People in all parts of the world make money working from home. And more and more people are doing so by using private label rights (PLR) products. Products and services created with PLR materials are bought and sold daily in nearly every niche market imaginable from the pet industry, to weddings, to work at home, finance, cooking, healthcare, self improvement and a lot more other areas. Just head to eBay and you’ll run into no shortage of auctions going on made at least in part from PLR content. In short, there’s never been a better time to make money with a PLR business. And there’s no better way to get your own business going than to learn tried-and-true tips from someone one who’s been there, done that. So to help you get started and grow your own PLR business, here are some tips: 1) Start with free help from library books and places online like the Small Business Administration (http://SBA.gov) on topics like: work at home, home-based business, basic business (and marketing) plans. Also research books, magazines and other industry publications (trade journals, newsletters, ezines, etc.) that cover your favorite niches for ideas on what sells best that you could package out of your PLR content for the general public or your target audience. 2) Next research different types of business opportunities within your favorite niche for ideas on what you want to sell: products, services or both – all packaged with your PLR content. For example, you could create reports, guides, tutorials, for starters. Start book marking online sites that may become competitors and those that may be sources for you (like wholesale companies with products you could package along with your reports or guides). 3) Seek out and bookmark online sites that boast helpful business and niche articles, tips and resources, too. You might find great ezines or print newsletters and niche reports and other information to sign up for, giving you ideas on what to offer your target audience using your PLR content as a basis and adding to it, making it unique. 4) Look for networking sites to book mark next: forums for your niche industry, for Internet marketers, for home-based business people, etc. You want to build a network so that you can find help and resources plus give back to the community, too, helping others along the way. 5) Become a lifelong student of affiliate marketing tactics and strategies. Always be on the lookout for affiliate products or services you could package with your PLR content for making money. And think about setting up your own affiliate marketing program, too, based upon the rules of your PLR license. Become a lifelong student of the PLR business. Increasing your knowledge of the PLR industry means growing your PLR business. And that’s a win-win.

Building an acceptable use policy for blogging can be one of the tougher jobs for a company’s human resources and internal security divisions to develop. Blogging is a rapidly growing mode of communication that provides readers with material on everything from the day-to-day comments of authors, movie stars, characters on soap operas to hard-hitting news articles and columns. The growth of blogging has given rise to a multitude of programs and tools designed to help everyone from the personal blogger to corporate users. But how does blogging affect an organization’s Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP)? In order to address blogging accurately in an AUP, you must first define what constitutes a blog. The word “blog” is actually a shortened version of “web log” and is similar to a message board in that one can post thoughts and opinions to be read by others. A blog can be viewed by the public or accessible only via password depending on how the owners have set it up. Blogs can provide in-depth information about specific topics or they can be a place for writers to vent their feelings, but their ultimate goal is to bring readers together and then encourage interaction among them. Blogging can be a harmless and interesting way to communicate with like-minded others but, like any unmanaged activity, the opportunity for abuse is always there. If an organization’s AUP addresses their Instant Messaging, Peer-to-Peer, email and other Web-based communications, they need to consider blogging as an important technology to include. Organizations should decide of they want their employees to be able to read blogs or post to them as part of an overall communications policy. What are the ramifications of no AUP where blogs are concerned? The rapid growth rate of blogs in the country means that entire services like MyFamily.com and MyPlace.com are hosting communities of bloggers. A criminal utilized personal data posted in some blogs to stalk and attack young high-school girls. Employees that post their identities and information to a response on a blog can influence decisions. For example, if an employee of a major computer corporation responded to a technical blog with advice about avoiding a new product line because of a lot of known ‘bugs’ the company is leaving itself open to legal exposure. Corporations require employees to sign non-disclosure agreements for a reason, the threat of exposure where company confidential information and intellectual property is concerned could have devastating financial consequences. This is only one example, there are many others. If a person severely disagrees with the content of a blog and starts what is known as a ‘flame’ war with the blogger through the comments section, the corporation may be held liable for the harassment if the employee is posting the responses through the corporation’s computers. What happens on company computers, whether permissible or not, is the responsibility of the company. They are considered legally culpable. There are legal and financial reasons to be very clear in the AUP with regards to blogging. Some corporations, although only a small percentage, employ software that screens where and how an employee can browse the web. If there are filters preventing an employee from viewing a pornographic website, then there can be filters that prevent the viewing of political or day trading blogs. Blogs that focus on financial and business issues are growing more popular every day. These blogs may be a source of entertainment and information, but it is up to the corporation to decide the level of involvement that an employee may have. It’s worth mentioning that anonymous guests can read most blogs, although they may not be able to post comments or responses. Blogs can be enormous resources for students, educators and other individuals for discussion, debate and the sharing of experiences. However, they need to be controlled and monitored. Blogs are an excellent marketing tool, hooking visitors into the site by providing them with financial advice or credit building tips, for example. The marketing a blog can provide can translate into tens of thousands of hits a day for a site. It’s also important for some companies to get their message out there; blogs can put a human face on a company that seems only to be a corporate entity. That human face can improve customer relations, invite consumer contact and increase company visibility. However, employees should be educated about the type of information they are allowed to post if they are allowed to respond. Companies that maintain their own blogs should be particularly attuned to the commentary they generate. Blogging is a new frontier for the corporate world, but as with many prior innovations, they are quickly taking advantage of it. Security, awareness and education will help corporations, employees and even their families from suffering negative experiences while blogging, reading blogs or responding to a blog on the Internet.

