A website is the most important marketing tool for many businesses these days. It is often the first point of contact for a prospective client, who could well make a decision about whether or not to use your services based on a ten second first impression of the look and feel of the home page. It is therefore crucial that those ten seconds convey a professional, polished image. The design can be slick or simple, flash or static – whatever suits the style and budget of your business. The effect of the design is a mood thing and conveys a message on an emotional level . Your prospective client’s eye and intellect, however, is focussed on the text. The text must fit the image you are trying to convey, but above all it must be correct and easy to make sense of. A professional image, painstakingly built up with slick design, can be blown out of the water by one misspelling or grammatical error. A tortuous phrase can leave your prospective client bewildered or send them running for the hills. Using a spell-check program can weed out basic spelling mistakes and typos, but leaves many of the commonly confused words glaring out at you. If you are proofreading your own website check for the following: its and it’s; there and their: are and our. Be consistent. If you use a Capital letter within a sentence in one place, be sure to use Capital letters in every other place where that particular word is used. If you write a number out as ‘six’, don’t let a whole bunch of 2s and 5s cause chaos, they must be twos and fives in this context to match that six! If you are unsure about your use of written language, consider having your website professionally proofread or copyedited. A good proofreader will iron out all spelling and grammatical errors. A copyeditor will also make suggestions about improving the style and flow of the text, will check that links are functional, will check facts, names and dates, verify quotes and generally save you from getting egg on your face. Whichever service you choose should ensure that your text looks polished and professional. A specialist website proofreader and copyeditor will also check links for you. This is something you can do yourself though, if you have time. Be meticulous going through each and every link to ensure that it is functional and that it connects to the information that you intended it to. Look out for misspelt urls. There are lots of advertising sites out there that take a well known website’s address, change it by one letter or dash and hope to get traffic from misspelt urls searching for the genuine site. You don’t want to send your potential clients off on a wild goose chase around the internet, so make sure you know where you are sending them. Re-check those links on a regular basis, every few months or so, as dead links leave your website looking out of date and uncared for. Your website should have content added on a regular basis, to keep it fresh for clients, but also to keep the search engines noticing it. One useful way to do this is to write articles every couple of weeks and add them to your website. Again a good relationship with your proofreader and copyeditor will help you to maintain a high level of accuracy and readability, so that your website always looks attractive and professional on every page. Copyright 2007 Kit Heathcock

There are many things that you probably aren’t aware of that you are going to have to know as you embark on the process of running your own business. First of all, remember that your college professors probably gave you lots of good advice when it comes to running your business, and there is probably a lot that they told you about how to do things and when to do things. However, you know that there are many things that you weren’t told, and some of these things are very important. It’s Difficult! Nobody probably told you this, but running your own business is very dificult. Not just slightly, but really difficult. When your first starting out, you are going to have to have a length of time in which you have no money coming in from your business. You will being spending money only. Businesses need start up costs, and you will have to spend money before you can make money. This is why you need money put to the side to survive until you get your business set up. You will need enough money to get your business up and running and money to life off of until you start making a profit. This can take some time. Sleep? Sleep will become a luxury in your life. You will get very little and when you do you will charish it. Your business will take a lot to ftiem and effort. It can burn you out quickly if you are not careful. You will need to learn how to use your time wisely. There will be many tasks that you will encounter such as setting up your website, advertising, getting new prospects, keeping your records for taxes and finances. You want to run a respectable business so word will travel and give you a good name. Count on getting very little sleep in the beginning and it can be very stressful. But as time goes by you will learn to run your business and be organized which in return should leave you with more free time. But it will take you awhile to get to this point. I have wrote an article that lists some ways to help relieve your stress. The article is called: Feel Like Quitting Your Business? Don’t Give In. by: Kristiane Pritzel Although it is a very difficult road to go down, it is well worth it in the end. Once you have your business up and running and you are seeing the profit come in you will find that it to be very rewarding and satisfying. Any successful business person will tell you that it is a wonderful experience. You will be able to set your own hours, run your business to your expectations because you are in charge of the business. This is a great place to be and you can be there too. You just have to find the strenght to get yourself though the beginning which is the hardest part. Copyright © Kristiane Pritzel http://943747.homebizoffers.com http://www.KristianePritzel.com

