu, .org and .gov domains are considered reliable by google and have a higher impact on all search engines.  Such blogs are specifically for universities and other educational purpose.  They are highly monitored blogs and so getting a link back from these powerful .edu blogs would also increase your blog's credibility.

Backlinking with .edu sites

It is not quiet easy to find .edu or .gov blogs pertaining to your niche and those that allow you to place a comment.  Most of them are nofollow blogs, but that shouldn't be a problem as long as you get organic traffic.  Backlinking with at least a few education blogs itself, can have a great impact and increase your blog rankings on search engines.  Also, take note of the PR (page rankings) when you come across .edu blogs.

I have been hunting this down for long and now came across a way to find .edu blog with certain parameters.  So jump on to google search and enter the parameter as shown below.

site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “keyword”

site:.gov inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “Keyword”

Site:.edu inurl:comments/feed

Your search on Google after entering the parameters would look like this

Example of Google parameters on SERP

Note :  Instead of "Keyword", enter your niche.  

For example: "increase web traffic" 

                          "personal development"

                          "mlm network marketing"

Though there are more search parameters, I have only provided the most relevant ones to make things simple. The other search terms will need you to further keep digging the mine to find the appropriate blogs and that is time consuming.  Ok got an idea how to do it?   Now go get it  :)

Golden Rule:  Always add value to the post with interesting comments relevant to the subject.  This would help your blogs to get noted in no time and your comments to stay on these high authority .edu blogs.

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How to protect your affiliate links from theft

Are you aware that your affiliate earnings are being stolen? Someone else is enjoying the commissions for all the work you do, in promoting your affiliate business.  But how does this happen?

Affiliate marketing is a method adopted in marketing the products and services of another company, where in turn you are rewarded a compensation for your efforts.  Once you sign up as an affiliate for a company, you are provided a link with your affiliate code in it.

For example:

Your affiliate link would look something like the one below.
http://xzy.com/?afid=23456

It is this link that you have to promote inorder to get  business for the company.  Each time a visitor sign up or purchase the products through your affiliate link, the company rewards you a percentage of the affiliate commissions.

But here arise the problem.  Visitors are more smart and savvy these days, that they remove your affiliate id on the link and try to enter the company website directly. With reference to the link above, visitors would erase ?afid=23456 on the link and sign up directly through http://xzy.com/  

This way you could lose your affiliate commissions, when visitors sign up directly on the website.  There are even softwares that track and rewrite your affiliate code as theirs and ultimately enjoying your commissions.

So to protect your affiliate commissions from theft, it is advisable to use a link cloaker or better still to make the best use of redirection or forward domain that would mask your affiliate links.  When you purchase a domain, you  normally get this facility to forward domain either for directing visitors to another website or for masking your site.   This don't need any technical knowledge and using the redirection option is search engine friendly.

Forward domain through the web hosting site is one of the simplest redirection methods, but if you are a bit techy, you can follow the instructions in the video with another option for masking your affiliate links.

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How to make use of Windows Live Writer for blogging

Windows Live Writer helps publishing your blog to any blogging platforms quickly with many cool features.  Use Live Writer to create your blog post and then publish them on WordPress, TypePad, LiveJournal, Blogger and Telligent Community (previously known as Community Server).

For instance, you created a blog post for wordpress and now you want the same post  to be published on another blogging platform. You can quickly post it through live writer  to typepad, blogger or livejournal.  You can even create  blog entries offline, once the live writer is downloaded to your desktop.  This is useful for bloggers  and writers with limited internet usage.

One of the best features is that the Live writer comes with a number of cool plugins to enhance your blog.  Simply download the Insert Video plugin and you can easily add videos from various sites like MSN SoapBox, YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo, MySpace Video, Video, muveeMix, myvideo.de and BrightCove.  Once the plugin is downloaded, copy and paste the video link from any of these video sites to your blog entry and the video plugin would ensure rest of the work is done.

Another cool feature is that you can edit and add effects to your images right from your blog.  Normally, you have to do this on your photo editing software.

This is just few among the lot and there is much more that you can do by using live writer.  It is recommended to writers and bloggers to make the best use of this tool.  Actually, this was suggested by one of my friends on a business network.  I'm just checking out these features and still in the process.

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How to find dofollow sites quickly

It is a process to check out for dofollow blogs and websites for the purpose of backlinking, even with available backlink checker tools on the web.

I found a quicker way to do it, that hardly consumes  much time.  Within 15 minutes, you can post your comments to nearly 10 - 20 sites. 

Quick Tips 

• Download any SEO toolbar.  I prefer to use firefox seo plugin or WebRank Toolbar.

• On any search engine, check out for blogs or websites according to your niche like mlm, network marketing, entrepreneur coaching and so on.

• Click any of those sites and once you are on the page, you would notice the below figures on your seo toolbar.

•  These figures are mainly rankings for alexa, google, yahoo, bing, no. of backlinks to the particular site that you are currently viewing, etc.

•  Click the icon on the seo toolbar that shows backlinks for google as shown in the image above.

•  You would get a list of sites, that are linking back to the website you are browsing.