What is SEO? Have you ever though about what you are trying to achieve with search engine optimization, and what you were doing with your website to achieve it? Have you never wondered if there were better ways to get to where you want to be as a result of SEO? I have – frequently. And I have looked closely at what I am doing with my website and whether or not it improves it. In fact, it is not your website that your have to optimize, but each individual web page. I have come to the conclusion that as Google, in particular, make changes to their requirements in order that you get a high listing – or listed at all for that matter – the less I have to do to optimize my website. In fact, when I look closely, what I do in SEO these days is simply common sense, and what I should be doing is to design my site to the advantage of my customers. I have had people write to me proclaiming to be SEO experts and criticizing my bad HTML. ‘Crap’ it was called by one, yet my website with ‘crap’ HTML is higher in the search engine listings that theirs. Perhaps they can’t find the right keywords, but they are the experts. So HTML is not important. We are told that Meta tags are no longer important. So what is left? Ensuring that each page’s title is the same as the keyword it is written round – well, that is just common sense. That is what I would do anyway, so that my visitors would know what the page was about. I should also put these in H1 tags. Ok, that’s simple to do. Nothing mystical there. What else? Oh, yes. The keyword density. Surprise, surprise, the ideal is to have your keyword once in the first 100 characters and again in the last paragraph of a page with 400 – 500 words. Any more words than that, then put it in once again. Don’t believe anybody that tells you that you must have 1% – 3% keyword density. That means 5 – 15 keywords in a 500 word page! That’s old hat and a fast way to search engine oblivion. These days are over. There’s not much left of classical SEO to worry about. The two majors that I have left to consider are internal and external linking strategies. Let’s look at external links first. They are important, and Google have stated so, but for how long? There are rumors that back-links are going to become less important since content is now taking second place to artificially formed links. At one time, Google looked upon links back to your site from another as a sign that your site was considered to be an authority on the subject. I will use the word ‘site’, but it should really be ‘page’ since the Google term is PageRank, and refers to individual web pages, not complete web sites. And rightly so, because if a website thought that your content would be useful to their readers then they would provide them with a link to your relevant web page. Now, however, links are artificially generated, sometimes software generated, and are effectively useless since, although they appear on a website, they do so from a so-called ‘links’ page that is full of nothing but masses of links. Now, the very websites that links and good keyword density were meant to shove off the web are now appearing back at the top of the listings. No content but masses of links. Google know this, and will likely take some action against it. Internal linking is a separate subject, and one on which I specialize. The arrangement of your web pages, and design of your internal linking, are critical to achieving good listings on search engines. Not only your internal linking strategy, but also the design of each individual page. There are certain sites that will not get into the top 10 without radical changes, and I have one or two of them due to the content that I want on each site and the function that I want them to serve. Eventually they will as I increase the number of pages, but for the meantime I am not too bothered. I get plenty of traffic anyway. So that got me to thinking again. Why should I bother much with SEO if all I need do is to design my website logically and make sure that my internal links provide the best possible service to my visitors, without confusing them with dozens of options on each page? Why should I bother with all these artificial links if I can get good links and lots of traffic through article marketing? And then I realized that I had no need of the links purely as an external SEO tool; i.e. to provide me with better Google PageRank, because I was getting plenty of traffic anyway through people clicking on my links in my articles, or resource boxes. So I decided not to! I am now going to run a few campaigns with no SEO at all other than the obvious ways of providing my visitors with a good service when they visit my website. Then I will find the truth about the matter. What is SEO: myth or reality?

Writing an ezine is something anyone can do. It is a great way to help your internet business and connect with your customers and potential customers. An ezine is basically an online magazine that is sent through email. It will allow you to provide your readers with useful information while also selling your products. Getting started with writing an ezine is the hardest part. Once you get that first issue developed and sent out then you will find it comes easily after that. So, to get started you need to come up with your ezine idea. You need a basic concept that is the topic of your ezine. This should not be too difficult because you are going to be writing about your products. You should also develop some type of outline for your ezine. You want to include some articles, maybe some helpful hints and tips and, of course, links to your products. You want to develop a good template that you can use for each and every issue of your ezine. This will help you make it easier to write each issue and it will help the readers to become familiar with your ezine layout and content. You want to make sure you include useful information in your ezine. Writing an ezine is as much about providing the reader with information as it is about selling your product. Your readers need a reason to read your ezine, so you have to give them something they can use. Writing an ezine is not something that has to be difficult. You should already have some knowledge about your product and that knowledge can be shared with your readers through your ezine. Take what you know and write about it. Share your knowledge with your readers and they will like that you are an authority on the topic and this will lead to them trusting in you and your products. Sources: www.internetbasedmoms.com