I was talking to my partner the other day and he told me about a conversation he had recently with a photographer friend. They were catching up on what each other was doing, having not seen each other in several years and. After talking about what my partner and I were doing, she said that he wished she had known about that as she had a website recently built to promote her portrait photography business and would have rather worked with someone that she knew then picking the lowest priced website design company out of the phone book. She asked us to take a look at it and let her know what we thought. What I found in reviewing the site is what is common in most artist websites. The website does not have a clear call to action of what the visitor needs to do. In this particular instance, the goal of the website should be to drive visitors to make appointments to get portraits taken. Instead, it highlights four galleries to showcase example photos taken (which is a good thing to do) but forces the customer to search throughout the website to fine even the location of this company, pricing information, how to schedule an appointment, etc. In other words, all of the things that make the artist money are extremely difficult for a potential customer to find on their website. If that was not bad enough, the website was not designed to be found by the major search engines. In this web site’s instance, the only way you could find this person’s website would be if you knew the company’s name. This might be fine if you already have great name recognition in your industry, but otherwise the only way that your website will be found is through online advertising, print marketing, and word of mouth. This really misses the boat to all of the free customer leads that the search engines can bring to your photography business. The good news for her is after she asked us to do a full assessment of her website; that we are now starting to work with her to correct these shortcomings while still leveraging the existing framework of the website that she had built. Whether you are looking for a website to just showcase your artwork, attempting to market your work to publishers, or trying to run a full blown photography business – it is important to know that not all web design companies are the same in what they deliver and in most cases, you get what you pay for. In the coming weeks, I hope to follow up with another article discussing how these changes positively impacted her business and how you can do the same with your website.

Product sourcing is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Too many e-tailers find a product and supplier, and think they’re done. But every product trend has a life-cycle – what your customers want today is not what they’re going to want in six months. You need to watch carefully where trends in your niche market are going, or you’ll soon find yourself sourcing products that are yesterday’s news. See the Big Picture There are two kinds of trending, and both are important to your retail business: • First is trend tracking – this simply means looking at what’s popular in your market right now. This kind of trending is where hot lists and top ten lists come from – it follows what consumers are currently buying. • The second kind of tracking is trend forecasting, or watching to see where today’s trends are headed, and what will be selling in six months or a year. You need both kinds of trending to get the whole picture because your trend tracking is literally the pathway or stepping stone to your trend forecasting. Trends don’t occur in a vacuum, or spring out of nowhere – they’re most often just variations of existing trends and markets. You need to keep an eye on current trends, in order to understand where they’re going. That’s how you’re able to source “hot products” before they become hot. Think Like a Consumer How do you spot these trends? According to Lisa Suttora, of http://WhatDoISell.com, you need to put your thumb on the pulse of your target market: read industry publications, attend trade shows, read the newspaper, and talk to customers. Look at what your audience is talking about, what they’re thinking about, and what issues matter to them. Think about products that are related to their concerns and interests. If, for example, your customers are deeply concerned with the environment, you might think of ways to incorporate green-friendly products into your lineup. Upcoming trends for this summer and beyond are simply adaptations of past and current trends: • Lifestyle technology products are the result of two merging trends: everyday practicality and advanced technology. These new “smart” products take basic functionality and apply a layer of technology to it. From deadbolt locks with fingerprint recognition to intelligent ovens that can respond to verbal and online commands, this trend is impacting many different markets. • Women-specific products are another up-and-coming trend. Manufacturers are recognizing that the vast majority of the eCommerce purchasing audience is female, and designing more and more traditional products around their unique needs. Camping gear, office supplies, and tools are just a few of the product markets whose latest offerings take women’s preferences into account. • Outdoor living is an evolving trend, the newest adaptation being products that let consumers enjoy being outside, without sacrificing the comforts of home. People are creating outdoor living spaces, from offices to rec rooms. This trend has given rise to a whole new line of products that can withstand the elements – electronics in weatherproof casing, year-round outdoor furniture and carpet, and much more. Put It Into Practice These are just a few of the trends driving product innovation and demand in every market segment. Says Suttora, “As you watch the direction that buyer trends are going, think about product ideas and niches that you can apply those trends to in your own product market. That’s how you’re going to continually keep ahead of the curve in your product sourcing.”