• Now go do your job to post comments on those blogs and websites, to create quick backlinks to your website as well.

Do this on a routine every day and you would be able to create a number of backlinks to your site quickly with amazing results.

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6 Tips to find new blogging ideas in your niche

At times, we feel completely lost for topics to blog about and on certain days we are filled with many ideas.  This happens to most of us, however experienced we are in our niche.

Here are 6 tips to get those ideas quickly blogged:

• Use google keywords tool or any other keyword tools that you work on, to find the most popular keywords according to your niche.  This would in turn increase  traffic to your blog postings, due to the popularity related to those keywords on search engines. But  ensure that you never stuff your blog post with keywords.

• Jot down those blogging ideas on to a scribbling pad or notebook file and on to a cell phone or ipad when you are on the move.

• Read blogs and articles with similar interest.  You get quiet a lot of ideas while doing so.  But don't forget to note it down or at least bookmark the site for future reference.

• Another popular way to get ideas, is when you read comments on blog posts of yours and other members. In many useful comments, you would have noticed visitors asking queries or giving suggestions regarding a subject.  Make use of them for your next blog posting.

• When I get bored sitting in front of the computer for long hours, I either switch on the TV or read the newspaper. But my subconscious mind is still working to explore new and fresh ideas for my writings and blogs.  Once I spot them, I immediately jot them down.

• Many of us spend a lot of time on social networks.  Wouldn't that be a great place to get ideas for your blogging?  Indeed it has been very helpful to me, in finding new topics for blogging as well for writing articles.

You wouldn't run short of fresh blogging topics, if you follow one or more of the above tips.  I hope this helps in making your blogging experience more lively and enjoyable.

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A useful firefox plugin

A cool plugin that I came across by chance, while searching for video download softwares. I was previously using downloadhelper - a firefox plugin, but for some reason it was not working fine on my computer.

Apart from popular video sites, Ant Video Downloader helps you to download videos from unfamiliar video sites, social networks, articles, blogs and practically any site.

You don't need to ever copy and paste the video site url to download the video.  Once the software is downloaded to your computer, you would see a small icon on your status bar as shown in the image above.  Whenever the software detects a video site, the download icon starts blinking and you just have to click it, to download and save the video to your computer.

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Purpose of using Kindle

Out of curiousity, I was checking out the in-depth features of  using electronic readers. I don't have a great collection of books, nor am I a regular reader.  But this device is quiet useful for bibliophile or people who love reading a lot.  Instead of stuffing your bookshelves and occupying your room space piled with books, using an ebook device like Kindle would be a smart decision. 

The earlier versions were pretty good, but the new kindle has remarkable features with more memory, dictionary lookup and use E-ink technology that makes reading more comfortable.  On Kindle, you can store upto 3500 books and it can be downloaded easily within seconds.  It comes with a free 3G wireless and an additional built-in wi-fi, thus you can use the device from any part of the world.

I liked the cute sleek white Kindle better than the black model.  Most traditional books are now converted to ebooks and it is quiet cheaper than the original printed books.  So you can upload them easily to your kindle for future reading.

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How to check a website/blog is dofollow or nofollow

For newbies in internet marketing, this subject would be something new to them.  But some of us are still confused whether search engines do crawl, nofollow websites and blogs.

What is NoFollow ?

It is an attribute that is added to websites and blogs, instructing search engines not to follow the links on that site.  This helps to avoid spammers from getting credits  by a way of linking their site with nofollow websites, inorder to get crawled by search engines.

For example, if your html link is as follows:

Once your website or blog is coded in the above format, visitors who post a link on your site, would never be crawled by search engine robots.

So what could then be the benefit of posting your link on a nofollow site?

It is merely to get organic traffic to your site, when a visitor clicks your link on nofollow websites. But your link will never be spotted by search engine crawlers. So for that reason, posting comments on nofollow blog and article sites would be helpful.

How do we trace whether a website or blog is nofollow?

Seo professionals, this shouldn't be a problem.  They are able to figure out the nofollow html codes placed on the links of that site, when they check the source page of the website.

For non-techies, if you are using Firefox browser, there is a plugin in Tools - Add ons to check NoDoFollow sites.  On adding this plugin to your browser, each time you visit a site, it  would highlight the links which are DoFollow and NoFollow.  Those links highlighted in Pink are NoFollow and those with Blue are DoFollow.

                                      NoDoFollow

So if you notice a link in the comment already posted by members on a blog, it would be now much easier to trace out whether it is a DoFollow or NoFollow Blog from the color of the link.   When you post a comment on a blog, there is an option to enter your name and website link.  In the image above, you would notice it is a nofollow comment as the link is highlighted in red.

It now makes sense for posting comments on nofollow sites, though it does not contribute to increase rankings on search engines. 

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Purpose and Tips to improve Alexa Ranking

Alexa rank is a method to calculate the number of visitors who visit your website or blog and  to determine the worth of a site for linking purpose.  These visitors could be advertisers, ad networks, webmasters, any interested business person or internet users looking out for quality content and educating info on your website.  A site with a high Alexa ranking helps visitors to track its popularity and eventually build a link with them on their website.   Linking high page ranking sites that are similar to your business is important to increase your website traffic and get solid prospects.  There are many methods adopted in linking sites through banners, widgets, blogs,  forums, articles and various other seo methods.