The first step to developing profitable Joint Ventures is to identify and develop relationships with other business owners who can help you reach your target market. Business competition has been viewed with a wary eye for far too long. The internet is a big, big place. There really is room for everybody – everybody that knows how to properly market themselves that is. Who better to partner with but those who are already serving your target market? They have mailing lists subscribers, website visitors, podcast listeners, membership sites members, partners, affiliates and friends who you would love to be introduced to and who better to make the introduction? Look around the internet marketing world and you’ll observe many strategic JV relationships between business owners who would seem to be in direct competition with each other, yet they are cooperating on projects all the time. Imagine your main competitor emailing his list and inviting them to check out what you have to offer. It can happen. So here are six easy tips to help you increase your website traffic through joint venturing with a competitor. 1. Co-author a two part article. Article marketing continues to be an important activity for online business owners. Whether you are crafting articles for distribution or writing them to keep on your own site as exclusive original content, you do need to be writing on a regular basis. Approach a competitor with an email like this: Hi , I think my web visitors would be pretty interested in your products and I have an idea for us to co-promote our websites. I hope you’ll be interested. Let’s come up with a topic to write a two part article about. I’ll write part one and publish it on my website and I’ll tell readers that they can find part two on your website. You write part two and publish it on your website, letting your readers know that part one can be found on my website. We both have added some original content to our site and we’re sending each other some fresh traffic. Sounds easy enough to me. I have a few ideas for article topics too. Want to give it a try? Regards, 2. Co-author a two part report. This can be as simple as the article idea only kicking it up a notch by asking for some more cooperation from the partners. You’ll work together in creating the report; giving both of you credit and links back to your websites. The resulting small report can then be given away by both partners on their website. You can even turn it into a viral tool and allow others to freely give it away with the understanding that they cannot remove your author info or links. Alternatively, if you wish to sell the small report you can jointly purchase a domain and set up a mini site, work on the sales letter together, co-sign it and split the profits. This may be a lot to chew for a young JV relationship – you don’t want to start mixing money too soon. 3. Conduct an interview of each other for your lists. If you both have an area of expertise you can put a twist on a plain old ad swap and take turns interviewing each other email interview style. You’ll send a list of questions to the other person, collect their answers and then share this email interview with your mailing list. Be sure to ask them questions that lead them into sharing about their products and services but don’t make it too promotional in nature. Get them to share some really useful information with your readers. Now they can do the same for you. This takes the exposure trade to a great new level. Your readers will know that you really respect the person you interviewed why else would you take the time to do it? There’s a lot of implied trust that will go a long ways towards encouraging list members to check out what the interviewee has to offer. You could also crank it up another notch and make it an audio interview and offer the mp3 link for your members to download or create a page where they can listen online and access links to the resources mentioned. Both of you get valuable content to offer your list with no strings attached and that is a good thing. 4. Give away bonus products Let’s explore some great ideas in this area. The first examples that come to mind are information products. Imagine that you and your potential JV partner are both in the weight loss field. Your competitor is releasing a new ebook about exercise. You can offer her a complimentary free special report bonus to give away with the product that is all about gentle stretching techniques. Another example would be for physical product sellers. You sell food mixes and your JV partner sells kitchen tools. You can prepare some sample packets and send her a bundle, allowing her to give one away with each order. In both cases you are giving them something to promote and emphasize on their website in a way that helps them get more sales. And at the same time, you and your products get extra exposure. Other bonus ideas would include audios, videos, email coaching, etc. 5. Co-operate on an event. Have you ever had a conversation with someone from your field and found that you love the same topics? Take that synergy and turn it into a Teleseminar or web conference. In much the same way that you would have cooperated on an article or small report, work out an outline of content together and plan out who will cover what aspects of your topic developing a rough script. Set a date, arrange for a bridge phone line or web conference room and create some promotional materials. Both of you will promote the event inviting your friends to do the same of course. At the event you both get an opportunity to let your expertise shine to each other’s followers. Participants will see both of you as having the “know how” they need so you should be sure to include an invitation to subscribe to your respective mailing lists and feel free to make a pitch for a complimentary product. As always you can add some spice and do a multi-date event, inviting other speakers to join you. With you and your partner at the top of the list as event hosts you’re setting yourselves up as leaders in your community. The options in this arena are wide you can make attendance free or charge for admission. You can sell recordings and transcripts later or give them away to your lists as a gift. 6. Share Affiliate Programs If you’re really serious about finding ways to cooperate and partner with your competition, you have to have something that answers the “What’s in it for me?” questions that you’ll be getting. If I’m going to tell my list about you I’d love to get a commission on any sales I send your way. Sure, I may do it even without the financial incentive but we are in business here right? It definitely sweetens the pot for that first contact as well, when you can tell them that any new customers they refer to you will result in lifetime residual commissions for them. If you don’t have an affiliate program now, what’s holding you back? How you can start a co-operation with your competitor? Give them the spotlight first. A potential JV will always be a little warmer to someone who has already showed themselves willing to share the love with others particularly them. Mention them in your newsletter tell your list something you really like about what he/she does or offers. Blog about their products or services. Mention them in your podcast. If they are like most internet business owners, they’ll have Google Alerts or Technorati Tags set up to alert whenever anyone publishes their business name so they’ll probably know right away that you’ve been giving them some buzz. But just in case they aren’t aware, don’t hesitate to send a short email linking to your mention of them saying something like Just wanted you to know I think you’re great. Ask if they’d be interested. Like the example I shared above in the article partnering section you simply need to ask the person for what you want. Give them all of the information they need but don’t make the email a mile long. Be personable. If your email sounds too business like, they may think it’s a form letter. Address them by name. Compliment them. Tell them what you like about what they
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o and why you are interested in partnering with them. Ask for their suggestions. Be open to their counter offer. Make it as easy for them to say yes. You are asking them to act in some way so you can’t make it effortless, but you can offer to do any necessary footwork. Further followup. When you’ve successfully partnered on something small and both parties have enjoyed the experience and benefit, you have laid the foundation of a potentially long term fruitful partnership. Let your partner know that you’re open to new ideas and invite them to contact you anytime. If you truly trust them, let them in on some of your future plans and ask them if they have interest in partnering on one or several of the projects. When partnerships begin to involve money over the long term, you are delving into a whole new level of trust and accountability. Make sure that you have all of the legal and financial points covered and don’t hesitate to seek out the advice of professionals in this area. There are some great resources out there when you’re ready to dig deeper and you have a partner willing to work with you on a big project.