An ever increasing number of people start their own Home Business. The huge number of affiliate programs makes it possible for people to start their own Home Business fairly easy and fast. The downfall is that because it is so easy, not everybody treats it as a real business. But it is important that you do so, if it is only for the fact that your Home Business is worth cash! First, let’s explain the word value. Value is subjective. Everybody has their own opinion what the value is from an item, service, product or a business. What I perceive as useful, and something I would be willing to pay for, might for the other person be useless and something that person would not pay a dime for. Value is therefore by definition different than price. A price is negotiated at the bargaining table, or as in many cases just a set price as you see all over in most shops. Ok, what is the use of knowing the value of your company, even if we just mentioned that value is subjective? Assuming that you will not continue your Home Business forever, you need to retire some day or you might just have enough of it, whatever reason you might have you will need to do something with your business. Most people let it be and don’t take care of their business after some time and the company and its revenues just fade away. Isn’t that a shame? Something that you worked for your entire life, something that produces cash for you, you just let it die!? Why not try to sell it? If your business is really that good that it earns you a good amount of cash there are actually people who would like to continue your company. This does happen in real life with all kinds of different companies, so why not for your Home Business? In case you want to use this strategy, you need to know the value or your company. Only then you think of your business in such a way that you can justify the selling price of your Home Business and that you are able to sell it. Now that you know what value means and that it is actually important for selling your company, how would you value your company? Look at your company as an investment. The person who wants to pay for it also perceives it that way. Any investment has to be judged according to three criteria: cash, time and risk. The question anybody wants to know, predict and answer is what amount of cash this company is going to produce at what time at what risk. The more earning capacity a company has the more interesting it is for an investor. When it will produce the cash is also very important. When somebody asks you if you would like Ђ 10,- now or in 2 years, you probably will say now. Nobody likes risk, so the smaller the risk is the more an investor is willing to pay. Without saying, coming up with a value is not easy. There are specialists in this field who can calculate the value a company might have. As said, this is probably not the same as the price that will be paid eventually for the company.

Amazon.com is one of, if not the best place to go online and shop. Whatever you might be looking for, you can almost guarantee that you will find it somewhere on the Amazon site. Most people won’t even bother shopping anywhere else online. If it’s difficult for you to do your holiday shopping all at once, Amazon is always there so you can do your shopping a little bit at a time. So why is it, whenever you find something as great as amazon.com is, there is always a “catch”? You’ve shopped around and finally found the perfect gift for your mother-in-law. You go to check out and up pops that lovely reminder box that tells you to “Wait! Add another $2.47 to your order to qualify for (Amazon’s) free super saver shipping.” You forgot that you needed to spend at least twenty-five dollars to get the free shipping and handling. Great…now you get to spend another hour or two online, trying to find something else, some sort of filler item, you can buy for as close to that $2.47 you still need to get the free shipping and handling for your mother-in-law’s gift. How many times before have you found yourself in the very same predicament while shopping on amazon.com? How many times have you (and probably every other amazon.com shopper!) thought: “There has to be a better way of doing this!” At long last, there is finally a solution for amazon shoppers all over the world! Before you do anything else, go to http://www.fillerchecker.com and bookmark this website immediately! Accountants have their calculators and now amazon shoppers now have their very own amazon filler item checker tool! From this day forward, you will no longer have to waste time trying to find that one little item you still need to purchase just so that you will qualify for free shipping and handling from amazon! When that lovely “Wait!” message pops up, just pull up another browser window and go to your newly found and absolutely favorite website, FillerChecker.com. Just go to the filler item checker tool right there on the homepage and enter in that pesky $2.47 you still need to spend. Click on the “Find it!” button and prepare to be amazed! Unbelievable! There are over one hundred items to scroll through all priced no more than fifty cents over the original filler item amount you entered. Look at how much time you’ve just saved. Amazon shoppers all over the world owe the behind the scenes innovators of this site a huge thank you for not only enabling everyone to save time…they also helped you to find the perfect holiday gift for your father-in-law, “The Best of Italian Opera”!