For Alexa ranking the ranking is calculated in the descending order.  

For example, on Alexa ranking toolbar if website A shows ranking as 8 and website B shows ranking as 2, then it is website B that would be considered with a ranking higher on Alexa.  Whereas for google page ranking it is the other way round.   If a website has a page ranking 8 out of 10, that site is considered with a high google page rank.

Few tips to improve the Alexa Ranking of your website

• Install the Alexa tool bar on your browser.  For Firefox users, you can find the toolbar in the addon menu.

• Embed the Alexa rank widget on your website or blog.  Each time a  visitor clicks on the widget it would be counted as a visit. 

• Educate your users and customers about the importance of using Alexa ranking toolbar for their websites and blogs.  The next time they visit your site, this would in turn highly contribute to your website alexa ranking.

•  Link your website or blog with quality and high page rank sites targeting your business.  Most webmasters and affiliate networks would have already installed the toolbar and this would again help to increase your site rating.

•  Post articles about the use of Alexa ranking on popular article sites with a link to your website in the resource box.

Following these tips, your website ranking would steadily increase over time.

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What to do when your optical mouse gets stuck

Last week, all of a sudden my optical mouse stopped working and it would get stuck somewhere on my pc screen.  Usually, this could be due to a mouse driver issue or due to low memory.  So I deleted some of my old files and closed all the browsers that I was working on.  But that was not a solution at all.   Having no clue what to do, I tried to clean the mouse myself.

This is what I did...

• Take a damp soft cloth and first wipe the outer surface of your mouse.  Then clean it  again with a dry cloth.

• Now open your optical mouse with a screw driver.

• Tap of the dust gently with a clean white tissue paper or a soft brush.

• Once done, close the case cover of the mouse.

• Reboot your system.  

To my surprise it worked and the problem was not due to a faulty mouse driver or low memory.  Remember to also clean your mouse pad or the surface that you use the mouse with a cloth.  Or else, the dust particles on the surface would again get accumulated back to your mouse.

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Purpose of using RSS Feeds for your daily online activities

Have you wondered what is this icon seen on blogs and websites and what purpose does it serve? 

Well, it is the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feed icon that provide updates for published works on blogs, news, videos and websites.  On clicking this icon, you are subscribed to that particular blog or website that you are interested in getting updated information.

An RSS feed is like a channel that provides a summarized text with a link to each of your favorite site.  So instead of wasting time going to each website to get updates, subscribing to these sites saves your valuable time.

If you have a gmail id, you can check all your favorite websites and blogs at one place with the help of Google Reader.  For website and blog owners, to create your RSS feeds, the best recommended is Google Feedburner

Having an RSS feed on your website or blog helps to build up backlinks and traffic tremendously, if your content is updated regularly.  Search Engines like google crawls RSS feeds to get fresh webpages, there by increasing your rankings and help your website or blog to get indexed faster.

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How to clean LCD screen?

An ordinary computer glass monitor screen can be cleaned with any glass cleaner liquids that we use for our homes and offices.  But the computer monitor of a LCD / flat-panel display is not made of glass.  So when cleaning the screen, care should be taken not to spray any liquids on the LCD monitor directly.  Inorder, to clean the LCD screen, use a soft cloth or gentle duster. 
  

Apply few drops of alcohol on the cloth, to get rid off stubborn stains on the screen and wipe gently.  Do not use tissue papers as it would leave behind scratch marks on the LCD screen.

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Computer Tips - Make an Invisible Folder on your computer

None of us like people peeping into our personal computer at home or office.  But at times it so happens. 

This video tutorial shows you how to create an invisible folder to store all your important files.  So that incase even if someone happens to use your computer, they would not have access to this hidden folder.

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Seo Tips - Deep Linking

When you submit your website or blog to search engines, ensure it is Deep linking.  Wondering what does this mean?  Deep linking means submit all the links of your webpages or blog postings to search engines.  This allows you to get high traffic to all the pages for your website.  It gives an impression to search engines that your webpage is updated with quality content, thereby increasing your pagerankings on search engines.

If you submit only the homepage of your website for all search engine submissions, your site would have a lower value.

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How to restore your computer to an earlier date

System Restore is a unique feature found on Windows XP.  Incase, some error occurred or you made some changes to your computer system which you cannot undo, the system can be restored to an earlier date called restore point.  Though, you would not lose any of your recent works, saved documents and favorites.  It will also help you to avoid unnecessary expenses incurred for servicing your computer.

Here are the steps:

1. Click on Start, select All Programs --- Accessories --- System Tools --- System Restore.
    
2. You would see a screen like the below.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   2.  Radio button by default is provided as Restore my computer to an earlier time
   
   3. Click Next. In the next window it provides the calendar which helps you to select a date for the  restore point.
   
   4.  Again click Next and you are taken to another window which request your Confirmation.
   
   5.  Follow the instructions carefully and your system gets restored to a previous date, as you have mentioned.
   
   Once it is done, your computer is now ready to function normally.
   

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