The World Wide Web is a great resource for almost anything these days including shopping, conducting personal business, meeting new people, dating, networking, research, and even marketing. The Internet is used by millions of people worldwide, so it only makes sense that it has become such an integral and vital part of daily life to so many people and businesses. The World Wide Web is also a great place on which to advertise. As mentioned the World Wide Web is an excellent tool for learning and research. Many people use it to look up information that they would normally, in the past, be only able to access by going to a library and reading through books and periodicals. Today, many businesses use the Internet as a tool to find out more about marketing and advertising for their business. Marketing and advertising is a vital part of making a business successful, and keeping it that way. The Internet can offer the latest information and marketing trends with just a few clicks of a mouse and a little time. On the Internet, marketing directors and people employed in the advertising department of a business can research different marketing tools, schemes, and campaigns that might be very suitable for their product or service. Marketing is very dependant on the audience or user of the company’s products. Because they must target their advertising and marketing to specific groups of people for it to be most effective, many businesses choose to engage in targeted marketing. Researching on the World Wide Web the many different ways in which to market your business is an inexpensive way to weigh your options for marketing. When looking online, you will be able to find outlines and tips on how to effectively market your business. There are many websites dedicated to introducing different marketing ideas such as online marketing, email marketing, and traditional marketing. The Internet is a great source for learning. Marketers can gain valuable marketing knowledge through marketing forums, marketing networking services, and marketing firms. Forums are a great way for business owners to get together, regardless of location, and discuss tips and tricks of marketing and advertising. These forums allow for the freedom for business owners to talk about what works best and in what arena. In these forums, advertising and slogans do not get in the way. Using the World Wide Web to learn about marketing possibilities is also useful when looking at different marketing services available and marketing firms. Business owners can use the Internet as a tool to compare the services of different marketing agencies and firms before making a final decision to go with a particular company. The Internet is the perfect tool for business owners to find new ways to market their company.

It’s Easier To Win! It is just as easy to be a winner as it is to be a whiner. Winning is a choice. The Secret explained. Success in business and life is a choice that people make whether they are aware of it or not. Why do only five people out of one hundred people actually achieve financial independence by the time they retire? Are you one of the five? Or are you making the same choices of the ninety five percent? You will attract into your life exactly what you think about.If you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets. Do you feel boxed in? Stuck? Just going through the maze of life without a vision of the future? What is your vision of the future? What worthy goals are you pursuing? Have you ever thought of the environment that you have created, that is giving you the results that you’re getting? Human beings have the ability to create anything that they set their mind to. Look around you, everything that was created by man was first just and idea. That should be proof enough. These ideas were focused and manifested into the object that you see. Have you seen The Secret? Using this same technique to your advantage will be a powerful tool for your success. Think about what it is that you want and focus on that idea. Putting all your energy towards this ideal will create that very thing. Sports champions use this method all the time, they focus in on their goal and then put everything the got to the achievement of that goal. Just like in The Secret. Create the very success of your dreams. Are you focused on your goal? You should be! If not get the help that you need to focus on what is important. You will win. Winning is easy when you have your goals and you focus your energies to the accomplishment of those goals. Do what ever it takes! You will surprise yourself with your success! “Success is the pursuit of a worthy goal!” Earl Nightingale You’re About To Learn ‘Secrets To Success’ That Most People Will Never Know About, How To Really Create Wealth…