If you have started a new Ecommerce website or you are thinking about it, you should consider using Paypal for your credit card processor. There are several advantages to using Paypal. Some of them are not readily apparent or obvious when you are doing your research. While it’s not the ultimate solution, it is excellent if this is your first site. First of all, installing Paypal on your site is easy. I like easy, it makes my life less complicated. The last thing I need to do is to learn something new. Learning new stuff that I eventually will not use, steals my time. The credit card processing field is loaded with competition. You can get this service from just about anywhere, including your local bank. Set up always tends to be difficult and you need to integrate your bank account in from the beginning of the set up process. I have noticed one unique concept about banks. They always get their money and it’s not always convenient. You generally have to wait for them to set up your account and wait some more for the details. Getting the processing up and running on your site took me two weeks once, you can have that. The Paypal API is very simple to sign up for and straightforward to set up on your website. You can be up and running in no time. One of the great things about Paypal is that it is becoming more and more accepted around the world. It started out being a popular way to pay for purchases on EBay, but has expanded to have a larger impact. There are some airlines that you can use Paypal to purchase your tickets. I would have to imagine that soon all the airlines will accept it. Using it online is becoming more and more acceptable as well. The best part of using Paypal is that people do not always know they are using it. There are some people that are still skittish about online purchases. Some would rather just trust their regular visa or MasterCard. The thing about Paypal is that they can use their regular credit cards and they will not know that they are using the Paypal interface. Most shopping carts will give you the choice to offer Paypal as a payment choice on the site as well. In this case then the user would know they are using it. The cons of using Paypal are more evident the more successful your business becomes. When you start doing some significant numbers online is when you want to start trimming the fat off of your charges. Switching from Paypal to a regular merchant account now makes more sense. The benefit of doing this that you might have some more cash flow and it becomes easier to just outsource the whole process of setting this it up on your site. This not only saves you time but also the headache. However you will find that you will want to keep offering Paypal as a payment option because it gives customers another way of paying which increases your chances of conversion.

Starting a home business does not have to be a complicated procedure, but there are some things you need to consider before starting a successful home business. A home business does not require much, but it does require a few things for you to operate a successful business. The first things you will need for a successful home business is a computer, a desk, and a chair. It is not necessary to have a complete home office at first, but as your business become more profitable you can add other office equipment as it is needed. A computer that is connected to the Internet, preferably with broadband or cable access, is necessary for you to conduct business online. Pens and notebooks are also a good idea for notes and important information that you need. Self discipline is also essentail for you to operate a successful home business. Everyone has days when they just do not feel like working. Self discipline will help you work when you have to, even if you are having an off day. This is an important attribute of a successful home business owner, and it has a big impact on the success of your home business. Finding a successful marketing campaign that is within your budget is also an important part of running a successful home business. You can have the best product or service in the world, and without a needed marketing campaign, no one will know about your business. This can be a big loss in profits for your home business, and lead to failure instead of success. It does not have to be expensive, and there are options available for marketing that are cheap yet effective. There are several things that are needed to start a successful home business, and by knowing ahead of time what these are will contribute to the success of your home business. You will need a business area with the necessary computer and other equipment for you to conduct your business. A successful home business also needs an owner who has self discipline, and that can work with no supervision. When you are the boss there is no one but you to make sure things are done on time and right. The right marketing technique is needed for a successful home business, and this one aspect can make or break your home business success. Finding a marketing campaign that is effective and yet in your budget may require some looking, but there are plenty of marketing options available to choose from. Copyright © 2007 Joel Teo. All rights reserved.

Anyone who has been online for any length of time has heard of master resell rights for information products. The mater resell rights are some of the most valuable rights that you can purchase especially when it comes to eBooks. Usually when you get master resell rights you will get a sales letter along with the product itself. This makes it easier for you to start finding customers and to start making profits right away. So what exactly are master resell rights for information products? When you get resell rights with a product this gives you the right to sell that product and keep all of the profit. However, with master resell rights you get a whole lot more than that. You will not only be able to sell the product but you will also be able to sell the rights to resell it to other people who buy it from you. What this means for you is that you can resell the business opportunity by selling someone else the rights to use the information product, the sales letter and the chance to generate a great income for themselves. How do you find the best master resell rights products to sell? One important thing that you want to take into consideration with master resell rights products is how long has the product been available for sale? You need to find out if the market is already saturated with this product. You may be able to make money with products that have been available for sale for a while even if there is a saturated market already. You will just need a list of people who have not already heard of this information product because they would be more receptive to buying it. The easiest way to get this list is to find people who are brand new to the idea of a home business for making money online. This can be easier than it seems because there are new people coming online every day that are looking for ways to make money. This would give you a chance to make a good profit from the popular internet marketing and other master resell rights products that are available. The biggest obstacle that you will need to overcome with master resell rights is to find a market that is hungry for the products that you are selling. Then it is just a matter of giving them what they are hungry for. Master resell rights products will cost you a little more than the other resell rights products would. However, they also give you the ability to make even more money with them than the other types of resell products. You can sell the master resell rights products for a higher profit. You want to make sure that you take the time to find the right master resell rights products before you buy anything. One of the best ones that you can buy is with a new product that does not have a saturated market and has not been sold for years. This will take you some time to find but if you are willing to look for them then you will have a much better chance of making money faster. This is because with the new products that have a hungry market already you will be one of the first ones selling it. So taking the time to find the best master resell rights for information products will be worth the time and effort you put into it. So do some research and take your time to find the right product for you to sell. You will not regret it especially when you start making big profits with it.

In today’s internet age an important aspect of any online business is having your website optimized for search engine rankings. There are many different aspects of building a website that helps them being found and ranked by the different engines and while each one is different, there are a few common traits that all search engines look for. In the past, some companies attempted to trick the search engine spiders into believing they were offering legitimate information but it did not take long for the spiders to become wise to tricks being used. When people typed in key words into a search box, they expected to find information relevant to those words. What they were finding were web pages loaded with information on several terms, totally unrelated to the search criteria. This was due, in part, because some sites held nothing but a series of keywords and when accessed automatically redirected the searcher to another page. Today spiders look for text content that is on target to the information being sought. Many freelance writers have found a niche market in writing articles pertaining to web site information the can submit to web builders for inclusion on their web pages. This information is interpreted by the search engine spiders as valid text and improves the site’s ranking on the engines. Many people are finding out about article submission and are accumulating original articles on a variety of subjects for potential sale to web builders. Typically, they can sell quality text at between two and three dollars for articles ranging from 250 to 500 words. Key words or phrases appear within the contest of the informative articles between one and three percent of the word total, which helps raise the page’s awareness level to the spiders doing the searching. Most writers will do this type of work on a part-time basis, knowing at the rate of pay offered for their article submissions will not make them rich, but it can keep their writing skills sharp and their typing skills honed.

Online Games Sector The Internet is the fastest-growing market in the history of the WORLD, but just this one sector has been growing FOUR TIMES FASTER than the Internet overall. People aren’t just using the web for information anymore; they now see it as a prime deliverer of entertainment. It’s even eating into TV-viewing figures, and therefore also TV advertising revenue. Meanwhile, in-game advertising is predicted to grow by 70% year-on-year, to be worth USD billions in three years. It’s no wonder that TV companies are scrambling for a piece of online games real estate – buying companies, launching games platforms, and putting their content online in interactive form. The potential reach of the Internet is staggering.
The speed of people’s home Internet connections is driving this market. In America, nearly 75% of Internet users had broadband at home last year, up from 57% just one year earlier…and Internet users in India increased by 54% in just one year. Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings (a global leader in Internet media and market research) said, “Take the fact that the online games sector is growing at four times the rate of overall Internet growth together with the increasing numbers…online and it is easy to see why companies such as MTV Networks are looking to get a piece of the action.” The online games sector has been identified as the next step in the evolution of online entertainment, and people of all ages, from all over the world, play in their millions. And within this sector, “casual skill-based games” rank as one of the most popular pastimes. What are casual games of skill? Casual games are familiar, fun pastimes such as: Board games like draughts, backgammon Sports games like pool, golf and basketball Puzzle games like jigsaws and word games These are played online in a tournament format, with each player paying a cash entry fee to play, and with a cash or merchandise prize going to the winner or winners of the tournament. Skill-based games are named accordingly because the outcome of each competition is based on the players’ ability and performance, with any elements of luck either eliminated. This is critical, in order to be legal and avoid falling under anti-gambling statutes. People like to play these games on their computers for a fun challenge. Playing them online against someone else adds an extra social, competitive element; and playing for cash prizes between USD$1 and $1,000 upwards makes them even more exciting and rewarding! What does all of this mean? It means that online games are where the money is. People are willing to pay to play, and they are doing it already. Interesting fact?