Gaining good positioning with the search engines is one channel for increasing your online business — but it’s not an end in itself. Your ultimate goal isn’t higher traffic, but higher sales, and thereby, profits. Will Reynolds of SEO consulting firm http://ThinkSeer.com, sheds some light on common misconceptions regarding search engine optimization: Myth Number One: I have to submit my site to the engines to get ranked. Truth: The search engines have advanced to the point that they’ll find you on their own. You’re wasting money by paying a service to submit your name to the engines. Myth Number Two: I need to optimize for ALL the engines. Truth: There are only three search engines that matter: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN — in that order. Google is by far the most important in terms of driving traffic. Nearly every other search engine feeds off one of these three, so if you do well in any of them, you’ll show up in the other engines as well. Myth Number Three: If I use pay-per-click ads, I don’t have to worry about natural rankings. Truth: Up to seventy-five percent of users don’t even consider clicking paid ads, so if you rely solely on pay-per-click for your business, you’re losing out on a huge section of the market. Myth Number Four: My goal should be to rank well for all related keywords. Truth: Certain words and phrases produce better results than others. You need to look at your keyword ROI and conversion rates, not just your rankings. Says Reynolds, “I’ve seen sites rank highly for terms that result in no conversions. That ranking might be getting you some exposure, but it’s not getting you sales.” Analyze your keyword campaigns so you can see what your expenditures are doing for your bottom line. Myth Number Five: My web design doesn’t affect my positioning. Truth: Your web architecture has a tremendous impact on the search engines’ ability to read your site’s content and, therefore, on your rankings. For instance, Google assigns the most importance to your homepage. If you have a flash intro, the search engines can’t read it — they see a blank page. If there’s no Skip Intro button that allows the search engines to get past that, the rest of your site’s content may not even get indexed. Bringing in a consultant to work with your web developer may help you avoid navigation and structural pitfalls that make your web site difficult for the engines to read. Myth Number Six: Increasing my traffic will automatically increase my conversions. Truth: Your web site must be user friendly as well as search engine friendly. Advises Reynolds, “Don’t butcher your site for the engines, in terms of the verbiage or text size. It won’t read well or connect with your customers. If you don’t look credible, people aren’t going to feel comfortable purchasing on your site or giving you their information online.” You may rise in rankings, but it will cost you in conversions. Increasing your web site’s visitors through search engine optimization is important for your E-Biz — and it’s equally important to make sure your site’s structure, design, and navigation are conducive to converting those visitors when they land.

If you’re in business and want to grow quickly, there are 397 ingenious marketing strategies in just 12 areas of business to get your there. Most of these strategies your competitors have never even considered using. Why? Because they make the mistake of relying on commissioned sales reps for marketing advice. That’s dumb. As psychologist Abraham Maslow is famous for saying: “to the person who only has a hammer all problems look like a nail.” The same is true of ad agents. Since the only thing ad agents sell are ads, they never advise on other ways to grow a business. They instead preach “branding” and “top of mind awareness”. That’s the wrong focus for small to medium sized businesses. I know that may sound offensive. Many business owners have yelled at me, cursed me, even scornfully ridiculed me before walking away without testing a single strategy. Why? Because their egos were bruised when I pointed out imitating big business image advertising is a mistake for a business of their size. Instead of imagining even for a moment there might be a better way to grow a company than throwing away money on ads that don’t work, they chose to act like the naked emperor who refused to admit his nakedness. Whether you realize it or not, the real purpose in marketing an independent businesses is totally different than the reasons large corporations advertise. Large corporations advertise first and foremost to avoid being forgotten. Second, they advertise to appear proactive to investors, retailers, and wholesalers. By running big expensive ads, the corporations appear to support retailers and investors with big ad budgets. They are NOT advertising to generate leads or to increase sales. They are simply trying to give the image of spending money to help drive sales. Nothing could be further from the truth. Few investors, wholesalers, or retailers have spent decades studying marketing. Most have no clue what a good ad is or what a bad is. All they know is whether or not an ad made them laugh, and whether or not a company is advertising at all. I’ve heard investor say things like, ‘any ad is better than no ad.‘ Not for small business it isn’t. Ads that don’t generate sales actually hurt your bottom line. You are losing money instead of making money. When an independent business tries to grow by imitating the ads big businesses create, they are flushing cash down the toilet. That’s because those “entertaining” image ads were never designed to generate a sale in the first place. And that’s the way ad agents like it. Ad agents don’t want companies running ads that are supposed to generate verifiable sales. Ad agents make their money in volume of ads sold, not on sales results. Besides, IT’S NOT THE AD AGENT’S JOB TO MAKE YOUR AD PROFITABLE. It’s your job! Ad agents provide you a medium to communicate with your market. Getting your market to respond is your job. If you really want to grow your company, focus on marketing methods designed to generate sales. Why run ads that never were designed to make your phone ring, make someone visit your web site, send you cash, or step through your doors? Isn’t getting a predictable action from your market really what you want? I’ve seen as much as a 6,000% return on smart marketing dollars. Increasing your sales is possible. But not through image advertising. For every dollar you invest in smart marketing you MUST get back $10, or $100, or more in new sales. It isn’t uncommon for smart marketers to generate $15,000 in sales from a $100 marketing investment. All without advertising. As I said in the beginning, there are 397 ingenious marketing strategies in just 12 areas of business that can help just about any company double or triple sales in a short amount of time. But the bottom line is, I can’t make you believe this is true. And I can’t make you agree with me. In the end, it’s your company and your decision. Just ask yourself, do you want marketing that generates more sales and more leads, or do you just want to make people laugh at you? You decide. — You may publish this article in your newsletter, on your website, or other publication as long as the article content is not altered and the resource box MUST include an active link. Notification of article use is appreciated, but not required. Andre can be reached at http://www.andrebell.com/askandre/