In everything, there are always advantages and disadvantages. Before you buy, think of the pros and cons first. 1. Dependence Cell phones, as we know, are packed with many features. It is like everything in one. Because of this, we tend to be attached and dependent on it. Like, instead of going to class, you just let your classmate text you the lessons taught. Or, you would call them and record the discussion of the teacher and just go to class to take and top the exams. If you are the teacher, wouldn’t you wonder why your student got such a score when he or she doesn’t even show up for class? Another scenario would be with your work. In times when you have a presentation to show, you will just video yourself discussing and send it to your co-worker via the internet access. So, they will be playing your presentation and you will be at home relaxing and watching television.
Hence, if you are the manager, are you going to give a professional salary to someone you don’t even see at work? 2. Financial Crisis Yes, mobile phones are really attractive, useful and etcetera. But, have you not considered the amount of money you are going to waste for the tiny thing? First, when you really want to have all the great and wonderful features and some software applications like word processors to your phone, you have to buy the latest and most updated mobile gadget in that given time. Plus, you have to buy all those installers for your wanted applications. Second, you need to buy a sim card to get you into motion for texting, sending e-mails, calling, video streaming, and web browsing. Then, you also have to buy loading cards to cash up your ability to send messages, enjoy internet access, and call friends and clients. 3. Repairs Cell phones are machine-made. So naturally, they do not have a long life span like of humans because obviously these are gadgets. They are not as durable as we think they are. Whenever you drop them, get wet by your sweaty hands, or you accidentally sit or step on them, you have to say goodbye to your hundred bucks. Mobile phones require very high maintenance. It has to be updated always and has to be cleaned because of the virus that can infect your phone. 4. Distraction Mobile phones are a huge distraction to your studies that is if you are a student. You will be so attached to it and you won’t be studying because you are too busy replying to the messages you receive. Or, when it comes to work, you won’t be attending to your work that much because of the cellphone.

It is important when placing pay per click advertising on the internet that you understand who will be viewing your ads. What is the target market and demographic of the audience of the pay per click provider? Where will they be placing your ads? Will they place your ads on their own search engine site, on their partners search engine sites, or even other content based websites? All of these questions are important to minimize the risk of overspending. Remember your goal is not how many people see your ad or how many people click on your ad, but how many highly targeted consumers will click your ad and purchase from your website. The key is not getting the most clicks, but maximizing your conversions and your return on investment. Let’s look at an example using Google Adwords, since Google is by far the leader in pay per click advertising. By default, when placing your pay per click ad with Google, your ad will appear on Google’s search engine, their partners search engines and their content network. Google’s partner sites include other search engines such as http://AOL.com, http://Shopping.com and Earthlink to name just a few. Both the Google search engine and the partner search engine site should provide good returns on your investment, given of course your bids are appropriate, your ads well written, your keywords are targeted and your sales page is optimized (all of these topics are points that should be researched prior to starting your campaign). If, however, you choose not to use the partner search engine sites, Google does provide an option to omit these sites from your campaign. In our Google example above, the third place your pay per click ads will be shown are the content network. These are independent sites that have applied to Google to host Google ads on their websites. Content advertising can be challenging and can be turned off if you are not familiar with it. Again, the key is to know where your ads are going, and who will see them. In the Google example if you choose to use the content network, another option is to build a site-targeted campaign, and target only the specific sites (and even pages within the sites) where the demographics are appropriate for your ads. This is just one example of knowing where your pay per click advertising is being displayed. Other popular pay per click choices have their own networks and sites. Highly targeting your ads by knowing where they will be displayed is just one more way of insuring that the traffic you receive from your campaigns will produce good results.