In blog creation, the goal is to provide another avenue of marketing for your business. However, do you really know what it takes to make the ideal blog? Do you know what ingredients must go into making your blog creation a success? You might not have thought about it, but there are some things that you must consider when creating a blog and in this article, we are going to discuss some things every blog has to have in order to become successful. In blog creation, you want to build credibility with your readers. You have to let your readers know that you have the necessary qualifications to make the judgments and statements you do on the topic. You have to give them a reason to believe in what you are writing. This does not mean you have to go on and on about what gives you the qualifications, you just need to state somewhere why you feel you are the expert in your field. You then need to invoke authority in the topic as well. Ok so you have established what qualifications you possess to give your opinions on the subject, but you need to invoke authority by writing about them in insightful and knowledgeable ways. Back up your opinions or statements with some references if at all possible. In blog creation, you also want to make sure you have a high passion for the topic. Any person reading your blog posts will be able to tell if you do or do not carry passion. It is important to love what you have to say and say it with enthusiasm and intense passion. It will definitely shine through in your posts. You will also want a blog that contains some personality. Reader definitely do not want to read anything that is dull or boring. You need to give them a reason to keep reading if you want your blog creation to become a success. It is important to remember that you are writing for humans and no robots, throw in some humor, we all love a good laugh. Maintain your blog with regular posts. Visitors and readers look for reliability and consistency. If it might be awhile between posts, make a post saying so and tell them why. People are much more understanding when they know what is going on, then if you simply let the blog go for a month or two. The last few things you need in order to make your blog creation successful are empathy, reality, and uniqueness. These three things together can literally make or break your blog. Empathy means touching your audience, interacting with them, making them feel like and understand that you have been right where they are in life, no matter what topic you are right about. You need to cater to the needs and interests of your readers in order for them to understand what you are saying. Keep your blogs real, refrain from writing a fiction novel. People want real and up to date information. Lastly, do not provide your readers with the same information and ideas that they can find on any given website or blog on the internet. Make sure what you have to say is unique and professional.

Working as a consultant from home is a great home based business opportunity, but it does require some knowledge or skill. There are a lot of individuals and bussiness that will pay dearly for the expertise or knowledge that you have and that they need. This is a lot like freelancing, and it basically works the same way. You find business, or clients, that are looking for skills that you have. This is in software or operating systems mostly, but there are times when consultants are used in fields other than computers and technology. If you were the smart one in school, or you have vast computer knowledge and experience, or even if you are great with one software system like Microsoft Office, there are business who need you to teach them or explain what is needed to use these systems and software. If a business upgrades their computer systems, there may be new programs that are not familiar to employees or management, and a consultant is brought in to figure out what is needed to integrate the new technology into the business. Consultants are used at all levels and for all the needs of business and personal uses. Whether it is as simple as teaching something you know to someone, or as complex as telling a new home business owner how to build a successful website and business on the Internet, consultants are paid well to help people who do not have the knowledge or skills necessary. Some websites for medical and dental plans hire consultants to answer phone calls from people who are looking for more information. These are easy because the people call you, and you simply answer their questions and tell them about the product or service. This home business may get varied results, depending on the service or product you are consulting on. Starting a home base business as a consultant can be lucrative if you have knowledge or skills that are in demand, and some consultants even find work as speakers on motivation or other business concerns. There are consultants needed on almost every aspect of business and personal life, and finding something that you know or have skills in is simple. Then you have to find a market for your specific skills, and market your home business to maximize exposure and get more customers. No matter what the subject is that you can be a consultant on, someone in the world can use your knowledge and skills. Why not put them to good use in your home business as a consultant. Copyright © 2007 Joel Teo. All rights reserved.

Have you just started blogging? Or have you been blogging for a while? As you may already know, a blog is an excellent tool to let the world know about your business or your product, to connect with potential customers and promote your expertise. But how can you maximize your blog’s impact? Here are five tips to do just that: – Blog Consistently. Many business owners get excited about blogging, post 3-6 times, and then promptly forget about the blog. I have seen many blogs that were started a year or two ago, have a grand total of five posts, and haven’t been updated since sometime last year. To get the desired effect (search engine and human traffic), you need to update your blog on a regular basis. Search engines love new content and keep coming back to index it. Potential customers also like new content; it’s what keeps them coming back to read your blog. – Use Your Blog For Branding. Your blog is an extension of your business, so make your blog have a look and feel that mirrors that of your business web site. If your blog is hosted on the same domain as your web site, you should match the look and feel of your web site exactly. This will be more difficult to achieve if a third party provider hosts your blog. However, you should still aim to present the same brand image. – Use Search Engine Optimization To Optimize Each Blog Post. The purpose of your blog is to get people who are in your target market to read your posts and enter your sphere of influence. Traffic from search engines does not cost any money, and it is a great way to get potential customers to your blog. Treat each one of your blog posts as a separate file to be optimized for search engines. Use a keyword research tool to find phrases that are related to the main subject of the post, and weave them into the content of the post. – Have A Special Offer On Your Blog. Do you offer a free special report? Do you offer a mini course as a bonus for new newsletter subscribers? Add the offer to your blog. This will transform people from casual surfers who just happened to find your blog to newsletter subscribers. – Share Information About Your Events, Products and Seminars. You might think that everyone has already heard about your upcoming teleclass on life and work balance or your e-book about achieving financial success. Not so! The person reading your blog might be hearing about you for the very first time, so they have no idea about your teleseminars or products unless you specifically tell them. Avoid overselling, as it will dramatically reduce the number of your blog readers. Do, however, let your blog readers know about your seminars and products. If you don’t tell them, nobody will. A blog is an excellent tool to generate additional web site traffic, get new newsletter subscribers and sell more products. Use your blog to introduce potential customers to your business.