For your website to enjoy the success that you want it to achieve there are things that have to be in place. Here you can read about the importance that inbound links to your website play on its success or failure. Inbound links can do amazing things for your website. Most people just think of links in terms of traffic, but other considerations may be even more valuable. That is of inbound links distinguishing you as an expert, helping your search engine results, putting your product in front of visitor to create sales and generating sales. When it comes to traffic, not all websites can be blessed with top search engine results. That means traffic needs to be driven from links on other sites. The higher the amount of inbound links your site has, the more doorways to your products there are. So get all the links you can from directories (such as the AuthorityDirectory.com), link partners, forums and resource boxes in articles. These resources can drive traffic to your door. A side effect of generating links to drive traffic is that it increases your link popularity. This can improve your rankings within the search engines as inbound links are a sign of the quality and relevance of your website. The more popular your site is with inbound links this higher your search engine results will can be. Google highly values this and everyone wants to do well in Google. By writing quality articles and submitting them for online publication you can not only create back links, but also an expert status. By writing articles with valuable content you set yourself up as an online resource for those topics. So in addition to receiving a couple initial links, you can generate and authority status for that topic and have the possibility for additional links. Most URL’s do not give an indication of what a given site is about. For the search engines to see that we use something called anchor text in the link. The anchor text should be descriptive of the site and will tell the search engines the topics of your site. It will give relevance to your site for those keywords and boost your sites search results for those relevant topics. When you achieve several pages of unique and valuable content other sites will start linking to your site. Those other sites will do this in a way of providing valuable content on their site. As other high ranking sites do this, Search Engines will start to take notice. Those same Search Engines will start to view your site as an Authority Site and you will enjoy a surge in page rank and traffic. As you can see inbound links to your site play a vital role in its success or failure. The benefits of them can play a huge role in your sites future success. Do not underestimate their value in generating revenue and your products visibility to consumers.

It is the nature of our species to evolve and the institutions we have made through time also must evolve in order to keep us with us. Travel, education, and retail have all grown and changed over the years to keep up with a demanding culture. While many things in business have changed, one thing that hasn’t is the need for a timely, well written resume in order to get a job. Resume styles, however, have changed dramatically over the years. Keeping up with conventional wisdom regarding resumes is one way to ensure employment success. Styles change Everything few years professional resumes undergo a revolution and change the way they appear or the information they provide. Once, a simple line by line listing your school and previous jobs was enough to satisfy an employer that you would be a good hire. In the business-oriented 80s resumes adopted a more spectacular style with intricate fonts, unusual spacing and multiple categories listing everything from your reasons for wanting the job to hobbies and association of which you are a member. As the century turned to the 2000s a more practical business community has done away with a flourishes of the past and now relies on a simple straightforward resume. Meeting needs The current wisdom involving resumes is that they should contain enough information designed in such a way for the applicant to put their best foot forward and list the relevant credentials and experience required. It is a myth that a resume should only be one page long. A resume should be long enough to contain all of your pertinent information and short enough to reveal your advantages at a cursory glance. The majority of resumes are a page a half to two pages long. Applicants no longer list objectives at the top of the resume as employers have finally figured out it is your objective to get a job. The other change in modern resumes is no longer listing the phrase “references available upon request” at the end of the resume. If your boss requires references of course they are available! Paper and presentation The way your resume is arranged usually has more to do with what kind of job you are seeking or what your life experience has been. A person fresh out of college seeking entry-level position with no real job experience should list their educational credentials first and their work experience second. A person who is high on experience but has little formal education will list their job experience pertinent to the job at hand first and educational achievements including continuing education units and seminars second. Resumes should be typed in a clear easy-to-read font, and presented on white or beige paper. Fancy paper with designs or overly expensive paper will do more to distract from your resume than add to it.

After all the search for the ultimate marketing strategy, a lot of businessmen ended up being surprised that the tool they need to effectively sell their products is something so basic and rather age-old: the sales letter. No other marketing tool addresses prospective customers more directly than an effective sales letter. This is why, nowadays, companies shell out portions of their budgets to hire people who write good sales letters. But what does it take to write a good sales letter? Here are some things you need to know to write a sales letter that will turn your prospects into paying customers: 1. Make sure that the message of the letter goes in line with your prospects’ needs – know your prospects first before you write them anything. It would not be wise to write a highly intellectual letter if your target market consists of grade school kids. 2. Go to your point directly – you should address your readers directly. Do not bombard them with confusing and obscure information. You should get your point across with the first few lines of your sales letter. 3. Be concise and clear – when you write a sales letter, you should make a point that it is brief, yet encompasses everything you need to sell you product. People should be able to read the letter quickly and still get to know your product as much as you want them to. 4. Talk about your product’s benefits not its features – a lot of sales people try to catch buyers’ attention by giving a long list of features of their products. Of course a customer would want to know what features a product has, but what they really want to know is how the product would benefit them. Tell them how the product will make their lives better or easier. 5. Be human – readers loath automatically-written papers. They want real people to talk to them. When you write a sales letter, it should be personal and it should flow as if you are just talking to a friend. The letter should be sincere, warm, something your reader would enjoy. 6. Write the letter to entice response, not necessarily to make sales – the purpose of the sales letter is to make leads. You just want your prospects to respond in whatever way they can to your letter. Sales might not be immediate, but soon, they would turn their responses into actual sales. 7. Write simply – according to research, majority of people read within the level of an eight grader. For you to be understood, the sales letter should not contain highfalutin words. Keep the language simple so that everyone can understand. 8. Take advantage of the PS – studies revealed that people’s attentions are caught by the postscript even more than the actual letter can. Put something in the PS that will want them to read the entire letter better or would help them remember all the things you have said. 9. Give your readers some room to breath – while dazzling letters and backgrounds can be eye-catching. People might get tired of reading with so many distractions. Have some room for breath in your letters. Use the blank, white space of the paper for some refreshing moments. 10. Stick to one – make sure that your sales letter uses only one page. Your readers are mostly likely busy and they can pay attention to only one page. Compress everything you want to say in just one, easy to read page. 11. Set a deadline – people respond more to deadlines than anything else. Make an offer, but set a deadline for your readers to make their reply. People act more urgently if they know they have to meet a particular time limit. 12. Make responding easy for your reader – a lot of readers do not respond because it can be hassle. Make it easier for your readers by giving them an easy-to-reach phone number, or a prepaid reply postcard. You can increase the chances of getting positive responses if you make things convenient for your readers. It is not really difficult to write a sales letter. If you know these things, you can write letters effectively and capture your market easily.

Marketing investments come in three forms – time, money and energy. To prosper, investors must learn to balance and manage each one appropriately. Managing Time All business owners know how fast time flies. How can they ensure the best use of that time? By discovering what time of day is most productive for them and scheduling their most arduous tasks into that time slot. By closing office doors and screening incoming calls, all managers achieve a higher quality output. At the end of each work day, compile a list of important tasks for the following day and rank each element according to its priority. Executive’s waste approximately 45 minutes every day looking for misplaced information. Put important papers and materials in their proper places before leaving the office. Consider investing in software that organizes projects and contacts. Time is as valuable as money. Having the right time-management tools and practices will increase efficiency and preserve company resources. Managing Money Too often, business owners attempt to manage all aspects of operating the business themselves. Why? Are they afraid that relinquishing some responsibility will diminish their effectiveness? Or are they trying to save the company money? Regardless, owners will do themselves a favor by simply outsourcing those tasks in which they have the least expertise. Hiring expert contractors for specific business related tasks, such as tax preparation and accounting, communications planning or Internet utilization and web development, not only saves time but, in the long run, will preserve financial resources as well. Invest in marketing initiatives appropriate to your business and budget. Begin with a solid marketing or communications plan that outlines your objectives and resources in advance. Offer to appear as the featured speaker or presenter at various industry events, seminars and networking clubs. The Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club and various community groups provide excellent exposure opportunities for those willing to participate. Prepare and distribute regular company newsletters or an online “e-zine” and send out media releases regarding newsworthy company events. Take advantage of marketing opportunities that stretch your marketing budget including cooperative advertising, in-kind sponsorships, cross-promotional and outreach activities. Follow through with a post mortem evaluation of each activity to assess the return, or benefits, of each marketing investment. Managing Energy Ever wonder where successful business owners find the energy to accomplish so much? The answer is that, through experience, they’ve identified those areas where the investment of their energy resources provides the greatest rate of return. When it comes to marketing, for example, they’ve expended the necessary energy to test various related initiatives and focus groups in determining their target audiences and how best to reach them. Knowing right away what works and what doesn’t allows the owner to avoid wasting energy on less productive efforts down the road. One of the most common causes of small business failure is the fact owners invest so much of their energy in running their business that they simply burn out. Driving ambition has its place, but must be harnessed in concert with a balanced life-style that includes family, friends, social occasions and the relaxation of enjoying a favourite, non-business oriented, past-time. Be consistent in working eight productive hours per day but consciously schedule extended time away from the office at least once a week. Use your lunch hours to stroll in the park or participate in an exercise program. Focus on eating healthy meals with regular energy boosting snacks throughout the day: fruit, almonds, raw veggies, raisins and small servings of yoghurt are healthy, quick and affordable. Managing energy means having energy to manage. As a successful business owner, never stop investing in the most powerful tool in your company’s management and marketing arsenal – you!