Everybody who is doing Home Business is confronted many times with the choice whether or not to spend money on buying extra traffic or leads in order to speed up or increase their sales. And even though it is not too difficult to decide when to spend money it is still not an easy decision. First of all you need to decide what this investment will bring you in terms of sales compared to its costs. This is difficult, especially when you donЎЇt have any experience to base your assumptions on. Still, it is vital to think about this and make an estimate. The best way to tackle this is to break your assumptions down in small pieces in order to work out how many sales you are going to generate. For example, you buy 25.000 visitors to your webpage for US$ 100,-. You assume that this service will not deliver you a warm market. Therefore the chance is significant that people who will visit your page are not very interested. So assume that only 1 out of 5.000 visitors are actually interested. Assume also that 1 out of 4 who is interested will buy one product of US$ 50,-. In this case you will get 25.000 visitors divided by 5.000 are 5 people who are actually interested. Out of those 5 you will get 1,25 orders of US$ 50,- which equals US$ 62,50 of sales. As this service costs US$ 100,- you may decide not to purchase it. But even though only 1,25 sales are generated all the people who visited your webpage may bring in future sales. So you could as yourself what the chances are that some of these visitors come back in the future and buy something or that they tell somebody else about your webpage. Chances are slim, but this is just to illustrate that you need to think about several scenarios. Secondly, you need to decide if you have the budget to spend that much money. Even if you think you can turn a profit, they are based on your assumptions. Even worse, many times we decide those purchases based on the sales pitch of the service you buy. So, when you have a certain budget, and it is very wise to have one, try to stick to it. That doesnЎЇt mean you can never change your budget. Actually, this should be done periodically. In the end, you donЎЇt want to take too much risk and not being able to pay your other bills just because your assumption were too optimistic. Thirdly, are you willing to take the risk of investing money at all? But, any kind of business will bring some kind of risk. The question is therefore not if you need to take some risk, but is the risk bearable to you. DonЎЇt buy when it takes up to 50% of your total budget.

There are many body jewelry stores that have interesting pieces of jewelry that are very ornate and pretty but they are also oddly shaped. Some people might be hesitant about wearing such strange looking jewelry pieces in various parts of their body until they learn that the odd shapes are related to the specific parts of the body where they will be worn. The most common areas of the body to be pierced are the belly button, either side of the nose and various cartilages found in the ears. Body jewelry is fun to wear because it is so unique and there are so many color gemstones that can be selected for wear on any given day. All of the body jewelry is made of durable metals such as surgical stainless steel, titanium or 14K gold. People will typically get their ears pierced before any other area of the body and this is because the ears are widely accepted by society. Piercing other areas of the body has been looked on by some people as faddish and there are some people who view piercing as a body mutilation and not as a fashion statement. Body jewelry allows people to decorate their bodies in the way that they feel is stylish fashionably correct. Body jewelry is made interesting and exciting by incorporating designs such as butterflies, ladybugs and gemstones as decorative accents. The most common body jewelry designs incorporate the use of barbells, rings and studs on which these ornaments are affixed permanently or allowed to dangle freely on the body. The use of body jewelry styles is left up to the wearer and the metals used give the wear more opportunities for self-expression. Most body jewelry can be easily removed by turning and unscrewing the post. Each post contains internal threads that keep the body jewelry in place in a secure fashion. At the end of each piece of body jewelry is a metal ball that can be cleaned easily with antiseptic solutions. Since body jewelry is affordably priced, there are numerous charms that can be attached to every post style to give the wearer more value for the money. Some people choose to pierce other areas of the body such as lips, eyebrows and nipples. There are many body jewelry choices for these areas and the most common choices are shields, labrets and arrows which resemble feathers when inserted in the eyebrow. With correct care and cleaning, body jewelry can be worn continuously from the date that the body is pierced. To prevent a delay in the healing process, care should be taken to ensure body jewelry does not become tangled in clothing.

Women in business numbers are rising rapidly. Being your own boss and working from home is a popular option for women who want to fit work around their children. Around half a million women in the UK choose to run their business from home. So what kind of businesses do women choose to start? Many women choose to run an online business as it gives them the flexibility to work from home. Others go down the path of becoming an Avon distributor, or hosting parties for other women supplying female products. Some choose to focus on products for mums and children whilst others open retail outlets ranging from florists to beauty salons. So how do you juggle work and being a mum at the same time? A possible solution is to get some help with the children by paying a child minder for a few hours a day. Many schools now offer out of hour’s school clubs which are great fun for extrovert children who enjoy interacting with their school friends. Taking turns with other mums who are also working is another possible solution. Online grocery shopping can help to reduce the work load for busy mums. Although there is a small delivery charge this is nothing compared to the time spent trekking down to the supermarkets with demanding children. Doing the bulk of the weekly shopping in the comfort of your own home on the internet saves time and means that trips to the shops are few and far between and for emergency items only. By having a separate office from other rooms in the house, means that it is easier to separate work and family time more easily. Having a lock on the door helps to keep children away from important files and your computer! A separate line for business calls only also help a lot and means that the phone is always free for incoming and outgoing calls. Dealing with guilt is another problem that busy mums face. Surely they should be dropping and collecting the children? How do they overcome the nagging thought in the back of their heads saying that you should be spending more time with the children? One way to do this is allocate some special time for quality interaction on a one to one basis. Women are allowed to be more than just a mum and children are also very adaptable to new routines as long as they are managed correctly and there is some consistency to their daily lives. There are many websites that have been set up primarily to deal with issues that many women in business face. They provide a lot more then just business hints and tips. They also offer guidance on a wide range of issues that are not business related and some even have forums where busy mums can chat to like minded people during their break. Some days everything can go wrong! The childminder is ill, washing is undone, customers are angry and your latest supplier has just let you down. How women cope with all these demands is beyond me but many continue to do so.

It’s obvious the film industry has changed significantly in the past decade. Recent innovations like the trend to shoot Digital Video instead of film and the progression of CGI has opened new worlds of possibility for the independent filmmaker. Very few individuals could afford to make high quality films 10 – 15 years ago, but that’s all changed. Creative auteurs can now produce quality movies and videos from the convenience of their very own homes using equipment that’s affordable. And now, with vehicles to show the world their work like YouTube and other similar sites, everything from pre-production to distribution can be done from the filmmaker’s bedroom. Here’s what you need to set up your own multimedia editing bay in a spare room: First, you’ll be buying equipment, so you’ll need something to put that equipment on. We found excellent, high quality multimedia tables at Versa Products, Inc. The tables are customizable for the specific equipment you plan to buy, ship for free, and carry a lifetime warranty. Okay, now for the equipment. You’ll first need a camcorder to record the images you plan to edit together. We found mini DV camcorders on ebay starting as low as $55.00. Pawn shops are also a great place to find affordable electronic equipment, or you can go for one with a guarantee and buy brand new from retailers like Best Buy. Next, you’ll need a computer that’s capable of NLE (Non-Linear Editing). Many home PCs are already adequate, but if you’re in the market to buy a new one, take some time to check out reviews in magazines like PC World to get a feel for the system you want to purchase. The faster the system, the easier your life will be once you begin to edit footage. In addition to being fast, you need a computer with a considerable amount of memory. We suggest at least 256MB of RAM, and more is most likely better. Along with the computer itself, you’ll need a decent monitor (the bigger, the better) for clear editing. Remember, once the video is produced, it may be watched on a television screen that could be 50 inches or more. Imperfections are much easier to see when magnified that big, so it’s important that you edit on a clear, large screen monitor so there won’t be any surprises once it hits the “big screen” in your living room. You’ll also need to download the software that allows you to edit. Media Studio Pro 6.5 is accepted as industry standard, although there are others that do the same thing. In addition to the software, you’ll need a FireWire card which allows you to transfer the shot footage from your camcorder to the PC. The software will then allow you to manipulate the footage and begin editing. Once you have all of this, you’ll be able to create your masterpiece. But then what? While it’s possible to upload the completed video online, you should consider in advance if you’re going to want to put it on DVD and make multiple copies of those DVDs. If so, you’ll need one last piece of equipment: a DVD burner or a CD burner if you plan to make CD-Roms. Setting up a home video editing bay isn’t the simplest thing in the world, and learning from your mistakes can be expected. But it’s also not such a daunting task that it shouldn’t be taken on by the amateur. At each step of the way, research the best equipment and software for your own specific purposes and upgrade when you have the time and money to do so. And most of all, enjoy what you’re doing. Be creative and have fun.

About a year ago I watched an excellent tutorial about putting together a yahoo store. I really wanted to step into the E-commerce marketplace and start selling some goods online. I decided to go with Yahoo because they have a very good reputation and take a lot of the headache of research away from the store building process. For example, buying a shopping cart, programming that cart and then trying to figure out most of their complexities is not an issue with the yahoo store front system. The cart is built in and you do not have to buy one nor spend an additional monthly expense. I like simple and this was a huge head start. The biggest answer about the yahoo system came to me when I was talking to Tech support one day. The key to building a E-commerce store at yahoo is knowing that there are two ways of doing it. This was not made very clear or perhaps my denseness did not pick it up right away. You can build a yahoo store using the templates in the yahoo system and have a straight forward store system. You can also build the store and then go back and use Yahoo site builder to build a regular website with a store feature. The store feature then becomes the backend management system for your website and it allows you to manage your inventory. So what does this mean? Well I wanted to put a lot of content on my site as well as sell products. By having a huge content system, I build up authority in the eyes of Google. So I built a site that had a big article section, a directions section as well as a linking section and all the other goodies you want. I wanted the ability to have some multimedia and do some testing and experimenting with some unique content that you cannot do with a straight up storefront. So here is what I did. I set up my Yahoo store first. I wrote out all the sections and then the items that went into each section and categorized them. I uploaded all my product pictures and text into the storefront. I did not deviate from the standard template nor did I customize the look of my store since it will not be seen by the customer. I basically just programmed all the product codes. Then I fired up Site Builder and built the site. I took the time to make the homepage look great and link all the pages in the ways that I want them to link. I added my content pages and made sure the site was tagged and optimized for my key words. Then when I was finished I went back to the yahoo store editor and copied the “order button” html code for each product and inserted it into its appropriate page. This order button is how the site is connected to the store. Now the customer can order the products you carry and still have the benefit of a website that has lots of contents and a good FAQ section. You don’t have to use site builder to build your site. If you like Frontpage or Dream weaver those programs work well too. The key is just insert the html code from the products into your site. This is really where the light came on for me.